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Iranian Studies, volume 40, number 3, June 2007

Peyman Vahabzadeh

Mostafa Shoaiyan: The Maverick Theorist of Revolution and

the Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran

Based on the authors original research, the paper will offer a glimpse into the frontal theory
of Mostafa Shoaiyan. The paper draws on his life and experience of the National Front in
the 1950s as a model for political thought. Next, the paper will show how he tried, through
his unique and uncanonical revolutionary theory, to make a revolutionary praxis compatible
with frontal thinking. Analytically, Shoaiyans work proves that an ideologically driven
concept of national liberation becomes an impediment for frontal politics in a truly
democratic way. Shoaiyans works represent a theoretical and existential response to the
national liberation dilemma which the Iranian Marxists faced in the 1960s and 70s.

Over thirty years past his death, Mostafa Shoaiyan still remains one of Irans
most obscure intellectual and activist gures. Although his name is something
of a household name among the aging generation of student and political activists
of the 1960s and 1970s and despite the fact that major titles of some 2,000 pages of
his works of history, politics, theory, open letters, ction, and poetry were once
published in Europe (by Edition Mazdak) in the mid-1970s and in Tehran
immediately after the 1979 Revolution (by Edition Antidote), Shoaiyan has
remained little known due to the consistent (collective) inattention to his uncano-
nical thought. The scarcity of his works, in spite of their publication, attests to his
maverick and uncompromising thinking and singular leftism that do not situate
him in any readily available category of social or political thought. It is a fact that
he adamantly challenged all doctrinal versions of Marxism, and this is precisely
why it is utterly futile to try to identify his thought with any of the existing
schools in Marxist thought. No Iranian political organization has ever claimed
his legacy, nor has any group ever volunteered to be heir to his thought. The
one-time attempt of Shoaiyans few surviving comrades in reviving his name
and legacy immediately following the 1979 Revolution was lost in the post-
revolutionary ideological fervor of leftist intellectuals, activists, and students as
they experienced their own fascination, during Irans short-lived spring of
freedom, with rather conventional organizations of Left the Marxist-Leninist

The author is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Victoria. He

would like to acknowledge his debt to Khosrow Shakeri who, as the sole publisher of Shoaiyans
writings to this day, made the many texts and letters of Shoaiyan available, thus providing valuable
sources on his works and activities. He would also like to thank the funding of this research that was
provided by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Post-doctoral
Fellowship (2001 2003).
ISSN 0021-0862 print/ISSN 1475-4819 online/07/030405-21
#2007 The International Society for Iranian Studies
DOI 10.1080/00210860701390596
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406 Vahabzadeh

Cherikha-ye Fada`i-ye Khalq, the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, or the Maoist Peykar.
Similarly, in scholarly research and analysis, no work, aside from this authors
studies, have ever seriously focused on Shoaiyan.1
Shoaiyans thought, nevertheless, has passed the test of time, specically the
test of our post-communist era, and proves to have some resonance for todays
social and political analysis. A careful interpretation of his work could shed
light on the many issues that have not relented Iranian intellectuals since his
timeissues such as the role of the intellectuals in society, democratic
decision-making, openness and transparency, political education, or the united
front. Shoaiyan has written on a wide variety of subjects. He is the only other
leftist Iranian intellectual in the rank of Khalil Maleki in offering pathologies
of the ideological fascination, uncritical and wavering approaches, staunch sec-
tarianism, and undemocratic organizational life that characterized the Iranian
Left. In a situation parallel to Malekis split from, and criticism of, the Tudeh
Party, Shoaiyans iconoclastic engagement with Fada`i-ye Khalq at the time
when the latter surfed the rising tides of student and intellectual support,
shows his principled originality as well as his lone reassertion of the role of dis-
sident intellectuals. The author has specically written on Shoaiyans relation-
ship with the Fada`iyan, the pathology of Stalinism, and the place of intellectuals
in society in another venue.2 One must consider that being true to experience
is arguably the greatest property of Shoaiyans intellectual legacy. As
such, his theories are directly reective of his experiences as a long-time acti-
vist-intellectual.
Based on the authors original research on Shoaiyans life and works, this
paper presents an overview of yet another aspect of his theory in the following
steps: 1) after offering a brief biographical account, 2) the paper shows that his
frontal thinking stems from his experience of the Mosaddeq era in the early
1950s and its short-lived reinvigoration after the failure of the Second National
Front in the early 1960s. Although he never abandoned frontal thinking
which later took the specic form of a liberation front in his theoryby the
early 1970s, Shoaiyan grew ever more pessimistic about the possibility of mate-
rialization of a united front. 3) Next, the paper will explain his complex and
unyielding theory of revolution in order to show how he made it possible for a
revolutionary theory to break away with canonical requirements of ideology
(which characterize various slates of Marxism) to make a theory of the revolution
compatible with the idea of the front and thus to remain in line with frontal

1
To my knowledge, the only scholarly work that has mentioned Shoaiyan in passing is Maziar
Behrooz, Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran (London, 1999). Behrooz briey refers to
Shoaiyan in various places in this book. Also, there has been a recent Persian title on Shoaiyan,
which is more a work of admiration rather than systematic study and analysis. See Hushang
Mahruyan, Mostafa Shoaiyan: Yeganeh motefakkerr-e tanha [Mostafa Shoaiyan: The Unique Lonely
Thinker] (Tehran, 2004).
2
Peyman Vahabzadeh, Mustafa Shuaiyan and Fada`iyan-i Khalq: Frontal Politics, Stalinism, and
the Role of Intellectuals in Iran, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 34, no. 1 (April 2007): 4159.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 407

thinking rather than sectarianism. 4) Some concluding remarks will sum up the
discussions and make a case for the insights that Shoaiyans old theories could
offer to the new times.
On the analytical level, this paper intends to develop the thesis: a certain
interpretation of Shoaiyans work proves that the ideologically driven concept
of national liberation becomes an impediment for frontal politics in a truly demo-
cratic way (an example of the democratic front would be Italys May 2006
electoral victory of the coalition of leftist parties led by Romano Prodi). This
thesis will have implications for a certain historical interpretation that, as
this paper will argue, links together the Constitutional Movement of 1905 11
(the rst wave of liberatory, anti-colonial movement) with the oil nationalization
movement led by the National Front of Mosaddeq in the early 1950s (the second
wave of anti-colonial movement) and with the armed struggle movement in the
1970s (the third wave of anti colonial movement). With the latter, the national
liberation movement in Iran came to a close, ebbing and stagnating in the after-
math of the 1979 Revolution. As such, in terms of the intellectual history of this
continuous movement, Shoaiyans works must be understood as a theoretical, as
well as existential, response to the national liberation dilemma faced by the
1960s 70s Marxists in Iran. In response to this crisis, he took a bold step in
undoing ideology (Marxism) in favor of practice (armed struggle), but failed to
do away with the essentialism that pertained to the very notion of national
liberation.

A Dissidents Life

Born in 1936 to a South Tehran underprivileged family, Shoaiyan graduated with

an engineering degree in 1962 from Tehran Technical Institute in East Tehran
(now called Science and Industry University). As the top student of the year,
he automatically qualied for a state scholarship to the United States, which he
declined, accepting instead a position in Kashan as secondary school teacher
and later as the school principal. Thanks to his friends efforts in providing
medical grounds, in 1966 he was transferred to Tehran where he mostly taught
history and social sciences in various secondary schools for two years.3
Shoaiyans political life dates back to the early 1950s when he joined the Pan-
Iranist Party, only to leave it after the 21 July 19512 popular uprising which
reinstated the National Front leader Mohammad Mosaddeq as the Prime Minis-
ter. From this moment onwards, Shoaiyan reminisces, he began leaning toward
Marxism.4 By the late 1950s, he joined a study circle of disillusioned former
Tudeh members critical of the Partys performance before and after the 1953
coup detat. Among the leftists of the time, the group was informally called
3
Mostafa Shoaiyan, Shesh nameh-ye sargoshadeh beh Sazman-e Charikha-ye Fada`i-e Khalq-e Iran [Six
Open Letters to the Organisation of Iranian Peoples Fada`i Guerrillas] (Tehran, 1980), 11 12.
4
Shoaiyan, Shesh nameh-ye sargoshadeh beh Sazman-e Charikha-ye Fada`i-e Khalq-e Iran, 13.
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408 Vahabzadeh

Jaryan (connotatively circle, because the group had no designation, while it was
also sometimes called Poruseh, the Persian rendition of French, proce`s). The main
gure of this study group was Mahmud Tavakkoli, the author of two critical ana-
lyses of the Tudeh Partys policies and issues.5 During his Jaryan involvement,
Shoaiyan wrote an extended critical essay on the Socialist League (Jameeh-ye
Sosialistha)6, led by Khalil Maleki, a socialist intellectual, who had split from
the Tudeh Party in 1948 in protest against the Partys Stalinism and disastrous
policy during the Autonomous Azerbaijan Province affair.7 Also, during the
1950s and early 1960s, Shoaiyan associated with the intellectual journal Elm va
Zendegi (Science and Life; banned in 1962) which largely reected the opinions of
Maleki and his version of non-alignment socialism. Science and Life cultivated
an astute anti-Stalinist inclination in Shoaiyan and offered a wide range of demo-
cratic socialist ideas.
The advent of the Second National Front in 1960 literally pulled enthusiastic
Shoaiyan into its Left Wing. It was in the years between 1962 and 1964 when
he met with Bizhan Jazani (1937 75), the originator of one of the two founding
underground groups of Cherikha-ye Fada`i-e Khalq (or OIPFG, founded in April
1971 by Hamid Ashraf and Massud Ahmadzadeh).8 Although by early 1970s,
both Shoaiyan and Jazani, each in his own way, had grown into top-notch the-
orists of armed struggle, the two never really got along. In particular, Jazani
launched an accusatory campaign in the leftist student circles to denigrate
Shoaiyans maverick thinking, characterized by his anti-Leninism.9 A decade
5
See Jaryan Group, Chand maqaleh va tahlil az goruh-e Jaryan (1335 1345) [Selected Essays and
Analyses of the Jaryan Group (1956 1966)] (Tehran, 1979).
6
Shoaiyan, Six Open Letters, 22, n. 2. The exact authorship of the text is contested. It has been
pointed out that it could have been co-authored by Shoaiyan and Tavakkoli. The essay in question
was published anonymously as Dalayeli bar yek tahavvol [Reasons for A Transformation], in
Khosrow Shakeri (ed.), Asnad-e tarikhi-ye jonbesh-e kargari, sosial demokrasi, va komonisti-ye Iran
[Historical Documents of the Workers, Social Democratic, and Communist Movements in Iran]
vol. 10 (np, 1983), 1 80.
7
With respect to Khalil Malekis place in contemporary Iranian intellectual history, see Homa
Katouzian, The Strange Politics of Khalil Maleki, in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern
Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London, 2004), 165 88. See also
Homa Katouzian, Khalil Maleki: The Odd Intellectual Out, in Intellectual Trends in 20th Century
Iran, ed. Negin Nabavi (Miami, 2003), 24 52.
8
See Karim Lahiji, Haqq-e doosti [By Friendships Obligation] in Kanun-e Gerdavari va Nashr-e
Asar-e Bizhan Jazani, Jongi darbareh-ye zendegi va asar-e Bizhan Jazani [Centre for Collection and
Publication of Works of Bizhan Jazani, On the Life and Works of Bizhan Jazani] (Paris, 1999), 234.
9
For further details, see Peyman Vahabzadeh, Bizhan Jazani and the Problems of Historiography
of the Iranian Left, Iranian Studies 38, no. 1 (2005): 167 178. An example of Jazanis manner of accu-
satory treatment of Jaryan is found in Bizhan Jazani, Tarh-i jameeshenasi va mabani-ye estratezhi-ye
jonbesh-e enqelabi-ye khalq-e Iran; bakhsh-e dovvom: tarikh-e si saleh-ye siyasi fasl-e avval) [A Sketch of Soci-
ology and Foundations of the Strategy of Iranian Peoples Revolutionary Movement; Second Part:
The Thirty-Year Political History Chapter One] (Tehran, 1979), 86; Jazani repeats the charge in
Guruh-e Jazani-Zari: pishtaz-e mobarezeh-ye mosallahani dar Iran [The Jazani-Zari Group: The
Vanguard of Armed Movement in Iran], 19 Bahman Teorik vol. 4 (April 1976), 9. See Shoaiyans
comments on the circumstances that led to Jazanis accusation in Shoaiyan, Six Open Letters, 24, n. 3.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 409

later, when destiny playfully but briey brought together Shoaiyan and Fada`iyan-
e Khalq, the term American Marxists, coined by Jazani during the National
Front years to humiliate Shoaiyan and his comrades, was generously utilized
by the Fada`i theorist Hamid Momeni to accuse Jaryans key gure Tavakkoli of
being a CIA agent so that he would discredit Shoaiyans past struggles.10
Shoaiyans serious, 500-page historical work, A Review of the Relations Between
the Soviet Union and the Revolutionary Movement of Jungle (written in 1968, published
but seized and destroyed by SAVAK before distribution), sets itself the task of
showing how the then young Soviet Union and its leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin
betrayed Mirza Kuchek Khans 1920 21 movement in the Caspian region. The
book was published ten years later in Europe, and despite its factual errors, it
has yet to receive the attention it deserves. Shoaiyans next book was the path-
breaking Rebellion (Shuresh), which went through two revisions before he
renamed it as Revolution (Enqelab). The historical analysis of Leninist betrayal of
the Jangali movements in Iran instigated, in Revolution, a full-edged analytical
work that traced and identied the ideological roots of the Soviets betrayal.
What is signicant about Revolution is that it stems from a particular experience
and then emerges as a universal theory that refuses canonical Marxism. In the
mean time, Shoaiyan maintained a vast network of connections on various
levels and participated in literary and intellectual circles and events. By all
accounts, he was a dissident intellectual known to the police due to his past activi-
ties as well as his association with many dissenting intellectuals, scholars, or
writers, but he obviously was not deemed as a militant at this stage.
In 1971, Shoaiyan quit his teaching position in order to dedicate himself to
revolutionary struggle. His rst urban guerrilla cell was formed at this time.
Soon, though, he went underground as the security forces uncovered the
groups planned sabotage of the state-run Isfahan steel and smelter plant,
symbolically the heart of Irans rapid industrialization (allegedly through Reza
Askariyyeh, a member of the cell who worked as an engineer in the plant).
Among the members arrested was Behzad Nabavi (arrested on 24 July 1972), a
devout Muslim who rose to political prominence after the 1979 Revolution and
especially as a leading gure of Irans reform movement in the 1990s.11 Shoaiyan
managed to avoid arrest, but his name moved to the most wanted list of Irans

