IRAN’S Tudeh Party marked its 80th anniversary this weekend, vowing to continue the struggle for peace, justice and a popular people’s government.

The party warned that the current clerical regime was the main obstacle to progress in Iran and that workers and the oppressed must unite and challenge the absolute rule of the Supreme Leader, fighting for democracy as “a transitional phase for our homeland.”

It said that this struggle was part of the broader movement against  imperialist influence which leads to the oppression and exploitation of ordinary people in its pursuit of profit.

“The Tudeh Party of Iran has always considered itself a large family of worker and communist parties in the world, and believes in the struggle of the working class and the toilers of Iran in an inseparable part of the global struggle against monopoly capital and imperialism and for the realisation of socialism,” it said in a statement.

It paid tribute to its members and supporters who it said have not wavered in 80 years of struggle despite repression, torture and killings. 

And for the tens of thousands of people who died, Tudeh said that it would honour them by continuing “the historic struggle to eradicate tyranny and establish freedom, independence and social justice.”

Tudeh — meaning mass party — was founded in 1941. At its height it had an estimated 275,000 members and supporters, including a group inside the Iranian armed forces.

But it was decimated in the aftermath of the 1953 coup against then prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, with many members jailed and executed. Thousands more were killed by the theocratic regime established in the 1980s.