Anarchism in Iran has its roots in a number of dissident religious philosophies, as well as in the development of anti-authoritarian poetry throughout the rule ofvarious imperial dynasties over the country. In the modern era, anarchism came to Iran during the late 19th century and rose to prominence in the wake of theConstitutional Revolution, with anarchists becoming leading members of theJungle Movement that established thePersian Socialist Soviet Republic inGilan.
Following acoup d'état and the dissolution of the Soviet Republic, the newPahlavi dynasty undertook the suppression of the remaining anarchist movement. Socialist movements eventually began to reestablish themselves after theAnglo-Soviet invasion, but the Western-backedcoup d'état forced many of these movements underground. Anarchist tendencies started to re-emerge from out of thearmed struggle movement but was again suppressed during theIslamic Revolution, only re-organizing itself by the turn of the 21st century.
In the time of theSasanian Empire, theZoroastrian prophetMazdak advocated for a form of proto-socialism, called for free love, the abolition of private property and overthrow of the king.[1] He saw sharing as a religious duty and that no one should have more than others, though sources dispute whether he advocated communal ownership orredistribution. The latter claim being that he gave land, possessions, women and slaves from the rich to the poor.[2] He and his thousands of followers were massacred in 582 CE but his teaching went on to influence Islamic sects of the following centuries.[3]
A number ofIslamic schools that displayed notable anarchic tendencies were noted to have emerged in Iran following theMuslim conquest in the 7th century. During theSecond Fitna, anextremist sect ofKharijites known as theAzariqa held control ofSouthern Iran until their defeat by theUmayyad Caliphate. Arationalist sect of Islam with notable anarchic tendencies was theMuʿtazila, who denied the necessity of the Imamate like their Kharijite contemporaries.[4] They rose to prominence under theAbbasid Caliphate, particularly during theMihna period instituted by the CaliphAl-Ma'mun, but following the rise ofAl-Mutawakkil they fell underreligious persecution. Many Muʿtazilites found refuge inNorthern Iran during the reign of theAlid dynasties, which officially followed a form ofShia Islam known asZaidiyyah, also persecuted by the Abbasids.[5]
The rise of Shia Islam in Iran saw the development of anarchic tendencies within branches ofIsma'ilism, such as theQarmatians who were noted for theircommunist practices,[6] and theNizaris, who established astronghold inAlamut from which they organised theOrder of Assassins, posing athreat to the stability of theSeljuk Empire. The individualist anarchist tendencies of the Assassins were noted by the contemporary Muslim anarchistPeter Lamborn Wilson, writing on theirabrogation of thelaw in Alamut that:[7]
In a sense, anyone can be theImam; in a sense, everyone already is the Imam [...] the idea of the Imam-of-one's-own-being implies the idea ofself-rule,autarky: each human being a potential king, and human relations carried out as a mutuality of “free lords.” [...] To liberate everyday life [...] begins with the individual and spirals outward in love to embrace others.[...] “radical” (post-Qiyamat) Ismailism restores “sovereignty” to the individual, who thus becomes his/her own “authority.” Spirituality is not a master/slave relation—it is not an “Oriental despotism.” Not any more. Not now. Maybe it never was.
By the beginning of the 13th century, anantinomian movement ofSufidervishes known as theQalandariyya had gained popularity throughoutGreater Iran, developingindividualist anarchist tendencies that rejected societal norms and emphasised social deviance.[8] The influence of anarchic tendencies persisted in Iran, evidenced by a 14th-century text that reiterated the earlier arguments of the Kharijites and Muʿtazilites against the necessity of the Imamate, drawing on the libertarian tribal traditions of theBedouin.[9] But the turn of the 17th century marked the beginning of a decline in minority religious sects in the country, as the reunification of Iran under theSafavid Empire in 1501 initiated a process ofconversion, which resultedTwelver Shi’ism becoming the dominant religion in the country. Despite the suppression of Shia Islam during the reign of the subsequentAfsharid dynasty, the rise to power of theQajar dynasty in 1789 reimposed Twelver Shi’ism as the country's official religion.
