Tudeh Party of Iran

The Struggle of the Working Class and People of Iran against Dictatorship in the Context of the Economic and COVID-19 Crises

The outbreak of COVID-19 disease(novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2) in the final days of 2019,and its spread thereafter,came at a time when capitalism had not yet recovered from the 2008 financial crisis and was hurtlingtowards a new economic crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged global capitalism into a much broader and deeper crisis. It tested the resilience of the political, economic, and social structures of all countries. Objective studies already undertaken prove beyond doubt that, despite all excuses, those countries with weaker public health and shacky social provision failed to protect their population, and it was the working class and vulnerable communitieswho suffered most. Iran, under the theocratic regime, is a case in point.

Iran is going through major socio-economic and political crises, while tens of thousands have lost their lives in the COVID-19 pandemic due to the irresponsible and criminal policies of the dictatorial theocratic regime.

According to the most recentofficial statistics announced bythe Islamic Republic of Iran (30October 2020), more than 605,000 people have been infected with COVID-19and 34,478have died as a result, from a population of around 83 million. On 30 October,a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health confirmed that 5,128 patients with COVID-19 are being treated in ICUs (intensive care units). However, health practitioners working on the ground in Iran have stated that the true figures for the dead are at least 2.5 times more than the official government figures. Unfortunately, after India (with a population of 1.38 billion), Iran has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Asia.

On 18 September, Iran’s deputy health minister announced that if a third wave of coronaviruswas not prevented, the death toll couldrise to 45,000. The authorities have now confirmed that the country is in fact in the grip of a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 20 October, Dr Saeed Namaki, Minister of Health, admitted that some government departments have in fact openly disregarded COVID-19-specific protocols. He warned that without an immediate and urgent course of action on the part of the officials, the country could enter a “Black Hole” [i.e. be facing a catastrophe].Most COVID-19 victims in Iran are from theworking class and poorest strata. Furthermore, more than6,000 doctors, nurses, medical practitioners,and paramedics have been diagnosed with the virus and at least 200 of them have lost their lives while serving the people.

Aft er three decades of pursuing neoliberal economic policiesby the I.R. ofIran, there is nowhardly any capacity for managing crises such as this and there has been little, if any,contingency planningwithrespect tohuman resources, medical infrastructure and equipment, and theimplementationof emergency strategies. In addition to corruption and the ideologically orientated crisis management by the regime offi cials and the reactionary clergy, another major factor in this crisis is theabsence of a “national health system” in Iran.This is because health provision has been deliberately fashioned to followthemantrasof neoliberaleconomics andcommodifi edaccording to the law of the “free market”- supply and demand.

negleCt and deCeption By regime offiCials in dealing with Covid-19 and the CatastrophiC ConseQuenCes for the lives of working people

Outbreaks of serious diseases, such as COVID-19, are disastrous for the working class and toiling masses and have a devastating eff ect on their livelihoods mainly because of unemployment and lack of income support. It is noteworthy that while publichospitalsand medical centres are under severe pressure due to their limited resources, private hospitals are openly

Nurses protest their conditions of service, the imposition of temporary contracts, and non-payment of wages, summer 2020. Over 200 doctors and nurses are believed to have died in the line of duty combatting COVID-19.

refusing to admit COVID-19patients- and some have even laid off their medical staff due to “fi nancial problems”. There are currently around 50,000 unemployed, ready-to-serve nurses in Iran. While having three nurses and three or four doctors per thousand people is the minimum international standard, there are only 1.01 nurses and 1.5 doctors per thousand in Iran, puttingimmense pressure on existing services and leading to a drasticreduction of provisions and servicesat the current critical time. According to specifi creports and statisticspublished bythe Iranian Nursing Authority, thesituation of the medical staff , especially nurses,is woeful.

In an attempt to cover up its incompetence in managing the pandemic, the Iranian government is instead blaming people who do not follow the contradictory and haphazard recommendations of government offi cials and bodies.No wonder that in Iran, the level of public confi dence in the theocratic dictatorship is low.People’s experience has shown them that the regime is devoid ofpolicy aligned withthe interests ofsociety and that the main purpose of its “crisis management” is to protect and extendits own survival.

The regime attempts to put on a facade of normality while Iran is devastated by the spread of COVID-19.

