Statement of the Tudeh Party of Iran: Widespread popular protests are a renewed beginning for challenging religious–capitalist despotism and for liberating the homeland from deprivation, poverty, corruption, and the anti-people rule of the Islamic Republic!

Dear compatriots,

The popular uprising that began on Sunday, the 7th of Dey, following the rapid surge in the prices of foreign currencies and gold coins—with shopkeepers’ strikes in Tehran and protest actions on Jomhouri Street and in the Shoush iron market—quickly spread to numerous cities across the country, as well as to student and labor environments. Once again, the chant “Death to the dictator” shook the foundations of the ruling despotic regime.

According to reports published from cities across the country—including Mashhad, Hamedan, Qeshm, Malard, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Yazd, and Arak—protesting citizens confronted armed suppressive forces of the Velayat-e Faqih regime, who attacked demonstrators with tear gas and pellet guns. In Tehran, despite the heavy presence of security and repression forces, the scope of the protests has expanded significantly. Based on available reports, students from Tehran University, Allameh Tabataba’i, Beheshti, Amir Kabir, Elm-o San’at, Sharif, Yazd, Khajeh Nasir, and Isfahan University of Technology also joined the protests in solidarity with the people and were attacked by the regime’s mercenary forces. According to citizen reports on social media, special units of the Revolutionary Guards fired at people in Tehran, Hamedan, and Kermanshah. The exact number of those arrested and injured in this brutal assault remains unclear.

According to videos circulated on social media, students and citizens chanted slogans during direct confrontations with the regime’s mercenaries, including:
“Death to this guardianship,”
“Student, student, be the voice of your people,”
“We are born of blood; we will stand to the end,”
“We fight, we die, we take Iran back,”
“High prices and inflation are destroying people’s lives,”
“The merchant may die, but will not accept humiliation,”
“No headscarf, no baton—freedom and equality,”
“Woman, Life, Freedom,”
“Shut it down, shut it down,”
and “Death to the dictator.”

Furthermore, based on reports shared on social media, workers and employees in a number of factories across the country launched protest actions against rising prices and unpaid wages. Among them, employees of the Kangan Petro-Refinery, Site 2, went on strike to protest the non-payment of four months’ wages and gathered in front of the company’s main gate. In addition, the Union of Truckers’ Associations and Drivers of Iran, representing thousands of drivers and road transport workers, issued a statement expressing serious concern over the chaotic economic conditions, mounting pressure on the market, and the critical livelihood situation of drivers. The statement concluded: “Unity between the market and drivers is the only way out of this situation.” The union also declared full support for the country’s merchants and called on all drivers to pursue their demands through collective, coordinated action while maintaining unity, vigilance, and solidarity.

The main roots of the current protests must be sought in the disastrous socio-economic policies of the Velayat-e Faqih regime: the unprecedented intensification of poverty, inflation exceeding 40 percent, the sharp devaluation of the national currency, the uncontrolled rise in foreign exchange prices, declining purchasing power of citizens, widespread corruption and rent-seeking, and the continuation of inhumane sanctions imposed by U.S. imperialism and its allies.

Dear compatriots,

The political system ruling our homeland—namely the absolute guardianship of Ali Khamenei—is irreformable. Relying on extensive military and security structures, this government has openly and violently violated the people’s rights and authority to determine their own destiny. Without moving beyond this regime of religious despotism and big-capital rule, there can be no hope for improving current conditions, easing economic pressures, reducing poverty and deprivation, resolving electricity and water shortages, or ending the violent and bloody wave of repression against freedoms and democratic rights.

This dictatorship has not only dragged Iran and its society to the brink of collapse and destruction, but has also exposed the country to the serious and repeated danger of foreign intervention and the replacement of the current despotism with another decayed form of tyranny—one dominated by servants of U.S. imperialism and the genocidal Israeli government.

The experience of popular protests over the past decade—especially the January 2018 protests, the November 2019 protests, and the great “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in autumn 2022—demonstrates that without efforts to organize a general and nationwide strike and halt the daily functioning of the Islamic Republic, it is impossible to create the objective and effective conditions for moving beyond it. Solidarity among different social groups—from workers, laborers, and retirees to women, students, youth, and merchants—against the aggressive policies of this regime, and efforts to organize coordinated, nationwide protest movements, can lay the groundwork for seriously challenging the regime and opening the path toward fundamental and democratic transformations.

In this arena, members of the Tudeh Party will stand in the ranks of the protesting people and deploy all their strength and experience to expand and sustain protest movements and transform them into a broad, popular movement.

We continue to believe that all progressive and freedom-seeking forces in the country—from the left and nationalist forces to national–religious groups, as well as individuals and forces that have moved beyond the policy of preserving the “system” and the current government—must join hands and play an important and effective role in organizing today’s mass protests in Iran.

Tudeh Party of Iran

30 December 2025