Populism in the Minimum Programme:
A Critique of "What the Fedaeen-e-Khalgh Say"

Let us point out here that the comrades' decision to present a kind of programme to the mass movement is undoubtedly a positive step. In the other articles of this issue{2} we have dwelt on the significance of adopting a united policy in agitational and organisational work, on the basis of a programme, in the context of the new escalation of the mass movement. From this viewpoint, the "manifesto" is expressive of a significant step on the part of the comrades towards the promotion of the agitational-propaganda method of approach of the communist forces to the mass movement. But our admiration of the comrades must be confined to this - i.e., basing of agitation and propaganda on a kind of programme - since "the rest", i.e., where we come to the substance and content of the categories and demands presented in the "manifesto", is all marking time in the field of the basic problems of the movement and the approval and reiteration of the populist foundations of the theory and programme of a large section of our communist movement. Secondly, the significance of this document lies in that it presents, with the least superfluity and additions, the essence of the comrades' theoretical and programmatic perceptions. The study of this document makes it possible to find out and criticize the main points of the comrades' theoretical and programmatic positions, and based upon that, the main lines of their deviations in these spheres, The "People's Fedayeen" reveal in this manifesto, in our view, the populist, reformist and sectarian foundations in their thought and politics, and call to the fore the active confrontation of the communist movement with these views.

Therefore, in this article, we deal with this document from two angles: first, we discuss the manifesto in detail as a programmatic document and then we shall also say a little, about the incorrect perception laid out in the manifesto, on the relation between democracy and socialism for the revolutionary proletariat.
 

1) "What the People's Fedayeen Say" as a Programmatic Document

Who are the "People's Fedayeen"? The manifesto tells us that the People's Fedayeen are armed, self-sacrificing anti-monarchist militants; they "defend the interests of workers, peasants and all the strata of the people; the People's Fedayeen are the irreconcilable enemies of imperialism, capitalists and land-owners and the consistent defenders of the people's interests." But what criticism do these People's Fedayeen have of the existing system and conditions and which specific social alternative do they want to establish? The manifesto replies: "Today our society is grappling with an immense disorder and crisis. The economy is completely disintegrated, the conditions of living of the toiling masses have become very harsh and unbearable; poverty and impoverishment, high prices and unemployment, war and homelessness, the shortage of the basic necessaries of life, the problems rising out of the war and thousands of hardships and pressures, have made life harder than before for millions of toilers of our country." Addressing the masses, the manifesto writes : "You have experienced and remember the hated regime of the Shah and all the misfortunes and miseries that this regime had brought along for the people and that it had completely placed our country at the hands of the imperialists, and had trampled on the most elementary rights and liberties of the people. You have also experienced the inability of the present government and you have seen in practice that they cannot remedy any of your ailments and meet your legitimate demands either. So far you have experienced the rule of dependent capitalists and big land-owners, these blood-sucking leeches". And finally, what is to be done: "The People's Fedayeen Say: in order to save the country and secure a better and comfortable life for the toilers, any kind of dependence on imperialism must be eliminated and the dependent capitalist system which is the basis of this dependence must be overthrown."

The question is clear. Whether the comrades name the manifesto a programme or not, they have presented their aim and alternative to the masses in this document: the aim is to "save the country and secure a better and comfortable life for the toilers" and the alternative is nothing but the severing of dependence on imperialism and thereby destroying "the dependent capitalist system which is the basis of this dependence" (our emphasis). The enmity of the "People's Fedayeen" with the mercenary regime of the Shah and the Islamic Republic regime too, is essentially because (according to the manifesto) the first has been the cause and founder of dependence and the second "unable" to sever this dependence. And this is all of the position which we have tried to criticise, during the last two years and in various texts, as the populist position in the democratic revolution. For the detailed criticism of this deviationist outlook, comrades can refer to almost any of our theoretical pamphlets or any of the issues of "Besooy-e-Sosyalism". The main points of our criticism are these:

1) The "People's Fedayeen" are objecting not to Iranian capitalism but to its dependence (The enmity of the manifesto with dependent capitalism, too, is because this system "is the basis of this dependence". This outlook is a bourgeois-nationalist outlook which is specifically based on the Kautskyite criticism of imperialism. The hardship of the masses, their poverty, ruin and lack of rights are regarded not as springing from the operation of capitalism in general, not as the products of this exploiting class system, but as resulting from "dependence" on imperialism. To put the blame of the miseries and hardships of this system on "imperialism" and to declare that "this dependence on imperialism can be broken and capitalism preserved at the same time", is the very separation of imperialism from capitalism and its definition as the non-intrinsic adjunct and peculiarity of this system. (Should the comrades rage and say: "we did not say that capitalism must be preserved", our reply is clearly this: "nor have you anywhere in the manifesto said that capitalism must be destroyed and that socialism must take its place - you have explicitly laid stress on the destruction of "dependence") This outlook is pure Kautskyism. The comrades are duty-bound to declare to the masses that they are addressing, what will take the place of dependent capitalism, and for one who has not uttered a word of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is the very dead-lock of populism.

2) The aim of the "People's Fedayeen" has been defined, according to the contents of the manifesto "to save the country and secure a better and comfortable life for the toilers".

But to which organisation and which leadership do the "People's Fedayeen" call the masses, for achieving these changes (in the existing system)? Here the populist aspect of the "manifesto", an aspect which is distinguished by the forgetting of the independent aim of the proletariat and its particular struggle, causes the sectarian aspect of the manifesto to become fully revealed. The struggle which the comrades place before the masses at large is, naturally, as they state, a democratic- anti-imperialist struggle. It is the struggle for rights for which the comrades themselves have called under their banner the "workers, peasants, tradesmen, artisans, low-ranking office clerks, teachers, militant students and pupils, revolutionary soldiers and [army] personnel" for their realization, without any separation or distinction. To date we thought that the communists considered the revolutionary proletariat, which is fighting for socialism (and the communist party is its militant organ), the most consistent defender of the democratic rights of the masses. But today it becomes clear that "the People's Fedayeen are the only force which consistently defends the interests of the masses (mentioned above)"! Here, Iran seems to be excluded from all of the material laws of the society! Here it is not the classes that struggle and it is not one of these classes (the proletariat) which is the most consistent defender and fighter of the path of emancipation and freedom of all the exploited and oppressed. No! Here the war is still between regimes and compact groups of revolutionaries who regard [every section of] the people the same and who for the interests of the people become the devotee of its cause without attributing themselves to one of these classes. Had the comrades claimed to be representing the revolutionary movement of the working class, and had they declared that the "People's Fedayeen" were the only representatives of revolutionary Marxism in the society and that other communist organisations and groups had essentially fallen into the. welter of opportunism and revisionism, then perhaps publicising their organisation as the only consistent defender of the interests of the most revolutionary class, and hence the most consistent defender of the basic rights and interests of the toiling masses, would be justifiable. But here the question is over the interests of classes, of which some adore private property (tradesmen, artisans and sections of the peasants) and some others think of communism and the negation of every kind of private property. Do the "People's Fedayeen" alone, really defend consistently all of these (different interests, at once and without any conditions for going beyond any of them? The comrades go further than this insistence on the monopoly representation of the general interests of the people and declare, after citing their demands (which at most encompass( parts of a communist minimum programme), that: "This is a summary of what the People's Fedayeen Say and become subjected to the hatred of the capitalists and their supporting states." Is it only the "People's Fedayeen" who put forward such demands? And more importantly, is it only and essentially for such demands that the "People's Fedayeen" are hated by the capitalists and their supporting states? Is this not because of the bourgeoisie's fear of the proletariat and communism and their hostility towards the revolutionary proletariat and communists?! Had not the proletarian and democratic revolutions under the leadership of communists sufficiently revealed to the bourgeoisie their real enemies, before the "People's Fedayeen" saying these things, so that they would dread every communist and the "spectre of communism"?! Had not the bourgeoisie and imperialism declared for more than a century its dread of communism and communists and its hostility towards them, before the "People's Fedayeen' basically existed?! Does what the "People's Fedaeen" are saying overshadow in the mind of the bourgeoisie, the Communist Manifesto, October and Bolshevism, the revolution of China and Vietnam, etc? Comrades! Why should we not tell the masses the truth? Why should we not analyse for the masses the reasons for the bourgeoisie's real fear of the proletariat and its proud communist ideology and movement? Do the People's Fedayeen seek any other future and destiny for themselves than the fate of the whole revolutionary proletariat and the communist movement? Sectarianism means to give to one's organisational interests precedence over the interests of the whole workers' and communist movement; and to give to one's organisational identity precedence over proletarian and communist identity is to extend sectarianism to the most absurd levels. The populism and reformism of the "manifesto" and the lack of any reference to socialism and the communist party, prevents the comrades from calling the revolutionary proletariat, which fights for socialism, the most consistent defender of the rights of the toiling masses against capital and imperialism. Only so far as they consider and call themselves part of the communist movement and the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat, can the "People's Fedayeen", and any other force, claim consistency in the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle. But the "People's Fedayeen" demand not the leadership of the proletariat in the revolution but the securing of their organisational leadership. With this very "manifesto" the "People's Fedayeen" demonstrate that they are not aware of the requirements of "consistency" in the defence of the interests of the masses, since by neglecting socialism as the final aim and the communist party as the organisational precondition; by moulding their demands in a reformist frame, by putting forward a bourgeois-nationalist alternative, and finally, by sectarian propaganda, in reality point to their inconsistency in defending the most important section of the people, i.e. the proletariat.

