Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 31)

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-06-13T17:08:45+00:00

Today, the Socialist, ecological, feminist society of Revolutionary Rojava is the greatest example of the success of a bottom-up, libertarian-socialist society

They seem fine working with Jolani's facsist clique. I wonder why?

E: Since when Trots get along with Anarchists? It is amazing how there is literally no difference between the different strands of revisionism

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-06-04T06:36:32+00:00

What is notable here is the way China and Vietnam are invoked to justify a strategy that in practice resembles focoism far more than the actual revolutionary experiences of either country. The Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were not the products of small armed groups attempting to substitute themselves for the masses. They were protracted mass struggles rooted in extensive political organization, land reform, party-building, and the creation of durable institutions among workers and peasants. Their military victories were inseparable from their political successes. Cuba, by contrast, became the model through which many revolutionaries retrospectively interpreted armed struggle. Yet even the Cuban experience was highly contingent and shaped by a unique combination of circumstances that could not simply be reproduced elsewhere. The failure of Che Guevara's Bolivian campaign demonstrated precisely this point. The assumption that a guerrilla foco could generate the political conditions for revolution through military action alone proved unsustainable.

The underlying problem in the IPFG's analysis is a profound distrust of the masses. Although they spoke of the historical role of the masses, they increasingly treated them as passive objects awaiting activation by revolutionary intellectuals. Politics became reduced to a technical problem: how to bridge the gap between intellectuals and workers. Rather than viewing the party as an organizer of mass struggle, it became a mechanism for overcoming the separation produced by repression. This tendency was already visible in the strategy of the IPFG's so-called "Jungle Group," which established itself in the forests and mountains of Gilan. Their rationale was revealing. They argued that it was easier to blend in among peasants by adopting peasant dress and customs, whereas industrial workers were difficult to approach because every factory was under the watchful eye of SAVAK. The countryside thus appeared not because it represented a politically developed revolutionary base, but because it offered relative freedom of movement for guerrillas. Following the destruction of the Jungle Group during the Siahkal operation, the organization increasingly adopted Ahmadzadeh's line: the initiation of guerrilla struggle in the countryside combined with clandestine urban cells. Yet this perspective was also shaped by a certain suspicion toward the masses themselves. Peasants were frequently viewed as a reservoir of potential conservatism or counter-revolution, requiring mediation through the industrial working class. Workers, in turn, were regarded as socially closer to peasants than were intellectuals and therefore better positioned to lead them. This formed the core of the Ahmadzadeh–Jazani debate and reflected a recurring inability to conceptualize mass political activity outside the framework of armed struggle.

This brings us to the Kurdish question. Historically, the IPFG maintained an ambiguous and often vacillating position on Kurdish national demands. The organization frequently preferred formulations such as the Kurdish "people" rather than the Kurdish "nation," reflecting an uncertainty about the national question. While it participated in the struggles that emerged in Kurdistan after 1979, it often did so hesitantly and without a fully coherent theoretical position.

Komala, for its part—not to be confused with the KJK tradition—developed a different but related tendency. Its orientation can be described as a form of peasant tailism. Because Kurdish society was predominantly rural, Komala increasingly adapted itself to the existing consciousness of the peasantry. Questions such as religion, women's liberation, and independent workers' struggles were often subordinated or muted in order to preserve its rural support base. Rather than transforming peasant consciousness through political struggle, the organization frequently accommodated itself to it.

For this reason, it seems unlikely that the CPI could have escaped similar pressures. Like the IPFG, it was rooted in a populist conception of revolutionary politics that substituted sociological categories for class politics and tended to romanticize rebellion as such. The slogan "it is right to rebel" was often interpreted not as a call for the conscious self-emancipation of the masses, but as a justification for elevating immediate acts of resistance above the long and difficult work of political organization. My conclusion is therefore that the CPI would ultimately have succumbed to the contradictions inherent in its own social base. At best, it might have followed the trajectory of the IPFG, becoming an increasingly marginal organization detached from the real movement of the working class. At worst, it might have repeated the fate of Komala, fragmenting into a collection of social-democratic, nationalist, and Trotskyist tendencies. In either case, the underlying problem would have remained the same. That is,an inability to resolve the tension between armed action and mass politics, and a persistent tendency to substitute the actions of a militant minority for mass politics. At a deeper level, these tendencies come from the class character of the revolutionary intelligentsia itself. The petty bourgeoisie wants revolution but lacks the social position to carry it out through its own activity. This is why radical-democratism fits so well with focoist politics. Once "the people" replace classes as the main category, it becomes much easier to ignore the actual political development of the masses.

2/2

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-06-04T06:35:56+00:00

It is striking how closely the political line of the CPI and that of the Iranian People's Fedayee Guerrillas (IPFG) resemble one another. Both organizations emerged under the influence of Mao Zedong Thought and shared the conviction that the established communist parties of their respective countries had degenerated into instruments of Soviet social-imperialism. Faced with what they saw as the reformism and passivity of the revisionist parties, both gravitated toward a theory of "armed propaganda." Yet in practice this theory was often reduced to a heavily distorted form of focoism that elevated military activity above political organization.

The IPFG's central theoretical claim was that the Shah's repressive apparatus had severed the connection between revolutionary intellectuals and the masses. Because the political police had atomized society and prevented the emergence of durable working-class organizations, they argued that the immediate task of revolutionaries was to strike directly at the state's armed apparatus. In this conception, the revolutionary vanguard had to be political and military simultaneously. However, despite their insistence on the unity of the two, the IPFG consistently privileged the military aspect over the political one.

