How Jack Barnes' SWP Tried to Build a Supporters Group in Iran

 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. 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 they called “the enemy of the party.” My political life as a socialist, which they knew well, would have belied such an accusation.  

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?

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.

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