Contents
- Waves of Iranian Protests
- The Genesis of Iran’s Political Form
- The Iranian Variant of the “Welfare State”
- The Illusion of Workers’ Representation and Factional Struggle within the Bourgeoisie
- The Bloody Repartition of the Middle East
It is not the first time that the Middle East, and Iran in particular, has found itself at the center of clashes between imperialist powers in their struggle to redraw spheres of influence and markets. This was the case on the eve of World War I, when Iran was partitioned between British and Russian imperialism. It happened again during the carnage of World War II, when the Shah’s regime sought ties with Hitler’s Germany, only to end up once more under joint Anglo-Soviet occupation. The 1943 Tehran Conference became one of the symbols of a new imperialist redivision, foreshadowing the end of that slaughter.
Since then, a long cycle of capitalist development has significantly altered the international lineup of these predators, shifting their relative weight and balance of power. Alongside global powers capable of projecting their policies worldwide, there now exists a complex web of agreements and conflicts among regional actors. Yet the essence of this struggle, brilliantly exposed by Lenin over a century ago, remains unchanged: it is a division of markets and spheres of influence among imperialists-bandits fighting each other over the redistribution of their captives. It makes no difference who drew the knife first, escalating the conflict into open violence.
Waves of Iranian Protests
Today, this struggle between the organized apparatuses of violence serving capital is intertwined with class struggle – a struggle that differs significantly from the era of Lenin in terms of class factionalization and intensity. The proletariat no longer acts as an organized leading force directing the peasantry’s demand for peace and land against a united front of the big bourgeoisie and landowners. One of the key objectives of Marxist analysis, therefore, is to critique ideologies that often portray this confrontation between classes and their factions as an abstract surge of the masses or the “middle class” toward abstract freedom and democracy. This critique is particularly necessary in the case of Iran, where the latest wave of protests preceded the threat of US-Israeli intervention. It is described as “another” wave because social tension in the country erupts regularly, independently of the varying triggers for each outbreak. For instance, one may recall the 2009 protests the – so-called “Green Movement” – which demanded a recount of votes after the election victory of the ultra-conservative Ahmadinejad, or the 2019 protests sparked by a sharp hike in gasoline prices. While there are many other immediate causes, Marxism must go further: moving beyond the external, superficial manifestations of this struggle evident in the slogans and demands, to uncover the socio-economic substance of the political conflict. This is precisely what we will undertake in this article, critically engaging with the book “Iran for Everyone” by Russian expert Nikita Smagin.
The Genesis of Iran’s Political Form
Smagin is a liberal, formerly an adherent of the national-liberal Alexei Navalny. This background inevitably colors his ostensibly impartial analysis. Yet his research has certain merits, one of which is evident from the following passage in his book: «Whenever I tried to share insights about Iran, I would often hear in response: “But you’re contradicting yourself!” Life contradicts itself – that’s universal. And in Iran’s case, the frequency of these contradictions multiplies many times over. Iranians themselves, I’ll tell you, often contradict their own positions! Iran has a paradoxical political system, a paradoxical attitude toward Islam, paradoxical laws and worldview. Paradoxes in Iran are not merely encountered at every turn – they are a systemic phenomenon, foundational to the state and society, enabling their survival and development». Of course, a mere claim to employ dialectical method is insufficient in itself, but the author does make a genuine, albeit limited, attempt to apply it – and that is precisely what drew our attention to his work.
Thus, the modern form of the Iranian state emerged from the protests and the overthrow of the Shah’s regime in 1979. Contemporary liberal ideologies seek to portray it as an authoritarian, personalist regime that, by its very nature, gravitates toward the so-called new “Axis of Evil” – comprising China and Russia – and allegedly challenges the supposedly progressive West. Yet even a superficial engagement with Iran’s political realities immediately debunks this caricature. Let Smagin speak: «The first association that comes to an outsider’s mind when thinking of Iran is almost invariably: “It’s an Islamist dictatorship.” In reality, the picture is far more complex. Once we set aside emotional judgments, we immediately enter a realm of nuances and caveats: yes, but… In the 1990s, Iran developed a unique political system in which theocracy coexisted with democracy, and unelected institutions functioned alongside elected ones. Elections were held regularly; while it would be difficult to call them truly free, they were almost always competitive and unpredictable». Unwittingly, this bourgeois expert articulates a class truth that the proletariat would do well to take to heart: it is not only in Iran, but wherever the bourgeoisie has firmly consolidated its hold on power, that it creates a hybrid of elected and unelected governing bodies. And when it comes to the vital interests of big capital – to its long-term strategy – it concentrates decision-making authority in institutions insulated from the zigzags of fickle electoral pressures. What concrete research must uncover, then, are the specific forms through which the political dominance of the big bourgeoisie manifests itself under the particular conditions of each state.