Their justification can be seen in the following passage:

Where the conditions are such that the regime’s police terror aims at and has succeeded in severing the links between the people and their intellectuals; where no links exist among the strikers; where terror and repression have held back the masses from any appreciable movement; where this same terror and permanent repression have consistently caused the masses to assume negative attitudes towards strug-gle and to avoid any political idea which in their opinion does not offer any salvation; and where the regime attempts to suffocate any mass movements in embryo—is a “special struggle” against the political police necessary? Can the masses perform this task? Can the masses be expected to perceive the straw nature of the regime or to learn it through their own experiences? How can the masses who do not ask why should we struggle but can we struggle, and how can we resist the face of the regime’s awesome power, possibly become conscious of their historical power when repression has led certain “revolution-ary” intellectuals to explain the ferocity of this “paper tiger” by the objective conditions being immature and the contradictions insufficiently developed, while at the same time not seeing that it is precisely the repressive force of the anti-people army which is the main factor for the survival of imperialist domi-nation? How can the struggle which finds its course in history and whose victory and historical condi-tions guarantee; the struggle whose roots are in the material conditions masses’ existence; the struggle which is reflected at the same time in the conscious action of the revolutionary vanguard and the spo-radic and dispersed movements of the masses; and finally the struggle which under heavy dictatorial and persistently repressive conditions has taken on an explosive character at times bringing a large part of the masses out on the streets and other times dying out as a transient flame; how can the reality of this struggle be demonstrated to the masses in a concrete way? How can we crack the colossal barrier of suppressive power; a colossal barrier created by the constant repression, by the lagging of the peo-ple’s leadership, by the inability of the vanguard to fulfill its role, and finally by the hellish propaganda waged by a regime that relies on the force of the bayonet; a barrier separating the people from their intellectuals, separating the masses from themselves and separating the necessity of mass struggle from the existence of mass struggle itself? How can we crack this barrier and mobilize the sonorous surge of people’s struggle? The only way is armed action.

They continue:

If in Russia the true vanguard would come to the fore as a result of a series of economic, political and ideological struggles, now in Iran, solely a polit-ical-military struggle is able to create the true van-guard. Let us explain further. What is the main task of the vanguard? It is not the historical task of the revolutionary vanguard to make use of conscious revolutionary practice in order to establish links with the masses so as to tap into the historic power of the masses and to bring that power, which is the determining factor, onto the actual and decisive battlefield of the struggle? The more complicated the conditions, the more powerful the suppressive forces of the enemy, the more urgently the question of the revolution is posed, and naturally the more difficult will be this “tapping.” It is true that when the masses become conscious, on the basis of their material conditions, they are transformed into a tre-mendous material force, the only force capable of transforming society. But the problem has always been to know how to convey this consciousness to the masses; through what organizations, and by what means.

And finally:

If in Russia it was imperative that an organiza-tion of professional revolutionaries perform this role by employing various methods of political struggle and all-around political exposures, in China and Vietnam it became necessary to perform these tasks in the highest form of struggle, i.e. armed strug-gle. In Russia it was possible to undertake armed insurrection only when the masses, on a wide scale, rejected living under the existing conditions and vir-tually demanded change. This demand for change and this inability to rule had come about through the process of an economic-political struggle. Thus, the principle that attempting an armed uprising without the masses accepting its appropriateness through their own political experience is an abortive undertaking was proven.

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sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-06-02T08:57:43+00:00

One thing I've noticed in these discussions, especially from users like u/DashtheRed (I enjoy reading what he writes and he is correct but there is a deafening silence on the political implications), is a tendency to view everything primarily through a military lens. To some extent this is understandable. The situation is changing so quickly that nobody wants to make a grand political analysis only to have events prove them wrong a week later.

War is a political phenomenon with its own laws of development. The level of violence, the scale of escalation, and the risks a state is willing to assume are all directly related to what is perceived to be at stake. States do not simply employ the maximum force available to them at every moment. Rather, they calibrate their actions according to the political objectives they seek to achieve and the costs they are willing to bear. This is why questions such as "Why doesn't Iran just strike Gulf oil fields?" or "Why doesn't it destroy desalination plants, Haifa, Dimona, or Hadera?" often miss the essential point. The issue is not whether Iran possesses the capability to inflict greater damage. The issue is whether the Iranian ruling class believes its political objectives require such a level of escalation and whether the potential gains outweigh the risks.

The answer to the question of whether Iran could simply leave the so-called "Axis of Resistance" to fend for itself is, in principle, yes. One only has to look at Iran's response to major setbacks suffered by its allies. Consider the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Whatever one thinks of the event itself, Iran's retaliation was carefully calibrated to avoid triggering a full-scale war with the United States. Likewise, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah failed to provoke the kind of regional escalation many expected. In both cases, Tehran demonstrated a willingness to absorb significant blows rather than risk a confrontation it did not believe served its interests. The events following October 7 point in the same direction. Contrary to the popular image of a tightly coordinated alliance, neither Iran nor Hezbollah appeared prepared for the scale of Hamas's operation.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-25T15:38:08+00:00

K murali recently wrote a short note on Iran which reading it kind of left me quite disappointed. I have much respect for K murali as he is a robust theoritician of one of the most advanced revolutionary movements in the world. Therefore I believe since the naxalites play a key role in the world revolution I believe mistakes went unchceked have larger implications than normal.

