 On the 13th of September, Mosa was arrested by the religious police in Tehran. She was visiting some relatives and only in a few hours she came in their custody. She ended up in a coma and eventually died in hospital. Her death directly led to protests in Tehran and eventually spread to her home province of Kurdistan. Within less than a week, these protests had spread to the entire country, to every major city, 140 of them, and now is spreading to villages and towns. In this mass movement led by the youth, the women are at the forefront, taking off their headscarves, burning them. But it's not only women in the struggle, but also men, young men, including students and young workers. And the dominant slogans, exactly as I was introduced, are death, death to the dictator, but also different variations, death to the Islamic Republic and so forth and so forth. But also emphasizing the class unity across all ethnic lines, slogans such as the whole of Iran is covered in blood, and in the last two weeks, the following slogan has become growingly popular. Do not call it a protest, call it a revolution. And in the working class industrial neighborhood of Tehran called Karaj, the working class youths have put forward the slogan, Rude a day we will be armed, threatening the regime. The dominant slogan of the movement has been unified around the slogan, Women, Life and Freedom, a Kurdish slogan, which has now been popularized. The regime has answered through brutal repression. The official figure of confirmed death is 240, but the real figure is much higher. In a single day, the regime killed 96 protesters in the city of Zahedan a few weeks ago. The confirmed number of arrested and imprisoned are 10,000 students and trade union activists which the regime has gone after, fearing the working class participation in this movement. But the repression of the regime has only whipped up further and further anger among the masses and a more resoluteness among the masses to overthrow this rotten regime. In the first two weeks, nearly an insurrectionary mood developed among the youth, occupying and setting ablaze official buildings such as the Friday Imam offices, basically the bishops offices of each town, but even going so far attacking the governor's offices, burning them in the provinces and even the barracks and headquarters of the security forces. And many times in this movement, the security forces have been overwhelmed and forced to evacuate certain sections of the bigger cities and complete towns and villages overwhelmed by the masses. But it has become growingly clear to the youth since the end of September that these insurrectionary methods, these open, honestly, street battles against the security forces has led to nothing but martyred dead and imprisonment and instead have gone forward for a more organized form of struggle, calling for university strikes, mass rallies at the universities and from the beginning of this movement, this university strike movement, it went from two days, it went to 100 universities who joined in strike. This was eventually repressed by the regime, the regime shutting down 40 universities and putting them under occupation by the security forces, but this whipped up a new layer to join the movement. Suddenly school students, middle school school students went out into the streets shouting death, death to dictators and the regime has again answered with repression at least 46 children have been murdered by the regime. And right now, as I speak, there seems to be another peak developing, the protests again rejuvenated at the universities beginning at a larger and larger scale. Already, many militant trade unions have threatened a general strike and there are now waves of Bazaar strikes and a few industrial strikes on politically supporting the movement. But these strikes are met with harsh repression as they remain largely isolated. This is an unprecedented movement in the history of the Islamic Republic is never met with an uprising at this scale, which is so widespread and the threat of a general strike and honestly has the potential to turn into rapidly into a revolution. But we can ask yourself why now, why the murder of Mosa could unleash such a massive social upheaval. Mosa's murder isn't unique, tens of thousands of Iranian women are arrested by the morality police each year, raped, killed and brutalized. But it was because of the conditions prior to this, where all the conditions were ripe and it was inevitable that an uprising would break out. Since 2018, Iran has been going through a period of intensive class struggle without precedent in the history of the Islamic Republic. Every section of society has either been on strike and or protest from industrial workers, nurses, doctors, farmers, bazaars. Since 2018, in these constant wave of strikes, there have been at average 100-200 strikes a month, spontaneous spreading from one corner to the country to another. And many of these protests and strikes reached the point to a boiling point in forms of a series of uprisings. The 2018 uprising began this period of intensive class struggle and was violently put down by the regime. In 2019, there was an additional uprising, but this one was cut across by the threats of Donald Trump, which made the Iranian masses rally behind the regime in fear of the