On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d'état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil fields.

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.

In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh's government.

Judging Mosaddegh to be unreliable and fearing a communist takeover, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration overthrew Iran's government. The coup action was also supported by the Iranian clergy, who opposed Mosaddegh's secularism.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hired mobsters to stage pro-Shah riots and paid people to travel to Tehran and take over the streets of the city. Between 200 and 300 people were killed in the ensuing mayhem.

Mosaddegh was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. Many of his supporters were imprisoned, several received the death penalty. Mosaddegh himself lived the rest of his life under house arrest, dying in 1967.

After the coup, the Shah ruled as a monarch for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup

The Iranian coup, 1953 libcom

50 Years After the CIA’s First Overthrow of a Democratically Elected Foreign Government We Take a Look at the 1953 US Backed Coup in Iran

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  • bordigasbodega [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    part of loving yourself is refusing to perfomatively flagellate yourself (or shit on yourself, beat yourself up) out of an understanding that it does not advance communism or your own mental health one bit and does no one any good including yourself. constructive crit/self-crit is different. what makes it constructive vs not is actually identifying, rejecting and removing classist, racist, national chauvinistic, homophobic, transphobic (or if you are in an org may involve addressing deviations from line) behaviors and ideas from your brain and replacing these with correct or better ones. if you have good comrades and are willing to work on yourself that tranformation can happen but its also a long process