Abstract
This chapter focuses on the causes and consequences of the short-lived armed struggle in 1967 in Rojhelat. Although armed struggle against Pahlavi absolutism had already been incorporated into the KDPI’s programme by the Second Congress in 1964, it never featured in the political agenda of the party. The armed action, it is argued, was premature and miscalculated, carried out by a group of disaffected members on the left of the party critical of the leadership and opposed to his subservience to Barzani. They were forced to leave Iraqi Kurdistan and move to Rojhelat and embark on armed struggle there by the course of the events leading to the marginalisation of the Marxist-nationalists in the party after the Second Congress, which had resulted from adverse developments in the political field in Iraqi Kurdistan and the region more generally. Although the armed action was short-lived with little immediate effect on the political and military fields in Rojhelat, it had immense long-term effects on the development of the nationalist movement, contributing, in no small measure, to the fortunes of the Marxist-nationalists in the party, boosting the legitimacy of their claim to leadership.
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- 1.
Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Iran) September 1973.
- 2.
Ghassemlou and Ghazi disputed this view in their accounts of the formation and development of the armed struggle in Rojhelat. Sulaiman and Abdullah Moeini joined the committee after it had been founded, they both maintained. The common view, however, is that the Revolutionary Committee was formed in response to the developments in the Kurdish politics in Iraq, namely, the increasing political and military cooperation between the KDP and the Iranian government and the latter’s influence on the process of policy and decision making in the leadership of the Kurdish movement at the time. This meant increasing pressure was brought to bear on the KDPI, specially its chairman Ahmad Towfiq, to marginalise if not expel the radical elements, in particular those with a standing and following in the party, who were, in the aftermath of the Second Congress, agitating for armed action against the monarchist regime in Iran. Sulaiman Moeini’s arrest by the KDP and his summary execution on Barzani’s direct order should be seen in this context. His growing stature among the radical elements in the party who were opposed to Towfiq’s leadership and disliked his subservience to Barzani was further enhanced by his attempts to unite the left within and outside the KDPI in Iraqi, and form a broad political front with the Iranian left, especially the Tudeh Party led by Reza Radmanesh in 1967.
- 3.
In a wider political context this development and the shift in Soviet policy is centred on the formation of a working alliance between the Kurds and the Iraqi communists to form a block against the Iraqi regime which, though not as harsh as its predecessor, the first Ba’th government, still insisted on persecuting the Iraqi Communist Party members in the state apparatuses and in society at large (Farouk-Slugglet 1990; Tripp 2000; Batatu 1978). The well-known meeting in Baghdad between Radmanesh and Ghassemlou representing the Tudeh Party and Sulaiman Moeini and Mohammad Amin Seraji representing the Revolutionary Committee in Baghdad should also be seen in this context.
- 4.
See sources cited in note 3.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
This however is not to say that the left opposition was the passive spectator of the political scene which was being single-handedly manipulated by Barzani. On the contrary, they were active contributors to the political processes which led to the 1966 split and the formation of the PUK in the following decade. The conflict had already come to head before the peace accord; see Batatu (op. cit. 1978), Tripp (op. cit. 2000), Farouk-Slugglet (op. cit. 1990), Jwaideh (op. cit. 2006) and McDowall (op. cit. 1996).
- 7.
It should be noted that this turbulent episode was followed by attempts to reconstruct the KDP starting with the formation of the National Council for the Direction of Revolution followed by the purging of the central committee, and the transformation of its social composition including the deployment of the ex-ICP members to replace the departed. It is interesting to note that these measures, politically important as they were, did little to fill the gap in the structure of domination in the KDP, that is, the distance between the tribal leadership and the predominantly urban rank and file and executive staff with modern education and a rudimentary democratic political culture. The gap continued to persist after the reconstruction albeit in a different form; see Batatu (op. cit. 1978), Tripp (op. cit. 2000) and McDowall op. cit. 1996).
- 8.
There is a view that Talabani and his associates were dislodged from Iran due to the pressure exerted on the Iranian government by Barzani, and hence their return to the KDP; see, for example, McDowall (op. cit. 1996). Given the increasingly close relationship between Barzani and the Iranian government such an opinion does not seem to be unfounded, although in my view the main reason for their return lay mainly in the course and direction of the development in Kurdish movement in Iraq and also the fact that Talabani had not been able to make a clear and decisive break from the KDP and was still emotionally tied to the movement and its history. Fereidoun Qaradaghi, Talabani’s personal secretary when he held the office of the president of Iraq, recalls a private conversation with him whereby Talabani tells him about his complex and very confused feelings regarding his decision to break away from the KDP. According to Qaradaghi, Talabani had been overcome by a strong feeling of regret and deep sense of sorrow when he and his associates crossed the border to Iran. He told Qaradaghi he paused and wept remembering his life and times in the KDP (conversation with Qaradaghi, December 2013 in Beirut).
- 9.
- 10.
Two factors helped break this cycle: first, the signing of the 15-year friendship treaty with the USSR in 1972 which ensured military supplies to the Iraqi army, and second, the Algiers Agreement of March 1975 with Iran which resulted in the exclusion of Iran from of the scene. The 1975 debacle and the acceptance of defeat by Barzani ended the stalemate.
- 11.
