In solidarity with the popular uprising in Iran
The following is a statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT). The IRMT was founded in early 1979, initially under the name Iranian Socialist Workers’ Party. Its founders began political activity in the 1960s, establishing an Iranian Commission within the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The organisation’s theoretical foundations are rooted in Trotsky’s Transitional Programme and the first four congresses of the Communist International. Today, IRMT is part of International Standpoint and remains the only Iranian Trotskyist organisation.
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The recent protests sparked by the sharp rise in the dollar exchange rate—initially led by Tehran’s bazaar merchants—quickly evolved into a broader social uprising. What for a privileged layer meant a partial reduction in profits translated for the vast majority of people into deepening poverty, worsening living conditions and an acute cost-of-living crisis. Combined with fuel price hikes, higher taxes and soaring prices of basic goods, millions are now pushed to the edge of survival.
Since the brutal suppression of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, Iranian society has been subjected to relentless economic pressure, unemployment, insecurity, and hunger. Under these conditions, protests rapidly spread beyond the bazaars to include workers, youth, women, students and striking labour sectors across multiple cities. Increasingly, demonstrators are expressing opposition not only to specific policies but to the ruling system as a whole. The state has responded, as always, with intensified repression, mass arrests and the deployment of security forces and plainclothes enforcers.
Runaway inflation has removed essential items—bread, rice, meat, and other staples—from the reach of large sections of the population, while basic goods have become luxuries. Unemployment, homelessness, addiction and social disintegration are the direct outcomes of Iran’s capitalist order. No reshuffling of officials or factions within the regime can resolve these structural crises.
Class polarization continues to deepen. A small elite, tied to state power, the security apparatus and religious foundations, accumulates vast wealth through the exploitation of labour and the plunder of public resources. Meanwhile, millions survive through precarious and degrading work, child labour and informal street trade, while the children of the ruling class live in comfort abroad.
The Tendency of Revolutionary Marxists of Iran expresses full and unconditional support for the just struggles of the Iranian people. Past experience has shown that spontaneous protest alone, without organization, is vulnerable to repression and exhaustion. For this reason, the linkage between mass street mobilization and organized working-class struggle is decisive. Only the convergence of labour struggles and popular protest can shift the balance of forces and open the path to lasting gains.
Self-defence against state violence is a legitimate right of workers and oppressed people. Sustainable resistance requires organization, solidarity and coordination across sectors. The fight in Iran is not a single episode, but part of a longer struggle for workers’ power, social equality and democratic control over society through workers’ councils.
We salute the courage of Iranian workers, youth, women, teachers, students and retirees who continue to resist repression in streets, workplaces, schools and universities across the country. We call on trade unions, workers’ organisations, and left movements internationally to stand in active solidarity with the Iranian working class and oppressed masses.
Forward toward the overthrow of capitalist rule and the establishment of a council-based, workers’ government in Iran.
