Rostislav Ulianovskii, the Tudeh Party of Iran and Soviet attempts to set Iran on a non-capitalist path of development (1979–83)

ABSTRACT

For many in the Soviet leadership, Ayatollah Khomeini’s anti-Americanism was a sufficient reason for supporting the Iranian Revolution. Yet in Rostislav Ulianovskii’s view, the revolution gave Iran a much bigger opportunity: a chance to fit in the Soviet theoretical concept of ‘the non-capitalist path of development’. With this picture in mind Ulianovskii and the Tudeh Party developed a strategy of temporary support for Khomeini, expecting him to fulfil his temporary ‘objectively progressive’ role and give way to the truly ‘progressive’ forces. This paper investigates the ideological constraints that led to the formation of this strategy and its imminent failure.

KEYWORDS:

• Iran
• the Soviet Union
• ideology
• Iranian Revolution
• the Tudeh Party

When the Soviet Union and Iran entered a period of rapprochement in the early 1960s, after a decade and a half of tense relations in the early Cold War period, Iran’s position within the Soviet strategy in the Global Cold War became quite unique. Iran remained one of the principal allies of the United States in the Middle East that nevertheless had mutually beneficial relations with the USSR. For the Soviet Union, this partnership with the Shah had economic and geopolitical benefits, but from the point of view of ideology, it did not fit in any existing model. Following Nikita Khrushchev’s turning of Soviet foreign policy towards the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America that were either decolonising or getting rid of European influence, those countries were supposed to fit into newly developed Soviet concepts of a ‘non-capitalist path of development’ and a ‘state of national democracy’. These concepts provided Soviet leadership with an ideological background for making alliances with the non-communist Third World regimes and anticolonial movements. Yet for Iran, being one of the most loyal US allies in the region, this model was hardly applicable. On the contrary, according to all ideological frameworks, Iran was supposed to be the foe of the USSR. But it was not.

This evident contradiction did not seem to bother top Soviet leadership much, especially because most members of Leonid Brezhnev’s Politburo tended to rely on their own ideological worldview based on their personal understanding of Marxism-Leninism, rather than on the strict dogma.¹ However, in the Soviet foreign policy bureaucracy there were people who wholeheartedly relied on the theory of the non-capitalist path of development in their work. One such person was Rostislav Ulianovskii, deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) Central Committee, responsible for a broad region that included Iran. The Iranian Revolution gave hope to Ulianovskii and those of the same view that Iran could cease being an ideological exception. Although for most Soviet leaders their support of Ayatollah Khomeini rested on a binary notion that an anti-United States Iran was better for the USSR than an Iran allied with the United States, Ulianovskii and the International Department saw a bigger opportunity in the revolutionary transformation of Iran. While Khomeini’s ‘anti-imperialism’ hinted that Iran made first steps on the non-capitalist path of development, his promises to build a state based on the values of Islam seemed non-viable fantasies. This assumption brought the International Department to the conclusion that power was soon to fall out of Khomeini’s hands, and ‘progressive’ forces had to be ready to pick it up. Thus Iran had a chance not only to take a non-capitalist path, but could also go along it fast enough to join the alliance of the progressive countries (i.e. the Soviet allies). In the meantime, it was important to support Khomeini’s anti-imperialism and praise Iran’s stroll on the non-capitalist path of development.

Relying on newly available materials from the Russian State Archives, this article seeks to illuminate the heterogeneity of Soviet reaction to the Iranian Revolution. Benefiting particularly from the recently declassified materials of the CPSU International Department and the Politburo from the late 1970s–early 1980s, it analyses different motivations within the Soviet leadership that led to the same decision: to support Ayatollah Khomeini and his religious regime. Through this analysis this article seeks to contribute to a number of broader discussions. First, it adds to a number of recent works that highlight the importance of the concept of the ‘non-capitalist path of development’ for the strategies of the International Department and the ‘fraternal’ parties in the Third World that the department was coordinating.² The article further develops the argument that through its intensive backchannel communication with the International Department, the Tudeh Party of Iran influenced the aspirations of Ulianovskii to see Iran go down the non-capitalist path of development.³ Yet simultaneously relying on the Politburo protocols, it shows that regardless of the Tudeh’s perspectives, the top Soviet leadership was willing to support Khomeini for the reasons dictated by the logics of the Global Cold War. Thus playing along with the illusions of the Tudeh and the International Department concurred with the Politburo’s strategy. Therefore, using newly discovered documents, this article also contributes to a growing historiography on the bureaucratic functioning of Soviet foreign policy in the 1960s–80s, highlighting different groups of interests in the Soviet leadership, with differing motivations to pursue certain policies or strategies.⁴

Along with the analysis of the practices within the Soviet leadership and bureaucratic apparatus based on the Party materials, this article also looks into the discussions among Soviet experts on Iran and the Middle East as well as matters of ideology. Many of them were gradually turning more and more sceptical about the USSR’s strategy in Iran, and particularly towards Ulianovskii’s theoretical constructions.⁵ Combining these new materials with a critical analysis of a number of memoirs and press publications, the article intends to showcase a complex combination of Marxist-Leninist theory and geopolitical aspirations in the Soviet Third World’s foreign policy, to which Soviet reaction to the Iranian Revolution is a revealing example.

Rostislav Ulianovskii and Soviet Third World policy in the 1950s–70s

In 1955, Ivan Maiskii, the academician and former Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom, wrote a personal letter to the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet prime minister Nikolai Bulganin, who had just returned from their historic trip to India, Afghanistan and Burma. In the letter Maiskii expressed his enthusiasm about the ongoing fall of the colonial order and the upcoming triumph of Soviet foreign policy in the decolonising parts of the world. Maiskii claimed that the situation in Asia and Africa was more favourable for ‘the struggle for global domination of socialism’ than in Europe or the United States, as with the loss of colonies, the imperialist countries would enter a phase of crisis that would result in the sequence of socialist revolutions in the capitalist world. Maiskii wrote to Khrushchev and Bulganin:

Already in the 1930s, when I worked in London as Soviet ambassador, I came to conclusion that masses of British proletariat would really take the socialist path only when England lost its empire or, at least, significant parts of it. Now this moment is coming.⁶

Khrushchev and Bulganin’s trip to the decolonising world was one of the first signs of the radical shift in foreign policy that the Soviet Union was making towards the Third World. Aspirations described by Maiskii in his letter played an important role in this turn: the Soviet Union was supposed to become a new leader of the postcolonial world and the main ally of the new, independent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America in a struggle against imperialism. One of the problems with this strategy was its incompatibility with orthodox Marxist-Leninist ideology. The majority of decolonising states were ‘backward’ economically. According to Marxist classifications, most of them could be marked as feudal or traditional, lingering on the pre-industrial stage of socio-economic development. Marxist theory would assume the necessity for those countries to pass through the capitalist stage of development that would include industrialisation and the emergence of a proletariat. Only after that could a turn to socialism be made. For Khrushchev, the inconsistency between Marxist-Leninist theory and his practical policy was an issue that needed to be resolved.

The main results of the ideological adjustments made in the late 1950s were the concepts of ‘the non-capitalist path of development’ (nekapitalisticheskii put’ razvitiia) and ‘the state of national democracy’ (gosudarstvo natsionalnoi demokratii). Both revived the strategy still promoted by Vladimir Lenin in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War. That strategy included temporary alliances with local national movements and the promotion of national revolutions in the imperial colonies. Seeing imperialism as a global phenomenon directly derived from capitalist domination, Lenin considered anti-imperialism a perfect tool to undermine capitalism and eventually launch an anti-capitalist global proletarian revolution.⁷

The revival of these concepts in Khrushchev’s time was neatly connected to the USSR’s aspirations for a new role in the international arena. As shown by David Engerman, the introduction of the non-capitalist path of development was a result of the encounter of Soviet leaders and economic scholars with the reality of the Third World, primarily in the case of India. Unable to determine the Marxist stage of development for India and other Third World countries, Soviet economists and ideologues arrived at a concept that could support the new orientation of Soviet foreign policy and smooth over the controversy between orthodox Marxist-Leninist theory and the realities of the contemporary Third World. National liberation movements, according to the theory, could continue to exploit the revolutionary potential of national revolutions, develop it and eventually lead the Third World to socialism, bypassing the development stage of capitalism. After all, communism remained the same destination for all. Only some of the progressive forces were taking a special path to it, different from Soviet socialism but also different from capitalism.⁸ The true conceptual problem in this new theoretical framework was to distinguish whether the forces leading the decolonising state were actually taking it towards the non-capitalist path of development or not. The circumstances of each case were so specific that the model had to be adjusted to every case individually.⁹

One of the most active proponents of the non-capitalist path of development was Rostislav Aleksandrovich Ulianovskii, deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee. Responsible for relations with the International Communist Movement, the International Department, headed by Boris Ponomarev, maintained clandestine contacts with pro-Soviet parties and other non-governmental groups abroad. During the Cold War the political importance of the International Department was often exaggerated by the Sovietologists. Another Ponomarev deputy, Anatolii Cherniaev, ridiculed this fact in his diary:

