The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy

1949–Present

Masoud Kazemzadeh

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9783110782226
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Iran National Front and the Struggle for Democracy: 1949–Present explores the activities of the Iran National Front (INF). The INF is a coalition of parties, groups, and individuals and Iran's oldest and main pro-democracy political party.

This book presents a political history of the INF from 1949 to the present day. It discusses the current platform of the INF, its leadership, policies, strategies, as well as criticisms and weaknesses. The volume draws on a rich range of primary sources, INF documents, and interviews, including translated transcripts with the top leader of the INF. As it is one of the major political parties opposing the current regime in Iran, the book also examines the current situation in the country. It provides an analysis of the nature of the political systems under the Shah and the Islamic Republic.

Chapter 1 Introduction

It is often said that Iran lacks strong (or even real) political parties.¹ Fakhreddin Azimi’s seminal article on this subject reviews various political parties in Iran since 1906 and argues that with the exception of the Tudeh Party, Iran has not had a “real” political party.² Azimi further argues that the Tudeh Party became a real party due to the massive assistance provided to it by the Soviet Union.³ Although briefly discussing the Iran National Front in three pages, Azimi believes that the Iran National Front disintegrated in August 1953.⁴ In a pioneering study, Shahrough Akhavi discuses virtually all political parties in Iran since about 1900.⁵ Akhavai devotes about one paragraph to the Iran National Front as well as a few pages to some other parties constituting the Iran National Front.⁶

Definition and Study of Political Parties

What is a political party? What distinguishes a “political party” from a “real political party”? Does Iran possess real political parties? Can one consider the Iran National Front a real political party? What is the relationship between real parties and democracy?

If one person creates a website and announces the establishment of a political party and adds a few pages of the entity’s aims, should scholars use the term “political party” to refer to that entity? If a politician creates an organization for his electoral campaign and calls it a political party, should scholars use the term “political party” to refer to that entity? If one person in power or a group in power establish an entity to mobilize support and call it a political party, should scholars use the term “political party” to refer to that entity?

Since 1900, Iran has had hundreds of entities that have called themselves political parties.⁷ What Iran has experienced is a dearth of what may be called “real political parties.” Azimi uses the term “real political parties” to distinguish such entities from the hundreds of other entities that call themselves political parties. Azimi argues that real political parties are absent in Iran. John Aldrich, one of the foremost scholars of political parties, uses terms such as “durable” and “effective” to more or less refer to what Azimi considers “real” political parties.⁸ Akhavi has a much lower threshold on what constitutes a real political party than those by Azimi and Aldrich. Akhavi considers ephemeral entities that have called themselves party as a party.

What do real political parties do? According to Norberto Bobbio, political parties would “perform the function of selecting, aggregating and transmitting demands originating in civil society… [which would] become objects of political decisions.”⁹ Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner argue that political parties emerged in Europe and North America when political elites realized that it was no longer feasible for a few individuals to control leadership selection and policy making.¹⁰ LaPalmbara and Weiner suggest that real political parties should have four characteristics:

(1)

“continuity in organization,” or longevity, so that the party “is not dependent on the life span of current leaders” or regimes;

(2)

“manifest and presumably permanent organization at the local level” and an institutional relationship between the local and national levels;

(3)

a conscious drive on the part of the leadership to seek governmental power, either alone or in coalition and “not simply to influence the exercise of power”; and

(4)

“a concern on the part of the organization for seeking followers at the polls or in some manner striving for popular support.”¹¹

Democracy and Political Parties

Clearly, there are parties that advocate democracy and parties that advocate dictatorship. Examples of parties that advocate dictatorships include Italy’s Fascist Party, Germany’s Nazi party, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. In Iran, both the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini established parties that were anti-democratic. The Rastakhiz Party under the Shah and the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) under Khomeini were created with the purpose of consolidating the brutal dictatorships of their founders (see Chapters 2 and 5). The Shah ordered all Iranians to either join his party or go to jail or leave Iran. One of the main slogans of Khomeini’s supporters was “Hezb Faghat Hezbollah, Rahbar Faghat Ruhollah” [The Sole Party is the Party of God, the Sole Leader is Ruhollah Khomeini]. The IRP was created with the primary mission to eliminate all non-fundamentalist parties and consolidate Khomeini’s absolute rule (see Chapter 5).

There exists little scholarly works on the relationships between political parties and democracy. Aldrich summarizes this scholarship in the following words:

It may not be true that parties are literally necessary condition for democracy to exist as Schattschneider (1942) famously wrote, but their ubiquity suggests that they are virtually, if not actually, a necessity for a democracy to be viable.

