Ashraf Dehghani

Ashraf Dehghani
Ashraf Dehghani (c. 1970s)
Born	1949 (age 74–75) Azarbaijan Province, Imperial State of Iran
Nationality	Iranian
Political party	Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (1971–1979) Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (1979–present)
Movement	Communism, feminism
Opponents	Imperial State of Iran (1971–1979) Islamic Republic of Iran (1979–present)

Ashraf Dehghani (Persian : اشرف دهقانی, born 1949) is an Iranian communist revolutionary, best known as the leader of the Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG). Exposed to progressive politics from an early age, along with her brother, Dehghani joined the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG), becoming the only woman on its central committee.

In 1971, not long after the OIPFG initiated its armed struggle against the Imperial State, Dehghani was arrested and imprisoned by the SAVAK. In prison, Dehghani was regularly subjected to torture and rape, which she later detailed in her memoirs. Time in prison strengthened her belief in historical materialism and developed her perspective on anti-authoritarianism and feminism. In 1973, she escaped prison and rejoined the OIPFG, becoming the leading figure in its ultra-left faction after the Iranian Revolution. While the majority of the OIPFG moved away from armed struggle and accepted the authority of the new Islamic Republic of Iran, Dehghani continued to advocate for guerrilla warfare against the new government. In 1979, together with a minority of OIPFG members, she split off and formed the Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG), which continued to fight against the government. After the suppression of the 1979 Kurdish rebellion in Iran, Dehghani and her faction fled the country to Europe, where she is presumed to be living clandestinely.

Biography

Early life

In 1949, Ashraf Dehghani was born into a working-class family in Iranian Azerbaijan. ^[1] She was brought up in a politically progressive household, where from an early age, her parents told her stories of the short-lived Azerbaijan People's Government. In school, she developed a reputation as a political agitator, being reported to the SAVAK by her own teacher for writing an essay that criticised the Imperial State. ^[2] After graduating from school, she became a teacher in a poor Azeri village. ^[3]

Although she had promised the SAVAK that she would cease political activities, ^[2] she continued her political agitation under the wing of her older brother Behrouz  [ az; fa ] and his friend, the Iranian social critic Samad Behrangi. ^[4] During the late 1960s, Dehghani joined her brother in the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG), ^[5] becoming the only woman on its Central Committee. ^[6]

Imprisonment

On 8 February 1970, the OIPFG launched its first attack against the Imperial State, with an assault against the gendarmerie at Siahkal. In the wake of the attack, revolutionary actions surged in Iran, to which the SAVAK responded with violent repression. Dehghani herself continued her activities, and on 13 May 1971, she was arrested by the SAVAK and sentenced to ten years in prison. ^[2] During her time in Evin Prison, she reported to have been regularly tortured and raped by the SAVAK. ^[7] She refused to cooperate with her interrogators, always remaining silent. ^[8] On one occasion, they attempted to torture her by releasing a snake onto her body, ^[9] expecting her to be frightened, ^[10] but this elicited no reaction from her. ^[11] She later concluded of the experience that her torturers believed women to be weak, ^[12] "but they didn't understand why and what type of women are weak." ^[11]

Throughout her sentence, she held to her historical materialist belief in the inevitability of social revolution. She also developed an analysis of the Imperial State's authoritarianism, concluding that the system was inherently weak as it couldn't suppress dissent even through torture. ^[13] She also noted the class discrimination with which the SAVAK treated women of different social classes — sex workers were abused by the guards, while upper-class dissidents received fully-furnished private cells — and reported the hatred that imprisoned women displayed for Ashraf Pahlavi during her visit. ^[14] While she concluded that working-class women were "dually exploited", she also suggested that women that had attained class consciousness needed class conscious male partners, in order to together build a classless society. ^[15] Dehghani thus contrasted "reactionary women" against "human beings", claiming the latter to be women engaged in class struggle with the aim of achieving freedom and social equality. ^[16]

