Since April 15, the Tehran government has launched, on the command of the Council of the Islamic Revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini, its second large-scale military offensive against the Kurdish revolution.
The previous offensive, which lasted from August to October 1979, ended with the political and military defeat of the forces under the command of the Council of the Revolution. Then, the Ayatollah Khomeini personally asked the “Kurdish brothers” to “pardon those who had unjustly slandered them,” and the Tehran regime concluded a ceasefire and started up negotiations with representatives of the Kurdish resistance.
The Kurdish resistance organizations asked for a statute giving broad autonomy to all the Kurdish regions, within the framework of the Islamic Republic. They demanded the withdrawal of the Pasdars and the Persian police from Kurdistan and elections in Kurdistan for a representative body which would deal with questions under its competence.
It was the rejection of this autonomy plan, the sabotage of negotiations, and the reinforcement of the government military forces (Pasdars, army, and police) that led to the launching of the new military attack.
Kurdish leaders have stated their approval several times for the occupation of the American embassy. They have restated, even after the fighting had restarted, that they would defend the regime, born out of the February 1979 insurrection, against any imperialist intervention or reactionary coup d’etat. However, the central Tehran government has used the tension stirred up on its frontiers by the reactionary Iraqi Baathist regime in order to justify sending significant military forces into Kurdistan, and it also laid the provocation which was used to unleash the second offensive.
The Ayatollah Montazeri and the president of the republic, Bani-Sadr, explained that the struggle in Kurdistan will be continued until the “final victory”—until the army and the Pasdars have “cleaned up the whole region.”
The Kurdish resistance organizations have been outlawed. They have not been allowed to stand candidates in elections. An economic blockade, which includes foodstuffs and medicines, has been erected against Kurdistan. Outside of any little cover-up maneuvers, all this shows the aims of the central Tehran government. July 14, 1980
The military attacks concentrated against the towns in south Kurdistan have already resulted in several thousand dead and wounded. Some towns such as Sanandaj and Baneh have been devastated by artillery shells and air attacks. At the time of the Sanandaj siege the numbers of refugees were counted in the dozens of thousands.
The Stakes Involved in the Civil War
The Kurdish question crystallizes two central problems for the future of the Iranian revolution.
First of all, the deepening radicalization of the Kurdish mass movement is expressed just as much in the peasant mobilizations, the occupation and distribution of land, as in the massive arming of the population, and the appearance of various types of committees (shoras and baqgehsneighborhood committees).
Secondly, the Kurdish people’s struggle directly puts into question the ability of the bourgeois nationalist Khomeini/Bani- Sadr leadership to reconstruct and consolidate the bourgeois state.
For these two reasons, the Iranian government has made the Kurdish question the touchstone of its ability to govern the whole of Iran. That relates above all to the efficiency of the Iranian army and the Pasdar corps, as well as to the mainte nance of “territorial” integrity faced with the demands of the oppressed peoples of the Iranian state.
The experience of the first August- October 1979 war and the extremely strong defiance of the Kurdish population to the central Tehran government are factors which consolidate even more the very large popular support enjoyed by the Kurdish political organizations (Kurdish Democratic Party, Komaleh, Fedayeen, Political Bureau of the Sheikh Ezzedin Hosseini). This is particularly expressed in their increased military capacity to resist such an important and long offensive. Therefore, the Kurdish national movement appears as the most advanced point of the movements mobilizing the different oppressed nationalities in Iran.
The latest confrontations in Kurdistan have not had all the effects hoped for by the Tehran regime. Even if the besieged towns in south Kurdistan have been finally taken after the Peshmergas [guerrilla fighters] and the Kurdish militia had decided to retreat to the mountains, the fighting has accentuated the crisis in the heart of the army and police force whose basic cadre, nostalgic for the old regime, remain hostile to the Khomeini/Bani-Sadr government.
Given the political and social instability in Iran, given the precedent of the February popular insurrection, and given the execution of several dozen officers guilty of torture and assassinations, the officers still refuse today to commit themselves too closely to a regime whose future to them doesn’t appear completely guaranteed. In addition, there are many soldiers who have shown some sympathy with the Kurdish people’s struggle.
If the multiplication of cases of insubordination, desertion, and lack of zeal in carrying out of orders hasn’t resulted in a real decomposition of the regular army, it does explain why Tehran has chosen to present itself much more discreetly in the pursuit of its military operations in Kurdistan.
Faced with a government which explains that the Kurds play the game of imperialism, if not being its direct agents, it is necessary to recall the fundamental positions of revolutionary Marxists.
The Fourth International reaffirms its solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people to liberate itself totally from the shackles of imperialism.
It denounces and struggles against all the economic, military, and political measures that imperialism takes against the Iranian revolution to attack the legitimate aspirations of the working masses.
Throughout the world, members of the Fourth International will organize mass solidarity with the Iranian people to paralyze the arm of imperialism. In Iran, they participate in the struggle of the workers, peasants, and oppressed masses for the defense, by their own methods of action and organization, of the present Tehran government faced with the threat of a reactionary coup d’etat or an imperialist military intervention.
But one of the best means of defending the Iranian revolution is precisely to support the Kurdish revolution. To refuse to recognize the rights of all the oppressed nationalities of the Iranian state is to divide the ranks of the workers and oppressed masses against imperialism.
To refuse to recognize the rights of poor peasants to the land, the right of the Kurdish people to arm themselves and to organize their struggle independently and to guarantee and deepen the gains of the Iranian revolution, is to play the game of imperialism and of all people nostalgic for a return to the old regime.
By attacking nationalities mobilizing for the recognition of their rights or peasants occupying their land; by threatening workers who are trying to push forward their demands while multinational trusts maintain their interests in Iran; by organizing the sacking of universities and physical 735 attacks against the Iranian left organizations; and by threatening democratic rights for which the Iranian people paid a rather heavy price—the Khomeini/Bani- Sadr leadership is serving the counterrevolution and is in contradiction to an effective struggle against imperialism.
That is why the Fourth International reaffirms its fullest solidarity with the struggle of the Kurdish masses.
Immediate withdrawal of the Pasdars and army from the whole of Kurdistan! For the immediate satisfaction of all the political, economic, and social demands of the Kurdish movement!
For the liberation of all Kurdish and progressive militants who are imprisoned! For the unconditional, immediate recognition of the right to self-determinationincluding the right to the separation of the Kurdish people and other oppressed nationalities from the Iranian state!
Long live the Kurdish revolution!
Support the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian masses!