Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran (PDFDrive)

MARXISM &
LEFT-WING
POLITICS
in Europe and Iran
Yadullah Shahibzadeh
Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran
Marxism and
Left-Wing Politics
in Europe and Iran
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
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952228
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover image: © gmalandra

Cover design: Tjaša Krivec
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 prac-
tice 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 intellec-
tual 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 politi-
cal experience they had been seeking. The knowledge that these leftist
organizations provided indicated the universality of class struggle formu-
lated 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 strug-
gle 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 ideologi-
cally superior, politically more determined, and was controlling the repres-
sive state apparatuses, it succeeded in eliminating every internal political
obstacle, which prevented the exercise of its authority internally as a pre-
condition 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 experi-
ence and promised them a radically new political experience, while as a
theory of social revolution it was subjected to regression and decomposi-
tion. 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 tenden-

cies 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 pres-
sure 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 interven-
tion.” 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’ for-
eign 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,” immi-
grants, 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 accept-
ing 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 can-
not 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 imper-
fections 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 t hinker-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 pro-
letariat or political parties representing their interests. Marx as the founder
of the contemporary left tried to make his contemporary proletariat visi-
ble. 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 real-
ism generated xenophobia of the National Front.2
In The Passing of an Illusion (1995s), Francois Furet argues that libera-
tion from the illusion of historical necessity or march of history is a precon-
dition 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 democ-
racy as the final form of human government.”4 Two years after Fukuyama’s
statement, while preparing the first war against Iraq, the American presi-
dent 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 dimen-
sion 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 dif-
ferent 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 con-
temporary 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 democ-
racy over the Communist and Fascist totalitarianism and its imminent vic-
tory 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 con-
temporary 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 his-
tory 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 bour-
geois supremacy. Communism says that communists must prepare the pro-
letariat 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 faith-
ful 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 gen-
erated 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 commu-
nist movements in the Arab world and its final collapse.15 It began with the
Arab communists convivial to perestroika and glasnost as democratic eco-
nomic 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 polit-
ical 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 com-
munist 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 cri-
sis engulfing international communism, but due to its inability to under-
stand 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 ideo-
logical, theoretical, and political crisis of the global Marxism and the com-
munist 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 revolu-
tion in Britain and the United States, and the exposure of the Cambodian
killing fields were the consequences of the crisis of Marxism and the ideo-
logical confusion it had created. Because of this crisis of Marxism, numer-
ous 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 social-
ism” 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 emancipa-
tion has suddenly disappeared. After the decline of the socialist countries,
all utopian politics were reduced to totalitarian phantasies, and the princi-
ple 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 sym-
bolic 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 the victim. 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 con-
sider 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 posi-
tions 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 cen-
tury 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 bour-
geoisie’s supremacy to seize political power. As the proletariat grabs politi-
cal 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 neces-
sity 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 dicta-
torship of the Communist Party. Luxemburg reminds Lenin that the dic-
tatorship 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 disagree-
ments 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 experi-
ence 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 indi-
cates 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 intel-
lectuals 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 ide-
ologies. 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 aca-
demic and public discourse which has a leftist form with racist and imperial-
ist 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 commu-
nism. But what the leftist intellectuals have completely forgotten is Sartre’s
dictum that in contrast to the technicians of practical knowledge, the genu-
ine 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 com-
munism 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 tex-
tuel, 2017).
7. Stein Ringen, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Cairo Review of Global
Affairs, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-year-of-living-dan-
gerously/, 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 major-
ity 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 soci-
ety. Whereas the proletariat enjoy formal equality with those who own the
means of production, they experience real inequality because they are

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 minor-
ity 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 success-
ful when all turning back becomes impossible.1 What are the main implica-
tions 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 intel-
lectual journey from democracy to communism. Second, it suggests the
necessity of an investigation of the extent of Marx’s fidelity to the conse-
quences 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 commu-
nists … 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 indis-
tinguishable because democracy is the expression of “the true unity of uni-
versal and particular.” Whereas in monarchy and republic man is divided
between his universality or political existence and his particularity or unpo-
litical private existence, in democracy man experiences the unity of his uni-
versal 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 democ-
racy 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 imagi-
nary 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 mate-
rialism 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 subordina-
tion 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 emancipa-
tion 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 reli-
gion 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 precondi-
tion 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 con-
fused 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
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 selfish-
ness. 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 expres-
sions 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 liber-
ate 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 him-
self 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 com-
modity. 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 cul-
ture for the rich but poverty, hovels, “imbecility and cretinism” for him-
self.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 work-
ers 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, think-
ing, 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 mis-
sion 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 con-
sciousness 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 situ-
ation 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,
“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 experi-
ence, 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 revolu-
tions of the past, which pursued a new distribution of labor, the proletar-
ian 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 con-
sciousness is not about the opposition between self-sacrifice and egoism
but about demonstrating the material basis causing egoism and the condi-
tions 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 com-
munist 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 sub-
ordinates “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 competi-
tion. 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 gen-
eration 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 represen-
tatives of the bourgeois class,” “the Socialists and the Communists are the
theoreticians of the proletarian class.” Whereas the science of the econo-
mists 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 prole-
tariat 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 prole-
tariat 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
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 antag-
onism 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 oppres-
sion replaces the old one.38 The last revolutions brought the bourgeoisie
as a new oppressor to power. The bourgeoisie has reduced all human rela-
tion 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 compe-
tition 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 revolution-
ary 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 deter-
mined 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 strug-
gles 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 inter-
ests and the historical mission of the proletarian movement. However,
because of their theoretical advantage, the communists remind the prole-
tarians that regardless of their nationality they have common interests.
Because of their understanding of the condition of the proletarian strug-
gle 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 appropria-
tion 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 com-
munists 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,”
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 suprem-
acy 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 devel-
opment 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 oppor-
tunist” 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 bour-
geois 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-century 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 smash-
ing 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 can-
not 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 domi-
nates “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.
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.
McLellan, pp. 255–256.
44. Ibid., p. 257.
45. Ibid., p. 258.
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 revo-
lutionary 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 proletar-
iat 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 van-
guard 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 com-
bating “dogmatic Marxism” refrained from revolutionary positions and
promoted social reforms. Lenin considered the reformist posture a rebel-
lion against the scientific nature of socialism, and a denial of its historical

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 com-
munist 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 participa-
tion 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 revolution-
ary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”9
Internationalism
Similar to Marx, Lenin reminds the communists and socialists of the inter-
nationalist nature of the communist movement. He encourages the com-
munists 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 social-
ist 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 move-
ments of other nations. But this internationalist nature must be demon-
strated by the German socialists’ understanding of and solidarity with the
socialist movements of other countries, which under severe political con-
ditions 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 can-
not formulate a theory of socialism. Historically speaking, it was the intel-
lectuals 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 democ-
racy 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 devel-
opment 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 “social-
ist 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 intel-
lectually developed proletarians” who in their turn introduced this con-
sciousness 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 theoreti-
cians,” 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 revo-
lutionaries 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 theo-
rist 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 “dem-
ocratic 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
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 under-
standing 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 devel-
ops 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 through-
out 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 per-
son 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 move-
ment. 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 move-
ment.27 Lenin considers his vanguard party as “the consolidation of mili-
tant 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 concep-
tion 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 demo-
cratic 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 strug-
gle for existence based upon the present anarchy in production, with the
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 wither-
ing away of the state after the socialist revolution. Engels saw the revolu-
tionary 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 revolu-
tionary 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 antago-
nism and political power.36 Quoting The Communist Manifesto as saying,
“the first step in the revolution by the working-class is to raise the prole-
tariat 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 as machin-
ery. Marx argues that instead of smashing the state, the revolution of
1848–1851 has perfected it because different parties “regarded the pos-
session 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 argu-
ments 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
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 fundamen-
tally 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 “some-
thing 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 every-
thing,” 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 tenden-
cies.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 capac-
ity,” 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 anar-
chy 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 conscious-
ness 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 transfor-
mation. 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, inter-
vention, 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 lib-
eral 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
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 transfor-
mation 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 ques-
tion 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 coop-
eratives” 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 capi-
talist 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 capital-
ist mode of distribution would result in the gradual development of “the
socialist mode of production.”60 For Luxemburg, on the contrary, capital-
ism 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 his-
tory, 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 sur-

vival depends on the bourgeois democracy, but the survival and develop-
ment 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 pro-
duced 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 rela-
tions.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 produc-
tion” and because within the framework of the bourgeois society no legis-
lation 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 antag-
onism.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 combina-
tion 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
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 situ-
ations.”70 The significance of the mass strikes in the Russian Revolution
lies in the fact that it was not a method discovered by the revolutionar-
ies but spontaneously invented by the proletarian masses in a revolution-
ary 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 relation-
ships 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 rad-
ical 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 capi-
tal” 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 conscious-
ness 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 contem-
porary 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
of March 1848–1849. Entirely different from the old bourgeois revolu-

tions, the Russia Revolution is “the forerunner of the new series of prole-
tarian 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 inde-
pendent 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 democ-
racy aims at the future interests of the socialist movement. Luxemburg
reiterates The Communist Manifesto’s definition of communists as the rep-
resentatives of the proletarian universality and their international inter-
ests.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 dic-

tatorship 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 social-
ists 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 social-
ism. 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 democ-
racy 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 can-
not 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 concep-
tion of democracy, chooses dictatorship against Kautsky’s “democracy.”
But his dictatorship has nothing to do with “a genuine socialist pol-
icy.”93 For Luxemburg, the dictatorship of the proletarian class is “the
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 satis-
fied 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 distin-
guished from the “destruction of class rule and of the construction of
socialism.” It must begin at the moment the socialist party seizes politi-
cal power. It can be called dictatorship, but a dictatorship which is under
the direct influence of the masses and subject to their control, a dictator-
ship 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 interna-
tional 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.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., p. 472.
19. Ibid., pp. 479–480.
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.
35. Ibid., pp. 403–404.

