Did the Soviets play a role in founding the Tudeh party in Iran?

L’URSS a-t-elle joué un rôle dans la création du parti Tudeh en Iran? – Cet article traite de la création du parti Tudeh pendant l’automne de 1941 et du rôle qu’y a joué l’URSS. Il démontre, sur la base de documents d’archives du Comintern, accessibles en 1992 et 1993, que les thèses avancées jusqu’à présent par les défenseurs du régime soviétique et par ses opposants sont erronées dans la mesure où la création du parti Tudeh n’est le fait ni d’un certain nombre de gauchistes indépendants, ni du NKVD. Elle fut plus exactement préparée et réalisée par l’armée d’occupation soviétique à travers le biais de rencontres secrètes avec Soliman Mirza Eskandari, vieux routier socialiste iranien (prosoviétique) et ancien ministre de Reza Shah. L’officier russe qui s’occupait de l’affaire veilla à ce que le programme et les activités du parti fussent conformes aux intérêts de l’URSS en Iran. Le but essentiel de cette stratégie n’était pas de créer un parti ouvertement communiste, mais une organisation servant de couverture dirigée par des commusnistes expérimentés – stratégie approuvée, à travers le Comintern, par Stalin et ses associés. De plus, ces documents indiquent clairement que certains anciens communistes iraniens encore prisonniers du NKVD ne furent pas autorisés à revenir en Iran pour aider le nouveau parti – malgré la demande qui en fut faite par des communistes iraniens plus jeunes, demande soutenue par la Section des cadres du Comintern – mais furent éliminés très rapidement pour les positions « sectaires » qu’ils auraient eues dans le passé et, sans aucun doute, par peur de leur penchant antisoviétique pendant et après la guerre. Ils furent liquidés peu de temps après. Bien qu’il n’attirât que peu de sympathisants initialement, le parti Tudeh commença à s’établir dans l’arène politique iranienne après la victoire soviétique à Stalingrad. Il perdit peu à peu de son attrait parce qu’il fit cause commune avec les intérêts soviétiques en Iran contre ceux de ce pays, surtout en ce qui concerne la nationalisation des pétroles sous Mossadegh.The article deals with the establishment of the Tudeh in fall 1941 and the role the Soviets played. Based on documents from the Comintern archives, opened in 1992 and 1993, the article demonstrates that the theses sustained thus far by pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet writers are incorrect insofar as the creation of the Tudeh was neither initiated by a number of independent leftists nor by the NKVD. It was rather planned and brought into existence by the occupying Soviet army through secret contacts with the veteran Iranian (pro-Soviet) socialist and former Minister of Reza Shah, Solaiman Mirza Eskandari. The Soviet army officer in charge saw to it that the program and activities of the party were in conformity with Soviet interests in Iran. Essential in this strategy was not to create an openly communist party, but a front organization run by seasoned Communists – a strategy that was approved, through the Comintern, by Stalin and his associates. Additionally, what is made clear through these documents is that some old Iranian Communists, still in NKVD captivity, were, in spite of the demand made by some younger Communists in Iran and seconded by the Cadres Section of the Comintern, not allowed to return to Iran to help the newly founded party, but were eliminated posthaste, for their “sectarian” positions in the past and, no doubt, for fear of their anti-Soviet leanings during and after the war. They were liquidated shortly thereafter. Initially not very popular with the people of Iran, the Tudeh began to make inroads into Iran’s political arena after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad; it gradually lost its appeal as it sided with Soviet interests in Iran and against those of Iran’s, particularly on the issue of oil nationalization under Mosaddeq

Imperial Power and Dictatorship: Britain and the Rise of Reza Shah, 1921-1926

Born in obscurity about 1878 and soon orphaned, Reza Pahlavi enlisted at fifteen in a Russian-officered Cossack brigade. Rising through the ranks, he provided force for a February 1921 coup d\u27etat, seizing power for journalist Sayyid Zia alDin Tabatabai. Reza Khan provided strength in the new government and rose from army commander to minister of war (April 1921) to prime minister (1923) and, after failing to make a republic in 1924, to the throne in 1925. As shah he ruled with increasingly arbitrary power until Britain and Russia deposed him in 1941. He died in exile in 1944.1 This paper examines British activity in Iran during Reza\u27s rise to the throne and analyzes the longstanding belief that Britain made Reza shah of Iran. Within the context of Iranian and British history it tracks British involvement in the coup that first brought Reza to power and explores the policy of Sir Percy Loraine, British minister in Tehran, 1921-26. It shows that Britain did less than is believed by those who accept the myth, but more than London thought at the time: British aid to the coup was a key to its success, and aid to Reza helped him survive; Loraine\u27s policy of good relations and nonintervention was part of the process by which Reza came to dominate Iran

