Statement of the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran on the 85th Anniversary of the Party’s Founding

Eighty-five years of struggle against imperialism and despotism for the realization of the rights of workers and working people; for the liberation of women from gender and class oppression; for the realization of the right of Iran’s oppressed peoples to self-determination; for building a bright and progressive future for the country’s youth and students; and for peace, independence, freedom, and social justice!

Dear compatriots,

With the arrival of 10 Mehr 1405 [2 October 2026], eighty-five years have passed since the founding of the Tudeh Party of Iran. Today, the eighty-five-year history of our Party is being judged in the crucible of the developments of our homeland’s contemporary history. No other political force or party can be found with such an influential and important history in the developments of contemporary Iran. Over these eighty-five years, the members and supporters of our Party—the party of Iran’s workers and working people—have fought selflessly to free the homeland from the shackles of exploitation and colonialism and for independence, freedom, and social justice. Tens of thousands of lives lost, and tens of thousands of years spent in prison and exile, stand as living and undeniable testimony to the fighting character of a party that reaction and imperialism, despite all their various efforts and the bloody repression they have perpetrated, still regard as one of the most serious enemies of their interests.

The Tudeh Party of Iran was founded during one of the most turbulent periods in Iran’s contemporary history. While the Second World War was still under way, and after the Allied forces removed Reza Shah from power and his dictatorial government collapsed, the Tudeh Party of Iran was founded on 10 Mehr 1320 [2 October 1941] through the efforts of communist and patriotic political prisoners released from the dungeons of the first Pahlavi dictatorship. It was led by Soleiman Mirza Eskandari, a prominent figure in Iran’s Constitutional Movement and one of the country’s renowned advocates of freedom. At the Party’s First Congress, held on 10 Mordad 1323 [1 August 1944] at the Party’s headquarters with 164 delegates in attendance, the Tudeh Party of Iran proclaimed its principles as follows:

“Principle One: The Tudeh Party of Iran is the party of the oppressed classes—that is, workers and peasants, freedom-loving intellectuals, and artisans; Principle Two: The Tudeh Party of Iran supports the independence and territorial integrity of Iran and fights against every form of colonial policy directed against it; Principle Three: The Tudeh Party of Iran supports friendly cooperation with all freedom-loving countries on the basis of equality among nations and the preservation of world peace; Principle Four: The Tudeh Party of Iran supports the establishment of a national government and a genuinely democratic system; Principle Five: The Tudeh Party of Iran fights against the economic vestiges of outdated social systems, such as pastoral economy and feudalism, and supports a progressive and centralized economic system based on safeguarding the interests of the majority of the Iranian people.”

In its first political programme, the Tudeh Party of Iran placed at the forefront of its activities “the struggle against dictatorship and despotism and for the establishment of democracy and the securing of all individual and social rights, such as freedom of speech, the press, belief, and assembly.” In the first period of its existence, our Party rapidly developed into a nationwide, national, and militant party fighting to secure the rights of the country’s workers and working people. As acknowledged by friend and foe alike, our Party brought about profound changes within a society afflicted by despotism and bound by superstition and religion, and laid the foundations for a broad and profound cultural, political, and social transformation in our homeland whose epoch-making effects remain visible and enduring within our society today.

The Tudeh Party of Iran was the first political force to place the issue of equal rights for women and men on the agenda of what was then a traditional and backward society. In its first programme in 1321 [1942–43], it called for reform of the electoral law and equal political rights for women, and in this field it pioneered the organization of women’s struggles and the advancement of their legitimate demands in traditional Iranian society.

Among the Tudeh Party of Iran’s first major campaigns was the struggle against the growth of fascist ideas in Iran. The Party’s first official publication appeared on 4 Esfand 1320 [23 February 1942], six months after the fall of Reza Shah’s government. Following the government’s refusal to permit the publication of a newspaper as the Party’s central organ under the title Daily Newspaper, Organ of the Tudeh Party of Iran, the newspaper Siasat [Politics] was published instead. Over the course of its 159 issues, Siasat played an effective role in mobilizing public opinion against fascism and its growth in Iran.

