Iran History Revisited: Part 12

(See parts 1-11 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

Although U.S. troops first temporarily appeared on Iranian soil during World War II, it was only in 1946 that the U.S. government began to actively support the build-up of the Shah of Iran’s central government security forces and his Iranian Army. A now de-classified September 11, 1946 dispatch of the Military Attache’ at the British Embassy in Iran, for instance, noted that “The new transport specialist of the United States Advisory Mission to the Persian Army has under consideration a plan for the re-equipment of the army with mechanical transport.”

Despite this U.S. military aid to the Shah of Iran’s regime, however, by 1948 Tudeh Party influence among Iranian university students was also beginning to increase. Around 50 percent of all politically active Iranian students during the 1948-49 academic year, for example, were pro-Tudeh Party in their politics.

In response to the growth of pro-Tudeh Party political activism on campus, Iranian university administrators then issued a decree that banned on-campus political activity by Iranian university students. To protest this decree, Iranian students then went on strike on November 12, 1948 and formed an Anti-Dictatorship Front.

In 1948 and early 1949, the increase in support for the Tudeh Party and for the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company continued. A rally at the grave of the Iranian left intellectual Donya magazine founder, Dr. Taghi Erani (who, after being jailed in 1937, had died in prison in 1940 because of prison authority negligence), was scheduled for February 4, 1949.

On February 4, 1949, 30,000 Tudeh Party members and supporters showed up for the rally at Dr. Erani’s grave and peacefully protested in favor of democratization of Iranian society. Elsewhere in Iran at the same time, however, a lone individual who was allegedly a “member” of the Iranian printer’s union attempted to assassinate the Shah of Iran.

This February 4, 1949 attempt on the Shah of Iran’s life was then used as a pretext by the Shah’s regime to proclaim martial law, officially outlaw the Tudeh Party, close leftist newspapers and make mass arrests. Most Tudeh Party and Iranian labor union leaders were imprisoned and tried by the Shah of Iran’s military tribunals. Tudeh Party activists who escaped in the spring of 1949, however, continued to organize underground in support of the political and economic democratization of Iranian society. (end of part 12)

African-American Male Worker Jobless Rate Under Obama Regime: 16.4 Percent In March

The official “not-seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States under the Democratic Obama Administration increased from 16.1 percent to 16.4 percent between February 2009 and March 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for African-American male workers increased from 14.9 percent to 15.4 percent, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all African-American workers in March 2009 was 13.5 percent, while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all African-American workers in March was 13.3 percent.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Hispanic or Latino workers also increased from 12.1 percent to 12.2 percent between February 2009 and March 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” rate for all Hispanic or Latino workers increased from 10.9 percent to 11.4 percent during this same period.

For all U.S. workers over 20 years-of-age, the “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate increased from 8.9 percent to 9 percent between February 2009 and March 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all U.S. workers increased from 8.1 percent to 8.5 percent.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers also increased from 9 percent to 9.3 percent between February 2009 and March 2009.

The “not-seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Hispanic or Latino male workers was 12.2 percent in March 2009, while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Hispanic or Latino women workers increased from 10.2 percent to 10.8 percent between February 2009 and March 2009.

The “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was 32.5 percent in March 2009, while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 19.1 percent to 20 percent between February 2009 and March 2009.

The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Hispanic or Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was 24.9 percent in March 2009.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ April 3, 2009 press release:

“Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000)…In March, job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors.

“In March, the number of unemployed persons increased by 694,000 to 13.2 million…Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has grown by about 5.3 million…Half of the increase in both the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate occurred in the last 4 months…

“Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased by 547,000 to 8.2 million in March. This group has nearly doubled in size over the past 12 months…

“The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) rose to 3.2 million over the month…

“In March, the number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) climbed by 423,000 to 9.0 million…

“About 2.1 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in March, 754,000 more than a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometimes in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 685,000 discouraged workers in March, up by 284,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Manufacturing employment fell by 161,000 in March, with widespread job losses occurring among the component industries…In March, the largest decreases occurred in fabricated metal products (-28,000), machinery (-27,000), and transportation equipment (-26,000).

“The construction industry lost 126,000 jobs in March…Employment fell in specialty trade contractors (-83,000) and construction of buildings (-33,000). These declines were split about evenly between the residential and nonresidential portions of these industries. Heavy and civil engineering construction also lost 10,000 jobs. Employment in mining and logging declined by 18,000 in March.

“Employment in professional and business services fell by 133,000 in March…More than half of the loss occurred in temporary help services, which cut 72,000 jobs in March…In March, architectural and engineering services lost 16,000 jobs.

“Retail trade employment fell by 48,000 over the month…In March, employment decreased in building material and garden supply stores (-13,000), automobile dealerships (-12,000), and electronics and appliance stores (-10,000). Employment in wholesale trade fell by 31,000 in March…

“Employment in financial activities continued to decline in March (-43,000)…In March, job losses occurred in credit intermediation (-15,000); real estate (-12,000); and securities, commodity contracts, and investments (-7,000).

“Leisure and hospitality shed 40,000 jobs in March, with most of the decrease in the accommodation industry (-23,000)…

“Transportation and warehousing lost 34,000 jobs in March…In March, employment declined in truck transportation (-15,000), support activities for transportation (-7,000) and couriers and messengers (-5,000)…”

Iran History Revisited: Part 11

(See parts 1-10 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

After being suppressed throughout Iran in late 1946, the Tudeh Party then adopted a policy of boycotting the July 1947 Iranian parliamentary elections. So as a result of the July 1947 elections, 90 percent of the Iranian parliament’s members were now right-wing and anti-communist in their politics and it now declared as “void” the previous Iranian central government’s agreement to form an Iranian-Soviet gas company in exchange for the Soviet government’s May 1946 troop withdrawal from northern Iran.

Despite being suppressed and having no representation in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, the Tudeh Party still had a mass base among Iranian working-class people, because of the Iranian left’s historical role in organizing Iran’s earliest labor unions. Between 1928 and 1941 under Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime, however, there had been no growth of membership in Iranian unions, because of that regime’s policy of repressing Iranian labor unions.

But after several former Iranian communist labor union activists were released from prison in 1941, following the forced abdication of Reza Shah Pahlavi, four major independent union centers in Tehran, with 10,000 members, were established by 1944. On May 1, 1944, labor organizers who were also Tudeh Party members consolidated their four union centers into a United Council. By the end of 1946, after adding unions of Iranian artisans, the United Council’s membership had increased to over 40,000 Iranian workers.

One reason Tudeh Party members were so successful in recruiting Iranian workers into Iranian labor unions in the early 1940s was that between 1941 and 1946 the cost of living in Iran had jumped by 700 percent. To defend their members against this steep decline in real wages, Iranian workers, led by Reza Rusta, struck often between 1941 and 1946. In late 1942 and early 1943, for example, unionized construction workers employed on Iranian government public works projects held a strike.

Iranian textile workers also went on strike in late 1943 and early 1944, with 20,000 Iranian textile workers going out on strike in Tehran, for example, Then, in 1945, Iranian oil workers struck in Kermanshab; and the following year, there were two strikes of Iranian oil workers in Abadan. (end of part 11)

Iran History Revisited: Part 10

Iran History Revisited: Part 10

(See parts 1-9 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

In December 1946 the Shah of Iran’s central government troops marched back into Iran’s northwestern Azerbaijan region, entered Tabriz on December 12, 1946 and overthrew the pro-Soviet, revolutionary left-oriented Azerbaijan autonomous government that Turkish-speaking Iranian people there had established in 1945, prior to the May 1946 foreign Soviet troop withdrawal from Iran. But between December 9 and 12, 1946, some people in Azerbaijan had resisted the Shah’s Iranian Army troops, and 1,500 Azerbaijani Iranians, including 800 Tudeh Party members, were killed by the Shah’s central government troops. Twenty-six former Iranian army officers who had helped defend the Azerbaijan autonomous government were also killed by Iranian Army firing squads after the Iranian Army occupied Iran’s Azerbaijan region.

One reason the autonomous leftist regime in Iran’s Azerbaijan region collapsed so quickly in December 1946 was that it had lost the support of the still extremely religious Azerbaijan peasantry--when the local clergy in the Azerbaijan region turned against the Azerbaijan regime after it gave Azerbaijan women in Iran the right to vote. Another reason for the quick collapse of the Azerbaijan republic in Iran was that Iranian leftists felt that continued resistance to the Shah of Iran’s central government troops there would have provoked UK government and U.S. government military intervention in that region of Iran and a bloody civil war in Iran, which they wanted to avoid. Other reasons for the quick collapse of the leftist Azerbaijan regional government in December 1946 were the unfavorable objective conditions and the abandonment by the Soviet Union of its previous policy of supporting the leftist Azerbaijan government in Iran. (end of part 10)

Iran History Revisited: Part 9

(See parts 1-8 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

In exchange for the promise by the Shah of Iran’s central government on April 4, 1946 that the Soviet Union would be given an oil concession in the North of Iran, Soviet troops were withdrawn from the northern regions of Iran in May 1946. And on May 1, 1946, 500,000 demonstrators—mainly Tudeh Party members, Iranian trade union members or Tudeh Party sympathizers—also celebrated May Day in Iran and demanded more favorable labor laws, pay raises for Iranian workers and redistribution of Iranian land to Iran’s peasantry.

To block a plot by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to destroy the Iranian oil workers union, a general strike was subsequently called in the Khuzistan region of Iran on July 14, 1946, which was suppressed by the Iranian central government, with heavy casualties for the striking Iranian workers. But on August 1, 1946, the Shah of Iran’s regime allowed a new government coalition cabinet to be formed by a Prime Minister named Ghavam, which included 3 Tudeh Party members. It was estimated at this time that the Tudeh Party now had about 50,000 supporters in Tehran and about 50,000 supporters in the rest of the country.