Unbelievable exaggeration of the department’s role – all the way to claiming that we develop all the foreign policy ideas, that Foreign Ministry does not have its own voice, that we choose all the cadres for the foreign policy, and on top of everything they ‘tremble’ before us and not before anyone else […] They [the Sovietologists] understand nothing about us!¹⁰

Despite Cherniaev’s fair criticism of Cold War Western scholarship, it is important to stress that in the 1960s–80s, the International Department was the leading institute in the adjustment of the aforementioned theoretical concepts to contemporary foreign events. The historiography of the International Department’s activities tends to highlight the role of the so-called ‘enlightened Party intellectuals’, who started their careers at the department during the Khrushchev’s Thaw.¹¹ The International Department was indeed a cradle for some reform-minded intellectuals, many of whom were later at the core of Gorbachev’s Perestroika. However, they were also very active in writing memoirs and giving interviews to historians, while their more conservative colleagues received much less attention from the scholars.¹²

Rostislav Ulianovskii was responsible for a broad region that included India, Iran and Afghanistan. He was a key figure in relations with the Tudeh Party of Iran and in the formulation of the Soviet ideological position in reaction to the Iranian Revolution. Ulianovskii was working alongside the abovementioned ‘children of the 20^th congress’ but he represented a very different background and worldview. Anatolii Cherniaev mentioned Ulianovskii in his diaries only infrequently, and always in a negative context. For instance, here is another example of Cherniaev’s dissatisfaction with Western analysts, now in regard to Ulianovskii:

They write about Ulianovskii – that is another proof that they are completely unaware of the real situation and functioning of our department. […] Yes! Here it is more important how you ‘appear’, not what you ‘mean’. For example, Ulianovskii does nothing in our department and does not have any weight but he appears in Pravda every month.¹³

Elsewhere Cherniaev did not hesitate to mention Ulianovskii’s unprofessionalism and referred to him as ‘an idler and a scoundrel’.¹⁴ Ulianovskii’s biography partly explains these differences with his younger colleagues, although there are not many sources on his early life and career apart from his own memoirs, published only once in the last year of his life.¹⁵ Born in 1904, Ulianovskii started his scholarly and party career in the Comintern of the 1930s. He was the first to translate and publish the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and wrote an important study on Gandhi’s ‘objectively revolutionary role’. In 1935, Ulianovskii was arrested, accused of participation in a Trotskyist organisation and sentenced to five years in labour camps. In later interviews he connected his arrest to his positive analysis of Gandhi, as in that period Stalin personally polemicised against Gandhi and others of his ilk.¹⁶ The arrest had a huge influence on Ulianovskii’s personality. Even after the end of his term in the labour camps, he was not allowed to return to his scholarly career, and had to wait until the mid-1950s to defend a dissertation that had been completed shortly before his arrest. Yet Georgii Mirskii, one of the most authoritative Soviet experts on the Middle East, remembered that being an intelligent and educated person, Ulianovskii was from the cohort of people who were ironically called nedosidevshie – the ones who ‘understood and learned nothing’ from their imprisonment. Mirskii remembered that even after his retirement, Ulianovskii did not allow himself and those around him to criticise Stalin.¹⁷

These details of Ulianovskii’s biography can help us understand his later views as a deputy head of the International Department. His history of belief in national-liberation leaders and movements dated back to the interwar period. His attitude to the role of religion in the national-liberation movements is also noteworthy. In the 1960s Ulianovskii had already defended possible alliances with ‘progressive religious authorities’ as powerful representatives of anti-imperialist sentiment in Asia and Africa.¹⁸ His stubborn support of the Iranian Revolution, even when many in the Soviet leadership had given up on expectations of drawing Iran into the Soviet sphere of influence, had its roots in his earlier career. Ulianovskii was among the authors of ‘the non-capitalist path of development’ theory.¹⁹ He remained its supporter until the very last days of his life. Even in 1992, when the Soviet Union had already become a memory, he continued to promote the progressive nature of the non-capitalist path in his memoirs.²⁰

Soviet leaders and the fall of the Shah

Iran under Mohammed Reza Shah never fitted into the concept of the non-capitalist path of development. On the contrary, the Shah’s reforms were explained in the Soviet press as a step from feudalism to capitalism; Iran was considered in Moscow to be following the path to capitalism under the US umbrella.²¹ Although in the 1970s Soviet discontent about Iran’s massive armaments and active striving for regional supremacy was evident in the Soviet press and public statements, the cooperation that developed between the two countries since the early 1960s outweighed this dissatisfaction. The revolution brought hope to ideologues like Rostislav Ulianovskii that Iran could cease to be an ideological exception and finally step on the non-capitalist path of development and fit into the Soviet ideological framework.

It is noteworthy that before the revolution the term ‘anti-imperialism’ that was at the core of the non-capitalist path theory was regularly applied to Iran in Soviet scholarship and the press in relation to the 1949–53 period.²² Ironically, back then, Iosif Stalin and later Viacheslav Molotov, who restored his control over foreign policy following Stalin’s death, saw in Dr Mohammed Mosaddeq an agent of imperialism rather than a leader of a national-liberation movement. Khrushchev’s ideological turn towards the Third World rehabilitated the late Iranian leader, while Molotov’s misreading of Mosaddeq’s anti-imperialism was among the indictments against him during the infamous 1957 ‘anti-Party group’ plenum.²³ Although after that Mosaddeq’s name was established as being almost synonymous with anti-imperialist struggle, the later dynamics of Soviet-Iranian relations prevented the active use of pro-Mosaddeq rhetoric by Soviet officials. With the exception of a short period of tensions between 1959 and 1962, Soviet relations with the Shah’s Iran were growing more and more cordial.²⁴ Praise for Mosaddeq did not fit into this rapprochement and could serve as an unnecessary disturbance. Consequently, it largely remained on the pages of academic publications on recent Iranian history and only started to make its way to the press occasionally in the 1970s, following growing Soviet dissatisfaction with the Shah’s militarisation. Nevertheless, the Soviet failure to support Mosaddeq was memorable to many in the Soviet leadership and even more so in the Tudeh in the late 1970s, when a new and supposedly anti-imperialist leader of Iran, on the contrary, received their full support.

On 16 January 1979 the Shah left Iran. The Soviet Union in its official reaction hailed the toppling of ‘the reactionary monarchy’. However, in early 1979, the Soviet leadership was still trying to make sense of what was happening in Iran. The Politburo established a Special Commission on Iran that included the most influential Politburo members. They were supposed to ‘attentively follow events in Iran, study and analyze processes going on there and take measures accordingly if necessary’.²⁵ Although formally the Commission continued to function at least until December 1980, the Party records reveal its active work only for January–February 1979.²⁶ Twice during this period the Commission presented reports to the Politburo: following the fall of the Shah and following the arrival of the Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran. A first report suggested that the Soviet Union should not support the provisional government of Shapour Bakhtiar due to its ‘pro-American orientation’, while simultaneously maintaining unofficial contacts with Khomeini. In regard to the Tudeh, the Commission proposed to promote the reinforcement of the party’s activities, yet ‘not to overestimate its capabilities at this stage’. Overall, the report reflected the growing concerns of the Politburo in regard to a potential US military intervention. In conclusion, the Commission argued for resorting to diplomatic measures if the United States were to stage a coup, but in the case of direct military intervention, the report suggested ‘response measures’.²⁷ A second report reflected a certain optimism of the Soviet leaders, as it argued that the firm position of the Soviet Union successfully prevented direct US military intervention.²⁸ In a letter to the leaders of the Eastern Bloc that followed the report the Politburo stressed that ‘Khomeini’s return to Iran might reinforce national-liberation movement in Iran’.²⁹ This passage hints that in February 1979 Soviet leaders agreed on their positive attitude to the revolution and Khomeini as its leader. The revolution was pronounced an ‘anti-imperialist’ popular movement. For the International Department and its ideologues like Rostislav Ulianovskii, this assessment meant that Iran was finally moving towards a non-capitalist path of development. Although the reports clearly indicate Soviet leaders’ sceptical assessment of the Tudeh’s potential, the International Department concentrated its activities on reactivating its old ally.