intervention of the imperialists. And even, but even after that, have we seen a series of localized uprisings in the oil-rich province of Kursistan and in Isfahan, which had enormous potential of turning into another national uprising, but were cut across by the repression of the regime. But even in the months prior to this uprising, there were signs that inevitably something was brewing. The regime has done enormous cuts against subsidies, which led to growing economic protests, which in many cases were in some regions were looking like it was going to develop into an uprising. In June, in the province of Kursistan, in the city of Abedan, a massive tower of vanity project of the Iranian ruling class collapsed because of the innate corruption within the regime. And this led to nearly the development of an uprising in the province, but this was violently repressed by the regime. All these were just the prelude to the current movement. All the conditions were ripe for social explosion on the scale we're seeing right now. And Maas's death was the spark for precisely this movement. And behind all these mass movements since 2018 is the horrors of Iranian capitalism. On the Boujameda, they focus on the repressive nature of the regime, which is completely true. There are no democratic rights to speak of, but there is much more than that. The purpose, for example, of the religious police, it's much more than simply to uphold religious values. And the truth is the Islamic Republic are the biggest hypocrites in the world. Prior to this movement, there was an Instagram channel called the Rich Kids of Tehran. And you would see pictures which are akin to the imperialists of the ruling class of the Western countries, them traveling across the world, showing a life of luxury. They are complete hypocrites lacking any form of piety they believe they have. The purpose of the religious police is rather to instill fear among the population, to make the masses never think of ever lifting a finger against the regime. But this is completely backfired because the masses see the reality. They see the enormous hypocrisy of the regime, how they use religion to enrich themselves. The reality is the ruling class of the Islamic Republic, Iran has the 14th most dollar millionaires in the world because they have constantly increased the exploitation of the Iranian working class with the overwhelming Iranian population living in poverty. And based on the period of class struggle prior to this, many trade unions have, exactly as I mentioned, come out to threaten a general strike. Among them are the following. The truck drivers of Kurdistan and Elam, they actually already have gone on sporadic strikes in support of the movement. The councils were organizing the protests of oil contract workers, casualized oil workers. Prior to this, they had organized two national oil worker strikes since 2018 and actually have begun an isolated strike in one province, in the province of Bushir, as well as the teachers' coordinating committee, which is to begin strikes tomorrow and on Monday. And the Haft Ape workers, a sugar plantation union, which is honestly nearly a revolutionary program. I will get back to them. But also the Tehran bus company workers are openly calling for the coordination of a national struggle against the regime. But the truth is, there are no workers in the streets, the large part. The youth are mainly alone, aside from some teachers have joined the movement, some most Haft Ape workers and oil workers have joined the movement. But the street clashes we're seeing, they're overwhelmingly the youth. And the reason is that these trade unions are scared. They're scared if they go on strike now, they would be isolated. The regime would violently repress them, as they have previously. The regime has violently repressed, for example, the teachers' trade union when they threatened to go on strike in January. Basically all their leaders have been in and out from prison for the last six months and are under constant surveillance. They understand if they would call for a strike right now and it would only be them, they would be defeated rather rapidly. And this is precisely what we've seen with the oil workers' strike, which in the province of Bushir, which began last week. The oil workers in this province work at the biggest petrochemical plant in the world, a massive complex with an area of many square kilometers. But how has the regime responded? They turned off the internet, they surrounded the workplace, and now they've arrested 250 workers and brutalized the workers as well, with sporadic reports coming through. It would require a unified working class under a revolutionary program to begin a general strike. Any isolated strikes would mean repression. And this leaves the youth in a very difficult situation because the youth cannot overthrow the Islamic Republic. This has been seen by all the previous failed uprisings. And also because it's only the working class which can unite the masses across all ethnic lines, unite women and men, unite the poor, which do not only include the working class, but also a section of the petty bourgeoisie, the bazaaries and the poor farmers. And the workers can do the true program which unites all the oppressed layers in society against the oppressors, that being the