Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:50:33.356Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Oasis of Radicalism: The Labor Movement in Abadan in the 1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2022

Nimrod Zagagi
Nimrod Zagagi*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The history of the oil industry’s labor movement during the 1940s has often focused on the Tudeh’s ability to act overtly and rally the masses of workers. Thus, more often than not, the importance of union underground activity and the role played by the masses of ordinary oil workers during times of political and military repression, is overlooked. This article examines how the particular setting of the oil town of Abadan influenced motivations of oil workers and the dynamics between them and the Tudeh. As the article aims to show, these elements were an essential part in the ability of the labor movement in Abadan to remain viable and reemerge in force in the early 1950s as part of the oil nationalization movement.

Keywords

Oil WorkersAbadanTudeh, Labor HistoryOil NationalizationOil TownKhuzestanLabor Movement
Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 5-6 , December 2020 , pp. 847 - 872
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahamian, Ervand, A History of Modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Abrahamian, Ervand, “The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Labor Movement in Iran, 1941-1953.” In Continuity and Change in Modern Iran, ed. Bonine, Michael E., and Keddie, Nikki R., 181–202. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Ahmadi, Mahmoud Taher, “DarAmadi bar Etehadiyeh ha-ye Kargar-e Khuzestan: 1323–25.” Goftegoo 25 (Fall 1378 [1999]): 47–61.Google Scholar
Atabaki, Touraj, “Chronicles of a Calamitous Strike Foretold: Abadan, July 1946.” In On the Road to Global Labour History, ed. Roth, Karl Heinz, 93–128. Historical Materialism Book Series, Vol. 148. Leiden: Brill, 2017.Google Scholar
Atabaki, Touraj, “From ‘Amaleh (Labor) to Kargar (Worker): Recruitment, Work Discipline and Making of the Working Class in the Persian/Iranian Oil Industry.” International Labour and Working-Class History, no. 84 (Fall 2013): 159–175. doi: 10.1017/S0147547913000306CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bamberg, James, The History of British Petroleum—Volume 2: The Anglo-Iranian Years, 1928–1954. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Banissadre, AbolHassan, Vieille, Paul, and Ardalan, Zafardokht. “Abadan: tissu urbain, attitudes et valeurs.” Revue Géographique de l’Est, no. 9 (1969): 361–378.Google Scholar
Bayat, Kaveh, “Dar Kenar ya bar Kenar az Kargaran-e Iran: Abadan, Ordibehesht 1308.” Goftegoo, no. 44 (Azar 1384 [2005]): 69–86.Google Scholar
Bayat, Kaveh, and Majid, Tafrashi, eds. Khaterat-e Duran Separi Shodeh: Khaterat va Asnad-e Yusef Eftekhari, 1299 ta 1329 [1991/1992]. Tehran: Ferdus, 1370.Google Scholar
Behrooz, Maziar, “Tudeh Factionalism and the 1953 Coup in Iran.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 3 (August 2001): 363–382. doi: 10.1017/S0020743801003026CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behrooz, Maziar, Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran. London: I.B Tauris, 1999.Google Scholar
Bemont, Fredy, Les Villes de L’Iran: des Cites d’autrefois a l’urbanisme contemporain. Paris: Selbstverl, 1969.Google Scholar
Biglari, Mattin, “Abadan in the National Press during the Oil Nationalization Movement, 1946–51.” Abadan: Retold. http://www.abadan.wiki/en/abadan-in-the-national-press-during-the-oil-nationalisation-movement-1946-51/Google Scholar
Crinson, Mark, “Abadan: Planning and Architecture under the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.” Planning Perspectives 12, no. 3 (1997): 341–359. doi: 10.1080/026654397364681CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Stephanie, “Popular Politics, the New State and the Birth of the Iranian Working Class: The 1929 Abadan Oil Refinery Strike.” Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 5 (September 2010): 699–732. doi: 10.1080/00263206.2010.504555CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Planhol, Xavier, “Abadan: morphologie et fonction du tissu urbain.” Revue Géographique de l’Est, no. 4 (1964): 337–385. doi: 10.3406/rgest.1964.1879Google Scholar