The Soviet Union, the Tudeh and the formation of a new regime (January–February 1979)

Since the mid-1950s, following the ban on the party’s legal activities in Iran, the Tudeh’s headquarters were located in East Germany. Rapid developments in the revolution and the legalisation of all previously banned political parties forced the Tudeh’s leadership to make arrangements for their return to Iran. Yet simultaneously, the revolution unleashed a struggle for power in the party that had already become evident in July 1978. One of the struggling groups supported Iraj Iskanderi, the Tudeh first secretary, while the other stood behind the second secretary, Nureddin Kianuri.³⁰ While Iskanderi’s strategy consisted of building temporary alliances with the National Front and potentially some of the moderate representatives of the clergy, such as Ayatollah Shariatmadari, Kianuri announced his support for Khomeini as the most radical and revolutionary of the opposition leaders quite early.³¹ Ironically, in 1953 Kianuri was among the leaders of the radical faction that rejected cooperation with Mosaddeq while Iskanderi belonged to a more moderate group that advocated for supporting Mosaddeq’s policies.³² Later, while analysing Kianuri’s passionate support of Khomeini, Soviet experts noted that ‘the position of the Tudeh was a result of a lesson that the party had learned in 1953. It was consequently an attempt to get rid of the guilt complex’.³³

In late December 1978 the division within the Tudeh was brought to the attention of the Politburo. In a brief report Ulianovskii informed Soviet leaders about different strategies proposed by Iskanderi and Kianuri, as well as about the negative effects of this struggle for power on the Tudeh’s ability to react actively to the developments in Iran.³⁴ However, the report mostly discussed the propositions of Kianuri, largely ignoring Iskanderi’s position. Ulianovskii referred to a personal conversation with Kianuri and also attached a letter that the latter had prepared for the Politburo. Kianuri’s main idea presented in the letter and repeated in Ulianovskii’s report was to form a ‘United Front of National Liberation’, joining forces with all anti-Shah and anti-US parties and groups.³⁵ Ulianovskii summed up his report with a proposition ‘to tactfully support the political line of cmd. Kianuri’.³⁶ The Politburo approved the propositions of the International Department, and although Ulianovskii argued that it was important to stress to the Tudeh comrades that all the internal Party issues remained their exclusive prerogative, Moscow’s support was decisive in making Kianuri the new leader of the Tudeh.³⁷

It is unclear if Iskanderi was aware of Kianuri’s approaches to Ulianovskii and Moscow’s decision to support his rival. In later statements he blamed his loss on the exiled leadership of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP), which expressed its support for Kianuri.³⁸ This was not entirely wrong, as the ADP was one of the ways through which Moscow supported Kianuri.³⁹ A few weeks before his election as the first secretary, Kianuri visited Baku at the invitation of the International Department. There he met with Heydar Aliev, the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, and the ADP’s leadership. Three days before Kianuri’s visit, one of the ADP leaders, Gholam Daneschian, had met with Heydar Aliev, who recommended the ADP support Kianuri, claiming that unprecedented popular support for Khomeini was a requirement to be his ally.⁴⁰ As a result, the ADP fully supported Kianuri’s candidacy.

On 15 January 1979, the Tudeh’s executive committee elected Kianuri first secretary. Kianuri was nominated by Daneschian, who arrived straight from Moscow. When asked about the procedure – according to the party’s statute the leadership had to be elected by the Plenum, not only the executive committee – another member of the executive committee, Ehsan Tabari, pronounced a revealing statement:

At some point the Tudeh Party of Iran’s Central Committee will meet and confirm the draft as has occurred other times. That is common in all Communist Parties. The Soviet authorities have already confirmed those who were drafted.⁴¹ [emphasis is author’s]

This quote only supports the argument that the real elections for the new leader of the Tudeh had happened not in Leipzig, but in Moscow.

The religious component in the nature of a forming Iranian regime at that point worried the Soviet leadership much less than the prospect of US intervention or a rapprochement between the United States and the new leaders of Iran. Jeremy Friedman has pointed out the importance of the 1973 coup in Chile as a formational experience that directed the expectations of the Soviet leadership in 1979.⁴² The history of the 1953 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) coup against Mohammed Mosaddeq could only contribute to this Soviet anxiety. In the eyes of Moscow Khomeini was a new, anti-imperialist leader of Iran – a new Mosaddeq. In one of his later letters to Josip Broz Tito, Brezhnev directly compared the situation in Iran to 1953: ‘we see our duty in decisively countering the attempts of American imperialism to return Iran under its control. We did not forget Mosaddeq’.⁴³ Thus, despite the lack of detailed knowledge about Khomeini’s political programme, and seeing his aspirations to build a state based on the principles of Islam as purely propagandistic, Soviet officials praised his ‘anti-imperialist’ convictions.

In March 1979 Brezhnev hailed the establishment of the Islamic Republic, dedicating to Iran a paragraph of his keynote speech on the eve of elections to the Supreme Soviet.⁴⁴ The archives reveal an interesting timeline for this paragraph’s appearance in Brezhnev’s speech. Speeches of this kind in the late Brezhnev era were prepared well in advance, and edited and signed by the Politburo members. A draft of Brezhnev’s speech was sent to the Politburo members in late January 1979. A paragraph on Iran was absent there and in all following drafts. Unfortunately, the archives do not reveal to us the name of ‘the editor’ who dared to insert this paragraph after the text of the speech was agreed on by all the Politburo members between January and March. Apparently the situation in Iran was important enough to the Soviet leadership that the paragraph bypassed the traditional procedure of approval.⁴⁵ It is noteworthy that the rhetoric used by Brezhnev in public was not different from the one used in his private messages to the new Iranian leadership. In his telegram to Khomeini, in which Brezhnev congratulated the Ayatollah on the creation of the Islamic republic, the wording was almost exactly the same as in the mentioned public speech.⁴⁶

Anti-imperialism or anti communism?

Soon after the collapse of the Iranian monarchy, expectations that the popularity of religious authorities could be short-lived and that ‘the progressive forces’ could eventually overtake the revolutionary initiative motivated the International Department to charge the KGB Tehran residency with the task of starting negotiations with the guerrilla groups of the Mojahedin-e Khalq and the Fadaiyan-e Khalq with a final objective of forming a united front under the Tudeh’s leadership. The plan of the International Department was that the united front would adopt the Tudeh’s support for religious ‘anti-imperialist’ rule. At that point, support for Khomeini was considered a temporary measure. The archaic image and radical public rhetoric of the religious leaders added up to the perception of this regime’s temporary nature and supported Ulianovskii’s conviction that Iran was a state of national democracy in formation. However, the guerrilla groups refused Soviet proposals to join forces with the Tudeh.⁴⁷ The strategy of the International Department that was meant to intensify Iran’s movement through the non-capitalist path of development encountered its first obstacle: divisions among the Iranian Left and the unwillingness of the influential leftists with massive support to subordinate to the Tudeh. In May 1979, a struggle for power intensified in Iran as the religious authorities tried to secure their leading positions and get rid of dangerous opposition groups. The Fadaiyan-e Khalq and the Mojahedin-e Khalq became their first targets. The Revolutionary Guards were secretly ordered to start disarming the armed forces of the left-wing revolutionaries.⁴⁸ In these circumstances, the Tudeh, surprisingly for many, expressed its support for the actions of the regime. Considering the historic animosity between the Tudeh and the guerrilla groups there was, in fact, nothing surprising in this move. Earlier attempts to build bridges between the divided Left were evidently orchestrated by Moscow. As soon as they failed, the Tudeh returned to its regular hostility towards the radical Left.⁴⁹

In the Soviet Union, the attack on the leftist groups in Iran was analysed in the context of growing anti communist rhetoric expressed by the religious leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini, and thus caused the rise of voices that were critical of the Soviet strategy to support religious rule. The situation in Iran was discussed on an official public level in 1979 in two issues of the main party organ, Kommunist.⁵⁰ Such attention to an international event with no direct involvement of the USSR on the pages of Kommunist was quite a rare occasion. In both articles the revolution and the new regime were praised as anti-imperialist and ‘objectively progressive’. However, these positive assessments caused tough discussions about the nature of the Iranian Revolution within the editorial board of the journal. Records of these discussions reveal to us substantial contradictions between theory and reality that were evident to some of the ideologues and bothered many of them. One of the most emotional points was made during the discussion by one of the Kommunist editors, Boris Likhachev. He noted that the Iranian Revolution received unprecedented attention from Kommunist and proposed to postpone one of the publications about it. Likhachev stressed that the main Party organ was not yet ready to provide a firm analysis of the revolution because its nature was not yet clear:

I need to note that there are weak points in our analysis of the revolution in Iran. If we just report the news – then maybe we can avoid the questions, but if we provide analysis we need to explain the driving forces of the revolution – and in this text such explanation is lacking … ⁵¹

More importantly, Likhachev did not hesitate to express doubts about the progressiveness of the Iranian Revolution. In fact, he pronounced what many were probably thinking: if this is a progressive revolution, why is it led by the clergy? And if it is not progressive, why do we support it? Likhachev’s statement gives us some insight into the confusion that existed among people who were supposed to make sense of the Iranian Revolution. Despite all the flexibility of Soviet doctrine, some of them still had trouble doing that. This sentiment also found its reflection in Likhachev's statement:

And where is the revolution? There was a clerical revolution under the banner of one of the most religious movements. I am not against the coverage of such events. But some painful questions arise. We need to make a political assessment of this revolution.⁵²

In August 1979 the revolt in Kurdistan was used by the central government in Tehran to widen its attack on the Iranian Left. Although the regime’s attacks were mostly concentrated on the Mojahedin-e Khalq and the Fadaiyan-e Khalq, the Tudeh did not remain completely untouched by the campaign. On 1 August 1979 Kianuri sent a letter to Moscow describing the growing instability and foreseeing ‘armed clashes between the progressive adherents of revolutionary transformations and counterrevolutionaries and right extremists’. He raised the question of arming the Tudeh so that the party could be ready for a potential civil confrontation.⁵³ As Kianuri claimed to his East German interlocutors, the International Department reassured him of their support for the Tudeh, but confirmed the necessity to keep supporting Khomeini in order to prevent an undesirable turn of events (i.e. the pro-United States coup) and simultaneously to gain more influence.⁵⁴

On 20 August 1979, the Revolutionary Guards sealed off the editorial offices of the Tudeh’s newspaper, Mardom. Its alleged support for Kurdish separatism was used as a pretext despite the intentional distancing of the Tudeh leadership from the Kurdish issue. This development speeded up the consideration of Kianuri’s petition at the CPSU Central Committee’s Secretariat. Following the proposal of the International Department, the Secretariat instructed the KGB and the General Staff to look into Kianuri’s request and consider sending non-Soviet-made weapons, such as automatic rifles and grenades, to the Tudeh for self-defence purposes.⁵⁵ Eventually, with the pacification of the situation the decision to arm the Tudeh was withdrawn; the Politburo returned to this petition only a year later. In July 1980 Kianuri arrived in Moscow and brought with him proposals for arms delivery routes by land or by air. But Iurii Andropov and Boris Ponomarev, who received him, advised the Central Committee not to rush a decision to arm the Tudeh:

Taking into account a critical political importance of this issue, the situation in the country and the condition of the Tudeh and the left forces in general, we propose to study Kianuri’s petition more thoroughly and return to it later … ⁵⁶

The Central Committee never returned to this issue.

In the Soviet Union, discussions in the Central Committee were simultaneously accompanied by a critical, but cautious, campaign in the press. On 4 September 1979, Aleksandr Bovin published an article on Iran. Being Brezhnev’s speechwriter on international matters, Bovin possessed a certain degree of freedom and independence in his journalistic activities, often expressing publicly the views of ‘the Party intellectuals’.⁵⁷ His articles on the Iranian Revolution did not always follow in accordance with the statements of the responsible officials, and evidently caused furious reactions from the Soviet ambassador in Iran, Vladimir Vinogradov.⁵⁸

In the aforementioned article Bovin accused the revolutionary regime of censorship and the suppression of freedom of speech, referring to shutdowns of the press that presented views differing from the official ‘religiously-theological doctrine’. Bovin also touched upon the issue of national minorities, noting that the accusations of ‘betrayal’ directed at those who supported the minorities should have been considered as repressive acts of the regime. He eventually summed up his main arguments in a paragraph that reflected a view of the Iranian regime that was distinctly critical compared to the one previously presented in the official Soviet narrative:

It is obvious to me that the feeling of religious fanaticism, anti-communist hysteria and a desire to misinterpret the policy and intentions of a friendly country [i.e. the Soviet Union] will not benefit the Iranian people [… .] The coalition of political movements, forces and groups that secured victory for the revolution has already disintegrated [… .] Repression of the left automatically strengthened the extreme right and created favorable soil for the outside pressure [… .] All this is making the situation in the country unstable and fraught with conflicts and unexpected surprises.⁵⁹

Although in their public statements Soviet leaders were much more moderate, in private they often expressed views on the situation in Iran that were not that different from those stated in Bovin’s article. During his meeting with Erich Honecker in October 1979, Brezhnev admitted that Soviet leaders noticed the increasing persecution of ‘progressive forces’ and suppression of national minorities in Iran. But despite that, the revolution turned Iran away from the alliance with the United States, and thus Khomeini’s anti-Americanism was more important than all the disadvantages of his regime.⁶⁰

The Soviet Union, the Tudeh and the struggle for power in Iran (1980–1)

Ambassador Vinogradov remembered that on the eve of 27 December 1979, he received instructions from Moscow to personally inform Khomeini about the start of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which he did immediately, driving to Qom for an audience. The reaction of Khomeini was moderate; he even agreed to restrain from public criticism for three months should the Soviet operation fit in this time limit. Vinogradov also remembered that Khomeini asked him to lobby for the Soviet veto on the UN resolution proposed by the United States that was designed to impose sanctions on Iran in response to the hostage crisis.⁶¹

On 3 January 1980, Brezhnev received a note from his foreign policy advisors with arguments against abstaining from the Security Council vote. In the note the authors pointed out five main arguments for the imposition of the veto. First, the sanctions would have served as a punishment for Iran’s anti-imperialist position. Second, Soviet support for the economic blockade of Iran would not have found understanding among other progressive Third World countries. Third, the reaction within Iran could have caused a crisis in Soviet-Iranian relations, which was considered especially untimely in the context of the restrained public reaction of the Iranian officials to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover, it could have compromised prospective economic negotiations, in particular on the sensitive matter of the natural gas trade. Fourth, the Soviet Union would have needed to be a part of the economic blockade, i.e. play by the United States’ rules – a position that was per se unacceptable. Fifth, while a veto would have surely caused a negative reaction by the United States, the authors of the note argued that, following the invasion of Afghanistan, bilateral relations were already at their lowest point, and there was not much damage that a Soviet veto could inflict.⁶² The Soviet Union vetoed the anti-Iranian sanctions 10 days later.

It is evident from the note that most of the arguments behind the Soviet decision to veto the sanctions against Iran were driven by the mix of doctrinal and geopolitical considerations that constituted the ideological worldview of the Soviet leadership. On the one hand, the Politburo needed to secure its trade with Iran and maintain decent relations not only with Iran, but also with those countries that did not condemn the invasion of Afghanistan. On the other hand, they needed to maintain the image of the Soviet Union as a leader of the global anti-imperialist movement that did not support the United States’ ‘punishment of anti-imperialist Iran’, and was not willing to take part in a game played by US rules.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan facilitated the attacks of the regime on the Iranian Left and legitimated such attacks in the eyes of public opinion. In light of the Islamic regime turning more and more against the revolutionary Left, the Tudeh stood firmly alongside the government and supported the growing repressions of the fadaiyan and the mojahedin. Although Kianuri mostly sent encouraging messages to Ulianovskii, there were also some that implied the preparedness of the Tudeh for a possible struggle. In July 1980 Kianuri requested permission to send three Tudeh members to the Soviet Union to study technical aspects of ‘underground work’ (konspirativnaia rabota). Moreover, Kianuri asked his Soviet comrades to make the training programme as short and dense as possible, because specialists of this kind were in great need for the party.⁶³ Thus the Tudeh was showing to Moscow that it was on high alert, despite its public support of the regime.

The beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in September 1980 allowed Khomeini to intensify the consolidation of power and the destruction of opposition groups. From the Soviet perspective, the Iraqi attack was an apparent mistake. It was particularly harmful for Soviet-Iranian relations and the Tudeh. Since 1972, Iraq was a primary buyer of Soviet arms in the Middle East; it also had a Treaty of Friendship signed with the Soviet Union. Although following Saddam Hussein’s repressive campaign against the Iraqi Communist Party, relations between the USSR and Iraq were not as cordial as in the early 1970s, Iraq was considered a Soviet ally.⁶⁴ The circumstances on the day of invasion added up to Iran’s harsh reaction towards the USSR. On 22 September 1980, when Iraq started its military operation, the Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz was in Moscow. Although the visit had been planned in advance and the Soviet leadership did not expect the war to break out with Aziz being in Moscow, it created the impression in Tehran that the Soviet Union supported the Iraqi aggression.⁶⁵ Evgenii Primakov, at that time the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies (IVAN), remembered that Moscow saw this as Saddam’s attempt ‘to drag the Soviet Union into his military adventure’.⁶⁶ In a swift reaction the Politburo stopped all arms sales to Iraq, to try to present the Soviet Union as a neutral power, primarily in the eyes of the Iranians.⁶⁷ This neutrality caused the evident dissatisfaction of Saddam Hussein, which he expressed in an emotional personal letter to Brezhnev.⁶⁸ In his response, the general secretary stressed that the Iran-Iraq war was beneficial to the United States, which ‘tr[ied] to force Iran to step away from its radical anti-imperialist positions using the hands and the blood of the Iraqis’.⁶⁹ Yet although the Soviet leadership genuinely opposed the Iraqi aggression, Iranian popular opinion was turning more and more against the USSR. For Khomeini, it was an additional pretext to intensify his attacks on the political Left.