From the time the arrival of the virus in Iran was fi rst announced, the regime’spriorities- such as the anniversary of the ‘79 Revolution on 10 February, and the parliamentary elections on 21 February- took precedence over the impositionof lockdown in the fi rst two infected provinces of Qom and Gilan. President Rouhani, amidst growing anger and popular protest, declared the situation to be normal,while the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,labelled COVID-19,and its anticipateddangers,a “conspiracy of the enemy”.

At a time when the COVID-19 virus outbreak was widespread in China, Mahan Airline- which is controlled by the regime’s IslamicRevolutionary Guards Corps- continued fl ying to and from China, includingthe virus-infected parts of that country. In Iran, religious ritualscontinued and gathering of crowds was not prohibited. On the orders of Ayatollah Khamenei, the regime’s leaders deliberately denied theincidenceof COVID-19and acted contrary to the

66 recommendations of the World Health Organisation in those crucial weeks at the onset of the pandemic.

False and misleading messages, as well as logistical delays, on the part of the regime - including President Rouhani himself - caused cynicism, mistrust, panic, and inappropriate behaviour by some Iranian citizens, mainly among the higher strata of the society, while the working people had to make every effort to make a living in the absence of any publichealth and income support. The Iranian regime even hesitated to use some of its reserve funds in the National Development Fund of Iran (NDFI) in fighting the pandemic and when it was forced to do so, the scope of its use was very questionable and unclear, and even the Minister of Health said he would refuse to take responsibility for it usage. As nurses, doctors, and paramedics were dying of

COVID-19in the country’s hospitals, President Rouhani made a televised address after attending the first meeting of the National Anti-CoronavirusCommand Centre.There he stated that: “It [COVID-19] is a conspiracy by our enemies to shut down the country through the spread of great fear in the society.” In late-April, President Rouhani announced the lifting of social restrictions thereby exposing the regime’s approach to the pandemic, favouring a restart of the economy even at the cost of a high number of pandemic victims,rather than contending with popular uprisings of the hungry masses.Our Party has clearly and continuously exposed the regime’s dangerous ployof not heeding the recommendations of health officials and experts and prioritising security considerations, not banning large gatherings in religious rituals and ceremonies, and pushing a full restartof the country’s economywithout any income support for the working people-sending all workers and employees back to work in unsafe conditions where personal protective equipment were scarce or didn’t exist. In these respects, the policies of the

Islamicregimeof Iran are akin to those of the Trump administration in the US, Boris Johnson in the UK, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. The global COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed the inhumane nature of world monopoly capitalism and how its political forces put profit and the interests of capital before people’s welfare and how the reallocation of resources was primarily aimed at safeguarding corporations. According to a report by

Washington Post on 5 May 2020, five large US companies paid more than $700 million in dividends to their shareholders, while tens of thousands of theirworkers were losing their jobs. This was also at a time when the US senate allocated more than$3 trillion dollars to safeguard the interests of big monopolies such as Boeing.

we need fundamental Change to keep the people safe

From the very beginning of the outbreak of COVID-19, the Tudeh Party of Iran has raised to the top of its list of priorities the issue of informing the public about the dangerous virus and ways to prevent its spread – per international standards -by means of regular and responsible communications, as well as focussing onthe particular threats facing the working class of the country.Through examining the performance of countries such as China, Vietnam, and Cuba,which have been able to limit and control the spread of the virus in a short period of time, and with relatively negligible human casualties, while safeguarding the livelihood of the people, we stated that the “solution” lies in “scientific and knowledge-based struggle” and that this would not be possible without the country’s health and disease prevention beingnationalised and returned to the public-social sphere. “The important thing is that fulfilling this vital duty cannot be expected from an anti-people government like the one in power [in Iran], but can only be realised by a national-democratic government.”

We specifically stated to the working people of the country that: “Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, the anti-people policies of the current theocratic regime have endangered the livelihood, health, and lives of the workers and all the working people.”

In its Nowruz [Iranian New Year] message to the Iranian people, the Central Committee of our Party statedon 16 March: “The policy of years of disregard for the country’s health system and failure to allocate the necessary resources inthe vital field of public health, while providing billions of dollars to religious institutions that are actually in the pocket of the regime’s leaders, has created a serious and immediate life-threatening danger to a large number of working people in the current very critical situation.” It added: “The result of the strategy of combining religion, state policies, and neoliberal economicswithin the structureof a theocratic regime,has created a destructive phenomenon to which the Tudeh Party of Iran has always pointedas having an anti-people, anti-national, and anti-democratic essence. This phenomenon will block the possibility of fundamental changes in our country and will create and give rise to destructive super-crises.”

