Grassroots democracy and social democracy in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911. (Volumes I and II).

This dissertation is a study of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11 which brought a constitution and a parliament to the country for the first time. Special attention is given to the grassroots councils, the anjumans, which became organs of direct democracy in the country, and the radical newspapers which were published during both the First and Second Constitutional Period. We will examine, in detail, the Tabriz Provincial Anjuman, the anjumans of peasants and craftsmen in Gilan as well as Azerbaijan, and the women's anjumans. We will also look at three significant social democratic tendencies which emerged in the course of the Constitutional Revolution: (1) The Firqih-yi Ijtima'iyyun Amiyyun, the organization of Iranian Social Democrats, was active during the First Constitutional Period of 1906-1908. The Iranian Social Democrats began their activities in 1905 in Baku. Branches of the organization, also known as the Anjumans of the Mujahidin, were particularly active in the Tabriz Provincial Anjuman, and in the province of Gilan. (2) The Tabriz Social Democrats, a mainly Armenian group, organized during the Period of Minor Autocracy in 1908-1909 and helped lead the resistance army in Tabriz against Royalist supporters of Muhammad Ali Shah. (3) The Democrat Party, which had a social democratic program, was founded during the Second Constitutional Period of 1909-1911 and participated in the government in 1910. Iran-Naw organ of the party, broke new ground because of its political analysis, literary achievement, and theoretic sophistication. Research for this dissertation was done at the Middle East Collection of the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the Hoover Institute. Several librarians in Iran also provided me with important material. The dissertation draws on newspapers of the Constitutional Revolution, proceedings and reports of the First and Second Majlis (Parliament) 1906-1908; 1909-1911; British and Russian diplomatic records of 1906-11; the Times of London; memoirs and biographies of various participants in the revolution; documentary collections on the Constitutional Revolution in Persian; secondary literature on the Constitutional Revolution in Persian, English, and French, and German. Methodologically I have found the contribution of British Marxist historians Christopher Hill and E. P. Thompson most useful for this work. Their notion of a "history from below" and their breaking down of the compartmentalization of traditional historiography has influenced my work.PhDNear Eastern Studies and History.University of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/105333/1/9123966.pdfDescription of 9123966.pdf : Restricted to UM users only