37. Ibid., p. 407.
38. Ibid., pp. 408–409.
39. Ibid., pp. 410–411.
40. Ibid., pp. 412–413.
41. Ibid., pp. 413–414.
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.
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.
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.
Mass Strike, p. 141.
46 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
72. Ibid., pp. 145–147.

73. Ibid., p. 148.
74. Ibid., p. 149.
75. Ibid., p. 151.
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.
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 move-
ment 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 embodi-
ment 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 genera-
tion of European thinkers, such as Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and
Max Horkheimer, and French philosophers such as Lucien Goldman,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_4
48 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
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 scien-
tist, 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 phi-
losopher 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 sci-
ences. 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 exploita-
tion 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 domi-
nant 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 disap-
pears and the Hegelian philosophy is unable to give an intellectual expres-
sion 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 theoreti-
cal 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 lead-
ership 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 philo-
sophical poverty of Marxism and tries to supplement it with philosophi-
cal 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 histori-
cal and social reality or the relationship between philosophy and revolu-
tion. 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 move-
ment 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 foun-
dation 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,
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” dis-
connected 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 reduc-
tion 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 “origi-
nal 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 indi-
cation of “the internal connection of theory and practice within revolu-
tionary 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 “theo-
retical expression of a revolutionary process.” Whenever the revolution-
ary 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 ori-
ented 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 “phi-
losophy 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 mate-
rial 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 practi-
cal activities tell us that in every age those who control the systems of pro-
duction 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 domi-
nated 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 gener-
ated 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
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 pro-
letariat as critical subjects, the communist movement should advocate uni-
versal 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 pro-
cess 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 proletar-
ian 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 pro-
duction which reflect the “proletarian social organization.” The proletar-
ian 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 new c ivilization
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 possi-
bility 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 proletar-
iat’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 disci-
pline they need to form a united and strong army to reject a higher author-
ity 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 move-
ment.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 bour-
geois 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 coun-
cils.”41 Gramsci argues that neither the workers’ democracy nor experi-
ment 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 capital-
ism 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
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 deter-
mined, immediately, by the structure.”46 For Gramsci, on the contrary,
politics is “the moment of hegemony,” when a particular political leader-
ship 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 contra-
dictions.”49 As a theory of class contradictions, Marxism enables the sub-
altern 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 struc-
ture 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 con-
tradictions 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 ‘hege-
mony’ 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 hege-
mony 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
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 sepa-
rated 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 intellec-
tuals, the popular consent that the state receives makes the direct domina-
tion 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 con-
sent 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 intel-
lectuals or the organic intellectuals of the proletariat expose and oppose the
bourgeois intellectuals representing the state.62 Furthermore, the revolu-
tionary 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 charac-
ter of Machiavelli’s Prince in which passion and logic are in persistent inter-
action.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 “intel-
lectual 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.
21. Ibid., pp. 60–62.
22. Ibid., p. 63.
23. Ibid., p. 65.
24. Ibid., p. 66.
25. Ibid., pp. 67–68.
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.
35. Ibid., p. 73.

37. Ibid., pp. 80–81.
38. Ibid., pp. 81–82.
39. Ibid., p. 83.
40. Ibid., p. 84.
42. Ibid., p. 87.
43. Ibid., p. 109.
44. Ibid., p. 125.
45. Ibid., p. 166.
46. Ibid., p. 191.
47. Ibid., p. 194.
49. Ibid., pp. 196–197.
50. Ibid., pp. 201–202.
51. Ibid., p. 203.
52. Ibid., p. 223.
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 move-

ment from an exclusively European into a global movement. A compari-
son 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

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_5
62 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
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 cri-
tique 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 colo-
nized 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 subordi-
nation 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 pro-
letariat 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 dis-
appear in these movements but think of these movements as “the
components of the future proletarian parties” to fight “against the bour-
geois-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 prej-
udices.” The thesis assumes that without the effective alliance of the pro-
letariat 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 coun-
tries 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, regard-
less 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 inter-
national 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 with-
out 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 func-
tioning. 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 sup-
port 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.
Overthrowing of the Tzarist regime and the establishment of the socialist

state in Russia caused a new political climate filled with revolutionary enthu-
siasm which led the young Iranian patriots toward socialism. Without know-
ing 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 revolution-
ary 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 revolu-
tionary 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 social-
ist 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 tradi-
tion of Islamic thought and literature became attracted to modern social-
ism. 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 indus-
trial 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 com-
munist 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
movement in Europe allowed the imperialist powers to suppress the revo-

lutionary 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 gen-
erated 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 inten-
sification of the class struggle between the local bourgeoisie and proletariat,
Sultanzade focuses on the distribution of wage workers in different coun-
tries and the level of their preparedness in the struggle against global capi-
talism and imperialism.18 Sultanzade argues that capitalism as a global
phenomenon generates its nemesis expressed in the struggle for indepen-
dence of the national bourgeoisie of the colonized and semi-colonized
countries against imperialism and the global bourgeoisie. The idea of inde-
pendence 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 bour-
geoisie. 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 move-
ments. 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 orga-
nize 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, over-
throwing 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 dictator-
ship 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 eco-
nomic 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.
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 pro-
ducers 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 can-
not 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 fac-
tions of the Iranian bourgeoisie advocated two opposite views on the impe-
rialist 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 eco-
nomic 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-govern-
ment of Reza Khan after it violently suppressed the revolutionary move-
ments in Gilan, Khorasan, and Azarbayjan provinces. By deceiving a vast
majority of the left-leaning intellectuals through shallow republican slo-
gans, 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 feudal-
ism as a socio-economic system, he wages war against the individual land-
owners 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 revolu-
tionary 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 impe-
rialism 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 descrip-
tion 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

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 seg-
ments 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 col-
lapse, instead of paving the way for the development of the national bour-
geoisie, 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 prevent-
ing 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 subordi-
nate 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 indus-
tries 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 trans-
form 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 govern-
ment 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 organiza-
tions 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 founda-
tion 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
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 con-
crete 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 revolution-
ary socialist state based on Marxism and Lenin’s interpretation of social-
ism. 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 coun-
tries. 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 upris-
ings 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 charac-
ter and the authenticity of these uprisings as indications of a revolutionary
situation in Iran, the Soviet “experts” who insisted on the absence of revo-
lutionary conditions in Iran described these uprisings as a result of the
British plots to destabilize the country.40 In his report to the second con-
gress 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 colo-
nial questions, Sultanzade argues that the Iranian revolutionary commu-
nists 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 colo-
nized 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 associa-
tions, 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 produc-
tion 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 produc-
tion.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 exter-
nal forces. For Sultanzade, the defeat of the constitutional revolution and
the socialist project in northern Iran and the rise of Reza Shah are
indications of the emergence of a powerful comprador bourgeoisie that

now dominates Iranian economics and politics. He argues that the com-
prador 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 land-
owners 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 citi-
zens such as free and fair elections.45 In the early 1920s, the party pub-
lished 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 num-
ber 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 avail-
able 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 move-
ments.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 capital-
ism: “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 com-
munism 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 dan-
gers 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 posi-
tion 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
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 parliamen-
tary democracy would never realize the rights and demands of the work-
ing 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 sec-
ond 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 pub-
lished 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 owner-
ship 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
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 com-
munists 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 commu-
nism. 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 publi-
cation 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.
ye Iran, Jeld-e Dovvom, Asar-e Avetis Sultanzade, p. 42.
24. Ibid., pp. 44–46.
25. Ibid., p. 47.
27. Ibid., pp. 75–76.
28. Ibid., p. 76.
30. Ibid., pp. 80–81.
31. Ibid., pp. 82–83.
32. Ibid., p. 84.
34. Ibid., pp. 100–101.
35. Ibid., p. 152.
37. Ibid., p. 155.

