By Michel Rovere by Micnel Hovere
[The following has been excerpted from an article in the February 9-15 issue of the French Trotskyist weekly Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor.J
TEHRAN-Since September the struggles of Iran's blue-collar and wage workers have become the backbone of the mass movement.
While these battles began around strictly economic questions, directly political demands quickly became the main focus. Over the course of the last few months the strikes have become increasingly selforganized. Workers have held general assemblies, elected delegates (subject to recall) to carry out negotiations, and formed functioning strike committees. The plants and office buildings have become genuine centers of political education.
The bank workers union, after Khomeini's return, issued a statement announcing that tellers' windows would be open every other day, "the day in between being reserved for discussion among striking workers" on "the political situation and the future of the revolution."
Here in Tehran, since the Ministry of Information is at present in no condition to impose the slightest form of censorship, printers have decided to work double shifts, day and night, to make available as rapidly as possible the works of Marx and Lenin, which have been banned for twenty-five years.
Workers in the printing industry explain that they have not yet had enough time to form a union, but that during breaks all the workers gather together to go over the latest newspapers and discuss the situa tion.
Strikers in telecommunications have set up an exposition on the third floor of the Iran Telephone Company, where the publie can view films, posters, photographs, and sketches of the latest political develop-
The strikers regularly organize ments.
political meetings, to which they invite opposition figures and political leaders, as well as religious leaders such as Ayatollah Taleghani.
The workers who operate nonautomated equipment for international calls "select according to urgency and political criteria" those that will be given priority.
Neighborhood committees have sprung up almost everywhere. To avoid hardship for the population and, in the long run, resentment against the striking oil workers, the religious hierarchy decided to organize the allotment and distribution of gasoline, heating oil, and kerosene, neighborhood by neighborhood.
The same decision was made regarding other necessities of life. After a campaign among shopkeepers to keep them from taking advantage of the situation by raising prices, committees formed by religious leaders organized people's cooperatives in the workers neighborhoods of south Tehran, selling veal, milk, chicken, and rice at low prices.
The development of these instances of self-administration, which could lead to the reemergence of "anjomans," the "Iranian soviets" of the constitutional revolution of 1905-06, is clearly a factor shaking the Pahlavi state to its foundations, particularly if it spreads to a general movement for the recall of the mayors and other local officials. But being strictly dependent, even in its composition, on the religious hierarchy, it thereby also reflects many contradictions.
Ahwaz, in the southern province of Khuzestan, is the center of the oil workers struggle. It was there, even before Abadan, where the first oil workers strike committee was formed. Before returning to work and assuring sufficient production to meet domestic needs, the workers demanded and won the release of their jailed comrades, the right to verify the complete halt of oil exports, and the immediate withdrawal of the army from the entire province.
As the troops were withdrawn, civilians chosen by the clergy were placed in charge of assuring safety in the city. Sixty Islamic food cooperatives were opened, providing the 150,000 residents of the city with the necessities of life at low cost.
But a few days before Khomeini's arrival, heavy rains resulted in catastrophie floods in Ahwaz. When municipal employees refused to call off their strikewhich they had vowed to maintain until the ayatollah's return-the clergy used "volunteers" to "replace" the strikers.
This was the first example of what threatens to occur on a massive scale when, once an Islamic regime is proclaimed, the clergy and moderate opposition explain that "it is necessary to know how to end strikes." A foretaste of this came with the formation of a "Committee for the Coordination of Strikes," appointed directly by Khomeini and headed by Bazargan, who is now the prime minister.
Bazargan, who had taken part in the negotiations in early January for a return to minimal production in the oil fields, has tried for the last two weeks to demonstrate the "spirit of responsibility" and "good sense" the movement is capable of, ordering a return to work in sectors deemed in the public interest." But despite the prestige of Khomeini's name, which was used to pressure the strikers, not all went smoothly.