National Front (Iran) - The Second and Third National Front

The Second and Third National Front

In the aftermath of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état carried out by the CIA with support from the British spy service, MI6, the National Front was outlawed and its highest-ranking leaders arrested and brought before a military court. The military coup established Mohammad Reza Shah as the supreme ruler of Iran, although nominal power was held by Prime Minister Fazlollah Zahedi (who was paid by the CIA to help overthrow Mossadegh and strengthen the power of the monarchy. In an atmosphere of police repression, several former members of the National Front (mostly low-ranking leaders) established an underground network called the National Resistance Movement. This group included future prime ministers Mehdi Bazargan and Shapour Bakhtiar and its aim was to reestablish democracy by campaigning for free and fair elections. Its activities were largely restricted to peacefully distributing flyers and attempting to regulate the 1954 Majlis elections (which in the end were rigged in favor of the pro-Shah candidates). Under pressure from the state, it fell apart. But in 1960, the Second National Front was formed, which consisted of prominent people such as Karim Sanjabi, Mehdi Bazargan, Allahyar Saleh, Shapour Bakhtiar, Adib Boroumand, Asqar Pârsâ, Dâryuš Foruhar, Qolâm Hosseyn Sadiqi, Mohamad Ali Xonji and others. Its aim was to return Mohammad Mossadegh to the premiership and to reestablish the constitutional monarchy. Initially, it seemed as if this organization was gaining in strength. However, the group's leaders fell into disagreements over questions such as the organization of the Front, tactics vis-a-vis the Shah's regime and the form of government the National Front should commit itself to. These disputes led to tension between the high-ranking leaders and the student activists and in 1961, Bazargan, Mahmoud Taleghani (a prominent Islamic cleric) and others formed the Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI) which was committed to a democratic state in which the Islamic religion would play a substantial role in state and society (as opposed to the more secular orientation of the National Front).

Another issue arose over the appointment in April 1961 of Dr. Ali Amini to the premiership. It was widely believed that the Shah had chosen Amini under pressure from the Kennedy Administration in the United States and it was partly for this reason that the National Front's leaders persistently refused to collaborate with or lend support to Ali Amini's government. But political turmoil grew worse and in 1962, Amini stepped down from the premiership due to his dispute with the Shah over the former's plans to reduce the military budget. The following year in June 1963, a huge religious uprising occurred in the cities of Tehran, Qum, Mashad, Shiraz and Varamin, which was put down with ruthless force by the Iranian army. The unrest had been sparked by the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a vocal critic of the Shah and his program of land reforms and granting women the right to vote. Around this time, the Third National Front was formed, which consisted of the FMI (religious-nationalists; Melli-Mazhabis), the Iran Nation Party (the party of Dariush Forouhar; Hezb-e Mellat-e Iran), the Society of Iranian Socialists (led by Khalil Maleki, a prominent personality of the Mossadegh era who had been prohibited from joining the Second National Front due to his past history in the Tudeh Party) and the student activists.

The Second and Third National Fronts differed largely in its tactical approach to facing the Shah's regime. The former believed in patiently negotiating with the Shah and the higher officials in the hope of peacefully bringing about a democracy. In contrast to this passive approach, the Third National Front advocated a strategy of civil disobedience and protests in the hope of either forcing the regime to come to terms with the opposition or face collapse. But by 1964, Mohammad Reza Shah had consolidated his control of both his regime and the country and he quickly moved to further guarantee his position by increasing the powers of SAVAK (the state's intelligence agency), which was infamous for the torture and killings it inflicted on the opposition and even on ordinary Iranians who merely uttered any wrong words against the regime. In this new atmosphere of police terror, the National Front virtually ceased to exist (though exile branches continued to operate in the United States and Europe).