A professional organisation is made up of people who do the same job and who organise themselves to protect that which is concerned with their job. For example, the Union of Cordonniers involves cordonniers who make demands around and defend the job conditions of their profession in relation to their bosses as well as to the public authorities.
Of course, there exist many different jobs and professions and naturally a variety of unions have been created to defend the rights of each group of workers.
Every professional/trade body has its own particularities. Nevertheless, every trade has points in common which it shares with others and which it must defend. Workers on the one hand belong to the organisation associated with their particular job, and on the other hand they belong to a social strata which is the working class.
In small trades such as shoemaking or haberdashery as well as some others, if the person concerned is not a wage worker but is self-employed, in other words an artisan, he can be a member of a professional organisation which may defend his rights, but socially he will belong in the class and in the ranks of the petit-bourgeoisie.
The special nature of professional organisations resides in the fact that they fight, within whatever laws are in operation, to improve the conditions of life of the members of that profession and to obtain better working conditions. They formulate job related demands within the context of their countryís constitution. At present, within the capitalist countries the unions are fighting , not in order to topple the government and install socialism, but rather to lessens the degree of the workers exploitation and to improve their conditions of life. The gaining of political power is not on their agenda. They are thinking, for the time being, of improving the conditions under which production is carried out. The trade organisation is not the part of the proletariat which, normally, has in its programme the setting up of a socialist regime. Those workers who wish to bring down the capitalist system must organise themselves within their political organisation, the party of the proletariat.
If a trade organisation were to put the seizure of political power in its programme, it would change itself into a political party and would thus provoke the exit of workers from its organisation. Thus, it would lose its popular support and its trade union aspect.
It is for these reasons that a strike by a trade union organisation must, sooner or later, with or without the intervention of public forces, and given the present balance of forces, arrive at an agreement and a negotiated settlement with the employer. The organisation cannot demand directly the abolition of the bosses. A strike which is taking place over issues of conditions or of wages does not have the aim of or any claim to changing the structures of society. Some leftists think that a workersí party has to be, today, capable of conducting of a sectional strike up to the point of revolution and the toppling of the regime. Such adventurist points of view have been seen in the past history of Iranian workersí movements, when the revolution was expected at the end of every strike. Trade union organisations have to remain popular organisations. They must bring together the majority of workers in their trade or professional area. A bakersí union without bakers does not make any sense. A popular organisation with very few members cannot have the necessary impact or power to put pressure on the employers and as a result of this it can be easily attacked by the employers. There are other organisation which, without belonging to a particular job or profession, make demands and claim their rights through a particular pressure group within that society. Those organisations which defend the rights of women, ecological, and anti-tobacco organisations are of that kind. The specific nature of an organisation in defence of the rights of women comes from the character of its demands, within a chauvinist society which denies rights, sometimes the most elementary, to women. Such an organisation operates also within the context of the laws, on the one hand demanding from the government the establishment of laws in accordance with their demands, and on the other, fighting against the chauvinist culture which is rooted in society. This is not a trade or professional organisation, since its members come from every profession; however, it may become a popular organisation and may represent a large number of women coming from different strata of society. The first condition under which this kind of organisation can exist and work, is the existence of a regime which is relatively democratic and which allows the practice of various activities authorised by its laws and its constitution, that is to say, a regime which tolerates reforms without thinking that they threaten society. An increase in wages, changing of opening and closing hours of stores, the daily working hours, holidays, the right to divorce and the care of children are not issues which threaten to overthrow the foundations of the regime. Changes and reforms and the re-groupment of various interests are possible only in a society experiencing normal and peaceful conditions. In time of war, to call a strike in order to demand an increase of wages will suddenly take on a political aspect even if it is organised by a trade union group rather than a political one.
Suppose that during the Second World War in Nazi occupied France, professional organisations had said that they were not concerned with the war because politics was not their business. The rejoinder would have to be that war is always political and that at the least it is the visible and logical continuation of politics, and that moreover, in the case of a Nazi and fascist victory, all rights and democracy would disappear for everyone.
