The anti-proletarian direction of December 2025 – January 2026 Protests
Although the main body of the Dec 2025 – Jan 2026 protesters was made up of precarious workers and the urban poor, it was not hard to see that the main political direction of the protests was against the working class. This direction was represented by the historical figure of Reza Pahlavi. It became possible through the media, counter-revolutionary organizing, the suppression of earlier uprisings, and the deep hopelessness of the present situation.
This mismatch, the fact that the protests came from poor areas but moved in a political direction against their own interests showed a situation in which the protesters were, in practice, acting and chanting against their own historical class interests.
This situation shows that the protesters had, for a long time, especially after the suppression of earlier uprisings, been trapped in a practical and mental dead end. Here, this dead end appears as political desperation. From this desperation, it becomes possible to turn toward a future that is against those same historical class interests.
The question of why turning to the figure of Reza Pahlavi becomes possible, even when the contradiction between his politics and one’s own class interests is clearly visible, must be understood in relation to this condition itself. What takes place here is a displacement in the criterion of judgment: from “legitimacy” to “capacity.” In other words, judgment based on the political nature or legitimacy of that figure is pushed into the background. What becomes decisive is neither his relationship to class interests nor the forces backing him, but rather the perception that he “can” break the existing deadlock. It is precisely this shift that makes such a terrifying collective choice possible.
In this way, the anti-working-class direction in the protests was not something sudden or spontaneous. It also did not come from the natural process by which mass consciousness is formed. Rather, on one side, it was the result of the Islamic Republic’s constant suppression of the ability to reproduce class consciousness. On the other side, it was the result of a planned manipulation by counter-revolutionary forces, those who work to create and fix anti-working-class political horizons.
This manipulation was only possible because of the defeat that was forced on the proletariat in the Jina uprising [September 2022 protests], which we have already discussed in detail.[1] Otherwise, much of the media and logistical power of the counter-revolution in the Dec 2025 – Jan 2026 protests already existed before the Jina uprising too. But only under the shadow of that heavy defeat was it able to mobilize the social force of the middle class that had become active in the Jina uprising. Through this mobilization, it was also able to spread fascism to the lower classes.
We must stress that in creating this defeat, this desperation, and therefore this fascist rise, not only the Pahlavi organization itself, but also the right-wing and left-wing political representatives of the middle class played a role.
Later, we will explain that without organized and purposeful intervention, no effective political horizon forms by itself among the masses. For this reason, for the revolutionary left, organized intervention is a necessity.
Monarchist forces point to the fact that protesters mentioned the name of Reza Pahlavi. They try to present this as if it were the political horizon of the protesters themselves. In this story, they deliberately ignore the fact that such a direction was formed through almost two decades of planned and conscious effort to push the minds of dissatisfied people toward right-wing alternatives. In the end, this effort found its real form in a material situation.
In this way, the element of organized and purposeful intervention is made invisible. This is done so that this political direction can appear natural and organic, instead of being seen as the result of purposeful political guidance, defeat, and the blocking of other possibilities.
But although this direction uses the real dissatisfaction created by the nature of the Islamic Republic, it does not rise by itself from inside society. It is the result of a guided intervention.
The political desperation whose consequences became visible in the anti-class orientation of the 2025-2026 protests also tied the very condition of victory to the demand for foreign intervention, as though only through external assistance could an opening be created within the existing deadlock. In this sense, the political desperation we are speaking of reveals itself simultaneously on two interconnected levels: first, in the anti-proletarian class orientation of the movement, and second, in the means imagined for bringing that movement to victory.
While the protesters of the Dec-2025-Jan 2026 uprisings historically possessed the potential to construct alternative horizons and instruments aligned with their own class interests on both levels, such a possibility, as we have already argued, required sustained and purposeful organization emerging from within the class itself. More than anything, it required a revolutionary organization.
In the absence of this, the Reza Pahlavi current was able to offer a kind of positive horizon: a horizon that is anti–working class in content, but in its framing appears as a possible path to change and to breaking the blockage. In such a situation, this horizon can function in a way that absorbs and takes over the class not as an independent actor, but as an infantry force within its own project. Later, we will explain that the republicans who have gathered in the Freedom Congress, despite their differences with the Pahlavi current, can play a role in the same context, exactly by relying on the same foreign help. If the Pahlavi current becomes weaker, and if the scenario in which he can act as the agent for carrying it out in Iran becomes less important, then these republicans too may get the chance to offer a positive political vision that is against the working class.
Likely scenarios
On 28 February 2026, the second military attack by Israel and the United States on Iran began. As this text is being written, we are still in a tense situation that could at any moment lead to a new round of war. Nevertheless, the contours of the different scenarios facing the Islamic Republic and Iranian society in the aftermath of the war, even if only at the level of speculation, were more or less discernible. One of these scenarios, which has now become an objective reality, is the survival of the Islamic Republic itself. Under what kind of agreement or settlement this survival will ultimately take shape is not the concern of this text. What must first be clarified, however, in relation to the previous discussion, is the fate of future protests under a postwar Islamic Republic, protests whose reemergence remains an unavoidable possibility on the horizon ahead. At the same time, it is necessary to ask what would await economic, political, and class-based struggles under alternative political arrangements. Across these different and plausible scenarios, what forms and characteristics would class and political struggle assume?
As we have said, one of the scenarios that will reveal its contours more clearly in the coming weeks and months is the continued survival of the Islamic Republic. Two other scenarios could also be considered plausible during the course of this military aggression: first, the strengthening of the Reza Pahlavi current as a vehicle for transferring political power to him; and second, the establishment of a republican state emerging from the broader republican opposition, the most recent expression of which could be seen in the Freedom Congress held in London in April 2026, and in the subsequent meetings that followed it. Although these scenarios only appeared viable insofar as the recent imperialist-Zionist military aggression might have resulted in the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, and it now seems that such a possibility has largely receded, examining their characteristics nevertheless remains important, since both currents claimed, and continue to claim, the capacity to assume political power after the Islamic Republic.
In what follows, we will briefly outline the differences and overlaps among these three scenarios, specifically in terms of the relationship each would establish with the working class, across four axes: A) the political economy of the postwar period and the question of reconstruction; B) the strengthening of ideological discourses; C) the relationship with political opposition; and D) social openings and integration into the Western order.
Survival of the Islamic Republic
At the level of political economy, the Islamic Republic will continue more strongly the earlier processes of cheapening and disciplining labour. With the destruction caused by the war, reports and field evidence point to a large wave of unemployment in different industrial and service sectors. For example, reports from Khuzestan speak of the possible unemployment of tens of thousands because production units were damaged;[2] there are also reports of mass layoffs and widespread contract cancellations in industrial units in western Tehran[3]; and there are examples of large‑scale layoffs in some major industrial holdings[4], involving numbers in the thousands as signs of this situation. According to reports we have received, in the same period many service businesses have also “adjusted” (dismissed) up to 60% of their workforce. These data indicate that, in the first wave, we are faced with a widespread expansion of unemployment and impoverishment. This wave may subsequently lead to a further reconfiguration of the labor force: the creation of employment within the framework of reconstruction, but at the lowest possible wage levels and in the absence of organized labor power. In such a context, acute material pressure can push an unorganized workforce toward accepting these conditions as a necessity.
At the same time, the suspension or weakening of labor protections and labor law can be anticipated under the justification of “removing barriers to employment” and accelerating reconstruction. In the postwar political order, class offensives will be intensified under the rubric of “reconstruction.” This intensification will be accompanied by new justifications and strengthened ideological incentives, particularly in the form of nationalist and patriotic discourses, narratives of sacrifice, and appeals to economic austerity.
Within this framework, the so-called reduction of reconstruction costs will in practice translate into the cheapening of labor power, the deepening of livelihood pressures, the shrinking of social welfare provision, the disciplining of the workforce, the continuation of bans on strikes, and the intensified repression of workers’ organizing efforts. These tendencies already exist, but in the postwar context they are likely to be significantly intensified through constant reference to the logic of reconstruction.
