The Anatomy of a Successful Experience of the Movement Approach

 Yet whether the owners of the factory, i.e. the capitalists, stick to their commitments in reality or not is a different issue which will be determined in the future first of all by the workers persistence and the willpower of their struggle.  Even if the capitalist’s commitments stay only on paper, it would still be considered as a withdrawal of capitalists and thus a victory for the workers. 

Without a doubt, the main and the determining role in this victory was played out by the working masses of the refrigerator factory who endured difficulties and resisted consistently to achieve their demands and also fought against the oppressive forces so that there was no way out for the capitalists but to draw back.  Therefore, the backbone of such a victory was the actions of the workers themselves.  It was precisely on this groundwork that the worker-activists who were present there played a magnificent role in this victory.  These activists, either by being active and responsibly attending the gatherings or by doing the preparation and propaganda with respect to this action, were trying to coordinate the workers action as well as to show and explain the necessity of their linkage with other sectors of the workers movement especially unemployed, fired and contract workers in order to establish a cross country movement and, in this way, to provide the groundwork for organizing the workers as a class.  The aim of this report is to show the experience of these activists to all activists of the working movement in order to help the anti-capitalist organization of the workers movement. 

This experience can be summarized as follows:

1. The main factor that causes the workers to move forward is the intolerable pressure from life which makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to supply the basic necessities of life.  It is the material needs and their satisfaction which makes the workers struggle.  The gatherings of the refrigerator factory workers in Tehran for their demands were not a sudden action rather it relied on two years of struggling for their demands, the main one of which was the payment of ‘back wages’.  These gatherings were the result of the frustration of the workers who were not able to supply their basic needs of life.  If we accept this iron and irrevocable element as the basis for other situations, we will reach the same conclusion which is that workers are driven to struggle for their own livelihood, and then in the process of this struggle they would eventually realize other needs including the need to form workers' organization.  This statement seems very simple and obvious, and not opposed to any worker-activists.  But, in reality, it is not like this.  The background of most worker-activists shows that they have denied this principle in practice.  These activists, with their sectarian approach, as separate from the movement approach, instead of conceiving the priority of the material struggle of workers to their organization have conceived and are still conceiving the organization as prior to the struggle itself.  This priority of the mental element and motivation is contrary to the naked reality of the workers movement.  The organization of workers can only be established from the departure of a real base and the spontaneity of the workers’ struggle.  Forming any organization outside of this base is out of the path of the class struggle of workers, the result of which would be repetition of the unsuccessful group experiences.

2. The pioneers and the conscious individuals within the worker movement can only be organized on the basis of a working class struggle to lead such a struggle.  The activists of the working class can only lead this struggle by addressing the rank and files, and not solely the workers who have the same ideas as them.  The activists who were present at the action were addressing the working masses and not only the individual workers who may have had the same ideas as them, and it was after addressing the rank and files and enlightening the workers that the workers with the same ideas as the activists gathered together to try to figure out how to proceed with their action and build solidarity with other workers for the establishment of a worker organization.  Therefore, the action of workers found its own leaders, but the leaders who were chosen by the rank and files and were based on the inner and organic metabolism of the struggle of the worker masses.  For example, when one of the leaders was faced with an objection from one of the members of the negotiation team (because he was not a worker of the refrigerator factory), other representatives said that if he is not present we will not negotiate.   Consequently, this leader and the worker-activist participated in the negotiation with full support of the workers.  Also, the other party of negotiation had to accept him as a worker delegate. This experience, even on this small scale and its locality, is important because there is a concern among the worker-activists whether the departure from the rank and files would diminish the role of a leadership and slipping into the thesis of “the movement is everything and the end is nothing”.  Without a doubt, the workers movement must be organized around the aim of struggling against capitalism and with leadership.  In other words, the body of this movement has to have a “head”.  But the issue is that how will this 'head" be formed, with the departure from the rank and files, i.e., the active participation in the struggle of the working masses and addressing the entirety of these masses or, alternatively, by making a ‘head’ separate from the rank and files and then asking the masses to join the "head"?  The experience of the worker-activists participating in this action shows the validity of the former alternative.  The rank and files would not consider the “head” that has been made of mere theory as its head, and would not join it.

3. Even if the struggle of the working class is an economic-political struggle, the workers will depart from specifically economic demands and from there they would reach to the realm of politics and the hostility with the ruling political order.  It was only after taking the bosses and their agents as hostages to achieve the worker' demands that the security forces and riot cops arrived.  This situation not only applies to the workers of the refrigerator factory but also applies to any protest and workers struggle.  The workers, at first, and in any protest, would engage their bosses on economic demands.  Only after this period the government and its oppressive forces would come to protect the bosses and, therefore, the workers would engage in a conflict with the political order.  In other words, it is due to economic emancipation that the workers would engage into the realm of the political.  That is why we say that every class struggle is a political struggle.  But the important point in our point of view is that from the working class view every political action including abolishing the political order is subject to economic emancipation.  This subject is so clear that it does not need to be explained.  The emphasis on this subject is necessary because there are some activists who identify themselves as worker-activists, yet what they do is contrary to this process, that is, they pay attention to the economic struggle of workers merely because of the struggle with the ruling political order.  They are unaware that such a opposition to the political order is nothing but a meta-class struggle and unrelated to the working class and its struggle, and makes the working class follow other classes.

4. As the working class struggle is essentially an open and unconcealed struggle, its leadership can only lead this struggle openly.  Indeed, the working masses cannot understand the clandestine identity of a person who claims to lead them practically and theoretically.  The working class expects rightly that as every single one of the working class has a real name and identity the worker-activists and leaders also have real names and identities.  The workers expect rightly that as they themselves share their lives and their miseries the worker-activists also share their life and miseries with them frankly.  Otherwise, the working masses would not consider the worker-activists as their leaders.  They would rightly feel that their honesty has been abused.  Anyone who considers himself a worker-activist but his approach to the working class is that he lives clandestinely, then cannot be trusted by the working masses.  Of course, it does not mean that the worker-activists should not be hidden if necessary; neither does it mean that the working masses do not struggle clandestinely or do not understand its necessity.  Actually, in many cases, the working masses understand and observe the principles of clandestine activity much better and more effective than the worker-activists.  But, within their open struggle, the clandestine struggle of the working masses stands firmly on real ground and is not abstract.  Moreover, in situations that the trusted worker- activists need to be hidden, the working masses would protect them heartily.  And, they do this not because of personal reasons but exactly due to class reasons.  It is a common class pain and need that encourages them to do so.  And, that was why the refrigerator workers were trying to hide and protect the worker-activists from the eyes of the Security Forces and the police.