Shortly after the establishment of theQajar Iran,Shaykh Ahmad foundedShaykhism, a mystical school ofTwelver Shi’ism based around the promised coming of theMahdi. Shaykh's successorKazim Rashti taught his students how to recognize the Mahdi and, shortly before dying, sent his followers out to find them. In 1844,Sayyed ʻAlí Muḥammad Shírází took the title of thebāb and claimed to be thedeputy of the Mahdi, founding theBábi Faith. In the wake of aBábi insurrection, a wave of persecution was unleashed by the Qajars, with the Báb and many of his followers beingexecuted.[10] Babists subsequently took up anunderground struggle against the Qajar monarchy and theShia clergy, with Qajar sources later coming to view Babism synonymously with anarchism, as one contemporary observer described: "Europe is in chaos. Anarchists, i.e., the enemies of despotic kings in every nation, are powerful across Europe. Domestically, and especially in Tehran, the Iranian anarchists, meaning Bábís, number around 50,000."[11] Asplit in the Babi movement occurred in 1863, afterḤusayn-ʻAlí Núrí claimed to be "He whom God shall make manifest" and founded theBaháʼí Faith, which a majority of Bábís gravitated towards, while theminority faction led bySubh-i-Azal rejected his claim. DespiteBaháʼu'lláh's renunciation of anti-Qajarism and condemning violence against the government,Naser al-Din Shah Qajar remained suspicious of the Baháʼís and made no distinction between them and more radical Azalis, who had continued to oppose the state and clergy, and even practicedTaqiya - which Baháʼís rejected.[12] Towards the end of the 19th-century, anyone inclined towardsanti-statism oranti-clericalism was labelled as a Babi, leading Babism to become the most prominent dissenting voice within the Qajar Empire, out of which many oppositional tendencies began to emerge.[12] The ideas of Babists such asMirza Aqa Khan Kermani andSheikh Ahmad Rouhi went on to influence the development ofsecularism,constitutionalism,nationalism,libertarianism andsocialism in Iran.[11]
During the reign ofNaser al-Din Shah Qajar, radical left-wing ideas had already begun to spread through theCaucasus and intoNorthern Iran, with many northern workers beginning to developclass consciousness. Among the new political ideologies introduced to the country wasanarchism, which surfaced throughout Iran towards the end of the 19th century, taking a particularly strong hold inGilan Province.[13] In the Gilani capital ofRasht, theArmenian anarchistAlexander Atabekian published his journalCommune from 1896 and later a group of Iranian anarchists held demonstrations to protest the execution of the Catalan anarchist pedagogueFrancesc Ferrer i Guàrdia.[14] A group particularly noted for their reception of political radicalism wereIranian Azerbaijanis, one of whom was the youngEhsanollah Khan Dustdar, who himself had become an anarchist while studying inParis.[15]
Risinganti-authoritarian sentiments in the country had given way to a sustained period of revolt against the absolutist rule of the Qajars, with the most notable example being theprotest movement against theconcession oftobacco to theUnited Kingdom.[14] The assassination of Naser al-Din byMirza Reza Kermani lay the groundwork for political change in Iran, culminating in 1906 with the outbreak of theConstitutional Revolution, which transformed theSublime State of Iran into aconstitutional monarchy.