Signs of this intensification can be seen even in official positions. For instance, some institutions close to the private and industrial sector have made proposals that openly stress keeping people employed with minimum income instead of full unemployment that an employer, with workers’ consent, can reduce wages to the lowest possible level for a few months in order to prevent downsizing[5]. Such solutions, which on the surface are presented as a way to protect employment, are in fact a compressed expression of the same reconstruction logic: shifting the burden of the crisis onto labour force by cutting wages, weakening workers’ bargaining position, and normalizing acceptance of minimum living conditions.
These kinds of measures are signs of the same class assaults becoming sharper and more clear in the post‑war period. That is why, right in the middle of the ceasefire, the president [Pezeshkiyan] announces a new stage of austerity policies, removing subsidies which, as usual, is carried out under the label of fair distribution of subsidies, and cuts production subsidies for food and agriculture, especially flour and bread.[6]
From this point of view, the other two scenarios, Pahlavi and the Freedom Congress would also have followed the same general model in political economy, if they had come to power. The reconstruction process could have included foreign companies. But the condition for their presence would be access to a cheap and obedient workforce, without collective power to bargain. Inside the country too, the position of private companies and private capital would be strengthened, that they could receive special privileges. In general, this process would lead to a stronger dispossession of the masses in different areas. This dispossession would be seen both in work and daily life, and also in access to resources and social services.
In other words, at the level of work, this situation would mean the loss of job security, less stable access to work, weaker bargaining power in the workplace, and less access to enough income. In this way, the worker would be forced to accept more unsafe conditions, lower wages, and more insecure contracts. At the social level too, this process would weaken the ability to have a stable life, in areas such as housing, food, and access to social services.
It must be stressed that the post-war class assault will not happen only in the area of wage labour, contracts, and wages. An important part of this assault will also happen through the reorganization of reproductive labour, the increase of unpaid housework, the growth of women’s economic dependence, the spread of domestic violence, and the pushing of working women out of the formal labour market. In this situation, the working woman is targeted not only as cheaper labour power, but also as a link in the cheaper reproduction of the whole class. Therefore, any class analysis of the post-war situation that pushes aside the question of women, the body, care, and social reproduction will unintentionally make part of the real mechanism of accumulation and repression invisible.
In the context of political repression under a postwar Islamic Republic, we are likely to witness more intensified forms of suppression. This trajectory is already visible in the large-scale arrests of January 2026 protestors, the execution of more than thirty political opponents and security-related detainees during the war and its immediate aftermath, and the continued detentions throughout the wartime period. Through the intermittent and continuous implementation of death sentences, the Islamic Republic is effectively engaging society in a direct, unmediated language of violence.
Here too, widespread political repression will operate as a function of the perceived necessity of reconstructing a new political order. In order to restore cohesion within the governing apparatus, the state will likely deploy repression as a mechanism of stabilization within a framework of an “emergency state” that can be repeatedly renewed and extended.
This situation, however, will differ in relation to the continuation of certain openings in the sphere of social freedoms that were achieved particularly after the Jina uprising. The state is likely to maintain a cautious tolerance toward a limited range of customary social liberties, while simultaneously preventing their expansion into more diverse and radical domains.
The question of normalization of relations with the Western bloc, particularly the United States, remains uncertain at this stage and appears, at least in the medium term, unlikely. Yet under a postwar Islamic Republic, the persistence of antagonistic relations with the United States may have significant qualitative effects on class relations, particularly in shaping the consciousness of oppressed social groups. Continued tension with the United States, even in non-military forms, sustains the idealized image of Western capitalism circulating within Iranian society, thereby capturing a significant part of the political imagination of the masses.
Taken together, all these processes under the post-war Islamic Republic will mean the continuation and deepening of the same political desperation that shaped the direction of the Dec 2025 – Jan 2026 protests. As the results of the war and military aggression become clearer, Reza Pahlavi may become weaker as someone who helped foreign aggression. But this weakening does not mean that the Reza Pahlavi alternative will disappear. His current will still be able to rebuild itself through the deepening of the existing collective desperation, and with the help of Israeli security-media institutions.
At the same time, the remaining desperation, even if the anti-class positive vision represented by Pahlavi becomes weaker, will open the door to other kinds of anti-class representation, such as the Freedom Congress. This destructive political result is a point we will return to in the final section of this text, in order to be able to outline the general tasks of the revolutionary left.
Transfer of power to the Pahlavi current
Although the general outline we have provided of the political economy of the Islamic Republic can, with minimal modification, be extended to the political economy of the Pahlavi current as well as the republican current associated with the Freedom Congress, the scenario of a transfer of power to the Pahlavi camp would, beyond this general description, entail a more severe and more durable form of class repression.
It would be more severe insofar as it would involve the emergence of a bourgeoisie that, while historically present in this geography, would in the new conjuncture be reconstituted through the convergence of domestic capital, displaced capital, and foreign capital. This is a form of bourgeois restructuring politically represented by Reza Pahlavi (and, in another configuration, by the Freedom Congress). This bourgeois bloc would be composed, in its concrete formation, of capital that has been transferred out of Iran over past decades, combined with large segments of domestic private capital, rent-seeking capital, and expropriated wealth.
Alongside this, a significant portion of the bureaucratic strata of the Islamic Republic—primarily drawn from reformist circles that have been embedded in various state and institutional levels over the years—would also function as bureaucratic and technocratic auxiliaries within this configuration.
Such a formation would enable a far more systematic and organized mode of exploitation, significantly harsher than that displayed under the Islamic Republic, and would do so without even the minimal constraints—such as labour law—that the Islamic Republic, partly under the influence of the post-1979 revolutionary conjuncture, had at least partially imposed on the process of capital accumulation, albeit in a distorted and degraded form.
It is important to emphasize that the 1979 Revolution took place in a conjuncture in which, both domestically and internationally, the hegemonic discourse among revolutionary and transformative forces was broadly shaped by the Left. For this reason, despite the suppression of the revolution by the Khomeinist counterrevolution, certain limited remnants of that hegemony were still partially imposed upon the policy frameworks of the new ruling order.
By contrast, in the project of “regime change,” not only is there no such claim, but both among sections of its popular base and within the discourse of its political agents, an explicitly right-wing and openly anti-left orientation is dominant. As a result, if such a project were to succeed, no progressive residue would remain in favour of the oppressed masses—no sedimented legacy capable of acting, even in a diminished form, as a constraint on unrestrained capitalism.
The convergence of a bourgeoisie that has been politically excluded for decades—lacking sustained access to labor power, sources of wealth, and the Iranian market—with those segments of the bourgeoisie that have entrenched themselves across various sectors of the economy during the same period, would produce a configuration in which an insatiable drive for accumulation is fused with direct, lived experience of exploitation. Such a formation would further restrict, if not entirely foreclose, the possibility of class mobility or effective resistance for workers and the urban poor. The Islamic Republic, despite its capitalist brutality, has thus far not fully embodied this emerging and highly concentrated combination.
On the other hand, the consolidation of power by the Pahlavi current (or the Freedom Congress) would open the Iranian economy to intensified competition among global capitalist actors. A necessary condition for this integration would be the production of investment attractiveness based on access to cheap and disciplined labor, enabling Iran to compete with regional and international counterparts such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and others.
If up to now the Iranian working class has faced structural and security constraints on class resistance due to a relative contraction of capital and its limited competitiveness in the global market, then in a post–regime change scenario—or even in the case of the Islamic Republic’s integration into the Western bloc—this constraint would not disappear but rather be reproduced in a different and more intense form: this time through the expansion of capital and the intensification of global competitiveness, which would impose stronger pressures for labor discipline and exploitation.
At the same time, this form of repression may acquire more durable characteristics. It would be more durable insofar as Pahlavi’s political authority, at least in the central regions of Iran’s political geography, would rest on a degree of mass support and legitimacy. This popular support is the outcome of years of political and media investment that has constructed him as a “national figure”—a figure whose function was already visible in the January protests and who retains the capacity to reconstitute himself, even in spite of positions such as endorsing foreign intervention, and continue to operate as a reference point for segments of Iranian society.
