People’s uprising and reactionary forces within the opposition:

Once again, starting on December 28, 2025, the Iranian people loudly raised their voices in protest not only against poverty, high prices, inflation, and exploitation, but also against the entire system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The slogan directed against the Supreme Religious Leader, “Death to Khamenei,” has echoed in the streets of most cities. Life under the rule of this system is no longer bearable for workers, women, youth, LGBT people, or ethnic and religious minorities; in addition, even the middle classes are unable to live under the rule of this regime. We have seen a fall in the value of the rial (Iranian currency) after the twelve-day war with Israel, the disruption of social services, the lack of purchasing power by the masses, the recession, and severe poverty in society. Economic crises, climate change (drought and water shortages/lack of drinking water), severe unemployment, control of women’s lives by reactionary religious state, government corruption, and theft of the Iranian people’s wealth by government and military leaders have brought the struggles in Iran closer to revolutionary conditions.

On the one hand, they reject this Islamic regime; on the other hand, the ruling class has not responded to the basic demands of the masses. This regime has stayed in power only through mass repression and the massacre of the unarmed masses. The cry of death to the dictator, death to Khamenei, has been raised in 177 cities in 26 provinces of Iran. The Iranian people demand the revolutionary overthrow of this criminal regime. But the main question is how to overthrow it? On one side, there is a lack of organized forces, especially workers’ organizations. On the other side, reactionary forces within the opposition to this regime rely on U.S. Imperialism for regime change. While the Iranian masses are fighting against this regime, they also need to recognize and deny these reactionary forces within their movement and not be hijacked by them. In fact, they need to avoid repeating a similar scenario that occurred during the 1979 revolution.

Today, we observe two reactionary forces against the Iranian people’s freedom movement. The first is the Islamic Republic of Iran and those who consciously or unconsciously defend it. The second is those who are for regime change but are trying to seize power by supporting foreign reactionary forces, such as the Mujahideen, in addition to small and large reactionary forces. A dangerous current has emerged from two-faced monarchists who want to seize power with the military involvement of the U.S. and Israel.  Many of the Iranian monarchists are abroad. Supporters of this view, consciously or unconsciously, do not recognize their reactionary role in the movement, believing that the Iranian regime must be overthrown at any cost, and thinking naively that any alternative that succeeds this regime would be better.

If those in the second camp (supporters of foreign reactionary forces) are, for the most part, not self-interested or power-seeking, they are either unaware of the specific historical conditions of the past, namely the events that took place in Iran in the 1979 revolution, or they are ignoring/forgetting the lessons learned from this revolution. Moreover, today we are witnessing new conditions of the world capitalist system – namely, the rise of neo-fascism.

Yes, we, too, believe that this regime should be removed now and not in the future, but this does not mean that we should fall into the trap of defending Reza Pahlavi, son of the ex-Shah. For this reason, we take the radical view of defending the sovereignty of the people and saying no to the Shah’s son, to Khamenei and his regime, or to any other foreign savior.

Here, a conscious drawing of the line is necessary. Otherwise, we will be dragged along like puppets by reactionaries pursuing their own interests, and our existence and role will only be in the streets, defending the reactionary leaders. We witnessed a similar scenario in the 1979 revolution, when the counter-revolution arose from within the revolution and swallowed the revolution, and the deceitful Khomeini was soon able to seize total power.

A view on Trump’s policy in Iran

Some leftists are bringing up the notion that Trump is attempting to force the existing machinery of the Iranian government to change its foreign behavior and strategic alliances so that they no longer conflict with U.S. interests. In this context, the domestic aspects of the government are of little importance. What matters is how it behaves abroad: with whom it trades, against which powers it aligns itself, and whether it accepts the constraints imposed by American hegemony. Trump’s Iran policy, seen from this perspective, is coherent, calculated, and deeply pessimistic.

This doctrine is clearly visible in the Trump administration’s handling of Venezuela. In that case, Washington neither dismantled the government nor rebuilt its institutions. The regime remained essentially intact – at least in practice – although Maduro was targeted. Venezuela’s freedom of action was severely curtailed. U.S. sanctions and pressure targeted the country’s access to energy markets and sought to weaken or sever its geopolitical ties with China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran – countries that Washington considers adversaries. The goal was not democratization but behavior modification through pressure. Iran fits precisely into this framework. Trump wants a Tehran that understands that its foreign behavior is determined by U.S. pressure and power, not by Iran’s ambitions, revolutionary ideology, or security concerns. He doesn’t care whether new rulers in Tehran achieve their goals. What he wants is for the current rulers to rule differently – more cautiously, more predictably, and more in line with U.S. strategic preferences.

Whether it is Trump’s plan to replace the Iranian regime – regime change – or to control the regime via pressure from his administration, in either case, it is the masses in Iran who are the victims. So far, the recent protests in Iran have resulted in a brutal retaliation ordered by Khamenei, which has seen many thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested. And it is not over yet.

The lack of an organized left and the complexity of the Islamic regime:

The absence of an organized left is a serious indication of how the forces and elements of the Iranian left failed to prepare themselves, at least in terms of defending the people of Iran.

The absence of leftist organizations cannot be rationalized solely due to the regime’s repression, although repression played a very important role in it. Rather, it should also be acknowledged as a weakness of the left and the theoretical and strategic differences among them, both in practice and in theory. A subset of the Iranian leftists has not yet given up their campist viewpoint. Some have an Axis of Resistance viewpoint and are still defending the fascist regime of Iran.

The New Left in Iran, which, due to the past mistakes of the traditional left with its vanguardist, Stalinist, and three-world views, was compelled to make a new beginning to understand Marx’s Marxism for Iran today. Unfortunately, the New Left in Iran has yet to be able to transform itself into a serious and organized tendency and has a long way to go.

Besides these weaknesses of the left, the current movement is lacking cohesion and organization. This lack of organization partly is to some extent not accidental, but rather the result of a policies of this reactionary regime, which in manifests itself in the form of oligarchic capitalism, in which the leadership of society consists of the main capitalists, along with the military forces, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij and the army, which operate according to the system of neoliberal capitalism.

The regime’s rulers and military sector control all economic and vital resources and have their hands on everything, including imports, exports, and distributions in Iran. Therefore, overthrowing this regime is not limited to removing the rulers at the top, but the military itself is also a major capitalist. The regime also has paramilitary forces in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and other regions that serve it in times of need.

From a protest in the market to a massive movement:

The Iranian regime has a system that has not only put the workers and toiling sectors under severe pressure and poverty but has also endangered the middle and market sectors. The regime has allocated all resources to itself, with more than half of the Iranian population below the poverty line. This was the reason why the demonstrations began in the Iranian market, as the masses did not have purchasing power, and a severe recession resulted.

The economic sanctions imposed by the United States and European governments have exacerbated conditions for the people of Iran, as have the economic policies of the Islamic Republic regime. In order to alleviate the crippling conditions that are hurting the Iranian people, the Islamic regime of Iran has been printing unbacked banknotes for years in order to stop the runaway inflation in the country. The regime has cunningly blamed the devaluation of its national currency on the rise in the price of the dollar, while we all know that the real value of the dollar worldwide has had very minor fluctuations and does not have much impact on the value of national currencies of other countries, including Iran.

This regime is currently claiming that the protests and struggles of the masses are actually “a plan to destabilize the county by Israel and America,” and is attempting to justify the most violent response to the uprising of the Iranian people. This regime has completely ignored the fact that the strike on Tehran’s Bazaar, the most traditional sector of the economy, shows that the recent protests are rooted in the inability to set prices for goods and the collapse of trade, and not simply foreign provocations by the United States or Israel. Although these reactionary governments of Trump and Netanyahu are also involved in the crisis of Iran, the main culprit is the reactionary regime of the Islamic Republic. President Pezeshkian has deliberately allocated a large part of the government’s budget for the next year to religious centers and the regime’s military and repressive forces. It has only added 20 percent to the salaries of the country’s employees and workers. This additional salary, given the high inflation of 50% in Iran, means impoverishing most of the wage earners and working people in society.

Normalization of poverty:

The Iranian regime has resorted to the brutal massacre of the defenseless people of Iran, based on Khamenei’s order and reactionary religious laws. The regime aims to push radical protests towards normalizing life amid ruins, in line with the model of Lebanon, Syria and other poor countries in the region, by unofficial dollarization and “distributing poverty” – that is, a situation where people, instead of “structural change”, only seek “survival in difficult conditions”. On the one hand, this regime has blocked any organization of struggle of the masses by militarizing society and constantly suppressing protesters, and on the other hand, by making a huge proportion of the Iranian people as poor as possible. The history of labor struggles has shown that increasing unemployment and extreme poverty make it harder for workers to organize. This situation, combined with the increase in contract workers and the severe repression by the ruling reactionary military forces, will make the conditions for the creation of workers’ councils and unions even more difficult.

Women, Life, Freedom continued:

Some argue that the current movement is different from the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement. They argue that the previous movement was for women’s demands, while the current movement is about having a job, housing, and freedom. In fact, in the 2022 movement, it was women who led the movement not only for women’s conditions but also for life, economic conditions, and individual and social freedoms. The lack of participation of organized labor caused the 2022 movement to subside, but it seems that the recent movement, which began with strikes in the market, was a continuation of the previous movement. The major participation of women in the new movement is evidence of this claim. These two movements are dialectically related.

Today, the Iranian regime has lost all its authority to govern, and the masses have practically declared that it must be overthrown. We can say that this regime is making its last desperate efforts to save itself. We are living in critical times. All kinds of reactionary forces are planning to come to power and replace this regime. In these circumstances, we urgently need mass organization by revolutionary forces. The only way to salvation is for revolutionary forces and the conscious masses to seize power. This movement, even if it might be suppressed, will not be extinguished and will continue.