The establishment of the Central United Council of the Workers and Working People of the Country on 11 Ordibehesht 1323 [1 May 1944], bringing together four of the country’s major trade unions with more than 50,000 members, and the formation of the Freedom Front in the summer of 1323 [1944], encompassing 44 newspapers—more than half of all the country’s press—and involving journalists, newspaper editors, progressive publications, writers, and representatives of numerous cultural groups, were among the Tudeh Party of Iran’s historic efforts to advance the common and coordinated struggle of the masses against despotism and what the Party described as the schemes of British and American imperialism to plunder the country’s national resources, particularly its oil, and turn Iran into a semi-colony and a base for imperialism in the Persian Gulf and West Asia.

Our Party’s work in publishing hundreds of scientific books and pamphlets, newspapers and journals, politically, socially, and culturally substantive weeklies and monthlies, and in widely disseminating what it regards as the epoch-making ideas of Marxism-Leninism throughout society had a profound and far-reaching impact on the transformation and development of social life in our homeland. In our country’s history, no other party or political force can be found, in the Party’s assessment, that has had such a profound influence on shaping Iran’s left-wing and progressive thought, literature, and culture.

The American-British coup of 28 Mordad 1332 [19 August 1953], the bloody suppression of the oil nationalization movement, the killing of Tudeh military officers and a number of nationalist figures, the arrest of thousands of Party members and supporters and members of other nationalist forces, and the Shah’s SAVAK security service’s extensive propaganda campaign against the Tudeh Party of Iran and the revolutionary character of our Party led to difficult years of political exile and clandestine Party struggle inside Iran.

As the revolutionary movement in Iran grew during the 1350s [1970s], conditions improved for the extensive activities of Tudeh cells within Iran. The brutal killing of protesters in Jaleh Square on 17 Shahrivar 1357 [8 September 1978], and the imposition of martial law from that morning without informing the public, confronted the popular anti-dictatorship movement with a serious challenge. On 18 Shahrivar 1357 [9 September 1978], the Tudeh publication Navid, edited by the Party’s fallen comrade Rahman Hatefi (Heydar Mehrgan), assessed that because martial law had been imposed in Tehran and other Iranian cities, large street demonstrations—the principal method of popular struggle—had in practice become extremely difficult. It therefore raised the slogan of a “general strike,” writing: “Only one path remains—the most effective path: through a nationwide general strike, let us smash the Shah’s military coup against the people.”

The experience of the victory of the February 1979 Revolution, the statement argues, demonstrated that this Tudeh slogan was correct and timely. The implementation of the general strike, particularly the strike by oil workers, ultimately contributed to the overthrow of the monarchy and the victory of the February 1979 Revolution.

Following the victory of the February Revolution, the return to the country of Party leaders, cadres, and exiles, the release of imprisoned comrades from the Shah’s prisons, and the emergence of large numbers of Tudeh comrades and Party cells that had protected themselves from the regime’s security forces over many years enabled the Tudeh Party of Iran to develop into a nationwide, powerful, and influential party. Through political and organizational work among workers, peasants, students, women, and intellectuals, the Tudeh Party of Iran activated effective professional and trade-union structures and helped create the foundations for an organized social movement around the fundamental demands of the revolution.

During the first months following the revolution, while Khomeini and those around him were seeking to consolidate and monopolize political power within a political system based on what the Party describes as the reactionary principle of velayat-e faqih [Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist], deeply troubling signs were emerging of violations of democratic rights and freedoms and of the religious forces that had emerged from the revolution moving toward the establishment of an authoritarian government. In these circumstances, the Party’s emphasis on the importance and priority of the anti-imperialist struggle against various imperialist schemes directed at the Iranian Revolution, coupled with insufficient attention to the struggle against reaction and religious despotism, was among the serious challenges confronting the Tudeh Party of Iran and its leadership.

At the beginning of the 1360s [early 1980s], after assessing developments in the country—particularly the policies of the ruling clergy and the change in the class character of the government that had emerged from the revolution—our Party concluded that, alongside the new government’s plans to suppress and eliminate left-wing forces from Iran’s political arena, monopolizing power in the hands of reactionary forces and defenders of big capital had become one of the Islamic regime’s strategic policies for consolidating its political power in the country.

