In the past 15 years or so we have seen growing economic problems facing the regime in Iran, combined with the beginnings of a revival of the workers’ movement, an eruption of youth protests and a corresponding decline in support for the Islamic regime. The lack of leadership is what has allowed the regime to stumble on from crisis to crisis, in spite of the immensely favourable conditions for its overthrow.

The ups and downs of the Iranian economy, in line with world trends, combined with the peculiar economic development based on large-scale state control, together with widespread corruption, have produced immense urbanisation and a strengthened working class, but also growing conflicts within the regime itself with different factions defending different interests. This has now all come to the surface. [part one]

After the fall of the Shah in 1979 all the conditions for socialist revolution had matured. The tragedy was the role played by the various left parties and groups, who to one degree or another fostered illusions in Khomeini as a kind of “progressive bourgeois”. This is what allowed the genuine workers’ revolution to be derailed and replaced by a reactionary Islamic regime at the service of Iranian capitalism. [part one]

We begin today the publication of a five-part document written by Iranian Marxists on the historical roots of the Iranian revolution. In this part they concentrate on how the Iranian economy developed, leading to an enormous strengthening of the working class and how this led to revolution in 1979. This has already been published in Farsi.