39. Ibid., pp. 165–168.
40. Ibid., pp. 170–171.
41. Ibid., pp. 172–173.
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.
douran-e avval-e saltanat-e Reza Shah, p. 57.
53. Ibid., pp. 61–63.
54. Ibid., pp. 63–64.
55. Ibid., p. 115.
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 theo-
retical and political Marxism.1 This politico- theoretical incapability
includes French Existentialist Marxism’s inability to provide a consistent
ontology, epistemology, and ethics or political philosophy for the histori-
cal 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 phi-
losophy 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

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 activi-
ties of communist intellectuals such as Henri Lefebvre, Auguste Cornu,
Georges Politzer, and Norbert Guterman who tried to give new interpre-
tations 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 respon-
sible 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 representa-
tives. SFIO decided to debate the cause of the electoral defeat in its eigh-
teenth 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 pro-
letariat “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 offi-
cial name of the party, the majority from the Tours Congress adapted
the Section Francaise de L’International Communiste (SFIC) as the offi-
cial 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 argu-
ment 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 sys-
tem erected by capitalism as a democratic illusion (illusion démocratique)
which must be replaced with democratic centralism and the dictator-
ship of the proletariat.13 It argues that the dictatorship of the proletariat
as demonstrated in the Russian Revolution is a result of political van-
guardism 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 col-
lapse.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 transfor-
mation. 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 experi-
ences, 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 dis-
covered 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,
they found a conception of reason that not only acknowledges its timely
origin but also provides a solid moral foundation.16 In 1926, two mem-
bers 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 elimi-
nation 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 condi-
tion 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 the-
ory of knowledge which contradicts the Marxist-Leninist reflection theory
88 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
of knowledge. This theory, promoted by Stalin, aims to make the dialecti-

cal method dependent on the dialectic in Nature and combines philoso-
phy 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 interac-
tion.22 Lefebvre argues that Marx’s main contribution to philosophy is his
“emphasis on the production of knowledge exclusively through the analy-
sis of the concrete.”23 And it was this precise analysis which allowed Marx
to discover the historical process through which man has become alien-
ated 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 liv-
ing subject who is opposed to the object and surmounts his opposition. He
is the subject who is broken up into partial activities and scattered determi-
nations 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 toler-
ate 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 foun-
dation of Marxism, Iraj Eskanadari, who became one of the founders of
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 con-
stitutional revolution of 1906–1909, wanted him to continue his educa-
tion 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 pub-
lished 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 connec-
tions 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 inter-
ested in the theoretical foundations of Marxism and historical material-
ism. Arani assumed that this theoretical foundation would equip young
intellectuals with the tools they needed to analyze the historical condi-
tion and socio-economic and political situation to generate a new radical
politics. In the study circles organized around the journal, young stu-
dents 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 found-
ers 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 expres-
sion 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 con-
ceptualization 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 his-
torical 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 the-
ory among racial theories.
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 exist-
ing 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 leader-
ship, 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 appa-
ratuses 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 pros-
perity 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
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 pro-
gressive nature of the spiritual movements which have always been prose-
cuted 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 prem-
ises, Arani criticizes the presentation of the dominant ideology as the abso-
lute 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 commodi-
ties 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 soci-
ety.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 gradu-
ally.50 The ideological position that Arani presents indicates both continu-
ity 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 ideologi-
cal 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 c ondition 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 descrip-
tion 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 artis-
tic 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 through-
out 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
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 for-
eign 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 dedi-
cated 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 sup-
port 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 colo-
nial 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 pow-
ers. 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 theo-
rist 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
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 prov-
inces, 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 break-
down.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 com-
mittee.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 com-
mittee 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 mention-
ing Iran’s Communist Party.67 Rather than the poverty of historical
knowledge, the elimination of this historical fact in the history of com-
munism 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 posi-
tion. 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-nation-
alization 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,
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 nationaliza-
tion of land inflicted on the American companies’ plundering interests, but
the nature of the action of the Guatemalan nation, considered as a provoca-
tion 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 lib-
eration movements, because this is the only path toward peace, democ-
racy, 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 impe-
rialist 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 subse-
quent 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 assem-
bly, 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 repre-
sentative 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 prem-
ises, 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
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 strug-
gle, 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 peo-
ple’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 hap-
pened 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 pri-
oritize 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 nor-
mal 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 initi-
ated the first insurrection against Stalinism within the international com-
munism.”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 polit-
ically. 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 criti-
cizes the Party’s handling of the secessionism in Azerbaijan, the conse-
quence 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
Party’s, the breakaway faction declared the establishment of the Socialist

Society of the Iranian Masses. The Society stated that it would remain faith-
ful 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 prom-
ised 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 pre-
vents 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 ideo-
logical 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.
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.
11. Courtois and Lazar, Histoire du Parti Communiste Francais, p. 72.
104 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
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.

46. Ibid., p. 112.
47. Ibid., p. 115.
48. Ibid., p. 219.
50. Ibid., p. 319.
51. Anvar Khamei, Khaterat-e siyasi (Tehran: Nashr-e Goftar, 1993), p. 121.
Dovvom, p. 10.
53. Ibid., p. 20.
54. Ibid., p. 19.
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.
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.
Sevvom, pp. 94–98.
Chaharom, pp. 18–19.
67. Ibid., pp. 149–150.
68. Ibid., pp. 146–147.
69. Ibid., p. 151.
70. Ibid., p. 153.
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

Chaharom, pp. 210–211.
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.
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 phi-
losopher 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 replac-
ing the ongoing revolutionary social practices with academic preoccupa-
tions and by substituting the current revolutionary actions with pure
analysis.3 Against the Iranian Maoists who accused the Tudeh Party of revi-
sionism, Tabari claims that revisionism is the expression of opportunism in

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_7
108 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
ifferent shapes and colors and describes Maoism as the latest expression of

d
leftist opportunism.4 Tabari argues that both rightist and leftist opportun-
ism are useful for imperialism as the last stage of capitalism because they are
the expressions of revisionism in Marxism. Whereas the rightist opportun-
ism is the expression of the convergence between the interests of the work-
ing-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 revo-
lutionary ideology of the Tudeh Party. He claims that whereas radical ten-
dencies 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 social-
ism 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 democ-
racy, Tabari rejects the contrast between the socialist bloc exercising totali-
tarianism 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 democ-
racy 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 ideo-
logical 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 exer-
cise 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 lib-
eralism 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 propa-
ganda 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 dic-
tatorship 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 free-
dom 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 national-
ist and individualist all critics who in the name of democracy and freedom
blame the communist states for their hierarchical power structures sup-
pressing 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 repre-
sented by political leaders such as Mosaddeq because this type of national-
ism 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 realiza-
tion 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 national-
ism 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 recog-
nize 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, mem-
bers 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 democ-
racy and socialism.13 However, being at the mercy of the Soviet Union’s
authorities and the consequences of their ideological and political con-
flicts, the internationalism of the Iranian communists led them to total
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 intel-
lectuals 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 break-
away 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 mem-
bers 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 major-
ity 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 cir-
cles were mistakenly believed to be part of an independent study group,
which I will discuss later, they were dissolved by the Party. Maleki’s mem-
bership 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 hege-
mony 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 ideologi-
cal and political hegemony into organizational and institutional assets if it
waged a persistent fight against the big landowners and capitalists who col-
laborate 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
Party’s dissidents because its leaders had the illusion that by silencing dis-
sidents 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 par-
liamentary 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 rul-
ing 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 them-
selves, 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 assem-
bly. 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 encour-
age 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, demo-
cratic 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 environ-
ment, 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 posi-
tions 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 radi-
cal 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
rights of the toiling classes, were the main enemies of his government.26

Despite endorsing European social democracy vis-à-vis Soviet Union com-
munism, Maleki criticized the way it dealt with European Fascism. Maleki
claimed that the anti-Soviet communist stance of European social democ-
racy 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 opti-
mistic 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 conces-
sions 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 charac-
ter 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 under-
stand the objective socio-historical necessities and act upon them and actu-
alize 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 move-
ment 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 rul-
ing 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 inter-
nationalism 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 discon-
tent.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 dictator-
ship 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 “igno-
rant 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 lim-
ited to organizing Marxist study circles, the members of the Kruzhoks
were actual workers. The Kruzhoks aimed at creating the theoretical and
organizational condition of possibility for the establishment of a revolu-

tionary 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 commu-
nist party are responsible for knowing and defending the party’s fun-
damental 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 peo-
ple’s property and rape their women to convince the people that the vic-
tory 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 wel-
comed the Kruzhoks because, in his view, the anti-revolutionary stance of
the Tudeh Party achieved nothing but advancing the interests of the land-
owners, 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 com-
munism, 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 mem-
bers, as a result of which a great number of his followers left the organiza-
tion.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
Party.49 Hoping to recruit new members from the Tudeh Party’s break-
away faction, Emami declared in vain the establishment of a new commu-
nist 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 com-
munism 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 pol-
icy, the Kruzhoks believed in the principle of the genuine solidarity of the
working class of different countries against capitalism. The Kruzhoks con-
cluded from this principle that it is the Soviet Union that should coordi-
nate 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 organi-
zation’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 dic-
tum 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 work-
ing-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 com-
munist organization should be business oriented in order to protect them-
selves 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 orga-
nizations 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
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
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.
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.
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.
p. 110.
56. Ibid., p. 110.
57. Ibid., p. 113.
58. Ibid., pp. 82–88.
59. Ibid., pp. 121–124.

