Radicalization of the Pre-Revolution Student Movement

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Radicalization of the Pre-Revolution Student Movement Abroad

Hamid Shokat

Presented at the Third Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies

Washington, D.C.

May 25-28, 2000

Over the last fifteen years, I have attempted to come to grips with aspects of the history of the Iranian student movement abroad. In three books, one dealing with the evolution of the first large-scale Iranian student organization, called the Confederation of Iranian Students, the second and the third each covering the political life and struggles of two of the prominent leaders of this movement, using extensive interviews and the documents of the movement, and finally relying on my own experience as a participant-observer of this evolution, I have come to some early and tentative conclusions about the origins of Iranian student radicalism abroad. What I will offer here today is a brief synoptic account of my conclusions about this important moment of Iranian political and intellectual history.

Contrary to the common perception, the origins of the Iranian student radicalism abroad do not go back to the 1953 coup that toppled the government of Mossadegh. In the years leading to the war, a number of Iranian students living in France and Germany began to form loosely organized student groups and fought against Reza Shah’s despotism. Some of Iran’s leading communist and social democratic leaders, amongst them Taghi Arani, Iraj Eskandari, Khalil Maleki, and Morteza and Bozorg Alavi, were from the ranks of these early student organizations.

In the aftermath of World War II, the political landscape changed not only in Iran but amongst the relatively small number of Iranian students studying in Europe. The consequences of the Cold War and the ever-present question of oil made Iran a theatre for great power rivalry, particularly between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Containing Soviet aggression was to be a main pillar of U.S. policy in Iran for the next four decades. At the same time, the Soviet Union, through the creation of the Tudeh party, tried to increase its power in Iran. In the midst of this battle, Mossadegh came to lead the popular movement to nationalize Iranian oil, and thus as Iran was caught in deep political turmoil, the Iranian students in Europe also began to reflect these political tensions.

In the early post-war years, students sympathetic to the Tudeh party, were the main force in politicizing the Iranian students living in Europe. Following the pattern of a Soviet-style Communist party, Tudeh sympathizers began to create student organizations that were ostensibly only pursuing the academic and financial demands of the students, but were in fact political in nature. These early front organizations fought for such simple issues as the amount of foreign currency allowed each student and the help provided by the embassies in facilitating the students’ life and education. In March of 1941, the first organization of Iranian students was formed in the city of Bonn, in Germany.

It is crucial to remember that in these early years, the activities of these Iranian students were not unknown to the Iranian embassies abroad. Furthermore the Cold War atmosphere in Europe made it impossible for these groups to openly declare their allegiance to the communist cause. Thus, the Tudeh activists who helped create and lead these early groups went out of their way to deny any connection to the communist party. At the same time, along with the line then advocated by the Tudeh Party, these organizations concentrated on student issues, and tried as much as possible to stay clear of political battles. Fighting for peace and disarmament was often their only foray into the field of politics.

When Mossadeq came to power in the Spring of 1952, a rumor that had been long festering amongst the Iranian students turned out to be true. The government of Mossadeq, faced with serious financial crisis, and a shortage of foreign currencies, decided to cut the special currency allotment for students studying in Europe. No sooner was the announcement made that a vast movement of protest, of angry letters to authorities in Iran , of sit-ins and hunger strikes began. In France, a “Committee to Defend Student Rights” was formed. In other cities across Europe, other “Currency Committee” sprang into existence. The culmination of these struggles came in the Summer of 1952, when Iranian students organized a sit-in in the Consulate office in Geneva.

Ironically, the 1953 coup brought a sudden halt to all Iranian student radicalism in Europe. It took another five years before students began any activity. It was during Eqbal’s tenure as the prime minister when students in France organized what they called a kind of “Committed Syndacalist” organization. Inspired by the French student movement of the time, “committed syndicalism” implied that a student organization can not only defend the academic rights of its members, but it can also engage in political battles, only so far as it would not become an outright political party. Along this line, the Iranian students began to organize, and one of their first acts was to commence publishing a journal they called Nameyh Parsi.

