The resurgence of
Islamic fundamentalism
The following article was originally written at the beginning of 1981 and first published in French in Quatrième Internationale, No.6, OctoberDecember 1981. But I believe that the content is still relevant today, six years later. This is for several reasons.
In the first place the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism is still, unfortunately, one of the most significant features of political developments in the Middle East. The article offers a concise explanation of this phenomenon. It is explained by structural and historic factors such as the social formation of the societies involved, the economic crisis, the exhaustion of any progressive role for the nationalist bourgeoisie and the bankruptcy of the organised workers movement. The article saw the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a long term phenomenon rather than a 'bubble' that would burst.
Moreover, there have been no big political changes which have significantly modified the picture put forward. A couple of things, however, do deserve to be mentioned. In Egypt, for example, the assassination of Sadat by fundamentalists in October 1981 significantly worsened relations between central government and the Islamic movement as a whole in the country. As a result the complacency of the Egyptian bourgeoisie—or rather of its dominant faction-with regard to the fundamentalist movement as outlined in this article has given way to a more confrontationist approach. In the Lebanon the deterioration in the situation caused by the 1982 Israeli invasion, combined with an unprecedented economic crisis on the scale of those in Latin America. has led to a rapid growth of the fundamentalist movement within the Shi ite community which corresponds to the general phenomenon outlined, but is specially related to the movement in Iran.
110 International Marxist Review
Thirdly, many of the issues raised here were controversial at the time amongst revolutionary Marxists, especially in relation to the Iranian revolution. The notions put forward on issues like the essentially reactionary but contradictory nature of the Khomeini leadership have since been confirmed. The article correctly asserts that the evolution of the Khomeini regime would be uncertain, pointing to two important characteristics of the regime to support this. Firstly that the oil revenue would give the new regime a margin of autonomy which would have been unthinkable under normal capitalist economic conditions; and secondly showing that the fundamentalist forces and the social layers attracted to them were very diverse, a factor which implied the growth of a 'rival and antagonistic plurality of powers whose superficial unity has only been maintained so far by the authority of Khomeini' . Since that time, the internal battles inside the regime in Iran have only confirmed this suggestion, from the expulsion of Bani Sadr a few months after the article was written, to the current fight between the Rafsandjani and Montazeri facitons. It goes without saying that the death of Khomeini, given the current situation, will only exacerbate the current crisis. The article originally contained a prediction which did not appear in the version published in French. It said that: 'If the February 1979 revolution had not dismantled the army, to the great regret of the Ayatollahs, it would have taken power. This is leaving aside the possibility that Iran would have come apart altogether.' This was proved correct, all the more so given the prolongation of the Iran/Iraq war.
The article raises the inevitable question of the relation between Islamic fundamentalism and fascism. Basically it is true that the fundamentalist movement shares many of the characteristics of fascism outlined by Trotsky: its social base, the nature of its political ideology, its fierce anti-communism and its totalitarianism. However, there are three major factors which prevent us from reducing the fundamentalist movement to a simple variant of fascism.
Historically fascism has been linked to big capital through being its instrument in government, utilising an extreme form of Bonapartism and at the same time improving the conditions of reproduction (from a capitalist point of view of course). In the countries where it came to power fascism created a new margin of growth for the capitalist forces of production in a general situation of imperialist crisis. From this point of view, the fundamentalist movement is, in fact, more backward than was fascism.
When it goes beyond the role of an ally of the bourgeoisie in the counterrevolution, and seeks to take power for itself, the fundamentalist movement begins to fight against existing bourgeois rule, which actually represents state and private capital. For the last ten years the rise of fundamentalism has taken the place of a weakened working class movement. The representatives of big capital have therefore not felt it necessary to opt for a lesser evil and make an alliance with it. The fundamentalists, as we saw in Iran, have therefore not been able to take power with the support
In fact the only section of the bourgeoisie with which the fundamentalist movement has an affinity is the traditional 'bourgeoisie', that is, that section of the ruling class representing the continuity with the pre-capitalist mode of production; commercial capital linked to small scale producers for the internal market, including those who sell low-priced imported consumer goods. This suits the petty-bourgeoisie very well since they do not want to see preference given to the national industrial capital at the expense of their quantitative and qualitative buying power. The relative importance of this section of the ruling class, both historically and today, is one of the characteristics of Middle Eastern societies in general. In fact from its earliest days Islam was linked to the aristocratic merchants of Mecca. This particular feature of the Islamic movement means that it is more faithful than is fascism to its particular reactionary utopia, of attempting to turn back the clock of capitalist development. An Islamic dictatorship could never bring about progress for the productive forces, but is more likely to cause
There is a corollary to this which is contradictory: when the struggle of the fundamentalist movement for power is mainly against big private capital linked to imperialism (which was not the case in Libya, Syria or
Afghanistan), and when this struggle takes place in countries where the workers movement is weak if not non-existent, and where, therefore, anti- communism is a relatively secondary aspect of fundamentalism, its populist side comes to the fore. It follows from this that revolutionaries are faced with mass struggles in which they find themselves on the same side of the barricades as the Islamic fundamentalists and have to fight with them against of fascism. The riots in Egypt were one example of this. But of course any compromises proposed by the fundamentalists as a result of this type of situation pose enormous dangers for all sections of the left, both moral and
The nature of fundamentalist ideology only serves to deepen the complexity of the tactical problems posed by their political struggle. In contrast to fascism, which produces an ideology based on the nationalist and racist slogans of its founders, the fundamentalist movement by definition rejects any new doctrine and supports a centuries-old ideology based on the Islamic religion. Contrary to fascist or even Marxist ideology, fundamentalism is not seen as coming from outside Muslim society, but as indigenous.
The political and religious ambiguities in its ideas make it difficult to wage the same sort of ideological struggle which is necessary against fascism.
This problem is made harder by the impossibility of dissociating the political from the religious in Islam. In this respect, and in particular at times when the populist side of the movement has been to the fore, the ideological tactics of Marxists have been based more on the writings of Lenin on religion, than the writings of Trotsky on fascism. As Lenin wrote in his article enof any of the dominant sections of the bourgeoisie.
their regression or, at best, stagnation.
"the common enemy' physical, (as in Iran and Lebanon).
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 111
, something which would be unthinkable in the case
112 International Marxist Review titled On the attitude of the Workers Party to religion:
In (certain) circumstances atheist propaganda can appear superfluous and off-putting, not only from the obvious point of view of alienating more backward forces or losing support in elections, etc, but from the point of view of the real progress of the class struggle which, in conditions of modern capitalist society, itself will lead religious believers towards social democracy and atheism a hundred times more effectively than any atheist sermon...
Marxists must learn to take account of the overall situation; they must know how to find a balance between anarchism and opportunism (this balance is relative, flexible, variable, but it does exist); they must learn not to fall into the trap of the empty and abstract revolutionary propaganda of the anarchists nor into the philistinism and opportunism of the pettybourgeoisie or liberal intellectuals who doubt the struggle against religion, who forget the duties which they have in this area, who accomodate to belief in god which is inspired, not by the needs of the class struggle, but by a shabby and miserable schema: don't offend people, don't put people off..
In conclusion, the only real antidote to the current resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism is a massive increase in the class consciousness of the workers even if that has to come from outside. The revolutionary struggle of the proletariat is much more powerful and universal than the ideology of fundamentalist obscurantism. Any hasty generalizations about the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism which has marked the beginning of the last quarter of the twentieth century are precluded by extent and diversity of the forms it has taken. It would be totally mistaken to equate the Catholicism of the Polish workers with that of the Francoist reaction without analysing the common features of the agrarian histories of Spain and Poland, or the political and ideological content of their respective Catholicisms.
Similarly, elementary analytical caution forbids the equation of such diverse phenomena as the resurgence of the Muslim clerical and/or political movements in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Senegal, the military dictatorship of Zia-Ul-Hag in Pakistan or that of Gaddafy in Libya, the taking power by Iranian Shi'ite clergy or the Afghan guerrillas, etc. Even underneath phenomena which, on the surface, appear identical, such as the progress of different parts of the same movement, the 'Muslim Brotherhood' in Egypt and Syria, there lies a difference of political content and functions determined by their different immediate objectives. For despite agreement on celestial matters and problems of everyday life, and despite similar, even identical, denominations and organisational forms, Muslim movements remain essentially political movements. They are thus the expressions of eminently terrestrial socio-political interests.