Four decades aft er the February 1979Revolution, with the domination of “Political Islam” in the country, the fundamental demands of the people remain unfulfi lled, including the establishment of democratic freedomsand rights and the creation of a ‘National Health System’run in the interests of development and progress of the country. In contrast, with the accumulation of huge private and quasi-private capital, an extremely unjust political economy has come into being,under the shadow of theocratic dictatorship, in favour of the higher tiers oft he bourgeoisie and their immense fortunes.

Extensive privatisation over the last three decades, following the implementation of neoliberal policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, has led to a situation where there aremajor shortcomings to the process of removing the shroud of poverty spread across much of the population and curbing the onset and spread of COVID-19 in Iran.

While it has become clear worldwide that the way to fi ght natural disasters such as COVID-19 cannot be based on submitting to the interests of big businessand private capital, President Rouhani (in his Nowruz address) stated that: “The second wing [of the economy] is our private sector… It must come onto the scene together with the government and other institutions to make [the new year] the year of health and employment.” This meansthe continuation of the same old neoliberal programmes hoping to create economic growth based on the enrichment of a small group of privileged elites, which undoubtedly will exacerbate poverty and entailssocio-economic disaster,and ensuresunchecked growth of the COVID-19 contagion!

The people of our country are caught between a rock and a hard place;the dictatorship and its grossly unjust political economy on the one hand, and the inhumane sanctions imposed by US imperialism on the other. the other.

Workers at the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Complex take action during their 84-day-long strike, summer 2020... Workers were protesting against privatisation, woeful terms and conditions, lack of trade union rights, and non-payment of wages.

67The theocratic regime has proven that it is unable to eliminate, reduce, or even contain the terrible economic blows infl icted onthe working people of Iran. The Tudeh Party of Iran has warned that, in parallel with the continuingsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran and associated deaths, another humanitarian catastrophe looms in the form of a tsunami of unemployment and even further widespread poverty. In addition, specialist agencies monitoring the well-being of vulnerable sections of the society have confi rmed that COVID-19 hasdisproportionately affected working-class women, especially increasing their exposure to domestic violence and abuse, and economic marginalisation.The Tudeh Party of Iran believes that while the current theocratic regime of Supreme Religious Leaderremains in power and the neoliberal programmes and economicausterity policies of the regime continue,the current dire economic situation and health crises threatening the very lives of our population will continue. It is only through the coordinated joint struggle of the Iranian working people and working class and its progressive and democratic forces that the regime can be forced into changing course and the ground will be prepared for fundamental democratic changes.

The Tudeh Party of Iran shares the views of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the world that the fi ght against COVID-19 must be basedupon the sharing of knowledge and resources and the joint endeavour of medical and healthcare professionals, and specialists in various fi elds of science and technology, in the spirit and framework of international cooperation and eff ective crisis management with central planning. The fi ght against this pandemic should include preventative actionsagainst the profiteers of macroand monopolistic capitalwho are taking advantage of the crisis, as well as support and protection for thehealth and livelihoods ofworking people - including small and medium-sized businesses and the self-employed. Our Party sincerely appreciates the eff orts of all medical staff in Iran and other countries around the worldand hopes that with the help of the modernscience and technology and the endeavours of health care experts in each and every country, the best medicines and vaccines and health practiceswill become available to all people,so that this crisis can be overcome with the least possible number of casualties.

Crisis-ridden global capitalism has once more shown that not only is it entirely unfi t to deal with crises suchas the current environmental and pandemic crises, but that it in fact itexacerbates them. Another world is possible – a world in which the needs

68 of the working people take precedence over the profit of the capital.All our strength should be musteredto build towards such a world.In the aftermath of thecurrent economic, environmental, and health crises, the efforts of the progressive forces must be directed and redoubled against right-wing reaction and fascism, economic neo-liberalism, imperialism, ignorance, obscurantism,and anti-science practices, and for the struggle to makefundamental democratic changes towards a system based on social justice and peoples’democracy- a socialist society -where human needs and environmental protection take precedence over capital profit.

In the struggle of the people ofIran,making the political transition from the current theocratic dictatorship apparatus to a nationaldemocratic course of development is the first fundamentalstep inpreparationto facilitatefurther fundamental democratic socio-economic changesand to move towardsbuilding a socialist society.