“It doesn’t matter to me if I die. If my country is set right by my death, I am content.”

"I am not scared. I have been dead for 47 years."¹

—Iranian protesters defying violent regime repression 

Breaking News, Saturday, January 10: News agencies are reporting that protesters may have been massacred today by the hated Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). 

On December 28, 2025, mass protests broke out in Iran against the widely hated IRI. The immediate spark was a steep drop in the value of Iran’s currency and practically daily jumps in prices for everyday items, making it near impossible for millions of Iranians to survive. In the 16 days since then, these righteous protests have defied escalating repression and grown to involve tens of thousands (if not many, many more) in over 100 cities and all 31 Iranian provinces.

In the face of the ongoing and growing protests that began on December 28, early today the blood-soaked IRI escalated its threats against overwhelmingly unarmed demonstrators. It warned any who took to the streets would be considered “enemies of God” and subject to the death penalty if they promoted “foreign domination” or “betrayed the nation and creating insecurity.” In other words, for protesting against Iran’s reactionary Islamic fundamentalist theocracy, and any or all of the countless crimes and outrages it has inflicted on the Iranian people in its 47-year existence. 

The Israeli paper Haaretz (in conjunction with the Associated Press and the Reuters news agency) reported: “With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. While the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said that at least 72 people have been killed—with over 2,300 others detained—one doctor told Time Magazine that hospitals in Tehran have recorded at least 217 protester deaths, ‘most by live ammunition.’ Doctors who spoke to the BBC described hospitals as ‘overwhelmed’ with wounded patients.”

Varying numbers are being reported, but no matter the exact death toll, this bloody suppression is yet another screaming outrage carried out by this savage regime. And it is taking place in the wake of Trump’s repeated fascist threats to attack Iran, and new reports that Trump “has been briefed in recent days on new options for military strikes in Iran.” 

The IRI and the fascist Trump regime are both reactionary regimes, which pose grave dangers to the people of Iran and the world. Yet to be crystal clear (and as we analyze below), the greater danger by far remains the nuclear-armed, fascist Trump and his genocidal regime. These events again underscore the urgency and responsibility of all of us in the U.S. to step up the struggle to remove his fascist regime from power.

Background: The Spark That Ignited a Tsunami of Protest 

This massive outpouring, the largest since the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022, is being fueled by the deep fault lines that run throughout Iranian society. This includes the regime’s brutal, medieval oppression of women, systematic discrimination and suppression of Iran’s minority nationalities and religions; vicious capitalist exploitation; and the suffocating ideology, morality and repression imposed by Iran’s fascist Islamic fundamentalist theocracy.²

At the root of all these outrages is global capitalism-imperialism’s continuing and overall domination of Iran. Recently this has been intensified by the massive Israeli and U.S. military assault on Iran this past June, and in recent days Trump’s (and Israel’s) threats to attack Iran again. This is supposedly to protect protesters, but in reality Trump’s goal is to more deeply dominate and control Iran and its people.³

“Down with Dictatorship,” “Freedom, freedom, freedom”

Waves of street protests, labor strikes, marches, confrontations with security forces and other forms of protest have spread across Iran, from its capital Tehran, to other large cities, to the far corners of this country of 90 million. Middle class merchants have shuttered their shops, unions and others have gone on strike.

The International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC) reports: 

Thousands of students from dozens of universities have joined the struggle, bringing demands for political freedoms, chanting “Down with Dictatorship”, “Down with Khamenei”, “Freedom, freedom, freedom” and, in a few cases, women students waving their headscarves in defiance of compulsory headscarf laws.

Seven Kurdish organizations issued a call for a general strike in Kurdistan on January 8 in support of the nationwide uprising. This call was taken up by other oppressed nationalities, particularly in Balochistan, in a strike by oil workers, and protests by retirees, teachers and cultural workers.

