By Kamran Nayeri, December 31, 2025
 |
| Jack Barnes. Photo credit: The Militant. |
Introduction: On October 2, 1992, I submitted a brief
letter of resignation to the Executive Committee of the New York branch of the Socialist
Workers Party (SWP):
“Due to the circumstances that I
have detailed in my letter to the Political Committee, I find it necessary to
resign from the party effective today. I am enclosing a copy of that letter for
your information. I am in good financial standing and plan to pay all my
pledges to the party on schedule. I am also enclosing my set of keys to the headquarters
as well as a key to the bank deposit box.”
I am making the text of that letter public now to shed light
on an important aspect of the consolidation of Jack Barnes' cult and the degeneration
of the SWP: his attempt to develop followers in other countries, in this case, in
Iran (I have slightly edited the text, and I have bolded text for emphasis. The letter is signed as Nader, my party first name; party policy at the time was to use only the first name).
In this letter, I recount how the Barnes leadership
sidelined SWP members Amir Jamali, Samad Irvani, and me, while privileging
Mahmoud Sayrafizadeh in the party’s work in Iran. Sayrafizadeh and I were
former members of HVK Political Committee, Irvani was the organizer of its
Tabriz branch and National Committee member, and Jamali was the director of HVK
finance.
By the summer of 1982, the Islamic Republic had dealt the
final blow to the 1979 revolution by attacking the workers' shoras, arresting
and in some cases torturing and executing their leaders. By year's end,
practically all socialist organizations had been forced to dissolve, destroyed,
or forced into exile.
When I returned to New York in August 1982, I immediately
applied to and joined the SWP branch and its Jobs Committee. In addition to my
branch activities, I soon began collaborating with Cindy Jaquith on various Iran-related
projects. By the end of the fall season, I discussed with Jaquith my desire to
return to Iran and rejoin the HVK. After consulting colleagues in Iran, Jaquith
advised me not to return. Within a couple of weeks, Jaquith informed me that
HVK had been dissolved.
Jacquith and I discussed my intention to return to Iran to
continue the effort to build a communist organization there. We agreed that the
best course for rebuilding a communist organization in Iran would be for me to
remain in the SWP and recruit other Iranians who wanted to do so to the SWP, so
that at a more appropriate time, we could return to Iran. Amir Jamali, who
visited the U.S. on a personal visit and stopped in New York on his way back to
Iran to see me, decided to remain in the U.S. and joined the New York branch. A
while later, Samad Irvani, who lived in Vienna, moved to New York to join the
SWP and work in the party’s print shop (later he moved to the L.A. branch).
Our branch activities included taking the party’s campaigns,
including selling its literature to leftist Iranians in the New York area.
In 1986, Mahmoud Sayrafizadeh arrived in New York, joined
the SWP, and was quickly incorporated into SWP leadership. They even assigned
Barbara Bowman to work closely with Allieh, Sayrafizadeh’s new partner from
Iran, to recruit her to the SWP. An Iran Committee was formed. Sayrafizadeh’s
primary responsibility became Iran work, which now included annual
participation in the Tehran International Book Fair and (re)publication of
Farsi-language books by Pathfinder.
At the same time, other former HVK members who had been
involved in the Iran work were sidelined. All this without a discussion.
To understand the reasons for Barnes’s leadership's
differentiated behavior toward former HVK comrades, we should begin with
Sayrafizadeh’s history with it. As I have detailed in my political biography of
Sayrafizadeh (Nayeri, 2019), he had joined the SWP a decade before the
formation of the Sattar League, the Iranian section of the Fourth International.
Sayrafizadeh, who came to the U.S. in 1953 to attend college and earned his
doctorate in mathematics in Minnesota, was in the same cohort as Jack Barnes and
others who formed the new generation of SWP leaders in the early 1970s, when
Barnes became National Secretary in 1972.
Even after the Sattar League, the Iranian section of the
Fourth International, was constituted in the U.S. with the help of the SWP, Sayrafizadeh
maintained political ties with the Barnes leadership. His appointment to the
International Executive Committee (IEC) facilitated this relationship.
I have cited two instances of SWP’s intervention in the
Iranian Trotskyist movement, as documented by Sayrafizadeh (Nayeri, 2019). In
1977, SWP leadership intervened to discourage Babak Zahraie’s push to split the
Sattar League (Nayeri, 2025, pp. 29-40, pp. 77-88). In May 1982, Sayrafizadeh
unexpectedly urged the Political Committee of HVK to organize classes to study
Lenin’s strategy for the Russian Revolution! HVK was in crisis, and seven
months later, after the authorities briefly detained him, Sayrafizadeh himself
proposed its dissolution to the Political Committee, which approved it. It was
only after I joined the SWP and participated in the New York branch’s Lenin classes that it dawned
on me where Sayrafizadeh must have received his inspiration to propose Lenin
classes for HVK!
The Barnes’s leadership relied on Sayrafizadeh’s political
assessment of the Iranian revolution. Thus, The Militant’s reports of the
Muslim Students Association's occupation of the universities, purging of students,
faculty, and staff that were deemed non-Islamic, the Islamic Cultural
Revolution to “cleanse” the universities of non-Islamic influences, which
Sayrafizadeh (and Babak Zahraie) supported as an “anti-imperialist advance, were
reported similarly in The Militant.
In the late 1980s, I discovered the theoretical
underpinnings of Sayrafizadeh’s non-Marxist view of the history of the Iranian
revolutions in the twentieth century. In fact, the SWP and the Fourth
International had incorporated the non-Marxist Dependency Theory, which was developed
in the 1950s and 1960s in response to anti-colonial revolutions. It held
imperialism responsible for the backwardness of countries in the periphery of the
world economy (Nayeri, 2025, Chapter Eight). Nationalist economists, especially
in Latin America, developed Dependency theories. Paul Baran, associated with
Monthly Review, developed a “Marxist” version of it (see Nayeri 2023, Chapters
3 and 4 for a critique of these theories). Even Ernest Mandel’s theory of late
capitalist development was influenced by Dependency theories (ibid., Chapter 8).
Sayrafizadeh’s Nationality and Revolution in Iran (1974) argued that
revolutions and counterrevolutions in Iran were centered on the fight against
imperialism; he similarly viewed the 1979 revolution through an
anti-imperialist lens.
Thus, in the same May 1982 HVK Political Committee meeting,
Sayrafizadeh was in the minority of one when he supported Khomeini’s call to
continue the Iran-Iraq war to overthrow Saddam Hussein with the slogan “The
road to Jerusalem goes through Karbala [a holy Shiite city in Iraq].” The
majority of the HVK Political Committee favored ending the war, and six years
later, after much bloodshed and destruction, Khomeini himself relented and accepted
an end to the war. Thus, Sayrafizadeh reduced the anti-capitalist Iranian
revolution to a struggle against imperialism and viewed Khomeini as an
anti-imperialist leader.
Sayrafizadeh’s view aligned with Jack Barnes' wishful
thinking that to break with SWP’s “semi-sectarian existence” it should break
with Trotskyism in hope of becoming acceptable to the Cuban Communist Party
that was burdened by Stalinism (See, Nayeri, 2025, Chapter Five) and other political
currents including Sandinistas, the New Jewel Movement of Grenada, the African
National Congress of South Africa, and guerrilla movements such as the
Farabundo Marti Liberation Front in El Salvador to found a new international.
