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United States did not want Iraq, a longtime ally of the Soviet Union, to control the Iranian oil fields, they approved of the Iraqi military offensive to crush the Iranian revolution.

Khomeini's counterrevolution

During the first few months of the war, there were massive mobilizations inside Iran to defend the revolution. Men, women, and young people volunteered. Fedayeen and Mojahedeen members participated. Even the Kurdish people, who were under attack by the Iranian government, were ready to fight Party (IRP), the fundamentalists' combat party, consolidated its power having out-maneuvered then-President Bani Sadr. The Mojahedeen insurrection against this creeping coup by the mullahs was mercilessly stamped out in an unprecedented wave of mass executions. The IRP recovered from the cycle of violence which left its most capable leaders its leading cadre inside Iran in February and March of 1982.

The war between Iran and Iraq also played an important role in stabilizing the Islamic Republic. Richard Cottan writes in the January 1984 issue of Current History magazine:

"The Khomeini regime had indeed lost support in Iran since early 1979. In fact, by September 1980, when the Iraq attack occurred, the regime was probably down to its core support. It had lost the support of ethnic communities that adhere to Sunni Islam and was badly weakened in the large and important Turkish-speaking Azeri community. It had purged and hence alienated the large, secular-minded middle class. And it generated little strong support in Persian-speaking rural areas. Its intense support was mainly in the lower and lowercountries. The continuation of the war is not in the interest of the workers and toilers of Iran or Iraq. They have nothing to gain from a military victory of one side over the other.

A victory for the workers and peasants of Iran and Iraq is only possible through the defeat of the Saddam Hussein and the IRP governments at the hands of their own workers and peasants. Working people in the United States must demand that the imperialist governments stay out of the Persian Gulf region.

• End the fighting now!

• Imperialists out of the Gulf!

middle class sections Persian-speaking urban areas."

By September 1981, the Iraqis were being driven back from Iranian territory. Iraqi military officials conceded that they had lifted the siege of Abadan and were being pushed over the Karun river.

By April 1982, after a massive offensive, Iranian forces had decisively broken the stalemate in the war and were advancing rapidly. The Islamic Republic's confidence soared as Iraq and the Arab Gulf states cowered. Iran's President Khameini exclaimed, "The Arabs should know that we are the most powerful country in the area."

By now, Sadam Hussein was anxiously looking for a way out of the war on terms which would allow him to stay in power. But the war had been much too good for the Iranian regime: (1) It had provided the furnace in which to forge its armed forces-above all the Revolutionary Guards and Mobilization Corps. (2) It had kept the army, the only organized alternative to the clergy, out of Teheran politics. (3) It had generated an atmosphere of national unity under clerical hegemony which countered demands for social improvement.

The land reform, for example, was one of the first victims of the war. The land that had been seized by the peasants was gradually returned to its former owners. The massive migration of peasants to the cities-dwarfing the flight from the land which took place under the Shah-is mute testimony to the paralysis of Iranian agriculture.

A similar process has taken place in the factories. During the period of revolutionary instability, the regime cultivated controlled mobilizations of the workers, and through a process of purging unreliable elements and promoting loyal ones, consolidated its hold over the Islamic factory organizations, gradually depriving them of any independent character. This was accompanied by the implementation of totally reactionary labor legislation.

Iran's political stabilization has been accompanied by a dramatic economic recovery-based on oil profits-which has increased the gap between rich and poor. In next month's issue of Socialist Action we will survey Iran's foreign policy and its growing trade and financial ties with the imperialist centers. Future articles in this series will analyze the status of women and of the oppressed nationalities, as well as the state of the opposition currents inside Iran.

Socialist Action April 1984

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dead, and dealt its death blow to the Mojahedeen by capturing and executing