10
Hamid Momeni, Shuresh na, qadamha-ye sanjideh dar rah-e enqelab [Not Rebellion, Judicious Steps
on the Path to the Revolution] (np: Support Committee for the New Revolutionary Movement of
Iranian People, 1977), 37.
11
See Shoaiyan, Six Open Letters, 14. While in prison, Nabavi developed great sympathy toward
Mojahedin-e Khalq before the leftist coup among the Mojahedin (1975) caused him lose faith in eclec-
tic Islam and in cooperating with Marxists. Upon release and after the 1979 Revolution, Nabavi
became a founding member of the Organization of the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin (Sazman-e
Mojahedin-e Enqelab-e Eslami) that unied seven formerly underground militant Muslim groups.
He also served as the Deputy Prime Minister in Executive Affairs after the Revolution before
disappearing from the public arena. He returned to politics with the 1997 Reform Movement in
Iran, served as a one-time Member of Parliament, and advocated legal and political reforms.
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410 Vahabzadeh

security forces. Nabavi mentions 1970 as the year of formation of Shoaiyans cell
and reminisces that the group rst came into contact with the radical Muslim
Mojahedin-e Khalq and only later with the Fada`iyan.12 Shoaiyan himself offered
a hypothesis about the exposure of his cell: he attributes it to the probing of
his identity when he sent off, through a secured channel (his friend Mr. Modian
who died due to terminal illness shortly after the delivery) copies of his books, A
Review of the Relations Between the Soviet Union and the Revolutionary Movement of Jungle
and Rebellion, to the National Front director in Europe, Dr. Hassan Habibi (later a
top administrator in post-revolutionary Iran). He always used one of the many
pseudonyms (Sorkh, Serteq, Yoldash, Raq, Doost, Timar, Sarbaz) to sign his writ-
ings. Although not so sure how, he believed that the discovery of his cell was con-
current with the revelation of his true identity to the National Front activists
abroad.13
As a long-time activist with the Left, Shoaiyan was in contact with both the
Mojahedin and the Fada`iyan, but insofar as his detailed knowledge about
Mojahedin-e Khalq showed, he was closer to the radical Muslim group than the
Marxist Fada`iyan.14 He had worked closely with Reza Reza`i, the only surviving
leader of the Mojahedin after the August 1971 raids on the group by the security
forces, assisting him in rebuilding networks and obtaining supplies.15 A recent
publication maintains that he has had an inuence on Taqi Shahram who later
(in collaboration with some other prominent Mojahedin cadres) staged a
bloody, inner-organizational ideological coup (which involved the purging of a
number of members) that turned the Muslim group into a Marxist-Leninist
one.16 As we will see later, his collaboration with Muslims stemmed from

12
See Behzad Nabavi, Razha-ye Behzad Nabavi [The Secrets of Behzad Nabavi], Ham-
shahri 2706 (Saturday, 27 April 2002), available at http://www.hamshahri.org/hamnews/
1381/810207/polig.htm (accessed 22 March 2004).
13
Mostafa Shoaiyan, Pardehbardari [Unveiling] in Chand neveshteh [Selected Writings]
(Florence, 1976), 1; article individually paginated. See also Mostafa Shoaiyan, Enqelab [Revolution]
(Florence, 1976), 13.
14
Anonymous, Authors Telephone interview with Anonymous (Vancouver, 6 November
2001).
15
Shoaiyan, Six Open Letters, 23, n. 2.
16
See Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq: peyda`i ta fajam (1344 1384) Jeld-e avval [Mojahedin-e Khalq
Organization: Arising and the End (1965 2005) Volume 1] (Tehran, 2005), 554. The book,
written collectively by anonymous authors, shows information that results from access to the
SAVAK archives as well as the archives of the post-revolutionary intelligence and security
forcesarchives that have been and are denied to independent social scientists and researchers.
The book relies on the interrogation records Abdollah Zarrin-Kafsh to try to imply that Shoaiyan
had a certain inuence in the transformation of the Mojahedin-e Khalq through Taqi Shahram, but
only vaguely so. Although it may well have been the case that in the absence of resources,
Shahram had learned from Shoaiyan and his knowledge of Marxism (given Shoaiyans inclusive
and democratic attitude), he could not have had any inuence on the bloody events that
Shahram and his comrades created in the Mojahedins ranks. As regards the scattered sections of
the book that deals with Shoaiyans life and activities, there are at least two gross errors that
detract from the value of the accounts provided in this study.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 411

Shoaiyans dedication to the arduous task of creating a unied front of the anti-
monarchy militantsa task he could not have embarked upon unless he had
already been a major actor in the eld. The opportune moment for actualizing
his dream of creating a frontal group of activists came in 1972 when Shoaiyan
met with Nader Shayegan Shamasbi, a militant intellectual who had organized
armed, underground cells. Both Shoaiyan and Shayegan were critical of the
socialist camps and especially of the Tudeh legacy in the Iranian Left. Naturally,
Shayegans group and the teams Shoaiyan was in the process of organizing
merged, creating the Peoples Democratic Front (Jebheh-ye Demokratik-e Khalq,
or PDF). Shoaiyan hoped that the PDF would soon gain sufcient political lever-
age to encourage the Mojahedin, the Fada`iyan, and other militant cells (Muslim or
Marxist) to collaborate in a liberation front. At this time, the two largest urban
guerrilla groups and the most popular and prestigious among sectors of
middle-class intellectuals and the university students in Iran and abroad
(especially in the ranks of the largest, and for the most part, democratically struc-
tured student organization in Iranian history, the CISNU, the Confederation of
Iranian Students-National Unity17) were the Mojahedin and the Fada`iyan who
were generally on good terms with one another and cooperated occasionally on
issue bases but had both refused systematic collaborations. Soon, though,
harsh reality terminated Shoaiyans hopes: in May 1973, SAVAK raided the
explosives workshop of the PDF, as a result of which prominent members of
the group, Shayegan, Hassan Rumina and Nader Ata`i, were killed while ten
others arrested. Shoaiyans teams, partitioned from those of Shayegan, escaped
SAVAKs surveillance.18
Shoaiyan and the two surviving teams of the PDF subsequently joined the
Fada`iyan-e Khalq in June 1973. Under the leadership of their legendary (and prag-
matist) leader, Hamid Ashraf, the Fada`iyan received the PDF with open arms as
they saw an unparalleled opportunity for recruiting experienced and trained
Marxist militants. Some of the Fada`iyans noted female cadresnamely,
Marzieh Ahmadi Osku`i, Saba Bizhanzadeh, Mitra Bobolsefat, and possibly
Shirin Moazed (Fazilatkalam)were originally PDF members. The Fada`i leader-
ship, however, was not entirely thrilled about absorbing Shoaiyan himself, since
he was generally regarded with suspicion due to his maverick Marxism, which
was unconventional for the ideological puritanism that reigned over the
Iranian Left at the time. Shoaiyans former association with Science and Life
and his inaccessible Kasraviesque theoretical prose were aided by Jazanis

17
See Afshin Matin, Konfedrasion:tarikh-e jonbesh-e daneshjuyan-e Irani dar kharj az keshvar 1332 57
[Confederation: The History of Iranian Student Movement Abroad 1953 79], trans. Arastu Azari
(Tehran, 1999).
18
Anonymous, Authors Telephone interview with Anonymous (Vancouver, 6 November
2001). For more details about the PDF see, Vahabzadeh, Mustafa Shuaiyan and Fada`iyan-i
Khalq, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 34, no. 1 (April 2007). 41 59; see also Peyman
Vahabzadeh, A Guerrilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy and the Fadai Discourse of
National Liberation in Iran, 1971 1979 (forthcoming), Ch. 6.
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412 Vahabzadeh

aforementioned suspicion of him, leading to the Fadaiyans elaborate plot to

gradually isolate Shoaiyan and others they did not regarded suitable for their
purposesnamely, Shayegans mother, Fatemeh Saidi, and her three young
children Abolhassan (arrested in 1976 at the age of 15) and Arzhang and
Nasser (killed in 1976 at very young ages), by sending them to Mashhad and
under the authority of Ashrafs lieutenant, Ali Akbar Jafari.19
Disillusioned, Shoaiyan found the Fada`iyan an opportunist group: sectarian,
devoid of principles, ideologically dogmatic while theoretically incompetent,
and above all with Stalinist methods of suppressing intra-group disagreements.
While Shoaiyans account may sound somewhat harsh compared to other
accounts about the inner life of Fada`iyan-e Khalq, his observations are not baseless
at all. After all, it is now well known among leftist activists that the Fada`iyan had
secretly purged at least three members who had a change of heart about joining
armed struggle some time in the early 1970s and in 1976 had also viciously killed
another member, Abdullah Panjehshahi, due to his romantic relationship with a
female comrade, Edna Sabet (killed in the early 1980s by the Islamic Republic
security forces).20 When publicized, as expected, the issue of internal purges
caused huge controversy amongst leftist activists in exile.21 Shoaiyans age-
wise seniority, his superb theoretical competence, and ruthlessly critical and
unconventional ideas made him especially a great candidate for subjection to
the Fada`iyans disciplinary measures.