Iranian capitalist class. And this reflects the workers' role in production as the true lever in society, not a wheel turns, not a light bulb shines without the permission of the working class. And it also gives them the potential to truly be a threat to the regime, unlike scattered youth protests. And this potential is both best seen in the question of a general strike because a general strike would completely overwhelm the regime. They would be completely impotent to repress it. And there is an example which is in very, which is the Iranian masses are quite conscious of, that being the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which in reality began in 1978. Because the Iranian Revolution, unlike the bourgeois propaganda in both in West End and in Iran, was a workers' movement largely. It began much like the current movement as a youth movement in the spring of 1978. This youth movement reached its peak in September 1978. Already, there were signs of sporadic strikes by the workers coming in support of the youth. And in Tehran, this movement accumulated to a massive protest in a square called Jaleh Square. The Shah, the then dictator of Iran, backed by the Americans, ordered to shoot into the crowd assembled in the square. This became the spark for a general strike and the true beginning of the Iranian Revolution. The strike began in Tehran's oil refinery and then spread to the entire oil sector. And then within a month, the entire Iranian economy. Faced with such a mass movement, millions of workers and youths in the streets, the Shah with security forces were completely impotent. In fact, the army and security forces started handing over their weapons to the masses and joining the revolutionary movement. What was left of the Shah's security forces was forced to hide in barracks because their generals were fearful that the whole state would just liquidate. The Shah, in January, fled the country. And the workers had set up through the general strike workers councils, or Shura's, in Persian, in neighborhoods and factories. And the working class were the true power in society. The situation of dual power had formed and had the Communist Party to their not given support to Khomeini. We would have seen a socialist revolution in Iran. The youth in Iran are very conscious of this potential and this example. And that is why multiple university groups, groups akin to the Marxist society is nearly, have made statements in that effect. For example, the Isfahan university students write the following, only with a nationwide general strike, where the protesters in the street feel supported. When the strikes reach the industrial mother centers of labor and transportation, the wheels of repression of the government will practically cease to work. But it's quite easy to say, all we need is a general strike like the Iranian revolution. It's a completely different thing to implement that. There is enormous sympathy among the youth, among the workers, to the youth movement. The problem is they lack any form of organizations to link up to the youth and lack a common program which would unite the students and the workers. It's only on this basis, this sympathy can turn to some, this potential can be turned to some form of reality to turn the demand of a general strike. And the other question is, the few militant trade unions I have listed, they don't represent a majority of the Iranian working class at all. Majority of the support of the workers remains passive at best. And this is a big difference from the situation in 1978 when, especially in the oil industry, they existed communist networks, trade union caters, who have existed since the beginning of the post-war period, working underground, which played a leading role in the spreading of the general strike in 1978. But we are already seeing that in the vacuum of such a leadership, there is instinctively the youth and the workers are spontaneously uniting. For example, right now in Tehran University, the students are putting forward the slogan, workers and students unite. We are the children of the workers. We have a common interest to overthrow the regime. And this has gone further in the Kurdish province of Iran, where we've seen waves of general strikes starting in the bazaars, but not even included industrial workers. But isolated to a single province, the regime has created a situation akin to a war in Kurdistan, sending heavily armed military grade equipment with the security forces. An isolated general strike wouldn't be able to overthrow the Islamic Republic. And this is the same thing with seeing small isolated strikes in specific sectors. And parallel to this, we've seen a number of economic strikes, which are continuing. And all this emphasizes the need of a political program to unite the masses. And the youth aren't passive observers in this process. And the mass is not at all either. Instead, they're not taking a defeatist position. They see all the obstacles and are quite honest with them, but have taken up the task to organize for a general strike. Since the end of September, we saw reports on social media calling for a general strike from various youth groups. And now this is becoming a dominant from every single university group and every group of protesters calling for a general strike. Not only on social