IMPERIAL ROAD By A. PARSI has given rise to a wave of strikes in important industrial branches. The toughest and most murderous strike of the past several months was the one that occurred in September 1974 at the Irana factory, which manufactures catelles and mosaics and is owned by the Erier family. The workers had occupied the factory to protest the layoff of four of the workers. They were savagely attacked by SAVAK agents; fourteen of the workers of the factory fell victim to the attack. The strike of the workers of the Land Rover assembly factory in October 1974 was no less militant, and here again there was a brutal repression. The latest strike, which occurred in the Varamine vegetable oil factory, was especially interesting, for this factory is dependent on the Ministry of War (more precisely, on the ETKA) and provides the Iranian army with vegetable oil. On October 1, 1974, the 250 workers of this factory went on strike demanding wage increases and improvements in working conditions. This strike also provoked some panic among the authorities, astonished by this type of struggle. It must be stressed that none of these strikes was reported in the Iranian press, and it is extremely difficult to get detailed information about what took place. These strikes increasingly threw into relief the combativity and strength of the working class in Iran and the political role it can play. But it is clear that so long as the workers are not organized and have no means of defending themselves against the attacks of the SAVAK and the army, other victims will be added to those of the Irana factory.
11
IRAN Shortages and inflanion It will soon be several months since mounting price increases and shortages of foodstuffs took hold. The shah's agrarian reform has not only failed to resolve the problems of the peasants, but has also destroyed all traditional agriculture in the country (subsistence farming, for example) to the benefit of foreign and national capital. The regime's efforts to replace the destroyed peasant communities with agricultural cooperatives has ended in failure. In order to pay their debts (redeeming of state land through monthly installment payments), the peasants have been compelled to sell their lands to big capitalists and to become agricultural workers or to migrate to the cities. The peasant communities have been replaced by "agro-industrial units" often dominated by foreign capitalists. Among the most important of these "units" are Herenger and Naraghi (H&N) with capital of 425 million rials (68 rials=USS1) and 18,617 hectares of land (1 acre-0.4 hectare), 97.5% of whose shares are held by imperialist capital; the Iran & California Company (Dezkar), with capital of $1,250, 000 and 10, 536 hectares of land, 70% of the shares being owned by "foreign" capital; the Trans World Company, and the Iran- Yugoslavia CompanyIn general, these companies produce food products for export (oranges, artichokes, endive, asparagus, etc.). This situation has provoked significant shortages and price increases in foodstuffs in the cities. During the past few months, the shortage of meat, eggs, milk, bread, and rice has attained extreme proportions. Hence, the government has been forced to resort to importing these products, but the imported products are intended first for the military and second for the 100,000 Kurds who have fled from Iraq and are lodged in modern camps constructed by the Iranian government in Kermanshah. Furthermore, the prices of these imports (Pakistani rice, wheat and frozen meat from the United States) are so high that the workers cannot buy them. This situation has stimulated a nearly generalized discontent among the population and above all among the workers, especially during the autumn of 1974. Where the oil money goes Oil income plays a very important role in the maintenance of the Iranian dictatorship. In 1974 by producing 320 million tons of oil - 293.1 million tons in 1973- Iran could count on $20,000 million in oil income, $16, 000 million more than in 1973 and hwenty times more than in 19701(2) During the past several years, the increase in oil prices has stimulated the birth of a not insignificant autonomous finance capital. (On this point, see the article by Ernest Mandel in INPREC OR No. 10, October 17, 1974.) Big commercial banks controlled by Iranian capital have been created, among 12 which the most important are: *The Shahriar Bank, with capital of 5,000 million rials; *The Industrial and Mining Development Bank of
Iran, with capital of 960 million rials (private); *The Industrial Credit Bank (Etebarat Sanati) with capital of 2, 600 million rials (state-owned); *The Etebarat Tavoni Tozi Bank, 300 million rials
(private); *The Foreign Trade Bank, 275 million rials (mixed); *The Commercial Bank of Iran, 250 million rials
(private); *The Iran-Middle East Bank, 250 million rials
