Is Iran really a fascist state?
When one makes the move from mainstream Western corporate-owned media to alternative independent media and Eastern state media, one quickly starts to lose touch with others around them in their understanding of the world. Sometimes, this gets to the point where you can turn on the BBC and it’s so blatantly ridiculous you’re not even sure what it is they’re trying to get you to believe anymore.
Take the Iran riots, or “women’s uprising” if you please. We are apparently supposed to believe an entire population has dramatically risen up in revolution to overthrow their government, just because women don’t want to wear a piece of cloth on the back of their heads? We’re supposed to believe that hundreds of women are throwing themselves in front of bullets and bearing torture and murder by the security forces, because it’s a bit scratchy and uncomfortable having to cover the back of your hair? Really?
The Iranian government is routinely portrayed as being driven by a violent, irrational hatred of women. Putting aside the fact that women in Iran have full employment rights, are generally more likely to be educated than men and work as doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers and even MPs, the very idea of one of the most powerful countries in the region being run by a government that just hates women for the sake of it, and supposedly violently targets women just for being women, is very hard to take seriously.
Media reports about Iran have gotten so deranged that they have gone as far as to accuse the government of deliberately poisoning random schoolgirls en masse, as some kind of collective punishment against women. Conspiracy theories about Covid being caused by 5G masts, or vaccines being designed to depopulate the world, actually begin to sound very reasonable in comparison to this psychotic nonsense.
It’s a genuine question. What is it that normie liberals actually think is happening in Iran? Clearly something light years away from the actual situation in Iran.
Maybe you could call the above a strawman. “Obviously they’re not fighting just about the scarf, it’s about the economic crisis, the lack of jobs, inflation, etc,” you could retort. The problem is this is not really in the control of the government in Tehran. This is a result of the US blockade of the country, which Joe Biden refuses to relieve despite his empty words in support of a return to the nuclear deal when he was posturing against Trump.
Technically, this blockade would likely be lifted if the Iranian government were to be overthrown, in much the same way as the British government could technically have stopped the Blitz in the 1940s by simply stepping down and letting the Nazis take over the country. (Apologies for the use of a reductio ad Hitlerum argument, but unfortunately it is the only language the regime-change militants are guaranteed to understand).
Throughout left-liberal circles in the West, the Iranian system is endlessly bashed ad nauseam by supposedly “educated” people who very obviously know nothing about the country’s politics and recent history, very much like how the ultranationalist government currently ruling Ukraine is worshipped by similarly ignorant people, but in reverse.
The more leftist types, with their trendy references to Marx and Engels to try and look cleverer than they are, and their hatred of “authoritarian states” (i.e. literally every state in history that actually practiced Marxism), will routinely refer to the Iranian system as a “fascist theocracy”. In fact, even many otherwise serious socialists who tirelessly defend the achievements of anti-imperialist revolutions in Cuba, Nicaragua, China, Korea and the former USSR will mindlessly parrot the fascist label when it comes to Iran.
We have to make an assumption here — perhaps a naïve one — that self-styled socialists calling Iran fascist are actually trying to use the term in its real scientific socialist sense, rather than simply as a swear word against a group or individual you are prejudiced against for personal reasons you’d rather not examine. Socialist activists in the USA in particular are well known for throwing around words like “fascist” and “Nazi” at people whose only crime is being a Republican voter (an attitude much encouraged by the Democrats’ media machine) or even just for finding drag culture creepy or being sceptical of gender fluid ideology. One’s support for such issues often tends to stem more from feelings and emotion about one’s self-perceived identity rather than any rational scientific argument, hence the abuse levelled at those who dare to ask uncomfortable questions.
Fascism, assuming we are using the word properly, means a system that is set up to protect the interests of big business and big capital from the wrath of the workers and peasants in revolt. It is typically set up under pseudo-populist slogans (for example, the adoption of the word “Socialist” by Hitler’s regime) and comes into being when a country is deep in the turmoil of a revolutionary situation, and a socialist revolution to end capitalism in said country is perceived to be a serious imminent threat.
The purpose of the fascist regime, to repeat, is to protect the economic interests of the big capitalists which were previously under threat by the impending revolution. Additionally, as was observed in both Italy and Germany, the fascists are given every support to grow and consolidate their movement by the existing elites, and when the time is right they are openly invited into power by the ruling class to establish the fascist regime. Much more can be learned on the attributes of the fascist regime from R. Palme Dutt’s excellent 1934 book Fascism and Social Revolution.
