Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas

The Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG; Persian: سازمان چريک‌های فدايی خلق ايران‎, romanized: Sāzmān-e čerikhā-ye Fadāʾi-e ḵalq-e Irān), simply known as Fadaiyan-e-Khalq (Persian: فداییان خلق‎, romanized: Fadāʾiān-e ḵalq, lit. 'Popular Selfsacrificers')[9] was a Marxist-Leninist underground guerrilla organization in Iran.[1]

Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas سازمان چريک‌های فدايی خلق ايران
Abbreviation	OIPFG[1]
Spokesperson	Mehdi Fatapour[2]
Secretary of the Central Committee	Farrokh Negahdar[3]
Founded	late 1963 initial activity[4] April 1971 as the unified organization[1]
Dissolved	June 1980[5]
Merger of	Jazani-Ẓarifi Group and Aḥmadzāda-Puyān-Meftāḥi Group[1]
Succeeded by	Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority) Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (Minority) Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
Headquarters	Tehran, Iran
Newspaper	Kar[5]
Ideology	Marxism-Leninism
Political position	Far-left[6]
Colors	Red
Anthem	Aftabkaran-e-Jangal (lit. 'Sunplanters of Jungle')[7]
Party flag
Politics of Iran Political parties Elections

Leaders	Hamid Ashraf  (KIA) Ashraf Dehghani  (POW)
Dates of operation	1971–1976[8] 1977[9]–1980
Group(s)	Urban team, rural team[4]
Size	3,000 (estimate)[6]
Allies	People's Mujahedin of Iran[10] Fatah[10] Palestine Liberation Organization[10]
Battles and wars	Siahkal incident

Ideology

Ideologically, the group pursued an Anti-imperialist agenda and embraced armed propaganda to justify its revolutionary armed struggle against Iran's monarchy system,[11] and believed in Materialism.[8] They rejected reformism, and were inspired by thoughts of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and Régis Debray.[5]

They criticized the National Front and the Liberation Movement as "Petite bourgeoisie paper organizations still preaching the false hope of peaceful change".[4] Fedai Guerrillas initially criticized the Soviet Union and the Tudeh Party as well, however they later abandoned the stance as a result of cooperation with the socialist camp.[5]

Bijan Jazani, known as the "intellectual father" of the organization, contributed to its ideology by writing a series of pamphlets such as "Struggle against the Shah's Dictatorship", "What a Revolutionary Must Know" and "How the Armed Struggle Will Be Transformed into a Mass Struggle?". The pamphlets were followed by Masoud Ahmadzadeh's treatise "Armed Struggle: Both a Strategy and a Tactic" and "The Necessity of Armed Struggle and the Rejection of the Theory of Survival" by Amir Parviz Pouyan.[4]

Electoral history

Year	Election	Seats won
1979	Constitutional Assembly	0 / 73 (0%)
1980	Parliament	0 / 290 (0%)

Leadership

The group was governed by collective leadership. Before the Iranian Revolution, its six-members leadership did not use the term 'central committee'.[12]

Leadership (Until 1979)[12] # Name Alias 1 Ahmad Gholamian-Langerudi Hadi 2 Qorbanali Rahimpur Majid 3 Qasem Siyadati N/A 4 Farrokh Negahdar N/A 5 Reza Ghebra'i Mansour 6 Un­known Un­known Executive Committee (1979–1980)[12] # Name 1 Farrokh Negahdar 2 Mostafa Madani 3 Kazem Mobini

Central Committee (1979–1980)[12] # Name Alias 1 Ahmad Gholamian-Langerudi Hadi 2 Qorbanali Rahimpur Majid 3 Mehdi Fattapur N/A 4 Farrokh Negahdar N/A 5 Reza Ghebra'i Mansour 6 Mostafa Madani N/A 7 Kazem Mobini N/A 8 Asghar Soltanabadi Kiumars 9 Ali Tavasoli N/A 10 Un­known Haydar 11 Un­known Akbar

See also

• Guerrilla groups of Iran

• Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (1963–1980)
  • Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (1979–present)
  • Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority) (1980–present)
    • Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas – Majority Left Wing (1980–1982)
  • Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (Minority) (1980–1987)
    • Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas – Followers of the Identity Platform (1983–present)
    • Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (1985–present)
    • Fedaian Organisation (Minority) (1987–present)

References

1. Vahabzadeh, Peyman (28 March 2016) [7 December 2015]. "FADĀʾIĀN-E ḴALQ". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Bibliotheca Persica Press. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
2. Vahabzadeh, Peyman (2010). Guerrilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy, and the Fadai Period of National Liberation In Iran, 1971–1979. Syracuse University Press. p. 67. ISBN 9780815651475.
3. Muhammad Kamal (1986). "Iranian Left In Political Dilemma". Pakistan Horizon. Karachi: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. 39 (3): 39–51. JSTOR 41393782.
4. Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press. pp. 483–9. ISBN 0-691-10134-5.
5. Ḥaqšenās, Torāb (27 October 2011) [15 December 1992]. "COMMUNISM iii. In Persia after 1953". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Fasc. 1. VI. New York City: Bibliotheca Persica Press. pp. 105–112. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
6. Donald Newton Wilber (2014). Iran, Past and Present: From Monarchy to Islamic Republic. Princeton University Press. p. 344. ISBN 1400857473.
7. Annabelle Sreberny, Massoumeh Torfeh (2013), Cultural Revolution in Iran: Contemporary Popular Culture in the Islamic Republic, I.B. Tauris, p. 156, ISBN 9781780760896CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
8. Mahmood T. Davari (2004). The Political Thought of Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari: An Iranian Theoretician of the Islamic State. Routledge. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-134-29488-6.
9. Hiro, Dilip (2013). "Fedai Khalq". A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East. Interlink Publishing. pp. 483–9. ISBN 9781623710330.
10. Arie Perliger, William L. Eubank (2006), "Terrorism in Iran and Afghanistan: The Seeds of the Global Jihad", Middle Eastern Terrorism, Infobase Publishing, pp. 41–42, ISBN 9781438107196CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
11. Vahabzadeh, Peyman (2010). Guerrilla Odyssey: Modernization, Secularism, Democracy, and the Fadai Period of National Liberation In Iran, 1971–1979. Syracuse University Press. p. 100.
12. Maziar, Behrooz (2000). Rebels With A Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran. I.B.Tauris. p. 209. ISBN 1860646301.