Finally, Sayrafizadeh had a cliquish relationship with Amir
Maleki, who also shared Sayrafizadeh’s views on the Islamic Republic and the
Iranian Revolution. Thus, Barnes hoped Sayrafizadeh would develop a group that would
follow his political whims, as he had with a few such small groups in other
countries. As far as I know, almost 40 years later, the Barne group in Iran still
only includes Sayrafizadeh, Maleki, and his companion.
During these four decades, Barnes’s view of Khomeini and the
Islamic Republic as the center of revolution in the Middle East has changed radically.
He has decided that the SWP’s longstanding view of Israel as a colonial-settler
state and imperialist outpost in the Middle East, and the vision of a
Democratic Secular Palestine where Palestinians, Jews, and others live as
equals, was wrong; that there is no longer a Zionist movement. Furthermore, the
SWP now thinks the central problem in the world is rising antisemitism, and
Israel must be supported as the only haven for Jews.
Sayrafizadeh’s group in Tehran has followed these twists and
turns in Jack Barnes' SWP.
Barnes began his political and theoretical retreat from
revolutionary socialism to Zionism by claiming to seek a superior theoretical
standing; he justified his denunciation of Trotsky and Trotskyism by asserting
that he was a follower of Lenin and Leninism. He then organized leadership
schools for SWP leaders to study Marx. How did he end up as an enthusiastic supporter
of the colonial-settler Jewish State and the apartheid state of Israel and its
ethnic cleansing genocide in Gaza?
The seed of this bizarre course is theoretical. Barnes's
leadership precisely normalized Israel when its colonial character had become
undeniable. To do so, he broke with historical materialism, colonial analysis,
and dialectical thinking on nationhood. I cannot provide empirical evidence,
but I suggest that Barnes’ leadership shifted to the right on a range of issues
to accommodate his small group of conservative workers whom he sought to
recruit.
Sayrafizadeh in Iran faces the same problem; today in Iran,
it is the supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, who was deposed by
the 1979 revolution, who support Israel and the United States when they
attacked Iran in June 2025 in the 12-day war.
This political degeneration, which began in the 1980s, was
accompanied by a degeneration of revolutionary socialists as individuals. Just consider this fact: James P. Cannon (1890-1974) was the son of socialist Irish immigrants who joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Socialist Party as a youth and was a leader of the Communist Party and a delegate to the Six Congress of the Communist Interntional who was won over to Trotsky's critique of Stalinsm, expelled with co-thinkers from the Communist Party and founded the SWP in 1938. Cannon was elected as the National Secratary and served in the post until 1953, that is, for 15 years. Farrell Dobbs (1907-1983) was from a working class family. Initially, he voted Republican but during the Great Depression while working for a coal company radicalized, joined the Teansters and helped initiate the general strike in Minnapolis. Dobbs was won over to Trotskyism by Dunne brothers. In 1939 Dobbs went to work full time for the SWP. Together with Cannon, Dobbs served 16-months in jail for opposing the imperialist World war II. His term as the National Secrtary of the SWP lasted 19 year when he retired as Jack Barnes was elected in his place in 1972. Jack Barnes born in 1940, radicalized as a student at Calton college and quickly became a leader of SWP's youth group. Barnes has been National Secratary of SWP for 53 years! He is 85 years old. While by all counts the SWP grew and developed under the leaderships guided by Cannon and Dobbs as a revolutionary socialist party, during Barnes' leadership in the last half a century it rurned into a rightist Zionist cult with a tiny follwing. All oppositions to Barne's rightist course have been silenced or expelled. The "ranks" that remain are faithful followers of what Barnes decides.
My letter
to the SWP Political Committee documents how they tried to frame me, an
activist in the New York branch for a decade, as “disloyal” to the party,
allegedly collaborating with Babak Zahraie, whom together with others fought in 1975-77 and in 1980 for his wrong policies and whom they called “the enemy of the
party” as part of their attempt to frame up. My political life as a socialist, which they knew well, would have
belied such an accusation. That alone showed how once revolutionary socialists had turned to schemes Stalinist used against their opponents.
References:
Nayeri, Kamran. “Mahmoud
Sayrafizadeh: The Father of Iranian Trotskyism.” Our Place in the World: A
Journal of Ecosocialism. 2019.
_____________. Toward a Theory of Uneven and Combined Late Capitalist Development. 2023.
_____________. Between Dreams and Reality: Essays on
Revolution and Socialism. 2025.
Sayrafizadeh. Mahmoud, Nationality and Revolution in Iran,
1974. (in Farsi)
* * *
October 2, 1992
Political Committee
Socialist Workers Party
Dear Comrades:
On Saturday,
September 12, comrades Norton [Sandler] and Steve [Clark] delivered to me three
decisions of the Political Bureau. Since these decisions were delivered
verbally, I can only restate their essence.
First, t[Zahraie] he
discussion which was opened with your letter [of June 2] is now closed. We had
a discussion about Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran International Book
Fair. We are not doing any kind of systematic work in relation to Iran. This is
our policy.”
Second, “you have
contacted Babak when you were in Iran. This is contrary to our policy as you
were warned in an earlier meeting. Babak is an enemy of the party. This is the
final warning. Cease and desist from any contact with Babak.”
Third, “cease and
desist from any political contact with anyone in Iran. This is the final
warning.”
I find the last
two decisions and how the Political Bureau had arrived at them outrageous. The
first decision, although a prerogative of the leadership, is unfortunate. It is
necessary to respond to these decisions of the Political Bureau in writing.
* *
*
I should begin
with the serious assertions of my alleged disloyal behavior towards the party.
What circumstances have led our Political Bureau to conclude that I have been
disloyal to the party? More specifically, how has the Political Bureau
concluded that I have an ongoing political relationship with Babak, “an enemy
of the party,” and with other individuals in Iran behind the back of the party?
 |
| Norton Sandler. Credit: The Militant |
When I asked the
latter question of comrades Norton and Steve, they cited as “evidence” my
report to the Political Committee regarding my recent trip to Iran. This was drafted
at the urging of comrades Joel [Briton], Malamud [Mahmoud Sayrafizadeh], and
Norton during our meeting in Oberlin. There is one last paragraph in it, which,
according to comrades Norton and Steve, serves as evidence of my breach of
party discipline. This is the paragraph:
“There is a
specific opportunity which we must pursue. While I was in Tehran, I happened to
run into Babak Zahraie, who headed a group that ran Hambastegi
publishers Zahraie is now the chief executive of Hafez Computer Services
Company in Tehran. Hafez is housed in a beautifully designed building in a
northern corner of Tehran. I had occasion to visit the enterprise. It is one of
several dozens of computer companies that sprung up in Iran in the recent period.
Zahraie told me that they have a 300 million Toman contract with the Ministry
of Agriculture to design and develop a computerized project management package
for a sugarcane agribusiness in Khuzestan. He offered to give me translations
of Fidel and Che in Farsi on computer diskettes (including Che’s writings on
the transition period). He said he has retired (meaning from politics). I deferred taking [the] diskettes to a later
date so there be a chance to consult in New York. When I asked about the
availability of Trotsky’s writings in Iran, he offered to give me a set of such
writings. He showed me a heap of books of Fidel’s speeches and the book on South
Africa rotting in his yard. He said there are no markets for them anymore.”
