Ali Rahnema

Call to Arms: Iran's Marxist Revolutionaries

Formation and Evolution of the Fada'is, 1964-1976

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

A groundbreaking study of the Iranian Peopleâ s Fadaâ i Guerrillas, their ideology, actions and impact on the 1979 revolution

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Produktdetails

• Radical Histories of the Middle East
• Verlag: Oneworld Publications
• Seitenzahl: 528
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. Januar 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 241mm x 161mm x 48mm
• Gewicht: 780g
• ISBN-13: 9781786079855
• ISBN-10: 1786079852
• Artikelnr.: 59937542

Autorenporträt

Ali Rahnema is Professor of Economics at the American University of Paris. He is the author of An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shari‘ati, Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran and Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Violence as a political option?
* Demonizing the armed opposition
* Why resort to political violence?
* The four Iranian Marxist theoreticians of armed struggle
2 Hasan Zia-Zarifi’s account of why armed struggle
* The culprit: Absolutist despotic monarchism
* Reflections from prison
3 Amir-Parviz Pouyan’s account of why armed struggle
* Literature in the service of politics
* Armed struggle: Rational or irrational? A necessary theoretical
digression
* Pouyan on the necessity of armed struggle as a rational choice
* Refutation of the theory of survival
* Pouyan’s incisive impact
4 Masʿoud Ahmadzadeh’s accounts of why armed struggle
* Demystifying classical notions of how and when to take up arms
* The fruitful retreat
* The Debray factor: From Havana to Tehran via Mashhad
* Learning from the past
* Breaking with the old sacred cows
* Armed struggle by the revolutionary vanguard
5 Bijan Jazani’s accounts of why armed struggle
* Mysteries around What a Revolutionary Should Know
* To confront a monarchical military dictatorship
* Revolutionary intellectuals: The dynamite of the revolutionary
movement
* Jazani’s paradoxical hints
* Revolutionary agents and the question of leadership in a despotic or
democratic Iran
6 The Tudeh Party’s awkward tango with armed struggle
* Ideological rift over revolution-making
* Iranian students take sides
* The Tudeh Party’s reluctant approval of armed struggle
* The Tudeh Party pushes back against armed struggle
* Revolution means employing peaceful methods of struggle
* The Tudeh Party denounces armed struggle
* What did the revolutionary Marxists think of the Tudeh Party?
7 Monarchists, Maoists, and the Tudeh Party in unison: armed struggle is
counterrevolutionary adventurism
* For Nikkhah the red revolution turned white
* Kourosh Lashaʾi’s rejection of romanticism and embrace of realism
* The Tudeh Party: We told you so
8 Armed struggle and Marxist canonists
* Historical determinism or revolutionary voluntarism?
* Marx and Engels: Wavering over the role of violence?
* Lenin on violence, unequivocal?
* Trotsky: Dissonance between intellectual revolutionary consciousness
and backward economic conditions invites violence
9 Armed struggle and Marxist revolutionaries
* Mao Tse-tung’s revolutionary authority
* Che Guevara’s revolution-making to overthrow dictators
* Carlos Marighella: Unleashing violence to end dictatorial violence
* Marighella in Iran via Baghdad
10 Formative years of the Jazani group
* Jazani the entrepreneur
* Whence it came
* Student political activities
* First phase of the Jazani Group
* Jazani and The Message of University Students
* Second phase of the Jazani Group
* The political and propaganda branch
* The operational and military branch
* The military operation that should have happened but did not
* Ghafour Hasanpour’s networks: Recruiting behind the scenes
11 Jazani Group compromised
* First raids
* The remnants of the Jazani Group under siege
* Bank robberies
* The decision to leave the country
* The final nabs
12 The new Hasanpour, Ashraf, and Safaʾi-Farahani Group: Preparations and
operations
* Picking up the broken pieces
* Organizing armed struggle: Three teams
* The first urban operations of the H-A-S Group
13 The Pouyan, Ahmadzadeh, and Meftahi Group
* The dissimilar but inseparable Pouyan and Ahmadzadeh
* Enter ʿAbbas Meftahi
* Pouyan’s circles at Mashhad and Tabriz
* Ahmadzadeh’s membership in Hirmanpour’s circle
* Meftahi’s Sari and Tehran circles
* The P-A-M Group’s military operations before Siyahkal
* An ethical digression: To press or not to press the trigger
14 Armed struggle in Iran: Rural or urban
* Theoretical positioning
* Ahmadzadeh gently parts with the Cuban model
* Jazani: Rural Iran not the ideal revolutionary base
* Jazani’s change of heart: Emphasis on rural/mountainous warfare
15 Merger discussions for “Iran’s revolutionary armed movement”
* The painful and slow process of negotiation
* Last hurdle: Convincing the P-A-M rank and file
* The mountain group’s five-month reconnaissance mission
* Postponements
16 The H-A-S Group hounded
* The beans are spilled
* The arrests begin
* The mountain team compromised
17 The Siyahkal operation
* Assault on the Siyahkal Gendarmerie Station on 19 Bahman
* The aftermath of the assault
* The nineteen-day odyssey of the retreating guerrillas
18 Assessing the Siyahkal strike
* Objectives of the Siyahkal strike: Ahmadzadeh, Ashraf,
Safaʾi-Farahani
* Siyahkal as a military operation: Fumbles and blunders
* The regime’s first public response to the Siyahkal strike
* The Ranking Security Official’s spectacle
19 The Hamid Ashraf factor
* Schooling
* Ashraf in the eyes of fellow combatants
* Three years of guerrilla struggle in perspective
* Ashraf violent and authoritarian?
20 Hemming the guerrillas or cultivating a guerrilla culture?
* The Shah declares the end of terrorist activities in Iran
* The Golesorkhi affair
* Revolutionaries of the Film School of the Iranian National Television
* Slaying heroes: Fuel on fire
21 Jazani’s questioning of armed struggle
* Challenging the theory and practice of the Fadaʾis
* Looking for new forms of struggle
* Underlining the role of legal methods of struggle
* A matter of trade-off
22 Softly disarming armed struggle to regain the trust of the masses
* Step one: The correct stage in the movement
* Step two: Walking on two legs
* Step three: Iran’s paradoxical political condition, democratic and
despotic
* Step four: The guerrillas’ conflicting remits, or unity of opposites
* Step five: Armed propaganda and the combined method of struggle
* Two interpretations of armed struggle
* The issue of objective conditions of revolution
* How long would it take the masses to join the movement?
* Saving the armed movement from the unhealthy leftist tendency
23 Jazani’s ideological offensive in prison
* Spreading the good word
* Open schism in prison
* Where did the original members of the Jazani Group stand?
* The secretive delinking of armed struggle from the movement
* The misunderstood or conflicted theoretician
24 The Fadaʾi interface, inside, outside prison
* Indirect interactions between Ashraf and Jazani in 1973
* On the correct method of struggle: The Fadaʾis and the Star Group
* Summer 1974: Armed struggle as strategy and tactic has the upper hand
* Reading about the correct method of struggle in People’s Combat
* Familiarity with and reaction to Jazani’s works outside prisons
25 Fadaʾi leadership debating correct methods of struggle
* A discreet Jazani special issue of People’s Combat
* Growing a second leg?
* Political activities in 1976 discussions with the Marxist Mojahedin
* Does Ashraf take sides in May/June 1976?
26 Bird’s-eye view of armed struggle (1971–1976)
* The guerrillas’ persistent presence
* Guerrillas highlighted: Partial transparency
* The news blackout and the Fadaʾis’ rising success
* Changing tides: Expansion, exposure, and beleaguered
* The Fadaʾis’ relations with Libya, Palestinian groups, and the Soviet
Union
* The shock of state terrorism
* Fadaʾis under attack
* The Fadaʾis without Ashraf
27 Guerrillas conducting the regime’s requiem
* Students at home beat on the drums of war
* University turmoil and campus guards
* Policy of zero tolerance
* The student backlash to the Golesorkhi affair
* Winds of change
28 The regime’s requiem: The players abroad
* Iranian students abroad rallying against the regime
* Iranian students abroad take their cue from the guerrillas
* Radical methods to put the Shah’s regime on the spot
29 Prelude to the Shah’s free fall
* The Western press reveals secrets
* Disdain for torture
* The grand anti-Shah conspiracy
* A last-ditch effort against the guerrilla–CISNU coalition
* Beating a fatal retreat
Conclusion
Chronology
Bibliography
Index