Editorial by Comrade Enver Hoxha in the newspaper “Zëri i popullit,” organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, January 19, 1979
On January 16, the Shah of Iran sneaked away from the country to the United States of America. The secret departure of the Shah is not temporary and he did not leave Tehran to go for a vacation. The Shah was driven out by the great wave of popular uprising. He was driven out by the resolute struggle of the Iranian people, the workers and youth and the urban masses, who for more than a year have been clashing in the streets and squares of the Iranian cities with the armed forces of the criminal fascist regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi. This is a great historic victory for the Iranian people which was achieved with bloodshed and sacrifice.
With their uprising, the Iranian people shook the feudal Pahlavi monarchy to its foundations and they are continuing the struggle to ensure its complete and final destruction. The driving out of the Shah is at the same time a powerful blow against American imperialism which up to the very last minute supported this obedient servant and gendarme of Washington in the Middle East who had sold the oil and the entire country to the American monopolies.
With the revolution which they are carrying out now, the Iranian people are demonstrating a great patriotism and a profound ideological and political understanding of the problems of their country, of the connection of these problems with the international position of Iran, of the events going on around it and in the world. They are fighting with great heroism, undaunted by the bullets of the monarchist troops, challenging the massive modern means of counter-revolutionary violence with which American imperialism has equipped its minions in office in Tehran, and are facing up to the open and indirect pressure exerted by imperialism to keep the Shah in power in this or that form.
Thus the struggle of the masses of the people of Iran is not only an indomitable struggle against feudalism and the state power of the Shah, but also a courageous struggle against the most powerful imperialism in the world, American imperialism.
There has been a great deal of speculation both in the East and in the West about the sources of this uprising. Each of them talks according to its own interests and desires, but the whole world can see that the decisive factor is the Iranian people, who, courageously, fearlessly, for months on end, day and night, have come out in tens and hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran and Tabriz, Abadan and all the cities of the country in demonstrations, raising their fists and shouting with hatred, “Death to the Shah!”
The general uprising in Iran against the feudal monarchy is the continuation of the uninterrupted revolutionary struggle of the Iranian people against the Shah, and a further proof of the revolutionary spirit of this people with an ancient culture, who have fought through the centuries against invasions of Arabs, Mongols, Ottomans, British colonialists and others, of this people who have given the world great artists and scientists and outstanding writers and philosophers. After the Second World War the people of Iran passed their first revolutionary test with the uprising which was led by the communists and the party of Mosaddegh, a progressive bourgeois element with anti-feudal tendencies. This uprising had the character of a revolt by the progressive democrats of the cities, especially Tehran. It obliged the frightened Shah to take to his heels, but he was brought back to Iran by American and British imperialism which linked the fate of their predatory neo-colonialist interests in that country with keeping the Shah in power. The CIA organized the coup d’etat which overthrew Mosaddegh and put down the insurgent people with fire and steel, but did not crush their aspirations, hatred and anger.
By means of the CIA and the tanks of Zahedia, American imperialism smashed the first popular uprising led by Mosaddegh and the Iranian communists. But this time neither the CIA which has been very active, the American aircraft carrier which was sent to the Persian Gulf to threaten the Iranian people, nor the cunning hypocritical statement of the Soviet social-imperialists who claimed to be for non-intervention of foreign powers in the problems of Iran, were capable of achieving this. With its attitude and activities, Soviet social-imperialism in reality did not in the least intend to defend the Iranian people and the Iranian revolution, but wanted to defeat the revolution and keep the Shah of Persia in power, proceeding from its own predatory interests and hatching up secret plots and agreements with the American imperialists for the division of spheres of influence in various regions.
The present uprising in Iran is not simply a repetition of the former one. It has an obvious and pronounced anti-feudal, democratic and anti-imperialist character. It is more advanced because it has swept the whole of Iran and raised the whole people, especially the proletariat, to their feet. It is at a higher level, in regard to both its dimensions and the character of the tasks which it puts forward for solution.
The proletariat is the decisive motive force of the present Iranian revolution and is carrying the main burden of it. The entire proletariat has hurled itself into the struggle. The workers have clashed, face to face with the forces of the Shah, have been killed, shed their blood, but they have not yielded. The oil workers, the backbone of the Iranian proletariat, stopped the extraction of oil and paralysed oil exports with their strike and resolute struggle. The overthrow of the Shah and the cutting off of oil supplies from Iran, which ranks second in the world as an oil exporter, shook the whole capitalist world.
This is a colossal victory and an example to all the peoples of the world who are languishing under the oppression of imperialist and social-imperialist powers and the capitalist bourgeoisie sold out to foreigners. The uprising of the Iranian people shows that when a people hurl themselves into revolution, when they are determined in their struggle regardless of all the sacrifices and difficulties, neither dollars, aircraft, tanks, nor sophisticated weapons can stop them.
