Iran on Fire
The revolutionary potential of the Iranian uprising lies in its leaderless rejection of authority, yet it faces the dual threats of state repression and liberal co-optation.
The streets of Iran are currently shrouded by a digital darkness that the Islamic Republic has imposed to hide a massacre, but in the light of flames the screams emanating from the cities of Ilam, Tehran, and Mashhad cannot be silenced by severing fiber optic cables. We are witnessing a historical rupture that began in the final days of December 2025 and has now exploded into a full-scale revolutionary situation in the first weeks of 2026. This uprising is fundamentally different from the reformist movements of the past decades because it is rooted in the absolute rejection of the current order without asking for permission or help from any source other than from the rioters themselves. It is a rebellion born of material desperation and fueled by a collective realization that the theocratic state, much like the monarchy before it, is nothing more than a machine for the extraction of wealth and the suppression of human life. The timing of this explosion is not accidental, as it correlates directly with the final collapse of the economic delusions peddled by the regime, proving once again that the catalyst for radical social change is found in the material conditions of the working class and the marginalized.
At the heart of this unrest is the sheer unlivability of life under the Islamic Republic, a reality that has stripped away any remaining ideological veneer the state attempts to maintain. The regime’s announcement of price hikes on essential goods like oil, chicken, and eggs by up to thirty percent was the spark that ignited a powder keg of accumulated rage. Inflation has rendered the currency worthless, turning the simple act of survival into a daily humiliation for millions of people. When the government promises a paltry subsidy that can only be used for a handful of predetermined items, they are not offering relief but rather instituting a rationing system reminiscent of a prison commissary. This economic violence is the primary form of warfare the state wages against its subjects, and the people have correctly identified that their poverty is not a result of divine will or foreign sanctions alone, but of the systemic looting by a clerical-military oligarchy. The bazaars of Tehran, historically a conservative bastion of regime support, have shuttered their doors not out of political idealism, but because the capitalist management of the theocracy has made commerce impossible.
To understand why this moment holds such terrifying potential for the ruling class it is critical we reject bourgeoisie ideology and understand this moment through a harsh materialist analysis. The closure of the Grand Bazaar coupled with the strikes by oil workers and truck drivers represent the withdrawal of labor power that sustains the state. When the shopkeepers of the bazaar and the laborers of the South Pars refineries stop working, the theological legitimacy of the Supreme Leader becomes irrelevant because the flow of capital that pays the Basij mercenaries dries up. This is the beginnings of class war in its most visceral form. The protesters setting fire to banks and government buildings in Hamadán and Qom are not engaging in mindless vandalism; they are attacking the physical infrastructure of their dispossession. They understand instinctively that the bank and the police station are two arms of the same body that is strangling them.
However, as the streets burn with the promise of liberation, a ghost from the past seeks to haunt the future. An irrelevant monarchist faction, led by Reza Pahlavi and supported by a network of Western media outlets and intelligence agencies, is working feverishly to co-opt this organic uprising. They seek to transform a movement for the abolition of the dictatorship into a movement for the restoration of a different kind of authoritarianism. The monarchists wave the Lion and Sun flag as a symbol of unity, but for the working class and the ethnic minorities of Iran, that flag is drenched in the blood of the torture victims of SAVAK. To replace the turban with the crown is to preserve the structure of the state while merely changing the costume of the executioner. The monarchists falsify history to present the Pahlavi era as a golden age, conveniently erasing the brutal repression, the enforced modernization that alienated the poor, and the subservience to Western capital that defined that era.
The danger of this monarchist co-optation cannot be overstated because it serves the interests of global imperialism. The United States and its allies have no interest in a genuinely free, socialist, or anarchist Iran that manages its own resources for the benefit of its people. They desire a client state that will integrate seamlessly into the neoliberal world order and open Iran’s vast markets to Western exploitation. When Donald Trump declares that the United States is “locked and loaded” to intervene, he is not speaking the language of liberation but of conquest. Any foreign intervention, whether military or diplomatic, will be designed to decapitate the radical potential of the uprising and install a pliable regime that will continue the project of capitalist extraction. The anarchist position is clear: we reject the bayonets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the missiles of the US military with equal fervor. There is no humanitarian imperialism, only strategic repositioning of chains.
Liberalism stands as the handmaiden to this reactionary slide, acting as the soft face of counter-revolution. The liberal opposition, both inside the diaspora and among the reformist elements within Iran, constantly calls for “non-violence,” “orderly transition,” and “leadership.” These are code words for the preservation of the state apparatus. They fear the chaos of the streets because in that chaos, the people are learning how to govern themselves without intermediaries. Liberals argue that the movement needs a leader to negotiate with the world powers, but this is precisely the trap. A movement with a leader can be beheaded, bought off, or assassinated. A leaderless movement, a rhizomatic explosion of anger and solidarity that spans from the Kurdish mountains to the deserts of Baluchestan, is ungovernable and therefore unstoppable. The liberal obsession with “unity” is a demand for the silencing of radical demands in favor of a lowest-common-denominator politics that protects private property and hierarchical power.