(mixed); *The International Iran-Japan Bank, 200 million rials; *The Teheran Bank, with 250 million rials (mixed). Thanks to this finance capital, the Iranian bourgeoisie is playing a rather important role, not only in the region of the Arab-Persian Gulf, but on an international scale as well. This capital is utilized in three essential ways: 1. Abroad, it is spent in the form of aid or of financial or industrial participation. We can cite several significant statistics here. During the first ten months of 1974 these petrodollars were used abroad in the following manner: *More than $100 million to buy 25.04% of the shares of the Krupp Hüttenwerke steel company (3); *$1,000 million in aid to the World Bank; *$75 million in credit to the Grumman Corporation (U.S.A.); *$1,200 million in loans to British companies; *$1 million donated to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., *$1, 000 million advanced to the Banque de Paris for purchase of five atomic reactors from France; *$3, 000 million in loans to Italy; *$250 million in aid to Pakistan; * $250 million in aid to India; *$2, 000 million in aid to Afganistan; *$100 million in aid to Bangladesh; *51, 000 million to Egypt; *$50 million in aid to Syria; *$10 million in aid to Senegal. 2. The second use to which this capital has been put is to make arms purchases to strengthen the Iranian army. (See INPRECOR No.2, June 20, 1974.) More than 60% of the oil income is devoted to the army. 3. The third form of capital utilization is investment in national industrial projects and the five-year plans. Thus, the revised Fifth Five Year Plan, which began in May 1973, calls for investments of
$60, 000 million. Mixed investment projects are under way in auto (Renault, Chrysler), petrochemicals (Dupont, Union Carbide), and steel (Thyssen, Creusot-Loire, etc.). It is this independent finance capital that has allowed the shah and the Iranian bourgeoisie to take some positions running against the immediate interests of the American government and the oil companies. While in the historical sense the shah's regime guarantees the interests of American imperialism and world capitalism in Iran and the region, it can nevertheless manifest some independence of those interests in a conjunctural sense. It is this relative autonomy that allows the Iranian bourgeoisie to take advantage of interimperialist contradictions in order to strengthen itself. This is also what explains both the "anti-imperialist" and "anti-American" campaign that has been launched by the Iranian press and the denunciation of the Iranian dictatorship by the American press. (The October 14, 1974, issue of Newsweek, which contained articles attacking the personal power of the shah and some revelations about SAVAK, was translated and reproduced in the Iranian press in an attempt to forge "national unity" against "foreign enemies. ") Nationalism at the dictatorship's service The regime is trying to contain the general discontent of the population by using nationalist propaganda. That is why the mass media are relatively well developed; radios, television stations, and the major newspapers carry out this mission. For these propagandists, Iran, the center of formerly colonized Asia, must (under the direction of the shah) lead the struggle of the peoples of the continent against "imperialism in crisis. " The propaganda also sings the praises of Iranian nationalism and the grandeur of Iran and of the Aryan race. Some ex-Maoists and old cadres of the Stalinist Tudeh party contribute to this propaganda to a significant degree. Among the opposition, the two guerrilla organizations that were created several years ago have played an important role in breaking with the past (the reformism of the Tudeh party and the National Front) and are fighting with exemplary heroism. But because of the confusion of their political lines and because of their militarist conceptions, they have not been able to truly influence political life in the country and mobilize the population. The "Fedai of the People" organization, which has a Castroist-Maoist line, has certainly played a role in touching off several strikes. The "People's Fighters" organization, which claims allegiance to Islam and Marxism at the same time, has a certain audience among the urban petty bourgeoisie. But up to now, neither of these organizations has succeeded in putting forward a concrete program of transitional demands or in making an analysis of the existing social forces and the socioeconomic development of Iran. Against a modern army and police force and a regime supported by American imperialism and the Soviet and Chinese bureaucracies, other responses than the fedai's bomb will be required. Only revolutionary Marxism will be able to offer these responses and to prepare the Iranian working class and peasantry for the socialist revolution. i FOOTNOTES: 1. The total population is 32 million. 2. Iran is the fourth-largest oil producer in the world (behind the United States, which produced 515 million tons in 1973; the Soviet Union: 424 million tons, and Saudi Arabia: 362 million tons), but it is the second-largest exporter of oil (after Saudi Arabia). It holds 11 percent of known world reserves. Moreover, Iran has reserves of natural gas, which is exported to the Soviet Union (8,700 million cubic meters were sold to the USSR in 1974) and, more recently, to West Germany. This gas will provide another new source of income. 3. It might be of some value to list some of the companies in West Germany in which Iranian copital holds stock: Siemens (electrical equipment), Kloeckner-Humboldt-Deutz (engines and trucks), Gute Hoffinungs-Hütte (steel), Linde (refrigerators), Pressag and Bayer (petrochemicals). This indicates some of the options of Iranian capital.
13
POLITICAL SITUATION
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
PORTUGAL: AND THE We are publishing below the text of an overall analysis written by the comrades of the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI - Interationa list Communist League), Portuguese sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, and published in their journal Luta Proletária, No.7, January 14, 1975. Our comrades of the LCI decided at their last nafional conference to participate in the elections to the