Jafar Pishevari

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Jafar Pishevari

Seyyed Jafar Pischewari ( Persian سید جعفر پیشه‌وری Seyyed Jafar Pischewari , DMG Seyyed Ǧa'far Pīšewarī ; northern Azerbaijani Seyid Cəfər Pişəvəri ; * August 26, 1893 near Chalchal , Ardabil province ; † June 11, 1947 in Baku ) was a Persian-Azerbaijani politician. He was the founder and chairman of the separatist and communist Azerbaijani People's Government (November 1945 to November 1946), founded and supported by the Soviet occupation forces in northwestern Iran .

Life

Jafar Pischewari was born in the Iranian province of Ardabil as Jafar Jawādzāde . The family moved to Baku after the house of the Jawādzāde family was destroyed in tribal clashes. Jafar's father ran a general store in Baku. After Jafar had finished his education and his studies in Baku, he worked as a teacher for Turkish language and Persian literature at the Baku grammar school. After the October Revolution he became a member of the communist Adalat (Justice) party and took the name Pischewari (artisan) .

Political career

Pischewari was a founding member of the Communist Party of Iran , which was founded in Rasht in 1920 . The KPI was the forerunner organization of the communist Tudeh party. Pischevari participated in the establishment of the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic by Mirza Kutschak Khan and his Jangali movement. After the suppression of the Jangali movement and the end of the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic, Pischevari attended the Communist University for the Workers of the East in Moscow. After completing his Marxism-Leninism studies , he went back to Tehran , opened a bookstore and was co-editor of the trade union newspaper Haqiqat (Truth) .

In 1930 he was arrested for funding an oil workers' strike and his involvement in the establishment of the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic.

After the invasion of British and Soviet troops in 1941 as part of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran , Pischevari was released from prison on the basis of an amnesty for all political prisoners issued by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Pischevari went to Tabriz and founded the Communist-oriented Firqeh Demokratie (Democratic Party) there . In December 1945 Pischevari proclaimed the Autonomous Azerbaijani People's Government . The activities of his government such as setting up a local militia, disarming the Iranian army and police, setting up a judiciary modeled on the Soviet legal system, collecting taxes, land reforms, using Azerbaijani Turkish as the official language and banning Persian and Turkish the establishment of an alternative curriculum and education system were viewed with great suspicion by the central government and the other Iranians.

According to an agreement between Iran and the Soviet Union, under great pressure from the US , that the Pischewari government saw as an attempt by the USSR to partition Iran, the Soviet Union withdrew its protection. The Iranian army, kept out of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan by the Soviet Union since 1942, entered the province in November 1946. Pischevari's government quickly collapsed, and many of the people welcomed the central government's troops.

In December 1946, Azerbaijan and Kurdistan were evacuated from the Soviet Union and the Iranian government restored their control. It seems that Pischevari's government became quite unpopular, especially in the larger cities where merchants feared communism.

After the collapse of this short-lived state, he fled to the Azerbaijani SSR and died in a car accident in Baku in 1947. Some claim that he was murdered by the KGB , but this has not yet been proven.

His legacy is the subject of heated debate. While many Iranians see him as either a Soviet straw man or a traitor, the Azerbaijani nationalists see him as a national hero and the Iranian left as a socialist revolutionary. No doubt he was helped by Joseph Stalin and the USSR in setting up his government.

Available sources indicate that the Soviet Union had territorial aspirations that included the Persian provinces of Azerbaijan , Kurdistan , Gilan , Mazandaran, and Khorassan . The question of what Pischewari wanted to achieve is still a matter of debate. Some left scholars argue that he never intended to split Iran, but gradually wanted to convert the whole country into a communist state. Scholars on the right argue that the proclamation and directives issued by him and his government leave no doubt that he intended to join the Azerbaijani SSR, and hence the Soviet Union.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ervand Abrahamian: Tortured confessions. University of California Press, 1999, p. 31.
  2. ↑ a b Ervand Abrahamian: Tortured confessions. University of California Press, 1999, p. 36.
  3. ↑ CWIHP Virtual Archive: Collection: 1945-46 Iranian Crisis
personal data
SURNAME Pishevari, Jafar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pishevari, Ja'far
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian-Azerbaijani politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH near Chalchal , Ardabil province
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1947
Place of death Baku