These groups still did not have an altogether adversarial relationship with Iranian embassies in Europe. In fact, in many of the meetings, representatives of the Iranian government were invited to participate in the student gatherings. The demands articulated in this period by the students were, in political terms, limited in nature. They wanted insurance coverage and more importantly, they demanded that returning graduates, instead of serving as simple conscripts, should be allowed to teach in the Iranian countryside. It is important to remember that years later, the very same policy became part of the elements of the White Revolution.

The first issue of Nameh Parsi was published in April of 1959. At the same time, preparatory work for convening the first Congress of the Confederation, to be held in Heidelberg, continued. It is important to note that contrary to the common perception—the perception that might have well been created by the Tudeh Party itself—neither the Tudeh party nor the National Front had much role in preparing this Congress. Indeed it is primarily the students sympathetic to the Society of Iranian Socialists that led the work of convening the Congress. Gradually as the Tudeh party and the National Front increased their power, they further isolated the Socialist group.

After the Heidelberg Congress, future meetings were held in London, Paris and Lausanne. The number of students participating in these gatherings, as well as the other activities of the Confederation, saw a rapid increase. Amongst the new demands made by the students in December of 1961 was the right of women to vote. Within two years, this too, like the demand for college graduates to teach in the Iranian country-side, would become a principle of the White Revolution.

In January of 1964, the third Congress was convened. By then the student movement was deeply influenced by the victories of the Cuban and Algerian revolutions. A new kind of radicalism, emphasizing revolutionary violence as the sole path to liberation, began to develop roots amongst the Iranians. In Iran, the unsuccessful premiership of Ali Amini, and the fact that the mass uprising of people in Iran in 1963 was brutally suppressed, helped further this process of radicalization. The fact that the Shah’s regime had successfully eliminated all political groups and organizations in Iran meant that by 1964 the Confederation emerged as the sole political organization articulating the demands of the Iranian people.

In spite of these changes in the overall intellectual and political atmosphere, the Society of Iranian Socialists continued to insist on a reformist path. And thus by the time of the third Congress, in London, their political fortune began to decline. The old leadership of the Tudeh party was equally incapable of changing with the new circumstances. The fact that they were a satellite of the Soviet Union, and had to follow the Big Brother’s party line further contributed to their political sclerosis.

Between January of 1960, when the first Congress was convened, to January of 1964, drastic changes had occurred in the nature of the demands of the Iranian students. Opposition to the despotic rule of Mohammed Reza Shah had by then emerged as a key element of the students’ political agenda.

In response to these rapidly changing circumstances, a number of young members of the Tudeh party began to come together in a new radical organization that had its first meeting in February of 1964 in the city of Munich. Thus it was that the revolutionary organization of the Iran Tudeh party came into existence, and Marxism-Leninism, and after a short while, what they called “Mao Tse-Dong Thought” became their ideological guide. Activists of this new organization accused the Tudeh party leadership, by then based in Eastern Germany, of forsaking the revolutionary struggle. In 1965, the first Congress of the new organization was held in Albania, creating the biggest schism in the history of the Tudeh party after the Maleki split. Nearly all of the party organizations in Western Europe broke off from the Central Committee and joined the new and growing organization. The revolutionary organization advocated armed struggle and in order to train partisans, they sent teams of young cadres to Cuba and China. A new page had been turned in the history of the Iranian left. Members of this new organization wrote in their theoretical organ, “the imperialist coup of 1953 and the overthrow of the Mossadegh government was a warning to all democratic forces in Iran than henceforth a peaceful path to change is no longer an option for our people. This is one of the biggest lessons of our history. Belief in the necessity of a revolutionary armed struggle is the chief characteristic of a true revolutionary today.