On 13 March 1973, she escaped prison dressed in a chador and returned to work with the OIPFG. ^[17] Her memoirs of her struggles in prison, Torture and Resistance In Iran, were published the following year in London and banned from publication in Iran until the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution. ^[18] Having fled the country after her prison escape, Dehghani remained in exile until the Revolution broke out. ^[3] During the subsequent period, her exact whereabouts were unknown. ^[10]

Post-revolutionary activities

Following the Revolution, the Tudeh Party and the majority of OIPFG members deviated from the program of armed struggle, claiming the tactic to be outdated and accusing its proponents of ultra-leftism. ^[19] Dehghani was of the OIPFG leaders that continued to advocate for guerrilla warfare. ^[20] She was expelled from the OIPFG over the issue. ^[21] She in turn denounced the OIPFG's new leadership for revisionism and anti-communism, accusing them of having abandoned the organisation's political prisoners. ^[22] She considered the Khomeini government to have constituted a new bourgeois regime, little different from the Shah. She thus felt that armed struggle was still a valid tactic, in order to prepare the masses for a social revolution and to build resistance to imperialist intervention in the country. ^[23]

Dehghani led a minority of the organisation's members away and established the Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG), which committed itself to continued armed struggle against the new Iranian government. ^[24] At the time, the IPFG was the only revolutionary organisation in which women served on the central committee. ^[25] Although the government understood the IPFG and OIPFG to be separate, the IPFG's continued advocacy of armed struggle was used as pretext to suppress both, with their centres being raided by Khomeinists. ^[26]

When the 1979 Kurdish rebellion broke out, Dehghani's faction decided to join it, ^[27] declaring their support for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and fighting alongside them against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). ^[28] In June 1981, the IPFG and KDP were joined by the People's Mojahedin Organisation (MEK), who had decided to take up armed struggle against the Islamic Republic. ^[29] After the MEK, Dehghani's IPFG would become one of the most effective guerrilla groups. IPFG members accounted for 20% of arrests and executions by the authorities. ^[30]

By July 1981, the MEK and IPFG were facing harsh repression by the authorities. ^[31] Many of the group's leading members were killed and factional disputes broke out within its nucleus in Kurdistan, causing it to lose hundreds of supporters over the subsequent years. This would eventually lead to the group's effective elimination, with its surviving members fleeing to Europe. ^[32] Little is known of Dehghani's life after this point, although as of 2007, she was believed to be living clandestinely in Germany. ^[10]

Legacy

In her memoirs, Dehghani depicted her experiences with torture by the SAVAK and provided an analysis of Iranian politics. In the introduction to her autobiography, her "heroic resistance" was held up by the IPFG as "an example of [the] courage and determination of the Iranian revolutionaries." ^[33] Hamideh Sedghi later said of Dehghani: "Iranian scholars and feminists alike have largely ignored Dehghani’s tale. She had a unique life and experiences: she was a non-conformist, militant, and defiant political actor." ^[8]

Dehghani was a mentor to fellow OIPFG member Roghieh Daneshgari, who described her as a "courageous fighter" against the Imperial State. ^[34] Dehghani's feminism provided an inspiration for Iranian feminists, with a number of women's organisations that were established during the Iranian Revolution taking up a number of her ideas. ^[10] Historian Haideh Moghissi has characterised Dehghani's view on feminism as one that "explicitly accepts women’s weakness". ^[35] Dehghani's guerrilla tactics ultimately proved to be a model that couldn't be followed by most women, mostly providing an image of guerrilla women for inspiration. ^[36]

