Middle East Information Resource
Political Entities - Tudeh
The Tudeh Party (Hezb-e Tudehye Iran) is the Party of the Iranian masses. Tudeh was created in Septemeber 1941 as the Communist Party of Iran. Throughout its years of its activity, it represented Soviet Marxism and passionately defended the attitudes and interests of the Soviet Union in Iran.
In the 1940`s and 1950`s, the Party was very popular among the intellectuals in Iran. It had a major influence over political events. For years it was the only well organized Party in Iran and had more than 100,000 members. Its founder was Taqi Arani, who was born in 1901 in Tabriz, and studied chemistry in Germany. The first conference of the Party was held in August 1944 and many activists were arrested in 1945 due to the Party`s support for the separatist movement of Azerbeijan. The Party was further crippled by a further wave of arrests in 1949, after the Shah accused the Party of planning an attempt on his life.
When Muhammad Mossaddeq was appointed Prime Minister in 1951, the Tudeh Party recovered. It carried on its activities overtly activities, even though the prohibition of the party had not been formally lifted. The Party supported the nationalization of the oil industry by Mossaddeq, but opposed his attempts to cooperate with the US. Until the fall of Mossaddeq in 1953, the Party took advantage of anti-Western feelings in order to set up many organizations to mobilize the sympathy of various groups such as youth, women, and peace supporters. Upon the fall of the government of Mossaddeq and the rehabilitation of the Shah in 1953, the Party once again went underground. Dozens of its leaders escaped to East Germany, where they set up headquarters.
In 1965, in light of the improvement of relations between Iran and the Soviet Union, the Party announced a more moderate platform. This tactical change brought about an ideological split. A Maoist faction formed that supported guerrilla activities to bring down the Shah`s regime. The Maoist group soon split into two organizations: the pro-Chinese Tudeh Party Revolutionary Organization and the Toufan (the Storm), which had a Marxist-Leninist orientation. Neither of these splinter groups gained much support.
Before the Islamic revolution in Iran, the party concentrated primarily on organzing demonstrations and exciting Iranian student organizations abroad. With the weakening of the Shah`s regime and its instruments of suppression, the Party renewed its activity inside Iran as well. It announced its support of Ayatullah Khomeini`s struggle to bring down the Shah, and even placed its organizational infrastructure at his disposal. The Party announced overt activity in March 1979, one month after the establishment of the Islamic regime.
In April 1983, when the Secretary General of the Party, Nour-ed-Kia-Nouri, and about a thousand activitsts were arrested simultaneously in a well planned operation. Kia-Nouri was the first among those arrested to admit on television that the Party had engaged in espionage for the benefit of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of its members were executed. Since then the Party`s prestige has waned, and it has become much less active, both inside and outside of Iran. This blow, together with the crumbling of the Soviet Union, led to the desertion of many members and to the creation of various communist groups, particularly in Europe. The Party continues to publish its newspaper, Namehe Mardom (People`s Herald), in Europe.