AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

middle ground between the National Front and the Maoists. Even though they were primarily
Maoists, they agreed on many issues with the National Front. 526 The issue of guerrilla warfare
further split the groups. Mohammed Eghtederi, a spokesman of the ISAUS, noted that the group
was also split ideologically. The beliefs of the ISAUS ranged from the belief that Iran should be
ruled by a Muslim majority, to those who simply opposed American involvement in Iran. All the
groups were bound together in their desire to obtain the “freedom and liberty of Iranian society,”
which included “no foreign domination,” and a republican government. 527 Another spokesman,
Vahid Ahmad, stated that they were “fighting for a democratic government,” and that “whatever
form it takes is not this organization’s position to say.” 528 The fragmentation of the student left
was indicative of a lack of cohesion in the Iranian left as a whole. Without unification, the left
was unable to mount a successful push for power in Iran. 529
The rift that became apparent as early as the mid 1960s between secularists like Fatemi
and Islamists like Qotbzadeh became wide open by early 1978. The Organization of Iranian
Moslem Students (OIMS) became very active in anti-shah activities in the United States by
1976. 530 By late 1977, the Islamists gained the upper hand with the students in the revolutionary
movement. Prior to this transformation, secular leftists were the leaders of the opposition
movement, however they “lost their hegemonic role to a rival Islamist tendency.” 531 Anthony
Parsons, the British Ambassador to Iran in the late 1970s, was told by a well-informed professor
at Aryamehr University that about 65 percent of his students were inspired by Islam and 20
526 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 143-4.
527 Linda Charlton, “Shah’s Visit Underscored Large Number of Iranian Students in U.S.,” NYT, 21 November 1977,
p. 10.
528 Charlton, “Shah’s Visit Underscored Large Number of Iranian Students in U.S.,” p. 10.
529 Refer to Maziar Behrooz, Rebels Without a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran.
530 For a compilation of OIMS publications refer to The Rise (English Defense Publication) and Leaflets in English
(Wilmette, Illinois: Organization of Iranian Moslem Students, April 1979).
531 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 160; this is also discussed in Hoveyda, The Shah and the
Ayatollah, 28.
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