The pivotal moment in the genesis of Iran’s contemporary political form was not the year 1979 itself, but 1989. Here is how Smagin describes the birth of this construct: «Such a complex, compound model emerged as the product of the “Khamenei–Rafsanjani reforms” of 1989 […].
[…] in 1989, the legendary Ayatollah passed away. By that time, internal opponents had already been defeated and repressed, and the war with Iraq had just ended in a military stalemate: at least 500,000 lives lost, up to a million affected […].
The behind-the-scenes power struggle – the “fight of bulldogs under the carpet” – revealed that the two most influential figures at the time of Khomeini’s death were Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Majlis, and President Ali Khamenei. Ultimately, they divided power between them: Rafsanjani became the next president, while Khamenei assumed the role of Supreme Leader (rahbar). Equally significant was the fact that these two men also initiated the first – and so far only – constitutional reform in Iran’s history. Among other changes, this reform abolished the office of prime minister, with its powers effectively transferred to the president.
[…] President Rafsanjani emerged as the leader of the reformist movement, which advocated for economic liberalization and the normalization of relations with the world, including the West. […] In opposition, a conservative bloc began to coalesce at the other end of the political spectrum, appealing to the “hardcore” values of the Islamic Revolution-including anti-Western rhetoric and strict adherence to religious norms. This segment of Iran’s political landscape consolidated around Khamenei, although formally he endeavored to appear neutral, refusing to endorse any particular faction. To this day, the Supreme Leader prefers not to publicly voice support for any specific candidate in presidential elections. At the same time, the subtle cues in his speeches, coupled with reporting in Iranian media, leave little doubt as to which side Khamenei favors in the domestic political arena.
In the political struggle, both movements had their respective weaknesses and strengths. The reformists enjoyed broader popular support. Their ideas of system liberalization and openness to the world clearly resonated with voters: both the Majlis and the presidency more often remained in their hands. Over the 35 years from 1989 to 2024, reformist politicians held the presidency for 24 of them. Yet the conservatives have always commanded a decisive advantage within the theocratic institutions of power: the Supreme Leader (rahbar) can be removed only on grounds of ill health – in effect, he is chosen once and for life. Moreover, his constitutional powers make the rahbar the most influential figure in Iran. He directly appoints half the members of the Guardian Council, which can reject any legislation passed by the Majlis and also determines who may run in parliamentary and presidential elections – and who may not. In addition, the candidates for three key ministerial posts – Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Intelligence (which oversees the security services) – must be approved by the Supreme Leader. Finally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a military formation numbering 300,000 to 400,000 personnel that forms part of the country’s armed forces and serves simultaneously as army and intelligence apparatus, reports directly to him.
[…] As a result, real authority and influence are determined less by what is written on paper than by which politicians and officials currently command greater prestige and leverage».
Let us note in passing that this organization of power by the Iranian bourgeoisie – which dons a variety of guises, including religious ones – partly explains why the US-Israeli bet on eliminating the leaders of this political regime has failed to pay off. More broadly, the relative flexibility of this type of democracy – as a form of capitalist dictatorship – has served several objectives typical of how the bourgeoisie organizes its rule:
- Forging, through struggle and bargaining, a general line for the ruling class regarding both domestic and foreign fronts.
- Mobilizing mass support for this political regime – including, though certainly not exclusively, by creating the illusion of choice between different factions, different campaign promises, and different electoral brands.
- Finally, as noted above, establishing a maximally resilient structure for contending with other factions of predators, both regional and global.
