No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
“Islam Says We Are All Equal”: The Islamic Turn in Soviet Propaganda in Iran, 1921–25
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2022
Abstract
The early 1920s witnessed an upsurge in Soviet interest in Islam on an international scale. This interest was to a large extent guided by Great Game logic, at a time when the idea of Islamic jihad against the British was extremely popular all over the Middle East. Contrary to the common assumption that the Marxist rationale of the Bolsheviks excluded any possibility of integrating religion into Soviet policy, the highest authorities in Moscow adopted a rather opportunistic position with regard to Islam both at home and abroad. Drawing mainly on Russian archival sources, this study questions the origins and nature of the Islamic turn in Soviet discourse, diplomacy, and propaganda in Iran. The article concludes that although the Soviet rapprochement with some members of the Iranian clergy and the integration of religious elements into communist propaganda were carried out for the sake of short-term geopolitical goals, these maneuvers were much conditioned by Soviet domestic policy and post–World War I regional interdependencies.
Keywords
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Iranian Studies
References
Akramov, Kamalʾ, and Avliiakulov, Kulmamat. V. I. Lenin, Turkkomissiia i ukreplenie sovetskoi vlasti v Srednei Azii. Tashkent: Uzbekiston, 1991.Google Scholar
Amanat, Abbas, Gledhill, Kevin, and Nejad, Kayhan A., eds. The Caspian World: Connections and Contentions at Modern Eurasian Crossroads. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Andreyev, Alexandre. Soviet Russia and Tibet: The Debacle of Secret Diplomacy, 1918–1930s. Leiden: Brill, 2003.Google Scholar
Arjomand, Said A. “Ideological Revolution in Shiʿism.” In Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism, edited by Arjomand, Said A., 178–209. New York: State University of New York Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Bashkin, Orit. “The Iraqi Afghanis and Abduhs: Debate over Reform among Shiʿite and Sunni ʿUlamaʾ in Interwar Iraq.” In Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: ʿUlamaʾ in the Middle East, edited by Hatina, Meir, 141–69. Leiden: Brill, 2009.Google Scholar
Bashkin, Orit. The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Bast, Oliver. “The Council for International Propaganda and the Establishment of the Iranian Communist Party.” In Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the Great Powers, edited by Atabaki, Touraj, 163–80. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.Google Scholar
Bazarov, Mustafo. “Sovetskaia religioznaia politika v Srednei Azii. 1918–1930-e gg.” In Etnicheskie i regional'nye konflikty v Evrazii: Kn. 1. Tsentral'naia Aziia i Kavkaz, edited by Malashenko, A.. Мoscow: Ves’ Mir, 1997.Google Scholar
Bennigsen, Alexandre, and Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal. L'islam en Union soviétique. Paris: Payot, 1968.Google Scholar
Bennigsen, Alexandre, and Wimbush, Enders S.. Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Bennigsen, Alexandre. “Sultan Galiev: L'U.R.S.S. et la révolution coloniale.” Esprit 4, no. 249 (1957): 648.Google Scholar
Chaqueri, Cosroe. The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 1920–1921: Birth of the Trauma. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie. “Iran's Forgotten Revolutionary: Abulqasim Lahuti and the Tabriz Insurrection of 1922.” In Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, edited by Cronin, Stephanie, 118–46. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004.Google Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie. “Modernity, Change and Dictatorship in Iran: The New Order and Its Opponents, 1927–29.” Middle Eastern Studies 39, no. 2 (2003): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie. “Popular Protest, Disorder, and Riot in Iran: The Tehran Crowd and the Rise of Riza Khan,1921–1925.” International Review of Social History 50, no. 2 (2005): 167–201.Google Scholar
Dailami, Pezhmann. “The Bolshevik Revolution and the Genesis of Communism in Iran, 1917–1920.” Central Asian Survey 3, no. 11 (1992): 51–82.Google Scholar
Dailami, Pezhmann. “The First Congress of Peoples of the East and the Iranian Soviet Republic of Gilan, 1920–21.” In Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, edited by Cronin, Stephanie, 87–106. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004.Google Scholar
