Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran on May Day International Workers’ Day (2018)

We are approaching May Day, international solidarity day of the working class. On this day, workers of all countries, show class consciousness, awareness of the conditions of their lives, work and struggle, and awareness of the way out of the oppression and exploitation of the capitalist system. The workers show that the exploitative and oppressive system of capitalism is not eternal, and that capitalism is not the end of history. Workers of the world on this day emphasize on their international solidarity and the global struggle of the working class to overthrow the capitalist slavery system. May 1st, workers' day is a call for hundreds of millions of men and women workers of every nationality, race and color to stop the wheels of production in a joint action on this day, to set up a global strike, and to confront the capitalist class and its supportive governments by raising their most urgent demands.

In Iran, the growing struggles of the working class over the past decade has had enormous gains for the working class. The limited economic achievements of these struggles do not change the fact that this movement has had valuable moral and political achievements and outcomes for the working class. The strikes have shown the power of unity to the workers; workers have learned to respond to the invasion of capital with united struggles; they have figured out how much capital is afraid of organized workers. Without this struggle and without this movement, the working class would have been frustrated and without a vision. Over the course of more than a decade of active struggles, which have had a political character, Iran's working class identity has expanded its base more than any other stage in history. Without the growing labor protests and strikes over the past decade, and in particular over the past few years, and its effects on the political climate of the society, the countrywide uprising by the Iranian masses in late December 2017 that continued into 2018, would not have happened in such stunning dimensions. This protest and strike movement shows that the working class has not lost hope for change and this has provided the proper grounds for the growth and advancement of the socialist movement of the working class.

These achievements and massive class struggles against capitalists have been at the cost of workers’ lives. They have paid the price of fighting for freedom and for a better life by mass expulsions, enduring whipping and being deprived of their activists and leaders who are locked up behind bars and in torture and death cells. But despite this oppression, there is no power capable of breaking down workers’ struggles, these internal enemy of the Islamic capitalist state of Iran because the ruling capitalist class and the Islamic state are alive only with the workforce of the workers. There is no power that can crush millions of workers who are increasingly gaining class consciousness and are becoming united and organized.

The process of events in Iran, the multiple crises and bottlenecks that the regime has been facing, and regime’s helplessness of controlling these crises and its inability to bring about even partial improvement in the lives of the deprived masses, has made inevitable the awakening of workers and expansion of labor and mass struggles. The continuation of neoliberal policies on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the disclosure of embezzlement cases, the theft of thousands of billions of Tomans, the disclosure of the horrific crimes the regime has committed against the Iranian people, as well as the heavy expenses of its military intervention and support for terrorist groups in the Middle East, while more than 50 percent of Iranian people live below the poverty line, has made it more clear for the Iranian people how rotten the criminal Islamic regime in Iran is. This situation has made various sections of the working class sensitive to political issues and matters. These conditions necessitate the development and promotion of working class organization in order to be able to advance a more united and far more determined struggle.

Only the organized and class-conscious working class is able to undermine the grim regime of the Islamic Republic and the capitalist system in line with the demands of workers and people in Iran. Only the organized working class characterized by class consciousness can thwart the efforts of the colorful forces of the bourgeois opposition of Iran and the big capitalist powers to disrupt the struggles of the Iranian people and to stifle revolutionary developments there. Under current conditions, the spread of ongoing labor protests and strikes and active involvement in these struggles is the only realistic way to promote the socialist consciousness among the workers and to help set up workers class and mass organizations. The socialist activists of the labor movement, with their active participation in the advancement of these struggles, can attract the attention of as many as possible of the progressive activists of the labor movement to the necessity of organizing in a communist organization.

Comrade workers! Let’s try to hold independent and significant rallies and gatherings on May Day with great energy and passion and boycott the state-sponsored ceremonies. Let the message of May Day reach more people in Iran by raising workers' demands and emphasizing on society’s demand for freedom. Let May Day rallies and gatherings bring thousands of new fighters to the workers' liberation cause and increase our forces in the massive fight for the emancipation of all the working class and the liberation of the Iranian people from corruption and the evil of the Islamic Republic and from the yoke of capital!

The Communist Party of Iran hails workers’ glorious protests as well as all the efforts and activities that are done ahead of International Workers’ Day and congratulates all the workers around the world on the occasion of May Day, the symbol of workers’ class and international solidarity.