media, because the regime constantly turns off internet connection, but even producing fliers to be distributed on cars, to be distributed across society. And the most militant of these being various communist groups which have developed out of the class struggle. Among them, many university groups which formed as university study circles, basically. And now have turned themselves into agitational groups. In Kurdistan, the youth have organized revolutionary youth committees in various cities. And even now, there are reports from two days ago where the students of Isfahan and Tabriz University, along with two revolutionary youth councils, have made a United Statement for Protests Tonight and for agitating for a general strike. And there are many more such groups that we're simply unaware. And I would like to quote one of these groups, the Revolutionary Communists of Gilan. And they say the following. The task of every communist is to build for a general strike, to talk to workers about the necessity of this revolution, and that we need a general strike for its success, and that without it, everything else will be in vain. Some, mainly these communist groups, have even gone further, basing themselves on the experience of the Iranian Revolution with the formation of these workers councils and our calling for workers councils. For example, in the Kurdish city of, sorry, my Kurdish isn't the best, San Anjan, they say they made the following appeal to all Iranian workers and youths. Now it is a time to create neighborhood committees and councils, student councils in universities and school student councils in high schools. Our call for councils is so more widespread. It's to be spread in every layer of society, in the workplaces and every other aspect of life. And then they explain further that it's only through the creation of these councils that we'll be able to unite the scattered struggles of the youth to become a more coordinated and more planned struggle against the entire regime. These, the immediate effect will be giving a sense of order and unity and confidence to the street fighters and will be the first steps in building definite leadership to create trust in the different layers to join the youth and the movement. And they go even further calling for the creation of revolutionary cells in those cities where there is heavy repression and the street protests have temporarily been, have gone down. And this is completely correct. It's only on this basis that the organizational basis for actually agitating for a general strike, winning over further layers of society and actually solving the biggest problem in this movement, the question of leadership which is prolonging the entire revolutionary process that we are witnessing in Iran. But all the while, the Iranian youths and revolutionaries are trying to solve the important question of leadership. The imperialists have begun along with their, the former monarchy of Iran, a campaign, a feigning support to the mass movement in Iran. And this is in fact, I would say the biggest threat to the development of a revolutionary leadership. For Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last Shah, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, has since the beginning of this mass movement, appeared on foreign-backed Iranian media, outlets such as BBC Persian, Iran International, which is financed by Saudi Arabia. And it's completely disgusting. He's constantly egging on strikes and protests as if he has anything in common. His family left Iran with $2 billion in the 1970s. He has nothing whatsoever in common with the Iranian working class. And his politics are equally reactionary. He's calling for unity between all Iranians and his mother and himself, have, last week, constantly gone on social media and news outlets calling for the infamous revolutionary guard to defect and join the movement and that the masses do not want revenge. Unity with such reactionaries, and even with, and you continue to say, call for unity with the Western democracies. What he means is with the imperialists would doom the movement. Because the imperialists have nothing to offer the Iranian masses at all. Even in their own countries, the imperialists are constantly exploiting their own population. They only support through media, through cutting their hair in parliament and feigned support to Iranian women for their own self-interest, to enrich themselves, to replace the Mullahs, so they can enrich themselves on the Iranian working class. And it is simply to look at the conditions of barbarism they have created in the Middle East, propping up horrible dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia and the other Emirates states, or the Israeli state and its oppression of Palestinians. And all while they are stoking the flames of religious and ethnic sectarianism, all in the purpose for continuing their exploitation of the region. And to no wonder, the Iranian masses want nothing to do whatsoever with these reactionaries and don't see the imperialists as their salvation. And in Iran itself, the imperialists have a very dark history. During the Pallavi regime, the imperialists propped up his brutal dictatorship. All while the imperialists were exploiting the Iranian masses. They did this through a series of coups by financing and