Siyaves Azeri responds
May 22, 2005

Goran, a 32 year old Marxist from Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, wrote to the WPI Briefing stating interest in worker-socialism and worker-communism and asking the following: 'What is position of WPI about left communism? Is the WPI a left communist party or not? What is the WPI position about the Centre for Worker-socialist Studies from Sweden (CWS)? Are Worker-socialists and worker-communists the same Marxist tendency or not? What is your position on Lenin, Marxism-Leninism, and Trotsky? Other than in Iran and Iraq, do worker-communist parties or groups exist? What is your position about the role of party in a revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat and about the theory of Socialism in one State? The WPI founded by Comrade Mansoor Hekmat split from the Communist Party of Iran (CPI).CPI was Maoist; therefore, was Hekmat Maoist before he formed the WPI?' Here, Siyaves Azeri responds:

I will start answering your question regarding Trotsky and then proceed to other questions, since it will supply the "theoretical" basis for some of the other questions. This answer is basically the one, which was published in WPI Briefing issue number 169.

I personally do respect Trotsky as a great revolutionary with humanitarian and egalitarian intentions. However, as Marx puts it in the German Ideology, sometimes "the road to hell is paved with the good intention stones"! Politically Trotsky, as a member of Bolshevik Party who participated in the economic debates of the 1920's, did not have an economic solution that was radically different than that of Stalin. Historically Stalin adopted the economic policies, which were strongly advocated by Trotsky. Trotsky's conceptualization of capitalism, hence of socialism, was in agreement with the dominant line in the Bolshevik Party. He, as other Bolsheviks did in late 20's, considered capitalism simply as an "anarchy of production" and therefore did not fail to conceptualize the socialist alternative as mere "planned economy". Politically Trotsky's criticism of Stalinism and the Soviet Union does not surpass the so-called democratic criticism. It has nothing to say about the economic basis of Soviet society. The present time Trotskist movement basically has inherited all these misconceptions. Besides, some fractions of the Trotskist movement -Socialist Worker's Party in particular- express an extremely backward position with regard to the political Islamic movement, nationalism, etc. In the best cases, Trotskists do not go beyond the democratic criticism of the Soviet system.

This is the case with "left communism" as well, though I am not sure which movements you include in such a tendency. Perhaps, the "Internationalist Communist Party of Italy" and other Bordigaists, as well as some fractions of Trotskism, and the so-called libertarian communists can be named as left communists. The Worker-communist Party, definitely, cannot be labelled as a left communist party. Most of the left communist movements share the democratic prejudgments concerning the analysis of the Soviet economy, the fate of the Bolshevik Revolution, etc. I would define their position as "theoretical Puritanism", for instance, as is the case with nationalism and the "right to self-determination". Their stand against the right to self-determination is based upon a metaphysical insistence on the "internationalist nature" of Marxism. On the one hand, they reject nationalism as a deviant, perverted ideology of the bourgeoisie. Negating nationalism from a Puritan point of view results in disregarding real conditions, where national oppression might be the case. Left communism infers the so-called nation-states from the "right to self-determination", therefore, its refutation of this "right" automatically results in abandoning all cases related to national and ethnic oppression and suspends the problem until the time of "socialist" revolution. Cases of national oppression for such a view are regarded as secondary questions, just as the cases of sexual apartheid, patriarchal establishing of the society, etc. Ironically, they accept the existence of an entity, which is named "nation" as an entity in itself, although it might be considered as an historical "phenomenon". And the reason they stay away from it stems from the fact that it belongs to the bourgeoisie. That is why their position -as is with the case of the Socialist Worker's Party- can change into the exact opposite. Their internationalism can simply be reduced into a mechanical juxtaposition of different nations (inter-nationalism), a collation of different nationalisms! Moreover, such metaphysical Puritanism does not allow them to be permanent in their criticism of different aspects of bourgeois ideology, such as religion, and in particular Islam and the political Islamic movements. Of course there is a "historicity" to a socially produced and reproduced entity such as nation (where "social" should be understood in its exact Marxist meaning). However, such historicity does not make the nation any more "real" than the "historicity" of the notion of god does so to god's being. Nation is an historical "product", as much as the notion of god is. Hence its "transcendental" nature, just as is the case with god as a transcendental entity. There, evidently, is a social dimension to the existence of an entity that is called nation. I would not call nation an "imaginary" community. However, this social ontological status of nation resembles the social ontological status of the notion of god. "God exists", in the sense that in the course of history different groups of people had committed numerous crimes for his sake. As one of our comrade's formulated, we socialists will have to overthrow not only the regimes of the representatives of God (such as Bush, Bin Laden, the Islamic Republic of Iran, etc) but also god himself. The social ontological status of nation is somewhat similar to the notion of god. Hence, nation represents a transcendental abstraction, so does the notion of god. Worker-communism is critical of an automatic affirmation of the "right" of self-determination. Yet, the WPI's critical position towards such a "right" is based upon the fact that "nations" are the products of the nationalist ideology but not the other way round. Wherever the production of "national identities" polarizes the society in a way that such polarization becomes an obstacle in furthering the communist and worker movement one may suggest the formation of distinct states as a last resort, as is the case between Israel and Palestine. Formation of a separate "nation-state" is a particular answer to a concrete, historically conditioned situation, and it ultimately and foremost has to serve the progress of the worker movement and a furthering towards the socialist revolution and formation of a socialist state. Worker-communism does not infer the formation of the separate national states from the right of self-determination. Hence, it does not disregard the fact that at some historical moment the separation of different ethnic groups and the formation of smaller political geographies might be the only (yet not principally the most desirable) solution possible.