Darwin, John. “An Undeclared Empire: The British in the Middle East, 1918–39.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 27, no. 2 (1999): 159—76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehgan, Bahman, ed. Khaterat-e Rahimzadah-Safavi: asrar-e soqut-e Ahmad Shah. Tehran: Kavyan, 1362 (1983).Google Scholar
Demin, Iurii A. “Sovetskaia diplomatiia i ee rol’ v sozdanii i deiatel'nosti natsional'nogo bloka v Irane (1922–1924gg.).” Vestnik VolGU 22, no. 4 (2017): 66–76.Google Scholar
Dmitriev, G. L. Indian Revolutionaries in Central Asia. Delhi: Hope-Greenwich Millennium Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Dobroliubskii, Konstantin. “Vozniknovenie islama v novom osveshchenii.” Novyi Vostok 4 (1924): 360–75.Google Scholar
Dullin, Sabine, and Studer, Brigitte. “Communism + Transnational: The Rediscovered Equation of Internationalism in the Comintern Years.” Twentieth-Century Communism 14 (2018): 66–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forestier-Peyrat, Étienne. “Faire la révolution dans les confins caucasiens en 1917: la liberté côté cour et côté jardin.” Vingtième siècle. Revue d'histoire 3, no. 135 (2017): 56–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowkes, Ben, and Gökay, Bülent. “Unholy Alliance: Muslims and Communists; An Introduction.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 25, no. 1 (2005): 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genis, Vladimir L. “Les Bolsheviks au Guilan.” Cahiers du monde russe 40, no. 3 (1999): 459–96.Google Scholar
Genis, Vladimir L. Krasnaia Persiia: bol'sheviki v Giliane, 1920–1921. Moscow: MNPI, 2000.Google Scholar
Gheissari, Ali. “The Poetry and Poetics of Farrokhi Yazdi,” Iranian Studies 26, no. 1–2 (1993): 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hairi, Abdul-Hadi. Shiʿism and Constitutionalism in Iran: A Study of the Role Played by the Persian Residents of Iraq in Iranian Politics. Leiden: Brill, 1977.Google Scholar
Haithcox, John P. “The Roy-Lenin Debate on Colonial Policy: A New Interpretation.” Journal of Asian Studies 23, no. 1 (1963): 93–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, Samuel J. “Transnational Anti-Imperialism and the National Forces: Soviet Diplomacy and Turkey, 1920–23.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 2 (2013): 214–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, Katharine. “Performing as Soviet Central Asia's Source Texts: Lahuti and Džambul in Moscow, 1935–1936.” Cahiers d'Asie Centrale 24 (2015). http://journals.openedition.org/asiecentrale/2939.Google Scholar
Ioffe, Denis. “Budetlianin na obochine islama: ‘urus-dervish’ i ‘gul’-mulla’ v aspekte zhiznetvorchestva i poetiki Velimira Khlebnikova.” Philologica 8, no. 19 (2003–2005): 217–58.Google Scholar
Kadhim, Abbas. Reclaiming Iraq: The 1920 Revolution and the Founding of the Modern State. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalinovsky, Artemy M. “The Soviet Union and Mosaddeq: A Research Note.” Iranian Studies 47, no. 3 (2014): 401–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasravi, Ahmad. Tarikh-e hedjdah saleh-ye Azarbayjan: bazmandeh-ye tarikh-e mashruteh-ye Iran. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1340 (1961).Google Scholar
Kemper, Michael. “The Soviet Discourse on the Origin and Class Character of Islam, 1923–1933.” Die Welt des Islams 49, no. 1 (2009): 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemper, Michael. “Red Orientalism: Mikhail Pavlovich and Marxist Oriental Studies in Early Soviet Russia.” Die Welt des Islams 50, no. 3–4 (2010): 435–76.Google Scholar
Khalid, Adeeb. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Khalid, Adeeb. Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Revolution, and Empire in the Early USSR. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenczowski, George. Russia and the West in Iran, 1918–1948: A Study in Big-Power Rivalry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1949.Google Scholar
Luizard, Pierre-Jean, ed. La vie de l'ayatollah Mahdî al-Khâlisî par son fils Muhammad Al-Khâlisî. Paris: La Martinière, 2005.Google Scholar
Martin, Vanessa. “Mudarris, Republicanism and the Rise to Power of Riża Khan, Sardar-i Sipah.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, no. 2 (1994): 199–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFie, Alexander L. “British Intelligence and the Causes of Unrest in Mesopotamia, 1919–21.” Middle Eastern Studies 35, no. 1 (1999): 165–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navshirvanov, Z., and Navshirvanov, D.. “Kommunistisheckie techeniia v istorii musul'manskoi kul'tury.” Novyi Vostok 4 (1923): 274–79.Google Scholar