The Iran-Iraq war temporarily slowed down the growing internal conflict within Iran, where the election of Abolhassan Banisadr as the first president of the Islamic Republic resulted in his transformation into a leader of the anti-Khomeini opposition.⁷⁰ For the Tudeh it was a decisive moment. It could join forces with Banisadr and the Mojahedin-e Khalq and oppose the regime, or it could passively watch how the most powerful of leftist groups was torn apart by the regime. Kianuri and his Executive Committee chose the latter, and Moscow provided them full support in this decision. By 1981, Khomeini’s attacks on the opposition accelerated once again. Following the dismissal of Banisadr from the post of president, the regime reinforced its offensive on the mojahedin. While the regime was destroying the mojahedin network, the Tudeh continued their uncompromising support for the Islamic leadership.⁷¹

In the Soviet Union, the rapid unfolding of the situation in Iran resulted in the enforcement of critical voices towards the Islamic regime and the Tudeh’s strategy of supporting it. One of the experts who called for a re-evaluation of the Soviet position was Georgii Mirskii, a renowned Soviet specialist on the Middle East and a senior researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) – one of the citadels of Soviet foreign policy intellectuals.⁷² From Mirskii’s point of view, Soviet support for Banisadr’s dismissal was an example of short-sighted policies that could end in the complete destruction of progressive opposition to Khomeini. At one of the closed expert roundtables, Mirskii argued that the elimination of the national bourgeoisie (i.e. Banisadr) from the Iranian political map could be a positive development, but it simultaneously resulted in a defeat of the Mojahedin-e Khalq. As Mirskii put it, ‘we lost the only power that was standing in the way of obscurantism’.⁷³ Mirskii also criticised Soviet resistance to accepting the changing reality:

The problem is that [the destruction of the mojahedin] will start the campaign for destruction of all leftist forces and establishment of unlimited clerical dictatorship. So you can continue repeating that ‘a revolution without a revolution’ is developing and keep praising it. But it was 1979 when you formulated this thesis – now it is 1981 and it is clear that all the political left are threatened. And of course what is happening now is not a revolution – it is a counterrevolution. […] So maybe tomorrow they will massacre the political left in Iran. And if the communists start to object, they will have the pleasure of executing them too.⁷⁴

Mirskii’s prophesy, as we know, eventually ended up being absolutely correct. At the time, however, it was met with a more moderate response from Evgenii Primakov at the same roundtable. Primakov stressed that it was impossible to ignore the pro-imperialist stand of Iranian politicians like Banisadr. However, he admitted that ‘it was ideologically wrong to support the position of the Islamic fundamentalists’ (emphasis is author's).⁷⁵

Hence it is evident that by 1981–2, in both the Soviet leadership and the expert community, there was growing dissatisfaction and disappointment with the direction of Iranian political development. Yet for the leadership, Iran remained a secondary arena, with the main focus concentrating on Afghanistan – and defining Soviet Third World policy and Cold War strategy at that time. This lack of detailed attention from the Politburo allowed the Tudeh to keep feeding the International Department (and consequently the rest of the Soviet leaders) with promises and optimistic perspectives of cooperation with the Iranian regime. Unwilling to shake the existing balance in which both the United States and the Islamic Republic were primarily preoccupied with the hostage crisis and the conflict between each other (and thus less attracted to interfering in Afghan affairs), the Politburo elders were happy to accept this game of the Tudeh and keep supporting Khomeini.

The collapse of illusions (1982–3)

By the end of 1981, domestic developments in Iran destroyed most of the remaining hopes that the International Department and theoreticians like Rostislav Ulianovskii had fostered for the future of the Iranian Revolution. The attacks on the opposition and the consolidation of power in the hands of religious authorities left no political future for the Tudeh, despite its consistent loyalty to the regime. The context of the Iran-Iraq War contributed to a general feeling of suspicion for the Iranian leadership and society overall. The continuing Soviet presence in Afghanistan kept irritating the mullahs, while the stream of Afghan refugees made it easy for the regime to portray the USSR as a ‘Satanic’ power.

In 1982 the deteriorating trend in Soviet-Iranian relations became evident even for most international observers. In January, the British representative in Tehran, Nicholas Barrington, informed London of rumours about the increasingly sharper debates in the ruling Islamic Republican Party on relations with the Tudeh and the Soviet Union. Barrington even mentioned that there was a high probability of an upcoming nationwide purge of the Tudeh, as the party was considered ‘dangerous and recognized as such by the regime’.⁷⁶

In July 1982, Rostislav Ulianovskii published an article in Kommunist that was dedicated to the situation in Iran. In the article, Ulianovskii elaborated on some ‘unpleasant developments’ in Iran’s domestic situation. He vehemently criticised ‘the illusory search for a third path between capitalism and socialism and attempts to impose social, economic and moral ideals borrowed from the Quran’.⁷⁷ Addressing the issue of the dissociation of the Iranian Left, he criticised them for being ‘estranged by disagreements over strategy and tactics, which they sometimes artificially dramatized’.⁷⁸ Ulianovskii called for all the left-wing forces in Iran to form a United (Edinyi with a capital ‘E’) front to carry on the revolution. This confirmed his continuing belief that the revolution was still going on, and that it was possible to take advantage of it. Admitting the existing stagnation of the revolutionary process, Ulianovskii insisted on the bright perspectives of the anti-imperialist struggle: ‘The post-February phase of the revolution can be defined as critical point of the revolution, as its temporary crisis. But the crisis of a revolution is also a revolution. It either retreats or moves forward’.⁷⁹

Ulianovskii’s article started a passionate discussion among the members of the editorial board of Kommunist. Some comments in this discussion reflected continuing confusion among Soviet ideologues about their attitude to Khomeini. One group of editors was concerned that the article mentioned the Islamic regime’s attacks on the Left, which could cause negative reactions by the Iranian officials.⁸⁰ Others were critical of Ulianovskii’s demagogy on the ‘crisis of a revolution’ being one of the stages of the revolution. One of the editors put it in a very direct way: ‘How should we understand this crisis of a revolution – maybe it is a counterrevolution?’⁸¹ Stepan Salychev, a specialist on the international workers’ movement and a retired KGB officer, summed up the discussion in a revealing comment:

There are many contradictory points in the article. On the one hand, the author argues that the Islamic revolution can be considered as a special ideological form [… .] On the other hand, he says that the class struggle is at the center [of the revolutionary ideology]. On the one hand we want to make a concession but on the other – we understand that it does not match our assessment of the class content of the revolution. The ends do not meet.⁸²

Indeed, by late 1982, Ulianovskii’s arguments found little support in the expert community. While Ulianovskii believed that the revolution in Iran was not over and that it could still lead the country down the non-capitalist path of development, most Soviet experts agreed that Iran did not fit into this concept. Some argued that the Iranian Revolution revealed its ‘petit-bourgeois character’.⁸³ Others stated directly that Iran was way beyond the point of entering the non-capitalist path of development, as it was already far down the capitalist path.⁸⁴ Overall, despite continuing arguments over details, the expert community admitted the formation of political dictatorship in Iran and a lack of perspectives for the Iranian Revolution to turn towards a more ‘progressive’ direction.⁸⁵ The crushing of the Tudeh by the regime in February 1983 only confirmed these conclusions. As Jeremy Friedman fairly put it, ‘The Iranian left ultimately became one more casualty in Moscow’s attempt to combat U.S. influence in the name of socialism’.⁸⁶

The biggest public disappointment was expressed by Rostislav Ulianovskii, who naturally felt betrayed by the Iranian regime he had been advocating for during the previous years. While Ulianovskii dedicated much of his new article in Literaturnaia gazeta in June 1983 to the evil role of the United States and their immoral policies towards Iran, he also for the first time openly criticised the Iranian regime. Ulianovskii even used the term ‘Islamic despotism’.⁸⁷ Thus, even the main proponent of the view that the Iranian Revolution had a ‘progressive nature’ finally admitted his misinterpretation. It took Ulianovskii another two years to admit that what happened in Iran ‘was not a revolution at all’, ‘the spirit of freedom’ was from the very beginning ‘chained by Islamic despotism’, whereas the regime was ‘reminiscent of the darkest times of the Middle Ages’.⁸⁸ Anatolii Cherniaev, who privately reviewed Ulianovskii’s new article, complimented the author’s ‘strict and precise’ coverage of ‘the Iranian problem’. Cherniaev even proposed publishing Ulianovskii’s article in place of Primakov’s text on a similar topic, which is especially noteworthy considering Cherniaev’s contemptuous comments on Ulianovskii’s texts in his diary.⁸⁹ Ulianovskii might have been bitterly disillusioned with the outcome of the Iranian Revolution, but so were many in the Soviet elite.

Conclusion

By 1982–3 the religious leaders of Iran managed not only to maintain their power, but also to destroy all meaningful opponents and survive the Iraqi invasion. None of the prospects of the International Department for the Iranian Revolution taking a ‘progressive’ turn and Iran stepping on the non-capitalist path of development came true. The persistence of Rostislav Ulianovskii, who continued to insist that the revolution was about to go ‘the correct way’ in 1982, despite frank criticism of this position from the expert community, hints that it was actually part of Ulianovskii’s beliefs. However, this was not only a result of Ulianovskii’s extreme attachment to the theoretical concepts. It was partly a result of his close engagement with Kianuri and the Tudeh. Although the Tudeh was evidently largely dependent on Moscow’s support, it was not a simple hierarchical dependence whereby the Tudeh fulfilled directives from Moscow. Complicating and developing Jeremy Friedman’s argument, this article reveals that relations between the Tudeh and the International Department were mutually influential, and both parties reinforced the other’s ideological convictions. For Ulianovskii, it was important to see Iran moving towards the non-capitalist path of development, while Kianuri was the person who had already, in November 1978, provided Ulianovskii with an explanation of how exactly it was happening and who exactly was the anti-imperialist force. It was this vision that convinced Ulianovskii that Kianuri was the right candidate to be supported for the Tudeh’s leadership. Ulianovskii’s backing and the way he presented Kianuri to the Politburo made Kianuri’s approval as the new first secretary almost inevitable. After that, when both the Tudeh’s leader and his patron shared the same ideological view, the dynamics of mutual reassurance in the correctness of this view only intensified. Kianuri was feeding the International Department with optimistic perspectives, while Ulianovskii was translating this view to the Politburo and defending his position in public.

The Tudeh and Ulianovskii’s insistence on seeing in Khomeini an anti-imperialist leader who would take Iran down the non-capitalist path of development despite all alarming signals serves as a uniquely convincing example of how the ideological concepts influenced the thinking of Soviet policymakers. Therefore, this example makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the role played by the theoretical foundations of ideology in the activities of the International Department. Yet the example of the Tudeh’s fate also shows the limits of the International Department’s influence on decision-making. Neither the crushing of the Tudeh nor the deterioration of bilateral relations led to any public condemnation of the Iranian regime by the Politburo. The Cold War was more important. This does not mean that the Politburo consisted of pure pragmatists. Eventually all the Soviet leaders were to a certain degree driven by a worldview largely established on ideological foundations, but tactically they had the Cold War lens on. Unlike for Ulianovskii, for the most influential Politburo figures like Andropov, their support for Khomeini was driven by this Cold War geopolitical striving. Moreover, we can see that it remained the most important consideration for the Politburo, both at the beginning of the revolution (e.g. the functioning of the Politburo Commission on Iran) and in relations with a religious regime (e.g. the rationale behind the Soviet veto on the anti-Iranian sanctions and the modest reaction to the crackdown on the Tudeh). One could debate whether by supporting Khomeini the Soviet Union truly achieved any geopolitical gains, especially with Iran turning more and more hostile towards the USSR in light of renewed Soviet arms deals with Iraq and continuing war in Afghanistan. Yet, in the circumstances of the early 1980s, when the renewed tensions between the superpowers threatened to turn the Cold War into an open conflict, it was good enough for the USSR to have Iran being anti-American, regardless of its domestic situation. Therefore, it is important to stress that although this article emphasises the importance of the non-capitalist path of development theory for the International Department, their reasons to support Khomeini often differed from the Politburo’s. This example highlights the heterogeneity of the Soviet foreign policy system, and although in the particular case of Iran it was unified in supporting Khomeini, the rationale for it differed.

However, what the Politburo and the International Department had in common in their assessments of the situation in Iran was the almost complete negligence of Khomeini’s political programme and religion as its main component. Through this negligence the Iranian Revolution played a major a role in discrediting the non-capitalist path of development theory in the eyes of the expert community. Along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it revealed the unpreparedness of the Soviet experts to analyse Islam as a political ideology. This understanding eventually led to a reorientation of academic resources to studying new ideological challenges and the gradual abandonment of the non-capitalist path of development. Yet the inability of Soviet foreign policy to adequately analyse Iranian events not only discredited its theoretical foundations. Among other major failures it added up to the growing conviction of the Party’s ‘enlightened’ wing that Soviet foreign policy was impotent to respond to these new challenges and needed to be reformed. Soon after Mikhail Gorbachev’s assumption of power, this process was gradually initiated. In this context, Rostislav Ulianovskii’s retirement in 1986 was emblematic. The non-capitalist path of development was giving way to new ideological concepts.

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Notes

¹ For a debate on ideology and its role during the Cold War, see: Nigel Gould-Davies, ‘Rethinking the Role of Ideology in International Politics during the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies 1, no. 1 (1999): 90–109; Mark Kramer, ‘Ideology and the Cold War’, Review of International Studies 25, no. 4 (October 1999): 539–76; and Michael David-Fox, Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015).

² For some of the recent works see: Natalia Telepneva, Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021); and Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

³ This argument was presented by Jeremy Friedman in two of his recent publications based on his findings in the East German archives: Jeremy Friedman, Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World (Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2021), 211–62; and Jeremy Friedman, ‘The Enemy of My Enemy: The Soviet Union, East Germany, and the Iranian Tudeh Party’s Support for Ayatollah Khomeini’, Journal of Cold War Studies 20, no. 2 (2018): 3–37.

⁴ Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union there were a few attempts to study the functioning of the Central Committee apparatus based on the archival materials available at that point. A good example is Rudolf Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soiuz: istoriia vlasti 1945–1991 (Moscow: RAGS, 1998). Throughout the following decades our knowledge about the internal mechanisms of Soviet decision-making was expanded thanks to the growing number of published memoirs and diaries of the former bureaucrats. For the International Department some of the most informative and widely cited include: Anatolii Cherniaev, Sovmestnyi iskhod: dnevnik dvukh epokh, 1972–1991 gody (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2008); Karen Brutents, Tridsat’ let na Staroi Ploshchadi (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1998) and others. Recently, Nikolai Mitrokhin has made an attempt at a more systemic approach to studying the functioning of the CPSU apparatus based on these and dozens of other personal accounts, including his own interviews with former bureaucrats. For some of the key insights see: Nikolai Mitrokhin, ‘The CPSU Central Committee Apparatus, 1970–85: Personnel and Role in the Soviet Political System’, Russian History 41 (2014): 307–28; Nikolai Mitrokhin, ‘“Elita zakrytogo obshchestva” MGIMO, mezhdunarodnye otdely TsK KPSS i prosopographiia ikh sotrudnikov’, Ab Imperio 4 (2013): 145–86; and Nikolai Mitrokhin, ‘Apparat TsK KPSS v 1953–1985 godakh kak primer zakrytogo obshchestva’, NLO 6 (2009): 607–30.

⁵ For some recent works on the Soviet expert community see: David Engerman, ‘Learning from the East: Soviet Experts and India in the Era of Competitive Coexistence’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 2 (2013): 227–38; Steffi Marung, ‘The Provocation of Empirical Evidence: Soviet African Studies between Enthusiasm and Discomfort’, African Identities 16, no. 2 (2018): 176–90; Hanna Jansen, ‘People’s Internationalism: Central Asian Modernisers, Soviet Oriental Studies and Cultural Revolution in the East (1936–1977)’ (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2020); and Denis Volkov, ‘Individuals, Institutions and Discourses: Knowledge and Power in Russia’s Iranian Studies of the Late Imperial, Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods’, Middle East-Topics & Arguments, no. 4 (2015): 61–79.

⁶ ‘Maiskii to Khrushchev and Bulganin’, 22 December 1955, F. 5, Op. 30, D. 161, L. 1, Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History) (RGANI), Moscow, Russia.

⁷ ‘Doklad komissii po natsional’nomu i kolonial’nomu voprosam’, 26 July 1920 in Vladimir I. Lenin, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, 5^th ed. Tom 41 (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1981), 241–7.

⁸ Engerman, ‘Learning from the East’, 232–5.

⁹ Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 74.

¹⁰ Cherniaev, Sovmestnyi iskhod, 270. Here Cherniaev referred to Leonard Schapiro’s book, see Leonard Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Vintage, 1960).

¹¹ Robert English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 117–58; Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 165–72; Vladislav Zubok, Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); and Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Intellectuals and Political Power: the Post-Stalin era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

¹² Some of the recent scholarship tried to fill this gap, highlighting the role of ‘the Cominternians’ such as Ulianovskii. See, for example: Telepneva, Cold War Liberation, 19–22. For more on the staff composition of the International Department see: Mitrokhin, ‘Elita zakrytogo obshchestva’.

¹³ Cherniaev, Sovmestnyi iskhod, 270.

¹⁴ Ibid., 308.

¹⁵ Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Iz prozhitykh let. Memuary’, Vostok, no. 3 (1993): 124–45; and Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Iz prozhitykh let. Memuary (okonchanie)’, Vostok, no. 4 (1993): 134–51.

