Publication of Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad’s Claims: A Sign of the Beginning of a New and Targeted Attack Against the Revolution and Its Leader*

“10 Mehr” Group, September 20, 2024 — 

On September 16, 2024, the Construction newspaper, the official organ of the to-the-core neoliberal “Construction Party”, which during the past four decades has been the main flag bearer of the structural adjustment and privatization policy in Iran, the implementation of the subversive policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the main promoter of the policy of rapprochement with the United States and its allies, published an article by Ayatollah Mohaghegh-Damad, a leading liberal cleric, under the title of “Leftists’ Penetration of the Revolution,” and subtitled “The Harm the Left Brought to Iran’s Economy and Development,” which, while appearing to be an attack on the “Left,” it actually marks the beginning of a targeted attack on the entire leadership of the Iranian Revolution.

In a praiseful introduction to Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad’s article, Construction writes: “The words of Ayatollah Mohaghegh-Damad … are important because … few scholars have spoken so clearly about the role of left forces in Iran’s underdevelopment. Ayatollah Mohagheg-Damad … puts aside all courtesies and attributes the main responsibility to leftist thinking from among the factors that have brought Iran’s economy to the present ruin….”

It is a repeatedly proven historical fact that in all countries, including ours, every turn to the right has always started either with the suppression of the Left or has been accompanied by an attack on the Left. We remember that in the early days of the revolution, turning to the right and moving towards imposing a neoliberal economic order and establishing relations with the United States, also started by attacking the Left forces — of course, not just the classic Left like the Tudeh Party of Iran and other Left forces, but first by assassinating the “left” religious leaders of the Iranian Revolution. As we previously wrote in another article about the attack on the Left forces at the beginning of the revolution:

We do not forget that these crimes did not begin by attacking the Left forces, but by assassinating prominent leaders of the revolution who were true defenders of the “anti-imperialist and popular line of Imam [Khomeini]” — such prominent leaders as Ayatollah Dr. Beheshti, Ayatollah Motahari, Ayatollah Bahonar, Ayatollah Taleghani, and other close associates of Ayatollah Khomeini. They started with those leaders and then completed their work with the bloody attack on the Tudeh Party of Iran and other Left forces. In other words, these assassinations and crimes were the intertwined and inseparable parts of imperialism’s plan to derail the Iranian revolution. And for this very reason, they should be dealt with in the context of the more general historical struggle of the people of our country against imperialism.¹

Similarly, in Iran today, the recent victory of the big neoliberal capitalist factions in the presidential election, and the appointment of the spokespersons and agents of these factions to positions of government power, has prepared the ground for a turn to the right, which naturally requires an attack on the Left. Hence, the statements of Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad should be understood in the context of the conditions created after the presidential election to understand their true meaning.

What Did Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad Say in His Article?

We will skip the scholarly utterances of Mr. Mohagheg-Damad and summarize his arguments:

The Islamic revolution achieved victory in a situation where various socialist theories and the so-called non-capitalist development path were common thinking. In such a situation, most Iranian revolutionaries, including nationalists, leftists, and Islamists, emphasized that political independence alone is not enough and will not last unless it is completed with economic independence. Economic independence was understood to mean severing dependence on the global capitalist system, cutting off the hands of large multinational companies from Iran’s economy, rebuilding the national economy and government budget without relying on the income from oil exports, and ultimately economic self-sufficiency. In this way, the revolutionaries defined two important missions for themselves: One is to cleanse the society of any phenomenon related to imperialism; and the other is to allow the oppressed and deprived to experience the taste of “justice”.

Socialist ideas were not only promoted in the years before the revolution but were so popular that they appeared in the speeches and works of leading and influential clerics such as Mahmoud Taleghani, Morteza Motahari, and Mohammad Hossein Beheshti. Figures who each … adopted positions that clearly emphasized the negation of private property, approval of pricing and price suppression, centralization and the formation of a large and interfering government, each of which is an example of favoring socialism and opposing free enterprise and market economy…

In the opinions of Mahmoud Taleghani, even years before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, one can see ideas similar to Marxist views and opposition to free economy, considering free economy as synonymous with capitalism and considering capitalism to be unfettered….

