Abstract
This article seeks to explore the reaction and attitude of the Tudeh Party of Iran to the land reform initiatives enacted by the Pahlavi state between 1958 and 1964. This article will in particular describe how the party analysed the various stages of the land reform programme through both its lively media operation and internal party documents. Based on a close reading of this material, this article will also focus on how the exiled party’s attitude with regards to the Pahlavi state and other contemporary political actors affected its opinion of the rise to prominence of Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini in the midst of the land reform programme. The article will hence conclude by offering a new account of the Tudeh’s initial attitude to Khomeini’s initiatives from the 15 Khurdad uprising to the cleric’s exile and gauge the extent to which the same was informed by the previous analysis of the land reform initiatives.
Highlights
The period between 1953 and 1964 featured an assertive attempt by Shah Muhammad Riza Pahlavi to consolidate his authority over politics and society amidst the occasional resumption of overt and cautiously tolerated internal oppositional activity
This article will focus on the Tudeh Party’s attitude towards the Pahlavi state’s land reform initiatives between the first land ownership bill of 1960, which was stymied by the spirited opposition brought about by the senior Grand Ayatollah Husayn Burujirdi and the end of the first phase of the land reform programme
In a detailed study published in 1973, Malikah Muhammadi, who specialised in land matters, further elaborated on the above points by asserting that theAlam land reform law of 1962 marked a step towards limiting the holdings of the ‘semi-feudal’ landowners and accepted that the land reform programme had removed the arbab-ra’iyati regime’s preponderance in the Iranian rural scene despite not eliminating it entirely.[108]
Summary
The Tudeh Party of Iran and the land reform initiatives of the Pahlavi state, 1958–1964. On 11 November 1961, a few weeks after Burujirdi’s demise, the Shah issued a decree calling upon the Amini administration to prepare a modified version of the tahdid-i malikiyat bill This request was enacted through a law approved by the cabinet on 9 January 1962, which effectively marked a wholly new provision.[29] As emphasised by both Amuzigar and A.K.S. Lambton, the key innovation in Arsanjani’s proposal consisted of turning the village, rather than surface area, into the main unit of measurement through which the redistribution process was to be implemented. It was through these means that the party remained invested in the pressing matters of the day
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