Call to Arms: Iran's Marxist Revolutionaries

Formation and Evolution of the Fada'is, 1964–1976

• Author(s): Ali Rahnema,
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster
• Pages: 608
• ISBN_10: 1786079860
  ISBN_13: 9781786079862
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Political Science / History & Theory , Political Science / Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism , Political Science / Human Rights , History / General , History / Middle East / General , Political Science / Political Freedom , History / Military / Revolutions & Wars of Independence ,

Description:... On 8 February 1971, Marxist revolutionaries attacked the gendarmerie outpost at the village of Siyahkal in Iran’s Gilan province. Barely two months later, the Iranian People’s Fada’i Guerrillas officially announced their existence and began a long, drawn-out urban guerrilla war against the Shah’s regime.

In Call to Arms, Ali Rahnema provides a comprehensive history of the Fada’is, beginning by asking why so many of Iran’s best and brightest chose revolutionary Marxism in the face of absolutist rule. He traces how radicalised university students from different ideological backgrounds morphed into the Marxist Fada’is in 1971, and sheds light on their theory, practice and evolution. While the Fada’is failed to directly bring about the fall of the Shah, Rahnema shows they had a lasting impact on society and they ultimately saw their objective achieved.