Iran

Would Iran be considered an example of Islamic socialism because they have a planned economy?

No,Iran is closer to theocracy than socialism.
Also,never knew Iran had a planned economy?
Where did you read that?

Recently the private sector has been growing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran

The Iranian Revolution is a damn good example of a socialist revolution in thermidor. It was mostly a working class/student revolution to begin with but the Ayatollahs ended up seizing ultimate power and exiling all of the communist/socialists.

So uh, who's the ruling class there? The priests? Can we speak of a highly advanced tribal society, then?

No the bourgeoisie and the priests are essentially the same group, with the non-clerical bourgeois supporting the clerics to save their own asses. Honestly the Iranian theocracy is nothing but a mask for a bourgeoisie dictatorship and has the bonus benefit of providing the basis for their anti-democratic attitudes.

I'd still support Iran rather then the USA or Isreal. And if the Iranian Revolution is socialist would Ruhollah Khomeini be considered a socialist?

Red Brigade wrote:

I'd still support Iran rather then the USA or Isreal.

I'd rather support the working class Iranians struggling against these corrupt and bourgeoisie clerics than support the Ayatollah's regional imperialist ambitions.

Red Brigade wrote:

And if the Iranian Revolution is socialist would Ruhollah Khomeini be considered a socialist?

Fuсk no. Khomeini is the source of the thermidor that subverted the Iranian people's revolution. He is an arch-criminal who should have died by proletarian bullets.

Iran's far from socialist. It has a stance on state intervention and a nationalized oil industry, that's about it. Planned economy doesn't necessarily equal socialism. Anyone can control an economy, what matters is who is controlling it. In Iran it's another form of a ruling class, not the workers.

Quick overview of the History of socialism in Iran. During the waning days of the old Qajar dynasty there was an active socialist movement which merged with the republican movement. This resulted in the short-lived Republic of Gilan which was supported by the young Soviet Union. The Republic of Gilan grew strong, to the point it threatened Tehran itself. The Republic of Gilan was overtaken by the new regime of Reza Pahlavi, an army figure who installed himself on the throne of Iran with blessings from the United Kingdom, under the guise of restoring stability to the country. .

After that the communist movement was driven underground and repressed by Reza Shah. It resurfaced in 1941 after the joint British-Soviet invasion and overthrow of Reza Shah, who was getting too cozy with Hitler and Mussolini. The largest of these communist movements was Tudeh, and its influence increased from there until the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953. Mossadeq had attempted to nationalize the oil industry in Iran (then mostly controlled by Anglo-Iranian, a predecessor to British Petroleum), resulting in a coup backed by MI6 and the CIA. The resulting crackdowns were targeted at, unsurprisingly, socialist and communist parties, as Mossadeq, though himself not a socialist by any means, was accused of gravitating towards the Soviet Union.

This period in the 1950s was detrimental to Iran's political development. It further polarized politics in two groups, the monarchists and the religious establishment, who at this point were still working together.

There were other workers' organizations, but Tudeh was the largest. I guess another notable grouping was Mansoor Hekmat's parties. The plethora of left groups took advantage of the increasing instability of the 1970s and had a bit of a comeback in power, but their activities was restricted by state suppression, notably by state security forces of SAVAK. When the revolution came, left groups were divided as to how to approach it. Some boycotted right away, others, Tudeh included, tried to work with them at the beginning. We saw the result, but by no means was the Iranian revolution a creation of Tudeh or the other communist parties unfortunately. 1988 saw large scale purges of the left movements.

The other socialist grouping in Iran was among the Kurds. The largest organizations ranged from more general socialist organizations like Komala to social democratic-nationalist type groups like the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran. Unlike the rest of the socialist movements these two were mostly growing, though most of it fueled by nationalism.

When the revolution came it was an outpouring of the people's rage against the corruption of the Shah, but most of this fell into religious radicalism. Khomeini's position in the revolution can not be ignored... he was mostly looked upon by the religious community as their leader. One important group that was influential in this was the People's Mujaheddin of Iran (PMOI), claiming to have some "Islamic Socialism", what ever that means. I suppose something similar to Moammar Qaddafi's oddities. At any rate the PMOI burned itself out and lost out to the Ayatollah groupings who had more power among the rural localities. PMOI's influence was more limited to college age people and other youth. PMOI ended up thrown into Iraq where they collaborated with Saddam Hussein, and later onto Europe. Most recently PMOI got taken off the terror listings of Europe and America, probably in return for their help in gathering information on Iran's nuclear program.

In the ensuing years the religious factions fought among themselves (which Iraq picked up on and attempted to capitalize on during the Iraq-Iran War, hoping the Iranians were divided enough). The Kurdish socialist groups were still resisting but liquidated by the regime. To this day though the most active socialist groups within Iran tend to be Kurdish nationalist in nature. Tudeh still hangs around but it's seen better days. The other main ones are various splits involving Mansoor Hekmat's followers.

The others are minuscule and mostly in exile. In the past years Kurdish groups rose up a number of times. Once in 2005 cities in Iranian Kurdistan such as Sanandaj and Mahabad rose up in protest, fairly large ones too, and a number of people were killed. One young student was captured by security forces and dragged around a jeep.

