Baqir Mortazavi narrates:

Missing Link

Sirus Nahavandi and revolutionary organization of the Tudeh Party of Iran

Mahmoud Fazeli
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2016-1-11

Missing link

Baqir Mortazavi

Publication: Mortazavi (Cologne, Germany)

 Second Edition: 2015

 Price: 29 Euros

The book «Missing Link», consists of 602-page, is about exploring the role of Sirus Nahavandi in revolutionary organization of the Tudeh Party, his arrest, collaboration with SAVAK and his role in the attack on the two home teams of this group in 1976 on Yaldā (longest night, December 20/21) night. The author has corrected the typesetting errors in the second edition that have been done in the summer of 2015, but the text of the first edition has not been changed. The author, who knows himself independent on any organizational and political movement now, claims that he has been criticized by some of his colleagues to provide a comprehensive history of the revolutionary organization. Apparently, the author did not take such a decision and he considered to the organization to the extent that the issue was related to Sirus Nahavandi, and basically he had not such a purpose.

He tried to study the life of Sirus Nahavandi in one procedure, and did not want to highlight only his activities in SAVAK organization, as the author view, who was already one of the members of revolutionary organization, the life is not shorted just in «it», and human has a past and present, and on the way to come present, he should be faced with ups and downs, and living under authoritarian regime of Pahlavi affected on natural life of Sirus Nahavandi, and eventually made him a criminal. For the author, «invincible body as the conqueror of torture is laudable, but it is not a reason to ignore the power of body in the people, and look them alike. »

The author, after publishing his book, cited his goal of writing the book in an interview: «I achieved my goal that I have determined for myself, but I did not think that the scope of work would be in such extension. In my treat, I tried to use every opportunity. I always spent a long time on searching documents, even the smallest one, and I asked for help from a lot of people, and this was not an easy task, of course. It should be noted that Sirus Nahavandi was not always a natural and legal person. Since he has returned to the country to fight, he is living secretly. During these years, there was not a picture of him or written evidence and document. In this way, documents, particular letters of Sirus Nahavandi, that I had collected little by little, help me to be more persistent in my work. I found that I can talk with persons, who were the organizational colleagues of Sirus Nahavandi and sharing in his activity, about him and their works. In this regard, I also read any book that I thought would be associated with activities of Sirus Nahavandi. Finally, I thought it was time for writing, so I got to work. I think, the information was completed as far as possible. It was possible; there were those who have more information on this case. Certainly, they will write their information as my writings. The purpose is, discovering the part of the missing link of Sirus Nahavandi life. The goal for me is to shine a light on this dark, and open the "missing link". And the historical eyes to be open a little more and future generation learn from the past, and don’t repeat their experience».[1]

The author has talked with some of liberating and revolutionary organization members. Some of them resisted under torture in the prisons of the Shah and others break down under torture or a hidden agreement. In the first part of his life, the author considers Nahavandi as a combative man who is self-sold, and this way leads him to crime, and in the part of «Reasons for writing this book», at first he introduces Sirus Nahavandi and his joining to Tudeh Party when he was a student in Hamburg, Germany, and finally the emergence of the conflicts within the party and establishment of a local unit of the revolutionary organization of Tudeh party with one of his colleagues. In 1964, he decided to go to China to spend a period of political and military training, along with Pervaiz Vaez Zadeh and several other members of the revolutionary organizations, and then he returned to Iran and established dispersed organizations in the country by the suggestion of revolutionary organization leadership in 1966. He has effective role in establishing Liberation Organization of the People (Khalq) of Iran. His arrest on December 1971 and his fake escape from prison on October 25 1972 and collaboration with SAVAK led to relevance and death of a several members and cadres of the revolutionary organization and Liberation Organization of people of Iran (at Yaldā night). It was an irrecoverable impact for Left Movement of Iran.

The author claims that for writing the book, there have not been any reliable document to rely on to begin writing this book, so he looked for the documents left from the activities of this organization, in the decades of 1960 and 1970. Thus, he achieved the writings of Mohsen Rezvani, who was responsible for the revolutionary organization in abroad, or writings of Shokouh Tawafchian who was a member of the leadership in Iran. In his letter, he has pointed out to the fatal impact of SAVAK that killed several members and cadres of the organization in 1976.