Therefore we see how the "manifesto" deals with matters at the level of the concepts of the maximum part of a Marxist-Leninist programme and in all cases drifts completely away from them and evades them.

But here the point may be raised that "What the People's Fedayeen Say" is a collection and a part of the minimum demands of the comrades and in this manifesto they have defined not their final aim but their transitional aims in the democratic revolution. This objection not only does not make a change in the content of our criticism of the "manifesto" but permits us to present this criticism in a more articulate manner:

Firstly, the comrades' fault lies in that by breaking the link between the socialist maximum aims of the proletariat and its democratic and minimum aims, they have completely weltered into reformism. And secondly, these demands themselves, even where they are taken as a "summary" of the minimum demands, are strongly imbued with the deviation of populism and provide a favourable ground for opportunistic politics.

About the first case one must say that what enables the communists to organise the struggle in the context of their minimum demands - without falling into reformism - is nothing but the specification of the final aims of the proletariat and its method of struggle for socialism (the maximum part) and the transitional character of these minimum demands for it. The Communist Manifesto is the eternal document of the identity of the communist movement and of the communists in every country. An identity which the communists only by the explicit declaration of, not only and particularly to the masses of workers, but to the toilers as a whole, can place themselves at the head of the movement and the democratic revolution too. Only in its entirety does the programme of the communists express the revolutionary identity of the proletariat. In its turn, the proletarian consistent democratism too relies on the explicit declaration of the relation between democracy and socialism for the proletariat and by emphasising that precisely because the proletariat in order to reach its final aim - socialism - requires to create and guarantee the most democratic political system possible in capitalist society and to impose the maximum possible economic concessions on the bourgeoisie to the benefit of the proletariat and toilers, it proves its consistency in a democratic revolution. For the proletariat, the democratic revolution provides the vital preconditions of its move towards socialism. Marx, Engels and Lenin have repeatedly emphasised these with clarity and today it is about time that our communist movement realises the significance of this question. Hence the revolutionary proletariat never conceals its final aim, does not dissolve and mix its independent interests and its independent ideologicalpolitical-organisational identity within the democratic movement and explicitly declares that its minimum demands express that collection of economic and political changes which enable it to prepare the majority of the exploited for going beyond bourgeois democracy, for the establishment of the dictatorship of proletariat. If the "People's Fedayeen" cling to the illusion that the democratic character of the revolution exempts or prevents them from the repetition of the contents of the maximum part, where they are speaking of the minimum demands, in our view, they suffer from a fundamental deviation in the sphere of the analysis of the democratic revolution and the tasks of the proletariat in it. To separate the class identity and the ultimate aim of the proletarian movement from its minimum and democratic demands, and the separate presentation of these demands under the title of "what" this part of the communist movement "says", causes the proletarian consistent democratism to give its place to reformism and petty bourgeois inconsistent democratism. This is precisely the abyss that the "manifesto" of "What the People's Fedayeen Say" has fallen into.

But, about the second point, i.e. to show the populism of the "manifesto", we must go beyond this general discussion and deal with one by one of the demands, as the demands of a communist force. For this purpose we follow the general course of a Marxist-Leninist minimum programme and deal with the slogans and demands of the "People's Fedayeen" according to which section they belong to, independently of their order in the "manifesto".

As we said before and have done in other articles, a communist minimum programme, provides a clear picture of the most suitable economic and political conditions for the mobilisation of the proletariat towards the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. In the most complete sense, the realization of these demands finds expression in the establishment of a democratic-revolutionary republic of workers and toilers (people's democratic republic, etc.). In other words, the minimum programme, at the same time as defining in the clearest manner the demands of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie and any state of the bourgeoisie, can itself be considered as the programme of action and the foundation of that democratic republic which the victory of the democratic revolution in its most complete situation leads to its establishment. Hence the minimum programme initially gives a general but clear picture of the foundations of this republic and then deals with the presentation of one by one of the minimum demands which the revolutionary republic realises in a consistent and all-round manner. This general picture elucidates the demand of the proletariat on 1) the country's supreme power and the question of the people's rule over the people, 2) the professional army and the mass militia, and 3) the substitution of the elitist bureaucracy with a democratic system of the country's administration. A minimum programme that must express its most complete form of realization, must inevitably deal with these three spheres. The manifesto of "What the People's Fedayeen Say" is completely silent on the question of the democratic-revolutionary republic. What is the highest form of realization of the contents of the "manifesto"? A "revolutionary government" under the leadership of "the only force consistent in defending the people's interests", i.e. the People's Fedayeen. This is the whole of the picture that the masses, if they search for it, may extract with difficulty from the "manifesto".

Thus, and in. the same way as above, the "People's Fedayeen" does not say anything about which organ the country's supreme power must rest with and how the masses must rule over their political destiny. To say nothing when the existing system is parliamentary, is tantamount to presenting no alternative against the parliament and hence to assessing the "revolutionary government" as relying on the parliament and not the people's soviets and their nation-wide congress. In any, case, here is not the place for guesses and the criticism of guesses and we merely content ourselves with the emphasis on the total absence of the republic and its supreme organ in the "manifesto".

But the "manifesto" has dealt with two other foundations, the army and the bureaucracy:

"The People's Fedayeen say: the existing administrative and military system must be fundamentally transformed and a popular system corresponding to the needs and interests of the people must be created. The People's Fedayeen believe in the universal arming of the people and say that only armed people along with revolutionary soldiers, rank and file and officers are able to defend the independence and sovereignty of the toilers' country".

The "manifesto" is completely silent on the substance and content of the popular administrative system which corresponds with the needs and interests of the people. What system is this? Is it not the case that the heads of the Islamic Republic too have started their demagogic discussion of doctrine or specialization{3} apparently around the theme as to which administrative system corresponds with the interests of the oppressed? Since the "People's Fedayeen" instead of elucidating the content of this "system" (i.e., instead of performing a consciousness-rasing role have merely stated vaguely its necessity, the addressees of the manifesto gain no further insight into that administrative system which they must be demanding in the course of their struggles, in demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, etc. But from the viewpoint of communists this "system" has been defined with complete clarity. The communists stand for the disbanding of the elitist bureaucratic apparatus, for the officials being elective and all of them recallable whenever the majority of the electors decide, and for the payment of a salary not exceeding the wages of a skilled worker to these officials. This is the basis of that administrative system which corresponds to the needs and interests of the masses. The "People's Fedayeen" must precisely say this with clarity and ask the masses to rally around it; whereas the "manifesto" does not refer to these points at all. On the "popular military system", the comrades have left out the basic demand for the dissolution of the professional army, perhaps under the influence of the propaganda pressures of the counter-revolutionary regime, the question of war and the attempts of the regime to escalate chauvinism among the masses. we communists must stand for the dissolution of the professional army and its replacement with the universal arming of the people (formation of the people's militia) and for all the military officers and instructors to be elective. By mentioning the "revolutionary personnel", i.e. that part of the present professional army which will align itself with revolution and the revolutionary government, the "manifesto" practically puts forward the demand for a mass militia as a side demand, alongside the professional army that has joined the revolution. This reduction in the demand of the proletariat, has precisely allowed the counter-revolutionary regime which is speaking in the name of revolution - and will always allow such regimes - to slur over this basic demand of the proletariat, by calling revolutionary and sanctifying the apparatus of the professional army. The experience of the Army of Pasdaran{4} and the Twenty-Million Army(!){5} is another example of the abilities of such regimes in the distortion of formulations which evade the clear, proletarian and tested demand of the workers.

