The Tudeh Party of Iran is an Iranian Marxist–Leninist party. Formed in 1941 with Soleiman Mirza Eskandari as its leader, the organization held significant influence in its early years and played an important role during Mohammad Mosaddegh's campaign to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, as well as throughout his term as prime minister. From the Iran crisis of 1946 onwards, Tudeh became a pro-Soviet organization and remained prepared to carry out the dictates of the Soviet leadership in Moscow, even if it meant sacrificing Iranian political independence and sovereignty. The crackdown that followed the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh is said to have "destroyed" the party, although a small part of it survived. The party still exists but has remained much weaker on account of being banned in Iran and mass arrests by the Islamic Republic in 1982, as well as the executions of political prisoners in 1988. Tudeh identified itself as the historical successor of the Communist Party of Persia.
Contents
Ideological profile
The Tudeh Party is retroactively described in conflicting ways, sometimes as "Stalinist", or as a more traditional communist party that supported the Soviet Union while also adopting nationalism to appeal more to Iranians. It is also sometimes described simply as "leftist" or even "left-leaning" by other sources.
History
Birth of the communist movement in Iran
The history of the communist movement in Iran dates back to the late 19th century, when Marxism was first introduced to the nation's intellectual and working classes as a result of the rapid growth of industry and the subsequent transformation of the country's economy from a feudalistic system into a capitalistic one. Being close to the Soviet Union and the Caucasus, northern Iran became the primary center of underground Marxist and social democrat political activity, and many such groups came into being over the years.
The Communist Party of Iran was founded in June 1920 in Bandar-e Anzali, in the province of Gilan, as a result of the first congress of Iranian social democrats. Haydar Khan Amo-oghli, who was one of the leaders of the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, became the national secretary of the new party. At the same time, Mirza Kuchik Khan, another major leader of the Constitutional Revolution and also the leader of the revolutionary Jungle "Jangali" Movement (Foresters' Movement), established the Socialist Soviet Republic of Gilan with the assistance of the Red Army of the Soviet Union.
With the defeat of both the newly formed Soviet Republic of Gilan and the Communist Party, communist and social democrat activity once again went underground. In the early 1920s the Qajar dynasty finally collapsed, and Reza Shah ascended to the throne in 1925, establishing the Pahlavi dynasty. The new Shah introduced many reforms, such as limiting the power of the Shia clergy, but also in turn established an authoritarian dictatorship.
In 1929–30, the party organized strikes in an Isfahan textile mill, the Mazandaran railways, Mashhad carpet workshops, and most importantly, in the British-owned oil industry. The government cracked down heavily and circa 200 communists were arrested; 38 were incarcerated in Qasr Prison in Tehran. Along with the Stalin purges, which took a heavy toll on Iranian communist exiles living in the Soviet Union, these arrests meant the Communist Party of Iran "ceased to exist for all practical purposes outside the walls of Qasr."
Foundation of the Tudeh Party
The British-Soviet Allied invasion of 1941–42 resulted in the end of Reza Shah's reign and his forced exile to South Africa. Many political prisoners subsequently received general amnesty by his son and successor Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and under this new atmosphere, nationalist and socialist groups once again flourished. Members of the Marxist "Group of the 53 members" comprised a portion of these political prisoners. In Iran's post-Reza Shah era, the latter became a component of Soviet strategy, interests, and plans. Following their release, some of the "Group of the 53 members" including Iraj Iskandari met with a Soviet representative at the residence of Soleiman Eskandari to form the Hezb-e Tudeh-ye Iran ("the Party of Iranian masses"), a Marxist–Leninist party appealing to the broad masses. They founded the Tudeh party on 29 September 1941, electing Soleiman Eskandari as party president.