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 113 A political religion There has been no invasion of Islam into politics. Islam and politics have always been inseparable. Islam is a political religion in the etymological sense of the word. Thus, the demand for the separation of religion and state in Muslim countries is more than secularist: it is openly anti-religious. This helps explain why none of the major currents of bourgeois or petty bourgeois nationalism on Islamic soil, with the exception of Kemalism in Turkey, has called for secularism. What is an elementary democratic task elsewherethe separation of religion and state-is so radical in Muslim countries, especially the Middle East, that even the dictatorship of the proletariat will tind it a ditticult task to complete. It is beyond the scope of any other class.
Furthermore, the democratic classes of Muslim societies have on the whole shown very little interest in challenging their own religion. In fact Islam has not been perceived in the twentieth century as the ideological cement of an outmoded feudal or semi-feudal class structure in these societies. It is rather seen as a basic element of national identity derided by the foreign Christian (even atheist) oppressor. It is not an accident that Turkey is the only Muslim society not to have been subjected to direct foreign domination in the twentieth century. Mustafa Kemal too was alone amongst his peers. He waged his main battle not against colonialism or imperialism, but against the Sultanate, a combination of temporal and spiritual power (the Caliphate). On the other hand, a bourgeois nationalist as radical as Nasser had every interest in ascribing to Islam in his principal combat against imperialism. This was an easy way to protect himself from left and right simultaneously. Fundamentalism: a complete programme Islam as one of many elements of the ideology of nationalist currents, although fundamental, is not the subject of the theses which follow. That particular Islam has served its time, as have the currents which claim it. More generally, we shall distinguish between Islam used as a means to shape and assert the identity of a nation, community or even sect, and Islam considered as an end in itself, a total global objective, a unique, complete programme. "The Koran is our Constitution' declared Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. The Islam which interests us here is the Islam elevated to an absolute principle, above all other demands, struggles and reform—the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood, of the 'Jamaati-Islami', of the different associations of Ulemas and of the movement of the Iranian Ayatollahs whose organised expression is the Islamic Republican Party. The common denominator of these different movements is Islamic fundamentalism that is, the wish to return to Islam, the aspirations to an Islamic utopia not limited to a single nation, but encompassing the entire
114 International Marxist Review Muslim population, if not the entire world. In this spirit, Bani-Sadr declared to a Beirut daily, An-Nahar, in 1979 that 'Ayatollah Khomeini is internationalist; he is opposed to Islamic Stalinists who wish to build Islam in one country' (sic!). This 'internationalism' is expressed equally by the fact that the above-mentioned movements go beyond the borders of their countries of origin and/or maintain close relations with each other. They all reject nationalism in the narrow sense, and consider nationalist currents-even those professing to be Islamic-as rivals, if not opponents. They oppose foreign oppression or the national enemy in the name of Islam and not in defence of the 'Nation'. Thus, for Khomeini, the United States is not so much 'imperialism' as the 'Great Satan'; Saddam Hussein is above all an 'atheist' ', an 'infidel'. For all the movements in question, Israel is not so much the Zionist usurper of the Palestinian territory as 'the Jewish usurper of a sacred Islamic land'. A petty bourgeois movement However progressive, national and/or democratic the objective significance of certain struggles led by various currents of Islamic fundamentalism, it is still clear that their ideology and their programme are essentially and by definition reactionary. For what sort programme aims to construct an Islamic state, faithfully modelled on the seventh century of the Christian era, if not a reactionary utopia? What sort of ideology aims to restore a thirteen centuries' old order, if not an eminently reactionary one? Thus it is erroneous if not absurd to define Islamic fundamentalist movements as bourgeois, whatever the convergence of certain struggles they lead with all or part of the bourgeoisie of their country. It is just as mistaken to define them as revolutionary when they happen to come into conflict with this same bourgeoisie. As much by the nature of their programme and ideology as by their social composition and even the social origins of their founders, the Islamic fundamentalist movements are petty bourgeois.
They despise equally representatives of big capital, representatives of the proletariat, the imperialist states and the workers states. They are hostile to the two poles of industrial society which threaten them: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They correspond to that fraction of the petty bourgeoisie described by the Communist Manifesto:
The lower middle class, the manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history.