Defying State Violence and Repression

The protests have grown and spread in the face of violent repression and threats by the Islamic Republic.⁴

On Friday, January 9, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini denounced protesters as traitors doing Israel's and America’s dirty work. State television warned that citizens would risk their lives if they joined the protests. And the government shut down virtually all forms of communication, “shuttering the internet, blocking telephone calls from abroad and disrupting domestic cellphone service in an effort to prevent the protesters from organizing and sending news outside the country,” the New York Times reported. 

Yet the protests that followed that Friday night were larger, more defiant, and increasingly targeting the hated regime itself. 

Fascist Trump—and Israel—Threaten to Attack Iran 

Donald Trump’s fascist regime vilifies protesters in this country as “domestic terrorists,” sometimes kills them in cold blood, and is hell bent on wiping out all opposition. Now, a few months after bombing Iran and killing dozens of innocent people, Trump has suddenly decided he’s concerned about Iranian protesters. 

Shortly after the protests began, Trump threatened Iran’s rulers that if they killed protesters, the U.S. would attack again: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” If the IRI tried to violently crush the protests, “we’re going to hit them very hard,” Trump warned on January 8.

The notion that Trump cares about the people of Iran is beyond obscene. The sanctions imposed by Trump, including some that prevent the import of life-saving medicines, helped cripple Iran’s economy and have inflicted tremendous suffering on the Iranian people. And for decades, U.S. imperialism has threatened, surrounded, and attacked Iran—directly and indirectly.

These fascist threats may be obscene but they’re also deadly serious, as Trump has shown in Venezuela and elsewhere. He isn’t aiming to liberate the Iranian people, he’s aiming to further enslave them under U.S. imperialist domination, possibly by overthrowing the Islamic Republic, at this moment of weakness.⁵

Trump’s close ally Lindsay Graham recently warned that Trump would “kill” Iran’s ruler Ayatollah Khameini if his regime continued murdering protesters. Israel’s former defense minister has urged the Netanyahu government to seize on the protests and Iran’s current crisis and weakness to attack and topple the regime, arguing this “historic opportunity” may not return again. 

The revolutionary women’s organization Osyan summed up, “For us, it is clear that such support from genocidal forces and fascists means leading the freedom of the Iranian people to the slaughterhouse. Therefore, we loudly declare that our just struggles against the Islamic regime provides no justification whatsoever for your political or military interventions! Hands off Iran!” 

Real Danger of Wider War 

The Islamic Republic has responded to Trump’s threats with defiance. Khamenei declared Iran “will not yield to the enemy.” Iranian officials said that they would react to any interference from the United States, including by potentially targeting American bases and forces in the region.

All this heightens the real danger of war, potentially threatening the lives of millions of Iranians and people across the region. It is the responsibility of people living in the U.S. to energetically and visibly oppose Trump’s threats and any U.S. attack on Iran—and to step up the struggle to drive his fascist regime from power.⁶

Difficult Challenges, a Complex Mix of Forces

There are many different political forces in Iran’s complex political mix. They range from reactionary pro-U.S. monarchists like Reza Pahlavi (the former Shah’s son), to courageous bourgeois democrats such as Narges Mohammadi, to the revolutionary communist followers of Bob Avakian’s new communism, the Communist Party of Iran, Marxist-Leninist Maoist (CPIMLM).⁷

Events are unfolding very quickly in Iran, and the outcome is far from certain. In “The Islamic Republic Must Go!” the CPIMLM poses the following question—and challenge:

Will another oppressive regime ride in to replace this one atop the wounded bodies of the people? Or, by spreading social understanding of what a real revolution is, will the overthrow of the IRI pave the way for a real revolution, replaced not by another oppressive and exploitative regime, but by a new socialist republic? Now, the overthrow of the IRI is on the immediate agenda—but the even more vitally important challenge is how this question gets answered.

Stay tuned to revcom.us for ongoing coverage of the situation in Iran, Gaza and the Middle East. And go to the CPIMLM’s website and social media, and use Google Translate to get real time reports on their assessment of this situation.

No U.S.-Israeli Attack on Iran

In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!

This whole system is rotten and illegitimate! We need and we demand: a whole new way to live, a fundamentally different system!