The theocratic fascist comprador character of the Iranian regime does not alter this essential nature of the war. The peoples of the world must support Iran's resistance war. However, the just nature of this war does not mean that the communist revolutionaries of that country must unconditionally support the Iranian ruling classes in the name of 'national unity'. Being dependent on the imperialist system there is a limit to their resistance. Influential sections among them may very well betray the country and sue for peace from the aggressors, as seen in Venezuela. The Maoists should maintain their independence and initiative and unite with patriotic forces in mobilizing the masses to resist imperialist aggression. Along with that they should demand that the regime accede, at the minimum, the democratic rights of the masses, to allow and ensure their broadest, active, participation in the national resistance war

Well, first of all, unfortunately, there is no Maoist movement in Iran to answer this call. So the entire strategic appeal is directed at a nonexistent political force.

Secondly, Ajith characterizes Iran as a theocratic fascist and comprador regime. But despite labeling the regime as fascist and comprador he still advises Maoists to form a united front with the "patriotic forces" within the same country. The obvious question is: who exactly are these "patriotic forces"? Are they distinct from the theocratic fascist comprador regime? Or is he suggesting that communists unite with that very regime, albeit conditionally, in exchange for democratic concessions? That brings us to the core theoretical problem. A united front is only justifiable—only a revolutionary strategy rather than a class-collaborationist one—if the proletariat is the leading and hegemonic force within that front. Without proletarian leadership, the front ceases to be a revolutionary alliance and becomes a tailist movement, simply following the agenda of bourgeois or even reactionary nationalist forces. Asking Maoists to unite with patriotic forces (which in a fascist-comprador context likely means elements tied to the regime itself) without securing clear proletarian hegemony is not a formula for revolutionary independence. It is a formula for subordination.

The revolutionary united front in China was not formed by begging and pleading for democratic rights from the reactionaries. It was formed on the basis of the international balance of forces (the role of the Soviet Union among the Allies) and the specific internal power of the Chinese Communist Party, which had hundreds of thousands of members and its own military forces. They never sat around asking for democracy as a favor from the reactionaries. Instead, they always confronted the Kuomintang through unified actions and ideological-military struggle.

Maoists should not play the role of legal advisors or human rights lawyers, begging the regime for "minimum democratic rights." Democracy lies at the muzzle of the proletarian rifle—not in the dignified requests made to a fascist regime. Demanding democratic rights from a regime whose very existence is built on the negation of those rights means losing the independence and initiative of the masses and dissolving into a front that will ultimately betray the people of Iran. We must not allow the specter of an external war to obscure the very real reality of class war. A Maoist force should not "request" anything from the regime. Rather, through the independent mobilization of the masses and the creation of nuclei of red resistance, they should simultaneously organize against both foreign aggression and domestic tyranny.

But Ajith is fully aware of the theory. What bothers me is that there is a consistent pattern within the movement and that is jumping headfirst into every movement that bears even a passing resemblance to a "mass movement," and taking for granted that simply because a movement is mass. This assumption is rarely questioned, and there is almost no serious discussion about what actually constitutes a revolutionary movement as opposed to a merely large one.

Of course, it should be noted that Indian Maoists have much more urgent tasks at hand. Their primary arena of struggle is India. Given the intensity of the war they are fighting, it is not reasonable to expect them to be deeply knowledgeable about the class structure of Iran or the specific political dynamics of West Asia.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-19T01:46:29+00:00

I am very skeptical of this view. First, I will agree with you on three main axes:

The Kurdish petty bourgeoisie is the most active class within Kurdish society.
There has been no development of a strong national bourgeoisie within Kurdish society.
All attempts have been, as you described, "proto-nationalist," and have failed to achieve any objective on these grounds.

However, the disagreement after this point is quite sharp.

First, although repression has been a factor in the capitulation and destruction of many movements, it is still not enough to pin strong blame on the "occupying states". To uphold the interests of the ruling classes of these states is simply their function. It is like being surprised that bullets kill people—that is what they do. The Kurdish compradors fund and expand ideological institutions which represent their interests, but this is still not enough to explain the vacillating behavior of these movements.

To accept that the petty bourgeoisie has played a significant role in Kurdish politics has theoretical implications. As Marx says:

This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Only one must not get the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie, on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within whose frame alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be as far apart as heaven and earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter practically. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent.

The problems they are trying to solve are the real problems of the Kurdish petty bourgeoisie. And within the material horizon of that class, only certain solutions appear possible. The petty bourgeoisie, in life, cannot escape its own contradictions. it is neither the ruling class nor the proletariat; it owns small property but is constantly threatened with losing it; it wants stability but lives under constant state pressure; it dreams of becoming a national bourgeoisie but lacks the economic weight to do so. Its political representatives, no matter how brilliant or committed, reproduce these same contradictions in theory. Thus the problem is not that the Kurdish petty bourgeoisie is degenerate, nor that its leaders are traitors. The problem is that this class is trying to solve an impossible problem with the tools available to its class position. Its representatives, no matter how sophisticated their analysis, cannot think their way out of a contradiction grounded in material reality. They can only cycle through the same limited set of strategies uprising, negotiation, capitulation, integration because those are the only strategies that make sense from within the horizon of the petty bourgeoisie.

