A HISTORY OF MODERN IRAN - Stoa

The nationalist interregnum 109
cities – in Tehran they drew as many as 40–60,000. It also forged alliances
with other progressive groups, such as the Iran Party, Socialist Party, and
Jangali Party.
Impressed by these showings, the New York Times wrote that Tudeh and
its allies could win as much as 40 percent of the vote in fair elections. 32 It
added that Tudeh was “stimulating the masses to think and act politically
for the first time.” Bullard stressed that “Tudeh is the only coherent political
force in the country and is strong enough to nip in the bud any serious
opposition since it has almost complete control of the press and of labour
throughout the country.” 33 His American counterpart reported that “Tudeh
is the only large, well organized, and functioning political machine in
Iran.” 34 A member of the British cabinet commented: “I cannot get it out
of my mind that the Tudeh Party, though admittedly a revolutionary party,
may be the party of the future which is going to look after the interests of the
working man in Persia.” 35 British consuls in the provinces were equally
impressed. The Abadan consul reported that “the security of the refinery
and the fields, and the safety of the British personnel depend on the good
will and pleasure of the Tudeh Party.” 36 British officials touring the Caspian
reported: “Tudeh had gained so much influence in Gilan and Mazanderan
that the control of affairs had virtually passed into their hands.” 37 “Persian
politics,” said one British report, “has become a struggle between the have
and the have-nots with the Left championing the latter.” 38 The British
consul in Mashed was more explicit: 39
The state of the middle and lower classes is little better than in the dark latter days
of Reza Shah. Public Bandit No 1 has gone, only to make way for a coterie of
officials who, taken as a whole exploit the masses nearly as thoroughly as he did.
Not only is the man in the street and at the plough looted directly by local officials,
police, and gendarmerie in the good old ways, but a new technique has been
evolved by which he is squeezed daily by big business in the shape of monopoly
departments and officially protected private racketeers . . . Their only fear is the
Tudeh engineering a popular uprising.
The Tudeh Party drew most of its support from urban wage earners and
from the salaried middle class – especially the intelligentsia. By 1945, the
British reported that the Tudeh-led Central Council of Federated Trade
Unions had thirty-three affiliates with more than 275,000 members. 40 This
constituted 75 percent of the industrial labor force with a presence in most
of the country’s 346 modern industrial plants. Its membership included
45,000 oil workers, 45,000 construction laborers, 40,000 textile workers,
20,000 railwaymen, 20,000 carpet weavers, 11,000 dockers, 8,000 miners,
and 6,000 truck drivers. The Central Council showed its full strength in May