Workers Communist Party of Iran

[Brownfist]

I dont know if you have noticed this party in the sea of parties at any given protest, but are the Workers Communist Party of Iran really communist? I know that they claim to accept the works of Marx, but after Marx they believe that only their founder Mansoor Hekmat is a real communist. They are quite provacative and have started many fights at rallies. Do people have any thoughts on this party?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Sounds to me like a stalinist style party... I don't think this government would be built for the people as much as it would be built on them...

[emokid08]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker-Communist_Party_of_Iran

[Edelweiss]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 10:34 PM
Sounds to me like a stalinist style party... I don't think this government would be built for the people as much as it would be built on them...
They are not Stalinist at all, but rather left-communist. For me, the WP Iran and the WP Iraq are the most pregressive forces in the region, if you let their stupid leader cult aside.

[LoneRed]

ya on the other hand the communist party of Iraq is a class collaborationist party, working with the US and coalition forces to "end" the war.

[Brownfist]

Wouldnt parties like the Communist Party of Iran (MLM) be more progressive than the WP Iran considering the fact that they are not a disaporic party like the WP Iran, and they have been indirectly/directly involved in guerrila struggle against the Islamic regime? But, I guess from people's responses they do consider the WP Iran a communist party albeit predicated on a cultism of Mansoor Hekmat. Also, it seems that people are familiar with the party and could suggest that they do have a North American prescence. That is interesting because I have met with other members of the Iranian left community who strongly argue that the WP Iran is not a communist party.

[Wanted Man]

Hekmatites? Yuck. Here is some criticism of them.

http://www.toufan.org/toufanint/toufan20.pdf

[Brownfist]

Yeah the Hekmatists are an interesting party, with very weird views. I have even heard that some members of the party advocate an American intervention in Iran to kick out the Islamic Regime. Also, has anyone spent any time reading the works of Mansour Hekmat? I am going to try to spend a little bit of time reading his stuff, and make a better evaluation of him and his theories. I am pretty suspicious of him and his party.

[Wanted Man]

I think they're the people who nominally oppose both imperialism and islamism, but have already accepted the American puppet government and want to work within it to bring about change. If anyone can find a quote by them advocating an invasion of Iran, I'd like to see it. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

[rebelworker]

I think the politics of their members is a bit all over the place.

They had a small contingant from ottawa at the May Day demo in montreal last year.

Some of their members have been in contact with nefac and are intersted in anarchist communism, most leftists from Iran I have met have never heard of it but have show a good bit of interest in the ideas once exposed. On the other hand some of thier older members were very hard line about their vanguardism and party centralisation.
There was a bit of a debate in the street between me, a friend, some of the younger memebrs of their party and a few older ones.

Anyway, hekmet was shcooled in Britan where he got turned on to Trotskyism, then went on to write his own strange brand of Marxism. There has been a split in the organisation in Iraq around suicide bombing and other issues of armed struggle.

There also seems to be some tendancies who are more influenced by council communism, while others are closer to stalinism.

Defenitly the cult of personality is no differnet than most of the marxist parties active in the west.
I think this is just a somewhat enevitable consequence of thaving a very centralised party structure, If your politics are supposed to come from on high then a personality cult of whoever is coming up with the direction is eventually going to be a internal cultural side effect of this. It a kind of self justification for following the party line and not having input, The leader is great, Its ok to follow. You question the leader too much and the group just wont function, this is were all the splits in the trotskyist movement come from, you cant challenge an idea without challenging the whole working of the party, the only alternative i to follow a new idea/leader.

Ive personally had a much better experience with non centralised descisionmaking, its much more responsive to changing situations, sythesizes many different schools of though for better results and generally groups tend to hold togeather a bit better.
Everyone is a bit better critical thinker because they have to be, it matters.

An Iranian friend of mine who was active in the communist guerilla movement in Iran was swayed to anarchist communism because of his bad experience with unreponsive leadership and the mistakes they make that ends up costing the rank and file of the party, often with their lives.