Abstract
This chapter investigates the rise of the Marxist-nationalists to prominence in the KDPI in exile culminating in the third party congress in 1973. The changes in the leadership and the central committee signified the weakened influence of the traditional ethnic nationalists and their patron, Mustafa Barzani, in the process of policy and decision-making in the party. The new leadership sought to assign a democratic socialist identity to the party by eschewing the two most decisive influences on its political-ideological formation, namely, Barzani’s traditional ethnic nationalism and the Tudeh Party’s Marxism-Leninism. The latter, however, proved more difficult to achieve due mainly to their long-standing political and organisational relationship going back to the late 1940s, as well as their allegiance to the Soviet Union. But neither the changes in the leadership and the organisational structure nor the assertion of the new democratic socialist identity could significantly remedy the adverse effects of a long period of life in exile, as was shown by the sheer force of challenges which gripped the KDPI after returning to home during the revolutionary rupture of 1978–1979.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Kongre-ye Sev’om: Hezb-e Demokrat-e Kurdistan (Iran), Mehr Mah-e 1352 (The Third Congress of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, September 1973). The report to the central committee, 55pages, most likely written by Ghassemlou, attempts to define the position of the party under the new leadership by contrasting it with the ‘conservative’ leadership of Ahmad Towfiq on the right and that of the Tudeh Party on the left. It further indulges in a detailed critical evaluation of the armed struggle of 1967–1968 as a premature and miscalculated but also admirable move and invaluable experience by those who disagreed with the conservative leadership. The report, however, is remarkably silent on Barzani’s role in the event other than referring to the unfavourable conditions in Iraqi Kurdistan.
- 2.
The Marxists and traditionalists within the KDPI shared the same ethnicist conception of Kurdish nation and nationalism. Although in economic terms they were both collectivist, their conceptions of economic collectivism varied widely due mainly to the different emphasis they laid on the role of autonomous government in the management/administration of the economy on the one hand and the place of private property and free enterprise in the economic structure of the proposed autonomous administration on the other. The different conceptions of economic collectivism and political communalism as such reflected their different approaches to Cold War and representation of the political stance of the Soviet Union in the international and regional relations. These differences are clearly reflected in the discourse of the Second and Third Congresses of the KDPI and their respective party programmes.
- 3.
Anomalies and ambiguities in the KDPI’s discourse in detail, especially with regard to the character of political authority, in Vali (2011 op. cit.).
- 4.
As was mentioned earlier, the meeting of February 1968 in Baghdad was not between Radmanesh and Ghassemlou; rather, it was between the representatives of the Tudeh Party and the Revolutionary Committee of the KDPI. Ghassemlou did not represent the KDPI; he was part of the Tudeh delegation accompanying Radmanesh, the secretary general of the party, who held negotiations with the leadership of the Revolutionary Committee represented by Sulaiman Moeini, Mohammad Amin Seraji and Karim Hussami. Radmanesh subsequently travelled to Kurdistan to meet with Mulla Mustafa Barzani to consult with him about the recent developments in Iraq as well as his relationship with the Iranian state. This meeting might have influenced Barzani’s decision to act against the leadership of the Revolutionary Committee of the KDPI leading to Moeini’s murder upon his return from Baghdad. For a detailed account of the Baghdad meeting, see Hussami, Memories Vol. 3, 1988, pp. 37, 94, 95, 96.
- 5.
See, for example, Jevanshir, F. M. Cherikha-ye Fedaie-ye Khalgh Che Miguyand: Barrasi Enteghadi Jozavati ke Cherikha-ye Khalgh Neveshte-and, Entesharate Arani, Shahrivar-e 1351 (What Do the Fedaiyn-e Khalq Say: A Critical Review of Their Writings), Ara’ni Publications, September 1972; Peyam be Cherikh-ye Fedaie, Donya, No. 5 Aban 1353/1974 (A Message for the Fedaiyan Khalgh, Donya, No. 5, October 1974).