However, this stability will not be universal and will not encompass all segments of society. Pahlavi will not be able to represent a “single unified nation”; rather, this mass appeal will be consolidated primarily among segments of the population in the central regions and among Persian-speaking groups. In contrast, among communities such as the Baloch, Kurds, Arabs, and Turks, centrifugal tendencies are likely to intensify. These tendencies would not only refuse allegiance to such a political authority but would actively resist it. In this context, the inability to secure consent from these groups would most likely lead to reliance on coercion and the emergence of counter-resistances—producing a situation that can be understood as a form of civil war and political instability.
At the same time, this contradictory configuration also enables a specific form of stability: a stability rooted in those segments of the population that align with the dominant ideology, particularly in the form of centrist nationalism. This alignment could persist for a period, until the material consequences of this order—manifested in various forms of oppression and exploitation—become tangibly experienced by these same groups.
However, the question of oppressed nationalities should not be understood solely through the lens of the risk of civil war or territorial fragmentation. Such a perspective, even when used as a critique of centrist nationalism, remains confined within the epistemic horizon of the center itself. From a revolutionary left perspective, national oppression is neither secondary to class oppression nor a substitute for it; rather, it is one of the historical forms through which class domination is organized in this geography. Therefore, the defense of the right to self-determination, opposition to centrist nationalism, and critique of local bourgeoisies must proceed simultaneously. Only in this way can one avoid falling into the false dichotomy between “centrist territorial integrity” and “ethnic alliances dependent on foreign intervention”.
Compared with the Islamic Republic, this situation has one important difference. It is true that even under the Islamic Republic, in moments of crisis, including during the two recent wars, a kind of renewal and strengthening of its social base has happened. But the Islamic Republic must be understood as a worn-out political order. It carries a long history of repression. For this reason, it does not have the ability to rebuild itself widely and become a “fresh” political order.
In other words, even though it still has a social base, it does not have the power to expand that base in a deep and lasting way that would allow it to overcome its structural exhaustion.
In contrast, in the scenario where Pahlavi comes to power, we would face a connection between part of the masses and a political project that, together with the security, military, and propaganda support of Israel and the United States, could create a fresh political order. This new order could at the same time bring serious instability and even civil war. But in terms of its ability to reproduce power, it would have a different quality from the Islamic Republic. This order would stand on two main bases: on one side, political repression; on the other side, stronger class oppression. As argued before, this class oppression would not only be more severe than the current situation under the Islamic Republic, but could also be reproduced in a more lasting way because of its connection with part of the masses and its reliance on foreign support.
This would make the formation and continuation of class and political struggle against it more complex and more difficult. The instability caused by it could potentially open some small spaces for progressive forces. But this situation, by itself, cannot be seen as desirable or preferable, because it would come with a higher level of repression and oppression, and with the destruction of social life caused by war and occupation.
The establishment of a republican state coming out of the Freedom Congress
In this scenario, although there are serious overlaps at the level of political economy, the main difference from the two previous scenarios would be in the way the new order organizes politics and ideology.
At the ideological level, instead of an openly nationalist and anti-left discourse, we would face a patriotic discourse that accepts a certain level of social pluralism. This pluralism could appear in areas such as the recognition of ethnic and cultural differences, and civil freedoms. But this pluralism would be limited to the points where it does not come into conflict with the logic of capital accumulation and the dominant class order. Where such a conflict appears, especially where class organizing efforts target property relations and accumulation, this pluralism would give way to different forms of repression.
Before that stage, however, at the political level, instead of directly eliminating opponents, there would be a kind of partial pushing back and conditional integration of them into the existing order. This integration could happen through mechanisms such as limited participation in official political processes, or the controlled recognition of left-wing forces. This situation can allow some level of political competition, but its limits would still be set by the need to protect the class order.
One could claim that this ideological possibility is not really connected to the kind of order desired by the Freedom Congress, and that it does not match the vision drawn by the people present in this congress and by its leaders. After all, were communists not also invited to this congress and present in it?
Leaving this aside, the kind of “communists” who were invited to and participated in the Freedom Congress, meaning the group known as the Worker-communist Party have many times shown that they are able to take part in even worse congresses and coalitions. Their basic political positions are not very different from those of the right-wing participants in the Freedom Congress.
But let us test the claim and the dream vision of the Freedom Congress through real facts. We know that France is often presented as a higher form of “world-class democracy”, and in this sense as one of the oldest models of a republic. In this republic in the Global North, the most radical and revolutionary left-wing and communist tendencies can act freely. They have organizations, publish newspapers, organize demonstrations, and do almost everything that a political force is expected to be able to do in a republic and a democracy.
Even, in this same republic, when class organizing efforts target property relations and accumulation, democracy and the republic suddenly stop, and a police regime appears. A clear example of this change can be seen in the Yellow Vest movement in France. There, class struggle did not come from well-known and predictable parties, organizations, and unions. It came from the lower classes who had not been placed inside the established order. For this reason, they repeatedly spoke about the need to “take the Élysée Palace”, meaning the French presidential palace, and several times moved toward it.
It was precisely in such a situation that the republican form suddenly revealed itself for what it is: namely, as an apparatus that defends and safeguards the interests of capital. As a result of the police repression of the Yellow Vests movement, official statistics and media investigations indicate that during these protests 11 people were killed, 24 lost vision in one eye, 5 had their hands amputated, 29 suffered permanent loss of a body part, 268 sustained severe cranial injuries, and 620 were injured by flash-ball projectiles. In total, the number of injured amounted to 2,495, including 54 journalists. In addition, 8,400 people were arrested during the movement, and 1,796 received prison sentences.
It should be emphasized that we are speaking here about the scenario of establishing the kind of republic envisioned by the Freedom Congress, not in France but in Iran, a country already marked by deep structural tensions and fractures.
At the social level, the continuation of middle-class forms of liberal opening may function as one of the instruments for stabilizing such an order, while at the international level this scenario would likely be accompanied by full integration into the Western system. From this perspective, the key distinction between this scenario, the scenario of the Islamic Republic’s survival, and the scenario of transferring power to the Pahlavi camp lies in the manner in which the relationship between socio-political plurality and state power is configured: namely, how far this “plurality” is allowed to extend, and at what point it is interrupted by class-based repression.
In terms of potential political alliances, this scenario could bring together forces that oppose the Islamic Republic while simultaneously rejecting Pahlavi-style fascism. In terms of pluralism and openness toward ethnic and regional forces, currents such as sections of the Worker-Communist Party, federalist forces including a coalition of Kurdish parties, and parts of the social-democratic spectrum may be considered components of its internal composition.
Formulating a Class Position
So far, we have examined the December 2025-January 2026 protests and, more specifically, the anti-working-class orientation that came to dominate them. We argued that this orientation prevailed despite the fact that the main body of those protests consisted of workers and the urban poor. This contradiction became a central issue. Then, in light of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, we moved beyond merely describing this experience and outlined three possible scenarios emerging under the horizon of imperialist-Zionist aggression. These scenarios overlap significantly at the level of political economy. At the same time, they differ in how that political economy would be realized, as well as in their political and ideological dimensions.
Now, based on these distinctions, we want to raise the following question: from the standpoint of the historical interests of the working class, what should be the relation of a revolutionary left force to these scenarios, and is it possible to arrive at a “preference” among them?
Here, it is necessary first to emphasize a decisive distinction: the distinction between “preference” and “prescription.” What is presented here as a preference does not necessarily mean prescribing a specific political situation. Preference means comparing the possibilities that each scenario creates for the formation, continuation, and deepening of class struggle. Prescription, by contrast, means a practical recommendation, a political call, or consciously directing actions toward realizing a particular scenario.
Therefore, when we speak of preference, we do not mean choosing among desirable options. Rather, we mean assessing undesirable situations and identifying the one that, compared to the others, provides greater possibilities for class struggle and revolutionary organization.
