Iran's Deputy Speaker of Parliament: Communist and Leftist Parties Can Operate in the Country

The Deputy Speaker of Iran's Parliament states that communist and leftist parties can operate in the country as long as they introduce themselves to the people with their 'main signs and indicators.' According to ILNA news agency, Ali Motahari said on Thursday, July 31, at a seasonal conference of the House of Parties that his father, Morteza Motahari, believed that 'opposition parties can operate in the country.' He added, 'As a result, communist and leftist parties can also operate in our country, but they must adhere to the point that they introduce themselves to the people with their own main signs and indicators.' Morteza Motahari, who is considered one of the theorists of the Islamic Republic, stated in a speech in 1979 that 'non-Islamic parties are also free in an Islamic government.' He also mentioned that parties should express what they truly believe, and if a group believes in Lenin, they should not lie in their gatherings and should use his picture, not that of Ayatollah Khomeini. Morteza Motahari also suggested that a chair of Marxism should be established in the theology faculty, and a professor who is 'faithful to Marxism, and especially does not believe in God' should teach in this chair. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, also emphasized that communists are free to express their opinions. However, a few months after the victory of the 1979 revolution, he accused communist groups and other critics of the Islamic Republic of 'conspiracy' in an interview with renowned Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, stating, 'We gave them five months... to prove to the world that the issue is not freedom of expression. The issue is freedom of conspiracy.' Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, the first Minister of Intelligence of Iran, wrote in his memoirs that at least 99 Marxist and leftist groups were active in Iran in the early years after the 1979 revolution. Following the events of June 1981, the Islamic Republic began to suppress many leftist and Marxist groups, including the Minority Fadaian Guerrillas, the Pikar Organization, the Workers' Path, and the Union of Communists. Several members and cadres of these groups were executed in the 1980s. Additionally, the leaders of the Islamic Republic arrested Nouraddin Kianouri, the Secretary-General of the Tudeh Party, his wife Maryam Firouz, and many leaders of this party on February 6, 1983, as part of a widespread crackdown on their opponents. This group and those leaders of the Tudeh Party who were arrested in May 1984 were accused of 'espionage' for the former Soviet Union and 'conspiracy to carry out a coup.' After a few weeks, some Tudeh leaders were brought in front of television cameras and confessed to 'espionage' and other charges from the Islamic Republic officials in televised interviews. Among those who participated in these interviews was Nouraddin Kianouri, who later, when he was released, explained in a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, that those confessions were obtained under extensive and continuous torture. With the decline of communist governments in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the empire of communism in the world, especially in Europe, declined, and today only a few countries, including China and Cuba, are governed by communist parties.