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MARXISM & LEFT-WING POLITICS in Europe and Iran

Yadullah Shahibzadeh Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran Yadullah Shahibzadeh Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran Yadullah Shahibzadeh Oslo, Norway

ISBN 978-3-319-92521-9 ISBN 978-3-319-92522-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Roya, Omid, and Giti Preface

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1978, I read The Communist Manifesto for the first time. I found the proclamation, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” on the first page to be the most insightful statement I had ever read. The year 1978 was for Iran the time of free expression of every subversive speech and the time of the practice of politics and democracy, as the expression of the rights of a people with no qualifications to govern. Michel Foucault gave a name to this experience of politics and democracy: political spirituality. It was this experience of politics and democracy in 1978 which created the intellectual condition for the Iranian youth to think of their “place and mission” in the history of humanity and search for a form of political experience which corresponded to their “historical mission” and went beyond what they were really experiencing. The big and small leftist organizations, Marxist and “Islamist,” which were making their activities public or emerged during this period, had the perfect response to the youth’s search for new knowledge and political experience. These organizations claimed that they could provide the Iranian youth with the knowledge they needed to find their historical “place and mission” and to generate the new political experience they had been seeking. The knowledge that these leftist organizations provided indicated the universality of class struggle formulated by The Communist Manifesto and enacted in a series of proletarian and mass revolutions from the Paris Commune through the twentieth- century socialist revolutions and the revolutions for national liberations to the ongoing Iranian Revolution. These leftist organizations promised their young supporters the political experience they had been seeking. But

vii viii PREFACE this promise did not last long. From the day that the old regime was over- thrown in February 1979, the leftist organizations faced a revolutionary government which shared their conception of world history as class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed and ascribed a historical mission to itself and the Iranian people to lead the oppressed of the world against their oppressors. As the revolutionary government was ideologically superior, politically more determined, and was controlling the repressive state apparatuses, it succeeded in eliminating every internal political obstacle, which prevented the exercise of its authority internally as a precondition for realization of its universal and historical mission. This book is an attempt to understand how Marxism both constituted the Iranian youth in the late 1970s as subjects of a truly democratic political experience and promised them a radically new political experience, while as a theory of social revolution it was subjected to regression and decomposition. I wish to express my deep gratitude for Editor Alina Yurova and Editorial Assistant Mary Fata at Palgrave Macmillan for bringing this book to production.

Oslo, Norway Yadullah Shahibzadeh Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 From True Democracy to Communism 13

3 The Vanguard Party and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 27

4 The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology and Class Consciousness 47

5 Iran as Part of Global Communism 61

6 Ideological Formation of Stalinist Marxism in Iran and France 83

7 The Crisis of Stalinism After 1953 107

8 French Marxism: Ideology and the Question of Power 125

9 The New Left in Iran: A Discourse on Gun and Politics 141

10 The Educator Must Be Educated 171

11 From Communism to Democracy 193

ix x Contents

12 Toward a Communist Democracy 215

13 Conclusion 241

Bibliography 247

Index 255 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Since the 1970s, in the name of democracy, various post-Marxist tendencies in the academic and public discourses have criticized Marxism for its reluctance to distance itself from totalitarianism, and for its negligence of the horror of colonialism, racism, oppression of women, and the human rights of the victims of the dictatorial regimes. But the post-Marxist pressure on Marxism generated, since the 1990s, two opposite forms of Marxism and left-wing politics in Europe. In the past few years, we have been witnessing that one leftist tendency demands that the other tendency remains true to the meaning of the left and Marxism. One segment of the left defends the “Syrian revolutionaries” against the dictatorial regime of Bashar Assad. This same segment of the left is well aware that the “Syrian revolutionaries” are financed and organized by “Western imperialism” and the Arab dictators. The other segment of the left supports the “Syrian people and their government” against the “imperialist-terrorist intervention.” Whereas one segment of the left is preoccupied with the Chinese and Russian “undemocratic capitalism,” the other segment rejects this preoccupation as an imperialistic obsession. Whereas the former segment of the left is worried about European racism and Islamophobia, the latter’s concern is the danger that Muslims and immigrants present to the future of freedom of expression, secularism, social peace, and communal solidari- ties in Europe. Regarding their disagreements on their governments’ foreign policies and handling of the question of refugees, immigrants, and Muslims, the European left, Marxist or post-Marxist, are divided into two

© The Author(s) 2019 1 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_1 2 Y. SHAHIBZADEH major sections. One section of the left opposes the Western government’s imperialist policies in the Muslim world because these policies produce refugee crises and the “excessive immigration” of Africans and Muslims into Europe threatening social peace, prosperity, and the welfare state of European societies. While defending these same foreign policies as useful for spreading democracy and humanitarian assistance, the other section of the left takes a “humane” approach toward “the refugee crises,” immigrants, and Muslim citizens. The “anti-imperialist” left argues that the seemingly humane handling of the question of refugees and immigration by the European governments is their way of escaping their responsibilities in creating imperialist wars and destruction as the main causes of mass immigration. According to the “anti-imperialist” left, as a result of accepting refugees with Islamic and patriarchal cultural backgrounds, with no human capital, there emerged marginalized citizens, oppressed women and children, growing delinquency, and Islamist extremism in Europe. The pro-democracy and pro-humanitarian intervention left responds by claiming that regardless of the imperfections these people display and the danger they represent to the social fabric of European societies, Europe cannot reject these people. Firstly, European societies desperately need the practical assistance of these people to maintain the existing degree of material productivity. Secondly, the absolute majority of these people are European citizens. However, according to the pro-democracy and pro- human rights left, these people’s practical assistance does not mean that society should disregard their undemocratic attitudes. On the contrary, the education system, scholars, and intellectuals must educate these new citizens in Western values and democratic culture to overcome their imperfections and live a democratic life. The main result of the debates of the two sections of the left since the 1990s has been nothing but the invisibil- ity of the contemporary European proletariat. Bearing in mind Stuart Hall’s understanding of the “ethnicization of the workforce” in Britain,1 the nature of the practical assistance of the people who are called Muslims and immigrants in contemporary Europe and the degree of their invisibil- ity is indistinctive from the early nineteenth-century European proletariat. Nineteenth-century Europe produced thinkers and activists such as Blanqui, Proudhon, Marx, and Engels who analyzed the situation of the European proletariat, as well as political parties, which represented the interests of this proletariat. These European thinker -activists argued that whereas the bourgeois state ignored the existence of the proletariat and their rights as citizens, the nature of the capitalist mode of production denied their real freedom and equality. But it seems that twenty-first-century Europe is INTRODUCTION 3 unable to produce thinkers who can analyze the situation of the new proletariat or political parties representing their interests. Marx as the founder of the contemporary left tried to make his contemporary proletariat visible. Contrary to Marx, the Marxists and post-Marxists left of the twenty- first century have made their contemporaneous proletariat invisible. Rancière describes how the 1990s celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution in France turned into “a great funeral of two centuries of egalitarian utopias.” During the “celebrations” the intellectuals “went into a rage against the illusions and crimes of the revolutionary age.” At the same time, the socialist government and intellectuals argued that social divisions and conflicts would be solved if social groups consider each other and the state as their partners. The state-intellectual argument declared “the triumph of consensual realism over Marxist utopia.” But instead of being the site of “political wisdom and social peace,” this consensual realism generated xenophobia of the National Front.2 In The Passing of an Illusion (1995s), Francois Furet argues that liberation from the illusion of historical necessity or march of history is a precondition for an accurate understanding of our time. For Furet, without being necessary elements of the twentieth century, Fascism and Communism justified their emergence through the idea of historical necessity. Fascism and Communism, which had forgotten that democracy produced them, considered themselves as the destiny of humanity and fought each other to replace democracy. But after a while democracy buried both Fascism and Communism.3 A few years earlier, in 1989, Francis Fukuyama claimed that we are witnessing the end of history: “that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”4 Two years after Fukuyama’s statement, while preparing the first war against Iraq, the American president George H.W. Bush declares the advent of a new era, a New World Order that is: “freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East, and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.”5 Two decades later, with the increasing popularity of the far- right in the United States and Europe, some scholars describe our current situation as post-Fascism,6 whereas liberal scholars talk about a real crisis in Western democracy and argue that without radical political reforms, the contemporary democracies cannot survive.7 For Furet, whereas historical necessity was the illusory aspect of Fascism and Communism, it explains the survival of democracy as the destiny of humanity. What Furet calls the 4 Y. SHAHIBZADEH illusion of necessity in historical writing, Walter Benjamin describes as “the intellectual dimension of a political transformation of the present.” Benjamin argues that for a true historian the “image of the past emerges from the conflicts of the present.”8 For him, history writing is about reac- tivating the unaccomplished past because a true historian listens to the demands of the unaccomplished past for redemption.9 The historicism of the official Marxism ignored the demand for redemption of the past because it viewed history as “the uninterrupted growth of productive forces” and “economic and technical advance.” The historicism of the French Communist Party (PCF) led it to believe that socialism was the accomplishment of the French historical destiny and its universal dimension expressed by the 1789–1790 Revolution, the Rights of Man, as well as the “civilizing mission” of French colonialism. But, while endorsing the French’s colonialism as a civilizing mission, Furet’s historicism is of a different sort. He claims that the totalitarian nature of the French Revolution and the communist movement delayed the victory of liberal democracy. That is why Furet writes the history of the triumph of liberal democracy over totalitarianism as an accomplished fact. While “discovering” the inherent totalitarianism of the French Revolution and its continuation in the communist movement and Fascism against liberal democracy, Furet takes the necessity of liberal democracy for granted. For Furet, liberal democracy prevailed over totalitarianism because it represents the historical ideals of human civilization and because “history could not have a different conclusion.” Since the 1990s, Furet has become an interpretative authority among the European historians who consider themselves as narrators of an accomplished fact, and the strategists of the “battle whose results are already known.”10 What Furet had done for the historicist conception of modern Europe, Bernard Lewis did for the historicist design of the contemporary Middle East.11 The vast majority of historians of modern Europe and the Middle East may disagree with Furet and Lewis on some details of their historical writings. But when these same great majority of historians write the history of Europe as the history of the triumph of liberal democracy over the Communist and Fascist totalitarianism and its imminent victory against Islamist fundamentalism and tyranny in the Middle East, they follow Furet and Lewis’ path.12 The fact that the historicism of Furet and Lewis dominates the academic historical writing and public debate on contemporary Europe and the Middle East indicates that the history of Marxism and left-wing politics in Europe and elsewhere can be interpreted in two ways. Historians either adjust their research with this historicism or INTRODUCTION 5 turn around its main arguments. This book is a history of the rise and fall of the European and Iranian Marxist and left-wing politics. Writing a history of the rise and fall of Marxism and left-wing politics in Europe and Iran requires an understanding of the way Marx and Engels conceptualized communists as the advocates of the proletariat’s struggles against the bourgeois supremacy. Communism says that communists must prepare the proletariat regardless of their nationalities, as a unified and indivisible class for the final battle against the bourgeoisie. Unlike all classes in human history, the proletariat will eradicate class divisions and generate a classless human society.13 This book is a study of the leftist intellectuals who remained faithful to this communist definition and reflected on its crises. Some historians explain the new European situation with regard to the crisis of Marxism in the early 1980s. According to Enzo Traverso, the conservative revolution in Britain and America, the Iranian Revolution, and the Cambodian geno- cide are the main events that created the political context of the crisis of Marxism.14 In my view, rather than constituting an element of “the crisis of Marxism,” the Iranian Revolution was a response to the last crisis of Marxism which emerged before the 1980s. We can trace the idea of the crisis of Marxism to Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg, Karl Korsch, and Gramsci and Althusser. Whereas Kautsky, Lenin, and Luxemburg responded to the crisis with new political practices, Korsch and Althusser’s response to the crisis was theoretical practice. As the Russian Revolution internationalized Marxism as the theory of revolution, Marxists throughout the world became involved in the theoretical and political practices to resolve the crisis of Marxism. Marxism does not exist in the way that it existed in the 1960s and early 1970s. Since the 1980s, intellectually or politically, Marxism has been decomposed. The decomposition of Marxism has generated new and contradictory forms of being Marxist or post-Marxist in Europe and elsewhere. In his study of the demise of Marxism and the communist movement in the Arab world, Tareq Y. Ismael argues that in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the collapse of the communist bloc and Islamic activism were the main ideological and political forces determining the fate of the communist movements in the Arab world and its final collapse.15 It began with the Arab communists convivial to perestroika and glasnost as democratic economic and political reforms, which could solve the crisis of socialism, enrich Marxist theory, and actualize its potentials. They hoped that the reforms in the socialist countries were going to benefit the Palestinian national liberation movement, but as they saw mass immigration of the 6 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Soviet Jews to Israel, they became utterly disillusioned.16 As the collapse of the socialist bloc coincided with the growing Islamist movement in the Arab world, the Arab communists suddenly lost their ideological and political significance.17 Unlike the communist movement in the Arab world, Iranian Marxism and the communist movement experienced the loss of their significance a decade earlier. A historian of Iranian Marxism and communist movement argues that “Marxism in Iran was decisively defeated by the mid-1980s” and that this defeat had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s or with Gorbachev’s reforms in the 1980s. Although this observation is correct, the thesis which follows is unconvincing: “Marxism in Iran was defeated not through ideological crisis engulfing international communism, but due to its inability to understand and cope with the internal dynamics of the 1979 revolution in Iran.”18 In my view, we cannot adequately understand the fate of Iranian Marxism and communism without contextualizing them within the ideological, theoretical, and political crisis of the global Marxism and the communist movement. The crisis of Marxism in the Soviet Union and its final collapse should be understood within the history of the general crisis of Marxism and the communist movements since Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution (1900) and Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? (1902) or Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The study of different forms of Marxism in different parts of the world may help us understand the grave- ness of the crisis of Marxism before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the early 1980s. In fact, the Iranian Revolution, the conservative revolution in Britain and the United States, and the exposure of the Cambodian killing fields were the consequences of the crisis of Marxism and the ideological confusion it had created. Because of this crisis of Marxism, numerous small and big Marxist organizations negating each other appeared in Iran just after the outbreak of the 1979 Revolution. The significance of the Iranian Revolution is that it brought this ideological and political crisis into the open. It presented a rupture with the dominant revolutionary discursive order. Foucault’s criticism of the French Marxists who were unable to understand the significance of the Iranian Revolution indicates this rupture.19 As Reinhart Koselleck argues, what was radical about the French Revolution was its ability to change the meaning of revolution from rotation into rupture.20 Referring to Koselleck, Enzo Traverso claims that revolution as a rupture with the past “laid the basis for the birth of socialism” as a political utopia. The October Revolution made the revolution in the sense of rupture a principle of hope for the emancipation of humanity INTRODUCTION 7 as a whole, but with the decline of the Soviet Union the hope of emancipation has suddenly disappeared. After the decline of the socialist countries, all utopian politics were reduced to totalitarian phantasies, and the principle of hope was replaced by the principle of responsibility to remind us of the totalitarian monsters of the past and the danger of the environmental disasters of the future.21 Hence, the combination of the totalitarianism of the past and the future dystopia does not leave any space to imagine an emancipated humanity. Whereas in the past the dialectics of historical time led the present to both decide the meaning of the past and formulate its expectations for the future, the twenty-first century has erased the symbolic link between past and present.22 Whereas the fall of Bastille and the assaults at Winter Palace represented the age of revolution and the figure of the revolutionary activist in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, September 11 represents the twenty-first century as the age of terror and the new figure of thevictim . Whereas the revolutionary activist aims to make revolutionary changes, the victim’s only concern is to tell his or her history. Thus, whereas the memory of Gulag has removed the memory of all revolutions and revolutionaries, the memory of Holocaust has erased the memory of anti-Fascism, and the memory of slavery has deleted the memory of anti-colonialism. The twenty-first-century situation tells us that the victims should not be confused with the revolutionary subjects who celebrate their struggles, victories, and defeats.23 When anti-war movements in the West and the anti-imperialist revolutionaries in the third world compared the US imperialism atrocities with Nazi violence, they did not want to honor the victims of the past but to fight the present execu- tioners.24 When Aimé Césaire described, in his Discourse on Colonialism (1950), Nazism as a continuation of imperialism, he wanted to make anti- imperialism a continuation of anti-Nazism, but the West has refused to recognize that anti-Nazism and anti-imperialism are the same struggles.25 The title of this book, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, may mislead the reader to expect a comprehensive history of Marxism and communism in Europe and Iran. But, first, this book is an intellectual history and has no claim to be a comprehensive historical study of the subject. Second, it does not cover the whole of Europe; except for Chaps. 2, 3, and 4, the parts examining Europe deal exclusively with French Marxism. My rationale for focusing on the French Marxism is the exceptionally privileged position of French Marxism, even before the emergence of the new wave of French Marxism inaugurated by Louis Althusser in the 1960s, within European Marxism and Communism.26 8 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Third, although this book deals with the most representative Iranian Marxists, it is not a comprehensive intellectual history of Iranian Marxism. Fourth, I have discussed in this book thinkers who did not or do not consider their work as academic or theoretical but first and foremost as the expression of their political activism. In this book I examine Marxism and Marxism-Leninism as politico-theoretical positions within their place of origin. Then I examine the destiny of these theoretical and political positions in the European and Iranian contexts. Marx’s intellectual journey from democracy to communism, which laid the foundation for Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, and the journey from communism to democracy, since the late 1970s, have played significant roles in the formation, rise, and fall of European and Iranian Marxism from the early twentieth century to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and beyond. In Chap. 2, I discuss how Marx discovers that democracy as the state is inadequate to realize man’s freedom and equality for the simple reason that the state is one of the several forms of expression of man’s alienation. Marx sees man’s alienation in his degradation into the proletariat. He argues that since the proletariat’s material conditions of existence are the causes of its members’ social and political alienation, their consciousness of their own condition leads them toward a class struggle against the bourgeoisie’s supremacy to seize political power. As the proletariat grabs political power, it eradicates the capitalist mode of production toward a classless communist society, consisting of free and equal individuals. In Chap. 3, I discuss Lenin and Luxemburg’s response to the first crisis of Marxism. In his response to the Marxist crisis, Lenin demonstrates the historical necessity of a vanguard party in Russia to both bring class consciousness into the proletariat and organize them for the final battle to assume political power. Lenin extends this historical necessity to the destruction of the bourgeois state through the dictatorship of the proletariat toward the withering away of the state and communism. Furthermore, I discuss Luxemburg’s agreement with Lenin in her response to the crisis of Marxism and her disagreement with him regarding the conceptualization of the dictatorship of the proletariat. For Luxemburg, Lenin reduces the transitory state between the bourgeois state and communism to the dictatorship of the Communist Party. Luxemburg reminds Lenin that the dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing less than the expansion of democracy expressed partly in the extension of freedom of expression through which worker and toiling people demonstrate their arguments regarding the affairs of their government and the state institutions. In Chap. 4, I examine INTRODUCTION 9 the response of Marxist theorists such as Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci to the failure of Western Marxism whose inability to replicate the Russian Revolution in the West has weakened communism as an international movement. What these two theorists discover is that the crisis of Marxist theory is the primary cause of the political failure of Western Marxism. Whereas Marxist intellectuals in the West were discovering the crisis of Marxist theory, the Marxist and communist movements were taking root in the East. In Chap. 5, I present a survey of Iranian communism and its chief theorist Avetis Sultanzade and his thoughts on establishing and con- solidating Marxist theory and practice in Iran. He expressed his disagreements with the Bolshevik State’s assessment of the revolutionary situation in Iran and the capacity of the Iranian revolutionary forces to deal with this situation. In Chap. 6, I examine the ideological formation of the Stalinist Left in Iran and France, which assumes the socialist project in the Soviet Union as an accomplished fact. Presentation of socialism in the Soviet Union as an accomplished fact forces Marxists and communists throughout the world to theorize this existing and actual socialist experience as the only alternative to Western capitalism and imperialism. Whereas socialism as an accomplished fact results in the establishment of the Tudeh Party in Iran, it leads the PCF to follow the Soviet Communist Party uncritically. In Chaps. 7, 8, and 9, I examine the crisis of Stalinist Marxism in Iran and France and the Iranian and French responses. Whereas the French response considers the crisis of Stalinism as part of the crisis in Marxist theory, the Iranian response is that the concept of Stalinism indicates the crisis of revolutionary politics which requires a decisive political response. The French response, as I discuss in Chap. 8, includes rigorous investigations of the nature of ideology and discursive practices and their role in the continuity of the existing socio-political order. The Iranian response is, as I examine in Chap. 9, guerilla warfare as the only means of creating the condition of possibility of resuming revolutionary politics in countries dominated by imperialism. In Chap. 10, I discuss the French preposition that the real problem of Marxism has been the Marxist intellectuals who in the name of critique of Stalin propagated a materialism of necessity, which assumes a royal place for themselves in the communist movements as the educators of the working people. This proposition implies that the Marxist educators must be educated. Chapter 11 deals with the fact of the defeat of the Marxist project and the emergence of the neoconservative ideology promoting democracy against totalitarian ideologies. This chapter examines the response of the French intellectuals 10 Y. SHAHIBZADEH who, while remaining true to the core of Marxism or communism, try to reconceptualize democracy. In Chap. 12, I examine how the long history of the actuality of communism, since Marx, has created a new intellectual space in Europe. In this intellectual space, the interplay of the Marxist and post-Marxist intellectuals, academics, and activists has generated an academic and public discourse which has a leftist form with racist and imperialist contents. In the name of freedom and equality new forms of racism and imperialism are defined as leftist positions. The “leftist intellectuals” defend these positions with reference to the universality of democracy or communism. But what the leftist intellectuals have completely forgotten is Sartre’s dictum that in contrast to the technicians of practical knowledge, the genuine intellectuals distinguish between false and true universalities. They have forgotten that true democracy or communism is about the power of the people who have no qualifications. This means that democracy and communism are about forms of politics which oppose the struggle for the state power and any other forms of privatization of politics.

Notes 1. Stuart Hall, Critical Dialogues in Cultural studies, Edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 224. 2. Jacques Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor (London: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 224. 3. Francois Furet, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 2. 4. The National Interest (Summer 1989). 5. George H. W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of Congress (September 11, 1990). 6. Enzo Traverso, Les Nouveaux Visages du Fascisme (Paris: les éditions textuel, 2017). 7. Stein Ringen, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-year-of-living-dangerously/, Winter 2017. 8. Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), p. 223. 9. Ibid., p. 224. 10. Ibid., pp. 224–225. 11. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 12. See my books The Iranian Political Language (2015) and Islamism and Post Islamism in Iran (2016). INTRODUCTION 11

13. Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan (London: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 262. 14. Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia, pp. 55–56. 15. Tareq Y. Ismael, The Communist Movement in the Arab World (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005), p. 90. 16. Ibid., p. 91. 17. Ibid., p. 96. 18. Maziar Behrooz, Rebels With A Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. XIV. 19. Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 287–288. 20. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 45–48. 21. Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia, p. 6. 22. Ibid., p. 7. 23. Ibid., p. 9. 24. Ibid., p. 13. 25. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), pp. 36–37. 26. David Caute, Communism and the French Intellectuals (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 11. CHAPTER 2

From True Democracy to Communism

The communist definition relies on the promise of the French Revolution and the European revolutions of 1848, according to which freedom and equality are indivisible and universal. The Communist Manifesto generates the communist figure to carry out the indivisibility and universality of freedom and equality into politics and the coming revolutions. Marx and Engels remind communists of the inherent unity of the proletariat, the global nature of their struggle against capitalism, and internationalism as their only weapon. Thus, communists of the world must unite workers of the world. Since its publication in February 1848, this little book has been the central text of a global intellectual and socio-political movement known as social democracy, socialism, or communism. The Communist Manifesto argues that capitalist property relations and relations of production are transforming the entire world into a big factory and market. This system reduces the absolute majority of the population to the proletariat who can only provide the daily means of subsistence for themselves and their families by selling their labor power to those who own the means of production. Marx argues that the European states which came with the promises of liberation from feudal subjugation and social and political equality to the masses in the previous revolutions have become protectors of the bourgeoisie, a social class which owns the means of production. But what the masses gained in return for their participation in the bourgeois revolutions was their proletarian status in the bourgeois society. Whereas the proletariat enjoy formal equality with those who own the means of production, they experience real inequality because they are

© The Author(s) 2019 13 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_2 14 Y. SHAHIBZADEH exploited by the members of the bourgeoisie. For Marx and Engels, under- neath the bourgeois society’s legal equality of all citizens, the capitalist minority exploits and dominates the working-class majority. The fact that bourgeois formal democracy conceals the exploitative content of the capitalist system leaves no option for real human emancipation but eradication of the capitalist system by means of proletarian revolutions. What distinguishes the bourgeois revolutions from the proletarian revolutions is that the impacts of the former are short-lived. On the contrary, the proletarian revolutions become successful when all turning back becomes impossible.1 What are the main implications of focusing on Marx’s branding of the communist figure as the heart and brain of the proletarian revolutions? First, it implies Marx’s radical intellectual journey from democracy to communism. Second, it suggests the necessity of an investigation of the extent of Marx’s fidelity to the consequences of this definition. We can find traces of the communist definition in The German Ideology in which Marx endorses the philosopher-anthropolo- gist Ludwig Feuerbach’s argument on the root of humans’ unhappiness with their conditions of existence but rejects his solution to the problem. For Feuerbach, the root of humans’ unhappiness lies in their inability to learn how to overcome the gap between their essence and their existence expressed in their refusal to accept their material conditions of existence. Feuerbach considers the gap as a psychological condition, which implies that individuals can overcome the gap if they learn to embrace their situation as it is. Against this explanation, Marx argues that “The millions of proletarians and communists … bring their “existence” into harmony with their “essence” in a practical way, by means of a revolution.”2

What Is Democracy? A few years before reaching the conclusive theorization of the point of no return in the proletarian revolutions presented in The Communist Manifesto and before The German Ideology, Marx was fervently advocating, in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843), a true democratic state. According to Marx, unlike other forms of government, democracy has the people as its foundation and the author of its constitution, because in a democracy real men legitimize their government. Employing Feuerbach’s critique of religion, Marx challenges Hegel’s conception of man as the state’s subjective projection and argues that we should start from man because the state is man’s product, his objectification. Relying on Feuerbach’s concept of religious alienation, Marx argues that man makes the state, but FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 15 in the process of political alienation, he is subjected to the state’s power. He expects that democratic revolutions generating true democracy will end man’s political alienation from the state. Marx does not consider democracy as a form of constitutional government among other forms of constitutional government but “the essence of all constitutions.” Democracy “has the same relationship to other constitutions as the species has to its types.” Whereas in every constitutional government we can distinguish between formal and material principles, in a democracy form and content are indistinguishable because democracy is the expression of “the true unity of universal and particular.” Whereas in monarchy and republic man is divided between his universality or political existence and his particularity or unpolitical private existence, in democracy man experiences the unity of his universal political existence and his particular, private, or unpolitical existence.3 Whereas in monarchy and republic man’s modes of being in civil society are understood as the reflection and content of the political state, in a democracy the political state expresses the mode of existence of the people. Whereas in a monarchy “the political constitution, has the significance of a universal that dominates and determines all particulars,” in a democracy, the universal character of the state corresponds to the content of civil society because “in a true democracy the political state disappears.”4 Marx argues that instead of democracy the modern state has generated bureaucracy as “an imaginary state beside the real state” to expresses its spiritualism, which ascribes to every object in the modern society a dual meaning, “a real one and a bureaucratic one.” While bureaucracy is the expression of the essence of the state and its spirituality, the state’s own spirit is protected through hierarchy, closed corporation, and secrecy, which discard any form of public political spirit. Bureaucracy reduces spiritualism into bare materialism displayed in “passive obedience, faith in authority,” and advocating “fixed and formal behaviour, fixed principles, attitudes, traditions.” Bureaucracy’s anti-political spirit makes authority the principle of knowledge.5 The bureaucratic materialism leads the individual bureaucrat who is looking for higher positions in the state bureaucracy to realize that the material life of the state is the only real life and bureaucracy the only sphere of spiritual experience. As the individual bureaucrat cannot distinguish between his own existence and the existence of the bureaucratic system which demands total subordination and passive obedience, he “discovers” that “real knowledge” is the same as signs and words devoid of any content, and real life. For Marx, the legislature as the political aspect of the modern state creates a problem for the state when it comes under the control of private property6 because 16 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the legislative power is the only means through which civil society can express its political existence or universality. The legislature is the only means through which the members of civil society can become members of the state with a political function.7 Marx argues that whereas the legislative power represents civil society’s political existence and the state’s political consciousness, the executive branch exercises the state’s power. That is why the executive power considers the demands for universalization of voting and political reform as a threat to its power. In Marx’s view universalization of voting and the right to run for office mean realization of civil society’s political or universal existence. For Marx, the true civil existence of civil society begins after its political existence is established because, as he argues, the advancement of voting will lead to the dissolution of both the political state and civil society.8

The Limits of Democracy In On the Jewish Question (1844), Marx reveals the limits of the bourgeois democracy and rejects the idea defended by Bruno Bauer that emancipation from religion is a precondition for all forms of emancipation. For Bauer, in order to be emancipated the Jews must relinquish Judaism and move toward science, which represents the highest stage of the human spirit and the expression of his unity free from any contradictions.9 In fact, Bauer’s argument was a response to the leaders of the Jewish Communities who believed that with the goodwill of the Christian state the Jews would be politically emancipated. Marx, who finds both arguments confusing, argues that the question is not who should be emancipated or who is the emancipator but “what sort of emancipation” are we seeking. “What pre- conditions are essential for the required emancipation?”10 Marx argues that those demanding the abolition of Judaism and the abolition of religion as the precondition of political emancipation ignore the fact that the existence of religion indicates that something is wrong with the nature of the state. Hence, the abolition of the secular limitations is the precondition of the disappearance of the religious limitations. “We do not change secular questions into theological ones. We change theological questions into secular ones.”11 Hence, political emancipation should not be confused with human emancipation because the very existence of the state prevents full human emancipation.12 Whereas man’s full emancipation means his union with other men, the modern state’s existence depends on recognizing man’s right to freedom as long as he is limited to himself. The FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 17 modern state reduces in practice the universal rights of man to freedom, to the right of every citizen to private property, and to the right to selfishness. This right requires that man considers other men “not the realization but the limitation of his own freedom.”13 Thus, the rights of man are nothing but the rights of the egoistic individual whose private interests contradict the interests of the community. For Marx, the Declaration of 1791 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1793 are the expressions of the bourgeois freedom as the rights of the egoistic man. These declarations indicate that the great majority of citizens become the ser- vants of the real men of these declarations, namely the members of the bourgeoisie.14 Marx argues that although the political revolutions did not give people freedom, “it turned the state into a matter of general concern” and made public affairs and politics a universal preoccupation. Man learned that the political revolution liberated him from religion but did not liberate him “from the egoism of trade”; it offered him “freedom to trade.” As freedom to trade becomes the founding element of the state, and the law protects man’s civil rights, civil society makes sure that the individuals remain unpolitical and refrain from showing any propensity toward “self- conscious activity” and political actions.15 For Marx, until man recognizes himself as a species-being with the capacity to stand against the political forces preventing his complete emancipation, he fluctuates between himself as an empirical egoistic being and as an abstract moral being.16 Only after man discovers his capacity to think and act as “an object of will and consciousness” does he recognize himself as a species-being. This discovery enables man to engage with other men in a collective transformation of their existence.17 In his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), Marx argues that in the process of production the worker becomes a commodity. The reason he gives is that rather than being a force that produces commodities for use and exchange, labor itself becomes a commodity for use and exchange. As the capitalist appropriates the objectification of the worker’s labor, that is, his product, the worker becomes alienated from himself and dominated by capital. As the worker externalizes himself more in his work, he becomes poorer in his inner life because the increase in the worker’s externalization means increases of the power of capital as an alien force determining his fate.18 But this process of alienation leads the worker to ask himself why his creations result in wealth, palaces, beauty, and culture for the rich but poverty, hovels, “imbecility and cretinism” for himself.19 Asking these questions leads the worker to realize that as a species-being who is conscious of his capacity for free activity he can over- 18 Y. SHAHIBZADEH come his alienation.20 The worker realizes that contrary to the claim of the political economy it is not private property that is the source of production and wealth but his own labor.21 The discovery of this truth leads the workers to think of emancipating themselves from capitalism as the condition of existence. But the communists remind the workers that they cannot emancipate themselves without emancipating the entire human society from capitalism.22 They remind the workers that human emancipation is only possible in communism in which private property is abolished, human alienation disappeared, man’s existence reconciled with his essence, his antagonism with nature eliminated, and freedom and necessity have become identical.23 For Marx, the identity of freedom and necessity is the expression of man’s natural and historical universality because it reminds him of his possession of “seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, contemplating, willing, acting, loving.” But according to the logic of private property and capitalism we can only define those objects as ours which can be exchanged in the market and take the form of capital. Private property has suppressed all natural and historical senses of having and replaces them with objects which can be exchanged in the market. Hereafter, the “supersession of private property” is the only path toward the emancipation of all human senses and qualities.24

Communism as the Future of Humanity In 1845, Marx joined the socialist thinkers who ascribed the historic mission of replacing the capitalist system and private property relations with a system of humane social relation to the proletarian class. To substantiate this historic mission, Marx argues that since the proletariat experiences the most inhuman conditions of life, it represents the “abstraction of all humanity.” The fact that humanity is lost in the proletariat indicates that the proletariat represents not only the actual misery of humanity but also its hope for happiness in the future. But hope without “theoretical consciousness of that loss” does not lead to anything. Marx’s observation of the revolutionary and emancipatory tendencies among the English and French proletariat inspires him to develop their consciousness of their situation and historic mission.25 In The German Ideology, he argues that whereas Feuerbach tries “to produce a correct consciousness about an existing fact,” “the real communist” is trying to overthrow the existing facts.26 Marx claims that Feuerbach’s acceptance of the existing order is the cause of his “misunderstanding of existing reality.” For Feuerbach, FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 19

“the existence of a thing or a man is at the same time its or his essence” and his “mode of life.” He concludes that since animal and human activity must result in the satisfaction of an animal or human individual’s essence, an individual’s dissatisfaction with his condition of life is “an abnormality which cannot be altered,” a psychological illness that is a result of the individual’s reluctance to accept his condition of existence. Marx’s response to this argument is that the proletarian class, which is not con- tented with its living conditions, will not listen to Feuerbach, but “bring their ‘existence’ into harmony with their ‘essence’ in a practical way, by means of a revolution.”27 According to Marx’s materialist conception of history, capitalism is doomed to collapse for two main reasons: it is no longer able to develop productive forces and it has generated a social class, the proletariat, which experiences a paradoxical situation. Whereas it bears all the burdens of modern society, it does not enjoy its advantages. Worst of all, it is a social class that is not even recognized as a social class and as a result it is “ousted from society.” But for Marx, this class which is not even a recognized class “emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communist consciousness.”28 Whereas the proletariat “derives its revolutionary consciousness from its direct experience, from its life situation,” members of other classes or intellectuals obtain their revolutionary or communist consciousness through contem- plation on and analysis of the proletarian situation. In fact, it is through this communist consciousness that the proletariat becomes aware of the relationship between the bourgeois class and the state and realizes that any revolutionary struggle against the bourgeois class is a revolution against the state. The proletariat learns from the communists that unlike revolutions of the past, which pursued a new distribution of labor, the proletarian revolution will abolish the current mode of labor. Furthermore, since the proletariat is not recognized as a class, it has every reason to abolish not only the existing class rule but also all social classes and nationalities as the condition of possibility for the members of the communist society to assert their individuality.29 For Marx, the question of the communist consciousness is not about the opposition between self-sacrifice and egoism but about demonstrating the material basis causing egoism and the conditions of its disappearance. According to the communist consciousness, both egoism and self-sacrifice are forms of “self-assertion of individuals.” By discarding the dichotomy between egoism and self-sacrifice, the communist consciousness reveals that “private persons” in the ruling position coined the concept of general interests as a cover for protecting their pri- 20 Y. SHAHIBZADEH vate interests. This story is repeated when private persons in the ruling position present and impose their own will on the state as a law to protect their class privileges and interests.30 Marx claims that political economy has an ideological function in the bourgeois system because it confuses private interests of a class with the general interests of the society and subordinates “all existing relations to the relation of utility” and defines utility as the essence of all social relations. The notion of utility helps the political economy to present the bourgeoisie not as a class pursuing its material interests but as “the class whose conditions of existence are those of the whole society.”31 By making the notion of utility a general theory, political economy justifies the capitalist division of labor, exchange, and competition. But in so doing it reveals that “the manner of exploitation depends on the position in life of the exploiter.”32

Communism as a Necessity or a Possibility Reviewing Proudhon’s notion that there is a tendency in history which worked providentially for the realization of equality, Marx claims that the idea of equality did not exist in the previous centuries: “the tendency towards equality belongs to our century.” Marx criticizes Proudhon for not knowing the difference between the contemporary men and means and “the men and the means of earlier centuries.” Otherwise, he could have understood that things which were finished products for the previous generation are now considered “the raw material for new production.”33 In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), one year before the European revolutions of 1848, Marx claims that whereas “the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class,” “the Socialists and the Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class.” Whereas the science of the economists consists of practical aid to the bourgeoisie on a daily basis, the science of the socialists and the communists remains theoretical. The reason for the theoretical character of the science of the communists is that “the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class” to engage itself in a struggle against the bourgeoisie. The proletariat’s relation to the bourgeoisie “has not yet assumed a political character.” Marx describes the socialists and the communists as the vanguards of the proletariat who are watching the development of the productive forces until the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat are ready and the time for the revolution is ripe.34 Contrary to Proudhon’s “scientific understanding,” Marx does not think that capitalism has the good sides FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 21 being explained and defended by the economists and the bad sides explained and opposed by the socialists. For Marx, Proudhon uses the good and bad sides of capitalism as a “magic formula” to refrain from “going into purely economic details,” while exempting himself from showing any insight beyond “the bourgeois horizon.” Thus, instead of being “the synthesis— he is a composite error.”35 In Marx’s view, while the bourgeois society was making man’s freedom formal, it made social classes informal. Consequently, despite their legal freedom as citizens, the members of the proletariat remain enslaved in the economic necessities of their class. The informal aspect of the proletariat’s economic enslavement convinces it that without the abolition of every class and establishment of a classless society it cannot enjoy real freedom. The classless society which the proletariat generates does not need political power because “political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.”36 A few months before the European revolutions of 1848, Marx and Engels claim in The Communist Manifesto that the time is ripe for the communists to openly “publish their views, their aims, their tendencies.”37 They claim, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” between oppressor and oppressed. Each time the oppressed revolts against the oppressor, a new system of oppression replaces the old one.38 The last revolutions brought the bourgeoisie as a new oppressor to power. The bourgeoisie has reduced all human relation to money relations, made the country depend on the towns and the agrarian societies depend on the industrial ones. However, despite all its strengths and achievements, the bourgeoisie is unable to control the emerging crises in the economy and the revolt of the proletariat against the conditions of production and property relations.39 The Manifesto tells the proletariat that to protect their interests, they must overcome competition among themselves and take advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie. It tells them that “the class struggle nears the decisive hour” because a process of dissolution within the ruling class has taken place as a result of which “a small section of the ruling class … joins the revolutionary class … that holds the future in its hands.”40 The Manifesto tells the proletariat that they must prepare themselves to lead the struggles of the lower middle class such as “the small manufacturer, shopkeeper, artisan [and] peasant” against the bourgeoisie. Because of their fear of extinction, unlike the working class, which has no property to protect and is determined to destroy all forms of private property, the petite bourgeoisie will “try to roll back the wheel of history.”41 Whereas the form of the proletar- 22 Y. SHAHIBZADEH ian struggles against the bourgeoisie is national, the content of their struggles is international. For Marx, the bourgeoisie has been too preoccupied with appropriating the products of labor as capital to realize that it has produced “its own grave-diggers.”42

Communists and Their Proletariat The communists’ association with the proletariat has been a significant theoretical and practical question of the communist movement since its inception. The Communist Manifesto declares that the communists are not going to establish a political party that opposes the existing working- class parties. The communists are well aware that it is not the proletariat that must accommodate its practice to the views of the communists but the communists who must formulate their opinions about both the interests and the historical mission of the proletarian movement. However, because of their theoretical advantage, the communists remind the proletarians that regardless of their nationality they have common interests. Because of their understanding of the condition of the proletarian struggle and its outcomes, the communists can transform the proletariat into a class for itself to overthrow bourgeois supremacy and assume political power.43 According to the Manifesto, a capitalist is someone whose “social status in production” allows him to exercise social power. That is why the abolition of capital does not mean the abolition of “personal appropriation of the products of labour” because such appropriation is necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of human life. The abolition of capital paves the way for forms of material appropriation that leave no surplus, which can be used to exploit the labor of others. What the communists want is to get rid of the capitalist character of appropriation of labor because the capitalist appropriation of labor indicates that for the capitalist class the survival of the laborer is important to the extent that he is necessary for the growth of capital and empowerment of the ruling class. Whereas capital as dead labor gets individuality in the bourgeois society, the worker as a living person is devoid of all individuality. Whereas the aim of the bourgeois society is accumulation of dead labor as capital, the accumulated labor in the communist society is a means “to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.” Whereas “the past dominates the present” in the bourgeois society, it is “the present [which], dominates the past” in the communist society. According to the Manifesto, since for the bourgeoisie freedom means “free trade, free selling, and buying,” FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 23 bourgeois ideologues interpret the abolition of the existing state of affairs as the abolition of individuality and freedom.44 In fact, the bourgeoisie does not see any “individual” but himself. Another ideological fallacy of the bourgeois ideologues is that they believe that with “the abolition of private property all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.” The Manifesto’s response to this fallacy is that if the argument is valid, then the bourgeois society would have stopped functioning because those who acquire everything in the bourgeois society do not work and those who work earn nothing.45

Ideology and the State For Marx, as the principal author of the Manifesto, the collective action of the proletariat of the most developed capitalist countries “is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.”46 The Manifesto claims that one of the factors that may prevent the proletariat from discovering its revolutionary capacities is the domination of the ruling classes’ ideas in the bourgeois society. “The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.” Only the communist revolution will cause a “radical rupture” with the dominant ideas.47 The Manifesto claims that in societies divided between classes, political power is nothing but “the organized power of one class for oppressing another.” Thus, the nature of the state as the organized power of class oppression cannot allow the proletariat to rise itself as the ruling class without a fight. That is why when the proletariat attains political power, it will abolish “the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally.” This means the proletariat will abolish its own supremacy toward a classless society in which classes and class antagonisms do not exist. This classless society will be an association of free men, in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”48 But the communist movement is not without its faults right from the beginning. The Manifesto points to a group of socialists who could be regarded as the ancestors of later “revisionist and opportunist” tendencies within the communist movement. It calls them the “bourgeois socialists” who wish to educate the proletariat to relinquish “all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.”49 Against these bourgeois socialists, the communists must take care of both “the momentary interests of the working-class” and the future of their movement.50 24 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Communism and Political Agency Marx deals, in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), with the question of political agency. “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under the circumstances chosen by themselves, but under the circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past.”51 To demonstrate the truth of this assertion, Marx argues that past revolutions awakened the slogans, heroes, and languages of the previous revolutionary events to reinvent their spirit. But the nineteenth century’s social revolutions should refrain from relying on the past because their inspiration must come from the future. To Marx, the reliance of eighteenth-century revolutions on the previous revolution was a result of the identity of the content of their revolutions with the revolutions of the past. In contrast, the nineteenth-centur y revolutions point toward a fundamentally new content. Whereas in the eighteenth- century revolutions “the phrase went beyond the content,” in the nineteenth-century revolutions, “the content goes beyond the phrase.”52 In his study of the 1848 revolution, Marx discovers that instead of smashing the state machine, hitherto revolutions have perfected it because in every revolution the possession of the state was “the principal spoils of the victor.”53 On the contrary, the goal of the proletarian revolution is to smash the state machine. But to smash the state machine, the proletariat must represent the social groups which cannot represent themselves, because they cannot transform themselves into a class on the national level. They “are incapable of enforcing their class interests in their own name, whether through a parliament or through a convention. They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.” The social class that cannot represent itself is either represented by the bourgeois class or by the proletariat. This social class will go under the protection of anyone which protects it against other classes, especially when its protector dominates “the executive power subordinating society to itself.”54

Notes 1. Marx and Engels Collected Works, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Volume 11 (Lawrence & Wishart Electric Book, 2010), pp. 116–117. 2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 2004), p. 61. 3. Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 34. FROM TRUE DEMOCRACY TO COMMUNISM 25

4. Ibid., p. 35. 5. Ibid., p. 37. 6. Ibid., p. 38. 7. Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 39. 8. Ibid., pp. 40–41. 9. Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question, in selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 48. 10. Ibid., p. 49. 11. Ibid., pp. 50–51. 12. Ibid., p. 52. 13. Marx, On the Jewish Question, Selected writings, Edited by David McLellan, p. 60. 14. Ibid., p. 61. 15. Ibid., p. 63. 16. Ibid., p. 64. 17. Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 67. 18. Ibid., pp. 86–87. 19. Ibid., p. 88. 20. Ibid., p. 90. 21. Ibid., p. 93. 22. Ibid., p. 94. 23. Ibid., p. 97. 24. Ibid., p. 100. 25. Marx, The Holy Family, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 149. 26. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology Part One (New York: International Publishers, 2004), p. 60. 27. Ibid., p. 61. 28. Marx, The German Ideology, Selected writings, Edited by David McLellan, p. 195. 29. Marx, The German Ideology, Selected writings, Edited by David McLellan, p. 195. 30. Ibid., p. 200. 31. Ibid., p. 204. 32. Ibid., p. 205. 33. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 226. 34. Ibid., p. 229. 35. Ibid., p. 230. 36. Ibid., p. 232. 37. Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 246. 26 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., pp. 248–252. 40. Ibid., p. 253. 41. Ibid., pp. 253–254. 42. Ibid., pp. 254–255. 43. Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, pp. 255–256. 44. Ibid., p. 257. 45. Ibid., p. 258. 46. Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 260. 47. Ibid., p. 261. 48. Ibid., p. 262. 49. Ibid., p. 267. 50. Ibid., pp. 270–271. 51. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, p. 329. 52. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Selected writings Edited by David McLellan, pp. 330–331. 53. Ibid., p. 346. 54. Ibid., p. 347. CHAPTER 3

The Vanguard Party and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Thanks to the 1917 Russian Revolution, the communist as the figure of the left became a genuinely international intellectual and political force.1 As a result of the Russian revolutionary communists’ seizing state power in Russia, Lenin’s theorization of the revolutionary vanguard, the state, and dictatorship of the proletariat became the center of the Marxist revolutionary theory and practice. For Lenin, the state is the main target of every revolution because the state’s institutions of coercion such as armed forces and prisons deprive “the oppressed classes of definite means and methods of struggle to overthrow the oppressors.”2 But only a well- organized political vanguard party can educate and mobilize the proletariat and other oppressed classes to bring down the state and lead them toward socialism.3 For Lenin, imperialism as the most primitive form of economic exploitation, political subordination, and repression has created revolutionary conditions in the weakest links of the imperialist chain. However, he underlines that the success of a revolution in the weakest link of the imperialist chain depends on the preparedness of the political vanguard to lead the revolutionary struggle.4 Imperialism as the extension of capitalism “provides the subjugated with the means and resources for their emancipation.”5 In 1902, in the heyday of the Second International, Lenin published What Is To Be Done? in which he criticized social democrats such as Eduard Bernstein and Alexandre Millerand, who in the name of combating “dogmatic Marxism” refrained from revolutionary positions and promoted social reforms. Lenin considered the reformist posture a rebellion against the scientific nature of socialism, and a denial of its historical

© The Author(s) 2019 27 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_3 28 Y. SHAHIBZADEH necessity demonstrated by “the materialist conception of history.” For Lenin, the reformist position ignores some basic empirical facts such as the “growing impoverishment, the process of proletarianization, and the intensification of capitalist contradictions.” Further, it rejects the logical consequences of these facts such as “the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat” as the transitory phase toward communism. Finally, it denies that communism is the “ultimate aim” of the workers movement and claims that there is no contradiction between liberalism and socialism. Following these premises, the reformist position declares “the theory of the class struggle” an irrelevant proposition in a democratic society governed by the will of the majority.6 Lenin argues that based on the presupposition that democracy “means the abolition of class domination,” the German and French reformists rationalize class collaboration between the working class and the bourgeoisie.7 But, according to Lenin, the reformists employ “freedom of criticism” to introduce bourgeois ideas into socialism, the inherent falsehood of which can be demonstrated by demonstrating the falsehood of the modern concept of freedom. For Lenin, “freedom of criticism” is similar to “the empty barrel” in Ivan Krylov’s fable with too much noise without content.8 Lenin sees the emergence of the reformist faction within the communist movement as a result of a crisis in Marxism caused by the unevenness in the movement. The unevenness in the communist movement is a result of the growth of the proletarian movement into a mass movement and the inability of the movement to elevate the level of Marxist theory within the movement. The unevenness between Marxist theory and the proletarian movement is a result of the participation of countless people with little or no theoretical training in the workers movement who believed in the imminent success of the movement and wanted their share of the success. Reminding his readers of Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program and his insistence on the principles, Lenin warns about belittling “the significance of theory” because “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”9

Internationalism Similar to Marx, Lenin reminds the communists and socialists of the internationalist nature of the communist movement. He encourages the communists to study critically, understand patiently, and learn the theoretical findings and revolutionary experiences of other communist movements enthusiastically.10 He blames the German socialists for their reluctance to recognize that socialism as theory and practice is a result of the contributions THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 29 of different thinkers and movements from different nations. He reminds them of the contribution of Marx-Engels, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and particularly the political struggles of the French workers to the socialist movements.11 Lenin reminds the German socialist leaders that the German socialist movement has an internationalist nature because it has taken advantage of the teachings and experiences of the socialist movements of other nations. But this internationalist nature must be demonstrated by the German socialists’ understanding of and solidarity with the socialist movements of other countries, which under severe political conditions and lack of freedom of expression and organization remain true to the cause of the socialist revolution.12 For Lenin, the absence of freedom of speech and organization in Russia has convinced the Russian proletariat that in order to become “the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat” it should destroy the Tsar state, “the most powerful bulwark” of “Asiatic reaction.”13

Class Consciousness One of Lenin’s main preoccupations in his theory of the vanguard political party is the relationship between trade-union consciousness and political and revolutionary consciousness. He claims that the proletariat is able “to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation,” but it cannot formulate a theory of socialism. Historically speaking, it was the intellectuals coming from the property-owning classes who developed the socialist theory from the dominant philosophical, historical, and economic theories of their epoch. Not only Marx and Engels as “the founders of modern scientific socialism” who came from the bourgeois intelligentsia but also Russian bourgeois intelligentsia, with no connections to the working-class movement, laid the theoretical foundation of social democracy in Russia. In fact, it was not the workers but the revolutionary youth who became the first political advocates of social democracy in Russia.14 Lenin endorses Karl Kautsky’s stance in his polemic with the Austrian leaders of the Social-Democratic Party who argued that “economic development and the class struggle create, not only the conditions for socialist production but also, and directly, the consciousness.” Rejecting the Austrian social democracy’s position, Kautsky claims that the fact that the theory of socialism and the class struggle grew side by side does not mean that the struggle of the working class generates class consciousness because “socialist consciousness” is a result of “profound scientific knowledge” of the bourgeois intelligentsia to which the proletariat does not have access. As 30 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the “vehicle of science,” the bourgeois intelligentsia generated the socialist consciousness and communicated their consciousness to “the more intellectually developed proletarians” who in their turn introduced this consciousness into the proletarian class struggle.15 Consequently, “socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without [von Aussen Hineingetragenes] and not something that arose within it spontaneously [urwüchsig].”16 This argument implies that the working masses do not have access to class consciousness, so they adopt either bourgeois or socialist ideology. This leads Lenin to argue that the advocacy for spontaneity in the working-class movements is an effort to subordinate the working-class movement to bourgeois ideology. For Lenin, Proudhon and Wilhelm Weitling, who became “socialist theoreticians,” are exceptional cases in the working-class movements.17 According to Lenin, individual workers can get the theoretical skill and master texts of advanced theoretical complexity provided they become professional revolutionaries in order to have plenty of leisure time. What Lenin means by the professional revolutionary workers is the worker agitators and organizer. “A worker-agitator who is at all gifted and ‘promising’ must not be left to work eleven hours a day in a factory. We must arrange that he is maintained by the Party; that he may go underground in good time; that he changes the place of his activity if he is to enlarge his experience, widen his out- look.”18 Lenin’s professional revolutionary worker is not a potential theorist who can think theoretical complexities, but an agitator who does not produce ideas and arguments but communicates them to other workers.