training the Shah's infamous secret police, Savaq, which killed thousands and tortured them brutally. And even after the fall of the Shah regime, they've done everything possible to see a return of a Western friendly regime, including from supporting Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War, financially and militarily with intelligence, to the current sanctions in Iran, which have completely devastated Iran's economy and given an excuse for the ruling class in Iran to unite the masses against this common threat. They're two sides of the same rotten capitalist system. And the propaganda of the Pallavis and the imperialists is welcomed by the Islamic Republic because it is precisely ammunition for their own propaganda machine. The regime has been spinning constant conspiracies that this movement is supposedly led by monarchists, the children of the Savaq, the Shah's secret police, which is very strange, and separatists. This has no basis whatsoever in reality. But the Iranian masses are quite aware that any form of imperialist intervention would not mean any form of improvement. But at the same time, we must not exaggerate the effect the imperialist propaganda has had in this movement. Because the most Iranian masses aren't convinced that this movement is foreign backed. Rather, they see the lack of an alternative in the movement, the lack of a clay leadership, means that it leaves the threat of a foreign intervention and a foreign backed regime in the future. But the youth in the movement have largely completely denounced foreign imperialism. One of the most popular slogans, which is also being put forward today, is death to the tyrants, whether they be the Shah or the Supreme Leader, completely rejecting the Shah and the Pallavies, and a series of statements by the students explaining that they are completely disgusted how Western-backed media has suppressed the slogan, which is growing in dominance. The militant workers of Haftapeh have even gone further, explaining very clearly that they are disgusted by the Americans' feigned support to the movement in Iran. They say, and I am paraphrasing, who asked you for our support? We know that we want no support from any corrupt government, whether that be the US, Europe, or any other dirty government in the world. We know that you are only wanting to pursue the same anti-labor legislation than the Islamic Republic. How would that help Iranian workers? How would that be better for us? And it's precisely, this shows enormous consciousness, but these are unfortunately still not, there is no clear program, no clear organization to put forward to convince the masses that this is the case. Unfortunately, there are those socialists here in Europe mainly who say this movement is not progressive, who this is even a color revolution, honestly repeating the lies of the Islamic Republic, that this is a Western back movement from the beginning. And for support for this, they point at, oh, but the slogans aren't socialists. They are democratic slogans against dictatorship. They aren't socialist slogans. And while that is true, that is true, but they do not see actually in what direction the movement is actually developing towards. And arguably, I would say are very much influenced by the reporting of their own media, of the bourgeois media in their own home countries, rather than the actual movement ongoing in Iran. They can't see below the surface of what the actual movement of the Iranian masses is. And we also must not forget, no revolution has ever begun with a perfect communist program. It began with anti-war demands, which led for economic demands linked to the war and the exploitation of the Russian working class, which eventually led to the Russian workers to the conclusion that Zadim and its entirety must be removed. But when the Tsar abdicator was overthrown, it became more and more clear that none of their demands could be realized without the abolishment not only of the Tsar, but the entire Russian ruling class. And it was precisely the Bolsheviks which were the key in, as a catalyst of this process, which went from a minority to a majority winning over the majority of the working class. And this is precisely what we need in Iran. A Bolshevik program, and a Bolsheviks in Iran, we need a clear minimum program. And the workers of Haftap-e have put forward a minimum program, which I think very well summarizes the demands of the Iranian working class in Paul. And they say the following, we demand complete freedom, the freedom of speech, expression, association for trade unions and political parties and free elections. We also demand the immediate establishment of a minimum wage corresponding to 23 million to months, full social insurance and pensions that are suitable for all men and women in society. On this basis, and developing this program further, if the youth and work and the militant trade unions would campaign, they could rapidly lay the foundation for a general strike. But the Haftap-e workers continue with a maximum program, calling for the establishment of Shuras or workers' councils and that there should be no power above these workers' councils and society should be run by workers' control. And the Haftap-e workers, which are honestly a bit of an anomaly, they've been a very militant trade union for many