In September 1946, however, the Shah of Iran regime’s Prime Minister Ghavam encouraged a tribal revolt in the southern Iranian province of Fars which demanded both autonomy and the expulsion of Tudeh Party representatives from the Iranian central government’s cabinet. A new cabinet was then formed by Ghavam that excluded Iranian leftists and, in October 1946 an Iranian right-wing offensive against Iranian leftist activists was launched. In November 1946, for example, a strike by Tudeh Party-sponsored unions was again suppressed and hundreds of Tudeh Party members and Iranian labor union members in the southern part of Iran were arrested. To discourage such independent labor militancy in the future, the Shah of Iran’s regime then also set up its own government-sponsored labor unions, established a Ministry of Labor and finally passed a labor code for Iranian workers. (end of part 9)

Iran History Revisited: Part 8

(See parts 1-7 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

Between 1942 and 1945, the number of Tudeh Party members in Iran continued to increase along with the Tudeh Party’s political influence. In the 1943-44 Iranian elections, for example, around 20% of all the Iranian votes went to either Tudeh Party candidates or Iranian left-oriented candidates who were part of the left-of-center bloc that the Tudeh Party supported. Of the 120 elected members of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, 8 were members of the Tudeh Party in 1944. In addition, three elected members were pro-Tudeh Party but not formal Tudeh Party members; and 30 elected members of the Iranian parliament were politically left-of-center. Despite the death of the first Tudeh Party Chairman Eskandari in February 1944, by the time of the Tudeh Party Congress in 1944, the number of Iranians who were Tudeh Party members had jumped to 25,000; and 75% of the Tudeh Party members were recruited from the Iranian working-class.

The majority of the members of the Iranian Parliament in 1945, however, were still right-wing and anti-communist in their political orientation. But fearful of the Tudeh Party’s increasing political influence in Iranian society, the troops of the Shah of Iran’s government were ordered to occupy the Tudeh Party’s headquarters in August 1945 and publication of the Tudeh Party’s newspaper was then prohibited by the Shah’s regime. The Tudeh Party was ordered to also disband its branches in areas of Iran that were outside of Tehran.

When Tudeh Party members in Tehran attempted to protest the regime’s outlawing of their political group by marching in Tehran, the Shah of Iran’s security forces blocked the march. A street fight then broke out between Tudeh Party members and the Iranian police in which a leading Tudeh Party activist, Dr. Freydoun Keshavarz, was beaten up. In response, militant pro-Tudeh Party groups of Iranian workers then occupied towns, factories and railroad junctions in the northern part of Iran that was still occupied by foreign Soviet government troops.

An insurrection then broke out in the Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan region of Iran in September 1945; and, protected by the Soviet troops there, an autonomous Azerbaijan government was set up in November 1945 by leftist Azerbaijan activists that demanded national autonomy within a unified Iran for Azerbaijan and land reform. A regular army was also then formed by the new Azerbaijan government. With the support and protection of the Soviet troops that were occupying the north of Iran, a Kurdistan People’s Republic was also established within Iran in February 1946. (end of part 8)

Iran History Revisited: Part 7

(See parts 1-6 below)

In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:

“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.

“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…

“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”

Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.

Following its founding in October 1941, Iran’s Tudeh Party members chose Soleiman Mobsen Eskandari as the first chairman of the Tudeh (“Masses of the People”) Party. The Tudeh Party then formed anti-fascist committees in the Soviet-occupied areas of Iran which attempted to turn the Iranian nationalists, who were mostly pro-German, in a more anti-fascist political direction.

Under the Reza Shah Pahlavi regime trade unions had been banned in Iran. But following Reza Shah Pahlavi’s forced abdication, Iranian trade unions once again formed and a Central Council of the Trade Unions of Iran was established. A Tudeh Party journal, Siyassat (“Politics”), also began publishing in November 1941 in Iran.

By the following June, around 6,000 Iranians were now members of the Tudeh Party; and about 80% of all Tudeh Party members had been recruited from the Iranian working class. At the Tudeh Party’s first conference in June 1942, 120 Tudeh Party delegates participated and they voted to make the following demands on the new Iranian regime of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s son, Mohammed Pahlavi (a/k/a the Shah of Iran), which had been set up by UK imperialism following Reza Shah Pahlavi’s September 1941 abdication:

1. formation of a democratic government in Iran;
2. restoration of political liberties and human rights in Iran;
3. abolition of the anti-democratic laws enacted during Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime that prohibited anti-monarchical parties and communist parties in Iran;
4. distribution among Iranian peasants of Iranian state lands and large Iranian landlord holdings; and
5. recognition of Iranian trade unions and collective bargaining rights by the new Shah of Iran’s government.

(end of part 7)