Socialism, economics and politics
Nasser Paydar, February 2013
Introduction
The failure of the “Revolution” of 1979, along with its world of terrible consequences and important historical lessons, also had the consequence of auctioning off the wealth and resources of the twentieth century left, not only the left of Pro Russian, Pro China, or those affiliated with the Trotskyist tradition, but also the entire broad spectrum of the popular left, even its most radical approaches. The failure shed light on the bitter truth that the Iranian left, from the beginning until that day, even at the height of its radicalism, not only had nothing to do with the Marxist communism of the abolition of wage labour of the working class, nor did it help organize the anti-capitalist movement of this class, but quite the opposite, it was an obstacle to this organization and a troublesome obstacle to any independent class alignment of the working masses. The failure of the revolution screamed that the problem of the twentieth century left was not only being a “Tudeh party” or being Maoist. The task of these was clear from the start. The internal components of the poles of power of world capital, which, in their Iranian form, played the role of partners and supporters of the most powerful religious state of capital, following the Bahman uprising. There was no discussion about these. The defeat said something else. That the volcano of Leninist radicalism, during its years of fieldwork, had nothing else in its backpack except popular anti-imperialistic, paving the way for the growth of national industry!!, and the horizon of establishing state capitalism. The defeat of the revolution told the working class that the communism of this left was also popular, its anti-capitalism was a code name for the development and domination of capitalism in another way, its anti-regime was more or less capitalist. Its appeal to the workers was not aimed at eliminating wage slavery, but at openly riding the wave of protest, anger, and discontent of the working masses. The defeat said that unfortunately, even with its occurrence, it did not bring about a change in the beliefs of the left. The words are still the same and in practice it was the same. The most militant part of the left, even in analysing the disaster of defeat, clung to its previous perceptions. “The lack of a working-class party”!! “The weakness of the proletariat in exercising leadership over the mass movement”!! And the like, formed the basis of all its “root-finding”!!
The situation of the day and the events after the defeat, however, issued indictment after indictment against the left. Terrible accusations that demanded answers, and the popular left had no answer to them. This left was on the verge of extinction; it was a bourgeois left but it was clinging to the proletariat. Its words were of no use to anyone, the former found its existence a nuisance and the latter, if they had any sense and knowledge, would have considered following it a complete break from their anti-capitalist campaign. If it was also delusional and lacking in consciousness, the stronger sections of the bourgeoisie would have reaped the full benefits of its delusions. Such was the situation of Lenin’s militant reformism in the first year after the Bahman uprising. The conditions were moving in every way towards its collapse. The religious predatory state of capital was preparing for its suppression. Confusions, contradictions, inversions, the weakness of analysis and the vulgarity of strategies were descending on it like rubble. In such a situation, the dormant internal struggle between the opposing class forces that formed it, even if it was self-sufficient and confused, became rebellious. The large number of people who were the upholders of the working class’s working and living conditions were looking for a way to escape the impasse. Different approaches were each proposing their own answer. Joining the “Tode party” (an old party close to Russian Social Democracy) spectrum was a path that had a large number of followers from the very beginning, many were taking the path of passivity and avoiding the class struggle. In 1978, the founders of a circle claimed to criticize the populism that dominated the left and raise the banner of “revolutionary Marxism”!! In most of their views, strategies and solutions, they were still attached to the left of the day. Like all other approaches of the left, they considered the party of the elites above the heads of the workers to be the saviour of the working class, they propagated the hanging of the working masses to the party, they covered the formation of unions and the hanging of unions to the party with the false garb of the soviet movement. Under the slogan of “worker communism”, they saw the path to the anti-capitalist revolution of the working class as organizing the working masses of Kurdistan in the Kurdish nationalist movement!! They proclaimed the influence of their party on this movement as the independent socialist front of the proletariat! They referred the workers to a new form of democratic revolution. They prescribed a supra-class anti-regime. In examining the Russian labour movement and the events before and after the October Revolution, they were the endorsers of Leninist people’s communism. They called