By Nikos Mottas
In modern Iranian history, anti-communism has never been an accident or a mere ideological reflex. It has been a permanent weapon of bourgeois state power. Across regimes that appeared to stand at opposite ideological poles — the pro-Western, secular monarchy of the Pahlavi dynasty and the theocratic order established after 1979 — the repression of communists and revolutionary leftists formed a stable axis of continuity. The language of power changed; its class function did not.
This continuity reveals a fundamental truth that liberal and reformist narratives systematically obscure: in Iran, the formal political system may shift, but its class content remains decisive. Whether draped in royal nationalism or clerical theology, the Iranian state consistently moved to crush the organized political expression of the working class. Anti-communism was not an incidental policy; it was a condition for the survival of bourgeois domination.
The Pahlavi Regime: Capitalist Modernization and Organized Terror Against the Left
Under Reza Shah and, far more systematically, under Mohammad Reza Shah, the Iranian state was reshaped into a centralized capitalist apparatus closely tied to Western imperialism. The monarchy’s official rhetoric of modernization and secular reform masked a political system that left no room for independent working-class politics and treated the organized Left as its primary internal enemy.
The Tudeh Party of Iran — founded in 1941 and rapidly becoming the principal communist and workers’ political force in the country — was targeted by the state from its earliest years. According to the party’s own historical record, Tudeh developed deep roots among industrial workers, teachers, intellectuals, oil workers, and sections of the armed forces. Its ability to organize trade unions, articulate class demands, and build a nationwide network of cadres made it a direct challenge not only to palace politics but to the entire social order.
Following the U.S.- and British-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the Shah’s anti-communism became an explicit organizing principle of state governance. The SAVAK secret police — created with training, equipment, and guidance from U.S. and Israeli intelligence — became the central instrument of political terror. It systematically surveilled, infiltrated, arrested, tortured, and dismantled communist and leftist organizations. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, thousands of Tudeh members were arrested, communist newspapers and publishing houses were shut down, and the party was driven entirely underground.
Repression was not limited to a handful of leaders; it was aimed at the broader social base of the Left. Rank-and-file workers, teachers, students, military officers sympathetic to Tudeh, and cultural figures associated with progressive currents were subjected to imprisonment, exile, and, in numerous cases, execution. Show trials were organized in the mid-1960s against Tudeh cadres and sympathizers, with several defendants initially sentenced to death — sentences that were in some cases later commuted to life imprisonment under domestic and international pressure, though many remained incarcerated for over a decade.
Rather than relying on isolated examples, the historical pattern is decisive: the Shah’s state sought to decapitate the party, destroy its networks in the workplace, and terrorize any social movement that connected economic grievances to a socialist perspective. Land reform struggles, independent trade unionism, and student activism were all treated as potential gateways for “communist subversion.”
The Shah’s regime did not merely repress the Left because it feared instability; it repressed it because it feared class consciousness. Anti-communism ensured Iran’s reliability as a regional pillar of imperialist domination and blocked any political force capable of mobilizing workers independently of the state.
The Islamic Republic: Counter-Revolution in Religious Form
The collapse of the monarchy in 1979 was the product of mass struggle — general strikes, workplace occupations, and the emergence of workers’ councils demonstrated the revolutionary potential of the Iranian working class. Yet the rapid consolidation of power by the clerical leadership under Ruhollah Khomeini revealed the counter-revolutionary character of the new order.
Although the Islamic Republic initially deployed anti-imperialist rhetoric and, for a brief period, coexisted tactically with leftist forces, it moved quickly to neutralize independent class politics once its control over the state apparatus was secure. Marxist organizations were tolerated only until they no longer served the regime’s immediate political needs. Once consolidated, repression followed with precision.
This repression was underpinned by an explicit ideological hostility to Marxism articulated at the highest level of the new regime. In his 1989 letter to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Khomeini openly dismissed Marxism as historically exhausted, declaring that “communism will only have to be found in the museums of world political history, for Marxism cannot meet any of the real needs of mankind.” This statement was not a theoretical aside, but a clear signal that Marxist ideology and communist organization had no legitimate place in the political future envisioned by the Islamic Republic.
Between 1982 and 1983, the Islamic Republic launched a decisive assault on the Tudeh Party. The regime accused its leadership of espionage, arrested key figures, and banned the party outright. Leading cadres were subjected to prolonged interrogation, psychological pressure, and physical torture. Several were forced to appear on state television to recant their views in staged “confessions” designed to delegitimize Marxism in the eyes of the public and to intimidate the party’s social base.
As Ali Khavari — long-time Tudeh leader — recounts, this was not simply a crackdown on a political organization but a systematic attempt to eradicate communist influence within the working class, the intelligentsia, and the armed forces. Thousands of rank-and-file communists, trade union activists, and progressive militants were arrested, many of whom endured years of imprisonment in harsh conditions.
