Iran is not our enemy. If you think it is, you have remnants of chauvinism still

imperialism is responsible for conservatism there

hey i only said more responsible, iranian conservatives still had their own historical agency and are definitely our enemies. i mean, they’re the ones who pulled the trigger, even if imperialism put the guns in their hands

US-focused, but that may help in getting the point across https://hoodcommunist.org/2021/12/16/imperialism-unpacking-the-primary-contradiction/

I’m quoting Lenin almost verbatim.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/dec/25.htm

9. A policy designed not to mislead the workers, but to open their eyes to reality, should consist in the following:

(a) Socialists in every country must now, when the question of peace is so directly posed, unfailingly and more vigorously than usual expose their own government and their own bourgeoisie. They must expose the secret agreements they have concluded, and are concluding, with their imperialist allies for the division of colonies, spheres of influence, joint financial undertakings in other countries, buying up of shares, monopoly arrangements, concessions, etc.

For in this, and in this alone, lies the real, not deceptive, basis and substance of the imperialist peace now being prepared. Everything else is meant to deceive the people. Those who vow and swear by these catchwords are not really supporting a democratic peace without annexations, etc., for real support means exposing, in practice, one’s own bourgeoisie, which by its actions is destroying these great principles of true socialism and true democracy.

For every member of parliament, every editor, every secretary of a labour union, every journalist and public leader can always gather the information kept secret by the government and the financiers that reveals the truth about the real basis of imperialist deals. A socialist’s failure to fulfill this duty is a betrayal of socialism. There need be no doubt that no government will allow, especially now, free publication of exposures of its real policy, its treaties, financial deals, etc. That is no reason to renounce such exposures. Rather it is a reason to renounce servile submission to the censorship and publish the facts freely, i.e., uncensored, illegally.

For the Socialist of another country cannot expose the government and bourgeoisie of a country at war with “his own” nation, and not only because he does not know that country’s language, history, specific features, etc., but also because such exposure is part of imperialist intrigue, and not an internationalist duty.

He is not an internationalist who vows and swears by internationalism. Only he is an internationalist who in a really internationalist way combats his own bourgeoisie, his own social-chauvinists, his own Kautskyites.

(b) In every country the Socialist must above all emphasise in all his propaganda the need to distrust not only every political phrase of his own government, but also every political phrase of his own social-chauvinists, who in reality serve that government.

© In every country the Socialists must above all explain to the masses the indisputable truth that a genuinely enduring and genuinely democratic peace (without annexations, etc.) can now be achieved only if it is concluded not by the present bourgeois governments, or by bourgeois governments in general, but by proletarian governments that have overthrown the rule of the bourgeoisie and are proceeding to expropriate it.

Revolutionary Defeatism, the DUTY of all socialists, requires first and foremost opposing one’s imperialist government. One cannot expose an ‘enemy’ government that one’s nation is at war with, it only serves imperialist intrigue and most westerners do not understand the specifics of other nations anyway. They MUST focus on their own imperialist first and foremost and oppose any fake internationalism that targets only enemies, as that’s imperialist intrigue