Initially the party was intended to be "a liberal rather than a radical party", with a platform stressing the importance of "constitutional" and "individual rights", protecting "democracy" and "judicial integrity" from fascism, imperialism, and militarism. "At Soleiman Eskandari's urging", the party initially attempted to appeal to non-secular masses by barring women from membership, organizing Moharram processions, and designating "a special prayer room in its main clubhouse." This orientation did not last and the party moved "rapidly to the left" within months of its founding.
Early peak
In 1944, the party entered the 14th Majlis elections and eight of its candidates were elected. It also established the secret Tudeh Party Military Organization of Iran, or TPMO (Sazman-e Nezami-ye Hezb-e Tudeh-ye Iran) made up of officers in the military. The TPMO provided the party with intelligence and information from the military to protect it from the security forces and give it military strength, though historians believe the party had no plan at that time to use the TPMO to stage a coup.
At the same time, Tudeh took a strong stand in favor of women's rights, starting in 1943. This included advocating for equal pay for equal work, two months of maternity leave for female workers and otherwise standing for women's social rights, working with those who had been fighting for these goals for years and were socialist. Even so, issues of reproduction, sexuality, and other elements within family life were not discussed.
From this point on the party grew immensely and became a major force in Iranian politics. By early 1945, the party had managed to create the first mass organization in Iran's history. Police records later revealed it had an estimated 2,200 hard-core members – 700 of them in Tehran – "10,000s of sympathizers in its youth and women's organizations, and 100,000s of sympathizers in its labor and craft unions." Its main newspaper, Rahbar (Leader), boasted a circulation of more than 100,000 – triple that of the "semi-official newspaper" Ettela'at. British ambassador Reader Bullard called it the only coherent political force in the country, and The New York Times reckoned it and its allies could win as much as 40% of the vote in a fair election.
This period has been called the height of the party's intellectual influence which came in large part from the prestige and propaganda of the Soviet Union as "the world's most progressive nation." Few intellectuals "dared oppose" the party "even if they did not join." Marking the end of the "near hegemony of the party over intellectual life" in Iran was the resignation from the party of celebrated writer Jalal Al-e-Ahmad c. 1948 to form a socialist splinter group – Third Force – in protest against the Tudeh's "nakedly pro-Soviet" policies.
Tarnishing the appeal of the Tudeh in 1944–1946 were Soviet demands for a petroleum concession in northern Iran and the Soviet sponsoring of ethnic revolts in Kurdestan and Azerbaijan. Despite the fact that Tudeh deputies in the Majles had previously vigorously demanded the nationalization of the whole petroleum industry, the Tudeh party supported granting the Soviet petroleum industry in Iran its wishes on grounds of "socialist solidarity", "internationalism," and "anti-imperialism."
1949 crackdown
In February 1949, there was an attempt on the life of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The party was blamed by the government and banned. The government "confiscated its assets, dissolved affiliated organizations, especially the Central Council and rounded up some 200 leaders and cadres."
The party continued to function underground however and by 1950 it had organized its supporters under the banner of the Iran Society for Peace (Jam'iyat-e Irani-ye Havadar-e Solh) and was publishing three daily papers, Razm, Mardom, and Besui-ye Ayandeh. In December 1950, the TPMO, its military organization, managed "to arrange for the escape of key members of the party leadership who had been in jail since early 1949."
Such suppression was assisted by conservatives detesting the Tudeh Party, which was later outlawed and allied with Mossadegh. One Iranian conservative newspaper even editorialized:
"...the Tudeh Party, with its satanic doctrine of class struggles, has incited ignorant workers to violate the sacred right of private property and inflict social anarchy upon the center of the country. This uprising proves that Tudeh is an enemy of private property, of Iran, and of Islam. If the government does not stamp out Tudeh, the local revolt will inevitably spread into a general revolution."
