_{Anahita Rahmani, ex-political prisoner in Iran and supporter of the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners NOW}

The history of America’s crimes is not something that is hidden from the eyes of the people of the world. The democratic and republican governments have worked together all along, united in suppressing and killing freedom fighters and communists almost all around the world. They have always taken political and communist activists to the slaughterhouse under the name of democracy. We have witnessed military aggressions and coups against nationalist and socialist governments, or the McCarthy court and purges of artists and progressive people, under the united plan of both factions within the US government. But the interesting thing is that now these attacks against the progressive, and revolutionary activists are carried out by the so called “Left”, who have a long history of appeasement with one of the most fascist governments, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Today, not too surprisingly, we are witnessing that there are countless and vicious attacks by these so called “left and progressives” in sync with Democratic party hacks, and fascists joining together, against the organization Rise Up for Abortion Rights, an organization that has done its best by organizing young people not to leave unanswered, the attacks launched by fascist religious fundamentalists against women’s rights; to prevent American society, and the whole world from marching backward and returning to fifty or so years ago. All these accusations against Rise Up for Abortion Rights such as financial corruption, being against LGBTQs, or against natives or people of color… are fake and baseless, and they know it too. But the purpose of all this in order to attack the Revolutionary Communist Party of USA (RCP), that has put all of its power to support Rise Up for Abortion Rights and its great and revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian.

It is very clear to everyone that one of the three initiators and founders of Rise Up, is Sunsara Taylor, who is a leading revcom and one of the followers of Bob Avakian, who constantly exposes the so-called liberal face of this system in demonstrations against the ban on abortion rights, with fiery speeches as well as exposing the fascistic function of this imperialist system, while openly expressing her views of the need for revolution, a communist revolution and that communist revolution needs to be led by the New Communism brought forward by Bob Avakian.

For all women in the world, especially for women like me who come from a religious fundamentalist society, the fight for women’s rights is very crucial. A matter that was NOT given sufficient significance in the late ’70s and early ’80s when every struggle and conflict was postponed to concentrate on the conflict between the workers and the capitalists, and the contradiction nationalism against imperialism… as important as they were. Other social contradictions were looked at as totally secondary, or irrelevant. This had a significant effect in stabilizing the reactionary regime and contributed to the defeat of the revolution, a price paid by millions.

In summations of past struggles and revolutions Bob Avakian puts forward a new synthesis of communism, amongst its many significant aspects is his view of the oppression of women cannot and should not be postponed until after the revolution. Rather, the fight against patriarchy needs to be grasped firmly and fought against today. Bob Avakian’s analysis that the oppression of women is one of the most significant fault lines of class society in moving toward a society without oppression and exploitation. And it is based on this understanding that the RCP, with all its energy takes part in the women’s movement including the fight against ill-legalization of abortion.

Bob Avakian’s summary of the past of the communist movement was very inspiring for us communist women who were fighting against patriarchy and for our rights. As an ex-political prisoner I have to mention that defending political prisoners is very close my heart. Today, the only organization in America that defends the political prisoners of Iran and fights to free them all, is RCP. In addition, I must say that I, as a communist woman who spent 8 years of my life in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not turn away from any effort to free all political prisoners in Iran.

With its internationalist approach, RCP supports every righteous struggle in the world. Unfortunately, many so called progressive leftists in America side with the Islamic Republic of Iran and defend it under the banner of “anti-imperialist struggle against American imperialism”. While the RCP has taken a position against both outmodeds of the world, the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran and US imperialism, both are reactionaries and outdated. Siding with any of these outmodeds and that siding with any if them leads to the strengthening of both of them.

RCP and its great leader have never turned their backs against the people of Iran and their struggles. They point out a real solution for people of Iran as well as here in America, to make revolution, ’til all reactionary forces are dumped where they belong, in the dumpster of history’s depository, while passionately putting forward a communist alternative.

In the terrible and dark conditions of the eighties, when the Iranian revolution was defeated and my best comrades were executed or imprisoned, the internationalist revolutionary movement, which RCP was very influential in was able to scientifically analyze the causes of the defeat of revolutions in general, and the defeat of socialist governments, in specifically. In those hard conditions, all forces had lost their compass. For me and my other comrades, it was very promising and a light in the darkness to receive these summations, which was able to increase our ability to resist and stand up to the regime’s brutal attacks, both physically and in the form of ideological attacks. The contribution of RCP and Bob Avakian cannot be even touched upon in these few lines, but I, as one of the communists who is dedicating herself to a world without exploitation and oppression, a classless world of communism, will always appreciate the contribution by Bob Avakian in wrestling with the most difficult contradictions of the revolution. In these difficult times particularly in the current crazy situation where all kinds of revisionist, reformist, social democratic, parliamentarians, and other post-modernists and identity politics and views are suffocating the air, I cherish the principled revolutionary approach of RCP and particularly Bob Avakian.