Marxist Theory and the Iranian Left's Praxis

This contribution seeks to problematize the idea of the 'failure of the Iranian left' by critically re-contextualising it in the wider international context of the recurrent disjuncture between Marxist theory and the practice of non-Western leftist movements. It will suggest that the root of this consequential disjuncture lies in the fact that in the construction of his social theory Marx attributed a 'contingent' - rather than 'constitutive' - status to the international', i.e., 'that dimension of social reality which arises specifically from the co-existence within it of more than society'. This theoretical circumstance, I will argue, lies at the heart of political and praxis-related dilemmas and defeats as well as innovations and revisionism of the left across the world. A glaring example of this circumstance was the encounter of the Iranian left with eth 1979 revolution. The contribution then reflects on the implications of this circumstance for contemporary reappraisals of Marxism. It therefore speaks to the other contributions to the round-table addressing the 'political history' and the 'gender' practice of the Iranian left.