Much the same factors that helped radicalize the young members of the Tudeh Party worked to change the nature the more active members of the National Front. A new younger generation of activists had emerged who were also disgruntled with the old leadership, and its accommdationist approach to the Pahlavi regime. They gradually came to the conclusion that armed struggle is the only path to salvation. Divided as they were between religious and secular forces, they too sent young cadres to be trained for guerilla war-fare to Egypt and Algeria. The new generation went on to create what came to be known as the “Third National Front.” In their organ, Irane Azad, they wrote, “in this stage of the struggle, the Third National Front has consolidated its base of power by organizing poor peasants who have nothing to loose, and stand to gain everything, if they are freed from the yoke of exploitation and colonialism…Expanding the Front through inclusion of workers and peasants, and our emphasis on slogans that respond to the problems of the day, will allow the Front to adopt a more resilient tactical approach in its attempt to actualize its strategy…it will allow the organization to use force, if need be, in its struggle against despotism, as the native foundation of colonial rule, and respond to the regime in the only language it understands…The new generation believes that it must wisely, and with full cognizance of the solemnity of death, prepare a new generation of Mujaheds and guide their violence towards the revolution.

In the same article, it was further argued that “in order to become independent, the society must go through the transitional stage of a revolution,” and that in order to “create a new system, every compromise must be avoided.” In other article of the same issue, there was a discussion of conditions in Greece, and the benefits of a republic, as compared to a monarchy for that country. Furthermore, there were also translations of parts of Che Guevera’s essay on guerrilla war-fare, and all of this, from a group that not long ago, in its famous meeting in Tehran’s Jalaliye Square had clearly advocated the rule of law.

The radical turn amongst the activists of the National Front and the new Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party was sure to have far-reaching impact on the activities of the Confederation. There was henceforth a more systematic attempt to increase the social base of the organization, and emphasize the necessity of unity in its ranks. In early days, there had been constant tensions between these two groups in their joint struggle in the student movement. One consequence of this tension was that eventually, during the Paris Congress, the Confederation was split. The fact that the Tudeh party invariably followed the Soviet line, and the reality of the anti-Communist sentiments of the Front all added fuel to these early controversies. When finally, the Tudeh Party was all but expelled from the Confederation, and when the Front itself turned more and more into a leftist organization, the source of the tensions that hitherto plagued the Confederation dissipated. As far as the Front was concerned, the Tudeh Party was guilty of treason in the matter of the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. Furthermore, in the mind of the Front leadership, the party had acted irresolutely in fighting the 1953 coup. But the leaders of the new Revolutionary Organization offered a clear slate; they had no role in the party decisions at the time of the coup and thus were not burdened by its guilt. Their advocacy of revolutionary armed struggle meant that while they enjoyed all the glamour that had once been attached to the image of the Tudeh Party, they suffered none of the negative aura that by then surrounded the party.

Another factor helping this new spirit of alliance and cooperation was that the Revolutionary Organization, following the Chinese Communist line of creating a united front with elements of what was in the jargon of the time called the National Bourgeoisie, enthusiastically sought to cooperate with the Front as the bono fide Iranian representative of the much vaunted National Bourgeoisie. For their part, the Front had all but completely broken from its own past and emerged as a leftist organization.

The unity of the Front with the Marxist-Leninist did have one negative consequence for the Front itself. Moderate religious forces, led by figures like Bani Sadre, were opposed to what they figured was a too cozy of a relationship between the Third National Front and the Revolutionary Organization, and eventually, in protest to this all too intimate alliance, they split from the Front.

As these changes were taking place in the ranks of the Confederation, a new larger wave of Iranian students began to arrive in Europe and America. They were of a new generation, with no direct experience of the coup and its aftermath. They were politically schooled in the days when the struggle of the Viet Namese and the Algerian and Cuban people was at its height. The new generation sought quick and often violent solutions to the problems plaguing Iranian society. Not only the number of Iranian students coming to the West increased, but the social fabric and economic class from which they came changed. Hitherto, coming to Europe and America had been more or less in the monopoly of the children of the higher classes. As a result of the changes brought about by the White Revolution, where the very demography of Iranian society changed, and as a consequence of increases in the oil revenue, a new urban middle class emerged. Their sons and daughters, and occasionally even the children of the working and peasant classes themselves found their way to Western universities. They would often join the ranks of the Confederation, and gradually and surely changed the fabric of life in that organization.

