Decided to bring their dispute with the Iranian government on the subject of the termination of the Anglo Iranian oil companies. Throughout this night in Washington, officials will continue their search for some way to negotiate the hostages. Is the first movie from Iran to win the Academy. Award for. The game, some said, would never take place here. It is unfolding with real drama, and it's Iran 5 minutes before halftime. Hi, welcome to the Iran 1400
podcast. I'm your host Sidney Martin and this is part two of our three-part conversations. Doctor Khave Assani about the social history of oil in Iran. Doctor Assani is an Associate Professor of International Studies at DePaul University. Among other things, he specializes in the historical and contemporary impact of oil on society and politics. In today's episode, he delves into the evolution of Labor in the 20th century.
He analyzes the process through which rural Iranians came to become incorporated into a new industrial system and discusses the far reaching ramifications it had for future generations and Iranian society as a whole. If you missed our first episode where we discussed the significance of social history and Iran's economy before the discovery of oil, please do check that out. Enjoy. So we've we've now talked about the establishment of the working class and the oil industry in Iran.
In working for oil, comparative social histories of Labor, and the global oil industry, you wrote that the history of Iran can be divided into 3 distinct periods. Could you tell the audience what those periods are and briefly go over the key events that occurred during them? Well, I mean I, you know, I would probably kind of provide different periodizations now, OK.
Offhand I can't, I can't recall exactly, but I think what I was referring to was that you know, like there's a you know in terms of. In terms of Labor history and oil and we have this, you know, if you look at the social history of, you know, industrial labor and wage labor under in a market economy and capitalism, we always have like these vaguely 3 periods that maybe that's what I was referring to. These periods are like initially when you have the rise of.
Capitalist industrialization, which forces workers to kind of leave the land or forces people off the land and makes them dependent on it, you know, creates a labor market, actually quite violently, by dispossessing people from alternative modes of living. There's a huge resistance. There's so-called Luddite resistance, you know, like seeing the machinery, seeing the industry as an enemy. Workers see the industry as an enemy. They they break the machines, they sabotage they.
They become bandits to attack, you know, the the, the industry as as something evil in itself. Not capitalism, not the market, but the, you know, the the emanations of it, the the, the symbols of it, the machinery of it. So that's that's usually the first phase. And then you have a second phase where you know, there's some kind of, you know, okay, people get incorporated, they lose other alternative forms of livelihood.
They have to kind of adapt A and adopt themselves to a time discipline, you know, like change the previous, you know, modes of living, you know with seasons and with, you know, migrations and you know, agricultural seasons and all that. They have to become subject to the clock time, you know, like which is a mechanical time. It's a very different kind of time.
You don't have to appear at 8:00 o'clock and 8:00 o'clock is you know, no matter what season you have to appear and you know like your, your later gets counted by the hour, by the minute.
So you know people kind of become subject to this, to this discipline and they try to kind of you know adopt to it, adopted and adapt to it. And then the third phase is usually when this has already happened and you know the next generation of. Of Labor comes up and then they're completely operate within within the system, you know, and they can negotiate with it, but it's not that they can imagine or work outside the system at all, right?
So they can unionize, they can force for unionization or negotiations or like you know, fight for getting things that we take for granted now like a weekend. Or vacation time, you know that but that's like the third phase that that that occurs and I think we see we see the same thing in in in the social history of oil in Iran, you know
in that in that industry that. So there's a first phase that's you know roughly through the First World War and and the middle 1920s where it's it's tremendously violent. We know very little about it. You know unless you kind of actually study this history which is what I've tried to do. It's tremendously violent because it displaces people. It it it's kind of it's it's it's it's coercive, it's it's
socially destructive. It, you know, it destroys from top down and bottom up the the whole social structures. You know, you have wrenching stories like starvation and massive hunger and you know, constant warfare and and banditry and and all that. And then you know, you have to. The period of 1920s, roughly through 1940s, where you know, okay, an industry has taken place and workers are kind of oil workers and people working in the oil industry, the industrial working class is kind of.
Has taken shape and has become mature and is kind of incorporated into into the system. And then you have to, you know this eruption which is in 1949 to 1953, which is like you know the, the, the, the sparks that kind of actually lights up the Cold War. It's global as well as it's local as well as it's national, right. So I mean the the the oil nationalization movement in Iran is really cut kind of gets
initiated by the workers. You know in 195046 you have this huge labor strike that happens in Iran but also across the world, in Kenya, in the US And you know you have this labor eruption at the end of Second World War where people, you know, workers and everywhere say, look, you know, we've made all the sacrifice for this war that had nothing to do with us. And we want our share, you know, we want, we want to be, you know, we don't want just to be victims we want.
Good hours. We want to be able to negotiate. We want to kind of not that we've made all the sacrifice, We want affluence, we want decent lives and all that. And this is with housing, with education, with healthcare, with the right to collective bargaining. It happens everywhere. It happens in Iran too.