Morteza Motahari, another revolutionary cleric, although he mainly focused on trying to define and prescribe a way between capitalist economy and Marxist economy, he tried to negate capitalism, and one of the economic solutions he offered was “the necessity of community ownership of industrial machinery” as a “special product of all human inventions” ….

Mohammad Beheshti was another revolutionary cleric who, in addition to playing the role of “theorizing” the state economy in the years before the revolution, also played an effective role in defining the “legal structure” of the state economy in the Islamic Republic.

Much earlier … the Tudeh Party had a clear background in destroying economics and promoting leftist ideas…. These influences continued strongly until the early years of the Islamic Revolution, which was the period of drafting the constitution and shaping the economic structures of the Islamic Republic. It shaped the intellectual atmosphere of the revolutionaries, their slogans and decisions, and actions, the first manifestation and effect of which was the confiscations and nationalization of industries and banks….

And finally,

45 years of experience showed that the leftist ideas destroyed Iran’s economy and hit it more than the Mongol invasion.

The essence of Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad’s statements can be summarized as follows:

1. Defending independence and social justice is the same as defending socialism and communism.

2. The “socialist” vision was injected into the minds of the leaders of the revolution by the Tudeh Party of Iran and leftist forces worldwide and was injected into the Constitution.

3. In the past forty-five years, this “socialist” view has been dominant in Iran and has been implemented.

4. 45 years of experience has shown that leftist ideas have destroyed Iran’s economy and has hit it harder than the Mongols.

And the inevitable result of all these slights:

5. We must dissociate form the leftists and those who implemented “socialism” in Iran after the revolution — i.e. leaders like Ayatollah Beheshti, Ayatollah Motahari, Ayatollah Bahnar, Ayatollah Taleghani, and eventually even Ayatollah Khomeini himself as the leader of the Revolution — settle the accounts with them and hold them responsible for the current disaster.

Where the Danger Lies

Here, the main danger does not lie in the fact that there exists not even a single truth in Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad’s claims — i.e., neither the ideas of independence and social justice are the same as the idea of socialism, nor does the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a reflection of a socialist system, nor has in the last 45 years a pro-justice, let alone the socialist, view ruled over Iran, and nor is the current disaster in Iran a result of the rule of the “socialist” views over Iran. Rather, the main danger lies in the fact that now the sword of attack — again, under the guise of an attack on the “Left” — is being aimed at the founding leaders of the Revolution and the main followers of Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision.

For this reason, these statements of Mr. Mohagheg-Damad should not, and cannot, be evaluated as just a new attack on the “Left” by the right-wing forces that have just assumed power — although this is also true. The publication of the baseless claims of Mr. Mohagheg-Damad by the official organ of Iran’s most powerful neoliberal party indicates that, in the opportunity created after the presidential election, the big capitalist wing of Iran’s neoliberal bourgeoisie intends to take even a step further and start organizing a wider attack on the whole Revolution to secure it complete reversal. The fact that Mr. Mohaghegh-Damad identifies as the main culprit of the “current disaster” not only the Left forces but also the main leaders of the Iranian Revolution, fuels the concern that the next target of these right-wing neoliberal attack could be Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the revolution, himself, who has been the staunchest defender of the initial path of the Revolution.

We must be very alert about this danger. This time, not only the Left, but all the Muslim forces following the “anti-imperialist and popular line of Imam Khomeini”, who are the true defenders of the country’s independence and who are calling for the establishment of social justice for the hardworking people of Iran, are being targeted. Preventing such a right-wing attack is not only the duty of the Left forces who defend the revolution, but also the responsibility of all Muslim forces who have always defended the Revolution and its pro-independence and pro-justice goals.

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1. “President Raisi’s Helicopter Crash and the Problem of the Clueless Iranian Left,” “10 Mehr” Group, June 3, 2024 (in Farsi).

 

* Translated from the original Farsi text.