- 6.
Power struggle was a persistent feature of the leadership of the Tudeh Party since its inception, often leading to long and protracted conflicts between competing factions vying for supremacy in the party. Inter-factional conflicts in the leadership were often prompted and nurtured by long-standing and intense personal animosity among the leading figures in the party, although almost always they were hidden under the cover of ideological explanations used to express disagreements over policy and strategy within the party. Power struggle in the leadership was intensified considerably in exile as the competing factions tried to enlist Soviet support by becoming the protégé of a powerful personality or a clique or faction in the political bureau of the CPSU. Power struggle and inter-factional conflict in the leadership of the CPSU more often than not had a profound influence on the form, process, direction and outcome of factionalism and power struggle inside sister parties living in exile in the Soviet bloc. The Iranian Tudeh was no exception to this rule. Memories of the prominent figures in the Tudeh leadership in exile, especially the last two secretary generals Eskandari (1969–1978) and Kianouri (1978–1983), testify to the importance of internal power struggle in the party and factional fighting and personal relations in this context. The rise to power of the Kianouri faction, known for his subservience to Moscow and long-standing opposition to political and institutional reform in the party, on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979 showed Moscow’s assessment of the post-revolutionary politics and anticipation of the need for an authoritarian populist line in the party. See Iraj Eskandari (1366/1987) and Eskandari Paris (1365/1986); Nuraddin Kianouri (1372/1993); see also Abrahamian (op. cit. 1982), Ladjevardi (1985), and Behrooz (2000).
- 7.
Ghassemlou discussing internal developments in the Tudeh Party in exile variously referred to the determining influence of the Soviet foreign policy and its strategic interests on the discourse and practice of the communist parties in the region in the framework of the Cold War. Various interviews specially December 1983 in London.
- 8.
See Tudeh Party of Iran, Barnameh va Asasnameh-ye Hezb (The Programme and Regulations of the Party) 1960 and Barnameh-ye Hezb-e Tudeh-ye Iran (Programme of the Tudeh Party of Iran 1964).
- 9.
- 10.
The Soviet-Tudeh take on the Leninist concept of imperialism, adopted in the 1950s and promoted in the 1960s and 1970s by the left in the KDPI, subsequently became the focal point of a fierce political struggle in the party when the pro-Tudeh opposition in the party tried to appropriate and use it to displace the primacy of the struggle for regional autonomy soon after the revolution. Following the Tudeh Party, they invoked the concept emphasising the global primacy of the popular democratic struggle against imperialism in order to criticise and oppose the mainstream in the party led by Ghassemlou arguing for the primacy of the struggle for regional autonomy which brought it into direct confrontation and war with the new regime. The conflict inside the KDPI reached its climax in the Fourth Congress of the party in 1980 when the pro-Tudeh faction broke away, emphasising its opposition to the party’s misconception/misrepresentation of the revolutionary anti-imperialist character of the Islamic regime. The disarticulating effects of the Soviet-Tudeh interpretation of the people-imperialist contradiction in post-revolutionary era, disarming the bulk of the left and democratic forces and ensuring their submission to the leadership of Khomeini specially by the occupation of the US Embassy and the detention of the staff in early November 1979, greatly helped the consolidation of power under the leadership of the hardliners in the Islamic republic.
- 11.
Commitment to socialism as a social and economic project for the reorganisation of society and economy characterised by a centralised economy based mainly on public ownership along with a limited market and free enterprise and the persistence of anti-imperialist discourse and unequivocal support for of the Soviet Union in the bipolar view of the world central to the Cold War ideology on the one hand, and commitment to the Leninist conception of the vanguard party founded on democratic centralism on the other, were the common feature of all KDPI party programmes since the Third Congress in 1973. See kongraey Sevvmi Hizbi Demokrati kordistani Eran (The Third Congress of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan) Mehr 1352/September 1973.
- 12.
