Socialism in Iran or Iranian socialism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 20th century and encompasses various political parties in the country. Iran experienced a short Third World Socialism period at the zenith of the Tudeh Party after the abdication of Reza Shah and his replacement by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (though the party never rose to power). After failing to reach power, this form of third world socialism was replaced by Mosaddegh's populist, non-aligned Iranian nationalism of the National Front party as the main anti-monarchy force in Iran, reaching power (1949–1953), and it remained with that strength even in opposition (after the overthrowing of Mossadegh) until the rise of Islamism and the Iranian Revolution.[1] The Tudehs have moved towards basic socialist communism since then.[2]
During the 1920s, the Socialist Party was a leading left-wing political party that was close to the Tudeh Party of Iran and it joined the Tudeh-led United Front of Progressive Parties in 1946, effectively absorbed by the larger group.[14] The roots of the Socialist Party lay in the Democrat Party, a reformist group active in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Following the disintegration of this movement those members who retained faith in the masses and hoped to mobilise the lower and middle classes grouped together under the Socialist Party banner in 1921.[15] The party was led by Sulayman Eskandari, Muhammad Musavat and Qasim Khan Sur as well as Muhammad Sadiq Tabatabai, a member of a leading clerical family recruited largely to hold off the inevitable attacks from conservative clerics.[16] Their main newspaper, Toufan (Storm), was edited by the outspoken and controversial poet Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi.[16]
Branches were set up in Rasht, Qazvin, Bandar Anzali, Tabriz, Mashhad, Kerman and Kermanshah although Tehran was the main base of operations and it was in the capital that the party founded four newspapers and established affiliated groups such as the Union of Employees in the Ministry of Post and Telegraph, a Tenants Association and Patriotic Women's Society.[16] The latter group campaigned for a wider role for women in Iranian society, promoting such initiatives as education for girls and wider provisions for women's health. It had been established in 1922 by Mohtaram Eskandari and quickly affiliated to her husband's party.[17]
The party's programme called for the eventual establishment of equality in society, nationalisation of the means of production, irrigation schemes, a new level of regional government, a free and equal judiciary, the rights of free speech, free assembly and trade union rights, free elections, wider access to education, improved working conditions including an end to child labour and government intervention against unemployment.[18] The party gained some support, attracting 2500 members in Tehran alone soon after its formation.[18]
Along with the Reformist Party, the Revival Party and the Communist Party the Socialist Party was one of the four groups courted by Rezā Shāh as he made his play for the throne of Persia.[19] Along with the Revival Party it formed a working majority in the Iranian parliament that allowed Reza Khan, as he was still known, he form his own reformist government.[20] Khan soon broke from the Socialists and threw in his lot with more conservative elements when he decided to abandon plans for a republic and instead establish himself as king. 134 The part was one of the few in parliament not to actively support Reza's rise to the throne, arguing that despite their support for many of his reforms their republican principles prevented them from endorsing him as a monarch.[21] Following Rezā Shāh's ascension to the throne the Socialist Party disappeared as part of a wider crackdown on anti-monarchist dissent. Iskandari was forced to retire from public life and mobs were organised to harass the party and attack their properties. A Socialist Theatre in Enzeli was razed to the ground by a police-led mob on the pretext that during a performance of Tartuffe a female actor had been on stage whilst in Tehran the Patriotic Women's Society was stoned and their library burnt down.[22] A minor group of the same name emerged in 1944 when radical members of the Comrades Party broke from that group over its failure to support striking workers in Isfahan.[23]
Young Communist League of Persia
Founded in the midst of the Gilan Revolution, the Young Communist League of Persia was a communist youth organization in Persia set up following the July 31, 1920 split between the communist and non-communist Jangali elements. The YCL of Persia conducted agitation and propaganda activities and organized armed actions against the followers of Kuchik Khan.[24][25] The organization was crushed after the defeat of the Gilan soviet.[26]
In 1927 different communist youth groups merged, recreating the YCL of Persia.[26] It was a section of the Young Communist International.[26] In the fall of 1928, the organization was suppressed along with other left groups.[27]