Vanguard Party and Democracy Lenin does not consider a vanguard revolutionary party as a democratic association of individuals expressing, promoting, and debating their views on the coming revolution because the practice of these principles of democracy will facilitate the police with the information it needs to destroy the party. Lenin argues that if under the undemocratic Russian condition the vanguard party intends to survive and expand its activities, it has to remain within the bounds of strict secrecy and recruit only professional revolutionaries. For Lenin, the revolutionary sense of responsibility and comradeship of the members of the vanguard party results in more “democratic control” in the party than exercising formal democracy in it.19 Lenin rejects formal democracy in the party because it subjects decision making in the party to the vote of all members, a process which makes THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 31 decision making in the party impossible. To reject formal democracy in the party, Lenin refers to Kautsky’s critical description of Moritz Rittinghausen’s idea of direct democracy by “popular newspapers” edited by the people as a “primitive conception of democracy.” Lenin admires Kautsky’s understanding of the role of expertise and professionalism against the anarchists and intellectuals whose lack of understanding of modern society leads them to advocate “direct legislation by the whole people.”20 Lenin develops his arguments in What Is To Be Done? in which he vindicates the secrecy of the vanguard party and the division of labor and professionalism within it. In The State and Revolution he defends the dictatorship of the proletariat.21

An All-Russian Newspaper Regarding the unity and continuity of an underground political party in Russia, Lenin proposed an all-Russian newspaper. Iskra, the all-Russian newspaper, united and guided the movement in actual practice. For Lenin, since politics resembles a chain, doing politics at any given moment means holding the most solid and decisive link of the chain as a means to possess the whole chain.22 In his view Iskra is that solid and decisive link in the chain of revolution which can inspire different forms of revolutionary activities, communicate, and exchange revolutionary experiences throughout the country more effectively and easily.23 Lenin describes himself as a revolutionary dreamer against “legal criticism” because as Dmitry Pisarev says: “The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares his observations with his castles in the air, and if, generally speaking, he works conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and life, then all is well.”24 Lenin argues that the revolution is not a single act but “a series of more or less powerful outbreaks rapidly alternating with periods of more or less complete calm.” The task of the all-Russian newspaper is to assist the party by connecting the outbreaks with the periods of calm.25 By evaluating the overall political situation and choosing the right moment for an uprising, the all-Russian newspaper increases the possibility of success in the event of the uprising.26 Lenin describes his own theoretical contribution and political intervention as the last stage of the Russian communist movement. Between 1884 and 1894, a few Russian social democrats who had no contact with the working-class movement formulated the theory and 32 Y. SHAHIBZADEH program of Russian social democracy. From 1894 to 1898, the Russian social democracy emerges as a political party representing a social mass movement. He describes these two periods as the periods of childhood and adolescence of the Russian social democracy, beginning with Narodism and transformed into Marxism and the working-class movement. But in the meantime, it undergoes an ideological crisis which produces renegades such as Bulgakov and Berdyaev. As social democracy becomes a popular movement, its leaders turn to legal Marxism and target militant Marxists who defended the scientific and revolutionary nature of the socialist movement.27 Lenin considers his vanguard party as “the consolidation of militant Marxism,” putting an end to the critical periods of the past.28

State and Revolution In The State and Revolution, written between the February and October Revolutions of 1917, Lenin reformulates and defends the Marxist conception of the state against its misrepresentations.29 Referring to Engels, Lenin argues that while “a product of society,” the state has assumed a position for itself above society to resolve social contradictions, through force, whenever these contradictions drag society into a never-ending struggle. Borrowing Marx’s argument, Lenin claims that the state is “an organ for the oppression of one class by another” to establish order and moderate class conflicts. This order, which is interpreted by the petty- bourgeois politicians as “reconciliation of classes,” is an oppressive order because it deprives the oppressed classes of the means of overthrowing the oppressors.30 Referring to Engels, Lenin defines the state as a “public power” consisting of institutions of coercion such as the armed forces and prisons, which function as an organ of oppression.31 Even when democratic republic in form, that is, “the best possible political shell” for the capitalist system, the primary task of the state is the protection of the bourgeois order and capitalist production and circulation.32 For Lenin, a truly democratic government has to represent the whole of society, but the moment the state begins to represent the whole of society, it begins to wither away. A society free from contradictions does not need the state. Lenin quotes Engels saying,

When at last it [the state] becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection, as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon the present anarchy in production, with the THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 33

collisions and excesses arising from this struggle, are removed, nothing more remains to be held in subjection—nothing necessitating a special coercive force, a state. The first act by which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—is also its last independent act as a state.33

Lenin makes a distinction between the concept of the abolition of the bourgeois state after the proletarian revolution and the concept of withering away of the state after the socialist revolution. Engels saw the revolutionary state as a semi-state, which withers away after the abolition of the bourgeois state. Whereas the bourgeois state is a “special coercive force” suppressing the proletariat, the proletarian state will be a “special coercive force” suppressing the bourgeoisie and abolishing its state. For Lenin, the name of this proletarian “special coercive force” is “the dictatorship of the proletariat” which paves the way for withering away of the state toward communism. Lenin argues that the proletarian revolution abolishes the bourgeois state, but the abolition of the state as such happens only after the dictatorship of the proletariat has created “the complete democracy”: when the state is no longer needed.34 The complete democracy is not the same as a “democratic republic.” For Lenin, a democratic republic is a relevant subject only with regard to other forms of the bourgeois state in a capitalist society because it allows the proletariat to organize itself as a class and as a political party. Although a democratic republic is the best shell the capitalist mode of production has chosen to maintain the social order, it remains the “special force for the suppression of the oppressed class.”35 While writing The State and Revolution, only a few months before the October Revolution, Lenin compares his work with The Poverty of Philosophy and The Communist Manifesto which appeared on the eve of the 1848 revolutions. The comparison is meant to remind the reader of the relevance of the works of theoretical value in “the concrete revolutionary situation of the time.” Referring to Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy, Lenin claims that since “the political power is precisely the official expression of class antagonism in bourgeois society,” the working class will generate an association of free individuals devoid of class antagonism and political power.36 Quoting The Communist Manifesto as saying, “the first step in the revolution by the working-class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the battle of democracy … to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e.,”37 34 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Lenin suggests that the proletariat must abolish the capitalist system in its entirety because it needs to deprive the bourgeoisie of the political power that maintains the capitalist system. He follows Marx’s argument that because of its role in production, the proletariat is the only social class that is capable of leading all the exploited and oppressed people toward their emancipation. However, the proletariat cannot achieve emancipation for itself and others unless it imposes its dictatorship on the bourgeoisie, which will desperately resist the fact that it is losing its political power and economic privileges.38 Similar to Marx, Lenin defines the state asmachin - ery. Marx argues that instead of smashing the state, the revolution of 1848–1851 has perfected it because different parties “regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principal spoils of the victor.”39 Lenin argues that the bourgeois state, which relies on “the bureaucracy and the standing army,” offers privileged positions to the ordinary exploited and oppressed people so that they can stand “above the people.” But these positions do not change the truth about the subordination of these people to the bourgeoisie.40 In fact, the use of the oppressed people in these institutions is meant to sanitize their suppression. In addition to the sanitation of suppression, the bourgeoisie uses political parties “to intensify repressive measures” and “strengthen the apparatus of coercion” of the state machine against the revolutionary proletariat. Lenin reminds the proletariat that they should not be deceived by the political parties, which give the bourgeois state an appearance of impartiality; they must concentrate on seizing the state power, not to improve the state machine but to smash and destroy it.41 Lenin insists on the similarity between his and Marx’s view on the nature of the bourgeois state and the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He refers to Marx’s letter to Weydemeyer saying, “the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them” was not his discovery but the work of the bourgeois historians. Marx demonstrated that social classes came into existence in “particular, historical phases in the development of production (historische Entwick- lungsphasen der Produktion)” and that the class struggle will lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat toward the abolition of all classes.42 Thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the principle that separates a militant Marxist from an ordinary petty-bourgeois.43 Lenin endorses Marx’s arguments in The Civil War in France that despite its long history, it was in the nineteenth century that the state power developed its “standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature” to cope with the “class antagonisms between capital and labour.” Hence, the modern state is THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 35 nothing but an instrument, “a machine of class rule,” to suppress the working class. The Paris Commune, which smashed the state machine and transformed it into a “fuller democracy,” demonstrated that the bourgeois institutions could be replaced by “institutions of a fundamentally different type.” It demonstrated the possibility of transforming the bourgeois democracy into a proletarian democracy and changing the nature of the state as a force of suppressing particular classes into “something which is no longer the state proper.”44 Lenin claims that the Paris Commune ended in defeat because it did not “suppress the bourgeoisie with sufficient determination.”45

Reform or Revolution? Whereas for Lenin the idea of social reforms in the bourgeois system works against the communist movement’s preparation of the proletariat for the coming revolution, Rosa Luxemburg does not see any contradictions between social reform and revolution because the former is the means through which the latter can be achieved. In her Reform and Revolution, published almost two decades before Lenin’s The State and Revolution, Luxemburg criticizes Bernstein’s view of social reforms and revolution as opposing tendencies within the labor movement. When Bernstein claims, “The final goal, no matter what it is, is nothing; the movement is everything,” he disregards that social reforms are the means through which the final social transformation can be achieved.46 Luxemburg argues that Bernstein is trying to disconnect theoretical knowledge from the workers movement. As long as the theoretical knowledge on socialism does not reach the worker masses and remains the privilege of a few theorists in the party, the workers are in danger of being misled by opportunistic tendencies.47 Otherwise the workers could understand that Bernstein’s analysis is not about the workers movement but about capitalism’s “capacity of adaptation,” protecting it from “general crises.” This “capitalist capacity,” which indicates the improbability of “a general decline of capitalism,” calls into question, according to Bernstein, the possibility of the socialist revolution. Consequently, instead of activities toward the conquest of political power, social democracy must work for the advancement of the general socio-economic condition of the working class through trade- union activities within the framework of the existing order. This means socialism would not be a result of a proletarian revolution but a result of gradual “extension of social control” and “application of the principle of 36 Y. SHAHIBZADEH cooperation.”48 Luxemburg’s response to Bernstein is that “a general and catastrophic crisis” is insignificant in the socialist theory because the foundation of scientific socialism rests on the idea that “growing anarchy of capitalist economy” leads to its collapse. Another factor is the “socialization of the process of production,” which generates the seeds of the socialist order. From its immediate experience and through self- organization and trade unions, the proletariat acquires its class consciousness to the degree that it chooses to collaborate with socialist thinkers. Luxemburg argues that contrary to Bernstein’s view it is not the tendency of capitalism toward economic breakdown which determines the fate of the socialist revolution but the combination of the party and the workers movement.49 According to Luxemburg, Bernstein’s revisionist argument is a result of his misconception regarding the internal contradictions of capitalism and its final collapse as the direct cause of socialist transformation. Henceforth, he confuses the “means of adaptation” which can rescue the capitalist system from an expected collapse with capitalism’s capability to “maintain itself by suppressing its own contradictions.” Thus, he concludes that if capitalism does not face its final collapse, “socialism ceases to be a historic necessity.”50 As the realization of socialism loses its historical necessity, its realization remains at the mercy of measured social reforms in coordination with “the evolution of the state in society.” For Bernstein, the bourgeois state’s widening of the sphere of action, intervention, and control in society will lead to the peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism and the ultimate fusion of the state and society. Luxemburg argues that Bernstein and other revisionists do not consider the state as “an organization of the ruling class.”51 They overlook the fact that “the representative institutions” of the state are only “democratic in form,” but as the “instruments of the interests of the ruling class” they crush democracy whenever it shows “a meager sign of defending the real interests of the population.” For Luxemburg, “the idea of the conquest of a parliamentary reformist majority” is nothing but the bourgeois liberal appreciation of the formal aspects of democracy with no regard for its real content.52 Luxemburg claims that social reforms will not change the nature of the state as “the political organization of capitalism.”53 Whereas for the revolutionary social democracy, trade unionism and parliamentary activities are the subjective factors educating and preparing the proletariat for grabbing political power, the revisionists interpret the proletariat’s demands for social reform as an indication of its inability to take political power. What the revisionists expect of trade unionism and parliamentary THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 37 activities is not “bettering the present situation of the workers” but a means of persuading them that “gradual reduction of capitalist exploitation” and “extension of social control” is possible.54 Revisionism rejects, according to Luxemburg, both “the growing contradictions of capitalist economy” and the working class’ growing awareness that only a revolutionary social transformation overcomes these contradictions.55 While fully aware of the tendency of the capitalist contradictions, revisionism pretends that the decrease of these contradictions and lessening of the antagonism between capital and labor can improve the situation of the working class. Revisionism advocates the illusion that the expansion of democracy and social control of the state will erase the contradictions between antagonistic classes, and between the state and society.56 Luxemburg argues that Bernstein reduces capitalism as a mode of production to the right to property. Hence, by reducing “the concept of capitalism … to property relations,” Bernstein reduces the question of socialism from being a solution to the struggle “between capital and labor” to a solution to “the relation between poor and rich.” Thus, in contrast to Weitling who intended to transform the opposition between the poor and the rich into “a lever of the movement for socialism,” Bernstein’s aim is to make the poor rich to realize socialism.57 Luxemburg argues that Bernstein believes that socialism means “economic democracy and cooperatives” because he thinks that by elevating the economic position of the working class through the cooperatives and trade unions, the capitalist profit is reduced and socialism accomplished.58 Thus, instead of “the capitalist mode of production” Bernstein intends to lead the socialist movement as a struggle against the “capitalist distribution.”59 It seems, according to Luxemburg, that Bernstein has forgotten Marx’s argument that “the mode of distribution of a given epoch is a natural consequence of the mode of production of that epoch” and hopes that the changes in the capitalist mode of distribution would result in the gradual development of “the socialist mode of production.”60 For Luxemburg, on the contrary, capitalism can take different forms, and if there is any democracy in the West it has been won “not by the bourgeoisie but against it.”61

The uninterrupted victory of democracy, which to our revisionism, as well as to bourgeois liberalism, appears as a great fundamental law of human history, and especially modern history, is shown upon closer examination to be a phantom. No absolute and general relation can be constructed between capitalist development and democracy. The political form of a given country is always the result of the composite of all the existing political factors, domestic as well as foreign.62 38 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Luxemburg concludes that it is not the socialist movement whose survival depends on the bourgeois democracy, but the survival and development of democracy that rely on the vitality of the socialist movement. This means the demands for legislative reforms and the call for revolution are not contradictory but complementary. Historically, legal constitutions are the product of revolutions, and the struggle for reform in every epoch takes its motivation from the last revolution. The last revolution both produced the existing social form and inspires the struggle for social reform.63 Luxemburg argues that the modern juridical system cannot explain the bourgeois class domination because unlike previous societies in which class privileges and class domination were results of the “acquired rights,” in the bourgeois society, it is not juridical relations that determine class relations, class privileges, and class domination but the real economic relations.64 The proletariat “submit itself to the yoke of capitalism” not because law obliges it but because of its “poverty and the lack of means of production” and because within the framework of the bourgeois society no legislation can offer the proletariat the means of production.65 Luxemburg does not take a position against democracy because democracy and its development mean wider participation of members of the lower classes in political life and because democracy displays class antagonism and class domination in public. Democracy allows the working class to discover “the kernel of socialist society from its capitalist shell.” Luxemburg argues that “the revisionists” are frightened by the expansion of democracy and try to “stop social reforms and the extension of democratic institutions” because the expansion of democracy means a public display of class antagonism.66 Luxemburg claims that under the pretext of being afraid of the proletariat’s premature conquest of power, the revisionists denounce every proletarian attempt to seize state power.67

The Question of Spontaneity One year after the Russian Revolution of 1905, Luxemburg argues that mass strikes, if led by revolutionary socialists, can determine the fate of the coming revolution because a victorious revolution requires the combination of the conscious vanguard and the worker movement. Despite her membership in the German social democracy, Luxemburg developed a vision of revolution which corresponds with Russian Bolshevism.68 At a time when the general strike is indistinguishable from anarchism, Luxemburg celebrates the 1905 Revolution as “the first historical experiment on the THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 39 model of the mass strike.”69 Luxemburg claims that we can make sense of mass strikes as one form of struggle among several other forms of political struggle such as parliamentarian politics and within “definite political situations.”70 The significance of the mass strikes in the Russian Revolution lies in the fact that it was not a method discovered by the revolutionaries but spontaneously invented by the proletarian masses in a revolutionary situation.71 Another significance that Luxemburg ascribes to the mass strikes in Russia is that they demonstrated the unity and reciprocity of the economic and political struggles. A revolutionary situation indicates a sudden change from “the economic struggle into the political” one. Hence, the mass strikes do not produce the revolution, but the other way around.72 For Luxemburg, every specific act in the social struggle depends on many local, national, and international factors. The reciprocal relationships and interactions of these factors decide the forms and outcomes of the specific act, which means the element of spontaneity in the mass strikes in Russia does not indicate that the Russian proletariat is uneducated. It indicates that “revolutions do not allow anyone to play the schoolmaster with them.”73 Luxemburg argues that a revolutionary situation causes radical changes in the minds of the members of the proletariat. Whereas, in normal situations, a trade unionist demands a guarantee for getting com- pensation if he is victimized as a result of his stays from his work on May Day, in the revolutionary situation members of the proletariat give up all their “material well-being” for “the ideals of the struggle.”74 Luxemburg rejects the explanation of “the spontaneous character” of the Russian mass strike by “the political backwardness of Russia,” “the oriental despotism,” and lack of organization and discipline among the Russian proletariat. She criticizes the leadership of German social democracy that is convinced that the German proletariat rejects mass strike because it is different from the proletariat of the “semi-barbarous” Russia which recently jumped from the Middle Ages into modern bourgeois society. Luxemburg’s response to this arrogance and national chauvinism is that the problem with the German social democrats is that they “read the stage of maturity of the social conditions of a country from the text of the written laws.”75 That is why they refuse to recognize the real workers’ struggle in Russia and Poland and repeat the myth that the absolute majority of the Russian proletariat have a lower standard of life than the German proletariat, while in some occupations the Russian workers receive even higher wages than the German workers. The point, for Luxemburg, is that there is no gap culturally and mentally between the Russian and Polish workers and 40 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the Western European industrial workers. To remind the German social democracy of “the stage of their development,” Luxemburg refers to the millions of unenlightened German workers who have never been members of the trade unions and who have never attempted to liberate themselves from their social slavery through “daily wage struggles.” She refers as well to the British mine worker who “hardly ever expresses itself in any other way than by violent eruptions” to remind the German social democracy that there is no guarantee that the “antagonism between labor and capital” in Germany will remain peaceful.76 Luxemburg argues that instead of learning from the Russian revolutionary experience, the German social democracy aspires to include the entire German working class in the party as a precondition for an imaginary mass action. Against this utopian expectation, Luxemburg reminds the German social democracy that the British trade union seems “strong enough” but avoids every “romantic revolutionary” error or temptation.77 For Luxemburg, the outcome of every parliamentary election reveals the political authority of the proletarian masses. Although not organized by the social democratic party, they are “the surrounding periphery of the revolutionary-minded proletariat.”78 Luxemburg rejects the perception that “the unorganized proletarian mass” is politically immature. She argues that whereas in Western Europe the working class hardly responds to the trade-union calls for collective actions even in the most violent conflicts, the smallest disputes lead the Russian workers to revolt. This indicates that the seemingly ill-educated and worse-organized Russian proletariat is stronger than the organized, trained, and enlightened workers in Europe.79 Luxemburg argues that whereas the theoretical and latent class consciousness produced by the parliamentarian democracy in Germany cannot engender direct action, the practical and active class consciousness of the Russian proletariat is a result of the revolution.80 As “the first natural and impulsive form of every great revolutionary struggle of the proletariat,” mass strike depends on the degree of antagonism between capital and labor. It is a socialist form of struggle that is more advanced than the fight at the barricades characterizing the bourgeois revolutions. In the contemporary revolutions, the fight at the barricades expresses “only the culmi- nating point, … of the proletarian mass struggle.”81 This means the mass strike is a result of “a universal form of the proletarian class struggle result- ing from the present stage of capitalist development and class relations.”82 This makes the mass strikes in the Russian Revolution the most modern form of revolution after the French Revolution and the German Revolution THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 41 of March 1848–1849. Entirely different from the old bourgeois revolutions, the Russia Revolution is “the forerunner of the new series of proletarian revolutions” in the West. The fact that this revolution happens in the “most backward country … so unpardonably late with its bourgeois revolution” does not mean that it cannot show “ways and methods of further class struggle to the proletariat of Germany and the most advanced capitalist countries.”83 Thus, paying attention to the experience of the Russian proletariat is not a matter of international solidarity but a matter of revolutionary education and learning. That is why the German workers, in particular, should look upon the Russian Revolution “as their own affair, … as a chapter of their own social and political history.”84 For Luxemburg, the Russian Revolution demonstrates that the boundary “between trade union and social democracy as two separate, wholly independent forms of the labor movement” is artificial.85 The struggle of the proletariat cannot be divided into an economic and a political struggle because these struggles are expressions of only one class struggle. Whereas one aspect of the struggle aims at limiting the capitalist exploitation within the frameworks of bourgeois society, the other aspect of the struggle aims at the abolition of the bourgeois society as the condition of capitalist exploitation. Whereas the trade-union struggle deals with the immediate interests of the working class, the political struggle led by social democracy aims at the future interests of the socialist movement. Luxemburg reiterates The Communist Manifesto’s definition of communists as the representatives of the proletarian universality and their international interests.86 She rejects the petty-bourgeois reformism and opportunism in German social democracy which endorses “equal authority” of the trade unions and social democratic parties and argues that the idea of equal authority is a result of the bureaucratization of the trade unions.87 Luxemburg claims that the “equality between social democracy and the trade union” leads them to discuss similar questions at their conferences and make diametrically opposite decisions.88

Democracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat Criticizing Lenin’s conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat and his stance on freedom of expression and assembly, Luxemburg claims that when freedom is for the supporters of the government and the party, it cannot be called freedom for the simple reason that freedom is not “a special privilege.” Freedom is meaningful whenever it concerns those who think 42 Y. SHAHIBZADEH differently.89 Luxemburg disagrees with Lenin’s understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat because in her view there is no ready-made formula for socialist transformation. The nature of socialism is something that will be clarified in the future. She thinks that the revolutionary socialists have only unpolished rough ideas and general direction about the post-revolutionary socio-political system. In fact, this socialist ignorance is the point of distinction between scientific socialism and utopian socialism. For Luxemburg, experience, freedom, and democracy as means of intellectual illumination and practical education are capable of correcting and opening new ways. Socialism cannot be achieved through intellectual poverty, political dogmatism, social rigidity, and absence of freedom and democracy because the construction of socialism will be the work of a whole mass of the people.90 Criticizing Lenin’s government, Luxemburg argues that decision making in “the closed circle of the officials of the new regime” will not result in socialism but corruption. Freedom and democracy under socialism mean public control and exchange of experiences on a large scale toward “complete spiritual transformation” of the masses which have long been degraded by the bourgeois society and its rules. One of the most significant consequences of this spiritual transformation is the replacement of egoism with social instincts. Luxemburg cannot understand why Lenin, whose understanding of bourgeois egotism is far better than anyone, does not take the unlimited school of public life and democracy in the broadest sense seriously and does not promote an active public opinion but chooses to govern by decree, factory overseer, and terror.91 For Luxemburg, socialism means general elections, unre- stricted freedom of the press and assembly, free struggle of opinion to vitalize public institutions, and absence of bureaucracy. She argues that in the absence of serious debates, the arbitrary government of some elite of the working class and some leading members of the party cannot be called the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is the dictatorship of a handful of politicians skilled in “brutalization of public life” and “attempted assassinations, shooting of hostages.”92 For Luxemburg, the problem with Lenin’s theory is that he shares Kautsky’s conception of dictatorship and democracy as opposing concepts and practices as if one can choose between dictatorship and democracy. Thus, Lenin, who does not pay attention to the fact that Kautsky has a bourgeois conception of democracy, chooses dictatorship against Kautsky’s “democracy.” But his dictatorship has nothing to do with “a genuine socialist policy.”93 For Luxemburg, the dictatorship of the proletarian class is “the THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 43 most active, unlimited participation of the mass of the people” in unlimited democracy. But in the name of rejecting formal democracy, Lenin and Trotsky worship the dictatorship of a clique. Luxemburg claims: “We have never been idol-worshippers of formal democracy,” but as a revolutionary socialist she distinguishes “the social kernel from the political form of bourgeois democracy.” In the bourgeois democracy, the hard kernel is social inequality covered by “the sweet shell of formal equality and freedom.” Hence, the socialists do not reject formal democracy but try to convince “the working-class into not being satisfied with the shell.” This must be the reason that the working class grabs the political power to “create a socialist democracy to replace bourgeois democracy—not to eliminate democracy altogether.”94 Luxemburg argues that socialist democracy is not something which comes after the building of socialism because it is not “some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators.” Socialist democracy cannot be distinguished from the “destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism.” It must begin at the moment the socialist party seizes political power. It can be called dictatorship, but a dictatorship which is under the direct influence of the masses and subject to their control, a dictatorship which depends on the political training of the masses. Despite her critique of Lenin’s government, Luxemburg understands the pressure that the Russian revolutionaries experience while German imperialism occupies their land and the German proletariat fails to consider the Russian Revolution as their own revolution. For Luxemburg, “It would be demanding something superhuman from Lenin and his comrades if we should expect of them that under such circumstances they should conjure forth the finest democracy, the most exemplary dictatorship of the proletariat and a flourishing socialist economy.” That is why Luxemburg praises their revolutionary stand and their sincere loyalty to international socialism. But her understanding of Lenin’s situation does not prevent her from warning the Russian revolutionaries of making “a virtue of necessity” and theorizing “all the tactics forced upon them by these fatal circumstances” as useful “socialist tactics” for the international proletariat.95 Luxemburg believes that the undemocratic aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia is a result of the fact that this proletarian revolution has happened “in an isolated land, exhausted by world war, strangled by imperialism, betrayed by the international proletariat.”96 44 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Notes 1. V.I. Lenin, April Thesis, Collected works, Volume 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 24. 2. V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers, 1932), p. 9. 3. Ibid., pp. 23–24. 4. V. I. Lenin, The Chain Is No Stronger Than Its Weakest Link, Lenin Collected Works, Volume 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), pp. 519–520. 5. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Sydney: Resistance Books, 1999), pp. 117–118. 6. V.I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Collected Works 5 (Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1977), p. 353. 7. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Collected Works 5, p. 354. 8. Ibid., pp. 354–355. 9. Ibid., p. 369. 10. Ibid., p. 370. 11. Ibid., p. 371. 12. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, p. 372. 13. Ibid., p. 373. 14. Ibid., p. 376. 15. Ibid., p. 383. 16. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, p. 384. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., p. 472. 19. Ibid., pp. 479–480. 20. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, p. 481. 21. Ibid., p. 484. 22. Ibid., p. 502. 23. Ibid., pp. 506–508. 24. Ibid., p. 510. 25. Ibid., p. 514. 26. Ibid., pp. 515–516. 27. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, pp. 517–519. 28. Ibid., p. 520. 29. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected work 25 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 391. 30. Ibid., pp. 391–392. 31. Ibid., p. 394. 32. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected work 25, p. 398. 33. Ibid., p. 400. 34. Ibid., pp. 402–403. THE VANGUARD PARTY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT 45

35. Ibid., pp. 403–404. 36. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected work 25, p. 406. 37. Ibid., p. 407. 38. Ibid., pp. 408–409. 39. Ibid., pp. 410–411. 40. Ibid., pp. 412–413. 41. Ibid., pp. 413–414. 42. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected work 25, p. 416. 43. Ibid., p. 417. 44. Ibid., pp. 423–424. 45. Ibid., p. 424. 46. Rosa Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, Edited by Helen Scott (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008), p. 41. 47. Ibid., pp. 42–43. 48. Ibid., p. 44. 49. Ibid., p. 45. 50. Ibid., pp. 46–47. 51. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, p. 61. 52. Ibid., pp. 64–65. 53. Ibid., p. 65. 54. Ibid., p. 66. 55. Ibid., p. 68. 56. Ibid., p. 69. 57. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, p. 75. 58. Ibid., pp. 79–80. 59. Ibid., p. 83. 60. Ibid., p. 84. 61. Ibid., p. 86. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., pp. 88–90. 64. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, p. 90. 65. Ibid., pp. 90–92. 66. Ibid., p. 93. 67. Ibid., p. 96. 68. Ibid., p. 108. 69. Ibid., p. 113. 70. Ibid., p. 118. 71. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, p. 141. 46 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

72. Ibid., pp. 145–147. 73. Ibid., p. 148. 74. Ibid., p. 149. 75. Ibid., p. 151. 76. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, pp. 151–152. 77. Ibid., pp. 156–157. 78. Ibid., p. 158. 79. Ibid., pp. 159–160. 80. Ibid., p. 160. 81. Ibid., p. 163. 82. Luxemburg, The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & The Mass Strike, p. 164. 83. Ibid., p. 165. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid., p. 169. 86. Ibid., p. 170. 87. Ibid., p. 179. 88. Ibid., pp. 180–181. 89. Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1961), p. 69. 90. Ibid., pp. 70–71. 91. Ibid., p. 71. 92. Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism, p. 72. 93. Ibid., p. 76. 94. Ibid., p. 77. 95. Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism, p. 79. 96. Ibid., pp. 79–80. CHAPTER 4

The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology and Class Consciousness

With Luxemburg’s tragic death in 1919 and the authoritative position that the 1917 Russian Revolution bestows on Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism, Marxist theory is left with a void which has never been filled. The Russian Revolution not only makes Lenin the interpretative authority of the actual communist movement but also makes the communist movement an actual worldwide movement. The Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács is one of the thinkers who came to the aid of the Leninist reading of Marxism and his conceptualization of the revolutionary practice. For Lukács the event of the 1917 Revolution led by the Bolsheviks and their conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat were the embodiment of the class consciousness of the working class on a global scale and an introduction to the global proletarian revolution.1 Against Luxemburg’s advocacy of dictatorship of the proletariat as the development and further expansion of the bourgeois democracy, Lukács argues that the proletarian dictatorship cannot protect itself if it gives the “counter-revolutionary groups” the “so-called freedom” they demand.2 While endorsing the Leninist position, Lukács, Karl Korsch, and Antonio Gramsci, as the most significant theorists of the post-Russian revolution, tried to remove the theoretical fallacies of the Second International, based on the method of natural sciences and economic determinism, from the Third International. Lukács’ book History and Class Consciousness (1922) influenced a generation of European thinkers, such as Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, and French philosophers such as Lucien Goldman,

Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Jean Hyppolite who introduced the author to French Marxism.3 With his History and Class Consciousness, Lukács estab- lishes Marxism as a philosophical discourse and transforms Marx the scientist, preoccupied with the empirical reality and real facts, and the discoverer of the surplus value who forecast the collapse of the capitalist mode of production, into a philosopher preoccupied with reification, totality, and class consciousness. The transformation of Marx the scientist into the philosopher is completed with the publication of his earlier writing in the late 1920s, of which Lukács does not have any knowledge. Lukács originality lies in his discussion of the Hegelian elements of Marx’s thought, while the Hegelian texts of Marx are still unknown.4 Lukács is preoccupied with the question of meaning, which is neither the creation of the human subject nor a result of his discovery of laws of natural causality, but an indication of man’s actual abilities when his praxis and consciousness are in continuous reciprocity.5 Lukács refutes the approach taken by Engels’ Dialectics of Nature and Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism toward natural sciences. For Lukács, whereas natural sciences make a clear distinction between the object and subject of knowledge and consider their objects as given, the object of Marxist analysis is the capitalist society in which men as social beings fluctuate between their praxis and consciousness. For instance, while men are emphasizing their formal equality, their exploitation of each other demonstrates their real inequality.6 Unlike Lukács who celebrates the inherent possibilities of the Russian Revolution, Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci focus on the causes and consequences of the defeat of the revolutionary movement in Western Europe in 1920. For Korsch and Gramsci, the subjective conditions of the coming revolution depend on the relationship between the dominant and the dominated culture and ideologies. The question they deal with is to what extent does the dominant position of the bourgeois ideology and culture reinforce and vindi- cate the ruling position of the bourgeoisie. They argue that the proletariat can only organize itself as a class and wage its political combat against the bourgeoisie if and only if it succeeds in calling into question its dominant position in the ideological and cultural field. Korsch demonstrates in Marxism and Philosophy (1923) that Hegel’s dialectical idealism laid the theoretical groundwork of Marx’s dialectical materialism. Before the 1840s, the idealism of Hegelian philosophy expressed the heroism of bourgeois revolutions. But as the bourgeois revolutionary fervor disappears and the Hegelian philosophy is unable to give an intellectual expression to the proletariat as the new revolutionary class, it begins to lose its THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 49 relevance in the late 1840s and almost vanishes in the 1950s.7 What the proletariat as the new revolutionary class needs is not a new philosophy but a new theory to erase the distinction between theory and practice. Marx offers the proletariat a theory which reveals the limits of the bourgeois thought, its inner contradictions, and its ideological function, and more importantly enables it to see the dialectical relationship between theoretical criticism and revolutionary practice. Writing in the late 1960s and echoing Korsch’s argument, the English translator of Marxism and Philosophy argues that the emerging interest in Korsch’s book is a result of the “re-emergence of revolutionary class politics in the advanced capitalist society of the West.”8 When published in 1923, Korsch’s book was received with suspicion among the officials of the Third International. For the leadership of the Third International, Korsch represents rather a burden to the communist movement. In the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern in 1924, Zinoviev comes up with a harsh critique of both Korsch and Lukács. Zinoviev describes Korsch and Lukács as professors whose work offers the communist movement new theoretical revisionism. Zinoviev claims, “If we get a few more of these professors spinning out their theories, we shall be lost. We cannot tolerate such theoretical revisionism of this kind in our Communist International.”9 Korsch participated in the Congress as a member of the delegation of the German Communist Party (GCP). As the Congress endorsed the views of Korsch’s opponents in the GCP, Korsch accused the GCP of being subservient to the Soviet Communist Party, which resulted in his dismissal from the editorship of the GCP journal Die Internationale with a demand to resign from the Reichstag seat, which he refused. As a result of his refusal to resign from his seat in the Reichstag, he was expelled from the GCP.10 As Korsch did not find the Marxism he had been looking for in Marxist-Leninism, he refrained from politics in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, before the victory of the Chinese Revolution, he wrote an introduction to a planned volume of Mao Tse Tung’s essays, in which he recognized the theoretical originality of Mao’s ideas and seemed optimistic toward the revolutionary movements in the colonized world.11 Zinoviev failed to understand that Korsch’s main targets in this book are the academic philosophers who present and then dismiss Marxism as a descendant of Hegelianism. Korsch intended to restore Marxism as the heir of philosophy and a theory capable of uniting the theoretical and the practical.12 For Korsch, the problem of Marxist theory began with the Marxist theoreticians of the Second International who rejected “all philosophic fantasies” in Marxism and in so doing disarmed Marxism in 50 Y. SHAHIBZADEH its confrontation with the bourgeois philosophers who claim that Marxism lacked any philosophical content.13 Korsch argues that Marxism should be defended against both the bourgeois philosophers and the Orthodox Marxists because they both deny Marxism of philosophical contents. Most importantly, Marxism should be defended against the tendency within the socialist movement which is convinced of the philosophical poverty of Marxism and tries to supplement it with philosophical content borrowed from other philosophies.14 Korsch claims that it is only Marxism which can explain the fact of the disappearance of “Hegel’s grandiose philosophy” in Germany in the 1850s.15 Based on Hegel’s statement that philosophy is “nothing but its own epoch comprehended in thought,” Korsch argues that Hegelianism lost the ability to recognize the dialectical relationship between ideas and the trajectory of the historical and social reality or the relationship between philosophy and revolution. Consequently, it failed to endorse the mid-nineteenth-century revolutions.16 In the same way that German idealist philosophy was the theoretical expression of the bourgeois revolutions before the 1840s, Marxism became the expression of the proletarian revolutionary movement after the 1840s.17 Korsch claims that the theoreticians of the Second International neglected to discuss two interrelated questions regarding the relation of Marxism to philosophy in the process of the abolition of philosophy and the relationship between the abolition of philosophy and the abolition of the state.18 Korsch suggests that “Marx’s principle of dialectical materialism” should be applied to the study of the history of Marxism from its first phase beginning with Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and ending with The Communist Manifesto and the Revolution of 1848. The second phase of this history began with the suppression of the Parisian proletariat in the battle of June 1848, described in Marx’s Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association (The First International) in 1864. The second phase, which lasted until the end of the nineteenth century, includes the foundation and collapse of the First International, the Paris Commune, trade unions, and the Second International. The third phase extends from the early twentieth century to an indefinite future.19 For Korsch, Marxism is not a philosophy but a theory of social revolution, a living totality that does not separate the economic, political, and intellectual moments of social reality into separate branches of knowledge. As demonstrated in Theses on Feuerbach and The Communist Manifesto, The Poverty of Philosophy, The Class Struggles in France, and The Eighteenth Brumaire, THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 51

Marxism is a theory of social revolution that analyzes the relationship between the historical processes and conscious social actions. However, in Capital and Engels’ later writings, Marxism as the theory of social revolution is transformed into a general theory of scientific socialism.20 Korsch claims that the theoreticians of the Second International have ignored that the materialist conception of history as the kernel of Marxism combines a dialectical approach to theory and a revolutionary approach to social practice. As the kernel of Marxism, the materialist conception of history prevents Marxism from “purely theoretical investigations” disconnected from the class struggle and revolutionary practice. Korsch rejects the claims of theorists such as Rudolph Hilferding (Finance Capital 1909) that Marxism is neither about value free social inquiries nor about causal connections.21 He argues that the reduction of Marxism from a “general theory of social revolution” to a “general systematic sociology” has generated disconnected forms of criticism. For Korsch, criticisms “of the bourgeois economic order, of the bourgeois State, of the bourgeois system of education, of bourgeois religion, art, science, and culture” are no more than disconnected forms of criticism.22 Korsch claims that Marxism is in crisis and the crisis of Marxism lies in the reduction of revolutionary Marxism to “a purely theoretical critique,” totally disconnected from revolutionary practice and action. For Korsch, the radical difference between the content of The Communist Manifesto, the Gotha Program, and the Erfurt Program reveals the crisis of Marxism, which consists in the success of “orthodox Marxism” or “vulgar Marxism” in reducing Marxism to an abstract theory of social revolution.23 Korsch claims that whereas vulgar Marxism shows an obsession with “the abstract letter of Marxist theory,” orthodox Marxism neglects Marxism’s “original revolutionary character.”24 Korsch argues that Lenin’s discussion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in The State and Revolution, a few months before the October Revolution, is not as an accident but an indication of “the internal connection of theory and practice within revolutionary Marxism.”25 Hence, “the Marxist abolition of philosophy” does not mean that philosophy will be replaced “by a system of abstract and undialectical positive sciences” because scientific socialism means “theoretical expression of a revolutionary process.” Whenever the revolutionary process abolishes the existing material relations, the bourgeois philosophies and sciences which are the ideological expression of these relations will inevitably be abolished. Thus, the restoration of Marxism does not mean a return to the letters of Marx and Engels but a dialectical 52 Y. SHAHIBZADEH return to a Marxism of social revolution to get involved theoretically and practically in the existing social reality as a totality.26 Korsch argues that Marx and Engels conceptualized ideologies, including philosophy, as concrete realities rather than empty fantasies.27 Whereas theoretically oriented orthodoxy tries to “realize philosophy in practice without super- seding it in theory,” practically oriented orthodoxy tried “to supersede philosophy in practice without realizing it in theory—in other words, without grasping it as a reality.”28 To Korsch, Marx aims to abolish “philosophy as part of the abolition of bourgeois social reality as a whole,” which explains why he emphasizes that philosophy cannot be abolished without being realized.29 For Marx, the intellectual and socio-political life constitute a unity. So he studies social being and becoming in union with the social consciousness, and the real in relation to the ideological, and concludes that consciousness and ideology are not reflections of the material processes but depend “in the last instance” on these processes.30

Critical Subject and Ideological Hegemony For Gramsci, Marx’s brilliance as a historian lies in his ability to refrain from being selective in his historical documentation of the past and the way he interprets those documents. This leads Marx to discover that man’s practical activities tell us that in every age those who control the systems of production and exchange also control ideas.31 Bearing these premises in mind, Gramsci investigates the relationship between revolution and the dominant ideas and culture. Does a revolution indicate that the oppressed classes have broken the spell of the dominant ideas? If this is the case, the dominated classes must have engaged in “an intense labour of criticism” of the dominant ideas and culture as their intellectual path toward the revolution. For Gramsci, the Enlightenment’s critique of the dominant ideas of the eighteenth century expressed the intellectual preparation for the French Revolution. Against the dominant ideologies, the Enlightenment generated systems of ideas which both unified the consciousness of the bourgeois class and were compassionate to the misfortunes of the most oppressed and poorest people in Europe.32 Gramsci sees the same story in the socialist revolution in Russia in which “a critique of capitalist civilization” unified the proletariat on the level of consciousness. Critique is a key concept for Gramsci because critique is about the mastery of man of himself. It is about man when he distinguishes himself as a subject that is free from the state of chaos and conceives of himself as an element of his own order with the THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 53 capacity to discipline himself in his “striving for an ideal.” Man’s critical subjectivity is fully realized when he as the free subject becomes aware that knowing oneself is achieved through knowing others. Hence, to know itself, the proletariat must know the bourgeois class, “their history, the suc- cessive efforts they have made to be what they are, to create the civilization they have created and which we seek to replace with our own.”33 Gramsci argues that to achieve the proper condition for the emergence of the proletariat as critical subjects, the communist movement should advocate universal educational reforms. He expects that educational reforms open the existing educational system to the children of the proletariat so that they can “develop their own individuality in the optimal way.” This reform would transform the schools from the “incubators of little monsters aridly trained for a job, with no general ideas, no general culture, no intellectual stimulation,” into the creators of critical subjects.34 Reflecting on Lenin’s The State and Revolution, Gramsci argues that the task of critical subjects is to generate proletarian civilization. This task will not be finished with the working class’ appropriation of political power. The appropriation of political power is the beginning of the process of a new civilization through which the proletariat works on what is left of the “bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie.”35 For Gramsci, rather than the nature of the material production and its administration, artistic and literary creativity are the most important issues in the proletarian civilization. Whereas material production can be regulated according to socialist planning, artistic and literary activity cannot be subjected to planning. Contrary to the bourgeois culture, which encourages careerism, the new proletarian civilization generates forms of artistic and literary production which reflect the “proletarian social organization.” The proletarian civilization is not an event which takes place right after the abolition of the bourgeois state but is realized after the abolition of “the present form of civilization.” It begins with the destruction of different elements of the present civilization such as “spiritual hierarchies, prejudices, idols and ossi- fied traditions.” Through destruction, the innovators of the newcivilization will learn not to be afraid of the horror of innovation and realize that the world will not collapse “if a worker makes grammatical mistakes if a poem limps, if a picture resembles a hoarding or if young men sneer at academic and feeble-minded senility.” For Gramsci, the Futurists represent the new proletarian civilization. Before any Marxist theorist discovered the possibility and necessity of shattering “the machine of bourgeois power in the state and the factory” the Futurists “destroyed, destroyed, destroyed, 54 Y. SHAHIBZADEH without worrying if the new creations produced by their activity were on the whole superior to those destroyed.”36 Gramsci considers the proletariat’s practice of democracy and collaboration with semi-proletarian classes a contribution to this new civilization and culture. The existing practice of workers’ democracy provides the masses with the structure and the discipline they need to form a united and strong army to reject a higher authority and power imposed from above. When the workers elect their delegates to Workers and Peasants Councils, they are preparing themselves to lead the state power after the revolution.37 Rather than through authoritarian guidelines, the power within this army of workers and peasants comes from democracy, persuasion, free elections, and delegations. The workers learn democracy not from the outside but from within the workers movement.38 Whereas the capitalist democracy is the “sphere of competition and individualism,” workers’ democracy is the practice of the “principles of combination and solidarity.” Whereas the capitalist democracy produces social alienation, the workers’ democracy guides workers and peasants toward new ways of common life.39 Workers’ democracy will not be reached by refraining from parliamentarian democracy because the bourgeois democracy “can only be transcended after it has been experienced.”40 For Gramsci, democracy and the political act are interrelated concepts because they both fight against the state and participate in “the popular institutions of the state” such as “the Parliament and the municipal councils.”41 Gramsci argues that neither the workers’ democracy nor experiment with the liberal democracy prevents the proletariat from seizing state power through revolution because these democratic experiments prepare the proletariat to seize the state.42 For Gramsci, the defeat of the Italian workers’ occupation of the factories in 1919–1920 demonstrated the intellectual maturity of the workers and the intellectual immaturity of their leaders. The fact that the Socialist Party and the union leaders did not believe that the workers were ready to “conquer state power” indicated the leaders’ intellectual immaturity.43 In the early 1920s, Gramsci criticized the Italian Communist Party’s inferior position vis-à-vis the Comintern and the Soviet Communist Party.44 For instance, when the ideological disputes within the Soviet Communist Party were taking place, Gramsci defended freedom of expression of all opinions within the communist movement.45 In the mid-1920s, as capitalism survived the socialist revolutions and the post-war economic crisis, and succeeded in transforming itself from an authoritarian system into a well-functioning parliamentary system, freedom of expression became THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 55 more restricted within the communist movement. Comparing the stable condition of the mid-1920s with the revolutionary phases of 1917–1921, Gramsci argues that the stable condition of the mid-1920s indicates the flexibility of the capitalist system in coping with its crisis. For Gramsci, a Marxist revolutionary response to this situation is rigorous analysis and reexamination of the political, ideological, and cultural resources which provide the capitalist system the degree of flexibility it needs to cope with its crises. Gramsci’s critique of ideology and culture also includes a critique of the Marxist analysis which assumes that “every political act is determined, immediately, by the structure.”46 For Gramsci, on the contrary, politics is “the moment of hegemony,” when a particular political leadership prepared and supported by “a cultural front” challenges the consent between the state and civil society.47 For Gramsci, the governing and the governed classes have different understandings of the dominant ideologies of their societies. Whereas for the dominant classes, dominant ideologies are “practical constructions,” and “instruments of political leadership” and domination, they are for the dominated classes nothing but illusions. In Gramsci’s view, the truth about the dominant ideologies makes the governed people intellectually independent from the governing classes because the dominant ideologies are “real historical facts” and instruments through which the governing classes impose their hegemony.48 Whereas the dominant ideologies are the intellectual efforts of the dominant classes to “reconcile opposed and contradictory interests … towards the peaceful resolution of the contradictions,” Marxism is “the theory of those contradictions.”49 As a theory of class contradictions, Marxism enables the subaltern classes to avoid the deceptions imposed on them by the ruling classes and helps them educate themselves to have independent access to the truth about the art of government. Gramsci argues that the capitalist system consists of organic and conjunctural movements. While organic movements cannot solve structural contradictions of the capitalist system, they can help the system in crisis to function for a long period.50 For instance, the organic movements within the French socio-economic structure saved the system from the French Revolution, which consisted of a series of conjunctural movements taking place within the political system from 1789 to 1870. These organic movements resolved the system’s contradictions relatively.51 Hence, France’s “sixty years of stable political life” after the Paris Commune was a result of the organic movements within the French system. For Gramsci, the Marxist and proletarian critique of the bourgeois ideologies and culture is similar to a “war of position.” That is 56 Y. SHAHIBZADEH why there is no guarantee that the conditions which made the Russian Revolution successful can create the same degree of success in the West. To achieve the working class’ hegemony in the West, the communists of the West must start an ideological struggle and a mass democratic movement simultaneously.52 Gramsci compares the war of positions with a real war in which “a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy’s entire defensive system, whereas, in fact, it had only destroyed the outer perimeter. But at the moment of their advance and attack, the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defence which was still effective.” What does this mean in politics? First, it means that great economic crises do not wait for the revolutionary forces to organize themselves because they appear “with lightning speed in time and space.” Second, economic crises do not transmit “fighting spirit” only to the proletariat because the bourgeoisie also believes that it has a bright future and takes its strength from this future.53 Gramsci argues that the “‘state’ should be understood not only as an apparatus of government but also as the ‘private’ apparatus of ‘hegemony’ and civil society.”54 The state is a complex whole which “raises the population to a particular cultural and moral level” to serve, in whatever capacity, the interests of the ruling classes.55 Whereas the courts have a “repressive and negative educative function,” the school exercises “a positive educative function.” In civil society there are also “private initiatives and activities” which constitute “the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes.”56 Gramsci argues that because of the state’s interventionist nature, social groups which are in the position of power advocate the “ethical state.” But as soon as the same group is excluded from power, it opposes the ethical state and demands the “Stato carabiniere” or “policeman state” which does not interfere in the topics considered private by the excluded social groups.57 In his conceptualization of the struggle for proletarian hegemony, Gramsci discovers that “every social class has its intellectuals.”58 The capitalists have created their technicians and political economists to develop their industry and commerce; they created their jurists to shape the new legal system and engaged scientists and artists to generate and organize the bourgeois culture.59 Gramsci does not consider intellectuals people with particular capacities but men who have developed particular skills. He claims that “all men are intellectuals,” but not every man had the time to educate himself and perform an intellectual function in THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 57 society. For Gramsci, the term non-intellectual does not make sense “because non-intellectuals do not exist,” and because all forms of human activity require a degree of intellectual activity, “homo faber cannot be separated from homo sapiens.”60 Although the bourgeois intellectuals are usually associated with the issue of “private” initiatives in civil society, their efforts to obtain consent from the populace to the “political society” and the state secure the hegemony of the ruling class. Thanks to the bourgeois intellectuals, the popular consent that the state receives makes the direct domination and juridical government exercising direct oppression of the populace almost unnecessary. As the state does not use coercive power against the people in general, it can use it only against those groups who do not consent either actively or passively. This allows the state to increase its efficiency and use this efficiency in the “moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent has failed.”61 Against the bourgeois intellectuals whose function is to protect the capitalist system, the revolutionary intellectuals or the organic intellectuals of the proletariat expose and oppose the bourgeois intellectuals representing the state.62 Furthermore, the revolutionary intellectuals organize the proletarian party which Gramsci describes as a Machiavellian modern prince to symbolize the “collective will” of the people.63 Gramsci compares the proletarian party with the utopian character of Machiavelli’s Prince in which passion and logic are in persistent interaction.64 Gramsci argues that, in the absence of the interaction between passion and logic, the revolutionary struggle may end in “passive activity.” He refers to Sorel’s idea of the “General Strike” as a passive activity, an activity which is not forward-looking. 65 Thus, as the modern prince, the revolutionary political party is the embodiment of the “collective will.”66 But this modern prince is not predetermined, and it cannot be established by the will of a few intellectuals because it must represent the great masses when their “national-popular collective will … bursts simultaneously into political life…” as in the case of “the Jacobins in the French Revolution.”67 The modern prince will not be a result of “cold and pedantic exposition of arguments” but created through “active, operative expression” of “intellectual and moral reform.”68 This intellectual and moral reform is a result of an extended period of the struggle for ideological and cultural hegemony of the proletariat and its organic intellectuals. 58 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Notes 1. Georg Lukács, History and class consciousness: Studies in Marxist dialectics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994), p. 292. 2. Ibid., pp. 290–291. 3. Andrew Arato and Paul Breines, The Young Lukács and the Origins of Western Marxism (London: Seabury, 1979), pp. 219–221. 4. Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Hegel (New York: Basic Books, 1969), p. 99. 5. Lukács, History and Class-Consciousness, p. 3. 6. Ibid., p. 19. 7. Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008), p. 38. 8. Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, p. 26. 9. Ibid., p. 16. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 25. 12. Ibid., p. 29. 13. Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 31–32. 14. Ibid., p. 33. 15. Ibid., p. 38. 16. Ibid., p. 43. 17. Ibid., pp. 44–45. 18. Ibid., p. 52. 19. Ibid., pp. 56–57. 20. Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 57–59. 21. Ibid., pp. 60–62. 22. Ibid., p. 63. 23. Ibid., p. 65. 24. Ibid., p. 66. 25. Ibid., pp. 67–68. 26. Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy, pp. 69–71. 27. Ibid., p. 72. 28. Ibid., p. 74. 29. Ibid., p. 76. 30. Ibid., p. 81. 31. Antonio Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 37. 32. Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 58. 33. Ibid., p. 59. 34. Ibid., p. 64. THE CRISIS OF MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 59

35. Ibid., p. 73. 36. Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 74. 37. Ibid., pp. 80–81. 38. Ibid., pp. 81–82. 39. Ibid., p. 83. 40. Ibid., p. 84. 41. Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 85. 42. Ibid., p. 87. 43. Ibid., p. 109. 44. Ibid., p. 125. 45. Ibid., p. 166. 46. Ibid., p. 191. 47. Ibid., p. 194. 48. Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 196. 49. Ibid., pp. 196–197. 50. Ibid., pp. 201–202. 51. Ibid., p. 203. 52. Ibid., p. 223. 53. Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader Selected Writings 1916–1935, Edited by David Forgacs, p. 227. 54. Ibid., p. 234. 55. Ibid., p. 234. 56. Ibid., p. 234. 57. Ibid., pp. 236–237. 58. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Edited and translated by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (Elek-Book London, 1999, Transcribed from the edition published by Lawrence & Wishart London, 1971), p. 134. 59. Ibid., p. 135. 60. Ibid., p. 140. 61. Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Edited and translated by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, p. 145. 62. Ibid., pp. 150–151. 63. Ibid., p. 316. 64. Ibid., pp. 318–319. 65. Ibid., p. 319. 66. Ibid., p. 323. 67. Ibid., p. 327. 68. Ibid., p. 329. CHAPTER 5

Iran as Part of Global Communism

Avetis Sultanzade, who represented Iran’s Communist Party in the Third International’s Second Congress, said in the Fifth Session of the Congress:

At most of its Congresses, the Second International studied the colonial question and drew up choice resolutions on it which could never be put into practice. Very often these questions were debated and decisions taken without the participation of representatives of backward countries. What is more, when the first Persian revolution was suppressed by the Russian and English hangmen and the Persian Social Democracy turned for help to the European working-class, which was at that time represented by the Second International, it was not even given the right to vote on a resolution on that question. Today at the Second Congress of the Communist International is the first time that this question has been dealt with thoroughly and more- over with the representatives of almost all the colonised or semi-colonised countries of the Orient and of America. The resolution adopted by our Commission completely fulfills the expectations of the labouring masses of the oppressed peoples and serves especially to stimulate and encourage the soviet movement in these countries.1

The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the communist movement from an exclusively European into a global movement. A comparison between the delegates of different countries in the first and second Congress of the Third Communist International demonstrates this claim. Iranian communists were represented in the Third International’s first Congress by one consultative delegate from the Persian Sections of the

Central Bureau of Eastern People. Iran’s newly founded Communist Party became a full member of the Third International in its second Congress. Sultanzade of Iran’s Communist Party contributed significantly to Theses on national and colonial questions. The theses resonate with Marx’s critique of formal democracy in Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. They claim that equality in general and national equality in particular cannot be attained within the frames of the bourgeois democracy because only with the abolition of the class-based society will real equality be achieved. The theses repeat Marx’s saying that formal democracy protects “formal or legal equality between the property owner and the proletarian.”2 They remind the communist parties of the colonized and semi-colonized world that they should not focus on the question of national emancipation as abstract and formal principles but within their historical contexts and with regard to the interests of the oppressed classes. The theses recognize the significance of the emancipatory movements of the financially enslaved, exploited, and oppressed nations against their oppressors, namely the small minority of the advanced capitalist countries. The question of national liberation is about resisting the imperialists’ efforts to ensure their booties and about recognizing the rights of the colonized and semi-colonized nations to self-determination. The theses argue that the main aim of the Communist International in the age of imperialism is the union of the proletariat of the advanced countries and the toiling masses of the colonized nations in a common revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and imperialism.3 The theses remind the members of the Communist International that the Russian Soviet Republic as the main target of the destructive imperialist forces must be supported by the national liberation movements and the working class of the advanced countries. The support can take the form of an alliance between the Soviet Union, the national liberation movements, and the proletarian movements of the advanced countries. The theses remind the communists that a global Soviet Union would be a result of the success of the struggle of the working class of the industrially advanced countries against their national bourgeoisie and the victory of the anti-imperialist revolutionary movements in the colonized countries.4 Thesis 10 defines proletarian internationalism as the subordination of the interests of every country’s proletariat to the interests of the international proletariat. According to the thesis, the real victory over the bourgeoisie will be achieved with the contribution of the victorious proletariat to overthrowing global capitalism and its imperialist order.5 Whereas the communist parties of the colonized and dependent nations IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 63 must support both their own revolutionary liberation movements and the workers’ struggles of the industrialized nations, the communist parties and the working class of the imperialist countries have the internationalist duty of supporting the liberation movements of these countries by all available means.6 Thesis 11 warns against two contradictory tendencies: the Christian missions supporting the reactionary imperialist forces and the pan-Islamist and pan-Asiatic movements which in the name of the liberation movement against European and American imperialism are strengthening Turkish and Japanese imperialism.7 Hence, the support for the liberation movements does not mean that the communist should disappear in these movements but think of these movements as “the components of the future proletarian parties” to fight “against the bourgeois-democratic tendencies within their own nation.” While supporting the revolutionary movements in the colonies, the communist parties must maintain their independent character and focus on the training of the proletarian movements in these countries regardless of how small they might be. The same thesis condemns the Zionist project in Palestine as an imperialist project. Thesis 12 argues that as a result of colonization and imperialism, the toiling classes of the colonized and dependent countries distrust both the capitalist and the proletarian classes of the colonial and imperialist countries. The reason behind the distrust is the stance of the leaders of the European proletariat who during and after World War I supported their bourgeoisie, which fought for maintaining or gaining the rights to enslave and plunder the dependent countries. The thesis argues that this deep and wide distrust can disappear only “after imperialism and capitalism have disappeared in the advanced countries, and after the whole foundation of the economic life of the backward countries has radically changed.” The class-conscious communists and proletariat of the advanced countries must be aware that the elimination of the prejudices against the communists and the proletariat of the advanced countries will be slow and gradual. Thus, they should take the national feelings of the colonized countries seriously and be ready “to make concessions with a view to hastening the extinction of the aforementioned distrusts and prejudices.” The thesis assumes that without the effective alliance of the proletariat of the advanced countries with the toiling masses of the dependent countries and nations as a single united force, the victory over capitalism is impossible.8 This profound and amplifying distrust of the toiling classes of the dependent countries against the proletariat of the industrially advanced countries seems so irreconcilable to Manabendra Nath Roy, 64 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the leading member of the Indian delegation, that he argues that from now on the weight of revolution is on the shoulders of the toiling classes of the dependent and colonized countries. For Roy, the toiling classes of the dependent and colonized countries are the main historical subject of the proletarian revolution. According to Roy, the main revolutionary task of the proletariat of the industrially advanced countries is to support the national liberation movements of the toiling classes of the dependent countries against imperialism. For Roy, the capitalist classes of the advanced countries become weakened only after they are deprived of their imperialist booties. In response to Roy, Sultanzade claims that as long as the proletariat of the advanced countries are not strong enough to grab political power, their states have enough resources to crush any real threat to the imperialist interests. According to Sultanzade, in the age of imperialism, capitalism is the dominant mode of production on the global level. Consequently, it is not the national liberation movements but the socialist movements, regardless of their magnitude, that are the main revolutionary movements to which all other movements and classes must be subordinated.

Marxism in Iran 1920–1939 As Sultanzade claims in his speech in the Third International’s Second Congress, he belongs to a communist tendency within the Iranian social democracy which participated and played a decisive role in Iran’s Constitutional Revolution (1906–1909). When the revolution was under attack by the imperialist powers, the Iranian social democrats sought international solidarity of the European socialist movements led by the Second International. But when they are not even allowed to vote on a resolution on the question that they had put forward themselves, they realize that for the leaders of the European socialists, international solidarity is a word without content. In fact, Sultanzade’s remarks on the deceptive charm of the Second International and the genuineness of the Third International are not merely a description of the way the new international’s sessions were functioning. It was an expression of gratitude to the Russian Revolution, which created the ideological and political conditions of possibility of this new communist international which does not hesitate to connect with and support the exploited and the oppressed of the world. Iraj Eskandari, one of the founders of Iran’s second Communist Party (the Tudeh Party) established in 1941, gives a concise but fascinating description of the way the October Revolution impacted the Iranian youth after its occurrence. IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 65

Overthrowing of the Tzarist regime and the establishment of the socialist state in Russia caused a new political climate filled with revolutionary enthusiasm which led the young Iranian patriots toward socialism. Without knowing anything about the theory of social revolution or about the world socialist movement or the history of worker’s movement, I was captivated by the idea of social revolution. Except for their names, I knew nothing about Marx or Lenin. While entirely ignorant of his thoughts, I hung a big picture of Lenin in my room, which I took from Nahid newspaper. The picture on the wall certified that I was one of his followers. I distinctly remember Farokhi Yazdi [the revolutionary poet], the publisher of Tufan newspaper, displaying large and colorful portraits of Marx, Engels, and Lenin outside the newspaper’s office. While there was no shortage of leftist, radical and revolutionary publications and journalism, Farokhi Yazdi was trying to make his newspaper to appear more leftist, radical and revolutionary than any other leftist publications within the leftist movement in Iran.9

While not distinguishing between the French Revolution which they had learned about in high school and the Russian Revolution about which they knew nothing but a name, Eskandari’s generation was enthusiastic and impatient about the coming socio-political revolution in Iran. This generation saw the coming revolution as a historical necessity from which no people could escape. In the imagination of this generation, in the same way that the French and Russian people succumbed to this historical necessity, the Iranian people would revolt and take control of the state as the expression of their humanity and universality. But to become revolutionary subjects, people had to become aware of their oppressed situation and overcome their divisions. For this new generation, the knowledge of their situation would necessarily lead to acting upon the situation, which led them to “parroting the socialist slogan such as the transformation of private properties into public properties the meaning of which they were not fully aware.”10 In the early 1920s, when Eskandari and his generation were overwhelmed by the socialist slogans, the Iranian Communist Party was an active member of the Third International, but it seems that Eskandari’s generation knew almost nothing about it. The history of Iran’s Communist Party can be traced back to the socialist ideas which found their way into Iran via Russian social democracy. Iranians who were familiar with some socialist ideas and practices in Iran’s pre-Islamic past and with the questions of justice and equality in the tradition of Islamic thought and literature became attracted to modern socialism. This new socialist tendency resulted in the establishment of the 66 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Party of Social Democrats (Ferqeh-ye Ejtemaiyon-e Amiyon) during Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, a faction of which founded the Justice Party (Hezb-e Edalat).11 On the eve of the 1917 Russia Revolution, the members of the Justice Party living in the Russian territories participated actively in the Revolution. Expecting the same revolutionary model to occur in Iran, the Justice Party adopted the terms of the Third International and became the Communist Party of Persia or Iran in June 1920. Sultanzade claims that at the time of its establishment in 1920, the party had about 10,000 members. However, the party’s membership decreased to about 4500 members in 1921, and then to 1500 members in 1922.12 Sultanzade, as one of the leading founders of the Communist Party of Persia, had been affiliated with the Bolshevik faction of Russian social democracy since 1912. He joined the revolutionary wing of the Iranian Social-Democratic Party, which established the Justice Party in 1919, and played a decisive role in transforming the party into the Communist Party of Persia.13 In the Second Congress of the Comintern, as the representative of the Middle Eastern peoples, Sultanzade was elected to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.14 Critical of the Second International’s carelessness toward the situation of the colonized and semi-colonized countries, Sultanzade considered the new Communist International as a new driving force supporting the communist movements of the dependent countries. He was convinced that the success of Sovietization in the Asian territories of Russia would guarantee successful Sovietization in Iran, India, and wherever “the differentiation between the classes is proceeding with giant steps.” Sultanzade demanded the expansion of the Soviet system into Iran and India because, in his view, the communist movement should not wait for these countries to generate their own industrial proletariat. He argued that whereas merchant capital dominated all these so-called backward countries in the 1870s, the colonial policies turned them into sources of raw materials. By importing European consumer goods into these countries, the colonial powers destroyed the emerging local industries. The dominance of the imperialist consumer goods in the local markets preventing local industrialization created an atmosphere of nationalism and social revolution. As mentioned previously, Sultanzade rejected Roy’s view that the fate of communism throughout the world depends on the victory of social revolutions in the East because a communist revolution in India could not defend itself against imperialist aggression without the help of a strong revolutionary movement in England and Europe. For Sultanzade, the absence of a powerful revolutionary IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 67 movement in Europe allowed the imperialist powers to suppress the revolutionary uprisings in Persia and China without difficulty.15 Although deposed as a member of the central committee of the Iranian Communist Party, a few months after the formation of the party, Sultanzade continued his theorization of the prospects of social revolution in the East. In 1922, he argued that whereas the domination of the Asian markets by cheap European products destroyed the ability of the national bourgeoisie of this region to compete with the imperialist monopolies, the export of European capital to this region, in the absence of the national bourgeoisie, accelerated its industrialization. Whereas the destruction of the national industry generated an army of the unemployed labor power for which there was no demand, the accelerated industrialization generated industrial proletariat.16 Sultanzade explains modern imperialism as the process of the outspreading of European capitalism which is more exploitative, oppressive, and violent to all corners of the world. The result is that compared to the European market, the rate and volume of the capitalist exploitation in the non-Euro- pean market, dominated by imperialist powers, are much higher than the European market for the simple fact that the labor force in this market is cheap and abundant. But the existing rate and volume of exploitation in the non-European market is possible through the enslavement of the colonized people and plundering of everything these people have in their possession. Thanks to the huge imperialist gains, the European bourgeoisie has built the mainstays of its cultural and intellectual edifices. “Thus, the robber tycoon of London, Paris, Berlin and New York could not enjoy culture and tranquility, without the exhaustive and cruel exploitation of Iran, Turkey, India, China, Algeria, Tunisia and a great number of other colonies … This is the constitutional law of bourgeois society.”17 While studying the intensification of the class struggle between the local bourgeoisie and proletariat, Sultanzade focuses on the distribution of wage workers in different countries and the level of their preparedness in the struggle against global capitalism and imperialism.18 Sultanzade argues that capitalism as a global phenomenon generates its nemesis expressed in the struggle for independence of the national bourgeoisie of the colonized and semi-colonized countries against imperialism and the global bourgeoisie. The idea of independence leads the national bourgeoisie to share, although provisionally, the vision of the national liberation advocated by the workers, peasants, and artisans suffering from the “double exploitation” of the imperialist bourgeoisie. For Sultanzade, the fact that global capitalism and imperialism have overexploited colonized and semi-colonized countries indiscriminately, 68 Y. SHAHIBZADEH economically, and politically has made these countries a unified entity. That is why despite the differences in the stage of their capitalist production and industrialization, colonized and semi-colonized countries share the idea that their struggles against imperialism are national liberation movements. For Sultanzade, similar to colonialism that has formed a global chain which links different imperialist countries together to defend their interests, the national struggles for liberation from imperialism also have created a global and gigantic chain of brotherhood between the colonized and semi- colonized countries. Sultanzade refers to India, the classic example of a colonized country subjected to systematic plunder, which manages to organize a powerful struggle to end the imperialist plunder.19 For Sultanzade, the Indian struggle had shaken the mainstay of the British empire and introduced a model of struggle for the entire colonized people because: “If this pillar vibrates the British Empire breakdowns in its totality. Since Britain’s main colonial interests lie in India, a revolution in India will be the beginning of radical changes in the history of humanity.”20 Sultanzade describes as well the Turkish nationalist movement led by Mostafa Kamal as a national liberation struggle for economic and political independence of the Turkish nation against global capitalism. He sees the anti-imperialist struggles everywhere, from China to Korea and from Egypt to Syria, and spots both their anti-capitalist nature and internationalist posture.21 Sultanzade’s effort to find anti-imperialist elements in every political tur- moil led him to mistake the 1921 military coup led by Reza Khan in Iran. He described a coup, financed and supported by the British empire, overthrowing Iran’s constitutional government and establishing the dictatorial Pahlavi regime (1924–1979) as an anti-imperialist and progressive event.22 With his ascendency to power, in order to consolidate his brutal dictatorship from 1924 to 1941, Reza Khan, who turned into Iran’s monarch as Reza Shah, imprisoned, killed, and outlawed almost every progressive and democratic figure and organization, including the Communist Party of Iran. Sultanzade looks for national liberation movements everywhere because he expects that the unity of these movements with the workers movements in Europe and the United States combined with the deepening crisis of global capitalism will lead the capitalist system toward its final breakdown. He argues that in order to distract public attention from the internal contradictions of capitalism as the real cause of the current economic crisis, the capitalist press blames Bolshevism as the main culprit behind every anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist event. Bolsheviks are accused of instigating and perpetrating the Asian and African uprisings. IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 69

They are everywhere, from India to Egypt, from Korea to Mesopotamia.23 Sultanzade claims that global capitalism is determined to defeat the Soviet Union and eradicate Bolshevism because it considers them as the main force of resistance against its total dominance and exploitation of the world’s population. For imperialism, the struggles for national liberation in the colonized and semi-colonized world are nothing but reflections of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism. Sultanzade argues that the realization of surplus value is the aim of the capitalist exploitation of labor power, and the full realization of surplus value is possible only after the world population is integrated into the processes of capitalist production and circulation. He concluded from these premises that the colonized people as both the producers of the raw materials and the buyers of the end products occupy a unique position in the process of global production and circulation and thus represent the proletarian nations par excellence.24

Without the destruction of the capitalist system, the proletarian nations cannot emancipate themselves from the yokes of the imperialist oppression. The sooner the leaders of the Islamic countries realize this truth, the faster the dispersed national liberation movements are united to form a gigantic force to eradicate capitalism and achieve the final victory.25

Sultanzade identifies two groups of bourgeoisie in Iran before 1914. Whereas the merchants of enormous wealth and possession assisted Russian imperialism to dominate the Iranian market, the national bourgeoisie relied on the local industrial and agricultural products. Politically, these two factions of the Iranian bourgeoisie advocated two opposite views on the imperialist presence in Iran. Whereas the comprador bourgeoisie was entirely dependent on foreign capital and powers, the national bourgeoisie opposed the presence of foreign forces in the country. While as a result of their economic dependency the comprador bourgeoisie was ready to sell the nation at the lowest bid, the national bourgeoisie was prepared to defend the national sovereignty against the imperialist incursions.26 Despite his initial optimism regarding the 1921 coup, Sultanzade opposed the coup-government of Reza Khan after it violently suppressed the revolutionary movements in Gilan, Khorasan, and Azarbayjan provinces. By deceiving a vast majority of the left-leaning intellectuals through shallow republican slogans, Reza Khan’s government erased every sign of the constitutional democracy in Iran. Sultanzade, as one of the very few Iranian intellectuals who understood, after a while, the truth of Reza Khan’s political game, 70 Y. SHAHIBZADEH described him as a British agent. As Reza Khan was named Iran’s new monarch and crowned as Reza Shah, he sought friendly relations with the Soviet Union, while imprisoning anyone who supported or sympathized with the Soviet Union. Sultanzade expressed his dissatisfaction with the fresh “experts” in the Soviet Union who described Reza Shah as an anti- British and anti-Imperialist hero for whom they were unable to “find the right words to describe accurately.”27 As this “anti-British Imperialist” hero became Iran’s new monarch, “instead of waging war against feudalism as a socio-economic system, he wages war against the individual landowners who have not become subservient to him and his government.”28 Sultanzade argues that the interests of British imperialism led Reza Shah to fight the landowners, bring security to the country, and consolidate the authority of the central government. According to Sultanzade, as the agent of British imperialism Reza Shah suppressed the unfolding of revolution in Iran because an Iranian revolution would be an existential threat to the vital interests of Britain in India. The fact that the price paid for the imposed security and order in Iran was not land reform but quelling of the revolutionary forces reveals that the imposed security and order by Reza Shah was a special favor to British imperialism.

