Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union
While Stalin’s Great Terror has been extensively studied, this is the first book to uncover the fate of Iranian communists and migrant workers in the Soviet Union during the 1930s purges. It reveals how foreign nationals, particularly Iranians, were caught in the machinery of repression during one of the darkest chapters of Soviet history. Using newly accessible Soviet archives, it tells the human stories behind political repressions – stories that were buried for decades and have been entirely absent from both Iranian and Soviet historiography.



By reconstructing the lives and fates of those silenced, this book challenges established narratives and emphasises the human cost of political repression. The authors provide detailed individual case studies of Iranians who were arrested, deported or executed, most of whom have never appeared in the historical record before. Speaking to enduring themes of displacement, political persecution and the vulnerability of migrants under authoritarian regimes, it is a vital contribution to both historical scholarship and contemporary political reflection.

1148039905
Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union
While Stalin’s Great Terror has been extensively studied, this is the first book to uncover the fate of Iranian communists and migrant workers in the Soviet Union during the 1930s purges. It reveals how foreign nationals, particularly Iranians, were caught in the machinery of repression during one of the darkest chapters of Soviet history. Using newly accessible Soviet archives, it tells the human stories behind political repressions – stories that were buried for decades and have been entirely absent from both Iranian and Soviet historiography.



By reconstructing the lives and fates of those silenced, this book challenges established narratives and emphasises the human cost of political repression. The authors provide detailed individual case studies of Iranians who were arrested, deported or executed, most of whom have never appeared in the historical record before. Speaking to enduring themes of displacement, political persecution and the vulnerability of migrants under authoritarian regimes, it is a vital contribution to both historical scholarship and contemporary political reflection.

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Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union

Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union

Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union

Iranian Exiles and Stalin's Great Terror: State Violence in the 1930s Soviet Union

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Overview

While Stalin’s Great Terror has been extensively studied, this is the first book to uncover the fate of Iranian communists and migrant workers in the Soviet Union during the 1930s purges. It reveals how foreign nationals, particularly Iranians, were caught in the machinery of repression during one of the darkest chapters of Soviet history. Using newly accessible Soviet archives, it tells the human stories behind political repressions – stories that were buried for decades and have been entirely absent from both Iranian and Soviet historiography.



By reconstructing the lives and fates of those silenced, this book challenges established narratives and emphasises the human cost of political repression. The authors provide detailed individual case studies of Iranians who were arrested, deported or executed, most of whom have never appeared in the historical record before. Speaking to enduring themes of displacement, political persecution and the vulnerability of migrants under authoritarian regimes, it is a vital contribution to both historical scholarship and contemporary political reflection.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781399560566
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 04/30/2026
Series: Edinburgh Historical Studies of Iran and the Persian World
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Touraj Atabaki is Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History and Professor Emeritus of Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia at Leiden University. Atabaki first studied theoretical physics before switching to history at the University of London and Utrecht University. Following positions at Utrecht Universityand the University of Amsterdam, he joined Leiden Universitywhere he held the Chair of Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia. Atabaki’s research spans historiography, labour and subaltern studies in twentieth-century Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia. His forthcoming publications is Toiling for Oil. A Social History of Petroleum in Iran (Cambridge UniversityPress, 2025).

Lana Ravandi-Fadai is Associate Professor of the Contemporary East and Africa at the Russian State Universityfor the Humanities, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Head of the Eastern Cultural Centre of the Institute of Oriental Studies. She is the author of numerous scholarly publications including Political Parties and Organizations of Iran, which was selected as one of the Best Scholarly Book of the Year (2010) at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow.
Lana Ravandi-Fadai has taught and researched at number of universities and research institutes including the Virginia Military Institute in the United States and the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. Her works examine political and social developments in contemporary Iran - political parties and factions, government institutions, educational policy, and ethnic and women’s issues.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Tables
Note on Transliteration
Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction: From Internationalism to Inquisition: An Iranian Journey Through Soviet Communism

I. Iranians in the Soviet Shadow: Labour, Politics, and Cross-Border Influence

1. Disgruntled Guests: Iranian Migrant Labour on the Margins of the Tsarist Empire
2. Russia’s Southern Frontiers in Turmoil: Revolution and Counter-Revolution
3. The Comintern and Soviet Foreign Policy: Revolution and Reaction in Iran
4. The Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV): Red Orientalism and Iran

II. The Great Terror

5. Genesis of the Great Terror
6. Margins Under Siege: The Great Terror in Transcaucasia and Central Asia
7. Displaced by Design: The Soviet Purge of Iranians and Other Ethnicities
8. Footprints of the Vanished: Lives Interrupted by Stalin’s Purges

Epilogue: The Ethics of Memory and the Shadows of Totalitarian Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Appendix: Revolutionary Posters

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