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Ahmadzadeh, Masoud (1946-1972)

Masoud Ahmadzadeh was born to a politically active family in 1946 in Mashhad, northeastern capital city of Iran. His father Taher Ahmadzadeh was a supporter of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq who was ousted from power through a US-UK-backed coup in 1953. Masoud Ahmadzadeh engaged in political activities against the Pahlavi regime since he was a high school student. In 1965, Ahmadzadeh moved to Tehran to study mathematics in the University of Tehran where, together with his friends, including his friend of school years Amir Parviz Pouyan, refuted reformist policies propagated by nationalists and religious forces and drifted toward Marxism. In 1946, they formed a clandestine group to study Iranian socio-political and economic conditions, as well as classics of Marxism. In the same years Ahmadzadeh translated the Origin of Family, Private Property and Stat. He also wrote a pamphlet depicting the conclusion of the group. It tried to prove the land reform of 1963 was an imperialist plan that converted Iran from a semi-feudal semi-colonial country into a capitalist one. He also argues against the stereotypical models of organization and favors forming a political-military organization as the vanguard of proletariat. Later, the Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrilla Organization was founded while Ahmadzadeh was a main founder, leader and theorist of it. He personally engaged in numerous military operations and was finally arrested by the secret police. He was brutally tortured but resisted the harsh conditions and defended his cause in the military court. He was sentenced to death and executed on March 1, 1972.

See Guerilla Movement in Iran.