Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns in Iran

Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns in Iran

Also by Stephanie Cronin TRIBAL POLITICS IN IRAN: Rural Conflict and the New State, 1921 1941 THE ARMY AND THE CREATION OF THE PAHLAVI STATE IN IRAN, 1910 1926 SUBALTERNS AND SOCIAL PROTEST: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa (editor) REFORMERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES IN MODERN IRAN: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left (editor) THE MAKING OF MODERN IRAN: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921 1941 (editor)

Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns in Iran Opposition, Protest and Revolt, 1921 1941 Stephanie Cronin Departmental Lecturer, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, UK

Stephanie Cronin 2010 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-53794-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978-1-349-35953-0 ISBN 978-0-230-30903-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230309036 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements vi vii Note on Transliteration Part I From Constitutionalism to Dictatorship 1 Chapter 1 Introduction: Contesting Power in the New Iran 3 Chapter 2 The Provincial Cities in Revolt (i): Colonel Pasyan 44 and the Mashhad Rebellion, April October 1921 Chapter 3 The Provincial Cities in Revolt (ii): Major Abulqasim 101 Lahuti and the Tabriz Insurrection of 1922 Chapter 4 Popular Protest, Disorder and Riot in Iran: 128 The Tehran Crowd and the Rise of Riza Khan, 1921 1925 Part II The New Order and its Opponents 159 Chapter 5 Reform from Above and Resistance from Below, 161 1927 1929 Chapter 6 Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the 201 Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike Chapter 7 The Politics of Radicalism within the Iranian Army: 238 The Jahansuz Group of 1939 Conclusion 261 Notes 269 Bibliography 308 Glossary of Persian Words and Phrases 320 Index 322 viii v

List of Illustrations 1 Constitutionalist bastis standing by the rice pots in the British legation 2 A constitutionalist bast at the British Legation in Tehran 3 Constitutionalists by the wall of the British legation during a bast 4 The constitutionalist cleric, Ayatullah Muhamad Kazim Khurasani, delivering a sermon 5 Knocking off time at Abadan refinery, 1909 6 Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan Pasyan, commander of the Khurasan gendarmerie, 1921 7 Portrait of Abulqasim Lahuti 8 Iranian and Russian commanders of the Cossack Brigade 9 Riza Khan while a guard of the Dutch Legation and the Dutch Minister 10 Riza Khan 11 Ahmad Shah Qajar, Riza Khan and Jan Muhammad Amiralai, aide-de-camp to Ahmad Shah 12 Members of the armed forces demonstrate their solidarity with the revolution of 1979 vi

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following for their help and advice: Janet Afary, Touraj Atabaki, Kaveh Bayat, Oliver Bast, Houchang Chehabi, Amir Hassanpour, Edmund Herzig, Homa Katouzian, Vanessa Martin, Reza Sheikholeslami, Saeed Talajooy, Richard Tapper, Heidi Walcher, Malcolm Yapp and Sohrab Yazdani. I would like to express my gratitude to Dilshod Rakhimov, to Joanne Burman at the BP archive, and especially to Mohammad Awadzadeh and his colleagues at the Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies, for their help in finding the images reproduced below. Particular thanks are due to the Iran Heritage Foundation for their generous support and their provision of a fellowship which allowed me the time to work on this book and I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council. Earlier versions of Chapters 1 and 6 appeared in Middle Eastern Studies, of Chapter 4 in the International Review of Social History and of Chapter 7 in Iranian Studies. I am grateful to the journal editors, Sylvia Kedourie, Aad Blok and Homa Katouzian respectively, for permission to include this material. Special thanks are also due to Lubica Pollakova for her help with the index.

Note on Transliteration The system of transliteration employed in this book is a simplified version of that recommended by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. viii