Undoubtedly, Iran was at the height of a revolutionary situation at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini’s coming to power in 1979. The key questions are:
- Was Ayatollah Khomeini actively invited by the elites of the existing regime to set up his government?
- Did the new regime set up by Khomeini seek to prioritise the economic interests of the big capitalists?
The answer to the first question is clearly a negative. This is indicated by the fact that Khomeini, far from being invited, actually had his return to Iran in January 1979 blocked for three days by the Shah’s prime minister who had closed the airports. They were only reopened due to fierce resistance, much of it armed, by Khomeini’s revolutionary supporters.
It is true that the USA was in touch with elements around Khomeini at the time of the revolution, and that CIA officials believed he would potentially be an ally: i.e., that he could be used to set up a fascistic regime. These hopes, built on the CIA’s previous history of collaboration with Islamic organisations in Syria, Indonesia, Egypt and elsewhere, were dramatically dashed by the US Embassy takeover a few months later when Khomeini declared his open opposition to US influence in Iran.
As for the second question, let us put the answer this way. The USA was in 1979 by a very long way the largest market economy in the world. This is still probably the case today but was much more definitively the case at the time of the Iranian Revolution, before China’s adoption of market economics. The big Iranian capitalists behind the regime of the Shah were intertwined intimately with the enormous US market, unfettered trade with which was clearly crucial for their profitability.
Bearing this in mind, why on earth would Ayatollah Khomeini choose to torpedo the country’s relations with the United States in such a dramatic and definitive way (see 1979 US embassy seizure), if his primary purpose was to defend the interests of big capital? How could wrecking their access to the US market possibly benefit the interests of the big bourgeoisie in Iran?
It is likely that a considerable section of small-scale industrial and petit-bourgeois capitalists, crushed under the boot of big capital, may have benefitted from these policies. Many such merchants and artisans enthusiastically supported Khomeini; it is worth remembering that the Islamic system in Iran has never pretended to have a Communist worldview nor has it ever advocated for totally abolishing all private enterprise.
But promoting the interests of small-scale capital over big is clearly not fascism, nor has it been observed from any fascist regime throughout the 20th century. The belief that fascism is an ideology that seeks to empower the middle-class and petit-bourgeois elements over big finance capital is a long-standing one, despite being thoroughly debunked by history. One can refer to the aforementioned book by R. Palme Dutt for more information.
This touches on a wider point about the unique nature of the US imperialist hegemony that Western socialist activists typically struggle to comprehend. It is very common to hear in such circles the view that “we should stand against ALL tyrants and dictators who are repressing their people, regardless of whether they’re pro or anti-American!”. Often, if you are perceived as being too focused on attacking pro-US tyrannical governments and not spending a huge amount of time attacking “anti-American tyrants”, you are labelled a “tankie” or peppered with other sectarian insults.
What is never explained is why exactly an “anti-American tyrant”, who presumably is primarily interested in enriching himself and his cronies at the expense of the nation, would choose to endanger his life and his riches by going against the most powerful empire the world has ever known.
You might argue that the anti-Americanism of these governments is fake and purely for public consumption, whilst behind closed doors they are friendly with the USA. This is hard to believe.
If we look at the public posturing of leaders in West Asia for example, almost all of them have put on an obviously fake anti-US mask at some point in their career. Even a most solidly loyal US vassal like the late President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt initially posed as being against the invasion of Iraq.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is undoubtedly the master of such public anti-Western posturing, with his regular tirades against various EU leaders designed to appeal to his religious anti-Western constituency. It is obvious to any astute observer that, even after suffering a seemingly US-supported coup attempt in 2016, he is still firmly on the US side. The most obvious evidence for this is the fact that Turkey is still a NATO member and is still waging a war of aggression in Syria that is completely ignored by the mainstream media, unless Turkish forces happen to clash with “Kurds” (i.e. the mercenaries the US uses to occupy Syrian oilfields).
From the above, we can see that it is not too difficult to discern real anti-US stances from fake ones designed for public consumption.
On the other hand, look at President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. He is a good example because, of all the genuinely anti-American leaders in the world today, he is probably the easiest to accuse of corruption given the elevated position of the Assad family in the Syrian system and the fact he inherited the presidency from his father.