The relative liberalism ofMozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar had led to the rise of a prominent constitutionalist opposition among the middle class and the intelligentsia, including therevolutionary socialists of theSocial Democratic Party andSecret Center, theutopian socialists of theSociety of Humanity, theradicals of theRevolutionary Committee and theIslamists of theSecret Society.[16] Following an economic crisis, a wave of protests broke out against the government, culminating in ageneral strike that finally forced the government to draft aconstitution and convene a democratically electedNational Consultative Assembly.[17] Meanwhile, the escalation of the movement had brought about the formation of regional assemblies that acted as a form ofdual power in opposition to the existing provincial governments and constitutional societies which freely published their own radical newspapers in Tehran.[18] But the coronation ofMohammad Ali Shah Qajar in 1907 marked the beginning of a struggle betweenabsolute monarchy and constitutionalism, as attempts by the new Shah to prevent the final ratification of the constitution led to another general strike, the assassination ofMirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan and widespread public riots, securing the victory of the Constitutional Revolution.[19]Hasan Arsanjani later commented on the uniqueness of the Constitutional Revolution for its time, due to its successful combination ofpeaceful demonstrations,mass meetings andgeneral strikes, comparing it to the anarchist theory ofinsurrection.[20]
As liberals attempted to push more reforms through the Assembly, extra-parliamentary radicals organized a campaign forsecularism, with radical newspapers publishing articles containinganti-clericalism for the first time in Iranian history.[21] The journalHabl al-Matin criticised the new constitutional order for its collaboration with the clerics, who they blamed for the general decline of theMiddle East.[22] Thewomen's rights movement also constituted itself at this time, establishing girls' schools and women's societies to push forgender equality.[23] Frightened by the rise ofsecularism andradicalism, many reactionaries began recruiting followers in opposition to theMajlis.[24] At a meeting of conservatives,Sheikh Fazlollah Noori blamed the post-revolutionary instability of Iranian society on the "atheist Armenian"Mirza Malkam Khan and declared that the liberals of the Majles were "paving the way forsocialism,anarchism, andnihilism".[25] Supported by theRussian andBritish Empires, the newly crownedMohammad Ali Shah Qajar commanded thePersian Cossack Brigade tobombard theNational Consultative Assembly, restoring absolutist rule over Iran.[26]
Armed constitutionalist uprisings broke out throughout the country, with the Society of Guilds organizing ageneral strike and a number of provincial governments declaring their autonomy.[27] Revolutionary socialists of the Secret Center, working together with Armenian intellectuals and Azeri social-democrats, began to build an independent "proletarian organization" that received hundreds of armed volunteers from the Caucasus, led bySattar Khan andBaqir Khan.[28] Civil war split the city ofTabriz along class lines, withAhmad Kasravi observing that: "the sans~culottes and the propertyless poor reared their heads. The driving force of these men was toward anarchy. First to overthrow thedespotic power of the court, then to turn against the rich and the propertied classes."[29] Though the constitutionalists were victorious in Tabriz, they discovered that the city's lower classes had largely sided with the clergy against the revolution.[30]
Leading a coalition of Social Democrats, Social Revolutionaries and theDashnaks,Yeprem Khan managed to capture the city ofRasht and raised thered flag over the city, before going on to lead a guerrilla assault against Tehran.[31] InMashad, Azeri radicals overthrew the local royalist authorities and proclaimed the first socialist program in Iran: calling for the armed defense of the constitution and numerous social reforms.[32] The constitutionalists soon won the civil war and forced the Shah into exile, replacing him with his sonAhmad Shah Qajar and re-establishing constitutionalist rule by the Majlis.[33]
The two most prominent political parties to emerge from the Revolution were the right-wingModerates and left-wingDemocrats, who condemned each other asreactionaries and anarchists respectively.[34] The Democrat Party brought together survivors from a number of the pre-revolutionary radical societies, mostly from the Northern provinces.[35] The extra-parliamentary Democrats were led byHaydar Khan Amo-oghli, who established trade unions and headed a workers' militia, whileMahammad Amin Rasulzade edited the party's newspaper, which propagatedMarxism for the first time in Iranian history.[36] The Democrats declared themselves in opposition to both domestic feudalism and foreign capitalism, and called for a number of far-reaching reforms to the constitutional state.[37] They also argued in favor ofcentralization andnationalism as a counter-balance to Anglo-Russian imperialism and the Shahist autocracy, in a program that brought them into an alliance with the Armenian Dashnaks and the RussianBolsheviks.[38]