This paragraph was
drafted to report two facts that I considered important for the Political Committee
to know. First, that Babak Zahraie has “retired from politics” and that he is
now in fact a businessman. Second, he has offered to give us some Farsi
translations of books published by Pathfinder. It did not occur to me that I
was preparing a legal document or one that it could cast suspicion on my
loyalty to the party. Still, this paragraph does not state that I have or have
had at any time since I have been in the SWP, any relationship with Babak
Zahraie. It only says that I had an encounter with him and that I visited his computer
business.
 |
| Steve Clark. Photo credit: The Militant. |
If someone
unfamiliar with my political history and the history of my relationship with
Babak Zahraie were to read the above text, I can understand how he/she might misinterpret
my statement. But how can our Political Bureau take that paragraph as evidence
of my relationship with Babak given their knowledge of the history of my
political conflict with Babak Zahraie [since 1976]?
This issue was
once raised in a meeting on August 7 in Oberlin, where comrades Joel, Malamud,
and Norton were present. I reported the same two facts to the comrades. Comrade
Norton raised some general objections along the line that we should be careful
in dealing with “an enemy of the party.” I explained to him that my encounter
with Babak did not damage the party’s interests. This was a very brief
discussion, and no one else appeared to share comrade Norton’s sense of alarm. No
one, including Comrade Norton, discussed any party policy that barred contact
with Zahraie or anyone else. No one suggested that I had violated any party
instructions. Comrade Joel thought that there might be some merit in
considering Babak’s offer of the Farsi translations. I assumed the matter to be
closed.
In my written report to the
Political Committee, I did not seek to offer a detailed account of my encounter
with Babak. Still, in the cover letter to my report to the Political committee
dated August 20 and addressed to the same comrade Norton, I wrote: “You might
also find that the composition [of this report] is somewhat rough. I had to prepare
for this in a rush while events remained fresh in my mind. Meanwhile, we have
been rather busy with petitioning in New York, as you well know.”
Anyone who has
read the 15-page report can testify that it was prepared in a bit of a rush.
There are grammatical errors, even misspellings, including in the same now
“incriminating” paragraph. My attention was focused on reporting what, in my
opinion, was politically significant, and I refrained from addressing what I
considered side issues and matters of style.
However, I also
wrote to comrade Norton that “I would be glad to clarify further any issues
that are discussed in this report or you might think I possibly know but have
left out.”
If anyone was
alarmed by my possible breach of the party’s discipline based on my own
volunteered statement, was it not a bit rash not to have asked me in for an
explanation before
branding me with a violation of
party discipline?
I encountered
Babak Zahraie while visiting a friend’s rented music studio in Zahraie’s
parents’ basement. As the building door opened, Babak walked out. This was my
first encounter with the man in more than 11 years. Surprised, he greeted me
and began talking.
He asked about [Mark]
Curtis’ parole, told me that he is now in the computer business, and, pointing
to a large stack of books in his parents' yard, he explained that there is
nothing he can do with them anymore and offered to give us Farsi translations
of many works on computer diskettes. This encounter lasted perhaps ten minutes.
He also offered to visit his computer business to examine the purchase of his
company's Farsi word processor, Aassannevis.
A few days before
my return, I did go to his business office to examine their word processor. I had
been shopping for one and found it reasonable to consider their product as well
(which as I discovered was non-existent).
I decided not to pursue Babak’s
offer of digital copies of translation of books (whether genuine or fraudulent)
until we have had an opportunity to discuss it in New York.
I did, however, inquire about the
availability of Farsi editions of Trotsky’s History of the Russian
Revolution and The Revolution Betrayed. Comrade Malamud had recently
asked me whether I knew of sources for obtaining copies of these books. 1 had
searched many bookstores in Tehran for them. They were not available. Babak
offered to give me these books. I told him to leave the books with my friend,
who rents a space in Zahraie’s parents' house. As it turned out, I was unable
to receive this book. I left Iran a few days later.
This is the full
extent of my meetings with Babak Zahraie in the past 12 years. There has not
been any ongoing relationship for me to cease and desist from. There has not
been any violation of the party’s interest or security.
Did I breach the party’s discipline
in these encounters? The Political Bureau should think so, judging from its
second decision cited earlier.
Comrade Norton appeared to assert
that, in the June 24 meeting, I had been warned not to meet with Babak. Comrade
Steve suggested that there is a party policy on this matter. Obviously, if I were
warned not to contact Babak, and if there is a party policy that instructs
party membership not to contact Babak, then I am guilty of disloyalty. I would
suggest that disciplinary action may be warranted to protect the party.
However, I contend there is no basis for either claim.
First, the only meeting I had with
any party leadership before my trip to Iran was with comrades Greg [McCartan]
and Malamud on June 24. I do not recall either of them telling me not to meet
with Babak or anyone else specifically (I rely on my rather extensive notes
from that meeting, which I put to paper later that same night). Furthermore,
there was no discussion of any policy regarding Babak. And why should the party
leadership have felt a need to have instructed me as such or organize a discussion
on such an alleged party policy? Were there any grounds to believe that I had
had any contacts with Babak before or any suspicion that I might have one in my
trip to Iran?
In that meeting,
however, another discussion developed. I asked whether there was anything I
could do for the party during my visit to Turkey and Iran, such as newspaper
clippings and other materials for an article on the recent riots in Mashhad,
Arak, Shiraz, and elsewhere [in Iran]. This question seemed to have irritated comrade
Greg, who raised his voice to instruct me: “You will not do anything political
in Iran!” I found this difficult to understand. I asked: “Would you ask the
same of a comrade who travels to Canada?” Comrade Greg did not respond. Comrade
Malamud changed the tone and offered an explanation: “You should be careful,
next to South Africa, Iran is a very unstable place.”
I explained to
these comrades that as a political person [it was basically to visit my
family]. Still I will be political wherever I go, especially in Iran. My trip
was on my own initiative and not on behalf of the party. I was not assigned to
go to Iran, but my trip (the second in ten years) would not be for leisure
either. I very much wanted to learn about political life in Iran, as I am sure
any communist would, especially those who wished to one day return there to
help build a communist party and participate in another revolution.
Thus, comrade
Norton’s claim that I was told not to meet with Babak before my trip is simply
false. Perhaps he wanted to say that I should not have acted politically, as comrade
Greg seemed to have asked at one point during our meeting. Assuming this is
what comrade Norton might have had in mind; he should know that I was not by
any means unambiguously instructed as such. In fact, during a happier moment of
our conversation, comrade Greg suggested that if an opportunity arose, I should
get subscriptions to The Militant or seek support for Mark Curtis’s fight.
How about the
second concern: the party’s decision to bar contacts with Babak, the enemy of
the party?
The only party
directive that I can recall in this relation dates to 1983. At that time, a
member of the Revolutionary Workers Party (HKE) named Khalil was in New York.
He approached the party to help him organize a defense committee for Babak, who
was a political prisoner in Tehran at the time. The party leadership correctly
decided that there was no objective basis for a broad defense effort in the
U.S. at the time, and that Khalil's proposals would harm rather than help the
cause of the Iranian revolution and the defense of Zahraie. We had written
about the case and we had gotten a few prominent individuals to write letters
of appeal for Babak’s release in the framework of the defense of the Iranian
revolution, which was under attack by the U.S. government.
Khalil and the HKE leadership,
however, decided to go ahead with their plans. He contacted several
organizations in New York, presenting his case as if it had the SWP's support.
