Blackwell Reference Online

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Historians have noted the presence of at least a few self-identified anarchists in colonial-era Iran, from the Armenian revolutionary Alexander Atabekian (1868–ca. 1940?), who began publishing his journal Hamayankh (Commune) from Rasht, to a protest staged by unnamed “Iranian anarchists” in Rasht against the 1909 execution of Francisco Ferrer y Guardia ( Bonakdaria 2005 : 337; Selbuz 2006 ). Nonetheless, anarchist movements in Iran are difficult to chronicle for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a wide spectrum of political movements has come to define Iranian revolutionary practices. These movements illustrated a broad range of political and religious ideologies marked by a mix of nationalist, socialist, communist, and secularist tendencies, though they shared the common goal of resisting a repressive regime. Many events ranging from the Tobacco Protest of 1891, the Constitutional Revolution (1906–9), and the secular oil nationalization movement (1951–3) to the Revolution of 1978–9 could be considered to have an anti-authoritarian character, though it is unclear whether those who participated in these events would have self-identified with anarchist ideology. Iranian guerilla movements, particularly the various incarnations of the Jangali movement of 1915–30, having grown out of the Constitutional Revolution, were the first to have advocated violence in their ... log in or subscribe to read full text