The Democrats' proposed reforms drew a sharp opposition from the Moderates who, after taking power in1909, called for the defense of society against "the terrorism of the anarchists, the atheism of the Democrats, and the materialism of the Marxists."[39] The policy of secularism particularly divided the two parties, culminating in the assassination of the clericSeyyed Abdollah Behbahani by the democratHassan Taqizadeh, with the government subsequently ordering the disarmament of the general public.[40] When series of tribal revolts broke out amongst the country's ethnic minority populations,[41] the Russian Empire took the opportunity to occupy the cities of Enzeli and Rasht, demanding a number of concessions under threat of Tehran being occupied.[42] This resulted in the dissolution of the2nd Majlis and a wave of mass protests and riots breaking out against the Anglo-Russian occupation, which were ultimately unsuccessful.[43] With its leaders in exile, the radical movement largely dissolved, with only the Dashnaks and Armenian volunteer police officers providing continuity for the left-wing constitutionalist movement.[44]
DuringWorld War I, the Moderates and Democrats constituted the3rd Iranian Majlis inQum, where it came into conflict with the Russian Empire.[45] Ehsanollah Khan andAbolqasem Lahouti took part in the fighting against the Russians in Qum, under the command ofMohammad Taqi Pessian.[46] The government was forced to retreat toKermanshah, where it was destroyed by the British Empire, forcing many of its members into exile.[45] During his time in the emigrant government's armed forces, Ehsanollah Khan became convinced that reconciliation between the two factions was impossible.[47] With the constitutional government dissolved, it was aguerrilla movement in the province ofGilan that became the leading force in the struggle against the Anglo-Russian occupation.[48]
With the outbreak of theJungle Movement inGilan, theAzeri anarchist intellectualEhsanollah Khan Dustdar led a detachment of leftistDemocrats from Tehran to participate in the revolution. By the time that theRussian Revolution broke out, the Jungle Movement already controlled most of Gilan. Described by an English observer as "Robin Hoods of the Caspian Marches", they carried outexpropriation of property from the rich and redistributed it to the poor.[50]
By May 1920, thePersian Socialist Soviet Republic had been established by aunited front ofJangalis led byMirza Kuchik Khan,anarchists led by Ehsanollah Khan Dustdar andcommunists led byHaydar Khan Amo-oghli.[51] Despite styling itself as a socialist republic, Kuchik's government was made up largely of conservative Islamists, which ordered its people to abide by religious tradition and attracted support from the province's merchant class.[52]
By this point the anarchists and communists had begun to builddual power with the establishment of a "Revolutionary Committee", separate from Kuchik's Commissariat, with its power base in the Gilani Red Army - commanded by Ehsanollah.[53] Tensions between the Jangalis and the communists began to heighten, as communists began to use armed force to collect taxes and introduced many foreign elements into the Gilani Red Army, alienating much of the province's population.[54] Furthermore, the invasion of Gilan by theRussian Red Army exacerbated tensions with the central government in Tehran and led to the intervention of theBritish Empire,[55] which supported acoup d'état against the government byReza Khan'sPersian Cossack Brigade.[56]
Before long factional rivalries had broken out over a divergence between their vision for the Gilan revolution: Kuchik and the Jangalis were aiming for the spread of a nationalist and constitutionalist revolution, where Ehsanollah and the communists were agitating for asocial revolution, reflecting the respective positions of the Moderates and Democrats, which these factions had originally emerged from.[57] On July 31, 1920, the left-wing factions staged a coup, with Ehsanollah commanding the Red Army to overthrow the Commissariat government, forcing Kuchik to flee the capital ofRasht.[58] The new "Red Cabinet", headed by Ehsanollah Khan and composed of leftist Jangalis, members of the Communist Party, anarchists and leftist democrats, implemented a system of "war communism" and instituted class warfare against capitalism and feudalism.[59] During its time in power, Ehsanollah's government greatly reduced unemployment, implemented a wide-reaching education program and attempted to establish anational bank alongmutualist lines.[60] But the radicalism of the new government, combined with the lack of native Gilanis in official positions and its anti-religious campaign, heightened tensions between the government and the local population.[61] Local clerics issued afatwa against the government and land redistribution efforts were even rejected by the peasantry under religious grounds.[62] The Gilani peasantry and middle classes, who largely supported a national revolution rather than a social revolution, became alienated from the new soviet government, leading to Kuchik Khan's armed resistance to the communist government receiving a considerable amount of support from native Gilanis.[63]
