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Bijan JazaniBijan Jazani (Persian: بيژن جزني) (insert date, 1938 - April 19, 1975) the Iranian intellectual was born in Tehran, Iran. Personal and Political Life He was born to Hossien Jazani (حسین جزنی) and Alamtaj Kalantari (عالمتاج کلانتری نظری). His parents family began participating in the Tudeh party during a period of political freedom that started from the exile of Reza Shah until the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh. The children of these two families became attracted to and then joined the Tudeh youth party. Their activities in the party grew and later gained important responsibilities. His father, who was a military officer, joined the Tudeh party in 1945. Alamtaj Kalantari was a member of the Women's Tudeh party. In 1947, when Bijan Jazani was 9 years old, his father joined the Democratic Azerbaijan group and in the same year with the fall of sovereign Azerbaijan his father left for the Soviet Union and remained their until 1967. It was for this reason that Alamtaj Kalantari took Bijan Jazani and his sisters to her parent's home. This period had a major impact in the future political life of Jazani. He lived in a household whose members had a professional role in the Tudeh party. During this time his mother expanded her activities in the women's Tudeh party and Jazani along side his uncle, who was 2 years older than him, joined the Tudeh Youth Organization in the year 1948, at the age of 10. After the Tudeh party became illegal in February 4, 1949, Jazani continued participation in the youth party. He was then chosen as the messenger of the youth organization because of his young age and his family background. But the hidden activities of the Tudeh party and the affiliated organizations did not last long and from 1951, the activities slowly became semi-transparent. In addition to this, the leaders of the Tudeh and the youth organization created the "Iranians in favor of Peace", "National Organization in the Struggle against the Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation", "Democratic Youth Organizations", and the "Student Organization of Tehran". Jazani began his activities in the "Student Organization of Tehran" in 1951-1952 and was responsible for a small group. In 1953 he became semi-responsible for this organizaiton. He was also active in the circulation and sale of student newspapers and began a gym in 1951 which was beneficial to the students of the community and a place for recruiting members in the youth organization. These activities continued - except in a short two month period with the death of his sister Manijeh (منیژه) - until the Coup d'tat of August 19, 1953 (٢٨ مرداد سال ١٣٣٢). Jazani was arrested on December 1953 because of his political activities, but gave the name Hossien Mahmoodi (حسین محمودی) to the court and after 3 months in prison at a military court, was released under bond. He continued his political activities but was arrested in May 1954 at an organization gathering - disguised under a wedding ceremony - and again gave a false name and was released under bond. In the fall of the same year, he was summoned in relation with the incident of December 1953 and served a 6 month prison term. After release from prison he focused on family while keeping true to his political views. He wasnt allowed back to high school so he joined the art school of Kamal-ol-Molk. He created the Perspolis Advertising Company (کانون اگهی پرسپولیس) with the help of a friend. The company advertised in the form of paintings for local merchants. Jazani drew the paintings and the business side was left to his friend. The success of the company led to the creation of the Nabl Film (موسسه نبلی فیلم) in the late 1950's. This company developed TV advertising in Iran and Jazani became financially stable. In 1959, with his company making enough money, he went back to his studies and received his diploma. The following year year he signed up for the philosophy program at the University of Tehran. At this time, after eight years of close friendship with his childhood friend and member of the youth organization, Mihan Ghoreishy (میهن قریشی), he married her on October 13, 1960. The result of the marriage were two sons, Babak (بابک) and Mazyar (مازیار). From the years 1956 until 1959, Jazani had no political activities. His wife in this matter wrote: in these years "We had no thoughts of a political future, we relied on our love and in the advancement of our studies. We spent most of our free time reading and at the theaters". In 1959, he returned to politics and created a magazine named Nedaye Khalgh (ندای خلق) with the goal of uniting the politic groups against the Coup d'tat regime. In the winter of 1959, because of the tight political climate the circulation of the magazine was halted. Activity in an open Political Climate When Jazani entered the University of Tehran, the country was facing political and economical problems that led to a retreat for the Shah. These problems were caused by the inabilities of the Shahs economic policies and the extreme military expenses begun after the Coup d'tat in 1953. In the spring of 1960 due to mounting debt and inflation the government of Iran requested immediate financial assistance from the World Bank and the government of the United States. The World Bank demanded the Iranian government to fix budget problems, reduce salaries, and balance certain economical plans in order to receive 35 million dollars of assistance. The administration of John F. Kennedy also demanded political and economical reform in the Shahs government for 85 million dollar assistance. Economical problems and external pressure to perform the reforms, led to instability of the regime. The Shah in order to deal with this problem announced the elections of the 20th majlis would be free to all organizations. Although this promise did not come to reality, it showed the retreat of the regime and the opening of a political climate in Iran. The leaders of the Iranian National Front (جبهه ملی ایران) officially announced the existence of the second national front movement and began their activities. Jazani and his followers slowly moved from the Tudeh party to the student and national front organizations because of their interest in the guerilla movement in Latin America. Jazani began participating in the student movement at the University of Tehran. The following three reasons are what made him a leader in the student movement: 1. His organizational and leadership experience in street protests which he had gained in the years 1953-1956. These skills would assist him in student protests. 