Recent studies of Sino-Persian relations tend to focus on state-to-state relations post-1972 and take a political science approach. This paper instead examines unofficial connections between the Iranian Tudeh Party and the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 to 1979. It will take a historical approach and draw on newspaper records, oral interviews, and memoirs to explore the role China and Chinese politics played in the ideological shifts that occurred among young Iranian activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It will demonstrate that the idea and example of China played an important role in the rise of a radical, internationalist approach to politics, as Iranian youth increasingly saw Iran as part of a global community of oppressed nations locked in conflict with imperialist powers. Many on the left, both secular and Islamic, studied Chinese texts and drew on Maoist theories to analyze Iran, the international situation, and the overall direction of the opposition. China directly participated in and encouraged these developments, first by public support for the Tudeh Party, and later with clandestine support for a break-away faction of European-based Tudeh student leaders. These students endorsed “Mao Zedong Thought” as their guiding principle, traveled to Beijing for military and ideology training, attempted to merge with Kurdish militants within Iran, and were part of a global trend towards radical, Maoist-oriented student opposition movements that peaked in what is sometimes called “global 1968”. This study emphasizes the global origins of the Iranian revolution and the international context in which it developed. By focusing on international rather than domestic factors that impacted the Iranian opposition, the revolution is demonstrated to be an intensely global affair, with centers of gravity from Berkeley to Beijing. The tangled relationship between the Chinese state, the Iranian state, and the Iranian opposition belies the complex and sometimes controversial historical reality that is often glossed over by modern narratives of perpetual friendship and mutual co-operation. Primary sources (Mandarin and Persian) include Chinese state-affiliated media outlets like People’s Daily, Shanghai Daily, and Guangming Daily; published interviews by Hamid Shawkat with Iranian Maoists who went to China; Iranian newspapers (Keyhan, Ettela’at) and Communist organs (Mardom, Setare-ye Sorkh); and oral interviews conducted by the author with a leading member of the Iranian student Maoist organization in Europe.