Ehsani, Kaveh, “Disappearing the Workers: How Labor in the Oil Complex Has Been Made Invisible.” In Working for Oil: Comparative Social Histories of Labor in the Global Oil Industry, ed. Atabaki, Touraj, Bini, Elisabetta, and Ehsani, Kaveh, 11–34. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehsani, Kaveh, “Social Engineering and the Contradictions of Modernization in Khuzestan’s Company Towns: A Look at Abadan and Masjed-Soleyman.” Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedeni, no. 48 (2003): 361–399.Google Scholar
Ehsani, Kaveh, “The Social History of Labor in the Iranian Oil Industry: The Built Environment and the Making of the Industrial Working Class (1908–1941).” PhD diss., Leiden University, 2014.Google Scholar
Elling, Rasmus Christian, “On Lines and Fences: Labour, Community and Violence in an Oil City.” In Urban Violence in the Middle East: Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State, ed. Freitag, Ulrike, Fuccaro, Nelida, Ghrawi, Claudia, and Lafi, Nora, 197–221. New York: Berghahn, 2015.Google Scholar
Elling, Rasmus Christian, “War of Clubs: Struggle for Space and the 1946 Oil Strike in Abadan.” In Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East, ed. Fuccaro, Nelida, 189–210. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Elwell-Sutton, Laurence Paul, Persian Oil: A Study in Power Politics. London: Lawrence Wishart, 1955.Google Scholar
Fateh, Mostafa, Panjah Sal Naft-e Iran. Tehran: Sherkat-e Sahami-e Chehr, 1956.Google Scholar
Foran, John, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Haliday, Fred, “Trade Unions and the Working Class Opposition.” Middle East Research and Information Project, no. 71 (October 1978): 7–13.Google Scholar
International Labour Office. Labour Conditions in the Oil Industry in Iran: A Report of a Mission of the International Labour Office. January–February 1950.Google Scholar
Jafari, Peyman, “Reasons to Revolt: Iranian Oil Workers in the 1970s.” International Working-Class and Labor History, no. 84 (Fall 2013): 195–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, Norman, Abadan: A First-hand Account of the Persian Oil Crisis. London: Allan Wingate, 1953.Google Scholar
Ladjevardi, Habib, ed. Khaterat-e Shapour Bakhtiar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ladjevardi, Habib, Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Lahsaeizadeh, Abdolali, Jame’eh Shenasi-e Abadan. Shiraz: Kianmehr, 2004.Google Scholar
Mann, Brian, “The Khuzestan Arab Movement, 1941–1946: A Case of Nationalism.” In Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity: Histories and Historiographies, ed. Aghaie, Kamran, and Marashi, Afshin, 113–136. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Mirzai, Hossein, “Hezb-e Tudeh dar Abadan: Goftegu ba Najaf Daryabandari.” In Takvin-e Shahr-e Abadan, ed. Mirzai, Hossein, 52–66. 1388.Google Scholar
Miyatu, Osama, “The Tudeh Military Network during the Oil Nationalization Period.” Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 3 (July 1987): 313–328. doi: 10.1080/00263208708700709CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Nicholas Alexander, “‘Strong, United and Independent’: The British Foreign Office, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Internationalization of Iranian Politics at the Dawn of the Cold War, 1945–46.” Middle Eastern Studies 52, no. 3 (2016): 505–524. doi: 10.1080/00263206.2015.1124417CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shenhav, Yehuda, “The Phenomenology of Colonialism and the Politics of ‘Difference’: European Zionist Emissaries and Arab-Jews in Colonial Abadan.” Social Identities 8, no. 4 (2002): 521–544. doi: 10.1080/1350463022000068361CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Richard A., Sunrise at Abadan: The British and Soviet Invasion of Iran, 1941. New York: Praeger, 1988.Google Scholar
Valizadeh, Iraj, Anglo va Banglo dar Abadan: Khaterat Haftad Saleh Pesarak Farmanbar. Tehran: ‘Ulum Computer, 1389 [2010/2011].Google Scholar
Zabih, Sepehr, The Communist Movement in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.Google Scholar
Zagagi, Nimrod, “The Oil Town of Abadan 1908–1951: State, Society, Imperialism and Oil.” PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2018.Google Scholar
Zagagi, Nimrod, “Urban Area and Hinterland: The Case of Abadan (1910–1946).” Journal of Middle East and Africa 7, no. 1 (2016): 61–83. doi: 10.1080/21520844.2016.1148968CrossRefGoogle Scholar