Long Live The First of May!

The Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas

This year, workers celebrate their international day while the capitalist
system is in a crisis that has in the past few years spread upon the
entirety of this system from which it has not been able to escape. Even
when the World Bank speaks of the “possibility” for growth and
development and of “change” within the economic situation the world
imperialist system is in, it is still forced to emphasize that the “possible” economic growth would be accompanied with a rise in unemployment. The meaning of this statement which was recently given by the World Bank is that even in the most optimistic case there is still no prospect for a part of the massive army of the hungry and the unemployed. In other words, the meaning of possible “growth” within the imperialist system is nothing but the continuation of layoffs which right now, not only in our country but also all over the world, has bent the backs of the workers in the majority of both the productive and non-productive sectors.

The fact is that crisis is inherent in the capitalist system and as Marx says “for many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule.” Now for the past many years, the people of the world have experienced this inherent crisis of the capitalist system which is generated with great intensity, and they have witnessed that in the course of these increasing cyclical crises the bourgeoisie has always tried to transfer the burden of its own crises upon the workers and the people of the dominated countries. This anti-people policy is implemented whether through imposing economic austerity measures where massive layoffs are one of its characteristics, or by waging wars and creating a war-like atmosphere and ever more relying on militarism. This is how the exploitative system of the bourgeoisie tries to prolong its survival “on the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones.” However, when capitalism has already dominated the whole world and where it has created “a world after its own image” leaving almost no new market to conquer, the conquest of new markets can have no other meaning than trying to encroach on the rivals’ markets and thus the intensification of imperialist rivalries around the globe. This is the very situation where the imperialist bourgeoisie advances by instigating savage and bloody wars throughout the world and slaughtering workers and the oppressed masses, and any decent person can see clear examples of these crimes in various parts of the world and more vividly in Syria and Ukraine right now.

All of these criminal attempts, all the warmongering and slaughtering of the hard-working and oppressed masses are at the same time accompanied with unrestrained and daily attacks on the wages of the working masses. For instance, if we examine the oppressive tricks and tactics of the bourgeoisie against the working class in Iran we can see that these policies which are implemented by the imperialist-dependant regime of the Islamic Republic by resorting to the most felonious acts and the bloody repression of the masses, are all the reflection of the policies of the imperialist bourgeoisie imposed throughout the globe. That is why the workers in most countries like Iran are welcoming May 1st, while being fed up with their lives as a result of the exploitative policies of the parasitic ruling bourgeoisie. Like its counterparts, the gluttonous bourgeoisie of Iran too has not missed a chance in recent years to launch an assault against the rights of workers. The latest example of these assaults is announcing the minimum wage ten percent below the official rate of inflation which means inflicting further starvation of working families and pushing them towards the abyss of poverty and destitution. When the government offices of the Islamic regime themselves define the line of poverty as having an income of at least 17,000,000 Rials (approximatelly $700 a month), the Islamic regime’s Supreme Labour Council issued the minimum wage of workers as only 6,089,000 Rials, and on top of that the criminal Labour Minister of the Islamic regime shamelessly stated that this minimum wage is so sufficient that workers do not need to receive the Cash Subsidy (which is given to them to make up for the intense rise in the cost of living) therefore, they should waive it. More impudent than that, the Chair of Association of Employers put it curtly to the working families when contrary to their own labour laws which has declared that the minimum wage should correspond to the rate of inflation, stated that since wages cannot be adjusted according to the rate of inflation, workers must solve their problem by looking for a second job and working overtime! Obviously, considering the horrendous unemployment throughout the society thus having a few million as the reserve army of the unemployed, there is not even any ground for this hideous suggestion, and approaches as such only demonstrate more explicitly the anti- people nature of the ringleaders of the Islamic regime and the hellish conditions they have created for Iranian workers. The two statements above also describe the true face of the Iranian bourgeoisie to everyone including workers, and show as to how the employers and the government hand in hand suck the people’s blood and that in order to put an end to these enslaving conditions they have no other choice but to rise up and with their revolutionary power overthrow the ruling class and its benefactor regime.

Today with the intensification of imperialist crises, we are witnessing a growing rise in the protests and struggles of workers and toilers around the world, from mass protests in Argentina to Greece and Spain, to the demonstration of 50,000 workers in Brussels, which all were faced with the brutish attacks of the police and other armed forces of the bourgeoisie. Basically, nowadays the conflict between the exploited working people and the exploiting capitalists, and in general, between the oppressed masses of the world and the global capitalists (i.e., the imperialists) has intensified so much that in fact there isn’t a place in the world where the oppressed people do not voice their protest against the aggressions of world capitalism. In Iran too, under the rule of the imperialist-dependant regime of the Islamic Republic, not a day goes by without workers’ protests against the marauding onslaught of bourgeoisie and the Islamic Republic as its guard dog.

Under these global conditions, on the one hand, the agonizing situation of Iranian workers both in terms of work and struggle, and on the other, the fact that the naked dictatorship of the ruling class does not tolerate even the slightest economic demands of the working class, and suppresses any of their attempts to claim their rights as well as having their own independent organizations, more than ever remind the workers that changing these hellish conditions in action depends upon the continuation of their ongoing heroic fights and on trying to overcome the existing painful lack of unity of the working class through a revolutionary struggle against the ruling dictatorship as both the Iranian capitalist government and the most fundamental canal of imperialist domination. The fact is that just as the emancipation of workers depends on their rise and revolution, the victory of this revolution depends on the hegemonic leadership of a class-conscious and organized working class. On May 1st, it is this fact that must light the path of the workers and their struggles.

Long live May 1st, International Workers’ Day!
Down with the world capitalist system!
Down with the imperialist-dependant regime of the Islamic Republic! Victory to revolution! Long live communism!

The Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas

May 2014