Nonetheless, if Assad was someone who was primarily interested in enriching himself and his circle, surely the surest way of achieving that was to submit to the USA like the leaders of the other Arab states? Why would he risk his life, his power, his family, everything, to take such a firm stance against the West despite endless assassination attempts, Western-backed rebels conquering most of the country and reaching within mere kilometres of his seat of power in Damascus?
Could he not have made a deal with the US, much like the other Arab states, where Syria would come under the control of US corporations in return for protection for his family’s privileges? Why didn’t he attempt to do that? He did not even leave the country, rather he stayed in Damascus in disregard for his own safety to act as commander at the height of the war. Does that sound like a corrupt tyrant bent on enriching himself to you?
It is obviously nonsense to claim that Assad is secretly allied with America, given how many trillions of dollars of weapons and propaganda have been spent in a bloodthirsty multinational war that has probably killed around a million people by now. Notably, for all the Turkish anger about the US alliance with allegedly PKK-linked Kurdish militants in Syria, Erdogan has, as of the end of 2022, at no point seriously attempted to make peace with the Syrian government — a most obvious step if his anti-American bluster were remotely serious.
The concept of the “anti-American tyrant” is inherently contradictory, because tyrants are by their nature self-serving and there is very little reason why a corrupt self-serving person would want bring down hell and brimstone raining upon them from going against the global hegemon. What is far more common are fabricated claims of “tyranny” and “human rights violations” manufactured in Washington think tanks and hegemonic so-called “humanitarian” organisations, designed to demonise any leader brave and sincere enough to stand up for his country’s sovereignty.
For its part, the military-media-industrial complex in the USA and the UK pours a huge amount of effort and funding into promoting anarcho-leftists who preach the gospel of “all tyrants are bad” and “I hate ‘tankies’ who love brutal dictators as long as they’re anti-America”.
Let us return to discussing Iran. The mass flight of the old elites and upper class Iranians to Western countries following the Revolution poses another conundrum. Surely if the Islamic Republic were a fascist system set up to protect the old power and property relations, then why would the upper classes have left? Indeed, why were many of the aristocrats who didn’t flee put to death by the revolutionary courts? Courts which, ironically, are decried as “kangaroo courts” and human rights violations by many of the same leftists who claim the Islamic Republic is worse than the Shah regime.
The only real pieces of evidence given to support the “fascist” epithet are the clerical system of government and the crackdown on the Tudeh Party (the nation’s Communist Party) in the early 80s. In the case of the former, this is a result of dogmatically applying theories developed for 19th and early 20th century European conditions without taking into account the differing conditions in Iran.
For instance, unlike in Europe where the Church has historically always been intertwined with the State and large landowners and reliant on their funding, in Iran the Shi’i Islamic religious authorities — the maraji’i — have historically been independent from reliance on the state and rely on donations from the faithful. The maraji’i and Shi’i scholars have also historically been a key bastion of resistance to imperialist encroachment in Iran — for example during the 1891 Tobacco Revolt, the 1905 Constitutional Revolution and the 1920 Azadistan revolt — unlike in Western nations where clerics in politics, with a few honourable exceptions, are generally associated with repression and far-right extremism.
As for the treatment of the Communists in the 1980s, it may have been harsh and in some cases very excessive but it should be seen in its proper context. At that time, Iran was in a state of total warfare and fighting for its survival as an independent nation, having been invaded by Saddam’s Iraq. Many top leaders of the revolutionary government had been assassinated by various terrorist elements, likely backed by foreign powers. The USSR was understood to be supportive of the Iraqi invasion and was providing weapons to Iraq — notably the first major Cold War conflict where the USSR and the USA were essentially on the same side.
Being an unashamedly pro-Soviet organisation, naturally the Tudeh Party was likely to come under suspicion in an atmosphere of understandable paranoia about foreign interference. Additionally, the militant secularism of Communist ideology was never likely to co-exist well in the overwhelmingly pro-Islamic environment of 1980s Iran. Whatever excesses and crimes may have been committed, this by itself does not justify labelling Iran as a “fascist” state. It is well known that most Communist governments went through similar phases of justified paranoia that stemmed from the constant Western-backed terrorism and sabotage they suffered, resulting in many innocent people being wrongly denounced as spies and killed.