From the standpoint of the historical interests of the working class, it can be said that class struggle against the Islamic Republic, despite all the repression associated with it, remains more possible, less catastrophic, and marked by less rupture with the history of social and class resistance in Iran than the other two scenarios.
By contrast, if the Pahlavi or the Freedom Congress were to come to power, a major part of the possibilities for the emergence and continuation of class struggle would disappear or be seriously postponed. The Pahlavi scenario presents a dark and openly repressive horizon. At the same time, it contains two terrifying projects within itself: on the one hand, the prospect of civil war and long-term instability; on the other hand, the danger of establishing a kind of fascist order.
By contrast, in the Freedom Congress scenario, although on the surface we would face a kind of pluralism, political stability, and relative openness, we will see that this scenario too carries serious dangers from the standpoint of class interests. This is due, among other things, to the fact that it emerges from aggression and a regime-change project.
At the same time, preference carries its own practical implications. The precise issue is how preference can be translated into political action without being reduced to prescription or leading to alignment with the political forces that carry these scenarios. In other words, what practical forms can preference take? How can one recognize a situation as preferable while preventing integration into the logic of that same situation, and instead preserve and strengthen the independent horizon of class struggle?
For this reason, the task of the revolutionary left is not simply to expose the anti-class character of the existing alternatives. If counterrevolutionary currents have managed to offer a positive horizon — even if anti-proletarian — on the basis of despair, then the revolutionary left must also put forward its own positive horizon. This horizon cannot remain at the level of abstract promises. It must take the form of an independent class power.
This horizon is neither a return to the Islamic Republic, nor free-market democracy, nor a centralized nation-state, nor an engineered republic established after foreign intervention. Rather, it is a form of class organization capable of articulating the issues of bread, work, housing, the body, repression, nationality, and gender within a unified anti-capitalist horizon.
Without such a horizon, criticism of counterrevolutionary alternatives, although necessary, cannot by itself prevent the class from becoming the foot soldiers of other projects.
Above all, this positive horizon requires restoring the capacity “to be able” back into the class itself. This is the very element that, under conditions of despair, has been taken away from the class and projected outward. If, in the December 2025 moment, judgment shifted from “legitimacy” to “ability,” then the task of the revolutionary left is to reconnect these two within class subjectivity itself. It must show that the possibility of breaking from the existing situation comes not through an external force, but through the accumulation of the class’s own internal power. This, however, is not merely a claim or a call. It requires a material intervention at different levels of class life.
Such an intervention takes shape, on the one hand, in the workplace and against processes of dismissal, downsizing, cheapening, and disciplining labor power. On the other hand, it emerges in the sphere of social reproduction and against different forms of dispossession from the means of life. In this sense, class organization cannot remain limited to the factory and the workplace. It must also extend into the home, the neighborhood, the body, networks of care, and everyday forms of survival. Only through such an expansion can the class recognize itself not merely as labor power, but as a social totality in struggle.
At the same time, this positive horizon requires breaking the internal ruptures within the class. These ruptures are reproduced through gendered, national, spatial, and material divisions, and they weaken the possibility of collective action. If the revolutionary left wants to move beyond criticism, it must treat these ruptures not as external obstacles, but as fields of intervention. This means connecting the struggles of formal and informal workers, linking the demands of women workers to the horizon of class struggle, and formulating the question of oppressed nationalities in relation to dispossession and capital accumulation.
From this perspective, the positive horizon of the revolutionary left does not lie in presenting an “alternative program” from above. It lies in building capacities from below that can impose themselves as a real alternative in moments of rupture. This alternative is neither pre-made nor existing outside struggle. It takes shape within the process of organization itself, through the accumulation of collective experience, and through linking scattered struggles to a common horizon. At the same time, it creates the possibility of organizing social resistance against the definite and inevitable interventions of imperialism.
In this way, the issue is no longer simply which scenario is less desirable. The issue is how, within every undesirable situation, one can create the conditions for the emergence of an independent class subject. This is the point where preference moves beyond the passive assessment of situations and becomes an active intervention aimed at transforming the balance of forces.
To distinguish clearly between preference and prescription, as intended in this text, we can look at the practical form of an approach that “prescribed” the survival of the Islamic Republic among the existing scenarios. Such an approach necessarily had — and still has — to defend the Islamic Republic in its entirety and in all its components.
If such an approach were adopted by a force claiming to be leftist, it would inevitably have to detach the Islamic Republic from its history, nature, and orientations. It would freeze it within a specific moment — a moment in which it is resisting an aggressor enemy — and defend it in that form. In this way, an approach that in effect prescribes the survival of the Islamic Republic is compelled to formulate opposition to aggression and resistance against it within a non-class or even anti-class framework. Only in this way can such opposition appear compatible with the different aspects of the order it is effectively defending and avoid contradiction.
This is precisely the approach visible in the activities of certain individual or organized forces of the “Axis of Resistance left,” and even among those not known by that name but who adopted and continue to prescribe such positions. These activities, through their media representations, contribute even at the symbolic level to strengthening the same non-class approach and ultimately to integration into the existing order.
As an example, one can point to a video produced by the “Defa’-e Mihanī” (“Homeland Defense”) page. The purpose of the video is to show “normal life” — a term also commonly used by part of the regime opposition abroad. The video presents a report from the Tajrish fruit market in Tehran.
In the video, we see two “resistance-axis” figures who have recently returned from Europe. While carrying their German passports in their pockets, they walk through the Tajrish market speaking English about how people continue their ordinary lives during wartime and shop for Nowruz.[7]
This report carries meaningful class implications. The issue is that such representations focus on a certain level of access and consumption in particular parts of the city, while simultaneously ignoring poverty, inequality, and the intensified restrictions on access in places such as Gomrok or Qal‘eh Hasan Khan.
Focusing on such spaces could instead show how war directly transforms even the minimum conditions of life, from access to vitamins and protein to other means necessary for the minimal reproduction of life. It could show exactly which levels of social life war targets, and which levels remain capable of sustaining “normal life.”
In this formulation, resistance is explicitly defined through the possibility of continuing consumption and social reproduction. At first glance, this is entirely correct. However, it ignores the class reality that, for large sections of that same society, the material possibilities for resisting imperialist aggression had already been taken away through the dominant capitalist mechanisms represented by the Islamic Republic.
In this way, the focus on representing “normal life” not only marginalizes this deprivation of the possibilities of resistance, but also deliberately erases the gap between unequal conditions of class existence in order to make the defense of the Islamic Republic possible.
But what is the practical form of preference? Does our preference amount to passivity and place no prescriptions on the agenda? The answer is no. As we said, preference carries its own practical implications.
Preference means a kind of preparation for confronting the post-war Islamic Republic. But this preparation in no way means passivity or retreat. Rather, it means organizing in order to build a force capable of entering into class struggle against the Islamic Republic under those same post-war conditions.
At the same time, this preparation is not directed only toward the future. It can also manifest itself within the wartime situation itself. Here, our distinction from the practical forms of “prescription” adopted by the left integrated into the Islamic Republic becomes clearer.
Do those approaches that formulate themselves, in the name of opposing aggression, through the slogan “continue the war until victory,” actually take a step toward confronting aggression? The answer is no. These approaches too are, each in their own way, preparing for the post-war situation. The difference is that their preparation works toward consolidating the Islamic Republic.
Treating the issue of working-class livelihood during wartime as secondary[8] — or denying it altogether, as we showed in the case of the “Defa’-e Mihanī” page — will not remain confined to the wartime period alone. These “Resistance Axis pseudo-leftists” have already become part of the propaganda machinery for intensifying exploitation during the period of “reconstruction.”
In this context, two general horizons can be identified: the cessation of war, or its continuation until what is called “victory” is achieved. From our perspective, as a force that defines itself through the class interests of the working class in struggle against the Islamic Republic, only the first option is relevant.