Mosaddegh era, his overthrow and aftermath
The party played an important role both directly and indirectly during the pivotal era of Iranian history that began with the 1951 nationalization of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), and ended with the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh by a CIA-led coup d'état. The party's policy "fluctuated", first attacking Mossaddegh as 'an agent of American imperialism', then giving him some support during and after the July 1952 uprising. On 15 August a coup attempt against Mossaddegh was thwarted thanks in part to information uncovered by the Tudeh TPMO military network, but two days later party militants inadvertently helped destabilized the government by staging demonstrations to pressure Mossaddegh to declare Iran a democratic republic. As this would have overturned Iran's constitutional monarchy, Mossaddegh reacted by calling out troops to suppress the demonstrators. The party then demobilized late the next day making it unavailable to fight the coup the day after. By 1957 the TPMO was crushed and thousands of party members had been arrested.
Following World War II, Iranian public support was growing for the nationalization of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) whose profits had greatly exceeded its royalty payments to the Iranian government.
In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh, head of the nationalist movement known as the National Front of Iran, led parliament in the nationalization of AIOC, and shortly after was appointed prime minister by the Shah. Mosaddegh oversaw the takeover of British oil facilities and rising economic difficulty and polarization in Iran as the AIOC withdrew its employees and retaliated with a boycott of Iranian oil.
In early April 1951, the Tudeh revealed its "true strength" by launching strikes and riots protesting low wages and poor housing and delays in the nationalization of the oil industry. There were "street demonstrations and sympathy strikes in Tehran, Isfahan, and the northern cities." Police opened fire on demonstrators. A result was "panic" in Iran's parliament at the power of Marxist forces in Iran. With this, it became apparent that Mossaddegh was not a communist and that the Tudeh did not control the government, nor did the party want to overthrow him even as it was establishing a broad public base.
During this period the Tudeh followed a "leftist" rather than "popular front" strategy, refusing to ally with Mosaddegh. Despite the fact that Mosaddegh had introduced a new policy of tolerance toward the party, that both the Tudeh and Mosaddegh had worked for nationalization of the AIOC, and that expropriation of capitalist Western-owned resource extracting corporations by poor countries was central to Marxist–Leninist doctrine, the party vigorously and relentlessly opposed Mosaddegh and his program. In a June 1950 article in its daily Mardom it described the effects of Mosaddegh's policy thusly:
Late 1950s and 1960s
The Sino–Soviet split caused some splintering of the party in the early 1960s, with at least one Maoist group breaking away. In the mid-1960s, the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 1500.
In 1965, the party faced a second division between the mainstream of the organization and the splinter faction, which advocated a violent struggle against the government by arming the tribes of southern Iran. This faction caused a great deal of damage and three years passed before the unity of the party was restored. The remnants of this faction are known as the Labour Party of Iran.
In 1966, several party members, including Ali Khavari and Parviz Hekmatjoo of the Central Committee, and Asef Razmdideh and Saber Mohammadzadeh, were arrested and sentenced to death. This sparked an international outcry and hunger strikes in Europe which forced the government to reduce the sentences to life imprisonment. These events created much international sympathy for the worker's struggle in Iran and helped unify the party after the split. The Tudeh Party from this point on becomes established as one of the strongest underground movements and helps to pave the way for the forthcoming Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Members of the Tudeh Party additionally maintained contact with Afghan Commando Forces personnel during the late 1960s and early 1970s, who were in the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, helping them distribute leftist and "progressive" magazines among the commando battalions.
Iranian Revolution of 1979
In the early 1970s, the Iranian guerrilla movement began in northern Iran in the province of Mazandaran. The 1970s also witnessed the birth of widespread worker strikes and demonstrations, and university campuses became a hotbed of revolutionary activity.
The Tudeh Party dramatically increased its activities in the 1970s. In 1973, Tudeh released a brochure titled "Oil from Iran and imperialist oil monopolies," likely advocating for oil nationalization. In November 1978, they recruited youths and held demonstrations at the University of Tehran for the first time in 15 years, in support of Shia clergymen against the Shah. Tudeh also organized regional committees, and by 1980, they supported the Islamic Revolution when others on the left opposed it.