The repression reached its most brutal peak in 1988, when thousands of political prisoners — overwhelmingly communists, Marxists, and leftists — were executed following summary proceedings by so-called “death commissions.” Most of those killed were already serving prison sentences and were not accused of any new acts. Their execution was based on ideological criteria: refusal to renounce Marxism or to swear allegiance to the regime. The scale and organized character of these killings have been repeatedly documented by UN special rapporteurs and Amnesty International, who describe them as a planned, state-directed campaign rather than isolated abuses. This massacre marked one of the darkest chapters in modern Iranian political history.
In his reflections on this period, Khavari emphasizes that the Tudeh Party and the broader left were crushed not because they were “foreign agents,” as the regime claimed, but because they represented an organized, class-based challenge to both imperialism and domestic bourgeois power. He insists that those responsible for these crimes “must answer to the people of Iran,” underscoring the continuity of repression from the Shah to the Islamic Republic.
Under the Islamic Republic, anti-communism thus adopted the language of religious orthodoxy and national security. Marxism was denounced as “atheistic” and “alien,” but the underlying objective remained identical to that of the monarchy: dismantle workers’ independent organization, neutralize class-based political expression, and stabilize capitalist social relations — this time under clerical authoritarianism.
One Enemy, Two Regimes
From a Marxist-Leninist standpoint, the contrast between monarchy and theocracy is secondary. What unites them is decisive. Both regimes functioned as forms of bourgeois dictatorship, mediating class domination through different ideological vocabularies. Anti-communism was not inherited tradition or ideological excess; it was the rational response of ruling classes confronted with organized proletarian opposition.
The Pahlavi dynasty relied on imperialist patronage and nationalist modernization; the Islamic Republic relies on religious authority and populist mobilization. In both cases, communists were among the first to be hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, executed, and erased from public life. Workers were denied political autonomy, and Marxism was treated as an existential enemy of the state.
This history demolishes the illusions promoted by monarchists, liberals, and reformists alike. The problem in Iran was never simply the Shah, nor is it merely the clerics. The problem is class power — and the state apparatus that defends it against revolutionary challenge.
Conclusion
Anti-communism in Iran is not a policy error or an ideological misunderstanding. It is a structural necessity of bourgeois rule under conditions of deep social contradiction. The Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic converged in their repression of communists because both understood, instinctively and correctly, where the real threat lay.
For the Iranian working class, the lesson is unambiguous. No change of symbols, no reshuffling of elites, no return to monarchy or reform of clerical rule can bring emancipation. Only the independent organization of labor, the political rehabilitation of communist struggle, and the overthrow of bourgeois power itself can break the cycle of repression.
In this sense, the struggle against anti-communism is not a matter of historical memory. It is a living front of the class struggle — inseparable from the fight against imperialism and capitalist exploitation in Iran and internationally.
The Pahlavi Regime: Capitalist Modernization and Organized Terror Against the Left
Under Reza Shah and, far more systematically, under Mohammad Reza Shah, the Iranian state was reshaped into a centralized capitalist apparatus closely tied to Western imperialism. The monarchy’s official rhetoric of modernization and secular reform masked a political system that left no room for independent working-class politics and treated the organized Left as its primary internal enemy.
The Tudeh Party of Iran — founded in 1941 and rapidly becoming the principal communist and workers’ political force in the country — was targeted by the state from its earliest years. According to the party’s own historical record, Tudeh developed deep roots among industrial workers, teachers, intellectuals, oil workers, and sections of the armed forces. Its ability to organize trade unions, articulate class demands, and build a nationwide network of cadres made it a direct challenge not only to palace politics but to the entire social order.
Following the U.S.- and British-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the Shah’s anti-communism became an explicit organizing principle of state governance. The SAVAK secret police — created with training, equipment, and guidance from U.S. and Israeli intelligence — became the central instrument of political terror. It systematically surveilled, infiltrated, arrested, tortured, and dismantled communist and leftist organizations. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, thousands of Tudeh members were arrested, communist newspapers and publishing houses were shut down, and the party was driven entirely underground.
Repression was not limited to a handful of leaders; it was aimed at the broader social base of the Left. Rank-and-file workers, teachers, students, military officers sympathetic to Tudeh, and cultural figures associated with progressive currents were subjected to imprisonment, exile, and, in numerous cases, execution. Show trials were organized in the mid-1960s against Tudeh cadres and sympathizers, with several defendants initially sentenced to death — sentences that were in some cases later commuted to life imprisonment under domestic and international pressure, though many remained incarcerated for over a decade.
Rather than relying on isolated examples, the historical pattern is decisive: the Shah’s state sought to decapitate the party, destroy its networks in the workplace, and terrorize any social movement that connected economic grievances to a socialist perspective. Land reform struggles, independent trade unionism, and student activism were all treated as potential gateways for “communist subversion.”
