lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 10, 2018 18:58:07 GMT
(8)
January 1979: There was a power vacuum in Iran which came with the departure of The Shah. Sanjabi attempted to fill it with his National Front government where he planned to bring in religious figures too but his authority was challenged from many quarters along with his legitimacy. His position of that of acting prime minister was supported by elements of the SAVAK, the military and what other elements of the government was left: none of these had the support of Islamists, the Tudeh and other small opposition groupings though. Moreover, the people wanted change and the secular National Front wasn’t it. Iranians wouldn’t give their backing to the secularists who were seen (unfairly) as more of the same. To rule Iran, others challenged for that leadership of the country in armed clashes across January. The army wouldn’t fire on the crowds of people who now came out in support of the extremists. The numbers of protesters weren’t as strong as they had been in December and what was left was generally the hard-core supporters of religious and communist movements who shoved aside moderates, reformers and such like to oppose the military in the few instances when they did stand their ground and instead go after the other side. This was done through the use of armed militias. There were the Islamic Marxist People’s Mujahedin (MEK) who were the biggest but split themselves between support for the Islamists and also non-Tudeh communist groups. The Tudeh had co-opted the Fedai Guerrillas to their side. The Maoist-inspired EMK wanted nothing to do with either of the two big extremist groups and fought them both plus government forces. There were Kurdish nationalists and Kurdish communists. Street thugs were being organised by the Islamists too though they had little organisation and zero discipline. Apart from the latter, who had rather serious dedication to fight in memory of Khomeini, these groups all had access to arms from domestic & foreign sources as well as an established network of support from years of being underground. Their ranks had swelled with army deserters and they fought. Mid- and late-January saw Iran tear itself further apart with death and destruction. Urban areas saw much guerrilla fighting though across the provinces too there was a lot of trouble. Much of Iran’s oil infrastructure was left in ruin, so too its military capabilities. Human rights abuses were widespread and death squads operated. The government tried to fight fairly and this left them with one hand tied behind their back against others who had no concept of acting in good faith nor following the laws of warfare. Sanjabi himself found himself targeted in an attempted coup d’état which went wrong when certain military officers tried to topple him but when their bomb missed him, they went after each other. Meanwhile, the rebel militias took territory and fought each other while pushing aside government forces who continued to haemorrhage their own numbers. The MEK leadership did an about-turn soon enough and came out in support of the Tudeh when promises were made by the new leader of Iran’s communists in the form of Kianouri who had returned from exile in Eastern Europe: the former Tudeh general secretary Eskandari – who had been opposing Soviet ‘aid’ for some time now – was pushed aside after he wanted to do a deal with the National Front when left aghast at all of the killing. As to the Islamists, their street thugs and what parts of the split MEK they had couldn’t fully fight off the communist militias plus also the Maoists in the EMK who were trying to carve out their own piece of the pie. The Tudeh pushed its nationalist message and this alienated much Kurdish support which could have come their way yet the Kurds fought with the Islamists rather than them. There was a tilt towards the Tudeh in the support of the people not caught up in the fighting directly. Away from that, where the communists had control, they started to do what The Shah had promised and what the National Front had said they would do too: bring about equality and punish those whose actions were caused injustice to the people. The communists were quick in the propaganda war here as they oversold what little they did but they were doing something where all that had come before had been empty words. Sanjabi was making his statements from Tehran about what he would do, and the Islamists had their own ideas, but the Tudeh were already in action. This mattered. It mattered in so much as there was a near dearth of internal opposition in areas under Tudeh control – that wasn’t the same elsewhere – and when the state military lost soldiers from its ranks, those deserters quickly went over to the communists rather than to anyone else. Unless something dramatic happened, the Tudeh were on course to win. This chaos in Iran surely will raise Oil prices. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 10, 2018 19:43:18 GMT
(8)
January 1979: There was a power vacuum in Iran which came with the departure of The Shah. Sanjabi attempted to fill it with his National Front government where he planned to bring in religious figures too but his authority was challenged from many quarters along with his legitimacy. His position of that of acting prime minister was supported by elements of the SAVAK, the military and what other elements of the government was left: none of these had the support of Islamists, the Tudeh and other small opposition groupings though. Moreover, the people wanted change and the secular National Front wasn’t it. Iranians wouldn’t give their backing to the secularists who were seen (unfairly) as more of the same. To rule Iran, others challenged for that leadership of the country in armed clashes across January. The army wouldn’t fire on the crowds of people who now came out in support of the extremists. The