Being Maverick: Mostafa Sho‘aiyan’s Cosmopolitan and Frontal Theory of Rebellion

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Mostafa Sho‘aiyan (1936-1976) is still one of Iran’s most unique revolutionary activists and theorists. He personally witnessed and participated in a number of turning points in contemporary Iranian history, from the 1950s to the 1970s. He was influenced by the original National Front and the oil nationalization movement led by Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq before he began exploring Marxist ideas in the late 1950s and later theories of national liberation in the 1960s. In light of his experiences, as he tried to find a way out of the political impasse imposed on Iran’s liberation by the 1953 coup and the Shah’s firm grip on power, he offered astute observations and engaged in some maverick political experiments. The vast body of his writings—theory, history, policy analysis, literary criticism, open letters, and poetry—stand witness to the multiple intellectual legacies that eventually culminated in his theory of rebellion (shūresh). While identifiably Marxist in orientation and analysis, his works reveal the intellectual fingerprints of the ideas of Muslim, nationalist, existentialist, Tricontinental, and Latin American revolutionaries and dissidents. As such, in his work there converge the cosmopolitan elements of Iranian culture in the 1960s. For him, armed struggle was the marker of revolutionary action, to which the dominant ideologies of his time—Marxist and Muslim—were secondary. As such, he became the sole advocate of frontal thinking and action in Iran. This paper offers an interpretive and critical overview of the multiple sources of Sho‘aiyan’s theory of rebellion. He offers a possibility of retaining differences and yet creating a united front. Although his time has passed, this paper argues, Sho‘aiyan remains our contemporary.