Communist Workers of Iran

From: Revista Semillero Insurgente, translated by Earl Gilman –

In Ecuador a debate is developing between those who propose gradual evolution, through reforms, supposedly thereby advancing to Socialism of the 21st Century and those who hold the conception
based on scientific and historic analysis that humanity is advancing towards is advancing towards qualitative leaps
towards a New Economic Social Formation (FES) as a result of Social Revolution.

We would say conventionalizing, that reformism is a social democratic posture that utilizes populist elements to fool the people, trying to convince them that just with reforms
that hunger, poverty, unemployment will be solved. It utilizes massively the means of communication to generate the idea that the old and corrupt capitalist state is changing, that bourgeois institutions are more efficient and are at the service of the people (they utilize the word “citizen”).
The image of the governor is raised as all powerful who is carrying out policies of “national development”. They talk of revolution and being “revolutionary” and thinking and acting like “Che” whose goal was socialism.

Under this conception reformism maintains itself with demagogy and its capacity to hide what it is really doing: reforming the system it says it is combating. President Correa and politicians linked to the regime make apparently radical speeches while policies and laws are approved without the consent or participation of the people and their organizations
demonstrating a clear contradiction between what he says and what he does.

….What happened to food sovereignty? Why does he continue the water concessions (concealed privatization) why does he want to take away the autonomy of the University? Why are the mining transnationals given land concessions and small mining denied? Why do decrees deny workers collective bargaining contracts and support contract work? He is a President who is fruit of years of struggle of workers, peasants, Indians, students, small shop keepers that fought together against the corruption and betrayal of governments friendly to the United States. He is a President who does not listen to those who were directly involved in the changes…He is a President who listens only to a group of technocrats who graduated outside of the Ecuadorian universities. He is a President who is moving away from the social and peoples’ movements. He is a President who is headed towards the abyss which the right wing is leading him to who have become encrusted in the government and social-democracy.

Is it necessary to reform or destroy the bourgeois state?

The Judiciary, the Armed Forces, the Police, the Council on Citizen Participation only exists to defend the interests of the dominant class. The laws of the new institutions and those reformed by the “Congresillo” and the current National Assembly in their essence put order and regiment better the role they should play in defense of the capitalist state and the interests of the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the changes that took place that have been made in bourgeois legislation are not sufficient, nor are they the road that leads to socialism. Although the working class and popular sectors obtain their struggle important demands.

The historic experience shows examples that reforming within the bourgeois state does not lead to socialism. The closest example is that of Allende in Chile in 1973.

It has been shown that imperialism and the bourgeoisie never will permit losing power electorally. It will not cease to be the dominant class pacifically. To think so is naive.

Second, to think that reforms can be implemented that will lead the capitalist system to the point of breaking with it, or obliging society to transcend it entering into a new social economic formation through the conception of peaceful revolution, is also naive. Jose Carlos Mariategui, Peruvian revolutionary said:

“…there is no revolution that is moderate, balanced, soft, serene, placid…” “Power is conquered through violence…power is maintained dictatorship…”

Thirdly, the Armed Forces and Police cannot be trusted that with a simple decree that they would ceasse to be defending institutions of the capitalist state and bourgeoisie.

Fourth, there has to be a strong unity of the people and the organizations interested in revolutionary transformation who count on the armed forces of the people to gain victory and maintain it.

These errors permitted that the Right headed by Pinochet could take power through reactionary violence and overthrow and murder Salvador Allende. This shows it is a grave mistake to think that small changes in the system and in the capitalist state can slowly transform society into a more just society. The capitalist state has to take over and destroyed to rise up the new Socialist State.

To Combat Reformism is to combat the Bourgeoisie

Reformism in different moments and places has been used by the same dominant class to change the direction of the mass struggle and its revolutionary objectives in order to build a movement which may seem radical, does not put in danger the system. When the Right Wing attacks movements, it attacks from the rear, it presents itself with a progressive face, democratic and even patriotic until it obtains leadership of the government and then its reactionary character becomes clear.

This is possibly what is happening with the Correa government.
To combat reformism is to combat the bourgeoisie. In the present moment this combat is inevitable to sustain the strategic objective of taking power by the working class.

…Under a discourse that is apparently radical and leftist reformist politics is brought into the consciousness of the people which they try to make synonymous with revolutionary…This line of action is supported by sectors of the bourgeoisie to attract to their side discontented sectors of the masses, attempting to win influence within the social, political and left organizations.

Are Revolutionaries Opposed to Reforms?

Revolutionaries are not opposed to reforms. We raise them as banners of struggles for the mobilization of the masses…always warning that they will not definitively resolve problems, that soon new actions will be necessary and what is fundamental is transformation of the system through social revolution.

As distinct from the reformists, revolutionary Marxists understand that while the capitalist system exists, these reforms have a partial, fragile character and don’t last in the long term because they do not achieve well being and equality. The reformists don’t understand that raising the wages of workers is not sufficient to provide a better condition of life to the working class–wage labor has to end,
the system of private property over the means of production has to eliminate…

All reforms are the product of struggle and the active participation of the masses mobilized to achieve a better life. They are not presents form any government.

Lenin constantly fought reformism and all kinds of social pacifism. “Reforms are subsidiary product of the revolutionary class struggle….The fundamental is the revolutionary struggle, the struggle for the conquest of power.” Lenin sees reforms as a tactical issue, to be used by the proletariat in its strategy to transform society. Rosa Luxemburg said: “reforms do not have the effect of creating of creating a new society within the old but only to better conditions so that the class can accumulate forces to liquidate this society.”
She attacked the positions of Bernstein who proposed to liquidate the capitalist system through legislative reforms.

The Social Revolution is the Radical Transformation of the Capitalist System

Revolution is in simple words is the radical process of transformation of the capitalist system towards the Socialist State…liquidating all the structures of the old society that held up the previous system.

This process cannot be carried out through the electoral route. Only the peoples’ combative mobilization, only the people who have risen up in arms led by authentically revolutionary organizations can carry it out. There are no intermediate roads. Either the revolutionary road is taken or
we will see failure, demoralization and the perpetuation of oppression.
…The struggle for socialism is an immediate task: the protagonists are the Indians, Mestizos, Blacks, Peasants and Workers…their stage are the class room, the labor union, the neighborhood, the commune, the streets and plazas. This strategic struggle for people’s power is now on the level of
ideas, but it is necessary to insist in the necessity to prepare ourselves for direct, mass confrontation of combat.