The other point in this question is the one-sided emphasis of the "manifesto" on the question of "defending the independence and sovereignty of the toilers' country", as the raison d'être for the general arming of the people. Undoubtedly, this is one part of the question; the revolutionary republic may be attacked from outside by the world bourgeoisie and the army of other bourgeois states. But this is not the whole of the question, or even its main part, in stating the necessity of a people's militia. The universal arming of the people means before anything else, the military disarming of one's own bourgeoisie and the suppression of any resistance on its part. The main question is over the significance of the mass arming for the defence of the revolution and the republic against the counter-revolution and its intrigues. By keeping silent on the question of overthrow and the question of republic, the "manifesto" has also totally forgotten the class struggle inside the country when presenting the demand relating to the army, and is distorting the clear class character o the revolution and its aims. The demand for defending the toilers' country by the armed people and the revolutionary personnel, in such a context of silence towards the 'revolution and the class struggle, has been transformed into a thoroughly reformist demand.

A Marxist-Leninist minimum programme, after presenting its positions and demands in connection with these basic foundations of sovereignty puts forward the details of its demands in the various areas of the political rights of the individuals and strata of the society and thus completes the above general picture of the democratic political regime needed by the proletariat. The demands concerning the freedom of parties, belief and expression, religion, equal rights for men and women, the national question, elimination of discriminations, etc, each defines the condition or conditions set by the proletariat in the different arenas. We emphasise that the communist minimum programme regards the all-round and consistent realization of these demands possible only in the democratic-revolutionary republic led by the working-class; but these demands can and must be presented by the proletariat, at any juncture of the existence and survival of a capitalist system and a bourgeois state, and the mass struggle organised around it.

The manifesto of "What the People's Fedayeen Say" has put forward a number of political demands of this type. One deviationist tendency and perception exists in the major part of these demands and that is a restrictive and non-Leninst attitude towards bourgeois democracy and its place for the socialist proletariat. We leave the explanation of this question to our more general discussion on the relation between democracy and socialism and the attitude of the "manifesto" towards it, at the end of the article and here deal in brief with the more specific defects of the formulation of two important cases of the political demands of the manifesto.

The first case is the demand concerning the freedom of religion.

"The People's Fedayeen believe in the freedom of belief and religion and the freedom of the religious ceremonies of the people. Not only should the Moslems, both Shia'at and Sonni, who form the great majority of our compatriots, have freedom in their religious beliefs and the practising of their religious ceremonies, but also all religious minorities must enjoy this right".

In the first place, it is a matter of content that our communist movement is today, after two years of bourgeois despotism in the name of religion, turning towards the propaganda of the necessity of the freedom of religion. But the demand which has been put forward in the "manifesto", does not at all express the proletarian position on religion, as must be included in the minimum programme of the communists. The "People's Fedayeen" put forward the freedom of religion not through the outlook of the revolutionary proletariat but merely from the viewpoint of the faithful believers of minority religious sects. The "People's Fedayeen" interpret the freedom of religion only as the freedom of religious beliefs and the right of conducting the related ceremonies. The revolutionary proletariat stands for the complete freedom of religion, and thereby the freedom of non-belief in any religion, and the complete elimination of discriminations according to religion and to having or not having a religion, so that it can deprive the bourgeoisie of the use of this historical and tried out weapon of creating dissention within the ranks of the working class. Hence the communists not only stand for the freedom of religion, but also for the separation of religion from the state and state education and training. The real freedom of religion and atheism is possible only when no certain religion enjoys state support in financial and propaganda spheres, no religion is declared as the official religion and no economic political or cultural privileges are granted to the believers of a certain religion. Our demand must express precisely this practical and real aspect of the freedom of religion. Our democratic demand in the area of the freedom of religion is the separation of religion from the state, from education and training and from the official propaganda. That the communists stand for the freedom of the believers of the different religions in their gatherings and practice of their customs and the conducting of their religious affairs at their own expense, can only be stated as the complementary and secondary aspect of the previous statement (the separation of religion from the state) and can and must by no means take its place. This complementary aspect is mentioned and stressed essentially for the reason of firstly neutralising the dissention creating conspiracies of the bourgeoisie and secondly stressing the belief of the revolutionary proletariat that it will conduct the struggle against religious superstitions not in a forcible fashion, from above and with the aid of legislation and instruments of suppression, but through education and the expansion of science; and that from the viewpoint of communists the abandoning of religious ties. must be for every individual a voluntary act and without compulsion. Under the pressure of the religious propaganda of the regime, the "manifesto" has clearly backed down - and greatly so - from the minimum demands of the proletariat in the formulation of the demand concerning religion.

The other case is the demand concerning the right of self-determination in the manifesto:

"The People's Fedayeen say: the oppressed peoples of our country, such as the Kurdish, Turkish, Turkaman and Arab peoples who in addition to other oppressions, suffer national oppression too, must themselves determine their destiny. The national oppression must be eliminated and the oppressed peoples must be allowed to freely decide how they wish to live. Up to now the governments ruling Iran have intensified national hostilities and have placed Fars against Kurds, Turks against Turkmans, and Baluchees against Arabs. This national oppression must be ended for ever".

Once again vague-talking and backing down from the explicit proletarian demand so that they do not place themselves in the trap of the "anti-separationist propaganda" of the Islamic Republic regime. "The oppressed peoples must be allowed to freely decide how they wish to live". It depends what we define "living" as. Even the Islamic Republic Party may agree to this demand. Only on account of the explicitness of the clarity of their defence of the democratic demands of the masse can the communists gain the sympathy of the masses and become the leaders of the democratic movement; and hence, in order to attract the oppressed nationalities under 'the banner of their consistent democratism, they explicit declare that they support "the right of oppressed nationalities in determining their own destiny up to complete secession and forming an independent state". The "People's Fedayeen" who fear standing up against the chauvinistic propaganda of the regime, evade the explicit formulation of the proletarian position on the national question, on which we communists are armed with clear teachings. But this very wavering once again causes the other aspect of the question, namely the proletariat's Unitarianism, to remain concealed. The "People's Fedayeen" who have not spoken about the right of secession of the oppressed nationalities, inevitably cannot put forward, and do not see a need to put forward either the concrete demand of the Iranian proletariat from the oppressed nationalities, i.e. the demand for not separating and for the voluntary union of the various nationalities within the country. Only that communist who clearly recognises and defends the right to secession of the oppressed nationalities, can with equal clarity and in the name of the interests of the whole country's toilers, ask of the vast masses of workers and toilers of the oppressed nationality to voluntarily choose union and not secession. The communists defend the right of the oppressed nationality to complete secession and not necessarily (and it is so in most cases) the secession itself. Therefore in such cases they endeavour, through agitation, propaganda and consciousness-raising work and at the same time as recognising the right of secession, to encourage the toiling masses of the oppressed nationalities not to secede and voluntarily unite. Both of these two aspects of the communist position on the national question in the present conditions, i.e. the recognition of the right of secession of the oppressed nationalities and at the same time the presentation of the proposal of the revolutionary proletariat of Iran to these nationalities not to secede and to choose union, must be mentioned and included in our demands and slogans. The "People's Fedayeen" have put forward none of these principal bases of the Marxist-Leninist position.

The other point is the substitution of the category of "people" for "nationality" in the "manifesto" (and the major section of the communist movement too formulates the question in this manner). If "people" embodies a more limited meaning than "nationality" (it leaves out the bourgeoisie or other strata, for instance), then the "People's Fedayeen" have departed from the Leninist position on the "right of nations", in the manner of formulation of the question. By this way of formulation they have determined for the oppressed nationality the composition of those who decide on the matter of "secession or union", of their own accord. The example of the initial attitude of the communist movement towards the Democratic Party in the non-Kurdish regions, is a good example of departure from the Leninist position of the right of nations. While Komala, as the consistent revolutionary force in Kurdistan, was in coalition with the Democratic Party and naturally believed in voting rights for the Democratic Party and its supporters, a large section of the communist movement was calling this party as "anti-people" and even in some cases the "greatest enemy of the Kursish people's interests" (we are not concerned here with the truth or falseness of this verdict). If at the same juncture the revolutionary strength of the Kurdish people was able to compel the Islamic Republic regime into a free referendum in Kurdistan over the question of autonomy, would those non-Kurdish communists who were talking merely of the rights of "peoples" to self-determination, and did not consider the Democrats "within the people", demand the prevention of their participation in the democratic process of self-determination, or for instance the cancellation of the votes of the supporters of the Democratic Party?! Let us sum up our discussion and leave its elaboration to another occasion: The Leninist position of the right of nations at the same time means that we also recognise the determination of the ins and outs of the democratic process of self-determination and the participants in it as the right of the dominated nationality and the forces organising its revolutionary movement. This is the right of the Kurdish nationality to determine its destiny, but it is the right and duty of the communists, Kurdish and non-Kurdish, to persuade the "Kurdish people", through agitation, propaganda and consciousness-raising work, to use its right in such a way that its destiny is entrusted into its own hands.