Members of the red government, including Ehsanollah Khan, attended theCongress of the Peoples of the East in September 1920, where Ehsanollah's anti-nationalist ideology of class warfare was supported byGrigory Zinoviev, who actively discouraged him from any future alliance with the middle classes.[64] This led to a split within the Persian Communist Party, with Haydar Khan Amo-oghli seizing control of the party and expelling members sympathetic to Ehsnaollah's anarchist program such asAvetis Sultan-Zade, reorienting the party's policy towards cooperation with the middle classes in a national revolution to overthrow the monarchy and oust British interventionists.[65] Haydar also proposed participation in parliamentary politics and even collaboration with the government of Reza Khan, which led Sultan-Zade to criticize Haydar's leadership as "national-reformist" lacking in any communist policy.[66] Supported by Zinoviev, Sultan-Zade subsequently formed aleft communist opposition to Haydar'sAdalat faction, with the left communist faction being represented byJa'far Pishevari at theThird Congress of theCommunist International.[67] On the other hand, Haydar's faction had the backing ofJoseph Stalin, whose political program manifested itself within the Adalat Party.[68]
With Haydar now moderating communist policy, Ehsanollah's government abandoned war communism and implemented a "New Economic Policy", which deemphasized class warfare andworld revolution, relaxed government intervention in the economy and everyday life, and put an end to its anti-religious campaign. Haydar also mediated a truce with Kuchik Khan, who rejoined the soviet government in May 1921 as part of a reinvigorated united front. Sultan-Zade's left communist faction was excluded from the government and Ehsanollah was demoted to a minor role.[68] By August 1921, Haydar's faction had entirely excluded anarchists and left communists from the Soviet government, dismissing Eshanollah from his governmental post and abandoning the remains of his radical program, culminating in Haydar re-proclaiming the Soviet Republic under his rule.[69] Following his expulsion from the government, Ehsanollah led a force of 3,000 Gilani Red Army troops in a march on Tehran, but was routed byFazlollah Zahedi, revealing a weakness within the Gilan Republic's revolutionary strength.[70]
Internal tensions within the soviet government over land reform culminated with right-wing Jangalis staging a coup, assassinating Haydar Khan and destroying the headquarters of the Communist Party, and entering into negotiations with the central government.[70] Meanwhile, Reza Khan's government had signed a "Treaty of Friendship" withSoviet Russia, negotiating the withdrawal of the Russian Red Army from Gilan in October 1921 and thereafter reasserting the central government's control over the province.[71] Following the destruction of the Gilan Republic, an armed conflict broke out between right-wing forces led byMirza Kuchik Khan and left-wing forces led by Ehsanollah Khan, ending in a leftist victory as Kuchik's forces fled into theTalesh mountains. Kuchik soon succumbed tofrostbite and died in hiding, where Ehsanollah was eventually forced into exile in Baku.[72] By 1925,Reza Khan had been proclaimedShah by the Majlis, deposing the Qajars and establishing the rule of thePahlavi dynasty overIran.[73]
In February 1927, Ehsanollah Khan travelled toMoscow where he met with other Iranian revolutionaries and began planning to create an underground revolutionary network, in order to agitate amongst the Iranian populace. He envisioned this as acting independently from the now-undergroundCommunist Party of Persia and requested support from the Comintern Executive Committee, conditional on it not interfering in his activities. From Baku he coordinated the establishment of this network, led by his brother in Tehran, which began its clandestine activities.[74] However, the Comintern reneged on its promised support following the ratification of a trade deal between Iran and the Soviet Union in October 1927.[75] Following a subsequent congress held by the reactivated Communist Party, the Comintern resolved to cut ties with Ehsanollah Khan and dissolved his nascent revolutionary network. In 1928, after Ehsanollah Khan distributed a number of caricatures depicting Reza Shah as a puppet of theBritish Empire, communications between the Iranian and Azerbaijani governments resulted in the NKVD ordering him and his network to forever cease and desist their political activities.[76] Ehsanollah Khan was later executed as an "enemy of the people" during theGreat Purge. By 1930, in reaction to the revived activities of the Communist Party, Reza Shah ordered the passage of a national security law that outlawed the propagation of "collectivist ideology", which included socialism, communism and anarchism.[77]