Once we learned about this, the party leadership decided to educate the ranks
in the branches affected or potentially affected by the HKE's campaign and to
centralize our relations with Khalil and HKE. This was a brief episode; Khalil’s
activities dwindled quickly. The HKE as such was dissolved. Some of its former
members founded a publishing house called Hambastegi, which published a few
books of speeches by Fidel Castro and Sandinista leaders, and Nelson Mandela
and Oliver Tambo on the struggle against apartheid in Southern Africa. This
activity also ceased a few years later. As I have reported to the Political Committee,
Zahraie, who was released from prison some four years ago, has started a
computer business which he runs with others including former his former
political associates. The fact that a group of former HKE leaders and members
still hang around together does not make their enterprise political but merely reveals
the personal nature of their long-term relationship.
The 1983 party’s
directive, then, was not a ban to talk to Babak “as the enemy of the party” in
the abstract but a decision to protect the party against a specific hostile
campaign by an opportunist organization. I am not aware of any further
encounters the party may have had with Zahraie (other than our carrying
Hambastegi publications in some of our bookstores) or any subsequent decisions
made to protect the party from this individual.
Any reasonable
comrade who assesses the nature of my encounter with Babak and the nature of the
1983 decision will find that I have not violated any party directives or
communist norms. The world has changed a lot since 1983. The HKE anti-party
campaign is long dead. Khalil, who decided to remain in New York, became
involved in solidarity work for Nicaragua, and comrades of the (now-dissolved)
Brooklyn branch sold The Militant to him for a brief period. The party
recruited at least two former HKE members. One of them, who was a member of the
New York branch for a brief period, still held the HKE's general views. One of
Babak’s brothers, who did not hide his sympathy for the HKE (as it once existed),
attended the New York Militant Labor Forum for an extended period of time. Here
in the New York branch, we have not had a policy of rejecting contact or
political discussions with former HKE members. Babak has turned his talents to
business, which I have long considered more in line with his character. My
encounter with him was as brief and businesslike as I have described.
I should briefly
address the other assertion by the Political Bureau: that I have had political
relations with others in Iran behind the party's back. Comrades Norton and
Steve did not offer any evidence of such disloyal acts. 1 feel compelled to
deny such a charge and cite for the record a case that illustrates my
disciplined conduct.
A few years ago, I
met an Iranian supporter of the party in Los Angeles during a party conference
in Oberlin. We discussed Guevara’s ideas on the transition to socialism,
particularly the distinction between religious and materialist approaches to
volunteer labor. She remained a supporter of the Los Angeles branch for a
period, left for Europe about two years ago, and finally moved back to Iran.
During this entire
period, she wrote me a few letters. Until recently, these letters were sent to
the New York SWP headquarters. Before she left for Iran, she wrote me a letter
from Spain asking whether the SWP has any co-thinkers there with whom she could
collaborate. I raised this with comrade Malamud, a member of the Iran
Committee, and upon his suggestion, translated the letter into English and sent
it to that body for instructions. Comrade Malamud later met with me to inform
me that the Iran committee believed we should not pursue any political
relations with this individual. I complied. At first, I decided to restrict my
correspondence to her to non—political topics, i.e. issues of history,
economics, and culture. However, because she continued to write to me about
political matters, I was forced to discontinue all communication with her. She wrote
twice since, and I have not responded. She also called me from Spain once, and
I did not return her call. I have not seen her since our original meeting in
Oberlin a few years ago, including on my trip to Iran.
There is therefore
not a grain of truth to the assertions of the Political Bureau about my alleged
disloyalty to the party.
Comrades who
attended the August 7 meeting in Oberlin, including comrades Malamud, who had
also attended our June 24 meeting, should remember that no one suggested that I
had been told before my trip to Iran not to talk to Babak or any other individual.
These comrades, including comrade
Norton, should also recall that we did not discuss any party policy that barred
such contact with Babak or anyone else in Iran. As of this writing, no one has
discussed any specific party policy with me, despite my having been served a
final warning to cease and desist from such contacts. No one, including comrade
Norton, has explained to me why there is a sudden alarm about Babak or why,
specifically, this individual is deemed “the enemy of the party!” Bearing this
in mind, the worst possible scenario is that there is, in fact, a party policy
against speaking with Babak (or others in Iran) and that I have inadvertently
violated it. What would be the normal leadership response? In any ordinary
circumstance, such a situation calls for a comradely effort to explain to me whatever
decisions the leadership might have made which I should have known about and an
explanation of how my actions might have endangered the party’s interests. This
should be sufficient in any normal circumstance.
The decisions
of the Political Bureau, the way they were reached and delivered, however,
indicate a different course. They reveal a certain lack of comradely trust and
respect, a course which has been based on the conviction that I have been disloyal
to the party for a period; that I have had ongoing political relations with
Babak Zahraie, and that 1 have had ongoing political relationships with others
in Iran behind the back of the party.
How and when the
party’s central leadership has arrived at such an estimate of my political
character and conduct is unclear to me. There certainly were never any
discussions with me to ask straightaway about any of this,
While I have no
explanation for the conduct of the Political Bureau, it is abundantly clear to
me that similar leadership conduct has contributed to my failure to seek and
secure a candid discussion with our party leadership on the task of building a
communist organization in Iran. Instead of a productive political
discussion that could lead to greater clarity and improved collaboration, I
can only report a pattern of erratic conduct and hostility by the party
leadership toward me. The decisions of the Political Bureau then come as the
culmination of a process which began nine months ago.
* *
*
In early January I
asked Comrade Malamud, then the organizer of the Iran Committee, for a
discussion about party’s thinking on how we can help to build a communist
organization of Iranians. 1 did not know whether this request would fall in the
domain of responsibility of the Iran Committee. I only knew that for any work
concerning Iran, I had been asked to write to that body.
I also told
comrade Malamud of my plan to travel to Iran in the summer of 1992 and
explained that I would be happy to carry out any assignments in this trip.
Comrade Malamud agreed to have such a meeting at a later date when he would
have more time. This took us to late April. Once or twice, I reminded comrade
Malamud of my request, and each time he delayed the meeting to a later date
when he would have more time. He told me on one occasion that I should go ahead
with my trip “because the Political Committee is too busy to discuss this issue
at the moment.”
One day, during a
late April Pathfinder Building mobilization, on a lunch break, I asked comrade
Malamud about our long-postponed meeting. He replied that he had thought the
matter over and that he is not qualified to meet with me. He recommended that I
talk with my branch executive committee organizer. I found this somewhat perplexing.
Why a four-month delay in coming to this conclusion? Is the Iran Committee not
the national leadership body to contact regarding these issues? If for any
other work concerning Iran I was told to write to this committee, why should I
be referred to my branch executive committee organizer to discuss party’s
perspective in helping to build a communist organization in Iran?
This is why I
wrote a letter to the Political Committee on June 2. The letter said: I am very
much interested in understanding what leadership attention is given to the
problem of the development of a communist nucleus of Iranians by the SWP and
our world movement. I am aware that the party has had a functioning Iran
Committee for several years now. However, I am not sure what those functions
are and how they are intended to help in the reconstruction of a communist
organization of Iranians. I would therefore like to request a discussion on
these issues with an appropriate leadership body of the party.
There was no
response for 22 days. Then, just two days before my trip to Iran, comrade
Malamud asked me to meet with him and comrade Greg.
