The Tudeh Party of Iran:

Intensifying Class Struggle in Iran and the Way Forward for Liberty, Justice, and Peace

The vast majority of the people in Iran, who have long endured immense socio-economic hardship with an economy in freefall, all while steadfastly opposing the reactionary ruling theocratic dictatorship, are now facedwith the significant menace of military threats from US imperialism under Trump.

The livelihoods of Iranian working people (whether waged or salaried) along with retirees and especially the youth, have been devastated by over three decades of the theocratic regime's imposition of neoliberal economic policies. These policies have utterly hollowed-out Iran's import‑oriented, rentier, and US dollar‑dependent economy singularly reliant on the country's export of crudeoil. This has created the very structural vulnerabilities that have enabled the US to impose its unjust and crippling financial and economic sanctions regime with ease.

Since the inflicting of 'shock therapy' by the regime, in compliance with IMF and World Bank prescriptions, at the beginning of the 1990s (in the early aftermath of the disastrous Iran-Iraq War), neoliberal economic policies have been faithfully imposed by every government administration since then.  This has been backed unequivocally by the Islamic Republic's Supreme [Religious] Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Organised workers'protests against these policies have often been violently suppressed.Bona fide independent trade unions remain illegal in Iran and their activities are routinely labelled as "threats to national security", resultingin the routine imprisonment of many labour activists. This has occurred alongside massive capital accumulation, especially in the financial and importsectors, serving to entrench structural corruption across the whole economy andthe generatingof astronomical private wealth among a parasitical bourgeoisie inextricably intertwined with the ruling regime.

Despite these harsh conditions, the labour movement in Iran has continued to grow. Workers, particularly in the industrial, oil, mining, and transport sectors are increasingly recognising the necessity of collective and coordinated action against both the ruling regime and its associated oligarchic class.Over recent years, the rising number of strikes and protests reflects a deepening class consciousness, as workers across multiple sectors - including teachers, nurses, students, and segments of the petite bourgeoisie businesses - have become more aware of the nature and consequences of Iran's profoundly unjust political economy under the theocratic dictatorship.

The intensification of class struggle in Iran is becoming increasingly visible. Decades of implementingof IMF directives: privatisation, deregulation, and the near-total erosion of social protections and welfare provision, has produced deep and worsening inequality in Iranian society as well as widespread precarity in employment. Combined with the increasingly frequent violent suppression of human rights and protest movements for freedom and an end to tyranny, these conditions have pushed large and ever-growing sections of the Iranian working class to the fundamental realisation that economic demands cannot be separated from the broader fight for democracy, social justice, and individual and political freedoms.

This convergence of economic and democratic struggles is regarded by the ruling dictatorship's leadership as a direct, existential, and intolerable threat to the dominance of 'Political Islam'. They understand that a politically conscious and organised working class has the potential to challenge the foundations of the ruling regime and therefore must be crushed. Indeed, the history of our country shows that imperialism is also deeply fearful of such developments, and both internal reactionary forces and US imperialism - often acting in concert - have consistently sought to neutralise Left parties and currents as well as trade unions in Iran. This pattern has been carried over from previous eras and incarnations of the regime, including the Islamic Republic'sbrutal and merciless attack on the Tudeh Party of Iran and the suppression of tradeunions in the 1980s, carried out with the active collaboration of MI6 and the CIA.

The theocratic dictatorship has lost its legitimacy across the nation and is widely recognised to be at the root of the current major crises, the devastating consequences of which are endured daily by the majority of the population, particularly the long-suffering working class. A fiercely antagonistic contradiction exists between the popular widespread demand for fundamental change in the country and the ruling despotism along with its unjust political economy that only serves the interests of the powerful capitalist stratawith which it exists in a relationship of mutual dependency.

Of course, the widening and unbridgeable chasm between the nation and the ruling dictatorship represents an extremely perilous vulnerability at a time when the country must contend with blatant external interference, punitive sanctions, and the threat of military action on the part of foreign administrations headed by the likes of Trump and Netanyahu.

Aside from the 2022-2023'Woman, Life, Freedom'uprising, the major protest movements over the past eight years, including those of January 2026, have all been driven by people's material demands for economic and social justice. Indeed, the protests that erupted on 28 December, leading to the current emergency in Iran, centred on the collapse in the exchange value of Iran's national currency and the parlous state of the country's economy and its effect on the livelihoods and lives of the vast majority of ordinary Iranians.  Each has been met with brutal bloody repression, with thousands killed last month over the space of just a few days by the regime's security forces.

The Tudeh Party of Iran believes our country's future must be determined solely by its people, who seek peace, prosperity, and social progress - and that achieving this requires a broad national front of all social forces, with the working class through the organised labour movement at the forefront playing a decisive role in bringing about fundamental transformation.

The intensifying class struggle in Iran and the growing role of the organised labour movement are indispensable elements in the dual-aspectstruggle against both the ruling theocratic despotism and imperialism - both of which obstruct the country's transition from dictatorship to a national‑democratic stage. For this reason, we call upon progressive left and peace movements worldwide, while opposing imperialism and its war machine, to also recognise and actively support the Iranian people's legitimate and popular struggle against the ruling dictatorship in the pursuit of Liberty, Justice, and Peace.

Please note:This article was written at the invitation of the Communist Party of Venezuela and was published in Tribuna Popular, the publication of the CPV both in Spanish and in English languages.  Please csee:

https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/intensifying-class-struggle-in-iran-and-the-way-forward-for-liberty-justice-and-peace/