Everybody knows that investment of capital presupposes security and order, and the history of colonialism tells us that capitalist countries invest only in places which “enjoy public security,” where foreign capitalists can plunder indigenous people with immunity. Reza Khan was supposed to establish such security and order.29

According to Sultanzade, whereas stabilizing the country and consoli- dating the authority of the central government were aimed to protect the interests of the British imperialism, the price was not paid by British imperialism but by the Iranian nation. By making the Iranian state to act as its private force, Reza Shah exempted British imperialism from organizing its private police force. Against the first Soviet Union’s ambassador’s description of Reza Shah as the embodiment of the will of the Iranian people and as a national hero, Sultanzade claims that the real Iranian people have never thought of this man as their hero.30 The Soviet Union’s justification for endorsing Reza Shah engendered a “new theory” indicating that whereas the former regime represented the landowners with feudal privileges and religious endowments, the new regime represents the IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 71 more progressive mercantile land ownership. Sultanzade’s response to this new official theory is that there is no difference between the mercantile and feudal land ownership because both groups offer raw materials to the foreign markets. Since both groups possess a huge amount of land and play a mediating role between the foreign producers and the local con- sumers, both the mercantile and the feudal landowners function as segments of the comprador bourgeoisie. He finds the distinction made by the Soviet Union’s “experts” between the landowners ridiculous because both groups exploit the Iranian peasants in the same way.31 Sultanzade argues that when the old socio-economic system in Iran was on the verge of collapse, instead of paving the way for the development of the national bourgeoisie, Reza Shah protected the reactionary aristocrats and landowners who needed a stable political regime to protect their interests. While the slightest popular push would have abolished the old social order based on the large-scale land ownership, Reza Khan took on the task of preserving the old order.32 Sultanzade predicted that capitalism would soon be the dominant mode of production everywhere because the imperialist and colonial appropriations would unavoidably destroy every obstacle preventing the development of the capitalist mode of production wherever it was headed. But he reminded the communists and revolutionary forces that they must analyze the specific character of this trend in their countries and organize proper responses to this trend. In Iran, the communists should take note of the ways British imperialism tries to undermine and subordinate the Iranian governments and people. For instance, up until the October Revolution, stopping the development of local capital in Iran was one of the means the British and Russian empires used to control Iranian governments. The disappearance and the terrible shape of almost all industries and factories which had been built in Iran before 1913–1914 were results of this imperialist policy.33 But the October Revolution created an excellent possibility for the development of Iranian industry and economy. But with Reza Shah’s ascendency this possibility was invalidated because his assigned mission was nothing but protection of the interests of British imperialism.34 For Sultanzade, the Iranian peasants constitute the driving force of the coming democratic revolution in Iran because they demand land reform. “The masses have realized that no revolution achieves its goals without distributing the state-owned, feudal, and endowment lands. Everybody will realize that the future revolution of Iran will have one slogan: the revolutionary distribution of lands.”35 72 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

The Possibility of a Socialist Revolution in Iran Writing in the early 1920s, Sultanzade believes that an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist social revolution can break out in Iran at any moment. He argues that in the absence of big industries and proletarian masses as the driving force of a proletarian revolution, revolutionary socialists can transform a seemingly insignificant local uprising into a national revolution. To achieve a national revolution, the revolutionary socialists should make radical and tangible changes in the lives of the exploited local masses and mobilize the masses in other regions to express their solidarity with the uprising. Sultanzade refers to the revolutionary uprising which broke out in the Iranian province of Gilan in May 1920, after the October Revolution, and resulted in the revolutionary government of the Socialist Republic of Iran. Of course, the rebellion failed because the revolutionary government did not improve the socio-economic situation of the peasant masses. Sultanzade recalls his attempts to persuade Mirza Kuchik Khan, the leader of the uprising, to permit freedom of trade unions and political organizations in the newly established republic. But since Kuchik Khan had a low understanding of the responsibilities of the revolutionary government toward consolidation of the revolution locally and widening it nationally, he did not listen to the advice. While Kuchik Khan had the opportunity to transform the local struggle into a national popular movement through changes in the existing bureaucracy, judiciary, and tax system, he did not change any aspect of the current feudal system.36 In fact, the Socialist Republic of Iran was a direct result of the victory of the Red Army against the Tsarist forces and their British patrons at the Iranian port of Anzali in 1920 in the province of Gilan. The victory of the Red Army facilitated an alliance between Kuchik Khan’s forces, who had been fighting the British military forces in the region for many years, and the emerging Iranian communists. Following the victory of the Red Army, Kuchik Khan’s forces with assistance from the Iranian communists took control of the port of Anzali, the city of Rasht, and the rest of Gilan province and declared the Socialist Republic of Iran. After taking control of the entire province, Kuchik Khan declared his government a socialist government. Kuchik Khan declared that Lenin’s theories were the theoretical foundation of his government and aimed to incorporate the rest of Iran into the Socialist Republic. But since he did not want to provoke the privileged social classes, he postponed the socialist reconstruction of the society under his government. For instance, he postponed land reform until IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 73 the liberation of Tehran and expulsion of the British Empire from Iran. Thus, to unify all social groups around the socialist government, he declared “Down with Britain” as the movement’s official slogan.37 Before the defeat of the British forces by the Red Army, Kuchik Khan had concrete military and political aims such as the expulsion of the British forces from northern Iran, stopping the British government’s interfering in the Iranian affairs, and restoration of a government that remains true to the Iranian constitution of 1906–1909. But the primary aim of his communist allies in the Socialist Republic of Iran was the establishment of a revolutionary socialist state based on Marxism and Lenin’s interpretation of socialism. However, Kuchik Khan’s government rejected the communists’ demands for radical distribution of land as a means of engaging the local peasant masses in the building of the revolutionary state and the spreading of the socialist message throughout Iran. In fact, with the first congress of the Iranian Communist Party in the port of Anzali, under the control of the Socialist Republic, the ideological and political conflicts between Kuchik Khan’s faction and the Iranian communists intensified. Besides the internal ideological and political conflicts, the defeat of the Republic was partly due to the enthusiasm of the new Bolshevik state for normalization of its relations with the capitalist world powers and the neighboring countries. Thus, weakened by the ideological and political conflicts from within, and unprotected from without, the Republic of Iran was defeated by the regime of the coup d’état in 1921. Sultanzade explains the defeat of the Republic with Kuchik Khan’s failure to engage the peasant masses in the revolution, and his reluctance to implement land distribution, which could persuade the peasants that their gains and the gains of the Republic were inseparable.38 The defeat of the Republic did not end revolutionary uprisings in Iran. From 1921 to 1926, several peasant and soldier uprisings took place in Gilan, Azarbayjan, and Khorasan provinces. But all the uprisings ended in defeat and execution of hundreds of those involved in the uprisings.39 Whereas Sultanzade insisted on the revolutionary character and the authenticity of these uprisings as indications of a revolutionary situation in Iran, the Soviet “experts” who insisted on the absence of revolutionary conditions in Iran described these uprisings as a result of the British plots to destabilize the country.40 In his report to the second congress of Iran’s Communist Party, Sultanzade argues that Reza Shah’s regime represents international companies, cartels, and syndicates which for the time being exist peacefully with each other and take their share of the world market. However, the seemingly peaceful distribution of the 74 Y. SHAHIBZADEH world market between different capitalists does not guarantee that their competition for the world market will remain peaceful forever. This means, while the imperialist powers are competing for distribution and redistribu- tion of the world market, war is always an option. The question that should be raised by the revolutionary forces in Iran is how they can defend Iran’s independence while their immediate neighbor, India, is subjugated to the British empire.41 Referring to Lenin’s Theses on national and colonial questions, Sultanzade argues that the Iranian revolutionary communists must focus on the socialist transformation as their immediate goal and try to impose their leadership on the coming revolution. He claims that the distribution of land as the priority in the revolutions of the colonized and semi-colonized countries does not indicate that the communist parties should refrain from leading bourgeois-democratic revolutions. As the revolutionary situation appears, the proletarian parties should increase their communist propaganda and organize peasant and worker associations, and exchange information with similar associations from other countries. So the communists should do anything they can to ensure their leadership.42 For Sultanzade what guarantees the success of the socialist revolution in Iran is not the development of the capitalist mode of production and the increase of the Iranian proletariat but the leadership of the Communist International and the proletarian class consciousness. This means Iranian communists should not wait for the gradual development of the capitalist mode of production and a strong industry as the site of the proletarian masses overthrowing the developed capitalist mode of production.43 For Sultanzade the fact that the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906–1909) failed to achieve its bourgeois-democratic goals indicates that history does not follow a straight path of progress. Whereas the inner forces of the revolution were confident that they could overpower the internal anti-revolutionary forces, overthrow the old socio-political order, and achieve their bourgeois-democratic goals, the interference of the external forces such as Britain and Russia in support of the anti- revolutionary social forces prevented the revolutionaries from achieving their goals. But the interference of the powerful outside forces was not the only cause of the failure of the Constitutional Revolution. According to Sultanzade, the political weakness of the Iranian proletariat expressed in its inability to lead other social classes in the revolutionary situation was more decisive in the failure of the revolution than the intervention of the external forces. For Sultanzade, the defeat of the constitutional revolution and the socialist project in northern Iran and the rise of Reza Shah are IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 75 indications of the emergence of a powerful comprador bourgeoisie that now dominates Iranian economics and politics. He argues that the comprador bourgeoisie owns a huge amount of capital, the circulation of which depends on foreign trade. Added to this is its ownership of the vast areas of agricultural lands that has led it to form an alliance with the landowners to defend the existing oppressive relations of production in the rural areas. Consequently, this small but immensely powerful social class has become the main enemy of the national liberation movements in Iran. Whereas, in the past, this class was inclined toward Tsarist Russia, today it serves British imperialism and considers the Soviet Union as a threat to its interests.44

Iranian Communism After the Defeat of the Socialist Republic After the defeat of the Republic in Gilan province, Iran’s Communist Party extended its activities to Tehran and other big cities such as Tabriz and Isfahan and among oil workers in Khuzestan. By combining political activities and trade unionism, the party taught its members and the union members that they could not distinguish between the demands for higher wages and defending the democratic and constitutional rights of the citizens such as free and fair elections.45 In the early 1920s, the party published the newspaper Haqiqat, the Persian synonym for the Russian Pravda. While its chief slogan was proletarians of all countries unite, Haqiqat reflected both on the daily struggles of the workers for bettering of their economic conditions and the people’s struggle defending Iran’s sovereignty violated by British imperialism, free and fair elections, and freedom of expression.46 Alongside the Communist Party, there was a non-Marxist Socialist Party of Iran affiliated with the Second International, the founder of which, Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, was a member of the Iranian parliament. For Eskandari, practical dedication to socialism and equality was more important than the belief in Marxism. The Socialist Party demanded in its party program equality of all citizens, separation of religious institutions from the state, labor law, and the proportionality of taxes to incomes. Whereas the Socialist Party exercised a certain degree of influence in the parliament, the communists’ influence had never been translated into electoral politics.47 In August 1922, one year after the coup, when Reza Khan had consolidated his power, his government banned over a hundred radical newspapers including Haqiqat. The banned 76 Y. SHAHIBZADEH newspapers defended socialist or democratic changes in Iran. In 1924, when Reza Khan was preparing himself for his coronation, his government banned Iran’s Communist Party, the organization of Worker Union, and the remaining newspapers which defended freedom of speech. The number of the banned leftist newspapers and organizations indicate that despite the low number of industrial workers in Iran, Marxism and radical ideas generated a degree of political passions considered by the Iranian ruling class and British imperialism as dangerous. Hence, they used every available means to contain the influence of Marxism and to prevent it from becoming the ideology of national liberation in Iran. Otherwise, it could make a great impact on the Indian, Iraqi, and Afghan liberation movements.48 In 1928, while developing its branches in some big cities, the party issued a statement criticizing the good relations the Soviet Union had established with Reza Shah’s regime. In the statement the party describes itself as part of the global workers brotherhood, a regiment of the international proletarian army against imperialism and global capitalism: “Comrades, be ready for standing up to realize your rights. You shall be united under the red flag of revolution. As the party of the proletariat, the Communist Party of Iran is the only protector and defender of Iranian workers and peasants.” By describing itself as part of an international struggle, the Communist Party of Iran claims that the battle of the Iranian working class against Reza Shah’s dictatorship serves international communism and the universal goal of human freedom and equality.49 The pre- World War II Iranian communists did not separate the struggle for socialism from the fight against British imperialism for the simple reason that after the October Revolution, Britain was the only superpower violating Iran’s sovereignty and protecting Reza Shah’s dictatorship.50

Theoretical Reflections on the Coming Revolution in Iran Iran’s Communist Party was preoccupied with formulating a program to explain both the nature of the coming revolution in Iran and the dangers of a new world war. In 1931, an article which appeared in Peykar,51 the theoretical journal of the party, challenged the party’s official position and argued that the coming bourgeois-democratic revolution in Iran would open the path of capitalist growth in Iran. It argued that since capitalist growth in Iran required an agrarian revolution, the large-scale distribution of land among the peasants would ensure their support of a IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 77 bourgeois-democratic revolution. However, since the peasants think only of their immediate interests, the working class must take advantage of the revolutionary situation, and impose its leadership on the masses against the comprador bourgeoisie and the entire political system. As the most determined revolutionary class, the working-class struggle is the only revolutionary force in a bourgeois-democratic revolution capable of eradi- cating the feudal state and establishing a full republic.52 In 1928, as the election campaigning for Iranian parliament began, the central committee of the Iranian Communist Party stated two contradictory views on the electoral process. Whereas in the first statement it claimed that parliamentary democracy would never realize the rights and demands of the working and exploited classes, it urged the electorates to elect deputies who were willing to publicly and compassionately reflect on their economic, political, and cultural demands. The party encouraged the voters to cast their votes for the candidates who promise or are willing to realize various social and political reforms. The demanded social and political reforms included eight-hour working day, the abolition of all unjust agreements with the imperialist countries, protection of Iran’s independence, friendly relations with the Soviet Union, freedom of expression and assembly, access of all citizens to public education, and the building of theaters, cinemas, and libraries for the entire nation.53 But as a faction in the party criticized the statement as unrealistic, since British imperialism supervised the entire electoral process, the party issued another statement. In the second statement, the party demanded that people’s real representatives must use the opportunity to expose the real nature of parliament and its role in creating the conditions of exploitation of the majority of the population through the unjust laws it makes and in justification of the suppression of the workers whenever they revolt against the oppressive situation.54 In 1932, the party asserted that the imperialist powers were preparing a total war against the Soviet Union to destroy the global revolutionary struggle. It reminded the oppressed classes in Iran that they must defend the Soviet Union and prevent any act of war against it from Iranian soil. If such a conflict occurred, Iranians must begin a fight against the Pahlavi regime because the October Revolution was to be defended at all costs. The October Revolution, according to the party, made the working class a global class and gave the exploited people of the world hope that their struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism toward freedom and equality would be successful.55 78 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

The threat of a socialist revolution in Iran led Reza Shah’s regime to force the parliament to make an anti-communist law in July 1931. According to the law, all activities related to Iran’s Communist Party and dissemination of Marxism were to be punished by three to ten years in prison. But since the letter of the law violated the Iranian constitution’s promise of freedom of expression, a law-maker justified the act under the pretext that foreign forces published the communist literature in Persian and distributed it in the country. In response to the lawmaker’s statement, Peykar, the Communist Party’s journal, claimed that the journal was published outside Iran because Iranian communists were prosecuted in their country. The point was that by denying their existence, the law-makers justified the oppression of Iranian communists whose only crime was arm- ing the Iranian workers and the oppressed masses with class consciousness to fight against their oppressors.56 The Anti-Communist law was the beginning of the end of the Iranian Communist Party. As the prosecution of the communists in Iran coincided with the Stalinist trials and execution of the party leaders such as Sultanzade, the party ceased to exist. In the late 1930s, the Communist Party of Iran was nothing but a memory of a distant past. In fact, the disappearance of Iran’s Communist Party was partly a result of the consolidation of Stalinism after the Soviet Union’s Constitution of 1936. In February 1935, the Seventh Congress of the Soviet Communist Party appointed a constitution commission led by Stalin to change the Soviet Union’s 1924 Constitution. The changes in the constitution are supposed to reflect the changes in the material and intellectual conditions of life of the Soviet Union’s citizens and the establishment of the socialist ownership of the means of production in every branch of the national economy. At this juncture, the Soviet Communist Party assumes that the socialist ownership in the Soviet Union has changed the relationship between social classes. The constitution commission declares that democratization of the electoral system and universal, equal, and direct suffrage with secret ballot are among the consequences of the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union. In November 1936, the constitutional commission led by Stalin submitted its draft of the constitution to the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party. In the report to the Congress, Stalin argued that from 1924 to 1936, the socialist ownership of the means of production had eradicated poverty and unemployment forever, and by abolishing the exploitation of man by man, it had created the condition for the economic and cultural prosperity of all citizens of the Soviet Union.57 The report says IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 79 that since the old class divisions between the people have been eliminated, the economic and political contradictions between the working class and peasants and the intellectuals have disappeared. As a consequence of the absence of social contradictions within the Soviet Union, working-class, peasants, and intelligentsia have been emancipated from all forms of exploitation and the society as a whole has become the site of the political and moral unity of all citizens.58 According to the report, in addition to the right to work, the right to rest and leisure, the right to education, the rights to pensions, and the right to be taken care of in case of sickness or disability, all Soviet citizens are guaranteed by the Constitution of 1936:

freedom of speech, press, assembly and meeting, the right to unite in public organizations, inviolability of person, inviolability of domicile and privacy of correspondence, the right of asylum for foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of the working people or for their scientific activities, or for their struggle for national liberation.59

Two years after the 1936 Constitution, which implies the inception of the withering away of the state, Gramsci died in prison, while Sultanzade, who had received asylum in the Soviet Union because of the persecution of the communists in Iran, was executed by the communist state on a charge of treason. At the end of the 1930s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Comintern presented History of The Communist Party of Soviet Union (Short Course) as the only reliable history of Russian Marxism and communism. The Short Course implies total obedience to the CPSU and that all Stalin’s critics are “imperialist spies and enemies of the working-class.”60

Notes 1. Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Fifth Session July 28, https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ 2nd-congress/ch05.htm. 2. V.I. Lenin, Theses on national and colonial questions (Peking: Peking Foreign Language Press, 1967), p. 21. 3. Ibid., pp. 22–23. 4. Ibid., pp. 23–24. 5. Ibid., pp. 25–26. 6. Ibid., p. 26. 7. Lenin, Theses on national and colonial questions, p. 27. 8. Ibid., pp. 28–29. 80 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

9. Babak Amir Khosravi va Fereydoun Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom (Nashr-e Jonbesh-e Tudehiha-ye Enfesali, 1987), p. 118. 10. Ibid., pp. 126–127. 11. Khosrow Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e Avval (Florence: Mazdak, 1974), pp. 12–13. 12. Ali Zibayi, Komonizm dar Iran ya tarikh-e mokhtasar-e komonistha dar Iran (Tehran: 1964), pp. 131–142. 13. Cosroe Shaqueri (Khosrow Shakeri), Avetis Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician (Life and Work) in History of Iranian Workers Movement (6) (Florence: Mazdak, 1985), p. 73. 14. Ibid., p. 74. 15. Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Fifth Session July 28, 1920. 16. Khosrow Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade (Place of publication unknown, 1986), pp. 13–14. 17. Ibid., p. 21. 18. Ibid., pp. 15–19. 19. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, pp. 21–22. 20. Ibid., p. 27. 21. Ibid., pp. 34–40. 22. Ibid., pp. 40–41. 23. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 42. 24. Ibid., pp. 44–46. 25. Ibid., p. 47. 26. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 63. 27. Ibid., pp. 75–76. 28. Ibid., p. 76. 29. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 79. 30. Ibid., pp. 80–81. 31. Ibid., pp. 82–83. 32. Ibid., p. 84. 33. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 100. 34. Ibid., pp. 100–101. 35. Ibid., p. 152. 36. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 154. IRAN AS PART OF GLOBAL COMMUNISM 81

37. Ibid., p. 155. 38. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, pp. 156–158. 39. Ibid., pp. 165–168. 40. Ibid., pp. 170–171. 41. Ibid., pp. 172–173. 42. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti- ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, pp. 174–175. 43. Ibid., p. 177. 44. Ibid., p. 192. 45. Ardeshir Ovanaessian, Safahati chand az jonbesh-e kargari-komonisti-ye Iran dar douran-e avval-e saltanat-e Reza Shah (1922–1933) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Hezb-e Tudeh Iran, 1979), p. 8. 46. Ibid., p. 11. 47. Ibid., pp. 12–13. 48. Ovanaessian, Safahati chand az jonbesh-e kargari-komonisti-ye Iran dar douran-e avval-e saltanat-e Reza Shah (1922–1933), pp. 16–17. 49. Ibid., p. 18. 50. Ibid., p. 51. 51. Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, Goteman-e Chap dar Iran: doureh-ye Qajar va Pahlavi-ye avval (Tehran: Entesharat-e Qoqnos, 2017), p. 238. 52. Ovanaessian, Safahati chand az jonbesh-e kargari-komonisti-ye Iran dar douran-e avval-e saltanat-e Reza Shah, p. 57. 53. Ibid., pp. 61–63. 54. Ibid., pp. 63–64. 55. Ibid., p. 115. 56. Ovanaessian, Safahati chand az jonbesh-e kargari-komonisti-ye Iran dar douran-e avval-e saltanat-e Reza Shah, p. 136. 57. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) Short Course (New York: International Publishers, 1939), pp. 341–343. 58. Ibid., pp. 343–344. 59. Ibid., p. 345. 60. William S. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism (London: Lexington Books, 2005), p. 23. CHAPTER 6

Ideological Formation of Stalinist Marxism in Iran and France

Some commentators argue that until the early 1960s, neither the PCF nor French Marxist intellectuals had offered anything valuable to theoretical and political Marxism.1 This politico-theor etical incapability includes French Existentialist Marxism’s inability to provide a consistent ontology, epistemology, and ethics or political philosophy for the historical subject it promoted politically. These analysts claim that the lack of lasting philosophical impacts of the representatives of Existentialist Marxism such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Emanuelle Mounier, Juan Axelos, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty demonstrates this philosophical inability. What distinguishes the French Marxist philosophy from the Marxist philosophy of other Western countries, from the 1920s until the late 1970s, is its in- depth involvement with political practice. For instance, the Marxist philosophy in the United States, which has been disconnected from the marginalized Marxist political tradition in that country, cannot tell us much about the history of Western Marxism. For the fact of its deep engagement with Marxist political practice, the history of French Marxism reveals the entire history of Western Marxism of the past century.2 That is why understanding the impacts of the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party on French Marxism is of far greater significance than its implications for any other branches of Western Marxism. With this Congress, French Marxism realized that Marxism as both theory and practice was in crisis and became determined to provide a theoretical and political response to this crisis. These responses varied from the less

© The Author(s) 2019 83 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_6 84 Y. SHAHIBZADEH political thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre to the political thinkers such as Louis Althusser.3 Althusser, in particular, introduced a revolt against the “entire tradition of intellectual and political traditions of reading Marx.”4 Like many communist parties around the world, the PCF was founded in 1920, and just like many other communist parties, it experienced a moment of great popularity at the outset. Whereas in the early 1920s the PCF had recruited more than 100,000 members, its members shrank to 30,000 at the end of 1920s. Some blame the ideological disputes within international communism and its Bolshevization as a cause of the contrac- tion of the PCF in the late 1920s. As the ideological conflicts led to the labeling of many French intellectuals as petit bourgeois or Trotskyists, they decided to exit the party. But when Fascism became the governing ideology in Italy and Germany, in the mid-1930s, the PCF’s popularity grew among the intellectuals and the working class to the extent that it exceeded the popularity it had enjoyed in the early 1920s.5 The PCF’s increasing popularity generated intellectual curiosity and theoretical activities of communist intellectuals such as Henri Lefebvre, Auguste Cornu, Georges Politzer, and Norbert Guterman who tried to give new interpretations of Marxism. French Marxists had a very peculiar attachment to the October Revolution. For them, it refreshed the memories and visions of the Paris Commune and promised its reactualization on the national and global level in the near future. The PCF emerged from within the French Section of the Worker’s International (Section Francaise de L’International Ouvrière, SFIO). SFIO joined the socialist government during World War I and was among the socialist parties which Lenin blamed at the outbreak of the war. Lenin listed SFIO among the renegade socialist parties responsible for the collapse of international solidarity among the working class.6 But as the war was nearing its end, SFIO left the government to show its opposition to the war. Established in 1905, SFIO had a solid presence in the French parliament, but its radicalization resulted in a devastating defeat in the 1919 election and the loss of 30 parliamentary representatives. SFIO decided to debate the cause of the electoral defeat in its eighteenth Congress on December 25, 1920 at Tours. But since most delegates to the congress were preoccupied with the significance of the Russian Revolution and the role of the Third Communist International in the coming socialist revolutions in France, the Congress’ members were divided between the advocates of the Third International and the supporters of the Second International. On December 30, 1920, a Communist Party loyal to the Third International and a Socialist Party IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 85 led by Léon Blum which remained loyal to the Second International were informally established in France.7 The main quarrel was between those arguing that Bolshevism embodied in the Russian Revolution was a per- version of Marxism and those arguing that Bolshevism’s ability to lead the Russian Revolution demonstrated the validity of Marxism as the theory revolution. Against the rigidity of the Leninist party, Blum wanted the proletarian party to be “a broad organization in which everyone was free to voice his own ideas.”8 Blum would support the dictatorship of the proletariat “if it is operated by this kind of party.” Otherwise, the dictatorship of the proletariat would become a simple dictatorship.9 For Blum who led the socialist reformist faction, the defeat of the Paris Commune declared the end of the revolution. He argued that in the aftermath of the Paris Commune the only politics Marxist theory could endorse was gradual economic and political democratic reforms. In Blum’s view the Leninist theory of the revolutionary vanguard was condemned to fail because the masses lacked the historical, educational, and conceptual aptitude to understand the vanguard’s revolutionary message. However, anti-war intellectuals such as Henri Barbusse, Romain Roland, and Anatole France who were not Marxist supported revolutionary Bolshevism because in their view the newly established Soviet Union could secure humanity from future wars.10 In May 1921, after accepting the conditions for joining the Third International, among which was the inclusion of Communist in the official name of the party, the majority from the Tours Congress adapted the Section Francaise de L’International Communiste (SFIC) as the official name of the new party.11 Thus the PCF was born in 1921 while the remaining socialist faction retained SFIO as its official name. The problem was that although all factions of SFIO considered Marx as the founder of their politics, the ideologues of SFIO and the founders of the PCF had little familiarity with Marx’s texts. Until the mid-1920s, SFIO had published only a handful of Marx’s texts.12 In 1921, the newly established PCF published the pamphlet Thèses directrices sur la tac- tique de l’Internationale communiste dans la lutte pour la Dictature du prolétariat. In this pamphlet, the party argues that the World War has proven that the capitalist thirst for colonializing new areas and its desire to expand its sphere of influence into new countries mean preparation for future wars. The pamphlet concludes that imperialism as the new stage of capitalism made the working class a global class and convinced them of the necessity of organizing themselves as a united global political force 86 Y. SHAHIBZADEH toward the world revolution and the rebuilding of the human society. As the French equivalent of The Communist Manifesto, the Thèses directrices follows the same structure as the original one. It begins with an argument on the inevitability of the worker revolution and continues with a political program dealing with the objective and subjective circumstances leading the workers struggle toward revolution. This French Manifesto describes capitalism as an unstable socio-economic system on the verge of a deep crisis and foreseeable collapse. It criticizes the political system erected by capitalism as a democratic illusion (illusion démocratique) which must be replaced with democratic centralism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.13 It argues that the dictatorship of the proletariat as demonstrated in the Russian Revolution is a result of political vanguardism and workers’ councils. The French Manifesto claims that the success of the world revolution depends on the victory of communism in Russia. The PCF remained loyal to the Soviet Union until its collapse.14 The party adopted the dialectical method to understand the laws of transformation of natural and social phenomena and encouraged its members to read Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, and Anti-Duhring.15 The party attracted large groups of outstanding French intellectuals who had never thought of Marxism as a philosophical system but as an assemblage of humanistic ideals. Despite the theoretical dogmatism of the PCF, there emerged intellectuals within the party who sought to formulate an effi- cient theoretical basis for the analysis of the social reality and its transformation. These intellectuals formed the Philosophies and the Surrealists groups in the early 1920s. Whereas the Surrealists tried to make the unconscious and the irrational the object of their artistic reflections in order to destabilize the existing order, the Philosophies focused on a new Absolute Rational Foundation upon which a new reality could take shape. From 1924 to 1929, in their search for a stable theoretical ground, the Philosophies, who discovered sound philosophical principles of Marx’s thought, founded four journals: Philosophies, Espirit, Revue Marxiste, and Avant-poste. Each journal aimed at new intellectual and philosophical discoveries. At first, they were attracted to the individual mystical experiences, which did not offer them the theoretical, conceptual, and moral foundation they were expecting to find. Then, they turned to German rationalists, which they deemed equally disappointing. They finally discovered Schelling and Hegel, through whom they tried to demonstrate the philosophical values of Marx and Lenin. In their search to answer the question whether ideals and morality were historically determined or not, IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 87 they found a conception of reason that not only acknowledges its timely origin but also provides a solid moral foundation.16 In 1926, two members of the group, Georges Politzer and Henri Lefebvre, published a translation of F.W.J. Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations with their own comments under the title The Essence of Human Freedom. Whereas Lefebvre demonstrates Schelling’s recognition of action as a necessary component of knowledge production, Politzer proves that Schelling’s recognition of the relationship between thought and existence indicates man’s ability to discover and restore his essence. They concluded from Schelling’s argument on man’s ability to overcome the duality between his existence and essence that communism is nothing but the elimination of the material constraints and limits preventing man’s true or essential freedom.17 From Schelling, the group moves to Hegel, who saw history as the realm of action and freedom. They learn from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and his concept of the unhappy consciousness, that man’s alienation is a result of his collective actions in the past, but he will overcome his alienation through cultural appropriation at the end of history. The overcoming of man’s alienation through cultural appropriation indicated that cultural and Marxist revolutionaries were natural allies. The group’s philosophical preoccupation did not prevent it from defending anti-imperialist struggles in the colonized countries. In 1925, the group actively supported the PCF’s protest against the French government’s violent suppression of the nationalist movement in Morocco.18 Lefebvre’s first serious study of Marx, Le Matérialisme dialectique, appeared in 1938, in which he reads Marx through Hegel and uses concepts of alienation and fetishism interchangeably toward a dialectic of becoming. Similar to Marx, for Lefebvre:

The present multiform alienation of man and of the community is grounded in the inhuman situation of certain social groups, the most important of which is the modern proletariat. This social group is excluded from the community, or else admitted to it only in appearance, verbally—so that it can be exploited politically. Neither in its material nor in its spiritual condition does it share in the community, and whenever it takes action in order to do so its enemies say that it is destroying the community!19

However, according to Lefebvre, from the study of the conditions of man’s alienation Marx formulated his theory of man’s liberation through his consciousness.20 In Le Matérialisme dialectique, Lefebvre offers a theory of knowledge which contradicts the Marxist-Leninist reflection theory 88 Y. SHAHIBZADEH of knowledge. This theory, promoted by Stalin, aims to make the dialectical method dependent on the dialectic in Nature and combines philosophy with the natural sciences.21 According to Lefebvre, the fact that man is both distinct from nature and bound to it makes knowledge production an active process, a result of man’s reciprocal relationship to nature. In his interaction with nature, man organizes nature in his thought and true knowledge comes out of the intellectual construct related to this interaction.22 Lefebvre argues that Marx’s main contribution to philosophy is his “emphasis on the production of knowledge exclusively through the analysis of the concrete.”23 And it was this precise analysis which allowed Marx to discover the historical process through which man has become alienated from his essence. Further, Marx discovers man’s ability to overcome his alienation and restore his humanity in the communist society.

The total man is both the object and subject of the becoming. He is the living subject who is opposed to the object and surmounts his opposition. He is the subject who is broken up into partial activities and scattered determinations and who surmounts this dispersion. He is the subject of action, as well as its final object, its product even if it does seem to produce external objects. The total man is the living subject-object, who is first of all torn asunder, dissociated and chained to necessity and abstraction. Through this tearing apart, he moves toward freedom; he becomes Nature, but free. He becomes a totality, like Nature, but by bringing it under control. The total- man is “de-alienated” man.24

Despite his indifference toward Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, Lefebvre was tolerated by the PCF because he epitomized the intellectual sophisti- cation of Marxism. However, after the beginning of the Cold War in 1949, the PCF forced Lefebvre to self-criticisms regarding his philosophical position on the concept of alienation which he described later “as a stain on my honour as a philosopher.”25 He regretted that his effort of Hegelianization of Marxism weakened the focus on the mature work of Marx which included Capital. But the party, which could no longer tolerate him, expelled him in 1958.26

The Reemergence of Communism in Iran In 1927, while the intellectual circle that Lefebvre was a member of were pursuing their philosophical inquiries to strengthen the theoretical foundation of Marxism, Iraj Eskanadari, who became one of the founders of IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 89

Iran’s second communist party, the Tudeh Party of Iran, left Iran for France to continue his education when he was 20 years old. When he arrived in France, despite his revolutionary enthusiasm, Eskandari knew nothing about Iran’s Communist Party or the Marxist literature. Eskandari came to France because his father, a dedicated activist in the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906–1909, wanted him to continue his education in the birthplace of social revolution, freedom, and progress. Eskandari’s father, who died at a young age, said in his will that his son must be sent to France to get a university education.27 As he arrived in France, he entered a network of Iranian Marxist students who had founded the organization of the Revolutionary Republic of Iran in Europe. It seems that while in competition with Iran’s Communist Party, the Revolutionary Republic of Iran (RRI) was trying to get the support of European social democracy. Hence, two of its leaders together with Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, the representative of Iran’s Socialist Party, participated in the Second International’s Congress in Brussels in 1927. In its manifesto published in the same year, RRI declares itself as the vanguard party of the army of the toiling classes in the coming revolution against Reza Shah and British imperialism.28 Iran’s Communist Party condemns both the Second International Congress and its Iranian participants and especially the Revolutionary Republic of Iran as a group of intellectuals with no connections with the masses.29 Despite the fact that the manifesto does not demand anything beyond a bourgeois democracy, it is widely read and admired even by the proletariat.30 According to Iran’s Communist Party: “Although it seems, on the surface, that this manifesto offers a Marxist analysis of the existing socio-economic and political situation in Iran, an in-depth analysis of the manifesto reveals how foreign its analysis is to Marxism.”31 After his return to Iran, in the early 1930s, Eskandari resumes his connection with Taqi Arani who earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences in Germany in the late 1920s. Arani, who was among the founders of RRI, received help from Eskandari to organize Marxist circles and publish the journal Donya to promote and popularize what they call the dialectical and scientific method.

Dividing the Indivisible Donya is published in the mid-1930s, while the CPI is still active, at least officially. However, it seems that as a former member of RRI, Arani keeps himself ideologically and politically distant from Iran’s Communist Party 90 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

(CPI). No connection appears to have existed between his journal and CPI. Despite the political radicalism of RRI of which Arani was a founder, his journal had to follow the restrictions imposed by anti-communist law. Thus, it refrained from reflecting on political issues. The journal became purely theoretical and educational, aiming at young intellectuals interested in the theoretical foundations of Marxism and historical materialism. Arani assumed that this theoretical foundation would equip young intellectuals with the tools they needed to analyze the historical condition and socio-economic and political situation to generate a new radical politics. In the study circles organized around the journal, young students read and discuss Marxist literature such as ABC of Communism by Nikolai Bucharin. The first issue of the journal published in 1933 had an inscription on the cover saying science divides (analyses) the indivisible.32 The journal lasted for two years and published 12 issues until it was banned in 1935. The group around Donya translated Marx’s Capital, but the translated copy was confiscated by the police when three founders of the journal and fifty other associates were arrested in 1937.33 The arrested individuals become known as the 53 Persons. As the leading member of the group, Arani argued in his trial that anti-communist law violated the Iranian Constitution which guaranteed freedom of expression and assembly.34 Arani claimed that Iran’s constitution was unequivo- cal about the equal social and political rights of the Iranian citizens and the proletariat as the main principles of the state and governance.35 Arani’s comments on Iran’s constitution are reminiscent of Marx’s conceptualization of democracy in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Arani remained in prison until he died, or was killed, one year after his arrest. The rest of the 53 Persons stayed in jail until Iran was occupied by the Soviet and British forces in 1941, which resulted in the abdication of Reza Shah from power. For Arani, dialectical materialism is the synthesis of the entire history of the scientific development replacing philosophical idealism from Plato to Leibnitz. Dialectical materialism reveals how the movement from the world of Idea to the world of Monad was no more than the expression of the interests of the ruling classes in different historical ages.36 Arani argues that as class theories are deprived of their previous progressive drive, and replaced by dialectical materialism, they become decomposed and degenerated into the most inhuman theories, such as the racial theory of Alfred Rosenberg, the most reactionary theory among racial theories. IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 91

Only a fool could think that a Jew is less talented than a German, or that the Japanese civilization is less worth than Portuguese, or the Turkish less than the Bulgarian … Rosenberg who equips the fascist regime with such triviali- ties should visit the neighborhoods in the north Berlin downtown, which suffer from unemployment, misery, poverty, moral decadence, alcoholism, overpopulated and dark residents, and dirty workplaces. Rosenberg includes these people alienated from all human qualities in the category of German people supposed to be the most racially superior human beings. Materialism tells us that even the differences between the positions of different races in different stages of the human civilizations and between these civilizations are related to thousands of material causes.37

Arani’s dialectical materialism relies on Engels’ arguments in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Classic Philosophy, Origins of Family, Private Property and State, Anti-During, and Dialectics of Nature. For instance, his analysis of the position of women in the modern world rests entirely on his reading of Engels’ Origins of Family, Private Property, and State.38

Unlike the fake respect, modern ladies get in the contemporary world, women of the pre-civilization period experienced true human dignity. With monogamy, women begin to be dominated by men. In the literature, since Homer, men have been presented as more valuable than women. In the mode of production based on slave-labor, women are treated as slaves. Women had equal positions with men in the pre-civilized societies. Marriage, which is an institution based on the principle of private property generated its double, the prostitution. Every step toward consolidation of the rules of monogamy resulted in the intensification of prostitution.39

Arani argues that real social and political equality between women and men, in public and private matters such as professional equality and equal rights in marriage, is possible only after their emancipation from the existing socio-political condition. Only after their socio-political emancipation “true monogamy that is the mutual attachment of one woman to one man becomes possible. Because only in this condition one is emancipated from other’s domination, and the will of both parts decides marriage and divorce.”40 For Arani, society is a system in which man’s relation to nature and other men is regulated through labor. Since men cannot find the means of subsistence ready for use, through labor they transform natural raw materials into useful products to satisfy their needs. But as the division 92 Y. SHAHIBZADEH of labor is instituted and private property emerges, the domination of men by other men begins. For Arani, the struggle for the emancipation of the dominated classes begins from the moment men’s diversified needs result in the division of labor, which divides human societies into dominant and dominated classes.41 In his discussion on the question of political leadership, Arani’s starting point is the Marxian dictum that men make their history, but under the conditions they have inherited. He infers from this Marxist conceptualization of human subjectivity Lenin’s theory of the vanguard political party that unites the oppressed social class in their struggle for emancipation. But Arani is well aware that in the absence of a large working class, it is too early to establish a vanguard political party in Iran.42 This view expressed in Donya reflects the view of the Revolutionary Republic of Iran. In agreement with Lenin, Arani considers the state as an apparatus used by the dominant classes to subjugate the dominated classes. He includes in the state not only the legislative and judiciary apparatuses but also the educational system which controls the population by defining their tradition and custom, their concepts of good and evil, their principle of morality, and their intellectual and artistic stimulus. “We should refrain from the naïve view that such an apparatus provides prosperity and happiness for all citizens.”43 Arani argues that since nations do not consist of the cohesive and homogeneous population but of classes with opposing interests, wars between nations are in fact conflicts between dominant classes of two or several nations to protect or increase their economic interests.44 He argues that the bourgeoisie defended freedom of movement and expression to the extent that these liberties consolidated its social and political position vis-à-vis the aristocratic privileges of the feudal class inscribed in the law of the feudal system. Whereas in the name of freedom of expression the bourgeoisie promoted social changes which benefited its class interests and paved its path to domination and power, now as the dominant class it opposes freedom of expression which call into question its privileged social and political position.45 For Arani, the history of philosophical, artistic, religious, and mystic speculations and practices, from ancient Greece to the modern world, is an expression of the struggles of the oppressed classes for emancipation. He refers to the great Persian Mystic, Mansur Al-Halaj, who revolted against the existing ruling class and the dominance of the Caliph by stating “I am God” for which he was condemned to death as an expression of the class struggle in that period.46 Arani expresses the same view on the tradition of materialism in Iran, represented by Hakim-e Iranshahri and Mohammad Zakaria Razi IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 93 who demonstrated the primacy of matter over mind, the unending nature of change and transformation as the main characters of matter. Arani finds Iranian mystics, philosophers, and materialists of the past as the natural allies of the contemporary revolutionary forces against religion, which he describes as the main ideology of the past and present repressive orders in Iran. He claims that only historical materialist method can reveal the progressive nature of the spiritual movements which have always been prosecuted by the dominant religious-ideological order.47 For Arani, the critics of dialectical materialism confuse the theory of relativism, which concerns itself with natural sciences, with relativism in philosophy. He argues that relativity of time does not cast doubt on time as an external reality outside our mind because it examines the relation of the real time with the mind. In the same way, relativism in philosophy cannot call into question the concept of truth because such relativism must examine the relations between the existing truths. Therefore, the negation of a phenomenon’s position does not mean the negation of its reality.48 Relying on these premises, Arani criticizes the presentation of the dominant ideology as the absolute truth. He argues that whereas the primitive man makes religion to satisfy his spiritual needs, the dominant classes ascribe to religion a position of dominance to discipline and control the dominated classes. In the same way, whereas money is made by man to ease the exchange of the commodities he produces, it dominates him when it becomes the object of worship in the modern society. After realizing that religion is his own creature, man demystifies religion. Along the same vein, man discovers that he has become entrapped in the worshiping of money and thus realizes that the abolition of money is impossible without a socialist organization of society.49 At the heart of Arani’s materialist and dialectical theorization lies his dialectical theory of knowledge, according to which new scientific theories do not indicate inconsistency of the objective truth but that every theory consists of true and false propositions. Whereas the true propositions as aspects of the new theory lead to real and true discoveries, the false aspects of the existing theories indicate that no theory is eternal and that the old theories should give space to new theories. This means that a more valid theory does not emerge from nothingness because it is built on the true aspects of the previous theories. This leads Arani to argue that old theories are the condition of emergence of new theories because the true elements of the previous theories are the condition of possibility of new theories. Consequently, truth is not subject to change; it exists in the texture of all theories which emerge within the scientific field. For Arani, the fact that 94 Y. SHAHIBZADEH theories are subject to change and negate one another proves the validity of the dialectical method through which humanity discovers truth gradually.50 The ideological position that Arani presents indicates both continuity and discontinuity with Iran’s first Communist Party. Whereas the organization he was involved in the mid-1920s was a social democratic party which was in competition with Iran’s Communist Party for ideological and political hegemony, his ideological position laid the ground for the establishment of a new communist party, the Tudeh Party of Iran, in 1941. Arani’s theoretical work on the condition of emergence of communism as the future of humanity had a long-lasting influence on the young people who gathered around his journal and followed him into jail. The description of one of his students of the intellectual and political climate inside the prison gives a clue of the extent of Arani’s intellectual and political impact. Describing their dreams in 1938 while in Reza Shah’s prison, Anvar Khamei, a member of the 53 Persons, remembers that

Most of the time, our discussions were on philosophical, scientific and artistic subjects. I cannot recall any disputes of ideological and political nature among ourselves. Put it differently; we had no ideological differences. We talked about the Spanish Civil War and the probability of a new world war. We thought we all had similar views on every important issue. All of us were thinking that a new world war was unavoidable. But we were convinced that after the war we will witness the victorious proletarian revolutions throughout the world, which would transform the entire humanity into the reign of communism. We did not think about when and how this will happen. We were young, and we were confident that if we survived [the prison], we would experience this glorious future.51

Tudeh Party, 1941–1953 In the summer of 1941, Iran was invaded by Britain and the Soviet Union. As the invaders forced Reza Shah to abdicate, the 53 Persons were released from prison. A significant number of the 53 Persons came together and established the Tudeh Party of Iran in the same year. The founders of the Tudeh Party were thinking of a party which would be more inclusive than a Communist Party. As the literary meaning of the name of the party indicates, the Tudeh Party of Iran was the party of the masses; tudeh means the masses. Soon, the Tudeh Party became the party of the intellectuals, workers, and the masses. There were well-known Iranian communists such as Yusef Eftekhari who, because of Stalin’s cult IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 95 of personality, the Moscow Trials, and the tendency of the Soviet Union to impose its control over the communist parties of other countries, refrained from being involved in the foundation of the Tudeh Party. Eftekhari accused the founders of the party of being propagandists of Stalin’s dictatorship. As World War II was going on, Eftekhari said: “Stalin had made himself a king, and there is no longer any difference between Stalin and Tsar because he has ordered decorating the Red Army officers with epaulet which as the symbol of Tsarism was forbidden after the Revolution.”52 But against the single voices such as Eftekhari’s, the over- whelming majority of Iranian communists had no problem following the instructions coming from Moscow. For the Iranian communists, the Soviet Union’s Communist Party was the leading star of the international communist universe. A handful of Iranian communists such as Ardeshir Avanesian with the background from Iran’s first Communist Party had no problem following the instructions of the Soviet Union, although they did not like the Tudeh Party as the meeting place of all social classes. For these enthusiastic communists, Iran needed a true communist party consisting of dedicated communists and workers, but they remained a tiny minority inside the party. The Party’s leaders rejected the idea of a new communist party because, in their view, the ideological and political hegemony of the Party meant the same as the ideological and political hegemony of the Iranian communists.53 In September 1941, the Tudeh Party declared its manifesto against dictatorship and colonialism and promised to realize people’s democratic rights and the independence of the country from foreign powers.54 Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, who was declared the Party’s leader, represented Iran’s Socialist Party in the 1927 Congress of the Second International Socialist. Soleiman Mirza Eskandari was an anti- imperialist socialist, an advocate of parliamentary democracy, and a dedicated Muslim in private life.55 Except for Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, the entire leadership of the Tudeh Party were dedicated communists. From the start, the Party has been accused of being created by the Soviet Union. In order to defend its integrity and patriotism the Party refers to the fact that the Party’s first secretary, “Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, was a dedicated Muslim and patriot who would not accept or allow the interference or influence of any foreign power in the internal affairs of Iran.”56 But the fact that the Tudeh Party considered the Soviet Union the embodiment of communism and the true leader of the anti-imperialist and socialist movements throughout the world would naturally lead its leadership to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union’s Embassy.57 Eventually, 96 Y. SHAHIBZADEH this friendly relationship resulted in the Soviet Union imposing its will on the policies of the Party. For instance, the Soviet Union decided to support the candidacy of the landowners of Gillan and Azerbaijan’s provinces in parliamentary elections during World War II because it found them more useful in the war against Germany in Russia. Thus, the election of eight members of the Tudeh Party into the parliament in 1944 was not because of the Soviet Union’s support but despite its destructive role. According to an elected member of the Party to parliament, the electoral victory of the Party was a result of the communist candidates’ “unselfish” campaigns and the sacrifice of the working class who believed in their political leaders.58 While Iran was under occupation by the British forces and the Red Army, the Tudeh Party held its first Congress, in which the elected delegations and members of the party expressed their views with full freedom and elected the party’s leadership.59 In 1944, a few months before the end of World War II, Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran’s future prime minister, asked Iraj Eskandari, a member of parliament at the time, to tell the Soviet Union to refrain from demanding oil concessions from Iran. Mosaddeq told Eskandari that while Iranians were trying to take back the old oil concessions to Britain, the Soviet Union should stop using the term concession because it means granting certain privileges to a colonial power. Mosaddeq had no problem selling Iran’s oil to the Soviet Union but would not accept an oil concession.60 However, despite the Tudeh Party’s pro-Soviet Union position, Mosaddeq succeeded in passing his law proposal which forbade any new concessions to any foreign powers. The law says that any prime minister or minister who violates the terms of the law will be sentenced to three to eight years in prison and prohibited from attaining any public office for life. Mosaddeq was surprised that the Soviet Union, which he highly respected since the October Revolution for distancing itself from Tsarist colonial policies toward Iran, was trying to regain colonial concessions.61 Ehsan Tabari, who became the leading theorist of the Tudeh Party in the 1950s, argued, while Iran’s parliament was debating the subject, in defense of the Soviet Union’s position:

In the same way that we recognize Britain’s legitimate interests in Iran and do not oppose those interests, we should recognize the legitimate interests of the Soviet Union in our country. We should candidly admit once and for all the truth; that northern Iran is the security zone of the Soviet Union … We encourage the government to start as soon as possible its negotiations with the Soviet Union on the concessions of the northern oil resources and with the British and the US regarding southern oil resources.62 IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 97

In 1945, as the Soviet Union became disappointed in getting the expected oil concession, it started to pressure the Iranian government by supporting the secessionist movements in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces, which led the leaders of these movements to declare these provinces new “republics.” However, as the Red Army had to leave Iran, under international pressure, both republics collapsed immediately without resistance. Since, following the Soviet Union’s policy, the Tudeh Party supported these “republics,” it suffered the consequences of their breakdown.63 After the 1953 coup against Mosaddeq, the entire leadership of the Tudeh Party went into exile in the Socialist countries. While in exile the Soviet Union’s Communist Party decided that the Tudeh Party must integrate the leaders of Azerbaijan’s secessionist movement, who had taken refuge in the Soviet Union since 1946, into the Party’s central committee.64 Before and after this union, until the mid-1960s, the Tudeh Party experienced two significant splits: the first split happened in 1947, which will be discussed later, and the second one occurred in 1965. The second split was a result of the Maoist tendency in the party’s central committee which defended the Chinese Communist Party position vis-à-vis the Soviet position.65 On the verge of the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the Party was divided into two factions that fought for the Party’s leadership. Whereas the reformist wing led by Eskandari prioritized democratization of Iranian politics according to the Iranian constitution of 1906–1908, the radical wing led by Noureddin Kianouri was more focused on getting rid of the Shah’s regime.66 Eskandari’s reformist position could not explain his previous analyses of the stage of the social revolution in Iran and the Tudeh Party as the rightful inheritor of the revolutionary traditions of the Iranian people. Before taking this reformist position, Eskandari traced the history of the Tudeh Party to the October Revolution without mentioning Iran’s Communist Party.67 Rather than the poverty of historical knowledge, the elimination of this historical fact in the history of communism and Marxism in Iran indicates an ideological stance. In the early 1950s, Eskandari described the Tudeh Party as the party of the Iranian working class that, equipped with the Marxist-Leninist method, was able to replace the current system in Iran with the governing power of the proletariat. Thus, as the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, the Tudeh Party prepared the masses for overthrowing the current regime and establishing a democratic republic as the precondition of socialism.68 Referring to Lenin, Eskandari argued that since the primary question of every revolution is the political power, it is the task of the revolutionary 98 Y. SHAHIBZADEH party to identify the dominant and dominated classes and equip the latter with means by which they can overthrow the former and seize the political power.69 While identifying imperialism and big landowners as the primary targets of the political struggle in Iran, the party defines the national bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoisie, and peasant as the political allies of the working class.70 Whereas Iran’s first Communist Party focused on the capitalist nature of imperialism and was more concrete and analytical, the Tudeh Party made imperialism the real target and was more polemical.

Internationalism and Neutrality in International Relations In the 1950s and 1960s, the Tudeh Party considered state sovereignty as the immediate aim of the Iranian people’s struggle because it is the kernel of the global struggle against the colonial and imperialist powers. Since the party considers state sovereignty the precondition for the popular sovereignty of every nation, it assumes that all nations and states must implement anti-imperialist foreign policies to protect their independence and self-rule. Accordingly, the nature of the struggle for state sovereignty negates the concept of neutrality because a nation’s struggle for freedom and independence cannot be neutral; it must take an anti-imperialist position. Every nation involved in the struggle for independence and popular sovereignty must universalize its struggle. Nations universalize their struggles by taking sides with those nations which are engaged in the struggle for independence from imperialism. Nations universalize their struggles when they demonstrate that their victories pave the way for freedom of all the oppressed people and nations which struggle against imperialism and capitalism.71 Writing in the early 1950s, Eskandari argued that although Iranians had never tried to publicize the oil-nationalization movement internationally, the passionate reception of the movement in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and even Latin America was beyond imagination. The reaction of different nations to the oil-nationalization movement demonstrates the existence of an internationalist bound between the oppressed people of the world in their fight against colonialism and imperialism. The universal character of the Iranian oil- nationalization movement can be revealed not only with regard to the similar situation of the oppressed people of the world but also in the internationalist solidarity they express. The Iranian people demonstrated the same internationalist solidarity when the Egyptian, Iraqi, Tunisian, IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 99

Moroccan, and Algerian people were engaged in their struggles against the British and French imperialism. This indicates the universal nature of the anti-imperialist struggles everywhere.72 What imperialism does in response is to terminate the existing international solidarity between the colonized and semi-colonized people because it is easier to destroy them when they are isolated.

