Iran:
Regime Crimes and Imperialist Maneuvers

February 2, 2026

This article is translated from the January 30 issue, #3000 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.

As limited communication is restored between Iran and the rest of the world, testimonies reveal the scale of the massacres perpetrated by the leaders of the Islamic Republic to suppress the popular uprising.

The regime acknowledges 3,000 deaths, which includes and artificially inflates the number of police officers and Basij militia men killed by protestors the government labels “terrorists.” The number of protesters killed between January 8 and 10 could exceed 30,000. Another 100,000 are believed to have been wounded. Tens of thousands were arrested, even inside hospitals. Survivors who took refuge at the Turkish border described the hunt for protesters by police and militia men, who had been pumped into a frenzy. Medical workers describe hospitals overwhelmed with gunshot wounds. Doctors were forced to amputate infected limbs. There wasn’t enough blood for transfusions. Many victims had head and especially eye injuries from bullets or batons. Families of prisoners report overcrowded jail cells, where wounded people were left untreated and detainees were tortured.

Since 2017, previous protest mobilizations have drawn in various segments of Iranian society such as young people, women, and workers, and were brutally repressed. But the movement that began on December 28, 2025, by shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, quickly attracted people of all ages and social backgrounds, including conservative members of the lower middle class who had long been loyal to the regime. Government leaders were faced with a revolt that threatened their power. Their support inside the country was dwindling. They consciously orchestrated a bloodbath to terrorize the entire population.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards acted to defend the interests of Iran’s privileged classes, who feared losing everything in a mass uprising. A French columnist wondered, “Can one imagine a society stained with the blood of 30,000 of its own?” But he should be able to imagine this, because 30,000 dead is roughly the number of Parisian workers who were murdered by the authorities during the repression of the Paris Commune in May 1871. Their blood will always “taint” the memory of France’s Third Republic.

Imperialist leaders who claim to be outraged at the massacre in Iran are actually complicit. They have collaborated with the Iranian regime whenever and wherever they found it necessary, from Afghanistan to Iraq. Western leaders don’t criticize the dictatorship. They criticize that it does not sufficiently comply with their interests, that it supports Hezbollah and Hamas, and that it maintains economic ties with Russia and China, two countries imperialists want to isolate. As one survivor of the repression put it, “The Americans and Europeans just want to do business with Iran.”

Trump cast himself in a favorable light by posting to protesters in early January, “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! … HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” This was obviously just empty rhetoric. Trump is more accustomed to suppressing protesters and was not about to help them. In fact, when people protest in Iran, he prefers to see them crushed. The dirty work done by the regime means less work for a potential occupying army to do.

With the popular uprising seemingly quelled for now, the U.S. calmly sent an armada to the Persian Gulf and threatened to bomb Iran, as it did in June 2025. All while claiming to be a liberator. Certainly, various American intelligence services and their Israeli allies are maneuvering to create a potential alternative to Khamenei and his henchmen. But their problem in this is to preserve the state apparatus and its repressive forces which are capable of keeping the population in line. To this end, all pro-American networks and media outlets have propelled Reza Pahlavi to the forefront. He is the son of the shah, the dictator who was overthrown by revolution in 1979. Some people in the Iranian diaspora present him as a potential solution. He is betting on support by factions within the widely discredited regime.

But no solution imposed by bombs or by the maneuvers of American imperialism will allow the workers and working people of Iran to live decently and freely.