The Shah’s regime did not merely repress the Left because it feared instability; it repressed it because it feared class consciousness. Anti-communism ensured Iran’s reliability as a regional pillar of imperialist domination and blocked any political force capable of mobilizing workers independently of the state.
The Islamic Republic: Counter-Revolution in Religious Form
The collapse of the monarchy in 1979 was the product of mass struggle — general strikes, workplace occupations, and the emergence of workers’ councils demonstrated the revolutionary potential of the Iranian working class. Yet the rapid consolidation of power by the clerical leadership under Ruhollah Khomeini revealed the counter-revolutionary character of the new order.
Although the Islamic Republic initially deployed anti-imperialist rhetoric and, for a brief period, coexisted tactically with leftist forces, it moved quickly to neutralize independent class politics once its control over the state apparatus was secure. Marxist organizations were tolerated only until they no longer served the regime’s immediate political needs. Once consolidated, repression followed with precision.
This repression was underpinned by an explicit ideological hostility to Marxism articulated at the highest level of the new regime. In his 1989 letter to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Khomeini openly dismissed Marxism as historically exhausted, declaring that “communism will only have to be found in the museums of world political history, for Marxism cannot meet any of the real needs of mankind.” This statement was not a theoretical aside, but a clear signal that Marxist ideology and communist organization had no legitimate place in the political future envisioned by the Islamic Republic.
Between 1982 and 1983, the Islamic Republic launched a decisive assault on the Tudeh Party. The regime accused its leadership of espionage, arrested key figures, and banned the party outright. Leading cadres were subjected to prolonged interrogation, psychological pressure, and physical torture. Several were forced to appear on state television to recant their views in staged “confessions” designed to delegitimize Marxism in the eyes of the public and to intimidate the party’s social base.
As Ali Khavari — long-time Tudeh leader — recounts, this was not simply a crackdown on a political organization but a systematic attempt to eradicate communist influence within the working class, the intelligentsia, and the armed forces. Thousands of rank-and-file communists, trade union activists, and progressive militants were arrested, many of whom endured years of imprisonment in harsh conditions.
The repression reached its most brutal peak in 1988, when thousands of political prisoners — overwhelmingly communists, Marxists, and leftists — were executed following summary proceedings by so-called “death commissions.” Most of those killed were already serving prison sentences and were not accused of any new acts. Their execution was based on ideological criteria: refusal to renounce Marxism or to swear allegiance to the regime. The scale and organized character of these killings have been repeatedly documented by UN special rapporteurs and Amnesty International, who describe them as a planned, state-directed campaign rather than isolated abuses. This massacre marked one of the darkest chapters in modern Iranian political history.
In his reflections on this period, Khavari emphasizes that the Tudeh Party and the broader left were crushed not because they were “foreign agents,” as the regime claimed, but because they represented an organized, class-based challenge to both imperialism and domestic bourgeois power. He insists that those responsible for these crimes “must answer to the people of Iran,” underscoring the continuity of repression from the Shah to the Islamic Republic.
Under the Islamic Republic, anti-communism thus adopted the language of religious orthodoxy and national security. Marxism was denounced as “atheistic” and “alien,” but the underlying objective remained identical to that of the monarchy: dismantle workers’ independent organization, neutralize class-based political expression, and stabilize capitalist social relations — this time under clerical authoritarianism.
One Enemy, Two Regimes
From a Marxist-Leninist standpoint, the contrast between monarchy and theocracy is secondary. What unites them is decisive. Both regimes functioned as forms of bourgeois dictatorship, mediating class domination through different ideological vocabularies. Anti-communism was not inherited tradition or ideological excess; it was the rational response of ruling classes confronted with organized proletarian opposition.
The Pahlavi dynasty relied on imperialist patronage and nationalist modernization; the Islamic Republic relies on religious authority and populist mobilization. In both cases, communists were among the first to be hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, executed, and erased from public life. Workers were denied political autonomy, and Marxism was treated as an existential enemy of the state.
This history demolishes the illusions promoted by monarchists, liberals, and reformists alike. The problem in Iran was never simply the Shah, nor is it merely the clerics. The problem is class power — and the state apparatus that defends it against revolutionary challenge.
Conclusion
Anti-communism in Iran is not a policy error or an ideological misunderstanding. It is a structural necessity of bourgeois rule under conditions of deep social contradiction. The Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic converged in their repression of communists because both understood, instinctively and correctly, where the real threat lay.
For the Iranian working class, the lesson is unambiguous. No change of symbols, no reshuffling of elites, no return to monarchy or reform of clerical rule can bring emancipation. Only the independent organization of labor, the political rehabilitation of communist struggle, and the overthrow of bourgeois power itself can break the cycle of repression.
In this sense, the struggle against anti-communism is not a matter of historical memory. It is a living front of the class struggle — inseparable from the fight against imperialism and capitalist exploitation in Iran and internationally.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.