With its ranks swelling in numbers, and with radicalism on the rise, the Confederation was suddenly faced with the daunting task of trying to save the life of Parviz Nikhah, and his comrades who were jailed on the charge of conspiring to kill the shah. In heat of the vast, and energizing struggle to save Nikhkah, in June of 1965, the Confederation organized a seminar in the city of Dussoldorf to study the future policies of the student movement. In the final resolutions of the seminar, crucial and consequential language was introduced, advocating that “in countries like Iran, students can and should play a revolutionary role.” The resolution went on to declare that “for a better future, and in order to gain their rights in society, students must struggle for a radical change.” It was in fact the Revolutionary Organization that had first advocated the line about the revolutionary role of students and as a result, in a short time, it succeeded in attracting to its ranks a rather larger number of new members and fellow-travelers.

During this period, the leaders of the Confederation, when analyzing the conditions of the student movement, came to the conclusion that, “under the current despotic conditions in Iran, no syndicate can simply work toward purely syndacalist goals. In other words it can not take abstract positions on specific issues and ignore the over-all situation. If there are such organizations, then it is clear that they can not be construed as progressive. In the final analysis it will be nothing other than a reactionary and state-organized syndicate. The question is not whether and to what extent we can articulate purely syndicalist demands, and fight for them, while ignoring the larger political struggle. The real question is that under the despotic and freedom-killing Iranian regime, the masses can not articulate any of their demands…In consequence, any group or organization that wants to struggle for the demands of a specific group, or social strata or class, has no choice but to go through a political struggle. The Confederation is one of these organizations. While it is not a political party, and has no specific program or ideology, it also has no choice but to go through this political struggle. Our movement is thus inseparably connected to the anti-imperialist struggle. The more we can consolidate our unity with the masses, and with their interests and demands, the more we can increase our power as an organization and attain our demands as students. We can easily close our eyes and ears to the general struggle for freedom and independence, and then we shall see that we can indeed gain our specific student demands without even a struggle. We shall discover that those in power will readily line our pockets with cash and other goodies, and might even invite us to share in power. But is this really our goal, and is this really why a group like the Confederation, or other progressive organizations, have been formed?” The final conclusion of the leadership at the time was simple enough: any group that fights for its interests has no choice but to engage in the political struggle.

The eight Congress of the Confederation coincided with the shah’s trip to Germany in May of 1967. Vast and vastly successful demonstrations were organized against the trip. The success of this endeavor further moved the organization to a full-fledged political opposition group. The Secretariat of the Confederation at the time had published an article entitled “On the Eve of a Big Congress,” and in it proclaimed, “in the final analysis, the Confederation, often referred to as the Iranian student movement is in fact engaged in a long-term struggle against agents of oppression and misery in Iran and all those who benefit from these dark conditions. Tactical and temporary and superficial gains is not what we are after. The Confederation is now a part of—and not an appendage to-- the anti-imperialist forces of Iran and it has already torn asunder the mythical and imaginary boundaries of ‘limited syndicalist struggle.’”

Another crucial turn of event took place around the time of the twelfth Congress in March of 1971. At the time, Siyavoush Behzadi, the prosecutor general of military tribunals in Iran declared the Confederation an illegal organization. An infamous law, known commonly as “the black law” and passed during the reign of Reza Shah to fight the growth of the communist movement was this used as the legal basis for the new policy. The law declared that membership in communist organizations, or any group that advocated communal ownership of property was detrimental to national security and thus against the law. A media blitscreek was organized against the Confederation in Iran. Students were given till 21 of March, 1971 to officially inform Iranian embassies in the west of their decision to rescind any and all contacts with the Confederation. Failure to do so would place them in breach of law, and subject them to prosecution.

It is not clear why the Iranian government decided to make this move at the time. It was apparently part of an over-all offensive against all opposition groups inside and outside the country. It has often been said that the increased influence of leftists in the Confederation, and the stark inability of the government to co-opt into its ranks Iranian students in the West, accounted for the government’s decision. Of course, for many years before this declaration, the government had pursued a policy of carrot and stick against activist students. Sometimes it would refuse to renew the passports of activists, other times it would delay the departure of students who had gone back to Iran for summer vacations, and at all times, it was ready to reward handsomely, anyone who in fact became an apostate.