years and are clearly influenced by the ideas of the Iranian revolution. But they're not alone. There are many more. Many of the other revolutionary student groups and youth groups I have mentioned have a very similar slogan, calling for Idare Shura for a Soviet or a council government. And but the role of the communists is to link this demand, the demand for workers' control, for workers' for socialism to the minimum demands, to explain that none of the demands of the masses would be able to be implemented on the basis of capitalism, neither the democratic or the economic demands. And this lies in the heart of the question. Iranian capitalism is at a dead end. The minimum demands I have mentioned would be impossible to implement in Iran as they're honestly growingly impossible to attain in the imperialist countries where we're seeing constant counter reforms. And this is especially in the face of the crisis of capitalism around the whole world. But that does not mean that the Iranian workers must simply accept what they are. They must link their, the duty of the communists to link these minimum demands to the wider struggle for the struggle of socialism in Iran and around the whole world. And this is because the reason why these demands would not be possible was because Iran remains a largely underdeveloped country. Because of how capitalism developed in Iran. It developed mainly through the investments of the imperialists in the oil sector with the rest of the economy remaining rather underdeveloped. And this would mean, this has meant that Iranian capitalism has been only able to keep itself competitive by the most brutal exploitation of its working class. And this is not only true for the economic demands. This is equally true for the democratic demands of the masses. For, in reality, bourgeois democracy is a preferable way for the ruling class to rule. It's a good way to avoid violent clashes between the classes and instead find some form of compromise. The problem is Iran does not have the material basis to give those reforms, to create those illusions. Iran has had many periods of short-lived bourgeois democracy such as the late 1940s and early 1950s. But what did the workers use this freedom for? They very rapidly organized trade unions led by communists, workers parties led by communists with demands which were outside of what was possible within Iranian capitalism. And the answer of the Iranian capitalism has always been coups, repression from one dictatorship to another. And this shows the absolute dead end of Iranian capitalism, not only now, but for the last century. The Iranian masses have gone from one bloody dictatorship to another bloody dictatorship. And we must be very clear. It makes no difference if Iran's ruling class wears a crown or wears a turban. They're the same rotten capitalist class. And our task as Marxists is very clear. Like everywhere in the world, our task is to build a revolutionary leadership here in the UK and everywhere around the world. We often in the IMT talk about the crisis of leadership, the need of a revolutionary party. The current movement in Iran emphasizes what that actually means. I often feel very abstract when we talk about it. It's very clear. The hundreds who have been killed, the thousands who have been imprisoned, and many who are being tortured, that is the fault, not of the masses in any way who are doing everything to build and unite for a common struggle against this rotten system. But it is the weakness of Marxism. And it is only through building our forces that such tragedies can be stopped of happening. Iran is not the only country which has gone through revolutions without Marxists. Majority of revolutions, unfortunately, fail because of the weakness of the forces of Marxism. And that's why I emphasize, everyone who has not joined Socialist Appeal and the IMT to do so, our historical task is to overthrow this rotten system in Iran and in Britain and around the whole world. For had we in Iran right now had an organization of a few, only a few thousand, the situation across the whole country, the situation in Iran would be completely different. But the absence of that is now prolonging the entire revolutionary process. And even though so far that it threatens to actually that this movement could be crushed, that the youth and workers will not unite in time around common program, around common organizations, and its movement can't continue inevitably. If the youth see that this movement leads to nothing but martyrs and imprisonment, of course, they will eventually abandon it. But it's too soon to say if this movement is going to be defeated or not. But we have an important task here in the imperialist countries as Marxists and internationalists because it's only us and the wider European and Western labor movement, which are the only true allies with the Iranian working class. And through our class solidarity, we must be very clear. We must unite our struggle against our own ruling class to the struggle against the Islamic Republic. We must say no to sanctions, no to any imperialist meddling in Iran. The liberation of the Iranian working class and masses is a task for the Iranians alone. And united in this struggle, we will ensure that we will live in a socialist society in the end of our lifetime. Thank you.