The MEK is one of the most visible organisations on the current solidarity events with the movement in Iran, especially in some countries in Europe, either in and of itself, or through its front organisations such as the National Council of Resistance. It’s therefore important for activists to have some knowledge of the history and orientation of the MEK. Whilst once holding a significant following in Iran, the MEK has, for a variety of reasons, degenerated into a cult-like outfit reliant on western imperialism and with an insignificant base in Iran itself.
Origins in the 1960s
The origins of the People’s Mujahedin can be traced back to the growing working class and youth dissatisfaction with the Pahlavi regime in the 1960s and 1970s. The Shah was the US’s key point of support in the Middle East, and Iran was its policeman. Supported and armed by the west, the Shah’s regime managed to combine conspicuous extravagance, corruption and ruthless repression.
By the late 1960s left wing ideas began to be circulated again broader, and some of the activists began to take up arms against the regime. In 1971 the People’s Fedaiyen, who viewed themselves as secular and Marxist, launched a guerilla campaign. Although the Fedaiyen were to abandon the guerilla strategy later in the decade, and even though guerillerism offered little in the way of concrete gains for the working class as a strategy, the idea of physically challenging the regime was attractive to a layer of youth.
The Fedaiyen saw themselves as Communists who were frustrated by the compromises and reformist approach of the Tudeh (“Masses party”) — the traditional party aligned with the Moscow brand of “Communism”. That frustration was well justified, but unfortunately it took political expression in the adoption by the Fedaiyen of guerilla tactics of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Such methods in reality meant an abandonment of building in working class communities and organisations in favour of the methods of individual terrorism. It represented a lack of confidence in the working class, and was doomed to failure in a country such as Iran, a reality that was accepted by the Fedaiyen by the end of the 1970s.
The Mujahedin also emerged from the radicalised milieu of the sixties, the same milieu that produced Ali Shariati — an intellectual who attempted to fuse Islamic and socialist ideas — although Shariati himself was never a member of the Mujahedin. A group started to cohere around the ideas of revolutionary Islam, although the ideology was confused and vague from the outset. At the heart of the early Mujahedin organisation was the division between secularists and Islamicists. Nonetheless, it started to build a network of members and supporters, especially in the universities. In its early days, it had also established good relations with leading clerics who were hostile to the Shah, such as future President Rafsanjani.
Guerilla tactic
Following the example of the Fedaiyen, from the early 1970s the Mujahedin became engaged in a series of high-profile guerilla actions, including the assassination of US military and security personnel stationed in Iran. However, it suffered repeated blows from the state — imprisonments and executions.
In 1975 a new leadership launched a brutal and bloody purge of the ranks — aimed particularly at those who identified as Islamicist rather than Marxist. Although the brutality of the purge was justified by the harshness of the Shah’s regime, this went far beyond what was necessary with many executions of members who were considered unreliable. It also marked a permanent break with figures such as future Supreme Leader Khomeini, who denounced it as an organisation which killed good Muslims.
The only significant leadership figure who identified with Islam rather than a version of socialism and survived the purge was Massoud Rajavi, and in the ensuing internal power struggle many of the rank and file who, were more Islamic in outlook, supported Rajavi against the rest of the leadership. The organisation was to make use of Rajavi’s Islamic leanings as they sought to depict themselves as loyal Muslims. The purges however marked a decisive shift towards an arbitrary and authoritarian culture — a trend that became even more pronounced in succeeding years.
With the collapse of the monarchy in January and February 1979 in the early days of the revolution, groups such as the Mujahedin and the Fedaiyan grow exponentially, although their lack of clear and revolutionary Marxist alternative to those around Khomeini, meant that they were always chasing and never setting the agenda. The nascent Islamic regime began to appropriate the language of the left, particularly of anti-imperialism, in order to shore up its support. In November 1979 Khomeini and the regime threw their weight behind the seizure of the American embassy and the seizure of staff working there. The regime projected itself, and this action, as popular anti-imperialism. The reality was that it was an adventurist stunt, but both the Mujahedin and the Fedaiyen felt obliged to support it, without ever explaining what the strategy was behind the attack, and what positive benefits would result for the working class.
Highpoint in 1980
Nonetheless, despite their deficiencies, in the Tehran mayoral election of early 1980, the candidate of the Mujahedin secured 200,000 votes — some 10%. This was the high-water mark for support for the Mujahedin. In reality they lacked a programme and a strategy. Instead of building in working class communities, for instance supporting the shoras (workers councils) and developing a clear, oppositional working-class programme against the regime, the Mujahedin adopted a class collaborationist approach, throwing in their lot with the liberal President Bani Sadr, who was first and foremost an unapologetic representative of the bourgeoisie.
In September 1980 with Saddam’s bombing of Bushehr and the opening of the Iran/Iraq war, the political atmosphere in Iran began to become increasingly difficult. For example, all strikes were banned. But a decisive deterioration occurred in June 1981 when militias associated with the Islamic regime viciously attacked a march in Tehran on the issue of civil rights called by the old liberal National Front and supported by the left. Dozens were killed and injured. Immediately following, the regime executed a total of fifteen leading oppositionists including from the Mujahedin as well as the Fedaiyen. This episode marked a decisive, brutal step towards dictatorship.
