On 7/30/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
But the USSR represented a historically progressive mode of production over capitalism.
What's progressive or not can't be decided until the end of history, it seems to me. Say, in the 1960s, perhaps, survivors of Stalin's purges, murders, gulags, etc. could console themselves (if they chose to) that, while they paid the price, the nation itself won WW2 and even managed to admit Stalin's crimes, so their sacrifices were at least sacrifices for historical progress. But now that the USSR is no more and Russia and the rest of the Eastern block are capitalist countries though with varied degrees of remaining state ownership and social programs, the narrative of progress loses its point.
Iran's Islamic rulers were just as hostile to the overthrow of capitalism as the monarch who preceded them.
But Iran before and after the revolution have not been the same with regard to women's employment, educational level, fertility rate, and so forth at home, and it has not been the same with regard to its policy toward Israel and Palestinians, Cuba, Venezuela, and so on. Such differences count.
We fight to defend socialized property relations in countries, no matter how undemocratic the government.
An undemocratic government can't defend socialized property relations -- it will eventually abolish them. That is why the only government that is still arguably socialist is Cuba, which, relatively speaking, has been much more democratic than China, Russia, etc.
I have no idea how you conclude that Iran is "far less capitalistic" than these other societies.
The sort of enterprises -- natural resource extraction and other large enterprises -- that leftists in Latin America are just beginning to bring under state control, Iran has already nationalized them through the Iranian Revolution. To defend that gain is one of the most important tasks facing the Iranian people, which is why they dumped neoliberal reformists and elected Ahmadinejad.
>To come back to the question of leadership, you can't dodge the >problem of attachment to iconic leaders in socialist countries and the >question of how leaders should get selected by and held accountable to >masses, with maximum public participation. Without that, people get >depoliticized and eventually become unable to defend the revolution in >a politically and/or economically difficult time. Politics in Venezuela is based on a kind of workers democracy that Iranian workers have not enjoyed in over 25 years. If you google "Iran and "trade union" in the newsgroup misc.activism.progressive, you will get hundreds of hits. Here is something fairly typical. ** Topic: Iranian Oilworkers Killed ** ** Written 7:48 AM Mar 10, 1997 by newsdesk in cdp:headlines **
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On 16 February 1997, a huge oil workers rally took place in front of the oil ministry in Tehran, Iran, and the Islamic militias attacked the crowd and inflicted beatings. Hundreds were arrested. After several days, most of those detained were released, but some are still in prison.
Lou, have you seen any strikes by Venezuelan workers -- other than the NED-bakced management lockout in 2002 and the CTV-led ones before that -- since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution? Can Venezuelan workers autonomously -- autonomously of the government as well as of any direct and indirect support from the empire -- express their conflict with government through strikes and other direct actions that make a big impact on production? That remains to be seen. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