The American military offensive against the popular movement in Guatemala has many similarities with our recent [oil-nationalization] movement. From the view of American imperialism, it was not the damage that nationalization of land inflicted on the American companies’ plundering interests, but the nature of the action of the Guatemalan nation, considered as a provocation encouraging the struggles for independence in other Latin American countries.73

Eskandari reminds the colonized and semi-colonized people that to break the spell of their isolation they should rely on the Soviet Union, which is using all its material and intellectual resources to defend the national liberation movements, because this is the only path toward peace, democracy, and eradication of exploitation and poverty. For Eskandari, the political forces that confuse the emancipatory role of the Soviet Union with those of the imperialist policies of Western governments intend to isolate the popular movements around the world from their natural ally, so that imperialism can suppress these movements without difficulty.74 This explains why he criticizes Mosaddeq’s negative equilibrium which led him to refuse oil concessions to both the Soviet Union and British imperialism. Eskandari claims that Mosaddeq’s policy served the interests of the imperialist powers because it denied the Soviet Union an economic or political role in Iran while Britain was controlling significant shares of Iran’s oil and exerted immense economic and political influence in Iran. Eskandari even claims that Mosaddeq’s collaboration with imperialism paved the way for the 1953 coup and the subsequent domination of Iranian economics and politics by American and British agents.75 More than 30 years later, in the early 1980s, Eskandari is critical of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, especially its demands for oil concessions in northern Iran and its subsequent support for the separatist movement in Iran’s Azarbaijan. Eskandari claims that the separatist movement resulted in the incorporation of the entire Azerbaijan branch of the Tudeh Party in a nationalist political party, Ferqeh-ye Demokrat, which with the support of the Soviet Union 100 Y. SHAHIBZADEH occupied the state institutions and declared the Republic of Azerbaijan. The result was the damaging reputation of the Soviet Union and the Tudeh Party whose members were accused of being Soviet agents. Most damaging was the ideological impact of the separatist movement, which turned almost all the Azerbaijani communists into nationalist separatists.76 Eskandari claims that whereas there were about 65,000 members of the Tudeh Party in Azerbaijan before the secessionist insurgency, the party lost almost all its members to the nationalist Ferqeh-ye Demokrat, which had only 50 members before the nationalist rebellion.77 Bearing in mind that the total number of members of the Party in 1944 was smaller than the number of its members in Azerbaijan in 1945, the increased popularity of the Tudeh Party in Azerbaijan indicates the increased popularity of the party throughout the country. At the time of its first Congress in 1944, the Tudeh Party had 25,000 members, 70% of which were workers and artisans, while it had organized several hundred thousand Iranian workers in the trade unions, had eight representatives in parliament, and enjoyed enormous support among the intellectuals. As a result of its popularity, the Party succeeded in forcing Iran’s government to raise workers’ minimum wage, recognize worker unions, restore freedom of expression and assembly, and recognize organization of political parties.78

Tudeh Party and Marxist Theory In the mid-1940s, Eskandari moved to France, and as the Party’s representative stayed in exile until his death in 1985. In the early 1950s, the party criticized Eskandari for not dedicating time and efforts to enhance himself theoretically. While admitting his theoretical shortcomings, Eskandari claims that he has completed a Ph.D. in Economics with a thesis on economic development in Iran and translated Capital into Persian.79 In fact, the failure of the secessionist movement in Azerbaijan, the 1953 coup, the collective emigration of the party’s leadership into the socialist countries, and the destruction of the party’s organization in Iran can be listed as the reasons behind the party’s reluctance to engage its members in theoretical efforts. Regarding the question of the unity between the Tudeh Party and Ferqeh-ye Demokrat in 1957, Eskandari claims that the working class is internationalist by nature and the Tudeh Party represents the Iranian working class regardless of their ethnicity. From these premises, he concludes that no other party should claim that it represents the working class of a particular region in Iran.80 Referring to Lenin, Eskandari IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 101 endorses the right to self-determination of all nations, people, and ethnic groups but rejects the bourgeois nationalism which in the name of self- determination undermines the socialist goals of the Iranian nation. For Eskandari, the party of the working class should not endorse separation of one people from another because it must promote their interconnections as a united people.81 Eskandari argues that ethnic nationalists should not confuse the nature of the struggle for independence of the colonized and semi-colonized nations with the struggle of the ethnic minorities for self- determination. Whereas the former’s struggle is an anti-imperialist struggle, the latter is a struggle against the reactionary forces within a nation state. That is why the revolutionary socialist forces should focus on the antagonism between the colonized and semi-colonized people and British and American imperialism rather than the antagonisms within the people. This principle, Eskandari argues, leads the Tudeh Party to transform all ethnic groups inside the country into a people in a common struggle against imperialism rather than inflaming their differences and rivalries so that they never become a united people. He concludes that ethnic groups can act as liberated people and exercise self-determination only after the victory of the anti-imperialist struggle and the establishment of the people’s democracy.82

The Schism Within the Tudeh Party In May 1946, the Tudeh Party organized big demonstrations in Tehran, Abadan, Isfahan, and several other cities. The demonstration in Tehran was the biggest the party had ever organized. In addition to the organized workers, students and university professors, politicians, and prominent intellectuals participated in the demonstrations.83 A few months after the Party displayed its enormous popularity on the streets, a major split happened within the Party. The cause of the split was that a large group of the Party members objected to the silence of the Party on the Soviet Union’s harmful policies toward Iran. In January 1947, more than a hundred of the Party cadres left the Party to establish a political party that could prioritize the democratic demands of the Iranian people and was willing to protect its independence from the Soviet Union. The split within the Tudeh Party came at a time when the world’s communist parties were obeying Stalin’s policies unquestionably, when the French communists were not allowed to form a government coalition with Leon Bloom, and when Toligatti was presenting Gramsci’s thought as a verification of the 102 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Soviet Union’s policies. The Tudeh Party’s breakaway faction left the Party to demonstrate that a liberation movement could achieve its aims independently, without relying on superpowers.84 A member of the Tudeh Party’s breakaway group claims that the split within the Tudeh Party took place before Tito separated his path from Stalin, and it happened before the split within the Indian Communist Party and the Hungarian uprising. It took years until the divisions within the communist parties became normal events. “Without exaggeration, after the Trotskyite tendencies which emerged before Stalin’s consolidation of power and the dominance of the Stalinist ideology and politics, the Tudeh Party’s breakaway group initiated the first insurrection against Stalinism within the international communism.”85 In their first manifesto, the group presents the Tudeh Party as the personification of Iran’s social history, the embodiment of the will of the Iranian nation, the true representative of the oppressed and exploited classes, and the expression of their hope to improve their material and intellectual conditions. The statement specifies that the Tudeh Party has made the Iranian working class conscious of its capacities and has been leading them to realize those capacities.86 The statement claims that the Tudeh Party has made the peasants and other social classes aware of their fundamental rights and has demonstrated that these rights cannot become a reality within the existing socio-economic order. The statement praises the party for transforming a new generation of Iranian intellectuals into dedicated militants advocating emancipation of the oppressed classes. The breakaway group admits that by introducing the true method of political struggle, the Tudeh Party has become the most thinkable progressive party in Iran, but the problem with the Party is that it does not respond fully to the requirements of the existing condition.87 The statement is not specific about the Party’s shortcomings. It does not distinguish the breakaway group from the Party in major questions ideologically or politically. Before the split, the first Party Congress approved the proposal formulated by the members of the breakaway group regarding the Party’s open doors to the workers. In the statement, the breakaway faction criticizes the Party’s handling of the secessionism in Azerbaijan, the consequence of which was the loss of thousands of the Party’s members to the secessionists.88 Another issue under dispute is obstructing the democratic procedures within the Party, expressed in the leadership’s postponing of the Party’s Second Congress, and the leadership’s total disregard for the view of the majority in the Party in the name of democratic centralism.89 While its professed ideology and politics were the same as the Tudeh IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 103

Party’s, the breakaway faction declared the establishment of the Socialist Society of the Iranian Masses. The Society stated that it would remain faithful to the progressive principles of the Tudeh Party but promised to refrain from the tactical and organizational mistakes of its leadership. The Society declared its dedication to scientific socialism and to the working class as the vanguard social class in the struggle for democracy and socialism and promised to remain faithful to the fight against imperialism and the reactionary social forces. The Society argued that in order to defend their interests, the working class and other oppressed classes would ally themselves with all anti-imperialist forces against the monopolistic foreign capital which prevents the advancement of the national industry.90 Despite all their grandiose claims, when the Persian program of Moscow Radio accused the breakaway group of being agents of imperialism, the Society disbanded itself.91 In early 1949, an assassination attempt against the Shah took place, the perpetrator of which held a Tudeh Party membership card. The government reacted to the incident by declaring the Tudeh Party an illegal entity, which forced it to go underground. The Party’s leadership, which had been reluctant to organize the Party’s second Congress, took advantage of the Party’s illegal status and imposed the wishes of the central committee as the expression of democratic centralism in the Party. Without the endorsement of any Congress, as the supreme authority of the Party, the leadership declared Marxism-Leninism the Party’s official ideology, indicating a major ideological change in the Party with regard to its first manifesto.92

Notes 1. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, pp. 7–8. 2. Ibid., pp. 9–10. 3. Ibid., p. 15. 4. Ibid., p. 17. 5. Stéphane Courtois and Marc Lazar, Histoire du Parti Communiste Francais (Paris: Presses Universitaires De France, 1995), pp. 103–111. 6. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, pp. 246–247. 7. Courtois and Lazar, Histoire du Parti Communiste Francais, pp. 59–67. 8. Maxwell Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History (1920– 1984), From Comintern to ‘the colours of France’ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 24. 9. Adereth, The French Communist Party: A Critical History (1920–1984), p. 25. 10. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, pp. 36–37. 11. Courtois and Lazar, Histoire du Parti Communiste Francais, p. 72. 104 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

12. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, pp. 32–33. 13. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, pp. 39–40. 14. Ibid., p. 42. 15. Ibid., pp. 57–58. 16. Ibid., p. 89. 17. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, p. 90. 18. Ibid., p. 92. 19. Henri Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), p. 145. 20. Ibid., pp. 152–153. 21. Dominique Lecourt, Proletarian Science? The Case of Lysenko (London: NLB, 1977), pp. 104–111. 22. Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, p. 130. 23. Ibid., p. 131. 24. Henri Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, pp. 149–150. 25. Bruce Baugh, French Hegel: From Surrealism to Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 66. 26. Sundir Hazareesingh, Intellectuals and the French Communist Party: Disillusion and Decline (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 121. 27. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, p. 127. 28. Hamid Ahmadi, Tarikhcheh Ferqeh-ye Jomhouri-ye Enqelabi-ye Iran va Gorouh-e Arani (Tehran: Nashr-e Atiyeh, 2000), pp. 129–130. 29. Ibid., p. 22. 30. Ibid., pp. 90–132. 31. Ibid., p. 23. 32. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Avval, pp. 52–53. 33. Ibid., pp. 57–58. 34. Akharin defaiyeh-ye doktor Taqi Arani dar dadgah-e jenayi-e Tehran (Enteshrat-e Hezb Tudeh-ye Iran, 1974), p. 19. 35. Ibid. 36. Taqi Arani, Asar va maqalat-e Doktor Taqi Arani (Cologne: Pahl- Rugenstein Verlag, 1997), p. 11. 37. Ibid., p. 71. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., pp. 81–82. 40. Arani, Asar va maqalat-e Doktor Taqi Arani, p. 83. 41. Ibid., pp. 83–87. 42. Ibid., p. 84. 43. Ibid., p. 86. 44. Ibid., p. 87. IDEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF STALINIST MARXISM IN IRAN… 105

45. Arani, Asar va maqalat-e Doktor Taqi Arani, p. 88. 46. Ibid., p. 112. 47. Ibid., p. 115. 48. Ibid., p. 219. 49. Arani, Asar va maqalat-e Doktor Taqi Arani, p. 228. 50. Ibid., p. 319. 51. Anvar Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi (Tehran: Nashr-e Goftar, 1993), p. 121. 52. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Dovvom, p. 10. 53. Ibid., p. 20. 54. Ibid., p. 19. 55. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Dovvom, pp. 23–26. 56. Ibid., p. 26. 57. Ibid., pp. 28–52. 58. Ibid., pp. 54–55. 59. Ibid., pp. 70–71. 60. Ibid., pp. 107–108. 61. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Dovvom, p. 112. 62. Ibid., pp. 113–114. Quoted from Ehsan Tabari, Mardom baray-e roshan- fekran, Shomare-ye 12, 19 Aban 1323/November 1944. 63. Ibid., p. 162. 64. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Iraj Eskandari, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Bakhsh-e Sevvom, pp. 75–87. 65. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Sevvom, pp. 94–98. 66. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, pp. 18–19. 67. Ibid., pp. 149–150. 68. Ibid., pp. 146–147. 69. Ibid., p. 151. 70. Ibid., p. 153. 71. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, pp. 155–156, Dar bareh-ye bitarafi (About Neutrality) authored by Eskanadri in August 17, 1954. This text is included in pages 155–181 of Eskandari’s Memoire Bakhseh-e Chaharom. 72. Eskandari, Dar bareh-ye bitarafi in Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, pp. 155–156. 73. Ibid., p. 157. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., pp. 168–169. 106 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

76. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, pp. 210–211. 77. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, p. 218. 78. Ibid., p. 207. 79. Ibid., pp. 204–205. 80. Iraj Eskandari’s Speech in a meeting between Tudeh Party and Ferqeh-ye Demokrat in 1975, in Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, pp. 222–223. 81. Ibid., p. 224. 82. Ibid., p. 229. 83. Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi, pp. 483–484. 84. Ibid., pp. 591–592. 85. Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi, p. 593. 86. Ibid., p. 657. 87. Ibid., pp. 657–658. 88. Ibid., pp. 660–661. 89. Ibid., pp. 662–664. 90. Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi, pp. 671–672. 91. Ibid., pp. 688–691. 92. Bijan Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval (place and date of publication unknown), pp. 36–38. CHAPTER 7

The Crisis of Stalinism After 1953

Four years after the 1979 revolution, the entire leadership of the Tudeh Party was arrested on charges of treason and espionage for the Soviet Union. Many were sentenced to death and a few to life in prison. Ehsan Tabari, who had been sentenced to jail by the post-revolutionary state, was a member of the 53 Persons, one of the founders of the party, and its main theorist. In prison, he wrote that the Tudeh Party’s leadership reduced internationalism to blind support of the Soviet Union.1 Despite his seniority in the party, Tabari lacked the ambition to become the Party’s ultimate leader. Instead of preparing himself for the first-secretary position in the party he tried, in the late 1950s, to become the Party’s theorist. He was eager to play in the Tudeh Party the same role that Mikail Suslov played in the Soviet Communist Party. In the early 1960s, Tabari began to play the part of the Party’s philosopher and was known as such until his death in the late 1980s.2 For Tabari, the “truth” of any situation is not determined by the intellect but by the way that situation is proven or disproven by the existing and future revolutionary social practices. Tabari deems Existentialist-Marxism, Freudian Marxism, Maoism, the Frankfurt School, and neo-Marxism as the intellectual efforts to curtail the revolutionary essence of Marxism. In his view, these schools of thought serve the capitalist ideology by replacing the ongoing revolutionary social practices with academic preoccupations and by substituting the current revolutionary actions with pure analysis.3 Against the Iranian Maoists who accused the Tudeh Party of revisionism, Tabari claims that revisionism is the expression of opportunism in

different shapes and colors and describes Maoism as the latest expression of leftist opportunism.4 Tabari argues that both rightist and leftist opportunism are useful for imperialism as the last stage of capitalism because they are the expressions of revisionism in Marxism. Whereas the rightist opportunism is the expression of the convergence between the interests of the working-class aristocracy and the interests of the ruling class, communists who prioritize the interests of their nation vis-à-vis the interests of the global revolutionary movement represent leftist opportunism. For Tabari, any attempts to give Marxism-Leninism a national character and any efforts to generalize one’s own experiments and infer universal principles from those limited experiments engender leftist opportunism.5 In the late 1960s, Tabari claims that whereas the emerging radical leftist factions within the European social democratic parties are rejecting social reform, Iranian leftist opportunists try to persuade the regime of the Shah to initiate land reforms. For Tabari social reforms in Iran are the means to prevent new popular uprisings and ways of distracting the attention of the masses from the revolutionary ideology of the Tudeh Party. He claims that whereas radical tendencies within European social democracy are distancing themselves from rightist opportunism, the leftist opportunism of the third world is serving the third world’s dictatorships and Western imperialism.6 In response to Iranian socialists such as Khalil Maleki, the leader of the breakaway faction of the Tudeh Party in 1947, who argued on the democratic nature of socialism and criticized the Soviet Union for its failure to secure freedom of expression and assembly for its citizens, Tabari tries to reveal the “true nature” of the bourgeois freedom and democracy.

Marxism and Bourgeois Freedom In his attempt to reveal the true nature of bourgeois freedom and democracy, Tabari rejects the contrast between the socialist bloc exercising totalitarianism and the liberal states of the capitalist countries advocating democracy and freedom. He claims that the liberal states have never defended real democracy and freedom. In the past, they were forced by the struggles of the oppressed people to recognize a certain degree of democracy and freedom in their domain. But as the tide of the popular struggles was lessening, the liberal states emptied democracy and freedom of all their contents and turned them into pure forms. Thus, the present democracy in the capitalist societies is nothing but the formalization of democracy and freedom by the bourgeois class through ideological means.7 Whereas in the THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 109 past the democratic liberties acquired by the oppressed classes limited the state power, now formal democracy and freedom have become the ideological means to expand capitalist domination and imperialism throughout the world. Tabari argues that real democracy will be achieved only after the abolition of the capitalist systems, regardless of their “democratic” or dictatorial forms.8 Following Lenin, Tabari argues that an individual’s freedom achieved at the expense of the society’s freedom contradicts the real meaning of freedom and democracy. A society in which the egoistic freedom of a small minority depends on the suppression of the over- whelming majority cannot be called a democracy. For Tabari, whereas the legal principles of freedom in the liberal democracy which allow a minority to exploit the majority enable the members of the minority group to exercise their full freedom because they have the material means to realize their goals, the reality of the exploitation deprives the members of the majority of any freedom.

That is why Marx claims that individual freedom is the prerogative of the ruling class and an individual’s freedom remains protected as long as he is a member of the ruling class. Either through written or unwritten laws such as customs, the ruling class regulates the behavior, actions and will of the people according to its interests …. Whereas the founders of bourgeois liberalism such as John Stuart Mill argued for the limited power of the state and the unlimited power of the capitalists, in the contemporary capitalist societies, the state power has been extended because it serves the interests of this class. Despite the fact that there is nothing left of Stuart Mill and Bentham’s liberalism in the modern bourgeois societies, the noisy propaganda about it has been increasing hundred times. Contemporary liberals such as the German liberals have become the defenders of the monopolistic state capitalism.9

For Tabari, the question is not about whether communists defend dictatorship or democracy but about what kind of democracy they struggle to realize. The democracy that the communists try to generate goes beyond the limits of the bourgeois democracy. Since bourgeois freedom is a result of the struggles of the oppressed classes against the bourgeois class and state, this freedom is incomplete. From a socialist standpoint, bourgeois freedom relies on the domination and exploitation of the majority by a minority. From the communists’ point of view real and complete freedom and democracy will be achieved as a result of socialism because democracy, socialism, freedom, and equality are indivisible aspects of a 110 Y. SHAHIBZADEH humane society.10 Tabari argues that the advocates of democratic socialism accuse the communist systems of being a bureaucratic state apparatus, extremely centralized and disciplinary, or police states, which have reduced individual citizens to the point of non-existence. He describes as nationalist and individualist all critics who in the name of democracy and freedom blame the communist states for their hierarchical power structures suppressing critical gestures of citizens.11 Rejecting the narrow nationalism of the dictatorial regimes which accuse their communist citizens of not being patriotic, Tabari claims that international solidarity rejects reactionary nationalism because it assumes the inherent superiority of one’s own nation vis-à-vis other nations. He claims that this superiority complex implies the right of one nation to impose its dominance on other nations. However, he defends the progressive nationalism or patriotism represented by political leaders such as Mosaddeq because this type of nationalism is anti-colonial, peaceful, and fraternal toward other nations.12 In fact, the patriotism that Tabari is talking about has been the main feature of Iranian nationalism. Iranian nationalism has never been a movement for consolidation of a particular ethnic identity but a struggle for the realization of the state and popular sovereignty. Iranian nationalism has been a school of resistance against imperialism and colonial powers, and a fertile ground for Iranian Marxism. As a result, Iranian nationalism has not only reinforced democratic practices and socialist ideas but has been sympa- thetic and supportive to the anti-imperialist struggles around the world. The Iranian Communist Party understood this aspect of Iranian nationalism perfectly because when it argued that the constitutional revolution sought to establish bourgeois democracy, but landowners prevented this from happening, it was trying to engage Iranian nationalists in the battle for democracy and socialism. Depending on the argument presented by the Iranian Communist Party, the Tudeh Party claims that the Iranian constitution failed to realize its promises because it was unable to recognize the majority of citizens as active and equal participants in politics. The Iranian Communist Party argued that since the rights to elect and be elected were limited to the wealthy citizens and property owners, members of Iranian parliaments were representing either the government or British imperialism. Neither the Iranian Communist Party nor the Tudeh Party stopped defending the universality of the Iranian struggle for democracy and socialism.13 However, being at the mercy of the Soviet Union’s authorities and the consequences of their ideological and political conflicts, the internationalism of the Iranian communists led them to total THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 111 disappearance from the political scene or complete submission to the Soviet foreign policy. Iran’s Communist Party and the Tudeh Party are cases in point. In the first case, the Anti-Communist Law of 1931 forced the leaders of Iran’s Communist Party to take refuge in the Soviet Union, where they were imprisoned and killed under the Stalin regime. In the second case, the 1953 coup d’état forced the leaders of the Tudeh Party to go into exile in the Soviet Union, where they had to respect the Soviet Union’s policy of peaceful existence with Iran and thus became irrelevant, until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. As the Tudeh Party went into oblivion in the 1950s, a new generation of Iranian leftist organizations and intellectuals emerged in the 1960s. Although the new generation of Iranian communists took their inspiration from the communists of the past, they were critical of both the Tudeh Party and Khalil Maleki who led the breakaway faction of the Tudeh Party in 1947. The new generation of Iranian communists disliked Maleki’s critique of the Soviet Union’s undemocratic socialism and was reluctant to engage him in their debate on the future of revolution and socialism. But before jumping into the discussion of the new generation of Iranian communists, we should be familiar with two unorthodox socialist tendencies which were very rare in the Middle East. One is represented by Maleki and the other by the Kruzhoks.

Maleki and Democratic Socialism Although Maleki was one of the prominent members of the 53 Persons, he was not among the founders of the Tudeh Party. In 1944, three years after the Party’s formation and when it had recruited tens of thousands of members and many more sympathizers, Maleki became a member of the Party. Members of a radical faction within the Party led by Nureddin Kianouri, who had the ambition of attaining the Party’s leadership, encouraged Maleki’s membership. Kianouri became the de facto leader of the Party after the 1953 coup, and its official leader from 1978 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1982. In the Party’s first Congress in 1944, this faction nominated Maleki as one of its candidates for the Party’s central committee but he failed to get elected.14 After the failed attempt of getting the majority of the central committee, this radical faction decided to disseminate its ideological and political views among the Party’s newcomers by organizing study circles on Marxist theory; the study circles were kept outside the organizational schedules. In order to enhance the quality of the study circles the faction translated The Communist Manifesto, Wage, Price and Profit, 112 Y. SHAHIBZADEH and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific into Persian.15 But as these study circles were mistakenly believed to be part of an independent study group, which I will discuss later, they were dissolved by the Party. Maleki’s membership did not last long. In 1947, he led the breakaway faction of the Party. In 1951, four years after breaking away from the Tudeh Party, Maleki described the ruling class, the Tudeh Party, and the Popular Front led by Mosaddeq as the three major social and political forces fighting for hegemony in Iran. He argued that despite its superior ideological and political position vis-à-vis other forces, the Popular Front led by Mossadeq did not have the organizational strength of the other forces. For Maleki, Iran’s independence and the future of socialism and democracy in Iran were inseparable from the fates of the Popular Front and Mosaddeq as its leader.16 Maleki claimed that the Popular Front could translate its ideological and political hegemony into organizational and institutional assets if it waged a persistent fight against the big landowners and capitalists who collaborate with foreign powers. He described the distribution of land and social reforms as the contents of this fight. He claimed that Mosaddeq’s unwillingness to make socio-economic changes was a result of his concep- tions of freedom, which implied the state’s neutrality regarding social struggles. Maleki argued that the immediate consequence of Mosaddeq’s naïve liberal policy was the empowerment of the influential social forces, which because of their possession of money and guns could decide the course of the social events, elections, legislation, the executive power, and the judiciary to protect their interests at the expense of the oppressed classes. Whereas the ruling class was free to use the state apparatus against Mossadeq’s government and to spread discontent among the population, the Tudeh Party took advantage of the widespread popular discontent to organize general strikes and demonstrations to paralyze the state as a whole.17 In the early 1950s, Maleki argued that the problem with the Tudeh Party’s leadership was that it was unable to find local solutions for local problems because it looked at the world as a battleground between Moscow representing the good and Washington personifying evil. By dividing the world into good and evil forces, the Tudeh Party justified its obedience to Moscow and exempted itself from analyzing the local socio-political situation and from offering concrete plans to overcome the situation. This led the Tudeh Party to depict any Iranian governments which disagreed with the Soviet Union’s policies in Iran as agents of imperialism and legitimate subjects for sabotage. Maleki claimed that the Tudeh Party used every available means such as political propaganda and bribery to influence or intimidate the THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 113

Party’s dissidents because its leaders had the illusion that by silencing dissidents within the Party, the Party keeps itself strong and influential until the time for seizing political power is ripe.18 But the Tudeh Party did not know that it would not be a match for the ruling class if it decided, with the help of the colonial powers, to undermine the formal democratic and parliamentary principles and use fascist violence if sheer violence proved to be more effective. That is why Maleki warned Mosaddeq that if his Popular Front failed to lead the national liberation movement successfully, the ruling class would, in the name of suppressing the Tudeh Party, use unlimited violence against all progressive social and political forces to establish its authority and power.19 Maleki reminded Mosaddeq that if his government did not protect the interests of the exploited and oppressed people in the ongoing social struggle, the government was doomed to fail. He argued that if Mosaddeq allowed the existing social relations to reproduce themselves, the ruling class would come out victorious from the struggle and protect the existing social system by all means. Maleki rejects the Tudeh Party’s claim that there were only two political alternatives for the existing social and political situation: Fascism and Stalinist Communism.20 For Maleki, whereas Stalinist Communism was a real alternative for the class- divided societies before and during World War II, the post-war events that transformed the Soviet Union into an expansionist state, which in the name of socialist internationalism has expanded its dominance throughout the world, have damaged the previous credibility of Soviet Communism. Maleki claimed that since the victory of the Soviet Union over Fascism was mistaken for the victory of Communism over Fascism, the Soviet Union became popular among the intellectuals and the oppressed masses outside its domain. But these intellectuals and people did not know anything about the radical changes that the Soviet Union has undergone before, during, and after World War II. Maleki described the European and Iranian fascination with Soviet Communism as being a result of the European and Iranian people’s experience of extreme poverty, anxiety, and fear during the war, which led them to think of Soviet Communism as the only means of escaping their miserable conditions.21 Before 1952, Maleki was hopeful about the emergence of an independent communist movement which could challenge Stalinist Communism. However, from 1952 on, he invested his hope in the empowerment of European social democracy as the only socio-political force capable of leading radical socialist reforms while protecting individual freedom and freedom of expression and assembly. For Maleki, the success of European social democracy meant the 114 Y. SHAHIBZADEH defeat of Soviet Communism or Conformist Communism. Maleki’s anti- Soviet Union stance led him to praise not only the Common European Market as the kernel of a united Europe but also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While he blamed the Soviet Union for its neglect of freedom of expression, his increasing anti-Sovietism led him to encourage Mosaddeq’s government to expel all communists who occupied key positions in the state institutions, especially in the universities.22 But at the same time Maleki admired Titoism as an independent approach toward socialism and the seed of a new socialist international against what he called Soviet expansionism. For Maleki, Titoism was the new ghost haunting Muscovite communism throughout Europe.23 He saw a possible unity between Titoism representing independent European communist forces and social democracy representing democratic socialism against both liberal capitalism and the Soviet Union’s totalitarian socialism. For Maleki, democratic socialism was the content of a government which had centralized democracy as its form. He was thinking of democratic socialism as the only reliable political alternative to the existing political orders both in Europe and Iran. He assumed that while this centralized democracy would give the pro-Soviet communists freedom of expression, it would not let them occupy key bureaucratic positions. Maleki hoped to convince Mosaddeq that democratic socialism was the only available strategy which could defeat the Fascism of the ruling class and deal with the challenges that the Tudeh Party represented. Maleki argued that whereas the chance of the Tudeh Party’s political takeover was slim because of the international environment, the possibility of a fascist takeover, in the name of combating the Tudeh Party, was high. He hoped that the danger of a fascist takeover in Iran would convince Mosaddeq to adopt democratic socialism.24 Maleki’s democratic socialism in Iran was supposed to deny members of the Tudeh Party key bureaucratic positions while protecting the party’s freedom of expression and organization. In Maleki’s view Mosaddeq’s government forbid, on the one hand, the Tudeh Party to propagate its ideology and politics publicly, which made ordinary members of the party rebellious. On the other hand, it allowed the party’s leadership to hold higher positions in the state, which they used to paralyze both the economy and social order.25 In order to prevent the Tudeh Party’s influence in Iranian politics, Maleki encouraged Mosaddeq’s government to implement radical social and economic changes so that “the producing classes own the fruits of their labor.” He tried to convince Mosaddeq that the social forces, which in the name of the sanctity of private property were violating the THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 115 rights of the toiling classes, were the main enemies of his government.26 Despite endorsing European social democracy vis-à-vis Soviet Union communism, Maleki criticized the way it dealt with European Fascism. Maleki claimed that the anti-Soviet communist stance of European social democracy prevented from understanding the extent of the Fascist danger. As a result, it did not implement social changes which could disconnect the working class from the Fascist ideology and organizations. Maleki was optimistic about the future of socialism and claimed that the future belonged to the intellectuals and politicians who had discovered the truth about the relationship between the march of history and the interests of the masses.27 But he excluded the Tudeh Party from this future because the party had failed to generate such intellectuals and politicians. For Maleki, the Tudeh Party had the opportunity to lead the masses toward democratic socialist changes but failed to remain true to its historical missions. Thus, the failure of the Tudeh Party to perform its historical mission created the political void or the condition for the emergence of the Popular Front led by Mosaddeq. Maleki claimed that the Tudeh Party should have corrected the wrong policies of the Soviet Union in Iran in the same way Mao Tse-Tung had done in China. In that case it could have preserved its dignity and gained the confidence of the masses. If the Tudeh Party remained calm when the Soviet Union was pushing the Iranian government for oil concessions and kept quiet at the time of the secessionist uprising in Azerbaijan, it could do what Mao had done for his people. But as the Party raised its voice to defend the interests of the Soviet Union it exposed its true character to the people.28 Malaki is convinced that Mossadeq cannot lead Iran’s liberation movement successfully because according to his philosophy of history, individuals alone cannot make history, although they may understand the objective socio-historical necessities and act upon them and actualize their potentials when the time is ripe.29 If individuals respond with determination to the necessities of the social movements they become the embodiment of these movements. But if they mistake the movement to be the expression of their own genius they become so detached from the masses and social reality that they stop being the embodiment of the movement and may mislead the movement.30 Maleki argues that democratic socialism is the only path through which the Popular Front can protect Iran against the dangers of the global struggle between different imperialist states.31 He warns Mosaddeq that as the agent of the Soviet Union, the Tudeh Party represents the same danger to Iran’s independence as the ruling class because it has the means to buy people’s support in the state insti- 116 Y. SHAHIBZADEH tutions or silence them. He claims that in 1950, at least 80% of the scientific, administrative staff and students of the University of Tehran were members of the Tudeh Party. But with Mossadeq’s coming to power, the Party’s popularity decreased.32 After the 1953 coup, Maleki blamed the Tudeh Party’s dependency on the Soviet Union as one of the main causes of the defeat of the national struggle in Iran. For Maleki, the Tudeh Party’s dogmatism did not allow it to understand that internationalism does not contradict national sovereignty.33 But Soviet communism presented internationalism and national sovereignty as contradictory positions. According to Maleki, the European socialist stood firm against this dichotomy by preventing the communists from taking advantage of the people’s discontent.34 Maleki extends his critique of the communist movement to Marx and claims that the problem of the communist movement began with Marx’s prediction that as the class divisions become broader and deeper, the bourgeois state will limit and finally eliminate democracy in its entirety. For Marx, according to Maleki, democracy is a burden for capitalism because it allows organized protests, open class struggles, disorder, and revolution. Thus it is a source of instability for the capitalist order and the cause of its final collapse. But as the broader and deeper class divisions do not result in the bourgeois state’s limiting or eliminating democracy but allow the working class to lift itself to the position of administration and government, communism is marginalized as a social movement.35 Maleki reminds his readers of Bakunin and Proudhon’s warnings on the danger of the communist movements producing a new class of experts who believe that they have the right to dominate the “ignorant population.” He agrees with Bakunin’s description of the so-called people’s democracy or dictatorship of the masses as the dictatorship of a new class over the masses, a class that is convinced that it has better qualities than the masses.36

The Marxist Kruzhoks As one of the least debated groups of the Iranian Marxists, the Marxist Kruzhoks (Kruzhokhay-e Marksisti) tried to ensure that the communist movement did not produce a new class of experts to dominate the “ignorant population.” From the early 1940s to the late 1960s, the Marxist Kruzhoks tried to present themselves as an alternative to the Tudeh Party. Although the activities of the Kruzhoks were purely theoretical and limited to organizing Marxist study circles, the members of the Kruzhoks were actual workers. The Kruzhoks aimed at creating the theoretical and THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 117 organizational condition of possibility for the establishment of a revolutionary and proletarian communist party. Seyyed Baqer Emami, an anti- Tudeh Party Marxist, initiated and led the Marxist Kruzhoks. The activities of the Kruzhoks coincided with the Marxist study circles organized by the radical faction of the Tudeh Party in 1944. As the leaders of this faction were trying to hold their study circles outside the Party’s organizational control, the study circles became confused with the Marxist Kruzhoks. Many who attended these study circles could not tell the difference between the two since both circles focused on Marxist theory rather than political questions. Emami argued that by preventing the Iranian working class from attaining theoretical knowledge, the Tudeh Party’s ideology and its political practice stultified the struggle against the bourgeoisie and delayed the coming socialist revolution. From the 1940s to the early 1950s, hundreds of Iranians became acquainted with Marxism through the Marxist Kruzhoks.37 The first Marxist Kruzhoks lasted three years, from 1944 to 1947. For Emami, whereas the bourgeois political parties allow only the higher echelon of the parties to know and defend the Party’s ideology and their declared manifestos, all members of a communist party are responsible for knowing and defending the party’s fundamental principles and ideology. Consequently, all members of the communist organizations which aimed at the establishment of a united communist party needed theoretical preparations and education in the philosophical and ideological foundations of Marxism-Leninism. As the sole teacher of the Marxist-Leninist study circles, Emami insisted that a communist party required a large number of dedicated communists who were fluent in Marxist-Leninist theory. Whereas the Marxist Kruzhoks’ first level courses were open to anyone interested in the theory of Marxism- Leninism, the advanced levels were clandestine study circles consisting of selected members of the first level.38 Emami explained the secrecy of the second-level sessions by depicting an ideal organization as an organization which thinks and acts as one individual, a united body, which requires strict discipline and loyalty to the collective decisions.39 As the Kruzhoks became well known, the Tudeh Party began to accuse them of being a fake communist party, backed by imperialism, to discredit communism’s role in the global struggle against imperialism. The Tudeh Party claimed that this fake communist party consisted of the street gangs who plunder people’s property and rape their women to convince the people that the victory of communism means the rule of the street gangs.40 In order to curtail the significance of the Marxist Kruzhoks, the Tudeh Party instructed “all 118 Y. SHAHIBZADEH party members and freedom lovers” to refrain from these organizations.41 Contrary to the Tudeh Party’s condemnation of the Kruzhoks, a veteran Iranian communist and a member of Iran’s first communist party welcomed the Kruzhoks because, in his view, the anti-revolutionary stance of the Tudeh Party achieved nothing but advancing the interests of the landowners, capitalists, and petty-bourgeoisie.42 Emami interpreted the Tudeh Party’s accusation against the Kruzhoks as an indication of the Party’s belief that Iranians are not prepared for a communist party. In response Emami argued that if 25 years ago the Third International recognized that Iran was ready for a communist party, now 25 years later, after the great economic, social, and industrial changes in the country, Iran is more than ready than for a new communist party.43 In 1947, the Tudeh Party described the Marxist Kruzhoks as a small group organized by the Iranian reactionary forces and foreign imperialism to distort Marxism, fight communism, and mislead the direction of the struggle against imperialism and exploitation. The Party forbade its members to enter into any interactions with the Kruzhoks because the group’s agents were trying to entrap the young members of the Party into their organization. Thus, the Party urges its cadres, intellectuals, and workers to carry out a fierce ideological cam- paign against the group which functions as “the nest of provocation.”44 Instead of engaging Emami in a theoretical and ideological debate, to convince its members, the Tudeh Party questioned Emami’s credibility and exposed him as a convicted spy who had spent many years in prison for the crime he had committed. But the Party did not mention in its exposure that Emami was, in fact, a spy of the Soviet Union.45 In response, Emami argued that instead of being a working-class party, the Tudeh Party tried to satisfy all social classes. It gave hope to the factory owner because he did not want to lose his privileges after the outbreak of the revolution. It promised the ambitious intellectuals and aristocrats that they would become parliament deputies and ministers and promised the government that it would establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union.46 Unlike Maleki, Emami had nothing against the Soviet Union’s interference in Iran. He rather believed that the Tudeh Party deceived the Soviet Union and pretended to represent the Iranian working class.47 In addition to the Tudeh Party’s onslaught against the Marxist Kruzhoks, Emami’s authoritarian leadership caused dissatisfaction among the members, as a result of which a great number of his followers left the organization.48 In 1947, at the same time that the breakaway faction left the Tudeh Party, a group of the Kruzhoks’ dissidents left their organization for the THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 119

Party.49 Hoping to recruit new members from the Tudeh Party’s breakaway faction, Emami declared in vain the establishment of a new communist party.50 The Tudeh Party was not threatened by the Kruzhoks organizationally, but its ideological impacts terrified it. In fact, the Party expelled some of its members accused of propagating the Kruzhoks’ ideology. For a while, Kruzhok and Kruzhokism became the pejorative terms that the Tudeh Party used to describe its opponents and critics.51 The Kruzhoks were a danger to the Tudeh Party because they argued that, according to the declaration of the Third Communist International, at least two-thirds of the members of the communist party must come from the working class. The composition of the Kruzhoks’ leadership indicated the significance of this principle for the Kruzhoks.52 The Kruzhoks believed that the Soviet Union endorsed the Tudeh Party because it was ignorant of its true nature. But when the Kruzhoks realized that they would never get the blessing of the Soviet Union, the organization simply collapsed.53 The Kruzhoks believed that the working class should not forget that the term communism means that the class struggle will end with their victory. But for the Tudeh Party, anyone concerned with the socialist revolution should know that Iran is a Muslim country with unfinished democratic promises of the Constitutional Revolution. In this situation the term communism only disengages the masses from the Party. This is the reason the Party refrains from calling itself a communist party. For the Tudeh Party, the task of a socialist party in Iran is the realization of the democratic promises of the constitutional revolution as the material condition for a socialist revolution. Unlike the Tudeh Party, which confused proletarian internationalism with blind obedience to the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, the Kruzhoks believed in the principle of the genuine solidarity of the working class of different countries against capitalism. The Kruzhoks concluded from this principle that it is the Soviet Union that should coordinate its foreign policies with the global struggle against capitalism and not the other way around.54 Emami described himself as a man of action who instead of writing fiery journalistic pieces against his opponents educates the working class in Marxism and makes them conscious of their class condition and their historical mission.55 As the founder of the Marxist Kruzhoks, Emami rejected the Tudeh Party’s claim that the military strength of the Red Army and the approval of the Soviet Union guarantee the victory of the socialist movement throughout the world.56 When after the declaration of Iran’s new Communist Party in 1947 the group was accused of preparing itself for armed uprising, Emami dissolved the 120 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Kruzhoks and laid the new communist party to rest.57 In 1948, Emami and some former members of the Kruzhoks resumed the organization’s activity with a new name, Sazman-e Showraha (The Councils’ Organization). It published the newspaper Be Pish, which did not last long because, after the publication of its third issue, the majority of the organization’s leadership were arrested and imprisoned.58 In order to acquire a newspaper license, Emami had to possess a university degree or submit a dissertation to the department of higher education for evaluation. Since he did not have a university degree, Emami wrote a short dissertation, Molana Jalaudin-e (Rumi), Hegel of the East. While repeating Marx’s dictum that in Hegel dialectics “is standing on its head. It Must be inverted, in order to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell,” Emami claimed that he had released the revolutionary dialectical kernel of Rumi’s philosophical arguments from its mystical shell.59 In the early 1950s, while the intellectual members of the organization deserted Emami, the working-class members remained loyal to him. In the mid-1950s, his remaining friends encouraged him to form a new organization called Yader Komonisti-ye Iran. The new organization, similar to the previous ones, recruited actual workers. While holding them detached from the current political events, the members of the new organization were educated in Marxist-Leninist theories.60 For Emami, only actual workers who sold their labor power and who directly experienced exploitation qualified as members of the communist organizations. Emami rejected the Leninist argument that vanguard revolutionary workers must leave the factories, and be taken care of by the vanguard party, in order to become full-time or professional revolutionaries. He also opposed the idea that the communist organization should be business oriented in order to protect themselves financially. For Emami, a business-oriented revolutionary communist party was a contradiction in terms. This was a path that the right-wing communist parties of Italy, France, and Britain took and ended up betray- ing the working class.61 Emami committed suicide in the early 1960s. After his death the organization criticized his “cult of personality” which made democratic centralism in the organization meaningless and individual initiatives impossible. Despite the efforts of the remaining members, the rigid principles of the organization prevented it from establishing links with the emerging revolutionary and communist organizations or with the big industry workers.62 In 1968, in unity with another Marxist organization, the former Kruzhoks formed a new organization called The Revolutionary Communist Organization (Sazman-e Enqelabi THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 121

Komonisti-ye Iran).63 The new organization remained true to the early ideals of the Marxist Kruzhoks. It recruited new members in order to educate them in Marxism-Leninism but prevented them from taking part in the political and social struggles. As the armed struggle became the dominant force among the Iranian Marxists in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the leadership dissolved the Revolutionary Communist Organization.64 The dissolution of the newly established organization allowed the majority of the organization’s central committee to exclude those members who sympathized with the armed struggle. But as the armed struggle increased the political suppression and stricter control over the dissident organizations, all the Kruzhokists were arrested in 1971 and their organization ceased to exist.65

Notes 1. Amir Khosravi va Azarnur, Khaterat-e siyasi-ye, Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e Chaharom, p. 79. 2. Ibid., p. 75. 3. Ehsan Tabari, Neveshteh’ha-ye falsafi va ejtemayi, Jeld-e avval (Berlin: Entesharat-e Hezb-e Tudeh Iran, 2007), p. 75. 4. Ibid., p. 91. 5. Tabari, Neveshteh’ha-ye falsafi va ejtemayi, Jeld-e avval, pp. 92–93. 6. Ibid., p. 99. 7. Ibid., p. 103. 8. Ibid., p. 104. 9. Tabari, Neveshteh’ha-ye falsafi va ejtemayi, Jeld-e avval, p. 104. 10. Ibid., p. 105. 11. Ibid., pp. 230–232. 12. Tabari, Neveshteh’ha-ye falsafi va ejtemayi, Jeld-e avval, pp. 240–241. 13. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton University Press, 1982) and Maziar Behrooz, Rebels With A Cause. 14. Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi, pp. 323–327. 15. Ibid., p. 332. 16. Khalil Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi (Tehran: nashr-e Markaz, 1998), pp. 6–7. 17. Ibid., pp. 7–9. 18. Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi, pp. 9–10. 19. Ibid., pp. 10–11. 20. Ibid., p. 12. 21. Ibid., pp. 18–20. 22. Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi, pp. 25–28. 122 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

23. Ibid., pp. 28–29. 24. Ibid., pp. 29–30. 25. Ibid., p. 32. 26. Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi, p. 35. 27. Ibid., p. 46. 28. Ibid., p. 57. 29. Maleki translated Georgi Plekhanov’s On the Question of the Individual’s Role in History (1898) into Persian. 30. Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi, p. 59. 31. Maleki, Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi, p. 69. 32. Ibid., pp. 75–176. 33. Ibid., p. 118. 34. Ibid., p. 122. 35. Ibid., p. 123. 36. Ibid., p. 129. 37. Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi, p. 333. 38. Mohammad Hossein Khosropanah, Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruzhokha-ye marksisti-ye ou (Tehran: Chap-e Talayeh’ha-ye Afaq, 2014), pp. 63–64. 39. Khosropanah, Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruzhokha-ye marksisti-ye ou, pp. 68–69. 40. Ibid., pp. 66–67. 41. Ibid., p. 67. 42. Ibid., pp. 67–68. 43. Ibid., p. 78. 44. Ibid., pp. 81–82. 45. Ibid., p. 84. 46. Khosropanah, Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruzhokha-ye marksisti-ye ou, p. 92. 47. Ibid., pp. 89–91. 48. Ibid., pp. 102–104. 49. Ibid., p. 104. 50. Ibid., p. 105. 51. Ibid., pp. 106–107. 52. Albert Sohrabian, Khaterat-e Albert Sohrabian, bargi az jonbesh-e kargari- komonisti-ye Iran (Hannover: Bidar, 2000), pp. 72–73. 53. Ibid., pp. 77–79. 54. Ibid., pp. 79–80. 55. Khosropanah, Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruzhokha-ye marksisti-ye ou, p. 110. 56. Ibid., p. 110. 57. Ibid., p. 113. 58. Ibid., pp. 82–88. 59. Ibid., pp. 121–124. THE CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER 1953 123

60. Khosropanah, Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruzhokha-ye marksisti-ye ou, pp. 143–145. 61. Ibid., p. 157. 62. Ibid., pp. 162–163. 63. Ibid., pp. 63–64. 64. Ibid., pp. 170–178. 65. Ibid., p. 181. CHAPTER 8

French Marxism: Ideology and the Question of Power

Until the late 1940s, Marxism had been a political force in France while French thinkers had no intention of considering Marxism as more than a perverted version of Hegelianism, which they did not take seriously either. Althusser claimed in the late 1940s that French philosophers were satisfied with Descartes and “the great tradition of French Philosophy.”1 With the emergence of a new generation of French thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Hyppolite, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Henri Lefebvre who formulated their thoughts through Hegelian and Marxian concepts in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the French intellectual scene was radically changed. These new French thinkers were preoccupied with concepts such as labor, alienation, self-consciousness, class struggle, de-alienation, and total man. Students and young teachers of philosophy such as Foucault, Francoise Lyotard, and Louise Althusser who were taught by this new generation of French thinkers became interested in the “question of history.”2 They were thinking of dialectical operations “within the living present (lebendige Gegenwart).”3 They used the Hegelian conception of truth to liberate the Cartesian thinking subject from its transcendental presuppositions, detached from the historical time and the concrete social reality which had created the condition of its appearance. For Sartre, Marx represented the final moment of “philosophy beyond which we cannot go

Earlier versions of sections of this chapter appeared in Iran Namag, Volume 3, Number 2 (Summer 2018).

© The Author(s) 2019 125 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_8 126 Y. SHAHIBZADEH unless we go beyond.”4 These new French thinkers learned from Marx that the subject was more than “an abstract epistemological placeholder” that attained true knowledge, but a “human being rooted in the social, political and historical world.”5 They learned from Heidegger that knowledge is produced because there is a subject that has produced the object of the existing knowledge.6 For Heidegger, since man’s essence relies on his existence, which is “an activity of endless transcendence,” he constitutes himself as cogito in the socio-historical world.7 Thus, the relation of man to the socio-historical world does not predetermine his actions because he can interpret his inherited situation and project a new future as the aim of his emancipation from the limits of the present situation. This conception of subjectivity forces the young French intellectuals to pay attention to the revolutionary struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.8 The inability of the official Marxism of the PCF to counter capitalist ideology created theoretical and political voids in which new types of Marxism and critical approaches represented by Antonio Gramsci, Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri Lefebvre, Frantz Fanon, Althusser, and Foucault emerged. For Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, to be Marxist was to believe that the proletariat was the last agent of history capable of solving the problems of humanity once and for all.9 Merleau-Ponty argues that the proletariat as the subject of the revolutionary praxis is the embodiment of universality because its interests represent humanity as a whole. Thus, he describes fascist violence as illegitimate because it represents race and the particular but endorses Stalin’s practice of violence because it represents the proletarian state and the universal.10 The universal remained at the core of the French Left until the 1960s. To Sartre, all thinkers and scientists are technicians of practical knowledge. But when they discover the particularism of the seemingly universalist character of the bourgeois discourse and demonstrate how this particularistic discourse legitimizes exploitation of the majority by a minority, imperialism, colonialism, and racism, and transmit their knowledge to the masses, they are acting as intellectuals.11 Sartre argues that the difference between genuine intellectuals and the technicians of practical knowledge is that the former distinguish between false and true universalities.12 Accordingly, true intellectuals make a distinction between imperialist violence as a major evil and the violence exerted in the anti- imperialist struggles as a minor evil.13 In fact, Sartre views the leftist vanguard as the intellectuals who contribute to different forms of economic, social, political, and even psychological emancipation. Whereas intellectuals FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 127 such as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Lefebvre were preoccupied with the Marxist theory of alienation, others such as Althusser and Foucault called the theory of alienation into question and refuted the Marxist theories of the historical subject and ideology. Althusser enhanced the Leninist conception of the state through his conceptualization of the state’s repressive and ideological apparatuses. The state was for Lenin a repressive structure, which used different institutions to exercise power and violence to preserve the existing social order. For Althusser, the state’s ideological apparatus persuaded the members of the oppressed classes to respect and even promote the existing order. Foucault studied the dark sides of the history of modern scientific discourses which endorse the existing order. Foucault was an existentialist Marxist in his formative years in the 1950s.14 He belongs to the “generation who as students had before their eyes, and were limited by, a horizon consisting of Marxism, phenomenology, and existentialism.”15 This limited horizon of the young Foucault led him to develop an Existential-Psychology to provide a theoretical base for the advancement of psychiatry. He aspired to elevate the Existential- Psychology to the same status in psychiatry that physiology had in medicine. “Or, la psychologie n’a jamais pu offrir à la psychiatry ce que la physiologie a donné à la medicine.”16 Based on Marx’s concept of alienation, Foucault argues that “one is not alienated because he is mentally ill, but he is ill because of his alienation.”17 Foucault considers mental illness an expression of the individual’s psychological and social alienation caused by social contradictions. In the 1960s Foucault distanced himself not only from Marxism but from all emancipatory politics. Unlike Althusser who was transforming Marx’s thought into the science of history representing an epistemological break with the dominant ideologies,18 Foucault was trying to reveal that Marxism was a product of the nineteenth-century epistemological arrangement with no capacity for questioning this arrangement.19 In the early 1970s, Foucault returns to Marxism through the concept of power. In the late 1970s, he revisits Marx’s concept of practice via Epicurus and the Epicurean tradition of thought, which helps him demonstrate that the rule know yourself (gnothi seauton) is subordinated to the principle of care of the self (epimeleia heautou).20 Foucault’s preoccupation with the Epicurean concept of practice echoes Marx’s endorsement of Epicurus’ response to Democritus’ dilemma: “The knowledge that he considers true is without content, the knowledge that gives him content is without truth.”21 128 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Toward an Existential Psychology In his Maladie mentale et personnalité and its revised version published in 1962 as Mental Illness and Psychology, Foucault argues that “social contradiction causes alienation, alienation causes mental defenses, defenses cause brain malfunction, and brain malfunction causes abnormal behaviour.”22 According to the revised version, the behavior of the mentally ill person is the expression of his social existence and his protest against both the alienated condition of his existence and the procedures, which reduces him to an object of observation and analysis. Thus, mental illness is a defense mechanism against social contradictions.23 The social alienation of the mentally ill person is not a result of his illness; it is his illness that is a result of his social alienation. The mentally ill person can overcome his social alienation if new social relations, free from contradictions, replace the existing relations.24 Here, the task of psychology is to uncover the interconnections between the state of man’s alienation and his socio-historical alienation. Foucault aims to make psychology a theory of social and mental emancipation.25

Celle qui consisterait à identifier le conflit psychologique et morbide avec les contradiction historiques de milieu, et à confondre ainsi l’aliénation sociale et l’aliénation mentale; et celle, d’autre part, qui consisterait à vouloir réduire toute maladie à une perturbation du fonctionnement nervux, don’t les mècanismes, encore inconnus, pouraient, en droit, être analyses d’un point de vue puerement physioloque.26

Foucault argues that psychoanalysis prevents the mentally ill person from seeing his illness as a phenomenon within social practices and historical conditions. Psychoanalysis prevents the mentally ill person from seeing the contradictions within his or her condition of existence because it presents the mentally ill person’s social world as normal and instructs him or her to come to terms with the existing environment.27 Foucault claims that psychoanalysis forgets that it is the alienated reality which hides itself in the consciousness of the mentally ill person. Hence, mental illness is a result of the mentally ill person’s experience of a distorted self, a distorted consciousness of the social life and its contradictions.28 For Foucault, schizophrenia is a result of a world which forces man to produce but neither allows him to see his products as the expressions of his own activities nor enables him to exert his control over the way they function.29 “Le monde contemporain rend possible la schizophrénie non oarce que ses techniques le rendent inhumain at abstrait; mais parce que l’homme fait de ses techniques, un tel suage que l’homme FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 129 lui-même ne peut pluss’y reconâitre.”30 By situating mental illness between the experience of the contradictions of social reality and the consciousness of these contradictions, Foucault makes his psychology of alienation a continuation of Marx’s theory of alienation. Foucault’s objection against psychiatry is similar to Marx’s objection against Feuerbach’s anthropology, which advised the proletariat to accept and accommodate themselves to the condition of their exploitation.

Foucault’s Distance from Marxism Eight years after the publication of his Maladie mentale et personnalité, Foucault published his Madness and Civilization (1961) and then a revised version of the previous book as Maladie mentale et psychologie. Whereas in his first book hospitalization of the mentally ill person is illustrated as the expression of his legal alienation, indicating the loss of all freedom and rights that a normal person has, Foucault describes, in the second version, the institutionalization of madness as the condition of possibility of psy- chiatric practice. In the first version Foucault shows a humanist concern for those confined in hospitals because he tries to get a better understanding of the relationship between social alienation and mental illness. However, in the second version and in Madness and Civilization he is interested in how confinement and hospitalization create the condition of possibility of a scientific discourse on mental illness. The comparison between the two versions of Maladie Mentale reveals how Foucault’s preoccupation with the psychological and social emancipation of the mentally ill person and the rest of society is replaced with his preoccupation with the question of the ways the mad person and his doctor are constituted as the object and subject of knowledge on mental illness. Here lies the point of Foucault’s separation from Marxism. Whereas he considers, in his first book, mental illness as an objective reality which can be examined and treated, he wants to know in the second version how particular social practices constitute mental illness as a scientific concept. Whereas in the first version Foucault tries to discover the correspondence between the historicity of a situation and the concept representing it, in the second version he focuses on the historicity of the concept and how the concept is constituted as the true representation of a situation. Whereas in the first version Foucault is preoccupied with the universal validity of a concept, he argues in the second version that there is no universal truth about mental illness, because the entire knowledge on mental illness is a result of particular 130 Y. SHAHIBZADEH social and cultural practices.31 The mad people were freed during the French Revolution, but for the sake of their moral rehabilitation which includes developing their dependency, sense of guilt, gratitude, and hum- bleness, they were forced into the confinements.32 Now, Foucault argues that it is not psychology that reveals the truth of madness but the history of madness that reveals the truth of psychology.33 Foucault explains his change of perspective as a break with his earlier Marxist-phenomenological approach because phenomenology and Marxism were unable to explain how madness has been conceptualized as mental illness. Foucault claims in The Order of Things:

At the deepest level of Western knowledge, Marxism introduced no real discontinuity, it found its place without difficulty as a full, quite comfortable and, goodness knows, satisfying form for a time (its own), within an epistemological arrangement that welcomed it gladly (since it was this arrangement that was in fact making room for it) and that it, in return, had no intention of disturbing and, above all no power to modify, even one jot, since it rested entirely upon it.34

As a response to Foucault, Sartre writes, “Marxism is the target, it is a matter of establishing a new ideology, the final dam that the bourgeoisie can erect against Marx.”35 Foucault describes Sartre’s response as “the magnificent effort of a nineteenth-century man to conceive of the twentieth century. In this sense, Sartre is the last Hegelian, and even, I would say the last Marxist.”36 For Foucault, whereas Sartre’s generation had a passion for “life, politics, and existence,” his generation were passionate about “concepts or systems.” Foucault’s generation was convinced that “[B]efore any human existence, there would already be a discursive knowledge, a system that we will rediscover.”37 But the passion for concepts and systems cannot explain Foucault’s distance from Marxism because Althusser shared the same passion but remained Marxist. Althusser claims that what Foucault describes is not Marxism but a “humanist” or Hegelian version of Marxism.38 For Althusser, Marxism is a science of history. For Foucault, on the contrary, Marxism must be subjected to the knowledge of the archeological. He describes archeological knowledge as the condition of possibility of historical knowledge because, beneath every old and historical city, there is an archaic city ready to be discovered, the disappearance of which was the condition of the appearance of that old city.39 Foucault’s archeological approach investigates the epistemological field or FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 131 episteme of every period which determines what counts as knowledge and what does not. Since an episteme is nothing more than “the total set of relations that unites, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures,” the following episteme is not a continuation and development of the previous episteme toward truth but a rupture with the previous episteme.40 Therefore, the archeological level of knowledge is the condition of possibility of conceptual knowledge. Whereas the episteme of the renaissance determines that signs that occupy the world are in need of interpretation,41 the episteme of the classical age defines the table as a means of representation and comparison. The table allows the decomposition of objects into their simple elements and their reconstruction into more complex combinations.42 According to the episteme of the classical age, God as the creator of the world expects that man uses language to represent things according to their allocated places in the world. For Foucault, the episteme of the classical age is unable to generate a science of man because its concern is the discovery of the laws of nature as the foundation of knowledge on man and the intersection of nature and human nature, which excludes the science of man.43 The reason for man’s absence from the table of representation is that he is unprepared to become the subject and object of his representation. He had to wait for the modern episteme, which considered language as a theory of signification to constitute him as both subject and object of his knowledge. In the modern episteme language is neither a thing equal with other things as in the Renaissance episteme nor a means of representation in the Classical episteme, but an indication of man’s finitude and limitation to grasp the truth of the world. This quality of language in the modern episteme allows man to discover his capacity to search for the hidden possibilities of the existing world, his origin, and his mode of being and to change his place in relation to other objects in the world. Through the analysis of man’s mode of being, Kant discovers the philosophical foundation of modern knowledge, followed by the search for origin as the condition of possibility of history.44 The analysis of man’s mode of being leads the Hegelian investigation of the transformation from in itself into for itself and the Marxian movement from the alienated to the de-alienated man.45 Foucault argues that the problem with Marx’s critique of the idealist concept of history is that it does not question the idealist philosophy’s main premises. When Marx claims that history must be about “the real production of real life” and man’s relations to nature,46 he does not ask the more fundamental question, that is, whether man as the subject and object of knowledge and 132 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the maker of his own history really exists.47 For Foucault, the emergence of man as the maker of his history is not an expression of his liberation or his rationality but a result of the modern arrangement of knowledge: “an invention of recent dates” which may disappear when a new arrangement of knowledge emerges.48 Contrary to Althusser, who opposes Marxism as a scientific discourse to the ideology of humanist Marxism represented by Sartre, Foucault defines both ideology and science as products of the modern episteme; it is this episteme which determines what counts as ideology or science. Despite their disagreements, Althusser describes The Order of Things as a contribution to a general theory of ideology.49 In the early 1970s, Foucault praises the efforts of “Althusser and his brave comrades” against the Marxism of the PCF.50 In some respects, Foucault’s analysis of the exercise of power through theoretical and social practices, which excludes, objectifies, punishes, and marginalizes certain social groups, in works such as The Order of Discourse (1970), Discipline and Punishment (1975), and The History of Sexuality Part One (1976), is a reconciliatory move toward the Marxism of Althusser. But Foucault rejects the attempt of a new generation of French intellectuals who tried to relate his work to the relationship between the Gulag and Marxist theory, and his investigation of power to l’amour de maîtres.51 He argues that the notion of l’amour de maîtres prevents the question of power from being analyzed because it creates numerous ghosts of the master with his slaves, with his disciples, with his workers, the masters who inscribe the law and the truth. The reduction of power to prohibition law reduces the exercise of power to production and education and gives it a negative sense which must be transgressed because it allows thinking of the fundamental operation of power as a speech act (un acte de parole): “énonciation de loi, discourse de l’interdit. Le manifestation du pouvoir revêt la forme pure du ‘tu ne dois pas.’”52

Foucault and the Global Revolution At the end of 1978, in the last stages of the Iranian Revolution, Foucault gives a long interview to Duccio Trombadori, a journalist from L’ Unita, the Italian Communist Party newspaper. Foucault explains the reason for his absence from political debates of the 1960s in France and discusses his political experience in the student movement in Tunisia, from which he learned to situate every political movement within a global perspective, with an eye on what is happening in other parts of the world.53 He learned from the Tunisian Marxist students in the late 1960s the possibility of a FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 133 different Marxism, a Marxism that is different not only from the French academic Marxism and the PCF but also from the official Marxism of the socialist countries. The Marxism of the young Tunisians teaches him that Marxism is not only a means of analyzing reality but “a kind of moral force, an existential act that left one stupefied.”54 Foucault claims that the Marxism of young Tunisians as a way of being forced him to take an interest in the political debate again. “It wasn’t May of ’68 in France that changed me; it was March of ’68, in a third-world country.”55 A few months before this interview, Foucault had described the revolutionary movement in Iran as the sign of the return of “political spirituality” that once existed in Europe.56 The interview with Trombadori took place at a time when Foucault’s vocabulary on “micro-physics of power,” as the language of liberation from different forms of domination, had replaced the Marxist “language” which had dominated the European academic and public discourses.57 What does the term “experience” mean for Foucault in his Tunisian experience? Foucault describes experience as something which changes and transforms the individual or collectivities. He considers writing a book an experience, provided the author has no intention of communicating what he already knows but aims to learn something new which leads him to think in a new direction.58 Reading a book can also have transformative effects. In this regard, Foucault refers to his reading of Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope. Bloch discusses, in this book, the religious origin of the idea of revolution promoted by the religious dissidents whose faith in the possibility of this worldly revolution, at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Renaissance, changes Europe completely. Foucault claims that since the religious posture of the Iranian Revolution reminds him of his reading of Bloch he decides to observe the revolution closely and test the connection between Bloch’s arguments and the events in Iran. What he observes in this political revolution is the relationship between hope and the Iranian religious eschatology.59 In The Principle of Hope, Bloch argues as well that Marxism does not distinguish between the cold stream of analysis and the warm stream of revolutionary expectations.60 Bloch argues that the warm stream of Marxism connects all “the debased, enslaved, abandoned, belittled human being” to the proletariat toward their universal emancipation. For Bloch, it is the warm stream of Marxism which constructs communism as a home for the struggle for liberation from the present alienated situation toward the de-alienated future. Bloch argues that whereas man’s first transformation from animal into human was through work, his second transformation from the existing socio-economic condition into communism will happen 134 Y. SHAHIBZADEH through hope.61 It seems that Foucault’s lessons from Tunisian Marxism and his fascination with Bloch’s conceptualization of hope led him to reconcile the realm of theory with the realm of practice. Thus, he changed his focus from the discourse on micro-physics of power to a discourse on governmentality, governing, and what qualifies one togovern . Foucault’s final published books and lectures on theart and forms of governmentality are supplements to the Marxist theories of state and ideology formulated through Lenin’s conceptualization of political power and Althusser’s ideological state apparatus. In late 1978, Foucault considers the coincidence between the deepening economic crisis with the emergence of “a crisis of government” in the capitalist West and the socialist East as a vital opportunity for the revolutionary forces throughout the world. Hence, deciding to fortify the debate on the prospects of the success of the revolutionary movements in the world, Foucault argues that since all the techniques and methods that have guaranteed the government of people thus far are in crisis, the revolutionary left must come with a decisive response.62 He compares the crisis of government in late 1978 to “the period following the Middle Ages” which resulted in the “entire reorganization of the government of people,” “great nation-states,” “authoritarian monarchies,” and “the administration of territories.” Foucault’s remarks on the inability of the governing people to govern the ongoing changes echo Lenin’s remark that “it is not enough for revolution that the lower classes should not want to live in the old way. It is also necessary that the upper classes should be unable to rule and govern in the old way.”63 Foucault’s understanding of the Iranian Revolution and its forms of expression happens within the framework of his understanding of the crisis of government and the revolutionary condition on the global level. Foucault’s reflections on the Iranian Revolution are reminiscent of Rosa Luxemburg’s understanding of the Russian Revolution of 1905. For Luxemburg, rather than a natural and impulsive form of the proletarian revolutionary struggle, the mass strikes are the expression of the highly developed antagonism between capital and labor, a new revolutionary form, quite distinguished from the previous bourgeois revolutions, whose fights took place in “the barricades.”