The meeting took
place in a bar and lasted two and half hours. We discussed the nature and role
of the Iran Committee, exchanged some opinions on the perspective of building a
communist organization in Iran, Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran International
Book Fair, and my impending trip to Iran. Although the topics are impressive
the meeting was not.
In his opening
remarks, comrade Greg talked about Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran International
Book Fair. He said that he was aware of the opposition to the trip by “the
Iranian comrades.” These remarks seemed to place at least three comrades, Amir,
Samad, and me into a common category of the opposition. I explained that I
welcomed Pathfinder’s participation in that the Tehran International Book Fair.
I stressed, however, that it does not seem strange if Iranian comrades with a
history of struggle to build a communist organization in Iran may have strong
opinions on this. However, to my knowledge, their views are neither uniform nor
representative of any group. These comrades have joined the SWP without making
a secret of their aim to work towards rebuilding a communist organization in
Iran.
They have joined precisely because
they were convinced that steps towards rebuilding a communist Iranian nucleus
are best taken in the context of building the SWP. Their participation in any
step taken under the direction of the party leadership towards that goal is not
contrary but, in fact, part of their participation in building the SWP and our
world movement.
Comrade Malamud found this view
unacceptable. He counterposed another view. First, to build an Iranian
communist organization, one has to become a communist. That requires one
to give up all national identities, including political ones. It follows
that to build the Iranian movement one needs to build the SWP. In due time, SWP
leadership will assign specific Iranian comrades to go to Iran and carry out political
work in Iran. Second, the party recognizes only Iranian communists who are
already in Iran. (He later conceded that there were no Iranian communists in
Iran today) .
What did comrade Malamud mean by
this line of abstract deductions? First, did he imply that members of the SWP
who are of Iranian origin--i.e., they are of an Iranian origin with specific
life and political experiences-- are not communists? Did he mean that they
should somehow go through a process of cleansing themselves of such national
and political experiences?
I most certainly believe that
building any existing communist organization, especially the one in the United
States would help the future Iranian communist organization and revolution. But
it was not my position but comrade Malamud’s that seemed to counterpose these
two revolutionary tasks for those of us with a history of party building in
Iran and a well-known ambition to continue that fight despite the immense
roadblocks created by our class enemies. I do not think we have a problem with
Iranian comrades not participating in the building of the SWP. Do comrade
Malamud and the party leadership think otherwise?
The idea that
building an independent communist organization in Iran is the task of the SWP
leadership was a new one for me. While the role of the Socialist Workers Party,
given the historical evolution of the communist movement, is essential to this
process, our movement has always believed that the task falls to the
revolutionary workers and youth of each country to forge their own
organization.
Finally, I do not
doubt that the future Iranian communist party will have to be built inside
Iran. However, given the fact that it has not been possible to function as
communists in Iran since 1982, and a few of the former leaders and cadre of the
Iranian movement are today abroad and in the SWP. How are we to move forward towards that goal? Are
we asking these comrades to cease and desist from thinking about this task and
wishing to be a part of the discussion on this issue? Are we to tell them, as
comrades Malamud and Greg told me, that they are just like any other comrade in
the party who is equally concerned about this problem and equally involved in
helping to solve it. Is this not a refusal to move from an abstract
non-discussion to a concrete discussion?
Our movement has a
proposal for communists in countries with a bourgeois democratic regime, a
trade union movement and a working class that can read English. What is the
proposal for communists who are from countries with no bourgeois democratic
openings, no trade union structures, and a working class that does not read
European languages?
The substance of
comrade Malamud’s argument aside, I was very much disturbed by his
condescending tone as well as the implications of comrades Greg and Malamud
that there is an unprincipled opposition in the party of “Iranian comrades,”
which has manifested itself around the Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran
International Book Fair. This tone and this implication were serious enough
to prompt me to ask these comrades whether they had any doubts about my loyalty
to the party. They said they did not.
Similarly, there
were other political issues that were raised during this meeting but not
pursued and adequately explained. For instance, comrade Greg said that the Iran
Committee was simply a way of recruiting former members of the Iranian
communist movement and other Iranians to the party. But this contradicted my
own experiences with the Iran Committee which tended to concern itself with any
aspect of our work with Iran.
As for my trip to
Iran, which was raised with the party six months in advance, I found a total
lack of interest by the comrades and even some hostility from comrade Greg. He
first argued that the leadership has learned of it too late to have any
proposals. Later, he prohibited me “not to do anything political in Iran.” And,
finally, he suggested that if I could get Militant subscriptions or support for
Mark Curtis’ fight, it would be O.K.
When I returned
from Iran, just before the Oberlin conference, comrade Mary from the National
Office informed me of plans for a Political Committee-initiated meeting during
the conference, which would include comrades Amir, Malamud, Samad, and me. The
letter was written by comrade Norton on behalf of the Political Committee,
dated July 20, and appeared to have been written in response to my June 2
letter. It proposed to have a meeting “to discuss the political situation in
Iran and the surrounding region and the party’s propaganda work, including the
recent Pathfinder sales trip there.”
While the
meeting’s proposed agenda did not include an item on the party’s views on how
to help build a communist organization in Iran, I was delighted by the
Political Committee’s decision to convene this meeting. It represented, I
believed, a positive turn in the situation arising from our June 24 meeting. I
thought it was a significant step forward to involve Iranian comrades in
thinking out the political situation in Iran. This would be an essential part
of the discussion of our tasks towards building a communist organization of
Iranians.
This meeting took
place in Oberlin on August 7. Comrades Joel, Malamud, Norton, Samad, and I
attended it. Comrade Amir was invited but was out of the country and unable to participate
in.
Unfortunately, we
did not get a chance to discuss the political situation in Iran and the
surrounding region, as promised in comrade Norton’s letter. Instead, the bulk
of the time was devoted to a debate of differences, perceived or otherwise,
with comrade Samad on the way Pathfinder’s participation was organized.
Although there seemed to be a difference of opinion on the tactics, I tend to
think that the contentious tone of the discussion exaggerated the arguments
made by the comrades involved. More important, however, was a total disregard
for the fact that any discussion of tactical issues, like the Pathfinder sales
effort, must take place within a general agreement on the political situation
in Iran and the tasks we hope to accomplish. These, of course, were not
discussed in our meeting.
During the over
two-and-a-half-hour meeting, I found it necessary to speak for no more than 20
minutes. Once, I offered a summary of my impressions of political life in Iran.
Another time I spoke about Babak’s proposal. 1 also expressed my disappointment
that no time was devoted to fill in some of the gaps in our understanding of the
situation in Iran. We could have also used a discussion on how to proceed with
the task of helping to rebuild a communist organization of Iranians. This
discussion was initiated in our June meeting and needed to involve comrades
Amir and Samad.
At any rate, while
the meeting was not very productive, it was a positive step by the party
leadership. I hoped that, in the future, a similar leadership initiative might
be undertaken to help involve these comrades in our Iran work.
I do not need to
say that these hopes were proved futile. On September 12, 1 was called in to
receive the Political Bureau’s decisions, which closed the discussion and
branded me as a disloyal member of the party.
This episode,
which began with my request in January to meet with comrade Malamud to discuss
the party’s perspectives on how to help forge a communist organization of
Iranians, has now ended on September 12. My balance sheet of this experience is
that the leadership has proved (at best) hesitant to have a discussion with me
(or other comrades in a similar situation) on this question. During the
entire nine-month period, I was given the run-around, told conflicting
statements, promised unmet agendas, received with indifference and even
hostility, and never actually provided with a cordial discussion of the issue.
