Democrat Party of Iran

For the party active during the 1910s, see Democrat Party (Persia).

Iranian Democrat Party or Democrat Party of Iran (DPI; Persian: حزب دموکرات ایران, romanized: Ḥezb-e Demowkrāt-e Irān) was a short-lived political party in Iran, founded in 1946 and led by Ahmad Qavam. It was the most important party formed by the old Qajar nobility,^[4] and an association of aristocrats and anti-British radical intellectuals.^[5] With the fall of Qavam, it disintegrated in 1948.^[6]

Democrat Party of Iran
Leader	Ahmad Qavam
General Secretary	Ahmad Aramesh[1]
Youth wing chairman	Hassan Arsanjani
Founded	June 29, 1946 (1946-06-29)[2]
Dissolved	1948
Workers wing	Central Syndicate of Iranian Craftsmen, Farmers, and Workers[3]
Ideology	Nationalism Reformism
Politics of Iran Political parties Elections

The organization tried to give itself the appearance of being the heir of the old Democrat party^[7] and was ironically named "Democrat Party of Iran" in contrast to the communist "Democrat Party of Azerbaijan".^[8]

The party's ideology was to be nationalist and reformist,^[2] but it was organizationally fragile as it was ideologically amorphous.^[9] It called for extensive economic, social, and administrative reforms while advocating a revision of the Iranian Armed Forces.^[7] It developed an authoritarianist structure^[10] and some suspect it planned to create one-party state.^[7]

According to Ervand Abrahamian, Qavam had two paradoxical reasons to establish the party, a "double-edged sword directed at the left as well as the right". He intended to defeat royalist and pro-British candidates in the 1947 Iranian legislative election and to use it to "mobilize non-communist reformers, steal the thunder from the left, and hence build a counterbalance to the Tudeh Party".^[7]

References

1. Leonard Binder (1964), Iran, University of California Press, p. 206
2. Ladjevardi, Habib (1985). Labor unions and autocracy in Iran. Syracuse University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-8156-2343-4.
3. Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press. pp. 238. ISBN 0-691-10134-5.
4. Bashiriyeh, Hossein. The State and Revolution in Iran (RLE Iran D). Taylor & Francis. p. 12. ISBN 9781136820892.
5. Gheissari, Ali (2010). Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century. University of Texas Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0292778917.
6. Gheissari, Ali (2010). Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century. University of Texas Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0292778917.
7. Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton University Press. pp. 231. ISBN 0-691-10134-5.
8. Hasanli, Jamil (2013). At the Dawn of the Cold War: The Soviet-American Crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan, 1941-1946. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 327. ISBN 9780742570900.
9. Azimi, Fakhreddin (1989). Iran: The Crisis of Democracy. St. Martin's Press. pp. 160, 167. ISBN 9781850430933.
10. Ansari, Ali (2014). Modern Iran. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 9781317864981.