Nasser Asgary - Revolution: How is leadership formed?

 Nasser Asgary

With its open and unrestrained repression on January 8 and 9, the Islamic Republic has effectively demonstrated that it has reached a historical dead end. It no longer possesses any means of survival other than mass violence. This level of brutality is not merely an expression of strength; it is an admission of political impotence and an official declaration of systemic bankruptcy. Can Iranian society—or global public opinion—accept the continued rule of a system whose logic and mode of governance belong to an anachronistic pre-modern world fourteen centuries old, and which has survived into the twenty-first century only through repression? The answer is no. Iranian society, in my view, is preparing for a final, nationwide confrontation—a struggle to determine the ultimate fate of a structure that seeks survival through bloodshed.

Leadership

All forces that today seek revolutionary change—across the political spectrum, including those who look toward foreign intervention—share one fundamental understanding: the decisive force for change lies within society itself. This force is not merely latent; it is already active. The central question, therefore, is not whether change is possible, but who will assume leadership of this revolution.

Many believe that a revolution requires a pre-existing, clearly identifiable leadership—one that society can trust to guide the process until power is seized. While this belief is widespread, historical experience shows that it does not necessarily align with revolutionary reality. In the context of Iran’s 2026 revolution, such a leadership not only does not exist, but attempts to impose a ready-made and predetermined leadership have become a source of divisiveness rather than unity.

Revolutions generate their own forms of organization and leadership through their objective process. These formations—whether called councils, committees, associations, communes, headquarters, etc.—emerge as direct responses to the concrete needs of each stage of struggle. Revolutionary leadership is not a fixed position, but an evolving historical process that takes shape across multiple phases. Each phase produces its own mechanisms for decision-making, coordination, and advancement.

Within these formations, individuals emerge who may not be leaders of the entire revolution, but who function as genuine representatives rooted in real struggle. In later stages, these figures may become delegates to assemblies or parliaments born of the revolution—institutions that themselves reflect the balance of forces and the level of development of the movement. Such bodies mediate between street struggle and broader political organization, enabling the revolution to advance to higher stages.

In more stable periods, these assemblies may elect representatives to participate in wider and more inclusive structures. These representatives may not have been the most prominent leaders on the ground in earlier stages, but they possess the capacity to politically represent society at that particular moment. The trajectory of leadership formation cannot be predetermined today or defined abstractly. A revolution passes through multiple stages, each shaped by unpredictable developments. At different moments, society may be represented by different political tendencies, from right to left. What matters is not the name of the leader, but the sustained presence of society in the struggle and the preservation of revolutionary initiative.

Partisanship

Decades of systematic repression have deprived Iranian society of public, mass political parties. Not only party activity, but even the open declaration of political identity has become dangerous and costly. As a result, protests have emerged on a wide scale but largely without stable organizational foundations. Activists often operate individually or within small, temporary networks. While this has not prevented mass uprisings, it has weakened the revolution’s capacity to endure, deepen, and overcome critical turning points. This condition must change.

Partisanship is not merely an organizational form; it is a mechanism for linking fragmented struggles, transmitting experience, accumulating collective awareness, and building historical memory. Political parties allow workers, students, women, minorities, and other social forces to converge within a shared framework rather than act in parallel isolation. Without partisanship, each wave of protest begins anew, repeatedly paying costs that have already been paid. Partisanship breaks this cycle of exhaustion and elevates struggle from reactive resistance to conscious strategy.

Historical experience confirms that no sustainable revolution has advanced without some form of political organization. In the Russian Revolution, the soviets became decisive only when political parties actively participated within them, articulating and contesting different political orientations. In twentieth-century anti-colonial revolutions—from Algeria to Vietnam—parties and fronts unified diverse social forces under a common horizon and transformed rebellion into political power. Even in Iran’s 1979 revolution, the absence of an independent and progressive mass party enabled a well-organized force to seize control of the revolutionary outcome.

The experience of Iranian Kurdistan clearly demonstrates how a partisan society produces a different form of resistance. There, protest is not merely explosive or episodic, but organized, coordinated, and continuous. Political parties and organizations allow street demonstrations to rapidly evolve into strikes, civil disobedience, and more advanced forms of struggle. This difference is not cultural, but structural—it is the result of an existing tradition of political organization.

To advance the revolution, partisanship is essential in every possible and appropriate form, even under conditions of repression. Partisanship does not mean concentrating power in the hands of a narrow group. Rather, it clarifies political tendencies, brings differences into the open, and transforms hidden, corrosive rivalries into transparent political debates subject to public judgment. In the absence of party organization, revolutionary leadership inevitably becomes informal, unaccountable, and individualized—conditions that risk reproducing authoritarianism.

Partisanship is one concrete expression of the historical process of leadership formation that the revolution requires. Political parties and organizations work alongside movement activists, enable collective decision-making, and facilitate the transition from street struggle to stable political structures. Without this organizational foundation, the revolution remains trapped at the level of protest; with it, the possibility emerges for a conscious project of social reconstruction.

January 21, 2026