Identifying talented people and how to recruit in Ahvaz

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-8-23

In the academic year 50-51 (1971-1972), I felt that I should identify the new students who came to the industrial high school during this period, and attract religious and talented people who have the motivation to fight. In my investigations, I found Fereydoun Mortezaee and Gholamreza Qomeishi and two or three other people. I said to Mr. Mortezaee who came to the industrial high school from the town of Omidiyeh: "Where do you want to rent a house?" He had no special plan.  First, he came to my house for a while and then he rented a house in Zaytoun Kargari neighborhood with my advice and I established my connections in that house and my own house. Gradually, a very good team was formed, so that sometimes ten to twelve people gathered and worked in that house. Thus, along with the activities we had with Abdullah Sakiyeh in the field of armed struggle, we started a coordinated public work, which was focused on recruiting staff, training forces and expanding the organization. After a while, I felt that a good crowd had been found, so I told my friends to go to the mosques in Ahvaz and prepare a report on the state of the mosques. After a while, I felt that a good group had gathered, so I told my friends to go to the mosques in Ahvaz and prepare reports on the state of the mosques.

During the armed struggle, we came to the conclusion that one of the fundamental weaknesses of the armed struggle is the disconnection of the fighters from the people and their separation from the realities of society. Therefore, as a principle, we asked the brothers we were working with to prepare reports on what was happening around them and see what was going on around them and what the people were saying. Or who were religious among the people around them and what was the condition of their surroundings. Some brothers, who were more active, went to two mosques instead of one. Mortezaee went to both Asiyeh Abad Mosque and Esfahaniha Mosque and reported on the situation of these two mosques. This continued more carefully in the month of Muharram.

As we moved forward and continued our activities, we came to the idea that our group should not be limited to our friends and we should attract people from old and new students and even from among the teachers. The teachers of the industrial high school were two groups: The first group were old and elderly, and the second group were teachers who had just entered the school. We excluded senior teachers from the goal, and from the way they behaved, realized that it was useless to work with them in class discussions, because as soon as the discussions became political, they either left the discussion or reacted. We saw that it was useless to argue with senior teachers. But in the case of young teachers who had just come to teach at the high school, we thought that it would be effective if we worked on them. However, it came to our mind that if we, namely Mr. Sakiyeh and Mr. Ahmadi or Mr. Daghayeghi, want to work on these, it might be improvident. It came to our mind to recruit some students in the period after the high school and form a revolutionary core from them and entrust some work to them so that they become active and we can guide them in connection with the professors of the school and we ourselves are behind the scenes too. Therefore, we chose Mr. Qomeishi, Mr. Mortezaee and several other friends as a core of the next year's students among twenty people. The new religious people were rightful and talented; that is, when we raised a discussion with them, we saw that they accepted and were not afraid. Some accepted our words, but because they were afraid, they did not join us. Of course, some people did not accept these discussions at all and it was not very important to them. Those who accepted the discussions were two groups. Some said: "We accept the discussion, but we don't want to get involved in this kind of work." Some who were braver people accepted the discussions and were ready to enter the fighting phase along with us. In the next phase, we would monitor and discuss them based on criteria, and then summarize them one by one with other friends; for instance, if the opinion of Mr. Qomeishi, Mr. Sakiyeh and other friends was that he could be one of the members of the group, we made him a member. In the same way, from the next period, we formed four or five people into a revolutionary core. So we had become two cores: one core of the entries of our own period; that is, the entrances of the year 49 (1970) and a core of the entrances of the year 50 (1971); we asked those who entered the Industrial High School in the year 50 (1971) to work on the young teachers of the school.

Among the other tasks that I entrusted to the second layer of the organization was that they should also work on the next people who would enter the high school in the following years and identify the new professors and teachers who would enter the school. After preliminary studies, it turned out that two teachers are ready to be recruited. One is Mr. Husseini and the other is Mr. Rouhi, who was from the north of the country and was inclined towards communism. We went to his house with Mortezaee, Qomeishi and some other friends and discussed with him. He really liked our conversation. He asked us: "Who is your fighting role model?" I thought and said: "Mirza Kouchak Khan Jangali." Then I said to him: "You are also from the north like Mirza Kouchak Khan." Then I said to Mr. Mortezaee: "Give him Mirfakhraei's book to read and be more justified." Mr. Mortezaee found this book in one of the libraries of Ahvaz and gave it to him and he also read it. I remember that night we slept in his house. It was important that this spirit was in our guys who went and worked with the teachers. Although most of the teachers were literate and militant people, the guys would go and talk to them.

Source: Rezaee Mir Qa’ed, Oral History of Iran-Iraq War Narrated by Mohsen Rezaee, V. 1, Compiled by Hussein Ardestani, Tehran, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), The Center for Sacred Defense Documents and Research, 1394 (2015), pp. 86-90