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Saman wrote: > What came after the Shah was worse? What kind of a statement is this? So > would it be better not to have had the 1979 Revolution? > Of curse, I didn't say any such thing. My point was that what came after was worse than the shah and, as evidence, I noted that the Islamic Republic was far more successful at wiping out the left than the shah ever was. Let's not mix up the shortcomings of the left at a historical juncture > (ideologically, politically, organizationally, etc...) which did not allow > it to take advantage of a monumental historical opportunity; with > dismissing the revolution itself. This is so un-Marxist. We did not like > the result of the revolution, so we just write it off. Forget that history > does not bend to our desires and whims- damn that materialism. > Never wrote off the revolution of late 1978-early 1979. But the left was so focused on getting rid of the shah they played down the danger of the Islamists - well, they played it down *and* made out that people like Khomeini weren't really all that bad. Even with what came (Islamic republic) the society was completely > transformed in a way that the Islamic republic Guardians cannot contain its > development. > Isn't this unhistorical? You're assuming that the society wasn't already being transformed in ways which the shah could not contain. Indeed, the shah set off a train of events that made his own dictatorship unsustainable. The new regime *set back* many of these developments - eg women's rights - making the conditions of the fight for a socialist revolution *more difficult*. Could the Pahlavis have lasted another 35 years, as the Islamic elite's dictatorship has? I still think the revolution was a huge step forward for the development of > the material conditions and the possibility of a socialist future- despite > the Islamic regime (not because of it). > And why would this not have also been the case under the Pahlavi dictatorship? Why would the material conditions not have continued to develop without the Islamic regime? Unfortunately too many Iranians, even some of them part of the left, repeat > the same thing "Shah was better". This effectively puts you in a > counter-revolutionary posture. > What succeeded *was* a counter-revolution. A counter-revolution triumphed over an incipient revolution. I'm not going to do anything so silly as to say "This effectively puts you in a counter-revolutionary posture", however. I simply think you are wrong. Name-calling and "who was worse" sloganeering is not a good substitute for > actual analysis. > Saman, you've done a bit of name-calling yourself here and you've done some sloganeering about "who was worse". My position is that the left (internationally and within Iran) vastly underestimated the danger of the Islamic current led by Khomeini. And they paid a huge price for that error. Do you really disagree? Phil _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