And this is what sparks the oil nationalization movement in Iran, which becomes a national thing, but it's also very global because it that's when kind of Soviet Union and the US really start kind of. Instead of the wartime allies become, you know, de facto enemies and you know, ideological rivals in a in an open warfare, which is cold, but but it's it, it could be, you know, it could be quite as vicious as as a as a hot warfare, right?
And after this, after 1950s, after the coup d'etat in Iran, you really kind of entered this era where you haven't established working class. And the issues become quite different. You know that the issues become less political, more kind of terms of in they become demands of a kind of a relatively well paid, relatively well taken care of working class living in enclaves. And that that is kind of struggles to some extent for you know, for better conditions and all that.
Until you know the war, you know until the revolution in 1979 and all that. So there you know these are the distinct periods that that matter. But we can kind of think of the this history in many different periods but in that book that's what I was referring to. I was referring to like this trajectory of of industrial working classes in oil that is pretty much happens everywhere you know that from this possession.
To kind of getting, you know becoming incorporated and then kind of accepting the system and and kind of moving within it. And this is this is what EP Thompson in particular kind of put his finger on the the prominent English social historian of of of of working class. So you mentioned the 19 or 1949 to 1953 and I I think that most of the listeners probably know about. The political implications of that, but not so much about the oil nationalization movement and the oil workers themselves
there. So and I know that this you might not be able to answer this question exactly because you are not in the heads of these people, but from from your studies, from your history. So with the failure of the nationalization movement, I would imagine that there's a great. Sort of disillusionment that's occurred because of that. How did that affect the oil workers in that time period, in the decades after? Were they completely unwilling to try again because of how
poorly it turned out? What were the ramifications of that in sort of the the spirit of the Iranian worker, if that makes sense? And then a followup question would be? Iran oil eventually did become nationalized. Was that the same? Did those nationalized the same demands that not the not the workers were demanding for in 1953 and also was the 1953 movement, was that led more by the workers themselves as opposed to when Iran actually did nationalize? Was that more of, say, a government?
Push if that makes sense. Let me, let me put it this way, kind of dovetailing the previous question we asked. We have these you know in my book I talk you know that I have a chapter in there that which is about this you know in the 1920s, the oil company. You know, I mean this is, I mean we we just are sort of emerging out of the COVID pandemic, right. And the previous global pandemic was the the, you know, the, the socalled the, the Spanish influenza which killed millions in Iran.
It killed you know millions of people really badly affected and the oil industry and the war had a lot to do with it because of the vast movement of populations you know armies and. You know, ships and so on and so forth. You know, coming to, you know, to ports in in southwestern Iran, moving to Mesopotamia, to Iraq and all that. So pandemics and public health was a huge issue because it, it was just decimating workers and expatriates working there,
right. So the oil company wanted to kind of expel a lot of people in Abaddon that were living around the. The the oil refinery and you start and for the first time you get this huge pushback where people refuse to move. You know people in in these like really poor. These are refugees 7-8 thousand of them as far as I can tell that just kind of refused. They they just kind of put up resistance they they stand in front of demolition. Cruise and all that.
And what the oil company wants to do is to build a modern market, a sanitary market as it calls it, because it kind of realizes that or it argues that it's the mode of food distribution and which is kind of really unhealthy and people are living in filth and it wants to basically move them away from the centers of industrial production.
And people refuse because they said, look we're we're refugees with, you know this, we're living here and the compensation is not enough and they kind of put up a resistance. And the central government in Iran, which is at that time in transition the Dresser show has not become the Pallavi dynasties not established yet but it wants to kind of take charge of localities and making modern army and kind of imposes sovereignty in this valuable. Province that it had very little
to sway over. So you know, the, yeah, it's a, it's a very important formative period, right. And this is the first time that you start getting a kind of a working class movement around oil. But it's not a working class movement because if you know, at at the time where you have huge unemployment, refugees, hunger and all that, if workers kind of actually are.
To come out and protest because their housing is being taken from them, because this is mostly, you know, workers with their families and as refugees living, you know, right in proximity as well as many others, right. So the workers are mingled in these cities and the city in Abadan, you know, and and quorum shash, which is the main port next to it, they're mixed with other populations, right.
And what they end up doing is they, the workers basically melt and become part of an urban craft. That puts up a resistance over social citizenship, you know, demands of the right to the city that we're members of the city, You know, we have the right to live. We need dignity. We need housing. We need, you know, basic sanitary, you know, infrastructure. We can't just be pushed out as
chattel, right. So this is a very important moment because it shows us and this is something that is missed often in terms of, you know, the politics of Labor is that often. Kind of Labor resistance, which is over not just workplace things, you know, like struggles, but you know safety or wages and so on and so forth, but also over housing and everyday life and you know provisions and you know and access to health and you know public health and all that.