Only one week later Bani Sadr and the leader of the Mujahedin Rajavi both fled Iran. Meanwhile, in Iran the Mujahedin now launched a full-scale guerilla war in the summer of 1981. They bombed a meeting of the Islamic Republican Party, Khomeini’s party, killing over a hundred members of the hierarchy) including Ayatollah Beheshti and many MPs. They then assassinated both the President and Prime Minister of the country. There followed a campaign of assassination of leading clerics associated with the regime. By 1982, they were killing anyone connected to the regime, and this included the kidnapping and torturing of junior clerics. The strategy and tactics of the Mujahedin increasingly alienated even those who had previously supported it. And in the end the regime was able to replace everyone who had been blown up.
Leaning on USA and NATO, not on the working class
Worse still, the methods invited ever deeper repression, and there was willing acquiescence to such measures from a big section of society, particularly as Iran was now involved in a brutal war with Iraq — a war fostered and strategised in Washington and in NATO. The methods of the Mujahedin provided a perfect pretext for increased surveillance, repression, torture and execution of those who opposed the regime. And the targets were not just the Mujahedin but were also those leftists in general who were in opposition to Khomeini. This included the Fedaiyen minority (the Fedaiyen had split into two in 1980 over the question of whether leftists should support the regime) and other anti-regime groups, although none of them supported or engaged in the urban guerilla strategy and tactics employed by the Mujahedin. In 1983 Khomeini ruthlessly turned also against those once left-wing parties which had given him support — notably the Tudeh and the Fedaiyen majority.
The leadership of the Mujahedin never publicly claimed or denied responsibility for any individual tactics, although Rajavi did claim that the overall strategy was a highly successful one, with its three phases of firstly destroying the future of the regime, secondly destroying the body of the regime, and thirdly enabling social revolution. Rojavi’s optimism, as always, flew in the face of reality. However, Rojavi himself conducted a massive internal purge in 1982, which enabled him to continue unchallenged and unaccountable within the organisation.
The Mujahedin had long cultivated friendly relations with Yasser Arafat and the Fatah wing of the PLO; the Fedaiyen were aligned with the PFLP. From their links with Fatah, by 1981 the Mujahedin leaders were talking to members of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, figures such as Tariq Aziz. This was to lead to the establishment of Mujahadin camps on the Iranian border, as well as some arming and training of the forces that were gathered in the camps. Increasingly the motivation of Rajavi was simply concerned with the overthrow of the Islamic regime — even if that involved effectively helping in the war effort against Iran.
Deadly adventure in the Iran-Iraq war
By 1988 the Mujahedin had become concerned that UN proposals for a treaty between the two countries might lead to an end to the conflict, a scenario not anticipated by the Mujahedin, and one that could threaten their camps on the border. It was from this perspective that the ill-fated venture of launching a full-scale military attack on Iran came to fruition. Young Mujahedin men and women assembled on the border and a force of 5000 set off under the slogan “From Mehran to Tehran ‘’ (Mehran is a town close to the Iraqi border). Volunteers were told that the liberation of Tehran would take place within 48 hours, that the Iranian masses would rise to greet their liberators and that victory was assured. Tragically, none of this was true, and the line of volunteer soldiers only managed to capture a couple of small towns before they were annihilated by an overwhelming attack from the air. It is not known how many were killed, possibly around 3000. There were no sympathetic risings in Iran — the whole adventure was viewed with indifference or hostility inside the country. As well as the loss of life, the Mujahedin also suffered a calamitous loss of prestige from which they have never recovered. Yet, there was never any admission of failure, nor any explanation of how such a disaster could have taken place.
One tragic consequence of the debacle was that it offered a pretext for the killing of tens of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 — mainly, though not exclusively members of the Mujahedin. Current Iranian President Raisi was one of the key figures involved in this mass murder. Such a result allowed the regime to achieve in days what might otherwise have taken years. Meanwhile the Mujahedin leadership became ever more reliant on support from their new close friends in Washington — a complete U turn from their position in the 1970s, but rooted in the same reformist outlook which prefers to do deals with ‘big players’ rather than place its trust confidence in the working class.
Since 1988 Rajavi, who mysteriously disappeared from sight in 2003, has been replaced as leader by his former wife Maryam Rajavi. The organisation survived the fall of Saddam and negotiated a transfer to Albania through its links with the CIA. It also enjoys close links with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. However, it is possible that its star might be starting to wane as Washington moves its affections and financing from the Mujahedin to more explicitly open royalists.
Learn for the future from this example
In the course of future developments in Iran, workers and young people will look back to learn from the history of those parties and organisations which opposed the Islamic regime. In the case of the Mujahedin, and in spite of the undoubted heroism of its adherents, it is a tale of mistakes — in their confused and vague programme and their false perspectives, as well as in the dead end methods of individual terror. In the final analysis the strategy and tactics of the Mujahedin have served only to strengthen Islamic regime over the last 40 years, rather than to threaten it or let alone help to overthrow it.