2. Jazani made quick decisions that he would stand by even though he always put time in uderstanding the situation but only enough to not slow down the movement. Because of an extensive connection he always had good information and because of his superior experience compared to the people around him, he was always calm. Payam Daneshjoo (نشریه پیام دانشجو) In early fall of 1963 Jebhe Melli Daneshjoo (سازمان دانشجویان جبهه ملی ایران), which after the resistance in Baharestan Ave., had lost hope to the politics of patience and hope; with the help of officials and leaders of the Iranian National Front (جبهه ملی ایران) selected a new leader for this movement. This led to the creation of the third national movement in the year 1965 and the publication Payam Daneshjoo (نشریه پیام دانشجو) in the fall of 1963 - originally published under Jebhe Melli Daneshjoo. Jazani had a major role in this process; Payam Daneshjoo reflected a united movement in the political struggle for students in Iran. Up to March of 1964, Hassan Habiby was editor and responsible for collecting information, articles, and news; while Jazani was in charge of the publication process. In the spring of 1964 a committee was selected to run the publication made up of all factions of the student movement. Hooshang Keshavarz Sadr, Matin Daftari, Majeed Ahsan, and Mansoor Soroush were part of this committee. Jazani was in charge of publication and Behzad Nabavi (بهزاد نبوی) was responsible for circulation. The preliminary work related to the print was done by Jazani at his home. The printing was done on a hand made copy machine that was not only labor intensive, it also demanded a safe environment from the authorities. Jazani had rented a hidden house for this purpose and in all stages of the process from financial to print had a major role. By the spring of 1965, roughly 500 copies were published where a number of them were spread by Bahmanpour Shareaty to officials of different universities in the Tehran province and others circulated by Matin Daftari and Dariush Forouhar in non-university related locations. In this period almost all of the process, from writing articles up to publication was done by leftist student movements (Jazanis group, Tudeh (توده), loyalists of Maleki, and loyalists of Shoaeeyan). Jazani wrote several articles explaining the ideology of his movement in the publication. The activities of the third national movement had increasingly worried SAVAK (ساواک). On May 22, 1965, Savak arrested Mostafa Mallad and Bahmanpour Shareaty. In the afternoon of that same day they arrested Jazani and a number of organizers of the student movement such as Majeed Ahsan, Shireen Sour Esrafeel, Manoochehr Taghavee. These arrests signaled the end of a political freedom in Iran under the Shahs regime, resulting in the end of the third national movement in 1965. It seems that SAVAK was unaware of the role of Jazani in the publication of Payam Daneshjoo since the arrest was on charges related to participation in circulation of the publication. The main reason for this mistake by SAVAK was Jazani's concealed presence in the publication. After his arrest some of his friends such as Iraj Vahedeepour in order to show that Jazani had no role in the publication, continued the publication for a couple issues after his arrest. Even so, Jazani and other student activists remained in prison until February 1966 where the court ruled a 9 month sentence but was immediately released given that he had already served his time in prison. After prison, Jazani continued his studies and in 1966 graduated with a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Tehran. Guerilla Movement Jazani, after release from prison with all his power began the development and organization of his movement. In spring of 1966, Hassan Zeeya Zareefi was added to group and with his recommendation united the organization with the Razm Avaran organization. Razm Avaran was organized by Abbass Sourky in 1959 and its members in the years before 1953 were members of the Tudeh party and until February 15, 1960 when for promotion and circulation of the party in universities were arrested supported the ideologies of the Tudeh party. But in 1964, when Sourky again organized Razm Avaran, not only did he not want to associate with the Tudeh party but supported the ideology of the Communist Party of China. The recommendation of Zareefi, due to the characteristics of Sourky such as inexperience, crowded work, and his past affiliations that led to him being arrested, caused the central authority of the group to be disinterested with this prospect. But, due to internal problems such as impatience of members of the long process of development, which showed when Keyoumars Ezadi left the group, led to the decision to negotiations between the two groups. Even though in the negotiations between Jazani, Zareefi, and Kallantari by Sourky and Zarar Zahedian there were major uncertainty to Sourky had been developed by Jazani; the prospect of adding 120 ready members and a