However, the cessation of war is different from what was hastily formulated and demanded in the first weeks of the war as an “immediate end to the war,” without considering the relation of this “immediate halt” to the political consequences of military aggression. In fact, stopping the war before the war machine of the aggressor force is halted means nothing other than surrender and the creation of conditions for the dominance of an imperialist force.
Therefore, the demand to stop the war must always be formulated in a way that allows it to be understood in light of “preference” and its necessary material and concrete consequences.
The claim by some proponents that stopping the war and negotiating a ceasefire is “treason,” and their insistence that the Islamic Republic should refuse negotiations unless its conditions are accepted—including a ceasefire in Lebanon—stems from an even deeper illusion about the nature of the Islamic Republic. This illusion ignores the fact that, in response to more than two years of genocide in Gaza and Israeli terrorist actions on Iranian territory, including the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the Islamic Republic has shown nothing but rhetoric. It has also, within its capacity, prevented any action by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi militia organizations.
The belief held by these proponents is that, through imperialist-Zionist aggression, the Islamic Republic has suddenly changed its nature, and has now become a fortress of anti-imperialist struggle, continuing this struggle to its logical end, namely the continuation of war in defense of the people and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This belief stems from an illusion that appears to be shared between these proponents and Iranian Trumpists. Both of these forces assumed that the Islamic Republic’s failure to intervene to stop the genocide in Gaza, and the consequences of this including the assassination of Hezbollah leaders and Iranian military commanders in various countries, was due to its inability to act. In reality, the Islamic Republic’s response to imperialist-Zionist aggression has shown that throughout this period it did not want to intervene.
Therefore, those forces that in some way defend the continuation of the war, regardless of their naive conception of “victory,” in practice, through their interventions that falsify the real nature of the Islamic Republic, are moving in a direction that strengthens and stabilizes the Islamic Republic with all its existing instruments of governance. This is because they transform it from a state fighting fiercely for its survival into a force representing the public good.
As noted earlier, this strengthening can be justified through arguments such as “the requirements of development in a semi-peripheral state under pressure from war and sanctions.” In the end, such arguments delegitimize any resistance to post-war capitalist offensives as an obstacle to reconstruction and development.
Within this framework, the question is whether, with such an approach—whose point of departure is the imperatives of development and submission to them—it is possible to engage in class struggle against the Islamic Republic. The answer is a clear “no.”
At the same time, as far as we are concerned, the practical form of preference cannot be reduced to an intervention that directly or indirectly serves the ruling security and military apparatus. Maintaining a clear red line in relation to this apparatus means that any form of cooperation, even at limited and case-specific levels, is out of the question.
However, the practical form of preference does not mean denying concrete situations and the reactions that arise from them. The defense of life, housing, and minimal conditions of survival in wartime is a real and understandable matter. But turning these reactions into a general political line, or integrating them into the defensive-security logic of the state, is precisely what must be avoided.
For this reason, our distinction is both from the approach that calls on forces to join the war fronts and makes meaningful, non-passive opposition to imperialist-Zionist aggression conditional on support for the military forces of the Islamic Republic, and from the position that, without any distinction, reduces the entire situation to a “war between two reactionary forces” and thereby negates any possibility of intervention regardless of actual conditions.
Instead, the practical form of preference emphasizes a specific and independent mode of intervention. An intervention that, on the one hand, resists the material reality of occupation and destruction, and on the other hand, fully preserves its red line against security institutions and the logic of the ruling order.
From this standpoint, it becomes possible to target pro-war forces inside and outside the country and put their material interests at risk, without aligning with the Islamic Republic and without outsourcing necessary direct confrontation to the state’s coercive apparatus. A successful example of such action may be the campaign that led to Amnesty International severing its cooperation with Cyrus Mirzaei, who held the position of spokesperson for the medical section of the organization in Austria and was also among the organizers of fascist monarchist gatherings and supporters of the attack on Iran in Vienna. This may be considered a small but meaningful example of such interventions.
With this clarification, we can move beyond the conceptual distinction between preference and prescription and proceed to formulate a concrete notion of preference in relation to the scenarios ahead.
First of all, it must be said that the preference of a revolutionary force for the failure of the regime-change project and the defeat of the military aggression against Iran, which specifically leads to the continued survival of the Islamic Republic, in no way means denying the possibility of class struggle under the other two scenarios, should they materialize.
However, it must be taken into account that those two scenarios, from the standpoint of the historical interests of the working class, contain greater blockages for the formation, continuation, and expansion of this struggle.
Specifically, from the perspective of a revolutionary force, the scenario of Reza Pahlavi, with the horizon of civil war that it carries, cannot be considered a matter of preference. Even within such a situation, however, emancipatory possibilities must be sought in the resistance of forces that stand against his established order, as well as in the contradictions between center and periphery.
Nevertheless, since the different sides of such a civil war would largely consist of forces with anti-working-class characteristics, the situation as a whole would contain highly ambiguous horizons for the formation of class struggle. In any case, due to the presence of multiple unpredictable factors and the active role of regional and global reactionary forces in a civil war on the one hand, and the establishment of a Pahlavi fascist force in parts of Iran on the other, such a scenario cannot be the preference of revolutionary left forces.
At the same time, emphasizing class struggle against the Islamic Republic makes it possible to oppose war and foreign intervention without integrating into the Islamic Republic itself. This is a difficult point that has led some forces claiming revolutionary left positions into a fatal class-political choice.
Opposition to war has requirements that shape the form of that opposition. This opposition must not turn a force claiming revolutionary left politics into a new reformist force in the post-war period, turning reformism into its positive version. Nor should a revolutionary left force, within the capitalist order of the Islamic Republic, search for “justice-oriented” aspects and construct the political foundations of its opposition to war in a way that fundamentally eliminates the possibility of class struggle against it.
Here, one basic point must be stressed: opposition to military aggression is not conditional or restricted. It is an unconditional act. However, being unconditional does not mean it lacks political articulation. The issue is precisely that the political foundations of this opposition must be constructed in a way that, on the one hand, has no relation to integration into the existing order or justification of its mechanisms, and on the other hand preserves the possibility of class struggle against that same order.
In other words, this position, while firmly opposing foreign intervention, is not a form of political disarmament in the face of an unjust situation. On the contrary, it is an effort to preserve the possibility of critique and resistance against the same order that, by pushing society into political desperation before the war, made regime change imaginable for the external aggressor in the first place.
From this perspective, opposition to war does not mean accepting the requirements of the existing order or submitting to imposed logics of reconstruction and development. These logics, especially in post-war conditions, can easily become justifications for deepening class aggression and for creating the conditions for renewed foreign intervention.
Rather, it seeks fundamentally to prevent future foreign intervention through the mediation of a generalized class contradiction. If opposition to war is formulated in a way that ultimately leads to acceptance of capitalist reconstruction under conditions of war and sanctions, it will produce the opposite result. Instead of preparing the ground for class struggle, it reproduces a kind of post-war reformism in which struggle against the existing order is replaced by justification of the “requirements of development in a semi-peripheral state.”
In this case, any form of class resistance can easily be suppressed under the label of opposition to development or obstruction of reconstruction. Class struggle against the post-war Islamic Republic can be dismissed as an imperialist-Zionist act. Likewise, some descriptions of the Islamic Republic’s military forces are exaggerated and poetic. They present these forces as a “shield” of the people or the oppressed against imperialist aggression. They also condition any “real” opposition to imperialist-Zionist aggression on defending these military forces. This logic leads directly to a conclusion. Any class struggle in a post-war Islamic Republic that conflicts with the economic and class interests of the state and its military apparatus is seen as support for the imperialist-Zionist enemy.
In reality, these prescriptive approaches are already disarming the subaltern classes and the working class. For them, struggle against intensified class oppression in the post-war period is not a comfortable choice but an unavoidable necessity and the only condition for the possibility of social resistance against imperialism.[9] Thus, opposition to war in the sense described here means preparing a revolutionary confrontation with the post-war Islamic Republic, not strengthening it. And it means preferring the retreat of external aggressor forces not as a defense of the Islamic Republic, but as preparation for its overthrow as a capitalist state through class struggle.