19
Anonymous, Authors Telephone interview with Anonymous (Vancouver, 9 November
2001).
20
On the organizational life and purges of Fada`iyan, see Vahabzadeh, A Guerrilla Odyssey
Ch. 2, Appendix 5.
21
The rst exposition of the internal purges in the ranks of the Fada`iyan came in a talk presented
by long-time activist Hassan Masali. Masali was an activist with the leftist group, National Front-
Middle East (not to be mistaken with the nationalist National Front), and later with the Group for
Communist Unity, and a facilitator between the National Front-Middle East and Fada`iyans del-
egates in the Middle East, Ashraf Dehqani and Mohammad Hormatipur. Masalis talk was later
published as Hassan Masali Tasir-e binesh va manesh dar mobarezeh-ye ejtemai [The Inuence of
Perspective and Character on Social Struggle], in Natayej-e seminar-e Wiesbaden darbareh-ye bohran-
e jonbesh-e chap-e Iran [The Outcomes of Wiesbaden Conference on the Crisis of Iranian Leftist
Movement] (Frankfurt, 1985). His exposition, while largely ignored due to the fact that at the
time leftist organizations in Iran were either in prison or on the run (and thus dispersed), did
not go without notice and some of his former comrades threatened him with revealing his true
role in relation to the Fada`iyan (see Andisheh-ye Rahai [Publication of Organization of Communist
Unity Abroad], no. 6, [March 1987]). Later, the 1999 publication of Maziar Behroozs work, Rebels
with a Cause, which brought up the issue of purges once againand now at a time when the Left had
settled in exilecaused huge controversy among the leftist activists. The Persian translation of
Behroozs work did not escape the activists who had gathered around the Paris-based leftist
journal, Arash, which dedicated a good part of its issue 79 (November 2001) to analyzing Behroozs
work. Responses to Behrooz differed: while some accepted his information regarding the purges
but tried to trivialize the issue, others offered new information about it. On the other hand,
Behrooz received a number of accusatory charges of various kinds. Indeed, Behroozs work did
a good job in awakening the Left to its own past.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 413

Shoaiyan stayed with the Fada`iyan between June 1973 and February 1974.
First, he was robbed of his self-appointed custodianship of Shayegans younger
brothers, Arzhang and Nasser, to whom he attended following the arrest of
their mother, Fatemeh Saidi, in early February 1974an arrest that, Shoaiyan
maintained, was caused by Jafaris dangerous and irresponsible orders to test
Saidis loyalty.22 The unavoidable capture of Saidi enraged Shoaiyan, proving
to him the Fada`iyans intolerance toward, and discrimination against, him and
those they deemed associated with him. Shoaiyan was completely isolated and
then totally disconnected from the Fada`iyan: one of Irans most wanted mili-
tants was abruptly abandoned without proper coverage and support. If it were
not for his vast support network, he probably would not have survived. He
later reminisced about this particular time of his life, writing that he found
refuge in the abyss of the masses, dressing up as a homeless vagrant, at times
living on the outskirts of cemeteries.23 Left without support, he wrote his
open letters to the Fada`iyan in city parks and buried them in remote areas at
the outskirts of Tehran for posterity.24
Shoaiyan grew extremely bitter of the Iranian Left altogether after this experi-
ence. But he treated the issue as a reaction to his theoretical originality and non-
compliance with the ideological conformism that dened the Iranian Left. In his
experience with the Fada`iyan, he found the signs of the rampant Stalinism that
reigned over leftist organizations. By any standard, his experience attests to impo-
verished moral principles of the Fada`iyan in the face of a competent intellectual
contender whom they could not easily overwhelm or subjugate through the prag-
matics of mundane and trivial matters of underground life. A quick learner,
Shoaiyan recognized that the greatest excuse of opportunism and Stalinism
was the secrecy justied by excuses about organizational survival and individual
security in underground groups. Shoaiyan boldly broke away with this patho-
logical tradition, identifying democratic openness as the Achilles heel of dog-
matic and Stalinist rule of ideologically-blinded individuals at the helms of
leftist groups. His open letters to the Fada`iyan provide as an exemplary challenge
to organizational secrecy without endangering the individuals involved.
Shoaiyan was located and identied by the police on Thursday, 4 February
1976. He is said to have engaged with the security agents in Estakhr Street in
central Tehran. His wounded body was immediately taken away out of the
scene of street battle, but he was pronounced dead upon arrival at security head-
quarters, probably due to committing suicide by swallowing his cyanide
capsule.25 However, another source denies this version, holding that the
police spotted him (mistakenly) as a drug dealer, and Shoaiyan used his

22
Mostafa Shoaiyan, Sheshumin nameh-ye sargoshadeh be Cherikha-ye Fadai [The Sixth Open Letter
to Peoples Guerrillas] (Florence, 1976), 16 18, 27, 29.
23
Cosroe Chaqueri, Authors Interview with Cosroe Chaqueri (Paris, 28 August 2001).
24
Shoaiyan, Six Open Letters, 99.
25
See the report on his death in the appendix to The Sixth Open Letter to the Fadai Guerrillas.
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414 Vahabzadeh

cyanide capsule upon arrest but without much of a deance.26 Between February
1974, when he left Fada`iyan-e Khalq and his death in February 1976, little is known
about his life and activities. It is said that he continued his underground life indi-
vidually and without any activity in a safe house provided by the Marxist-Leninist
Mojahedin.27 But it has also been acknowledged that he had succeeded in forming
yet another underground cell. Nevertheless, aside from the claim that Parviz Sadri
was one of the members of this cell,28 everything about the last two years of
Shoaiyans life remains obscure to this day.

An Experiment in Frontal Politics

Shoaiyans rst serious attempt at, and thereby an important formative experi-
ence with respect to, frontal politicsa la` Mosaddeqs National Fronttook
place in the years of revival of politics in Iran during the early 1960s when the
United States persuaded the Shah, in the context of the Cold War polarized
world, to introduce the socioeconomic reforms that would allow Irans entry
into international capitalist market.
To understand the specic sociohistorical contexts in which Shoaiyan made
his rst attempt, we must recall that as Iran approached the 1960s, the Shah
launched developmental projects that mainly aimed at building institutional
means and the necessary infrastructure for the state-owned corporations as well
as the private interests. He turned to the United States and the World Bank for
loans, but the Kennedy administration made the American support conditional
upon structural reforms in Iran. To that end, the Kennedy administration
favored Dr. Ali Amini, Irans ambassador to Washington at the time, as the
Prime Minister. Already, the Shah had allowed the competition of two rival
state parties as well as the running of the Second National Front candidates in
the elections of the Twentieth Majles (Parliament). Embarrassed by accusations
of election irregularities and the dismissal of two successive handpicked Prime
Ministers, the Shah conceded to Aminis premiership despite his evident bete-
noir toward him. Enjoying full American support, Amini forced the Shah to dis-
solve the Twentieth Majles and exile the notorious head of SAVAK, General
Bakhtiar. He also started negotiations with the Second National Front and intro-
duced the land reform. However, his clash with the Shah over military expendi-
ture led to Aminis dismissal in 1962. The Shah took over the reforms, now
presented in the six-point White Revolution.
In the meantime, Iran was rejuvenated with new hopes for change as
people witnessed a heightened return of student movement and the advent of
the Second National Front. However, due to its utterly reformist attitude, the
26
See Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization: Arising and the End, 566.
27
See Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization: Arising and the End. Given this sources haste in associating
Shoaiyan with the Marxist-Leninist Mojahedin, such an account should be treated with caution.
28
The report is made by Parviz Qelichkhani in Arash, no. 79 (November 2001), 33.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 415