The author acknowledges that some of the given documents have been written unilaterally and with love and hatred. But these documents reveal the thoughts of some political activists in the years before the Islamic Revolution, and reviewing them can help to offer information for readers about the current ideas on the thoughts of political organizations that were fighting against Shah's regime. He believes that the most important documents of Nahavandi, which exist in the archives of SAVAK, have not been publicly available.

The author also has spoken with a number of colleagues and former members of the organization. The narrators completed the statements of interviews before to be published. The book attempts to retell the transformation of Liberation Organization of the people of Iran that was established on the survival of Liberation Organization out of prison and in fact it is made by Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party.

The author hopes that Sirus Nahavandi, who is now out of sight, puts his burden on the ground once and for all, and claims that the aim of this proposal is not prosecuting him and not a personal fight, and his cooperation with SAVAK is resulted from specific conditions of time, and his expression of truth is the most valuable and enduring action.

 The author, in the book «Sirus Nahavandi: the end of the tragic story of a hero», has described the family status of Nahavandi, such as education, departure to Germany, his cooperation with the Confederation, his participation in the first revolutionary organization conference of Tudeh Party in Tirana (capital of Albania) in November/December 1964, group traveling of members of the organization to China for military and political training, their return to Iran and beginning armed activities, and how Liberation Organization was detected, the beginning of his cooperation with SAVAK, his contrived escape from the prison, and beginning of arrestments and his situation after the revolution.

Over four decades, many interviewees expressed their memories about the important events of the organization with their feelings, and in this way, some of them criticized themselves, organization and its objectives. Munir Sabour who was a member of the Liberation Organization, wrote on the part of his memoirs as «How did we wake up from the feigned sleep? »: «They pulled our legs and we worked for SAVAK unconsciously». In my opinion, there is not any advantage in the membership, unless you should come and go to a team house and get familiar with someone else. But emotionally it was very pleasant at that age. It causes that you felt you were great. You felt, you were different from someone else. You forgot your education, and engaged in better job. A job that the heroes did it during the campaigns. In those days, I deemed, I was one of the relatives of Sattar Khan and Baqer Khan, and all of the members belonged to their tribe. »[2]

Flora Qadiri, who was another active member of Liberation Organization, has retold his experience of working for the organization in an interview with the author as title «Activity in the police network, and hopes that were destroyed» such as: «…when I was employed in the organization, I was not a free man as before, it seems that I was closed by a dependency chain. When I went to prison and suspected to goodwill of the organization, I had regretted to this dependency. And this frustration did not leave me ...at that moment; I decided that I never associated with any group, until I am alive. Because most of the leaders of the group of people were obsessive and narcissistic persons who were at the top to satisfy their own deficiencies instead of the interest of the Iranian people. »[3]

Some examples of organization criticism and self-criticism have been also cited in memoirs of Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Afsar Sattari, Nasrin Muzaffar and Messaoud Mollazadeh. Mollazade, in his interview as «We did not believe the escape of Sirus» criticizes the change of Liberation Organization into «the house for Sirus Nahavandi», and believes: «…it will be worse, if the entire of organization is changed into «the house for Sirus Nahavandi». The idea that you call down the people for show yourself great is not true. Some people, even political groups, when write about Nahavandi´s group, turn a deaf ear that there are other persons along with Nahavandi in the group, the persons who ignored a lot of benefits of life… now, these persons are forgotten.[4]

The book has poor print quality, and still has many typesetting errors despite correction in the second edition, in documents section, that includes many pages, points out a number of declarations of revolutionary organization of the Tudeh Party and the positions of a number of individuals associated with the party and the newspaper[5] of Mojahedin Khalgheh Organization (MKO) about Sirus Nahavandi and the arrest of members of this group. It is noteworthy that many books that author use them for making more effective his text, is published inside Iran. This book contains some pictures of members and relatives, and pieces of newspaper about the arrested members of this group.