Letters

Settled reality?

As we come to the end of Yiannis Ivrissimtizis’s letter (Weekly Worker February 13), the root of his confusion seems to emerge. In reply to Andrew Northall he correctly argues that a state is necessary in the transitional stage between capitalism and communism - ie, socialism. However, he goes on to say that “even in a classless communist society, workers still form a collectivity distinct from the whole of society, although with no special interests against it”.

In a classless, communist society workers as a distinct category would not exist. Of course we would all work and certain institutions would be necessary to organise our affairs. But democracy and the state would not exist: one section of society would not rule over another. Thus a state, as the power over the ruled, would not be necessary. Our activity would be in common, for society.

I however think this is a very different concept to Yiannis’s one of a “single consciousness”. Acting in common for human society does not mean that differences are eradicated. It does not mean that we stop striving to come closer to absolute truth. It does not mean that people will all think the same and act the same. It means that our actions will be negotiated for the good of human society, not for the good of an alien force, be it a god or capital.

From this confusion stems the confusion over democracy, consciousness and the unmentionable self-activity which seems absent from Yiannis’s schema of the birth of a “single consciousness”.

Yiannis talks about the “indisputable democratic character” of bourgeois elections which express the “settled consciousness” of the masses under capitalism. Apparently this “settled consciousness” reflects “social reality”. Presumably a ‘settled reality’. This is a curious formulation. The trouble with bourgeois elections is that they are thoroughly undemocratic. They have nothing to do with the self-activity of the mass of the population running their own affairs. Yes, bourgeoisie democracy is democracy, but a very limited form of it. Look at the Tories’ attitude to the democratic demands of the Scottish people - ‘They can’t have them because we do not think it would be good for us.’

When Marx talked of bourgeois ideology dominating society because of the power of commodity fetishism, he was quite aware that this was not a “settled” affair. The continual struggle between capital and labour, the contradictions within capital accumulation itself are far from settled, but represent continual flux, readjustments, booms, busts and crisis. The contradiction between capital and labour is permanent so long as capital dominates society.

Yes, at times working class consciousness does not exist in a political sense and the class struggle is at a very low level. But the contradictions of capitalism continue, as does discontent with the system. After the long boom this discontent is widespread, though class struggle is at an even lower level than the 60s and 70s, evidenced by the ability of the Labour Party to desert so completely, even in rhetoric, the working class.

How do revolutionary moments arise, Yiannis? Of course precisely because of these contradictions. But the real point is that they do not unfold mechanically, as you seem to imagine. The working class needs a vision of the future and the organisation that can take it towards that vision, otherwise a crisis above can be solved in a reactionary, just as well as in a revolutionary way, as history shows. This class consciousness, organisation and culture begins in our self-activity today which looks forward to a society of “free producers”. Of course class consciousness develops rapidly in a revolutionary situation, but it does not drop down from revolutionary heaven.

Dawn Lewis
Bristol

Writers in Iran targeted

Faraj Sarkouhi, editor of the Iranian literary magazine Adineh and a prominent writer, was arrested - for the second time - on January 27 1997 with his brother, Ismail, and assistant, Parvin Ardalan. While his brother has apparently been released, there is no news about him and Parvin.

After being arrested for the first time on December 21 1996, he wrote a letter, an edited version of which is reproduced below.

The Iranian regime is using the Iranian literary and artistic establishment as hostages in its battle of wits with the German government. The writers are also pawns in the internal power struggle within the Iranian regime, in which the dominant faction wants to stifle the political atmosphere in the run-up to the presidential elections this summer.

“Today is January 3 1997. I, Faraj Sarkouhi, am writing down this account in great haste in the hope that one day people will be able to read it. It may become a document recording the pain and suffering of an unfortunate victim, namely me.

“I don’t know how long I have. Torture, prison and death are what lies ahead of me. I am the victim of a plan that was designed and implemented by the Iranian ministry of information. On November 3 1996 I was arrested at Tehran airport and held prisoner until December 21 in one of the ministry’s secret jails. I am beginning to realise however that the initial part of this complicated plan was drawn up and implemented much earlier, which directly related to my arrest on November 3 and to the 47 days of imprisonment.

“The German cultural attaché invited some writers for a dinner. I did not know the cultural attaché. We discussed the necessity of translating contemporary Iranian literature into German. That night they attacked his house. They filmed us at the dinner table, arrested us and took us to one of the ministry of information’s prisons. There I met Mr Hashemi, an agent of this ministry, for the first time. He told us that the ministry of information’s cultural department knew that we were not spies [and] had intervened to rescue us. However, it proved to be the introduction of a gigantic plot.

“The next incident was my arrest two days after. As I was returning home from the office, they arrested me and blindfolded me, and took me to a secret jail. They beat me.