The bloody repression launched in the early 1360s, and the nationwide attacks by the velayat-e faqih regime on the Tudeh Party of Iran in Bahman 1361 [February 1983] and Ordibehesht 1362 [April–May 1983], which the statement says were ordered by Khomeini and other regime leaders and carried out with assistance from Western, Pakistani, Turkish, and Israeli security and intelligence services, formed an important part of the religious regime’s programme to eradicate left-wing ideas in Iran.

Dear compatriots,

Bahman 1405 [January–February 2027] marks the forty-fourth anniversary of the Islamic Republic’s large-scale assault on the Tudeh Party of Iran. Forty-four years ago, the arrest and brutal torture of thousands of Tudeh members at the behest of Khomeini and leaders at every level of the Islamic Republic was declared more important than victory on the battlefronts of the war with Iraq. Forty-four years ago, leaders of the Islamic regime declared that they had successfully accomplished what the monarchical regime had failed to do: destroy and uproot the Tudeh Party of Iran.

Yet despite all the claims by the regime’s leaders and spokespeople that the Tudeh Party of Iran had been eradicated; despite the televised appearances of torture victims intended to distort and discredit the history of struggle of our Tudeh Party; and despite the execution of hundreds of Party cadres and leadership members, scientists, thinkers, labour-movement activists, women, students, military officers, writers and artists, and other honourable and tireless fighters for the well-being of working people, today, thanks to the perseverance and struggle of Tudeh members in Iran and in exile, the Tudeh Party of Iran continues its struggle for the realization of the lofty ideals of the working class and working people and for freedom, independence, and social justice. Despite all the difficulties and complexities confronting the international labour and communist movement, and despite the extensive propaganda campaigns of think tanks associated with the Islamic regime’s security apparatus, imperialism, right-wing forces, and defenders of capitalism, our persistent struggle continues.

A statement issued by the Party Secretariat on 21 Ordibehesht 1405 [11 May 2026] said, among other things:

“The Tudeh Party of Iran has over the past two years faced an extensive campaign of propaganda attacks against its history and policies. From the book The Red Shadow, published by the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence, to Mohammad Ghouchani’s New Awareness Book-Letter, and the publication online of numerous propaganda pieces with anti-Tudeh themes, their content clearly reflects the relentless efforts of the regime’s security agencies, the Party’s political opponents, and those who claim to represent—and who distort—the realities of the Tudeh Party of Iran’s historic struggle. These propaganda writings have been particularly concerned with the Party’s struggles and activities during the past four decades—struggles and activities aimed at keeping aloft the proud banner of the party of our homeland’s workers and working people amid unceasing propaganda attacks based on distortion and fabrication by the security agencies, as well as the difficulties facing the international labour and communist movement.”

Dear compatriots,

The eighty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Tudeh Party of Iran comes at what the statement describes as one of the most critical and dangerous moments in the contemporary history of our homeland. It characterizes the joint attack on Iranian territory by U.S. imperialism and the Israeli government, and the extensive bombing of Iranian cities—which it says left thousands of civilians dead or wounded, alongside extensive destruction of a number of production facilities, transport links, schools, and historic buildings—as war crimes committed by the Trump and Netanyahu governments for which, it argues, they must one day be held accountable.

In a statement issued on 9 Tir 1404 [30 June 2025] concerning what it described as U.S. imperialism’s military aggression against Iran, our Party’s Central Committee declared firmly and clearly:

“Throughout its rich history, the Tudeh Party of Iran has always defended, and will continue to defend, the territorial integrity of the homeland. Despite our opposition to the Islamic Republic, we firmly oppose any aggressive action aimed at partitioning Iran or imposing forces such as the monarchists, the Mojahedin, or any other group that does not arise from the will of the people and operates within the interests of foreign powers such as the United States. The Tudeh Party of Iran calls upon all progressive and freedom-loving forces in the country to stand together and act in unity against the schemes of global imperialism led by U.S. imperialism and Netanyahu’s criminal government, and not allow the fate of our homeland to be determined by such criminals.”