large number of explosives and artillery finally led to the merger of the Razm Avaran group with the Jazani group in fall 1966. There were major problems with this merger. The 120 ready members did not take the organization seriously and were spread from the central group. From the members of Razm Avaran only Sourky and Zahedian met the regulations that would allow members to join the military wing and the central authority. The others became part of the reserve units of the group. One of these members was Naser Aghayan who from 1963 participated with the SAVAK and gave details of Razm Avarans plan and members. After the merger between the two groups, Aghayan gave reports of the activities of Jazanis group to SAVAK. Ideology of Jazani's Group Jazani in respect to the groups views writes: "The experience of group members in Marxist-Leninist activities previous to joining the group led to it being known as followers of the Marxist-Leninist ideology without any discussion". But they were different from other organizations of their time such as Tudeh, Jebheh Engelabi, etc in this ideology. What was important for Jazani and his followers was to have an independent understanding of Marxism-Leninism without influence from China and the Soviet Union. Therefore their key goal and what shaped their views was to do what benefited the people of Iran. For example, their position on the Soviet Union, which called itself the leader of the world communist movement, was based on this viewpoint. They began with the idea that the foreign policy of a country is a result of the social values of its regime. This policy reflects the benefits of the leadership level (consisting of a class system) and reflects the ideology of the ruling class. Therefore a socialist government must be loyal to the goals of Marxist-Leninist and international pluralism. In this setting, they came up to the following conclusion in regards to the relationship of the Soviet Union and Iran: "In our opinion the policies of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in Iran opposes the growth and revolutionary struggle Asian countries against Imperialism and is in conflict with the chief idea of international pluralism and socialist diplomacy. It was in this vision that Jazani explained in the relationship of the group and the Soviet Union: The group had many reasons to not be happy with the idea of Soviet Union being the leader of the world revolutionary movements. The Soviet Unions policies in Iran in the past twenty years and the few years of bad relationship between the Soviet Union and the Tudeh party were known to the members of the group. It was because of this that Jazani came to the conclusion when seeing the relationship of the Soviet Union and Tudeh and Eastern Europe at the end of the decade of 1950 that: if the left movement wins the struggle in Iran, it must be aware of the Soviet Unions wanting of power. Failing to do so will lead to Iran becoming another satellite of the Soviets. Jazani said that if the power of the leftist movement falls in the hands of the Soviets, before anything else it will get rid of us. He believed that geographically Iran is too close to the Soviet Union to ignorantly come close to it without understanding the harms involved. In the evaluation of other organizations in Iran, Jazani before discussing the organizations ideology, it would study its role in the benefit of the people of Iran. For example, in response to the blunders of the Tudeh party, which he once was a member, he gave the following conclusion: - Inability to understand the objective of internationalism and formation of mistaken relationships with the Soviet government and the Soviet Communist Party from the beginning to the end.
- Being unaware of Irans society, history, and not paying attention to the struggle against imperialism that caused the Tudeh party to lag behind from other nationalistic freedom movements.
- Positioning itself against Mohammed Mossadegh (Persian: محمد مصدق) and the Iranian National Front (جبهه ملی ایران)
- Weakness and second guessing in the Coup d'tat of August 19, 1953 (٢٨ مرداد سال ١٣٣٢) that resulted in the strategic loss of the Tudeh party and the labor movement
- The continuation of the weakness of the rest of the Tudeh party inside and outside of the country resulting in the disunity the labor movement
There is not much information regarding Jazani and his group's early views towards the Iranian community. The earliest information regarding Jazani is in 1963 where he announced that the ruthlessness of the Shah is from feudalism and the efforts that have been taken to fix this issue did not have any positive impact. Therefore the revolutionary forces of Iran are the farmers whose responsibility is to begin a war from the village's that would result in a popular revolution. But in the fall of 1966, Jazani and the members of the group changed this viewpoint which was reflected in an article titled "The Iranian anti-tyrannical movement, freedom fighters, and the communists duty in the current situation." They came to the conclusion that after the Coup d'tat of August 19, 1953 (٢٨ مرداد) capitalism in Iran grew and began to shape the policy of the government. Its members, who were mostly pro-American, began to have a bigger and wider role in the government of Iran. Since feudalism was a hurdle in the growth of capitalism in Iran they began to demand land, political, and social reform. This was in parallel with the requests of reform in Iran by America, but the Shah and the ruling government, who were protected by England, stood against these reforms. Jazani saw the failed Coup d'tat of General Gharani as a step by America to break the stance of the Shah and also the reemergence of efforts by the Iranian National Front (جبهه ملی ایران) that was the result of the instability of political and economic situation in Iran, resulted in forcing Amini-Arsanjani on the Shah. But Amini not only with the protection of America wanted economic, government, and social reforms; he wanted to create reforms in Iranian politics. Therefore, the Shah saw the continuation of the Amini-Arsanjani government as a hurdle in his efforts for full dictatorship and replaced them by himself and put the torch of reform in his own hands. The Shah put these reforms in place to show his unequivocal powers and at the same time by killing his political opponents the Shah increased those powers. Although political reform did not come to fruit but land reform had a damaging effect on feudalism. Land reforms impacted positively the shape of power in villages and rural areas and the political powers of the land owners decreased significantly. Jazani used this to come to the conclusion that the since the continuation of the regime is "dictatorship" therefore the ideology of the revolution in its most urgent political goal results in the overthrow of monarchy and its most needed revolutionary political goal is summed up with the slogan of "Establishment of a Republic and Democratic Government". Because of this, even though Jazani never stroked out nonviolent struggle, but in the current circumstance came to the conclusion that open political activity is inconceivable. The government has left no possibility for this kind of activity; therefore the only method of struggle is guerrilla warfare. In the selection of this tactic Jazani and the members of the group were effected by the guerrilla warfare of South America and Vietnam and the works of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Rgis Debray were their main teachers. It should be noted that it was only Jazani and Zareefi that worked on the ideology of the group. The reaction towards secret activities and book reading resulted in the unimportance of theory in the group. Some of the members of the group were disgusted of any kind of research and made joke of it. From early 1957, the group acted to address this problem but its effects on the group remained. The change of the stance of the group resulted in the decrease of the importance of struggle in the mountains and between the villagers and increase in the importance of the struggle in the cities and the group prepared its activities according to that. But this change of tactics led to problems in the center of the group. Manoochehr Kallantari that he does not believe in the ideology of the group and Shahrzad believed that the group could not make it work. Even though after discussions they changed their positions and accepted the decision of the center of the group but in reality they were sidelined from the groups activities. Kallantari was sent to London and Shahrzad was transferred to the reserve force and in October of 1967 because of disagreement with the method of stealing from the bank, after the ruling from the center of the group he was let off from the organization. Arrestment and Prison Life In early 1968, the central members of the organization discovered that because of the length of the period of developing the preliminary work the group became inactive and still. One of the main reasons for the stalemate of the group was a lack of funding which came only from membership fees and the rest from Jazani. It was also in the bylaws of the organization to develop professional members that would require a source for funding. To fix this issue and make the group more active and to get the required equipment they decided to get the funding by stealing it from the banks. Their first plan was to steal from the Bank Taavoni va Tozii on January 12, 1968, but on January 9 Aghayan told SAVAK of the plan and Jazani and Sourky were arrested. Their resistance in interrogation led to some of their members to go into hiding. When Shahrzad (Aghayan informed SAVAK of his location) was arrested, slowly some of the groups members were found and other members such as Izadi, Rashidi, Ahsan, Farokh Negahdar were arrested. In addition five other members of the group (Zareefi, Jaleel Afshar, Choopan Zadeh, Kalantari, and Keyanzad) are arrested by the SAVAK with the help of Abbas-Ali Shahryari and his organization in two stages on February 14, 1968 and the other in June-July 1968. Even though the central of the organization had been arrested the group does not dismantle. Safaii Farahani and Safari Ashtiani leave Iran and join the Palestine resistance. The other members who were not known such as Ghafoor Hasan Pour, Hameed Ashraf, Eskandar, Sadeghy Nejad, Mehdi Sameh organize the group again and when Safaii Farahani and Safari come back to Iran organize the Siahkal (سياهکل) incident on February 8, 1971. In 1971, the remainder of the group create the Iranian People's Fadaee Guerrillas (چريك فدايان خلق ايران). In February 1969, Jazanis group was indicted under military court. Jazani for participation in an organization against the monarchy and carrying an illegal weapon was sentenced to prison for life. In the appeals court the sentence was changed to 15 years and other members were sentenced to 2 to 10 years. Up till spring of 1969 they were in Gasr prison, but when Kalantari, Sourky, Sarmady, and Choopan Zadeh attempted to escape from prison, the majority of the group members were sent to rural states. Jazani was sent to Qom and was in between normal prisoners. In this period because of the respect of the prison guards, Jazani spent most of his time in prison library studying and painting. In this period, Jazani with the assistance of his wife gets in contact with the unknown members of the group and guides them in an ideological sense. In the summer of 1970 he writes What a revolutionary must know and signs it in the name of Safaii Farahani to help Safaii strengthen his position in the group. When