References

1. Sedghi 2007, pp. 162n19, 183; Shahidian 1997, p. 18.
2. Sedghi 2007, p. 183.
3. Shahidian 1997, p. 18.
4. Sedghi 2007, p. 183; Shahidian 1997, p. 18.
5. Moghissi 1996, pp. 114–115; Sedghi 2007, pp. 152, 183.
6. Moghadam 2019, p. 9n2; Moghissi 1996, pp. 117; Sedghi 2007, pp. 152, 183.
7. Sedghi 2007, pp. 152, 184; Shahidian 1997, p. 18.
8. Sedghi 2007, p. 152.
9. Moghissi 1996, p. 117; Sedghi 2007, p. 184.
10. Sedghi 2007, p. 186.
11. Moghissi 1996, p. 117.
12. Moghissi 1996, p. 117; Sedghi 2007, p. 186.
13. Sedghi 2007, pp. 184–185.
14. Sedghi 2007, p. 185.
15. Moghissi 1996, pp. 117–118; Sedghi 2007, p. 185.
16. Moghissi 1996, pp. 117–118; Sedghi 2007, pp. 185–186.
17. Sedghi 2007, pp. 152n1, 184.
18. Sedghi 2007, p. 186; Vahabzadeh 2015.
19. Moghadam & Ashtiani 1991, pp. 89–90; Zabir 2011, p. 109.
20. Moghadam & Ashtiani 1991, p. 89; Sedghi 2007, p. 186n73; Vahabzadeh 2015; Zabir 2011, pp. 108–109.
21. Sedghi 2007, p. 186n73; Vahabzadeh 2015; Zabir 2011, pp. 108–109.
22. Zabir 2011, p. 109.
23. Zabir 2011, pp. 109–110.
24. Sedghi 2007, p. 186n73; Vahabzadeh 2015.
25. Shahidian 1997, p. 24.
26. Zabir 2011, p. 110.
27. Vahabzadeh 2015; Zabir 2011, pp. 110–111.
28. Zabir 2011, pp. 110–111.
29. Moghadam & Ashtiani 1991, p. 89; Zabir 2011, pp. 109–110.
30. Zabir 2011, p. 208.
31. Zabir 2011, p. 111.
32. Vahabzadeh 2015.
33. Sedghi 2007, pp. 182–183.
34. Sedghi 2007, pp. 186–187.
35. Moghissi 1996, p. 117; Sedghi 2007, p. 185.
36. Tohidi 1991, p. 258.

Bibliography

• Moghadam, Val; Ashtiani, Ali (1991). "The Left and revolution in Iran". Race & Class . 33 (1): 86–91. doi:10.1177/030639689103300106. ISSN   0306-3968. S2CID   144928159.
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• Moghissi, Haideh (1996) [1994]. "The Fedayeen and Women's Struggle". Populism and Feminism in Iran. Macmillan Press. pp. 107–138. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25233-6_7. ISBN   978-0-333-67412-3.
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• Shahidian, Hammed (1997). "Women and Clandestine Politics in Iran, 1970-1985". Feminist Studies . 23 (1): 7–42. doi:10.2307/3178296. hdl: 2027/spo.0499697.0023.103 . JSTOR   3178296.
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Further reading