Second National Front failed to attain Mosaddeqs approval (under house arrest
at the time) and quickly alienated university students. Meanwhile, the land reform
and the introduction of womens suffrage angered Shii clerics and the more tra-
ditional classes of bazaar merchants and seminary students. The Shahs heavy-
handed reaction against the opposition culminated in the bloody clash of 5
June 1963 (15 Khordad 1342) and the elevation of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
to the status of the most vocal and radical opposition gure with popular support,
which eventually led him to exile. With all opposition brutally suppressed, the
reforms were carried out and expanded, the Shah soon regained absolute
control, and Iran received the much-needed loans.29
Shoaiyan narrates the circumstances surrounding this attempt at frontal poli-
tics and around the organizing pamphlet that would function as a party platform
or a manifesto of the coveted united front.30 Lost for about a decade, the original
version of the pamphlet was recovered in 1973 or 1974.31 Shoaiyans initiative, as
mentioned, primarily involved the issuing of a pamphlet as a tactical response to
the ebbs and ows of the 1960 63 struggles. The published pamphlet found its
nal form after Shoaiyan discussed different ideas with certain activists.
The point of departure of Shoaiyans thesis for mobilization is the obser-
vation that because of a century of setbacks and defeats Iranians have generally
developed an attitude of mistrust towards politics. In order to overcome this atti-
tude, he argues, we need new tactics that clearly do not involve sacrices or risks
for the potential participants; rather, the new tactics should be based on the
exploitation of the regimes weaknesses. Although a political struggle against
the Shahs dictatorship is needed, it has proven insufcient. As a result, a
frontal struggle that would hinge on an economic struggle against the regime
could end the despair of the people. Thus, he maintains, we need to reject the clas-
sical formulations of struggle. Clearly, Shoaiyan does not reject political struggle,
but nor does he take politics as the basis of other forms of struggle. He tries to
dwell in discontent as a nodal point and the new basis for mobilization, but dis-
content does not automatically rise to struggle; rather, and this point is crucial,
discontent has to be interpreted and rearticulated. The passive and cursed dis-
content of the people is therefore to be transformed into active discontent
through the articulatory practices of the emerging front.32
29
For more detailed accounts of this brief sketch of the post-WWII Iranian history, see Ervand
Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ, 1982); John Foran, ed., A Century of Revo-
lution: Social Movements in Iran (Minneapolis, 1994); Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Inter-
pretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, 1981); Vanessa Martin, Creating An Islamic State: Khomeini
And the Making of New Iran (London, 2000); Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, The Mantel of the Prophet (Prin-
ceton, 1986).
30
Mostafa Shoaiyan, Jahad-e emruz ya tezi barayeh tahharok [Todays Jihad or A Thesis for
Mobilisation], in Chand neveshteh [Selected Writings] (Florence, 1976). The article is signed by
Engineer Mostafa Shoaiyan and is dated 12 April 1964 (23 Farvardin 1343) with the publication
date of May June 1964 (Khordad 1343).
31
See Shoaiyans foreword to A Thesis for Mobilisation, 3.
32
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 5, 7 8, 9.
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416 Vahabzadeh

The pamphlet continues by pointing out that colonialism in Iran has histori-
cally been indirect and, therefore (unlike colonized India, for instance), the recog-
nition of the peoples enemy was never too obvious because there never was an
open presence of, as well as the exercise of force and oppression against people
by, the foreign colonial power in Iran.33 Instead, it is neo-colonialism that exerts
itself through the dominant class (the state) and therefore, showing the catastrophes
[caused by] colonialism in this country is far more difcult than in countries where coloni-
alism manifestly stands on its own feet. In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, semi-colony
is the same as a colony, plus deceitfulness and forgery.34 In Iran, then, ending
colonialism means ending the life of the dominant class: If we intend to crush the
enemies of [our] nation, we should primarily force the dominant class down on its
knees.35 The regime, Shoaiyan continues, relies heavily on four main apparatuses
to maintain its domination: a huge military machine; the SAVAK; systematic dis-
regard of citizens rights and the Constitution; and lastly, the state propaganda.36
In understanding the power dynamics in Iran, we must also consider the conict
between British and American imperialisms (the argument that instigated Jazanis
derogatory designation, American Marxists, attributed to Jaryan). According to
Shoaiyan, insofar as the conict between the two imperialisms allows, [we] must utilize
this conict as a possibilityas did Mosaddeq who, unfortunately, did not conclude
it successfully [beh salamati]. Nevertheless, in Egypt Nasser eventuated it well.37
But, he contends, at this historic moment, the movements leadership can skillfully
utilize this conict not by relying on it, but by relying on the Iranian nation.38 The regimes
heavy-handed reaction against any manifest resistance is obvious. Thus, he suggests,
the way out of the crisis of the liberation movement is an economic campaign, for it
is here that, contrary to other loci, the government is forced to stretch its hand
toward people. For this campaign to succeed it must be oriented toward the indi-
viduals and it should not involve any potential danger to people.39 Specically,
the tactics for a passive but united economic offensive on the regime include
withdrawing funds from banks; boycotting the national rail; boycotting tobacco pro-
ducts; refraining from imported goods to blockade the customs revenue; boycotting
newspapers; defaulting on the land/loan payments to the banks by peasants; boycot-
ting lottery and sugar.40 Reinvigorating the historical spirit of the tobacco movement
(189192) led by the Shii cleric Hajj Mirza Hassan Shirazi, Shoaiyan turns to top
Shii ulama of his time, but he does it cautiously.

33
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 9.
34
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 10; original emphasis.
35
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 10; original emphasis.
36
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 10 12.
37
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 14; original emphasis.
38
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 15; original emphasis. One can observe how he has
modied from the original Jaryan version the conclusion he draws from the conict between
American and British imperialisms.
39
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 17 18.
40
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 18 22.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 417

