The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran by Abbas Vali (review)

Abbas Vali, a serious and prolific Iranian Kurdish scholar, “investigates the historical specificity of Kurdish nationalism in Iran from the fall of the Kurdish Republic [of Mahabad] to the advent of the Iranian revolution, 1947–1979, a crucial but seriously understudied and under-researched period in the history of Kurdistan” (p. vii). To remedy this dearth of knowledge, Vali draws upon 1) extensive unstructured interviews with some of the leading involved Kurdish personalities, 2) publications of political parties and organizations, including those in Baku, Prague, and East Berlin, 3) literature published by political activists in various European countries, and 4) published secondary sources in Persian and English. Unfortunately, his jargon-filled, obscurant, and overly lengthy sentences too often fail to resonate with the reader. Nevertheless, the dedicated scholar who is willing to persevere will be rewarded with a detailed, virtually impeccable analysis of the events in question.

The author reminds his readers that “before the advent of Reza Shah’s rule [in 1925] and the rise of Kurdish and Azeri nationalisms in the region, communal boundaries were defined not so much by ethnicity as by religion and language” (p. 47). However, today “the constituent elements of Kurdish identity [are] primarily Kurdish ethnicity and language” (p. 2). In addition, the short-lived Republic of Kurd-istan in Mahabad, Iran, in 1946 “had far-reaching implications for the development [of] a democratic political culture and the [Kurdish] national identity (p. 1). To discuss these issues, Vali defines his idiosyncratic terms “sovereign power, domination or violence” — employed throughout his text — as “the object of the people’s opposition and resistance . . . the juridical power historically associated with the constitution of the nation-state in Iran” (p. 3). Why then did he not just use the less obscure, more explicit term “Iranian government authority or violence”?

“The resulting identity of sovereign power with military violence and repression . . . will be shown in the following chapters . . . [to have] had a decisive effect on the discourse and practice of Kurdish resistance to domination” (p. 13). Vali identifies “the infamous Rokn-e Do (Second Column)” or army counterintelligence as “the main force in charge of state security before the foundation of the notorious . . . SAVAK” (from the Persian Sazeman-e Ettela‘at va Amniyat-e Keshvar, the National Organization for Security and Intelligence) in 1957 (p. 20). The author adds that “the popular perception of the state as the lackey of foreign imperialist powers further undermined the legitimacy of the army and reinforced the view that it was a force of occupation, to be resisted and opposed by all possible means” (p. 21). He also asserts, “The early association of the Kurdish movement with the Soviet Union was used to represent Kurdish nationalism as a communist-inspired movement” (p. 22). This “not only stigmatized the Kurdish nationalist movement but also helped to isolate it in the political field, aligning it with the [communist] Tudeh [Party], whose subservience to the Soviet Union compromised its claims to patriotism” (p. 22).

Vali concludes, “Moscow had never believed in the legitimacy of Kurdish national rights or the feasibility of the Kurdish demand for regional autonomy in Iran . . . Its attitude towards the KDPI [i.e., the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran] and its leadership . . . was marked by a political expediency which verged on cynicism” (p. 53). The author goes on to visit the revival of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Iran after the fall of the Mahabad republic in 1946 and the negative influence on it by Iraqi Kurdish leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani. “It was primarily Barzani’s return to his homeland in 1958 and the subsequent developments in . . . Iraqi Kurdistan which determined the course and the direction of the events within the KDPI for the next 15 years” (p. 80). Vali also notes the rise of KDPI secretary-genera l ‘Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, whom Iranian agents later assassinated in Vienna in July 1989. Early on, Ghassemlou was closely identified with the Soviet bloc. Thus...