Islamic Republic
During the revolution, many political prisoners were freed and the Tudeh Party and other leftist groups were able to participate in the presidential and parliamentary elections for the first time in many years. However, the majority of seats in the Majlis were won by the Islamic Republican Party of Ayatollah Beheshti and leftist and nationalist organizations were forced out of the loop. The newly elected president, Abolhassan Banisadr, who had originally been close with Ayatollah Khomeini, also became increasingly frustrated with the developments that had been taking place and opposed the domination of the clergy and the religious factions in Iranian politics. In addition, the party denounced Amnesty International's call to end the summary executions and called it "blatant interference in Iranian affairs".
In 1981, the Majlis, dominated by the Islamic Republican Party, forced Banisadr out of office, which initiated a wave of protests and demonstrations from all segments of the populace. Banisadr later fled the country. Armed revolutionary committees loyal to Khomeini (which came to be known as the Pasdaran) arrested many thousands of youth and activists from both nationalist and leftist groups, many of whom were later tried by Lajevardi, known as the Hanging Judge, and executed.
At this point in the history of the Tudeh Party, the Christian and Azeris within the population were prominent.
While other leftist parties opposed the Islamist forces at this time and were suppressed as a result, Tudeh Party leadership as well as the Fadaian Aksariat decided to support the new clerical theocratic regime. This may have been to try to follow the pro-Tehran line of the Soviet Union.
In 1982, however, the Tudeh broke ranks. The Islamist government of Iran had closed down the Tudeh newspaper and purged Tudeh members from government ministries. According to the Mitrokhin Archive, Vladimir Kuzichkin, a KGB officer stationed in Tehran, had defected to the British in 1982. MI6 used this information and shared the information with the CIA. Their information was then shared with the Iranian government by the CIA, which was secretly courting Iran, as part of the Iran–Contra affair.
Quite quickly the government arrested and imprisoned its leadership and later more than 10,000 members of the party. In February 1983, the leaders of the Tudeh Party were arrested and the Party disbanded, leaving Iran effectively a one-party state. The Tudeh arrests revealed that once again the party had managed to find supporters among the armed forces, as a number of officers, prominent among them Admiral Bahram Afzali, commander of the Iranian navy, were arrested. These arrests ended the alliance between the Tudeh Party and the ruling clergy of Iran and it collapsed, even as the Soviets worked with the Iranians to build up their nuclear capabilities. Even with this agreement, the Iranian government saw the Soviets as "atheistic devils" and the Soviets did not like the government because it had suppressed the Tudeh.
Current status
Despite the repression, the party has managed to survive. Though since the Iranian Revolution the party is officially banned in Iran and individuals found to be affiliated with communist or socialist groups risk imprisonment, active members have remained and it continues to operate as an underground political organization there. This was mentioned in an Amnesty International report on political prisoners in Iran.
Today, the party leadership is mainly based in exile, as is the new Central Committee, elected in 1992. The party has taken positions against privatization, criticizes the electoral system in the country, and "anti-labor" legislation. In 2017, the party supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon as a leftist force in France, commemorated the Russian Revolution, pledged solidarity with the Venezuelan Communist Party, and criticized Iranian reformists for betraying their ideals. Additionally, the party condemned the missile attacks on Syria in April 2017 by Donald Trump, the only element of the Iranian opposition to do so, and has many wide-ranging party anthems on their website. In 2020, the party condemned the Trump Administration's airstrike which killed Qasem Soleimani, while simultaneously criticizing the Iranian government for intervening in both Iraq and Lebanon.
During the 2025–2026 Iranian protests the party called for continued struggle against the Islamic Republic government which, like other dissident political movements, they described as engaging in "despotism" and authoritarianism. The party cautioned against U.S. interventionism and attempts to restore monarchy in Iran, citing requests by Reza Pahlavi for foreign intervention.
Members of the politburo
Akbar Schandermani