Established in 1941, the Iran Party is described as the "backbone of the National Front", the leading umbrella organization of Iranian nationalists.[36][37][38] Founded by mostly of European-educated technocrats, it advocated "a diluted form of French socialism"[39] (i.e. it "modeled itself on" the moderate Socialist Party of France)[40] and promoted social democracy,[41]liberal nationalism and secularism.[36][42] The socialist tent of the party was more akin to that of the Fabian Society than to the scientific socialism of Karl Marx.[43] Its focus on liberal socialist and democratic socialist principles, made it quite different from pure left-wing parties and it did not show much involvement in labour rights discussions.[44] The Iran Party's basic nucleus were members of the Iranian Engineers' Association.[44] In the Iranian legislative election of 1944, five of the party's leaders including Rezazadeh Shafaq, Ghulam'Ali Farivar, AhdulHamid Zanganeh, Hussein Mu'aven, and Abdallah Mu'azemi won seats, as well as Mohammad Mossadegh who was not a member but the party effectively supported.[39] The party helped Mossadegh establish the National Front, nationalize the oil industry and rise to power. Some members held office during Mosaddegh government.[44] In the 1950s, the party was led by Karim Sanjabi and Allah-Yar Saleh.[45] It was suppressed following the British–American backed coup d'état in 1953[44] and was outlawed in 1957, on the grounds that it had an alliance with the Tudeh Party of Iran ten years earlier.[46] It was revived in 1960 and actively contributed to the National Front (II), which was disintegrated in 1963 and forced to survive secretly. Iran Party held a congress in 1964.[44] Not much is known about the activities of the party between 1964 and the mid-1970s except of some irregular meetings and exchanging views.[44] In 1977, alongside League of Socialists and Nation Party it revived the National Front (IV) and demanded Ruhollah Khomeini's return to Iran.[44] In early 1979, then secretary-general of the party, Shapour Bakhtiar was appointed as the last Prime Minister by the Shah and included two Iran Party members in his cabinet.[44] The party however denounced his acceptance of the post, expelled him and called him a "traitor".[47] The party did not play an important role in Iranian political arena after 1979 and was soon declared banned.[44]
During the 1940s, the Comrades Party was part of a wave of political groupings established in the early 1940s following the removal of Rezā Shāh.[48] The party was formed in November 1942 by Mustafa Fateh, a British-educated economist who was close to the Tudeh Party of Iran but who disliked the close relationship which that party had with the Soviet Union.[49] Fateh, who had been an important figure in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company edited the Tudeh paper Mardom for a time before establishing his own journal, Emruz va Farda.[49] Abbas Narraqi, another founding member had been one of 53 men imprisoned in 1937 on charges of conspiring to lead a communist revolution.[49]
The Comrades Party called for two main aims i.e. political equality to all Iranians and nationalisation of the means of production.[49] It put forward ten candidates in the 1944 election, all of whom came from professional backgrounds.[49] Two members of the Comrades Party were elected to the Majlis of Iran where they sat with the Individuals' Caucus, a group they made up along with the Iran Party and various independents, all of whom largely followed the lead of Mohammad Mosaddegh.[50]
The party split in 1944, following a dispute in Isfahan where clashes between striking workers and local tribes loyal to the Shah had broken out amid accusations that the workers were attempting to lead a communist revolution.[51] The Majlis-based wing of the Comrades Party condemned the workers and affirmed their loyalty to the Shah but another external group joined Tudeh in supporting the strikers and this group, which maintained control of Emruz va Farda, broke away to form the Socialist Party.[52]
Founded in 1943, Movement of God-Worshipping Socialists was one of six original member organizations of the National Front.[53] The party was led by Muhammed Nakhshab. The organization was founded through the merger of two groupings, Nakhshab's circle of high school students at Dar al-Fanoun and Jalaleddin Ashtiyani's circle of about 25 students at the Faculty of Engineering at Tehran University. The organization was initially known as League of Patriotic Muslims. It combined religious sentiments, nationalism and socialist thoughts.[54]
Nakhshab is credited with the first synthesis between Shi'ism and European socialism.[55] Nakhshab's movement was based on the tenet that Islam and socialism were not incompatible, since both sought to accomplish social equality and justice. His theories had been expressed in his B.A. thesis on the laws of ethics.[56]
Toilers formed an alliance with Society of Mujahed Muslims, led by Ayatollah Kashani, pooling their resources and coordinating their activities against government.[62] They actively participated in the 1953 coup d'état and called it a "national uprising", however opposed Fazlollah Zahedi's post-coup military government.[64] Following their opposition, their newspapers was banned and their party office was confiscated by the government and the party went on a hiatus until Iranian legislative election, 1960. They resumed activity in 1961 and expressed support for Ayatollah Khomeini in 5 June 1963 demonstrations.[64] In 1971, the party was reorganized with the permission of the government, but was forced to cease its activities in 1975 after announcement of the one-party state under Resurgence Party.[64] In 1977, Baghai made an attempt to revive the party after declaring loyalty to the Pahlavi dynasty, albeit at restricted level.[64] It was soon after dissolved after the revolution of 1979.[64]
In June 1973 the organization merged with the People's Democratic Front.[78] Ideological differences had existed between the People's Democratic Front and OIPFG. Front's members opposed Leninism, which they saw as a deviation from Marxism.[78]
Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (Marxist–Leninist)
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^Atabaki, Touraj (2006). Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the Great Powers. Library of Modern Middle East Studies. Vol. 43. I.B.Tauris. p. 206. ISBN1-86064-964-5.
