Forward to workers’ rule and socialism
To prevent further massacres, we need a central revolutionary leadership.
Fellow militants and honourable workers throughout Iran,
During the past weeks, the mercenaries of the capitalist government, by brutally suppressing and killing and injuring over 50,000 of our brothers and sisters in the street demonstrations of January 8-10, 2026, were able to force the people into retreat. But this retreat is temporary. We all know that justice is on our side: on the side of the workers and the toilers, the youth and militant women, and the oppressed nationalities. Because the demands of none of these layers have been met, and the need to realise them remains as strong.
The current silence is like the break between two rounds of a match; the difference is that this time the break will be much shorter than in the past. Those who dance on the graves of their loved ones are now preparing to dance on the graves of their murderers. Therefore, we must use this brief opportunity, as much as possible, for planning and to prepare ourselves for government.
In other words, without learning from the experience of January, the repetition of repression – even more brutal – is certain in the next round, because they are fighting for their survival. This war is also our war, and we have to end it ourselves. We should have no illusions about foreign governments. Trump’s flip-flopping promises show that he is using this tactic to gain maximum advantage, and whoever makes these concessions – even if it is Khamenei himself – Trump will have no problem in making a deal. He does not think about us workers, and he has no concern other than the interests of capital. It is enough to read the American news today; he does not even have mercy on American workers. So far, at least two people have been killed in one of the American states by Trump’s military fascists, and thousands of immigrant workers, with valid legal visas, are waiting in terrible camps to be deported from American soil.
Trump will avoid direct military intervention as much as possible. But even if his boasting does not come to fruition and a limited attack – similar to the 12-day war – takes place, this still has nothing to do with the workers and the majority of the 90% of the working people of Iran. In the event of such a scenario, global capitalism has definitely considered a suitable alternative to maintain capitalist order and continue exploiting workers. They will not let go of this country. They are aware of the potential of us workers and know that Iran is known among the conscious workers of the world as the capital of workers’ strikes. Hence, they fully agree on suppressing us. Therefore, their war is nothing but a war between different gangs of thieves.
Our task today is to find our real allies among the courageous youth of universities, women, oppressed nationalities and all suffering layers of society. We must build the revolutionary camp against the global and domestic counter-revolution.
We don’t believe that the United States will enter a full-scale war with Iran; it neither wants a destructive conflict nor does it have a reliable successor to the current government. The capitalists are worried about what they call “chaos,” meaning the oppressed classes seizing power. But that does not mean denying limited, targeted military strikes — aimed at removing the main obstacle to the current crisis, Khamenei and some of the Pasdaran leadership — and then making concessions to some political currents to bring about a change in the regime. However, whatever happens, this warmongering has nothing to do with us workers. Whether in war or peace, the Iranian capitalist class and its Western allies do not care about our lives. Our value is only in the amount of value our labour produces for them. If we can, we should turn their war into a war between workers and capitalists.
But let’s get back to the main issue.
In all the uprisings of the last decade – from November 2017 and January 2019 to the Jina movement of 2022 and the recent January 2026 uprising – we have faced a fundamental problem: the lack of a coherent revolutionary camp and a workers’ leadership command centre.
We emphasise “workers’ leadership” because other types of leadership have passed their test.
Engineer Mousavi’s call in 2009 could bring millions of people to the streets. The magnitude of that uprising was such that Khamenei later admitted in one of his speeches that the Islamic Republic system had been pushed back to the brink of collapse. But the compromise of that movement’s leadership, who were concerned about the collapse of the capitalist system, called on the demonstrators to calm down and sent them back home. In the wake of this defeat, thousands of young people were arrested, expelled, tortured, and repressed; and Mousavi was not blameless in this process.
After that, we experienced several other uprisings, all of which failed because of the lack of a coherent and prepared leadership. The price of these failures was the lives of thousands of young people, while we have not yet taken a single serious step on the path of organisation. On the other hand, the enemy learned from all these experiences and today suppresses the uprisings with greater readiness.
The current imposed retreat is an opportunity to prepare for the next battle; the final battle to gain political power by us, the workers and toilers. If until just two weeks ago some still thought the capitalists could be considered as separate from the state, now there is no doubt that no government, except our own, will be able to solve the problems of the toilers.
Such a government does not need the current regime, nor the imperialist governments of the United States, Israel, and Europe. The capitalist system in Iran, both during the Shah’s reign and in this period, has shown that it has neither the ability nor the desire to solve our problems. Our living conditions have worsened, not improved, in the past 150 years.
As we have said many times, the main reason for our successive defeats in the past 47 years has been the lack of organisation. We did not believe in our own strength and did not know that this strength can only be manifested in organisation. Now, after this bitter experience, organisation must become the focus of attention for all conscious workers.
We workers must think about building our own leadership command centre. Building such a command centre requires preparations that will both maintain the security of the vanguard workers and make it possible to advance the work. These preparations mean forming clandestine workers’ cells: small cells of three or four people, composed of conscious, anti-capitalist, courageous and selfless workers.
These cells must be clandestine so as not to be detected by the spy networks of the capitalist state, while at the same time operating among the workers and secretly organising protests and strikes. Limited and networked communication between members will prevent any blow from spreading to the entire organisational complex.
We need hundreds and thousands of such cells. The co-ordination and general communication of these cells will form our combat command centre. This is the first step on the path of organisation and complete preparation for the upcoming period.
Be victorious.
* Let us build the clandestine socialist vanguard workers’ cells!
* Let us unite the vanguard workers based on the workers’ action programme!
* Let us build the workers’ united general action and form the workers’ leadership command centre!
* Let us establish a workers’ government and a free socialist society!
Workers’ bulletin of the Khuzestan Vanguard Socialist Workers’ Cell
1 February 2026
Organiser of KVSWC: Comrade Martin. https://t.me/ahvazijava
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign 