Call to Arms: Iran's Marxist Revolutionaries

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

Ali Rahnema

• Publisher: Oneworld Academic
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786079862
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

On 8 February 1971, Marxist revolutionaries attacked the gendarmerie outpost at the village of Siyahkal in Iran’s Gilan province. Barely two months later, the Iranian People’s Fada’i Guerrillas officially announced their existence and began a long, drawn-out urban guerrilla war against the Shah’s regime.

In Call to Arms, Ali Rahnema provides a comprehensive history of the Fada’is, beginning by asking why so many of Iran’s best and brightest chose revolutionary Marxism in the face of absolutist rule. He traces how radicalised university students from different ideological backgrounds morphed into the Marxist Fada’is in 1971, and sheds light on their theory, practice and evolution. While the Fada’is failed to directly bring about the fall of the Shah, Rahnema shows they had a lasting impact on society and they ultimately saw their objective achieved.

Table of contents

• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 • Violence as a Political Option?
• 2 • Hasan Zia-Zarifi’s Account of Why Armed Struggle
• 3 • Amir-Parviz Pouyan’s Account of Why Armed Struggle
• 4 • Masʿoud Ahmadzadeh’s Accounts of Why Armed Struggle
• 5 • Bijan Jazani’s Accounts of Why Armed Struggle
• 6 • The Tudeh Party’s Awkward Tango with Armed Struggle
• 7 • Monarchists, Maoists, and the Tudeh Party in Unison: Armed Struggle is Counter-Revolutionary Adventurism
• 8 • Armed Struggle and Marxist Canonists
• 9 • Armed Struggle and Marxist Revolutionaries
• 10 • Formative Years of the Jazani Group
• 11 • Jazani Group Compromised
• 12 • The New Hasanpour, Ashraf, and Safaʾi-Farahani Group: Preparations and Operations
• 13 • The Pouyan, Ahmadzadeh, and Meftahi Group
• 14 • Armed Struggle in Iran: Rural or Urban
• 15 • Merger Discussions for “Iran’s Revolutionary Armed Movement”
• 16 • The H-A-S Group Hounded
• 17 • The Siyahkal Operation
• 18 • Assessing the Siyahkal Strike
• 19 • The Hamid Ashraf Factor
• 20 • Hemming the Guerrillas or Cultivating a Guerrilla Culture?
• 21 • Jazani’s Questioning of Armed Struggle
• 22 • Softly Disarming Armed Struggle to Regain the Trust of the Masses
• 23 • Jazani’s Ideological Offensive in Prison
• 24 • The Fadaʾi Interface, Inside, Outside Prison
• 25 • Fadaʾi Leadership Debating Correct Methods of Struggle
• 26 • Bird’s-Eye View of Armed Struggle (1971–1976)
• 27 • Guerrillas Conducting the Regime’s Requiem
• 28 • The Regime’s Requiem: The Players Abroad
• 29 • Prelude to the Shah’s Free Fall
• Conclusion
• Chronology
• Bibliography