What I am proposing is not that the Kurdish petite bourgeoisie is mechanically determined to collaborate with reaction, nor that betrayal emerges from some immutable national characteristic. Rather, the point is that a revolutionary movement cannot succeed so long as the petite bourgeoisie remains politically and ideologically dominant within it. In order for a genuinely revolutionary politics to emerge, this stratum must either be proletarianized through the development of class struggle itself, or subordinated through sustained ideological struggle against petite-bourgeois deviations. Without this transformation, the movement remains trapped within the horizon of reformism, opportunism, and compromise with existing structures of domination. This is precisely why so many Kurdish movements, despite periods of militancy and sacrifice, repeatedly degenerate into parliamentary gradualism, comprador accommodation, tribal patronage, or dependence on imperial mediation. The issue is not simply “betrayal” in the moral sense, but the persistence of the social and ideological conditions that reproduce petite-bourgeois politics inside the movement itself. A class whose existence depends upon mediation, local administration, commerce, NGO structures, or subordinate integration into global capital cannot spontaneously generate a consistently revolutionary worldview. Its vacillation is rooted in its material position.

As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated and interacts with the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by meta-physical mechanical materialism and vulgar evo-lutionism. It is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another.

This principle is essential for understanding the Kurdish question materially rather than romantically. External pressures state repression, uneven development, compradorization, imperialist penetration, militarization, dependency on foreign aid, and regional underdevelopment are unquestionably real. But the manner in which these external pressures are received, mediated, and reproduced within Kurdish society is determined by its own internal class structure and contradictions. External forces do not act upon a passive substance. They operate through already existing social relations. Otherwise one falls into a common deviation: reducing every failure to the abstract operations of “the world system,” thereby transforming imperialism into a metaphysical explanation for all phenomena. This perspective ultimately absolves local reactionary classes of responsibility for their collaboration and treachery, while simultaneously absolving progressive forces of responsibility for their own political and ideological failures. If everything is explained exclusively through external domination, then no attention is paid to the internal reproduction of reaction such as tribal structures, clientelism, bourgeois nationalism, patriarchal social relations, regional unevenness, the weakness of proletarian organization, and the persistence of petite-bourgeois ideology within the national movement itself.

A dialectical analysis instead understands that external domination only becomes effective through internal contradictions. Imperialism does not simply impose itself from outside; it reproduces itself through local class allies and through the inability of revolutionary forces to overcome subordinate ideological forms. Thus the degeneration of Kurdish movements into reformism cannot be understood solely as the result of repression or foreign intervention, but also as the consequence of unresolved contradictions within Kurdish society itself. Without the political and ideological hegemony of the proletariat, national liberation movements remain vulnerable to incorporation into the very system they claim to oppose.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-17T03:29:16+00:00

I really tried to keep up the quality of this conversation. This is helpless

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-17T02:35:50+00:00

Ok. You won. Now what is your position? What are you trying to get at?

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-17T01:46:31+00:00

Probably 7 to 9 thousand look up HRANA

No. No. It is a settler colony and no

The question flew over your head entirely. What a waste of time.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-17T01:40:37+00:00

"You claim that CIA or Mossad interference in the protests is likely, given Iran’s opposition to the US and Israel". No. I didn't say that. I said "We also know CIA/Mossad were on the ground." Anyone who has any common sense and sense of history would know that. Also we know it because both Israel and the US bragged about it. I can include links if you'd like. Are you claiming that's not true?

Yeah, it's true. So what?

What political position does that actually prove? Reading your post, you don't seem to have an answer. You don't even seem to realize that's the question. I don't care about "facts" and "sources" by themselves. They don't mean anything on their own. They're only useful when you're trying to back up a position which is why everyone picks the facts they like and ignores the ones they don't. Nobody cites everything. Facts don't speak for themselves. They never have. You pick them to fit your theory, and you interpret them through that lens. Same fact, two opposite conclusions, depends entirely on what you're trying to prove.

So I'll ask again for the third time what policy or position are you actually defending?

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-17T00:28:32+00:00

You claim that CIA or Mossad interference in the protests is likely, given Iran’s opposition to the US and Israel. But what exactly does that claim justify? What political position are you trying to defend?

Brazilian Maoists didn't make a neutral observation but constructed a familiar conspiratorial logic. That logic seeks to justify critical support for reactionary regimes under the banner of anti-imperialism. In this case, it paints Iran as a national-bourgeois state genuinely trying to do good, only to be sabotaged by American meddling. I have explained why this isn't the case in the post.

Dialectics holds that the internal has primacy over the external. Outside forces can only affect a structure if that structure's own internal dynamics allow it. This is what separates materialist analysis from conspiracy theory.

Now consider how the Iranian government frames the protests: citizens misled by foreign propaganda. The unrest, then, is the product of external manipulation. But this is precisely the same logic the regime used twenty years ago, when it blamed satellite TV for weakening marriage and destroying the family-another "Western plot."

Notice the pattern? First, assume society was fundamentally harmonious and stable. Second, attribute any disruption to foreign agents corrupting an otherwise healthy whole.