Marx, Engels, Selected Works (MESN), (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986)
The petty bourgeois Islamic reaction finds its ideologues and organising cadres among the 'traditional intellectuals' of Muslim society, the ulemas and the like, as well as among the lower echalons of the 'organic intellectuals' of the bourgeoisie, those coming from the petty bourgeoisie and con-
demned to stay there: teachers and clerks in particular. In a period of ascendancy. Islamic fundamentalism recruits mainly at universities and other cenby their social origins than by a hypothetical and elusive future
Those countries where the Islamic fundamentalist reaction has been able to constitute itself as a mass movement, and where it now has the wind in its sails, have a high proportion of middle classes, according to the Communist Manifesto definition: manufacturers, shopkeepers, artisans and peasants. Nevertheless, any eruption of Islamic fundamentalism mobilises not only a certain fraction of the middle classes, but also fractions of other classes newly spawned by the middle classes under the impact of primitive capital accumulation and pauperization. Thus, those fractions of the proletariat whose proletarianization is the most recent, and above all fractions of the sub-proletariat who have been cast off by capitalism from their former petty bourgeois positions, are particularly receptive to fundamentalist agita-
Such is the social base of Islamic fundamentalism, its mass base. This base is nevertheless not automatically behind the religious reaction, in the way that the bourgeoisie is behind its own programme. Whatever the religious shis senio th and ashes eve if religion as a isual time lean order for the opiate of the masses to become an attractive option in the age of automation, it is truly necessary that the said masses have no other choice but to devote themselves to God. For the least one can say about Islam is that its immediate relevance is not obvious! In fact, Islamic fundamentalism poses more problems than it solves. Besides the problem of implementing a thirteen centuries old civil code, there is also the question of completing it. Although this code is several centuries younger than Roman law, it was produced by a society substanially more backward than Roman Antiquity.
(The Koran was largely inspired by the Torah, as was the lifestyle of the
In other words, the most orthodox Muslim fundamentalist is incapable of responding to problems posed by modern society simply by the skills of exegesis, unless the latter becomes totally arbitrary and therefore a source of endless disagreements between the exegetes. There are thus as many interpretations of Islam as there are interpreters. The core of the Islamis religion which unites Muslims, in no way satisfies the pressing materia!
needs of the petty bourgeois, whether or not it can satisfy their spiritual needs. Islamic fundamentalism in itself is in no way the most appropriate programme for the aspirations of the social layers who mobilise behind it.
tres of the production of 'intellectuals'
Social base tion and susceptible to being drawn in behind it.
Arabs broadly similar to that of the Hebrews.)
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 115
', where they remain more conditioned
116 International Marxist Review Middle Classes The social base described above is characterised by its political diversity. The quotation from the Communist Manifesto already cited does not describe a fixed attitude of the middle classes but simply the real content of their fight against the bourgeoisie when they do turn against it. For, before struggling against the bourgeoisie, the middle classes were its allies in the struggle against feudalism; before seeking to reverse the course of history, they contributed toward advancing it. The middle classes are, above all, the social base of the democratic revolution and the national struggle. In dependent and backward societies, such as the Muslim societies, the middle classes retain this role insofar as the tasks of the national and democratic revolution are not completed. They are the most ardent supporters of any bourgeois leadership (even more so, petty bourgeois) which inscribes these tasks on its banner. The middle classes are the social base par excellence of the Bonapartism of the ascendant bourgeoise. (They are, in fact, the social base of all bourgeois Bonapartism.) It is therefore necessary that the bourgeois or petty bourgeois leaderships which undertake the national and democratic tasks have reached their own limitations in the completion of these tasks, that they have lost their credibility, for large sections of the middle classes to split off from them and seek other paths.
Of course, as long as the rise of capitalism seems to open the way to social betterment, as long as their conditions of existence improve, the middle classes do not question the established order. Even if lacking politics or enthusiasm, they nevertheless play the role of the "silent majority' of the bourgeois order. But if ever the capitalist evolution of society weighs on them with all its force-the weight of national and/or international competition, inflation and debt—the middle classes then become a formidable reservoir of oppositional force against the established power. They are free of all bourgeois control and all the more formidable because the rage and violence of the petty bourgeois in distress are without parallel. Reaction or revolution Even then, the reactionary choice is not necessarily the only one open to the petty bourgeoisie, downtrodden by capitalist society and disillusioned with the national democratic bourgeois and petty bourgeois leaderships. Another choice is always open to them, at least in theory. They are confronted with the alternative of reaction or revolution. They can, indeed join the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie, as the Communist Manifesto predicted:
If by chance (the middle classes) are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; thus they defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.