For the next ensuing years there were general strikes in the Kurdish provinces. A recent strike by a joint action between Komala and the KDP-I this past summer (solidarity strike with the five prisoners in Iranian prisons, who were later executed) A repeat of a similar event in 2009.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/zrlHjI#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997092216575/VuEiv#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/UvJvFG#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/CBmEeG#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/GxAoXJ#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/BmkwPD#
http://picasaweb.google.ca/104752788997 ... 75/WBdBFH#

This had been happening for awhile but unsurprisingly western media doesn't report on it; Unlike the Green movement, which is mostly approved by the bourgeoisie here.

I'm not very confident of the prospects of Iran to be honest. On one hand there is the reactionary clerics, and on the other hand there is the bourgeoisie "Green" movement. Most of the Iranian ex-pat movements I see tend to be pro-Monarchy as well. The old communist Iranian movements seem to have set themselves up in Canada and Europe, but their influence is negligible.

Red Brigade wrote:

I'd still support Iran rather then the USA or Isreal.

From a socialist point of view, it would make sense to support the underdog against imperialist powers but there has to be limit to how much support you give before Iran becomes an imperialist power in its own right. Iran has jailed many leftist dissidents and has meddled in regional affairs by funding Shia insurgent groups in Iraq and Lebanon.

Red Brigade said

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I'd still support Iran rather then the USA or Isreal. And if the Iranian Revolution is socialist would Ruhollah Khomeini be considered a socialist?

Iran is just as bad as the US although i do not consider the US as all that bad. Besides that Iran wants nukes and wants to be superpower in the region plus they are crazy ! Why would you support a crazy nationalist warmongering nation?

Well there's an easy solution- don't support either. If in the event the United States engages in warfare with Iran we shouldn't line behind the United States because they seem to be the lesser of two evils. On the flip side we should take the role of apologist for Iranian actions either.

The most we can hope for is that Iran has a government change on its own accord rather than it being influenced by the West. The so-called "Green Revolution" doesn't seem to be all that different from similar color revolutions that took place in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, upon taking power they gravitated towards western interests while keeping economic relations mostly the same.

Lets take a look at something I remember reading awhile back which has *some* similarities to what is occuring today.

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Trotsky: I am not sufficiently acquainted with the life of the individual Latin American countries to permit myself a concrete answer on the questions you pose. It is clear to me at any rate that the internal tasks of these countries cannot be solved without a simultaneous revolutionary struggle against imperialism. The agents of the United States, England, France (Lewis, Jouhaux, Toledano, the Stalinists) try to substitute the struggle against fascism for the struggle against imperialism. We have observed their criminal efforts at the recent congress against war and fascism. In the countries of Latin America the agents of “democratic” imperialism are especially dangerous, since they are more capable of fooling the masses than the open agents of fascist bandits.

I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!

While there are part of this that I disagree with the core message remains the same- imperialist nations while often try to subvert anti-imperialist sentiment by substituting something else in its place- in today's case, it's "Islamic Fundamentalism". Just like when America invaded Iraq- there was no question that Saddam was a brutal dictator who oppressed Iraq- but was that really the Americans' concern in going there for?

why do we have to hate every imperialist and bourgeoisie? Uniting in hate sounds like the basics of fascism to me. Maybe i am wrong but i don't like the fact that we there is always hate for the bourgeoisie and the west. Can someone explain this to me or am i just being an idiot ?

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why do we have to hate every imperialist and bourgeoisie?

Who talks about hate?
Our "hate" is defined by the class struggle.
I don't hate capitalists as people(well,most of them at least ),i hate them as a class.
Once we strip them off all their possessions,we wouldn't hate them anymore,for they could not be capitalist anymore.

some people would say that communists do hate them but once you strip them of there possessions you dont hate them cause you just wanted them to be poor like you. anyways but the point is polygamy allowed in socialism ?

I hate them because they're making the world suck. Aren't a billion of starving people a valid reason to hate the bourgeoisie ?

how does communism eliminate this ? hhhmmm Vietnam, eheheh North Korea ....

wait are you denying that capitalism is the reason of poverty?

also uh people in vietnam and north korea live in paradise compared to capitalist somalia and ethiopia.

edit: yeah polygamy is allowed in socialism. marriage as an instution should be abolished anyway.

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how does communism eliminate this ? hhhmmm Vietnam, eheheh North Korea ....

What famine in Vietnam are you talking about?
The Vietnamese Famine of 1945?
That one was caused by Japanese fascist occupants.

And,well,North Korea is a seriously degenerated state,but from what i know,the famine was caused by weather problems and UN sanctions.
On the other hand,capitalist countries destroy thousands of tons of food every day.

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yeah polygamy is allowed in socialism

Lol that'd be cool.
It's not like there are 2-3 girls for every male in most countries.
There'd be a shortage of spouses soon.
Also,why should marriage be abolished?
No socialist country did that.

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Lol that'd be cool.
It's not like there are 2-3 girls for every male in most countries.
There'd be a shortage of spouses soon.

polygamy as in having sex with lots of people. which isn't a criminal offense in any non-islamic country anyways, as far as i know.

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Also,why should marriage be abolished?

what purpose does it serve except being an ancient religious custom necessary for the regulation of private property? abolishing it would also end these stupid discussions about homosexual marriage and transgender marriage and "who can adopt a child."

seriously why does anybody have the need to get official recognition for their relationship? are they that desperate for attention? HEY STATE, LOOK, I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND NOW!
i mean wtf.