Text of message by Ayatollah Khomeini on the occasion of Workers’ Day, May 1, 1981, as read by announcer on Tehran Radio:

In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. Blessed be Workers Day for the ranks of the valuable workers, for the nation in general and for the oppressed the world over, lt is a national, Islamic and universal duty to mark Workers Day, this backbone of the country’s independence, this [word indistinct] that determines destiny and promotes liberation from dependence and affiliations.

During the brief period since the revolution, particularly following the foreign aggression against the dear homeland, the working class has proved that it is able, with the will of the most exalted, Almighty God, to deliver its dear country from dependence by its round-the-clock efforts, to shut the mouth of the nonsense- mongers, external propagandists and the mercenary domestic leftovers with its mighty clenched fist and reject with the utmost force the deviants and hypocrites associated with the left and right.

Today, after two years, the crimes perpetrated by groups associated with foreign powers have perfectly exposed them to the nation, particularly to the dear workers, and these ignorant groups have, with their words and deeds, proved that they are enemies of the creator and the created and that they are uninitiated actors of the stage. These merchants, by their childish sedition-mongering activity, have exposed their ugly face to the nation, particularly to the oppressed class that was beginning to believe in their support, in so amateurish a way that one should no longer be left in any doubt that they are in the pay of the White House and the Kremlin and that they are the prime enemy of the workers and peasants.

Dear brother workers who are busy serving the country for self-sufficiency with all your hearts and with back-breaking hard work -- these people, in their own crude imagination, are trying to use you as a tool of their evil intentions on behalf of the superpowers. You should be alerted that it is they who turned the university into an arena of war against Islam and Iran and that their insistence and that of their supporters to reopen the university is aimed at implementing the evil objectives of America. They are the ones who made a bond with the enemies of Islam against the Islamic Republic in Kurdistan and elsewhere and are engaged in warmongering; They are the ones who, at every opportunity, have attacked and continue to attack our committed youths who firearms and other weapons; and, while following progress on the front by the armed forces, it is they who engage, behind the lines, in warmongering and sedition to divert attention away from the fronts; it is they who have a hand in plots against the Islamic Republic.

Brothers and sisters, be alert lest your valuable services for the sake of the dear Islamic country be diverted toward serving America through the criminal hands of these groups. Oh great, heroic and martyr-rearing nation, beware that these cast-off elements of colonialism do not use your daughters and sons as tools of the leftist and right-wing world devourers.

Once again I congratulate the dear nation, particularly the workers, on Workers Day and pray to the most exalted God for everyone’s happiness and hope for the elimination of the roots of corruption. Greetings and salutations to the great Iranian nation. May the Islamic Republic of Iran be everlasting.

Ruhollah Khomeini
April 30, 1981

Source: Foreign Broadcast Information Service, May 1, 1981.