MER Article "Everything Positive Has Come from the Masses Below" This interview is with an Iranian woman active on the left who had lived in the US for seven years before returning to Iran in January 7979. She visited MERIP in Boston in early February 1980. Could you tell us what your impressions were when you returned to Iran a year ago? I had been away about (Author not identified) • 15 min read
MER Article Workers' Councils in Iranian Factories During July and August 1979 I visited a number of Iranian factories. There I held discussions and interviews with militants and activists of different political hues, and with ordinary working people, about the workers’ councils that have appeared in Iranian factories since the February 1979 revolut Chris Goodey • 12 min read
MER Article Iran's Revolution: The First Year A year after the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime, the Iranian revolution is still going through a tumultuous and uncertain period, the end of which is by no means in sight. To evaluate the long-term import of this revolution now is therefore, in any serious sense, impossible: It would be like trying Fred Halliday • 7 min read
MER Article Nobari, Iran Erupts Ali-Reza Nobari, Iran Erupts (Iran-American Documentation Group, Stanford University, December 1978). Nikki Keddie • 1 min read
MER Article Zabih, Iran's Revolutionary Upheaval Sepehr Zabih, Iran’s Revolutionary Upheaval: An Interpretive Essay (San Francisco: Alchemy Books, 1979). (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Interview with Tudeh's Kianuri Excerpts from an interview with Tudeh Party Secretary General Nureddin Kianuri by Elevtherotipia (Athens), November 27 and 28, 1979. Since it is a timely issue, I would like to begin with the occupation of the US Embassy. What is your party’s position on this issue? From the very beginning, our pa (Author not identified) • 3 min read
MER Article Interview with Revolutionary Guard Commander The following interview with Abbas Zamani (Abu Sharif), operations commander of the Revolutionary Guard, appeared in al-Safir (Beirut), December 1, 1979. The interview took place at the Guards’ operations command north of Tehran, in the complex that served as SAVAK headquarters under the Shah. What Abbas Zamani • 8 min read
MER Article Letter from Gilan The western road from Tehran to the northern province of Gilan runs for about 270 miles up over the Elborz mountains till it reaches the Caspian port of Enzeli. Leaving Tehran on a clear Saturday morning, the first day of the week, the way is flanked by vendors -- melon sellers and men offering an a Fred Halliday • 7 min read
MER Article The Tudeh Party in Iranian Politics Excerpted from Iran: Dictatorship and Democracy (1979), pp. 227-234: The Tudeh Party was, in contrast to the National Front, an organized political party, indeed, the most organized political force ever seen in Iranian politics. The earlier Communist Party (founded 1921) had been crushed by Reza Kh Fred Halliday • 6 min read
MER Article Interviews with Fedayi, Mojahedin and Tudeh Activists Since the overthrow of the Shah, over 150 distinct political groups have declared their existence in Iran. Of these, the majority are probably groups adhering to some version of revolutionary socialism, and few have as yet a substantial following in the country. Perhaps the largest left-wing group j Fred Halliday • 19 min read
MER Article The Guerrilla Movement in Iran, 1963-1977 One crisp morning in the winter of 1971, thirteen young Iranians armed with rifles, machine guns and hand grenades, attacked the gendarmerie post in the village of Siakal on the edge of the Caspian forests. Killing three gendarmes, they tried to release two colleagues who had been detained a few day Ervand Abrahamian • 36 min read