Following theAnglo-Soviet invasion of Iran which forced the abdication and exile of Reza Shah, many of the country's political prisoners were released and left-wing political ideas began to flourish once again. WhenEbrahim Hakimi came to power as Prime Minister, he resolved to both ease relations with the Soviet Union, while also instituting repressive policies against left-wing political movements. Hakimi banned public demonstrations, moved to outlaw the newly established communist party and refused to open dialogue with the "anarchists" that led theAzerbaijani Democratic Party (ADP).[78] One of these so-called "anarchist leaders" of the ADP was the left communistJa'far Pishevari, who had recently established a USSR-backedPeople's Government inAzerbaijan and had decades earlier participated in Ehsanollah Khan's soviet government in Gilan. By June 1946, Pishevari finally reached an agreement with the Central government, relinquishing Azerbaijani autonomy and going on to join theUnited Front of Progressive Parties, alongside the communistTudeh Party, the socialistIran Party and a number of otherleft-wing nationalist parties. In 1946, the United Front briefly became part of thecoalition government established byAhmad Qavam, but this was short lived. Following an insurrection by a number ofQashqai andBakhtiari tribes against "communism, atheism, and anarchism", as well as sustained opposition by the military and pressure from Western powers,Mohammed Reza Shah swiftly ordered Qavam to form a different coalition without any left-wing political parties.[79]
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Tudeh subsequently entered into an internal feud over their policies of unconditional support for the Soviet Union and opposition to the national liberation struggles inAzerbaijan andKurdistan, withEhsan Tabari accusing critics of these policies of "negativism, cynicism, anarchism, intense individualism, and other character disorders prevalent in Iranian society", leading to a number of splits, expulsions and resignations.[80] In 1948,Jalal Al-e-Ahmad founded theThird Force after breaking with the Tudeh Party,[81] which he criticised for succumbing to "Westoxification", while exalting the National Front for accommodating religion into its platform, which he specifically credited for the Front's grassroots support.[82] Due to Al-e-Ahmad's gradual recognition that religion could have a revolutionary potential, his former allyKhalil Maleki told him "you have become an anarchist".[83] According to Yadullah Shahibzadeh, Al-e-Ahmad's political philosophy "represented an anarchist conception of democracy".[84]
The Iran Party went on to found theNational Front coalition, together withMohammad Mosaddegh, which waselected to theMajlis and led the effort tonationalize theAnglo-Persian Oil Company in 1951, eventually forming aminority government. The government wasre-elected with popular support, but was lateroverthrown in a monarchist coup backed by theUnited States andUnited Kingdom. The Shah consolidated power and began to rule as anautocrat, suppressing the country's left-wing opposition with a newly establishedsecret police known as theSAVAK. Eventually, the Shah declared that opposition to his regime was "limited to a handful of nihilists, anarchists and communists",[85] as many left-wing political leaders had already fled the country.[86]
In 1955, the socialist Rezazadeh Shafaq commented that "I thoroughly agree with Western observers who describe Iran as a nation of anarchistic individuals. In our country, everyone considers himself a leader, sets his own goals, goes his own way, and without compunction tramples over others."[87]
Inspired by his teacherLouis Massignon,Ali Shariati constructed a revolutionary form ofIslamic socialism that characterisedMuhammad andAli as fighters of aclass war on the side of theproletariat,[88] in a synthesis ofMarxism andexistentialism together with a militant form ofShia Islam.[89] Following his imprisonment in 1964, Shariati developed a new-found appreciation forindividual freedom, his conception of which stood in opposition todictatorship,imperialism andexploitation. He believed in a form of "goal-oriented Islamic freedom" that could securefalah and argued thatrevolutionary education could liberate society from "ignorance and injustice". In his narrative poemFreedom, blessed Freedom, Ali Shariati wrote:[90]
"O freedom, I despise governments, I despise bondage, I despise chains, I despise prisons, I despise governments, I despise dictation, I despise whatever and whomever enchains you."