Shoaiyan heedfully points out that among the peoples forces, the strongest
network of popular inuence is controlled by the clergy; and his aim in proposing
the platform is to put these networks to effective political use. On the other hand,
he points out that Iranians still remember how the clergy, led by Ayatollah
Borujerdi, betrayed Mosaddeqs movement. The new generation of clerics
with gures like Ayatollahs Milani or Taleqanientails radically different per-
sonalities. In addition, the Shii clerics distract people from the main colonial
enemy (British imperialism) when they stress their antagonism against Israel,
which is not the immediate enemy of the Iranian people in Shoaiyans view.41
These unsettling and divergent tendencies among the clerics caused Shoaiyan
to approach them with caution, but not entirely without optimism.
The pamphlet, however, failed to rise to the status of the platform of a new
united front against the Shahs regime. Shoaiyans plan was this: the pamphlet
was to be approved rst by Mosaddeq (under house arrest in Ahmadabad)
and then by the countrys three grand AyatollahsKhomeini, Milani, and
Shariatmadari. To do so, Shoaiyan considered two options: either the pamphlet
could be secretly discussed with the above-mentioned gures and published only
after their approvals, or it was to be submitted to these leaders for approval but
also published at the same time. On the grounds that the second approach
would create suspicion, Shoaiyan chose the rst option. But he admits that he
chose the rst option based on his own suspicion about the clerics reaction to
it. In response, Mosaddeq sent him a letter, expressing his skepticism about the
new leaders of the movement. The Liberation Movement (Nehzat-e Azadi)
leaders, though, approved of it. The pamphlet was then taken to Ayatollah
Milani in Mashhad who initially received it eagerly but postponed his nal approval
to three days later, at which time he disapproved the pamphlet, announcing its
content to be objectionable. It was then taken to Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom
who was reportedly ecstatic about its content. The Ayatollah had purportedly
suggested that the pamphlet should be presented to Ayatollah Shariatmadari for
his approval, while postponed his own approval to three days later when he also
turned down the pamphlet on the ground of its perceived implausibility. Ayatollah
Shariatmadari, likewise, refused to endorse the pamphlet after three days. Out-
raged by these top clerics reaction, which proved Mosaddeqs insightful suspicion
about the so-called new leaders, Shoaiyan initially decided to publish the
pamphlet along with a report about the way the three Ayatollahs received it, but
this option turned out to be questionable. He then sent the pamphlet to the
Third National Front (led by Allahyar Saleh) where the pamphlet allegedly sat
idly until the disintegration of the Third National Front nine months later. The
police soon discovered the pamphlet in the house of one of the Liberation Move-
ment leaders. Soon afterwards, Shoaiyan observes, the government introduced
payroll reform for the state employees by shifting to direct deposit system.42

41
Shoaiyan, A Thesis for Mobilisation, 23 25.
42
Shoaiyans foreword to A Thesis for Mobilisation, 1 3.
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418 Vahabzadeh

It took Shoaiyan a few years to theoretically account for this experience. The
thesis for mobilization was proposed amidst the process of defeat of the
196063 movementthe movement that aimed at reforming Iranian politics by
pushing for a decent parliamentary system and thus reinvigorating the Iranian Con-
stitution. With the success of the American-backed land reforms championed by
the Shah, state repression soon returned to Iranian politics. Shoaiyans thesis
aims at creating a platform for a united, national front made up of the diverse
social forces in the country. Specically, it seeks to create a nodal point between
nationalists and Muslims, and only implicitly, the Left. The experience makes
Shoaiyan lose his faith in Islamist and nationalist forces, while still rightly adhering
to the idea that only a united front can lead to liberation. But in order for this united
front to take shape, in his thinking, the leadership of the Marxists appears as a pre-
condition. Yet, to complicate matters, his growing suspicion of doctrinal Marxism,
which he inherited from Elm va Zendegi and the ideas of Khalil Maleki as well as his
resentment of the Tudeh Partys performance, deprived him from relying on any
nicely-packaged imported theory. Between this time and his becoming a full
time revolutionary, Shoaiyan engaged in writing, in associating with the dissident
public intellectuals of the time, and in researching for his book on the Jangali move-
ment of 192021. His book on the Jangali movement, though, made it impossible
for him to avail himself of any reliance on the various conventions of Marxism.
Revolution emerged while writing A Review of the Relations Between the Soviet Union
and the Revolutionary Movement of Jungle: before sending the latters manuscript for
publishing, Shoaiyan took out the last chapter (entitled October and Lenins
Ideas on the Revolution) and worked on it in the next four years. The Siyahkal
operation of February 1971 by a team of militants, which inaugurated the advent
of a guerrilla movement in Iran and led to the formation of Cherikha-ye Fada`i-e
Khalq, also inspired Rebellion and reported its timeliness. In 1972, the rst
version of the book was mimeographed under the title Shuresh (Rebellion). In the
summer of 1973, the book was expanded, typed, and given to the Fada` yan.
Later, in March 1974, he expanded it once again and changed the prose of the
second versionfor which he had followed the puritan Persian of Ahmad
Kasravi (to elude the police from identifying his prose), renamed it Enqelab
(Revolution), and dedicated it to Nader Shayegan.43

Revolution: The Antinomies of Agency and Frontal Politics

Rich, complex, and unyielding, Revolution sets the stage by referring to how
Shoaiyans empirical study of the Jangali movement led to his radically
questioning Leninisms dominance over the Iranian Left. According to
Shoaiyan, Leninism represents a cul-de-sac of revolutionary praxis and a
distance from communism because of its neglect of the interests of the
working class resultant from Lenins thesis of peaceful coexistence with
43
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 12 14.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 419

imperialism.44 Here, some historical notes may illuminate the discussion. We have
seen that Shoaiyan was uncompromisingly critical when it came to Lenins pragma-
tism in abandoning the Jangali movement in order to save the young Soviet Union.
One must understand that in the early 1920s the revolutionary Russia was torn in
many pieces by the White Guards, regional lords, and ethnic movements which
resisted the Bolsheviks. Famine and civil war had already taken their toll on the
Revolution. Withdrawing support from the Jangalis would aid the revolutionary
state in Russia in dealing with its own problems. The pragmatics of revolutionary
survival was congealed in Lenins advocacy of peaceful coexistence. But this kind
of nationalistic mentality, according to Shoaiyan, was unjustiable and contrary to
the essence of the revolution. Naturally, his book, Revolution, is a theoretical
response to Leninism as a metaphor for the nationalist tendencies in the socialist
movements. In Revolution, Shoaiyan tries to establish, conceptually, why the true
revolutionary essence prohibits compromises and leads to a state of permanent
war of liberation. Having said this, however, one must also acknowledge that
Shoaiyans work is also based on the Leninist theory of the vanguard and its
role in instigating the revolution. His work on the enlighteners of the working
class represents the debates of the time on the issue of vanguardism in the Iran
of the 1970s where mass revolutionary movement was absent.
The intellectuals (rowshangaran; literally, enlighteners) of the Left, he con-
tends, have become the idle consumers of imported theories. That is why the
anti-colonial movement in Iran has not produced one single revolutionary
thinker or social researcher that would weigh equal against the thinkers and inno-
vators in the rest of the world.45 He regards his contribution, dedicated entirely
to the task of revolution, as a challenge to the tradition of killing thinking that
denes the Iranian Left.46 Since he treats, in effect, the theories of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, Mao and others simply as particular theories for particular sociohistorical
conditions,47 Shoaiyans own theory intends to problematize the applicability of
imported theories for the conditions for which such theories were not originally
formulated. In his thought, the centrality of armed strugglewhich he dis-
tinguishes from the unworkerly (nakargari) practice of terrorismrests in
that armed struggle represents a mode of acting that practically denies all
sorts of peaceful coexistence (as in Engels or Lenin48) between the people/
working class and their imperialist enemies.49 And the Siyahkal insurgency
shows Shoaiyan that the concrete and practical conditions for an unrelenting
revolutionary movement in Iran are ripe.
The theoretical point of departure of Revolution is indeed a Marxian thought: that
the objective, historical conditions of the working class existence (class-in-itself) have
44
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 13.
45
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 16.
46
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 22.
47
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 20.
48
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 56.
49
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 29 30, 32.
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420 Vahabzadeh