(MESW, op cit, p.44)
However, in the backward and dependent societies tha the Communist to abandon their own viewpoint in order to place themselves under the leadership of the proletariat. Quite the contrary, it is by taking the aspirations of the middle classes under its wing, notably the national and democratic tasks, that the proletariat can attract them to its struggle. But for the proletariat to gain the confidence of the middle classes, it must have a credible leadership, which has proved itself on a political and practical level. If on the contrary the majority of the proletarian leadership has discredited itself on the terrain of national democratic political struggles
(while maintaining its majority position because of its role in the trade unions or because of the lack of an alternative leadership), if it proves itself guilty of a lack of political will regarding the established order, or worse, if it supports the established order, then the middle classes will have no choice but to listen to the petty bourgeois reaction-even if it is as enigmatic as
In all the countries where Islamic fundamentalism has gained ground, particularly in Egypt, Syria, Iran and Pakistan, all the conditions described above exist.? In all these countries the conditions of the middle classes have noticeably deteriorated over the last few years. Although some of these countries export oil, the only effect the massive oil price increases have had on the majority of their middle classes has been unbridled inflation.
Besides, bourgeois and petty bourgeois national democratic leaderships are generally discredited in these countries. In the four countries named, these leaderships have undergone the test of state power. In trying to realise their national democratic programme, they have all created around them, at certain points in their histories, the near-unity of the middle classes. Some, notably Egypt and countries under Egyptian influence where Nasser had enormous influence, went a long way in this direction. These nationalists were able to stay in power for a long time, or indeed still remain, because
In Iran and Pakistan where the nationalists constituted civilian governments, the army soon swept them away. Mossadegh and Bhutto came to lamentable ends. In any case, the extent of progress on the path towards completion of the national democratic programme within the framework and limitations of the bourgeois state, is today greatly reduced or almost non-existent in the four above-mentioned countries. Even in Iran where the
Mossadegh experience was brief, the Shah, counselled by his American advisers, took it upon himself by his own pseudo-Bismarckian methods to play both Robespierre and Bonaparte. On the other hand, the only notable political organizations of the workers movement in the whole region are
Manifesto did not envisage'
Islamic reaction-and, possibly to heed its appeal.
Some examples they rose to power by means of the army.
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 117
, the middle classes have absolutely no need
118 International Marxist Review Stalinist organizations which are totally discredited by a long history of betrayals of popular struggles and compromises with the ruling powers.
Thus, when the discontent of the middle classes began to be expressed these past few years in the four countries mentioned, no workers', national bourgeois or petty bourgeois organization was able to capitalise on it. The way was clear for petty bourgeois Islamic fundamentalist reaction. By contrast, in Algeria, Libya and Iraq, where enlightened despotism of a national bourgeois or petty bourgeois bureaucracy allowed large fractions of the middle classes to benefit from the oil wealth, Islamic fundamentalism could be controlled. Support for the reactionary bourgeoisie If Islamic fundamentalism has progressed as much in Egypt as in Syria, in Iran as in Pakistan, the forms and extent of its progress, as well as its political content and functions differ greatly from one country to another. In Syria, the fundamentalist movement is the main rival to the decadent bonapartism of the Ba'athist bourgeois bureaucracy, against which it has engaged in a fight to death. They gain from the minority confessional character (Alevi) of the governing group. The extremely and exclusively reactionary nature of the Syrian fundamentalist movement's programme reduces its possibilities of seizing power on its own to almost nothing. It cannot on its own, on the basis of such a programme, mobilise the necessary forces for an overthrow of the Ba'athist dictatorship. Still less can it manage, alone, a country whose economic ana political problems are as thorny as Syria's. The Syrian fundamentalist movement is thus condemned to cooperate with the Syrian propertied classes (bourgeois and landowners). It is not, and cannot be, any more than their spearhead.
Similarly in Egypt, the possibility of an autonomous seizure of power by the fundamentalist movement is very limited. Its relative influence there is considerably smaller than in Syria. In these countries, the fundamentalist movement has been hardened out in a long struggle against progressive regimes, thus highlighting its reactionary character. And the very scope of Egypt's economic problems makes the fundamentalist movement. In their eyes, the latter constitutes an ideal 'fifth column' within the mass movement—a particularly effective 'antibody' against the left. That is why they are not worried when they see the Egyptian fundamentalist movement contesting the left on the left's favourite terrains: the national question and the social question. Any progress here of Islamic reaction reduces that of the left proportionately. The attitude of the Egyptian bourgeoisie towards the fundamentalist movement resembles that of any bourgeoisie confronted with a profound social crisis with regard to the extreme right and fascism.
