The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran

Preface

This book examines the links between the structural changes in the Kurdish economy and its political demands, namely Kurdish nationalism in Iran. I argue that the transition of the nomadic/tribal society of Kurdistan to an agrarian village society was the beginning of a process whereby the Kurds saw themselves as a community of homogeneous ethnic identity. I discuss the political movements of the Kurds in Iran to argue that the different phases of economic development of Kurdish society played a great role in determining the way the Kurds expressed their political demands for independence.

I divide the political history of Kurdistan in Iran, and incidentally its economic development, from the First World War to the present into three periods. The first corresponds to tribal consciousness, during which the typical economic activity is herding, exchange relationships are based on barter, and social and political relationships are based, predominantly, on tribal ‘face-to-face’ contact within the community.

Simko’s uprising is discussed to illustrate the political counterpart of this period. The second period corresponds to the reign of Reza Shah and his tribal policies. This is the period of national consciousness among the Kurdish leaders in Iran, illustrated by the establishment of the Kurdish Republic in Mahabad in 1946. The third period begins with the Shah’s land reform program. I analyze the Kurdish participation in the 1979 revolution in Iran to illustrate the further development
of the Kurdish nationalist movement since the demise of the Republic in 1947, and I examine the differences and similarities of the two main Kurdish nationalist organizations at the eve of the 1979 revolution and later.

In the economic sections, I examine a number of economic and demographic factors which contributed to the disintegration of the nomadic/tribal society of Kurdistan (change), those which contributed to the cohesion and solidarity within Kurdistan (continuity), and those indicators of inequality between Kurdistan and Iran as the final precondition of the development of a unified nationalist consciousness / identity among the Kurds.

I would like to thank I. B. Tauris and David McDowall for permission to reproduce the maps of Kurdistan, which appeared in A Modern History of the Kurds (1996).