Therefore, the task of the revolutionary left is not to wait for the outcome of scenarios to become clear, but to build the force that can preserve its class independence in every scenario. This task begins today: exposing the class logic of reconstruction, resisting the normalization of austerity, organizing against layoffs and the cheapening of labor power, linking workers’ struggles with those of women and oppressed nationalities, and clearly demarcating itself from all alternatives that substitute regime change for class liberation.
The revolutionary left can only escape the trap of preference as passivity or prescription if it transforms preference into the active preparation of independent class power.
From the Freedom Congress to pluralism as exclusion
So far, we have rejected the scenario of a Pahlavi takeover as a preferable option. We have also considered the republican scenario of the “Freedom Congress” as unjustifiable from the standpoint of the historical interests of the working class.
However, it is not enough to simply declare this republican scenario unjustifiable. The point is that it must also be rejected at the level of “preference.” That is, we must show why, even in a comparison between a post-war Islamic Republic and the Freedom Congress republican alternative, class struggle under a post-war Islamic Republic remains more possible than class struggle within the framework of the Freedom Congress project.
To demonstrate this possibility, we need to examine the features of this scenario more closely.
The rise of the Freedom Congress scenario is based on a set of political assumptions such as pluralism, recognition of ethnic differences, federalism or forms of autonomy, minority rights, and the possibility of civil activity, including labor organizations. At first glance, these elements present an image of a democratic order. It appears different from the Islamic Republic and also from the fascist trajectory of the Pahlavi current.
However, the decisive issue is not these formal levels. The key question is its relation to “capital accumulation” and its position in the global order.
At this level, the Freedom Congress cannot function as a left or social-democratic force, regardless of the “intentions” of some of its internal actors. It cannot escape the regime of dominant global accumulation. The imperatives of capitalist competitiveness, integration into the global market, and profit-driven reconstruction will push this project toward neoliberal free-market policies.
For this reason, even if we find figures with left or social-democratic tendencies within this current, at the decisive level of political economy the dominant force will be pro–free market orientations.
This tendency is represented by figures such as Shahriar Ahy, who explicitly emphasizes cooperation with the technocratic apparatus of the Islamic Republic and the advancement of economic liberalization policies.
The emphasis on cooperation with technocratic figures of the Islamic Republic—such as Masoud Nili, Javad Zarif, Mohammad Nahavandian, or Mahmoud Sariolghalam—and the emphasis on advancing economic liberalization policies, is a condensed expression of the dominant logic of this project. It shows that no meaningful rupture is intended at the level of political economy.
If we place this orientation alongside Shahriar Ahy’s background, including his participation in processes of liberalization and privatization in Eastern Bloc countries after the collapse of socialism, we get a clearer picture of the economic horizon of this project. It is nothing other than the continuation and intensification of free-market policies.
The consequence of this situation is the continuation of class repression. However, this repression will not, at least in its early stages, take the overt and immediate forms that we recognize in the Pahlavi scenario or even in the Islamic Republic.
In this sense, parts of the left and labor organizations can be tolerated and integrated as long as they operate within the rules of the game. That is, at the level of minimal demands, trade union activity, or participation in electoral processes. But once these forces attempt to go beyond this framework, challenge property relations, or act beyond reformism—as we previously explained using the example of the Yellow Vests movement in France—they will face decisive forms of repression.
In other words, this scenario produces a kind of list of “good” and “bad” actors: an integratable left versus an unorthodox left, a moderate national left versus a radical communist left. The first is integrated, the second is repressed. As a result, the possibility of forming an independent class-based political force—one that intervenes not only at the level of demands but at the level of political power—is severely restricted.
The presence of the Workers’ Communist Party in the Freedom Congress, on the one hand, shows a degree of political pluralism. On the other hand, it indicates acceptance of those left forces whose struggle is not directed at property relations and the structure of capital accumulation. This pattern can also be seen among a range of individual republican activists. At present they have no organizational link to the Freedom Congress, but they represent the type of left that is acceptable to it. These are figures and activists who, despite internal differences, share one point: they can be integrated into the framework of official politics and accept the rules of the game. They criticize the existing situation, but their horizon of intervention remains within reformist frameworks.
A more explicit formulation of this position can be seen in statements such as those of Saeed Ghasseminejad, who previously stated that there is no problem with leftists who operate within the law and existing rules. The main issue, in his view, is leftists who “try to disrupt the rules of the game” and “want to disrupt the entire game.” The Freedom Congress today stands precisely at the point that Ghasseminejad formulated ten years ago.
As a result, the formation of an independent class political force—one that intervenes not only at the level of demands but at the level of political power—will be severely constrained. This limitation operates through direct repression of the revolutionary left, and through integration and depoliticization at the social level.
Another point must also be noted here: the Freedom Congress scenario, despite its democratic appearance, is the product of a situation of military intervention and a regime-change project. Although the extension of the ceasefire has suspended the political horizon of this scenario for now, no alternative short-term path for its rise to power is assumed. This origin gives it characteristics that cannot be ignored. These characteristics are not necessarily those of overt fascism, but they form an order defined by and dependent on external intervention.
At the same time, we know that the apparently pluralist and democratic features of this scenario can attract a significant part of anti-fascist forces, especially those without a class horizon. This increases the capacity for alliances, political coalitions, and social mobilization within this scenario. Precisely for this reason, it makes class struggle more difficult within the situation it produces.
For a more concrete understanding of this situation, it can be compared to the experience of the Afghan Republic established after the 2001 US military intervention. That experience was framed by expectations of a “democratic transition” and was an order emerging from military occupation and mechanisms such as the Bonn Conference.[10] In occupied Afghanistan after 2001, at least in an initial period that lasted several years, a kind of hope for political opening and democratic participation emerged. This hope even included parts of the left and encouraged them to participate in the new mechanisms. But over time, as the situation stabilized, it became clear that the promised openings were nothing other than the implementation of aggressive neoliberal policies in a deeply exhausted, crisis-ridden society with collapsing infrastructure.
Figures such as Hamid Karzai, who had previously worked in connection with US energy companies, or Ashraf Ghani, who for five years was a World Bank representative responsible for supervising and advancing neoliberal programs in post-Soviet republics,[11] appeared as the political managers of this new order. They advanced a project dependent on global capital networks. The real outcome of this “republic” was a long postponement of revolutionary struggle by left forces that had been absorbed into mechanisms arising from “democratic conditions.” These democratic conditions had no real connection to the situation of oppression that ultimately made the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 possible.
And this is precisely the issue: the “postponement of class struggle under democratic conditions.” Contrary to the common belief that democratic conditions always facilitate class struggle, such conditions may facilitate various forms of activity, including political, civic, and trade-union demands. However, the material situation and the critical position of the working class in Iran, especially in the horizon of consolidated free-market policies visible in all three scenarios, including the republican framework of the Freedom Congress, is such that not mere demands but class struggle itself must be placed on the agenda.
Class struggle is not something that is necessarily facilitated by “democratic conditions.” In such situations, democratic promises—if taken naively—may, despite their possible advantages, carry the fundamental risk of postponing class struggle for an indefinite period through absorption into a layer of formal democracy and relative social openness.
This postponement has decisive consequences. First, it removes urgency from class struggle and dissolves it into reformist and electoral horizons. Second, it makes the reconstruction of a revolutionary force far more difficult, since one must first struggle against these illusions and integrated horizons within the class itself.
By contrast, in a post-war Islamic Republic, political desperation and overt forms of class repression already exist in a concrete form. Despite all its violence and closure, this situation allows for more direct and immediate intervention by the revolutionary left, especially given the possibility of weakening and discrediting anti-class alternative horizons such as Pahlavi.
From this perspective, the comparison between the Freedom Congress scenario and the post-war Islamic Republic is not about a “preference for the survival of the Islamic Republic.” It is about preferring class struggle against the Islamic Republic over class struggle under a Freedom Congress government.