Theory as Production Althusser discards the typical opposition, in the common Marxist tradition, between theory and practice. He views theory as production, a result of practices, and immanent verification of truth, which indicates that the FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 135 truth of theory is not external to it but emerges inside the theoretical process. This means theory is not a result of particular social and historical practices but the name of those particular practices. Thus, production of knowledge is always theoretical practice. In order to reconstruct the position of Marxist theory within the revolutionary class struggle as theoretical practice, Althusser demonstrates that Marxism as the science of history is a result of an epistemological break with the humanist philosophy of man.64 For Althusser, the relation of theory to revolutionary practice is not expressed in “the ‘fusion’ of Marxist theory and the workers’ movement but their union within ‘theoretical practice.’”65 Althusser introduces his project to rectify the condition of theoretical Marxism in France in the early 1960s, which he describes as “our French Misery.” He thinks France has failed to produce a true Marxist theorist who can match Marx and Engels or the earlier Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Gramsci, or Plekhanov who “could correspond with Engels as equal to equal.”66 Althusser desires to overcome the theoretical immaturity of French Marxism. He repeats Lenin and Kautsky’s argument that the “‘spontaneous’ ideology of the workers if left to itself, could only produce utopian socialism, trade-unionism, anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism.”67 For Althusser, only Marxist theoretical workers, intellectuals of higher quality, whose labor is a result of their “thorough historical, scientific and philosophical formation,” can respond to the shortcomings of Marxist theory. He argues that the reason the intellectual Marxists of higher quality appeared in Germany, Russia, Poland, and Italy was that the ruling classes of these countries did not need the services of these intellectuals and could not offer them anything but “servile and derisory employment.”68 As the intellectuals of these countries were disappointed by their states, they sought “their freedom and future at the side of the working-class,” which they deemed the only revolutionary class. On the contrary, the French intellectuals who were assimilated into the bourgeois revolutionary fervor sold their services to the bourgeoisie and became its strategic ally. Consequently, the French “forms of bourgeois domination … deprived the French workers’ movement of the intellectuals indispensable to the formation of an authentic theoretical tradition.”69 For Althusser, Marxism is more than a political doctrine or a method of analysis and action but a “theoretical domain” for the development of philosophy, and human and social sciences. Since “there were no really great philosophical maîtres in Marxist philosophy amongst us to guide our steps,” Althusser decided to become the philosophical maître that French Marxism needed to overcome 136 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the “theoretical vacuum” and the “cultural provincialism” expressed in the reluctance of the French intellectuals to read foreign languages.70 For Althusser, France lacks theoretical masters because the petty-bourgeois intellectuals who came to the Le Parti communiste français (CPF) had a sense of guilt for not being a member of the proletarian class. Thus, instead of engaging a scientific activity they disappeared in political activism.71 The problem was that despite their political and philosophical conviction, they were unable to demonstrate the existence or firmness of their philosophy because they thought they “knew the principles of all possible philosophy, and of the impossibility of all philosophical ideology.” Because of their inability to demonstrate their philosophy and “encouraged by some enig- matically clear texts in Marx’s Early Works (1840–1845),” they thought of either the impossibility of philosophy or its end.72 Some interpreted “the ‘end of philosophy’ as its ‘realization’ and celebrated the death of philosophy in action, in its political realization and proletarian consummation.”73 Thinking to go beyond the French “theoretical provincialism,” Althusser wants to recognize “those who did exist and do exist outside us” because when we can see the outside of us, we “discover the place we occupy in the knowledge and ignorance of Marxism, and thereby begin to know ourselves.”74 This knowledge from the outside allows one to figure out that there is much in Marxism which can be developed. For Althusser, it is the epistemological break dividing Marx’s thought into his “ideological” period and that of “his theoretical maturity” which must be the focal point of Marxist theory.75 Althusser relates his theoretical effort to that of Colletti and Della Volpe in Italy, who make “irreconcilable theoretical distinction between Marx and Hegel,” while he is trying to improve their work. Unlike Althusser, Colletti and Della Volpe locate Marx’s epistemological break in 1843 and with the Introduction to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Althusser considers Marx’s epistemological break to begin with Theses on Feuerbach.76 For Althusser the best way to demonstrate whether Marxism is “capable of accounting for itself” is to “take itself as its own object.” This means the Marxist approach to Marxist theory must be “the absolute precondition of an understanding of Marx and “development of Marxist philosophy.” For Althusser, “Marxism is the only philosophy that theoretically faces up to this test.”77 Hence, Althusser moves to Lenin’s discussion of the weakest link to explain the conditions of the success of the Russian Revolution. Althusser argues that there were decisive factors beyond Russia that determined the success of the Russian Revolution. For Althusser, the Russian Revolution took place when FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 137

industrial monopolies were subordinated to financial monopolies causing the augmenting of “the exploitation of the workers and of the colonies,” while imperialist countries were engaged in the rivalries and conflicts which resulted in World War I.78 For Althusser, these were the conditions that produced the only successful revolution in the supposedly “most backward” European country. Russia became the weakest link in the chain of the imperialist states because it was the product “of all the historical contradictions then possible in a single State.”79 But the weakest link cannot be the whole answer because the victory of the Revolution was due to “the ‘advanced’ character of the Russian revolutionary elite” who, while living in exile, “absorbed the whole heritage of the political experience of the Western European working-classes (above all, Marxism).” It was these qualities which helped the Russian revolutionaries to establish the Bolshevik Party as the most radical socialist party of its time, theoretically and practically.80 Another important factor in the victory of the Russian Revolution is “the involuntary but effective support of the Anglo-French bourgeoisie, who, at the decisive moment, wishing to be rid of the Tsar, did everything to help the Revolution.”81 The question of revolution in the poorest and most backward country of Europe leads Althusser to investigate how Marx relates the opposition between wealth and poverty to the class struggle and the relations of production to the concept of the bourgeois state. Marx reveals that whereas the old state assumed a mission for itself “to consummate itself in art, religion and philosophy,” the new state’s only mission is “to serve the interests of the ruling class.” As a result, the state forces art, religion, and philosophy “to base themselves on ideas and themes” which serve the ruling class. That is why art, religion, and philosophy cease “to be the ‘truth of’ civil society” but “the ‘truth of’ something else, not even of the economy, but the means of action and domination of a social class, etc.”82

Notes 1. Louise Althusser, The Spectre of Hegel (London: 1997), p. 173. 2. Vincent Descombes, Modern French Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 63. 3. Ibid., p. 64. 4. Tom Rockmore, Heidegger and The French Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 7. 5. Rockmore, Heidegger and The French Philosophy, p. 48. 6. Ibid., p. 50. 138 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

7. Richard Kerney, Modern Movements in European Philosophy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 31. 8. George Lichtheim, Marxism in Modern France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966) and William Lewis, Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism, p. 5. 9. Martin Jay, Marxism and totality: The adventures of a concept from Lukács to Habermas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 353. 10. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 123–124. 11. Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), p. 240. 12. Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism, p. 246. 13. Ibid., p. 253. 14. Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx, Conversation with Duccio Trombadori (New York: Semiotext(e), 1991), p. 51. 15. Michel Foucault, Death and the Labyrinth, The World of Raymond Roussel (London: Continuum, 2000), p. 176. 16. Foucault, Maladie mentale et personnalité (Paris: PUF, 1954), p. 13. 17. Michel Foucault, Maladie mentale et personnalité, p. 103. 18. Louis. Althusser, Pour Marx (Paris: La Découverte, 2005), pp. 82–83. 19. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Vintage, 1994), pp. 261–262. 20. Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981–82 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 11–12. 21. Karl Marx, The Difference Between Epicurus and Democritus (Doctoral Dissertation), II Difficulties Concerning the Identity of the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Section B. 22. Foucault, Maladie mentale et personnalité, p. 12, and Michel Foucault, Mental Illness and Psychology (California: University of California Press, 1987), p. XVI. 23. Ibid., pp. 101–104. 24. Ibid., p. 108. 25. Ibid., p. 110. 26. Foucault, Mental Illness and Psychology, p. 106. 27. Ibid., pp. 106–109. 28. Ibid., p. 110. 29. Ibid., p. 86. 30. Ibid., p. 89. 31. Foucault, Mental illness and Psychology, p. 84. 32. Ibid., p. 73. 33. Ibid., p. 74. 34. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, pp. 261–262. FRENCH MARXISM: IDEOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF POWER 139

35. Didier Eribon, Foucault, p. 164. 36. Ibid., p. 161. 37. Ibid., p. 161. 38. Louis Althusser, For Marx (London: The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 28. 39. Descombes, Modern French Philosophy, p. 111. 40. Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 191. 41. Foucault, The Order of Things, pp. 26–31. 42. Foucault, The Order of Things, pp. 74–75. 43. Ibid., p. 311. 44. Ibid., pp. 330–335. 45. Ibid., p. 327. 46. Marx, Early political writings, p. 138. 47. Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 322. 48. Ibid., p. 387. 49. David Macey, The lives of Foucault (London: Vintage, 1994), p. 197. 50. Ibid., p. 171. 51. Pouvoirs et Strategies, Entretien avec Michel Foucault, Les Revoltes Logiques, n. 4, Hiver 1977, pp. 90–93. 52. Ibid., p. 93. 53. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, p. 133. 54. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, pp. 134–135. 55. Ibid., p. 136. 56. Michel Foucault, À quoi rêvent les Iraniens? Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 727, 16–22 octobre 1978, pp. 48–49. 57. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, pp. 15–16. 58. Ibid., p. 27. 59. http://fares-sassine.blogspot.no/2014/08/entretien-inedit-avec-michel- foucault.html. 60. Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, Volume One (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996), p. 209. 61. Bloch, The Principle of Hope, Volume One, p. 210. 62. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, pp. 175–176. 63. V.I. Lenin, Collected Work, Volume 19 (Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1977), p. 222. 64. Louis Althusser, For Marx (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1969), pp. 12–13. 65. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 66. Ibid., p. 23. 67. Ibid., p. 24. 68. Althusser, For Marx, pp. 24–25. 69. Ibid., p. 25. 140 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

70. Althusser, For Marx, p. 26. 71. Ibid., p. 27. 72. Ibid., p. 28. 73. Ibid., p. 28. 74. Ibid., p. 30. 75. Ibid., pp. 33–34. 76. Ibid., pp. 37–38. 77. Ibid., p. 38. 78. Ibid., p. 59. 79. Ibid., pp. 95–96. 80. Ibid., p. 96. 81. Althusser, For Marx, p. 97. 82. Ibid., p. 110. CHAPTER 9

The New Left in Iran: A Discourse on Gun and Politics

Despite the Tudeh Party’s organizational absence inside Iran in the early 1960s, its ideological legacy nourished the new generation of the leftist intellectuals who despite rejecting the Party’s politics borrowed its ideas and arguments. While similar to the French left which criticized the PCF and Stalinism for reducing revolution to gradual reforms and Marxist theory to a motionless doctrine, the new left in Iran criticized the Tudeh Party for its reformist stance. However, unlike the French new left, which responded to both reformism of the PCF and Stalinism through theoretical innovations, the Iranian response was more political than theoretical. The new left in Iran criticized the Tudeh Party for its blind obedience to the Soviet Union’s foreign policy and for demanding the restoration of representative democracy and social reforms in Iran. There was nothing new in the Iranian new left’s critique of the Tudeh Party. The new left rejected the Marxist Kruzhoks because of their preoccupation with the theoretical education of the proletariat, their democratic socialism, and their rejection of violence in the political struggle. The Iranian new left was composed of Marxist individuals and groups who considered guerrilla warfare the only response to the Shah’s dictatorship. Also, they were convinced that unlike the Marxist Kruzhoks, guerrilla warfare would offer political education to the masses and prepare them for the coming revolution. The most magnificent achievement of the new generation of the left in Iran was the establishment of the Organization of Fadaiyan-e-Khalq in the late 1960s, which became the most prominent

© The Author(s) 2019 141 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_9 142 Y. SHAHIBZADEH leftist organization in Iran in the 1970s. As the leading theorists of the Fadaiyan, Amir-Parviz Pouyan (1946–1971) and Massoud Ahmadzadeh (1945–1972) were more preoccupied with the revolutionary actions against the state’s repressive apparatus than analyzing its ideological strength. Pouyan argues in his well-known pamphlet in Iran The Necessity of Armed Struggle and the Refutation of the Theory of Survival (the 1970s) that as a consequence of the 1953 coup, the regime of the Shah has become a fascist state which does not tolerate any form of dissent. He claims that to cut the link between the intellectuals and the masses, the state either buys the intellectuals or forces them into silence.

Terror, repression and the absence of any democratic norms made it impossible to get connected with the people … The enemy has put together all its power to protect the existing order. As long as we remain disconnected from the people, we remain easy targets. To survive, grow, and create the political organization of the working-class we must overcome the spell of our weakness. We must establish direct and strong connections to the people.1

Pouyan argues that the guerrilla movement will smash the invincible image that the regime has created for itself. Then it will proceed by expos- ing the illusion that the regime controls the society in its totality. These achievements would be enough to encourage the people to take part in politics vigorously. However, Pouyan’s investigation of the ideological orientation of the ordinary workers indicates that it is not only the repressive power of the regime which is the source of its total control of the society but also its ideological triumph:

Young workers in particular use their little savings for the trivial petty- bourgeois pastimes. Most of them are contaminated by vulgar habits. When they get opportunities to talk to each other, they start naughty conversa- tions, and those who are interested in reading, consume the nastiest of the reactionary literature. The enemy tries to prevent any political action which can make an impact on the masses. It compels the working-class to emulate the petty-bourgeois characters deprived of any political awareness.2

For Pouyan, the ordinary workers’ vulgar attitude and their detachment from politics indicate the regime’s success in imposing total control over the masses and ensuring their total submission to the existing socio-political order. Hence, the revolutionary vanguard must break the spell of the regime and establish an organizational relationship with the proletariat THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 143 to impose its leadership on this revolutionary class. But since there are no democratic means of penetrating the working class, the revolutionary vanguard must create a powerful revolutionary image of itself in the society.3 The Fadaiyan is convinced that the regime has penetrated all sections of the society including the working class and has created an overestimated picture of itself as an unassailable power with total control. Since the repressive political situation does not allow the Fadaiyan to work among the working class, it appeals to guerrilla warfare as the most effective means of overcoming the fear of the people’s political confrontation with the regime. The Fadaiyan is convinced that as soon as the masses discover that the regime is vulnerable, they will revolt against it. Ahmadzadeh takes the justification of the armed struggle a step further when he claims in his Armed Struggle: Both Strategy and Tactics (1970) that:

The destruction of all nationalist and anti-imperialist political organizations was an outcome of the imperialist coup of 1953. The only political force which could learn a lesson from the event and formulate a new strategy to lead the anti-imperialist political forces would be a proletarian party. But unfortunately, our people were deprived of such political party. The leadership of the Tudeh-Party, which had reduced the Party to a caricature of a Marxist-Leninist Party, betrayed its most devoted members and left the country and the political struggle while its members were imprisoned and executed.4

For Ahmadzadeh, the Fadaiyan represents a new communist movement in Iran, because by rejecting the Tudeh Party’s politics, it has rescued Marxism-Leninism from revisionism and opportunism. For Ahmadzadeh, the new communist movement in Iran is part of the international Marxist- Leninist struggle led by Mao against the revisionism and opportunism of the Soviet Union. That is why “the revolutionary intellectuals greet the revolutionary trend of Marxism-Leninism based on the ideas of Comrade Mao.”5 The Fadaiyan does not have any problems with the Stalin era and the Tudeh Party’s Stalinism but with its opportunism, which failed the movement of the national liberation against imperialism in the early 1950s and its rejection of the armed struggle in Iran. The Fadaiyan did not produce any substantial text criticizing Stalin and the Stalinist era. In 1969, one of the Fadaiyan’s founding members mentions the Stalinist deviation as the main cause of the Tudeh Party’s ideological deviation, its political opportunism, and its blind obedience to the Soviet Union.6 In fact, the 144 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Fadaiyan considered the ideology of the post-Stalin Soviet Union’s Communist Party reversionistic, especially after its twentieth Congress. In 1974, the Fadaiyan’s organ, Nabard-e Khalq, called Stalin the Great Leader of the Proletariat.7 Bijan Jazani did not criticize Stalin but rather the Soviet Union’s policies toward Iran. Jazani understood the Soviet Union’s friendly relations with the Shah were the expression of opportunism and deviation from Marxist-Leninist principles.8 For Ahmadzadeh,

The defeat of the reactionary forces requires the defeat of their army. This can be done through a broad involvement of the rural masses in the armed struggle and the formation of a people’s army. To create a people’s army, there must be an armed struggle. An armed struggle is necessary not only for the military victory but also for the mass mobilization as the necessary condition for the political victory. Therefore, mobilization of the masses and the armed struggle are not separated issues.9

The texts which help Ahmadzadeh to formulate his thesis on the armed struggle are a Persian translation of Che Guevara’s Guerilla Warfare.10 Ahmadzadeh’s argument, endorsed emphatically by other members of the Fadaiyan such as Hamid Momeni,11 indicates that the Fadaiyan see the revolutionary elite as the main source of the masses’ revolutionary consciousness and actions. However, whereas the repressive forces of the state control public spaces and factories and the dominant ideology shapes the ordinary people’s desires and ambitions, the revolutionary vanguard cannot blend itself with the masses and educate them ideologically and politically. Thus, it must do something spectacular to disrupt the repressive forces of the state to get the attention of the masses. Ahmadzadeh makes a comparison between the conditions under which the Russian revolutionary intellectuals worked in advance of the Revolution of 1917 and the Iranian conditions of the 1960s. Whereas in the years before the Russian Revolution Russian intellectuals inject socialist awareness into the minds of the working class and organize them as a political force, the Iranian revolutionary intellectuals are unable to do the same for the Iranian working class because they do not have the slightest access to the working people. For Ahmadzadeh, in the absence of a revolutionary ideological or political force which can prevent the masses from being deceived by the state’s ideology, through its institutions and mass media, the armed struggle is the only revolutionary option.12 The Fadaiyan started their armed struggle THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 145 in 1970, but five years later all the significant members of the organization were arrested, executed, tortured to death, or killed in street battles with the police. The Fadaiyan believed that their sacrifices could move the masses and lead them to a class war against the state. On the contrary, since the armed struggle made the political climate in Iran more repressive, the texts of its theorists remained locked within the walls of the organization and thus beyond the reach of the political intellectuals who for different reasons opposed the armed struggle. According to Mehdi Fatapour, a veteran member of the Fadaiyan and one of its leaders after the 1979 Revolution, analysts try to understand the theoretical foundation of the Fadaiyan through analyses of the ideas of its theorists such as Pouyan, Ahmadzadeh, and Jazani. But despite the significance of these ideas within the organization, the university students and the intellectuals, who were attracted to the Fadaiyan movement, knew nothing about Ahmadzadeh’s work on the armed struggle as both strategy and tactic or Jazani’s idea of the armed struggle as a mere tactic. It was, in fact, from the early 1970s on that these ideas began to be discussed among the imprisoned Fadaiyan cadres. What encouraged the students and the intellectuals to support the guerrilla struggle was not the ideas of its leaders but the radical and combative nature of the struggle itself.13 The new communist movement in Iran produced several other theorists such as Bizhan Jazani, Mostafa Shoaiyan, and Hamid Momeni, who were killed before the end of 1975. Theorizations of these Marxist professional revolutionaries are well known for the historians of Iranian politics, but their texts have hardly been researched regarding their intellectual complexity and substance. I mentioned earlier that whereas the European and Iranian left had the same political concerns, their theoretical concerns were different. I should correct my statement and say that the nature of their theoretical efforts was different. Whereas the former preoccupied itself with the nature of power and domination in an advanced capitalist society or an imperialist center, the latter was searching for ways of doing politics of emancipation in a society dominated by imperialism. Whereas the Iranian left entered the revolutionary era in the late 1970s, the European left, and the French Left, in particular, was resigning from all revolutionary politics. Now, let us study the texts and modes of conceptualization which were defining the historical time and preparing the Iranian new left for the coming revolution. With his book Thirty Years of Iran’s History, in the early 1970s, Jazani became the leading theorist of the Fadaiyan. The book, which is a study of the Iranian left in the previous 146 Y. SHAHIBZADEH three decades, indicates that in general Jazani is familiar with the history of Iran’s first Communist Party, but unaware of the significant parts of the history of the Iranian communist movement from the 1920s to the 1930s. He says almost nothing about Avetis Sultanzade, the Party’s main theorist.14 Jazani is preoccupied with the complications preventing the Tudeh Party from becoming a true communist party. He investigates as well the reasons the Party relied, ideologically and politically, on the Soviet Union and allowed itself to be used as a tool of the Soviet’s foreign policy in Iran. Jazani argues that after Stalin and the Soviet Union’s alliance with the United States and Britain in the fight against Fascism during World War II, the Soviet Union became reluctant to support national liberation movements against its allies, which the Tudeh Party followed unquestionably. Other equally important factors were the class origin of the Tudeh Party’s leadership who came from the upper echelon of society and lacked the political experience necessary for leading a revolutionary communist movement.15 As mentioned previously, three members of the Tudeh Party became ministers in 1946. According to Jazani, it was under the pressure of the Soviet Union that Iran’s prime minister Qavam os-Saltaneh accepted the inclusion of the three leaders of the Tudeh Party as ministers in his cabinet, in return for the Soviet Union quitting its support for the secessionist movement in Azerbaijan (1945–1946). When the Soviet Union refrained from supporting the secessionist movement and left it unprotected, the central government defeated the movement and its ‘Republic’ in a matter of a few days. The Tudeh Party, which had no power to influence the events, since it obeyed every decision made by the Soviet Union, lost the valuable political credibility it had before the secessionist movement. Regardless of the conditions which contributed to the promotion of the Tudeh Party leaders to minister positions, Jazani points to the fact that the three minister positions occupied by the Tudeh Party’s members corresponded to the party’s main preoccupations such as culture, health care, and labor.16 But the problem was that they became ministers, under the pressure of the Soviet Union, in a government led by Qavam os-Saltaneh, one of the most reactionary politicians in Iran’s modern history, while the party was endorsing a separatist movement in Azerbaijan. In fact, the Tudeh Party’s participation in a reactionary government and its support for a sectarian struggle had disastrous consequences for the Party. According to Jazani, the Tudeh Party’s support of the sectarian movement in Azerbaijan exposed the party’s inability to distinguish between the emancipatory and anti-imperialist nature of the liberation movements and the THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 147 reactionary nature of the separatist movements. The result was the Party’s failure, after the defeat of the secessionist movement in Azerbaijan, to exert its influence and authority in the emerging social and political struggles for democracy and socialism in Iran, and particularly in the movement for oil nationalization from 1950 to 1953.17 Jazani claims that the Tudeh Party’s ideological limitations and its blind obedience to the Soviet Union necessitated a true Marxist faction within the party. The breakaway group led by Maleki claimed to have represented true Marxism, but it went to the right, in a matter of a few years. Jazani argues that one of the reasons that the Maleki group went to the right was that the Tudeh Party and Moscow declared them renegades from Marxism. Not so many years after they were separated from the Party, the members of the breakaway faction took a hostile approach toward both the Tudeh Party and the Soviet Union.18 Jazani argues that whereas Maleki and his associates in the breakaway faction criticized the Party from the left, they moved to the right after leaving the Party. He claims that the breakaway faction could have made a radical impact on the revolutionary workers movement if it remained true to its initial claims. Jazani argues that the Tudeh Party and the Soviet Union played a crucial role in pushing the breakaway faction to the rightist position. Whereas the Tudeh Party, which controlled the workers’ trade unions throughout Iran, was cutting the breakaway faction’s connections to the trade unions, the Soviet Communist Party was condemning them as renegades. As the breakaway faction had no connections to the international communist movement to explain its ideological and political positions, it became isolated and revengeful.19 According to Jazani, after the Tudeh Party was declared illegal in 1949, its leadership was no longer under any obligation to organize open and large congresses and began to suppress the party’s dissidents without the control of the democratically elected organizational bodies. In fact, the illegal status of the Party gave its leadership the opportunity to declare Marxism-Leninism the Party’s official ideology.20 Jazani considers the Party’s misreading of Mosaddeq’s ideology and its policies of oil nationalization, which denied any oil concessions to the Soviet Union, as one of its greatest misconceptions. This misconception led the Party to characterize Mosaddeq as an agent of US imperialism.21 However, after Mosaddeq resigned from power in the summer of 1952, the Tudeh Party changed its position and began to defend his premier- ship indisputably. The Party became the main organizer of the mass demonstration on July 21, 1952 which brought Mosaddeq back to power. 148 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

But this time instead of organizing and expanding its military wing to defend Mosaddeq, it remained inactive even after Mosaddeq was over- thrown as a result of the 1953 coup. In Jazani’s view, there was no guarantee that the Tudeh Party’s military resistance would have saved Modaddeq’s government, but the military resistance led by the Tudeh Party could elevate the position of the working class in the national liberation movement to impose its leadership on the movement. What prevented the Tudeh Party from resisting the militarily coup was, according to Jazani, the opportunistic character of the Party’s leadership.22 Jazani claims that the Tudeh Party’s reluctance to elevate the working-class members into the ranks of the leadership discredited the Party as the party of the working class. What seemed surprising was that whereas the radical faction of the Party did nothing to include the workers in the leadership’s structure, the conservative or the rightist faction promoted working-class members to take responsibilities within the organization. The rightist faction believed that while the educated members and intellectuals challenge the leadership’s opinion on every aspect of the Party’s ideology and politics, the workers would be of little intellectual challenge and easier to manipulate.23 Jazani’s understanding of Mosaddeq plays a significant role in the understanding of the emergence of the new Marxist tendencies and why they tried to distance themselves from the Tudeh Party. Jazani argues that if the Tudeh Party wanted to take a Marxist and communist stance, it would have supported Mosaddeq’s program of nationalization of Iran’s entire oil resources including the resources which the Soviet Union wanted to exploit.24 Jazani claims that the Tudeh Party’s misunderstanding of the true nature of the oil-nationalization movement as a movement of national liberation with Mosaddeq as its leader led it to refrain from showing any resistance to the 1953 coup.25 In Jazani’s view, despite Mosaddeq’s over- emphasis on the Iranian constitution and his conciliatory attitude toward the Shah as the formal head of the state and his disbelief in the class struggle, Mosaddeq was the epicenter of the Iranian people’s struggle for liberation from colonialism and imperialism. For Jazani, the significance of Mosaddeq is his effort to engage the Iranian people in the process of political education through which they understood the true meaning of colonialism and increased their knowledge of the imperialist relations. Mosaddeq was not merely the leader of an anti-imperialist movement in Iran; he symbolized the global movement against imperialism.26 Jazani argues that the Tudeh Party had the opportunity to inaugurate a mass armed struggle if it resisted the 1953 coup d’état because through the THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 149 armed struggle it could cleanse itself of the opportunistic elements and transform itself into a proletarian-revolutionary party in the true sense of the word. The fact is, according to Jazani, that the Tudeh Party could have engaged tens of thousands of experienced and organized young cadres and members in an armed struggle against the regime of the Shah, but it wasted the opportunity.

The issue at stake here is not an easy victory, but the historic opportunity. The Tudeh Party had to involve the masses in the armed struggle. Even if the struggle experienced some defeats and heavy losses, the revolutionary vanguard could acquire the experiences it needed to impose a solid leadership on the working-class and the masses toward the creation of a people’s government and complete the democratic revolution in Iran. But, the boundless opportunism of the Party prevented it from taking such initiatives.27

Jazani claims that the inaction of the Tudeh Party’s leadership against the 1953 coup is a result of the Party leaders considering their position in the party not as an opportunity for revolutionary changes but as a social privilege with certain benefits. That is why after being arrested and subjected to extreme pressure and torture, the medium rank cadres and members of the Party responded courageously as true revolutionaries always do but the Party leaders begged for pardon. Jazani explains the weakness of the party’s leadership and the strength of the ordinary members of the Party with the Party’s going underground in 1949. This event detached the leadership from the ordinary members who sincerely believed that they were part of a global revolutionary movement. As a result, whereas the cadres and ordinary members of the Party had internalized the revolutionary and communist principles, their leaders had distanced themselves from those principles. Jazani argues that despite the fact that there had never been an organized faction promoting the communist principles within the Tudeh Party, these principles emerged and developed among the dedicated members of the Party who put into practice a way of being a militant communist. For Jazani, the communist principles that generated the way of being a militant communist have survived the post-coup repression and now the time has come to follow, replicate, and expand these principles and the way of being they dictate.28 As the remorseful leaders of the Tudeh Party authored a series of publications against communism in prison, and the rest moved to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the Party stopped its activities inside 150 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Iran in the mid-1950s. From the mid-1950 on, the party was nothing but a diaspora organization.29 For Jazani, the breakaway group from the Party led by Khalil Maleki turned against communism and inspired a type of American Marxism which defended the comprador bourgeoisie and American imperialism against British imperialism.30 Jazani describes the Theist Socialists, which I examined elsewhere, as a pro-Mosaddeq organization with religious affiliations which despite its anti-imperialist posture is propagating the same socialism that right-wing European socialism advocates. He concludes that their socialism will not enhance Marxism in Iran, ideologically or politically.31 Jazani describes the Kruzhoks and other organizations which focus on the theoretical preparations of the proletariat toward a new Communist Party as no more than renegades from Marxism- Leninism. He claims that instead of generating revolutionary activism these organizations entrap their members in study circles and endless theoretical debates, which kill every revolutionary passion that their members had before being engaged with the organization. He claims that individuals with revolutionary passions enter these organizations but are gradually alienated from the essence of the Marxist-Leninist theories and become indifferent toward the ongoing social and political struggle.32 Jazani rejects the claim made by some Marxist-Leninist organizations and intellectuals that the Tudeh Party’s lack of thorough knowledge of the Marxist-Leninist theory was the main cause of its failure. For him, there are Marxist-Leninist organizations and intellectuals whose only obsession is the detailed study of Marxist texts combined with critique of the Tudeh Party.33 He claims that these same organizations, which he describes as American Marxists, will in the final analysis serve the interests of American imperialism. For these organizations, whereas feudalism as the dominant mode of production in Iran benefits British imperialism, the bourgeoisie including the comprador bourgeoisie serve American imperialism. Based on this premise they conclude that compared to feudalism, capitalism is a progressive mode of production, and encourage the Iranian working-class to ally itself with the comprador bourgeoisie and American imperialism against the feudal system and British imperialism. Thus, “If not long live American Imperialism, then long live comprador bourgeoisie.”34 He mentions Mostafa Shoaiyan, who I will discuss in the coming section, among the American Marxists.35 Jazani criticizes as well the attempt of Jafar Taheri, an old communist worker activist, a former member of the Tudeh Party, and publisher of the newspaper Contradiction, through which he tried to establish a communist party of actual members of the working class. Taheri’s organization THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 151 bans membership of intellectuals and prohibits membership of individuals who possess a property which exceeds 200 dollars. Jazani describes the group as representatives of “phony Marxism” because when the group is arrested, its members do not show any resistance and collaborate with the security forces. Jazani interprets the short imprisonment of the group’s members and their immediate release as an indication of their treason and a conspiracy against true Marxism in Iran.36 Jazani divides Iran’s socio- political and ideological conditions into two periods: before and after 1953. Whereas in the pre-1953 era the progressive national bourgeoisie represented by the Popular Front and Mosaddeq played a progressive role, in the post-1953 era, and especially after the agrarian reform in the 1960s, the comprador bourgeoisie, which has undermined the national bourgeoisie and its political representatives, represent the most reactionary social and political forces in Iran.37 The peculiarity of the comprador bourgeoisie is, according to Jazani, that it depends on brutal suppression of all peaceful political movements. However, brutal suppression of peaceful political expression cannot guarantee the survival of the Iranian comprador bourgeoisie for the simple fact that relentless suppression did not save the Cuban, Algerian, and Vietnamese’s comprador bourgeoisie when they met the firmness of the armed struggles supported by the masses. For Jazani, the mass armed struggles against the local and global political system offer a new revolutionary model to the oppressed of the world, which combined with the ongoing ideological disputes between the Soviet Union and China would create the condition of possibility of a new communist movement in Iran. Jazani does not doubt that Iranian revolutionary communists must follow the new revolutionary model, but he is also aware that the success of the communist movement locally and globally depends on the outcomes of the ideological disputes between China and the Soviet Union.38 Jazani argues that with the disappearance of the national bourgeoisie and its political representatives from the social and political struggles, it is the petty-bourgeoisie which now competes with the working class for the leadership of the struggle for national liberation in Iran. Jazani reminds Iranian communists that the main obstacle of the development of the communist movement in the current situation (in the early 1970s) is the dominance of a radical petty-bourgeois ideology which is influencing and governing the spontaneous social movements. Jazani argues that if the truth of the radical petty-bour geois ideological position is not exposed and challenged by the communist forces, it will decide the course of the working-class movement in the 152 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

coming revolution. Jazani uses the term radical for the vanguards of the petty-bourgeoisie who are currently convinced of defending the revolutionary ideals and carry out revolutionary actions.39 Jazani predicts several futures for the radical petty-bourgeois revolutionaries. Those coming from the higher echelon of the petty-bourgeoisie may approve the ideology of the comprador bourgeoisie and its anti-revolutionary posture, and those coming from the lower echelon of the petty-bourgeoisie will be more inclined to accept the ideology of the working class and accept its hegemony provided the revolutionary vanguard realizes its historical mission. Another possibility is that the radical petty-bourgeoisie captivates both the revolutionary intellectuals and the masses. Jazani warns the Iranian communists that through Ayatollah Khomeini’s uncompromising militancy, which is reminiscent of the anti-colonialism of the national bourgeoisie represented by Mosaddeq, the radical petty-bourgeoisie may impose its leadership on the coming revolution.40 Writing in the early 1970s, Jazani argues that the current economic conditions in Iran allow the comprador bourgeoisie with its extraordinary purchasing power to consume the largest share of what is produced in terms of value. Consequently, the members of this tiny class have adopted the same socio- cultural traits as the colonial agents in the colonized countries, and in so doing they represent a culture of neo-colonialism. 41 Echoing Jalal-e Al-e Ahmad’s argument,42 Jazani argues that in the same way that modern Iranian industry brings together ready-made industrial products from colonial powers, contemporary Iranian culture is blending different cultural products of the imperialist centers together. Hence, contrary to the national bourgeoisie which disseminated its culture of resistance into the petty-bourgeoisie to stand against imperialism, comprador bourgeoisie introduces its culture of obedience to imperialism into this social class.43 While resisting Western values, Iranian national bourgeoisie introduced a synthesis of different elements of the national culture which was original and autonomous. On the contrary, the comprador bourgeoisie adopts the imperialist culture of maximum consumption unquestionably and presents it in a package covered with an appearance of the national culture to the society, but since the masses are unable to afford this imported and expensive culture, they reject it in its totality. For Jazani, the total adop- tion and rejection of the imperialist culture indicate the clash of two cultures, the culture of the tiny social clique which does not play any role in the production of values but consumes the greatest share of the wealth and the culture of the masses who, while producing the nation’s wealth THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 153 through their labor, are deprived of the basic material necessities for their subsistence and oppressed by the national and foreign powers. In this situation of oppression, a segment of the prosperous intellectuals who have been absorbed into the society of consumption demonstrate a degree of social awareness and challenge the current socio-cultural and political oppression.44 Reviewing the lessons of the 1953 coup, Jazani argues that as the vanguard of the working class, the Tudeh Party lost the only opportunity it had to initiate an armed insurrection against the regime of the Shah after the 1953 coup to impose its leadership on the anti-Imperialist struggle in Iran.45 However, the Party’s inaction resulted in its collapse and its disappearance in the late 1950s. The Tudeh Party’s departure created a political void. However, despite the brutal political suppression, different Marxist circles have emergence since the late 1950s which compensated the absence of the Tudeh Party from the political scene. The problem with the emerging Marxist tendencies is, according to Jazani, that they cannot engage themselves in peaceful political activities because the 1953 coup transformed the Iranian constitutional state into a police state which bru- tally suppresses every protest regardless of its demands and nature. For instance, the workers’ strikes for higher wages are suppressed in the same brutal way as the people’s demonstration on the street for freedom and democracy.46 Jazani argues that the regime’s use of violence against any peaceful expression of dissent forces the national struggle for liberation to use revolutionary violence against the regime’s violence.47 Thus, the revolutionary violence becomes the first step toward the establishment of a new Iranian communist party. Jazani criticizes the views of those who claim that before the establishment of the new communist party no violent confrontation with the regime is acceptable and those who in the name of the urgency of the current political struggle postpone any attempt toward the building of the communist party. By referring to the histories of the Russian and Chinese communist parties, Jazani argues that the formation of a communist party is a result of a long process of revolutionary practices.48 Comparing the combination of trade unionism and political engagement of the Iranian working class from the early 1940s to 1953 with their total detachment from both trade unionism and politics since late 1960s, he concludes that the class consciousness of the working class of the first period was a result of the vanguard nature of the Tudeh Party. This quality of the Party made it capable of imposing its leadership on the vast majority of the Iranian working class.49 Jazani rejects the idea that a 154 Y. SHAHIBZADEH vanguard organization of the working class can bring class consciousness into the individual members of the working class and multiply this class consciousness to include the entire proletariat. He claims that the working class acquires its class consciousness collectively and through the processes of economic and political struggles under the leadership of the vanguard party to transform the existing political situation.50

Toward a New Theory of Revolution Shoaiyan (1936–1975), who is described by Jazani as one of the representatives of the “American Marxism,” believes that the emergence of a new communist movement in Iran depends on a fundamental critique of the Tudeh Party. The study circle in which he is involved published a book in the 1960s, with the title An Analysis of the Tudeh Party’s Politics.51 Later, he insisted that he was one of the several authors of the book.52 The book, which lists the Tudeh Party’s ideological, political, and organizational fail- ures, aims to start a debate on the ideological condition for the emergence of a new communist movement, a movement which is capable of uniting different Marxist-Leninist tendencies toward the establishment of a new communist party. This new communist party will, according to Shoaiyan and his friends, reinvigorate the legacies of Iran’s first Communist Party.53 Despite his criticism of the Tudeh Party’s leadership, Jazani considers the Party between 1941 and 1953 as the party of the Iranian working class. On the contrary, Shoaiyan and his friends argue that the Tudeh Party had never been a Marxist, revolutionary, or working-class party but rather an association of people with conflicting class interests and ideological andpolitical orientations. That is why the Party became a mixture of revolutionary Marxists and liberal reformists, artisans, peasants, workers, and bourgeois intellectuals. This mixture was doomed to fail, ideologically, politically, and organizationally, because as a combination of enormous class contradictions the Party was unable to understand the progressive and revolutionary nature of the national bourgeoisie.54 Furthermore, the contradictory nature of the Tudeh Party prevented it from recognizing the Marxist principle that the truth of a social situation must be demonstrated through praxis and experience. Shoaiyan and his friends argue that instead of being dedicated scientists preoccupied with verification and falsification of their theories, the Tudeh Party’s leaders assumed for themselves the position of religious leaders. Thus they asked the believers in communism to practice certain rituals and abstain from others. Similar to religious leaders, the Party’s THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 155 leaders exempted themselves from the same ceremonies and abstentions because they had already reached communism and embodied communism in their words and actions. According to Shoaiyan and his friends, by por- traying the Soviet Union and its Communist Party as the embodiment of communism, the Tudeh Party exempted itself from any responsibility toward the Iranian working class because the Soviet Union’s Communist Party decided the truth or falseness of any situation. This criterion justified the Party’s actions or inactions.55 But for Shoaiyan and his friends being a communist meant believing in the infinity of space and time in which truth is demonstrated through revolutionary experience and reason through practice.56 Being a communist meant for them believing in the principle of democratic centralism and enacting this principle as the core of the revolutionary struggle because this principle does not prohibit the reasoning of the individual communists and the autonomy of the communist parties. They argued that democratic centralism guarantees equal rights of the individual communists and the communist parties and does not allow the international union of the communist parties being imposed from above. They claimed that a true communist international must be a result of the build- up from below, which indicates that the Soviet Union’s privileged economic and political position cannot authorize its Communist Party to impose its will on other parties which have the responsibility of responding to their specific national questions.57 For Shoaiyan and his friends, the Soviet Union has endorsed the Tudeh Party because there are no other Marxist-Leninist parties that challenge its claim of representing the Iranian working class.58 They are convinced that the Soviet Union’s real concern is the interests of the working class in general, and will not hesitate to recognize a new communist party that represents the real interests of the Iranian working class.59 Shoayian and his friends support the Soviet Communist Party’s criticism of Stalin’s era and expect that this criticism will be extended to the foreign policies of the Soviet Union and renunciation of the Tudeh Party.60

What Is Revolution? Despite their opposition to the Tudeh Party, Shoaiyan and his friends describe Khalil Maleki as a renegade and claim that behind his critique of the Tudeh Party lies anti-Marxism and anti-Sovietism. However, a decade later, in the 1970s, Shoaiyan adopts Maleki’s anti-Soviet position and challenges the Leninist concept of revolution.61 Shoaiyan publishes his book, Rebellion, in the early 1970s, which he renames Revolution a little while later. He 156 Y. SHAHIBZADEH defines communism, in this book, as a body of knowledge on the condition of the emancipation of the working class to which Marx and Lenin contributed at different times and in different places.62 Therefore, for Shoaiyan, a critique of Lenin is not a critique of communism but a critique of a particular understanding of communism. For Shoaiyan, the Revolution is a theory, an open notebook of revolution which does not intend to close the debate because only the real socio-economic and cultural revolution put an end to the theories of revolution.63 Shoaiyan criticizes the idea of peaceful coexistence between the communist and the capitalist world to which the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and even Vietnamese revolutionaries have succumbed. He claims that this policy has deprived the armed struggles throughout the world of the international support they deserve and without which they may not be able to achieve their revolutionary goals.64 He traces the idea of peaceful coexistence between socialism and capitalism to Lenin, who while defending in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky the Marxist nature of the revolutionary violence in Russia compromises the future of the global working-class movement by accepting in 1921 the peaceful coexistence between the socialist state and the capitalist world.65 Shoaiyan argues that with the principle of peaceful existence, Lenin prioritized the interests of the Soviet Union over the common destiny of the working class on the global level. In so doing, Lenin failed to see that unlike the exploiting classes, there is no internal contradiction within the working class. Whereas the exploiting classes are defined, with regard to both the contradictions within themselves and with the exploited classes, the working class is the only class in human history which is defined only by its external contradictions. The internal contradictions which characterize all exploited classes are also one of the main causes of their downfall from within. But the lack of internal contradictions makes the working class an indivisible, united, and international class.

Working-class exists only as a global class. Division of the working-class into the workers of different countries negates the essence of their being members of the same social class. There are no national, regional and continental working-classes but a united body of the working-class, the expression of which can be found in every corner of the world.66

Shoaiyan does not distinguish between the working class’ use of force before and after appropriating political power. He prefers armed struggles over popular uprisings because he understands revolution as a long process THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 157 of seizing the political power and destroying the state apparatus toward the classless society.67 But the working class cannot initiate a revolution, seize the political power, and destroy the exploiting system by itself. It has to be equipped with class consciousness, which it can acquire only through the mediation of a true communist party.68 But a victorious proletarian revolution cannot stay isolated. It must extend its domain of action and influence into the neighboring countries and other parts of the world because the global nature of the proletarian revolution indicates that socialist revolutions must be expanded throughout the world. Otherwise, it will be deflated of its real essence and becomes perverted. As the revolution expands its influence, it will not only receive unconditional support for the building of socialism at home but also purify the revolutionary cadres from nationalistic and opportunistic tendencies. For Shoaiyan, the successes of the proletarian revolutions in one or several countries depend on the ability of the revolutionaries of these countries to bring their revolutions to other countries until the entire world is under revolutionary rule.69 Shoaiyan rejects the view that expanding a successful revolution into societies which are not prepared for revolution would fail the revolution in the country of its origin. He claims that the defeat of a revolution does not take place the moment the revolutionaries are deprived of political power but the moment the revolutionaries forget the true meaning of proletarian internationalism. A revolution as a state may survive counter-revolutionary attacks, but if the survival of the revolutionary state is achieved at the expense of the revolutions abroad, its survival indicates the betrayal of proletarian internationalism. On the contrary, a “defeated revolution” which strengthens the international solidarity of the proletariat and cultivates revolution elsewhere should be considered a successful revolution.70 To Shoaiyan “socialism is not the name of a socio-economic system of a particular country but the name of a revolutionary society governed by the working-class,” which contributes to the global revolutionary movement toward the communist society.71 He criticizes Lenin’s conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat because a society governed by the proletariat must enjoy freedom and democracy more than the liberal capitalist societies. For Shoaiyan, the fact that the proletariat is a class without internal contradictions makes it fear- less of the disagreements and debates within its ranks, within its political party, and within the state and society it governs. Thus freedom of expression and open debates on the political, social, economic, and ideological questions must be protected within the revolutionary organizations of the working class.72 Shoaiyan argues that the revolutionary parties and 158 Y. SHAHIBZADEH state, which give themselves the exclusive rights to classify the economic, social, and cultural information as secret information, alienate the working class from their own parties and states.73 He rejects the idea that the degree of industrialization determines the proletarian class consciousness because the moment the working class becomes conscious of the situation of its exploitation and the condition of its emancipation, its consciousness can travel all over the world. Thus it is no longer the factory but the revolutionary practice which determines the revolutionary character of the proletariat. This means it is not the increase in the number of actual workers that brings the proletariat closer to communism but the expansion of the proletarian revolution.74 For Shoaiyan, the working class is not defined by its role in industrial production but with regard to its role in the proletarian revolution. Therefore, living a proletarian life does not mean that one is working hard to serve the capitalist system but living the proletarian revolution.75 Obviously, it is not the quantity of the working-class members that decides the nature of the coming revolution but the culture and ideology of the revolutionary vanguard.76 Referring to Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in which he argues that capitalism has lost all its national peculiarities and has become a global phenomenon, Shoaiyan argues that as a result of the globalization of capitalism, labor has also acquired a global character. This indicates not only the global character of the contradiction between capital and labor but also the international nature of the struggle of labor against capital in the contemporary world. As a consequence, a successful proletarian revolution can only take place on the global stage, but Lenin and Stalin’s ideas of socialism in one country undermined this basic revolutionary idea.77 Shoaiyan argues that Lenin’s deviation from the revolutionary path begins with his refusal to destroy the existing army and replace it with a revolutionary proletarian army. Instead of destroying the Tsarist army, Lenin tried to change the ideology of the existing army and its officers who were willing to fight for the revolutionary state. Another fault of Lenin is, according to Shoaiyan, his preference for a popular uprising over a long-term armed struggle led by the revolutionary vanguard.78 Shoaiyan describes the October Revolution as both a coup and a revolution at the same time. The October Revolution was a coup d’état because it took the state and military institutions very fast, and it was a revolution because it engaged the masses to turn the political system in a direction which was unprecedented in human history.79 For Shoaiyan, whereas the victory of the proletarian revolution depends on the destruction of the state apparatus as Marx and Engels argued in The Communist Manifesto, a coup d’état cannot destroy but THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 159 preserves and restores the state apparatus. Shoaiyan argues that contrary to what Lenin argues in The State and Revolution he neither destroys the state nor hands it over to the revolutionary proletariat. The fact that the state apparatus under the control of the Soviet Communist Party remains intact indicates that the state apparatus has changed hands through a coup d’état. Since there is no sign of the destruction and abolition of the state apparatus in post-revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union has ever been a socialist state.80 For instance, instead of organizing a revolutionary army based on voluntary military service, the leaders of the October Revolution organized the Red Army based on the compulsory military service of the underprivi- leged soldiers instructed by the Tsarist officers. But the fact that the absolute majority of the officers had no affiliation or even sympathy with the Bolsheviks or the communist ideals indicates that the Tsarist Army was reinstated in the name of the socialist army of the Soviet Union.81 In 1974, Fadaiyan-e Khalq published a response to Shoaiyan’s Revolution. Hamid Momeni, one of the organization’s theoreticians, authored the response, titled No to Rebellion, Yes to Reasonable Steps Toward Revolution.82 Here the term Rebellion is a reference to the earlier title of Shoaiyan’s book. Shoaiyan interprets Fadaiyan-e Khalq’s 200-page response as a personal attack to warn him about either accepting a pro- Soviet stance or being labeled as a renegade.83 In his response to the Fadaiyan’s critique of his book, he criticizes their uncritical approach toward both the Soviet Union and China’s foreign policies, which give priority to their own interests rather than the requirements of the revolutionary movements throughout the world. Referring to Jazani’s description of the Tudeh Party as the true party of the Iranian working class up until 1953, he criticizes the Fadaiyan’s conciliatory approach toward the Party.84 Shoaiyan argues that the Fadaiyan fails to grasp the identical nature of theory and practice because it dogmatically believes that classical Marxism answered all theoretical questions. As a result, the Fadaiyan considers anyone who is preoccupied with Marxist theory an intellectual detached from the masses. For Shoaiyan, whereas practice is the measure of validity or invalidity of theory, theory is the precondition of practice.85 He quotes Massoud Ahmadzadeh saying in Armed Struggle: Both a Strategy and a Tactic:

If we look at the publications of the global communist movement, we realize that the significance of theory compared to practice has diminished… In short, there is a small chance for finding theoretical books which hold the standard of Capital, Anti-During or Materialism and Imperiocriticism in the communist 160 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

movement in the countries dominated by imperialism. Does not this indicate that from a purely theoretical perspective, the global communist movement neither has the time nor the need for troubling itself with theory?86

Shoaiyan argues that whereas Ahmadzadeh argues in this book on the futility of theory, the Fadaiyan claims that Ahmadzadeh’s arguments are the theoretical foundation of the armed struggle and the coming revolution in Iran. To Shoaiyan, the lack of theoretical effort on Marxism in countries such as Iran has weakened the ideological struggle of the communist movement against imperialist ideology. He claims that the Fadaiyan’s analysis of the social reality in Iran and its theory of revolution indicate the organization’s total ignorance of dialectical materialism.87 For Shoaiyan dialectical materialism does not assume that the history of the working class of one part of the world will be repeated in detail in other parts of the world. However, it implies that because of the universality of the working class its class consciousness is transferable to other parts of the world.88 To Shoaiyan, one of the most disastrous mistakes which the Fadaiyan made was that they based their theorization of armed struggle on Régis Debray, who reduced the capitalist system to its military apparatus and mistook the abolition of the capitalist army for the destruction of the capitalist system as a whole. This mistake led Debray to reduce revolution to a military operation. Shoaiyan characterizes Debray as a radical revolutionary whose desire to go beyond Marxism led him to the Right.89 Despite his earlier critique of Maleki and the breakaway group of the Tudeh Party in the early 1960s, Shoaiyan follows Maleki’s footsteps in the mid-1970s and argues that communists must rely on the social forces of their own countries and remain independent from the authority of powerful communist countries. In fact, building on the internal social forces and staying independent from the communist powers were the guiding principles of the new communist movement in Iran, and of the Fadaiyan in particular. According to Shoaiyan, the breakaway group from the Tudeh Party declared a set of communist and revolutionary principles but failed to remain faithful to the stated principles and became right-wing revisionists.90

In Defense of Leninism In the mid-1970s, Hamid Momeni, a theorist of the Fadaiyan, criticizes Shoaiyan’s critique of Leninism because he does not offer a clear description of Leninism.91 Momeni claims that Shoaiyan is obsessed with theory THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 161 and has every right to do so. He could become a professional researcher spending his time in the Iranian and European research institutions to satisfy his intellectual needs, but he must refrain from irritating those who are engaged in the revolutionary struggle.92 For Momeni, Shaoiyan’s assertions are nothing more than a repetition of Trotsky’s permanent revolution. Whereas Trotsky was willing to sacrifice the Russian revolution for the sake of the revolution in Germany, Shoaiyan is sacrificing the Iranian Revolution for his imaginary world revolution. For Trotsky, contrary to the Russian Revolution, a proletarian revolution in Germany had more to offer to the world revolution. In Momeni’s view, the fact that Shoaiyan borrows Trotsky’s ideas to criticize Leninism in Iran indicates that Trotskyism finished its anti-Leninist task in Europe. Now, it has started its mission in the countries dominated by imperialism to destroy their Marxist-Leninist movements. Momeni claims that since being Trotskyist in Iran is totally safe and legal, Shoaiyan can publish his articles in almost all Iranian magazines with a petty-bourgeois readership. Momeni argues that whereas in the past Trotskyism was a valuable means of mobilizing Eurocentric intellectuals against the revolutionary proletariat of the developed capitalist societies and the Soviet Union, contemporary Trotskyism collaborates with imperialism to suppress the growing national liberation movements.93 For Momeni, Trotskyism’s new anti- revolutionary assignment lies in the fact that capitalism succeeded in domesticating the working class of the developed capitalist societies through a social compromise called the welfare state. This social compromise, which is a result of the overexploitation of the proletariat of the colonized countries, has reduced the antagonism between labor and capital in the developed capitalist countries. But whereas the effect of overexploitation of the formerly colonized and the semi-colonized world is the existing social compromise in the West, it has increased the antagonism between imperialism and the overexploited people of the economically and politically dependent societies.

These days the nationalism of the oppressed people converges with the proletarian internationalism. Hence, the national liberation movements are the first pillar of world socialism. In the past, Marx and Engels expected the revolution to occur in Europe and insisted on the unity of the revolutionary forces in the developed countries and even insisted on a sudden and unified revolution in England, France, and Germany. However, Lenin’s theories on imperialism adjusted Marx-Engels’ idea of revolution and demonstrated 162 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

that revolutions would occur in the global imperialism’s weakest links. History has proved that Lenin was right. That is why the revolution in the colonized and dependent countries is the order of the day.94

One of the most significant objections that Momeni raises against Shoaiyan is the nationalistic or rather chauvinistic language of the book since the book is written in a Persian purified from Arabic words, which disturbs Marxist readers. The language of Shoaiyan’s book is not only chauvinistic but also fake because it is the invention of the author who does not care about the ordinary Persian language that the Iranian intellectuals and the masses speak, read, and write.95 Momeni concludes that the invented language of the book indicates that the author is detached not only from the masses but from the society as a whole. It not only indicates Shoaiyan’s individualism but also explains his lack of interaction with the masses and his isolation.96 Responding to Shoaiyan’s critique of Lenin’s unfulfilled promise of abolishing the capitalist state after the proletarian takeover, Momeni examines the relationship between the durabil- ity of the armed struggle and the success of the revolution. He claims that armed struggle, general strike, and popular uprising are the only means through which socialist revolutions achieve their victory over the capitalist state and its machinery. However, none of these revolutionary methods can guarantee the success or failure of a revolution or protect it from the subsequent deviations from socialism. According to Momeni, it is not the longevity of the armed struggle but the role of different social classes which determine the nature and the trajectory of the revolution. Consequently, the success of the revolutionary forces in destroying the state depends on the degree of the strength or weakness of anti-revolutionary forces. In the case of the Russian Revolution, the revolutionaries succeeded in nationalizing and socializing industry and the banking system and implemented the Soviet system of production and government. All these changes imply the destruction of the economic and political base of the bourgeois state.97 For Momeni, social revolution in Iran needs to go through three phases. The first phase begins with armed struggle and ends with the establishment of a working-class party. The second phase of the revolution begins with the national liberation movement through which the party of the working class leads the national bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois to grab political power. The third phase of the social revolution is the socialist revolution led by the working class against the capitalist mode of production and the state.98 Momeni rejects Shoaiyan’s THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 163 idea of the revolutionary process as a way of life which can turn every individual into a dedicated communist.99 Criticizing Shoaiyan’s conception of universality, Momeni claims that the spread of Marxism-Leninism as the ideology of the working class in colonized societies does not mean that the advocates of this ideology constitute the working class of these societies for the simple fact that a worker’s consciousness cannot replace his labor. “To make a long story short, it is obvious that the author understands the working class, not as an economic entity but as a political one. In other words, he views the working class as the bearer of a school of thought and theoretical approach.”100 What Shoaiyan means by the working class’ conscious way of life is an individual or group’s experience of a revolutionary life which serves the ideals of communism. Momeni claims that the disastrous consequence of Shoaiyan’s confusion between the communist and the worker, and between the concept of class consciousness and labor, is his rejection of recruiting actual workers who want to undergo ideological education in order to become dedicated communists.101 According to Momeni, instead of using class categories Shoaiyan employs moral categories to conceptualize the proletarian characters of the actual workers and professional communists. Shoaiyan’s preference of professional communists leads him to defend freedom of thought and expression in the name of communism and the working class.102 Momeni claims that Shoaiyan’s conception of the revolutionary intellectual is influenced or rather corrupted by degenerate and anti-communist intellectuals such as Mostafa Rahimi and Jalal Ale-Ahmad.103 Momeni criticizes Shoaiyan for his lack of understanding of the values and effects of revolutionary self-criticism and the process of proletarianization according to which intellectuals overcome their petty-bourgeois shortcomings by learning from the proletariat. Contrary to the communist intellectual who becomes an ordinary worker to experience the proletarian life, Shoaiyan intends to impose the hegemony of the petty-bourgeois intellectuals and ideology on the proletariat because he assumes that the revolutionary intellectuals are the true representatives of the socialist revolution. Thus, by “erasing the real border between the revolutionary intellectuals and class-conscious workers, he hides the class origin of the intellectuals so that they can easily impose their leadership on the revolution.”104 For Momeni, only the working class can discover, through its historical experience, the truth of its own situation and transform this discovery into revolutionary class consciousness. What the revolutionary intellectuals do, according to Momeni, is theorization of this class consciousness and its 164 Y. SHAHIBZADEH logical consequences. The revolutionary intellectual analyzes the working class’ situation, theorizes its class consciousness and the way this class consciousness is expressed in the workers’ actions, and thus theorizes how the interactions between the workers’ class consciousness and actions pave the way toward the socialist revolution as the condition of their final emancipation.

Class consciousness is not a box of pearls which one can open with the key of knowledge and then distribute it to everyone. Class consciousness emerges and develops gradually over the course of tens or even hundreds of years in the minds of the working-class, although it is verbalized in its final stage. Thus, the peak of the class consciousness in the minds of the members of the working-class necessitates the formulation of this class consciousness and the social agents who formulate this class consciousness. The accumulated consciousness in the minds of the workers is reflected in their relationship to one another. It is either expressed indirectly in the words of Adam Smith and others or formulated and theorized by Marx and Engels. Thus, the ideology of the working-class is generated by the working-class in the process of its life and its work. Scientist, philosopher, revolutionary intellectual and even the class conscious members of the working-class can only formulate this ideology. The ideology of the working-class occupies the mind of all members of the working-class and, according to the dialectical relationship of the particular to the general, every single worker contributes to the development of this ideology.105

Momeni gives a sketch of the history of the workers’ struggle since they discovered the nature of their exploitation and oppression and began organizing themselves in the trade unions in England, in the early 1800s, to the armed struggle in Iran, in the 1970s. For Momeni, exploitation is based on a set of rules which says that the worker is free to work or remain lazy, but since his family needs food and shelter the worker has to work. It is true that he does not become the slave of an individual capitalist, but not being the slave of a capitalist does not mean that the worker enjoys his freedom, because he is the slave of the capitalist system as a whole. The most intriguing aspect of the capitalist system, according to Momeni, is the absence of the direct exercise of force. The absence of the direct experience of force in the capitalist system prevents the working class from discovering the exploitative and oppressive nature of this system. But as the workers realize the nature of their situation, they establish trade unions and organize worker strikes for better economic conditions. As the workers realize that the state is on the side of the capitalist class, their struggles THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 165 become political and target the state that protects the capitalist order. Whereas in the Paris Commune the working class is fighting in the barricades, in the October Revolution it organizes worker strikes and popular uprising as the revolutionary means and methods to achieve its revolutionary objectives. In Iran, the working class has chosen to start its revolution with armed struggle as one method among many others. The armed struggle in Iran is not a result of the historical development of the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian working class but a response to the police- state, which suppresses every form of peaceful economic and political protest. It is a means of protecting other forms of socio-political struggle.106 For Momeni, Leninism as Marxism of the imperialist age demonstrates that imperialism is a global system which links industrial and backward countries together as the coils of a single chain. Lenin defines the weakest link and discerns Russia as the weakest link in the imperialist chain and correctly predicts the likeliness of the revolution in Russia. For Momeni history repeats itself; similar to the previous “social peace” between labor and capital in the industrialized countries, which turned the previously revolutionary forces into opportunists and to which Russian revolutionaries responded with the October Revolution, the new revolutionary movements in the third world countries are the response of the third world revolutionaries to the new “social peace” in the imperialist countries. Thus, the recurrence of revolutionary struggles in advanced capitalist societies depends on the fate of the national liberation movements of the countries under imperialist domination. The eruption of revolutionary struggles in dependent countries will cause deep economic and social crisis in the imperialist centers and consequently crush the “social peace” in these centers.107 Regarding the socialist countries’ approach toward the revolutionary forces in the third world, Momeni argues that in most cases the new ideological revisionism in the socialist bloc leads them to support only obedient and opportunist communist parties, although these communist parties are totally disconnected from their people. Momeni predicts that the new revisionism, which is rotting and destroying the foundation of socialism in the socialist countries, will transform them into social imperialism because they look at the revolutionary forces of the third world countries as if they are their puppets to be used in their behind-closed-doors business deals and secret agreements with the capitalist countries. Momeni advocates the formation of a new communist international, organized by the communist organizations such as Fadaiyan-e Khalq, which are dedicated to the principles of democratic 166 Y. SHAHIBZADEH centralism. What characterizes the new communist movement according to Momeni is its critical approach toward the existing socialism and their sister communist parties such as the Tudeh Party.108 After the extermina- tion of its leaders and cadres and especially after the killing of its theorists and organizers such as Jazani, Momeni, and Hamid Ashraf in the mid- 1970s, Fadaiyan-e Khalq continues to exist only in name. But on the verge of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Fadaiyan-e Khalq’s name becomes a symbol, a trademark which influenced and attracted hundreds of thousands of young Iranians to communism. Right after the overthrow of the Shah in February 1979, communist organizations appeared in different shapes and colors. Some of these communist organizations had their origin in the ideological conversion and organizational transformation of the leadership of the Islamist-leftist Organization of People’s Mojahedin (Mojahedin-e Khalq) into Marxism-Leninism in the mid-1970s.109 As the organization’s conversion into Marxism was questioned by another member of the leadership and his associates, those advocating the conversion sentenced the two members opposing the ideological conversion to death. In 1975, the Marxist faction declared the conversion of the organization into Marxism- Leninism. On the verge of the 1979 Revolution, the Marxist-Leninist section of the Mojahedin generated several other Marxist-Leninist organizations, the most influential of which was theOrganization of the Struggle for Emancipation of the Working-Class, better known as Peykar.

