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The Tudeh Party in Britain: The Difficult 1980s
Abstract
This research examines the activities of the Tudeh Party in Britain, touching upon their sense of isolation and loss after the 1979 revolution. While many party members found themselves in exile in mainland Europe, some found refuge in the United Kingdom. From this island of relative tolerance and democratic freedom, the party found a platform from which they could establish connections with the British Left and promote their causes. This study hopes to deepen our knowledge of the Tudeh and to move away from the common narrative that it was Soviet-controlled or anti-Iranian. In order to understand this complex party, key research questions will be addressed, namely which causes were chosen and why; why certain imagery and language were used; what was the nature of the Tudeh’s relationship with the British Left, and to what extent it kept its Iranian identity while in exile. The Tudeh in Britain found itself in a decade of great change. Britain in the 1980s was characterised by the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Privatisation, strikes, the abandonment of workers’ rights all contributed to the tense political atmosphere in Britain at the time. In Europe, the Iron Curtain was crumbling down and the Eastern bloc was cracking from within. In Iran, chaos reigned with the war with Iraq raging for the entire decade, while the violent suppression of the Left irreparably broke the movement. In this study, their effects will be examined in light of the Tudeh’s own struggles in exile. Furthermore, it will be shown that the Tudeh’s focus on workers, women’s rights and promotion of an international communist struggle, all resonated in Britain. The sense of solidarity and connection between the British and Iranian Left provide fascinating insight into the Tudeh’s international appeal. While much research exists on the Tudeh in Iran, this paper will shed unique light on the English-language activism of the party. This research will bring new comprehension of the party in exile. The Tudeh in Britain produced a huge body of work throughout the 1970s and 1980s in English that reveal the activism the party undertook in the UK. My research draws upon the material gathered from the People’s Museum in Manchester hold a wealth of material from the Tudeh. Additional material is sourced from the National Archives in order to understand the attitude of the British government towards the party.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries