Mozaffar Baqai

Mozaffar Baqa'i

Prime Minister Mossadegh together with Mozaffar Baqa'i (with hat), 1951 in the USA

Mozaffar Baqa'i-Kermani (born July 23, 1912 in Kerman , † November 17, 1987 in Tehran ) was an Iranian politician and co-founder of the National Front of Iran.

Life

Childhood and youth

Mozaffar Baqa'i said he was born on July 23, 1912 in Kerman. Other sources speak of 1908 as the year of birth. His father initially worked as a judge, but then took over the post of headmaster of the first modern school in Kerman. Mozaffar's father took an active part in the Constitutional Revolution , was elected as a member of parliament and moved to Tehran with his family.

In Tehran, Mozaffar first attended the Dar-ol Fonun and then switched to the Saint-Louis-Gymnasium, which was run by French Jesuits. In 1929 he received a state scholarship to study abroad. Mozaffar went to France and studied philosophy in Limoges and Saint Claude. After nine years he returned to Iran in 1938.

academic career

Mozaffar Baqa'i began his professional career as a teacher at a high school and as a lecturer at the teachers' college. After his military service he became a professor at the University of Tehran. He taught there in the humanities faculty. From that point on he called himself Dr. Baqa'i. After the founding of the communist Tudeh party , Baqa'i was asked if he would like to become a member. Baqa'i said it refused. Instead, he founded his own party, the National Union Party, which pursued national-democratic goals.

After the end of World War II , Baqa'i was appointed head of the Department of Education's branch office in Kerman and moved back to Kerman. He had dissolved his party for lack of success. Baqa'i joined the Democratic Party, chaired by Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam . As a member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the Iranian parliament.

Founding of the Labor Party

Baqa'i left the Democratic Party in the early 1950s and founded the Labor Party with Chalil Maleki, a former member of the Tudeh Party . The party's political goals were to “preserve the constitutional monarchy, abolish the privileges of the upper class, support small and medium-sized enterprises, national independence from all forms of imperialism including Russian imperialism, and end the class struggle through improved relations between workers and Entrepreneurs ”. Baqa'i took over the party leadership and wrote the editorials for the Labor Party newspaper. As a member of the National Front alliance, the Labor Party was politically very successful.

Support from Mohammad Mossadegh

During the founding phase of the National Front, the Labor Party worked closely with Mohammad Mossadegh , and since Mozaffar Baqa'i was very popular with the population, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi discussed with Baqa'i the possibility of assuming the office of Prime Minister.

It was Baqa'i who first made the demand to nationalize the oil production and processing facilities of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company on December 24, 1950 in the 96th session of the 16th legislative period of the Iranian parliament as a resolution with the signatures of nine Has introduced MPs. However, Baqai did not succeed in getting the eleven MPs required for a motion to sign.

It shouldn't come to that. After the assassination of the incumbent Prime Minister Hajj Ali Razmara on March 7, 1951 by Chalil Tahmassebi, a member of Fedayeen-e Islam , Baqa'i Mohammad Mossadegh became Prime Minister instead. Razmara, an opponent of the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company , was heavily attacked by Mossadegh in parliament. A group of politicians, including Baqa'i, met with Navab Safavi, the founder of Fedayeen-e Islam, and decided that Razmara must be eliminated.

After the fatal shots at Tahmassebi, there was a heated debate in parliament. Baqa'i was one of the parliamentarians who celebrated the murderer of Razmara as a patriot and hero and demanded his release. In November 1952 the time had come. The murderer Razmaras was pardoned and released by the Iranian parliament on the basis of a resolution drafted by Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani with the support of the members of the National Front. Prime Minister Mossadegh received him at his official residence immediately after his release.

Break with Mossadegh

As Prime Minister Mossadegh increasingly switched off parliament and began to rule with emergency decrees, Baqa'i fell out with Mossadegh. At the height of the Abadan crisis , Baqa'i warned Prime Minister Mossadegh against working too closely with the communist Tudeh party and predicted a fate similar to that of the Eastern European democracies, especially that of Czechoslovakia . According to Baqa'i, the Tudeh party would initially support a bourgeois government like that of Mossadegh, following the example of the communist parties in Eastern Europe, then make it politically dependent on itself, and then later take over power itself. The break between Baqa'i and Mossadegh came with the popular vote organized by Mossadegh that dissolved parliament. Baqa'i was now convinced that Mossadegh had finally unmasked himself as a despot who was only interested in maintaining his own power and who wanted to abolish the monarchy with the help of the communist Tudeh party. In the course of this political conflict there was also a break with Maleki, the co-founder of the Labor Party, who continued to support Mossadegh.

From August 1953, Baqa'i worked with General Fazlollah Zahedi to overthrow Mossadegh. For Baqa'i, working with Zahedi was the only way out to prevent a communist takeover in Iran. It is said to have been taken at a meeting in Baqa'i's house during which the decision to assassinate the Mossadegh police chief, General Mahmud Afschartus , was taken. Hossein Khatibi, who was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of General Afschartu, claimed that documents were found at Afschartus that provided for the arrest of all CIA agents in Iran and that these documents had been turned over to Baqa'i. Baqa'i has always denied this.

Baqai and the politicized clergy

When Ayatollah Khomeini formed the religious opposition to the Shah's reform policy in the 1960s , Baqai initially kept his distance. However, the more popular Khomeini became, the more pressure grew from party comrades to support the clergy. Khomeini was arrested in June 1963, and protests and rioting broke out across the country . Baqai published an open letter in which he called for the imprisoned or house arrest Khomeini to be recognized as a Shiite leader. In private, however, he regarded the clergy as incapable of serious political leadership. For Baqai, Iran was on the way to revolution, although at times he indicated that he believed his appointment as prime minister was a possible way out. On March 7, 1964, Prime Minister Asadollah Alam resigned. However, it was not Baqai but Hassan Ali Mansur who became prime minister. Mansour gave a speech on April 5, 1964 in which he offered the clergy to make peace. The following day, Ayatollah Khomeini was released from house arrest and escorted to Qom .

Campaign against the Status of Forces Agreement

The successful cooperation between Baqa'i and Khomeini was to lead to a political scandal on October 23, 1964. On that day, Baqa'i had published a pamphlet against the Status of Forces Agreement , which was intended to grant the US military advisors stationed in Iran immunity rights under Section 38 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. The agreement negotiated by the Alam government but not yet passed by parliament was for Baqa'i comparable to the rights of surrender signed on February 16, 1857 between the British government and Naser al-Din Shah . The rights of surrender at the time, which excluded Iranian jurisdiction for British nationals, were in no way comparable with the immunity rights of the Status of Forces Agreement, which were limited to official missions. But since the catchphrase of the rights of surrender for the Iranians was synonymous with political disenfranchisement, economic exploitation and foreign rule, it was ideally suited for a political campaign against the government. From Prime Minister Mansour.

Baqa'i had recognized this and Khomeini, who wanted to overthrow Mansour's policy of the White Revolution , seized this opportunity for political agitation. On October 28, 1964, the Shah's birthday, Khomeini gave an incendiary speech in which he described the agreement as a political sell-out of Iran to the United States.

The Shah's patience with Khomeini was now at an end. Instead of arresting Khomeini again and bringing him to justice, he was arrested on November 4, 1964 and flown into exile in a military plane to Turkey ( Bursa ).

This wrong decision to finally clarify the political problems with the clergy and to hold all clergy who called for violent demonstrations to account should cost Prime Minister Mansour's life. On January 22, 1965, a few days before the first anniversary of the White Revolution, Mansour's car stopped in front of the Parliament building at around 10 a.m. Mansour wanted to give his first speech on the state of the White Revolution in front of Parliament. Mansour got out of the car. Mohammad Bocharaii, a member of Fedayeen-e Islam , stepped up to Mansour from the crowd of waiting spectators and shot three times. Mansour was put back in the car and driven to the hospital, where he died five days later. Mohammad Reza Shah appointed Mansour's close confidante Amir Abbas Hoveyda as acting prime minister pending his approval by parliament. Hoveyda would remain Prime Minister for the next 13 years.

Baqa'i, who had actively participated in the campaign against the Mansour government, was closely monitored by the SAVAK but escaped further persecution.

Islamic Revolution

After the Islamic Revolution , Baqa'I left Iran and lived in the USA for a few years. In the mid-1980s, despite warnings from his friends, he returned to Iran and was promptly arrested. After a former supporter, Hassan Ayat, who ran in the presidential election in 1980 without much success, was murdered, Baqa'i no longer had a leader in the leadership of the Islamic Republic. He was charged with finding numerous banned documents in his home. He was released from prison for a month for reasons of age.

Mozaffar Baqa'i-Kermani died on November 17, 1987.

literature

• Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, Volume 1, pp. 111-118.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, Volume 1, p. 112.
2. ↑ Ervand Abrahamian: Iran between two revolutions. Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 256.
3. ^ Minutes of the 96th session of the 16th legislative period of the Iranian parliament in the Farsi-language Wikisource
4. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, Volume 1, p. 115.
5. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, Volume 1, p. 112.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Vol. 1. New York, 2008, p. 116.