After putting forward the demands concerning the regime and the democratic political rights, a communist minimum programme deals with the minimum economic demands of the proletariat. This section includes that collection of demands that communists put forward to "safeguard the working class from physical and moral deterioration in order to develop its strength for conducting the class struggle". The "People's Fedayeen" do not put forward many workers' demands in their "manifesto". Such demands, in the strict sense of the word, are confined in the "manifesto" to the demand of "40 hours work and two days off during the week in addition to one month's annual holiday" which is a principled demand and a relatively precise formulation (and in our opinion the specification for the necessity of the consecutiveness of the two days off is necessary). Considering that the comrades themselves have not presented this "manifesto" as their comprehensive minimum demands, we do not discuss the details of the workers' economic demands which in our view the "People's Fedayeen" must be demanding as a part of the communist movement, and merely stress the necessity of the elucidation and agitation of the other points of workers' economic demands (The demand concerning unemployment which is mentioned in the "manifesto" belongs, in our opinion, to the welfare and general section and we shall examine it in its place). Instead of these missing clauses, the "manifesto" puts forward the following two points:

"Factories must be under the control and supervision of workers organised in workers' soviets. Not only must the factories and establishments belonging to dependent capitalists be put under the control of the workers and the workers' soviets, but also must the material means and the necessary facilities for turning the wheels of production be placed under the control of workers' soviets".

And;

"The workers who form an immense force by whose powerful hands the wheels of the country's economy are turned, must be material] and morally fully secured. Capitalism must no longer stand over the workers and the spectre of poverty and unemployment must not loom over their lives".

In a "manifesto" where no word has been said of socialism, the party, the question of seizing the political power by the proletariat and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the necessity of the leadership of the working class in the democratic revolution, the connection of the victory of this revolution with the provision of the grounds for the move towards socialism, of any of these, suddenly the People's Fedayeen demand that "capitalism must not stand over the workers" and the elimination of the spectre of poverty and unemployment! The economic overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the economic domination of the proletariat through the workers' soviets, have been put forward separate from the political overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its important requirements. Is this a kind of putting forward socialism?

Is it meant by these remarks in the "manifesto" that capitalism as a system and capitalists as a class must be removed from "over the workers"? Are these the parts and contents of the maximum programme of the communists that have been inserted into the "manifesto" in such a defective, out of context and timid way? If this is the case, i.e. if what the comrades mean from the above remarks is the abolition of capitalist production, then we are faced with the clear and explicit example of "socialism in factory" or anarcho-socialism and anarcho-syndicalism. But if the comrades mean that capitals are nationalised and the capitalists are removed from over the workers in the factory precinct in the strict sense of the term - without the destruction, without the expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a class - we must say that the "People's Fedayeen" have turned into their aim that which the process of accumulation and centralization of capital and the extension of the bourgeois state in the organisation of production itself is tending towards. In that case the "People's Fedayeen" have at most become reformers and preachers for the bourgeoisie.

But considering the reference of the "manifesto" to categories and concepts such as "the destruction of dependence", "entrusting control and supervision of production to soviets and the provision of material means and the necessary facilities for these soviets for turning the wheels of production" and "capitalism must no longer stand over the workers and the spectre of poverty and unemployment must not loom over their lives", it seems that the "People's Fedayeen" too have become trapped in that famous circle of populism in which we had previously found Razmandegan{6} and Rah-e-Kargar{7} in contention with one another and we gave a detailed account of the story{8}. This is the very circle whose centre is the thesis of the non-capitalist way of development and its circumference the utopia of national and independent capitalism. The elimination of poverty without socialism, the elimination of unemployment without socialism, the non-presence of the capitalist over the workers without socialism,... As we have shown in detail in the articles of "Razmandegan and Rah-e-Kargar, Struggle ..." (These articles have been published as a separate pamphlet) this is the paradox of those who back down from the maximum programme, socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat and hence in order to demarcate themselves from bourgeois reformism they insert parts of these maximum aims in the midst of their demands from the democratic revolution so that "their radicalism is satisfied". But Leninism demands that whenever we speak to the workers about the termination of poverty, unemployment and the hardships of the capitalist system, we must point out to them the necessity of the communist party and the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat and whenever we put forward minimum demands, we must show the role that these demands play in the organisation of the struggle for the victory of a democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat and the realization of the preconditions of socialism. Leninism requires of us to conduct two simultaneous struggles based on these two specific parts of the programme (maximum and minimum). But populism mixes and takes the mean of the two parts of the programme, the two simultaneous bases of the struggle and in the final analysis, the two revolutions. A popular revolution with popular aims and having popular motive forces, is all of that which according to the populists, terminates all the hardships of the capitalist system once and for all; and at the same time it has this property that it is not exactly socialism itself: And this is palatable to those forces who view the continuation and the course of the class struggle inside the people's front, both today and on the morrow of the victory of the democratic revolution, as a nightmare. After the democratic revolution, let us suspend the class struggle or, at least, make it more polite. Let us ask ourselves, to which class does this demand belong? The socialist proletariat who seeks in the democratic revolution only favourable grounds for its next move? Or the democratic Petty bourgeoisie who achieves in this revolution all of what it wants? Undoubtedly this latter - popular socialism - is the revolutionary theory of the petty bourgeoisie. The "People Fedayeen" make out of the demand for soviets and their control and supervision over production and distribution, not a slogan for the development of the class struggle - which is a political struggle - but a slogan for starting the wheels of production. The comrades must make clear what specific demarcation the) have with the role and place of the soviets in the petty bourgeois dreams of "Father Taleghani and the People's Mojahedin?

We should emphasise right here that we accept the slogan of the formation of real workers' soviets and also the slogan of workers' control over production and distribution as revolutionary and principled action slogans at this juncture of the class struggle. But we have in our mind these soviets, not for starting the wheels of production by themselves and the workers' control, not for turning the workers into unpaid managers of the capitalist and the state, but as instruments which at this definite juncture of the revolution, shape and unify the struggle of the proletariat for [certain} aspects of its minimum demands (political and economic); and thereby these slogans are placed, not in the minimum demands but in the collection of agitational slogans which organise the struggle. To what extent and under what conditions the soviets, for the realization of these demands, start the wheels of production (refer, for example, to the editorial of "Against Unemployment" no.5){9} or impede it, or to what extent the workers' control, for instance, is tantamount to the management of the work of production and distribution of commodities or interference in the work of production and distribution, carried out by the capitalists and state, and to the advantage of the proletariat, is a question that must be precisely defined and determined in every specific case with a view to its role in escalating the workers' struggles - struggles which attain their zenith only in a victorious insurrection. Otherwise, i.e. in the event of putting forward the question of soviets and control over production and distribution from the angle of starting the wheels of production in general, it is Anarcho-Syndicalism, or fuelling the illusions of the workers in the possibility of the economic victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie without firstly seizing the political power.

And finally, the minimum part of a communist programme includes demands which t revolutionary proletariat presents in interest of its allies in the democratic revolution, in order to attract them to the revolutionary struggle under its leadership and for creating the most favourable grounds for the development of the class struggle in the city and countryside. In our present conditions, and taking into account the significance of the vast stratum of the urban petty bourgeoisie and also the linking of the question of general welfare with the role of the state, such demands can be put forward as a whole under general demands. In this field, the "manifesto" has put forward a number of demands some of which following in the foot steps of the general populist spirit of the "manifesto", have important defects and deviations, and we refer to these briefly:

"The People's Fedayeen say: unemployment, which is the incurable illness of the capitalist system and today millions of the toiling compatriots of our country have become the victims of this destructive calamity, must be eradicated and jobs must be created for the people. This is not possible unless the dependent capitalist system, and along with it, the capitalists who have sucked the blood of workers and toilers, is overthrown".

