Iran: Strikes in the Oil and Petrochemical Industries at the Center of new Proletarian Struggles

After the fiasco of the recent presidential elections in Iran (less than 50% of the voters participated), a massive strike wave initiated by ‘contract’ workers in the oil and petrochemical industries has extended throughout the country, persistently resisting the maneuverings and repression of the ‘Islamic Republic’ and resuscitating a widespread solidarity in society.

In the following we document its repercussions in the political milieus laying claim to proletarian internationalism:

• ‘Left-wing Communism – NOT an infantile disorder’ has opened a special section since last June 30, featuring analyses from internationalist sources, news and background articles: Iran oil strike at the center of a new wave of proletarian struggles. Besides voices from the former milieus, statements by a number of bourgeois (ultra-) left organizations can be consulted there (in provisional translations) as well, next to a number of communiqués by the strike committee in Iran, and some commentaries.

• Hereafter, on page 2, we present the first statement we have received on the courageous struggle by the precarious workers in Iran, the communiqué by ‘Internationalist Voice’ of June 27, 2021, (regardless our disagreement on ‘peripheral’ capitalism’), summarizing the stakes and demands at its point of departure, and putting forward a first evaluation.

• The Internationalist Communist Tendency has just published its first article, envisaging  both to inform its readers (at the hand of communiqués from the strike committee) and to draw a critical balance sheet of the strike, its repercussions in the country, and the perspectives this opens up: Iranian Oil and Petrochemical Workers’ Strikes Go On . (28 July, 2021)

Last but not least, we invite our readers to explore the publications we have had occasion to relate on this blog on the situation in the Near and Middle East, and specifically regarding Iran. For our following of proletarian struggles we recommend in particular:

Iran: “Lessons from Strikes, Labour Struggles and internationalist Tasks” (Extracts)  (A balance sheet by ‘Internationalist Voice’,  January 2019)

Theses on the 2018 proletarian struggles in the Near and Middle East and their prospects (An article summary, Fredo Corvo, January 2019)

Impending war Iran-USA, towards a third world war? (Translation from ‘Arbeidersstemmen’, January 2020)

Iran: A New Wave of Strikes and Workers’ Protests and the Need for Workers’ Solidarity (A Communiqué by ‘Internationalist Voice’, August 2020)

The editor

Pages: 1 2

The Intifada of Class Unity or that of the Sacred Union?

A further Statement by Circolo Internazionalista (May 24, 2021)

«It is still too early to draw up an exhaustive balance sheet of recent events in Palestine, however, it is already possible to sketch an outline.

Since the U.S. of the Trump administration recognized the Israeli claim to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state three years ago, the maneuvers and prodigious actions of the Israeli bourgeoisie to annex East Jerusalem have had a marked increase: new and massive settlements of Israeli settlers around areas inhabited by Palestinians; daily provocations, insults, assaults by far-right groups claiming to want to “purify” East Jerusalem of “Arabs” and their mosques, including Al-Aqsa; deliberations by Israeli courts rediscovering Jewish “property rights” on land on which 27 Palestinian families have been settled for more than 60 years and ruling on their eviction; and, most recently, the provocative closure by Israeli police of access to Muslim prayer sites during Ramadan. It is very probable that with the intensification of these bullying actions, which could not fail to trigger a reaction from the Palestinians, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to divert public opinion and the “opposition” parties in Israel from their difficulties, recomposing them under the sacred union for the defense against the historic “external enemy”. In this, Netanyahu’s game was completely successful. All he had to do was wait.»

Appeal to Arab and Jewish workers in Palestine and Israel

Arbeidersstemmen (‘Worker’s Voices’), Amsterdam, May 25, 2021.

With hope and expectation, workers around the world have received the news on the joint demonstrations on bridges and traffic junctions of Arab and Israeli speakers. During the mutual bombings and pogroms back and forth, they protested hand in hand, as neighbors and fellow workers against terror and war.

After the armistice, by their participation in mass peace demonstrations, they expressed the fear that the powers on both sides of the borders speak of peace, but in reality are already preparing the next war. War preparations that require further intensification of the exploitation of all workers: border-crossing labor, digging tunnels, building missiles, surplus labor for the development and purchase of weapons systems. All this in addition to passing the costs of war and reconstruction on to the working and poor. Both the State of Israel, the PLO State in the West Bank and the Hamas State in Gaza feel empowered in their war efforts by the massive support of “their” populations blinded by nationalism. Without exception, these three states will continue to direct the terror of extremist militias and gangs against any resistance to the war preparations and intensified exploitation, even if this resistance invokes the “peace” and the “right of self-determination” as articulated by the leaders of the peace movement.

