‘The revolution that is taking shape in Iran will bring freedom, equality and prosperity for all. We guarantee this.’
Message by Hamid Taqvaee, Leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran, on the 40th anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution
On the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, Iranian society is preparing itself for another revolution.
The 1979 revolution was for the same aims, demands and causes that we the people are fighting for today.
The 1979 revolution was for freedom and against the Shah’s dictatorship and repression. It was for welfare and against poverty.
The 1979 revolution was started by city slum-dwellers, the impoverished working masses who, after being uprooted from the villages, had come looking for work in the cities, where they lacked the most basic services and amenities.
The 1979 revolution was carried out by workers who lacked any economic, civil and political rights; who were denied the right to organise, protest and struggle; who were deprived of the most basic standard of welfare and living.
The 1979 revolution was carried out by masses of people who wanted basic freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief, freedom of the press, freedom to organise in political parties, and other economic, political, social and civil liberties. Then, like now, none of those freedoms existed. The 1979 revolution, just like the revolution that is taking shape today, was for freedom, equality and prosperity.
It is often said that the 1979 revolution was an Islamic revolution. There is not the slightest bit of truth in this statement. What was Islamic was the counter-revolution, not the revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini stepped in – more precisely, was propelled in – to confront people’s aspirations and demands for freedom. The Islamic Republic began attacking women, workers, students and people of Kurdistan from day one. Then, on 20th June 1981, it unsheathed its sword and massacred the leftist and freedom-seeking activists and forces. The massacres and crimes carried out by this regime were intended to drive back the demands and causes for which the people had made a revolution. These are the same demands for which the society has risen up today.
A big difference between now and then is the growth of massive movements for justice: the workers’ movement against poverty, inequality, lack of rights and repression across the whole society; the women’s movement against gender apartheid and for freedom and liberation; the movement of the youth and students; the movement of teachers, nurses, retirees and victims of financial sleaze and corruption (by the economic and political elite); social movements against the destruction of the environment; the movement of people with different religious and ethnic attributions, who are fighting against discrimination; the movement of LGBT+ for recognition and against discrimination and oppression. Over the last forty years, people have been fighting on all these fronts. The revolution that is taking shape in Iran has emerged and grown on the shoulders of these movements. This revolution will not be Islamicised, or distorted and defeated by any other ideology, as the 1979 revolution was. The revolution that is taking shape today is a revolution for freedom, equality and prosperity, which has already clearly stated its human aims and demands.
The 1979 revolution was defeated, but was not obliterated from history. Even defeated revolutions have their gains. One of the achievements of the 1979 revolution was the emergence of people’s councils. People expressed and identified their freedom and emancipation and their control of their own destiny with councils and council rule. This is the same slogan that is being voiced today at workers’ and student protests. The most important achievement of the 1979 revolution, i.e. the invaluable experience of forming councils and the demand and cause of councils, is alive today, and its banner, in the form of the demand for council rule, has been raised by workers at the forefront of society.
This time round revolutionary and communist forces like the Worker-communist Party of Iran are on the scene, a party that over the last forty years has not stopped for a moment in the fight against discrimination, lack of rights, poverty, inequality and repression, and which has consistently fought for the rights of the people, for equality, freedom and prosperity.
This time round the society has prepared itself for revolution on a vast scale. We will not allow the revolution to be defeated once again. The revolution that is taking shape in Iran will bring freedom, equality and prosperity for all. We guarantee this.
Long live the revolution!
Long live the struggle of the people of Iran!
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Translated from a video message broadcast on 9th February 2019 on New Channel TV, the Worker-communist Party of Iran’s television network.
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