The Contemporary History of Iran - Part 7: "Siahkal and the Failure of the Left"

“Siahkal and the Failure of the Left” - Part 7 of the new Roqe Media series, The Contemporary History of Iran. Why was the unsuccessful 1971 Marxist guerrilla action in the small northern town of Siahkal such a pivotal event that still gets named as a proud symbol of leftist resistance in Iran? And how do we explain the notable failure of the left in Iran to attain any semblance of power, despite wielding influence, throughout the 20th Century, and especially after the revolution of 1979? Dr. Maziar Behrooz, an Iranian-American historian, associate professor in the Department of History at San Francisco State University, and author of “Rebels With A Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran,” joins Jian Ghomeshi from Berkeley, California, to shed light on the Siahkal incident and the plight of the Left - from the growth of the Communist Tudeh in the 1940s, to the crushing of leftist groups under Khomeini.