numbers of protesters weren’t as strong as they had been in December and what was left was generally the hard-core supporters of religious and communist movements who shoved aside moderates, reformers and such like to oppose the military in the few instances when they did stand their ground and instead go after the other side. This was done through the use of armed militias. There were the Islamic Marxist People’s Mujahedin (MEK) who were the biggest but split themselves between support for the Islamists and also non-Tudeh communist groups. The Tudeh had co-opted the Fedai Guerrillas to their side. The Maoist-inspired EMK wanted nothing to do with either of the two big extremist groups and fought them both plus government forces. There were Kurdish nationalists and Kurdish communists. Street thugs were being organised by the Islamists too though they had little organisation and zero discipline. Apart from the latter, who had rather serious dedication to fight in memory of Khomeini, these groups all had access to arms from domestic & foreign sources as well as an established network of support from years of being underground. Their ranks had swelled with army deserters and they fought. Mid- and late-January saw Iran tear itself further apart with death and destruction. Urban areas saw much guerrilla fighting though across the provinces too there was a lot of trouble. Much of Iran’s oil infrastructure was left in ruin, so too its military capabilities. Human rights abuses were widespread and death squads operated. The government tried to fight fairly and this left them with one hand tied behind their back against others who had no concept of acting in good faith nor following the laws of warfare. Sanjabi himself found himself targeted in an attempted coup d’état which went wrong when certain military officers tried to topple him but when their bomb missed him, they went after each other. Meanwhile, the rebel militias took territory and fought each other while pushing aside government forces who continued to haemorrhage their own numbers. The MEK leadership did an about-turn soon enough and came out in support of the Tudeh when promises were made by the new leader of Iran’s communists in the form of Kianouri who had returned from exile in Eastern Europe: the former Tudeh general secretary Eskandari – who had been opposing Soviet ‘aid’ for some time now – was pushed aside after he wanted to do a deal with the National Front when left aghast at all of the killing. As to the Islamists, their street thugs and what parts of the split MEK they had couldn’t fully fight off the communist militias plus also the Maoists in the EMK who were trying to carve out their own piece of the pie. The Tudeh pushed its nationalist message and this alienated much Kurdish support which could have come their way yet the Kurds fought with the Islamists rather than them. There was a tilt towards the Tudeh in the support of the people not caught up in the fighting directly. Away from that, where the communists had control, they started to do what The Shah had promised and what the National Front had said they would do too: bring about equality and punish those whose actions were caused injustice to the people. The communists were quick in the propaganda war here as they oversold what little they did but they were doing something where all that had come before had been empty words. Sanjabi was making his statements from Tehran about what he would do, and the Islamists had their own ideas, but the Tudeh were already in action. This mattered. It mattered in so much as there was a near dearth of internal opposition in areas under Tudeh control – that wasn’t the same elsewhere – and when the state military lost soldiers from its ranks, those deserters quickly went over to the communists rather than to anyone else. Unless something dramatic happened, the Tudeh were on course to win. This chaos in Iran surely will raise Oil prices. Oil: thank you for the reminder. See below! |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 10, 2018 19:43:43 GMT
(9)
January 1979:
If Iran had been invaded by an outside force – i.e. the Soviet Union, maybe Iraq – then the United States could have directly intervened. Iran had been undergoing a revolution before the civil war erupted though. President Ford wasn’t about to get his country involved in another internal conflict abroad. The Vietnam War had ended only four years beforehand and the public mood wasn’t there. There was deep concern about Iran’s future, especially with the rise of the communists when before the Islamists had been seen as the danger, but getting involved was off the table. From afar, all that took place was watching with an inability to act to any effect. Kissinger approached the Sanjabi government and asked about the future of Iran under the National Front while also talking of a visit: the latter would be a very bad idea, the US secretary of state was told. There was a rise in oil prices that came with the conflict in Iran, starting back in September, that only got worse when news broke that much of the oil industry had been fought over and what trickle of exports there had come were to cease. As to Americans in-country, the majority of those from the burnt-out embassy departed for Turkey leaving the ambassador and a very small staff at a temporary location in Tehran. Further Americans had left already, including all of those military contractors, as the anti-Western atmosphere inside Iran was deadly for the unlucky. Representatives of arms manufacturers inside the United States had already been bugging congressmen and senators about the future of their contracts for maintenance of existing equipment and the supply of further orders. Arming Iran had been good for many companies and the money tap was certain to be turned off if either the communists or Islamists won. Nothing could be done though by the Ford Administration.
A communist Iran would be good for the Soviet Union. The Politburo was impressed at how far the Tudeh came in such a short space of time. The leading position which they took – supported as they were by KGB assistance in terms of intelligence support and ‘advice’ – happened very fast. Those old men in the Kremlin started to look upon Iran as their revolution, one which they had created by getting rid of the Persian Trotsky who had been Khomeini. Taking credit like they did, they wanted to do more to ensure the signs of success being shown paid off. Earlier hesitancy was pushed aside. Iran offered countless opportunities to ensure the security of the Soviet Union as well as the spread of Soviet influence elsewhere in the Middle East now that Iraq had shown a friendliness too. There was still concern over America and whether they would get involved but there were no signs that they would do so. A panel of economists submitted a requested report to the Politburo when it came to what the future would hold in regard to oil exports and how those would fill state coffers following events in Iran. The Politburo was pleased. The Soviet Union was already on its way to becoming a leading exporter of hydrocarbons – oil and gas – to fill the needs of the greedy West who paid in hard currency. Now with the damage done in Iran but also fears of Western shipping in the Persian Gulf despite that stretch of water having not seen violence, the West would want more. The demand was there and there was the oil available. However, the Politburo questioned the right method to fill that demand. Was it wise to keep giving the West what it wanted at a low price when they wanted so much? Surely it made better sense to charge them more and gently restrict the flow. Not too much of either, just a little. That was something to think about. These would usually be the concerns of the despised capitalists but the communist leadership in Moscow was starting to think like them too.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 10, 2018 19:45:46 GMT
This chaos in Iran surely will raise Oil prices. Oil: thank you for the reminder. See below! Well it was 25 dollars in 1979 and by 1980 had risen to 37 dollars, i can see in this timeline with the chaos in Iran that oil prize may be a lot higher. And do not forget the 1979 energy crisis which in this timeline may also be a lot worse. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 13:08:48 GMT
Oil: thank you for the reminder. See below! Well it was 25 dollars in 1979 and by 1980 had risen to 37 dollars, i can see in this timeline with the chaos in Iran that oil prize may be a lot higher. And do not forget the 1979 energy crisis which in this timeline may also be a lot worse. I've added some of this in after re-reading up on the issue. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 13:09:10 GMT
(10)
February 1979:
It was all about pragmatism. What was left of the forces of the state had forced out The Shah when he tried to stay in Iran. Those in uniform, the army and the secret police, came to the same conclusion when it came to abandoning Sanjabi and his National Front in favour of the Tudeh. The country was being destroyed by those in charge and this just had to come to an end. By going over to the communists, the intention was to assist them in finish off the last of the opposition from the Islamists and put an end to the civil war. February 3rd saw SAVAK agents arrest Sanjabi – once again! – and detain his ineffective ministers. There were snatch and/or kill missions against several leading figures in the Islamist movement too with military leaders from there being sought as well rather than their political masters. For years, The Shah had used the SAVAK against the Tudeh and they had been ruthless in their crushing of the communists. Now, the secret police were on their side. Information had been passed from Tudeh figures on the Islamists as well for them to act. As can be imagined, this didn’t sit too well with many in the SAVAK as they were smart enough to realise the links between the Tudeh and the KGB with this. There were fears over their own personal future under the communists with not all trusting the promises made to cement the alliance when the threat of Moscow loomed. Some SAVAK personnel had links with other intelligence organisations abroad such as the CIA and Mossad: there were physical defections and defections in-place where these concerns were passed on to those abroad of how the revolution and subsequent civil war had been covertly subverted from Moscow.
