By moving towards the organising of a general mass strike and coordinating popular protests around common core demands, the dictatorial, tyrannical, and corrupt regime as well as its repressive organs can be brought to their knees! 

Dear Compatriots! 

Following the heinous murder of MahsaAmini by the mercenaries of the "Guidance/Morality Patrol" of the Supreme ReligiousLeader’s [ theocratic ] regime, for the first time in recent years, the oppressed people of more than 80 cities of the country have embarked upon an unprecedented political, social, and economic protest movement in revulsion at this horrendous crime committed by the increasingly unpopular regime of the Islamic Republic - rising up and seriously challenging the continued repression of women's rights in our country and the enforcement of mandatory hijab. It is important to emphasise that the widespread public protests in 2018 (28 December 2017- 7 January) and November 2019 owed mainly to the increased economic pressures, including the sudden rise in petrol prices in [November] 2019. 

Prior to that, the people's protests in 2018 first began in Mashhad and a number of cities in Khorasan province,under the slogan: "They are using Islam as a tool to grind down the people!"This initiated a wave of protests which spread through cities across Iran within the space of a week. In those protests, people drew attention to problems with the regime's policies through the adopting of specific slogans and declared that the solution to these problems would be to change the senior government officials and their policies. 

The popular protests of 15-21 November 2019, which drew in more than 100 cities, clearly demonstrated the people's anger at over 40 years of oppression, repression, discrimination, plundering, and murders, which was triggered by the sudden tripling of petrol prices - a price hike which was set to seriously disrupt the lives of more than 80% of our people. 

The Tudeh Party of Iran has, in recent years, emphasised that despite all the crises that have been preoccupying the regime and the presence of the objective conditions for fundamental transformations in Iran, the necessary subjective conditions for such transformations unfortunately do not exist at present- owing to the continuous repression meted out by this criminal regime. This essentially means that there are no organised social- political forces that can marshal the popular protests up to the critical point of a general countrywide strike and the presentingof a specific political programme to bring about a popular alternative and thus remove the Islamic Republic regime from the country's political life. Without attempting to coordinate the endeavours of the workers and the oppressed around minimal, agreeable, and achievable slogans amongst their ranks; without linking the principled and heroic struggles of workers and toilers with those of women, youth, and students; without the participation of all different strata of the society who seek a fundamental change, the regime of the Supreme Religious Leader will continue to go on in spite of all the current crises that it is encountering. 

In the current situation, for instance, where tens of thousands of young people, women, and students have risen throughout the country to fight against the regime in more than 80 cities - with tens of people already confirmed killed and hundreds more injured - workers and toilers, who in recent years were engaged at the forefront with crucial struggles against the regime, have no discernible presence. The participation of the working class in these protests,with their capacity and resolve to paralyse the regime and its economic organisations, could play a key role in tilting the balance of power in favour of the mass protest movement.

Dear Compatriots! 

By disconnecting the internet and communication networks, the regime is clearly planning a violent, widespread, and bloody suppression of the protests - as it previously carried out in 2018 and 2019. In recent days, the protesting people and youth have shown that, with coordinated and joint resistance, they can force the regime's mercenaries to retreat and flee. In these critical and decisive moments, the solution is a joint and coordinated action with widespread participation of all strata and classes of people, especially workers and toilers, in confronting the repressive attacks of the regime. This criminal and ignorant regime should not be allowed to neutralise the spreading protest movement of the masses by brute oppression and closure of the communication networks. 

The Islamic Republic regime is utterly beyond reform and its continuation will lead to terrible disasters for our country's move towards freedom, peace, security, and social justice. The continuation of the current regime is the ultimate cause of insecurity in our country. The various repressive organs of the regime, from the Sepah (IRGC) and Basij militia to the Ministry of Intelligence and the 'morality police', have all robbed the security and anysemblance of a normal life fromthe majority of the people of our country. The main goal of the people, as they have clearly stated in their slogans, is the transition from the current dictatorship to a free and independent Iran - emancipated from the shackles of the theocratic regime and threat of foreign interventions,including those made by their [foreign] propaganda agencies in the affairs of our country. 

The Tudeh Party of Iran once more condemns the bloody and brutal repression by the theocratic regime against the people of our country and calls upon all the progressive forces of Iran, and the wider world, to actively support the protest movement of the masses in Iran.

• Hand in hand, let us move together towards the broadening of the people's coordinated struggle against the ruling dictatorship!

• Victory will belong to the people of our country, sooner or later!

• We salute the free women and men who have so bravely challenged the criminal and ignorant regime on the battlefield!

The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran

24 September 2022