This is once again, either the timid presentation of "socialism" without mentioning it or the illusion of the possibility of eliminating unemployment by a "revolutionary government". With respect to the above text (the destruction of dependent capitalism and the capitalists who...) it seems more likely that the first case is correct. (If it is anything else, i.e. if the People's Fedayeen's "revolutionary government" sees to "national" state capitalism, then let us say in one sentence that unemployment is the incurable illness of any kind of capitalism and nothing can be done by any state that rests on this capitalism, or goes along with it, however "revolutionary" it may be, to "eradicate unemployment"). If the comrades truly believe that unemployment is the incurable illness of capitalism, then they must explicitly consider socialism as the final solution of the question and declare this truth in this same manner to the masses of workers and toilers (the point is not over "sincerity", but on the revolutionary need of the proletariat to know the truths of the capitalist society). The demand that the "revolutionary government" - which is not obvious as a result of which revolutionary struggle it has come to power and the state of which class or classes it is - eradicates unemployment, is a completely eclectic and ambiguous demand which has no other property (leaving aside the fact that it shows to the masses that the "People's Fedayeen" are against unemployment - and who claims to be supporting it?!) than to fuel the illusions of the masses on the possibility of destroying poverty and unemployment in the various kinds of "revolutionary", "Towheedee"{10}, progressive, "Islamic", etc, governments and to make them appear needless of socialism. Against this vague demand, we must stand for securing the livelihood of the unemployed at the expense of the bourgeoisie, and this is formulated in the best way in the payment of unemployment benefit to the unemployed. But that agitational slogan that can in the best way bring under one banner the struggle of the workers for defending the standard of living of the unemployed and its imposition on the pocket of the bourgeoisie, and more importantly for uniting the ranks of the working class and the escalation of the class struggle, is the slogan of forming the workers' unity against unemployment. In this same issue{11} we have dealt with this slogan, and the collection of the positions of the "Committee to Form "Workers' Unity Against Unemployment" published in the various issues of the paper. "Against Unemployment", includes and reflects our discussion on and our criticism of "What the People's Fedayeen Say" on the question of unemployment.

On the question of high prices, the "People's Fedayeen" display the same ambiguity and eclecticism once again. In this particular case, they initially regard high prices as stemming from the role and function of private merchant's capital and as a remedy, they put forward the nationalisation of foreign trade, the control of foreign trade by the "revolutionary government" and the exclusion of "parasites, capitalists, bully merchants and middlemen" from the foreign trade. We shall not repeat the old discussion on the class nature of the revolutionary government, about which the "manifesto" is silent. We merely point out that, firstly, the nationalisation of foreign trade, within the framework of the capitalist system, has no other meaning than the centralization of merchant's capital in the hands of the state; secondly, this measure does not solve the problem of high prices, but merely, and then probably - depending on the relative expenses of its execution alleviates it to a certain degree. The question of high prices too, like unemployment, is the incurable illness of capitalism - but at the present stage, and with respect to the new role of credit in the realization of the value of commodities. and the accumulation of capital. In this sense, not merely private merchant's capital, but the accumulation of capital and the problem of the realization of the value of commodities as a whole, are the cause and origin of high prices. The "manifesto" instigates the masses only against the private merchant's capital. This is the firm position of the industrial bourgeoisie which recently the deputy-manager of the Central Bank, and before him many economists of the Islamic Republic too, insisted on and still do, and its practical meaning is this: the more centralized merchant's capital becomes, each unit of commodity is distributed (reaches the final consumer) at a lower cost and the realization of the value of commodities is accomplished with less expenses; this too, in its turn, allows the final price, because of the diminution of the share of merchant's capital from the whole of the surplus-value produced in the sphere of production, to be a little less than what it is at present (if the other factors do not change). "[If] they reduce the mercantile profit in unit commodity, the prices can become slightly less, without reducing the profits of industrial capital". This is the way for reducing the rise in prices and not for preventing their rise as a whole. But the interesting point is that the "manifesto" which is so intensely for the exclusion of middlemen and for the centralization of trade, suddenly changes position and attributes inflation more specifically to "hoarding" in order that it can pull clear the petty tradesmen from under the weight of the "guilt" of creating inflation (as middlemen). There is no doubt on the necessity of the conditional support of the proletariat to the petty tradesmen, but to innovate economic theory for this purpose is not permissible. (Hoarding increases the price of some commodities for a while, but high prices cannot be explained on the basis of hoarding). The very vast stratum of mercantile petty bourgeoisie, too, lives on the difference between the wholesale price and the retail price, i.e., it mediates between production and consumption; and the total quantity of the revenue that is received by this section, despite the small share of each its units, is even greater than the total volume of income in the wholesale section of the inland trade (Refer for instance, to the "National Year-Book of Statistics - 1976", pp. 451-52). At the same time as exposing all the usual and "extraordinary" measures of the capitalists (including hoarding) for gaining ever greater profit at the expense of imposing on ever more arduous life on the shoulders of the masses, and along with the conditional support to the petty tradesmen the communists must explain high prices as one of the inseparable consequences of capitalism as a whole, to workers and toilers and propagate socialism as its only decisive solution. The most important specific defensive instrument of the proletariat against high prices in the framework of the capitalist system is the increase in wages in proportion to the rate of inflation which the "manifesto" unfortunately, by its silence on the workers' economic demands, has not dealt with.

And finally the "People's Fedayeen" who in the case of artisans and tradesmen have put forward the demand for the abrogation of their debts, have missed out this basic demand in their demands for peasants. Moreover, the question of the confiscation of the land of landowners, has been put forward in isolation from the question of "peasant soviets and unions" (or at least their connection has not been specified at all in the "manifesto"), whereas in our view, the demand of the communists must be to legitimize and recognise the confiscation of lands and property by these soviets and unions in the different regions. This is that manner of formulation of the question which presents it not merely and essentially from the angle of the improvement of the living conditions of the peasants or the increase of agricultural production, but from the angle of the development of the class struggle in the countryside and the reinforcement of its democratic outcome, in the sphere of politics, against the bourgeois state and big landed property. For our more detailed discussion on this question we refer comrades to the pamphlet "Communists and the Peasant Movement After the Imperialist Solution of the Agrarian Question in Iran" (March 1980).
 

2) The "Manifesto", reflection of a deviationist understanding of the relation between democracy and socialism.

To observe the manifesto's incorrect understanding of the relation between democracy and socialism for the revolutionary proletariat, it is better to start from the explanation of the restrictive and petty bourgeois character of the basic political demands projected in there:

"The People's Fedayeen say: the freedom of political activity must be secured for all the revolutionary and progressive parties, organisations, groups and societies which defend the interests of the people".

"The People's Fedayeen say: the freedom of belief and speech, freedom of press and publications, freedom of assembly, demonstrations, rallies and meetings and the right to strike and to organise soviets, unions and syndicates, must be secured for the people". (The emphasis is ours)

And now let us compare this with the corresponding articles in the political section of the minimum demands of the Bolsheviks in 1917:

"The constitution of the Russian democratic republic must ensure [the following points):
....
2) Universal, equal, and direct suffrage for all citizens, men and women, who have reached the age of twenty, in the election to the legislative assembly and to the various bodies of local self-government
....
5) Unrestricted freedom of conscience, speech, the press, assembly, strikes, and association.
....
7) Abolition of the social estates; equal rights for all citizens irrespective of sex, creed, or nationality".

(The Revision of the Party Programme, Lenin Collected Works Vol. 24, pp. 471-472, our emphases).

Apart from the differences existing in the formulation of the demands of the "manifesto" and the "Bolsheviks' Programme" (and there is nothing at all wrong with this by itself), one fundamental point distinguishes what the Bolsheviks are saying from what the People's Fedayeen are saying. The People's Fedayeen demand basic political liberties for the "people and the forces who defend the interests of the people", and the Bolsheviks stand for unrestricted freedom of conscience, speech, organisation and so on, and the right of all citizens (country's subjects) to enjoy these liberties. For anyone who does not think mechanically and conceive that the day after the democratic revolution the whole of bourgeois population will be thrown into the sea or imprisoned hence limiting "citizens" to "people and the forces who defend the people", this comparison between the "manifesto" and the "Bolsheviks' Programme" raises important questions: what has happened? Is the negligence on the part of Lenin and the Bolsheviks? Did they, who have been the most experienced leaders of the proletariat in the whole of history, not know so much about politics to realize that the bourgeoisie and counter-revolution will also benefit from these rights? Does this not suggest the inattention of Lenin and the Bolsheviks who have even gone further and declared that the "Russian democratic republic (i.e. the government of workers and peasants) will ensure these rights"? Were they not aware that "it is better to demand freedom only for "people and the forces who defend the people" so that it is not taken advantage of by the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and its various associations, the Black Hundreds, the Cadets, the liberal professors and even the Mensheviks who in 1917 had already openly joined the bourgeoisie, and so on? Is not the "manifesto" of "What the People's Fedayeen Say", and the novel formulation of political freedom for "people and those who defend the interests of the people", truly a document going further than Lenin and the Bolsheviks and all the hitherto existing minimum programme of the communists, in the realm of political vigilance and love for toilers and their interests, and should we not commend the "People's Fedayeen" along with the major section of the communist movement of Iran, for this new programmatic achievement and this correction, instead of Bolshevism?!

