An assessment of the November uprising

A triple increase in the petrol price to 30,000 rials a litre (about 0.27 dollar) – which was announced at midnight – led to a massive protest from early hours of Friday 15 November and spread across the country quickly. The nationwide protest against the hike in the petrol price immediately turned into a protest against the regime’s leaders and the totality of the ruling power. The accumulated anger and discontent, which was like a dormant volcano for a while, suddenly erupted to set fire to the existence of the Islamic Republic regime.

The society has been like a barrel of explosive for years. The very tough economic conditions, rising prices, unprecedented and uncontrollable inflation, vast unemployment, deteriorating livelihood, misery, hunger and poverty which has undermined the majority of the working people is now beyond the people’s endurance. One the one side, tens of millions of workers, toilers, futureless youth and the unemployed are falling into the pit of poverty and hardship, and on the other side, a minority of parasites are amassing money and windfall fortune and enjoy living in fancy palaces and outlandish luxury. Sheer corruption and the disappearance of billions of dollars, which are the product of the working people’s labour, has become routine, and this has left no doubt that the regime and its leaders are rotten to the core, and that plague must be overthrown. While the big majority of the society live in hardship, billions of dollars robbed by the regime are spent in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria to finance Shia Islamist groups or religious institutions and the extension of superstitions.

Along with the dire economic conditions, the political area has become more closed, and harsher repression is being used. Workers, teachers, students, women, writhers, civil rights activists, environmentalists etc. are arrested, imprisoned and tortured for simple activities and protests. Many of these activists have been sentenced to long prison terms.

In this extremely polarised society, the working class and the poor can no longer tolerate the situation. Confrontation between the ruling class and the political regime which protect interests of that class, on the one hand, and working class and the poor, on the other hand, has intensified more than ever before. The strife has reached a critical point so that any small or big incidents may lead to an explosion.

The outburst of anger due to the hike in petrol prices happened in this context. The masses have learned by experience that a rise in petrol price will extend to other goods and services. They have felt with their flesh and blood that their living conditions have fallen in 40 years of the disgraceful Islamic regime. As experience shows, the petrol price hike will adversely impact the people’s livelihood and economy. Petrol was a mere impulse that incited poor and working masses to rise to settle their account with the 40-year reactionary rule.

In fact, the new revolutionary era started with the mass uprising in January 2018. This wave continued despite all ups and downs of the people’s struggles. Following the January uprising, we had vast street protests in summer 2018. Ahvaz steel workers and Haft-Tappeh workers happened in October and November 2018. We had major strikes in Haft-Tappeh, as well as frequent demonstrations by Hepco and Azarab workers in Arak, which are ongoing. November 2019 uprising, though is an extension of the January 2018 struggle and is highly similar to it, has its own characteristics which distinguish it from previous fightbacks. Let’s see what these similarities and dissimilarities are.

A very important characteristic of both January 2018 and November 2019 uprisings were their complete independence of the regime’s factions. “Reformists, Principle-ists, the story is over!” This was a main slogan in January which was voiced again. Both spread fast across the country and targeted the regime’s leaders, including Khamenei and Rouhani and the totality of the dictatorship. This orientation is seen in the slogans such as “death to Khamenei” and “death to the dictator” and was manifested in the act of setting fire to Khamenei’s pictures. Both immediately turned into a political battle.

Another similarity was the class base and demands of the protesters. Urban toilers, the youth, the jobless people, women, workers, the poor, residents of shantytowns were the main drive of these struggles for job, bread and freedom. More people from petty bourgeoisie and the poor participated in the 2019 as compared to the previous one. This shows larger parts of population have been hammered under economic pressures and the policies of the regime, and have been pushed to lower classes. Millions of young people and the unemployed, even university graduates, live on a car and by transporting merchandise or passengers. Other millions do the same job by just a motorbike. Evidently, tripled petrol price interrupt the normal life of these people, and more clearly these people would be at the forefront of protests against the hike in the petrol price.

On the other hand, we can highlight these characteristics which mark the November 2019 uprising from its predecessor.

The 2019 movement was much broader and a larger number of people engaged in it. Many towns and cities which were absent in the previous uprising appeared on the stage. Mass protests and riots erupted in more than 100 towns and cities in 22 provinces, and turned into a nationwide movement with a higher speed and even spread to Tehran. Deputy Commander of the Guards Ali Fadavi confessed that 28 provinces and more than 100 towns and cities were involved. In January 2019, only one district in the cities witnessed the protests while people in multiple districts staged rallies this time. For instance, demonstrations happened in Khorasan square, Shush square, Tehran Pars, Sattar Khan, Vali Asr, Mirdamad, Sadeqieh (Aryashahr) and some highways in Tehran and blocked roads. The sporadic demonstrations and blocking the roads not only strengthened the protests but also reduced the regime’s forces mobility. The protests in 2018 mostly were at nights to prevent the regime from identifying the protesters. This time, the protests happened round-the-clock. The people destroyed and disabled CCTVs in city centres. They took down the flag of the regime in Ahvaz and Tehran. The protests were so massive and large and some tactics such as blocking roads were so effective that schools, universities and some state departments were closed down, and the protest movement took a more general characteristic.