“Late at night an agent came and told me that they wanted to sacrifice me so that others would be afraid, and that intellectuals would stick to their own business. They forced me to telephone a number of writers and make an appointment to meet them in a street on Wednesday. This I did. On that Wednesday they removed my car documents from my house. I realised that they transferred my car to someone else, so that they could pretend that I had intended to escape and had therefore sold it. My colleagues did not show. They kept me until two o’clock on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday they interrogated me. Before releasing me, Mr Hashemi told me that I was not allowed to leave the country.

“At the beginning of the month Mr Hashemi called to say that they had lifted my prohibition to travel abroad, and that I was free to go. I thought the regime might have realised that their ban on me travelling did not benefit them.

“Here, I would like to clarify mistaken conception[s] I and people like myself held. First, we thought that two fractions co-existed within the system, and that the minister of information belonged to that which does not agree with making things difficult for intellectuals. Second, I have never carried out any clandestine or political work. This certainly led me to be optimistic. I did not doubt Mr Hashemi’s utterances. I bought a ticket. I wanted to depart from Tehran for Germany on November 3. On Saturday November 2, around 10 or 11 at night, Mr Hashemi called. He told me to meet him at four in the morning at Mehrabad airport, in front of the bureau de change outside the hall. This worried me. I waited outside the bureau. One of the agents then came and demanded that I accompany him. I was taken to one of the rooms in the airport hall. From there, they drove me - blindfolded - to one of the ministry of information’s secret prisons.

“During the interrogations they removed the page in my passport which carried my photo, and replaced it with one carrying that of someone else. They had a stand-by ‘substitute’ who took my passport, and with it exchanged some currency, did some shopping in the airport shop and then flew to Hamburg, because my passport has an entry stamp from Hamburg airport.

“On November 3 they took me to jail. The interrogation- and my suffering - started. From the first or second day, they told me that I had been reported missing. They told me that I would be kept in solitary confinement, and when the interrogations were over, I would be killed.

“After that they began to apply terrible pressure. It was a kind of death sentence from which there was no escape. I was not an official prisoner, but announced missing. I was sure that I was going to die. I was destroyed. Part of the interrogation dealt with cultural questions: one part was my life history; another concerned the document signed by l24 persons. Part of the interrogation dealt with my personal, emotional and sexual relations - including my relationship with Parvin. It was in this part that they forced me to write down whatever they wanted.

“Their main task, however, was the ‘interviews’ - their main aim was exposed. They tormented me, then beat the texts they prepared into me, and in a so-called TV interview I had to repeat them.

The main part of the interview concerned espionage. They forced me to lie and say that I had spy contacts with the French cultural attaché and later with the German ones; that I had accepted money from them and other things I can’t remember. To make these falsified interviews natural and believable, they used to write some details about these two cultural attaches, beat the words into me, and made me repeat them in front of the camera. Each time they asked me to plead for clemency and forgiveness. Then they forced me to talk about the sexual relations of other writers, and those with each other’s wives.

“Some may ask why I accepted all this degradation and humiliation. I wanted to get it over as quickly as possible, so that they could kill me.

“It was at this stage that I understood the main part of their plot. They wanted to get some concessions from the German government. The ministry of information’s aim in this has been, and still is, to involve the Germans. The second [aim] was the internal consumption of the whole affair. The third one is to give intellectuals a bad name and to discredit them; another is to destroy both my social prestige and me physically and ethically.

“The plot’s main aim, the involvement of the Germans and getting concessions from them, will be realised by broadcasting forced interviews, and the Germans’ intervention in Iran’s internal affairs will be exploited propagandistically - sending a substitute to Germany and changing the passport photo were part of this plot.

“Why have they chosen me for this plan? I have a political background. I was alone in Tehran, and my wife and children were in Germany. I had attended the party at the German attaché’s house ...

“I had spent eight years in the Shah’s prisons; but all those eight years could not compare in violence and distress with just five minutes of those 47 days. About one month after my arrest they forced me to write Parvin a letter in which I had to say that I was hiding in Germany because of family problems. They enclosed the pages of my passport which showed the Hamburg airport stamp. They made me tell her to show this stamp to my brother, Ismail. As a tactic I was released on December 21. But I am under constant surveillance.

“I don’t know whether this letter will reach anyone or not. I know they will re-arrest me, imprison me or kill me. I think they will continue their plans with the same aims. I don’t know what their next step will be ... I am crushed and destroyed. I am absolutely hopeless. With their infiltrators among political activists and intellectuals, with their fabricated, mendacious interviews, they are going to keep the truth under wraps.

“If someone finds this letter, please pass it on to my wife so that she can get it published. If no one finds the document, I will be dead anyway. In reality I died on November 3.”

Faraj Sarkouhi
From 'Iranian Outlook' (March 1997)