Anarchism in Iran has its roots in a number of dissident religious philosophies, as well as in the development of anti-authoritarian poetry throughout the rule of various imperial dynasties over the country. In the modern era, anarchism came to Iran during the late 19th century and rose to prominence in the wake of the Constitutional Revolution, with anarchists becoming leading members of the Jungle Movement that established the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic in Gilan.
Following a coup d'état and the dissolution of the Soviet Republic, the new Pahlavi dynasty undertook the suppression of the remaining anarchist movement. Socialist movements eventually began to reestablish themselves after the Anglo-Soviet invasion, but the Western-backed coup d'état forced many of these movements underground. Anarchist tendencies started to re-emerge from out of the armed struggle movement but was again suppressed during the Islamic Revolution, only re-organizing itself by the turn of the 21st century.
History
In the time of the Sasanian Empire, the Zoroastrian prophet Mazdak advocated for a form of proto-socialism, called for free love, the abolition of private property and overthrow of the king. He saw sharing as a religious duty and that no one should have more than others, though sources dispute whether he advocated communal ownership or redistribution. The latter claim being that he gave land, possessions, women and slaves from the rich to the poor. He and his thousands of followers were massacred in 582 CE but his teaching went on to influence Islamic sects of the following centuries.
A number of Islamic schools that displayed notable anarchic tendencies were noted to have emerged in Iran following the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. During the Second Fitna, an extremist sect of Kharijites known as the Azariqa held control of Southern Iran until their defeat by the Umayyad Caliphate. A rationalist sect of Islam with notable anarchic tendencies was the Muʿtazila, who denied the necessity of the Imamate like their Kharijite contemporaries. They rose to prominence under the Abbasid Caliphate, particularly during the Mihna period instituted by the Caliph Al-Ma'mun, but following the rise of Al-Mutawakkil they fell under religious persecution. Many Muʿtazilites found refuge in Northern Iran during the reign of the Alid dynasties, which officially followed a form of Shia Islam known as Zaidiyyah, also persecuted by the Abbasids.
The rise of Shia Islam in Iran saw the development of anarchic tendencies within branches of Isma'ilism, such as the Qarmatians who were noted for their communist practices, and the Nizaris, who established a stronghold in Alamut from which they organised the Order of Assassins, posing a threat to the stability of the Seljuk Empire. The individualist anarchist tendencies of the Assassins were noted by the contemporary Muslim anarchist Peter Lamborn Wilson, writing on their abrogation of the law in Alamut that:
By the beginning of the 13th century, an antinomian movement of Sufi dervishes known as the Qalandariyya had gained popularity throughout Greater Iran, developing individualist anarchist tendencies that rejected societal norms and emphasised social deviance. The influence of anarchic tendencies persisted in Iran, evidenced by a 14th-century text that reiterated the earlier arguments of the Kharijites and Muʿtazilites against the necessity of the Imamate, drawing on the libertarian tribal traditions of the Bedouin. But the turn of the 17th century marked the beginning of a decline in minority religious sects in the country, as the reunification of Iran under the Safavid Empire in 1501 initiated a process of conversion, which resulted Twelver Shi’ism becoming the dominant religion in the country. Despite the suppression of Shia Islam during the reign of the subsequent Afsharid dynasty, the rise to power of the Qajar dynasty in 1789 reimposed Twelver Shi’ism as the country's official religion.
Shortly after the establishment of the Qajar Iran, Shaykh Ahmad founded Shaykhism, a mystical school of Twelver Shi’ism based around the promised coming of the Mahdi. Shaykh's successor Kazim Rashti taught his students how to recognize the Mahdi and, shortly before dying, sent his followers out to find them. In 1844, Sayyed ʻAlí Muḥammad Shírází took the title of the bāb and claimed to be the deputy of the Mahdi, founding the Bábi Faith. In the wake of a Bábi insurrection, a wave of persecution was unleashed by the Qajars, with the Báb and many of his followers being executed. Babists subsequently took up an underground struggle against the Qajar monarchy and the Shia clergy, with Qajar sources later coming to view Babism synonymously with anarchism, as one contemporary observer described: "Europe is in chaos. Anarchists, i.e., the enemies of despotic kings in every nation, are powerful across Europe. Domestically, and especially in Tehran, the Iranian anarchists, meaning Bábís, number around 50,000." A split in the Babi movement occurred in 1863, after Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí claimed to be "He whom God shall make manifest" and founded the Baháʼí Faith, which a majority of Bábís gravitated towards, while the minority faction led by Subh-i-Azal rejected his claim. Despite Baháʼu'lláh's renunciation of anti-Qajarism and condemning violence against the government, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar remained suspicious of the Baháʼís and made no distinction between them and more radical Azalis, who had continued to oppose the state and clergy, and even practiced Taqiya - which Baháʼís rejected. Towards the end of the 19th-century, anyone inclined towards anti-statism or anti-clericalism was labelled as a Babi, leading Babism to become the most prominent dissenting voice within the Qajar Empire, out of which many oppositional tendencies began to emerge. The ideas of Babists such as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani and Sheikh Ahmad Rouhi went on to influence the development of secularism, constitutionalism, nationalism, libertarianism and socialism in Iran.