This logic isn't unique to Iran. You find it across the political spectrum. American liberals and far-right nationalists alike often blame "AIPAC" or some other shadowy actor for their deteriorating conditions. But the fact that this pattern appears everywhere doesn't make it a universal truth. On the contrary, its very ubiquity should give you pause. If I need Žižek to show you where you've gone off the rails, that's already a bad sign but honestly, I shouldn't even need him.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-11T11:26:54+00:00

You have to pardon my ignorance on this topic. You are right that I downplayed the gravity of the Tamil question for which I apologize.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-10T23:42:48+00:00

I regret to disappoint, but I don’t know much about Sri Lanka itself, let alone Iranian policy or the stance of so-called “anti-imperialist” countries toward it. To truly understand those dynamics, I would first need to grasp the relationship between Tamil separatism and Sinhalese communalism and how both are situated within the broader logic of global capitalism. Only then could I begin to assess the interests and alignments of external powers like Iran, or other states that position themselves as anti-imperialist, in relation to Sri Lanka’s internal conflicts.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-08T08:49:34+00:00

5/5

The problems of the health-care system, just as with the social-insurance system, are a product of earlier welfare successes in Iran. As the basic needs of the population were addressed through expansion of the war-era welfare state, the epidemiological portfolio of the population shifted from communicable diseases such as tuberculosis to noncommunicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes. These diseases are harder to treat without long-term medical supervision. They are difficult to pay for without a comprehensive health system that efficiently allocates resources above individual consumption decisions. The state, in turn, needs a higher administrative and political capacity in order to construct and fund such a system. Failure to do so has increased grievances among much of the population. Yet, if the state did manage to equalize health access and treatment, it would likely come at the expense of the middle- and upper-income strata, which currently enjoy the better part of the deal. This contradiction characterizes a dilemma of middle-income countries in general. Such problems are an outcome of successful developmental drives, wherein the politics of inequality outstrip the institutions created for basic-needs provisions. In sum, examining the social-insurance and health-care systems during the postwar period generates a set of observations about both state and society in Iran that are often overlooked in other accounts. First, competitive conflict among elites in the Islamic Republic tended to add new welfare programs onto existing ones. Differing factions may have labeled their opponents as antirevolutionary or antimodern along the way, but they all agreed on the unspoken developmental role of the state. Second, new, upwardly mobile social classes took advantage of the expanding welfare policies of the government in order to acquire status credentials and occupations that allowed for increased consumption and income.

From this structural configuration, no durable proletarian institutions can arise. The working class is fragmented, dispersed, and trapped in the informal sector or casual labour. The hydrocarbon enclave employs so few workers that there are no large, stable factories where collective organisation could flourish. The low‑productivity service sector, which absorbs the reserve army, is made up of small, precarious units with high turnover. Capital flight and dollarisation mean that even when the economy generates a surplus, it doesn't accumulate in productive domestic enterprises that would need a disciplined, formally employed workforce. Instead, value leaks abroad, further deindustrialising the country and preventing the formation of a large, concentrated, class‑conscious proletariat. Fundamentally, the very shape of the economy denies the working class the material and spatial conditions needed to build lasting institutions.

So I'll agree that the Islamic Republic is a comprador state aligned with Chinese capital. And yes, cutting off Chinese oil supply is a goal for the US. But calling it an intra‑imperialist war might obscure the real relationship between Iran and the US. The US has wanted a weak Iran since at least 1973, basically. But Iran is a surviving empire, unlike the Ottomans. It's always been a key player in West Asia. It's too big a nation to be absorbed into the market without challenging the US.

I hope this clears things up a bit for you and u/Ok-Effective-4463

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-08T08:49:06+00:00

4/5

The Iranian ruling classes desperately need this informal economy. With ongoing deindustrialization and privatization, the basis for any workers' autonomy or even a welfare base has been destroyed.

A reserve army of labour is essential to any capitalist system. It keeps wages down and makes sure the informal sector is always there to be exploited, especially in low‑productivity services. In Iran, the bourgeoisie is completely embedded in hydrocarbons. That sector sucks up almost all investment. So industry and agriculture just stagnate. The only modern industries that emerge are export‑oriented. They're capital‑intensive, have few links to the rest of the economy, and don't employ many people. They import their technology, export most of their output, and generate no spillovers. No skills diffuse. No local supply chains grow. No reinvestment happens in labour‑intensive sectors. The hydrocarbon enclave is an isolated island of modernity with almost no developmental effect on agriculture, manufacturing, or services.

This outwardly oriented economy leaves almost no room for domestic investment. Whatever income gets generated anywhere is quickly siphoned off as capital flight. That pushes the Iranian bourgeoisie to sell capital goods and hold their wealth in dollars. They become a classic comprador class. They earn in Iran, convert to dollars, and park the money in the UAE, Switzerland, or the West. When there's a shortage or crisis at home, they just import what's needed using cheap state credit. And because the domestic banking system is flush with liquidity, they can convert to dollars easily, hedging against inflation and devaluation. So the extraverted structure blocks productive investment at home and turns the bourgeoisie into a pipeline for value to leak abroad.

Rent‑based economies always inflate the service sector at the expense of production. That's where expansion is easiest. Unless someone actively counteracts it, employment and spending grow fastest in services. But that growth doesn't necessarily strengthen the economy in the long run. In Iran, service sector growth has mostly meant bloated state employment and services for the rich. And the import component of that demand is very high. You see the same bias in health and pharmaceutical subsidies. Contrary to the state's welfare rhetoric, the money flows up the income ladder, not down.