Whatever the motives, the new policy created something of a crisis in the Confederation. Were vast numbers of students going to heed the government’s threats and rescind their ties with the movement? Was it not wiser to nominally dissolve the Confederation and re-organize it under a different name? Was it not necessary to develop a new policy that clearly stayed within the bounds of the Iranian constitution and thus freed the students from the possibility of prosecution? Or was the answer a more resolute struggle against the regime?

The 12th congress discussed, at some length, all of these possibilities. It made some superficial changes in its policies to at least ostensibly make it congruent with the constitution. But ultimately, the regime’s decision seems to have further radicalized the students, and helped the fortunes of those forces who had been advocating fighting to overthrow the regime has to become part and parcel of the Confederation’s struggle.

Late in winter of 1971, shortly after the end of the 12th congress, the events in the village of Siahkal, where for the first time Iranian partisans fought an armed battle with the police, suddenly changed the political landscape amongst the Iranian students of the Confederation. What had began with the defeat of the 1963 uprising, in other words the belief that only armed struggle can lead to liberation in Iran, had now become part of reality. There was a sudden surge of support for the groups fighting this kind of battle in Iran. The Iranian student movement was irrevocably changed and further radicalized as a result of these developments.

The advent of armed struggle in Iran brought about a debate in the ranks of the Confederation about the role students must play in relationship to this new form of struggle. For the subsequent two congresses, answering this question became the central problematic of the Confederation. The 13th and 14th congresses witnessed fiercely fought political and theoretical battles around this very question. For the next few years, endless hours were spent on polemics about the guerrilla movement in Iran, as well as the foreign policy of People’s Republic of China, which had, in a surprising turn of events, begun supporting the regime in Iran. Unity was a thing of the past. Units of the Confederation began to pursue independent policies, ignoring the directives of the Secretariat.

What only added fuel to this already raging fire was the question of whether the Confederation should now put language in its by-laws indicating its commitment to the overthrow of the regime. The improvements made in the daily lives of people in Iran, as well as the growing stature of the Iranian government in international arena had forced on the Confederation to reconsider its raison d’être. The fact that the Confederation could no longer justify its own existence by talking of poverty in Iran, the fact that it could no longer reasonably talk of starvation in Baluchestan, and of children surviving on animal feed made politics as usual impossible. Faced with these dilemmas, some of the leaders of the Confederation saw further radicalization as the panacea. Demanding the overthrow of the regime would ensure that regardless of reforms in Iran, the mandate of the Confederation would live on. But a sober discussion of this question, and the serious contemplation of acknowledging the fact that improvements had been made in Iran, required the kind of atmosphere that the Confederation could no longer offer. It was enough for someone to even a hint at the possibility that things have changed in Iran for the person to become branded as a traitor. Reality was no longer the measure of things; debate all revolved around abstract theoretical articulations. The radical turn in the student movements in France, United States and Germany further nudged the Confederation towards a more radical path. So immersed was the Confederation in events in Moscow and Peking, in Albany and Cuba, and in Mozambique and Angola, so infatuated it had become with obtuse theoretical minutia that the concrete reality of Iran was forsaken. Emotional slogans, and supposedly polished theories became the prime commodities of the day.

The founders of the Confederation belonged to a generation that had experienced the struggles of the post-war years. They brought with them a wealth of historic experience. The new younger generation of members lacked this experience and more than made up for it with intense emotions and affect and the bombast of theory. Many of them came from the ranks of poorer social classes, with a tradition of anti-intellectualism, and a kind of cultural poverty that took its toll on the over-all atmosphere of the Confederation. The temptation of radical models proved overwhelming. Gradually, an organization that had come into existence in defense of freedom, fair elections, women’s rights and human rights for all became a critic of liberal democracy, attacking it as a superficial form of democracy, detrimental to the interests of the toiling classes. In spite of the noble ideals and dreams that motivated this generation of Iranian students, a complicated set of circumstances, both national and international, led the once fierce defenders of democracy to loose sight of the reality of Iran, and instead become proponents of a dictatorship—dictatorship of ideas, of a party or the proletariat.

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