Notes 1. Amir-Parviz Pouyan, Zarourat-e mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh va rad-e theory-e baqa (The Necessity of Armed Struggle and the Refutation of the Theory of Survival), Entesharat-e Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq (1970s). 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Massoud Ahmadzadeh, Mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh, ham strategi ham taktik (place and date unknown). 5. Ibid. 6. Ali-Akbar Safaiy Farahani, Ancheh yek enqelabi bayad bedand (Sazeman Etehad-e Fadaiyn-e Khalq-e Iran Mordad 1381/August 2002). 7. Nabard-e Khalq, Organ-e Sazeman-e Cherikhay-e Khalq, Shomareh-ye dovvom, Farvardin 1353/March–April 1974, p. 42. 8. Bijan Jazani, Masael-e jonbesh-e zed-e estemari va azadibakhshe-e khalq-e Iran, va omdehtarin vazayef-e komonistha-ye Iran dar sharayet-e konouni (Sazman-e Fadaiyan-e Khalq-e Iran, 2003), pp. 12–15. THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 167

9. Ahmadzadeh, Mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh, ham strategi ham taktik. 10. Peyman Vahabzadeh, Guerilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy, and the Fadai Period of National Liberation in Iran, 1971– 1979 (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2010), p. 7. 11. Hamid Momeni, Pasokh beh forsat-talaban dar mored-e Mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh ham stategi ham taktik (Entesharat-e M.bidsorkhi, 1979). 12. Ahmadzadeh, Mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh, ham strategi ham taktik. 13. Mehdi Fatapour, Fadaiyan va jonbesh-e daneshjouyi-ye roshanfekri dar daheh-ye 50, http://www.bbc.com/persian/iran/2011/02/ 110207_l42_siahkal_29_mehdi_fatapour. 14. Bizhan Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval (place and date of publication unknown), p. 8. 15. Ibid., pp. 10–12. 16. Ibid., pp. 18–20. 17. Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval, pp. 22–25. 18. Ibid., pp. 33–34. 19. Ibid., p. 35. 20. Ibid., pp. 36–38. 21. Ibid., pp. 39–42. 22. Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval, pp. 50–56. 23. Ibid., pp. 65–66. 24. Ibid., pp. 71–72. 25. Ibid., p. 74. 26. Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval, p. 86. 27. Bizhan Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Dovvom (place and date of publication unknown), p. 4. 28. Ibid., pp. 18–21. 29. Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Dovvom, pp. 23–24. 30. Ibid., p. 31. 31. Ibid., p. 32. 32. Ibid., p. 56. 33. Ibid., p. 58. 34. Jazani, Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Dovvom, p. 59. 35. Ibid., p. 60. 36. Ibid., pp. 61–62. 37. Ibid., p. 105. 38. Ibid., pp. 120–121. 39. Bizhan Jazani, Panj Resaleh, Tehran. Sazman-e cherikha-ye fadayi-ye khalq (place of publication unknown, November–December 1976), pp. 29–30. 40. Ibid., p. 32. 41. Bizhan Jazani, Tarh-e jameeh-shenasi va mabani-ye estrategike jonbesh-e enqelab-e (place of publication unknown: Sazman-e Etehad-e Fadayian-e Khalq-e Iran, 2003), pp. 71–72. 168 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

42. Yadullah Shahibzadeh, Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran: An Intellectual History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 24–29. 43. Bizhan Jazani, Tarh-e jameeh-shenasi va mabani-ye estrategike jonbesh-e enqelab-e (Sazman-e Etehad-e Fadaiyan-e Khalqe Iran, 2003), pp. 71–72. 44. Ibid., p. 72. 45. Bizhan Jazani, Masael-e jonbesh-e zed-e estemari va azadibakhshe-e khalq-e Iran, va omdehtarin vazayef-e komonistha-ye Iran dar sharayet-e konouni (Sazman-e Fadaiyan-e Khalq-e Iran, 2003), pp. 2–3. 46. Jazani, Masael-e jonbesh-e zed-e estemari va azadibakhshe-e khalq-e Iran, va omdehtarin vazayef-e komonistha-ye Iran dar sharayet-e konouni, pp. 4–5. 47. Ibid., p. 6. 48. Bizhan Jazani, Hezb-e tabaqeh-ye kargar dar Iran (Sazman-e Fadaiyan-e Khalq-e Iran, 2003). 49. Bizhan Jazani, Tahlil-e moqeiyat-e nirouhay-e enqelabi dar Iran beh enzemam-e dou maqaleh dar bareh-ye vazayef-e asasi-ye Marksist-leninistha dar marhaleh-ye konouni-ye roshd-e jonbesh-e Komonisti-ye Iran (place and date of the publication unknown, Sazman-e Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq-e Iran), pp. 12–13. 50. Ibid., p. 15. 51. Khosrow Shakeri, Tahlili az khat va mashy-e siyasi-ye Hezb-e Tudeh Iran bakhsh-e avval, is published as Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial- demokrasi va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e Panjom (Rome: Entesharat-e Mazdak, 1976). 52. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e panjom, p. 2. 53. Ibid., pp. 10–11. 54. Ibid., pp. 20–22. 55. Ibid., pp. 46–49. 56. Ibid., p. 50. 57. Shakeri, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e panjom, pp. 51–52. 58. Ibid., p. 61. 59. Ibid., pp. 67–70. 60. Ibid., p. 78. 61. Mostafa Shoaiyan, Enqelab (Ketabkhaneh-ye Kuchake Sosialism, place and date of publication unknown), pp. 23–24. 62. Ibid., p. 17. 63. Ibid., pp. 19–20. 64. Shoaiyan, Enqelab, p. 21. 65. Ibid., pp. 27–29. 66. Ibid., pp. 34–35. 67. Ibid., pp. 37–38. THE NEW LEFT IN IRAN: A DISCOURSE ON GUN AND POLITICS 169

68. Ibid., pp. 39–41. 69. Shoaiyan, Enqelab, pp. 45–47. 70. Ibid., p. 48. 71. Ibid., p. 50. 72. Ibid., pp. 53–54. 73. Ibid., p. 55. 74. Shoaiyan, Enqelab, p. 62. 75. Ibid., p. 64. 76. Ibid., p. 65. 77. Ibid., pp. 158–159. 78. Ibid., p. 187. 79. Ibid., pp. 189–195. 80. Shoaiyan, Enqelab, p. 198. 81. Ibid., pp. 202–203. 82. Hamid Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab (Sazeman-e cherikha-ye fadayi-ye khalq, place and date of publication unknown). 83. Mostafa Shoaiyan, Hasht nameh beh cherik’ha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq; naqd-e yek manesh-e fekri (Tehran: Nashr-e Ney, 2007), pp. 79–80. 84. Ibid., pp. 85–86. 85. Shoaiyan, Hasht nameh beh cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq; naqd-e yek manesh-e fekri, p. 130. 86. Ibid., pp. 130–131. 87. Ibid., pp. 132–133. 88. Ibid., p. 142. 89. Ibid., p. 149. 90. Shoaiyan, Hasht nameh beh cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq; naqd-e yek manesh-e fekri, pp. 173–175. 91. Hamid Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, p. 12. 92. Ibid., p. 11. 93. Ibid., pp. 14–16. 94. Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, pp. 16–17. 95. Ibid., pp. 52–56. 96. Ibid., p. 57. 97. Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, pp. 64–65. 98. Ibid., p. 68. 99. Ibid., pp. 74–75. 100. Ibid., p. 92. 101. Ibid., p. 94. 102. Ibid., p. 100. 170 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

103. See my books: The Iranian Political Language: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 36–41 and Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran: An Intellectual History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 24–29. 104. Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, p. 114. 105. Ibid., pp. 119–120. 106. Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, pp. 136–140. 107. Momeni, Shouresh nah, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab, pp. 141–142. 108. Ibid., pp. 145–147. 109. Ervand Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin (London: I.B. TAURIS, 1989), pp. 45–60. CHAPTER 10

The Educator Must Be Educated

For the Iranian communists of the 1960s and the early 1970s such as Jazani and Momeni, an ideal communist would engage with the people to learn their own words and then speak with and teach them with the same words. This idea is what Rancière has been criticizing since 1974, while Jazani and Momeni were still alive. Certainly, Rancière did not know Jazani or Momeni, but he knew how the absolute majority of French communists were thinking, and they were thinking the same thoughts as Jazani and Momeni. Writing in 2011, Rancière argues that instead of being a communist and emancipatory, the idea of political education of the working class is a stultifying one which destroyed the communist movement to the point of irrelevance in the 1990s. Rancière examines the process through which subversive critical discourses accommodate the dominant ideology and serve the existing order. Rancière argues that there is a principle of recuperation which leads critical discourses to propagate the very discourses that they pretend to criticize. In their critique of domination and the dominant ideology, critical discourses reveal that “domination functions thanks to a mechanism of dissimulation which hides its laws from its subjects by presenting them with an inverted reality.” The critical discourses tell people that they are “dominated because they are ignorant of the laws of domination,” and try to uncover the laws of domination to

Earlier versions of sections of this chapter appeared in Iran Namag, Volume 3, Number 2 (Summer 2018).

© The Author(s) 2019 171 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_10 172 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the masses who are not only ignorant of the laws of domination but also of their ignorance.1 In Althusser’s Lesson (1974), Rancière argues that Althusser’s project is reproducing the old materialism, which tried to make, through education, the individual fit within thecircumstances . The old materialist view reflects, according to Rancière, “the point of view of a superior class” because it assumes that it must be in charge of “the surveil- lance and the education of individuals.” It must fully be in command of “the use of time, the distribution of space, the educational planning.” Althusserian materialism begins with the “opposition between the ‘simplicity’ of nature and the ‘complexity’ of history” and concludes that whereas “production is the business of workers,” history is the business of the scholars. Whereas the workers have a duty to work and shape nature, the scholars have a duty to know.2 Rancière argues that Althusser’s arguments imply that it is not the masses in general which make history but the one the vanguard intellectuals “instruct and organize.” The masses that make history are the ones for whom the intellectuals expose the dominant ideology, who without these intellectuals would have never been able to distinguish between what is good and what is bad for them. According to this logic, the masses must listen to the party, and the party must listen to the philosopher who thinks for the masses.3 Rancière finds Mao’s phrase “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force of world history” significant because it is not a philosophical but a political thesis. This political thesis indicates that “the intelligence of the class struggle” does not belong to the specialists but to the workers, peasants, and villagers who create history when they “invent a new machine,” invent an irrigation system, and frighten powerful enemy armies by making new traps.4 This political thesis rejects the idea that the oppressed people need “philosophers who dispel their illusions” because as Marx argues in Theses on Feuerbach, in their struggle against the exploiters, the exploited and the oppressed generate a new intelligence.5 Rancière reminds Althusser that the truth of a statement is revealed in its political effects and refers to the PCF, which accused the existentialist approach of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty to Marxism in 1946 and 1947 of being anti-humanistic. But the political effects of the existentialist approach to Marxism was expressed in Sartre’s support for the National Liberation Front in the Algerian War, to May 1968 and the student uprisings, and to the Maoist militants and La Cause du People, and his contribution to the creation of the newspaper Libération.6 Rancière argues that Althusserianism began with a “desire to combat the revisionist tendencies” generated by the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 173

Party, but it changed its direction to restore Marxism as “a theory of the production of scientific knowledge” separated from political practice. For Rancière when Althusser tries, in Lenin and Philosophy, to narrow the gap between the theoreticist deviation and political activism and claims that Marxism is both “the class struggle’s representative in the sciences, and the sciences’ representative in class struggle,”7 he “secured a royal place for communist intellectuals,” the university elite, and the leadership of the PCF.8 He tries to create an “image of theoretical heroism,” according to which “the masses can make history because the heroes make its theory.”9 Rancière claims that the PCF has always presented itself as “the theoretical authority of Marxism” and denied the autonomous status of Marx’s texts because independent interpretations of Marx’s could result in challenging the party’s political authority. That is why some members such as Henri Lefebvre were forced to “rectify” their positions on Marx’s thought and others were expelled from the party.10 Rancière claims that what Althusser is searching for is nothing but a new orthodoxy which instead of Stalin’s words is based on Marx’s texts. Thus, instead of a new theory to move the party from its existing revisionist position toward a new politics, Althusser provides a theoretical foundation for the existing politics of the party against any form of theoretical contestation. That is why his critique of “bourgeois humanism” is in fact a warning to those who dare modernize Marxism.11 Rancière compares Althusser’s theoretical effort to the rescue operation “of a doctor who can only save his patient by saving the illness that afflicts him.” The illness of the PCF was its politics toward the Algerian War, the Chinese–Soviet conflict, and the student uprisings. Althusser’s theory thwarted the effects of the illness of revisionism.12 In the name of the battle of science against ideology Althusserianism established a peda- gogical relation between knowledge and ignorance which convinced his students that in order to “be able to criticize their professors from the point of view of class” they had “to become their peers.”13 As Rancière argues, Reading Capital made a political critique of the party possible because it questioned the evolutionist conception of history and the PCF’s “notion of the peaceful transition to socialism and of a ‘true democracy” and reinstated “the need for violent revolution.” Although subversive, these claims were nothing but “a new field of academic inquiry” which allowed scholars such as Balibar to argue “quite calmly in the pages of La Pensée for the necessity of revolutionary violence and the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus.”14 In fact the entire subversive project was limited to theory because theory had become, as 174 Y. SHAHIBZADEH argued in Reading Capital, an autonomous field of practice and activity. Rancière argues that Althusser’s reading of Marx via Lacan produced nothing but a replication of Kautsky’s thesis that “science belongs to intellectuals” and they alone can bring the knowledge of a worker’s own existence to the workers.15 Thus, Althusser provided the young communist intellectuals who were looking for “theoretical mastery over the effects of their political and syndicalist fights” the authority they needed. This theoretical authority, which led even Lukácsians and Sartreans to became Althusserians, repressed instead their “spirit of revolt.” In the perplexity caused by the division of the communist world between Moscow and Peking, the PCF provided its intellectuals “a space where they could play their epistemological or semiological games in peace.” It was in this space that Althusserianism moved toward Mao.16 The focus on “the theoretical level” prevented those engaged in theoretical practice from seeing that on the practical level the “peaceful coexistence” as “the supreme form of class struggle” has been rejected. This ignorance of the practical level indicates that “we could say everything, provided nothing that we said had practical effects.”17 Before May 1968, Althusserianism’s preoccupation with so many ruptures in theory and its avoidance of political practice made it a theory of education rationalizing “the peaceful regeneration of the Party” and France’s peaceful march to socialism. In fact, the Communist Youth Union (UJC) emerged to defend the “figure of scientific (savant) power.”18 But this scientific authoritarianism was challenged by the Maoist movement’s anti-authoritarian revolt in May 1968 represented by the Union of Communist Youth (Marxist-Leninist) UJC (ML). Althusserianism’s reaction to the revolt was that the students were petit-bourgeois revolutionaries entrapped by the bourgeois domination. For the Althusserian ideology, the Chinese “students have the right to revolt, but in France the revolt must come from the working-class, and the students must put themselves at the service of the workers.”19 Hence, the head of UJC (ML) responded by arguing that the responsibility of the revolutionary savant is to educate the workers.20 After May 1968, while declaring that philosophy must be partisan, Althusserianism reduces the partisan philosophy to policing of concepts which could not tolerate “the autonomy of the working class.”21 By making science and ideology opposing forces, Althusser tried “to protect the sciences from being ideologically exploited by the ruling classes,” but the result was no better than Kautsky saying “producers are incapable of thinking their production.”22 For Rancière, there is a difference between the Althusserianism of the militant students who were THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 175 engaged in the struggle against the Algerian War and the Althusserianism as the site of attraction for career-seeking and “impatient go-getters” students in the early 1970s.23 May 1968 and the Cultural Revolution were the historical catalysts of this transformation because initially they left a set of institutions as the source of the bourgeois ideological domination against which it waged political combat. This political combat was open to all including the intellectuals because the separation of intellectual and manual labor and the separation of the intellectuals and the masses was not an issue. “By the end of the sixties, we were present everywhere: in the factories, in the suburbs, in the countryside. Tens of thousands of students became proletarian or went to live among the workers.”24 For the Gauche Prolétarienne and other leftist students, the ideological combat of the revolutionary intellectuals was defined by “abandoning their specific roles as intellectuals and joining the masses, with helping the masses themselves to speak up and with fighting all the apparatuses—from unions to the police—that stand in the way of this free expression.” As opposed to this leftist position, there appeared a rightist position which argued that the Cultural Revolution has shown that class struggle was everywhere, and, since the class struggle was everywhere, “there was no need ‘to take philosophy out of the lecture halls’, for class struggle was in those halls. No need to abandon book and pencil case, for class struggle was in the text and in the commentaries on the texts.”25 Whereas, before May, the struggle of science against ideology had united the academic ideology and revisionist ideology, after May there was the revisionist academic ideology which was quite content with “class struggle in theory.”26 For Rancière, the Althusserianism’s fundamental thesis was that “the masses live in illusion” because ideology “interpellates individuals as subjects” and these subjects work and produce.27 Rancière argues that Althusserianism does not take into account the fact that the workers and their masters have always had antagonistic understandings of the idea of freedom. Whereas for the latter freedom means “being able to hire and fire workers on the basis of a free agreement between two individuals, for workers, freedom means being able to work where they want to work, to sell their labour only at its ‘right price’ and to walk out on the workshop as a group when they are refused the right price for their labour. The masters have a name for this freedom: the despotism of the workers.”28 Rancière refers to the workers’ demands before 1830s as workers’ struggles to be counted as part of the “people” and have the “same status as the masters, to be recognized as ‘men’ and not as workers.”29 According to Rancière it was the 176 Y. SHAHIBZADEH bourgeoisie that after rising to power in 1830 denied the workers equal status because it said “there is a class struggle, a battle of the have-nots against the haves, of barbarians against civilized people.” That is why the members of this barbarian group do not deserve “the title or the preroga- tives of man.”30 It was not the workers who distinguished themselves as a class but the state apparatus, which reminded the workers that they were not men similar to “the members of the bourgeoisie.” The workers’ response was that “people are not either barbarian or civilized; there are no class distinctions—we are men, like you.”31 While teaching the children of the proletariat “the lesson of order, obedience and individual promotion” the bourgeoisie always reminds the workers of their inability to change their own situation.32 Rancière argues that when Althusser says that against the ideological words such as man and his rights and freedom representing the bourgeois domination there are words of scientific knowledge such as “masses, classes, process,” he means that only the power of the intellectual over workers can liberate them from the words of the bourgeoisie.33 Against the power of the intellectual, the cultural revolution in China has proven, according to Rancière, that communism means collectivization instead of mechanization, initiative of workers instead of the material incentives which characterized the economic development in the Soviet Union.34 Rancière argues that socialism will not be achieved by the leaders who do politics while the “intellectuals debate their points of view at conferences, and rank and file militants walk the streets putting up posters.”35 For Rancière the problem does not lie in Stalin but in Leninism.36 But similar to Feuerbach, who wanted predicates without subject and religion without God, Althusser wants history without a subject or goal, in order to employ the idea of class struggles as eternal struggles, which includes every tendency within the labor movement, from the USSR to the PCF, from Brezhnev to Mao, from Scheidemann to Rosa Luxembourg, and from Georges Marchais to Pierre Overney, the young leftist activist killed by the police, as different figures of the same labor movement. Thus, if things do not work in the USSR the problem is economism, and if things do not work in the PCF the problem is humanism because “as long as there is even one bourgeois on the face of the earth” he can generate economism and humanism.37 Rancière claims that initially Althusser’s project was “to think Marx in his historical context to allow us to implement Marxism in ours” and make Marxism, as Lenin said, a “living soul.” But it has been transformed from a weapon to changing the world into the science of the fait accompli and the protector of the existing order. Now the Althusserians THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 177 enjoy the privilege that the bourgeoisie reserves for Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist professors, which says they are free to say anything they want at the university provided they protect the way the university functions, and regardless of what they say about power they must channel “the intellectual’s attachment to order.”38 Althusser wants to “be the wolf in the flock, but the Party turns to him when it needs to scare its black sheep.” Thus, regardless of how hard he tries to raise questions which seem uncomfort- able, “the Party shows him that it understands his words for what they are: a discourse of order.”39 According to Rancière, Althusser does not understand that “the purpose of academic discourse is the formation of students, and a communist philosopher is not in the position to give his superiors the forgotten weapon of dialectics.”40 However, Althusser pretends that he does not know the position of the theoretician’s discourse within the real power relations, which makes him “nothing other than an intellectual.” Thus as a philosopher of the existing order Althusser includes both Mao’s revolutionary position and Régis Debray’s argument “that we must be reformists in our tactics in order to be revolutionary in our strategies.”41 As a philosopher of order Althusser’s “class struggle in theory” has replaced the function of the old philosophy that interpreted the world instead of changing it.42 He has abandoned “the Marxist idea of worker self-emancipation and the goals of destroying state power and abolishing the despotism of the factory and of wage labour.” Similar to Bernstein who was speculating on whether abandoning or correcting Marxism would terminate its revolutionary essence, the post-1968 reformism introduced the philosophical recuperation of Marxism through “the libido” and “desiring machines” as a new leftism that opposes “the totalizing discourse of revisionism with its own totalizing discourse.”43 These totalizing discourses cannot universalize different “struggles of peasants, labourers, students, women and immigrants” or demonstrate their unity. Except Foucault, for whom when the prisoners began to speak they put forward “an individual theory of prisons, the penal system, and justice,” there is no intellectual who seriously thinks of these movements as discursive struggles.44 Rancière claims that the Marxists failed to understand that every social event or movement represents a coherent discourse about a series of practices. For instance, those involved in the Gauche Prolétarienne, who had learned from the Cultural Revolution the possibility of the abolition of the division of labor between the intellectual and manual labor, decided to transform themselves into manual workers or “professional revolutionaries.”45 But soon these intellectuals began to speak in the name of the 178 Y. SHAHIBZADEH proletariat, and some even claimed to be “the representatives of the ‘proletarian ideology’ that the ‘petite bourgeoisie’ would have to submit to.”46 The problem with a “discourse that allows one to speak for others” is that it also allows the author of the discourse to cancel out himself and the place of his discourse. Hence, the Althusserian discourse denies “the place from which it speaks, of what it speaks about, and of who it speaks to.”47 Rancière reminds us, however, that the discourse of revolt will always be expressed through the mechanism of representation. In this regard, Marxism will help us understand when and “where discourses of revolt meet” and when and “where the discourse of subversion is perennially being transformed into the discourse of order.”48 He concludes that Marxism does not exist as a unified system because social practices and other discourses have always modified Marxism. Marxism has been modified from the Paris Commune revolt to the Russian workers’ revolts of 1905 and 1917 and the Hunan peasants in 1926. Thus the history of the modification of Marxism indicates that it can be modified by “the disciplines and discourses of power” as well as the mass struggles if these struggles “shake up the theoretical and political apparatus of representation that blocks the autonomous expression of revolt.”49 More than three decades later, Eric Hobsbawm defines Marxism as the final expression of “the unbroken history of communism,” which begins with the left wing of the French Revolution represented by Babeuf’s Conspiracy of the Equals and continues through the revolutionary societies of the 1830s led by Buonarroti and Blanqui, the ‘League of the Just’ and finally the ‘Communist League’ for whom Marx and Engels write The Communist Manifesto.50

Foucault and Governmentality In his lectures on Security, Territory, Population (1977–1978), which he prefers to call “a history of governmentality,” Foucault challenges the conception of the state both as a “cold monster confronting us” and as a means of developing the productive forces and reproducing the relations of production. For Foucault, these misconceptions make the state look more important than it really is. He does not see the danger of the state in its intrusion into society (étatisation) but in its governmentalization, which he describes as an art, which was discovered in the eighteenth century and has saved the state from its many crises and revolutions. Foucault concludes that the history of governmentality demonstrates that the governmentalization of the state is “the only real space of political struggle and contestation.”51 THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 179

Government of the state as the political form of the state deals with men’s relations to wealth, resources, territory, fertility, customs, habits, and “ways of acting and thinking.”52 In his 1978–1979 lectures, Foucault defines the art of government of the state with regard to two periods: before the neoliberal art of government and during the neoliberal art of government. Before the neoliberal art of government, the state is “a dis- continuous reality” whose chance for survival depends on its strength, wealth, and the capability of protecting itself against external and internal threats that may put its existence in danger.53 The disciplining of society dominated by commodities, spectacle, and simulacra takes place in this period. However, the governing of the state in the age of the neoliberal art of government is not about disciplining but about responding to the “dynamic of competition” in “an enterprise society.”54 In this enterprise society, the neoliberal argument devalues Marx’s analysis of value without contesting it and replaces human labor with human capital. For Marx, the wickedness of the capitalist production is that it cuts off human labor from its human reality and reduces it to “the effects of value produced.”55 But by disregarding Marx’s critique of the logic of capitalism, neoliberals such as Keynes argue that labor is only “a factor of production” which can be activated by investment.56 The neoliberal argument implies that Marx mistook “the abstraction of labor” as the product of real capitalism, whereas this abstraction was the construction elaborated by Marx’s contemporary economic theory.57 Foucault argues that with the epistemological transformation from the classical economy into the neoliberal economy, “the general field of reference of economic analysis” such as “the mechanisms of production, the mechanisms of exchange” is transformed into “the study and analysis of the way in which scarce means are allocated to competing ends.”58 After this transformation, the worker’s wage is not the price for his labor power because as “an active economic subject” he earns an income that is a result of the investment of his human capital.59 As the neoliberal practice transforms human labor into human capital the worker becomes a capitalist. Following this premise, the art of neoliberal governmentality is to discover what type of human capital is needed to govern. Foucault argues that the Greek care of the self (epimelia heautou) lies at the heart of the question of governmentality, a principle neglected by modem philosophy, which has given a privileged position to “know yourself” (gnothi seautou).60 By neglecting the care of the self, modern philosophy ignores spirituality as “the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to 180 Y. SHAHIBZADEH have access to the truth.”61 Spirituality makes the subject capable of transforming himself into “other than himself” in order to have “access to the truth.” Thus, the presence of truth indicates that the subject has transformed himself into something new. For Foucault, the problem with the modern conception of truth is that philosophers and scientists speak of truth only in terms of the “activity of knowing”; Marxism and psychoanalysis remind the subject that the truth which is capable of liberating him is related to his being and his “preparation for access to the truth.”62 The preparation for access to the truth is the same as practicing philosophy or the care of the self. In order to have time to care for themselves, the Spartans

entrusted the cultivation of their lands to slaves instead of keeping this activity for themselves” because “[t]aking care of oneself is a privilege; it is the symbol of social superiority, setting one apart from those who have to concern themselves with … a trade in order to live. The advantage conferred by wealth, status, and birth is expressed in the fact that one can take care of one self.63

Here the time for taking care of the self was the most significant factor because, according to Foucault, taking care of the self was not advice that moralists and philosophers gave to their disciples to avoid errors in their private lives. They were educating their disciples about a series of complex activities which governs the people in their domain.64

The Crisis of Marxism and the Neoliberal Art of Governmentalization In the age of the neoliberal art of governmentalization, when Marxism is in a radical retreat, Althusser tries, between 1978 and 1987, to revise some of his earlier ideas and arguments toward a new interpretation of Marxism.65 The main problem with the communist movement is, according to Althusser, its inability to write its own history, since the publication of The Communist Manifesto, in a convincing fashion. He claims that what must lie at the heart of this historiography is “the crisis of Marxist theory” before Stalinism because Stalinism gave this crisis only a particular shape which both blocked the emergence of a solution to the crisis and prevented it from being “formulated in questions.” If the crisis of Marxism was formulated in questions, it would have been subjected to “political and theoretical research, and, thus, rectification as well.”66 For Althusser, THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 181 a crisis can lead to either collapse and liquidation or liberation and “rebirth and transformation.”67 Althusser argues that the significance of Marx’s thought lies in his analysis of the crisis of the capitalist condition and the class struggle as a real tendency toward communism. But Marx refrains from presenting himself as the agent of the critique of the capitalist condition; he writes on behalf of the real agent, the workers’ class struggle.68 Thus, he empowered the communist movement by arguing that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat” and that the proletarian dictatorship is a period of “transition to the abolition of all classes” toward a classless society.69 But what Marx did not specify is how the proletariat becomes aware of its agency. This ambiguity caused, according to Althusser, the deepest crisis of Marxism after Marx. The first response to the crisis of Marxist theory came from Kautsky who argued that “socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge.” It is not the proletariat but the bourgeois intelligentsia who, as the agents of scientific knowledge, have formulated modern socialism and have transmitted it to “the more intellectually developed proletarians.” Kautsky claims that socialist consciousness is introduced into the class struggle from without.70 Lenin repeats this claim in What Is To Be Done?, and concludes the absolute necessity of a revolutionary theory and a revolutionary political party led by the professional revolutionaries.71 What Lenin disregarded was the fact that “Marx’s thought was formed and developed not outside the workers’ movement but within the existing workers’ movement” and “the political basis provided by that movement.” This movement made Marx’s thought capable of rectifying its theoretical positions and kept it constantly modified. The history of Marxism tells us that Marxism expanded from within the workers movement, through struggles and contradictions.72 In the 1980s, Althusser argues that Marxism was about separation of the state from man. To prevent the state from behaving arbitrarily, thinkers such as Locke and Grotius advocated “private law” and “freedom of the human subject” as the foundation of the state. Rousseau’s response to this separation of the state was the Social Contract expressing the indivisible and general will of the people.73 In his early writings, Marx analyzes the expression of this separation through the concept of alienation by contrasting man’s daily practical life, which cannot engender his right to life, wealth, or poverty, while the state says that these rights make him a citizen. For Marx, the separation between man and the state assumes their reconciliation in the future when man becomes aware of the causes of this separation.74 But after the 1848 revolutions and 182 Y. SHAHIBZADEH his critical study of Political Economy Marx gives up the concept of alienation.75 Thus, in The Eighteenth Brumaire he begins to think of the state as a “machine” or an “apparatus” indicating that “the state no longer … is identical to the political life.” For Marx, from now on, the state is separate because it is an instrument or apparatus, which implies that “The political is not reducible to the state” because the dominant class uses this apparatus in the class struggle to extend its domination. Marx’s new theory of the state indicates that the state as “an instrument of class domination” can exist only in class societies, and since there is a need for it in the class struggle “the state perpetuates itself.”76 The nature of the state as apparatus explains why the working class must take the state power as the means of changing the economic and social bases of society and the relations of production. But the working class cannot use the existing state to change relations of production. It must destroy the old state in order to build a revolutionary one. The revolutionary state is a non-state, which instead of growing stronger withers away, through a period of dictatorship of the proletariat.77 According to Althusser, the instrumental and separate nature of the state enables it “to intervene in the class struggle on all fronts.” As a result, it deals not only with the working class’ struggle but also with the divisions and conflicts within the dominant class which are intensified when “the struggle of the working-class and the masses is powerful.”78 The separateness of the state guarantees that instead of taking care of the sums of interests of the bourgeois class, the bourgeois state protects its “‘general interests’ as the dominant class.” Thus despite the objections of segments of the bourgeois class this separation rationalizes the state’s delivery of the public services.79 Furthermore, whereas the separate nature of the state allows it to intervene in a seemingly impartial way in the class struggle, as an apparatus or instrument comprising different repressive as well as political and ideological elements, the state can formulate a unified strategy and use all these elements to achieve its goal. Since the state aims “to maintain the power of the dominant class,” its separation does not mean that the state is autonomous.80 As Althusser argues, Lenin’s understanding of the state led him to identify “the dictatorship of the proletariat with violent government by the representatives of the proletariat” to suspend “the established laws.”81 Althusser claims that Marx replaces the term domination from which he developed other concepts such as dominant class and dominant instrument, in the Manifesto “with class dictatorship” after the major defeats of 1848.82 Here Marx does not think THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 183 of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” as “the broadest possible democracy,”83 because “the dictatorship of the proletariat includes among its forms of domination … the broadest possible democracy.”84 Althusser’s last theoretical preoccupation in the 1980s is what he calls a Materialism of the Encounter or a materialism of contingency against the materialism of necessity and teleology, which he describes as idealism in disguise. He relates the materialism of encounter to Epicurus’ argument that “before the formation of the world, an infinity of atoms were falling parallel to each other in the void,” which indicates that no Meaning, Cause, End, Reason, or Unreason existed before the formation of the world.85 According to this proposition, there were only contingencies before the fact because “the accomplishment of the fact is just a pure effect of contingency, since it depends on the aleatory encounter of the atoms due to the swerve of the clinamen.”86 Althusser claims that we still deal with the Epicurean world in which all the elements are present and absent. These elements may be united at the point of their encounter that actualizes their existence.87 Hence, philosophy cannot search for its origin. If there is no origin of philosophy, there cannot be any end of philosophy, world, history, morality, art, or politics.88 What happens in this Epicurean world is encounters and encounters, an encounter between one atom and another to form an event (événement) which becomes the advent (avènement) from which a world is born. The encounters indicate the variety of possible worlds because the concept of possibility is related to “the concept of original disorder.”89 For Althusser, every encounter is aleatory because an encounter which took place in the past might not have taken place because “nothing in the elements of the encounter pre- figures, before the actual encounter, the contours and determinations of the being that will emerge from it.”90 This means the only meanings in history are the results of real encounters.91 For the Althusser of the 1980s, the materialism of the encounter is the expression of a Marxian materialism which has been repressed by the materialism of essence and necessity. This Marxian materialism argues that “the capitalist mode of production arose from the ‘encounter’ between ‘the owners of money’ and the proletarian stripped of everything but his labor-power.”92 Although “this encounter occurred several times in history before taking hold in the West” it did not result in a capitalist mode of production in the rest of the world. The reason could be that there was a “lack of an element or a suit- able arrangement of the elements” such as “a domestic market capable of absorbing what might have been produced.”93 Althusser claims that Marx 184 Y. SHAHIBZADEH and Engels “utter a very great piece of nonsense” when they claim that the proletariat is “the product of big industry.” The fact is that big industry is behind “the reproduction of the proletariat on an extended Scale.”94 For Althusser, the aleatory encounter has always been taking place until today in the third world countries as well as in France “by way of the dis- possession of agricultural producers and their transformation into semi- skilled workers.”95 Althusser argues that Marx and Engels confused “the production of the proletariat with its capitalist reproduction on an extended scale as if the capitalist mode of production pre-existed one of its essential elements, an expropriated labour-force … the structure precedes its elements and reproduces them in order to reproduce the structure.”96 For Althusser, a mode of production depends on “the mode of domination of the structure over its elements.” Whereas in the feudal mode of production it is the structure of dependence, in capitalism it is the structure of exploitation that imposes its significations on all other elements.97 Althusser discards the belief that there has ever been a fusion between the authentic revolutionary revolt of the workers and Marxist theory.98 He claims that except Gramsci all the advocates of Marxist theory failed to understand that there has never been a single dominant class with a dominant ideology, but a “bloc of social classes in power” with contradictory tendencies.99 Althusser claims that Marxist theory failed to understand the materiality of ideology in the way Foucault understood it.100 Althusser revises his theory of “interpellation of the individual as subject” by the dominant ideology, which he presented first in hisLenin and Philosophy.101 Now, he argues that the ideological subject is not constituted by a particular ideology but as the interactions “of several ideologies at once, under which the individual lives and acts [agit] his practice.” The interaction of different ideologies engenders multiple interpellations in which “the ‘free’ development of the positions adopted by the subject-individual” enables him to move between several positions and “determine his course [se déterminer], although this determination is itself determined but in the play of the plurality of interpellations.”102 Advocating A Philosophy for Marxism: The Line of Democritus, Althusser claims that he had always been against the Stalinist politics of the PCF. But he would have been expelled, marginalized, and left pow- erless to influence the party if he tried to intervene politically. Thus, he tried to influence the party’s theoretical foundation through philosophy.103 For Althusser of the 1980s, dialectical materialism, which was used by Stalinism to legitimize its political regime, became a philosophical THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 185 monster, when it became the practice of imposing power over intelligence. He describes the laws of dialectic elaborated by Engels as being as absurd as the laws of history.104 Referring to Jacques Bidet,105 Althusser describes his earlier Marxism of rupture as “‘imaginary Marxism’ in the way Raymond Aron described it,” because Marx had never freed himself of Hegel and there had never been a complete rupture between Marx and Hegel.106 Now, Althusser discovers that Marx did not want to build a philosophical system in the same way that he was not thinking to build a new state. For Marx, the future state would be a non-state destined to wither away. Marx was thinking that philosophy had to go away in order to make room for “new forms of philosophical existence.”107 Althusser argues that as Democritus and Epicurus could see “the clinamen causes an atom to ‘swerve’ in the course of its fall in the void, inducing an encounter with the atom next to it” which may or may not generate a world. But as a world is in existence, it constitutes itself on particular reigns of reason, necessity, and meaning to rationalize and legitimize its existence.108 Heidegger employs this Epicurean statement to call into question “all the classical questions about the Origin” in favor of the “contingent transcendentality of the world, into which we are thrown” to remind us that “the world is a ‘gift’ that we have been given.”109 For Althusser aleatory materialism, or the materialism of the encounter and contingency opposing the rationalist materialism of necessity and teleology, is about “the primacy of materiality over everything else” and that “anything can be determinant in the last instance.” With regard to aleatory materialism, Althusser distinguishes between the historiography which talks about “the accomplished fact of past history” as if it is a dead physical object and historiography in the sense of the German Geschichte, which is about history in the present, a living history that is “open to a future that is uncertain, unforeseeable, not yet accomplished, and therefore aleatory.” This living history studies a tendency in the past and present which can be divided as a result of endless encounters with another tendency. “At each intersection, the tendency can take a path that is unforeseeable because it is aleatory.”110 This aleatory materialism requires “the openness of the world towards the event” which is not even imagined yet, but we see its elements in the “living practice” including politics. All these indicate “the primacy of the gesture over the word, of the material trace over the sign.”111 Althusser claims that Marx and Engels proposed neither “a theory of history, in the sense of the unforeseen, unique, aleatory historical event” nor “a theory of political practice.” Although Lenin, Gramsci, and 186 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Mao took small steps toward such a theory in the form of political practice in the present, neither of them went beyond Machiavelli’s theory of political history.112 For Althusser, Marx’s theses on Feuerbach are significant because thesis means “position” in Greek, and every thesis calls forth its antithesis. Thesis and antithesis have been significant in relation to the theory of the subject in the juridical ideology since the fourteenth century, which related the individual’s juridical capacities as a legal subject to his property. This category entered the realm of philosophy with Descartes’ thinking subject and Kant’s “subject of ‘moral consciousness’” and then “invaded the political realm with the ‘political subject’ of the social contract.” Since every antithesis is a new thesis, and philosophy has never been able to unify “the encounter of the ideologies and the corresponding practices” there has never been “an absolutely pure philosophy” but only philosophical tendencies.113 As in military war, a philosophical war against the opposing philosophy must end in its defeat, beginning with the occupation of its positions and capturing “some of its ‘troops.’” Thus the advocates of the new philosophical thesis must know their adversary’s troops and positions, expressed as arguments, concepts, and categories. Otherwise no victories would be attained.114 This explains why every philosophy contains its former and current adversaries’ arguments. This indicates that there is no absolute purity in philosophical positions. The Marxian materialist position “cannot claim to be exclusively ‘materialist’, because, if it were, it would have given up the fight, and abandoned, in advance, the idea of conquering the positions occupied by idealism.”115 A philosophical war is not a war between individuals but between philosophical concep- tions and strategies to gain philosophical hegemony in a particular space and time. Althusser interprets philosophy as class struggle in theory because it is the practice of putting a new thesis against the existing thesis.116 For Althusser, the Enlightenment’s materialism which anticipates itself as the end and preoccupies itself with the question of the origin is inverted idealism because when we put forward the question of the origin of anything we assume ourselves to be its end.117 Spinoza is not preoccupied with the origin because he seeks “the true, not Truth,” and the true is a product of a process of labor, which affirms “the primacy of practice over theory.” Here, practice is the name of a process of transformation and changing the world. Thus social practices as the outside of philosophy cannot affirm philosophy and play as the source of its consistency because practice shakes the foundations of philosophy and forces it to take position. Philosophy has never been able to master the class struggle because it is the class THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 187

struggle which wakes up philosophy “to see clearly just what philosophy is.”118 The reality of philosophy is its practice of imposing its own Truth on all social practices, and when it “assimilates them and reworks them in accordance with its own philosophical form” with little respect for the reality of such practices and for the men “who continue to toil and to dwell in darkness,” it cheats them.119 For Althusser, the idealist and the materialist philosophers are similar to two men catching a train. Whereas the former “knows from the outset the station he will be leaving from and the one he will be arriving at” since he knows the beginning and the end of his journey, the materialist philosopher “like the hero of an American Western” knows neither the station he is leaving nor the destination.120 That is why the materialist philosopher is observant of singular, concrete, and factual cases which will not be repeated. He singles out tendencies or “general constants” among the ongoing encounters, which, unlike “the universality of laws,” “enable us to apprehend what is true of such-and- such a case.”121 For Althusser, the dominant philosophies either unify elements of diverse ideologies to defend the dominant political system or take a revolutionary stance against it. When they take an “apologetic stance vis-à-vis the authorities” they situate the system above everything else and as the guardians of Truth their complicity is concealed through the argument “that the real power is the power of knowledge.”122 For Althusser, ideology is not a product of imagination of the individuals but a socially projected system of ideas and concepts. Hence, the ideology performs its effect “whenever a consciousness recognizes these ideological notions to be true.” Interpellation is the way an ideology imposes itself on the individuals who believe they have reached particular ideas through their “free consciousness” because they feel free to recognize or reject these ideas. By recognizing these ideas, they “constitute themselves as ‘free subjects’ who are capable of recognizing the true wherever it is present.” Consequently, “Individuals are … always-already-subject to an ideology.”123 The ideological subject is the decisive factor of the social reproduction because it makes “the material means of reproducing labour- power” effective. Social reproduction requires that the worker undergoes a process of ideological formation in school where he is “‘formed’ to con- form to certain social norms that regulate behaviour: punctuality, efficiency, obedience, responsibility, family love and recognition of all forms of authority.”124 The “reproduction of the social relations of production” relies on the individuals subjects’ demand for recognition by the other because this demand leads them to “accomplish the roles and tasks that have been 188 Y. SHAHIBZADEH assigned them” indisputably.125 But being an ideological subject does not mean that one cannot become a revolutionary subject because a revolutionary subject can be an ideological subject at the same time “because ideology is the condition for the existence of individuals.”126 A dominant ideology does not emerge from nothingness; it assimilates various elements of the existing, previous, and opposing ideologies. As an instrument that unifies the essential interests of the dominant class to overcome social contradictions, the dominant ideology must impose and fortify its hegemony. An ideology becomes dominant and hegemonic when it is able to respond to the surprising events in science and politics. Thus to understand the role of philosophy as the “guardian of the Truth,” philosophy should be situated within the struggle for hegemony and located within the dominant ideology.127 The task of all philosophy is “to think the theoretical conditions of possibility for the resolution of existing contradictions, and thus for the unification of the socialpractices and their ideology.” This means even the response of the most abstract philosophies to the class struggle is their endless work on the existing ideologies to unify them.128

Notes 1. Jacques Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), p. XVI. 2. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 10. 3. Ibid., p. 11. 4. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 5. Ibid., p. 15. 6. Ibid., pp. 18–19. 7. Ibid., p. 23. 8. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 26. 9. Ibid., p. 32. 10. Ibid., p. 36. 11. Ibid., p. 37. 12. Ibid., p. 38. 13. Ibid., pp. 40–41. 14. Ibid., p. 47. 15. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 47. 16. Ibid., pp. 49–50. 17. Ibid., p. 51. 18. Ibid., p. 52. 19. Ibid., p. 53. 20. Ibid., p. 55. THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 189

21. Ibid., pp. 57–61. 22. Ibid., p. 62. 23. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 71. 24. Alain Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis (London: Verso, 2010), p. 102. 25. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, pp. 72–73. 26. Ibid., p. 73. 27. Ibid., p. 75. 28. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 86. 29. Ibid., p. 87. 30. Ibid., p. 87. 31. Ibid., p. 88. 32. Ibid., p. 90. 33. Ibid., pp. 95–96. 34. Ibid., pp. 97–98. 35. Ibid., p. 103. 36. Ibid., p. 104. 37. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, pp. 105–106. 38. Ibid., pp. 111–112. 39. Ibid., p. 113. 40. Ibid., pp. 113–114. 41. Ibid., pp. 114–115. 42. Ibid., pp. 115–116. 43. Rancière, Althusser’s Lesson, p. 118. 44. Ibid., p. 119. 45. Ibid., pp. 120–121. 46. Ibid., pp. 121–122. 47. Ibid., p. 122. 48. Ibid., pp. 122–123. 49. Ibid., p. 123. 50. Eric Hobsbawm, How to Change the World, Reflections on Marx and Marxism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 22. 51. Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France 1977–1978 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 144. 52. Ibid., p. 127. 53. Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at The College De France 1978–1979 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 4–5. 54. Ibid., pp. 146–147. 55. Ibid., p. 221. 56. Ibid., p. 220. 57. Ibid., p. 221. 58. Ibid., p. 221. 59. Ibid., p. 223. 190 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

60. Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures At The College De France 1981–82 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 12. 61. Ibid., p. 15. 62. Ibid., p. 29. 63. Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures At The College De France 1981–82, p. 493. 64. Ibid. 65. Louis Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978–87, Edited by Francois Matheron and Oliver Corpet (New York: Verso, 2006). 66. Ibid., p. 9. 67. Ibid., p. 12. 68. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 18. 69. Ibid., pp. 19–20. 70. Ibid., p. 21. 71. Ibid., p. 22. 72. Ibid., pp. 32–33. 73. Ibid., pp. 61–63. 74. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, pp. 66–67. 75. Ibid., p. 67. 76. Ibid., pp. 67–68. 77. Ibid., p. 69. 78. Ibid., p. 70. 79. Ibid., p. 77. 80. Ibid., pp. 82–83. 81. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, pp. 86–87. 82. Ibid., p. 89. 83. Ibid., p. 91. 84. Ibid., p. 92. 85. Ibid., pp. 167–169. 86. Ibid., pp. 169–170. 87. Ibid., p. 174. 88. Ibid., pp. 188–189. 89. Ibid., p. 191. 90. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 193. 91. Ibid., pp. 193–194. 92. Ibid., pp. 196–197. 93. Ibid., pp. 197–198. 94. Ibid., p. 198. 95. Ibid., pp. 199–200. 96. Ibid., p. 200. 97. Ibid., p. 203. THE EDUCATOR MUST BE EDUCATED 191

98. Ibid., p. 213. 99. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 239. 100. Ibid., p. 240. 101. Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), pp. 175–176. 102. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 241. 103. Ibid., p. 253. 104. Ibid., p. 254. 105. Jacques Bidet’s, Exploring Marx’s Capital Philosophical, Economic and Political Dimensions (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 106. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, pp. 257–258. 107. Ibid., pp. 258–259. 108. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, pp. 260–261. 109. Ibid., p. 261. 110. Ibid., pp. 63–64. 111. Ibid., pp. 264–265. 112. Ibid., p. 266. 113. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, pp. 267–268. 114. Ibid., p. 269. 115. Ibid., p. 270. 116. Ibid., pp. 270–271. 117. Ibid., pp. 272–273. 118. Ibid., pp. 273–275. 119. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 276. 120. Ibid., p. 277. 121. Ibid., p. 278. 122. Ibid., pp. 279–280. 123. Ibid., pp. 281–282. 124. Ibid., p. 283. 125. Althusser, Philosophy of the Encounter, p. 284. 126. Ibid., p. 285. 127. Ibid., p. 286. 128. Ibid., p. 287. CHAPTER 11

From Communism to Democracy

As the political fervor of the 1960s disappeared in the 1970s, the fusion of Foucauldian discourse and Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism generated a global theory of domination. André Glucksmann’s Les maîtres penseurs (1977) and Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) can be seen as attempts to reflect on this theory of domination. But Bernard Henri Lévy’s La barba- rie à visage humain (1977) reduced this theory of global domination to communist totalitarianism, both in its revolutionary expression and in its state form. Then came Pascal Bruckner’s The Tears of White Man (1983) and Alain Finkielkraut’s The Defeat of the Mind (1987) which discussed the victimhood of the White man and Western civilization. While very selective in its choice of who is the victim, this new generation of intellectuals changed the focus from the hope in the utopian future to the human tragedies of the past. This generation was more preoccupied with how the power of theory puts limitations on humanity.1 From the late 1970s on, various forms of post-Marxism in the academic and public discourses criticized Marxism for its reluctance to distance itself from totalitarianism, colonialism, racism, and refraining from supporting women’s emancipation and human rights. But as the question of colonialism was reduced to the questions of authentic, authoritarian, and reflexive modernity and racism to exclusion, post-Marxism became preoccupied with the integration of the undemocratic margin to the democratic core. Thus it focused on educating Black, Muslim, Middle Eastern, and Chinese people to qualify them as useful and equal members of the

“democratic community.” Despite the fact that Foucault wrote an introduction to one of Glucksmann’s books which deals with the same subjects, he could not understand why the French left remained indifferent toward the Iranian Revolution, a revolution which was leftist in its orientation and was supported by the Iranian left as a whole.2 From the late 1970s to the late 1990s we witnessed two significant political events: the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the foundation of the Project for the New American Century in 1997. During this period the Iranian left had changed its character and function from a broad and radical socialist and anti-imperialist youth movement to the Iranian section of the neoconservative ideology advocating the “democratization processes” in the Middle East and the rest of the world endorsed by the Project for the New American Century. Within weeks after the overthrow of the Shah in February 1979, the Iranian left became a visible and strong movement with hundreds of thousands of sympathizers throughout the country. The post-revolutionary political climate allowed big and small Marxist organizations to bring their activities into the open. A few months after the 1979 revolution, there were numerous secular leftist organizations such as Fadaiyan-e Khalq, Tudeh Party, Peykar, Sazeman-e Razmandegan dar Rah-e Azadi-ye Tabaqeh-ye Karegar, Rah-e Karegar, Etehadiyeh-ye Kommonistha-ye Iran, Sazeman-e Ranjbaran-e Iran, Sazeman-e Vahdat-e Komunisti, Sazeman-e Mobarezan-e Komunist, Sazman’e Enqleabi-ye Zahmatkashan-e Kordestan (Kumeleh), and many other small organizations which called themselves Marxist-Leninist or simply Marxist, used the Marxist and Marxist-Leninist vocabulary to speak to, criticize, and persuade one another. Fadaiyan-e Khalq was by far the most popular Marxist organization in post-revolutionary Iran because it not only dominated the student organizations throughout the country but also had a powerful presence in Kurdistan, Baluchestan, Khuzestan, and Turkmansahra region of northern Iran. In fact, between 1979 and 1980 the Fadaiyan was one of the three most powerful organizations in the Kurdistan region of Iran; the other two organizations were the Kurdish organizations.3 There also appeared popular Muslim leftist organizations which shared the concerns of the secular leftist organizations. In the first two years of post-revolutionary Iran the main public debates were between the Islamist and secular leftists regarding the trajectories of socialism in Iran. In fact, the ideological and political stance of the People’s Mojahedin as the most popular Islamist leftist organization was indistinctive from many revolutionary Marxist organizations.4 Many Marxist organizations FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 195 and some Islamist leftist organizations such as the People’s Mojahedin were convinced that the post-revolutionary government led by Khomeini was transitory and compared it to the Kerensky government which paved the way for the October Revolution. When in September 1980 Saddam Hussein started his war against Iran, which lasted eight years, except the Peykar organization, all Marxist organizations interpreted the war as the imperialism’s preemptive action against the radical direction that the revolution could take toward a true socialist revolution.5 Whereas the Tudeh Party and the majority faction of the Fadaiyan, Sazeman-e Razmandegan dar Rahe Azadi-ye Tabaqe-ye Kargar, Etehadiyeh komunist haye Iran, and Ranjbaran endorsed the position of the post-revolutionary state in the Iran-Iraq War, organizations such as the radical Minority Faction of the Fadaiyan argued that the war was not a just war.6 However, while encouraging Iranian communists and the masses to resist the Iraqi aggression independently from the Iranian state’s military forces, the Minority Faction of the Fadaiyan advised the Iraqi communists to turn their weapons against the Iraqi regime.7 Two years later, while Iran was fully engaged in the war with Iraq, all leftist organizations were banned and their members were killed, imprisoned, escaped, or simply left Iran for Europe and the United States. In the mid-1980s there was no active Marxist or leftist organization in Iran. Iranian Marxism was defeated ideologically and politically by the mid- 1980s. There was no leftist-Marxist organization in Iran because the leaders, cadres, and members of these organizations had been executed, imprisoned, or had left the country. Whereas no Marxist newspaper was published inside Iran, leaders of the leftist organization who had taken refuge in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia, Europe, or even the United States pretended to be active inside the country. But gradually they accepted the fact that they were merely diaspora organizations with no connection to the real people in Iran. The realization of this fact coincided with the neoconservative turn within European Marxism and post-Marxism. Whereas the physical disappearance of the Marxist organizations in Iranian society indicated their political defeat, their inability to regenerate Marxist politics among the new generation of Iranian students and workers indicated their ideological demise. The evaporation of the Iranian communist movement took place before Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union. The collapse of the communist movement in Iran was not a result of the collapse of the socialist countries and the ideological crisis of the official international communism. Iranian Marxism was unable to understand the nature, 196 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the meaning, and the dynamics of the Iranian Revolution.8 But the inability of Iranian Marxism to understand the Iranian Revolution and its failure to generate effective strategies to impose its hegemony on the Revolution was part of a larger problem. In fact, the theoretical incapability of the Iranian communists was part of the inability of Marxist theory on the global level to analyze the Iranian Revolution as the meeting place of different revolutionary forces and explain the Islamist character of the Revolution. The Iranian Revolution occurred at a time when the crisis of Marxist theory had been developed into the crisis of the communist movement worldwide. The problem of Iranian communism was an expression of the interactions between the crisis of Marxist theory and the crisis of the communist movement on the global level. It does not matter which came first. What Iranian Marxism did not understand at the time was that whereas Marxist theory was unable to theorize the Iranian Revolution’s position within the global proletarian movement, the communist movements refused to defend it against the imperialist onslaught. In fact, both the “Marxist theorists” and the communist movement left the Iranian Revolution isolated and defenseless to face its own demise. The propo- nents of Marxist theory did not try to theorize the Iranian Revolution because it had neither the theoretical means nor the confidence to theorize the universality of this populous and stunningly organized revolution. While on the surface the Iranian Revolution used a language which seemed foreign to Marxism and socialism, the structure and terminology of its Islamist ideology was nothing but Marxism in disguise. As Marxism was in retreat in the 1980s, Rancière described Marxism as a dividing force rather than a uniting factor among the workers of each country.9 He argued that, contrary to the conventional belief, the Manifesto insists on the agency of the bourgeoisie rather than the proletariat. According to the Manifesto, the bourgeoisie achieves everything, from buildings and cities to factories, railroads, ships, and telegraphs, and through these achievements it has broken all barriers between nations and erased old traces of backwardness. However, the bourgeoisie’s agency has a suicidal nature because it has produced the proletariat as its gravediggers. For Rancière, the Manifesto even deprives the proletariat of being the assassins of the bourgeoisie because the term implies the agency of the proletariat. In the Manifesto, the proletariat is nothing more than the soldiers of industry and the instruments of labor because the proletariat owes both his existence and actions to bourgeois action or passion. Since the proletarian masses receive their power from sources outside themselves, their agency as political subjects depends on the bourgeoisie’s ability to FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 197 organize them in the fight against the feudal order. Even in their struggle against the bourgeoisie, the proletarian masses have to accept the members of the bourgeoisie as their political educators.10

Regarding the Bourgeois State Rancière argues that the rise of Louis Bonaparte to power in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution was a result of the bourgeoisie’s reluctance to take political power for the simple reason that it did not want to be engaged in the final confrontation in the class struggle. The bourgeoisie was aware that its own rule would not protect its interests. It was rather afraid that its political victory would lead to its own death. The Manifesto describes the pre-1848 bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class ready to exercise its power of production and destruction economically and politically. However, in order to preserve its economic and social power, the bourgeoisie bestowed its political power on someone believed to be an imbecile, but in reality Louis Bonaparte forced the bourgeoisie to sacrifice its political interests to defend its social interests.11 Even when Marx begins to believe in the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat, he describes a segment of the proletariat as the lumpenproletariat, “the lowest layers of old society.” Marx claims that in 1848 this lowest layer of the old society, which included “thieves and criminals of all sorts living off the garbage of society,” “put down the insurrection of the true proletariat” in Paris. Rancière argues that the Mobile Guards, the clique which Marx refers to as the lumpenproletariat, “belonged to the élite of the proletariat rather than its scum.”12 In fact, Mobile Guards were a result of the industrial prosperity of 1850, who in order to protect their “momentary ease and comfort” defended the law that deprived three million of their fellow workers from voting and in so doing forgot, as Marx correctly claims, “the revolutionary interests of their class … [and] renounced the honour of being a conquering class.”13 Marx was well aware that there would never be a revolution in England because England lacked a revolutionary proletariat. Marx claims that being detached from politics, both the English working class and the middle class “cheerfully go snacks in England’s monopoly of the world market and colonies.”14 Here lies the dilemma and the paradoxical relationship between the worker and the intellectual. Rancière claims that Sartre was one of the few French intellectuals who, from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, convinced the Marxist intellectuals that it was no longer the PCF that was speaking the truth. It was Sartre who claimed that the party must be judged according to its consistency or 198 Y. SHAHIBZADEH inconsistency with Marxism. Sartre enabled the intellectual to take back the power that he had delegated to the party and claimed that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is a contradiction in terms.”15 He taught the intellectuals that that they must liberate Marxism from the party.16 But as the knowledge of emancipation is liberated from the party, the sociologist takes it under his authority. With his scientific authority the sociologist thinks that “the people who have the technical means to appropriate what he says have no wish to appropriate it, … whereas those who would have an interest in appropriating it do not have the instruments for appropriation…”17 Bourdieu, representing the sociological figure, criticizes elitism, a critique which is nothing but a new justification for the existing social hierarchy that he claims he is challenging. Rancière says that when the university professor from the École des Hautes Études analyzes the elitist methods of the suburban teacher in order to demystify the dominant elitist ideology and gets the minister of Education to undertake reform to suppress the elitism of his subordinates, he does nothing but maintain the existing order “without guilt or suffering.”18 The analytical choice that Bourdieu’s theory offers is that within the relations of production and domination the capitalist is only the puppet of capital and the proletarian is a little liberal capitalist who is managing his “human capital.”19 Bourdieu’s theory of domination indicates that the underdeveloped culture, aesthetic taste, and intelligence of the working class are the main causes of its subjugated position vis-à-vis capital and power. Rancière’s response is that by appropriating the high culture and the aesthetic taste of its time, the working class transformed its own pathos into a militant passion. Hence, when laying parquet floor a carpenter with the name Gauny expands his aesthetic capacity: “Thinking himself at home, as long as he not finished the room in which he nails down the boards, he likes the lay- out of the place; if the window opens onto a garden or over a picturesque horizon, he stops moving his hands for an instant and shifts his thoughts toward that spacious view in order to enjoy it better than the owner of the neighboring homes.”20 Here, Gauny offers, according to Rancière; “the gaze of an aesthete on the décor of his servitude” as an original comment on the Critique of Judgment. For Rancière, aesthetic moments such as this explain how the aesthetes and dandies of the working class were the first to give their class a voice, on which Baudelaire commented, “What is more trivial than wealth as seen by the poverty? But here, the feeling is complicated by poetic pride, by partly glimpsed pleasure of which one feels oneself worthy … We too, we understand the beauty of palaces and FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 199 parks. We too, we know the art of happiness.”21 Here we have a revolt against philosophy which traced “a circle that excluded from the right to think those who earned their living by the labor of their hands.” The sociological demystification follows philosophy’s footsteps by presenting “the arbitrary as necessity.” Whereas Plato excluded by decree “the artisans from the leisure of thought” because of their role in the production of material necessities, sociology excludes them from the leisure of thought because of the “ethos that makes the artisan incapable of ever acquiring a taste for the philosophers’ good- and even of understanding the language in which their enjoyment is expounded.”22 In the early 1980s, Rancière demonstrates in The Nights of Labor that the idea of emancipation among the working class began with a “symbolic rupture” with what is known as working class culture and identity. The symbolic rupture indicates that working-class emancipation did not begin with the “affirmation of values specific to the world of labor” but as a rupture with the existing order of things that justified these values and assigned “the privilege of thought to some and the task of production to others.”23 Thus, the workers movement was born in nineteenth-century France through workers who created newspapers and associations, wrote poems, or joined utopian groups because they considered themselves fully speaking and thinking beings. This means the workers movement was neither a result of “the importa- tion of the scientific thought into the world of the worker, nor the affirmation of a worker culture.” On the contrary, the workers movement was a result of those who thought of themselves as poets and thinkers, and appropriated the language and culture of the other to demonstrate their intellectual equality. In The Philosopher and His Poor, Rancière reminds us of the logic of the ancient separation between the time and occupation of the philosopher and the artisan, and how this same logic is still at work in both contemporary scientific discourses and progressive and revolutionary discourses.24 For Rancière, the debates on the crimes of the revolutionary age which begins in the 1980s continue with the victory of “consensual realism over Marxist utopia” and the age of democracy in the 1990s. But democracy and consensual realism generate racism and xenophobia. However, as politics is reduced to the opposition and debates between the social groups on their respective interests, the real meaning of democracy as dispute or the expression of the demos is forgotten. Here the demos is neither the poor nor the suffering sector of the society but a supplement “in relation to every account of social parties.”25 200 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

From Politics to Ethics For Rancière, the logic that kept the Jews outside politics in the past keeps the citizens of non-European origin outside politics in contemporary Europe. For the ancient Greeks, a citizen’s share of common power was proportional to axia or the value he brought to the community, and those who did not bring value to the community had no share in the common power of the society.26 But what is the content of this value, and who were the bearers of this value? First, the value brought to the society could be generated by creatures who lacked the power of speech and were creatures of want, suffering, and rage. Thus the slaves and the plebs which were deemed as creatures of want and suffering were excluded from those with the capacity of bringing value to the community. However, the very assumption that the plebs understood the patrician argument that they should obey the patricians’ orders indicated that their understanding of the orders proved their equality with the patricians. This same equality led the plebeians to revolt against the patricians and forced them to recognize “the existence of a common stage” on which the plebeians are present.27 For Rancière, democracy is the expression of politics, but the politics he refers to is not the agreement that different social parties reach over their common interests. Politics is about the people who have not been counted as speaking beings in the society but make themselves visible in the world they share with those who “do not acknowledge them as speaking beings.” Politics is not about how a society organizes its power or how its members negotiate over their shares of power, or the extent to which the existing distribution of places and roles legitimizes the state.28 In fact, it is the police which allocate “ways of doing, ways of being, and ways of saying” to different social groups and decides whether a particular activity is visible or not and whether a certain statement “is seen as discourse and other as noise.” For Rancière, politics is the name of any activity that calls into question different forms of policing or disrupts the order that the police protect. Political activity can be the name of an activity that “shifts a body from the place assigned to it,” or changes its destination, or makes visible the invisible, or turns what has been understood as noise into a discourse.29 Rancière claims the sweetness of a particular kind of police order does not make it “the opposite of the police” because the sweetness of a police order always follows the police logic and will never question its logic through the egalitarian logic.30 Hence, democratic government does not exist because the egalitarian logic cannot be institutionalized. The egali- FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 201 tarian logic of politics expresses itself in a process of subjectification as “actions of a body and a capacity for enunciation not previously identifi- able within a given field of experience.”31 When Blanqui introduces himself as a member of the proletarian class, which did not correspond to any existing social groups, he declares the appearance of a new social class and its subjectivity on the political stage. The proletariat becomes the subject of politics because it is the object of wrong. As a political subject the proletariat is “an operator that connects and disconnects different areas, regions, identities, functions, and capacities” guarded by the police order.32 Accordingly, politics can never be based on the essence of a community or its laws because politics adds equality to the community and forces the law to be equal for everyone.33 Equality is the reason that politics always accompanies democracy, but the democracy which accompanies politics is not “a set of institutions” or a type of government but a mode of subjectification which disrupts the police order.34 This means that wherever a people dispute the police order of their society they become the agents of democracy. The agents of democracy either “produce inscriptions of equality” or demand that the “existing inscriptions” be realized. Democracy cannot become a form of government or a way of life because it demonstrates the contingency of places and functions in the police order. Democracy is not the expression of the ethos or the way of being of the individuals and collectivities because democracy breaks the existing way of being by confronting “the logic of equality with the logic of the police order.”35 Rancière calls post-communist Europe post-democracy, a community that is in identification with itself, free of any contradictory identities, and in which the possible subjects of democracy cannot call it into question.36 Post-democracy as the expression of the identity of law and the spirit of the community does not leave any space for politics.37 Post-democracy has eliminated the interval between law and social facts and the public discourse taking place in the post-democracy reflects the community’s identity with itself.38 The public discourses in the post- democracy do not assume that there is a relationship between people’s suffering or unemployment and the unjust nature of the social system and the state power. The public discourses in a post-democracy are about people who suffer or are unemployed because they lack the resources or proper social ties or are of different identities.39 Whereas in the past a particular section of the working class was called immigrants, today they are called Muslims. Whether immigrant or Muslim, they are deprived of their political subjectification. As workers lose their political connotation, 202 Y. SHAHIBZADEH they are divided into the immigrant, Muslims, and the new racists.40 This new racism emerges at the same time that religious ideologies, used in the past by the Western democracy to battle the Soviet expansion and totalitarianism, are renamed as forces of fundamentalism threatening the Western democratic way of life. The new racism is one aspect of the European democracies which tries to integrate Muslims who cannot adopt the Western democratic way of life. Whereas before the collapse of the totalitarian systems, the liberal state presented itself as a boundless system with the ability to include all of humanity as citizens of the world entitled with all human rights, after its victory over totalitarianism it changed the meaning of humanity. Now human rights are the rights of a suffering humanity “excluded from the logos, armed only with a voice expressing a monotonous moan, the moan of naked suffering.”41 What the suffering humanity needs is humanitarian assistance. Where human rights in the past authorized particular political modes of enunciation such as “We are all German Jews” after May 1968 in France, in the age of democratic consensus, the German Jew has become the name of the absolute victim that suspends any political subjectification.42 In fact, the theoretical foundations of the age of human rights began more than a decade before the collapse of the totalitarian systems. The “New Philosophers” who opposed any form of political subjectification claimed that the ethics of human rights must replace politics in its entirety.