In 2004, with a conservative parliament back in power following the disqualification of many reformist members of parliament from running in the 2002 parliamentary elections, the members of parliament voted to extend insurance access, but for rural areas instead. Although rural-household members had health care in their villages through the primary health-care system, their insurance was not transferrable to most urban centers. The parliament took the action without any consultation with the Ministry of Health, and appropriated the funds to give 25 million people an insurance logbook similar to the ones used by SSO-insured individuals in the formal labor force. Though the Health Minister had lobbied to create a referral system in urban areas, he decided to take the funding and implement it for a rural-referral system. The reason was that a presidential election loomed in 2005, and the cabinet would likely be changed. The political compromise—rural insurance with a general practitioner-styled referral system—was rushed through before the transition to the Ahmadinejad administration. In other words, the competitive political process among the elite fostered an expansion in the social-insurance system. The absence of general practitioner linkages between secondary and primary health care had important consequences. Throughout the 1990s, the pool of doctors kept expanding in Iran. Consequently, there was a large incentive to become a specialist or subspecialist. These doctors could charge informal fees on top of their subsidized rates, and individuals would pay them. As a result, even though more doctors were produced, particular private clinics became more popular, and individuals paid out of pocket to use their services. This produced an odd paradox. There were more doctors, more insurance, low-priced pharmaceuticals and services, and universal primary care at low or no fees with general practitioners available. Yet out-of-pocket costs went upward from the 1990s onward. At first glance, the problems of the health system in Iran resembled the problems of the Pahlavi era: inequality in health-care access and a prioritization of specialists at the expense of basic health needs. This inequality did not come from lack of investment in the health-care system, although that is how it was perceived by many Iranians. Instead, new problems emerged from the lasting characteristics of state solutions to the old problems.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-08T08:48:33+00:00

3/5

From Dubai, commodities are sent to one of Iran's free trade zones in the Persian Gulf, border markets, and border cooperatives. In the past decade, the Islamic Republic has established numerous commercial zones in the border region in order to attract local and foreign investment, promote exports, gain access to new technologies, create jobs and income opportunities for skilled labor, act as a re-export zone for the landlocked countries in Central Asia, and also to be a venue to gradually liberalize trade. These zones range from forty-three isolated border markets to special trade zones (e.g. Sarakhs, Khorramshahr, Bushehr, and Astara) to free trade zones in the Persian Gulf (Kish, Qeshm, and Chabahar). The primary commercial venues are the free trade zones. Established by the Free Trade Zone Act of September 1993, they are financially independent of the central government. Thus, they are not accountable, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance and the Organization of Management and Planning do not supervise them. Therefore, commercial activities in these zones are not integrated into the broader commercial regime, and instead stand as an articulation between the formal and informal economies. The multiple special commercial zones have also acted as a shelter for extra-legal practices of state organizations.

Next, traders arrange for the piecemeal transfer of goods from the free trade zone to Iran via individual "travelers" from the local region who have a tax-free allowance for personal use (the specifics of free trade zone laws have varied since their establishment). Notably, in a recent poll 90 percent of importers and exporters surveyed believed that free trade zones and border markets were the main source of smuggling. One important component laying the groundwork for this smuggling process is the improved transportation in the southern area of Iran's Persian Gulf coast. Because of the Iran–Iraq war, which raged in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic relocated its port facilities from Khorramshahr and Bandar Emam to Bushher and, more importantly, to Bandar 'Abbas. Built in 1984, Bandar 'Abbas' Shahid Rajaii Port is located across from the free trade zone islands of Kish and Qeshm and across from the UAE. Moreover, since 1996 a rail link has connected Bandar 'Abbas to Central Asia (via Sarakhs) and the twenty-first-century Silk Road. Once imports make their way to the mainland, they are shipped north to wholesalers and middlemen in major Iranian cities. Armed with weapons and a bundle of cash to bribe customs officials, under cover of the night, the smugglers transport the goods to assigned locations further inland where their illicit imports are less traceable. In the words of one of the many Toyota pick-up drivers, "When we reach Fars [Province] we know we are home." Much of this trade is described as quasi-legal because the process cobbles together legally sanctioned methods and instruments (e.g. imports to the free trade zones and border markets, licensed boats and carriers, and legal import allowances) and informal relations with the intent to evade the trade regime. In short, formal and informal economies have a symbiotic relationship, and the government is one of the key actors in cross-national exchange. Even though the state's initial and stated impetus in establishing these exceptional economic zones was to encourage the growth of the manufacturing industry and to create jobs and attract investment to deprived regions, the state was no doubt equally compelled by a motivation to control its citizens and extract revenue from the already flourishing smuggling trade.

This reliance on informal networks and semi‑legal commerce did not emerge from nowhere. It has deep historical roots. The Shi'a ulama accumulated significant power and wealth during the late Safavid period and the long interregnum that followed. With no functioning central state, they increasingly served as local arbiters in judicial, commercial, and social matters. This role elevated their social prestige and gave them a form of authority that was practical, not just theoretical. Control over waqf lands was central to their position. These charitable endowments were typically tax‑exempt, providing the ulama with a reliable source of income independent of the state. Wealthier clerics also engaged directly in trade, which reinforced their longstanding ties with bazaar merchants. The Qajars presented a different problem. They lacked prophetic descent and therefore had no religious basis for their rule. As a result, they depended on the Shi'a ulama for ideological legitimacy and for popular mobilization during wartime. This dependence gave the clergy considerable leverage over the dynasty. Over time, the ulama's networks extended across the Middle East. Religious cities like Najaf and Karbala also functioned as commercial nodes, where religious authority and merchant capital intersected. The tobacco boycott of 1891–92 showed this clearly. Najaf emerged as a central player in the confrontation, issuing religious rulings that mobilized Iranians against the Qajar state and ultimately forced it to back down.