the Bolshevik party government the political power of the working class and the dictatorship of the transition period to communism!! They covered up Bolshevism’s separation from the Marxist and anti-wage labour approach of the working class. They denied the impact of Lenin’s strategies in misleading the Russian labour movement, the decline of this movement from a conscious anti-capitalist orientation and the acquisition of the necessary strength for the socialist revolution to abolish wage labour. In all these areas, this approach, like other existing left sections, was captive to the scaffolding of people’s communism. It pointed to the left’s inability to understand Marx’s understanding of capitalist production but limited its criticism of the left to a kind of doctrinal, formal, and non-praxis reference to aspects of the foundations of Marx’s critique of political economy and preserved the skeleton of bourgeois communism intact. The approach under discussion, with these characteristics and despite all the fundamental differences with the communism of the abolition of wage labour of the working class, more or less made a foothold in the wilderness of the confusion of the day among the forces and circles of the Iranian left, and dug a new hole in the path of the efforts of the activists of the labour movement to find the true path of the anti-capitalist campaign of their class. In the midst of these conditions and since 1980 onwards, some left-wing activists, here and there, related or unrelated, although crude and rudimentary, saw the problem of the labour movement in Iran and the world and the issues related to the “left” as more radical and catastrophic than these words. They raised the necessity of a fundamental shake-up and pointed out the real importance of this shake-up. This task was certainly very difficult and required going through many twists and turns. Many perhaps spoke of it to find a pretext to escape the class struggle and put into practice the proverb “picking up a big stone so as not to hit it”. But for some people, this was absolutely not the case. They shared a rebellious class need, albeit spontaneous, but urgent and vital, with others and at the same time did what they could for their part. A disjointed, primitive, and determined movement that, despite all the obstacles in its path, moved forward slowly and like a turtle, and in its slow growth process, following all the fuel and metabolism, created the approach of abolishing wage labour. The author of the present book has also been working in this direction since that time. What became essential for me at the beginning of my work as a scattered activist of this orientation was the search for the right entry points for this house-breaking and taking confident steps in this field. Finding these junctions was not very difficult. Everything revolves around the axis of the class struggle and the liberation of the world’s wage slaves. The proletariat, in the blind spots of this campaign and basically in order to carry this campaign forward consciously and victoriously, has no choice but to firstly understand capitalism with a class-conscious, Marx’s and anti-wage labour mind. Secondly, and even more importantly, to explore socialism or socialist planning of labour and social production again with the same awake, alert, and creative Marx’s and anti-wage labour mind. The latter point in particular further strengthened the belief in me that the working class cannot have a conscious and horizon-oriented anti-capitalist movement without a clear understanding of socialism abolishing wage labour. The book “Socialism, Economics, and Politics” was written twenty-two years ago during the ups and downs of this effort, as a step towards understanding this perspective and with the aim of providing a reliable platform for a deeper acquaintance with the various processes of struggle and organization of the anti-capitalist movement of the working class. For several years now, it has been available under the title “Socialism, Politics, and Civility” on the websites of Simay Socialism, Negah, and perhaps one or two other sites. The time of writing the book had certain characteristics for the author. A period that, in my opinion, can be defined in the most general terms as the process of breaking away from the Leninist and popular narrative of communism and the attempt to link more precisely and firmly with Marx’s communism and the abolition of wage labour by the proletariat. At that time, I was passing through the first stages of this path and was still far from reaching the same level of understanding of the working-class abolition movement as we know it today. This distance is quite evident in the comparison between the first and present texts of the book. The last twenty-two years of my life have been a possible attempt by praxis to cross this valley and walk this path. In this passage, if I could do anything, I have done it together and in sympathy with all my fellow comrades. I have also outlined everything that has come to my mind in various articles and made it available to everyone. I do not know where I am on the path at the moment. But as far as the present book is concerned, I had to reflect these changes or achievements of this period. The current text of the book contains these same changes.