Over the past 50 years, both the Shah’s and the Mullahs’ Regimes have accused the Iranian resistance group, People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) of being Marxist, but is it true?
Simply, no. It was a wrongful label put upon the MEK by those who opposed it to slander them and undermine their support from the devout Iranian people (as public perception in Iran of the word Marxist was atheist, materialistic, and Western) and the West (who saw Marxists as atheist and a threat to democracy during the Cold War).
How did the MEK first get misrepresented as Marxists?
The Shah and his secret police used the term ‘Islamist Marxist’ to describe anyone who opposed the monarchy, particularly the MEK, whose potential to cause a revolt, the Shah recognised and feared.
It didn’t help that newspaper reports of the time would list all of the many opponents of the monarchy in a single paragraph, without explaining the political differences between the MEK and the Communist Party and the Marxist People’s Fedayeen.
How did this continue after the expulsion of the Shah?
Following the 1979 Revolution, the MEK worked towards the establishment of a democratic government, but clashed with the mullahs, including Ruhollah Khomeini, who wanted a fundamentalist theocracy. The mullahs then used their terrorist proxy thugs to attack MEK members.
The mullahs and their Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) continued to misrepresent the MEK as ‘godless Marxists’ after hijacking the Revolution and imposing another Regime on the people. Like the Shah, they were threatened by the MEK’s popularity and saw the damage the MEK could do, so they sent their propaganda machine into overdrive.
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