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).

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 knowl-
edge 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 consti-
tutes 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 ideol-
ogy 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 prole-
tarian 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 techni-
cians of practical knowledge. But when they discover the particularism of
the seemingly u niversalist character of the bourgeois discourse and demon-
strate 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 van-
guard 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 con-
ception 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 pro-
mote 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 medi-
cine. “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 alien-
ation, 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 represent-
ing 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 arrange-
ment.19 In the early 1970s, Foucault returns to Marxism through the con-
cept of power. In the late 1970s, he revisits Marx’s concept of practice via
Epicurus and the Epicurean tradition of thought, which helps him dem-
onstrate 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 contra-
diction 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 alien-
ated condition of his existence and the procedures, which reduces him to an
object of observation and analysis. Thus, mental illness is a defense mecha-
nism 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 con-
ditions. Psychoanalysis prevents the mentally ill person from seeing the con-
tradictions 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
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 continu-
ation 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 condi-
tion 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 understand-
ing 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 pre-
occupation 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 prac-
tices constitute mental illness as a scientific concept. Whereas in the first
version Foucault tries to discover the correspondence between the histo-
ricity 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 consti-
tuted 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 episte-
mological arrangement that welcomed it gladly (since it was this arrange-
ment 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 twenti-
eth 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 pas-
sion 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 sys-
tems 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 condi-
tion of possibility of historical knowledge because, beneath every old and
historical city, there is an archaic city ready to be discovered, the disap-
pearance of which was the condition of the appearance of that old city.39
Foucault’s archeological approach investigates the epistemological field or
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 continua-
tion and development of the previous episteme toward truth but a rupture
with the previous episteme.40 Therefore, the archeological level of knowl-
edge 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 reconstruc-
tion into more complex combinations.42 According to the episteme of the
classical age, God as the creator of the world expects that man uses lan-
guage to represent things according to their allocated places in the world.
For Foucault, the episteme of the classical age is unable to generate a sci-
ence 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 consti-
tute 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 epis-
teme, 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 ques-
tion, 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 com-
rades” 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 opera-
tion 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
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 consid-
ers 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 dis-
sidents 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 revolution-
ary expectations.60 Bloch argues that the warm stream of Marxism con-
nects 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 rec-
oncile 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 to govern. Foucault’s
final published books and lectures on the art 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 ideo-
logical 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 oppor-
tunity 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 follow-
ing 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 inabil-
ity 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 understand-
ing 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 tradi-
tion, between theory and practice. He views theory as production, a result
of practices, and immanent verification of truth, which indicates that the
truth of theory is not external to it but emerges inside the theoretical pro-
cess. 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 posi-
tion of Marxist theory within the revolutionary class struggle as theoreti-
cal 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 “‘spontane-
ous’ 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 philo-
sophical 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 philoso-
phy 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 our-
selves.”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 epistemo-
logical 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 demon-
strate 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
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 back-
ward” European country. Russia became the weakest link in the chain of
the imperialist states because it was the product “of all the historical contra-
dictions 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.
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.
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.
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 preoccupa-
tion 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

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 impos-
sible 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 weak-
ness. 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 ori-
entation 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 van-
guard 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 pic-
ture 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 overcom-
ing 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 leader-
ship 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 pro-
duce 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 opportun-
ism 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 con-
sciousness 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 can-
not blend itself with the masses and educate them ideologically and politi-
cally. 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 work-
ing 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 ide-
ology, through its institutions and mass media, the armed struggle is the
only revolutionary option.12 The Fadaiyan started their armed struggle
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 vet-
eran 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 theo-
rists such as Bizhan Jazani, Mostafa Shoaiyan, and Hamid Momeni, who
were killed before the end of 1975. Theorizations of these Marxist profes-
sional 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 conceptu-
alization 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 theo-
rist.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 unquestion-
ably. 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 seces-
sionist movement in Azerbaijan (1945–1946). When the Soviet Union
refrained from supporting the secessionist movement and left it unpro-
tected, the central government defeated the movement and its ‘Republic’
in a matter of a few days. The Tudeh Party, which had no power to influ-
ence the events, since it obeyed every decision made by the Soviet Union,
lost the valuable political credibility it had before the secessionist move-
ment. 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 cor-
responded 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 emanci-
patory and anti-imperialist nature of the liberation movements and the
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 strug-
gles 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 iso-
lated 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 organiza-
tional 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 dem-
onstration 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 guar-
antee 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 libera-
tion movement to impose its leadership on the movement. What pre-
vented 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 fac-
tion believed that while the educated members and intellectuals challenge
the leadership’s opinion on every aspect of the Party’s ideology and poli-
tics, 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 strug-
gle, Mosaddeq was the epicenter of the Iranian people’s struggle for lib-
eration 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
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 van-
guard 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 govern-
ment 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 sub-
jected to extreme pressure and torture, the medium rank cadres and mem-
bers 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 revolu-
tionary 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 repres-
sion 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 pub-
lications 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 organiza-
tion with religious affiliations which despite its anti-imperialist posture is
propagating the same socialism that right-wing European socialism advo-
cates. He concludes that their socialism will not enhance Marxism in Iran,
ideologically or politically.31 Jazani describes the Kruzhoks and other orga-
nizations 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 theo-
retical 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 alien-
ated from the essence of the Marxist-Leninist theories and become indiffer-
ent 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 orga-
nizations 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 con-
clude that compared to feudalism, capitalism is a progressive mode of pro-
duction, and encourage the Iranian working-class to ally itself with the
comprador bourgeoisie and American imperialism against the feudal sys-
tem 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 commu-
nist party of actual members of the working class. Taheri’s organization
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 bour-
geoisie 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 lib-
eration in Iran. Jazani reminds Iranian communists that the main obsta-
cle of the development of the communist movement in the current
situation (in the early 1970s) is the dominance of a radical petty-bour-
geois ideology which is influencing and governing the spontaneous social
movements. Jazani argues that if the truth of the radical petty-bourgeois
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
c oming revolution. Jazani uses the term radical for the vanguards of the
petty-bourgeoisie who are currently convinced of defending the revolu-
tionary 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 ideol-
ogy 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 mis-
sion. 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 cul-
tural 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 pres-
ents 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 cul-
tures, 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
through their labor, are deprived of the basic material necessities for their
subsistence and oppressed by the national and foreign powers. In this situ-
ation 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 van-
guard 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 disap-
pearance 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 revo-
lutionary 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 prac-
tices.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 represen-
tatives 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 associa-
tion of people with conflicting class interests and ideological and p olitical
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 contradic-
tions 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 dedi-
cated scientists preoccupied with verification and falsification of their theo-
ries, 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
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 revolu-
tionary 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 indi-
vidual communists and the communist parties and does not allow the inter-
national 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 com-
munist 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 contrib-
uted 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 particu-
lar 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 coexis-
tence 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 priori-
tized 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 mem-
bers 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
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 revolu-
tion 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 revolu-
tions 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 revolu-
tions abroad, its survival indicates the betrayal of proletarian international-
ism. 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 prole-
tariat 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 expres-
sion 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 revolution-
ary practice which determines the revolutionary character of the proletar-
iat. 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 prole-
tarian 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 revo-
lution.75 Obviously, it is not the quantity of the working-class members
that decides the nature of the coming revolution but the culture and ide-
ology 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 charac-
ter of the contradiction between capital and labor but also the interna-
tional 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 institu-
tions 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
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 abso-
lute 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 revolu-
tionary movements throughout the world. Referring to Jazani’s descrip-
tion 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 con-
siders 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 futil-
ity 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 move-
ment against imperialist ideology. He claims that the Fadaiyan’s analysis of
the social reality in Iran and its theory of revolution indicate the organiza-
tion’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 com-
munists 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 prin-
ciples 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 descrip-
tion of Leninism.91 Momeni claims that Shoaiyan is obsessed with theory
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 revolu-
tion for the sake of the revolution in Germany, Shoaiyan is sacrificing the
Iranian Revolution for his imaginary world revolution. For Trotsky, con-
trary 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 prole-
tariat of the developed capitalist societies and the Soviet Union, contem-
porary 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 compro-
mise, which is a result of the overexploitation of the proletariat of the
colonized countries, has reduced the antagonism between labor and capi-
tal in the developed capitalist countries. But whereas the effect of overex-
ploitation 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 pro-
letarian 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 intel-
lectuals 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 indi-
cates 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 pro-
letarian 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-revolu-
tionary forces. In the case of the Russian Revolution, the revolutionaries
succeeded in nationalizing and socializing industry and the banking sys-
tem 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
idea of the revolutionary process as a way of life which can turn every
individual into a dedicated communist.99 Criticizing Shoaiyan’s concep-
tion 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 under-
stands 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 work-
ing 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 conscious-
ness and labor, is his rejection of recruiting actual workers who want to
undergo ideological education in order to become dedicated commu-
nists.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 influ-
enced 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 revolu-
tionary 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 experi-
ence, the truth of its own situation and transform this discovery into revo-
lutionary 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 con-
sciousness 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 accumu-
lated consciousness in the minds of the workers is reflected in their relation-
ship 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 intel-
lectual 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 expe-
rience 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 work-
ers realize that the state is on the side of the capitalist class, their struggles
become political and target the state that protects the capitalist order.
Whereas in the Paris Commune the working class is fighting in the barri-
cades, in the October Revolution it organizes worker strikes and popular
uprising as the revolutionary means and methods to achieve its revolution-
ary 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 revolu-
tionary 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 strug-
gle.106 For Momeni, Leninism as Marxism of the imperialist age demon-
strates 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 revolu-
tionary 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 move-
ments 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 revolu-
tionary 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 sym-
bol, 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 lead-
ership 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 sec-
tion of the Mojahedin generated several other Marxist-Leninist
organizations, the most influential of which was the Organization 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 the-
ory-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 tak-
tik (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.
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 enze-
mam-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.
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.
75. Ibid., p. 64.
76. Ibid., p. 65.
77. Ibid., pp. 158–159.
78. Ibid., p. 187.
79. Ibid., pp. 189–195.
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 com-
munist 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 dis-
courses that they pretend to criticize. In their critique of domination and
the dominant ideology, critical discourses reveal that “domination func-
tions thanks to a mechanism of dissimulation which hides its laws from its
subjects by presenting them with an inverted reality.” The critical dis-
courses 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).