Nejad, Kayhan A. “To Break the Feudal Bonds: The Soviets, Reza Khan, and the Iranian Left, 1921–25.” Middle Eastern Studies (2021): 1–19.Google Scholar
Olson, Robert. “Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union toward the Turkoman Rebellion in Eastern Iran in 1924–1925 and the Kurdish Rebellion of Shaykh Said in Eastern Turkey in 1925: A Comparison.” Central Asian Survey 9, no. 4 (1990): 75–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persits, Moisei A., ed. Persidskii front mirovoi revoliutsii: dokumenty o sovetskom vtorzhenii v Gilian. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2009.Google Scholar
Persits, Moisei A. Zastenshivaia interventsiia: o sovetskom vtorzhenii v Iran, 1920–1921g. Moscow: Muravei-Gaid, 1999.Google Scholar
Qazvini, Aref. Divan-e ‘Aref-e Qazvini, edited by Azad, Abdorrahman Seyf-e. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1957.Google Scholar
Radjabov, K. K. “Struggle for Independence in Turkestan and Muslim Clergy.” Oriente Moderno 87, no. 1 (2007): 177–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, John D. “Batum as Domino, 1919–1920: The Defence of India in Transcaucasia.” International History Review 2, no. 2 (1980): 266–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shablovskaia, Alisa. “The Persian Gate to Revolution: Bolshevik Networks and Post-WWI Revolutionary Transnationalism in Iran.” In The Caspian World: Connections and Contentions at Modern Eurasian Crossroads, edited by Amanat, Abbas, Gledhill, Kevin, and Nejad, Kayhan A.. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Shigabdinov, Rinat N. “Islamic Socialism in Turkestan at the Beginning of the 20th Century (Supporters of the Idea and Bolsheviks’ Temptation).” Oriente Moderno 87, no. 1 (2007): 189–201.Google Scholar
Shigabdinov, Rinat N. “A. E. Shmidt i Koran ‘Usmana: vozvrashchenie musl'manskoi sviatyni v kontekste politiki, nauki i religii.” In A. E. Shmidt: nauchnaia perepiska, izbrannye trudy, bibliografiia, edited by Bekkin, R. I., 247–65. Tashkent: Sadra, 2018.Google Scholar
Shofield, Richard, ed., The Iran-Iraq Border, 1840–1958. Vol. 6, Demarcation of Boundary by Mixed Commission of 1914 and Border Disputes Following the Great War, 1914–1928. Oxford: Archive Editions, 1989.Google Scholar
Sonyel, Salahi R. “Enver Pasha and the Basmaji Movement in Central Asia.” Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 1 (1990): 52–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sultan-Galiev, Mirsaid. “Metody antireligioznoi propagandy sredi musul'man.” Zhizn’ natsional'nostei, 29–30 (1921).Google Scholar
Tikhonov, Iurii, ed. Sovetskaia Rossiia v bor'be za “Afganskii koridor” (1919–1925). Sbornik dokumentov. Moscow: Kvadriga, 2017.Google Scholar
Tolz, Vera. Russia's Own Orient: The Politics of Identity and Oriental Studies in the Late Imperial and Early Soviet Periods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution, translated by Eastman, Max. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1932.Google Scholar
V. O. “Sobytiia v Mesopotamii i shiitskoe dukhovenstvo. Pis'mo iz Tegerana.” Novyi Vostok 4 (1923): 425–33.Google Scholar
Vasil'eva, Irina G. “Vzaimotnosheniia sovetskogo gosudarstva i religioznykh ob‘edinenii Bashkirii (1917–1920-e gody).” PhD thesis, State Pedagogical Institute of Bashkiria, 1998.Google Scholar
Vinogradov, Amal. “The 1920 Revolt in Iraq Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Politics.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3, no. 2 (1972): 123–39.Google Scholar
Volkov, Denis. “Rupture or Continuity? The Organizational Set-up of Russian and Soviet Oriental Studies Before and After 1917.” Iranian Studies 48, no. 5 (2015): 695–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volodarsky, Mikhail. The Soviet Union and Its Southern Neighbours: Iran and Afghanistan, 1917–33. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1994.Google Scholar
Yazdani, Mina. “Ḵāleṣizāda, Moḥammad B. Moḥammad-Mahdi.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. October 7, 2015. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/khalesizada.Google Scholar
Yilmaz, Şuhnaz. “An Ottoman Warrior Abroad: Enver Paşa as an Expatriate.” Middle Eastern Studies 35, no. 4 (1999): 40–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Younes, Miriam, and Sing, Manfred. “The Specters of Marx in Edward Said's Orientalism.” Die Welt des Islams 53, no. 2 (2013): 149–91.Google Scholar