rendered it the revolutionary agent par excellence. Once this objective existence is
invigorated by revolutionary consciousness (class-for-itself)which is brought to
the working class by its intellectuals or enlighteners (rowshangaran)this universal
class will embark on an unstoppable revolutionary movement. Note that the term
rowshangar is Shoaiyans coinage so that he would oppose it to the vague term
roshanfekr or intellectual: rowshangar specically refers to the intellectuals who
function as the educators of the working class. The term was received in controversy
by the Fada`iyan, but it shows how meticulously Shoaiyan attempted to theoretically
account for what existentially pertained to himthat is, his own place in the liber-
ation movement.50 In any case, since class consciousness can only be brought to the
working class through revolutionary praxis, the working class party must already
start the revolution by staging armed struggle. One must note that, for Shoaiyan,
class position (subjective conditions) does not automatically derive from class
belonging (objective conditions): it is rather class consciousness that makes class
belonging possible.51 As such, once again, he accounts for his objectively external
relationship to the working class. It is only thus that the working class party is
the instigator of the revolution as well.52 As such, the revolutionary party creates
the subjective conditions for leading the spontaneous movements that arise out
of the objective conditions of the lives of masses and working class. Against the
Leninist thesis of the primacy of the objective conditions in each country, Shoaiyan
contends that the objective conditions are globally ripe and all we need is to prepare
the subjective conditions and that will be the task of the vanguard that is itself the
initiator of the revolution.53 His criticism of Leninism should be understood in this
respect: Lenins and Stalins doctrine of peaceful coexistence indeed hindered the
Russian revolution from becoming a permanent revolution (to use Trotskys
expression, to which Shoaiyans approach bears resemblance). In other words, the
October revolution should have led to world revolution, had it not been for the trea-
sonous theories of socialism in one country of Lenin and Stalin.54 Shoaiyan asserts
that the time for national or patriotic (mihani) revolutions is over and that now
is the time for global or world revolutions.55 In fact, he charges Leninism with
the lack of a theory of the revolution, calling Lenins theory a theory of uprising
(teori-ye khizesh) as opposed to his own theory of the revolution, or more accu-
rately, enduring revolution (enqelab-e dirpai).56 The archetypical gure of his
50
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 201 2, n. 6. The term itself invoked a series of bitter face-to-face
exchanges between Shoaiyan and the Fada`i theorist, Hamid Momeniexchanges which grew so
hostile that the OIPFG leadership ordered both parties to produce their contentions in writings
(to be internally distributed). See Hamid Momeni and Mostafa Shoaiyan, Juyeshi piramun-e roshan-
fekr ya roshangar-e tabaqeh-ye kargar [An Inquiry into the Intellectual or the Enlightener of the
Working Class] (np, nd). See also Vahabzadeh, Mustafa Shuaiyan and Fada`iyan-i Khalq.
51
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 169
52
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 40.
53
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 43.
54
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 45, 52.
55
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 71.
56
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 103.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 421

revolutionary praxis is Che Guevara, the international guerrilla of the proletariat,

who recognized the treatment of the Third World by the socialist camp to be as
exploitative as that of capitalists.57
As such, he falls in the slippery slope of argument to the extent that he charac-
terizes socialism as the war economy of a triumphant workers state that engages
in a worldwide liberatory revolution. He argues that because the conict between
labor and capital is global, then it must be resolved globally.58 Although this
sounds rather na ve and simplistic, it is important to understand that one
cannot appreciate the signicance of Shoaiyans work without contextualizing
it in the debates of the early 1970s that took place in the ranks of the Fada`i the-
orists. Aside from Shoaiyan, two Marxist theorists at the time tried to situate the
signicance, and argue in favor, of the guerrilla movement in Iran. Bizhan Jazani
(1937 75), the founding gure of one of the two underground groups that later
formed the OIPFG (Jazani was in prison when the OIPFG was founded), argued
that the objective conditions for the revolution were not ripe in Iran. Armed
struggle should, therefore, be viewed and implemented as a method of mobiliz-
ation because it signies the symbolic presence of the dissident militants as well
as the susceptibility of the otherwise seemingly omnipotent dictatorship of the
Shah as the agent of imperialism in the country.59 One must note that Jazanis
works did not appear in public until after his assassination in Evin prison in
April 1975 and were mostly distributed in the ranks of the OIPFG or occasionally
published in London (in 19 Bahman-e Te`orik series) without the authors name.
On the other hand, Masoud Ahmadzadeh (1947 72), the co-founder of the
OIPFG (along with Hamid Ashraf and Abbas Meftahi) and the theorist of the
early years of the Fada`iyan (due to the underground publication of his treatise,
Armed Struggle: Both Strategy and Tactic, and its warm reception by militant intel-
lectuals), argued that the objective conditions of the revolution were in fact ripe
and the rise of armed struggle attested precisely to that. In the absence of a mass,
popular movement, though, it is the task of the militant vanguard to ignite the
revolutionary potential of the people. To that effect, he used the metaphor of a
small motor putting in motion the larger motor.60 In short, while for Jazani
armed struggle is tactical, for Ahmadzadeh it is both tactical and strategic.
57
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 265, n. 204. Shoaiyan, of course, refers to Che Guevaras 26 February
1965 speech in Algeria.
58
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 146, 153. This assertion allows Shoaiyan an internationalist gesture that
refutes the regionalizations of liberation movement (e.g., Africanization) (see Shoaiyan, Revolu-
tion, 224, n. 63; 234 35, n. 95). Nor does he allow any nationalization of socialism (Shoaiyan, Revo-
lution, 161).
59
See Bizhan Jazani, Nabard ba diktatori-ye shah bemasabeh-ye omdehtarin doshman-e khalq va zhan-
darm-e amperialism [War Against the Shahs Dictatorship as the Main Enemy of the People and
the Gendarme of Imperialism] (np, 1978). For his emphasis on the symbolic presence of the
Fada`i guerrillas, see Bizhan Jazani, Darbareh-ye vahdat va naqsh-e estratezhik-e Cherikha-ye Fada`i-ye
Khalq [On Unication and the Strategic Role of the Peoples Fada`i Guerrillas] 19 Bahman-e
Te`orik 1 (September 1974): 41 48. For a critical summary of Jazanis thought, see Vahabzadeh,
A Guerrilla Odyssey, Ch. 3.
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422 Vahabzadeh

Shoaiyan could not have been aware of Jazanis theory, and in any case, a theory
such as this would have smacked so much of Leninism to have any appeal for
him. He could not have been aware of Ahmadzadehs treatise by the time he
composed the rst draft of Revolution. Nonetheless, in later revisions, he endorses
Ahmadzadeh thesis of small motor61 despite the latters ambiguity: for
Shoaiyan the revolution is not a means to an end but almost an end in itself: it
should run its course until the entire world transforms into communism. Still
later, probably after his bitter conict with the Fada`iyan, he raises the point
that the OIPFG failed to critically engage with their own (and Ahmadzadehs)
practitioner mentality and missed the theory they needed (i.e., Shoaiyans
theory).62 By implication, this means that Fada`yan-e Khalq, despite their origi-
nality in opening the guerrilla path in Iran, grew prone to opportunism due
to the lack of such an uncompromisingly revolutionary theory as Shoaiyans.
In Shoaiyans thinking, the revolution is a mode of existence, so to speak, proper to
the possibility, heralded by Marx and Engels, of a utopian and monistic historical
eventuation. It is in this context that the distinction between uprising and
revolution becomes meaningful: all theories identied with the former
(which Shoaiyan calls Leninist) should be abandoned in favor of the latter.
Those communist parties that did not or do not adhere to this notion of the revo-
lution were indeed opportunistic. The list of such parties includes the Tudeh
Party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and later the OIPFG (after
his bitter departure from it), all of which suffered from distorted vision.63 Shoai-
yan boldly redirects his criticism of Lenin toward Marx himself, declaring: It
seems that the criticism made of Lenins thoughts on the party and the revolution
are also pertinent to Marx himself.64 Citing his lack of comprehensive knowl-
edge of Marx and sufcient resources, he refrains from launching a full-edged
investigation into Marxs theories from the point of view of his own theory;
nevertheless, he identies certain afnities between Marx and Lenin, although
unlike Lenin, Marx was a true internationalist.65
Revolution represents the last point in Shoaiyans quest for bringing together a
theory of national liberationas inspired by Mosaddeqs National Frontwith
a Marxist, vanguard theory of the revolution. It is the experience of the defeat (1953
coup) and later the failure (early 1960s) of the front that intellectually leads Shoaiyan to
the vanguard revolutionary theory. Having gone through such vicissitudes, Shoaiyans
thought reects the very vicissitudes that a particular strand of the rising secular-
Left dissident intellectuals underwent at the time. Shoaiyans work is important

60
See Mas` oud Ahmadzadeh, Mobarezeh-ye mosallahaneh: ham estratezhi, ham taktik [Armed
Struggle: Both Strategy and Tactic] (Umea, Sweden, 1976). For a critical summary of Jazanis
thought, see Vahabzadeh, A Guerrilla Odyssey, Ch. 4.
61
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 90.
62
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 277 79, n. 247.
63
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 113.
64
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 99.
65
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 100.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 423

not only because it is situated in the context of the ideas and debates that reigned
over the militant Left discourses in the 1960s and 1970s, but more importantly,
because his work represents the implosion of such ideas and debates. In no one
elses work in that generation of leftist militants can one nd both continuity
and rupture with the past as well as with the dominant Marxist paradigms.