Siahkal occurred, through interrogation of the participants by SAVAK, they find out about the relationship of Jazani and the group. In March 1971, SAVAK brings Jazani to Tehran. From that time on, Jazani remains in Tehran and was located in between other political prisoners. In Tehran, he increases his activities in prison. Jazani had the opinion that prison is a piece of the activity outside and therefore must reflect the policies of the group. In this thought, he introduced three things to active political participants in prison: first, standing strong and holding ones place; second, contact with outside; and third development of an organization inside prison. Jazani lived his life in prison based on this. With the help of his wife and other prisoners he developed contact with the Iranian People's Fadaee Guerrillas outside of prison and created a leftist movement inside prison. This responsibility of this movement was to organize resistance, manage activities, and teaching a political and ideological to leftist prisoners and recruitment for Iranian People's Fadaee Guerrillas. The activity of Jazani caused problems from two sides in prison. The officials of SAVAK who thought of Jazani as a major problem in prison attempted to stop him from his activities. On the other side, leftist prisoners who disagreed with Jazani acted in various ways against Jazanis activities. SAVAK also created problems between these leftist factions. The majority of those against Jazani, were the followers of Masoud Ahmadzadeh and Amir Parviz Pooyan, two of the founders of Iranian People's Fadaee Guerrillas. Although these two individuals were killed in 1972, their teachings were the official teachings of the movement up to 1976. Jazani thought these two individuals teachings were distractive and his book Armed struggle in Iran: The road to mobilization of the masses was written in response to a book written by Ahmadzadeh Guerilla fight both tactic and strategic. Even though Jazani did not mention Parviz Pooyan or Ahmadzadeh in his book; when discussing and offering his thoughts he disapproves those offered by these two individuals. Even though there were major differences between the teachings of Jazani and Ahmadzadeh. There were two focal items that were discussed between these two schools of thoughts. These were that the revolutionary situation of the country and the method of struggle. The ones that disagreed with Jazani and approved Ahmadzadeh were under the belief that the country is in a revolutionary status and situations for a revolution exists. Therefore a guerrilla fighter must fight with artillery to make the people aware of the revolutionary status of the country. A smaller motor, military uprising will turn a larger motor, the population; and the larger population will support the military uprising and bring down the Shahs government. In Ahmadzadehs opinion, not believing the revolutionary situation shows a sense of individualism which in the opinion of the leftist movement is that of a traitor. Jazani would explain that a revolutionary status does not exist in the country and in addition to that a revolution is not developed from a military uprising but a development of a political, social, economical, and ideological process. A military uprising should be performed at the same time and not before the beginning of a revolution and by itself can not cause a revolution. In his opinion, those who are for a military uprising are similar to the Shah who is blocking a peaceful means of struggle. Because of this without talking about Ahmadzadeh, Jazani writes When we hear that revolution begins with a military uprising, we have to say that the believers of this train of thought do not know two things: one the current situation of military uprising and second revolution in general and the revolution we want is a specific one. The second major problem was the method of struggle. Ahmadzadeh believed that the only means of battle is a military one and had a strategic role in their fight. Jazani believed in the current situation one should not limit their means to one method but we should prepare the people in a political sense from all sides. With this effort one can fight against injustice and dictatorship for a better life for all people. This will first fix the problem with communication between people and second the social injustices develop a populous sense against the Shah in Iran and the world, and a dictator regime would fall. Even though Jazani tried to resolve the issues through communication and dialogue and keep the leftists together, this was not what happened; his opponents dismantled the leftist movements in prison to decrease Jazanis influence. Mihan Jazani wrote of the result of these acts I sometimes saw Bijan gloomy and when I asked of the reason he would say that there are problems associated between different thoughts and the leftists who would call him a Tudehi. One day when we were talking, he dropped his head and said: the rest of my hair will soon fall of all these fights". Even so, Jazani stayed true to his beliefs and until April 19, 1975 when with 8 other prisoners was murdered by the SAVAK he continued his political activities. All of Jazanis works were written in prison from 1970 to 1974; these works discussed the establishment of a leftist movement in the two decades of the 60s and 70s independent of China and the Soviet Union. Jazani is remembered to have always worked with the goal to benefit the Iranian community. Jazani is buried in Behesht Zahra on block 38. Legacy ... Bijan Jazani's Books - Capitalism and revolution in Iran: Selected writings of Bizhan Jazani ISBN 0905762827
- Armed struggle in Iran: The road to mobilization of the masses ASIN B0006E2APS
Links Jazani, Bijan Jazani, Bijan Jazani, Bijan
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