On 13 October last in Teheran, Masha Amini, a twenty-two-year-old girl from Iranian Kurdistan was arrested by the religious police for “improper use” of the veil. Three days later the girl died of the blows she had received at the police station. As is well known, Masha’s death was the spark that ignited the explosion of the contradictions which had been brewing in Iranian society for some time, giving rise to a wave of harsh protests that is still far from being placated. The State replied with a viciously violent campaign of repression: attacks on demonstrations, arrests and imprisonment, shots fired into the crowds and cold-blooded murders (even of a child). The demonstrators are mainly young girls who were soon supported by their peers and by adults of both genders. They were also joined, with determined strikes, by the Iranian proletariat who had been in a state of unrest for some time, such as the workers from the Damavand petrochemical complex in Assalouyeh, the Abadan and Kangan refineries, the Kian Tire tyre factory in Teheran and tractor factories (it is estimated that there have been around 2000-3000 strikes yearly in the country over the past few years), as well as other plants and workplaces around the country… The anger that had long been seething over the daily oppression of young proletarian women (or those destined to join their ranks), obliged by unemployment to turn to domestic and care work due to the long economic-social world crisis – oppression totally functional to the need for control and suppression by the State, the armed wing of capitalism – this anger finally exploded, becoming the spark that lit a fire spreading to other sectors of society.
We greet with enthusiasm the rebellion which is spreading like wildfire through brushwood, for it demonstrates that class war can and must be re-ignited when the sum total of suffering due to the dominion of Capital oversteps a certain limit: as they offer the international proletariat a demonstration of courage that must not be wasted or forgotten, the young people of Iran are showing, unawares, that class warfare cannot be “abolished” or “wiped out”! Our enthusiasm must be accompanied by renewed efforts to offer the rebellion brewing in Iran, as elsewhere, the necessary theoretical, political and organizational guidance. Without this, even the most generous of rebellions are destined to die out or be choked in bloodshed. And too much blood has already been shed by the international proletariat in its long history of struggle and battles, dramatic defeats and few, but splendid victories.
November 2022