… Let me close with a fourth area which appears ripe for research breakthroughs. This chapter pointed towards a fully comparative political parties project. … we are beginning to see more clearly that political parties are common to all democracies, and they are so because democracy is, indeed, unthinkable save through the agency of the party.¹²

As Aldrich argues, a democratic political party is not necessary for the establishment of democracy. If other pre-conditions for democracy are present, we have observed transitions to democracy. Recent examples may be transitions to democracy in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Hungry. One may also include the U.S. republic after its revolution. However, democratic parties soon emerged which assisted in democratic consolidation. What is analytically significant is that when there does not exist democratic opposition parties and the ruling authoritarian regime confronts highly dictatorial opposition parties or groups, then the lack of democratic opposition has actually retarded transition to democracy. We saw the most dramatic example of this in Algeria in 1991. When the mild secular authoritarian regime accepted free and fair elections, and when the opposition was dominated by Islamic Salvation Front (an extremely anti-democratic Islamic fundamentalist party), then there was a retreat to authoritarianism (with great support from both many domestic classes and strata as well as internationally). We have observed this phenomenon repeat itself in much of the Islamic world since the early 1980s.

In Chile and South Africa, there existed powerful pro-democracy parties, which increased the likelihood of incumbent authoritarian regime to accept free elections and accept a peaceful transition to democracy in 1989 and 1994 respectively. In Chile major opposition parties such as the Christian Democratic Party and the Socialist Party were advocates of parliamentary democracy. In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) was a powerful pro-democracy party (or to be more precise a coalition of parties). The existence of pro-democracy opposition parties created both domestic and international conditions conducive to democratic transitions.

In addition, weakness of pro-democracy parties may explain lack of democratic consolidation or democratic reversals in hybrid or illiberal regimes. Lack of strong pro-democracy parties have allowed charismatic authoritarian leaders, their supporters, and anti-democratic parties to undermine democratic gains. For example, democratic reversals in Turkey and Russia may be explained in some measures due to the fact that pro-democracy parties were weak which allowed authoritarian leaders such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his less extreme Islamic fundamentalist party (AKP) to undermine democracy in Turkey. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has been able to consolidate power in his own hands with the assistance of his supporters from the old security establishment.

In sum, there are several factors and pre-conditions that influence democratic transitions and democratic consolidations. The existence of pro-democracy party is one such factor. The existence of pro-democracy party is not absolutely necessary for transition to democracy, but its existence provides the population with a democratic alternative. If there are pro-democracy parties, that reality would increase the likelihood of democratic transition. The stronger the support for pro-democracy parties, the higher the likelihood for transition to democracy and democratic consolidation.

The Iran National Front and Democracy

In this book, I use definitions of political party that have been articulated by Aldrich, Bobbio, and LaPalombara and Weiner. I this study, I demonstrate that the Iran National Front [Jebhe Melli Iran] may be one of the few partial exceptions to the observation that Iran has lacked real political parties.

This book describes the activities of the Iran National Front (INF) from its founding in 1949 to October 2021. There are a number of excellent scholarly works on Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and the August 1953 coup, which overthrew the INF government.¹³ Other scholarly works on contemporary Iranian politics or the 1979 Revolution also briefly mention the activities of the INF.¹⁴ There is, however, no major scholarly work on the activities of the INF since 1982.¹⁵ This book attempts to fill that gap. Utilizing the INF’s documents, other primary sources, and interviews, this study describes the activities, policies, platform, ideology, leadership, and strategies of the INF between 1979 and mid-2021, with primary emphasis on the INF’s recent activities (i. e., 2015 – 2021). Before presenting the contemporary activities of the INF, it is necessary to provide the historical context. To do so, this book utilizes secondary sources to provide a brief history of the INF’s activities between 1949 and 1979.

Iran has had many political parties. However, due to a variety of reasons, including harsh dictatorships, it has been hard to sustain political activities. Nevertheless, the INF and other parties have continued to exist. Moreover, this book shows that the INF continues to be Iran’s main pro-democracy political party struggling to establish a system based on democracy, civil liberties, and human rights.

A Brief History of Democracy and Nationalism in Iran

Iran is the first country in the Middle East to have established a democracy. Modernist, constitutional, and democratic ideas that had been percolating since the late 18^th century came to fruition in early years of the 19^th century. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905 established a constitutional monarchy in Iran. The 1906 constitution was modelled after the Belgium constitution which itself was the written form of the British unwritten constitution. World War One badly undermined the constitutional system. The February 1921 coup brought Reza Khan Mirpang (later Reza Shah Pahlavi) into power as Head of the Armed Forces. By January 1926, Reza Shah destroyed the constitutional system and ma...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 The Struggle for Independence, Democracy, and Freedom: 1949 – 1977
• Chapter 3 INF Parties
• Chapter 4 The INF and the Revolution, 1977 – 1979
• Chapter 5 The Struggle against Khomeini and the Fundamentalist Regime 1979 – 2021
• Chapter 6 INF, the Soviet Union, and the Far Left
• Chapter 7 Religion, Politics, and the INF
• Chapter 8 The INF Today
• Chapter 9 Iran National Front-Organizations Abroad
• Chapter 10 Criticisms of the INF
• Chapter 11 Political Situation in Iran Today
• Chapter 12 Conclusion
• Index