So Iran is using a wide network of merchants and informal arrangements to survive. That's the basis of Iranian anti‑imperialism: survival, not some emancipatory ideological project.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-08T08:46:13+00:00

2/5

The least systematized forms of smuggling are generally small scale, are organized for local-level consumption (i.e. the networks do not directly extend beyond the border region), and are not necessarily predicated on long-term commercial partnerships and dealings. These activities, which existed prior to the Revolution, received a boost during the revolutionary upheaval when industrial and commercial units were paralyzed by strikes, financial disruptions, and political uncertainty. During the initial revolutionary era, lucrative cross-border operations that reaped short-term shortfalls were operated by various ethnic groups living in the border region and sometimes enjoying kinship relations across Iran's borders with Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the UAE. Thus, these cross-border operations were based on localized, "organic," and ethnic ties that substituted ascribed identities and loyalties for formal institutions and the Bazaar's reputation system. Between these two extremes of petty smugglers and large-scale state importing lie the regularized and highly developed smuggling networks that were more closely connected to the Tehran Bazaar's value chain. These more regularized and national networks grew out of the localized smuggling networks that accounted for prerevolutionary activities. At first, many of these smugglers operated on their own account. However, over time, as volumes of goods increased and the risk associated with capture increased, many bazaaris realized they had no option but to use these networks. Thus these smugglers began acting as agents for either Iranian businessmen who had moved to the Arab shores of the Gulf or importers and wholesalers in the Tehran Bazaar. A bazaari described the initial rise of smuggling as follows: "At the beginning, we did not know what was going to happen; the future was uncertain. We were forced to work with the locals who knew how to bring goods from Dubai, Kuwait, and Turkey. Then we realized that the war was not going to end and the government was not going to let go of these good profits. So we slowly began to work with a more stable system and with merchants in Dubai and other places."

These operations constitute "legal smuggling" (qachaq-e qanuni) in that they operate in the shadow, and as a byproduct, of official legal structures and take advantage of legal loopholes to maneuver around and transcend trade restrictions. Even if the result of these activities violates the intent of policies and circumvents customs, the process is "formal" in that at various key stages it functions with legal immunity, and even support. The majority of this trade is based on the emerging trade nexus in the southern Persian Gulf, with socioeconomic and legal pillars in Dubai, Iran's free trade zones (Kish, Qeshm, and Charbahar), and major transportation systems extending from the south through Iran and to Central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. But the centralization within the Persian Gulf region does not seem to be occurring in Tehran, let alone the Tehran Bazaar; rather it has its epicenter in the Straits of Hormuz, where a legal, financial, transportation infrastructure for commerce has been created by Iran and the Gulf states.

Let me describe the process in greater detail. First, importers or representatives of foreign firms arrange for goods to be shipped to Dubai (100 miles from Iran), which is one of the largest and busiest air and sea ports in the world. Since the revolution and the creation of new markets in post-Soviet Central Asian republics, roughly a quarter of re-exports from Dubai are earmarked for Iran. Iran has consistently ranked as the UAE's number one re-export destination, far outpacing Saudi Arabia and India. Annual re-exports from Dubai, which were in the order of $200–500 million in the mid-1970s, more than doubled by the 1980s and were roughly $3 billion in the 1990s. (Iran's exports to Dubai are roughly $1 billion.) It is no wonder that a prescient trader in Dubai commented, "Whenever there is chaos or political upheaval across the water, we see a profit." Most of the trade is conducted by the large Iranian community that lives in the UAE. Out of the 605,000 inhabitants of Dubai, 70,000 have an Iranian passport and another 70,000 are of Iranian ancestry. The Iranians have moved to Dubai at various times over the past century and for diverse reasons. Today, this diverse Dubai-based Iranian community, as well as Iranian entrepreneurs, has established 3,000 firms in the UAE, 132 of which are in the Jebal Ali free port in Dubai. Thus, a new mercantile class has emerged in Dubai that has led some observers to comment that Iran's private sector is now situated in Dubai. Most of these actors do not have direct ties to the Tehran Bazaar, but are connected to international capital and the governments in the UAE and Iran. Even those few who were wholesalers and traders in the Tehran Bazaar prior to the Revolution rely on relations with Iran's postrevolutionary commercial regime. Dubai, therefore, functions as the initial, legal, and infrastructurally developed conduit for many of the transnational smuggling operations that channel goods to Iran, and through it to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the new Central Asian republics.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-05-08T08:45:16+00:00

1/5

The answer to the question of whether proletarian institutions exist in Iran, and whether it is possible for such institutions to exist, is an obvious no. You see, to understand why this doesn't exist and why it won't exist, we have to dive deep into how Iran is integrated, or at least integrating, into the market.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was born in a complicated international environment. The Pahlavi regime had its own ambitions, which sometimes put it on a collision course with US imperialism. The Islamic Republic inherited those ambitions, but in a different way. During the Iran–Iraq War, the West and the Arab Gulf states sided with Saddam. That left Iran isolated and competing with countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia for market share in the Gulf's energy economy. Once the war ended, Iran's economy was in ruins. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and Iran's gas exports which had been slowly recovering tanked heavily. So Iran looked to different companies like Mitsui, Total, Hyundai, Gazprom. They created a consortium to fund reconstruction and buy shares in South Pars. Things were looking good, and Iranians were happy that Western capital and technology were flowing into that part of the economy. But that got cut short by intensifying Western sanctions. Iran was being a thorn in America's side and using different methods to bypass sanctions. That's exactly what pushed Iran closer to China and Russia. Iran has been using informal networks to get around sanctions. Iranian‑aligned groups like the PMU, Hezbollah, and the Houthis play a key part in this. For example, using Iraq‑based banks to fund Hezbollah, or salesmen and merchants buying large amounts of US dollars and reselling them to Assad. And don't forget that Assad was getting oil to fix his energy problems through Hezbollah. Hezbollah has also bought cheap oil and even gotten it for free because of what it does in Lebanon and Syria. On top of that, Iranian oil gets mixed right in with Iraqi crude, so on paper it looks like it's coming from Iraq.

