On the 18th of May, 1920, the 11th Red Army, which had recently departed from Baku, landed in Anzali and was welcomed by members of the Jangali movement led by Mirza Kuchek Khan. In the days that followed, the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic was established, and the Bolsheviks quickly began a project of political education, which included the printing of propaganda, organizing subbotniks (days of volunteer labor), spreading literacy, and performing didactic plays. In doing so, some members of the Persian Red Army relied on inventive ways to spread communist ideals among the population, such as adopting local dress, performing Persian and Gilaki music, and framing tales from the Shahnameh and cultural practices such as Nowruz within a socialist framework. While previous scholarship on the rise and fall of Soviet Republic of Gilan have focused on the political environment and military engagements of the Jangalis and the Red Army, there has been little exploration of the cultural platform of the Bolsheviks during their occupation of northern Iran. This paper is a close examination of the Persian Red Army’s cultural and education programs during the short-lived Persian Socialist Soviet Republic (1920-21). Using a variety of sources, such as issues of Russian-language newspaper Krasniy Iran (Red Iran), the writings of the well-known futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov, as well as the memoirs of Aleksei Kosterin, I will demonstrate that the Red Army attempted to articulate “Persianness” in their cultural programs as a political strategy for gaining local support in Gilan.