Is Marxism Still Relevant for Human Emancipation? Etienne Balibar, one of the close associates of Althusser, argues in the early 1990s that Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach implies that social revolution both liberates individuals from their state of alienation and starts a process of realization of philosophy.43 Here the abolition of the existing order toward communism is related to philosophy’s investigation of how, in the process of the revolutionary movement toward communism, it must give up its place.44 Since Marx thinks of revolution as the expression of the real and the rational at the same time, he discriminates between abstractions as mystification and abstractions as real knowledge. Whereas the real history of humanity is toward universalization, the democracy expressed by the Rechtstaat does not represent universalization because a Rechtstaat depends on “the ideological inversion … of social relations.”45 Real universalization is expressed through the actions of the proletariat as the subject of the communist revolution. Balibar argues that Marx found the FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 203

proletariat as the subject of communism by erasing the radical distinction between praxis and poiêsis. Whereas for the Greeks praxis was the privilege of citizens and the masters who through free action realize and transform themselves toward perfection, poiêsis was considered the necessary and servile action of slaves, women, and immigrants. Whereas praxis is the site of man’s relation to himself toward perfection, poiêsis is the site of man’s relationship with nature and material conditions to create perfect objects which can be used by man.46 The distinction between praxis and poiêsis is the philosophical explanation of the division between material and intellectual labor. Following the French Revolution, Hegel describes in his Philosophy of Right the function of the intellectuals in the state as a reflec- tive activity that transforms particular interests of civil society into the general interest. For Hegel, since the state is the embodiment of universality, the intellectuals as the agents of the state who are transforming the particular interests into the general interests are in fact transforming themselves into a universal group.47 For Marx of the Manifesto, the universality of the proletariat comes from the fact that they do not possess any property, and as a result do not have any illusions about the social relations and the dominant ideology representing these relations. But the universal nature of the proletariat expressed in the Manifesto disappears in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in which Marx discovers a historical gap between the proletariat as “the class in itself and the class for itself.”48 In Capital, Marx tries to argue, through the theory of fetishism, why this historical gap exists. For the Marx of Capital, capitalism as a mode of production has reduced all social relations into relations between things with money as a unique thing with a special place because unlike all commodities which have an exchange-value, money is exchange-value itself. The exchange-value position of money gives it a universal character and the power to directly communicate to all commodities which “enter into relation with it.” This power of universal communication makes money both “the object of a universal need” and an object which causes fear and respect.49 According to Balibar, the analysis of the division between manual and intellectual labor allows Marx to explain the process of reproduction of the ideological domination and legitimation of the political power. But through the theory of fetishism Marx explains not only “the way all production is subordinated to the reproduction of exchange-value” but also commodity circulation and the correspondence between “economic and juridical notions.” This correspondence reduces freedom of individuals to the freedom to buy and sell. Whereas the theory 204 Y. SHAHIBZADEH of ideology is “a theory of the state” and mode of domination, the theory of fetishism is “a theory of the market” and its mode of subjection that constitutes the world of subjects and objects in the market ruled by market forces.50 Balibar argues that for Marx the dictatorship of the proletariat is the political form of the state during the transition toward communism, which is divided into two distinct phases. Whereas in the first phase the division of labor exists and social labor is organized according to the principles of “commodity exchange and the wage form,” in the second phase the division of labor disappears and labor is not a means of keeping the individual and his or her family alive but a need without which he cannot experience his or her humanity. As the socialist development enters the communist order, “withering away of the State” is completed and social relations are automatically regulated according to “the principle: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”51 But contrary to this expected process, the official Marxism in the socialist countries said that they had established a socialist mode of production as the condition of possibility of the communist mode of production and social organization. Balibar rejects the very “idea of a socialist mode of production” because it contradicts Marx’s representation of communism as an alternative to capitalism, for which capitalism itself has created the conditions. Marx criticized the idea of a socialist mode of production in a post- revolutionary socialist State when Bebel and Liebknecht introduced it. According to Balibar, by the transition period, Marx did not mean a mode of production but a period of revolutionary politics through which a political figure represents the historical time of non-contemporaneity. Bakunin criticized Marx’s claim in the Preface to the First Edition of Capital that the future of the industrially less developed countries is the present of the industrially more developed countries. Bakunin interpreted the statement as the expression of the desire of the industrially developed countries to impose their hegemony over the “under-developed” countries.52 Balibar claims that as a response to Bakunin, Marx corrected his view by saying that law of the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation in the West should not be applied to all societies regardless of the historical circumstances. In the case of Russia, in particular, Marx says that his work should not be used to verify the “historical necessity of the dissolution of communal property in Russia” and encourages the analysts of Russia “to provide new arguments, quite independent of the developments,” which he has investigated.53 This indicates, according to Balibar, that Marx could imagine a “multiplicity of paths of historical development” because every FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 205 social formation included a multiplicity of “times.” For Marx, whereas some “times” “present themselves as a continuous progression,” others present “a short-circuit between the most ancient and the most recent,” which Althusser conceptualized as overdetermination. Balibar concludes that “historical capitalism” contains many capitalisms encountering and opposing each other, and thus “no universal history, only singular histo- ricities.”54 Balibar’s conclusion is that Marxism can neither be an “organizational doctrine” nor an “academic philosophy” legitimizing a form of state but the critical force questioning every venture of legitimation.55 For Balibar, Marxism keeps its relevance because it deals with the internal contradiction of the modern society, which is a problem humanity put forward but has not yet solved.56 Henceforth, the relevance of Marxist philosophy will remain as long as the question of truth is related to “analyzing the fictions of universality.”57 Marxism means in this regard the ability to understand the content of Marx’s anti-utopianism consisting of praxis and dialectics and the ability to infer “a theoretical knowledge of the material conditions which constitute the present” and “action in the present.”58

From Internationalism to Transnationalism Balibar claims that French intellectuals idealized the Italian Communist Party because thanks to Gramsci they escaped, to a certain degree, the reductionism and political instrumentalization of culture and philosophy exercised by the PCF and its obedience to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.59 Balibar refers to Jean-Toussaint Desanti, a phenomenol- ogist and mathematician, who as the official philosopher of the PCF from 1945 to 1960, produced philosophical texts which included attacks on Merleau-Ponty and others because they “failed” to employ the Stalinist and Zhdanovist theory of philosophy in the service of the party. When Balibar met Althusser in 1960, Marxism was, as Sartre described it, “the incontestable horizon of our time,” “the point of reference for everything,” and the political issue at stake was the Algeria War. Convinced by Althusser’s saying that Marxism was “the politics of our time,” Balibar became a communist.60 In the Seminars on Reading Capital, Balibar and his colleagues discovered “the point of … convergence between the political and the theoretical or philosophical.”61 But he realized in 1984 that his Marxist approach could not explain the relationship between French colonialism and contemporary racism directed against immigrants.62 Two years later, he realized that nobody was engaged in the 206 Y. SHAHIBZADEH question of social classes and class struggle.63 In 2001, he discovered the World Social Forum as a place of convergence between global institutions and feminist, ecologist, and socialist movements from different parts of the world, and a space of debate on justice on the global level. What the World Social Forum needed was an organizer of the political discussions, playing the same role as the All-Russian newspaper that Lenin proposed in What Is To Be Done? and connecting different globalizing perspectives. Thus, they founded Le Monde Diplomatique as the organizer of this global forum. Balibar claims that despite the failure of the Social Forum to create a “political global forum,” the movements behind the forum did not disappear because it generated new forms of communication and convergence. The Social Forum experience convinced Balibar that a communist engagement should be based on the idea of “transnational” consisting of new forms of convergence between the popular and the institutional, which connects the initiatives taken from below to compel the institutions to make changes from above. For Balibar, as the “post- 68” militant movements to empower democracy from below “didn’t really achieve anything,” communication and convergence became the only path from the end of the 1970s. Balibar implies that the communists realized that in their rivalry with the socialists at the institutional level and in the government, they had become the losers. Also, the end of the 1970s indicated “the declining importance of the communist parties in Western Europe” including the PCF and French communists in general.64 Balibar’s narrative indicates that these changes encourage the European communists to take the path of communication and convergence to demonstrate their relevance to the ruling class, that they can be useful on the national and global level in return for rewards in the government institutions. From the beginning, the World Social Forum could not be more or less than the meeting place of the Western NGOs, their sister organizations abroad, and their creators, namely the Marxist and post-Marxists tendencies of the 1990s financed and supported by Western governments.

What Is Wrong or Right with Alain Badiou’s Masses In his discussion of the paradox put forward by Arendt regarding Kant’s “boundless admiration for the French Revolution” as a historical phenomenon and his “boundless opposition to its revolutionary ventures and their actors,” Badiou argues that politics lies somewhere within this paradox, FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 207 which contrasts between the principle of action and the principle of judgment.65 However, what Kant cannot grasp is that only the actors of a political event can understand the truth that the event sets free. This means neither Kant nor Francois Furet could grasp the “singular truth unleashed by the French Revolution,” but Saint-Just and Robespierre could.66 Reflecting on Sylvain Lazarus’ discussion of name not as descriptive but as prescriptive in his The Anthropology of the Name (1996), Badiou argues that the thought about the real is not about its being but about its possibilities and about what it can be.67 This means what made Marx, Lenin, and Mao part of the revolutionary emancipatory politics of the modern time was their “singular sequence of politics.”68 For Badiou, it is not an accident that those who preoccupied themselves with the “totalitarian ideology” in the name of preserving the lesser evil have “abandoned the ideas of justice and the emancipation of humanity.”69 In so doing, these people have abandoned every political movement which may create the condition of possibility for politics.70 These people help the state to administer the existing situation and reject politics because politics begins with the assumption that people think that no one is enslaved intellectually and materially.71 For Badiou, the maxim that the proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains and a world to win represents true politics because it challenges the illusion of the existing bond represented by trade unions, parliament, and professional networks.72 As democracy became the main subject of public debate in the 1990s, Badiou problematized the question of democracy in the way that Lenin did. For Lenin, if democracy is a form of state, it will disappear as a result of communist politics because the withering away of the state will be the consequence of true communist politics. For Badiou, since democracy is a form of the state, it cannot generate politics. What can generate politics is not democracy but equality or communism.73 But if democracy is understood with regard to the masses, it converges with the aim of politics that is communism in the broadest sense. Badiou claims that justice is conditioned by politics because “the possible truth of a politics” is demonstrated through justice.74 A politics that refers to the idea of justice follows the axiom that since people think, they are capable of truth in the way it is expressed by Saint-Just, who said in April 1794 that the “egalitarian recognition of the capacity for truth” is defined by “public consciousness.” By public consciousness Saint-Just meant the equal capacity of all hearts to distinguish between good and evil as the foundation of the general good. Badiou finds this same principle in the Cultural Revolution in China and in the slogan “Let the masses 208 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

educate themselves in this great revolutionary movement, let them learn to distinguish between the just and the unjust, between correct and incor- rect ways of doing things.”75 Echoing Rancière that equality is not the aim of politics but its presupposition, Badiou claims that “equality is not an objective of action, it is its axiom,” expressed in the political sequence by participants such as Saint-Just’s “public consciousness,” or Mao’s “immanent self-education of the revolutionary mass movement.”76 This conceptualization of justice stands in opposition to the state’s “programmatic approach to justice.”77 Badiou argues that it is in the nature of the state to be indifferent toward justice because justice is not a category of the social order that it presides over.78 While endorsing Rancière’s prescriptive conception of politics, Badiou still believes in organized politics and criticizes Rancière for ignoring organized politics because only political organizations can prescribe something.79 According to Badiou “[p]olitics presupposes the sudden appearance of a name,” such as the proletariat, but Rancière claims that the current situation is nameless because it has termi- nated the use of the proletariat or worker as the name of a particular politics.80 Badiou claims that while Rancière borrows some of his conceptualizations such as “the state of the situation,” which he renames as “the police,” he does not remain true to the politics these conceptualizations prescribe. Further, Rancière is accused of borrowing his “conceptualization of politics as a mode of subjectification” from Sylvain Lazarus’ conceptualization of politics as the quality “of the subjective order.” Badiou claims that Rancière does neither politics nor philosophy. He does not do politics because he claims that politics does not exist. He does not do philosophy either because if one does philosophy, “there is an obligation to make use of ontological categories and to argue their cohesion.”81 According to Badiou, Rancière’s argument that “politics is not the exercise of power” but “a specific rupture of the logic of arkhe” is a paraphrasing of his own argument where he says “a real politics holds itself at a distance from the State and constructs this distance.” He claims that Rancière’s definition of politics as a “provisional accident in the history of forms of domination” and as “the action of supplementary subjects inscribed as surplus in relation to any counting of parts of a society” is the paraphrasing of Lazarus’ argument that “politics is rare and subjective.” “We couldn’t repeat things any better than that ourselves.”82 Furthermore, Badiou accuses Rancière of borrowing from Organisation Politique the concept of immigrant which the “democratic public consensus” used “to conceal and then to drive out the word ‘worker’ from the space of political FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 209 representations.” In Badiou’s view, the discovery of the real meaning and the logic of the consensual use of the word immigrant was possible “because we were bound [attaches], in concrete factory-places, to the definition and political practice of a new use for the figure of the worker.” For Badiou, the consensual notion of the word immigrant was meant “to eliminate all reference to the figure of the worker.” Rancière’s sin is that he has “tak[en] up political results by cutting them off from the processes that give rise to them. This practice ultimately relies upon what he himself highlights as a philosophical imposture: forgetting the real condition of one’s speech.”83 What Rancière forgets is, according to Badiou, that every political process is an organized process, which finds its drive from the political militant representing “the subjective figure of politics.” For Badiou, a militant political party, which should not be confused with the affairs of the state, is the practice of rectification through intellectual and political processes.84 Finally, Badiou describes Rancière as a Thermidorean who does not pay any price for being Thermidorean. He describes Rancière as “a magician who conjures up shadows” but does not care that shadows depend on what is next to them and does not want to know that there is a shadow because “there is a tree or a shrub.” Even when he realizes that there is a political tree he “refuses to climb onto it.”85 However, a decade after these comments on Rancière, Badiou theorizes a political process without a party.86 Before this new theorization, he compares the political situation after the collapse of socialist countries to post-revolutionary France after the Thermidorean Convention, which decided to execute the leaders of the Revolution such as Robespierre and Saint-Just in order to end the terror. But what followed the Convention was the systematic suppression of the democratic rights that the people had gained by means of the Revolution.87 The Thermidor had no problem with terror but with the source and target of the terror.88 Whereas for a Jacobine a country was “a possible place for Republican virtues,” for a Thermidorean a country was an area that contains property. Whereas for the Jacobine the law indicated universality, “a maxim derived from the relation between principles and the situation,” for the Thermidorean the law was the means to protect property. Whereas the Jacobine understands insurrection as a popular response to the violation of “the universality of principles,” the Thermidorean insists that whenever the “property owner” demands peace there must be peace.89 Whereas for Saint-Just, virtue opposes corruption, a Thermidorean such as Boissy d’ Anglas exploits the unstable political convictions.90 Badiou refers to the contemporary Thermidoreans such as 210 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Pascal Bruckner, who, similar to Boissy d’Anglas, argue that “everything that happens to the people and countries of the third world” or the formerly colonized peoples happens because they do not take responsibility for their actions and ways of being. Boissy d’ Anglas was against any notion of independence for the colonies because in his view the colonies were “not mature enough for independence.” He proposed that the colonies can only experiment with domestic autonomy until they generate their own genuine democracy in the future.91 But Boissy d’Anglas’ only concern was serving the French planter and slave traders because for him and other Thermidoreans the colonies were France’s properties. Therefore, he demanded that the law forbids any emancipatory movement because these movements were not only a threat to the French property, but to France’s security. Thus, France’s security demanded the direct administration and control of the colonies.92 For Badiou, Thermidorean subjectivity, which is a result of the termination of the revolutionary politics, has three distinctive features: statification, calculable interests, and placement. Statification takes place in the form of a subject’s coexistence or active collaboration with the state and indifference to non-statist situations. The subject who becomes calculable with regard to his interests abandons his critical function in order to be accepted by the state institutions and the mass media. Placement occurs when one adopts the conservative argument that contrasts Western democracy with “human rights” as its kernel with the totalitarian character of the East. Badiou refers to the New Philosophers as the contemporary Thermidoreans for whom non-statist situations do not exist and who reject every “inventive political prescrip- tion” and always put Western democracy against Eastern totalitarianism.93 In the same way that the Thermidoreans of 1794 were members of the Robespierrist faction in the convention, the most infamous New Philosophers were members of the radical Maoists of the Gauche Prolétarienne.94 Boissy d’Anglas argued that if you grant “unconditional political rights to men without property” they will soon become legisla- tors and the first thing they do is “incite or let others incite unrest with no concern for the consequences.” They will implement “taxes that are inju- rious to commerce and agriculture” because they have no property and thus will not feel or fear the awful consequences.95 The Thermidoreans usually emerge after the termination of a political event which by nature can be universalized because it creates the condition of possibility or the site of subjective universality.96 This subjective universality took the form of the Soviets during the Russian Revolution, “liberated zones” during the FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 211

Maoist process, and has taken the name of democracy in the present and may take other forms in the future.97 But Badiou’s discussion of Thermidorean subjectivity is unable to include Rancière as a Thermidorean subject. The fact that the New Philosophers, who Badiou describes as Thermidoreans, came from the Gauche Prolétarienne with which Rancière sympathized in the early 1970s does not make him a Thermidorean. As early as 1974, Rancière criticized the organization for claiming to be the voice and representative of the proletariat. A few years after his critique of Rancière, Badiou claims that he is “developing a different figure of politics from the figure of the revolutionary party, as it had dominated things since October 1917.”98 A decade later, by saying that “all emancipatory politics must put an end to the model of the party, or of multiple parties, in order to affirm a politics without party,” Badiou joins Rancière who advocated the same idea for about four decades.99

Notes 1. Jacques Rancière, La méthode de l’égalité, Entretien avec Laurent Jean- Pierre et Dork Zabunyan (Paris: Bayard, 2012). 2. Michel Foucault in Claire Brièr, Peirre Blamchet, Didier Eribon, Iran: la revolution au nom de Dieu, Suivi D’un Entretien avec Michel Foucalut (Paris: Éditions Du Seul, 1979), pp. 227–228. 3. Kar Newspaper, Sazeman-e cherikhay-e Fadayi-ye Khalq, p. 1 & 11, Shomareh-ye 8, 06, Ordibehesht 1358./April 1979, Kar Newspaper, Sazeman-e cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq, Shomareh-ye 36, p. 12, 05, Azar 1358/November 1979. 4. See Ervand Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mujahedin and my Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran: An Intellectual History. 5. Contrary to the majority of Marxist organizations the Peykar Organization argued that the war with Iraq was not a just war. It encouraged the Iranian and the Iraqi working class to turn the war into a class war and encouraged them to turn their guns against the anti-revolutionary forces in power. Paykar no. 73 (Zamimeh), September 1980, pp. 2–5. 6. Haftenameh-ye Rahayi, Sazeman-e Vahdat-e Komunisiti, Sale dovvom Shomareh-ye 50, pp. 7–11, 29 Mehrmah 1359/September 1980, Ranjbar, Organe Hezb-e Ranjbaran-e Iran, Shomareh-ye 103, 27. Shahriver 1359./ September 1980. p. 1, Haqiqat Fouqoladeh, Etehadiyeh komunistha-ye Iran, Shomareh-ye 91, 10 Mehr 1359/September 1980, p. 1. 7. Kar, Sazeman-e Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq, Shomareh-ye 78, 8 Mehrmah 1359/September 1980, p. 12. 8. Behrooz, Rebels With A Cause, p. xiv. 212 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

9. Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor, p. 86. 10. Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor, p. 92. 11. Ibid., pp. 94–95. 12. Ibid., pp. 95–96. 13. Ibid., p. 96. 14. Ibid., p. 108. 15. Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor, p. 152. 16. Ibid., p. 155. 17. Ibid., p. 180. 18. Ibid., p. 181. 19. Ibid., p. 184. 20. Ibid., p. 199. 21. Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor, pp. 199–200. 22. Ibid., pp. 203–204. 23. Ibid., p. 219. 24. Ibid., pp. 219–220. 25. Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor, pp. 224–225. 26. Jacques Rancière, Disagreement (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota, 1999), p. 6. 27. Ibid., pp. 25–26. 28. Ibid., pp. 27–28. 29. Rancière, Disagreement, pp. 29–30. 30. Ibid., pp. 31–32. 31. Ibid., p. 35. 32. Ibid., pp. 38–40. 33. Ibid., p. 61. 34. Ibid., p. 99. 35. Rancière, Disagreement, pp. 100–101. 36. Ibid., pp. 105–106. 37. Ibid., p. 108. 38. Ibid., p. 112. 39. Ibid., pp. 116–117. 40. Ibid., pp. 118–120. 41. Ibid., pp. 124–126. 42. Rancière, Disagreement, pp. 126–127. 43. Étienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (New York: Verso, 2007), p. 17. 44. Ibid., pp. 21–22. 45. Ibid., pp. 36–37. 46. Ibid., pp. 40–41. 47. Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx, pp. 50–51. 48. Ibid., p. 55. 49. Ibid., p. 59. FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY 213

50. Ibid., pp. 77–78. 51. Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx, pp. 104–105. 52. Ibid., p. 106. 53. Ibid., pp. 106–107. 54. Ibid., pp. 108–110. 55. Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx, p. 118. 56. Ibid., pp. 119–120. 57. Ibid., p. 121. 58. Ibid., p. 122. 59. Étienne Balibar, Philosophy and the Frontiers of the Political, A biographical- theoretical interview with Emanuela Fornari (European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate Iris, 3 April 2010, Firenze University Press), pp. 31–32. 60. Ibid., pp. 32–33. 61. Ibid., p. 34. 62. Ibid., p. 45. 63. Balibar, Philosophy and the Frontiers of the Political, p. 48. 64. Ibid., pp. 59–60. 65. Alain Badiou, Metapolitics (New York: Verso, 2006), p. 12. 66. Badiou, Metapolitics, p. 23. 67. Ibid., p. 32. 68. Ibid., p. 68. 69. Ibid., p. 70. 70. Ibid., pp. 71–72. 71. Ibid., p. 73. 72. Ibid., pp. 75–77. 73. Ibid., pp. 79–80. 74. Ibid., pp. 96–97. 75. Badiou, Metapolitics, p. 98. 76. Ibid., p. 99. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid., p. 100. 79. Ibid., p. 111. 80. Ibid., p. 115. 81. Ibid., p. 116. 82. Badiou, Metapolitics, p. 119. 83. Ibid., p. 121. 84. Ibid., pp. 121–122. 85. Ibid., p. 123. 86. Alain Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis, p. 279. 87. Badiou, Metapolitics, pp. 124–126. 88. Ibid., p. 126. 214 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

89. Ibid., p. 129. 90. Ibid., pp. 129–130. 91. Ibid., p. 130. 92. Ibid., p. 131. 93. Badiou, Metapolitics, p. 134. 94. Ibid., p. 135. 95. Ibid., pp. 136–137. 96. Ibid., pp. 141–143. 97. Ibid., p. 152. 98. Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (London: Verso, 2001), p. 101. 99. Alain Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis, p. 155. CHAPTER 12

Toward a Communist Democracy

Without a doubt, Marx experienced an intellectual journey from democracy to communism.1 Now, it is time to argue that Marxism has experienced a journey from communism to democracy. Marx began his intellectual project with the aim of contributing to the formation of the true democratic state as the expression of freedom and equality because, in his view, only a democratic state has the people as its foundation and the author of its constitution. But soon he realized that a democratic state protects only formal equality and freedom of its citizens because the private form of ownership of means of production generates forms of social inequality and bondage which the democratic state cannot undo. After discovering that man’s unhappiness is caused by the gap between his essence and his existence generated by the material conditions of his social existence, Marx rejects Feuerbach’s solution, which indicates that man will experience happiness provided he is educated to accept his conditions of existence. For Marx, man’s happiness begins with the negation of his material conditions of existence by means of revolution toward communism. But revolution and communism need a historical agent, which Marx discovers in the figure of the proletariat, the most unhappy class of the bourgeois society, which is engaged in a class struggle against the bourgeoisie. To become the historical agent of the coming revolution and communism the proletariat requires consciousness of its existing situation and the knowledge to change its situation. Since neither the economic development nor the class struggle in the form of spontaneous workers movements creates this necessary communist

© The Author(s) 2019 215 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_12 216 Y. SHAHIBZADEH consciousness, the proletariat must rely on the bourgeois intelligentsia who have access to scientific knowledge. Bringing socialist awareness to the proletariat needs a revolutionary communist party which unites and guides the actual workers movements, generates study circles, and combines them in the revolutionary activities to seize the power of the state, whether through election or by force. But the European revolutionary communists of the early twentieth century, such as Lenin and Luxemburg, realized that the bourgeois democracy would never allow the capitalist system to produce anything but itself. The main task of the bourgeois democracy is capitalist reproduction. According to Luxemburg, the proletariat and communists should stop fighting for democracy’s survival and its development because the choice is not between revolution and reform. She argues that communists should both prepare the proletariat for the revolution and fight for the legislative and social reforms because the existing constitutions are the products of the previous revolutions and the struggle for reform in every epoch takes its motivation from the last revolution. Luxemburg’s original contribution to the communist movement lies in her conceptualization of the mass strikes in Russia as the demonstration of the unity and reciprocity of the economic and political struggles. Her dazzling historical insightfulness and analytical capacity enables her to understand the spontaneous mass strikes in Russia, not as an indication of Russian political backwardness, but as the expression of the creativity of the Russian proletariat in the class struggle, something that the “advanced German proletariat” can only dream of. For Luxemburg, the “advanced proletariat” must learn from the “backward proletariat” that economic and political struggles are interchangeable. Whereas an economic struggle aims to limit the capitalist exploitation within the frameworks of the bourgeois society, a political struggle aims at the abolition of the bourgeois society as the condition of the capitalist exploitation. But the abolition of the bourgeois society cannot happen before the elimination of the bourgeois state, which Lenin describes as an organ for the oppression of one class by another. Lenin argues that since the main objective of the democratic form of the state is to protect the existing bourgeois order and the capitalist mode of production and circulation, the proletarian revolution does not have any other option but abolition of the bourgeois state as the precondition of the socialist revolution toward communism and complete democracy. But in the transitory period between the proletarian revolution and the socialist revolution, the proletariat must exercise its political power in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Luxemburg’s response to Lenin’s con- TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 217 ception of the dictatorship of the proletariat is that the kernel of the dictatorship of the proletariat is unlimited democracy, freedom, and equality. She argues that freedom of expression and assembly will transform the degraded masses of the bourgeois society into individuals whose egoism is replaced with their social instinct. As the Socialist Revolution in Russia is not expanded throughout Europe, revolutionary thinkers such as Korsch and Gramsci realized in the mid-1920s that Marxist theory is in crisis. For Korsch, the dilemma of the relationship between the abolition of philosophy and the abolition of the state is at the heart of this crisis. Korsch’s solution to this crisis is that the history of Marxism should be studied according to the dialectical principles formulated by Marx. This history indicates that Marxism is a general theory of social revolution analyzing the relationship between the historical processes and conscious social actions. Marxism cannot be reduced to a social science and disconnected forms of criticism of the capitalist economic order of the bourgeois state or of its system of education, religion, art, science, and culture. For Korsch, Lenin’s discussion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in The State and Revolution, a few months before the October Revolution, demonstrates the internal connection of Marxism as theory and practice of revolution. This means Lenin’s The State and Revolution plays the same role in the October Revolution as The Communist Manifesto does in the 1848 European revolutions. For Korsch, a dialectical return to the Marxism of social revolution will teach us that abolition of philosophy is part of the abolition of bourgeois social reality and its state because consciousness, ideology, and the material processes constitute a unity. Similar to Korsch, Gramsci is preoccupied with critique as a key concept of Marxism because it reveals that a revolution is an indication of the intellectual capability of the dominated classes and their intense labor of criticism of the dominant ideas and culture. Thus, as the French Revolution is the product of the Enlightenment’s intellectual activities, the October Revolution is the product of the Russian communist and proletarian consciousness. For Gramsci critique and destruction are the seeds of a new proletarian civilization, which cannot wait for the abolition of the bourgeois state because the agents of the new civilization must overcome the horror of innovations and learn that the world will not collapse if mistakes are made. But critique and destruction does not mean that the proletariat must ignore the possibilities that the capitalist democracy offers, which include both participation in the democratic bourgeois institutions and investigation of its elasticity, which makes it capable of coping with the economic and political crisis. For Gramsci, if the communists aim to achieve 218 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the “moment of hegemony,” they must understand capitalism’s flexibility and the ability of the dominant ideologies to produce the required consent between the dominants and dominated, and between the state and civil society. The understanding of the production of consent is important because the governing and the governed classes have different understandings of the dominant ideologies. Whereas the dominant ideologies are for the dominated classes nothing but illusions, they are for the dominant classes means of political leadership because the dominant ideologies are the intellectual efforts of the dominant classes to reconcile the contradictory interests of the dominant and dominated classes. For Gramsci, Marxism as the theory of these contradictory interests enables the exploited and subaltern classes to know that the dominant classes rely on their intellectuals to obtain the consent of the people to the state while the state uses its coercive force against the social groups which oppose its power. Hence, Marxism enables the organic intellectuals of the proletariat to understand and expose how the dominant ideologies are producing the binding consent between the people and the state. In the Second Congress of the Third International, while Lenin was endorsing Gramsci’s Document Concerning the Socialist Party of Italy, the Iranian communist Sultanzade was working with him on Theses on national and colonial questions, which declare the communists and the proletarian movements of the capitalist center and the liberation movements of the dependent countries equal allies of an anti-imperialist alliance. While the theses remind the communist parties of the dependent countries that they should not be absorbed in the national liberation movements, they ask the communists of the capitalist center to understand the distrust of the exploited classes of the colonized and dependent countries toward both the capitalist and the proletarian classes of the imperialist countries. The theses say that the exploited classes of the colonized countries remember that the leaders of the European proletariat supported their bourgeoisie when they went to war for maintaining or gaining the rights of enslavement of the colonized and dependent countries. The theses assume that the general suspicion of the proletariat of the dependent countries toward the communists and the proletariat of imperialist countries will disappear only after the defeat of capitalism and introduction of socialism on the global level. These theses remind the communists and proletariat of the imperialist countries that they must prepare themselves to take the national feelings of the colonized countries seriously and make essential concessions. The theses assume that without such concessions an effective alliance TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 219 between the proletariat of the imperialist countries and the exploited masses of the dependent countries against capitalism and imperialism would be impossible. This profound distrust leads the Indian communist Roy to exclude the European communists and proletariat from historical agency and argue that the toiling classes of the colonized countries are the main historical subject of the proletarian revolutions, whose agency against imperialism must be supported by the proletariat of the imperialist countries. For Roy, only after the imperialist countries are deprived of their booties can their proletariat lead a successful revolution. Unlike Roy, Sultanzade argues that as long as the proletariat of the capitalist center are not in power their states have enough resources to crush any real anti-imperialist movement abroad because the huge imperialist gains in the colonized world are the mainstays of the European bourgeoisie’s cultural and intellectual assets. But Sultanzade does not analyze the ideological consequences of such gains for the European proletariat and communist intellectuals. For Sultanzade, since the colonized people are both the producers of the raw materials and the customers of the end products in the process of global production and circulation they experience “double exploitation.” The experience of double exploitation makes the colonized people the true proletarian nations. Rather than endorsing his own position, this definition of the proletarian nations endorses, in fact, Roy’s position of the question of who the real agent of the proletarian revolution is. Sultanzade is one of the first communists who criticizes the Soviet Union’s foreign policy when it is still a fresh state with fresh “experts” who tried to explain both the peaceful coexistence between the Soviet Union and British imperialism and its lackeys in Iran. These “experts” discover that Reza Shah, Iran’s new dictator, is an anti-imperialist and progressive nationalist leader. As early as the 1920s, Sultanzade’s experience in the unsuccessful Socialist Republic of Iran in the province of Gilan teaches him that the absence of the industrial proletarian masses in Iran does not mean that a socialist revolution cannot take root there. For him a seemingly insignificant local uprising can be transformed into a national revolution, provided it makes radical changes in the lives of the exploited local masses while mobilizing the masses in other regions to actively support the local uprising. As a result of the Stalinist prosecutions and an anti-communist law in Iran, the first generation of the Iranian communists disappeared in the late 1930s. The second generation of communists in Iran were almost a product of the victory of Stalin’s ideological position in international communism in the 1930s. For Arani, as one of the distinguished members 220 Y. SHAHIBZADEH of the new generation of Iranian communists, dialectical materialism is the synthesis of the entire history of philosophical development since Plato because it reminds us how the dominant ideas throughout history have represented the interests of the ruling classes. It says that when the ideas of the dominant classes are deprived of all their previous progressive drive they become perverted, reactionary, and inhuman as is the case with racial theories. For Arani, racial theories are the final response of the dominant class to dialectical materialism’s explanation of the state as the organ of suppression of one class by another generated by the emergence of private property. For Arani, in a society without the division of labor, private property, state, and laws, men and women experienced true freedom and equality. He argues that only abolition of the state, private property, and division of labor can regenerate the lost freedom, equality, and human dignity. Arani had no intention of establishing a vanguard revolutionary party but wanted to spread socialist consciousness through education. He considered education a decisive ideological force through which the dominant classes define their principles of intellectual accuracy and moral responsibility. The dominant classes determine through education the truth and falsehood of statements and the meaning of good and evil. Dialectical materialism reminds us, according to Arani, that truth must be evaluated with regard to the struggles of the oppressed classes for emancipation. Furthermore, Arani’s theory of knowledge assumed that every theory consists of true and false propositions or thesis and anti thesis. Whereas the true propositions lead to newest discoveries, false propositions create sites of the emergence of new theories. Arani’s death in 1938 coincides with Stalin’s ideological and political dominance declaring the commencement of communism and the identity of the people and the state in the Soviet Union, explained and justified byThe History of the Soviet Communist Party, the Short Course. Three years later, the new generation of Iranian communists established the Tudeh Party, which considered the Soviet Union the embodiment of communism and the real leader of the socialist and anti-imperialist movements throughout the world. Hence, the party had no problem following the Soviets’ foreign policies. The attempts to rectify the Tudeh Party’s politics, from within as in the case of the breakaway faction in 1947 or from without as in the case of the Marxist Kruzhoks, did not achieve any results because there was no global communist movement with which these Iranian communist tendencies could identify as their allies. The result was the anti-communist posture of the breakaway faction, which tried to convert Mosaddeq into democratic TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 221 socialism and invested its hope in the European socialists to defeat their communists, which similar to the Tudeh Party were “infiltrating” the state institutions to seize the political power when the time was ripe. Maleki’s naïve vision, in 1952, of a new international socialism consisting of dissident communists and the European social democracy against the Cominformist Communism of the Soviet Communism led him to support the formation of NATO. After rejecting the dictatorship of the proletariat as the dictatorship of a new political class with arguments borrowed from Bakunin and Proudhon, Maleki criticizes Marx’s misreading of the capacity of the Western bourgeois democracy to cope with the workers movements and communism through peaceful and democratic means. It is the same story with the Marxist Kruzhoks who tried to ensure that the Iranian communist movement did not produce a new class of experts to dominate the ignorant population. For the Kruzhoks all members of a communist party would master the fundamental principles of Marxist theory while its character would remain proletarian in the strictest sense. The Kruzhoks argued that at least two-thirds of the members of a communist party must come from the working class. Contrary to the Tudeh Party’s blind obedience to the Soviet Union, the Kruzhoks expected that the Soviet Union would coordinate its foreign policies with the global struggles against capitalism and not the other way around. Despite their failure to recruit or influence the working masses, the Kruzhoks encouraged the new generation of Iranian communists to challenge the Tudeh Party, which in the 1950s and 1960s was transformed into a shadow of a leftist political party whose only preoccupation was active rejection of the new waves of Marxism, which questioned the Soviet Union’s socialism. For the Tudeh Party the new waves of Marxism were new forms of revisionism supported by the rightist opportunism of the European Marxism and by the leftist opportunism of the third world communists. Whereas the former was expressing the interests of the working-class aristocracy and the European ruling class, the latter was the expression of the third world’s nationalistic tendencies influenced by the new waves of Marxism such as Existential Marxism. According to the Tudeh Party, the third world communist nationalists considered themselves part of the global revolutionary movement if the movement prioritized the interests of their nation. Otherwise they opposed the communist movement as a whole. Before the Tudeh Party, it was, in fact, the PCF which considered Existentialist Marxism a deviation from true Marxism. The PCF made renegades of several dedicated Marxists such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, who tried to demonstrate that to be 222 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Marxist is to believe in the proletariat as the last agent of history and the embodiment of humanity and its universality. Merleau-Ponty in particular argued that fascist violence was illegitimate because it represented race and the particular, but Stalin’s practice of violence was legitimate because it represented the proletarian state and the universal.2 Sartre used to say that all thinkers and scientists are technicians of practical knowledge. However, they can become intellectuals after discovering the particularism of the seemingly universalist character of the bourgeois discourse, demonstrating how this particularistic discourse legitimizes exploitation of the majority by a minority through imperialism, colonialism, and racism, and communicating this knowledge to the masses. Hence, the difference between the genuine intellectuals and the technicians of practical knowledge is that the former distinguishes between false and true universalities.3 Whereas the imperialist and racist violence based on false universality represents a major evil, the violence exerted in the anti-imperialist struggles based on true universality signifies a minor evil. The principles distinguishing between true and false universalities are not Sartrean but Marxist and communist. Foucault employed these principles in his work of the mid-1950s, when he argued against the universality of psychoanalysis, which prevents the mentally ill person from seeing his mental illness as a result of his social alienation generated by social contradictions. Contrary to psychoanalysis, which tries to convince the mentally ill person that he can be cured if he accepts the existing social world as normal and accommodate to his situation, Foucault argues that the mentally ill person’s experience of the distorted self and the distorted consciousness of the social life and its contradictions have only one cure, a social revolution, because only a revolution can eradicate the social contradictions and psychological alienation as the condition of mental illness. Foucault’s critique of psychiatry reproduces Marx’s critique of Feuerbach’s anthropology, which advised the pr oletariat that instead of accepting the condition of their existence and exploitation, they must organize a social revolution. But when after a decade of distancing himself from Marxism Foucault returns to the Marxist analysis of the state and ideology in the late 1970s, he introduces the art and forms of governmentality and its latest crisis. Foucault’s understanding of the crisis of governmentality which he had never conceptualized coincided with the Iranian Revolution of which he was supportive. He expected this revolution to be the beginning of radical changes in the way people govern themselves on the global level. Foucault’s support of the Iranian Revolution is similar to Luxemburg’s defense of the Russian Revolution of TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 223

1905. For both these radical thinker-activists these revolutions represented something new from which Western revolutionaries must learn because they are part of their own social and political history. The fact that of all Western thinkers it was Foucault who tried to reflect on the Iranian Revolution tells us much about the Iranian Revolution’s position within the crisis of Marxism. Marxism as a global theory and practice either disappeared or generated various forms of post-Marxism after the Iranian Revolution. This position can be compared with the impacts of The Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party on the French Marxism. With this Congress, French Marxism realized that Marxism as both theory and practice was in crisis and tried to provide a theoretical and political response to the crisis. By eliminating the traditional distinction and opposition between theory and practice, Althusser introduced a revolt against the dominant intellectual and political Marxism. He argued that the truth of the theory is not external to it; the truth emerges inside the theoretical process. For Althusser, theory was a form of practice, a process of production of knowledge, a theoretical practice, but the French Marxist intellectuals did not want to engage in theory as revolutionary practice for two reasons. First, they were assimilated into the bourgeois revolutionary discourse. Second, as petty-bourgeois intellectuals, the young communists had a sense of guilt for not being a member of the proletariat, which led them to dissolve themselves in political activism while showing reluctance toward scientific activity. The essence of Althusser’s scientific approach to Marxism was subjecting Marxism as its own object and dividing it into ideological or humanist Marxism and scientific Marxism. It argued that whereas the direct experience of the workers generates ideology, the theoretical practice of the Marxist scholars produces scientific knowledge. In fact, by making the ideological consciousness of the worker the object of their theoretical practice, the scholars conclude that the worker’s ideological consciousness constitutes him as a “free subject.” Hence, the thought and actions of this “free subject” serve the existing order because they make him more subjugated to the power of the dominant class. Althusser’s theoretical practice reminds the workers that their liberation depends on the Marxist scholars. While Althusser was busy transforming Marxism into theoretical practice, in the 1960s and early 1970s, a new generation of Iranian communists were busy transforming Marxist theory and practice into the armed struggle. While disregarding the Marxist Kruzhoks’ preoccupation with the theoretical education of the proletariat and their rejection of the use of violence in the political struggle, this new generation of 224 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

Iranian communists found guerrilla warfare to be the only means of liberation. For the revolutionary intellectuals of this generation, the main problem was not the ideological state apparatus but the regime’s repressive apparatus, which blocked their access to the working class. What the new generation of Iranian communists were looking for was a new form of being communist because in their view the ideological and political defeat of the Tudeh Party indicated the deficiency of the Party leadership’s way of being communist. Whereas the Party’s ordinary members internalized the revolutionary and communist principles formulated and declared by the Party’s leaders, the leaders distanced themselves from these same principles. But despite the dedication of this new generation expressed in their sacrifice and invested in years of ideological and political preparation, the armed struggle that was supposed to express this new way of being communist lasted only five years. For the leading representatives of this generation such as Jazani, the future of the new communist movements, locally and globally, depends on the outcomes of the ideological disputes between China and the Soviet Union. Years before the 1979 revolution, Jazani hypothe- sized the radical petty-bourgeoisie’s hegemony on the revolutionary intellectuals and the masses. Jazani formulates the hypothesis with regard to the opposition of the radical petty-bourgeoisie to the dominance of a tiny class of comprador bourgeoisie, which while consuming the largest share of what is produced in terms of value in the country, adopts the socio-cultural traits of the Western bourgeoisie unquestionably. That is why this tiny class of comprador bourgeoisie is indistinguishable from the colonial agents of the old colonialism. Jazani demonstrates that this class of comprador bourgeoisie represents a culture of neocolonialism because it brings together Western cultural products with an Iranian appearance without any innovations, which the working people can neither afford nor appreciate. According to Jazani, since the regime of the Shah cannot get the consent of the working people through its ideological means since the 1953 coup, it uses extreme violence against every protest regardless of its demands and nature. For Jazani the violence of the state must be met with revolutionary violence. The majority within the new Iranian communist movement believed that from 1941 to 1953 the Tudeh Party was the party of the Iranian working class, although it failed the working class when the coup took place. Nonetheless, there was a faction within this new movement which argued that the Tudeh Party had never been a Marxist, revolutionary, and working-class party but an association of people with conflicting class TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 225 interests and ideological and political orientations. This latter faction claims that this contradictory mixture was doomed to fail, ideologically, politically, and organizationally. Shoaiyan, as one of the most significant representatives of this faction, argues that the first fallacy of the Tudeh Party was its representation of the Soviet Union and its Communist Party as the embodiment of communism and internationalist solidarity. For Shoaiyan communism is a theory of revolutionary emancipation of the working class to which Marx and Lenin and many others have contributed. This indicates that a critique of Soviet Marxism and Lenin is not a critique of communism but an examination of a particular understanding of communism. Shoaiyan criticizes the Leninist idea of peaceful coexistence between the communist and the capitalist world because, in his view, the foreign policy of the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and even Vietnamese revolutionaries has been harming the revolutionary causes on the global level. Shoaiyan argues that Lenin’s thesis of peaceful coexistence between the Soviet Union and the imperialist systems resulted in the recognition of Reza Shah’s dictatorial regime as progressive and anti-imperialist, while he was suppressing the revolutionary socialists and communists in northern Iran. For Shoaiyan, Lenin failed to see that the working class is the only class in human history which is defined by its external contradictions. The lack of internal contradictions makes the working class an indivisible, united, and international body. Shoaiyan prefers armed struggles over popular uprisings because he considers revolution a long process. In this process after overthrowing the ruling class of a particular country the proletariat must extend its domain of influence into other regions of the world because the proletarian revolutions are global by nature. Shoaiyan’s belief in the armed revolution does not mean that he rejects democracy, freedom of expression, and open debates within the organization which is dedicated to the armed struggle. He sticks to the notion that contrary to the dominant classes, the proletariat is without internal contradictions. Hence, the proletariat is not afraid of disagreements and debates within its ranks, its political party, and the state and society that it governs. Whereas Shoaiyan asks for debates and discussions, Fadaiyan-e Khalq does not have the time to engage itself in the war of words while it is engaged in a real war. But Shoaiyan’s critique of Leninism and the Fadaiyan requires an answer, which comes from Momeni. In Momeni’s view, the fact that Shoaiyan borrows Trotsky’s ideas to criticize Leninism indicates that Trotskyism has accomplished its anti-Leninist mission in Europe and is now planning to destroy the Marxist-Leninist movements elsewhere. For Momeni, after pacifying 226 Y. SHAHIBZADEH the working class of the imperialist countries that resulted in the social compromise and the welfare state in Europe, Trotskyism’s new anti-revolutionary assignment continues with the dismantling of the revolutionary movements in the societies under imperialist domination. According to Momeni, the social compromise in the West would be impossible without the overexploitation of the proletariat of the colonized countries. Whereas this overexploitation has reduced the antagonism between labor and capital in the developed capitalist countries, it has increased the antagonism between imperialism and the proletariat of the dependent societies. Momeni concludes that the nationalism of the oppressed people is part of proletarian internationalism. This makes the national liberation movements the main pillar of socialism. Referring to Lenin’s theories of imperialism and the weakest link, Momeni claims that these days the colonized and dependent countries are the real sites of the new social revolutions. But these revolutions cannot rely on the Socialist countries because they recognize and support only opportunist communist parties which obey their orders. Despite his disappointment with the socialist countries and their dependent communist movements, Momeni envisions formation of a new communist international created by the independent communist movements such as Fadaiyan-e Khalq. The confidence in the future of communism and the emergence of a new communist international were shared in the early 1970s by millions of communists throughout the world, a vision which had its rationale in what Althusser calls the materialism of necessity. Momeni, Shoaiyan, and Jazani are killed by the end of 1975. Less than a decade after their death, their vision for a new communist international was reduced to the fantasy of individual activists or university professors. Althusser realizes in the early 1980s that the materialism of necessity is the main source of the crisis of Marxist theory. His solution is that aleatory materialism or the materialism of the encounter and contingency, which indicates that “anything can be determinant in the last instance,” must replace the materialism of necessity or teleology. Through aleatory materialism, Althusser distinguishes between the historiography of the traditional historians who talk about the past as an accomplished fact, and the historiography of the living history, which is open to the uncertain and unforeseeable future. The historiography of the living history is about a tendency which can be divided in its encounter with another tendency ad infinitum because the path of each tendency cannot be predicted; all tendencies are aleatory. If we use Althusser’s terminology, the history of the rise of Marxism is the history of TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 227 the materialism of necessity from Marx to Althusser of the 1960s and early 1970s. However, the introduction of aleatory materialism in the early 1980s is the expression of the fall of Marxism and its trajectory toward disintegration and decomposition. The decomposed Marxism, whether covered in the traditional terminology or the terminology of post-Marxism, has been integrated into the neoconservative ideology as the dominant ideology in the academia and the public sphere since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Rancière’s argument that the big narrative is a conjunction of multiple narrative lines, movements, experiences, paths, and encounters in the history of emancipation is, in fact, the political enhancement of Althusser’s philosophical proposition of aleatory materialism. For Rancière, equality, freedom, and emancipation are not the properties of the communist narrative, and did not disappear after the communist narrative lost its previous significance. The fact that equality, freedom, and emancipation were associated with communism does not mean that they cannot be experienced in the name of democracy, provided we stop thinking of democracy as a mask covering the reality of domination and think of it as a process of creating different common spaces in which people act freely.4 The shared features of the rise and fall of European and Iranian Marxism indicate little chance for the return of Marxism as theory and practice and new forms of communist movements on the global level. In Europe and elsewhere, whereas Marxism has been disintegrated into various forms of post-Marxism, the communist movements have been transfor med since the early 1990s into NGOs which constituted the World Social Forum in 2001 to advocate the neoconservative ideology and practice on the global level. In fact, the neoconservative ideology is a result of the decomposition of the liberal and conservative ideologies, Marxism, and the emergence of various forms of post-Marxism in the late 1970s and 1980s. In Europe, the interaction between one section of Marxism and post-Marxism propagating the integration of Muslim citizens into the existing democratic society and working for democratization of China, Russia, and Iran, and the other Marxist and post-Marxist section opposing immigrants and imperialism at the same time produces neoconservative effects expressed through new and inventive forms of racism and imperialism. From the early 1990s to the rise of ISIS, the neoconservative ideology had been constituting the Muslims of Western societies and Chinese, Russians, and Iranians not as subjects of democracy but as objects of democratic education. To use Rancière’s terminology, Western police 228 Y. SHAHIBZADEH order has been educating their Muslims and Iranians, Chinese, and Russians to find and enjoy their assigned places in the Western and global societies. In fact, theorizing and legitimizing the ongoing reeducation of European Muslims and their brothers and sisters in the Middle East to fit into the established democracies in Europe allowed the neoconservative ideology to bestow the Western governments the right of military intervention in this region. It is worth mentioning that Fred Haliday, the translator of Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy into English, who interpreted the growing interests in Korsch’s work in the 1960s as an indication of the return of radical thought and revolutionary practice, considers in the mid- 1990s the liberal Muslims and secular forces as the genuine partners of those who hope to improve the human rights situation and overcome the democratic deficiencies of the Middle Eastern states and societies.

In so far as there are those within the Muslim world, liberal Muslims or secularizers, who do accept the implication of international conventions and practice of human rights there should be no obstacle to collaboration with them. The hope for the improvement of respect for human rights in these states may, for the foreseeable future, rest as much with elaboration of a liberal Islamic understanding of the issue as it does with the strengthening of secularism.5

But here the subjects who hope for the improvement of human rights and democracy in the Middle East are the European scholars and intellectuals who are constituted by the neoconservative ideology as the subjects of democracy and human rights in this region. Since the early 1990s, this educational process of democracy in Europe and the Middle East would have been impossible without the active engagement of former or actual Marxist intellectuals and activists in post- colonial and cultural studies. As the neoconservative ideology has become more elastic, it can legitimize, theorize, and negotiate between different levels of racism and imperialism in the academic and public debates and translate their elements as the expressions of democracy, freedom, and equality. In the 1990s, the neoconservative ideology negotiated between the militant and the liberal racist positions on whether Muslims can be integrated into the European mode of being and way of living. Liberal racism argued that with a degree of education in the democratic values, Muslims could tolerate, coexist, or even adopt the Western mode of being, way of living, and values. At the same time, the neoconservative ideology TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 229 was supervising the academic and public debates on the extent to which the rest of the world was ready to accept democracy as a way of life. While the militant neoconservative preferred to bring democracy to the rest of the world through military campaigns and regime changes, the moderate neoconservatives preferred bringing democracy to other people through education. However, the defeat of both the neoconservative projects of reeducation of Muslims of Europe and the democratization of the Middle East and the rest of the world has resulted in two interconnected tendencies. The first tendency is European racism, from the racists on the streets to the racism of the state and the intelligentsia, and from the racism of the conservative and liberal parties to the racism of the leftist parties. The second tendency is the new imperialism advocated by both leftist factions, one in the name of supporting the democratization projects in the rest of the world and the other in the name of critique of these projects. The main objective of any dominant ideology is to serve the interests of the ruling class and to maintain its domination. What makes the position of the neoconservative ideology confusing is its ability to devour and integrate every claim of Marxism and the left in Europe and the rest of the world. Despite the claims of reinvigorating the radical left, radical philosophy, and radical education, there is no sign of a global communist movement on the ideological and political horizon. It is naïve to think that one or several political defeats can deteriorate or even threaten the neoconservative ideology because it has managed to include and integrate almost any form of new radicalism. The fact is that the neoconservative ideology is still relevant for the existing police order in Europe and for the global policing of nations and states which resist the control and influence of Western powers. Rethinking new possibilities within the left requires rethinking the universal not as values propagated by the dominant academic and public discourse but as the principles inherent in the intellectual tendencies and political and social actions which deviate not only from the domain of the neoconservative ideology but also from the existing police orders in the West and the global police order. It is only through the discovery, recognition, and defense of the universality of such intellectual tendencies, and political and social actions, that we can hope for a new movement for equality and freedom. The new movement is nothing more or less than the ongoing communist democracy. Marxism is known to be a theory of modes of domination through ideology and a theory of modes of subjection and fetishism. The neoconservative ideology integrated both Marxist theory of ideology and fetishism, but the meanings it ascribes to both make them far different from what they had 230 Y. SHAHIBZADEH really been in the past. Whereas the theory of ideology has been transformed into post-colonial and cultural studies, the theory of fetishism has been transformed into the study of market forces and some critiques of neoliberal economic policies, but nothing about how the neoliberal art of government functions. By the time of the Iranian Revolution, the European intellectuals on the left in general and French intellectuals in particular were no longer interested in the national liberation movements, anti-imperialist struggles, or even socialist movements abroad. Rather, they became interested in the empowering democracy from below, but the idea of democracy from below was forgotten as soon as the communists realized that they had become losers in their rivalry with the socialists at the institutional level. By then the European communists decided that they did not want to be the losers in the competition for positions in the state institutions, and in so doing they became more enthusiastic to offer their services to the state. As the influence of the communist parties was diminishing in Western Europe by the end of the 1970s, the communist activists began to receive privileged positions in the state bureaucracy. In turn, the same state bureaucracy supported the academic discourses in sociology, political sciences, anthropology, and history of Western democracy as an accomplished fact. This same accomplished fact was advocated and promoted in public discourses by the scholars, journalists, entertainers, publishers, and professional activists who discuss everything in order to change nothing. In fact, the domination of the academic and public discourses on Western democracy as an accomplished fact coincided with the huge government investments in the NGOs to implement the state bureaucracy’s decisions internally and globally. The NGOs were inspired, rationalized, and even generated by the scholars and journalists representing the dominant discourse, namely the neoconservative discourse constituted partly by post-Marxism and the decomposed elements of Marxism. Since the early 1990s, equipped with the idea of the end of history and politics, post-Marxism has used the human rights ideology to liberate people under the political regimes deemed totalitarian. Pascal Bruckner’s description of the average European as “extremely sensitive, always ready to shoulder the blame for the poverty of Africa or Asia, to sorrow over the world’s problems, to assume responsibility for them, always ready to ask what Europeans can do for the South rather than asking what the South could do for itself” captures the essence of the idea of the end of history.6 It seems that it was this so-called European sensitivity and sense of responsibility which led Bruckner and Glucksmann to support the occupation of TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 231