Conclusion: The Ends of National Liberation

With respect to the theoretical and historical signicance of Shoaiyans work,

several observations are in order. His maverick attempts at reinvigorating
the frontal politics proper to national liberation in conjunction with a new
theory for the rising armed movement in Iran attest to the specic characteristic
of an era of postcolonial national liberation in Iranan era that captured Shoai-
yan existentially within a specic domain of theory (Marxism and its variations)
and praxis (armed struggle). First, internationally, the dominant mode of dissi-
dent political practice at the time (1960s and 1970s) in many (former) colonies,
postcolonial societies, or societies sustaining the birth pangs of uneven develop-
ment to enter a world capitalist system was armed resistance against the capitalist
world system, imperialism, and neocolonialism. From Cuba to Angola, from
Vietnam to Mozambique, national liberation movements were rampant in
Africa and Asia. After the defeat of the idea of peasant uprising as symbolized
by Che Guevaras death in Bolivia in 1967, Latin America began authoring its
own urban guerrilla version of resistancea model to be used in Iran by
Fada`iyan-e Khalq and other militants. What is specic about the rise of urban guer-
rilla movement in Iran is that it represents a mode of political action that directly
reects the frustration of the Iranian youth of the time: empowered by their uni-
versity education (set up for them to become functionaries in the developmental
projects of Irans rentier state) and perceiving possibilities for social justice and
democratic participation, the university students and younger generation of
experts and intellectuals found themselves facing the political closure of the
Shahs regime that impeded them from having any say about the countrys
future. No wonder armed struggle grew so popular in its inceptive years: inspired
by liberation movements around the world, this rebellious generation found
armed movement most expressive of its frustration and its power.66 In hindsight,
armed struggle may be judged by us, who live in our post-revolutionary era, as
unnecessarily violent and detrimental to the expansion of democratic discourse
in Iran. This, in my view, is a fair judgment. However, when it appeared in
66
With respect to the mood of the time, see also Mehdi Fatapour, Khizesh-e roshanfekran-e
javan-e Iran dar dahe-ye 50 [The Revolt of Young Iranian Intellectuals in the 1970s], in Iran
Emrooz (Iranian Political Bulletin), available at http://www.Iran-emrooz.de/maqal/fata-
pu0113.html (accessed 3 April 2001); Naqi Hamidian, Safar bar balha-ye arezu: sheklgiri-ye jonbesh-e
cheriki-ye Fadaiyan-e Khalq, Enqelab-e Bahman va Sazman-e Fadaiyan Aksariyat [A Voyage on the
Wings of a Wish: The Formation of the Peoples Fada`iyan Guerrilla Movement, the February
1979 Revolution, and the Organisation of Fada`iyan Majority] (Vallingby, Sweden, 2004).
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424 Vahabzadeh

Iran, armed struggle offered hope and an open horizon at the time of political
closure. This is what makes Cherikha-ye Fada`i-ye Khalq a path-breaking group,
as Shoaiyan acknowledges.67 This point is crucial: upon its advent, armed
struggle confronted dissident intellectuals as a matter of crucial choice between
an exciting horizon for an ideal, dynamic, and democratic Iran, on the one
hand, and existential stagnation of a functionarys tedious life, bereft of meaning-
ful participation, which the status quo offered. This binary may seem arbitrary to
us today, yet that is how it was portrayed at the time, not only by revolutionaries
such as Ahmadzadeh or Jazani or Shoaiyan, but also by artists and poets like
Samad Behrangi, Khosrow Golesorkhi, Ahmad Shamlu, or Esmail Kho`i.
Shoaiyans work must be situated in this existential universe. His rejection of
Leninismwhich rendered him an outcast at the time when dogmatic adherence
to Marxism-Leninism was a precondition for revolutionary practicecan be
interpreted as his effort in staying true to his existential conditions without
making any concessions with the ideological dictates that attached themselves
to revolutionary practice. In other words, for Shoaiyan, practice took precedence
over theory. At the time when it was common to twist and distort experiences
and reality so that they would conform to the norms of ideology, Shoaiyan
remained true to his own experience as a dissident intellectual.
On the other hand, Shoaiyan was essentially a frontal thinker, but due to the
ideological domination of Marxism over the discourse of liberation, he found
himself assigned the unenviable task of nding a connection between the anti-
nomic frontal and vanguard politicsa connection he never found. However,
his work shows that for a eeting moment in Iranian political thought, it
became conceptually perceivable to minimize the role of ideology (theory) in
favor of the seemingly unifying role of armed struggle (practice). Shoaiyans
entire work dwells in this narrowand contradictorypossibility.
Historically, Shoaiyans work marks the end of entire era of Iranian political
thought. In Iran, the issue of national self-assertion and liberation originates
with the Constitutional Movement of 1905 11 and its secular establishment of
a nation endowed with legal status and constitutional rights. The institutionalized
legalism of a nations right to self-governance and self-assertion did not initially
produce the political national will as it eroded, over a decade later, in Reza Shahs
repressive modernization, until years later when the national will was expressed in
the oil nationalization movement led by Dr. Mosaddeq who yearned for the lib-
eration of the nation from the inuence of foreign powers. That movement, of
course, was defeated by the 1953 coup, and its short-lived, half-hearted reinvi-
goration in the early 1960s ended in the emergence of the undemocratic state
(and its reforms) as the (monopolizing) signier of the national will. With the
frustration that such defeats brewed, national liberation reemerged in a most mili-
tant expression, and by the late 1960s urban guerrilla warfare picked up the issue

67
Shoaiyan, Revolution, 198, n. 3.
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The Failure of Frontal Politics in Iran 425

before decaying into sheer militantism and fading into the 1979 Revolution and
its aftermath.
As such, we clearly see that the issue of a unied frontal politics that would
ensure the nations will to self-assertion underwent three different discursive for-
mations in recent Iranian history. Ironically, the so-called national liberation
eventually did come through, but in the form of a populist Islamist Revolution
in 1979. The Revolution was staunchly anti-imperialist, but in coming
through, the dream of national liberation proved farthest away from the kind
of secular legalism that had invigorated the Constitutional Movement and the
subsequent movements and discourses (except guerrilla movement was not
bound by legalism). With the Revolution, the dream of national liberation
turned up a nightmare. And yet another irony of history proved in the fact
that the realizationof sortsof self-assertion and national will sounded
the death knell of the discourse of national liberation altogether in favor of the
rising democratic discourse.
Experiencing rst-hand the withering of national liberation, Shoaiyan made a
last theoretical attempt at resuscitating frontal politics by injecting it with a shot
of revolutionary agencybut to no avail. No wonder, then, that Shoaiyan has
remained such a forgotten gure and that no group identies with his thought:
he was not only a thinker of the end but a terminal thinker as well.