In the months before the outbreak of the war, and particularly in Dey 1404 [December 2025–January 2026], the Iranian regime, the statement says, carried out violent repression and killed thousands of our compatriots who had taken to the streets to protest against high prices, poverty, and deprivation, which it attributes to the Islamic Republic’s implementation of neoliberal policies.

Despite all this, it continues, popular resistance to the schemes and military aggression of imperialism and what the statement calls the Zionist state of Israel demonstrated that the aware and vigilant people of Iran are not prepared to entrust their fate to people such as Trump and Netanyahu. The statement says that over the previous two years they had been responsible for the deaths of more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children, as well as hundreds of thousands of people being wounded and displaced, and for military attacks across the region against countries neighbouring Israel, including Lebanon and Syria.

More than a year after what the statement describes as the joint U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iranian territory in Khordad 1404 [June 2025], Iran remains in the extremely difficult condition of “neither war nor peace” and subject to what the Party describes as a broad economic war by U.S. imperialism in the form of a total blockade of the country. The continuation of destructive economic policies has, according to the statement, pushed tens of millions of Iranians below the poverty line and intensified the deprivation suffered by the majority of our people to an unprecedented degree.

In addition, the repressive policies of the velayat-e faqih regime and the widespread executions of young people who took to the streets in Dey 1404 [December 2025–January 2026] against the regime’s policies have intensified. Dozens of people have been executed on accusations of “spying for Israel,” while, the statement argues, events of recent months demonstrated that intelligence services hostile to Iran had penetrated the very highest levels of the government, to the extent of knowing the hiding places of regime leaders and the times and locations of their meetings. All of this, according to the Party, clearly demonstrates the anti-popular and reactionary character of a government that, during one of the most difficult periods in the contemporary history of our homeland, is concerned only with preserving a political system whose destructive conduct has placed our country in such disastrous circumstances.

The Tudeh Party of Iran has repeatedly declared in recent months, and we now repeat once again, that the continuation of the present situation runs counter to the national interest and is in line with the strategic policies of U.S. imperialism and what the statement calls Israel’s criminal regime in the region. Mobilizing public opinion in Iran and around the world, working to end what the Party describes as inhumane sanctions and U.S. imperialism’s economic war against Iran—whose effects are increasingly being felt in the lives of tens of millions of Iran’s suffering people—and preventing a renewed outbreak of military conflict and the complete destruction of Iran, to which the statement says Trump referred in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, are today among the most important tasks facing the country’s progressive and freedom-loving forces.

Tudeh fighters, Party members and supporters,

On the eve of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Tudeh Party of Iran, we once again proclaim our deep and unwavering belief in the Party’s historic mission to free Iran from the grip of despotism and to establish freedom, genuine independence, social justice, and socialism.

The struggle of Tudeh members today against what the Party describes as the aggression of U.S. imperialism and Netanyahu’s criminal government—just as the struggle of Tudeh members in defence of the homeland during the Iran-Iraq War demonstrated—is, in the Party’s view, a shining example of the national and revolutionary character of our Party, which, despite years of propaganda and the varied schemes of the Party’s enemies, continues to shine in the record of our Party’s eighty-five-year history.

On the eve of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Party’s founding, we once again renew our pledge to the great multitude of Party members who gave their lives and to all those who gave their lives for the freedom and liberation of the homeland. We have no doubt that the immense sacrifices and self-sacrifice of those who fought for freedom will not only prove fruitful, but will also lay the groundwork for Iran’s ultimate liberation from the grip of despotism and reaction.

Fiery salute to the radiant memory of all fallen Tudeh members and all those who gave their lives for freedom!

Salute to the political prisoners and to all the families of those who gave their lives and of political prisoners!

Boundless salute to the comrades and supporters of the Tudeh Party of Iran who, despite all hardships and pressures, continue steadfastly and resolutely to struggle for the lofty ideals of the workers and working people of our homeland!

No to imperialist aggression and the criminal Israeli government; no to dictatorship; long live peace!

Victory to the common struggle of Iran’s patriotic and freedom-loving forces for an Iran freed from the grip of despotism and dictatorship!

Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran

6 Mehr 1405 [28 September 2026]