The fighting inside Iran continued with the communist militias taking it right to the Islamists as they got their government off their back and well as more propaganda moves. The message of nationalism – long a Tudeh strategy – was pushed and pushed again. There was talk of a referendum with the participation of the people in deciding the future of Iran with regards to its government and the departed monarchy once the Tudeh had won… there were only a few questions on how that was supposed to be impartial! Jobs were promised for all of those in Iran out of work and land reform was to come too. The influx of soldiers and especially heavy weapons when the army went over to the communists allowed them to score many more victories against the Islamists. More importantly, it allowed them to scatter that opposition and leave areas not under communist control with the inability to support each other. They would be picked off one by one like this.
Outside of the country, there was the continued international crisis with regards to oil prices. The disruption from the Iranian civil war was mainly one of panic and perceptions rather than reality. Iran was a big exporter yet other countries were producing oil. The actual gap in the market was small. However, the fear was there that the prices were going to keep going up. This was being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous too. In the United States, there were memories of 1973 and the oil shock then. The country had price caps for domestic consumption and there was no need to panic, Ford told the American people when speaking on the subject of Iran, yet far too many did and there was panic buying in places. Elsewhere, Western Europe wasn’t happy either with leaders from Britain, France and West Germany – Prime Minister Callaghan, President d’Estaing and Chancellor Schmidt – meeting in a summit on Iran and agreeing to halt another oil crisis from hitting the Continent as had been the case six years before. Measures were to be taken to calm the panic in the short-term and in the long-term diversify sources of oil for domestic consumption. There was an agreement too that they didn’t want to become reliant on Soviet oil too because even while that may be convenient, there were political considerations on that matter. Whether Western Europe would remain committed to this line on dealing with Soviet oil in the future, was another matter though.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 11, 2018 14:43:26 GMT
Well it was 25 dollars in 1979 and by 1980 had risen to 37 dollars, i can see in this timeline with the chaos in Iran that oil prize may be a lot higher. And do not forget the 1979 energy crisis which in this timeline may also be a lot worse. I've added some of this in after re-reading up on the issue. Nice. So we see SAVAK doing the same thing as they did in OTL ,abandoning their old master and getting a new master. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 15:38:20 GMT
I've added some of this in after re-reading up on the issue. Nice. So we see SAVAK doing the same thing as they did in OTL ,abandoning their old master and getting a new master. Self preservation indeed! |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 15:38:52 GMT
(11)
February 1979:
A further conflict in another part of the world erupted at the same time as the civil war in Iran was ongoing. This came in South East Asia where Chinese demands that Vietnam withdraw from Cambodia were ignored and so China rose to the challenge presented by its smaller southern neighbour. China’s Paramount Leader, Deng Xiaoping, informed Kissinger that the ‘naughty children need a spanking’ and that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be the ones to give them that. The resulting conflict was about more than just that though. China’s hostility towards Vietnam came with the latter country’s occupation of islands within the South China Sea which the former claimed as their own as well as the ties between Hanoi and Moscow which aggravated tensions between Beijing and Moscow following on from the Sino-Soviet Split ten years beforehand. Deng wanted to show the Vietnamese that Moscow couldn’t protect them and believed that that could be done with an armed conflict.