¹⁶ S. Mikhailova, ‘Interviu s R.A. Ulianovskim’, Kariera, no. 13 (July 1991), 13.

¹⁷ Georgii Mirskii, Zhizn’ v trekh epokhakh (Moscow: Letnii Sad, 2001), 176.

¹⁸ Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 214–20.

¹⁹ Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Nekotorye voprosy nekapitalisticheskogo razvitiia osvobodivshikhsia stran’, Kommunist, no. 1 (1968): 117–18.

²⁰ Ulianovskii, Iz prozhitykh let (okonchanie), 148.

²¹ For example, when the Shah started his ‘White Revolution’, Pravda praised this ‘step away from feudalism’ without mentioning the non-capitalist path of development. See ‘Feodal’naia sistema v Irane skoro budet likvidirovana’, Pravda, 28 February 1963, 5.

²² See, for example: Salekh Aliev, ‘Antiimperialisticheskoe i demokraticheskoe dvizhenie 1949–1953 gg’, in Iran: Ocherki Noveishei Istorii, ed. Artem Arabadzhian (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 167–262. In striking continuity, in 1979 Salekh Aliev was first among Soviet experts to apply a label of ‘anti-imperialism’ to the Iranian Revolution, see: Salekh Aliev, ‘Antimonarkhicheskaia i antiimperialisticheskaia revolutsiia v Irane’, Narody Azii i Afriki, no. 3 (1979): 45–57.

²³ Artemy Kalinovsky, ‘The Soviet Union and Mosaddeq: a Research Note’, Iranian Studies 47, no. 3 (2014): 401–18; and Vladislav Zubok, ‘Stalin, Soviet Intelligence, and the Struggle for Iran, 1945–53’, Diplomatic History 44, no. 1 (2020): 22–46.

²⁴ For more on the 1959–62 tensions and eventual rapprochement see: Roham Alvandi, ‘Flirting with Neutrality: The Shah, Khrushchev, and the Failed 1959 Soviet-Iranian Negotiations’, Iranian Studies 47, no. 3 (2014): 419–40; and Roham Alvandi, ‘The Shah’s Détente with Khrushchev: Iran’s 1962 Missile Base Pledge to the Soviet Union’, Cold War History 14, no. 3 (2014): 423–44.

²⁵ ‘Zapiska L. Brezhneva v TsK KPSS v sviazi s sobytiiami v Irane’, 12 January 1979, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 639, L. 1–2, RGANI.

²⁶ The latest currently declassified document, where the Commission on Iran is mentioned among other Politburo Commissions, is the Politburo report from December 1980, see: ‘Nekotorye itogi organizatsionnoi raboty Politbiuro i Sekretariata TsK KPSS’, 31 December 1980, F. 3, Op.70, D. 2011, L. 38, RGANI. For more on the Politburo Commissions as a bureaucratic practice see: Nikolai Mitrokhin, Ocherki sovetskoi ekonomicheskoi politiki v 1965–1989 godakh. Tom 1 (Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2023), 110.

²⁷ ‘Zapiska Komissii Politburo TsK KPSS po voprosam, kasaiushchimsia Irana’, 19 January 1979, F.3, Op. 70, D. 1275, L. 168–71, RGANI.

²⁸ ‘Zapiska o dal’neishei linii po protivodeistviiu vmeshatel’stvu SShA vo vnutrennie dela Irana’, 1 February 1979, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1283, L. 219–20, RGANI.

²⁹ ‘Proekt ukazanii sovposlu v Prage, Berline, Varshave, Sofii, Budapeshte’, 1 February 1979, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1283, L. 216–17, RGANI.

³⁰ ‘On the Report from Informal Collaborator (IC) “Reza” from 26.7.78’, 26 July 1978, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, MfS, AIM 14683/84, Teil II, BStU. Obtained by Roham Alvandi. https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134855 (accessed 16 September 2021).

³¹ Mohsen Milani, ‘Harvest of Shame: Tudeh and the Bazargan Government’, Middle Eastern Studies 29, no. 2 (April 1993): 309.

³² In his memoirs Kianuri tended to downplay his opposition to Mosaddeq. He admitted opposing oil nationalisation policy, but presented himself as a moderate opponent of Mosaddeq in comparison to radical Stalinists like Ahmad Qasemi. However, as late as in 1959, in a public debate with Iskanderi in World Marxist Review Kianuri defended the Tudeh’s 1953 strategy against an alliance with Mosaddeq. For more on Kianuri’s memoirs and attempts to downplay his active anti-Mosaddeq stance see: Maziar Behrooz, ‘The 1953 Coup in Iran and the Legacy of the Tudeh’, in Mohammed Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed. Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2004), 102–25; and Maziar Behrooz, ‘Tudeh Factionalism and the 1953 Coup in Iran’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 3 (2001): 363–82. For more on the 1959 debates between Kianuri and Iskanderi see: Cosroe Chaqueri, ‘Iradj Eskandary and the Tudeh Party of Iran’, Central Asian Survey 7, no. 4 (1988): 108–9.

³³ Leonid Skliarov, ‘Partii i politicheskie organizatsii v poslerevolutsionnom Irane’, Spetsialnyi Biulleten’, no. 5 (212) (Moscow: Nauka, 1980): 48.

³⁴ ‘O deiatel’nosti Narodnoi Partii Irana (NPI) v period poslednikh sobytii v Irane i o polozhenii v rukovodstve etoy partii’, 27 December 1978, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1251, L. 128–32, RGANI.

³⁵ It is noteworthy that among the future allies that needed to be addressed personally with an invitation to join the United Front, Kianuri specified religious leaders (Khomeini, Talegani, Shariatmadari) and Karim Sanjabi of the National Front, not mentioning members of the radical Left such as Mojahedin-e Khalq and Fadaiyan-e Khalq. See N. Kianuri to the CPSU Politburo, 13 December 1978, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1251, L. 138–9, RGANI. This approach is reminiscent of the Tudeh’s 15^th Plenum’s call in 1975 for all anti-Shah forces (apart from ‘Maoists’) to unify. For the description of the Plenum’s call, see ‘Iran: Communist Activities’, CIA National Foreign,Assessment Center report. 1979. https://www.proquest.com/government-official-publications/iran-communist-activities/docview/1679062898/se-2?accountid=14765 (accessed 25 June 2022).

³⁶ ‘O deiatel’nosti Narodnoi Partii Irana (NPI) v period poslednikh sobytii v Irane i o polozhenii v rukovodstve etoy partii’, 27 December 1978, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1251, L. 132, RGANI.

³⁷ ‘Postanovlenie TsK KPSS ‘O deiatel’nosti Narodnoi Partii Irana (NPI) v period poslednikh sobytii v Irane i o polozhenii v rukovodstve etoy partii’, 27 December 1978, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1251, L. 127, RGANI.

³⁸ Chaqueri, ‘Iradj Eskandary’, 111–14

³⁹ After the 1946 crisis in Iranian Azerbaijan, the ADP leaders lived in exile in Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1960 they accepted the proposal of the Soviet officials to merge with the Tudeh. See, Jamil Hasanli, Sovetskii Azerbaidzhan: ot ottepeli k zamorozkam (1959–1969) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2020), 275–86.

⁴⁰ Jamil Hasanli, At the Dawn of the Cold War: The Soviet-American Crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan, 1941–1946 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 391–2.

⁴¹ ‘Copy of Report from IC “Reza”’, 21 January 1979, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, MfS, AIM 14683/84, Teil II, BStU. Obtained by Roham Alvandi, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/209035 (accessed 16 September 2021).

⁴² Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 236–38.

⁴³ ‘Otvet t. Brezhneva L.I. na poslanie I. Tito’, 1 March 1980, F. 3, Op. 72, D. 959, L. 312, RGANI.

⁴⁴ ‘Rech’ L. Brezhneva na sobranii izbiratelei Baumanskogo izbiratelnogo okruga (g. Moskva) v sviazi s ego vydvizheniem v kandidaty v deputaty Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR. Proiznesennaia rech’, 2 March 1979, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 968, L. 16–7, RGANI.

⁴⁵ The original drafts with notes of the Politburo members are available in F. 80, Op. 1, D. 968, L. 19–126, RGANI.

⁴⁶ ‘Pozdravitelnaia telegramma L. Brezhneva aiatole R. Khomeini’, 3 April 1979, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 639, L. 3, RGANI.

⁴⁷ For details of the KGB negotiations with the Iranian Left, see: Dmitry Asinovskiy, ‘A Priest Does not Consider the Toppling of the Shah as an Option: The KGB and the Revolution in Iran’, Iranian Studies 55, no. 4 (2022): 929–51.

⁴⁸ Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 241–2.

⁴⁹ Throughout the 1970s the Tudeh criticised the guerrilla groups for leftist adventurism and adopting a pro-Beijing position. Naturally, the division among the Iranian Left, among other things, echoed the Sino-Soviet rivalry. As noted earlier, even Kianuri’s initial proposals to the Politburo in December 1978 did not include the radical Left as potential allies. See: Maziar Behrooz, ‘The Iranian Revolution and Legacy of the Guerrilla Movement’, in Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perceptions of the Iranian Left, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 202; and Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 223–4.