That is to say that all these ideas are fluid and relative and must be interpreted carefully, taking all the circumstances into account. In this kind of situation the condition of organisations belonging to intellectuals ? are more delicate and complex, since there is always a social aspect to their professional activity. These organisations by nature are not in the business of demanding political power. The majority practice their profession with the aim of greater development of democracy, such as freedom of thought and of religion, freedom of expression. These associations fight for democratic rights since these are a necessary condition for their survival. There is a difference between the professions of intellectuals and those of others. The shoemakers trade union can work and produce shoes under non-democratic conditions. An organisation of bakers can make bread under repression, but how can one imagine that the practice of the writersí trade in the same situation!
All this goes to show that one cannot refer dogmatically to writings and texts defined in advance and under other circumstances. Without an analysis based on the precise given situation, one will reach only false conclusions, non-scientific and non-dialectic about the situation. In Iran, these kind of professional organisations are not facing a capitalist regime which has emerged through the normal evolution of the forces and conditions of production. They face religious fascism which forbids even in its constitution the right of free speech, the right to form organisations and every democratic right. In this situation, it is the constitution itself which must be changed. One cannot talk of a constitutional context in which such and such a right ought to be committed to be exercised. Under the old regime at least democratic rights were contained in the constitution and were exercised normally. However, the new Islamic regime does not even recognise them.
The fate and the future of organisations such as those defending the rights of women or writers or artists who do not accept the regimeís blackmail is clear. Those who do have the authorisation to work are those who are complicit with the regime, since these regimes need their intellectuals to justify the regimeís crimes.
The intellectual wishing to be respected and respectable in such a regime will ignore the oppression of women and the exclusion of half of the citizens of his/her country - his sister, his mother or his wife- in order to create, far from all that, his works of art. Those intellectuals and artists who produced works of art in the Hitler period while closing their eyes to the murder of millions in the USSR and in Poland ñare they not the shame of all humanity? Those who close their eyes to the murder of people of Yugoslavia and do not demand their right to life, how dare they demand freedom and the right to create organisations and demand support from others. If anyone tries to separate out rights, the fundamental human rights, he is in fact trying to gain advantages for himself rather than claiming democratic rights for everybody. An organisation which has no physical, moral and emotional link with the collective destiny of millions of women and men in its own country is not worthy of respect.
However, within the Toufan organisation we do not think that because there is a reactionary regime in Iran therefore it is not necessary to fight for and demand freedoms and democratic rights. Knowing that the Iranian government has forbidden in its constitution every fundamental liberty in the country, except for their own friends, we must not be duped and content ourselves with demanding that everyone works and agitates within the confines of this so-called constitution. It is necessary to force on the regime a recognition of rights and democratic freedoms. Even if they are not recognised in the constitution the regime must be forced to stop hindering the exercise of these rights in practice. In order to achieve this the balance of forces has to be transformed. This can happen if, instead of demanding rights or advantages for such and such a particular group, we demand democratic rights for the entire people. To achieve rights only for Iranís intellectuals, writers, or artists would not put right the question of general freedom in Iran, and the regime would not become a democratic one. The lie of the religious bourgeoisie is underway.
Making a breach in the regime is possible only through the revolutionary pressure of the workers and not through the good will of the whiny president or other rubbish talking ministers who are apparently sympathetic. Only the gathering of all the Iranian people to overturn the regime can be the solution to achieve the end of the regime and the deliverance of the people. One cannot demand of a reactionary regime that it should reform itself. It is necessary to force it. Those who think that it is possible to reform this religious regime from within are deceiving themselves. Religion is fundamentally in contradiction with science, citizenship and democracy. That is why Europe has separated it from public life. Those who think that through reforms they may be able to push this regime to revolutionise itself or extinguish itself are stupid and have not learnt any lesson from 20 years of the regime through sword and blood. These are looking to use the false promises of the Khordade II and the smiles of Khatemi to give credibility to the regime instead of putting their pen and their words at the service of the people for their information and orientation in order to overthrow the regime. In the battle for power between different factions of the regime, they have chosen the camp of Khatemi and not that of the people. The experience of the Khordade II has shown that by taking action one can win reforms, but by simply demanding change one achieves nothing. This reminds us of the story of the father who asked his son what job he would do when he was grown up. The child answered that he would be a dustman like him. The father replied “I wanted to be a doctor but I became a dustman. So if you want to be a dustman just imagine yourself being something else!”
Labour Party of Iran (Toufan)