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 the circumstances. 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 ‘sim-
plicity’ 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 argu-
ments 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 politi-
cal 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 sys-
tem, and frighten powerful enemy armies by making new traps.4 This polit-
ical 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 stu-
dent 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 intel-
lectuals” and they alone can bring the knowledge of a worker’s own exis-
tence 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 theo-
retical 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 move-
ment’s anti-authoritarian revolt in May 1968 represented by the Union of
Communist Youth (Marxist-Leninist) UJC (ML). Althusserianism’s reac-
tion to the revolt was that the students were petit-bourgeois revolutionar-
ies 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 differ-
ence between the Althusserianism of the militant students who were
engaged in the struggle against the Algerian War and the Althusserianism
as the site of attraction for career-seeking and “impatient go-getters” stu-
dents 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 phi-
losophy 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 strug-
gle of science against ideology had united the academic ideology and revi-
sionist 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 illu-
sion” 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 rec-
ognized 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 promo-
tion” 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 knowl-
edge 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 revolu-
tion 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 sub-
ject 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
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 intellec-
tual’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 under-
stand that “the purpose of academic discourse is the formation of stu-
dents, and a communist philosopher is not in the position to give his
superiors the forgotten weapon of dialectics.”40 However, Althusser pre-
tends 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 strate-
gies.”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 intro-
duced the philosophical recuperation of Marxism through “the libido”
and “desiring machines” as a new leftism that opposes “the totalizing dis-
course 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 strug-
gles.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 revolution-
aries.”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 ‘prole-

tarian 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 indi-
cates 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 expres-
sion 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 con-
ception 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
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 mis-
took “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 transfor-
mation from the classical economy into the neoliberal economy, “the gen-
eral 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 govern-
mentality 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 trans-
forming himself into “other than himself” in order to have “access to the
truth.” Thus, the presence of truth indicates that the subject has trans-
formed 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 psycho-
analysis 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 them-
selves 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 pre-
vented 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,
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 condi-
tion; 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, accord-
ing 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 scien-
tific 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 revolu-
tionaries.71 What Lenin disregarded was the fact that “Marx’s thought was
formed and developed not outside the workers’ movement but within the exist-
ing 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 strug-
gles 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 “pri-
vate 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 can-
not 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 alien-
ation.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 sepa-
rate 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 the-
ory of the state indicates that the state as “an instrument of class domina-
tion” 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 rela-
tions 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 pow-
erful.”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 sep-
arate 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 formu-
late 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 separa-
tion 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 pro-
letariat” 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
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 ori-
gin. If there is no origin of philosophy, there cannot be any end of phi-
losophy, 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 material-
ism 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 pro-
letarian 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 indus-
try 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 ele-
ments 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 produc-
tion 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 domi-
nant 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 his Lenin and Philosophy.101
Now, he argues that the ideological subject is not constituted by a par-
ticular 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 philoso-
phy.103 For Althusser of the 1980s, dialectical materialism, which was
used by Stalinism to legitimize its political regime, became a philosophical
monster, when it became the practice of imposing power over intelli-

gence. 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 transcen-
dentality 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 mate-
rialism, 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 distin-
guishes 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 stud-
ies 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 theor y of political practice.” Although Lenin, Gramsci, and
186 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
Mao took small steps toward such a theory in the form of political prac-
tice in the present, neither of them went beyond Machiavelli’s theory of
political history.112 For Althusser, Marx’s theses on Feuerbach are signifi-
cant 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 con-
tract.” Since every antithesis is a new thesis, and philosophy has never been
able to unify “the encounter of the ideologies and the corresponding prac-
tices” there has never been “an absolutely pure philosophy” but only phil-
osophical tendencies.113 As in military war, a philosophical war against the
opposing philosophy must end in its defeat, beginning with the occupa-
tion of its positions and capturing “some of its ‘troops.’” Thus the advo-
cates 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 con-
tains its former and current adversaries’ arguments. This indicates that
there is no absolute purity in philosophical positions. The Marxian mate-
rialist 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 the-
sis.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 preoccu-
pied 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
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 ele-
ments 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 pres-
ent.” Consequently, “Individuals are … always-already-subject to an ide-
ology.”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 author-
ity.”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 revolu-
tionary 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 ele-
ments 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 hege-
mony. An ideology becomes dominant and hegemonic when it is able to
respond to the surprising events in science and politics. Thus to under-
stand 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 theo-
retical conditions of possibility for the resolution of existing c ontradictions,
and thus for the unification of the social practices 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.
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.
16. Ibid., pp. 49–50.
17. Ibid., p. 51.
18. Ibid., p. 52.
19. Ibid., p. 53.
20. Ibid., p. 55.
21. Ibid., pp. 57–61.

22. Ibid., p. 62.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
98. Ibid., p. 213.

100. Ibid., p. 240.
101. Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1972), pp. 175–176.
103. Ibid., p. 253.
104. Ibid., p. 254.
105. Jacques Bidet’s, Exploring Marx’s Capital Philosophical, Economic and
Political Dimensions (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
107. Ibid., pp. 258–259.
109. Ibid., p. 261.
110. Ibid., pp. 63–64.
111. Ibid., pp. 264–265.
112. Ibid., p. 266.
114. Ibid., p. 269.
115. Ibid., p. 270.
116. Ibid., pp. 270–271.
117. Ibid., pp. 272–273.
118. Ibid., pp. 273–275.
120. Ibid., p. 277.
121. Ibid., p. 278.
122. Ibid., pp. 279–280.
123. Ibid., pp. 281–282.
124. Ibid., p. 283.
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 intel-
lectuals 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 colo-
nialism was reduced to the questions of authentic, authoritarian, and
reflexive modernity and racism to exclusion, post-Marxism became pre-
occupied with the integration of the undemocratic margin to the demo-
cratic core. Thus it focused on educating Black, Muslim, Middle Eastern,
and Chinese people to qualify them as useful and equal members of the

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6_11
194 Y. SHAHIBZADEH
“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 indiffer-
ent 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 neoconser-
vative 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 organi-
zations 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 organiza-
tions which called themselves Marxist-Leninist or simply Marxist, used the
Marxist and Marxist-Leninist vocabulary to speak to, criticize, and per-
suade 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 revo-
lution 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 encour-
aging 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 weap-
ons 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, impris-
oned, 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 lead-
ers, 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 neo-
conservative 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 inabil-
ity 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 dif-
ferent 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 move-
ment 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 move-
ments 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 theo-
rize 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 prole-
tariat. 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 sol-
diers 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
organize them in the fight against the feudal order. Even in their struggle
against the bourgeoisie, the proletarian masses have to accept the mem-
bers 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 revo-
lutionary capacity of the proletariat, he describes a segment of the prole-
tariat 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 lumpenpro-
letariat, “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 rela-
tionship 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 intellectu-
als 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 dicta-
torship 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 appropria-
tion…”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 elit-
ist 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 cul-
ture, 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 pas-
sion. 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
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 arti-
sans 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 move-
ment was born in nineteenth-century France through workers who cre-
ated 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 affirma-
tion 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 dif-
ferent 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-
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 him-
self 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 pro-
letariat 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 subjec-
tification 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 peo-
ple 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 totali-
tarianism, 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 con-
sensus, the German Jew has become the name of the absolute victim that
suspends any political subjectification.42 In fact, the theoretical founda-
tions 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 univer-
salization is expressed through the actions of the proletariat as the subject
of the communist revolution. Balibar argues that Marx found the
roletariat as the subject of communism by erasing the radical distinction

