Pishevari Became Radical and Was Denied Entry to Parliament

The series of programs 'Faction', broadcast by Radio Farda coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of the autonomous government in Iranian Azerbaijan, is dedicated to examining this historical event. This is the tenth episode of this series. (In the previous episode, we explored the life of Mir Jafar Pishevari, seeing how he studied in Soviet Azerbaijan and turned to journalism and political activism. We also learned that he was initially a social democrat but gradually became more radical and ultimately became one of the founders of the Communist Party of Iran and joined the Forest Movement in Rasht.) With Reza Khan becoming Reza Shah, the face of Iran gradually changed. The new king formed a regular army with an iron fist and ended the chronic instability of the country and the widespread weakness of the central government. The security and stability that Reza Shah brought to Iran came at various costs, including the closure of the political space and the imprisonment of dissenters, especially leftists. For this reason, many leaders and active members of the Communist Party of Iran fled to their ideal country, the Soviet Union, out of fear of imprisonment. However, Pishevari, unlike many leaders of this party, was imprisoned in Iran. As senior researcher Touraj Atabaki of the International Institute of Social History states, Pishevari believed that his imprisonment saved him from Stalinist purges and executions in the Soviet Union! Atabaki says, 'There is a quote from Pishevari where he said, God bless Reza Shah for putting us in prison! If we had stayed in the Soviet Union, our fate would have been similar to that of many other Iranian communists, like Soltanzadeh, Zarre, and Ladban.' In fact, all these individuals were executed in the Soviet Union, and therefore when the Soviet Union, after occupying Iran and the fall of Reza Shah, was looking for a leftist party in Iran, they turned to young people whose most significant political background until then was their participation in a study group under the supervision of Taghi Arani. When these young people, known in modern Iranian history as the group of 53, gathered less than a month after Shahrivar 20 and their release from prison to form the Tudeh Party, they naturally invited Pishevari, as an experienced communist, to join the party. Pishevari attended a meeting held in October 1941 at the home of Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, but according to Touraj Atabaki, 'he was not aligned with the Tudeh Party' because the young members of the group of 53 had the upper hand in this party, and there was no news of the veteran figures of the Communist Party of Iran. During this time, Pishevari took advantage of the freedom that emerged after Shahrivar 20 in Iran and, while being a member of the Tudeh Party, established a new newspaper called 'Ajir'; a newspaper that, like Pishevari's previous activities, pursued a leftist reformist approach. Abbas Javadi, a researcher on Azerbaijani issues, describes the 'Ajir' newspaper as follows: 'The content of the Ajir newspaper was reformist social democracy and was leftist compared to the Tudeh Party, being more populist in tone.' Majid Tafreshi, a researcher residing in London who has reviewed copies of this newspaper, believes that one of the important aspects of Pishevari's newspaper approach was its emphasis on the national interests of Iranians. He states, 'In the Ajir newspaper, although attention was paid to the demands and ethnic issues of Azerbaijan, more than 80% of the content of this newspaper focused on the national interests of Iran and the national problems of Iran, with no mention of federalism or separatism. It was entirely based on the interests of the Iranian nation, and prominent writers and journalists wrote articles in Ajir; including Karimpour Shirazi, who published the newspaper 'Shorash' during the nationalization of the oil industry and was killed by opponents of Mossadegh, published his first articles in the Ajir newspaper.' The most important feature of the 'Ajir' newspaper was that despite Pishevari's communist beliefs, this newspaper was not affiliated with the Tudeh Party of Iran, which at that time was the only socialist party in Iran, and maintained an independent stance. Perhaps this is why when Pishevari ran for the 14th Parliament in 1943 from Tabriz and successfully entered the parliament with a high vote, at the beginning of the parliament and during the voting for the approval of each other's credentials, he did not receive support from any of the factions, including the Tudeh Party faction. Ultimately, due to the rejection of his credentials, he could not enter the parliament as a representative of Tabriz. Touraj Atabaki describes what happened in the parliament: 'In the session reviewing Pishevari's credentials, his opponents referred to his background in the Communist Party and the Forest Movement, stating that this person was not qualified to represent the people of Azerbaijan. During the voting for his credentials, out of one hundred votes cast, 47 voted in favor of his representation, and 50 rejected his credentials. Therefore, by a margin of three votes, Pishevari's credentials for the 14th Parliament were rejected. Pishevari's reaction to the rejection of his credentials was very sharp. He said, 'We are proud that the representatives of force, money, deceit, and trickery did not consider us one of their own. Therefore, our judgment against our opponents will be very ruthless and deadly, and from today, a new page in the social struggle of the people of Iran will open.' After Pishevari's failure to reach a parliamentary seat, despite the people's vote, shortly thereafter, another incident severed all of Pishevari's ties with the Tudeh Party. In August 1944, Reza Shah died in exile in South Africa, and Pishevari, ignoring the official position of the Tudeh Party, wrote an article praising him. It was as if he poured cold water on the Tudeh Party, signaling that he would pursue a different path. According to Touraj Atabaki, it was because of this article that the leaders of the Tudeh Party decided that Pishevari must resign from the party. With this vote from the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party, the communist Pishevari resigned from the Tudeh Party. Thus, when a year later, in 1945, Stalin's agents were looking for a figure to lead a separatist political party, among their options was someone who was not only a communist, not only believed in Soviet ideals, not only was Azerbaijani, not only had a rich political background, and not only was respected among the people, but was also angry about the policy that had left him outside the doors of the National Assembly, about the policy that had driven him away from the largest leftist party in Iran, about the policy that seemed to treat him like a stranger... (In the next section of the 'Faction' program, we will hear how Baqirov and Pishevari established the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan in 1945 and what the party's charter was and what demands they raised.)