threat of a Soviet take-over of Iran, the spotlight on the role of the Tudeh Party.
THE Tudeh [masses] party is pro-Moscow Com. munist party - a small and weak group, but probably the largest on a small and weak Iranian left.
It has doubless played a certain part in organising the recent opposition to the Shah.
In recent interview Socialist Challenge one Iranian who was extremely hostile to the party nevertheless paid organisation. He particularly mentioned the wide circulation of its industrial paper, Navid.
Iranian, worker, told us that the Tudeh party had played no part in the strike at all and he had never come across it.
party suffered certain objective problems. Despite the arguof the cold scribblers, it has not benefitted being pro-Moscow party in a country bordering the Soviet Union. Iran's strategic sensitivity makes the Kremlin reluctant to intervene directly But the real reason the party Socialist Challenge 22 February 1979 page 4 THE Fleet Street scaremongers, brandishing have turned has made such little headway is ponnical Bonerence Moscow. In the late 1940s and early 1950s it was a mass party. During the Mossadeg interlude of 1953, when a bourgeois office, sectarian abstention led it to miss the chance to lead a revolutionary seizure of power.
The conclusion party leaders drew from this failure was to swing over to an exactly parallel error prostranon bourgeois parties Mossadeg's National Front. The of 1953 remembered in Iran greatly appreciated.
Typical of the party's current stance is an interview one of its has leaders gave to the Morning Star last week. The party has recently undergone a change of new-found and support for Khomeini.
The Ayatollah IS present context Does this include his attempt to disarm the workers?
In rener statement me Tudeh Central the such uncritical explains: "In these days, primary importance is the unity CIn the and solidarity of all the political democratic'. forces of Tran fought for the victory, and the organisation and discipline of all the armed units Committee people." In fact it is the Tudeh Party which bows down to the mullahs.
of which have who now apparatus.
be nothing reconstituted army.
The apparent radicalism of the final phrase is undermined by the stress on unity with those control the armed units of the people' turn out to more than the That Star.
Rez:
The Tudeh interpretation of of the insurrection is that it was *brought about by the joint action of the armed people and a part of the armed forces.
wish "characteristic remoulding of real events to fit in with dogma. The implication is that the armed forces "split rather than that many of the rank and Te deserted under the impact of the mass movement.
This practical implications. If the capitalist army has really come over to the revolution then surelv it is correct to support Khomeini's disarming of the masses. Tudeh party faultlessly follows the argument through toits logical conclusion.
Remoulding the truth becomes pure fiction when it to the Soviet Union: *The role of the Soviet Union has been CHROSE helpful," the Tudeh party told the Morning Fernaps mey nao in mind Brezhnev's message to the Shah This birthday in *Your majesty Mohammed Pahlavi, light of the Aryans, king of kings of Iran: un une occasion o a day 0l national rejoieing for the Iranian nation the birthday accept the sincere greetings of Supreme Soviet of the USSR and my own as well. For you l good health and happiness.
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