Pakistan is distinguished from Egypt in that the fundamentalist movement there consolidated itself mainly under reactionary regimes. It has
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 119 therefore been able to reclaim over long periods of time some elements of the national democratic programme and thus to constitute a credible opposition to the established order. But during these long periods, the bourgeois national democratic tendencies were themselves in opposition. They were more credible, and thus more influential, than the fundamentalist movement. It needed a Bhutto, skipping the stages of a Nasser-type evolution by an impressive historical shortcut, rapidly alienating the masses by getting entangled in his own contradictions, and freeing the terrain for the extreme right dominated by the fundamentalist movement, there being no significant far left in Pakistan. Bhutto's bankruptcy was so pronounced that the fundamentalist movement managed to mobilise a broad mass movement against him. It was in order to forestall the 'anarchy' that could have resulted from an overthrow of Bhutto by this mobilisation (cf. Iran!) that the coup d'etat took place. To win the sympathy of the fundamentalist movement, Zia-Ul-Haq's reactionary bourgeois military dictatorship opportunistically assumed its projects for Islamic reforms. It counts on the fundamentalist movement today to neutralize any 'progressive' opposition to its regime, including the late Bhutto's party.
In the three cases above, the fundamentalist movement has proved itself to be nothing but a support for the reactionary bourgeoisie. The case in Iran is different. Iran: permanent revolution in reverse In Iran, the fundamentalist movement represented mainly by the fundamentalist tendency of the Shi'ite clergy shaped itself through a long and bitter struggle against the Shah's eminently reactionary imperialist-backed regime. The lamentable historical bankruptcy of Iranian bourgeois nationalism and Stalinism is too well know to be described here. Nevertheless, because ot this exceptional combination of historical circumstances, the Iranian fundamentalist movement managed to become the sole spearhead of the two immediate tasks of the national democratic revolution in Iran: the overthrow of the Shah and the severing of links with American imperialism. This situation was all the more possible because the two tasks in question were in perfect harmony with the overall reactionary programme of Islamic fundamentalism. Thus, as the social crisis deepened in Iran to the point of creating the preconditions for a revolutionary overthrow of the Shah, when the sentiments of the middle classes towards him reached fever-pitch, the fundamentalist movement, personified by Khomeini, succeeded in channeling the immense force of the distressed middle classes and the subproletariat to deal the regime a series of naked blows—near-suicidal in their determination to remain disarmed such as only a mystical movement is capable of doing. The Iranian fundamentalist movement managed to carr. out the first stage of a national democratic revolution in Iran. But soon after-
120 International Marxist Review wards its fundamentalist character was to get the upper hand.
In a sense, the Iranian revolution is the permanent revolution in reverse. Starting with the national democratic revolution, it could, under a proletarian leadership, have taken the path of socialist transformation. The fundamentalist petty bourgeois leadership prevented that, pushing on the contrary in the direction of reaction. The February 1979 revolution is astonishingly similar to that of February 1917—two identical points of departure leading to diametrically opposite evolution. Where October permitted the accomplishment of the Russian democratic revolution, the fundamentalist leadership betrayed the democratic content of the Iranian revolution. The Bolsheviks replaced the Constituent Assembly, after having struggled for its election by the eminently democratic power of the soviets. The Ayatollahs replaced the Constituent Assembly which they too had placed top of their demands but did not allow it to see the light of day, by that reactionary caricature the Muslim 'Assembly of Experts'. The fate of this common demand of the two revolutions eloquently sums up the antithetical character of their leaderships, and therefore of the directions of their development. As for the democratic forms of organization which appeared in the course of the Iranian February, they were harnessed by the Islamic leadership. The 'shoras' were a far cry from the "soviets'! On the national question, where the proletarian internationalism of the Bolsheviks allowed for the emancipation of oppressed nationalities in the Russian empire, the Ayatollahs' Islamic 'internationalism' turned out to be a religious pretext for the bloody repression of oppressed nationalities in the Persian empire. The fate of women in the two revolutions is just as well known.
