Iran under Shah Reza Pahlavi, the last monarch, was a divided country: While the growing middle class debated whether to buy American or German cars, a large number of people unfortunately still were poor, susceptible to communist propaganda and easy prey for devout sectarian mullahs riding around on donkeys. Iranians are actually neither Arabs nor Muslims, but Persians and once followers of the Zoroaster cult. Where there are Marxists, Moscow is not far away.
Socialist authors today enthusiastically pounce on the source material for a CIA-orchestrated overthrow of President Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. What they fail to mention are the constant destabilizations and interference by Russia.
The USSR viewed the entire region as its backyard and sought to gain influence by any means possible. It wasn’t so long ago that Soviet advisors, agents, weapons, and funds poured into Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Mossadegh, the Pseudo-Hero of Propaganda
Mossadegh is still glorified in propaganda today as “Iran’s only democratically elected prime minister” and a liberal advocate of the rule of law, yet such principles didn’t interest him much. Between 1951 and 1953, he obtained parliamentary authorization to rule by decree, initially for a period of six months. After his resignation and reappointment as prime minister, Mossadegh again insisted on being granted comprehensive powers to rule Iran by decree for a year.
During 1953, criticism of Mossadegh by members of parliament intensified, so that he could no longer count on an extension of his powers. He threatened the members of parliament with dissolution, even though, as prime minister, he lacked the constitutional authority to dissolve the parliament. Mossadegh therefore held a referendum, even though the Iranian constitution did not provide for referendums. The rules for a secret ballot were also not adhered to, as the “yes” votes had to be cast at a different polling station than the “no” votes. Mossadegh supporters gathered outside the polling stations for “no” votes and threatened voters who wanted to vote against the dissolution of parliament.
But wasn’t he the shining leader who nationalized Iran’s oil reserves? The demand to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s oil production and processing facilities was first introduced on December 24, 1950, by the MP and leader of the Socialist Workers’ Party, Mozaffar Baqai, as a resolution signed by a total of nine members of parliament.
The question of nationalizing the Iranian oil industry was already being intensively debated in the Iranian parliament under Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara. Razmara opposed nationalization because he believed that Iran lacked the human and economic resources to extract, process, and market Iranian oil. The nationalization issue therefore concerned the technical facilities and refineries of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was majority-owned by the British. After Razmara’s assassination, the nationalization of the oil industry was passed by a majority of parliament under Prime Minister Hossein Ala. Ala’s successor, Prime Minister Mossadegh, was tasked with defending nationalization against political pressure from Great Britain. Due to an embargo imposed by the British, Mossadegh’s policies led to an economic crisis in Iran, which caused significant social upheaval.
After the 1953 coup that brought the Shah to power, the Soviets no longer had much influence in Iran. So they launched a broad campaign of destabilization and disinformation using espionage, forged US documents, sabotage plans, and Marxist swindling.
Khomeini the Liar and His Left-Wing Accomplices
Khomeini was a mediocre speaker—but a good liar—and he hit the nerve of the times, promising everyone everything. No, the mullahs in power would not interfere in people’s lives or politics; rather, they would “accompany” the people and give them the right to publicly criticize everyone and everything. Finally, there would be freedom and participation for all… Instead, the revolution brought the cruelest and most opportunistic men to power.
The leader of the Islamic Revolution was introduced to a wider audience in 1963 at the Iran was known for his vehement opposition to the Shah’s reform program. Khomeini viewed the program, whose main points were land reform, strengthening women’s rights, and a literacy campaign, as an attack on Islam. Although Khomeini denounced the referendum on the reform program as an anti-God project and called on all believers not to participate in the vote, on January 26, 1963, 5,598,711 Iranians voted in favor and only 4,115 against. In November 1964, he was arrested again and deported to Turkey.
After his initial stay in Bursa, Turkey, he was able to travel to Iraq at his urging in October 1965, where he settled first in Baghdad and then in Najaf, a Shiite holy site. There, he was able to move around relatively freely and continue his propaganda. It was in this climate that Khomeini’s most important work, The Islamic State (1970), was created.
In his agitation, he gradually succeeded in discrediting the idea of social progress through orientation toward the West, which was one of the foundations of the Shah’s reform program, and in developing his own, Islamic pseudo-progressive ideology.
The publications of the Marxist Ali Shariati also contributed significantly to making Shiite Islam, considered backward-looking, appear progressive. For him, Islam showed the way to liberate the Third World from the yoke of colonialism, neocolonialism, and capitalism. He participated in a group calling itself the “Movement of Socialists Devoted to God.” The group’s chief theorist, Abolqassem Shakibnia, claimed that it was the Prophet Muhammad who invented socialism and introduced it to the Arabian Peninsula during his time.
On October 6, 1978, Saddam Hussein expelled Khomeini from the country and deported him to France. In Neauphle-le-Château, Khomeini was able to use the international press to gain attention and promote the distribution of his speeches to Iran via tape recordings.
Moscow’s Involvement
Despite the allegedly rigorous crackdown by the Shah and his secret service, SAVAK, three important opposition movements were able to develop. One of these was the communist Tudeh Party, which was officially banned but operating successfully underground. It primarily engaged in propaganda-based protest by organizing strikes and demonstrations. The Maoist- or Marxist-influenced People’s Mujahideen waged an armed guerrilla war.
In 1979, Marxists like Ted Grant, in the best tradition of distorting history, wrote that a workers’ revolution had swept away the Shah and that the fundamentalist mullahs had stolen this revolution.
Air Force officers attempted to stop Khomeini with their own coup plan. Fighter bombers were to eliminate strategic military targets and bomb Khomeini’s house in Jamaran. Officers also wanted to occupy the radio and television station in Tehran to proclaim a democratic state.
The night before the coup, however, the bearded Revolutionary Guards stormed the conspirators’ quarters. All were tortured and executed. Who had betrayed them? Revolutionary Guard Reza Kahlili (code name), who defected to the CIA, recounts:
“Later, I learned from a relative in the Air Force that Soviet intelligence had passed information to the Iranian Foreign Ministry.”
But that wasn’t all:
“I learned from my commander, Rahim, that Revolutionary Guards are being trained at a Chinese military base, and the Soviets are supporting the mullahs in building their intelligence and security services. They are ultimately responsible for the torture and the use of lie detectors and truth drugs in Evin Prison. And they not only lock up enemies of the state, but all political dissidents, from journalists to adolescent girls.”
“I saw Soviet diplomats and businessmen meeting with high-ranking representatives of the Islamic government.”
The Soviet Union was the first state to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran in February 1979.