In other words, we are choosing between two forms of struggle: one that unfolds within a worn-out order marked by immediate and visible contradictions, and another that must be reconstructed within a newly stabilized order where contradictions are delayed and obscured. Even if such a new order appears democratic at the surface level, at a deeper level it reconstructs mechanisms of repression and subordination in ways that make struggle more complex and prolonged, without reducing the intensity of exploitation.
For this reason, opposition to military aggression, regime change, and the political forces emerging from it—including the Freedom Congress—is not merely a general political stance. It is directly tied to the horizon of the possibility of class struggle.
The issue is by no means the apocalyptic view that the harsher the repression of the working class becomes, the easier class struggle will be. Rather, the issue is the articulation of a necessity that also exists within the Freedom Congress alternative model with the same urgency. However, its possibilities will be more blocked, for the reasons explained above.
We should note that if the working class in the Global North, even within reformist trade-union frameworks and the constraints of bourgeois states, is in a far better position than the working class in Iran, this is due to the long history of imperialist plunder of the Global South, the colonial accumulation of capital in the Global North, and also often bloody class struggle, along with entirely different international conditions in the period when welfare laws were imposed. The illusion that the “republic” proposed by the Freedom Congress could provide such levels of social security and labor rights in a peripheral country under highly unstable conditions is as absurd and unrealistic as the illusion that a post-war Islamic Republic would henceforth adopt quasi-socialist policies of social justice.
We must also address another issue regarding the Freedom Congress alternative or similar alternatives. It is assumed that in such an alternative, at least according to its claims, many discriminatory laws against women would be repealed, and even new laws in favor of women would be enacted. Sexual orientations and gender identities would be recognized and granted civil rights. And in the direction of resolving national oppression, a degree of autonomy or some form of federalism would be established.
Of course, we know well that none of these processes would be without tension or conflict. For example, in the case of establishing autonomy or federalism, the delimitation of borders and territorial units, given the claims of nationalist movements of oppressed nations, would not necessarily be resolved peacefully. Likewise, based on the experience of Global North countries, radical rights such as abortion rights, or even basic rights such as same-sex marriage, would not be easily achieved, and in some cases would not remain stable.[12] But for now, within the scope of the claims of alternatives like the Freedom Congress, we set aside these tensions and challenges. So, what is the issue?
The issue is that if, from our perspective, the “proletariat” does not only include heterosexual men working in industrial factories (which it does not), then all these assumptions must be examined from the standpoint of the historical and class interests of the proletariat.
The proletariat, not only from our perspective but also from a Marxist one, does not consist solely of industrial workers. Although industrial workers, due to their position in the production system, constitute an important part of it. The proletariat also includes a wide range of workers in the service sector, small enterprises, and reproductive labor environments, as well as the large mass of the unemployed, retirees, urban poor and marginalized populations, housewives in working-class households, workers in precarious and informal jobs sometimes referred to as the “subclass,” landless peasants, agricultural laborers, and others. These groups necessarily have diverse gender identities, sexual orientations, religious beliefs, and national backgrounds.
Therefore, the mapping of the blockages of class struggle, together with the intensification of class oppression, will include all components of this proletariat, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religious belief, or national affiliation.
Some may say: very well, all of this is correct, but these legal and juridical reforms would still place parts of the oppressed groups in a much better position than the current dire conditions. The meaning of this seemingly acceptable formulation is the following: those who usually accuse Marxists of reducing class contradiction to the fundamental contradiction (or, in classical terms, the principal contradiction), and of downgrading other forms of contradiction and oppression to secondary importance and postponing their resolution to a fictional future after class contradiction is resolved, are themselves engaging in a violent form of prioritization.
This prioritization has no problem with postponing the possibility of emancipation for the majority of the oppressed and humiliated layers of society, and with intensifying their oppression, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, religious belief, or national belonging. It recommends contentment with minimal gains despite such a foreseeable situation.
Our horizon of preference, however, is the emancipatory articulation of the struggle against all forms of contradiction and oppression in the most possible and accessible condition, not the postponement of one in favor of another.
Still, the Freedom Congress scenario requires further engagement with a set of additional considerations and questions that arise from different political assessments of priorities in struggle. Among them is the claim that repression in a post-war Islamic Republic will be far more intense, and that any form of organizing and struggle will face greater difficulties. In contrast, in the Freedom Congress scenario, due to democratic openings, party formation, networking, protest activity, and even social mobilization would be more possible.
Or it may be assumed that if the issue is capitalism, then the Islamic Republic itself is a form of it, and therefore there is no meaningful difference between the two. We have explained how such a view ignores processes of integration and neutralization.
Moreover, the practical implication of preferring the Freedom Congress alternative leads to a completely different line of action. If the preference of revolutionary communists is the overthrow of the Islamic Republic through the relative hegemony that the Freedom Congress would bring, then this means entering into a broad coalition with liberal-democratic, right-wing, and centrist-left forces in order to participate in regime change. It also means effectively playing a subordinate role in the establishment of a capitalist democratic order under the class leadership of forces whose orientation is already determined, with the hope that at some indefinite future point they may struggle for socialism within that same order.
By contrast, if the preference is class struggle against a post-war Islamic Republic, then the prescription is not coalition under the hegemony of other forces. It is the simultaneous advancement of struggle against political despotism and the capitalist order, based on an independent class and mass force. It is an attempt to overthrow the Islamic Republic and establish an order that contains both democratic and socialist horizons from the very beginning.
In both scenarios, communists are necessarily in struggle against the Islamic Republic. But the difference is that in the Freedom Congress scenario, this struggle leads in practice to subordination within a larger project and to a secondary position in an order born of external intervention or non-proletarian hegemony. In the post-war Islamic Republic scenario, class struggle can proceed while maintaining a proletarian orientation and relying on the internal power of the class.
Thus, we are dealing with two different forms of struggle, different both in process and in outcome. From this perspective, even the assumption that the path of overthrow would be “easier” under the Freedom Congress scenario is itself part of an illusion that conceals the real complexity of overthrowing the Islamic Republic. By adopting “everyone together” approaches, it effectively shoots at the very possibility of class struggle, and in the absence of organized and militant social-class forces—which could only emerge in a revolutionary horizon—the possibility of final victory becomes necessarily tied to external support and the logic of [Trump’s] “help is on its way.”
Therefore, in comparing the Freedom Congress scenario with a post-war Islamic Republic, the issue is not merely the form of the state or the degree of political openness. It is the relation of communist forces to the process of power formation and the horizon of class struggle. The Freedom Congress either emerges from imperialist intervention or from a form of systemic collapse, the end result of which will be an order whose class hegemony is formed outside the proletarian horizon. In such an order, communist forces are pushed to the margins of political power, or at best become a supplementary force in a process they must later confront in a “later stage.” This is precisely the staged and linear conception of history that defers the emancipation of the class to an indefinite future horizon.
In contrast, in the scenario of a post-war Islamic Republic (a period that has in fact already begun), despite the intensification of oppression and blockage, the communist force is not placed in a position where it is forced to participate in consolidating a non-proletarian hegemony or to align with a project emerging from external intervention.
On the contrary, without acting as a “paving agent” for other forces or becoming trapped in the illusion of predetermined historical stages, it can directly, out of the existing, concrete, and overt contradictions, advance the preparation of organizing and class intervention within a socialist horizon. In this sense, the preference for this scenario does not mean preferring one political order over another. Rather, it means preferring a condition in which the possibility of class struggle, the avoidance of integration into non-proletarian projects, and the refusal to postpone struggle to a “fictional tomorrow” are more present.
“We” and what remains of the Islamic Republic
Here, we must move away from any mechanical or apocalyptic understanding. Conceptions that assume the greater the level of misery, the more automatically revolution becomes possible, and that history moves in a linear way toward opening, are not our concern.