The PLA went over the border into the northern part of Vietnam. Chinese soldiers marched onwards into Vietnamese territory and engaged defending forces. There had been a rise in tensions preceding the incursion and much of Vietnam’s professional forces had pulled back leaving behind them militia units. PLA attempts to steamroll this defence worked in some ways but not in others. The Chinese got a bloody nose as they drove onwards and reinforced their initial forces with follow-on troops. Difficult and bloody fighting took place with the Chinese eventually making the breakthrough which they wanted to though at a high cost. By the end of the month, they had started to close in upon Hanoi with the threat presented to the Vietnamese capital. Deng was waiting for Vietnam to withdraw troops from Cambodia to come northwards to defend their capital. China had the manpower to fight them when they came forward though there was no intention to actually go into Hanoi or make a deep strike far inside Vietnam. The conflict had limited goals for Deng which were linked to what was going on along the long border between China and the Soviet Union too.
The Soviets were informed of the Chinese intention to attack Vietnam and practically dared to do anything about it. The PLA had mobilised and deployed more than a million troops along the Soviet frontier. Deng informed Andropov that China would fight the Soviet Army if it crossed over the border: the PLA had done so in 1969 and would do so again. When the Politburo’s sub-committee that was the Defence Council met to discuss Deng’s behaviour, there was a lot of anger and a willingness to rise to the Chinese challenge. However, Andropov found himself angry soon enough at another matter: the inability of the country’s armed forces to rise to the challenge that China presented along the border as well as down in Vietnam. Soviet forces were able to fend off a Chinese attack, he was told, but to go into China would mean making substantial mobilisations and take a long time to prepare for: a war in China would be costly… to put it mildly. As to assisting Vietnam, that was difficult to do. Soviet forces weren’t directly able to assist in defence and while there was an ability to send supplies and military hardware, it was a long journey which would take too much time to see any impact made. Deng had outfoxed Moscow. He’d stalked out his position and struck at the right time with plenty of consideration going into what he had done. To do anything about this at the minute was impossible. It was going to be a lesson learnt though, one with far-ranging considerations for the future. Meanwhile, the fighting in Vietnam continued.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 11, 2018 15:45:15 GMT
(11)February 1979: A further conflict in another part of the world erupted at the same time as the civil war in Iran was ongoing. This came in South East Asia where Chinese demands that Vietnam withdraw from Cambodia were ignored and so China rose to the challenge presented by its smaller southern neighbour. China’s Paramount Leader, Deng Xiaoping, informed Kissinger that the ‘naughty children need a spanking’ and that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be the ones to give them that. The resulting conflict was about more than just that though. China’s hostility towards Vietnam came with the latter country’s occupation of islands within the South China Sea which the former claimed as their own as well as the ties between Hanoi and Moscow which aggravated tensions between Beijing and Moscow following on from the Sino-Soviet Split ten years beforehand. Deng wanted to show the Vietnamese that Moscow couldn’t protect them and believed that that could be done with an armed conflict. The PLA went over the border into the northern part of Vietnam. Chinese soldiers marched onwards into Vietnamese territory and engaged defending forces. There had been a rise in tensions preceding the incursion and much of Vietnam’s professional forces had pulled back leaving behind them militia units. PLA attempts to steamroll this defence worked in some ways but not in others. The Chinese got a bloody nose as they drove onwards and reinforced their initial forces with follow-on troops. Difficult and bloody fighting took place with the Chinese eventually making the breakthrough which they wanted to though at a high cost. By the end of the month, they had started to close in upon Hanoi with the threat presented to the Vietnamese capital. Deng was waiting for Vietnam to withdraw troops from Cambodia to come northwards to defend their capital. China had the manpower to fight them when they came forward though there was no intention to actually go into Hanoi or make a deep strike far inside Vietnam. The conflict had limited goals for Deng which were linked to what was going on along the long border between China and the Soviet Union too. The Soviets were informed of the Chinese intention to