The Proletarian Mountain and the Bourgeois Mouse

‘Circolo internazionalista’ on the proletarian perspective in the Middle East

Among the statements that have come to our attention on the latest escalation in the barbaric ‘Israeli-Palestinian’ conflict issued by a diversity of groups who lay claim to proletarian internationalism, we want to highlight one for its focus on an aspect of the situation that crucially differs from the previous rounds or ‘cycles’ in this seemingly perpetual imperialist stand-off: the mobilization of Arab Israelis, including strikes and demonstrations, not only in solidarity against the brutal maneuvers of the Israeli state in East Jerusalem, on the West Bank and against the Gaza strip, but also in defense to state sponsored repression and terrorism directed against themselves in the heart of the country.

The following article by the Internationalist Circle – “workers’ coalition” from Rome (Italy) on what may be regarded as a key factor to ending the bloody impasse: the refusal to follow any of the nationalist flags and the search for proletarian solidarity across religious, ethnic and national divides, has been written on the eve of the US-sponsored “truce” of Friday 21^st.

The editor

The Tormented Land of the Cedars

G. Fontana (I.O.D.) on the Beirut explosion of August 4

The huge explosion that destroyed the port of Beirut and caused hundreds of victims is only one of the last episodes of the permanent imperialist war. A war fueled by the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, which has in fact turned the cedar country into a theater of death.

Iran: A New Wave of Strikes and Workers’ Protests and the Need for Workers’ Solidarity

A Communiqué by ‘Internationalist Voice’ (August 3, 2020)

The following communiqué provides a first time account of the acutely revived workers’ combativity in Iran, despite the corona-virus pandemic hitting the country hard, and the omnipresent state repression and political maneuvering by the local regime. For the first time in recent years, the workers in the oil- and gas industry are massively implied. The communiqué is followed by a brief commentary from ‘Arbeidersstemmen’. We hope to provide more details and analysis on the present struggles in due time.

Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kurdistan, Libya

The world held prisoner by permanent imperialist war

The following article analyzes the economic backgrounds of capitalism’s drive to war which, over decades, has turned ever more countries in the geostrategically important region of the Near- and Middle East, and beyond, into an open battlefield between, ultimately, the world’s biggest imperialist powers and their respective alliances, be it directly or by proxies.

It treats the economic difficulties experienced by the USA to counter the historic erosion of the US dollar as the dominant currency of world trade, especially in the vital energy sector – and notably in the oil and gas markets – as a pivot of their policies of ‘financing’ astronomical levels of both national debts and military expenses. In so doing the article sheds light on the difficulties of the USA’s offensive to export oil and gas, specifically their shale gas to the EU countries (the North-Stream 2 project with Russia), and on their quarrel with Russia and the OPEC countries about the price of crude oil.

Last but not least, it provides a background to the exacerbation of the US-Iranian antagonism in the region, exemplified by the gangster-style assassination of the Iranian top general Soleimani and his company at Baghdad international airport on January 3, behind which it identifies China as the veritable target.

In short, the article develops arguments for the thesis that “a truly global confrontation is underway. It’s a monetary, economic, geopolitical and military clash. No one can lose it but paradoxically, ‘rebus sic stantibus’, neither can win it without risking, in turn, a collapse that would almost be as severe as a defeat.”

On the Turkish Invasion of North-East Syria

A first internationalist statement against the newly fanning flames of war over Syria has been published on the International Communist Tendency‘s website, which puts the latest maneuver by the Trump-administration, and its apparent complicity with the Erdoğan regime, in the context of global rivalries between the USA and Assad’s Russian patron reemerging as a great power in a regional alliance with Tehran.

On the escalation of imperialist tensions in the Persian Gulf

Faced with the escalation of the imperialist tensions over the Persian Gulf area, highlighting the confrontation between the USA, Iran and their respective allies, we adopt a recent update article from the ICT website, followed by a joint declaration by two other proletarian internationalist groups; the ‘Gulf Coast Communist Fraction’ (USA) and ‘Internationalist Voice’.

War tensions in the Persian Gulf and the South-Chinese Sea

A bloody mess

An actualization by ‘Nuevo Curso’

From the Strait of Hormuz to the South China Sea, the U.S.A. are escalating tensions in the most important imperialist conflict zones, threatening to transform the trade war into a major military war. In the following we present a brief appreciation of this situation by the Spanish blog of the proletarian internationalist group ‘Emancipacion’.