Socialist Party (Iran)
Socialist Party | |
---|---|
Leader | Soleiman Eskandari[1] |
Founded | 1921[2] |
Banned | 1926[2] |
Headquarters | Tehran, Iran[3] |
Newspaper | Tofan[3] |
Women's wing | Patriotic Women's Society[3] |
Ideology | Socialism |
Political position | Left-wing |
The Socialist Party (
A minor group of the same name appeared for a while in the 1940s.
Development
The roots of the Socialist Party lay in the Democrat Party, a reformist group active in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Following the disintegration of this movement those members who retained faith in the masses and hoped to mobilise the lower and middle classes grouped together under the Socialist Party banner in 1921.[4]
The party was led by Sulayman Eskandari, Muhammad Musavat and Qasim Khan Sur as well as Muhammad Sadiq Tabatabai, a member of a leading clerical family recruited largely to hold off the inevitable attacks from conservative clerics.[3] Their main newspaper, Toufan (Storm), was edited by the outspoken and controversial poet Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi.[3]
Branches were set up in
The party's programme called for the eventual establishment of equality in society,
Reza Khan
Along with the
Along with the Revival Party it formed a working majority in the Iranian parliament that allowed Reza Khan, as he was still known, he form his own reformist government.[7] Khan soon broke from the Socialists and threw in his lot with more conservative elements when he decided to abandon plans for a republic and instead establish himself as king. 134 The part was one of the few in parliament not to actively support Reza's rise to the throne, arguing that despite their support for many of his reforms their republican principles prevented them from endorsing him as a monarch.[8]
Following Rezā Shāh's ascension to the throne the Socialist Party disappeared as part of a wider crackdown on anti-monarchist dissent. Iskandari was forced to retire from public life and mobs were organised to harass the party and attack their properties. A Socialist Theatre in
Revived name
A second group calling itself the Socialist Party emerged in 1944 when radical members of the Comrades Party broke from that group over its failure to support striking workers in Isfahan.[10] Close to the Tudeh Party of Iran it joined the Tudeh-led United Front of Progressive Parties in 1946 and was effectively absorbed by the larger group.[11]
References
- ^ a b Abrahamian 1982, p. 120.
- ^ a b Abrahamian 1982, p. 281.
- ^ a b c d e f Abrahamian 1982, p. 127.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, p. 126.
- ^ Parvin Paidar, Women and The Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 95-96
- ^ a b Abrahamian 1982, p. 128.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, p. 132.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, p. 135.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, p. 139.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, pp. 207–208.
- ^ Abrahamian 1982, p. 301.
Sources
- ISBN 0691101345.