Oral History of Revolutionary Struggles Narrated by “Raah”

Memories and Q&As

Elham Saleh
Translated by Rouhollah Golmoradi

2016-7-31

Often, there are issues that people do not speak about them. As much as these issues become impersonally, it is less possible for you to express them. Mohsen Rezaee (PhD) carries the memories nearly four decades. In all the years various people have spoken with him to convince him to express these memories. Finally Rezaee in Raah (The Path)[1] talks about his memoirs. This book which is the first volume of his memoirs is part of the oral history of these four decades.

A Voluminous Book

Raah (The Path) rightly so has the rules of a book. List of this book has been compiled carefully. The book is divided chapters and sections based on subject. Each chapter in accordance with an interview with Mohsen Rezaee is called “meeting”. The talks conducted in 21 sessions from January to June 2010.

The book, as referred to it in preface of publisher, is one of the books whom Sacred Defense Documentation and Research Center has published on the subject of oral history of commanders. Because of the fact that commanders at various levels designed, planned and carried out dimensions of holy war, it is of great importance and is one of the most important positive points of publishing such books. Raah (The Path) which is also about memoires of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander during the war and now secretary of the Expediency Council, is one of these book in which personal diary of Mohsen Rezaee, whom he is called stylist commander of contemporary history of Iran, shared with the audience.

The introduction describes the process of compiling the book and the material has been examined for several times because security issues in the years 1979 to are expressed for the first time. After nearly 34 years of these events, forgetting them is possible and because of importance of oral history, information director of the left, right, eclectic and numerous experts were involved in the issues and If something was wrong or ambiguous it would be resolved by discussions that took place prior to each interview. In addition to, the final text sends to Mohsen Rezaee (PhD) in order to be amended if necessary.

Raah (The Path) is a book which starts with his family and cultural- religious activities of Mohsen Rezaee, but contains some points in the contemporary history of Iran.

The book has good graphics. Each chapter is designed graphically in a way to make it easy for the audience to read the book with many pages.

At the beginning of each chapter, there is a section called “Abstract” which is a summary of what will be talked with the audience. Portions of each chapter, expressed in the form of first-person and as a memory, but points are also introduced in the form of question and answer. In fact, this book was written both in forms of memory and question and answer that due to large amounts of the text, it has helped to read the book easier.

About being voluminosity of Raah (The Path), both text and graphics shows that the time spent to conduct it and the result is that this book can be considered as a document. Investigating further book chapters and contents proves this result.

Sections and Chapters

Raah (The Path) is product of 21 meeting for interview which based on these meetings also its chapters called “meeting”. A brief look at the titles of the chapters show that the book contains various issues; Meeting I: the family, Meeting II: cultural-religious activities, Meeting III: academy, Meeting IV: making the home team, Meeting V: prison and SAVAK, Meeting VI: immigration, Meeting VII: the secret life, Meeting VIII: Sepah[2] intelligence unit, Meeting IX: unsuccessful assassination, Meeting X: features of intelligence forces, Meeting XI: The Forqan group and group of Arab people, Meeting XII: Fadaiyan people in the north, Meeting XIII: USA Embassy, ​​ Meeting XIV: discover the coup, Meeting XV: Sistan and Baluchistan, Meeting XVI: Azerbaijan and Shariatmadari, Meeting XVII: armed organization, Meeting XVIII: explosion at the Islamic Republic party, Meeting XIX: forming The Central Cadre of the Organization, Meeting XX: people against the organization,  Meeting XXI: the organization in Kurdistan and forest.

The book also has Parts that cover more general topics: Part I: family and adolescence, Part II: During the warfare, Part III: Protecting the Revolution, Part IV: fighting political groups, Part V: USA Association of conspiracy, Part VI: ethnic and religious provocations and part VII: MKO[3].

The narrator's childhood and education

Mohsen Rezaee is a familiar name that many might haven't heard anything about his childhood and education. That's why hearing of this topic has a special attraction for the audience; that they become informed Mohsen Rezaee has nomadic life, or even at seven-eight years he had seen invasion of locusts to the fields is pleasant. He engaged in pastoral work in childhood and hadn't gone school. But one day, someone tells him that he must go to school. The school name was Sheshom e Bahman: “It was my first class meeting and did not know what the teacher had taught and what had happened in the class, but I had to go in front of the blackboard. Teacher wrote on the chalkboard: Dad has horse. Then he called me and said words are dotted and you have to connect them. I also connected them. I liked the work so much. I wrote Dad horses, while my father hadn't a horse!”

As a teenager, Mohsen Rezaee interest to study is one of the issues that will be discussed in the first part of the book: “In the central market of Masjed Soleiman, there were two or three bookstores that were not very well known and established. Sometimes I would go and give them the names of the books and would tell bring this book for me. I ordered to the bookstore to buy it, but it usually takes a month to prepare the book.”

Sepah intelligence unit

The necessity of forming Sepah intelligence unit is one of the issues which narrator of Raah (The Path)  talks about it: “In my opinion, if there was no intelligence unit, people confronted two losses: one that, due to the lack of cohesion and organization, gradually disputes would appear, sincere and spontaneous efforts of the intelligence would be destroyed that this issue would be to the detriment of the revolution; Second detriment was that on the grounds the opposition didn't allow to create an revolutionary information entity or even an organized intelligence agency in the country.”

Rezaee alluding to the fact that at the beginning of the revolution they were also trying to evaluate experiences of educational sector of the SAVAK forces, talks about their scientific low level, their minimal talent, their minimal knowledge about information and escaping training coaches of SAVAK in information unit from Iran. Another source used for training information forces was educational books: “Educational books were another source that we used to train our forces. We found some pink books that we took advantage of them and [somewhat] were useful. For example, we found some books with the title chase principles, principles of covert operations or analyzes that were valuable to us. However, some of these books and pamphlets were extremely weak.”

MKO with Saddam

U.S. Embassy siege, Sistan and Baluchistan situation at the beginning of imposed war, the reason of coming Imam Khomeini from Qom to Tehran, the MKO and dissolution of the army, June 28, 1981 incident and explosion in the Islamic Republic Party and attack on social network of MKO in Karaj are some of the issues that Mohsen Rezaee in Raah (The Path)  will express information about them and about Companionship of MKO with Saddam also says: “At that time Saddam Hussein's war was the most prepared international action against Iran. Accordingly, Massoud Rajavi went to Baghdad and dialogued with Saddam and signed cooperation agreement with the Iraqi government. After that, Monafeqin[4] began providing information and spying for the Iraqi army in Iran. In Preliminary Valfajr operation and after Ramadan operation, we were faced with the problem that they took most of our information behind the front and gave the Iraqi army. It created great intelligence capabilities interest of Iraq.”

A few notes about the book

Raah (The Path) has an introduction by Mohsen Rezaee in which he refers to reason of publication of this book and talking points after thirty years.

List includes symbols, people, places, and other names and terms that are in the book. In this book, a separate section is not intended for photos, but photos are used according to content in the internal pages. Because of using photos with high quality, this is a positive feature.

Another important point about this book is its footnotes. In the footnotes, in addition to what has been said in the text, more information is provided and dates of interviews with Mohsen Rezaee (PhD) are also there.