This conduct of the party leadership has actually hurt my pursuit of political
clarity. Thus, today I remain faced with more questions about the course of our
leadership than I did nine months ago.
Other issues have arisen. How can I
interpret the party leadership's conduct? Why has our party leadership
displayed such a hostile attitude towards me?
* *
*
I joined the party
10 years ago. I had just resigned from the Workers Unity Party (HVK), our
sister organization in Iran, a few weeks earlier, where I had been a member of
its Political Committee since its founding. I had resigned because of problems
of a personal nature, including a period of struggle with depression. These
problems made it increasingly difficult for me to function effectively in the
best interest of our party In retrospect, it is clear to me that I was not
alone in experiencing such difficulties. At least five other members of our
National committee of fifteen visited psychoanalysts and a few others probably
needed professional help. These problems were related to the deepening crisis
of the Iranian revolution and its impact on our small and weak organization.
Soon after its founding we began to experience a deepening crisis in our
leadership. At first, this took these took the form of organizational disputes.
Political differences began to appear. Leadership’s capacity to respond to
events was gradually reduced.
Communist norms of
functioning began to break down in the organization. Finally, the very same
political tendencies that we had fought against as we founded the HVK—ultra-left
sectarianism of the Socialist Workers Party (HKS) and opportunism of the HKE —surfaced
in our Political Committee. I found myself increasingly unable to confront
these problems. I therefore explained my situation to the HVK Political
Committee a year earlier and submitted my resignation to the party’s plenum in
July 1982.
I joined the SWP
in September of 1982 and immediately went on the Jobs Committee. My health
improved substantially in New York, and I decided that I can return to Iran to
rejoin the HVK.
The party
leadership, aware of my intentions, contacted the HVK leadership and informed
me that comrades in Iran had advised against my return. A couple of weeks later,
I was also informed that the HVK had been dissolved. This was in January 1983.
I agreed with the
party leadership that the best way I could contribute to rebuilding the Iranian
communist movement was to remain in the United States and continue as a member
of the SWP.
In addition to my
regular branch activities, I was also asked to contribute in various capacities
to the party’s work regarding Iran. The nature of these assignments changed. Earlier,
I was involved in discussions that led to tasks. Later, I was simply given
assignments to carry out various decisions the party leadership bodies had
agreed upon. The objective conditions for rebuilding HVK or a new communist
organization did not improve over time. The revolution was in decline, and the
working class was in retreat. My best hope was to help preserve our
revolutionary continuity by grouping former HVK leaders and cadre who still held
a communist perspective. I hoped this would place us in a position to help
build a communist organization in Iran as soon as opportunities presented
themselves. The best way to do this, I believed, was to ask any
revolutionary-minded Iranian to join the SWP or our sister organizations
elsewhere in the world. This would provide us with ways and means to
participate as communists in world politics. At the same time, we could have a
chance to reorient and reorganize ourselves to help rebuild a communist
movement in Iran. This appeared to be the only way to maintain the continuity
of the communist continuity in Iran. I simply assumed that the leadership of
the SWP and our world movement would play an indispensable role in the
collaborative effort to think through politically the difficult process that
lay ahead. There was significant progress along these lines. We recruited three
other former leaders and cadre of the HVK, as well as a few other Iranian
revolutionists. There was now a small number of communists who hoped to build
an organization in Iran.
There was a
qualitative change in the party’s work regarding Iran when comrade Malamud
joined the party some five years ago. He was soon nominated and elected to the National
Committee. The party created the Iran Committee, and comrade Malamud became centrally
involved in its work. He was also assigned to follow the course of the Iranian
revolution, to write articles for The Militant on the events in Iran, headed up
Pathfinder Farsi publication project, to carry on his study of the 1946 Azerbaijan
revolutionary government, to offer class series on the Iranian revolution and
the history- of the communist movement in Iran, to represent Pathfinder at the
Tehran International Book Fair, and most recently to tour the U.S. educating
the party and its supporters on the history and politics of Iran and the surrounding
region, as well as many other similar projects.
I think all this helped the party as well as the more distant aim of
building a communist organization in Iran.
However, the
decision to involve comrade Malamud and, indeed, to identify Iran's work with
him has also coincided with a a decision to exclude other former HVK cadre from
this aspect of party work. To avoid a possible misunderstanding, by the word
policy. I mean it as a mode of conduct rather than a well-worked-out, deliberate
plan. There is plenty of evidence for the former, and I have no way of knowing
about the latter. Furthermore, I should also explicitly state that this work
has been done and should be done under the direction of the elected leadership
of the SWP and our world movement.
But I will think
it is an instance of formal thinking if we conclude from this that former HVK
cadre who are not represented on these leadership bodies must be excluded from discussions
of our Iran work. There is no doubt in my mind that this formal and mechanical
mode of conduct has prevailed in our party leadership and has led to confusion,
estrangement, and further political mistakes. Let me offer a few examples.
Consider the case
of the Pathfinder’s sales trip to Iran. The it was conducted reflects a certain
ambiguity on the part of the leadership in handling Iran's work and a problem
in their attitude towards comrades who were former HVK cadres in the
party. One day, comrade Malamud called
to have lunch together. During lunch, he announced plans concerning the Tehran International
Book Fair. I was glad about this decision, which I considered to be a bold
move. I obviously had many questions about the trip, but I did not raise them.
And why should I? I have never been interested in hallway discussions of
serious political issues. If the leadership had considered my views on this
question necessary, they would have called upon me to be included in the
discussions leading to the decision. I only expressed some concern over the
safety of the comrade involved. As I learned later, comrades Amir and Samad
were also approached to be told of this decision. But why? Why was it necessary
to tell these three specific comrades about this decision? Are they different
from any other members of the party? (We remember, only two months later, the
same comrade Malamud attacked my proposal to include these three comrades in the
party’s Iran work as somehow not communist and asked me to rid myself of
national and political identities.) And if they are somehow considered a
special category of comrades, what kind of category are they? (We again
remember comrade Greg and Malamud called these comrades the opposition to
Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran International Book Fair) . If the
leadership thought these comrades might have a particular (communist) interest
in the matter, would it not be better to get them involved in such work and benefit
from their opinions and experiences? Would it not be a better way to integrate
them into the SWP (which seems to have been of some concern to our leadership)?
This policy of
exclusion has been combined with political indifference and carelessness. I
cite just one example. There are others. In 1988, The Militant carried a review
article on the Iranian revolution, which asserted that the character of the
1979 Iranian revolution was democratic and the Shah’s regime was landlord-based.
This represented a clear revision in our movement’s characterization of that
revolution as anti-capitalist and the Shah’s regime as capitalist. This change
was proclaimed and has never been explained to date. I immediately wrote a
letter to the Militant editor asking for an explanation and offering
some of my own thoughts on this question. I was told that a meeting will be
organized to discuss the issue. That meeting never took place. There has never
been any written explanation of this change. At the same time, comrades,
including comrade Malamud, have presented similar views on various occasions.