^Cronin, Stephanie (2013). Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left. Routledge/BIPS Persian Studies Series. Routledge. p. 71. ISBN978-1-134-32890-1.
^Touraj Atabaki, Solmaz Rustamova (1995). "Ekinçi ve Fe'le". Baku Documents: Union Catalog of Persian, Azerbaijani, Ottoman Turkish and Arabic Serials and Newspapers in the Libraries of the Republic of Azerbaijan. I.B.Tauris. p. 80. ISBN978-1-85043-836-6.
^ abTachau, Frank (1994). "Justice Party I". Political parties of the Middle East and North Africa. Greenwood Press. p. 159. ISBN978-0-313-26649-2.
^Cronin, Stephanie (2013). Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left. Routledge/BIPS Persian Studies Series. Routledge. pp. 252, 256. ISBN978-1-134-32890-1.
^"Rastakhiz: The Iranian Resurgence Party". Indian Journal of Politics. Aligarh Muslim University. 17 (3–4): 83. 1983. Non-parliamentary secessionist category contaiaed the Jungle Party of Gilan, the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, and the Kumaleh Party of Kuridstan
^Minahan, James (2002). "Gilakis". Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: D-K. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 666. ISBN978-0-313-31617-3.
^Haddad Adel, Gholamali; Elmi, Mohammad Jafar; Taromi-Rad, Hassan (31 August 2012). "Iran Party". Political Parties: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. p. 146. ISBN978-1-908433-02-2.
^Abrahamian, Ervand (2013). The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the roots of modern U.S.-Iranian relations. New York: New Press, The. p. 50. ISBN978-1-59558-826-5.
^Gheissari, Ali; Nasr, Vali (2006), Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty, Oxford University Press, p. 48
^Siavoshi, Sussan (1990). Liberal nationalism in Iran: the failure of a movement. Westview Press. p. 71. ISBN978-0-8133-7413-0.
^ abcdefghijHaddad Adel, Gholamali; Elmi, Mohammad Jafar; Taromi-Rad, Hassan (31 August 2012). "Iran Party". Political Parties: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. pp. 141–151. ISBN978-1-908433-02-2.
^Seliktar, Ofira (2000). Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in Iran. Praeger. p. 114. ISBN978-0-275-96872-4.
^E. Burke Inlow, Shahansha, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1979, p. 214
^ abcRahnema, Ali (24 November 2014). Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran: Thugs, Turncoats, Soldiers, and Spooks. Cambridge University Press. pp. 57–59. ISBN978-1-107-07606-8.
^Shirin Akiner, Mohammad-Reza Djalili, Frederic Grare (2013). Tajikistan: The Trials of Independence. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN978-1-136-10490-9.((cite book)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ abcdefgHaddad Adel, Gholamali; Elmi, Mohammad Jafar; Taromi-Rad, Hassan (31 August 2012). Political Parties: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. pp. 209–215. ISBN978-1-908433-02-2.
^Chehabi, Houchang E. (1990). Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini. I.B.Tauris. p. 115. ISBN1-85043-198-1.
^Siavoshi, Sussan (1990), Liberal nationalism in Iran: the failure of a movement, Westview Press, p. 157, ISBN978-0-8133-7413-0
^Abrahamian, Ervand (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, vol. 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 198, ISBN978-1-85043-077-3
^Hiro, Dilip (2013). "Fedai Khalq". A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East. Interlink Publishing. pp. 483–9. ISBN978-1-62371-033-0.
^Vahabzadeh, Peyman (2010). Guerrilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy, and the Fadai Period of National Liberation In Iran, 1971–1979. Syracuse University Press. p. 100.
^Davari, Mahmood T. (2004). The Political Thought of Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic State. Routledge. p. 61. ISBN978-1-134-29488-6.
^Barker, Eileen (2016). Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements. Routledge. pp. 172–176. ISBN978-1-317-06361-2.
^Maziar, Behrooz (2000). Rebels With A Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran. I.B.Tauris. p. 72. ISBN1-86064-630-1.
^Abrahamian, Ervand (1999). Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran. University of California Press. p. 150. ISBN0-520-92290-5.
^Mirsepassi, Ali (2004), The Tragedy of the Iranian Left, RoutledgeCurzon, Table 10.2 Characteristics of principal secular left-wing organizations, 1979–83
^Buchta, Wilfried (2000), Who rules Iran?: the structure of power in the Islamic Republic, Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, p. 83, ISBN0-944029-39-6