attack Vietnam and practically dared to do anything about it. The PLA had mobilised and deployed more than a million troops along the Soviet frontier. Deng informed Andropov that China would fight the Soviet Army if it crossed over the border: the PLA had done so in 1969 and would do so again. When the Politburo’s sub-committee that was the Defence Council met to discuss Deng’s behaviour, there was a lot of anger and a willingness to rise to the Chinese challenge. However, Andropov found himself angry soon enough at another matter: the inability of the country’s armed forces to rise to the challenge that China presented along the border as well as down in Vietnam. Soviet forces were able to fend off a Chinese attack, he was told, but to go into China would mean making substantial mobilisations and take a long time to prepare for: a war in China would be costly… to put it mildly. As to assisting Vietnam, that was difficult to do. Soviet forces weren’t directly able to assist in defence and while there was an ability to send supplies and military hardware, it was a long journey which would take too much time to see any impact made. Deng had outfoxed Moscow. He’d stalked out his position and struck at the right time with plenty of consideration going into what he had done. To do anything about this at the minute was impossible. It was going to be a lesson learnt though, one with far-ranging considerations for the future. Meanwhile, the fighting in Vietnam continued. O nice, whit a civil war in Iran, of course we can also have a Sino-Vietnamese War in Asia. |
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 18:18:54 GMT
O nice, whit a civil war in Iran, of course we can also have a Sino-Vietnamese War in Asia. That conflict has gone generally as it went in RL and is short but the effects are in the long run. Iran is still going on. There will be other wars in 1979 too. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 11, 2018 18:19:46 GMT
(12)
March 1979:
Deng had been clever though not clever enough. The Soviets were wrong-footed in response to him having the PLA go into Vietnam but the Vietnamese weren’t. The Third Indochina War didn’t go exactly as planned. Vietnamese regular troops stayed outside of Hanoi and back from the fighting leaving it to forward, lighter militia units. Deng wasn’t willing to send the PLA onwards into an even more bloody fight than had already been encountered. An announcement was made that the mission had been achieved, the gates to Hanoi were open and China had done in Vietnam what it intended to do. A withdrawal was ordered and the PLA started pulling out. Their retrograde manoeuvre took them back north towards the border though they came to a stop inside small slivers of territory long held by Vietnam and what China had always claimed to be their own. Now that claim was enforced with PLA troops encamped there. Vietnam claimed a victory had been won and the country defended. The invasion had been repelled and the Chinese had been beaten like the French and the Americans before them. Much was made in announcements from Hanoi of the deliberate ruin caused by the PLA’s scorched earth policy that was adopted during that ‘retreat’ made too with infrastructure levelled, livestock taken and punitive destruction.
The Soviets hadn’t been able to help Vietnam in time though afterwards, starting in March, they begun the process of establishing themselves inside Vietnam to help protect their fraternal socialist state in the future. Cam Ranh Bay, the air and naval facility on the coast, was opened up to Soviet forces. This was a facility built by the Americans during their stay in what was then South Vietnam: the Soviets now took over, grateful for all that the United States had done here. Early work started at once to make it a fully-fledged Soviet military base. Aircraft would be flying from here and warships based at the Cam Ranh Base for many years to come.
March 1979:
The Islamists had several centres of continued resistance inside Iran and the city of Qom was the largest of those. Qom was where Khomeini had been heading after his arrival in Tehran – where he met with those bullets – with the belief being among many that he intended to set up a Vatican-style city state there: the KGB had known different though. The Persian Trotsky was dead and his followers were fewer in number than they had been before the civil war started. Army deserters to their side had dried up and many of their fighters from the breakaway factions of the MEK had gone back to their parent organisation when that long-establish guerrilla group had fully sided with the communists. What defenders Qom did have were motivated enough to fight though there was a chronic lack of real military leadership. KGB advisers with the Tudeh suggested that focus should be directed towards Qom now rather than elsewhere to other scattered areas of Islamist resistance. The propaganda value of taking it would be immense.