The fundamentalist Iranian leadership only remained faithful to the national democratic programme on one point: the struggle against American imperialism. But it remained faithful to this struggle in its own peculiar way. Describing the enemy not as imperialism but as the 'west', if not the 'Great Satan' , Khomein called tor throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or rather the baby before the bathwater. He attributed to the hated 'west' all the political and social gains of the bourgeois revolution, including 'democracy' and even Marxism which was considered (correctly) to be a product of industrialised 'western' society whilst neglecting the principal links between Iran and imperialism: the economic links. The US embassy affair, in the way it was carried out, brought nothing to Iran. In the final analysis it proved expensive, as it profited American banks. Whatever the subsequent evolution of the fundamentalist dictatorship in Iran, it has already proved to be a major obstacle to the development of the Iranian revolution.
Moveover, this evolution is very problematic. Beyond the exceptional combination of circumstances described above, a fundamental difference exists between Iran and the three countries considered before: Iran has the 'luxury' of an autonomous petty bourgeois fundamentalist state power. Its oil wealth is the guarantee of a healthy balance of payments and budget. But at what price and until when? The economic balance sheet of the two
years of fundamentalist power is already heavily negative compared with former years. On the other hand, the inconsistency of the fundamentalist
"programme' and the large variety of social layers who claim it as their own and interpret it according to their own peculiarities, are translated into a rival and antagonistic plurality of powers whose superticial unity has only
Islamic fundamentalism is one of the most dangerous enemies of the revolutionary proletariat. It is absolutely and under all circumstances necessary to combat its 'reactionary and medieval influence' as the 'Theses on the
National and Colonial Question' adopted at the Second Congress of the Communist International States. Even in cases such as Iran where the fundamentalist movement provisionally assumes certain national democratic tasks, the duty of revolutionary communists is to combat intransigently the mystification which it exercises on the struggling masses. If not, the masses will surely pay the price. Whilst fighting together against the common enemy, revolutionary communists must warn the labouring masses against any reactionary diversion of their struggle. Any failure in these elementary tasks is not only a fundamental deficiency: it can lead to opportunist devia-
There again, even in cases where Islamic fundamentalism rises up exclusively in its reactionary guise, revolutionary communists must arm themselves with tactical prudence in their struggle against it. In particular they must avoid falling into the fundamentalists' trap of leading the struggle on religious terrain. They should keep it firmly on the national, democratic and social terrain. For revolutionary communists must not lose sight of the fact that one often important section of the masses under the influence of
Islamic fundamentalism can and must be split from it and won to the struggle of the proletariat. In doing this, revolutionary communists must nevertheless declare themselves unequivocally for the secularization of society.
a rudimentary element of the democratic programme. They can play down their atheism, but never their secularism, unless they wish to replace Marx
1. In the famous Address to the Communist League of 1850 by Marx and Engels, one will find a different descripton of the role of the petty bourgeoisie although their rallying to
2. In Tunisia and Lebanon, the profound 'westernization' of society handicaps the progress of Islamic fundamentalism, which is no less real. Organizations of the workers movement in the whole region are Stalinist organizations which are totally discredited by a
A dangerous enemy tions of the communist revolutionary organisation.
with Mohammed!
the proletariat is not envisaged.
The resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism 121 been maintained so far by the authority of Khomeini.
Notes
122 International Marxist Review long history of betrayals of popular struggles and compromises with the ruling powers. 3. Gaddafy, contrary to what one might think, is not a fundamentalist in the real sense of the term. He was, up to a certain point during the first years of his petty bourgeois dictatorship. He became a sort of precursor to the present resurgence and even one of its principal instigators. His subsequent radicalization spread to Islam which today he claims to reform. The 'Muslim Brotherhood' exists in Libya and is repressed there. 4. They differ also from one component to another in the fundamentalist movement in each country, but within the framework of these general theses we cannot give an account of the latter type of differences
iNTERNATiØNAL MARXIST REVIEW
£2.50/$5
Summer 1987
Vol. 2, No.3
• Gramsci's Marxism - Livio Maitan
• Luxemburg and Lenin - Paul Le Blanc
• Lessons of Grenada - Laurent Beaulieu
• Liberation theology challenges Marxism - Michael Lowy
• Resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism - Salah Jaber
International Marxist Review/Quatrième Internationale
Published by Presse-Edition-Communications (PEC)-SARL
Administration: 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France
Directeur de publication: Leon Cremieux
Commission paritaire: 55939