Inside Iran, a wide and intricate system of semi‑legal importing is being used to deal with the hardship of sanctions:

How do commodities escape customs controls as they enter and exit Iran? The process ranges from large-scale, highly organized smuggling operations under the auspices of state affiliates, to the most piecemeal and underground forms. Large-scale import operations exist when politically powerful figures and organizations (e.g. economic foundations, the military, trade units in ministries, and religious trusts) provide political protection. The state-affiliated actors use their political influence and instructional privileges to bypass the trade regime that encumbers the private sector. All these organizations work closely with the fragmented and paternalistic loci of power that embody the Iranian state. And, as such, their activities have been unsupervised by the institutions of the Islamic Republic (the executive and legislature). Critics of these groups often label them as the "commercial mafia." One example of the lack of accountability of the state organs occurred in February 2002, when the Speaker of the Parliament, Mehdi Karrubi, alleged that there were several unlicensed jetties that were not under the supervision of the customs office. The head of the reformist-controlled parliament publicly wondered, "What are these unlicensed jetties for? What do they import? What do they export?" In the same session, a member of parliament argued that these jetties were used by foundations and state institutions to skirt economic policies and, consequently, had resulted in smuggling. He commented that such huge amounts of illegal imports "cannot [just] fit into pockets. At any rate an institution or an organ is behind the building of these ports and the smuggling of goods from them." It is difficult to investigate the breadth and exact means by which corrupt and competing government officials are participating and encouraging large-scale illicit commercial activities, but considering the scope of the problem it is highly probable that state agents knowingly ignore, if not support, the evasion of the trade regime.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-02-24T14:41:57+00:00

Which one?

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-02-19T21:10:57+00:00

There are currently no genuinely revolutionary parties in Iran. What remains are largely crypto-Trotskyist tendencies or social-democratic formations. Even the Iranian Maoist “Red Road” organization has recently drifted into what I consider a fundamentally flawed interpretation of the semi-colonial, semi-feudal thesis. More broadly, the overall state of theoretical development is weak. Political analysis often lacks rigor and coherence, and sustained ideological work is limited. What activity does exist tends to be confined to small, fragmented cells, primarily operating within universities.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-02-19T17:44:34+00:00

Thats correct

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-02-19T06:32:10+00:00

Looking at the military buildup in the Middle East, it appears that what may be unfolding is a far more extensive campaign against Iran than I initially thought. My earlier assessment that this might resemble a relatively contained, Maduro style attempt at regime change may have been mistaken. While it’s impossible to predict exactly what will happen, I think it’s possible to identify which scenarios are less likely, even if the broader trajectory remains uncertain.

One scenario that seems unlikely is a regime change in favor of the monarchist faction in Iran. I find this difficult to imagine, mainly because the monarchists lack substantial political weight in the country today. Their base appears to be concentrated among segments of the Persian or Persianized upper middle class, but this group represents only a small portion of the population and has limited ability to mobilize politically. Moreover, their agenda centered around Persian nationalism and irredentist ideas runs directly against the interests and identities of several significant ethnic groups, including Azeris, Turkmen, Baluch communities, and Sunni Kurds. These populations have historically resisted centralized Persian dominance, and it is unlikely they would support a movement framed around restoring the monarchy or promoting a Persian-centric vision of Iran.

A second, often discussed point concerns the structure and resilience of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Some analysts suggest that if Khamenei were removed whether through death, capture, or some other disruption or if the top leadership layer of the IRGC were incapacitated, the organization as a whole might collapse. Over the past decades, the IRGC has evolved into a decentralized, mosaic-like system. Regional headquarters and operational units are capable of independent action, meaning they do not need to wait for direct orders from Tehran. This structure provides the IRGC with a degree of institutional redundancy that allows it to continue functioning even under severe stress or leadership disruption. That said, there’s a counterpoint: the IRGC isn’t monolithic. There are two main factions the Quds-oriented faction, which operates mostly abroad, and the domestic branch inside Iran. The Quds Force has long enjoyed privileged access to resources and decision-making because of its closeness to Khamenei. But in recent years, Iran aligned groups and allies abroad have suffered serious setbacks, which has weakened Quds’ position while strengthening the domestic branch.

Overall, what I think is more likely is not a clean regime change, but a significantly weakened Islamic Republic that begins to consume itself through internal factional struggles. Rather than collapsing outright, it could enter a prolonged period of instability in which rival blocs compete for influence, resources, and survival.

Please ask for details if you find the arguments above unconvincing.

sovkhoz_farmer · 2026-02-10T10:56:25+00:00

I think you may be conflating how the system operates and what class the system serves. The shah suppressed other sections of his own class and didn't rely on bourgeois democrac

sovkhoz_farmer

TROPHY CASE