So to Qom the war came. Army units assisted with heavy weapons employed – artillery mainly though some tanks – though the real fighting was done by MEK and Fedai militias joined by men from the newly-raised Revolutionary Guards. It took two and a half weeks to root out the last of the resistance. Casualty numbers were over twelve thousand including many civilians caught up in the fighting. When it was over, Qom was in the hands of the Tudeh-led government. Other pockets of opposition across the country, those held by Islamists and the Maoists in the EMK, plus Kurdish areas too, would be next on the list to be overcome unless they were willing to accept the new order in Iran.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 11, 2018 18:56:34 GMT
O nice, whit a civil war in Iran, of course we can also have a Sino-Vietnamese War in Asia. That conflict has gone generally as it went in RL and is short but the effects are in the long run. Iran is still going on. There will be other wars in 1979 too. Wich i fear might end up in a giant global war in the end. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Feb 12, 2018 18:36:34 GMT
That conflict has gone generally as it went in RL and is short but the effects are in the long run. Iran is still going on. There will be other wars in 1979 too. Wich i fear might end up in a giant global war in the end. It will. 1979 is full of small wars leading to many more years of other conflicts though nothing on the scale of what comes in 1984. |
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Post by James G on Feb 12, 2018 18:37:10 GMT
(13)
April 1979:
Qom was the centre of Islamist resistance inside Iran. After that was dealt with in such a brutal fashion as it was, the communist militias and with the army in support of them, not the other way around, moved onwards elsewhere through out the north-central and north-west parts of the country to crush other sites of opposition. Emissaries went out ahead though – religious figures who’d seen the light said some; turncoats others called them – to try to avoid further battles where possible. There was success with some of those missions, though not all. Stretching down from Qom along the road towards Yazd, there were further hotbeds of resistance which were bloodily put down through April. The nearby city of Isfahan had seen street battles between communists and Islamists through last month though there was an understanding come to before that fighting could continue this month. Isfahan was a major coup for the Tudeh and from there much could be achieved of stamping out that other resistance as it was a centre of communications and home to many MEK & Fedai fighters freed up.
Where there was fighting and deals struck in those areas, alliances were sought elsewhere with further combatants in the Iranian Civil War. The majority of Kurdish resistance came to an end with local autonomy offered within the national state. Many Kurds were wary, not trusting the Tudeh at all especially since it was standing with the SAVAK and what was left of the army, yet others were convinced that it was in their best interests to give up the fight. They had mainly been engaged in combat with Islamists anyway and there was little bad blood with the communists. Azeris groups had been silent throughout the past few months and they took the deal offered by Tehran too of autonomy. Sunni forces in the southwest didn’t. There was a nationalist drive to their leaders who hoped to pull their people with them into an independent state based on oil wealth. However, the destruction which had come there when fighting the government though had robbed them of that ability to offer any sort of long-term sustainability. There had been some previous contact with Iraq but now they found that Baghdad was deathly cold to any more overtures of encouragement. Tudeh and government forces were still far away and fighting on the other side of the Zagros Mountains. That wasn’t going to last though. Their leaders started to do some soul-searching… while thinking of their own necks.
As to Iraq, across there in Iran’s neighbour, those who had previously fled into Iraq remained held in refugee camps guarded by the Iraqi Army. Those inside came from all backgrounds in Iran from high-level officials of the regime of The Shah – the Iraqis had taken their bribes for freedom but kept them in captivity – to Islamist & Maoist fighters to ordinary people who wanted to get away from the civil war. President Al-Bakr made an agreement with Tehran in late April, pushed towards that by his vice president and also the Soviets too. Though they were yet to know it, those refugees were soon to return to Iran: all of them. Saddam was behind this as he curried more favour with Moscow while increasing unnerved at his president’s plans for the future when it came to another neighbour.
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