According toSeyed Javad Miri, some scholars have argued that Ali Shariati was an anarchist,[91] and Shariati's political philosophy has even gone on to inspire some sections ofIslamic anarchism.[92] Crucically his synthesis of Shia Islam with revolutionary socialism set the groundwork for the rise of a radical militant movement, with many Iranian socialists and communists dedicating themselves to armed struggle against the Shah, influenced in part by theMaoist concept ofpeople's war and the advocacy ofinsurrection by South American anarchists.[14]
Following theSino-Soviet split, the Tudeh Party had taken a pro-Soviet line and renounced violent revolutionary action, labelling it as essentially anarchist and contrary to Marxism-Leninism, claiming that the Iranian movement for armed struggle lacked a revolutionaryclass consciousness.[93] In response, a number of Iranian communist students in Europe split from the party in order to pursue a policy of armed struggle against the Shah, founding the Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party (ROTP) alongMaoist lines.[94] When the ROTP published a pamphlet claiming that “the revolution in Iran will only succeed through the violent approach and armed struggle”, Tudeh responded by accusing them of taking "a completely sectarian, left-wing and adventurist" stance, denouncing the ROTP's "petty-bourgeois revolutionariness" which Tudeh claimed "resembled anarchism".[95] Many ROTP members that returned to Iran to undertake an armed struggle against the Shahist government were captured, tortured and killed.[96] Others, including the leading ROTP figureParviz Nikkhah, converted tomonarchism while imprisoned, becoming outspoken advocates of theWhite Revolution and opponents of revolutionary armed struggle.[97]
In the wake of the suppression of theJune Uprising, former members of theFreedom Movement took part in the foundation of thePeople's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK).[98] The MEK's ideology drew inspiration from a number of different areas, includingShiite beliefs,Marxist theory and insurrectionary anarchist practice. Through the Spanish anarchistAbraham Guillén and the Brazilian communistCarlos Marighella, they adopted the Bakuninist revolutionary strategy ofpropaganda of the deed, which they synthesised with the Islamic concept ofIstishhad.[99]
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In 1971, a Marxist group known as theOrganization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG) was established inTehran, where it carried out a number of political assassinations against Shahist officials throughout the 1970s. The Tudeh Party claimed that the Fedai Guerrillas had more in common with theinsurrectionary anarchism ofMikhail Bakunin andJohann Most, which advocated for individual propaganda of the deed as opposed to an armed struggle conducted by a disciplined political party only under the correctmaterial conditions.[100] From his exile inBulgaria,Farajollah Mizani wrote the pamphletWhat Are the People's Guerrillas Saying?, in which he defended the legitimacy of the Tudeh Party as therevolutionary vanguard and denounced those that proposed armed struggle as "the worst kind of anarchists", inspired more by the insurrectionary anarchism of Bakunin than classicalMarxism-Leninism.[86] According to Mizani, the armed struggle theories that were proposed by theultra-leftists were "devastating Maoist" and "anti-Marxist-Leninist" theories of "terrorism and anarchism".[101] By 1976, theminority faction of the Fedai aligned with the Tudeh against armed struggle, themselves denouncing propaganda of the deed, considering it to be an "aberration of Marxism".[102] Meanwhile, aMaoist splinter of the Fedai eventually developed anarcho-communist tendencies, with a number of anarchists splitting off to establish an organization known asThe Scream of The People (CHK).[103]
Popular unrest against the Shah's government culminated in 1978, with the outbreak of theIranian Revolution.Workers' councils known asshuras were formed all over the country, and took over the management of factories, offices, universities and even hospitals. Peasants revolted and seized the lands they worked on, while industrial workers in the oil industry went on strike, which brought the national economy to a standstill.[14] During the course of the revolution, the Workers' Liberation Group (WLG), an Iraqi anarcho-communist organization, illegally crossed into Iran in order to help the CHK support theshura movement,[103] while a number of anarchist "opposition combat groups" formed in order to wage guerrilla warfare against the Shah's government.[103]