On the contrary, we must emphasize that the misery-producing processes for the working class in Iran are structural and persistent. These processes do not disappear with changes in political scenarios. Instead, they are reproduced in new forms within each of them.
In the Freedom Congress scenario, these processes can even be reproduced in a new form and with greater intensity. With foreign investment, integration into the global market, and the consolidation of neoliberal logic, the mechanisms of pressure on labor are not weakened but reconfigured and strengthened.
In the Pahlavi scenario, we also face another form of intensification: a combination of political instability, the possibility of civil war, and fascistic tendencies. Together, these will make the conditions of life and struggle for the working class and oppressed masses significantly worse.
Under these two regime-change scenarios, we are faced with an order that requires a medium-term historical period for its internal contradictions with proletarian class interests to become fully visible. During this interval, class struggle is postponed. The possibilities of revolutionary organization are absorbed into layers of integration, false democratic hopes, and formal openings.
We must stress that pointing to this dangerous situation is not done from an identity-based standpoint or from concern for the fate of the “socialist movement.” The emergency we are describing refers to the destruction of the lives of millions of precarious workers, the urban poor, and working-class households and forms of life that are irreversibly lost.
The most likely outcome of such postponement is nothing other than the strengthening and renewed hegemony of fascist currents in moments of crisis.
In contrast, in the post-war Islamic Republic scenario, although we face intensified repression and deeper political despair, this very situation presents a more overt form of class contradictions.
On the other hand, with the failure of the regime-change-through-war project, the Pahlavi current will no longer have its previous capacity to present a positive anti-working-class horizon, although it will not disappear entirely and may be reconfigured in new forms.
In such conditions, parts of reformist tendencies and the idea of gradual regime change will again be revived for segments of society and even some political forces.
But in this situation, one fundamental point must be emphasized: the potentiality of class struggle within the working class remains.
Social anger and hatred, although at times and within parts of society it may be temporarily absorbed into nationalist or pro-regime discourses, is not stable. It returns again in the form of despair. A despair that says: “there is no way out” and “we are condemned to collapse.”
It is precisely at this point that the question becomes decisive for the revolutionary left. This despair can either lead to passivity and a return to reformist horizons, or it can produce renewed fascistic anti-working-class tendencies, or, if there is organization and a positive horizon from the revolutionary left, it can be redirected toward class struggle.
If the revolutionary left can intervene in this situation, build organization, and provide a clear political horizon, then this despair can be transformed into an active political force, rather than a draining and directionless condition.
Ultimately, from the standpoint of proletarian class interests, it must be insisted that any current that takes these interests as vital and decisive must necessarily understand these scenarios as real dangers and must define its position on this basis, not on abstract hopes or linear ideas of historical progress.
Alongside this discussion, one decisive point must be clarified: the Islamic Republic, contrary to what was pursued in the regime-change-through-war project, will not collapse through this war and will remain a political reality. This is an objective fact, not an analytical assumption. External attempts at overthrow, at this stage, have not produced the intended outcome, and the power structure of the Islamic Republic remains in place.
However, the issue is that the survival of the Islamic Republic takes place within an exhausting and erosive situation. At present, although the wartime conditions have not ended and all their consequences are not yet fully visible, the working class and certain segments of the middle class are already facing a broad wave of unemployment and intensified economic oppression.
It is clear that in the continuation of these conditions, the cheapening of labor power, pressure to reduce wages, and the continuation of neoliberal policies—including extensive privatization, outsourcing, and the reproduction of corruption networks—will not only continue but will intensify under the labels of “reconstruction necessities” and “post-war conditions.”
In such a situation, society is confronted with a high level of anger and despair, and the existing horizons for many subaltern layers are experienced as a dead end. The positive anti-class horizon remains at a potential level, but at the same time there are multiple possibilities for its appropriation.
In this context, the task of the revolutionary left is defined precisely at this point: transforming this despair into a positive class horizon. If this intervention does not take place, this anger and despair will automatically be redirected toward other forms of anti-class positivity. These can appear in right-wing forms, identity-based politics, extreme nationalism, or even reconstructed forms of fascism. Perhaps again in the guise of Pahlavi, or in newer figures.
Therefore, the issue concerns a real possibility: that this situation, out of this very despair, can become a field of intervention. But this is only possible if the revolutionary left can move beyond analysis and enter the level of organizing. Through mass work, organic relations, and living within the class.
This means living and working in working-class neighborhoods, peripheral regions, and the living spaces of subaltern masses. Not as observers or analysts, but as part of the very class that is to organize something within itself. Only in this way is it possible to construct, out of general despair, a positive orientation that can genuinely activate the possibility of class struggle against the Islamic Republic and, at the same time, against the domination of capital and imperialist interventions.
May 2026
[1] Among others in the texts “A Proletarian Assessment of the Jina Uprising” and “From the Period of Preparation to the Period of Revival”.
[2] ILNA (Iranian Labour News Agency) report estimating unemployment in Khuzestan may reach up to 100,000 workers, Hrana.
[3] A report on unemployment and other problems faced by workers in the shadow of war and damage to industry, Hrana.
[4] The dismissal of 7,000 employees of an automobile‑manufacturing holding in Iran, Zanan-e 8 March (Women of March 8).
[5] “Warning about removing the law from worker–employer relations under the pretext of survival and crisis,” Davtalab Telegram channel.
[6] News without the false propaganda, on the Black Fish Voice Telegram channel; the original news is on Khabar Online.
[7] See: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWozmz2CNQt/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
[8] For example, Saeed Jalalifar, in response to a report on the livelihood hardships of domestic cleaning workers published in Manjanigh, wrote: “Pro-NATO leftism, with a diagram: worrying about domestic cleaning workers in the middle of war is like worrying about the aquatic life of the Persian Gulf while oil tankers are burning.”
[9] We had previously written about this in the text “Resistance against imperialism: a military issue or a social question?”
[10] In terms of the model of power transition, the Freedom Congress is not unprecedented. The holding of the Freedom Congress in London, and the attempt to formulate a political alternative through it, recalls models such as the Bonn Conference in Afghanistan after 2001. In that model, a political order was formed under supervision and in the wake of external intervention, and was consolidated in the form of a formally democratic state. In this context, the role of technocratic figures is also significant. For example, the position of individuals such as Majid Zamani as organizers of the Congress can be compared to figures like Hamid Karzai. These are figures who are not primarily the product of an endogenous socio-political process. Rather, they appear in connection with international mechanisms and as managers of a designed transition. This form of leadership is itself another indication of the nature of a project that relies less on social organization and more on top-down political engineering.
[11] For more information, see “Ashraf Ghani: How a President Was Made? / Ben Norton / translated by Ali Orang” in Political Economy Critique. In this regard, the similar background of Ashraf Ghani and Shahriar Ahy is also noteworthy.
[12] For example, in the program “A Better World” of the Workers’ Communist Party—apparently the most left-wing current present in the Freedom Congress—it is written on abortion:
“Few phenomena, such as abortion, meaning the deliberate termination of a human fetus due to cultural and economic constraints, so clearly demonstrate the worthlessness of human existence and the contradiction between the exploitative and class-based social relations of the ruling order and human existence and well-being. Abortion is proof of alienation and the human being’s helplessness in the face of hardships and deprivation imposed by the existing class society. The Workers’ Communist Party opposes abortion and struggles to build a society in which no constraint or factor pushes people to carry out or approve of this act. At the same time, as long as unfavorable social conditions nevertheless drive many women to undergo abortion, even in underground forms, the Workers’ Communist Party demands the following in order to prevent exploitation by profiteers and to ensure women’s health: legalization of abortion up to 12 weeks, and …”
As can be seen, this program criminalizes the issue of abortion and ultimately recognizes this “right” only up to 12 weeks. In this respect, it is even behind some right-wing and centrist tendencies within the Freedom Congress.
Or in Argentina, Poland, some US states, Italy, and elsewhere, with the rise of far-right currents through free elections, abortion rights have either been completely revoked or subjected to severe legal restrictions, along with cuts and reductions in public support budgets.
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