No, the fault is not on the part of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and the classical formulations of the minimum programme. This novelty is another manifestation of the domination of populism in our communist movement. In this article we try to briefly deal with this point and leave the detailed and the very necessary discussion of it to the near future.

At first sight it seems that beyond the formulation of freedom "for the people and the forces who defend the people" in the manifesto, there lies a proletarian good intention: Let us deprive the bourgeoisie of freedom; is this not a demand of every communist? Yes, this has been and is the demand of every communist and the demand of Lenin and the Bolsheviks more than anybody else. The political activity of the bourgeoisie means its activity in the deception and suppression of the proletariat, means its attempt to maintain and consolidate the bases of the wage-labour slavery of large masses; and if the class struggle of the proletariat did not have the suppression and the deprivation of freedom of the bourgeoisie as its aim, it would not be called a class struggle. But where does the problem lie and why is it that Lenin and the Bolsheviks, like other communist demand, in their minimum programme unconditional political activity and the right of all citizens to it? The answer to the question lies in the Leninist understanding of the relation between democracy and socialism in the general strategy of the revolutionary proletariat. Lenin and the Bolsheviks drew a very clear line between proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. Proletarian democracy is the other side of the proletarian dictatorship. This is the democracy which Lenin calls "democracy for the poor" ("Renegade Kautsky") and regards it the product of the development of democratism and the expansion of the democratic rights of the masses of people - the oppressed majority of the society This process of development is no other than the replacement of new forms of democracy relying on the dictatorship of the proletariat for bourgeois democracy and its various forms.

"But from this capitalist democracy - that is inevitably narrow and stealthily pushes aside the poor, and is therefore hypocritical and false through and through - forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly, towards "greater and greater democracy", as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., development towards communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way.

"And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is n no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence. ...

"Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people - this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism."

(Lenin, The State and Revolution)

Thus we see that the struggle for democracy that the manifesto of "What the People's Fedayeen Say" is promising, i.e., the struggle for "democracy for the poor" (or the proletarian democracy), is nothing else than the entirety of the class struggle of the proletariat for the seizure of political power and for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a struggle that is advanced in a variety of forms and in the various arenas. The suppression and the denial of freedom for the bourgeoisie is the product of the victory of the proletariat in a politico-practical struggle that the proletariat pursues in order to smash the state machinery of the bourgeoisie and to gain political power. Therefore, it is clear that to promise and demand democracy for the people and denial of freedom for the bourgeoisie, has no other meaning than to demand and promise the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the dictatorship of one class and one class only. The maximum programme of the communists declares this without any concealment and enumerates its material and practical requirements: the expansion of the class struggle in various forms, internationalism and the communist party. To demand and promise "democracy for the people" in the absence of the dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing but the concealment of the independent interests of one class and complete apostasy in the theory of programme.

But where is the place of bourgeois democracy for the communists:

"Bourgeois democracy was progressive compared with medievalism, and it had to be utilised. But now it is not sufficient for the working class. Now we must look forward instead of backward - to replacing the bourgeois democracy by proletarian democracy. And while the preparatory work for the proletarian revolution, the formation and training of the proletarian army were possible (and necessary) within the framework of the bourgeois-democratic state, now that we have reached the stage of "decisive battles", to confine the proletariat to this framework means betraying the cause of the proletariat, means being a renegade."

(Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. Double emphasis is ours, the rest is in the original).

We have discussed in detail, in other texts of the group, the relation between bourgeois democracy and the creation (and provision) of the grounds and preconditions of the final move of the proletariat towards socialism, the move towards "replacing the bourgeois democracy by proletarian democracy". The above quotation clearly explains the place of the ever more complete bourgeois democracy as the conditions under which the proletarian revolution must be prepared. The bourgeois democracy, even its most developed type, is not what the proletariat has illusions about, and which the proletariat promises to the masses as the favourable political conditions, but:

"We are in favour of a democratic republic as the best form of the state for the proletariat under capitalism. But we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic. Furthermore, every state is a 'special force' for the suppression of the oppressed class, consequently, every state is not 'free' and not a 'people's state'."

(Lenin, The State and Revolution)

Therefore, the question is clear. The democracy the proletariat promises to the oppressed majority of society, i.e., proletarian democracy or "democracy for the poor" and suppression for the bourgeoisie, is the other face of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the other face of the seizure of political power by the proletariat, as one class and one class only; this is the clear meaning that the maximum programme of the communists provides. And that democracy which the proletariat fights for in the period of capitalism and in order to prepare the proletarian revolution, is a bourgeois democracy that has been expanded to the last possible degree, a democratic republic which, while "we have no right to forget" that it cannot replace the dictatorship of the proletariat, we consistently fight for its achievement as the instrument facilitating the struggle of the proletariat for the seizure of political power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The determination of the practical content of this most democratic form of republic in the "period of capitalism" is the task of our minimum programme. So, where Lenin and the Bolsheviks are speaking of the political freedom of "all citizens" in the minimum programme, they have in view this aspect of the problem. In the maximum part, they have presented to the masses the requirements for the realization of proletarian democracy and outlined the way to struggle for them; and in the minimum programme they only mention the collection of democratic conditions which, while they cannot be proletarian democracy, will impose on the bourgeoisie, despite its will, the most expanded form of democracy and prepare the conditions for the mobilization of the proletariat. Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not cherish the illusion, and also did not fuel this illusion, that without establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, the imposition of "democracy for the people and the people only" was possible in a democratic republic, and at the same time they reflected in their minimum demands their consistency in the realization of the most democratic political regime in the period of capitalism.

But what does the manifesto do? Here too we clearly see the populist method of taking the mean of the two maximum and minimum parts of the programme, taking the mean of the two simultaneous democratic and socialist revolutions and struggles of the proletariat. The political demands of the manifesto speak of democracy for the people without saying a word about the dictatorship of the proletariat, on which this democracy must rely. The manifesto, as it had done with the economic and welfare demands, here too mixes the two parts of the Marxist-Leninist programme. Our minimum demands do not present the outlines of proletarian democracy, since this requires the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat which must be declared in the maximum part of the programme, but express the outlines of the most complete from of bourgeois democracy. The lack of understanding of this, is the most fatal weakness of a communist movement which has set its immediate task the leading of a victorious democratic revolution.

But why is populism so inclined to confound these two distinct components of the communist programme? The reason is clear. Populism detaches the cause of socialism from the class struggle of a definite class, i.e., the proletariat, and expects its realization from an above-class movement. Popular socialism fears the conflicts within the "people's front" and in particular conceals the independent interests of the proletariat and its aim for establishing its sole dictatorship. This struggle develops today and will develop behind the scene of the revolutionary-democratic movement, and tomorrow in front of the scene; to cover up this struggle, both today and tomorrow, is the whole desire and art of populism[2]. The revolutionary proletariat precisely distinguishes these two aspects of its struggle in its theory, programme and organisation; the theory of the socialist revolution and the democratic revolution and the relation between these two, the distinction of the maxi mum and minimum programme and the separation of the class party from the democratic revolutionary front, is the reflection of this consciousness of the socialist proletariat of its independent interests and its dual and simultaneous tasks. Hence, the socialist proletariat declares that at the same time as fighting for socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian democracy, it also fights for bourgeois democracy in its most complete form as a facilitating factor of the class struggle; at the same time as fighting for the maximum programme, it also fights for the realization of the minimum programme, and at the same time as organising in its independent class party, it also actively takes part in the front of the revolutionary democratic forces and endeavours to obtain its leadership. Therefore, there is no need for the revolutionary proletariat to conceal the bourgeois-democratic aspect of its transitional and minimum demands. Since, it has declared its opposition to the whole of bourgeois society in the maximum programme and in addition it has revealed its opposition to the treachery of liberalism to the cause of bourgeois democracy, by defining and presenting the most comprehensive democratic demands in its minimum programme - which the bourgeoisie, in particular in the epoch of imperialism, cannot withstand - and by its revolutionary and consistent struggle over these demands.