The most potent antidote to these reactionary forces is found in the slogan that has defined this era of struggle: Woman, Life, Freedom. Originating from the Kurdish liberation movement, this slogan is not a plea for legislative reform but a philosophical negation of the patriarchal state. The women of Iran, particularly in Kurdistan, are not merely fighting against the mandatory hijab; they are fighting against the entire system of gender apartheid that serves as the foundation of the Islamic Republic. The hijab is the symbol of the state’s ownership of the body, just as the rial is the symbol of the state’s ownership of labor. By burning the hijab and dancing in the streets, women are reclaiming their bodily autonomy and disrupting the visual and moral order of the theocracy. The joint statements from women’s organizations in Sanandaj, Saqqez, and Marivan emphasize that freedom cannot be handed down from above by a king or a president; it must be seized by the collective will of the oppressed.
The regime’s response to this existential threat has been a predictable descent into barbarism. The reports of massacres in Mashhad and Ilam, the use of military-grade weapons against unarmed crowds, and the killing of children in their mothers’ arms reveal a state that has lost all capacity to rule by consent. The internet blackout is a military tactic designed to atomize the resistance, to make each city feel like it is fighting alone, and to hide the scale of the atrocities from the global public. Yet, this information darkness has failed to extinguish the fire. The resistance has moved to a localized, face-to-face mode of organization that is harder to surveil and harder to disrupt. The burning of seminaries and Basij bases indicates that the people have moved beyond fear and are actively dismantling the symbols and tools of their oppression.
We must also scrutinize the geopolitical context of this uprising, specifically the role of the so-called “anti-imperialist” bloc. The Islamic Republic has long used its antagonism with the United States and Israel to justify its domestic repression, framing every internal dissenter as an agent of Zionism or the Great Satan. This narrative has been swallowed by segments of the global Left who practice the “anti-imperialism of fools,” engaging in campism that apologizes for the crimes of Tehran because it stands in opposition to Washington. This binary thinking must be rejected. The Iranian regime is a sub-imperialist power in its own right, projecting violence across Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, while starving its own population. Its alignment with Russia and China is not a principled stand against hegemony but a desperate maneuver by a gangster state to secure its survival within a multipolar capitalist order. A true anti-imperialist stance stands with the Iranian worker and the Kurdish woman against both the mullahs in Tehran and the warmongers in Washington.
The anarchist perspective on this uprising highlights the emergence of spontaneous order amidst the collapse of state authority. In the absence of a central command, neighborhood committees have formed to coordinate defense, distribute food, and share information. This is the embryo of a new society growing within the shell of the old. The paralysis of the government machine from below, without the immediate replacement with a new state power, creates a vacuum that the state fears but revolutionaries must embrace. It is in this vacuum that real self-management becomes possible. The mutual aid networks described in the reports from the Anarchist Front are not just survival mechanisms; they are prefigurative political acts that demonstrate that society does not need a Leviathan to function. The burning of banks and the redistribution of goods is the practical application of socialist economics in the heat of battle.
The liberal opposition’s call for a “smooth transition” effectively demands the preservation of the police, the army, and the bureaucracy, solely replacing the turbaned heads with tie-wearing technocrats. This betrayal would leave the machinery of repression intact, ready to be turned against the working class the moment they demand their fair share of the national wealth. We saw this in Egypt in 2011, where the army was preserved as the guarantor of stability, leading inevitably to the restoration of dictatorship. The Iranian movement must learn from history: the state is not a neutral vessel that can be steered toward justice; it is an instrument of class rule that must be smashed and replaced by a federation of free councils.
The violence of the state has escalated to a point where the right to self-defense has become a necessity for survival. When security forces fire live ammunition into crowds, the people have every right to fight back with stones, Molotov cocktails, and whatever tools they have at their disposal. The pacificism preached by liberals from the safety of the diaspora is a moral luxury that those facing the barrel of a gun cannot afford. The burning of the police motorcycles and the overrunning of security posts are acts of dignity. They shatter the myth of the state’s invincibility. However, this violence must remain disciplined and focused on the structures of power, avoiding the sectarian traps that the regime tries to set to divide the population.