p
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 intel-
lectual 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 universal-
ity, the intellectuals as the agents of the state who are transforming the
particular interests into the general interests are in fact transforming them-
selves 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 prop-
erty, 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 histori-
cal 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 prin-
ciples 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 con-
trary to this expected process, the official Marxism in the socialist coun-
tries 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 produc-
tion” because it contradicts Marx’s representation of communism as an
alternative to capitalism, for which capitalism itself has created the condi-
tions. 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 polit-
ical 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
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 “organi-
zational 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 con-
tradiction 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 every-
thing,” 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 immi-
grants.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 gen-
eral.64 Balibar’s narrative indicates that these changes encourage the
European communists to take the path of communication and conver-
gence 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 gov-
ernment 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 phenom-
enon and his “boundless opposition to its revolutionary ventures and their
actors,” Badiou argues that politics lies somewhere within this paradox,
which contrasts between the principle of action and the principle of judg-
ment.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 descrip-
tive 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 “totali-
tarian 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 with-
ering 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 poli-
tics. What can generate politics is not democracy but equality or commu-
nism.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
e ducate 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 “imma-
nent self-education of the revolutionary mass movement.”76 This concep-
tualization 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 con-
ception of politics, Badiou still believes in organized politics and criticizes
Rancière for ignoring organized politics because only political organiza-
tions can prescribe something.79 According to Badiou “[p]olitics presup-
poses 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 poli-
tics.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 conceptual-
izations prescribe. Further, Rancière is accused of borrowing his “concep-
tualization 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 obliga-
tion to make use of ontological categories and to argue their cohesion.”81
According to Badiou, Rancière’s argument that “politics is not the exer-
cise of power” but “a specific rupture of the logic of arkhe” is a paraphras-
ing 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
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 polit-
ical 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 sup-
pression 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 for-
merly 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 colo-
nies 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 administra-
tion 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 argu-
ment 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
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.

11. Ibid., pp. 94–95.
12. Ibid., pp. 95–96.
13. Ibid., p. 96.
14. Ibid., p. 108.
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.
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.
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.
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.
76. Ibid., p. 99.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., p. 100.
79. Ibid., p. 111.
80. Ibid., p. 115.
81. Ibid., p. 116.
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.
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 democ-

racy to communism.1 Now, it is time to argue that Marxism has experi-
enced a journey from communism to democracy. Marx began his intellectual
project with the aim of contributing to the formation of the true demo-
cratic 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 own-
ership 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 exis-
tence 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 histori-
cal agent of the coming revolution and communism the proletariat requires
consciousness of its existing situation and the knowledge to change its situ-
ation. Since neither the economic development nor the class struggle in the
form of spontaneous workers movements creates this necessary communist

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 pro-
letariat 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 capital-
ist reproduction. According to Luxemburg, the proletariat and commu-
nists 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 conceptual-
ization 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 sponta-
neous mass strikes in Russia, not as an indication of Russian political back-
wardness, 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 circu-
lation, the proletarian revolution does not have any other option but
abolition of the bourgeois state as the precondition of the socialist revolu-
tion 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 dic-
tatorship 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 philoso-
phy and the abolition of the state is at the heart of this crisis. Korsch’s solu-
tion 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 can-
not 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 edu-
cation, 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 indica-
tion 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 proletar-
ian 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 mis-
takes are made. But critique and destruction does not mean that the prole-
tariat 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 understand-
ings 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 contradic-
tory 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 intel-
lectuals 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 con-
sent 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 enslave-
ment 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 conces-
sions. The theses assume that without such concessions an effective alliance
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 coun-
tries. For Roy, only after the imperialist countries are deprived of their boo-
ties 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 move-
ment 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 defini-
tion 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 insignifi-
cant local uprising can be transformed into a national revolution, pro-
vided 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 sup-
pression of one class by another generated by the emergence of private
property. For Arani, in a society without the division of labor, private prop-
erty, state, and laws, men and women experienced true freedom and equal-
ity. 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 proposi-
tions 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 by The 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 com-
munist 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
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 dissi-
dent 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 com-
munist 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 char-
acter 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 inter-
ests of the working-class aristocracy and the European ruling class, the
latter was the expression of the third world’s nationalistic tendencies influ-
enced 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 com-
munist 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 communicat-
ing this knowledge to the masses. Hence, the difference between the genu-
ine 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 men-
tally ill person from seeing his mental illness as a result of his social alien-
ation 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 eradi-
cate the social contradictions and psychological alienation as the condition
of mental illness. Foucault’s critique of psychiatry reproduces Marx’s cri-
tique of Feuerbach’s anthropology, which advised the p roletariat that
instead of accepting the condition of their existence and exploitation,
they must organize a social revolution. But when after a decade of dis-
tancing 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 gov-
ern themselves on the global level. Foucault’s support of the Iranian
Revolution is similar to Luxemburg’s defense of the Russian Revolution of
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 prac-
tice 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 theo-
retical 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 theo-
retical 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 ideologi-
cal 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’ preoc-
cupation with the theoretical education of the proletariat and their rejec-
tion 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 libera-

tion. For the revolutionary intellectuals of this generation, the main prob-
lem 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 sacri-
fice 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 glob-
ally, 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 intel-
lectuals 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 bour-
geoisie represents a culture of neocolonialism because it brings together
Western cultural products with an Iranian appearance without any innova-
tions, 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
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 com-
munism. 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 revo-
lutionaries 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 pro-
letariat 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 domi-
nant 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 accom-
plished 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-revo-
lutionary 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 capi-
tal 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 move-
ments the main pillar of socialism. Referring to Lenin’s theories of imperi-
alism 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 materi-
alism 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 distin-
guishes 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 his-
toriography 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
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 materi-
alism. 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 domina-
tion 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 transformed 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 propa-
gating 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 inter-
vention in this region. It is worth mentioning that Fred Haliday, the trans-
lator 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
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 neo-
conservatives preferred bringing democracy to other people through educa-
tion. 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 sup-
porting 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 domi-
nant ideology is to serve the interests of the ruling class and to maintain its
domination. What makes the position of the neoconservative ideology con-
fusing 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 d eteriorate 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 neo-
conservative 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 intel-
lectual tendencies and political and social actions which deviate not only
from the domain of the neoconservative ideology but also from the exist-
ing 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 ideol-
ogy 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 trans-
formed 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 inter-
ested 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 sup-
ported the academic discourses in sociology, political sciences, anthropol-
ogy, 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 accom-
plished 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 neoconserva-
tive discourse constituted partly by post-Marxism and the decomposed ele-
ments 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 peo-
ple 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 respon-
sibility which led Bruckner and Glucksmann to support the occupation of
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 real-
izing 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 ficti-
tious 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 lega-
cies of Marx’s thought in their interactions with contemporary capital-
ism. 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 con-
temporary capitalist practice tells the post-Marxists and Marxists to con-
sider 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 gener-

ating 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, politi-
cally 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 govern-
ments wherever they could not impose their powers or exert their influ-
ence. 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 polit-
ical 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 trans-
formed 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
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 aca-
demia 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 bour-
geoisie 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 con-
scious 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 responsi-
bility 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 politi-
cal 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 impos-
ing its political authority and economic policies, the New Right had suc-
ceeded 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 inevita-
bly 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 coun-
ter 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 intellec-
tual, 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 compro-
mise between labor and capital since 1945. For Hall, this historic compro-
mise 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 cul-
tural 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 relation-
ship 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 compro-
mise transformed the working class as a universal class into the satisfied
and happy people whose most important duty as citizens was their loyalty
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 stu-
dents 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 “peo-
ple” in general. But these “people” are the same people who were gener-
ated by the historic compromise between capital and labor initiated by the
Keynesian welfare state. Keynes conceptualizes labor as a factor of produc-
tion 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 them-
selves. 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 loy-
alty 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 val-
ues. 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 soci-
ety.”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
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 institu-
tions, 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 imple-
ment 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 interpre-
tation 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 dif-
ferent 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 material-
ism 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 democ-
racy 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 exist-
ing 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 uni-
versal 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 argu-
ment 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
its different forms of expression and movement.30 Iran of the past two
decades has been full of intempestive communists who as workers, stu-
dents, 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 commu-
nism 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.
28. Jacque Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London: Verso, 2006), pp. 72–73.
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 produc-
tion which allows him to exercise social power. But this lesson was forgot-
ten 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 construc-
tions 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 ideolo-
gies make the governed people intellectually dependent on the governing
classes. For several generations of Marxists, whereas the dominant ideolo-
gies are intellectual efforts to reconcile the contradictory interests within
the bourgeoisie and between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Marxism