But for populism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the continuation of the class struggle within the people is a nightmare. Therefore, the proletarian maximum programme must be covered up, there must be no talk of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and all this without the absurdity of the "radicalism" of this petty bourgeois outlook and its connection with the inconsistent petty bourgeois democratism, becoming revealed. What is the solution? "Let us leave out the maximum programme, but make the minimum programme anti-capitalist", "destroy capitalism in a democratic revolution, by relying on the people as a whole". It is for this reason that the manifesto which in the economic section, had, without mentioning socialism and under the auspices of a revolutionary government, destroyed the capitalists, eliminated unemployment, poverty and high prices, and had secured the rule of the workers over the factories, now in the political sphere, establishes in society, democracy for the people and people only (another expression for proletarian democracy), without the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., without the need for turning the proletariat into the ruling class, by the aid of a people's revolutionary government: And this culminates the, spontaneous subordination of the manifesto to the populism dominant in the communist movement.

But the superficiality and the petty bourgeois content of this kind of radicalism does not end here. To put forward democracy "for the people and the forces who defend the interests of the people", as a demand which sees to the rights and liberties of the individuals, parties and political groups, means that this demand, like any other minimum demand, may be presented and used as the basis for mass mobilization, at all times and so long as the dictatorship of the proletariat has not been established and consolidated. That is, not only does the revolutionary government commit itself to its realization, but also this demand may be and must be put before any bourgeois government[3]. Thus, firstly, if we put this demand before a bourgeois government, for example the Islamic Republic regime, what have we done? We have either asked it to accept our definition of "revolutionary and counter-revolutionary" and "people and anti-people"; and this is a baseless and illusion-breeding dream which although was very common before the Uprising, its absurdity must today have become apparent. Besides, does this demand have any more meaning than the bill of the Islamic Majlis which currently is in the process of ratification and is identically published by the Tudeh Party and the [Fedayeen] Majority? This bill too precisely demands the freedom of political activity "only for forces who support the oppressed". And this, by the regime's interpretation, means giving the bourgeoisie a free hand in the suppression of communists and revolutionary democracy. Here, the significance of us demanding a full freedom of political activity for the citizens becomes clear. This formulation eliminates the bourgeoisie of the possibility of any kind of interpretation and distortion and the imposition of any kind of demagogic restrictions against the real camp of revolution, on the part of the bourgeoisie. On the other hand, is it not the case that the communists want freedom precisely for the real and practical education of the masses and for making known to them their real friends and enemies? Is it not in the light of this same struggle for freedom and the overthrow of any kind of despotism that the communists, starting from the existing bourgeois-democratic mentality of the masses of workers and toilers, show to them the necessity of going beyond bourgeois society and the bourgeois democracy and call them to the settling of matters with the whole of this system and the forces supporting it. And if these masses (or at least a considerable section of them) are to be educated in the heart of the struggle for freedom (from [the freedom] of belief and expression to the right to strike, etc.) so that they become convinced of the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the forcible suppression by it of the bourgeoisie and its parties and turn to the communist movement as their politico-organisational instrument, how must they initially realize the legitimacy of the communists so that, then, they insurrect for their freedom of political activity?! This is to demand consciousness before the consciousness. Once again refer to the pamphlet "The Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism". Is not Lenin for showing to the masses of workers, in the light of this same struggle for the most complete form of bourgeois-democratic rights, that the essential problem is, not the bourgeois democracy or despotism, but capitalism itself (refer to Lenin's example about the right of divorce).

Secondly, the "demand" for making freedom and democracy exclusive to "people and the forces who defend the interests of the people", exposes its superficiality, where the legal task of its realization is placed on the shoulders of a "revolutionary government", when compared with Lenin's understanding of the struggle for the political suppression of the bourgeoisie in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin writes:

"As I have already pointed out, the disfranchisement of the bourgeoisie is not a necessary and indispensable feature of the dictatorship for the proletariat. And in Russia, the Bolsheviks, who long before October put forward the slogan of proletarian dictatorship, did not say anything in advance about disfranchising the exploiters. This element of the dictatorship did not make its appearances 'according to the plan' of any particular party; it emerged of itself in the course of the struggle. Of course, Kautsky the historian failed to notice this. He failed to understand that even when the Mensheviks (who compromised with the bourgeoisie) still ruled the Soviets, the bourgeoisie severed itself from the Soviets of its own accord, boycotted them, put itself up in opposition to them and intrigued against them. The Soviets arose without any constitution and existed without one for more than a year (from the spring of 1917 to the summer of 1918). The fury of the bourgeoisie against this independent and omnipotent (because all-embracing) organisation of the oppressed; the fight, the unscrupulous, self-seeking and sordid fight the bourgeoisie waged against the Soviets; and lastly, the overt participation of the bourgeoisie (from the Cadets to the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, from Milyukov to Kerensky) in the Kornilov mutiny, - all this paved the way for the formal exclusion of the bourgeoisie from the Soviets".

(The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky; the Emphases are Lenin's)

In other words, Lenin clearly speaks of the process of depriving the bourgeoisie of political freedom as a politico-practical process which does not have a prior regulation and constitution. It is the class struggle of the proletariat, and the new forms that this struggle provides, that facilitate the suppression of the bourgeoisie and the denial to it of the freedom of political activity. The proletarian democracy that Lenin is speaking of, a democracy that is only for the people, is a democracy based on the specific forms within which the proletariat has been able to expand democracy and found it on such bases which the bourgeoisie itself, by virtue of its nature, remains outside of and boycotts it in the scene of the political fights:

"The Russian proletariat, immediately, a few hours after winning state power, proclaimed the dissolution of the old state apparatus (which as Marx showed, had been for centuries adapted to serve the class interests of the bourgeoisie, even in the most democratic republic) and transferred all power to the Soviets; and only the working class and exploited people could enter the Soviets, all exploiters of every kind were excluded."

(Lenin, The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat).

But what does the manifesto say and want? The manifesto which has put the good intention of the "People's Fedayeen" and of the "revolutionary government" in place of the real class struggle of the proletariat, instead of linking the divesting of the bourgeoisie of freedom, to this class struggle and its multifarious forms, entrusts it straight-away to the "Combat Committee of the Revolutionary Government" so that it would ban the bourgeois parties and forces and prevent the political activity of the anti-people [forces], in accordance with law. The manifesto is not concerned with the class struggle and the various forms and methods in which democracy for the people is expanded and the sphere of activity for the bourgeoisie becomes restricted, forms which appear in the dictatorship of the proletariat (and in the case of the Soviet Union, by reliance on the specific form of Soviet democracy) in the most complete sense, because it is essentially unconcerned with the question of political power. Lenin says that power was transferred to Soviets and the bourgeoisie remained outside them and their enemy and hence it was divested of power and freedom. And the manifesto demands the passing of a law banning the activity of bourgeois parties[4]. Let us ponder on this. The manifesto's idea of restricting democracy to the people through granting the freedom of party political activity to popular forces is nothing other than declaring the bourgeois parties and groups as illegal and suppressing the political activities of the bourgeoisie. But are the parties which defend the interests of any one class, comprised of the members of the same class and with identity cards according to their position in production? Have there not existed, and do there not exist Phalangist, Pan-Islamic, Pan-Iranian, Monarchist, etc, workers' associations which definitely defend the interests of the bourgeoisie? Will the "revolutionary government" ban these? Is not the opportunism and are not the opportunist fractions within the workers' and communist currents, the defenders of the bourgeoisie, and will the "revolutionary government"'s law on the parties rule here too? Divesting the bourgeoisie and the "anti-people", of the freedom of activity, very well; but how will the bourgeoisie operate tomorrow? The Islamic Republic Party, the Freedom Movement, the National Front, the Moslem People's Party, etc, are the organisations of the bourgeoisie and counter-revolution for today; tomorrow they will be openly disgraced, and the masses themselves will demand the trial of their leaders, but the bourgeoisie will have new organisations: the "Republican Party", "Free Workers' Party", "Party of Towheedee Peasants", etc! And, unfortunately, we must say to the populists who have laid their hopes in the revolutionary government and its "law on the parties", that the most effective sphere of struggle for the bourgeoisie and imperialism, on the morrow of the revolution, will be the activity from within the organisational framework of the present allies of the proletariat who will tomorrow become frightened of the perspective of the development of the revolution up to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Anyone who has experienced the movement of the "popular" Khomeini and his role, yesterday in the struggle against the monarchy, and today, in the struggle against proletarian democracy and socialism, will have no choice but to admit the absurdity of putting forward the question of "divesting the bourgeoisie of freedom" in the form of a demand concerning the "narrowing down of freedom to people and and popular forces" - a kind of people and popular forces who can be distinguished before hand - and that, based on the "plan of a certain revolutionary government". This legal-judicial demand, entrusts a matter which precisely our practice of agitation, propaganda and exposure, our actions, the workers' strikes under our leadership, the concrete forms of the imposition of will of the masses which the revolution creates, etc, must provide, to the executive organs of a "revolutionary government" and its "laws and constitution". Lenin speaks of the transformation of a type of democracy (bourgeois democracy) into another type (proletarian democracy on the basis of the seizure of political power by the proletariat and the new forms of the democratic imposition of will of the masses, and considers this the basis of proletarian democracy, and the manifesto, the perspective of whose democratism, goes no further than the establishment of a "revolutionary government", demands that, by preserving and making conditional this same bourgeois democracy, parliamentarism without permission to the bourgeoisie to enter the parliament, the bourgeoisie's political activity be prevented! There is no doubt that the legal denial by the proletarian state of the bourgeois parties political freedom, is one of the instruments of the proletariat in power in divesting the bourgeoisie of political activity; but this legal and constitutional deprivation can only be the legal and constitutional integument of the reality, the means of realization of which, the class struggle has prepared and consolidated in practice. However, the illusion which bases the process of divesting the bourgeoisie of freedom upon the legal aspect of the problem, is nothing but viewing the dictatorship of the proletariat through the spectacles of bourgeois parliamentarism in particular, and of bourgeois liberalism, in general.