⁵⁰ P. Demchenko, ‘Krushenie absolutizma’, Kommunist, no. 5 (1979): 77–86; and P. Demchenko, ‘Iran: stanovlenie respubliki’, Kommunist, no. 9 (1979): 110–16.

⁵¹ ‘Stenogramma zasedaniia redaktsionnogo soveta zhurnala Kommunist’, 8 June 1979, F. 599, Op. 1, D. 685, L. 107–8, Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii (Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History) (RGASPI), Moscow, Russia.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ ‘N. Kianuri to CPSU Central Committee “Pros’ba TsK Narodnoi partii Irana’, 1 August 1979, F. 89, Op. 32, D. 10, L. 4, RGANI.

⁵⁴ Friedman, ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’, 21.

⁵⁵ ‘Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza ‘O pros’be TsK Narodnoi Partii Irana’, 30 August 1979, F. 89, Op.32, D. 10, L. 1–2, RGANI.

⁵⁶ ‘Iu.V. Andropov and B.N. Ponomarev to CPSU Central Committee ‘O pros’be pervogo sekretaria TsK NPI N. Kiianuri’, 6 July 1980, F.89, Op.32, D.10, L. 5–6, RGANI.

⁵⁷ Igor Kon, 80 let odinochestva (Moscow: Vremya, 2008), 106–7. Bovin also worked hard to create an image of an intellectual who could speak freely despite being close to those in power. Anatolii Cherniaev remembered that sometimes Bovin even looked pathetic stressing this image. See entry from the original Cherniaev’s diary from 22 May 1983: Anatoly Cherniaev Diary. National Security Archive. George Washington University, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/rus/text_files/Cherniaev/1983.pdf (accessed 16 September 2021).

⁵⁸ Georgii Avdeev, ‘Zapiski diplomata. Dom na Vesal-e Shirazi’, Aziia i Afrika segodnya, no. 1 (2000): 55.

⁵⁹ Aleksandr Bovin, ‘S koranom i mechom!’, Nedelia, 4 September 1979, 6.

⁶⁰ Friedman, ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’, 22.

⁶¹ Vladimir Vinogradov, ‘Tegeran. 27 dekabria 1979 goda. Iz memuarov sovetskogo posla’, Vostochnyi Arkhiv, no. 1 (2013): 92.

⁶² ‘Zapiska A. Aleksandrova, A. Blatova, E. Samoteikina s rezoliutsiei L. Brezhneva’, 3 January 1980, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 639, L. 13–6, RGANI.

⁶³ ‘Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK KPSS “O pros’be rukovodstva Narodnoi partii Irana’, 11 July 1980, F. 89, Op. 39, D. 22, L. 1–3, RGANI.

⁶⁴ Soviet dissatisfaction with Saddam’s attacks on Iraqi communists is evident in Boris Ponomarev’s report to the Politburo: ‘O nekotorykh meropriiatiiakh v sviazi s repressiiami protiv kompartii v Irake’, 2 January 1979, F. 3, Op. 70, D. 1261, L. 4–5, RGANI.

⁶⁵ Soviet preparatory documents for the meeting with Aziz clearly indicate that the Soviet leadership was not aware of the invasion plans on the day of the Aziz’s visit. On the contrary, they indicate Soviet desire to prevent the war, see: ‘Material k besede so spetsialnym predstavitelem prezidenta Iraka Tarikom Azizom’, 19 September 1980, F. 3, Op. 72, D. 992, L. 104–7, RGANI.

⁶⁶ Artemy Kalinovsky, ‘The Soviet Union and the Iran-Iraq War’, in The Iran-Iraq War: New International Perspectives, ed. Nigel Ashton and Bryan Gibson (London: Routledge, 2013), 235.

⁶⁷ The Politburo resolution 216/67 on the decision to stop arms sales to Iraq (‘O predlozheniiakh po voennomu sotrudnichestvu s Irakskoi Respublikoi v sviazi s irano-irakskim vooruzhennym konfliktom’) from 25 September 1980 remains classified, but it is repeatedly referred to in other Politburo documents.

⁶⁸ ‘Pis’mo prezidenta Iraka S. Khusseina (podlinnik i perevod)’, 21 October 1980, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 637, L. 23–44, RGANI.

⁶⁹ ‘Proekt ukazaniia sovposlu s tekstom poslaniia L. Brezhneva S. Khusseinu’, 24 October 1980, F. 80, Op. 1, D. 637, L. 45–9, RGANI.

⁷⁰ For more details on the conflict between Banisadr and Khomeini see: Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 249–53; Mohsen Milani, ‘Power Shifts in Revolutionary Iran’, Iranian Studies 26, no. 3–4 (Summer-Autumn 1993): 359–74; and Mohsen Milani, ‘The Evolution of the Iranian Presidency from Bani Sadr to Rafsanjani’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20, no. 1 (1993): 83–97.

⁷¹ Vladimir Kuzichkin, the KGB agent in Iran who later defected to the United Kingdom and published his memoirs, even claimed that the Tudeh leaders were well aware of the underground infrastructure of the mojahedin and helped the Revolutionary guards to uncover the underground arms storage facilities and other properties. See: Vladimir Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB: My Life in Soviet Espionage (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 291. Kuzichkin’s background, especially his defection, requires special critical analysis of his memoirs as a source. There is no doubt that the memoirs were written with the intention to wash off the blot of betrayal and present the author as a victim of the KGB and suppressive Soviet regime. Indeed, some of his claims do not find support in the archival documents (e.g. an alleged Soviet plot to assassinate the Shah in 1961). However, in details on the KGB activities in Iran in spring 1979, Kuzichkin’s claims are often supported by other sources. For more on the analysis of Kuzichkin’s memoirs as a source, see Asinovskiy, ‘A Priest Does not Consider the Toppling of the Shah as an Option’.

⁷² Evgenii Primakov, who used to be the deputy director of the IMEMO before his appointment to the IVAN, referred to his IMEMO colleagues in the memoirs as ‘the dissidents within the system’. See, Evgenii Primakov, Gody v bolshoy politike (Moscow: Sovershenno sekretno, 1999), 11–45. For more on the history of IMEMO, see: Petr Cherkasov, IMEMO.Ocherk istorii (Moscow: Ves’ mir, 2016).

⁷³ ‘Stenogramma zasedaniia sektsii vneshnei politiki Nauchnogo soveta po ekonomicheskim, politicheskim i ideologicheskim problemam Soedinennykh Shtatov Ameriki po teme “Politika SSHA na Blizhnem Vostoke’, 1 July 1981, F.2113, Op.1, D.29, L.45–9, Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk (Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences) (ARAN), Moscow, Russia.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Ibid., L. 78–9.

⁷⁶ ‘N. Barrington, British Interests Section in Tehran to D. Coates, Middle East Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office’, ‘Iran/USSR’, 12 January 1982, FCO 8/4574, P. 4, The National Archives of the United Kingdom (NAUK), Kew, UK.

⁷⁷ Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Iranskaia revolutsiya i ee osobennosti’, Kommunist 10 (1982): 112.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 115.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 111.

⁸⁰ Boris Arkhipov and Lev Naumenko, remark in ‘Protokol zasedaniia redaktsionnoi kollegii zhurnala Kommunist’, 4 June 1982, F. 599, Op.1, D. 799, L. 33, RGASPI.

⁸¹ Nikolai Sibiriakov, remarks in ibid.

⁸² Stepan Salychev, remarks in ibid, L. 35. For more on Salychev and his background see Cherkasov, IMEMO: Ocherk istorii, 313–14.

⁸³ Salekh Aliev, ‘Vazneyshii vopros Iranskoi revolutsii na nyneshnem etape’, Spetsialnyi Biulleten’, no. 1 (223) (Moscow: Nauka, 1983): 9–45.

⁸⁴ Valentin Tsukanov, ‘K voprosu o predposylkakh nekapitalisticheskogo puti razvitiia Irana’, Spetsialnyi Biulleten, no. 1 (223): 46–56.

⁸⁵ See: Artem Arabadzhian, ‘Introduction’, Spetsialnyi Biulleten’, no. 1 (223): 6–8.

⁸⁶ Friedman, ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’, 37.

⁸⁷ Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Moralnye printsipy v politike i politika v oblasti morali’, Literaturnaia gazeta, 22 June 1983, 12.

⁸⁸ Rostislav Ulianovskii, ‘Sud’ba iranskoi revolutsii’, Kommunist 8 (1985): 104–10.

⁸⁹ A.S. Cherniaev to R.I. Kosolapov, ‘O stat’e E.M. Primakova’, 12 February 1985, F. 794, Op. 1, D. 232, L. 2–3, RGASPI.