The uprising is also a reckoning for the Persian-centric nationalism that has historically marginalized the Kurdish, Baloch, Arab, and Azeri populations. The chants of “Azerbaijan is honorable, Seyed Ali is dishonorable” and the fierce resistance in Zahedan and Kurdistan demonstrate that the periphery is leading the center. The monarchy seeks to suppress these unique identities under a blanket of Persian chauvinism, disguised as national unity. Anarchism, by contrast, champions a decentralized Iran where every region and ethnicity possesses the autonomy to determine its own destiny within a voluntary federation. The unity of the current movement is built on shared suffering and a common enemy, not on the erasure of difference.
As the strikes deepen, the economic paralysis of the state becomes its greatest vulnerability. The recent resignation of the central bank chief and the desperate attempts to unify the exchange rate are signs of panic within the corridors of power. The regime can shoot protesters, but it cannot force shopkeepers to open their stores or oil workers to turn the valves. If the general strike can be sustained and expanded to critical infrastructure sectors, the state will be starved of the resources it needs to pay its repressive apparatus. This is the race against time: can the strike breaking the regime’s back before the regime breaks the will of the strikers through hunger and violence?
The international community must look beyond the narratives crafted by state actors. The solidarity required is not the intervention of foreign armies but the support of the global working class. Dockworkers refusing to load ships bound for the regime, tech activists helping to breach the internet blackout, and protests in Western capitals demanding an end to the hypocrisy of their own governments are concrete actions that matter. We must amplify the voices of the Anarchist Front and the independent women’s organizations, ensuring that their radical demands are not drowned out by the well-funded public relations campaigns of the monarchists.
There is a distinct possibility that the regime will attempt a “false reform” scenario, sacrificing a few high-ranking officials or making cosmetic concessions to split the opposition. Alternatively, a military coup by the IRGC to remove the clergy and establish a secular military dictatorship is a scenario that some in the West might quietly welcome as a “stabilizing” force. Both outcomes would be a defeat for the revolution. The movement must remain uncompromising in its demand for the complete dismantling of the current power structure. The slogan “death to the oppressor, whether shah or leader” encapsulates this refusal to choose between two forms of tyranny.
The blood that stains the pavement in Karaj and Sanandaj is a testament to the high stakes of this struggle. If the uprising fails, the retribution from the state will be apocalyptic. If it succeeds in toppling the regime but falls into the hands of liberals or monarchists, the cycle of exploitation will continue under a new flag. But if the radical spirit of the streets can be preserved, if the neighborhood committees can evolve into permanent councils, and if the rejection of authority can be transformed into the construction of a new way of living, then Iran could become the beacon of a new global revolution.
This is not a time for nostalgia or for trusting in saviors. It is a time for the complete negation of the old world. The monarchists offer a return to the past; the liberals offer a stagnated present with better optics. Only the radical path of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement offers a future. This future is one without systems of domination, a world where the power pyramid is not just inverted but pulverized. The people of Iran are showing the world that even in the face of total darkness, the human spirit can ignite a fire that burns through every cage.
The internet may be down, but the connection between the oppressed is stronger than ever. The silence of the digital void is filled with the roar of a people who have realized that they have nothing to lose but their chains. The collapse of the Islamic Republic is not just a political possibility; it is a historical necessity driven by the contradictions of a system that devours its own children. Whether this collapse leads to liberation or a new form of servitude depends entirely on the ability of the movement to resist co-optation and remain true to its anarchic, egalitarian roots.
We must remain vigilant against the recuperation of our symbols. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” slogan is being diluted by those who wish to strip it of its revolutionary class character and reduce it to a liberal demand for cultural rights. We must insist that “Life” means the material means to live—bread, housing, healthcare—and “Freedom” means freedom from the state and capital, not just the freedom to vote in a rigged election. The battle of narratives is as critical as the battle for the streets.
In the coming days, the brutality of the regime will likely increase as they utilize their “Army of the Islamic Republic” to bolster the police. This indicates a fracturing of the repressive apparatus, as relying on the regular army for domestic suppression is a desperate measure that risks mutiny. The anarchists and revolutionaries on the ground are exploiting these fractures, using fluid tactics to exhaust the security forces. They are proving that a decentralized insurgency cannot be decapitated because it has no head.
This is the lesson for the world: sovereignty does not reside in palaces or parliaments; it resides in the collective power of the people to say “no.” The Iranian uprising is a rejection of the social contract that demands obedience in exchange for survival, because the state can no longer even guarantee survival. In this absolute negation, a new affirmation of life is born. The path forward is fraught with terror, but it is the only path that leads out of the slaughterhouse of history. We stand with the Anarchist Front, with the women of Kurdistan, and with every striker and stone-thrower who is writing the future with their courage. The ghosts of the past have no place here; the streets belong to the living.