By January 1979, the Shah had fled to country and guerrilla organizations such as the MEK and OIPFG had launched an insurrection against the state, taking over key centres of military infrastructure.[104] Theshuras quickly became the basis of the new Iranian society, setting up agricultural collectives and self-managed enterprises, establishing neighborhood assemblies and even arming the population. Over a million people participated in theMay Day demonstration of that year in Tehran and the headquarters of the state-controlled trade union federation was occupied by workers, who established theWorkers' House in its place and called for every factory in Iran to form their ownshuras. The South African anarchist Michael Schmidt described this period as "a true workers' revolution with secular revolutionaries and Muslim workers overthrowing the capitalist state side by side."[105]
But before long,fundamentalistclerics aroundRuhollah Khomeini started toconsolidate power by ordering the end to strikes and declaring theshuras to be "counter-revolutionary". Theinterim government passed a law that banned workers' self-management through theshuras and undertook a liquidation of the workers' movement, replacing them with state-controlled institutions designed to rebuildcapitalism in Iran. TheIslamic Republican Party was founded to take control of the government away from opposition parties, theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was mobilized to dissolve theshuras, repressKurdish separatism and attack thewomen's rights movement, andHezbollah was established to break up the continuing strike actions.[106] By the end of 1979, any remaining opposition had been suppressed and theIslamic Republic of Iran wasconstituted as atheocratic state. The anarchists of the CHK and the WLG were both targeted in the suppression, with many of their members being killed and their organizations forcibly dissolved.[107]
Following the revolution, the OIPFG had split up into a number of different factions: when themajority reformed as a political party, abandoning armed struggle and eventually leaving behind its communist views altogether, theIranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG) led byAshraf Dehghani broke away and continued to engage in guerrilla warfare, fighting in theKurdish rebellion alongside a number of Kurdish parties including theKurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), before its suppression in 1983.[108] After many of its members were forced into exile in Europe,[109] the IPFG came into conflict with a number ofKhomeinists in the diaspora. Some of the IPFG's exiled members began to move away from itsorganizational principles and re-examine the defeat of the Iranian left-wing movement, gravitating towardslibertarian socialist schools of thought. One of these members, Payman Piedar, came across anarchism while inNew York during the early 1990s and began to collaborate in aPersian-languagelibertarian Marxist journalGhiam (English:Insurrection), which brought an end to his affiliation withLeninism. Piedar and a number of his collaborators went on to foundNakhdar (English:Neither God, Nor state, Nor bosses"), a specificallyanarcho-communist magazine in both Persian and English that developed a readership among the Iranian diaspora, with some of its issues being smuggled into Iran.[110] By the turn of the 21st century,anarcho-syndicalism was also being propagated by Iranian exiles, including the former MEK member Nima Golkar who joined theCentral Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC) in 2008,[111] and it was later reported that anarcho-syndicalism had become the dominant anarchist tendency within Iran itself.[112]
The process of anarchist ideas once again beginning to take hold within Iran and theIranian diaspora[113] eventually culminating with the establishment of theAnarchist Union of Afghanistan and Iran in May 2018,[114] which resulted from the collaboration of the AfghanAleyh group and the Iranian Radical Anarchist Front. Pulling mostly from a membership within Afghanistan and Iran, they declared themselvesopen to all anarchist tendencies, with the exception ofanarcho-pacifism,religious anarchism andanarcho-capitalism.[112] The Union has since organized support for anarchist political prisoners in Iran, including Soheil Arabi. Members of the Union also participated in the2017–2018 Iranian protests, which they noted were organized without any central leadership,[115] and issued a statement declaring its willingness to cooperate with armed groups inKurdistan,Baluchestan andKhuzestan.[116] They also claimed there was a "serious and widespread anarchist participation" in the2019–2020 Iranian protests.[112]
