The Reds in Iran: The Communist Party of Iran, the Comintern, and the Bolsheviks in 1922 to the early 1930s

Iranian Studies. 2026. Vol. 59. No. 1. P. 55–72.

Дёмин Ю. А.

The first decade after the end of the revolutionary events in Gilan (1920-21) was a period of active attempts by the Bolsheviks, the Communist International and the Communist Party of Iran to gain a solid social foothold in Iran. Thispaper, based mainly on Russian archival sources, focuses on studying the dynamics of the guidelines of the CommunistInternational and the Communist Party of Iran, the attempts and features of their implementation, as well as on therelationship of the Iranian Communists with the Bolsheviks and the leadership of the Communist International. The studydemonstrates that the main efforts of the Reds in 1922-25 were aimed at building an inter-class coalition, wherecooperation with Reza Khan became only part of these broader efforts. The failures led the Reds to a previously testedcourse of fomenting the agrarian revolution in Iran and repeated fiascos. Throughout this period, the leadership of the Communist Party of Iran was not a simple executor of directives, but took an active part in the decision-making process,involved the Bolsheviks in its internal party struggle and challenged high-ranking functionaries of the Communist International.

Keywords: Iran, Comintern, Bolsheviks, Soviet foreign policy, revolutionary movements, Communist Party of Iran

Publication based on the results of: From Antiquity to Modernity: Epistemology of the Development of Spiritual and Material Cultures in Non-Western Societies (2025)