The Iranian Variant of the “Welfare State”
It is evident that any political form is infused with a contradictory and constantly evolving social and economic content that it is called upon to express. It is not difficult to observe that Iran, too, has large bourgeois families and resort enclaves where this elite squanders wealth accumulated through “arduous labour”; there exists the so-called IRGC economy, which accounts for somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of the national economy, and in which retired military officers occupy positions on corporate boards; and there is also the economy of the Middle Eastern bazaar – that of the Iranian petty bourgeoisie.
Here, however, we would like to dwell on another element in the functioning of this socio-economic model, well described in Smagin’s book and characteristic of the postwar socio-economic order of the old powers, which is likewise in crisis today. We are referring to what in the West has come to be known as the welfare state. In Europe, this system consolidated during the “economic miracles” of the 1950s and 1960s, a period marked by the rapid dissolution of the peasantry, the migration of the population into cities, and proletarianization. The crumbs from the masters’ table that were channelled into systems of social provision were intended to soften the frictions that inevitably arose in the course of these processes and, in part, to sustain demand for goods in a rapidly expanding economy. In specific forms, this phenomenon was also characteristic of Iran.
From 1950 to 2015, the level of urbanization in Iran rose from 28 to 73 percent: in essence, this indicates an extremely rapid process of the dissolution of the peasantry and the formation of the classes of modern bourgeois society, which could not but generate social tensions, sharpen political struggle, and compel an adaptation of political forms.
Let us trace how Smagin describes these processes: «The first systemic manifestations of social policy in Iran date back to the years of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). The exhausting conflict required the restructuring of the economy along wartime lines, and the previous market mechanisms of distribution ceased to function. In order to avert famine, the authorities resorted for the first time to mass subsidies for food products: prices were placed under state control, and goods were distributed to the population according to strict norms. Effectively, this amounted to a system of ration cards, under which each person was entitled to only a fixed quantity of goods. The war then came to an end, the need for rationing disappeared, but the subsidies remained. Now Iranians could consume unlimited quantities of gasoline or electricity at low prices.
Another feature of the new authorities also manifested itself in those years. The Islamic Republic sought not to abolish the institutions that had existed under the Shah, but rather to modify their functioning and supplement them with new ones. […] The pre-existing organizations and institutions of social assistance that had operated under the Shah were not dismantled; instead, new bodies emerged, oriented toward those strata of the population that the previous regime had neglected. Notably, the Pahlavi Foundation, which controlled significant assets of the Shah and his family, was renamed the Foundation of the Oppressed (“Bonyad-e Mostazafan”). It became a preserve of the IRGC, evolving into the largest and most influential of Iran’s foundations.
In economic terms, the achievements of the Islamic Republic in its first decades were more than modest. Sanctions and international isolation disrupted established routes for hydrocarbon exports, while the protracted war with Iraq devastated the economy. […] The country only returned to its pre-revolutionary economic levels in the early 2000s […].
In contrast, social policy produced quite substantial results. The Islamists opened access to education and healthcare for the broad masses. Infant mortality declined rapidly. By the early 1990s, Iran had reached the level of developed countries on this indicator, significantly surpassing the Middle Eastern average – and this against the backdrop of war and economic crisis. Iranians also live longer than their neighbours in the region: by the early 2010s, Iran, whilst remaining a developing country, had caught up with European states in terms of life expectancy. State policy played a role in this: in 1995, a law on universal healthcare was adopted, extending health insurance coverage to the entire population. For the first time, even residents of remote villages gained access to basic medical services.
Progress compared to the Shah’s era was also evident in education. Whereas around 5 million pupils were enrolled in Iranian schools in the 1970s, by the early 2000s their number had reached nearly 20 million. Admission to higher education became significantly easier. The Islamic Republic also did a great deal to advance the emancipation of women. Prior to 1979, the literacy rate among girls aged 15–24 stood at 42 percent and was significantly lower than in Turkey (68 percent). However, by the mid-2000s this figure in Iran had already risen to nearly 97 percent – 3 percent higher than in neighbouring Turkey. Women also entered universities en masse_, their share of the student body exceeding 50 percent._
For the first time in Iran’s history, unemployment benefits began to be paid on a regular basis. The self-employed were incorporated into the system of social provision. Finally, the system of subsidies and assistance to vulnerable strata, combined with the economic stabilization of the 1990s and 2000s, succeeded in reversing the poverty trend. This indicator deteriorated sharply during the war years and remained at around 30 percent until 1995–1996. Thereafter, however, the number of people living in poverty began to decline, falling to just 5 percent in 2011–2013».