In his speech at the New York Militant Labor Forum last spring, Malamud claimed
that the bourgeois-democratic tasks of the Iranian revolution were largely completed
in the early months of 1979. He therefore took the earlier revision a step
further. In our June meeting, I asked him about this. He told me that this was
also Lenin’s opinion of the Russian revolution in April 1917! The tendency to
model the Iranian revolution of 1979 on the Russian revolution is evident. But
the differences far outweigh the similarities. Lenin’s statement, as we have
learned in our study of Lenin as well as of Trotsky’s The History of the
Russian Revolution was meant to win over the Bolshevik leadership and ranks
to the perspective that the new reality of the workers’ and soldiers’s soviets
posed a situation of dual power, an alternative power of workers and
peasant alliance, that can and should take power into its own hands from
the coalition of Menshevik and Social Revolutionary compromisers and the
bourgeoisie: a realizable task as it was ultimately accomplished in
October thanks to the now reoriented Bolshevik leadership. It was in
this sense that we have understood Lenin’s argument that “bourgeois
democratic tasks” of the Russian revolution were accomplished by April
of 1917. Historical bourgeois democratic tasks of the revolution were carried
out after the October revolution. Could comrade Malamud find an analogy between
this situation and the 1979 Iranian revolution? Was there any form of dual
power in place in Iran in the early months of 1979 or at any time after that?
Was the February 1979 revolution similar to the February 1917 revolution in terms
of its leadership? Was the transfer of power from the Shah’s regime to the
Khomeini-Bazargan coalition government similar to the fall of the Tsarist
regime and transfer of power to the Russian bourgeoisie through the medium of
the compromisers? Which one of the historic bourgeois democratic tasks of the Iranian
revolution was actually accomplished in the early months of 1979, and under
whose leadership?
What is at
issue here is not, of course, whether comrade Malamud or The Militant are wrong
in their views, although I think they are. Here we are concerned with the party
leadership’s method. It is politically counter-productive to float such important
revisions in the party without an adequate (written) explanation and
discussion. And this has not happened yet. I would very much welcome such a
discussion. In fact, I would favor a critical re-examination of our entire
experience in Iran. But it is precisely this discussion that has been postponed
not only in the party but also with comrades who lived through that experience.
I think the party as well as our entire movement can benefit from a serious
discussion of the character of the Iranian revolution and its history, as well
as our successes and failures to build a proletarian communist organization in
Iran, as we have learned from collective discussions around revolutions in Grenada,
Nicaragua, and South Africa (I do not wish in any way to ignore the leadership differences
between the Iranian revolution and these revolutions. Still, there are valuable
lessons for us in the Iranian experience).
Thus, I welcomed
the decision by the party to print HVK’s position on the Iran—Iraq war in the
New International number 7. I was glad to see that the party has organized a
class on the history of the Iranian communist movement during the 1990 party
convention in Chicago. I thought comrade Malamud, a founder of that movement,
could illuminate important aspects of our experience for the party. I attended
it myself with an open ear to learn a thing or two (We had never any occasion
to discuss our past common party building experience together since we moved to
the U.S.) . However, I found, to my surprise, comrade Malamud’s presentation
factually deficient and politically mistaken. He left out entire aspects of our
experience in which he did not participate, or where he did participate, that
proved a mistake. For instance, he excluded the first political crisis in HKE
entirely: the wholesale expulsion of 24 leaders and members of the HKE, who had
just organized themselves in the Faction for Trotskyist Unification (FTU), in
the Spring of 1980. They were, in the majority, workers, members of oppressed nationalities
(i.e., the entire Tabriz branch), and youth recruited in Iran. Indeed, comrade
Malamud did not agree with these comrades at that time when they protested HKE’s
support for the Islamic Cultural Revolution, a fancy cover for purging the
universities of opponents of Khomeini’s regime, which led to the closing down
of the university for over two years and eventually destroyed all independent
student organizations. But comrade Malamud later reversed his position and
voted with the SWP leadership and the entire United Secretariat of the Fourth International
to condemn these expulsions, and called on the HKE leadership to reverse them.
Comrade Malamud’s
presentation also did not include any discussion of the HVK crisis. We were
told that the HVK, led by a self-confident communist leadership, dissolved in
the face of government repression. In fact, the HVK was destroyed as a
communist organization well before its formal dissolution.
Again, what is at
issue is not the inadequacy of comrade Malamud’s presentation. Our
leadership’s policy has led to a situation in which it has become natural to
view comrade Malamud's views on Iran as the party's official views and the voice
of the communist experience in Iran. In our June meeting, when I expressed
differences with comrade Malamud’s presentation on the history of the Iranian
communist movement, comrade Greg found it necessary to tell me that I have
therefore disagreed with the party leadership’s view of that history. But how
could we have an official view of the experience to build a communist party in
Iran? There are histories that we read, recommend, and promote, such as
Trotsky’s The History of the Russian Revolution or Cannon’s various writings on
the history of the communist movement in the U., S. But none of these are
official histories of our class or our movement. They are authoritative
histories written by leading participants, which we think actually reflect a
communist appraisal of our class and our movement. What is more, these
histories have emerged from discussion and debates and are based on documents.
Comrade Malamud’s history has yet to be presented in written form. Why should
we rush to make it the “leadership view” and “official”? Has there been any
discussion in the party leadership on the experiences of the Iranian communist
movement? If so, why have there not been any attempts to involve other comrades
in the party who were leading participants in this experience?
These are just
a sample of problems with our leadership’s conduct of our Iran work over the
years. The party has taken a few important steps in its Iran work as I have
already acknowledged. But the party leadership has increasingly excluded me (as
well as other comrades) from participating as equals in this work. Comrade
Malamud and other comrades in the party leadership have been aware of at least
some aspects of this problem. I for one have raised some of these with comrades
as they have occurred. But there have been no steps taken to correct or at
least explain this course. In fact, my search for a discussion of this problem
has led not to a comradely discussion but to an increasing level of hostility
from leadership. The situation, therefore, has taken a turn for the worse.
* *
*
I am faced with
the following situation. First, the party leadership has increasingly excluded
former HVK cadre, who have joined the party with an explicit intention to help
build an independent communist organization in Iran, from our systematic Iran
work. Second, in the past nine months, I have sought without success to gain an
opportunity to discuss with the party leadership our approach to the building
of a communist organization in Iran. Third, I have been subject to a pattern of
indifferent, even hostile conduct that is not compatible with comradely
relations based on mutual trust and respect. This has accumulated in the three
decisions of the Political Bureau delivered to me on September 12.
What is to be
done? Could I simply close my eyes and pretend the whole thing has just been a
nightmare? Twice, in our meetings, it has been suggested to me that I could
write about any of this in the party’s preconvention discussion bulletin. This
would seem as reasonable as self- evident. However, this suggestion overlooks a
fundamental fact: our leadership has systematically refused to address the
issues in dispute. The party leadership has not documented its reasons for its
revision of our earlier positions on the character of the Shah’s regime and the
Iranian revolution. Comrade Malamud has not yet written anywhere about his
history of the Iranian communist movement. The party leadership has not offered
its views on how comrades like myself could go about the problem of building a
communist organization in Iran while building the SWP in a written form or
otherwise. Thus, to ask me to write in the preconvention discussion
bulletins about my differences with the party leadership on any of these
questions place the burden of what the leadership’s responsibility on the
shoulders of a comrade who has approached the leadership because he did not
know of their views (he obviously considered it essential to consult)!