The development of events in Iran once again confirms the Marxist-Leninist thesis that, when the objective and subjective conditions are ripe the revolution breaks out, that the popular uprising, headed by the proletariat, is invincible. It confirms the Marxist-Leninist analysis which our Party has made about the situation in the world today and its conclusion that today the revolution is not just an aspiration and a future prospect, but a problem taken up for solution. It is stated in the book Imperialism and the Revolution: “In general the situation in the world is revolutionary,” that “in many countries this situation has matured or is maturing rapidly while in other countries this process is developing,” that “the world today is heading for great explosions,” and that “in general the situation is like an erupting volcano, a searing fire, which will destroy the oppressing and exploiting ruling upper classes.”
The outburst of the revolution in Iran is a heavy blow to the revisionist preachings of the Chinese leaders, who claim that there are no revolutionary situations in the world today, and that the time for revolutionary actions has not come. At the same time the driving out of the Shah of Iran is a direct exposure of the reactionary activities of the Chinese leaders who, through Hua Guofeng, hastened to Tehran to publicly express their support for the Shah at a time when the Iranian people were fighting and shedding their blood in the streets, in battle with the forces of the detested Pahlavi regime.
Regardless of who was in the leadership of it, the uprising of the Iranian people, from the results achieved, from the tasks it seeks to solve and the social forces which took part in it, has a progressive character. The Marxist-Leninist party in Iran, the Workers and Peasants’ Communist Party of Iran, has played a role in this uprising. If it has not been a main leading force in it, the intrepid proletariat and people of Iran, from whose bosom this Party has emerged, will certainly make it even stronger in order to fulfil its mission, to keep the spirit of the uprising alive and to march forward ceaselessly on the road of progressive transformations.
It cannot be excluded that the attitude of the Islamic religious heads has played a role in the subjective factor of the revolution. But they are neither decisive nor the only factors. The decisive factors are the democratic and progressive ideas, the hatred for the medieval monarchy and the aspirations of the Iranian people for a democratic republic. This is no longer the time of the wars of Caliphs and Imams — this is clear to the whole world. The struggle for the overthrow of the monarchy in Iran is not “camel back raid.” Now we are living in new times when the peoples’ struggles stem from capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination. This is where the struggle of the Iranian people against the medieval monarchy and imperialism, for thorough-going democratic and revolutionary reforms, has its roots.
The true friends of the Iranian people, the revolutionaries everywhere in the world, hope that this people will advance to true democracy, freedom and sovereignty, and that the revolution will lead to more radical transformations. They are convinced that the Iranian people will not allow open or disguised enemies to seize the fruits of the victories achieved so far and to create a serious situation in the country again.
The Shah has been driven out. However, if the Bakhtiar government organized and approved by the Shah and international imperialism is not overthrown, too, along with the military clique of the imperial Shahs in service of the monarchy and U.S. imperialism, if that agency of the CIA and the Soviet social-imperialists, SAVAK, is not wiped out and the army placed in the hands of the people, the triumphs of the revolution will always be in jeopardy. It cannot advance.
The enemies of the Iranian people are striving and will continue to strive in conformity with the new situations, to undermine the victories of the present uprising, to maintain, restore and consolidate their positions. Therefore today, the patriotic, revolutionary and progressive forces of Iran must be more vigilant than ever against American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and other reactionaries who, with a thousand manoeuvres will act through their agencies, through their pseudo-progressive, pseudo-Marxist and anti-popular people, in order to turn the present revolutionary situation and the victory of the Iranian people in the direction of their interests.
With the driving out of the Shah the great uprising of the Iranian people marked an historic victory over feudalism, the big bourgeoisie linked with the foreign monopolies and American and world imperialism. The Iranian proletariat with its Marxist-Leninist party, in alliance with the progressive and democratic forces of the country, will certainly carry this victory forward.
The triumphant Iranian revolution is a vivid proof of what our Party, which is guided by the teachings of Lenin, has said, that although imperialism appears powerful, it is in decay, that the local bourgeoisie sold out to imperialism and armed by it is powerless in face of the wave of the rising tide of the insurgent people. The victory achieved by the people of Iran will be a great encouragement to the peoples of the world, it will serve to eliminate the myth about the invincibility of American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, Chinese social-imperialism and world capitalism. In reality they are weak, while the peoples are strong and will triumph.
Long live the revolution!
Glory to the Iranian people!
(A Great Historic Victory for the Iranian People, “8 Nëntori” Publishing House, Tirana 1979)
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