This long cycle of development led to the formation of a modern capitalist society, including what bourgeois sociology terms the “middle class.” In reality, what is at issue is a social amalgam of different classes and their strata – exploiters and the exploited – arbitrarily lumped together on the basis of income levels and the predominance of bourgeois habits. Be that as it may, this heterogeneous mass began to place ever greater demands on the state. The latter, in turn, is incapable of meeting them under conditions of sanctions and economic degradation resulting from a lack of investment. This constitutes the real basis of the protests in Iran.
The Illusion of Workers’ Representation and Factional Struggle within the Bourgeoisie
In the analyses of Smagin and other bourgeois scholars, what is often overlooked is not only the Iranian proletariat itself, but also the manner in which the ruling class actively constructs mechanisms to subordinate the labour movement to its own factional interests. The Iranian bourgeoisie, despite its internal fragmentation (which political scientists tend to reduce, in an overly simplistic manner, to a struggle between “reformists” and “conservatives” or “principlists”), possesses a considerable arsenal of means for co-opting workers’ protests and deploying them as a battering ram in internecine struggles over assets and political influence.
In the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Revolution, when independent workers’ councils (shoras) were suppressed, the state established their surrogates – the Islamic Labour Councils – as well as the umbrella organisation “Workers’ House” (Khaneh-ye Kargar). These structures defend workers’ rights only nominally. In practice, their function is the pre-emptive control of the working environment and the incorporation of the working class into a state corporatist system.
It is important to note that the leadership of the “Workers’ House” has historically been closely linked to the faction of so-called “pragmatists” and “reformists” (associated with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami). During periods when this faction found itself in opposition to hardline conservatives, the leaders of the “Workers’ House” frequently mobilised the workers under their control to exert pressure on political rivals, organising sanctioned rallies under the banner of social justice which, in reality, served merely as instruments of bargaining over ministerial portfolios and economic concessions.
On the other hand, the conservative wing of the bourgeoisie, relying on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and major religious foundations (bonyads), regularly plays the card of the “defence of the oppressed” (mostazafin). From the era of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad through to the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, conservatives have actively exploited workers’ strikes at privatised enterprises as a means of striking at their rivals.
A particularly vivid example is provided by the struggles at the Haft Tappeh sugar complex and the HEPCO heavy machinery plant. When enterprises transferred into private hands (often linked to the reformist camp) were driven into bankruptcy, and workers went unpaid for months, conservative media and politicians would suddenly present themselves as the “voice of the proletariat”. They publicised these strikes and endorsed demands for the reversal of privatisation, but solely with the aim of transferring these assets from private competitors back into the hands of the state or para-state foundations associated with the IRGC. Once the change in ownership had been effected, this conservative “solidarity” rapidly dissipated, and any attempts by workers to continue their struggle for their substantive rights were met with harsh repression.
The reformist faction, for its part, has for decades exploited the democratic illusions of the intelligentsia and sections of the working class. In the run-up to elections, it promises the liberalisation of labour legislation, the legalisation of independent trade unions, and the expansion of civil liberties. However, it is precisely reformist administrations (particularly under Hassan Rouhani) that bear responsibility for the most far-reaching campaigns of neoliberal labour market deregulation, including the proliferation of so-called “white contracts” (agreements signed by workers with no terms or wages specified, which employers may complete at their discretion) and the exclusion of millions of workers in small enterprises from the protections of the Labour Code.
However acute the contradictions between the various factions of the Iranian bourgeoisie may be (whether oriented towards the domestic market or seeking accommodation with Western imperialism, whether rooted in private capital or in the military-state apparatus), they display complete class unity on one question: the prevention of proletarian self-organisation.
As soon as a strike exceeds the limits permitted by one faction or another, and workers begin to advance political demands or attempt to establish genuinely independent organisations (as demonstrated by the Tehran bus drivers’ union, the teachers’ Coordinating Council, and the independent union of workers at Haft Tappeh), the state apparatus casts aside its internal divisions. Leaders of workers’ struggles are subjected to arrest, torture, and prolonged imprisonment under every administration – whether conservative, “pragmatist”, or reformist.
