Spring 2018
Article
Journal of Cold War Studies

The Enemy of My Enemy: The Soviet Union, East Germany, and the Iranian Tudeh Party's Support for Ayatollah Khomeini

Format:Print

Abstract

This article examines the strategy of the Iranian Tudeh Party in concert with its Soviet and East German patrons and allies during and after the Iranian revolution of 1979. The article assesses the thinking behind the Tudeh’s strategy of unwavering support for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamist allies, even after other major leftist parties had begun fighting the new Islamic regime. This strategy was a product of the international Communist movement’s model of revolution in the developing world that envisioned new states following a “non-capitalist path of development.” In Iran, this was compounded by the use of Allende-era Chile as a model for the politics of revolutionary Iran, as well as a deep conviction that Islamism could not provide an effective model of governance in the twentieth century and therefore would collapse of its own accord within months after the Islamists seized power.