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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
In the years that followed the riots of June 1963, there was
little overt political opposition. The political parties that had
been prominent in the 1950-63 period were weakened by arrests,
exile, and internal splits. Political repression continued, and it
proved more difficult to articulate a coherent policy of opposition
in a period of economic prosperity, foreign policy successes, and
such reform measures as land distribution. Nonetheless, opposition
parties gradually reorganized, new groups committed to more violent
forms of struggle were formed, and more radical Islamic ideologies
were developed to revive and fuel the opposition movements. Both
the Tudeh and the National Front underwent numerous splits and
reorganizations. The Tudeh leadership remained abroad, and the
party did not play a prominent role in Iran until after the Islamic
Revolution. Of the National Front parties that managed to survive
the post-1963 clampdown, the most prominent was the Nehzat-e
Azadi-yi Iran, or the Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), led by Mehdi
Bazargan. Bazargan worked to establish links between his movement
and the moderate clerical opposition. Like others who looked to
Islam as a vehicle for political mobilization, Bazargan was active
in preaching the political pertinence of Islam to a younger
generation of Iranians. Among the best known thinkers associated
with the IFM was Ali Shariati, who argued for an Islam committed to
political struggle, social justice, and the cause of the deprived
classes.
Khomeini, in exile in Iraq, continued to issue antigovernment
statements, to attack the shah personally, and to organize
supporters. In a series of lectures delivered to his students in An
Najaf in 1969 and 1970 and later published in book form under the
title of Velayat-e Faqih (The Vice Regency of the Islamic
Jurist), he argued that monarchy was a form of government abhorrent
to Islam, that true Muslims must strive for the establishment of an
Islamic state, and that the leadership of the state belonged by
right to the faqih, or Islamic jurist. A network of clerics
worked for Khomeini in Iran, returning from periods of imprisonment
and exile to continue their activities. Increasing internal
difficulties in the early 1970s gradually won Khomeini a growing
number of followers.
In the meantime, some younger Iranians, disillusioned with what
they perceived to be the ineffectiveness of legal opposition to the
regime and attracted by the example of guerrilla movements in Cuba,
Vietnam, and China, formed a number of underground groups committed
to armed struggle. Most of these groups were uncovered and broken
up by the security authorities, but two survived: the Fadayan
(Cherikha-ye Fada- yan-e Khalq, or People's Guerrillas), and the
Mojahedin (Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People's Struggle). The Fadayan
were Marxist in orientation, whereas the Mojahedin sought to find
in Islam the inspiration for an ideology of political struggle and
economic radicalism
(see Antiregime Opposition Groups
, ch. 5).
Nevertheless, both movements used similar tactics in attempting to
overthrow the regime: attacks on police stations; bombing of United
States, British, and Israeli commercial or diplomatic offices; and
assassination of Iranian security officers and United States
military personnel stationed in Iran. In February 1971, the Fadayan
launched the first major guerrilla action against the state with an
armed attack on an Imperial Iranian Gendarmerie (the internal
security and border guard) post at Siahkal in the Caspian forests
of northern Iran. Several similar actions followed. A total of 341
members of these guerrilla movements died between 1971 and 1979 in
armed confrontations with security forces, by execution or suicide,
or while in the hands of their jailers. Many more served long terms
in prison.
Data as of December 1987
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