Political Repression and Crackdown on Tudeh

Tudeh's communist alignment

First Party Program: "Primary aim to mobilise the workers, peasants, progressive intellectuals, traders and craftsmen of Iran"

Tudeh's labour base

In 1945, 75% of the industrial labour force belonged to Tudeh-affiliated trade unions, including 45,000 oil workers; a 1946 general strike secured the 8-hour day from the AIOC

Tudeh and the Soviets

1946 - the only party to support the Soviet-Iranian oil agreement and the Soviets' championing of the autonomy of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan; the Soviets wanted a 51% oil share for withdrawing from Northwest Iran

US financial pressure

CIA Document, October 1953: "unless [the Shah] do something to curb Tudeh Party activities and Soviet influence, they are likely to lose U.S. financial and military support"

The countrywide crackdown

September 1953 CIA doc: the "task of directing countrywide crackdown on Tudeh Party" through arresting rank and file members, seizing printing presses and raiding headquarters

Fear of losing oil assets

Telegram from the Iran Embassy, April 1964, noting Khomeini's claim that the government was "giving away our resources to foreigners"; tapes of his April 15 speech circulated in Tehran and the "National Front are considering cooperating with Mullahs"

Robert Graham on SAVAK (1979)

SAVAK was the Shah's "eyes and ears, and where necessary, his iron fist"

SAVAK's origins and methods

Evolved out of the Second Bureau of the Army in 1957; tortured dissenters after rigged elections (e.g. 1962-63) and visits from Western powers, controlled the media and banned job/university applicants; ran prisons on Kharg Island and Evin

Scale of the crackdown

Between 1953-1957 police tracked down 4,121 party members - over half the Tudeh party; in the 1970s, 368 guerrillas were killed

Surveillance state statistics

May 1960 CIA Bulletin: any communist organisation was under "constant surveillance" by SAVAK; 1 in 450 males were spy agents, with 5,000 operatives; Amnesty International reported 20,000 political prisoners by 1974

US training of SAVAK

1978 NYT: 400 SAVAK agents trained yearly on average over the previous five years at a McLean, Virginia base; SAVAK kept tabs on international students, with dissenters disappearing in Cologne

Police Assistance Program

The US spent $1.7 million from 1961-68, training 216 police officers at US training centres

Torture allegations

NYT, June 1979: Jesse Leaf said the "CIA sent an operative…instruction in torture, and the techniques were copied from the Nazis"; torturer Tehrani admitted "we would stick hot iron bars in their noses and eyes"

Khomeini's PBS interview (1 December 1978)

"We are a nation under the oppression and the despotic regime of the Shah; all our people, they are crying for freedom, and this freedom has been denied from them."

December 7 strikes

Became an annual day of strikes at the 13 universities, commemorating two Tudeh students and one National Front student killed in 1953 after a visit from Vice-President Nixon

Guerrilla movements

Leftist groups, particularly Fadayin-e Khalq (FeK) and Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), attracted large numbers of young, disaffected Iranians (especially students) to armed struggle; 1971-1975 saw an estimated 400 bombings or attempted bombings

1977 Washington protest

Tear gas was used in November 1977 when the Shah flew to Washington, where 4,000 Iranian students protested his visit and required riot police

Abadan Cinema fire

Extremists burned a cinema to incite hatred against the Shah and SAVAK - 400 women and children died; after the mass burial, 10,000 people marched into Abadan shouting "Burn the Shah, end the Pahlavis"

Culmination of anti-Shah sentiment

Protestors began shouting "Death to the Shah!" (New York Times, 1979), and Khomeini toppled the monarchy on 11 February 1979