Did the Soviets play a role in founding the Tudeh party in Iran?*

Cosroe Chaqueri. Did the Soviets play a role in founding the Tudeh party in Iran? The article deals with the establishment of the Tudeh in fall 1941 and the role the Soviets played. Based on documents from the Comintern archives, opened in 1992 and 1993, the article demonstrates that the theses sustained thus far by pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet writers are incorrect insofar as the creation of the Tudeh was neither initiated by a number of independent leftists nor by the NKVD. It was rather planned and brought into existence by the occupying Soviet army through secret contacts with the veteran Iranian (pro-Soviet) socialist and former Minister of Reza Shah. Solaiman Mirza Eskandari. The Soviet army officer in charge saw to it that the program and activities of the party were in conformity with Soviet interests in Iran. Essential in this strategy was not to create an openly communist party, but a front organization run by seasoned Communists - a strategy that was approved, through the Comintern, by Stalin and his associates. Additionally, what is made clear through these documents is that some old Iranian Communists, still in NKVD captivity, were, in spite of the demand made by some younger Communists in Iran and seconded by the Cadres Section of the Comintern, not allowed to return to Iran to help the newly founded party, but were eliminated posthaste, for their "sectarian" positions in the past and, no doubt, for fear of their anti-Soviet leanings during and after the war. They were liquidated shortly thereafter. Initially not very popular with the people of Iran, the Tudeh began to make inroads into Iran's political arena after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad; it gradually lost its appeal as it sided with Soviet interests in Iran and against those of Iran's, particularly on the issue of oil nationalization under Mosaddeq.Cosroe Chaqueri. L 'URSS a-telle joué un rôle dans la création du parti Tudeh en Iran ? Cet article traite de la création du parti Tudeh pendant l'automne de 1941 et du rôle qu'y a joué l'URSS. Il démontre, sur la base de documents d'archives du Comintern, accessibles en 1992 et 1993, que les thèses avancées jusqu'à présent par les défenseurs du régime soviétique et par ses opposants sont erronées dans la mesure où la création du parti Tudeh n'est le fait ni d'un certain nombre de gauchistes indépendants, ni du NKVD. Elle fut plus exactement préparée et réalisée par l'armée d'occupation soviétique à travers le biais de rencontres secrètes avec Soliman Mirza Eskandari, vieux routier socialiste iranien (pro-soviétique) et ancien ministre de Reza Shah. L'officier russe qui s'occupait de l'affaire veilla à ce que le programme et les activités du parti fussent conformes aux intérêts de l'URSS en Iran. Le but essentiel de cette stratégie n'était pas de créer un parti ouvertement communiste, mais une organisation servant de couverture dirigée par des commusnistes expérimentés - stratégie approuvée, à travers le Comintern, par Stalin et ses associés. De plus, ces documents indiquent clairement que certains anciens communistes iraniens encore prisonniers du NKVD ne furent pas autorisés à revenir en Iran pour aider le nouveau parti - malgré la demande qui en fut faite par des communistes iraniens plus jeunes, demande soutenue par la Section des cadres du Comintern - mais furent éliminés très rapidement pour les positions « sectaires » qu'ils auraient eues dans le passé et, sans aucun doute, par peur de leur penchant anti-soviétique pendant et après la guerre. Ils furent liquidés peu de temps après. Bien qu'il n'attirât que peu de sympathisants initialement, le parti Tudeh commença à s'établir dans l'arène politique iranienne après la victoire soviétique à Stalingrad. Il perdit peu à peu de son attrait parce qu'il fit cause commune avec les intérêts soviétiques en Iran contre ceux de ce pays, surtout en ce qui concerne la nationalisation des pétroles sous Mossadegh.Chaqueri Cosroe. Did the Soviets play a role in founding the Tudeh party in Iran?*. In: Cahiers du monde russe : Russie, Empire russe, Union soviétique, États indépendants, vol. 40, n°3, Juillet-septembre 1999. pp. 497-528

Introduction: Edward Said, Russian Orientalism and Soviet Iranology

In 1978 the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism changed forever the terms of the debate about the nature of western scholarship on the non-western world. Profoundly unsettling, Said's work had a transformational impact on many academic disciplines in western Europe, the Americas and across Asia. Although drawing on older ideas and research, including critiques of western scholarship formulated in the Soviet Union, Said's book, along with Said's own public persona, came to represent and symbolize a broader rejection of existing power-political relationships between the imperial metropoles and the colonial world. In Orientalism, Said was principally concerned with deconstructing a discourse, seeking to analyze the specific character of a particular ideological mission, the elaboration of Anglo-French Orientalism, through which European intellectuals made an essential contribution to the extension of western hegemonic power over the East. Taking case studies drawn from Iran and the wider Persophone region, the question is posed whether a similar intellectual construction may be discerned within nineteenth century Russian, or post-1917 Soviet, discourses on the Orient. Were tsarist Russian scholars and administrators concerned with the Persophone world Orientalists in the Saidian sense? What was the significance of the rupture of 1917 in Russian discourses on the Orient? Did Soviet Iranology continue or break with traditional imperial Orientology? What was the relationship between knowledge of the East and power over it for imperial Russia and in the Soviet Union? Most controversially, did imperial Russian or Soviet Iranology display the same predisposition as Anglo-French discourses to essentialize Orient and Occident, to impose profound ontological oppositions between them and to conclude with the inherent superiority of the latter? </p