In fact, the
character of this letter (indeed, the letter itself) has been imposed on me
precisely because of our leadership’s default to lead on a complex question. It
is this leadership default that has forced me to document the verbal, erratic,
and hostile conduct of what could have been a fruitful discussion. I hesitated
to write this letter precisely because I had to cite comrades' verbal
statements from such meetings. This is a daunting task, partly because of
possible excesses on the part of comrades involved, which are inherent in such
situations, and partly because it places undue responsibility on me to
represent (as accurately as possible) the content and form of comrades’ views
and actions. These are rather unusual circumstances in any communist
organization.
Furthermore, if
the party leadership has displayed such a lack of interest, indeed hostility,
in dealing with this issue so far, how can I hope to have a better response
from them in the discussion bulletins? Would there be a dispute on exactly
what any given comrade said and did in this rather complicated process? Who
would the party believe? Its leadership or a comrade who has been accused of
disloyal conduct by its leadership. And how about my own sense integrity and
self— respect? How about mutual trust and respect, the bedrock of any communist
collaboration? This is a tall order that certainly inhibits anyone from taking
the issues to the party. Let us not forget, I have been after political clarity
and collaboration on how to move in the direction of building an independent
communist organization in Iran not polemics with the party leadership or
undermining its authority.
Finally, if the Political
Bureau's first decision stands, then we are not doing any systematic work
regarding Iran. This is our policy. This ends the discussion. Should I protest
this decision?
I do not
believe I should. The central task of any communist party is to help the entire
class lead the revolution and transformation of society and economy. The coming
revolution in the United States remains the central concern of the SWP. As an
internationalist party, the SWP would help, if requested and possible, with the
process of formation of any sister communist organization, including one in
Iran. Meanwhile, building a communist organization in Iran remains the task of
Iranian communist workers and youth.
In 1983, I, along
with the party leadership, believed it was both possible and fruitful to devote
some party resources to ongoing collaborative efforts to rebuild our fractured
movement in Iran. I had been convinced that our experience as Iranian
revolutionaries who organized ourselves separately from the SWP in the United
States in the 1970s had reduced our participation as communists in the living
U.S. politics to a minimum. This fact hurt our own goal of building a communist
organization in Iran. It was on the basis of this experience that I supported
the idea that all communists in the U.S. should join the SWP even if they
belonged to other revolutionary organizations (e.g. the African National
Congress) or even if they hoped to work towards building an independent
communist organization in some future date (e.g. Iranian communists who live in
the U.S.).
Ten years later,
however, I am unsure if this experiment has proved successful. I have learned a
great deal through the party’s participation in many struggles in the U.S. I
have learned a lot about the party and how it functions. It was my first
experience in a proletarian party with fractions active in major unions (Our
experience in Iran with the turn was different in many ways and we have never
drawn a balance sheet of that experience). These have been rich experiences
that far supersede my earlier opportunities to learn about proletarian
communist organization and politics.
I have identified
myself and my political life with that of the party for the past ten years;
serving as a consistent and reliable foot-soldier of the New York branch:
taking part in every party campaign, a regular in branch meetings, plant—gate
sales, circulation drives, weekly forums, financial efforts, Pathfinder Mural
security, the fight to win justice for Mark Curtis, and so on. And yet, it
seems the leadership does not view me as a fully qualified SWP comrade. This
was implied in comrade Malamud's abstract deductions in our June 24 meeting,
and comrade Norton explicitly suggested it in our September 12 meeting. In that
meeting, faced with evidence of further leadership hostility, I asked comrade
Norton and Steve what the party leadership suggests I should do, as I am not
interested in challenging the leadership but in seeking its advice and
collaboration. Comrade Norton offered his advice: “Integrate yourself in the
party.” This in fact goes to the heart of the matter. I should have asked him
exactly how. What does it take to satisfy comrade Norton and our leadership
that I have passed the test and could finally be considered “an integrated
member of the SWP?” How long has our leadership considered me “not
integrated in the party?” Why has no one discussed it with me before? Has this
assessment contributed to the leadership’s course to exclude me from our
systematic Iran work? Does it help to explain its conduct in recent months?
As a member of the party, it is
true that I have not been available to the jobs committee (except for the first
four months of my membership, when I was active on the jobs committee in the
midst of the 1982 recession), and I have been unable to relocate. I am aware
that these decisions have limited my contributions to building a communist
party in the U.S. I have taken this decision after carefully reviewing my
situation and potential contributions I could make to the party and our movement,
and I take full responsibility for my decisions. Is this why comrade Norton suggested
that I am not integrated in the party? But there are other comrades in the
party, indeed in my branch as well as in our National Committee [such as
comrade Malamud], who are in a similar situation. Would comrade Norton and our
party leadership treat them like they have treated me?
What has set me
apart from the rest of the comrades has been my perspective to help build a
communist organization in Iran. For me, and perhaps others former HVK cadre, everyday
tasks of party building must have been combined with a systematic series of
discussions and activities that would have led in the direction of building an
independent communist organization in Iran. It is this aspect, my “integration”
in the SWP party that has been lacking. Except for a brief early period, I have
increasingly felt distant from leadership discussions and party activities
concerning the task that has been central to me and a few other comrades in the
party. While, I am sure this policy has been carried out with the best of
intentions, i.e. , to help “integrate” comrades of an Iranian origin” in the
SWP as members like everyone else, it has proved a formal and mechanical approach
to the problem of integration of such revolutionaries in the party and helping
to nurture the building of a self—confident communist cadre for the next
Iranian revolution.
The case of
comrade Malamud offers positive proof of my argument. Comrade Malamud, who was
nominated and elected to our leadership almost as soon as he joined the party,
is certainly considered fully integrated into the SWP. He has been centrally involved
in what has been his life’s work, to help build a communist party in Iran.
Could his “integration”; in the SWP have been as successful if he were barred
from discussion and decisions to rebuild an Iranian communist organization?
The Political
Bureau’s first decision states that the party has no systematic approach to
Iran. This must be a new decision. The whole conduct of the party over the past
several years, including Pathfinder’s participation in the Tehran International
Book Fair, indicated otherwise. Even in our June 24 meeting, comrades Malamud
and Greg did not deny systematic Iran work but merely argued that it is the
concern of the leadership, but not the ranks, i.e., me. Comrade Greg went even
further to tell me that there is, in fact, a select leadership body that
directs this work. Still, the Political Bureau’s decision is the decision of
our party leadership, and I must abide by it.
In this context, I
have decided to resign from the party’s membership. This is not an act of “free
will,” as comrade Norton seemed to imply in our September 12 meeting when I
suggested this alternative, as I hope this letter explains. This is also not an
easy decision, one that I take lightly. I consider the SWP as the communist
party in the United States, and indeed, the most direct link to our communist
heritage. I have also come to admire our comrades as selfless fighters for
socialism. I will therefore remain an ardent party supporter despite the differences
I have just expressed. I only hope to be able to join in the party's everyday
activities as opportunities arise. Of course, this presupposes a return to the
situation of mutual comradely trust and respect. I also hope to do as much as I
can to contribute to the fight for the continuity of communism in Iran. It is
necessary to help lay the foundation for the next generation of revolutionaries
in Iran who will emerge out of the world capitalist crisis and its already
heavy impact on the crisis-ridden Islamic Republic of Iran. Our experience in
the party has proved how the vitality of such a determined layer of
revolutionary youth can rejuvenate the party. Today, it is this revolutionary
youth, standing on the shoulders of generations of fighters for socialism, who
provide us will a glimpse of what the future can bring.
Comradely,
Nader
