Abstract
George Rudé’s observation that ‘Perhaps no historical phenomenon has been so thoroughly neglected by historians as the crowd’1 is especially true of the Middle East. While European journalists have invariably portrayed oriental crowds as ‘xenophobic mobs’ hurling insults and bricks at Western embassies, local conservatives have frequently denounced them as ‘social scum’ in the pay of the foreign hand, and radicals have often stereotyped them as ‘the people’ in action. For all, the crowd has been an abstraction, whether worthy of abuse, fear, praise or even humour, but not a subject of study.
World Copyright: The Past and Present Society, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, England. This chapter, ‘The Crowd in Iranian Politics, 1905–53’, is reprinted with the permission of the Society and the author, from Past and Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, no 41 (December 1968).
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Notes
G. Rudé, The Crowd in History, 1730–1848 (New York, 1964), p. 3.
Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Depotism (New Haven, 1957).
For the Tobacco Crisis see N. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran (London, 1966).
Information on the crowds during the Constitutional Revolution and the Civil War has been obtained from: A. Kasravi, A History of the Iranian Constitution (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chap-i Amir Kabir, 1961);
A. Kasravi, An Eighteen-Year History of Azerbaijan (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chap-i Amir Kabir, 1961);
Y. Doulatabadi, An Autobiography (in Farsi) (Tehran: Chap-i Chahar, 1961), vols i and ii;
M. Malekzadeh, A History of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran (in Farsi) (Tehran, Ketab-i Khaneh-i Suqrat, 1962), vols. ii and iii; the newspaper Hablu’l Matin;
M. Khurasani, The Genesis of the Constitution in Iran (in Farsi) (Meshed, Chapkhaneh-i Khurasan, 1953); M. Taherzadeh, The Revolt in Azerbaijan during the Constitutional Revolution (in Farsi) (Tehran, Sherat-i Eqbal);
British Government, Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of Persia, December 1906–October 1913 (London, HMSO May 1911–April 1914).
Information on the crowds during the struggle against the Imperial Powers has been obtained from: the newspaper Kaveh; British Government, Persian Affairs; Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–39, 1st ser. (London, 1963), vols iv and xiii; M. Shuster, The Strangling of Persia (New York, 1920).
Information on the crowds during the Republican Crisis have been obtained from: H. Makki, A Twenty Year History of Iran (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chapkhaneh-i Majlis, 1945) vol. ii, pp. 319–49;
H. Mustaufi, An Account of My Life (in Farsi) (Tehran, Ketab-i Furush-i ’Alami, 1947) vol. iii, part 2, pp. 410–30; Doulatabadi, An Autobiography vol. iv; M. Hedayat, My Memoirs (in Farsi) (Tehran, Ketab Furush-i Zavar), p. 363.
M. Fateh, Fifty Years of Iranian Oil (in Farsi) (Tehran, Sherkat-i Saham-i Char, 1956) p. 58p.
Ibid, p. 653.
Information on the royalist crowd of 19 August 1953 has been obtained mostly from: R. Cottam, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburg University Press, 1964) pp. 38, 155, 226;
The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party, Concerning 19 August (in Farsi) (1953);
Aresh, The Revolution for the Monarchy (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chapkhaneh-i Majlis, 1954).
M. Hussein-Khan, The Geography of Isfahan (in Farsi) (Tehran, Tehran University Press, 1963).
Iranian Government, Parliamentary Debates, The Sixth Majlis, The Fortieth Meeting, 11 December 1926.
The Electoral Law of 1906, E. Browne, The Persian Revolution of1905–9 (Cambridge University Press, 1910) pp. 354–61.
Z. Shajeehi, The Members of Parliament (in Farsi) (Tehran, Tehran University Press, 1965) p. 176.
M. A. Bahar, A Short History of Political Parties (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chap-i Rangin, 1943) writes: ‘During the revolution, the upper and the lower classes supported absolutism, and only the middle class advocated constitutionalism’ (p. 2).
World Federation of Trade Unions, ‘Report on Iran’, Report on the Activities of the WFTU (1949) pp. 105–70.
J. Jones, ‘My Visit to the Persian Oil Fields’, Royal Central Asian Journal (January 1947) vol. xxxiv, part 1, p. 60.
Major E. Sykes, ‘Isfahan’, Journal of the Central Asian Society, xxxiii (January–October 1946) p. 312.
H. Key-Ostovan, The Politics of Negative Equilibrium in the Fourteenth Parliament (in Farsi) (Tehran, Taban Press, 1946) i, p. 290.
A. Arsanjani, The Thirtieth of Tir (in Farsi) (Tehran, Chapkhanehi Atesh, 1956) p. 4.
S. Margold, ‘The Streets of Tehran’, The Reporter, 10 November 1953, p. 15.
Ibid.
J. Moose, ‘Memorandum on Azerbaijan’ (unpublished report sent to the State Department in October 1941, filed in the State Department, no. 740.0011 EW).
H. Faboud, L’Evolution Politique de l’Iran (Lausane, 1957) p. 206.
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© 1985 Haleh Afshar
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Abrahamian, E. (1985). The Crowd in Iranian Politics, 1905–53. In: Afshar, H. (eds) Iran. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17966-4_7
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