They kind of they they kind of work workers work with oil workers work with, you know, other ethnic groups, other social classes. To fight for this urban rights, right. So the point I'm making is that a lot of, and this is very important because it, you know Abaddon and the oil cities in Iran are the first instances of a modern urban culture. And I don't use modern as as a normative. You know it's it's modern is
good, tradition is bad. It's just like this historical transformation that we're talking about. You know modern means like you have people from all sorts of ethnic. Cultural you know, racial backgrounds mingling and becoming neighbors.
You know like all becoming Abadani's instead of being you know Bakhtiorri or Arab or Pucheri and all that simply because they have to, you know because they're kind of forced into this filthy difficult you know unhealthy, you know hell, like you know industrial city that is Abadan and you know with 50,000 population. Right. So this is a very important moment where, you know, labor struggles are kind of melded with with urban struggles and with other members of, you know, population.
The same thing happens in the 5th in the 40s with the oil nationalization, right. So you have a lot of urban struggles, you know, because housing is a huge and pressing issue. Remember, Iran was occupied by force. Again in the Second World War by the allies by Britain and and US to kind of provision you know Soviet Union through the Iranian railroad.
So the you know you had a huge pressure on population because you know it was wartime and you know you had an occupying army and and you know you know and and then you know the the the issues that kind of really mobilized workers where. And urbanites and urban citizens in Abaddon and oil cities where issues like housing, public health and so on and so forth. But in the 40s, what you start getting is for the first time, workers actually also become very active and resistant in the
workplace itself, right? So it's not just urban anymore. They don't need to hide as much. They become much more kind of selfconfident and kind of press their. Demands in the workplace to demanding for unionization, for better wages and and so on and so forth, Right. So it's a, it's a more mature working class that begins to emerge with its own voice. And this is part of a global
process that's happening. You know, in the UN you have the ILO, the, you know, International Labor Organization. That's established because it wants to kind of standardize, prevent communism, you know, prevent the working classes from kind of gravitating towards communism by giving them some. Some welfare and protection and and legal protection and all that and trying to standardize this in the so-called free world or you know non non communist
world. So you have this these struggles that are kind of taking place you know in the 50s. So oil nationalization is part of is part of the political demand because workers become real begin to realize or at least begin to argue that. This cannot be done. You know the the demands that we have cannot be done only under the rubric of this multinational oil corporation that basically treats us like a that colonial sub colonial subjects.
That's simply simply at some point arbitrarily decides to give us some things and you know denies us the rights that other workers doing exactly the same work elsewhere are being denied, right. So oil nationalization becomes part of this discourse And of course political activists, you know, communist activists to the activists, others play a big role. You know, it's not workers by themselves, but you know, like this mobilization that kind of
ties them with others, right. So in the after the 1953, what happens with the, with the, with the, with the working class movement is that you really, it's a, you know, it's a martial law. It's a you know it's a it's it's a beginning of a autocracy. But the labor force in oil becomes sort of an labor aristocracy.
They're highly demanded. You know you have set instead of 1, you have 7 multinational corporations participating in oil production in Iran. The Iranian government basically negotiates with them to pay better the actually the national Iranian oil Company that. Becomes part of this consortium is in charge of taking care of the labor forces in Iran. So you get sort of a welfare state for the workers but
actually not others. You know So if you're if you're not part of the oil industry you you don't get benefits but if you are part of the oil industry, you get a permanent contract. You get fairly good wages. You get good schooling housing you know company housing and so
on and so forth. In 1973, when oil is nominally nationalized in Iran during the, you know, OPEC oil crisis, it's this is very top down and it's meant to kind of increase Iran's share of the of the oil revenues, you know, versus the other company. The other oil multinationals stay in Iran, continue to operate, but they don't own, you know, shares anymore. They become basically subcontractors but actually still continue to be in charge.
It is in 1979 eighty, you know, after the revolution that de facto nationalization takes place and all the oil, you know, multinationals get, you know, kicked out and primarily workers and managers take take over. So these, you know, these are very kind of distinct periods with different, with different demands and different kind of agency. In the 1979 revolution, oil workers played a key role. I mean they were the first time where in.
The kind of the so-called third world workers actually took over an industry, an oil industry, advanced oil industry and shut it down and then began to operate it on their own, showing that actually this is not the kind of technical skill that relies only on international technology, but they can kind of manage it. But of course after that, you know, you have the Iran, Iraq war and you know sanctions and so on and so forth so. The story keeps changing, but
but this is basically the the the kind of sequence of events that we're dealing. We hope you enjoyed this talk with Dr. Kaveh Asani. If you missed the first part of our conversation, which discussed around social history and Labor Relations before the discovery of oil, please check
it out. You can also find our episodes with Ida Niku on the labor movement throughout the past 40 years in Iran. Part three of our conversation with Doctor Asani, which analyzes Labor Relations today, will be out soon, so please subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date. If you would like to keep up with the rest of our content, you can find the Iran 1400 Project on social media or visit ourwebsite@iran1400.org. Thanks again for listening.