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 vari-
ous 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 ideol-
ogy 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 govern-
ments, 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, politi-
cians, 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 demo-
cratic values. Now, three decades later, the results of the spread of democ-
racy 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 “democ-
racy” 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 inte-
gration 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 liber-
als 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 integra-
tion 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 rele-
vance. 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 govern-
ments’ 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 proce-
dures which produce unpredicted results in this vital region. Since the
anti-imperialist Marxists and post-Marxists accepted the junta immedi-
ately, they had no problem continuing their partnership with their govern-
ments. 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 govern-
ment in this particular region. The functioning of the principle of recu-
peration 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 politi-
cal journey of the Egyptian Marxist and post-Marxists, the European
Marxists and post-Marxists have, since the 1990s, redefined them as noth-
ing 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 them-
selves which cannot be defended whether through communist or demo-
cratic 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 ideo-
logical 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 repro-
duce the educational approach of the old Feuerbachian materialism, which
has always been the point of view of a superior class insisting that individu-
als must be educated to fit within the existing circumstances. 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 complex-
ity of history. Those who deal with the simplicity of nature must always rely
on those preoccupied with the complexity of history, which means the intel-
lectuals of the rest of the world must be instructed and organized by the
European Marxist and post-Marxist academics, journalists, and NGO activ-
ists. The fact is that the European Marxist and post-Marxist academics, jour-
nalists, 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 ulti-
mate 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 consid-
ered 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
Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1982.
———. Radical Islam: The Iranian Mujahedin. London: Tauris, 1989.
Adereth, Maxwell. The French Communist Party: A Critical History (1920–1984),
from Comintern to ‘the Colours of France’. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1984.
Ahmadi, Hamid. Tarikh-e ferqeh-ye jomhouri-ye enqelabi-ye Iran va gorouh-e Arani.
Tehran: Nashr-e Atiyeh, 2000.
Ahmadi, Mohhamad Ali. Gofteman-e Chap dar Iran: Doureh-ye Qajar va Pahlavi-ye
avval. Tehran: Qoqnos, 2017.
Ahmadzadeh, Massoud. Mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh, ham strategi ham taktik. Place
and Date of Publication Unknown.
Althusser, Louis. For Marx. London: The Penguin Press, 1969.
———. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press,
1972.
———. The Spectre of Hegel, Early Writings. London: Verso, 1997.
———. Pour Marx. Paris: La Découverte, 2005.
———. Philosophy of the Encounter Later Writings, 1978–87. Edited by Francois
Matheron and Oliver Corpet. New York: Verso, 2006.
Amir Khosravi, Babak va Azarnur, Fereydoun. Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari,
Jeld-e Avval. Nashr-e Jonbesh-e Tudehiha-ye Enfesali, 1987a.
———. Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Jeld-e Dovvom. Nashr-e Jonbesh-e
Tudehiha-ye Enfesali, 1987b.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6
248 Bibliography
———. Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Jeld-e Sevvom. Nashr-e Jonbesh-e

Tudehiha-ye Enfesali, 1987c.
———. Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Jeld-e Chaharom. Nashr-e Jonbesh-e
Tudehiha-ye Enfesali, 1987d.
Arani, Taqi. Akhirin defaiyeh-ye doktor Taqi Arani dar dadgah-e jenayi-ye. Tehran:
Enteshrat-e Hezb Tudeh-ye Iran, 1974.
———. Asar va Maqalat-e Doktor Taqi Arani. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag,
1997.
Arato, Andrew, and Paul Breines. The Young Lukács and the Origins of Western
Marxism. London: Seabury, 1979.
Avanesian, Ardeshir. 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.
Badiou, Alain. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. London: Verso, 2001.
———. Metapolitics. New York: Verso, 2006.
———. The Communist Hypothesis. London: Verso, 2010.
Balibar, Étienne. The Philosophy of Marx. New York: Verso, 2007.
———. “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. http://fupress.net/index.
php/iris/article/viewFile/8416/7897.
Baugh, Bruce. French Hegel: From Surrealism to Postmodernism. New York:
Routledge, 2003.
Behrooz, Maziar. Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran. London:
I.B. Tauris, 2000.
Bidet, Jacques. Exploring Marx’s Capital Philosophical, Economic and Political
Dimensions. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope, Volume One. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1996.
Brenkman, John. The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy: Political Thought
Since September 11. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Brièr, Claire, Peirre Blamchet, and Didier Eribon. Iran: la revolution au nom de
Dieu, Suivi D’un Entretien avec Michel Foucalut. Paris: Éditions Du Seul, 1979.
Bruckner, Pascal. Le Sanglot de l’homme blanc: Tiers-Monde, culpabilité, haine de
soi. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1983.
———. The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 2010.
Burgat, Francois. Face to Face with Political Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
———. “Anatomie des Printemps arabes.” In Nouveaux acteurs, nouvelle donne.
L’état du monde 2012, dir. Bertrand Badie, Dominique Vidal, 97–197. Paris: La
Découverte, 2011.
Bush, George H.W. Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, September 11, 1990.
Bibliography 249
Caute, David. Communism and the French Intellectuals. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1964.
Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.
Chakrabarti, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Post-Colonial Thought and Historical
Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Chrysis, Alexandros. True Democracy as a Prelude to Communism: The Marx of
Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Courtois, Stéphane, and Marc Lazar. Histoire du Parti Communiste Francais.
Paris: Presses Universitaires De France, 1995.
Del Roio, Marcos. The Prisms of Gramsci: The Political Formula of the United
Front. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Descombes, Vincent. Modern French Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1980.
Eribon, Didier. Michel Foucault. London: Faber & Faber, 1993.
Finkielkraut, Alain. The Defeat of the Mind. New York: Columbia University Press,
1995.
Foucault, Michel. Maladie mentale et personnalité. Paris: PUF, 1954.
———. “À quoi rêvent les Iraniens?” Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 727 (16–22
octobre 1978): 48–49.
———. Mental Illness and Psychology. California: University of California Press,
1987.
———. Remarks on Marx, Conversation with Duccio Trombadori. New York:
Semiotext(e), 1991.
———. The Order of Things. New York: Vintage, 1994.
———. The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge, 1995.
———. Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel. London:
Continuum, 2000.
———. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.
London: Routledge, 2001.
———. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College De France 1981–82.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
———. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France 1977–1978.
———. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College De France 1978–1979.
———. http://fares-sassine.blogspot.no/2014/08/entretien-inedit-avec-
michel-Foucault.html.
Fukuyama, Francis. The National Interest (Summer 1989).
———. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1991.
Furet, Francois. The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth
Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.
250 Bibliography
Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz. Foucault in Iran. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 2016.
Glucksmann, André. Les Maitres Penseurs. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1977.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International
Publishers, 1971.
———. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and Translated by Quentin
Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: The Electric Book Company,
1999. http://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf.
———. The Gramsci Reader, Selected Writings 1916–1935. Edited by David
Forgacs. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Guha, Ranajit. Dominance Without Hegemony. Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1997.
Hall, Stuart. Gramsci and US (1989). https://www.versobooks.com/
blogs/2448-stuart-hall-gramsci-and-us.
———. Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. Edited by David Morley and Kuan-
Hsing Chen. London: Routledge, 2005.
Halliday, Fred. “Relativism and Universalism in Human Rights: The Case of the
Islamic Middle East.” Political Studies XLIII (1995): 152–167.
———. Islam & the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle
East. London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
Hazareesingh, Sundir. Intellectuals and the French Communist Party: Disillusion
and Decline. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) Short Course.
New York: International Publishers, 1939.
Hobsbawm, Eric. How to Change the World, Reflections on Marx and Marxism.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
Hyppolite, Jean. Studies on Marx and Hegel. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Ismael, Tareq Y. The Communist Movement in the Arab World. London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.
Jay, Martin. Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to
Habermas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Jazani, Bizhan. Panj Resaleh. Tehran: Sazman-e cherikha-ye fadayi-ye khalq,
November–December 1976.
———. Tarh-e jameeh-shenasi va mabani-ye estrategike jonbesh-e enqelabi-ye Iran.
Sazman-e Etehad-e Fadaiyan-e Khalqe Iran, Place of Publication Unknown,
2003a.
———. 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, 2003b.
———. Hezb-e tabaqeh-ye kargar dar Iran. Sazman-e Fadaiyan-e Khalq-e Iran,
2003c.
Bibliography 251
———. Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Avval. Place and Date of Publication
Unknown.
———. Tarikh-e si-saleh-ye Iran Jeld-e Dovvom.
———. Tahlil-e moqeiyat-e nirouha-ye enqelabi der Iran be enzemam-e do maqaleh
dar bareh-ye vazayef-e asasi-ye Marksist-leninistha dar marhaleh-ye konouni-ye
roshd-e jonbesh-e Komonisti-ye Iran. Sazman-e Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq-e
Iran, Place and Date of Publication Unknown.
Kerney, Richard. Modern Movements in European Philosophy. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1994.
Khamei, Anvar. Khaterat-e siyasi. Tehran: Nashr-e goftar, 1993.
Khosroupanah, Mohammad Hossein. Seyyed Baqer Emami va Kruuzhokha-ye
marksisti-ye ou. Tehran: Afaq, 2014.
Korsch, Karl. Marxism and Philosophy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008.
Koselleck, Reinhart. Futures Past. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Lecourt, Dominique. Proletarian Science?: The Case of Lysenko. London: NLB,
1977.
Lefebvre, Henri. Dialectical Materialism. London: University of Minnesota Press,
2009.
Lenin, V.I. The State and Revolution. New York: International Publishers, 1932.
———. The Chain Is No Stronger Than Its Weakest Link. Lenin Collected Works,
Volume 24. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964.
———. Theses on the National and Colonial Question, Collected Works. Beijing:
Foreign Language Press, 1967.
———. The State and Revolution, Selected Work 25. Moscow: Progress Publishers,
1974a.
———. April Thesis, Collected Works, Volume 24. Moscow: Progress Publishers,
1974b.
———. What Is To Be Done?: Collected Works. Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1977.
———. Collected Work, Volume 19. Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1997.
———. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Sydney: Resistance Books,
1999.
Lévy, Bernard-Henri. La Berbarie à Visage Humain. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1977.
Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Lewis, William S. Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism. London:
Lexington Books, 2005.
Lichtheim, George. Marxism in Modern France. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1966.
Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics.
Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1971.
Luxemburg, Rosa. The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution & the
Mass Strike. Edited by Helen Scott. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008.
252 Bibliography
———. The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 1961.
Macey, David. The Lives of Foucault. London: Vintage, 1994.
Maleki, Khalil. Nehzat-e melli va edalat-e ejtemayi. Tehran: Markaz, 1998.
Marx, Karl. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. New York:
International Publishers, 1964.
———. Early Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
———. Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’, Selected Writings. Edited by
David McLellan. London: Oxford University Press, 2000a.
———. On the Jewish Question, Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan.
London: Oxford University Press, 2000b.
———. The Holy Family, Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan. London:
Oxford University Press, 2000c.
———. The German Ideology, Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan.
London: Oxford University Press, 2000d.
———. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Selected Writings. Edited by
David McLellan. London: Oxford University Press, 2000e.
———. The Poverty of Philosophy, Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan.
London: Oxford University Press, 2000f.
———. The Communist Manifesto, Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan.
London: Oxford University Press, 2000g.
———. “The Difference Between Epicurus and Democritus.” Doctoral
Dissertation. https://archive.org/details/Marx_Karl_-_Doctoral_Thesis_-_
The_Difference_Between_the_Democritean_and_Epicure.
Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 2004a.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology. New York: International
Publishers, 2004b.
Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Fifth Session July
28, 1920. https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/2nd-
congress/ch05.htm.
Momeni, Hamid. Shuresh na, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab. Sazman-e
Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq, Place and Date of Publication Unknown.
Paykar no. 73 (Zamimeh), September 1980.
Pouvoirs et Strategies, Entretien avec Michel Foucault, Les Revoltes Logiques, n. 4,
Hiver 1977.
Pouyan, Amir-Parviz. Zarourat-e mobarezeh-ye mosalahaneh va rad-e teori-ye baqa.
Entesharat-e Cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq, 1970.
Rancière, Jacque. Disagreement. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota, 1999.
———. The Philosopher and His Poor. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
———. Hatred of Democracy. London: Verso, 2006.
———. Dissensus. New York: Continuum, 2010a.
Bibliography 253
———. Racism: A Passion from Above. 2010b. https://mronline.

