Bijan Jazani
Bijan Jazani was an Iranian political activist and a significant figure among modern Iranian Socialist intellectuals. A Marxist theorist, Jazani was one of the founders of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas.
Personal and political life
Bijan Jazani was born to Hossien Jazani and Alamtaj Kalantari Nazari. He came from a politically active background; both of his parents' families were involved with the Tudeh Party during a period of political openness from Reza Shah's exile until the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh. The children of these families were drawn to and eventually joined the Tudeh youth movement. Over time, they took on increasingly significant roles within the party. Jazani's father, a military officer, became a member of the Tudeh Party in 1945, while his mother, Alamtaj Kalantari, was active in the Women's Tudeh Party.In 1947, when Bijan Jazani was nine years old, his father joined the Southern Azerbaijani Democratic Party. In the same year, with the fall of Pishevari, his father left for the Soviet Union and remained there until 1967. For this reason, Alamtaj Kalantari took Bijan Jazani and his sisters to her parents' home.
This period had a significant impact on 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. Jazani, alongside his uncle, who was two years older than he was, joined the Tudeh Youth Organization in 1948 at the age of 10. After the Tudeh party became illegal on 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 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 Favour 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 initially responsible for a small group. In 1953 he became semi-responsible for this organization. He was also active in the circulation and sale of student newspapers. He began a gym in 1951, which helped students and developed into a place for recruiting members into the youth organization.
These activities continued—except in a short two-month period with the death of his sister Manijeh —until the coup d'état of August 19, 1953. Jazani was arrested in December 1953 because of his political activities but gave the name Hossein Mahmoodi to the court and, after three 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 concerning 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 wasn't allowed back to high school, so he joined the art school of Kamal-ol-Molk. He created the Persepolis Advertising Company with the help of a friend. The company advertised in the form of paintings for local merchants. Jazani drew the paintings, leaving the business side to his friend. The success of the company led to the creation of the Nabl Film Institution in the late 1950s. The company developed TV advertising in Iran and gave financial stability to Jazani.
In 1959, with his company making enough money, he returned to his studies and received his diploma. The following 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, he married her on October 13, 1960. The result of the marriage was two sons, Babak and Mazyar—alias Maximilien.
From the years 1956 until 1959, Jazani had no political activities. In this matter, his wife 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, intending to unite the political groups against the coup d'état regime. However, in the winter of 1959, the magazine's circulation was halted because of the tight political climate.
Activity in political climate
When Jazani entered the University of Tehran, the country faced political and economic problems that led to a retreat for the Shah. These problems were caused by the inabilities of the Shah's economic policies and the extreme military expenses that began after the Coup d'état 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 specific economic plans to receive 35 million dollars of assistance. The administration of John F. Kennedy also demanded political and economic reform in the Shah's government for 85 million dollar assistance. However, financial problems and external pressure to perform the reforms led to the regime's instability. The Shah, to deal with this problem, announced the elections of the 20th Majlis would be accessible 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 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 guerrilla movement in Latin America. Jazani began participating in the student movement at the University of Tehran.
Payam Daneshjoo
In early fall of 1963, Jebhe Melli Daneshjoo, 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 National Front 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 in the fall of 1963—published initially under Jebhe Melli Daneshjoo. Up to March 1964, Hassan Habiby was the editor 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 was responsible for circulation. Jazani did the preliminary work related to the print at home. The printing was done on a handmade copy machine. Jazani had rented a hidden house for this purpose and had a significant role in all stages of the process, from financial to print.By the spring of 1965, roughly 500 copies were published, and Bahmanpour Shareaty spread a number of them 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. Jazani wrote several articles explaining the ideology of his movement in the publication. The activities of the third national movement had increasingly worried SAVAK. On May 22, 1965, Savak arrested Mostafa Mallad and Bahmanpour Shareaty. In the afternoon of that same day, they arrested Jazani and several organizers of the student movement, such as Majeed Ahsan, Shireen Sour Esrafeel, and Manoochehr Taghavee. These arrests signalled the end of political freedom in Iran under Shah's regime, ending 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 the 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, to show that Jazani had no role in the publication, continued the publication for a couple of issues after his arrest. Even so, Jazani and other student activists remained in prison until February 1966, when 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 1966 graduated with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Tehran.
Guerrilla movement
Jazani, after being released from prison with all his power, began developing and organizing his movement. In the spring of 1966, Hassan Zia-Zarifi was added to the 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 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 Chinese Communist Party. The recommendation of Hassan Zia-Zarifi, 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 uninterested in this prospect. But, internal problems such as the impatience of members during the long development process, which showed when Keyoumars Ezadi left the group, led to the decision to negotiate between the two groups. Even though in the negotiations between Jazani, Zarifi, and Saeed Kalantari Nazari by Sourky and Zarar Zahedian, there was significant 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 significant problems with this merger. The 120 ready members did not take the organization seriously and were spread from the central group. Of 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 Avaran's plan and members. After the merger between the two groups, Aghayan gave reports of the activities of Jazani's group to SAVAK.