March 8, 2024 

Forty-five years have passed since the rebellion against Khomeini's compulsory hijab decree. This was a declaration of war against women by this fascist theocratic Republic of Iran—a war which is still raging. During these 45 years, women's resistance had high points, such as the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. But resistance has not been able to go over to a revolution to overthrow the Islamic regime. The question is, how long are we going to merely rebel against the conditions of enslavement? As we know, the most that these rebellions can achieve is to shake the slave chains, not break them. The need for revolution is crying out! How should we act to prepare for revolution and make it a reality? Will we allow another reactionary regime to take the place of this oppressive reactionary regime, as happened 45 years ago? Are we going to allow another catastrophe to take place? If not, what role will the power of women play as a driving force for revolution? How do we prepare now for revolution and a war with this regime?

With the overthrow of the Shah's regime and the Islamic Republic’s rise to power, the oppression of women took even more terrible forms. The Islamic Republic created a peculiar combination of Islamic/slavery-like social relations and capitalist-imperialist relations that redoubled the chains of women's enslavement. Forty-five years of theocratic rule in Iran has demonstrated that wherever religious fundamentalism is in power, vicious male-supremacist patriarchy and violent misogyny will reign supreme. 

The oppression of women and male supremacist/patriarchal social relations are metastasizing and intensifying all around the world. In fact this is a universal feature of the capitalist system, and is part of its normal functioning. But in the last few decades, there have been major changes in the context of the global capitalist system that have brought women into the economic sphere in an unprecedented way, that has transformed and “feminized” the labor force and “feminized” poverty. This is a global phenomenon that includes Iran as well. These changes have shaken the structures of male supremacist/patriarchal relations, and in response, the ruling classes of countries in the “global North” and the “global South” have increasingly sought to build up the family and traditional values. This has included the reassertion of male entitlement, fueling a culture of hatred against independent women, governmental murder and torture to enforce compulsory hijab, and in the US, the right to abortion has been abolished to enforce childbearing. 

The fault line of women’s oppression has become the most glaring example of how completely rotten/outmoded the capitalist system truly is. This fault line, and its motion and development, constantly generates massive social forces on a world scale, whose emancipation is dependent on the revolutionary uprooting of traditional property relations and traditional ways of thinking—a fault line that can shake the global capitalist system with great explosions, and heighten the possibility of overthrowing it.

The same driving forces and motion of capitalism that have [intensified] the oppression of women and have turned it into a serious fault line for the capitalist system have put humanity at a crossroads, which [revolutionary leader] Bob Avakian in his remarkable and brilliant analysis calls the juncture of [either] “a terrifying or truly liberating future.” The very dynamics of the imperialist capitalist system that bring relentless changes to the world put the system itself at a great risk. The compulsion of US imperialism and its military garrison in the Middle East (Israel) to carry out genocide in Gaza, and the proxy war between Russian imperialists and NATO in Ukraine, are signs that the imperialist world needs to be reordered anew. But the outcome of this reordering must never be left to the imperialists and the reactionary states like Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, etc., who are clients of this or that imperialist power, and are servants of the global capitalist system. Creating a new world must be done by the people of the world through making communist revolutions. Otherwise, the current situation will lead to a truly “terrible” future.

Destructive wars, genocide, and people's uprisings in various parts of the world are examples of how continuous changes in the world are undermining the imperialist states’ frameworks, causing failures that make them ripe to be overthrown.

But the path to revolution is still blocked. The normal functioning of capitalism and the policies of the ruling powers have made [the female] half of humanity the target of its brutal attack, which goes beyond the class distinctions that exist among this targeted group itself. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this social force that is in dire need of a revolution does not know anything about revolution and the way to uproot women’s oppression, about how to create a society in which people are no longer divided into classes, into “women” and “men,” into different races and nations.

The Hour is Late! Let's Prepare Ourselves and the People for Momentous Events 

In an urgent way, we must make revolutionary interventions in—all the large and small—uprisings of women, and win them over to a movement whose goal is preparing for a communist revolution based on the New Communism: A Movement for Revolution! 

This is an urgent necessity for the liberation of all humanity. With the bloody suppression of the Jina uprising and its subsequent ebb, many fell into a sea of ​​demoralization and despair. If they had a scientific understanding of the situation and the path to the only solution—that is revolution—they would have experienced less despair. Therefore, political passivity must be cast aside. The situation in Iran and in the world will be constantly changing. Worldwide, great turmoil and chaos lie ahead. Without understanding why this is happening and how it is connected to the unbridled oppression and exploitation of tens of millions of people in Iran, and the crimes of the Islamic Republic against women, the real solution and the way to get there will never be understood.

The masses of people deeply feel the need for radical change. In order for them to see that there is a real way to make such a change, we must fight against wrong political and world outlooks that are prevalent among the masses. They must understand, scientifically, that nothing positive can be gained by siding with the Islamic Republic of Iran or with US imperialism. Anyone who hates US imperialism must also hate the Islamic Republic and whoever hates the Islamic Republic must hate US imperialism. This is an integral part of the political platform for emancipation in Iran, and it is decisive for forging a “movement for revolution.” We must break open the cage of nationalist outlooks among political activists and the masses of people, so they can free themselves from its intellectual limitations. 

When they are able to look at the reality of the world with scientific precision and depth, then they will see, on the one hand, how the Islamic Republic and Israel and the imperialist powers of the “West” and “the East” are completely intertwined, and on the other hand, how intertwined the several billion oppressed and exploited people of the world are. And they will wholeheartedly feel the true meaning of “The Internationale shall be the human race," and will never let go of this feeling which has its basis in material reality. 

We must also discard identity politics and relativist politics and all forms of activity that waste time. Those women with bourgeois democratic illusions, who expect the ruling powers and “international” institutions to take more than a passing glance at “women's rights,” are at best naïve people who have gotten used to their enslavement and are inviting others to get used to it too. These trends try to push the real alternative of revolution off the stage and expel the revolutionary communists from arenas of struggle. Compromising with such reactionary moves only serves to strengthen the chains of slavery. 

Nothing but the New Communism can provide a scientific understanding of reality to the masses of people, and to those who are genuinely seeking to understand “what is the problem and what is the solution.” Anyone who wants to be a fighter for human emancipation should never waste their life on movements whose goal is anything other than the radical transformation of society, that lack a well-developed strategy and well-planned organization to fight that through. These other paths will condemn people to the framework of the status quo and the result will be truly terrible.

The Jina uprising boldly struck a blow at the tower and ramparts of patriarchal/male supremacist enslavement in Iran, providing a taste of the enormous capacity of women to be an emancipating force for humanity, which can become a battering ram of a revolution to eradicate all oppression and exploitation that envelop us. The Middle East, Iran and the entire world are pregnant with huge, unpredictable events. In all these events, the programme and organized forces of communist revolution must be on the scene, even if revolutionary communists are [currently] a small force. They should be there and help people to go against the tide and to appreciate the revolutionary opportunities hidden in the heart of this situation. The news that “Revolution is the Only Solution!” and the fact that humanity at this very moment can open the way forward for this solution with the New Communism, must reach the rebels—of the Jina uprisings and the many other rebellions which are looming on the horizon, in order to bring forward new tribunes calling for a truly revolutionary line in every corner of the society.

Communist Party of Iran (MLM)
March 2024