A brief history of Iranian Trotskyism

The founders of Iranian Trotskyism became active in Britain in the late 1960s. In opposition  Stalinism, Maoism and the guerrillaist tendencies, they established an Iranian Commission within the USFI (United Secretariat of the Fourth International) and based their activity on the Transitional Programme and the first four congresses of the Comintern. They produced a theoretical and political journal called Kand-o Kav

During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, there was a unity congress of the Iranian supporters of the USFI in Europe and the supporters of the American Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP). In early 1979 the Iranian Socialist Workers’ Party (Hezb-e Kargaran-e Socialist – HKS) was launched. Within a few months, however, the SWP tendency (led by Babak Zahraie), began to have illusions in the Iranian bourgeois-clerical regime of Khomeini. The group from Europe was very critical of the USFI for the de facto support of a group that had a completely wrong analysis of the class nature of the Khomeini regime. A split took place and the Babak Zahraie group continued its class-collaborationist activities under the name of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Hezb-e Kargaran-e Enghelabi – HKE) until they liquidated themselves a few years later

After 1983 some HKS members were forced into exile and produced a document that was critical of the USFI’s policy. Since the leadership of this international organisation was not prepared to criticise its policies and activities regarding the Iranian revolution, the HKS formally left it. Up to 1990 the Trotskyists produced Socialism va Enghelab (Socialism and Revolution), a theoretical journal. In 1991, Maziar Razi, one of the founders of HKS and SE, together with a section of comrades, reorganised themselves and published a regular workers’ paper which subsequently led to Kargar-e Socialist (Socialist Worker) and the formation of the Iranian Revolutionary Socialists’ League (IRSL)

In September 2008, through the merger of two groups in Iran – the majority of the collaborators of the Editorial Board of Militaant and activists of the Workers’ Action Committee (Komiteh-ye Eghdam-e Kargari) – with the IRSL in exile, the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency (IRMT) was formed. The IRMT became the Iranian section of the IMT (International Marxist Tendency), but reserving the right of veto on organisational and political decisions affecting its members and contacts active inside the capitalist dictatorship in Iran. However, with the ever-increasing collaboration of Venezuela with the Iranian regime in 2010, the IRMT was highly critical of Hugo Chavez’s foreign policy – expecting the backing of the rest of the international. Instead, the IS (the leadership of the IMT) concocted various accusations against the IRMT – including collaboration with the Iranian regime’s repressive apparatus – and expelled it

The IRMT’s expulsion also coincided with the majority of the Swedish and Polish sections, as well as many members of the British section, leaving. The IRMT tried to create the foundations of a new international with these ex-IMT comrades but this did not yield any results. Following this, to approach tendencies from other backgrounds, the Marxist Revival project was proposed and for a number of years L’Etincelle (in France), Marksist Tutum (in Turkey) and AWL (in Britain) participated in its discussions and solidarity activities. Three issues of the Marxist Revival journal were published

The IRMT is currently the only Iranian Trotskyists organisation. The other ‘Trotskyist’ groups have all disbanded. The orientation of the IRMT is towards building a vanguard workers’ organisation in Iran. The IRMT’s publications and translations team have translated many texts by Marx, Lenin and particularly Trotsky for the first time, making them available to the working-class movement through Militaant (the IRMT’s monthly journal), pamphlets, Didgah-e Socialism Enghelabi (the theoretical journal) and the MIA-Farsi Section (Marxists Internet Archive)

Since August 2014 the IRMT’s weekly Sedaye Kargar-e Sosialist (Socialist Workers’ Voice) TV programme has been broadcasting directly into the homes of workers and the oppressed in Iran

The political and organisational balance sheet of Iranian Trotskyists has been published in Farsi

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