Thus, the Iranian bourgeoisie continually seeks to reduce the labour movement to a mere auxiliary in its intra-class conflicts. The recognition that no faction of the ruling class, nor any of its political formations, can serve as a tactical ally of the proletariat is the first and indispensable step towards the political independence of the Iranian working class amid the gathering storms of imperialist redivision.
The Bloody Repartition of the Middle East
At present, American imperialism, in alliance with its Israeli partner, has launched a military operation against Iran, making no secret of the fact that it is explicitly counting on the protest potential of the Iranian population in the course of its intervention. At the same time, Donald Trump did not trouble himself with elaborate justifications about the need to defend “democratic values” and other ideological banalities, leaving the task of legitimising the war – under the pretext of putting an end to a reactionary, anti-human regime – to a chorus of liberal commentators in the media.
To simplify the overall picture, one might say that the American predator, now in a condition of relative decline, is attempting to leverage its still considerable military superiority in order to bring key economic resources and transit routes under its control, thereby securing a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis with its rivals – above all, the rising imperialist power of China. Yesterday, this repartition of the region proceeded through investments, trade agreements, and diplomatic initiatives (the Abraham Accords; the 2021 strategic agreement between China and Iran, envisaging $400 billion in investment over 25 years, etc.); today, it continues through military intervention, setting in motion an unpredictable chain of consequences.
Investment, diplomacy, and war are not opposing or mutually exclusive means of this repartition; imperialist wars are the continuation of imperialist policy, expressing the economic interests of the largest monopolistic groups. The same logic is pursued by lesser regional predators – from Israel to the Gulf monarchies and Turkey. Nor do European and Russian imperialisms stand aside, each seeking to avoid losses in the latest round of global repartition.
There is another important lesson to be drawn from this situation. Left-wing imitators of Marxism may have indulged the illusion that an American invasion, carried on the bayonets of imperialism, would bring the Iranian proletariat a supposedly progressive democracy, thereby creating more favourable conditions for workers’ struggle in the future. This is either foolish naivety or outright betrayal, amounting to siding with the class enemy.
On the other hand, the Iranian bourgeoisie has quite predictably acquired a powerful trump card in the form of “national unity”, seeking to rally the proletariat around the state flag and the defence of the Islamic regime – one which only yesterday was detested by the masses themselves. Under these conditions, the only correct Marxist position for the Iranian working class is the tactic of revolutionary defeatism. The proletariat has no fatherland in this inter-imperialist slaughter.
The task of the workers is neither to defend the “national sovereignty” of the bourgeois Islamic Republic against American missiles, nor to lend support to Washington’s intervention, but to utilise the military crisis – which weakens the state apparatus – to intensify the class struggle in the rear. The slogan of the moment is the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war: the turning of arms against one’s “own” national bourgeoisie.
The emancipation of the working class can only be the act of the working class itself. However, the experience of strikes in Iran – repeatedly driven into a blind alley by reformists or suppressed by the bayonets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – demonstrates that spontaneous economic struggle and the formation of “independent” trade unions alone are insufficient. Trade union struggle leaves the proletariat confined within the framework of the system of wage slavery. In order to break out of the trap of bourgeois factional struggles, it is imperative for the advanced workers of Iran to forge their own political weapon – a revolutionary vanguard party. Only an organisation of professional revolutionaries, armed with advanced Marxist theory, is capable of introducing a genuinely class-conscious, internationalist perspective into the spontaneous workers’ movement and uniting disparate strikes into a single political front.
This political struggle must possess a clear revolutionary perspective. The goal of the proletariat cannot be the “democratisation” of the regime, the replacement of the Rahbar with a liberal president, or the construction of a “genuine” “welfare state”. The historical task consists in the complete destruction – the forced dismantling – of the bourgeois state apparatus, with all its elected Majles and unelected councils, religious foundations, and the Revolutionary Guards. Upon the ruins of the dictatorship of capital, the Iranian working class, relying on revived workers’ councils (shoras) and in alliance with other parts of the world proletariat, must establish its own rule – the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Today, we stand only at the beginning of this arduous path. Yet it is precisely the restoration of this clear revolutionary programme, cast aside by opportunism, that constitutes the principal condition for the future battles of class struggle, whose highest expression will be the creation of a new Communist International.
March 2026