The Worker-communist Party considers Lenin as a genuine Marxist and worker movement leader. Lenin's position, in contradistinction to Menshevik's reductionist economist stand, which would postpone any attempt towards socialist revolution to the never-to-be-achieved moment of sufficient development of productive forces, reveals his deep understanding of the Marxist communist worldview. Lenin's analysis of development of capitalism in Russia, his insistence on the immediate action for and possibility of socialism in Russia, are among the many evidences that show how distinguished is his consideration of capitalism from that of the Menshevik's and even from other Bolshevik leaders. Lenin does not count the number of the factory chimneys in Russia to prove the existence of the capitalist mode of production in Russian society. Waged labour, the commodification of the labour-force, and the exploitation of surplus value are the determining factors that define the relations and mode of production in Russia. These are the material evidences that disclose the capitalist nature of relations of production in Russia, and once this fact is admitted the immediate communist activity should follow. Lenin analytically and politically re-affirms the Manifesto's thesis that our age is the age of proletarian revolutions. Even his response for the prevention of the complete dissolution of the Russian society into mere geography in the aftermath of the Civil War -the NEP- shows his clearly Marxist conception of society that continuously has the productive and reproductive human activity -the economic basis of society- in view. Almost all other Bolshevik leaders interpreted NEP as a necessary, capitalist restoration of the economy proper in response to the underdevelopment of the productive forces (the return of the Menshevik economism that had its roots in the evolutionist view of the Second International). For Lenin, however, NEP was the quickest way to allow Russian society to reproduce itself as a society. It was a necessary capitalist restoration, but not of the economy proper, not due to underdevelopment of capitalist relations of production in Russia, but due to the fact that the post-Civil War Russian society had literally ceased to be a society, since it was unable to produce anything. And NEP was to let people to produce through the old -and the only- way they knew to produce. These examples are given to show Lenin's extraordinarily sharp and clear Marxist standpoint not only as a bright political leader but as a well-equipped Marxist theoretician and analyst. In this respect, the WPI considers Lenin as an outstanding Marxist communist worker movement leader, and the 1917 October Revolution as a genuine socialist revolution of the working class that successfully seized political power. However, since the Bolsheviks failed to revolutionize the economic basis of the society, it was eventually defeated.

As with "Marxism-Leninism"; looking at the forces and organisations calling themselves Marxist-Leninist and seeing the fact that they belong to the left fraction of the bourgeois social movement with ultra nationalist, ethnicist, and religious-like tendencies I would hesitate to call either myself, the WPI, or Lenin, Engels, and Marx ML. In fact ML was the term invented and used to distinguish between the mainstream of bourgeois communism and the variety of other (mainly bourgeois) communists, which were critical of this viewpoint, mostly from a democratic point of view. "[T]he term Marxist-Leninist, exploited these designations - just like much other Marxist terminology - to express worldly, and in the main, non-socialist disputes and interests. These have been abuses of Lenin's prestige, and Leninism, as I understand it, is diametrically opposed to such 'Leninists'." (Mansoor Hekmat, "Marxism and the World Today").

The Centre for Worker-socialist Studies is a side organisation of the Worker-communist Party of Iran. However, in the last years it has not been active. The idea behind this centre came from comrade Mansoor Hekmat and its main purpose was to elaborate upon Marxist theoretical and political issues from a worker-communist perspective. These task, nowadays, are mainly furthered by the Marx Society of London (England) and the Marx Society of Canada. I hope your question concerning CWS brings the remobilisation of this centre to the focus of our comrades in Sweden and ignites them towards such a task.

I am pleased to inform you that worker-communist activists of different origins in countries such as Turkey, Germany, and Italy are proceeding towards the formation of worker-communist circles (WCC) that would function as the initial nuclei towards organising worker-communist sympathisers and activists in these countries as a first step to form worker-communist parties. We recently published an interview regarding these circles in WPI Briefing issue no. 170-171 dated March 4, 2005. We welcome all worker-communist activists and sympathisers to join the WPI and/or to form WCC wherever they have the ability.

The Communist Party of Iran (CPI) was never a Maoist organisation; neither did Mansoor Hekmat ever have any Maoist tendencies. The CPI was the consequence of an almost five year effort of Mansoor Hekmat, Hamid Taqvaee and other comrades that had formed The Union of Communist Militants (UCM) in 1979. One of the tasks that the UCM succeeded in fulfilling was the criticism of populist organisations and different fractions of nationalist, bourgeois left movements and parties. Maoism was one of the targets of UCM's critical movement that was theoretically formulated as Revolutionary Marxism. However, one of the main organisations that participated in the formation of the CPI, Komala, had formerly some Maoist tendencies. Yet, prior to the formation of the CPI, Komala adopted the theoretical and political programme that had been formulated by the UCM and underwent a process of criticism against populism and nationalist left tendencies within itself. Comrade Hekmat spent enormous efforts to turn the CPI into the political party of the working class movement and communist workers and worker leaders. However, especially with the first Gulf War (the US' first attack on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait) Kurdish nationalism -one of the tendencies that had been residing in CPI) found new grounds to express itself and to resist against the genuine communist tendency in the CPI. Hence, in 1991, Hekmat resigned from the party and soon after he declared the formation of the WPI, together with other comrades.

As about your question on the "role of party in revolution", "dictatorship of the proletariat", and "socialism in one state", I would refer you to study the WPI's Programme: A Better World, interviews with Mansoor Hekmat entitled "Our Differences", "Marxism and the World Today", and "Democracy: Interpretations and Realities".