The Tudeh Party of Iran, Party Programme, p. 29, 1966.
- 12.
The wider political context of the Baghdad meeting was explained in note 3. The initiative, it is said, came from the Iraqi Communist Party in late 1967/early 1968, contacting Sulaiman Moeini, Muhammad Amin Seraji and Karim Hussami, prominent members of the Revolutionary Committee, and asking them to travel to Baghdad secretly to meet with Reza Radmanesh and Abdulrahman Ghassemlou. This meeting took place in early February 1968, resulting in an accord between the Tudeh Party represented by Radmanesh and the Revolutionary Committee of the KDPI represented by Sulaiman Moeini, Muhammad Amin Seraji and Karim Hussami. They resolved to work together for the destruction of the Pahlavi monarchy and its replacement by a democratic republic ensuring the Kurds rights to an autonomous regional administration. Although the accord is often referred to as the Radmanesh-Ghassemlou Accord, the existing evidence casts doubt on this perception. Ghassemlou, the evidence suggests, did not represent the KDPI. He was part of the Tudeh delegation headed by its secretary general Radmanesh. The meeting, the accord and the related resolutions have been discussed in detail in Hussami’s memories Vol. 3. Stockholm 1988, pp. 94–97.
- 13.
The Revolutionary Committee had already started armed action in the Kurdish territory against the Iranian state, and Sulaiman Moeini on the way to join his comrades on the border was arrested by Barzani’s peshmarga and sent to his headquarters in Dilman. He was charged with aiding and abating the Ahmad-Talabani break-away forces as well as working for the Iraqi government and was executed on Barzani’s direct order. His body was handed over to the Iranian government as a proof of Barzani’s loyalty to the Iranian regime. Given his reputation and standing in the Kurdish movement on both sides of the border, Moeini’s body was a priceless offering. It was put on public display; tied to a ladder, it was driven around the town of Piranshahr to assert the brutal fate of a revered Kurdish rebel and the permanence of sovereign domination. The spectacle of Moeini’s bullet-ridden body induced more than fear and submission in the mind of the Kurdish spectators; it also inscribed forcefully in the collective memory of the Kurds the painful reality of Kurdish treason, of an identity fragmented by politics and power breading primordial loyalties and parochial interests. Barzani’s treason became a landmark in the tormented memory of the Kurds in Rojhelat, a cause of Kurdish humiliation and shame for decades to come. This account draws on a discussion of this event and related developments in the Kurdish movement in exile leading to the advent of armed action in Iranian Kurdistan with Hassan Ghazi and a former member of the central committee of the KDPI who wished to remain anonymous. A detailed eye witness account is provided by Muhammad Khizri; A short Biography and Remembering Moeinis, published online with no date. See also Kurosh Lashaie’s and Iraj Kashkouli’s accounts of these events in discussion with Hamid Shoukat (Shoukat, 1382/2003 and Shoukat 1380/2001). I am grateful to Hassan Ghazi for sending me print copies of Khizri’s and Shoukat’s texts. Barzani’s direct involvement in Sulaiman Moeini’s execution is also documented in a recent book published by the Institute of Political Research of the Islamic Republic about the history of the KDPI (Naderi 1394/2015). The defamation of the KDPI and rejection of its legitimacy to represent the Kurds of Rojhelat define the ethos of Naderi’s book.
- 14.
The Kurdish landowning class had lost its political cohesion after the land reform. Kurdish landlords responded differently to the armed action in the countryside, taking up different positions. Some disaffected landlords with serious economic and political grievances resulting from the implementation of the land reform showed guarded sympathy for the armed movement, albeit privately, especially in the Mukrian region. A few Gewirk and Dehbokri aghas were arrested by the state security allegedly for aiding the guerrillas, hosting and providing logistical support. Majority of the landlords remained cautiously indifferent, though in private were quite worried about the outcome. There were, to my knowledge, no cases of collaboration with the state, and fighting was largely carried out by the gendarmerie force with the help of the army units under the command of General Owaissi.
Selected Bibliography
English Sources (Books and Articles)
Batatu, H. The Old Social Classes and Revolutionary Movements in Iraq, New Jersey 1978.
Farouk-Slugelett, M. and Sluglett, P. Iraq Since 1958, London 1990.
Hussami, K. Le Bireweriyekanim, vol. 3, Stockholm 1988.
Jwaideh, W. The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development, Syracuse 2006.
McDowall, D. A Modern History of the Kurds, London 1993 (sometimes second pbk edition 1996 is cited, both the same).
McDowall, D. A Modern History of the Kurds, London 1996.
Tripp, C. A History of Modern Iraq, Cambridge 2000.
Persian Sources (Books and Articles)
Shoukat, H. Iraj Kashkouli: Goftegu-ye Daroon, Tehran 1380/2001.
Shoukat, H. Goftegu ba Kurosh Lashaie, Tehran 1382/2003.
Naderi, M. Hezb-e Demokrat-e Kordestan-e Iran, Tehran 1394/2015.
English Sources (Books and Articles)
Ladjevardi, H. Labour Unions and Autocracy in Iran, Syracuse 1985.
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Vali, A. (2020). Armed Action in Rojhelat. In: The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran. Minorities in West Asia and North Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16069-2_5
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