• Alizadeh, Yass (2014). Tales that Tell All: A Political Analysis of Folktales of Iran (PhD). University of Connecticut.
• Amirahmadi, Hooshang; Parvin, Manoucher (2019) [1988]. Post-Revolutionary Iran. Routledge. ISBN   978-0-367-28398-8. LCCN   87-31700.
• Assadi, Reza (1982). A Study of the Contemporary Struggle for Power in Iran (MA). Western Michigan University. ProQuest   1318406.
• Baneinia, Masoumeh; Dersan Orhan, Duygu (2021). "Women As A Political Symbol in Iran: A Comparative Perspective Between Pahlavı Regime and Islamic Revolution". Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli Üniversitesi SBE Dergisi. 11 (4): 1906–1919. doi: 10.30783/nevsosbilen.1003864 .
• Bina, Cyrus (1996) [1994]. "Towards a New World Order: US Hegemony, Client-States and Islamic Alternative". In Mutalib, Hussin; Hashmi, Taj ul-Islam (eds.). Islam, Muslims and the Modern State: Case-Studies of Muslims in Thirteen Countries. Macmillan. pp. 3–30. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-14208-8_1. ISBN   978-0-312-10300-2. LCCN   93-24000.
• Dabashi, Hamid (2007). Makhmalbaf at Large. I.B. Tauris. ISBN   9781845115319. OCLC   419310458.
• Daneshvar, Parviz (1996). "From Consolidation to Theocratic Despotism". Revolution in Iran. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 128–174. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-14062-6_6. ISBN   978-1-349-14062-6.
• Dorraj, Manochehr (2006). "The Political Sociology of Sect and Sectarianism in Iranian Politics: 1960-1979". Journal of Third World Studies. 23 (2): 95–117. JSTOR   45194310.
• Emadi, Hafizullah (2001). Politics of the Dispossessed: Superpowers and Developments in the Middle East. Bloomsbury. ISBN   0-275-97365-4. LCCN   2001021179.
• Gates, Barbara Glendora (1987). The political roles of Islamic women: A study of two revolutions--Algeria and Iran (PhD). University of Texas at Austin. ProQuest   8806329.
• Ghorashi, Halleh (2003). Ways to Survive, Battles to Win: Iranian Women Exiles in the Netherlands and United States. Nova. ISBN   1-59033-552-X.
• Gordon, Arielle (2021). "From Guerrilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the "Militant Woman" in the Iranian Revolution". Journal of Middle East Women's Studies . 17 (1): 64–95. doi:10.1215/15525864-8790238. ISSN   1552-5864. S2CID   233804242.
• Joya, Malalai (2009). A Woman Among Warlords. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1-4391-0946-5. LCCN   2009021072.
• Kamal, Muhammad (1986). "Iranian Left in Political Dilemma". Pakistan Horizon . 39 (3): 39–51. JSTOR   41393782.
• Milani, Farzaneh (2013). "Iranian Women's Life Narratives". Journal of Women's History . 25 (2): 130–152. doi:10.1353/jowh.2013.0014. ISSN   1042-7961. S2CID   143449642.
• Milani, Farzaneh (2011). Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement. Syracuse University Press. ISBN   978-0-8156-3278-8. LCCN   2011005040.
• Moghadam, Val (1987). "Socialism or Anti-Imperialism? The Left and Revolution in Iran" (PDF). New Left Review (166): 5–28. ISSN   0028-6060.
• Moghadam, Valentine M. (2018). "Feminism and the Future of Revolutions". Socialism and Democracy . 32 (1): 31–53. doi:10.1080/08854300.2018.1461749. ISSN   0885-4300. S2CID   149531603.
• Mohassel, Babak Rejai (2006). Iranian state regime haunting: Resonance and deterritorialization (PhD). State University of New York at Buffalo. ProQuest   3213911.
• Piedar, Payman (2005). "Interview with an Iranian Anarchist". Northeastern Anarchist . No. 10. pp. 40–45. ISSN   1553-3654.
• Poya, Maryam (1999). Women, Work and Islamism: Ideology and Resistance in Iran. Zed Books. ISBN   1-85649-681-3.
• Rad, Assal (2022). The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009193573. ISBN   978-1-009-19358-0. LCCN   2021059851. S2CID   251684052.
• Rahnema, Saeed (2009). "Lessons (Not) Learned: Reflections on a Failed Revolution". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East . 29 (1): 72–83. doi:10.1215/1089201X-2008-045. ISSN   1089-201X. S2CID   145366660.
• Rezai, Hamid (2012). State, Dissidents, and Contention: Iran, 1979-2010 (PhD). Columbia University. doi:10.7916/D8W66T45.
• Saadatmand, Yassaman (1993). "State capitalism: Theory and application case of Iran". Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies . 2 (3): 55–79. doi:10.1080/10669929308720040. ISSN   1943-6149.
• Soltani, Zohreh (2020). Tehran: A Symptomatic Rendering of Public Architecture (Thesis). State University of New York at Binghamton. ProQuest   27961218.

External links

• The Iranian People's Fadaee Guerrillas
• Ashraf Dehghani's Website