There are striking parallels between the situation in Iran in 1978/79 and the situation in Russia in 1917. Both the Shah of Iran and Czar relied on an extensive network of secret police to ensure
their hold on power. Both were autocratic rulers who governed with the acquiescence of 'rubber stamp' popular assemblies. Both presided over agrarian semi-feudal economies which were undergoing rapid
modernization and industrialization. Both had to contend with an increasing militant working class. Land reform was an urgent issue in both countries. The Shah had carried out an extensive programme
of land reform in the country side but this was aimed not at delivering a more equitable distribution of the nation's resources but rather to facilitate the growth of capitalism. There are
similarities between the Shah's land reform programme and the Czar's decision to emancipate the serfs in 1861. As in Russia there was an enormous influx of peasants into the cities looking for work
as they were forced from the land. They constituted a revolutionary working class. Iran was a semi feudal country undergoing rapid industrialization and modernization and its peasantry as a
consequence were being rapidly 'proletarian zed' the perfect conditions for revolution.

As with Russia and the French Revolution for that matter, the downfall of the Shah was finally brought about by divisions within the ruling class as the Shah's abdication was enforced by the Prime
Minister and a Provincial Government was formed. The Russian and Iranian Revolutions are perfect illustrations of David Christian's thesis about what makes a revolutionary working
class. There are other examples too. The August 1973 edition of the National Geographic carries a story about Calcutta and graphically depicts the influx of impoverished peasantry into that city. In June 1977, The Communist Part of India Marxist) at the head of the Left Front won a landslide victory in West Bengal and remains in government in that state to this day. West Bengal in effect
underwent a Communist Revolution in June, 1977, one carried out at the ballot box. The Left Front in West Bengal gets little publicity in Socialist circles in comparison to Cuba, despite its
undoubted success, having won six elections in succession and all by large margins. I believe that the ultimate fate and trajectory of the Left Front in West Bengal should be followed closely by
Socialists.

Another example of the phenomena has been in the recent upheavals in the impoverished South American nation of Bolivia where last October an uprising of workers and peasants came to the brink of
revolution. There were two wings to the Revolution one led by peasants which appeared to be the more radical of the two and one by the working class chiefly coal miners. I suspect that these Coal
Miners had recently been peasants themselves that is to say these coal miners were another example of a proletarian zed peasantry which constitutes a revolutionary working class, and that there were
probably strong familial ties between the coal miners and peasantry in Bolivia.