The Islamic Republic heaped the bodies of those they massacred into a mountain, and then showcased it on television both to intimidate, and as justification of the organized state murder of a people who are angry and exhausted from 47 years of oppression and relentless repression. But neither the killings of January 2017, nor the killings that took place in November 2019, nor the killings in the [2022-2023 Woman, Life, Freedom] Jina uprising, were ever legitimized in the minds of the people. What did gain legitimacy is the need for an uprising to overthrow this regime—which took on enormous and astonishing dimensions in January 2026. This time, however, [Ayatollah] Khamenei’s thugs were not alone. The [monarchist Reza] Pahlavi thugs also did everything they could to hijack the voice of the people’s uprising and to use this massacre as political and human rights cover to lend legitimacy to the military attacks by the fascist Trump and the genocidal Netanyahu, which will undoubtedly bring unimaginable death and destruction. Shame and hatred be upon them. 

Even some minor American analysts have described Reza Pahlavi's “war” orders as not only childish but also disastrous. But Pahlavi replied with a smirk, “Well, it's a war, and war has casualties,” despite the fact that the Islamic Republic (IRI) has unilaterally declared a one-sided war against a spontaneous uprising by the people.

If the U.S. starts a war with the Islamic Republic, it is actually to suppress the people’s uprising and, with the pretext of defending the people of Iran, to advance the international policies of U.S. imperialism. Reza Pahlavi's war with the IRI is a war of the security organizations of [Israeli secret police] Mossad, the U.S., and other countries in the region against the security apparatus of the Islamic Republic that has been going on for years. Any movement, group or voice that enters into this framework uses the people as cannon fodder in these security-apparatus wars between forces that are deeply anti-people. The alternative pursued by both sides, is to replace a fascist theocratic regime that is anti-people to the core with a “secular” fascist regime that is anti-people to the core. The Islamic Republic has no ceiling on killing and destruction, nor does Israel, the United States, and the groups under their command.

Our message to young women and men: For 47 years, generation after generation, we have made great sacrifices in wars against the IRI, and we will continue to do so. But political and operational independence in this battle has been one of our principles. Without war against the IRI, we will not be able to overthrow it. However, to prepare for waging such a war, we must make the political uprising against the Islamic Republic as widespread, extensive, and steadfast as possible. In order to defend this “more universal, broader, and more resilient” approach, we must constantly be poised to new challenges and find solutions that take the forces of repression by surprise. 

But more importantly, the political content of our struggle/uprisings must express the overall demands that people from all segments of society have shouted and demanded for the past 47 years. Only in this way can we isolate the regime, and at the same time prevent the hijacking of our struggle by those who are not part of the government, but have no fundamental difference with the IRI.

The demands of any uprising encompass the demands that people from all sections of society have been raising the past 47 years and more, and must fight for those demands, while at the same time training people to become tribunes for all of them, and to live that. Every uprising must be the platform for freedom and equality of men and women, a platform for freedom and equality for all nationalities in Iran, a platform for the release of political prisoners and to put an end to executions, to stop child labor, to stop the destruction of the environment, demand a complete break with theocracy, demand an end to genocide of the people of Gaza, demand that the U.S., Chinese, and Russian imperialists get their hands off Iran, to shatter the overseer’s grip on oil, petrochemical, banking, water, and mining . The majority of our people suffer from these [horrors], and this very suffering shows the urgent necessity to overthrow the IRI. 

We should not treat this uprising as though it were a “war,” because it wasn’t. Rather, our approach should be to treat it as a “school of war,” or in other words, as political preparation of millions of people to wage a liberation struggle to establish our own revolutionary state. We must turn this uprising into a seeding machine for an awareness of our own, different state—the New Socialist Republic of Iran—and into a platform for raising awareness about the necessity and nature of revolutionary war. Without such a war, we will neither be able to break the backbone of this regime’s military nor cut off the hands of the world powers that are today competing over how to tear Iran apart, to their own advantage. 

In today's world, there can be only one kind of just war, and that is a war for revolution to create a society without classes and social distinctions. Any war launched by Israel and the U.S. and forces affiliated with them, such as the [Reza] Pahlavi thugs, will be aimed at strengthening the rule of the capitalist classes in Iran, which will bury the people's demands and aspirations for a better world, and will use the people as cannon fodder to be used up and then thrown in the garbage dump. 

The Communist Party of Iran (CPIMLM) has forged the path and strategy of revolutionary war for revolution in Iran, and is currently reviewing and further developing it. We are living in a critical situation that is very different from before. More than ever, the masses of people need to understand the emancipatory character of such a war.

We will publish a summary of the principles of this strategy in the future.