The new methods and forms of struggle is the most prominent difference between November 2019 and January 2018. This is true that street protests were the main form but this came along with attacks on the centres of suppression and oppression. Several buildings of the paramilitary Basij Organisation, the Guards, the police, offices of Friday prayer leaders and other centres for the propagation of religious superstitions were set to fire. By attacking these centres, as well as banks, the people showed their hatred of the ruling theocratic regime. Adopting more radical methods and burning banks and religious centres reveals the people’s consciousness and knowledge of close ties between these centres and the organs of oppression. Exploited masses exhibited their deep wrath of the capitalist system and its financial institutions and their hatred of the apparatus which protect the capitalist relationship. Not only the radicalisation of the struggle is a distinction between this battle and that of 2018, the people’s offensive mood and their confrontation with repressive forces and even pushing them in some cases is a characteristic of the recent protest.

The backward Islamic regime, which hand been panicked by the uprising of angry people, knew its throne would fall if the protest continued. For this reason, it tried to crush the protest with maximum brutality and force. Khamenei called the protesters “thugs” and thereby ordered a massacre. The president of the regime and its interior minister and Guard commanders repeated Khamenei’s words. Khamenei warned against “war on security” and stressed the need for further repression. To justify the suppression more freely, the regime linked the protest to other countries and the most notorious groups in the bourgeois opposition.

The number of the deaths exceeded the number of victims in 2018. On 19 November, Amnesty International said 106 people have been killed. More people lost their lives in within days and the number of victims grew notably. The security forces often shot at the people on their head and chest to kill them, however we have a large number of the people suffering injuries. The security forces searched hospitals to sport the people wounded in the protest. Hospitals were ordered to report “suspicious cases”. Hence, many wounded people avoided going to hospitals and some resorted to emergency services.

In order to intensify its suppression and prevent the circulation of reports on the protest, the regime imposed an internet blackout. Based on some reports, the security forces have stolen bodies of victims from hospitals and legal medicine offices and have charged 400 million rials (4,000 dollars) families for handing over the bodies.

Tens of students in the University of Tehran and Allameh University, who had held rallies in solidarity with the mass protest, were arrested and imprisoned. About 50 students were arrested only in the University of Tehran. More arrests in cities and towns have been reported. About 400 were arrested only in Mashhad. If even one-fourth of this figure is the number of the detainees in other cities, the number of the people arrested must reach 10,000, which is twice the number of arrests in 2018.

The gangs of the establishment, including the leader to the Judiciary and the government, the parliament, Guards commanders, Friday prayer imams, heads of religious organisations, all in chorus described the protesting people as “rioters”, “vandals” and “thugs”. They threatened the protesters to the maximum punishment and called for shedding the blood of the poor. Although they tried to pretend that the number of protesting masses was not high but they have not been able to deny the significance of the uprising and acknowledged it in one way or another. The paramilitary Basij Organisation’s operation commander said “all-out world war” was against the Islamic regime was a surprise which took the country suddenly. He said, “we had seen many riots, but this one was completely different!”.

After a total internet shut-down and the intensification of massacre, the regime officials claimed they crushed the protest. Of course, the regime’s fear of the protesting masses and its use of violence and cruelty are obvious. The Islamic regime may destroy the mass uprising by coercion, killing and filling prisons with the people. However, there is no doubt that it will have to face larger uprisings and greater waves of mass protests. The January 2018 uprising was brutally quelled but new protests emerged. All underlying causes and motives for the November uprising exist as before. As long as this situation persists, mass uprisings and social explosions will be inevitable. These uprisings, each time they erupt, make a new progress. As we have been witnessing, the rising people’s consciousness has improved since 2018. The number of people engaging in protests has increased. The movements have been radicalised continuously. The path of these movements is spiral-shame, and sometimes at a slow pace forward.

The Islamic regime cannot save itself from the workers and tailors and angry masses. It cannot escape it’s doomed future – falling by the people’s power – for ever. As a famous saying goes: Anything you can do with a bayonet except sitting on it.

Article from “Kaar” (Organ of the Organisation Fadaian (Aghaliyat)), No. 848; Nov. 2019