See Kurdistan No. 37, August 1975, and also Hussami (op. cit. 1997). Anti-imperialism subsequently became the bedrock of the Tudeh’s political and theoretical approach to Iranian politics after the revolution and the means of legitimation of political discourse and practice, and hence the means of inclusion in and exclusion from the process of popular democratic politics; see, for example, Mardom, No. 136. 1975, Ali Galawej’s contribution to Donya No. 5 1975, and Iraj Eskandari’s article on the eve of the revolution in Donya Nos. 10–11 1978, and after the revolution Reza Shaltuki in Donya No. 6 1980 and Kianuri’s various statements about the Kurdish question in his question-and-answer sessions, for example, in 1980 and 1981.
- 13.
The formation of the Gela’ley Siyasi-Nizami soon after Varna was widely considered to be the turning point in the relationship between the KDPI and the Tudeh Party. Ghassemlou (London 1984–1985) and to a lesser extent Hussami (Stockholm 1997) emphasised this point, although in practice the organisation did not amount to an effective political-military force in Kurdistan.
- 14.
See contributions of Ali Galawej and Mohammad Ghizilji, two prominent Kurds in the Tudeh Party, to issues of Mardom and Donya in the early 1970s. The former in article entitled ‘Doshmanan va Dustan-e Khalgh-e Kurd’ (Enemies and Friends of the Kurdish People) in Donya no. 5. Aban 1353/October 1974 uses social class as the criteria to define the friends and enemies of the Kurdish people in the Iranian political field. Also Navid’s article ‘Kordestan in Suy-e Marz’ (Kurdistan on this side of the Border) in Donya no. 6. Azar 1354/November 1974.
- 15.
The ambivalence of the KDPI leadership towards the new developments in the political field and the radicalisation of the clandestine public sphere, specially their hesitation to take up a clear and positive stance on the new anti-Tudeh orthodoxy, along with their strong defence of ethnic nationalism as the essence of Kurdish resistance and opposition to the royal dictatorship, repeatedly surfaced in discussions with Ghassemlou, Seraji and Hussami, although they refused to see such an ambivalence and still less to discuss its causes and consequences for the KDPI’s position in the political and ideological fields in the years leading to the Iranian revolution.
Selected Bibliography
Kurdish Sources (Books and Articles)
Hussami, K. Le Birewariyekanim, vol. 3. Stockholm 1988.
Hussami, K. Peda Chuneve: Bezutnevey Nishtimani Kurd la Kurdistani Eran 1947–1978, vol. 2, Stockholm 1997.
Persian Sources (Books and Articles)
Eskandari, I. Yadmande-ha va Yaddasht-haye Parakand-e, Paris 1365/1986.
Eskandari, I. Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Iraj Eskandari, Bakhsh-e1 va 2. Paris 1366/1987.
Kianouri, N. Khaterat-e Nuraddin Kianouri, Entesharat-e Ettela’t 1372/1993.
Vali, A. ‘Mafhoum-e Demokrasi va Asl-e Khodmokhtari’, Motalea’t-e Kordi, no. 1, 1984.
English Sources (Books and Articles)
Abrahamian, E. Iran Between Two Revolutions, Princeton 1982.
Behrooz, M. Rebels with a Cause, London 2000.
Ladjevardi, H. Labour Unions and Autocracy in Iran, Syracuse 1985.
Vali, A. Kurds and the State in Iran: The Making Of Kurdish Identity, London 2011.
Vali, A. ‘Reflections on Kurdish Society and Politics in Rojhelat’ in Gunter, M. (ed.). Kurdish Issues, Costa Mesa 2016.
Vali, A. ‘Silence au Rojhelat: une etude de cas’, Anatoli: Les Kurdes puissance montante au Moyen-Orient? CNRS EDITIONS, no. 8 Automne 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vali, A. (2020). The Rise of the Left and the Search for a New Identity. In: The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran. Minorities in West Asia and North Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16069-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16069-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16068-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16069-2
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)