Anyway, we draw the discussion to a close here and content ourselves with mentioning the point that our discussion on the critique of the populist formulation of the minimum demands (and especially the political section of these demands), is not an ideological discussion over the coincidence or non-coincidence of such formulation with Marxist-Leninist principles. The discussion is over the point that the populist theory, programme and slogans, prevent the proletariat not only from socialism but from leading a victorious democratic revolution. Popular socialism is another manifestation of inconsistent petty bourgeois democratism and today on the verge of the re-escalation of the revolution, the rejection of populist views and thoughts from the communist movement, considering the decisive role that the purging of this movement can play in the victory or defeat of the revolution, acquires a vital importance. The capitulation of the communist movement to the populist programme in the democratic revolution, is all of what the liberal-bourgeoisie needs, so that by taking advantage of the vacuum of proletarian consistent democratism and its programmatic (and hence, agitational and organisational) expression, it once again successfully plays its role in driving the mass movement to the abattoir and the consolidation of the bases of the political domination of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Hence we dealt with the 4-page manifesto of the comrades of the "Organisation of People's Fedayeen" in detail, and , at the same time as recognising its gains in the sphere of the promotion of the form of propaganda in the communist movement, endeavoured to give a principled attitude on the basic limitations and deviations of its content and substance. We hope that the comrades too deal actively with our criticism of the manifesto.


Extracted from Besooy-e-Sosyalism (Towards Socialism) No. 4

Foot notes

[2] As one of the latest examples of the appearance of such populist illusions in the communist movement of Iran, we refer the comrades to the following quotation from the Theoretical Supplement of Razmandegan No. 43: "The People's Democratic Republic, consisting of the popular strata, whose sovereignty is under the leadership of the proletariat, also, has a bourgeois content, but here because of the coincidence of the direction of movement of the society [!?] with the direction of the historical movement of the proletariat which is at the head of this rule, the whole of the conditions for socialism [note, socialism and not the struggle towards it] is prepared. Democracy develops, the industry develops in various fields, the society becomes a single whole [that is, class differences and antagonism disappear?!] in which the movement of the government corresponds with the interests of the proletariat and all the oppressed classes [and it does not matter if these interests themselves do not correspond to one another!] and (they) move towards socialism, and it is clear that under these conditions, struggle against such a government because it still preserves a kind of capitalist relations, is nothing but pure Anarchism"!

It is precisely addressing these preachers of the "unity of word" {a catch-phrase of Khomeini -Ed}, that Lenin writes:

"… from the democratic revolution we shall at once, and precisely in accordance with the measure of our strength, the strength of the class-conscious and organised proletariat, begin to pass to the socialist revolution. We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We shall not stop half-way."

The immediate start of the struggle for socialism, and that in Tsarist Russia where if the democratic revolution were victorious the democracy and "industry", etc, could develop and expand far more and greater than our present society: And that under conditions where in the event of the victory of the revolution, using the non-Marxist language of Razmandegan, the "direction of movement of society" would be placed in greater and fuller correspondence to the "direction of the historical movement of the proletariat"! We suggest that the comrades settle accounts with such Anarchist verdicts as soon as possible!

[3] In reply to Smirnov and Bukharin who in 1917 were demanding that the minimum programme must be discarded, Lenin writes:

"Take the minimum programme in the political sphere. This programme is limited to the bourgeois republic. We add that we do not confine ourselves to its limits, we start immediately upon a struggle for a higher type of republic, a Soviet Republic. This we must do… But the minimum programme should under no circumstance be discarded, for, first of all, there is as yet no Soviet Republic; secondly, 'attempts at restoration' [of the bourgeoisie] are not out of the question, and they will first have to be experienced and vanquished; thirdly, during the transition from the old to the new there may be temporary 'combined types' - for instance a Soviet Republic together with a Constituent Assembly. Let us first get over all that then it will be time to discard the minimum programme."
(Lenin, Revision of the Party Programme, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p.172).

[4] The complete example of this petty bourgeois method of approach to the question of proletarian democracy, can be found in the pamphlet "The Manifesto of Announcement of Unity, and policy and Programme", by the Communist Group of Nabard, September 1980. This group's platform on the parties has been written, it seems, not for the militant vanguards of a class, but for the purpose of rejection or ratification in the "commission of the freedom of parties" of the future revolutionary government; and instead of elucidating the tasks of the proletariat on the manner and method of confrontation with these parties, it has prepared a list of free and banned parties for a commission of the above type! Also, if we look carefully, we see that this method of approach has fully, and in a much more glaring way than the People's Fedayeen's manifesto, appeared in the other democratic demands of Communist Group of Nabard, too; to such an extent that it has also demanded the "free-do of religion" and "security" for the people and revolutionary forces! (Refer to pages 19-21). In other words, in the revolutionary republic of the comrades, breaking the [religious] fast in public, in the bourgeois areas , would be subjects to religious laws and the "revolutionary government" would refuse to commission popular policemen, night watchmen and traffic directors for the maintenance of security and order and the prevention of crimes in the bourgeois localities!! This is not exaggeration or distortion, but the real meaning and logic of this petty bourgeois and short-sighted perception of democracy, which also the Islamic Republic government refers to, in order not to pay the material and life compensation of the "Unfaithful" people in Kurdistan and the war-stricken regions and to prevent the employment of the Unfaithful individuals, and even the handicapped, in factories, offices, etc. You see, the Islamic Republic too stands for "democracy and security for the Moslems and dictatorship for' the infidels".

Translators' notes

{1} Fedaeen-e-Khalgh

{2} Besooy-e-Sosyalism, No.4 -Ed.

{3} A sham debate within the officials of the Islamic Republic regime on whether it is the "faith in Islam" or "expert technical knowledge" that should determine the suitability of those that are to be appointed to governmental positions -Ed.

{4} Literally, the Army of Protectors or the so-called Revolutionary-Guards which was set up by the Islamic Republic regime after the February Uprising in 1979.

{5} A propaganda slogan of the regime used in order to claim that they are able to organise 20 million people to defend the Islamic regime against "foreign aggression" -Ed.

{6} "Fighters": the short name of the "Organisation of Razmandegan on the Path to Emancipate the Working Class" -Ed.

{7} "Worker's Path" -Ed.

{8} See issue No. 4 of the present series: "A Discussion About the Content of the Victory of the Democratic Revolution of Iran" -Ed.

{9} The paper of the "Committee to Form Workers' Unity Against Unemployment", a committee founded by the UCM and in which the UCM has played an active role -Ed.

{10} An equalitarian state which, according to Muslims, can be built on Islamic tenets -Ed.

{11} Issue No. 4 of "Besooy-e-Sosyalism" -Ed.