Afghanistan and Iraq.7 But after the military defeat of Western powers to impose democracy abroad, Bruckner tells the average European to stop being too sensitive about what is happening in the rest of the world. He tells them that “the spirit of critical examination” is the finest gift that Europe can offer the Iranians, Arabs, Pakistani, Russians, Chinese, and Cubans. But to accept this gift they must prepare themselves with “a little guilty conscience” because this spirit of critical examination “is a poisoned gift, but one that is indispensable for the survival of humanity.”8 After realizing that the European and American wars to bring democracy elsewhere have been defeated, Bruckner claims that the real war is not the war to bring “democracy” to the people who are not prepared to accept and exercise it, but the war of ideas. The war of ideas as a consequence of the spirit of critical examination exposes iniquities and rectifies the intolerant religious mentalities of believers so that they can practice their faith in a more tolerant way, improve the condition of their women and children, and revise “the most aggressive postulates of their sacred scriptures.” But this war is a long war, which can be won only with patience and wisdom, and through education and culture and with “the weapons of reason and eloquence.”9 In fact, Bruckner’s stance is shared by almost all post- Marxists, Marxists, and radical left in Europe and abroad since the early 1990s. In The German Ideology, Marx describes the Young Hegelians as the industrialists of Hegelian philosophy because after its death and decomposition, they have transformed the decomposed parts of Hegel’s philosophy into intellectual commodities. Now they are competing with each other to find markets for their commodities. Marx argues that in marketing their intellectual commodities the Young Hegelians are copying contemporary German capitalism which is marketing “fabricated and fictitious production,” and involved in “adulteration of the raw materials … falsified labels … fictitious purchases, bill-jobbing and a credit system devoid of any real basis.”10 Bearing in mind Marx’s description of the decomposed Hegelian philosophy we may be able to explain how the post-Marxists and different factions of Marxism have been using the legacies of Marx’s thought in their interactions with contemporary capitalism. They have taken different pieces of the decomposed Marxism after its final decomposition in the late 1970s and have adopted the practice of contemporary capitalism to market their intellectual products. The contemporary capitalist practice tells the post-Marxists and Marxists to consider their piece of the decomposed Marxism as their human capital, which should be expanded through investment in the best existing 232 Y. SHAHIBZADEH market, namely the neoliberal art of government. Thus, instead of generating political subject, the post-Marxists and Marxists produce the simula- crum of the political subject, a political opportunist. The task of the political opportunist is to find lucrative markets for the fictitious products of the neoliberal art of government such as democracy and human rights among the immigrants and Muslims in Europe and among the Middle Eastern people, the Russians, and the Chinese and every people who are not under the control or influence of the United States and Europe, politically or ideologically. As part of the neoconservative ideological constella- tion since the late 1970s, post-Marxism and different factions of Marxism have turned every socialist, revolutionary, and progressive discourse into its opposite. By amending and recycling the socialist and revolutionary ideas of the past, they have legitimized the hegemony of Western governments wherever they could not impose their powers or exert their influence. In the 1980s tens of thousands of Iranian leftists escaped Iran and emigrated to the West. A fraction of Iranian leftists who emigrated to the West remained Marxist or became post-Marxist. But none of them have ever questioned the core of the neoconservative ideology and its discourse on “democracy and human rights.” Those interested in the subaltern and post-colonial studies repeat the claim of subaltern theorists such as Ranajit Guha that capitalism has been globalized but never universalized. What does globalized but not universalized capitalism mean? Guha argues in Dominance without Hegemony (1997) that the most universalizing aspect of Western capitalism is governing by consent of the subaltern classes. Hence, a successful universalization of capitalism would have generated a kind of political culture in which ruling depends on popular consent. Guha argues that Western capitalism succeeds in creating a coherent political culture, which allows the capitalist class to defend its interests while securing the consent of the working people and representing the nation as a whole. Capitalism’s failure to create a coherent political culture based on consent and persuasion has generated dictatorships in the south which kept two spheres of the elite and the subaltern distinct from each other. As a result, the changes that subaltern sphere has undergone have not transformed it fundamentally but mixed its consciousness with forms of the past consciousness.11 Dipesh Chakrabarti develops Guha’s argument in Provincializing Europe (2000). He claims that the universalizing aspect of capitalism is defined with regard to the logic of capital which transforms everything, from culture to political institutions. However, as capitalism’s incursion into the East or global south fails to transmit this universalizing TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 233 aspect and accommodates itself to the local culture, it generates a kind of capitalism that is entirely different from the capitalism of the West.12 Guha and Chakrabarti’s description of Western democratic political culture fits in the neoconservative discourse, which has dominated European academia and public sphere since the early 1990s. In fact, this political culture has been promoted, since the early 1980s, by the New Philosophers who have been marketing the universality of French republican and democratic values. The former argues that the democratic political culture is a result of a dynamic public sphere of interaction between the persuasive bourgeoisie and the consent of the proletariat. The latter argues that what mediates between the democratic interaction, persuasion, and consent is the spirit of critical examination generated by a guilty conscious. However, according to the intellectuals associated with the New Philosophers such as Pascal Bruckner13 and Alain Finkielkraut,14 the excess of guilty conscious has made the average European too sensitive about what is wrong with Africa or Asia and the Africans and Muslims in Europe. As a result of the excess of guilty conscious the average European forgets the lack of the spirit of critical examination in these regions and assumes his responsibility for the poverty and dictatorship around the world. As a result, he expects that Europeans do something for the unfortunate people of the world without thinking about the responsibilities of these people for their situation. In fact, Guha, Chakrabarti, and the New Philosophers’ arguments have constituted the West as the educator and the rest as its disciple. This role for the West as the educator of the rest of the world is a product of the neoliberal art of government analyzed by Foucault in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Before the neoconservative ideology’s full integration of post-Marxism and decomposed Marxism in the 1990s, Stuart Hall tried in Gramsci and US (1989) to demonstrate the nature of the New Right represented by Thatcherism. For Hall, the New Right wanted to restructure the society as a whole, but in order to do this it had to dismantle the “Keynesian welfare state” and the “social democratic statism” because it viewed the transformation of the state as the precondition of the restructuring of society. For Hall, the New Right attempt was radical in the sense that it wanted to undo the political settlement that had resulted from “the historic compromise between labour and capital” in Britain and the rest of Europe since 1945.15 Hall argues that in order to achieve its goal the New Right tries to erase the common belief that “the welfare state had come to stay” while trying to convince the people that the state represents “the general interest of 234 Y. SHAHIBZADEH society.” Hall claims that the New Right opposes the welfare state because the “welfare social democracy” is the ideal precondition for future socialist changes. What has postponed socialist changes thus far is, according to Hall, the absence of the hegemony of the socialist forces, which makes them capable of seizing the political power.16 Hall is perfectly correct when he argues that by redefining and reconstructing people’s interests, the New Right has generated an ideology which “seems to represent a little bit of everybody.”17 Hall realizes in the late 1980s that before imposing its political authority and economic policies, the New Right had succeeded in imposing an ideology on society which represented a little bit of every British, French, and German person. Hall’s response to the New Right’s ideological and political dominance is Gramsci’s idea of cultural hegemony, because it can reveal the contingent and open-ended nature of the existing forms of power and domination and can prepare the socialist forces for the future ideological and political battles toward socialist changes. “There is no law of history which can predict what must inevitably be the outcome of a political struggle. Politics depends on the relations of forces at any particular moment.”18 Hall suggests that in order to counter the ideology of the New Right and impose its hegemony, the socialist intellectual must construct “a new historic project,” a new cultural order, in which the ordinary people enter into open dialogue with the intellectual, and from which the intellectual can learn “to formulate and speak socialism to the people in their own words.”19 According to Hall’s analysis, for the time being, the New Right is the dominant political authority and ideological hegemon at the expense of the social democratic welfare state, itself a result of the historic compromise between labor and capital since 1945. For Hall, this historic compromise is the condition of possibility of socialism because it solves the antagonism between capital and labor. It transforms the proletariat into the people with whom the socialist intellectuals can construct a new cultural order as a site of an open dialogue from which the intellectual can learn their language and translate their ideas of socialism back to them. What Hall does not take into consideration is the fact that this historic European compromise between capital and labor indicated a new relationship between the imperialist core and the periphery because it dismantled the formal relationship that the European workers movement had with the national liberation and socialist movements abroad. This historic compromise transformed the working class as a universal class into the satisfied and happy people whose most important duty as citizens was their loyalty TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 235 to their state because the state represented the interests of the nation as a whole. In fact, it was against the backdrop of this historic compromise that the workers in the West were transformed into a homogeneous people with the state as a father figure against which the radical students of 1960s revolted. It was against this transformation that Lefebvre invigorated his Critique of Everyday Life, Sartre conceptualized the intellectual against the technician of practical knowledge, and Althusser put forward his concept of ideological state apparatuses and class struggle in theory. But the students who became workers to learn the workers’ words and then convey their socialist message back to them through their own words became engaged in a battle with their socialist rivals in the late 1970s for privileged positions in the state institutions. Now, instead of the physical workplace as a site of the socialist education of the working people, Hall speaks of constructing a new cultural order in which the socialist intellectuals educate not the working people but “people” in general. But these “people” are the same people who were generated by the historic compromise between capital and labor initiated by the Keynesian welfare state. Keynes conceptualizes labor as a factor of production that needs investment to be activated. As labor is transformed into human capital, the meaning of Gramsci’s cultural hegemony changes into the continuous increase of the cultural and social capital of the socialist intellectuals within the new cultural order that is constructed by themselves. Hence, instead of the class struggle in the workplace and on the streets, the real battle is about the cultural and social capital of the socialist intellectuals who must increase their presence in the state bureaucracy, in the universities, and in cultural arena. For Hall, communism is an actuality because it is the final destination of the expansion of the welfare state under the guidance of the socialist intellectuals. What Hall could not predict was the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s as the final triumph of liberal democracy against totalitarianism. More significantly, what Hall did not realize was that the triumph of liberal democracy over totalitarianism was understood as the unity of Western states with their people and that this unity indicated the end of history. The unity of the state with its people was presented in the 1990s as the cultural and political goal the rest of the world must strive to achieve in the future. However, the unity of the state and people in the West did not unite the people. It divided them into the European people and non-people such as immigrants and Muslims whose loyalty to the European societies was doubted and who were thus excluded from full citizenship. The immigrants and Muslims could not become full citizens 236 Y. SHAHIBZADEH because of their incapability to adopt democracy and the Western way of life. Thus, in order to enjoy full citizenship, the immigrants and Muslims had to undergo a process of cultural education in Western values and democracy to be integrated into the people. In reality, the non-people became the name of every people and society outside Western democracies. In the 1990s, the same socialist intellectuals that Hall expected to learn the words of the ordinary people began to learn the words of Muslim citizens in Europe and their brothers and sisters in the Middle East to educate them, through their own words, to embrace democracy and Western values. The result of making immigrant and Muslim citizens the objects of democratic education during the past three decades is nothing but their alienation in the same way that the European proletariat was alienated in the early nineteenth century. While the legal rights of this new proletariat are violated on a daily basis by the state’s systemic racism, Marxists and post-Marxists are competing with each other in describing its existence as a social problem and stigmatizing the members of this proletariat as the main cause of delinquencies and socio-economic gaps in European society.20 Three decades after Hall’s reflection on the actuality of communism and his new historic project with the socialist intellectuals as its main agents, Rancière describes the French intellectuals on the left as the agents of “intellectual racism.” For Rancière the interactions of the intellectuals with the state have generated a new form of racism, “a racism from above: a logic of the state and a passion of the intelligentsia.”21 Now with the French leftist intellectuals as one of the main agents of the new racism, Rancière offers a new reflection on the question of the actuality of communism. Rancière argues that to answer this question we must return to two Marxian axioms: first, “communism is not an ideal, but … an actual form of life.” Contrary to democracy, which defines freedom and equality through law and the state, communism defines freedom and equality as the fundamental structures of real life because it signifies the existence of a common world. Second, as a form of life, communism is not the congregation of a group of benevolent individuals who in order to escape the selfishness and injustice of real life experiment with a new collective life. Communism is rather “the full implementation of a form of universality that is already at work in society.”22 For Rancière communism is the embodiment of “the power of those who have no ‘entitlement’ to exert power” because communism is the power of the unqualified people.23 Communism is in fact related to the concept of democracy defined by Plato as the power of the unqualified people. Plato’s definition of democracy leads Rancière to conceptualize TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 237 politics as the demonstration of the equality of intelligence of anyone and everyone. Hence, politics is a form of dissensus toward the privatization of forms of collective intelligence such as the state and its institutions. Although politics means dissensus toward privatization of the state institutions, it cannot escape being privatized. Privatization of politics takes place as the transformation of political dissensus either into the state power or as the struggle for the state power. Thus, communism can be defined as a response to different forms of privatization of politics. Communism as a program emerged first as a response to the “failure” of politics to implement its promise of freedom and equality in the interval between the French Revolution of 1789 and the European Revolutions of 1848. The response came in the form of The Communist Manifesto in 1847.24 But the very ideas of the failure of politics and its replacement with communism appeared a few years after the French Revolution in Germany. German thinkers argued that the French revolutionaries failed to realize freedom and equality because they were searching for them in the wrong places in “the ‘dead forms’ of law and state institutions.” These German thinkers claimed that only forms of freedom and equality in the aesthetic sphere and in Kant’s free play, and equality of intelligence and sensibility, can overturn “the hierarchy of form over matter” and bring about a new form of equality “against simple reverse of the forms of state power.” Whereas one interpretation keeps the sphere of aesthetic experience and freedom separate, another interpretation contrasts this freedom with the lack of it in other spheres of the common and infers the principles of a new revolution, the aesthetic revolution toward a true community, “in which there are no boundaries severing politics from economics, art, religion or everyday life.” The aesthetic revolution considered the existing separations between different domains of man’s activities as the cause of domination. This means the full freedom and equality would be a result of reunification of different forms of collective intelligence and reconfiguration of the material world. Hence, Marx demonstrated the actuality of communism, through the materialism of necessity. He argued that freedom and equality would be the results of the impending reconfiguration of the material world toward communism, and concluded that capitalism produces its gravediggers. But the belief in the actuality of communism, theorized by the materialism of necessity, has failed to reconfigure the material basis of the world because capitalism does not produce communism but itself. However, we can assume, for a while, the inactuality of communism because communism as inactuality allows a type of intempestive or a-topian 238 Y. SHAHIBZADEH communism whose adherents are thinkers and actors of the unconditional equality of anybody and everybody. Here communism as a process involves the demonstration of the capacity of anybody and everybody which cannot be distinguished from democracy.25 Hall argued, in the mid-1980s, that the left should not allow the discourse of the right to wholly expropriate democracy because democracy has multiple meanings. Since democracy could be the name of “popular-democratic struggle or of deepening the democratic content of political life,” Hal suggested the concept of democracy to be the focus of the left’s strategic contestation.26 Here democracy is not a form of state or a way of life but the “power of the demos,” that is, the power of those who are not entitled to exercise power. The demos is neither the majority nor the lower class, but the surplus community consisting of people with no qualification to rule, which means everyone and anyone.27 Hence, democracy is not the name of a political system, because the aim of every political system is to naturalize the existing inequality and decide who has the right to make decisions and who does not. In contrast to the existing political system, which may be called democratic, a genuine democratic movement unveils the contingency of the social roles in the system. Democracy is the expression of public disagreement between those acting in the name of equality and the system that presupposes their inequality.28 Democracy is not “the universal power of the law against the particularity of interests,” because it is in the nature of the police state and its logic to privatize the universal. However, the logic of the universal allows the universal to be always divided. It was by means of the logic of the universal which during the French Revolution the French feminists protested against the republican principle, which deprived women of citizenship. According to the republican principle, whereas citizenship deals with the sphere of universal activities, women’s activities belong to the particularity of the private sphere and domestic life. Against this argument, Olympe de Gouges argued that “since women were qualified to mount the scaffold, they were also qualified to mount the platform of the assembly.” This feminist argument indicates that sentencing women to death, just like men, as enemies of the Revolution, demonstrates their equality. Since everyone is equal on the scaffold, everyone is qualified to run for public office. If a death sentence indicates the universality of the law, the law must reject the distinction between the universal character of the political life and the particular character of the domestic life.29 In my previous books I have discussed the universal kernel of Iranian socialism, nationalism, and Islamism and how they have contributed to the process of democracy and TOWARD A COMMUNIST DEMOCRACY 239 its different forms of expression and movement.30 Iran of the past two decades has been full of intempestive communists who as workers, students, women, intellectuals, and artists have been the thinkers and actors of politics and democracy as a process. But the tiny section of the traditional left and orthodox Marxism which remained in Iran and still believes in the actuality of communism has never been able to reinstate Iranian communism into its previous position. Those Iranian Marxist individuals who express their views say no more than occasional critiques of the Iranian state’s neoliberal policies. But they say almost nothing about the ways the neoliberal art of government in the West and its neoconservative ideology are functioning. The neoliberal art of government and the neoconservative ideology absorb every critique as part of their artillery to subjugate every people, including the Iranian people, who consciously or unconsciously think and act as intempestive communists.

Notes 1. Alexandros Chrysis, True Democracy as a Prelude to Communism: The Marx of Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 2. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 123–124. 3. Ibid., p. 246. 4. https://towardsautonomyblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/a-coffee- with-jacques-Rancière-beneath-the-acropolis/. 5. Fred Halliday, Relativism and Universalism in Human Rights: The Case of the Islamic Middle East, Political Ptudies (1995) XLIII, p. 166. See also Islam & The Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (London: I.B. TAURIS, 2003). 6. Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 14. 7. John Brenkman, The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy: Political Thought since September 11 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 115–116. 8. Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt, p. 221. 9. Ibid., p. 226. 10. Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, The German Ideology Part One (New York: International Publishers, 2004), pp. 39–40. 11. Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 63–68. 240 Y. SHAHIBZADEH

12. Dipesh Chakrabarti, Provincializing Europe: Post-Colonial Thought and Historical Difference (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000). 13. In the Tears of White Man (1983) and The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (2006). 14. The Defeat of the Mind (1987). 15. Stuart Hall, Gramsci and US (1989), https://www.versobooks.com/ blogs/2448-stuart-hall-gramsci-and-us. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Jacques Rancière, Racism: A Passion from Above, https://mronline. org/2010/09/23/racism-a-passion-from-above/. 21. Ibid. 22. Rancière, Dissensus, p. 76. 23. Ibid., p. 79. 24. Ibid., pp. 79–80. 25. Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 81–83. 26. Hall, Critical Dialogues in Cultural studies, p. 40. 27. Rancière, Dissensus, p. 53. 28. Jacque Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London: Verso, 2006), pp. 72–73. 29. Rancière, Dissensus, p. 56. 30. See the Iranian Political Language (2015) and Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran (2016). CHAPTER 13

Conclusion

The Communist Manifesto reminds us that whether in a democracy or a dictatorship, it is the social status of the capitalist in the process of production which allows him to exercise social power. But this lesson was forgotten by the reformists of the late nineteenth century. These reformists argued that the abolition of class domination would be a result of class collaboration between the working class and the bourgeoisie. They claimed that the expansion of democracy guaranteed by the benevolence of the bourgeoisie allows the working class to discover the socialist kernel of the capitalist shell. These reformists could not admit that the expansion of democracy was a result of the workers’ struggles and not their collaboration with the bourgeoisie because more democracy would mean more public display of class antagonism. But as democracy becomes the dominant method of governance, the dominant ideologies as the practical constructions and instruments of political leadership allow the dominant classes to distract the attention of the proletariat from the real class antagonisms. Thus, as a response to the dominant ideology and to engage the proletariat in the class struggle, the socialist intellectuals must reveal the truth about the dominant ideologies because these ideologies enable the governing classes to impose their hegemony on the governed people. The dominant ideologies make the governed people intellectually dependent on the governing classes. For several generations of Marxists, whereas the dominant ideologies are intellectual efforts to reconcile the contradictory interests within the bourgeoisie and between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Marxism

© The Author(s) 2019 241 Y. Shahibzadeh, Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_13 242 Y. SHAHIBZADEH was the theory of those contradictions. The dominant ideologies assist the dominant classes in imposing their hegemony on the dominated classes and protect the former against the unexpected attacks of the latter. Thus, the dominant ideologies are the intellectual efforts of the dominant classes to find resolutions for the existing social contradictions. Despite the apparent remoteness of Iranian and French Marxism, their conceptual relationships continue to constitute our sense of common humanity, freedom, and equality in a global system which generates various forms of injustice, inequality, and unfreedom. Now, three decades after the “triumph” of liberal democracy over “totalitarianism,” we have discovered that democracy is in crisis. Three decades after the emergence of the neoconservative ideology, which declared the end of history and promised to bring democracy to every corner of the world and protect human rights everywhere, we are told that the war to bring democracy to the people without democracy has been defeated. Whether as interaction of several ideologies or as a dominant ideology, the neoconservative ideology has absorbed not only significant elements of the Marxist discourse but also allowed different Marxist factions to express themselves as the subdivision of this ideology. In fact, the Marxist and post-Marxist debates and disagreements on the nature of neoliberalism and their critiques of the economic and foreign policies of the neoliberal government are one of the pillars of the neoconservative ideology. Despite critiquing their governments, the European Marxists and post-Marxists believe that they have significantly contributed to the narrowing of the gap between the state and the people in their own societies. As a reward for their share in the formation of the neoliberal art of government, the European Marxists and post-Marxists have increased their presence in the state institutions and elevated their positions in these institutions since the 1990s. That is why the Marxists and post-Marxists have been more than willing to offer their intellectual-ideological services to their governments, whether in the name of the fight against Islamist “totalitarianism” or bringing democracy and human rights at home and abroad. The phrase Middle Eastern people fight for the rights we take for granted in the West was constructed and popularized by some of the finest scholars and journalists who were affiliated with the left. It implied that the end of history indicated that the contemporary United States and Europe were both the future of the rest of the world and the guarantors of the democratic, peaceful, and socio-culturally harmonious future. As a consequence, politics as dissensus disappeared in the Western liberal societies because people whose democratic rights are taken for granted do not need politics. What Western democracies needed was a CONCLUSION 243 plan to deal with the challenges coming from the new citizens of non- European origin who were not used to the Western democratic way of life. Thus, scholars in the social sciences and humanities, journalists, politicians, and NGOs tried to educate the state and societies of the non-Western world and the immigrants from these parts of the world to adopt democratic values. Now, three decades later, the results of the spread of democracy and the defense of human rights are death and destruction in the Middle East and the crisis of democracy in the West. Despite the apparent differences, the conceptualization of democracy since the 1990s is similar to the Stalinist conceptualization of the state–society relationship at the end of the “socialist building” and the commencement of communism and the end of history in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s. In both cases instead of tendencies, socialism and democracy are defined as systems whose truth-values and their realizations rely on external guarantors. Consequently, the actions of the guarantors of “socialism” and “democracy” discard the need for autonomous political agents and sovereign states. My revisiting of the past conceptualizations of communism and democracy and the journey from one to the other ends in their final integration in what Rancière termed intempestive communism. As previously discussed, intempestive communism is the expression of freedom and equality as presupposition, not as an aim to be achieved in the future. The intempestive communist does not seek to replace a worse police order with a better and sweeter police order because he or she is well aware that the sweetness of a police order does not call into question the police logic. The intempestive communist is engaged in politics as arguments and actions which follow the egalitarian logic against the police logic. The intempestive communist is well aware that democratic government does not exist because the egalitarian logic cannot be institutionalized. The egalitarian logic can be expressed in actions and enunciations which are new within a given police order. When Blanqui and Marx identify their actions and arguments with the proletariat at a time when the proletariat does not correspond to an existing social group, they declare the arrival of a new social class expressing its subjectivity on the political stage. What makes the proletariat the subject of politics is that it is the object of wrong. The proletariat is able to express its political subjectivity because it is able to connect and disconnect different identities, functions, and capacities which are guarded by the police order. Politics means adding something new to the community while forcing the law to be equal for everyone. Equality is the reason that politics always accompanies democracy, but democracy does not mean here a set of institutions or a form of govern- 244 Y. SHAHIBZADEH ment but a mode of subjectification disrupting the police order. Democracy understood neither as a form of government nor a way of life indicates the contingency of places and functions in the police order because democracy allows the people to act as its agents wherever and whenever they dispute the police order of their society. Whether by forcing the state to make changes in the law or demanding the implementation of the existing law, people act as the agents of democracy. But how can we recognize the agents of democracy in situations where on the surface we see large groups of people who dispute the police order, while the real police order has, in fact, mobilized the population against the supposed representatives of the police order. The 2013 coup in Egypt is the expression of such confusion. As a result of a popular uprising a presidential election is held and an Islamist candidate becomes Egypt’s president. While the military council controls the repressive institutions such as police forces and judiciary, it orchestrates mass demonstrations claimed to represent the secularist liberals and leftists. Then, in the name of the people demonstrating on the streets, the military overthrows the government and takes hold of the whole political power. As the military consolidates its power it suppresses anyone who demands any democratic rights. During the uprising, which resulted in the free election of the Islamist president in Egypt, European Marxists and post-Marxists divided the Egyptian nation into the seculars and Islamists. The Marxists and post-Marxists who oppose imperialism but consider refugees, immigrants, and Muslims a problem supported the secularist opposition. But the Marxists and post-Marxists who advocate Western governments’ democratic and humanitarian mission and integration of immigrants and Muslims supported the Islamists in power.1 The European Marxists and post-Marxists on both sides encouraged or tried to influence their governments to support one Egyptian faction against the other. But the European governments, which found the assessments of their leftist partners worthless, decided that the interests of their nation in the Middle East are better served by a military junta in Egypt. Hence, they endorsed the military coup and the following massacres. What Rancière describes as the principle of recuperation was fully at work in Egypt during the preparation for the mass demonstrations, which resulted in the coup. But with the military coup, the principle of recuperation lost its relevance. Rancière talks about the principle of recuperation when critical discourses propagate the very discourses that they pretend to criticize. Both Marxists and post-Marxists dominating academia and NGOs have been criticizing Western governments’ support of the secular or the Islamist forces as the primary cause of the problems in Egypt and the rest CONCLUSION 245 of the Middle East. However, despite their critiques, both factions argued that their governments would better serve their nations if they took side with the secular or the Islamist ones, which rationalized Western governments’ interventions in the Middle East. But Western governments did not take sides, either with the secular or with the Islamist forces, because for them the choice had never been between these two political factions but between an elected government and a junta. Western governments know very well that they could not and still cannot afford electoral procedures which produce unpredicted results in this vital region. Since the anti-imperialist Marxists and post-Marxists accepted the junta immediately, they had no problem continuing their partnership with their governments. The ambivalent and pro-Islamist Marxist and post-Marxists championing democracy in the region either remained silent or made some noise, regarding the consequences of the coup, but continued their partnership with their governments to keep the business of democracy and human rights alive. The attitudes of the European anti-imperialist and pro-democracy Marxists and post-Marxists tell us about how closely the interests of all these factions converge with the interests of their government in this particular region. The functioning of the principle of recuperation requires a better police order. The European Marxists and post-Marxists who tried to make Egypt a better police order have kept implementing the principle of recuperation regarding racism at home and imperialism abroad. But what about the Egyptian Marxists and post- Marxists? Well, by distorting the long history of the intellectual and political journey of the Egyptian Marxist and post-Marxists, the European Marxists and post-Marxists have, since the 1990s, redefined them as nothing more than part of the secularist political forces whose conflicts with the Islamists would shape the future of Egypt. The tragedy of the Egyptian Marxists and post-Marxists was that they accepted a definition of themselves which cannot be defended whether through communist or democratic arguments, and they paid a high price for the mistake they made. The European Marxist and post-Marxist critique of domination and the dominant ideology in the Middle East and the rest of the non-Western world implies that the inhabitants of these regions regardless of their ideological and political tendencies and orientation are both ignorant of the laws of domination and ignorant of their ignorance. In fact, the European Marxists and post-Marxists have been trying, since the 1990s, to reproduce the educational approach of the old Feuerbachian materialism, which has always been the point of view of a superior class insisting that individuals must be educated to fit within the existingcircumstances . Since they 246 Y. SHAHIBZADEH assume that they represent the complexity of history, Western Marxist and post-Marxist academics, journalists, and NGOs assume they are in charge of the political education of the rest of the world. For the Western academics, journalists, and NGOs, whereas the rest of the world has a duty toward material production since they represent the simplicity of nature, the Westerners have a duty to know because they are dealing with the complexity of history. Those who deal with the simplicity of nature must always rely on those preoccupied with the complexity of history, which means the intellectuals of the rest of the world must be instructed and organized by the European Marxist and post-Marxist academics, journalists, and NGO activists. The fact is that the European Marxist and post-Marxist academics, journalists, and NGO activists have promoted Western democracies and the neoconservative ideology with the same sincerity that the French and Iranian communists advocated the Soviet Union’s socialism and its official ideology in the 1940s and early 1950s. In both cases we have intellectuals who think that the masses make their history provided they are led by the intellectuals who know the ultimate goal of history. Both groups have known the ultimate goal of history theoretically but have been confident that history reached its end either in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s or in the West in the early 1990s. This knowledge of the end made them confident that they should lead the masses, which have not yet made their history. But there is a big difference between the communists of the 1940s and early 1950s and the neoconservative post-Marxists and Marxists of the 1990s. Whereas the social power generated by capitalism and imperialism considered the communists of the 1940s and early 1950s and their Marxism a real threat to the existing social order, the contemporary social power generated by the neoliberal state has integrated Marxism and post-Marxism as the ideal form for the contents of the contemporary social order.

Note 1. Regarding the academic left Marxist or post-Marxist siding with the Islamist and the secular forces in the Middle East, see Francois Burgat, Face to Face with Political Islam (London: I.B. TAURIS, 2003) and Francois Burgat, Anatomie des Printemps arabes, in Bertrand Badie, Dominique Vidal (dir.), Nouveaux acteurs, nouvelle donne. L’état du monde 2012 (Paris: La Découverte, 2011), pp. 97–197, and Marwa Shalaby-Valentine Moghadam Editors, Empowering Women After the Arab Spring (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Bibliography

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A Alienation, 8, 14, 15, 17, 18, 54, 87, Abolition 88, 125, 127–129, 181, 182, of all classes, 34, 62 202, 222, 236 of bourgeois social reality, 52, 217 Althusserianism, 172–175 of philosophy, 50, 217 Althusserian materialism, 172 of the state, 33, 50, 159, 220 Althusser, Louis, 5, 7, 84, 125–127, Academic ideology, 175 130, 132, 134–137, 172–174, Actuality of communism, 10, 236, 176, 177, 180–187, 202, 205, 237, 239 223, 226, 227, 235 Adorno, Theodor, 47 American Marxism, 150, 154 Aesthetic, 198, 237 American Western, 187 Aesthetic revolution, 237 Anarchism, 38, 135 Agency of the proletariat, 196 Anarchists, 31 Agents of democracy, 201, 244 Anarcho-syndicalism, 135 Agrarian revolution, 76 Anti-communist law, 78, 90 Ahmadzadeh, Massoud, 142, 159 Anti-humanistic, 172 Al-e Ahmad, Jalal, 152, 163 Anti-imperialist, 2, 7, 62, 68, 70, 72, Aleatory materialism, 185, 226, 227 87, 95, 98, 99, 101, 103, 110, Algerian War, 172, 173, 175 126, 143, 146, 148, 150, 153, Alienated, 17, 88, 91, 127, 128, 131, 194, 218–220, 225, 230, 245 150, 158, 236 Antithesis, 186

1 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

Anti-utopianism, 205 Bourgeoisie, 5, 8, 13, 14, 17, 20–23, Arab communists, 5, 6 33–37, 48, 53, 56, 62, 63, 67, Arani, Taqi, 89–94, 219, 220 69, 71, 75, 77, 92, 98, 117, 118, Arbitrary as necessity, 199 130, 135, 137, 150–152, 154, Archeological knowledge, 130, 131 162, 176, 177, 196, 197, 215, Armed struggle, 121, 143–145, 148, 218, 219, 224, 233, 241 149, 151, 156, 158, 160, 162, Bourgeois freedom, 17, 108, 109 164, 165, 223–225 Bourgeois humanism, 173 Aron, Raymond, 185 Bourgeois religion, 51 The art of happiness, 199 Bourgeois revolutions, 13, 14, 40, 41, Autonomous political agents, 243 48, 50, 134 Autonomy of the communist Bourgeois socialists, 23 parties, 155 Bourgeois society, 13, 14, 21–23, 33, Avanesian, Ardeshir, 95 38, 39, 41, 42, 67, 109, 215–217 Axelos, Juan, 83 Bourgeois state, 2, 8, 33, 34, 51, 53, 116, 137, 162, 182, 197–199, 216, 217 B Bourgeois state apparatus, 173 Babeuf, 178 Bourgeois system of education, 51 Badiou, Alain, 206–211 British Empire, 68, 73, 74 Bakunin, Mikhail, 116, 204, 221 British imperialism, 70, 71, 75–77, 89, Balibar, Etienne, 173, 202–206 99, 110, 150, 219 Baudelaire, Charles, 198 Bruckner, Pascal, 193, 210, 230, Bebel, August, 204 231, 233 Benjamin, Walter, 4, 47 Bucharin, Nikolai, 90 Bentham, Jeremy, 109 Bureaucracy, 15, 34, 42, 72, 230, 235 Bernstein, Eduard, 27, 35–37, 177 Bureaucratic materialism, 15 Blanqui, Loius Auguste, 2, 178, Burgat, Francois, 246n1 201, 243 Bloch, Ernst, 133, 134 Blum, Léon, 85 C Boissy d’ Anglas, 209, 210 Capitalism, 2, 8, 9, 13, 14, 17–23, 27, Bolsheviks, 9, 47, 66, 68, 73, 28, 32–38, 40, 41, 48, 49, 137, 159 54–57, 62–64, 67–71, 73, 74, 76, Bolshevism, 38, 68, 69, 85 77, 85, 86, 98, 107–109, 112, Bolshevization, 84 114, 116, 118, 119, 126, 134, Bonaparte, Louis, 197 145, 150, 156–158, 160–162, Bourgeois democracy, 16, 35, 38, 164, 165, 179, 181, 183, 184, 43, 47, 54, 62, 89, 109, 110, 198, 203–205, 216–219, 221, 216, 221 225, 226, 231–233, 237, Bourgeois-democratic revolutions, 241, 246 74, 76, 77 Capitalist democracy, 54, 217 INDEX 257

Capitalist exploitation, 37, 41, 67, 154–156, 158, 163, 166, 69, 216 176, 178, 181, 193–211, 215, Capitalist order, 116, 165 216, 219–221, 225–227, Care of the self, 127, 179, 180 235–239, 243 Cartesian thinking subject, 125 Communist Chakrabarti, Dipesh, 240n12 consciousness, 19, 215 Chinese–Soviet conflict, 173 intellectuals, 84, 163, 173, 174, 219 Civil society, 15–17, 21, 55–57, 137, mode of production, 204 203, 218 movement, 4–6, 9, 22, 23, 28, 31, Clash of two cultures, 152 35, 47, 49, 53–55, 61, 66, 113, Class 116, 143, 145–147, 151, 154, antagonisms, 23, 33, 34, 38, 241 159, 160, 166, 171, 180, 181, categories, 163 195, 196, 216, 220, 221, 224, consciousness, 8, 29–30, 40, 47–57, 226, 227, 229 74, 78, 154, 157, 158, 160, narrative, 227 163, 164 politics, 207 domination, 28, 38, 182, 241 principles, 149, 224 struggles, 8, 21, 28–30, 34, 40, 41, totalitarianism, 193 51, 67, 92, 116, 119, 125, Communist International, 49, 61, 62, 135, 137, 148, 172–177, 181, 64, 66, 74, 84, 165, 226 182, 186, 188, 197, 206, 215, Communist League, 178 216, 235, 241 The Communist Manifesto, 13, 14, 21, Classless society, 21, 23, 157, 181 22, 41, 86, 111, 158, 180, 217, Collective intelligence, 237 237, 241 Collective will, 57 Complete democracy, 33, 216 Collectivization, 176 Complexity of history, 172, 246 Colletti, Lucio, 136 Comprador bourgeoisie, 69, 71, 75, Colonial 77, 150–152, 224 appropriations, 71 Conceptual knowledge, 131 policies, 66, 96 Conformist Communism, 114 questions, 61, 62, 74, 218 Consciousness, 8, 16, 18, 19, 29, 30, Colonization, 63 40, 48, 52, 87, 128, 129, 144, Colonized countries, 62–64, 68, 87, 158, 163, 164, 181, 187, 152, 161, 218, 219, 226 215–217, 220, 222, 223, 232, 233 Colonized nations, 62 Consensual realism, 3, 199 Colonized people, 67–69, 210, 219 Constitutional government, 15, 68 Comintern, 49, 54, 66, 79 Contemporary racism, 205 Commodity, 17, 93, 179, 203, Contingent transcendentality, 185 204, 231 Contradictions, 16, 28, 32, 35–37, 49, Communism, 3, 5–10, 13–24, 28, 33, 55, 68, 79, 120, 127–129, 137, 61–79, 86–90, 94, 95, 97, 102, 150, 154, 156–158, 181, 188, 113–119, 133, 149, 150, 198, 205, 222, 225, 242 258 INDEX

Cornu, Auguste, 84 Democratic consensus, 202 Crisis Democratic illusion, 37, 86 of democracy, 243 Democratic practices, 110 of governmentality, 222 Democratic revolutions, 15, 71, 149 of Marxism, 5, 6, 8, 9, 47–57, Democratic socialism, 108, 110–116, 180–188, 196, 223, 226 141, 220 Critical subjectivity, 53 Democratic state, 14, 215 Critical subjects, 52–57 Democratic way of life, 202, 243 Criticism, 6, 49, 51, 52, 154, 155, 217 Democratization processes, 194 Critique Democritus, 127, 185 of communism, 156, 225 Demos, 199, 238 of ideology, 55 Dependent societies, 161, 226 Cultural front, 55 Desanti, Jean-Toussaint, 205 Cultural order, 234, 235 Dialectical materialism, 48, 50, 90, 91, Cultural provincialism, 136 93, 160, 184, 220 Cultural revolution, 156, 175–177, 207 Dialectical return, 51, 217 Culture Dialectical theory of knowledge, 93 of the masses, 152 Dialectic of becoming, 87 of maximum consumption, 152 Dictatorship of obedience, 152 of the masses, 116 of resistance, 152 of the proletariat, 8, 27–43, 47, 51, 85, 86, 157, 181–183, 198, 204, 216, 217, 221 D Discourse Dead labor, 22 of order, 178 De-alienated, 88, 125, 131, 133 of power, 178 Death of philosophy, 136 of subversion, 178 Debray, Régis, 160, 177 Discursive struggles, 177 Decline of capitalism, 35 Dissensus, 237, 242 Decomposed Marxism, 5, 227, Distribution of space, 172 230, 231 Dominant ideas, 23, 52, 217, 220 Decomposition of Marxism, 5, 231 Dominant ideologies, 52, 55, 93, 127, Defeated revolution, 74, 157 144, 171, 172, 184, 188, 203, Della Volpe, 136 218, 227, 229, 241, 242, 245 Democracy, 1–4, 8–10, 13–24, 28–33, Dominated classes, 52, 55, 92, 93, 98, 35–43, 47, 54, 62, 64, 69, 77, 217, 218, 242 89, 90, 95, 99, 101, 103, 108–110, 112–116, 141, 147, 153, 157, 183, 193–211, E 215–239, 241–246 Economic democracy, 37 Democratic centralism, 86, 102, 103, Economic exploitation, 27 120, 155, 165 Economic relations, 38 INDEX 259

Economic struggle, 39, 216 European sensitivity, 230, 233 Educational process of democracy, 228 Existence, 2, 8, 14–20, 22, 23, 32, Educative, 56 34, 78, 87, 98, 126, 128, 130, Eftekhari, Yusef, 94, 95 136, 156, 174, 179, 183, Egalitarian logic, 200, 201, 243 185, 188, 196, 200, 215, Elitist ideology, 198 222, 236 Emami, Seyyed Baqer, 117–120 Existentialist Marxism, 83, 107, 221 Emancipation, 6, 7, 14, 16–18, 20, Existential-Psychology, 127–129 23, 27, 34, 62, 91, 92, 102, 126, Expropriated labour-force, 184 128, 129, 133, 145, 156, 158, External contradictions, 156, 225 164, 193, 198, 199, 202–205, 207, 220, 225, 227 Emancipatory politics, 127, 207, 211 F End of philosophy, 136, 183 Fadaiyan-e-Khalq, 159, 165, 166, Engels, Friedrich, 2, 5, 13, 14, 21, 194, 225, 226 29, 32, 33, 48, 51, 52, 65, 86, Fanon, Frantz, 126 91, 135, 158, 161, 164, 178, Fascism, 3, 4, 84, 113–115, 146 184, 185 Fascist violence, 113, 126, 222 English working class, 197 Ferqeh-ye Demokrat, 99, 100 Enlightenment, 52, 186, 217 Fetishism, 87, 203, 204, 229, 230 Enterprise society, 179 Feuerbach, Ludwig A., 14, 18, 19, Epicurean tradition, 127 172, 176, 186, 202, 215 Epicurean world, 183 Feuerbach’s anthropology, 129, 222 Epicurus, 127, 183, 185 Fictions of universality, 205 Epistemological, 131, 174 Finkielkraut, Alain, 193 Epistemological arrangement, Formal democracy, 14, 30, 43, 127, 130 62, 109 Epistemological break, 127, 135, 136 Formalization of democracy, 108 Epistemological field, 130 Forms of domination, 133, 183, 208 Epistemological placeholder, 126 Foucauldian discourse, 193 Epistemological transformation, 179 Foucault, Michel, 6, 125–134, Equality of intelligence, 237 177–180, 184, 194, 222, 223, 233 Eskandari, Iraj, 64, 65, 96–101 Frankfurt School, 107 Eskandari, Soleiman Mirza, 75, 89, 95 Freedom of criticism, 28 Essence, 14, 15, 18–20, 87, 88, 107, Freedom of expression, 1, 8, 29, 41, 126, 150, 156, 157, 177, 183, 54, 75, 77, 78, 90, 92, 100, 108, 201, 215, 223, 230 113, 114, 157, 217, 225 Eurocentric intellectuals, 161 French colonialism, 4, 205 European, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 20, 21, French Communist Party (PCF), 4, 9, 47, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 89, 108, 83–85, 88, 173, 205, 206 113–116, 133, 137, 145, 150, French Imperialism, 99 161, 202, 206, 216–219, 221, French Marxist intellectuals, 83, 223 227–231, 233–236, 244, 245 French Marxists, 6, 83, 84 260 INDEX

French Revolution, 3, 4, 6, 13, 40, 52, Halliday, Fred, 239n5 55, 57, 65, 130, 178, 203, 206, Haqiqat, 75 207, 217, 237, 238 Hegel, G.W. Friedrich, 14, 48, 50, 86, Freudian Marxism, 107 87, 120, 136, 185, 203, 231 Fukuyama, Francis, 3 Hegelianization, 88 Furet, Francois, 3, 4, 207 Hegemony, 52–57, 94, 95, 112, 152, Futility of theory, 160 163, 186, 188, 196, 204, 218, Futurists, 53 224, 232, 234, 235, 241, 242 Heidegger, Martin, 126, 185 Historical knowledge, 97, 130 G Historical materialism, 90 General interests, 19, 20, 182, 203, 233 Historical necessity, 3, 8, 27–28, 36, General strike, 38, 57, 112, 162 65, 204 The German Ideology, 14, 18, 231 Historical time of non- Global bourgeoisie, 67 contemporaneity, 204 Global capitalism, 62, 67–69, 76 Historic compromise, 233–235 Globalizing perspectives, 206 Historic necessity, 36 Global police order, 229 Historiography, 180, 185, 226 Global revolution, 132–134 History of madness, 130 Global revolutionary movement, 108, Horkheimer, Max, 47 149, 157, 221 Human capital, 2, 179, 198, 231, 235 Glucksmann, André, 193, 230 Humanist Marxism, 132, 223 Goldman, Lucien, 47 Humanitarian assistance, 2, 202 Gouges, Olympe de, 238 Human labor, 179 Governmentality, 134, 178–180, 222 Human rights, 1, 193, 202, 210, 228, Governmentalization, 178, 180–188 232, 242, 243, 245 Gramsci, Antonio, 5, 9, 47, 48, ideology, 230 52–57, 79, 101, 126, 135, 184, Hungarian uprising, 102 185, 205, 217, 218, 234, 235 Hussein, Saddam, 195 Guatemala, 99 Hyppolite, Jean, 48, 125 Guerrilla movement, 142 Guerrilla warfare, 141, 143, 224 Guevara, Che, 144 I Guha, Ranajit, 232, 233 Idealism, 48, 90, 183, 186 Guilty conscience, 231 Ideological and cultural hegemony, 57 Guterman, Norbert, 84 Ideological and political hegemony, 95, 112 Ideological domination, 175, 203 H Ideological education, 163 Hakim-e Iranshahri, 92 Ideological formation, 9, 83–103, 187 Al-Halaj, Mansur, 92 Ideological inversion, 202 Hall, Stuart, 2, 233–236, 238 Ideological revisionism, 165 INDEX 261

Ideological struggle, 56, 160 Interpellation, 184, 187 Ideological subject, 184, 187, 188 Iranian Communism, 9, 75–76, Ideology, 9, 23, 30, 47–57, 76, 93, 102, 196, 239 103, 107, 108, 114, 115, 117, 119, Iranian communists, 61, 72–74, 125–137, 144, 147, 148, 151, 152, 76, 78, 94, 95, 110, 111, 158, 163, 164, 173–175, 178, 184, 118, 146, 151, 152, 171, 186–188, 194, 202, 204, 207, 217, 195, 196, 218–221, 223, 222, 223, 227–230, 232–234, 239, 224, 246 241, 242, 246 Iranian Marxism, 6, 8, 110, 195, Imaginary Marxism, 185 196, 227 Immanent self-education, 208 Iranian nationalism, 110 Imperialism, 7, 9, 10, 27, 43, 62–64, Iranian revolution, 5, 6, 8, 70, 111, 67–71, 75–77, 85, 89, 98, 99, 132–134, 161, 166, 194, 196, 101, 103, 108–110, 112, 117, 222, 223, 230 118, 126, 143, 145, 147, 148, Iranian Social-Democratic Party, 66 150, 152, 160–162, 165, 195, Iran’s Communist Party, 61, 62, 219, 222, 226–229, 244–246 64–66, 73, 76–78, 89–90, 94, Imperialist core, 234 95, 97, 98, 111, 118, 119, Imperialist domination, 165, 226 146, 154 Imperialist ideology, 160 Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, 64, Imperialist relations, 148 66, 74, 89 Inactuality of communism, 237 Iran’s Socialist Party, 75, 89, 95, 119 Intellectual Iskra, 31 accuracy, 220 Islamist ideology, 196 authority, 174 Islamist leftists, 166, 194, 195 commodities, 231 Islamists, 2, 4, 6, 194, 196, 242, 244, equality, 199 245, 246n1 illumination, 42 immaturity, 54 maturity, 54 J and moral reform, 57 Jacobine, 209 poverty, 42 Jazani, Bizhan, 144–154, 159, 166, racism, 236 171, 224, 226 Intellectually dependent, 241 Juridical ideology, 186 Intempestive communism, 243 communists, 239, 243 K Internal contradictions, 36, 68, 156, Kautsky, Karl, 5, 29, 31, 42, 135, 157, 205, 225 174, 181 Internal social forces, 160 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 152, 195 Internationalism, 13, 28–29, 62, Kianouri, Noureddin, 97, 111 98–100, 107, 110, 113, 116, Know yourself, 127, 179 119, 157, 161, 205–206, 226 Korsch, Karl, 5, 9, 47–52, 217, 228 262 INDEX

Koselleck, Reinhart, 6 Marxist Kruzhoks, 116, 141, 220, Kruzhokists, 121 221, 223 Kuchik Khan, Mirza, 72, 73 Marxist-Leninist, 87, 88, 97, 117, 120, 143, 144, 150, 154, 155, 161, 166, 194, 225 L Marxist philosophy, 83, 135, 205 Labor of criticism, 217 Marxist theory, 5, 9, 28, 47, 49, 85, Lacan, Jacques, 174 100–101, 111, 117, 127, 132, Land reform, 71 134–136, 141, 159, 181, 184, Lazarus, Sylvain, 207, 208 196, 217, 221, 223, 226, 229 Lefebvre, Henri, 84, 87, 88, 125–127, Marxist utopia, 3, 199 173, 235 Marx, Karl, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13–24, 28, Leftist intellectuals, 5, 10, 141, 236 29, 33, 34, 48, 49, 51, 52, 65, Leftist opportunism, 108, 221 84–88, 109, 116, 125, 127, 130, Lenin, V.I., 5, 6, 8, 27–35, 41–43, 47, 131, 135–137, 156, 158, 161, 48, 51, 53, 65, 72–74, 84, 86, 164, 172, 174, 176, 178, 179, 92, 97, 100, 109, 127, 134–136, 181–185, 197, 202–205, 207, 156–159, 161, 162, 165, 176, 215, 217, 225, 227, 231, 237, 243 181, 182, 185, 206, 207, Marx’s theory of alienation, 129 216–218, 225, 226 Mass strike, 38–40, 134, 216 Lévy, Bernard Henri, 193 Materialism Liberalism, 28, 37, 109 of contingency, 183, 185, 226 Liberal racist, 228 of encounter, 183, 185, 226 Liebknecht, Karl, 204 in Iran, 92 Lukács, Georg, 47, 48 of necessity, 9, 183, 185, 226, Lumpenproletariat, 197 227, 237 Luxemburg, Rosa, 5, 6, 8, 35–43, 47, Materialist conception of history, 134, 135, 216, 222 19, 28, 51 Lyotard, Francoise, 125 Materialist philosopher, 187 Materiality of ideology, 184 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 48, 83, 126, M 127, 172, 205, 221, 222 Maleki, Khalil, 108, 111–116, 118, Method of governance, 241 147, 150, 155, 160, 221 The Middle East, 4, 98, 111, 194, Man’s finitude, 131 228, 229, 236, 243–245, 246n1 Maoism, 108 Middle Eastern, 66, 193, 228, Mao Tse-Tung, 115 232, 242 Marchais, Georges, 176 Militant communist, 149 Marxian materialism, 183 Militant Marxism, 32 Marxism-Leninism, 143, 147, 150, Militant neoconservative, 229 163, 166 Military apparatus, 160 Marxism of rupture, 185 Mill, John Stuart, 109 INDEX 263

Mobile Guards, 197 Neoliberal art of government, 179–188, Mode 230, 232, 233, 239, 242 of distribution, 37 Neo-Marxism, 107 of domination, 184, 204, 229 New American Century, 194 of production, 2, 8, 33, 37, 48, 64, New communist international, 64, 66, 71, 74, 91, 150, 162, 183, 165, 226 184, 203, 204, 216 New communist movement, 143, 145, of subjectification, 201, 208, 244 151, 154, 160, 166, 224 Moderate neoconservatives, 229 New Philosophers, 202, 210, 211, 233 Molana Jalaudin-e (Rumi), 120 New racism, 202, 236 Momeni, Hamid, 144, 145, 159–166, New Right, 233, 234 171, 225, 226 New theory of revolution, 154–155 Moment Non-intellectual, 57 of crisis of command, 57 Non-people, 235, 236 of hegemony, 55, 218 Non-state, 182, 185 Monopolistic foreign capital, 103 Moral categories, 163 Moral consciousness, 186 O Mosaddeq, Mohammad, 96, 97, 99, Objectification, 14, 17 110, 112–115, 147, 148, Objects of democratic education, 150–152, 220 227, 236 Mosaddeq’s ideology, 147 October Revolution, 6, 32, 33, 51, Mounier, Emanuelle, 83 64, 71, 76, 77, 84, 96, 97, 158, Muslims, 1, 2, 95, 119, 193, 194, 159, 165, 195, 217 201, 202, 227–229, 232, 233, Official Marxism, 4, 126, 133, 204 235, 236, 244 Oil-nationalization, 98, 99, 147, 148 Mystical shell, 120 Old materialism, 172 Opportunism, 41, 107, 143, 144, 149 Opportunist, 165, 226, 232 N Organic intellectuals, 57, 218 National bourgeoisie, 62, 67, 69, 71, Oriental despotism, 39 98, 151, 152, 154, 162 Original disorder, 183 National culture, 152 Overdetermination, 205 National liberation movements, 161, Overexploitation, 161, 226 162, 165, 218, 226, 230 Overney, Pierre, 176 National questions, 155 National revolution, 72, 219 National sovereignty, 69, 116 P Negative equilibrium, 99 Pahlavi regime, 68, 77 Neoconservative ideology, 9, 194, Paris Commune, 35, 50, 55, 84, 85, 227–229, 232, 233, 239, 165, 178 242, 246 Parliamentarian, 39, 40, 54 264 INDEX

Particularistic, 126, 222 Political practice, 5, 83, 117, 173, Partisan philosophy, 174 174, 186, 209 Passive activity, 57 Political reforms, 3, 5, 16, 77 Peaceful coexistence, 156, 174, 225 Political revolution, 17, 133 People’s Mojahedin, 166, 194, 195 Political spirituality, 133 Periphery, 40, 234 Political struggle, 29, 39, 41, 98, 102, Permanent revolution, 161 141, 143, 147, 150, 151, 153, Persian Social Democracy, 61 154, 178, 216, 223, 234 Persuasive bourgeoisie, 233 Political subject, 186, 196, 201, 232 Petite bourgeoisie, 21, 178 Political subordination, 27 Peykar, 76, 78, 166, 194, 195, 211n5 Political vanguardism, 86 Philosopher of order, 177 Politics as dissensus, 242 Philosophical existence, 185 Politzer, Georges, 84, 87 Philosophical hegemony, 186 Popular Front, 112, 113, 115, 151 Philosophical ideology, 136 Positive sciences, 51 Philosophical imposture, 209 Post-communist, 201 Philosophical war, 186 Post-democracy, 201 Pisarev, Dmitry, 31 Post-Marxism, 193, 195, 223, 227, Plekhanov, Georgi, 135 230, 232, 233, 246 Poiêsis, 203 Post-Marxist, 1, 3, 5, 10, 206, Police, 30, 34, 70, 90, 110, 145, 153, 227, 231, 232, 236, 242, 175, 176, 200, 208, 238 244–246, 246n1 Police logic, 200, 243 Post-revolutionary Iran, 194 Policeman state, 56 Pouyan, Amir-Parviz, 142, 145 Police order, 200, 201, 227, 229, Power and domination, 145, 234 243–245 Pravda, 75 Policing of concepts, 174 Praxis, 48, 126, 203, 205 Political agency, 24 Prescriptive conception of politics, 208 Political authority, 40, 173, 234 Primacy of practice, 186 Political backwardness, 216 Principle of recuperation, 171, 244, 245 Political culture, 232, 233 Private interests, 17, 19–20 Political education, 141, 148, 171, 246 Privatization of politics, 10, 237 Political educators, 197 Production Political equality, 13, 91 of consent, 218 Political event, 120, 207, 210 of knowledge, 87, 88, 135, 223 Political global forum, 206 of the proletariat, 13, 21, 184 Political instrumentalization, 205 Professional communists, 163 Political militant, 209 Professional revolutionaries, 30, 120, Political modes of enunciation, 202 145, 177, 181 Political power, 8, 21–23, 33–36, 43, Progressive nationalism, 110 53, 64, 97, 98, 113, 134, 156, Progressive nationalist, 219 157, 162, 197, 203, 216, 221, Proletarian characters, 163 234, 244 Proletarian civilization, 53, 217 INDEX 265

Proletarian class, 18–20, 30, 40, 42, Rahimi, Mostafa, 163 63, 136, 201, 218 Rancière, Jacques, 3, 171–178, Proletarian internationalism, 62, 119, 196–201, 208, 209, 211, 211n1, 157, 161, 226 227, 236, 243, 244 Proletarianization, 28, 163 Rational kernel, 120 Proletarian life, 158, 163 Razi, Mohammad Zakaria, 92 Proletarian masses, 39, 40, 72, 74, Reactionary nationalism, 110 196, 197, 219 Reading Capital, 173, 205 Proletarian nations, 69, 219 Realization of philosophy, 202 Proletariat, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 18–24, Reconfiguration of the material 27–43, 47–54, 56, 57, 62–64, 66, world, 237 67, 74, 76, 85–87, 89, 90, 97, Red Army, 72, 73, 95–97, 119, 159 126, 129, 133, 141, 142, 150, Reformist majority, 36 154, 157–159, 161, 163, 176, Reification, 48 178, 181–184, 196–198, Relations of production, 13, 75, 137, 201–203, 207, 208, 211, 178, 182, 187, 198 215–219, 221–223, 225, 226, Relativism in philosophy, 93 233, 234, 236, 241, 243 Religious eschatology, 133 Property relations, 13, 18, 21, 37 Religious mentalities, 231 Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 2, 20, 21, Representation, 129, 131, 178, 204, 30, 116, 221 209, 225 Psychological and social Reproduction, 22, 184, 187, emancipation, 129 203, 216 Public consciousness, 207, 208 Republican virtues, 209 Public consensus, 208 Republic of Azerbaijan, 100 Public disagreement, 238 Revisionism, 37, 49, 107, 108, 143, Public discourses, 1, 10, 133, 193, 165, 173, 177, 221 201, 229, 230 Revisionist, 23, 36, 38, 160, 172, Public power, 32 173, 175 Public sphere, 227, 233 Revisionist ideology, 175 Pure philosophy, 186 Revolutionary age, 3, 199 Revolutionary class, 21, 48, 49, 77, 135, 143, 163, 197 R Revolutionary passion, 150 Racial theories, 90, 220 Revolutionary process, 51, 163 Racism, 1, 10, 126, 193, 199, 202, Revolutionary Republic of Iran (RRI), 205, 222, 227–229, 236, 245 89, 92 Racism from above, 236 Revolutionary state, 33, 73, 157, Radical education, 229 158, 182 Radical left, 229, 231 Revolutionary subject, 7, 65, 188 Radical petty-bourgeoisie ideology, Revolutionary theory, 27, 28, 181 151, 224 Revolutionary vanguard, 27, 85, 97, Radical philosophy, 229 142–144, 149, 152, 158 266 INDEX

Revolutionary violence, 153, 156, Sequence of politics, 207 173, 224 Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Rightist opportunism, 108, 221 68–71, 73, 74, 76, 78, 89, 90, Right-wing European socialism, 150 94, 97, 103, 108, 141, 142, 144, Robespierre, 207, 209 148, 149, 153, 166, 194, 219, Rosenberg, Alfred, 90, 91 224, 225 Roy, Manabendra Nath, 63, 64, 219 Shoaiyan, Mostafa, 145, 150, Rupture, 6, 23, 131, 174, 185, 154–163, 225, 226 199, 208 Simplicity of nature, 172, 246 Russian Marxism, 79 Simulacra, 179 Russian Revolution, 5, 9, 27, 38–41, Social alienation, 54, 127–129, 222 43, 47, 48, 56, 61, 64, 65, Social and mental emancipation, 128 84–86, 134, 136, 137, 144, 161, Social compromise, 161, 226 162, 210, 222 Social contract, 181, 186 Russian revolutionary elite, 137 Social contradictions, 32, 79, 127, 128, 188, 222, 242 Social control, 35, 37 S Social democracy, 13, 29, 32, 36, Safaiy Farahani, Ali-Akbar, 166n6 38–41, 61, 64–66, 89, 108, Said, Edvard, 193 113–115, 221, 234 Saint-Just, 207–209 Social imperialism, 165 Sartre, Jean Paul, 10, 48, 83, Socialism, 4–6, 9, 13, 27–29, 35–37, 125–127, 130, 132, 172, 197, 42, 43, 51, 65, 73, 75, 76, 78, 198, 205, 221, 222, 235 97, 103, 108–116, 135, 141, Schelling, F.W.J., 86, 87 147, 150, 156–158, 161, 162, Science of history, 127, 130, 135 165, 166, 173, 174, 176, 181, Science of man, 131 194, 196, 218, 221, 226, 234, Scientific authoritarianism, 174 238, 243, 246 Scientific discourse, 127, 129, 132, 199 Socialist consciousness, 29, 30, Scientific socialism, 29, 36, 51, 103 181, 220 Secessionist insurgency, 100 Socialist countries, 5, 7, 97, 100, 133, Secessionist movement, 97, 100, 149, 165, 195, 204, 209, 226 146, 147 Socialist ideas, 65, 110 Second international, 27, 47, 49–51, Socialist intellectuals, 234–236, 241 61, 64, 66, 75, 84, 85, 89, 95 Socialist international, 113, 114 Secularist, 244, 245 Socialist mode of production, 37, 204 Self-conscious activity, 17 Socialist movement, 29, 32, 37, 38, 41, Self-criticism, 88, 163 50, 64, 65, 95, 119, 206, 230, 234 Self-determination, 101 Socialist Republic of Iran, 72, 73, 219 Self-emancipation, 177 Socialist revolution, 29, 33, 35, 36, Self-organization, 36 52, 54, 72–75, 78, 84, 117, Semi-colonized, 62, 66–69, 74, 99, 161 119, 157, 162–164, 195, 216, Semiological, 174 217, 219 INDEX 267

Socialists, 3, 5–7, 9, 18, 20, 21, 23, Stalin, Josef, 9, 78, 88, 95, 102, 111, 28–30, 32, 33, 35–38, 41–43, 50, 143, 144, 146, 176 52–54, 64, 65, 72–76, 78, 84, State apparatus, 110, 112, 134, 85, 89, 93, 95, 97, 100, 101, 157–159, 173, 176, 224, 235 103, 108–111, 113–117, 119, State of the situation, 208 133, 134, 137, 144, 149, 150, State’s ideological apparatus, 127 156, 157, 159, 162, 164, 165, Stato carabiniere, 56 181, 194, 195, 204, 206, 209, Subaltern, 55, 218, 232 216–221, 225, 226, 230, 232, Subaltern sphere, 232 234–236, 241, 243 Subjectification, 201, 202, 208, 244 Socialist standpoint, 109 Subjective figure of politics, 209 Socialist state, 65, 73, 156, 159, 204 Subjective universality, 210 Social peace, 1–3, 165 Subject of communism, 203 Social reproduction, 187 Subject of politics, 243 Social struggles, 39, 112, 113, 121 Subjects of democracy, 201, 227, 228 The society of consumption, 153 Sultanzade, Avetis, 9, 61, 64, 66–74, Socio-cultural and political 78, 79, 80n13, 146, 218, 219 oppression, 153 Supplementary subjects, 208 Socio-historical alienation, 128 Surplus value, 69 Sociological demystification, 199 Suslov, Mikail, 107 Sovereign states, 243 Symbolic rupture, 199 Soviet Communism, 113, 114, Systematic sociology, 51 116, 221 Soviet Communist Party, 9, 49, 54, 78, 83, 107, 147, 155, 159, 172, T 220, 223 Tabari, Ehsan, 96, 107–110 The Soviet Union, 6, 7, 9, 62, 69–71, Taheri, Jafar, 150 75–79, 85, 86, 94–97, 99–102, Technicians of practical knowledge, 107, 108, 110–116, 118, 119, 10, 126, 222 141, 143, 144, 146–149, 151, Thatcherism, 233 155, 156, 159, 161, 176, 195, Theist Socialists, 150 205, 219–221, 224, 225, 235, Theoretical and social practices, 132 243, 246 Theoretical consciousness, 18 Soviet Union’s foreign policy, 99, 119, Theoretical contestation, 173 141, 219 Theoretical domain, 135 Spectacle, 179 Theoretical maturity, 136 Spiritual transformation, 42 Theoretical perspective, 160 Spontaneity, 30, 38–41 Theoretical practice, 5, 135, 174, 223 Spontaneous consent, 57 Theoretical process, 135, 223 Stalinism, 9, 78, 102, 107–121, 141, Theoretical vacuum, 136 143, 180, 184 Theory of domination, 193, 198 Stalinist Communism, 113 Theory of fetishism, 203, 204, 230 Stalinist ideology, 102 Theory of history, 185 268 INDEX

Theory of ideology, 132, 203, 229, 230 U Theory of political history, 186 Unconditional equality, 238 Theory of political practice, 185 Underdeveloped culture, 198 Theory of social revolution, 50, 51, Unevenness, 28 65, 217 Unhappy consciousness, 87 Theory of the market, 204 Universal, 4, 13, 15–17, 23, 40, 53, 76, Theory of the state, 204 78, 98, 99, 108, 126, 129, 133, Thermidorean, 209, 210 203, 205, 222, 229, 234, 238 Thermidorean subjectivity, 210 Universal history, 205 Thesis, 6, 62, 63, 100, 136, 144, 172, Universalist, 126, 222 174, 175, 186, 220, 225 Universality, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 41, Third International, 47, 49, 61, 62, 65, 110, 126, 160, 163, 187, 64–66, 84, 85, 118, 218 196, 203, 205, 209, 210, 222, Third world, 7, 108, 133, 165, 184, 229, 233, 236, 238 210, 221 Universality of the working class, 160 Titoism, 114 Universalization, 3, 16, 202, 232 Toiling classes, 63, 64, 89, 115, 219 Universal rights of man, 17 Toiling masses, 62, 63 Universal truth, 129 Toligatti, Palmiro, 101 Utopian socialism, 42, 135 Totalitarian ideology, 207 Totalitarianism, 1, 4, 7, 108, 193, 202, 210, 235, 242 V Totalitarian socialism, 114 Vanguard intellectuals, 172 Totality, 48, 50, 52, 68, 88, 142, 152 Totalizing discourse, 177 Trade unionism, 36, 135 W Transnational, 205–206 Wage labour, 177 Traverso, Enzo, 5, 6, 11n14 War Trotskyism, 161, 225, 226 of ideas, 231 Trotsky, Leon, 43, 161, 225 of position, 55, 56 True community, 237 The weakest link, 27, 136, 137, True democracy, 10, 13–24, 165, 226 173, 239n1 Weitling, Wilhelm, 30, 37 True democratic state, 14, 215 Welfare state, 2, 161, 226, 233–235 True universality, 222 Western civilization, 193 Truth of madness, 130 Western democracy, 3, 202, 210, 230 Tudeh Party, 9, 64, 89, 94–103, Western Marxism, 9, 83 107, 108, 110–119, 141, 143, Worker’s consciousness, 163 146–150, 153–155, 159, Worker’s democracy, 54 160, 166, 194, 195, 220, Workers’ councils, 86 221, 224, 225 Working class, 14, 21–23, 28–33, 35, Tunisian experience, 133 37, 38, 40–43, 47, 56, 61–63, INDEX 269

76, 77, 79, 84, 96–98, 100–103, World Social Forum, 206, 227 108, 115–120, 135, 137, World War I, 63, 84, 137 142–144, 148–166, 171, 174, World War II, 95, 96, 113, 146 182, 197–199, 201, 211n5, 221, 224–226, 234, 241 Working class culture, 199 Z Working-class aristocracy, 108, 221 Zhdanovist theory of philosophy, 205 World revolution, 86, 161 Zinoviev, Grigory, 49