Constitutional Revolution During the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, radical left-wing ideas had already begun to spread through the Caucasus and into Northern Iran, with many northern workers beginning to develop class consciousness. Among the new political ideologies introduced to the country was anarchism, which surfaced throughout Iran towards the end of the 19th century, taking a particularly strong hold in Gilan Province. In the Gilani capital of Rasht, the Armenian anarchist Alexander Atabekian published his journal Commune from 1896 and later a group of Iranian anarchists held demonstrations to protest the execution of the Catalan anarchist pedagogue Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia. A group particularly noted for their reception of political radicalism were Iranian Azerbaijanis, one of whom was the young Ehsanollah Khan Dustdar, who himself had become an anarchist while studying in Paris.
Rising anti-authoritarian sentiments in the country had given way to a sustained period of revolt against the absolutist rule of the Qajars, with the most notable example being the protest movement against the concession of tobacco to the United Kingdom. The assassination of Naser al-Din by Mirza Reza Kermani lay the groundwork for political change in Iran, culminating in 1906 with the outbreak of the Constitutional Revolution, which transformed the Sublime State of Iran into a constitutional monarchy.
The relative liberalism of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar had led to the rise of a prominent constitutionalist opposition among the middle class and the intelligentsia, including the revolutionary socialists of the Social Democratic Party and Secret Center, the utopian socialists of the Society of Humanity, the radicals of the Revolutionary Committee and the Islamists of the Secret Society. Following an economic crisis, a wave of protests broke out against the government, culminating in a general strike that finally forced the government to draft a constitution and convene a democratically elected National Consultative Assembly. Meanwhile, the escalation of the movement had brought about the formation of regional assemblies that acted as a form of dual power in opposition to the existing provincial governments and constitutional societies which freely published their own radical newspapers in Tehran. But the coronation of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar in 1907 marked the beginning of a struggle between absolute monarchy and constitutionalism, as attempts by the new Shah to prevent the final ratification of the constitution led to another general strike, the assassination of Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan and widespread public riots, securing the victory of the Constitutional Revolution. Hasan Arsanjani later commented on the uniqueness of the Constitutional Revolution for its time, due to its successful combination of peaceful demonstrations, mass meetings and general strikes, comparing it to the anarchist theory of insurrection.
As liberals attempted to push more reforms through the Assembly, extra-parliamentary radicals organized a campaign for secularism, with radical newspapers publishing articles containing anti-clericalism for the first time in Iranian history. The journal Habl al-Matin criticised the new constitutional order for its collaboration with the clerics, who they blamed for the general decline of the Middle East. The women's rights movement also constituted itself at this time, establishing girls' schools and women's societies to push for gender equality. Frightened by the rise of secularism and radicalism, many reactionaries began recruiting followers in opposition to the Majlis. At a meeting of conservatives, Sheikh Fazlollah Noori blamed the post-revolutionary instability of Iranian society on the "atheist Armenian" Mirza Malkam Khan and declared that the liberals of the Majles were "paving the way for socialism, anarchism, and nihilism". Supported by the Russian and British Empires, the newly crowned Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar commanded the Persian Cossack Brigade to bombard the National Consultative Assembly, restoring absolutist rule over Iran.
Armed constitutionalist uprisings broke out throughout the country, with the Society of Guilds organizing a general strike and a number of provincial governments declaring their autonomy. Revolutionary socialists of the Secret Center, working together with Armenian intellectuals and Azeri social-democrats, began to build an independent "proletarian organization" that received hundreds of armed volunteers from the Caucasus, led by Sattar Khan and Baqir Khan. Civil war split the city of Tabriz along class lines, with Ahmad Kasravi observing that: "the sans~culottes and the propertyless poor reared their heads. The driving force of these men was toward anarchy. First to overthrow the despotic power of the court, then to turn against the rich and the propertied classes." Though the constitutionalists were victorious in Tabriz, they discovered that the city's lower classes had largely sided with the clergy against the revolution.
Leading a coalition of Social Democrats, Social Revolutionaries and the Dashnaks, Yeprem Khan managed to capture the city of Rasht and raised the red flag over the city, before going on to lead a guerrilla assault against Tehran. In Mashad, Azeri radicals overthrew the local royalist authorities and proclaimed the first socialist program in Iran: calling for the armed defense of the constitution and numerous social reforms. The constitutionalists soon won the civil war and forced the Shah into exile, replacing him with his son Ahmad Shah Qajar and re-establishing constitutionalist rule by the Majlis.