org/2010/09/23/racism-a-passion-from-above/.
———. Althusser’s Lesson. New York: The Continuum International Publishing
Group, 2011.
———. La méthode de l’égalité, Entretien avec Laurent Jean-Pierre et Dork
Zabunyan. Paris: Bayard, 2012.
———. https://towardsautonomyblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/a-coffee-
with-jacques-ranciere-beneath-the-acropolis/.
Ringen, Stein. “The Year of Living Dangerously.” The Cairo Review of Global
Affairs (Winter 2017). https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-year-of-
living-dangerously/.
Rockmore, Tom. Heidegger and The French Philosophy. New York: Routledge,
1998.
Safaiy Farahani, Ali-Akbar. Ancheh yek enqelabi bayad bedand. Sazeman Etehad-e
Fadaiyn-e Khalq-e Iran Mordad 1381/August 2002.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Communists and Peace with a Reply to Claude Lefort.
New York: George Braziller, 1968.
———. Between Existentialism and Marxism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975.
Shahibzadeh, Yadullah. The Iranian Political Language: From the Late Nineteenth
Century to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
———. Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran: An Intellectual History. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Shakeri, Khosrow. Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi va
komonisti-ye Iran (1903–1963), Jeld-e Avval, chap-e dovvom. Florence: Mazdak,
1974.
Shakeri, Khosrow (Shaqueri, Cosroe). Tahlili az khat va mashy-e siyasi-ye Hezb-e
Tudeh Iran bakhsh-e avval, Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial-demokrasi
va komonisti-ye Iran, Jeld-e Panjom. Rome: Entesharat-e Mazdak, 1976.
———. Avetis Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician (Life and
Work) in History of Iranian Workers Movement (6). Florence: Mazdak, 1985.
———. 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.
Shoaiyan, Mostafa. Hasht nameh beh cherikha-ye Fadayi-ye Khalq; naqd-e yek
manesh-e fekri. Tehran: Nashr-e Ney, 2007.
———. Enqelab. Ketabkhaneh-ye Kuchak-e Sosialism, Date of Publication
Unknown.
Sohrabian, Albert. Khaterat-e Albert Sohrabian: bargi az jonbesh-e kargari-
komonisti-ye Iran. Hannover: Bidar, 2000.
Tabari, Ehsan. Neveshteh’ha-ye falsafi va ejtemayi. Berlin: Entesharat-e Hezb-e
Tudeh Iran, 2007.
Traverso, Enzo. Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2016.
254 Bibliography
———. Les Nouveaux Visages du Fascisme. Paris: les éditions textuel, 2017.
Vahabzadeh, Peyman. Guerilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy,
and the Fadai Period of National Liberation in Iran, 1971–1979. New York:
Syracuse University Press, 2010.
———, ed. Iran’s Struggles for Social Justice: Economics, Agency, Justice, Activism.
Zibayi, Ali. Komonizm dar Iran ya tarikh-e mokhtasar-e komonistha dar Iran.
Tehran: 1964.
———. http://fares-sassine.blogspot.no/2014/08/entretien-inedit-avec-michel-
foucault.html.
Index1
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
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92522-6
256 INDEX
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

Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran (PDFDrive)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marxism and Left-Wing Politics in Europe and Iran (PDFDrive)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MARXISM &

ISBN 978-3-319-92521-9 ISBN 978-3-319-92522-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952228

Cover image: © gmalandra

Oslo, Norway Yadullah Shahibzadeh

2 From True Democracy to Communism 13

3 The Vanguard Party and the Dictatorship

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

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

12 Toward a Communist Democracy 215

Since the 1970s, in the name of democracy, various post-Marxist tenden-

© The Author(s) 2019 1

illusion of necessity in historical writing, Walter Benjamin describes as “the

Soviet Jews to Israel, they became utterly disillusioned.16 As the collapse of

who, while remaining true to the core of Marxism or communism, try to

From True Democracy to Communism

The communist definition relies on the promise of the French Revolution

© The Author(s) 2019 13

in the process of political alienation, he is subjected to the state’s power. He

The Limits of Democracy

modern state reduces in practice the universal rights of man to freedom,

Communism as the Future of Humanity

Communism as a Necessity or a Possibility

Communists and Their Proletariat

bourgeois ideologues interpret the abolition of the existing state of affairs

Communism and Political Agency

The Vanguard Party and the Dictatorship

Thanks to the 1917 Russian Revolution, the communist as the figure of

© The Author(s) 2019 27

necessity demonstrated by “the materialist conception of history.” For

of different thinkers and movements from different nations. He reminds

the “vehicle of science,” the bourgeois intelligentsia generated the socialist

Vanguard Party and Democracy

decision making in the party impossible. To reject formal democracy in the

program of Russian social democracy. From 1894 to 1898, the Russian

Lenin makes a distinction between the concept of the abolition of the

nothing but an instrument, “a machine of class rule,” to suppress the

cooperation.”48 Luxemburg’s response to Bernstein is that “a general

The uninterrupted victory of democracy, which to our revisionism, as well

Luxemburg concludes that it is not the socialist movement whose sur-

The Question of Spontaneity

the Western European industrial workers. To remind the German social

of March 1848–1849. Entirely different from the old bourgeois revolu-

Democracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat

differently.89 Luxemburg disagrees with Lenin’s understanding of the dic-

most active, unlimited participation of the mass of the people” in

35. Ibid., pp. 403–404.

72. Ibid., pp. 145–147.

The Crisis of Marxism: Ideology

© The Author(s) 2019 47

Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Jean Hyppolite who introduced the author to

its confrontation with the bourgeois philosophers who claim that

Marxism is a theory of social revolution that analyzes the relationship

return to a Marxism of social revolution to get involved theoretically and

Critical Subject and Ideological Hegemony

capacity to discipline himself in his “striving for an ideal.” Man’s critical

without worrying if the new creations produced by their activity were on

Oslo, Norway Yadullah Shahibzadeh

2 From True Democracy to Communism 13

3 The Vanguard Party and the Dictatorship

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

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

12 Toward a Communist Democracy 215

ifferent shapes and colors and describes Maoism as the latest expression of