Call to Arms

A groundbreaking study of the Iranian People’s Fada’i Guerrillas, their ideology, actions and impact on the 1979 revolution. 
On 8 February 1971, Marxist revolutionaries attacked the gendarmerie outpost at the village of Siyahkal in Iran’s Gilan province. Barely two months later, the Iranian People’s Fadaʾi Guerrillas officially announced their existence and began a long, drawn-out urban guerrilla war against the Shah’s regime. 
In Call to Arms, Ali Rahnema provides a comprehensive history of the Fadaʾis, beginning by asking why so many of Iran’s best and brightest chose revolutionary Marxism in the face of absolutist rule. He traces how radicalised university students from different ideological backgrounds morphed into the Marxist Fadaʾis in 1971, and sheds light on their theory, practice and evolution. While the Fadaʾis failed to directly bring about the fall of the Shah, Rahnema shows they had a lasting impact on society and they ultimately saw their objective achieved.