page_title: National Front (Iran)
section_title: Mossadegh era (1949–1953)
hierarchical_section_title: National Front (Iran) / Mossadegh era (1949–1953)
caption_attribution_description: English: Mohammad Mosaddegh, former prime minister of Iran
context_page_description: The National Front of Iran is an opposition political organization in Iran, founded by Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1949. It is the oldest and arguably the largest pro-democracy group operating inside Iran despite having never been able to recover the prominence it had in the early 1950s.
  Initially, the front was an umbrella organization for a broad spectrum of forces with nationalist, liberal-democratic, socialist, bazaari, secular and Islamic tendencies, that mobilized to successfully campaign for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. In 1951, the Front formed a government which was deposed by the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and subsequently repressed. Members attempted to revive the Front in 1960, 1965 and 1977.
  Before 1953 and throughout the 1960s, the Front was torn by strife between secular and religious elements; over time its coalition split into various squabbling factions, with the Front gradually emerging as the leading organization of secular liberals with nationalist members adhering to liberal democracy and social democracy.
context_section_description: The National Front had its roots in a protest against ballot-rigging, where Mohammad Mosaddegh led a peaceful procession from his house to the Marble Palace on 15 October 1949, threatened to take sanctuary in a major mosque or shrine, and was eventually allowed into the palace with 19 other people, where they stayed for four days. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, eventually gave in and promised fair and honest elections. After the sit-in, the leaders of the protest formed the National Front and elected Mossadegh to be its chairman. The Front was conceived to be a broad alliance of like-minded associations (rather than individuals, as in a normal political party) with the aim of strengthening democracy, press freedom, and constitutional government. The most important groups in the Front were the Iran Party, the Toilers Party, the National Party, and the Tehran Association of Bazaar Trade and Craft Guilds.
  Soon after its founding, the National Front opposed the existing Western domination and control of Iran's natural resources, and related revenues, which began with colonialist concessions given during the Qajar Dynasty. By the mid-1950s, Iran's oil assets were owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose predecessor company bought the concession from William Knox D'Arcy. D'Arcy had negotiated the concession in 1901 with Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Persia, who granted a 60-year petroleum search concession in a transaction in which no money changed hands. For most of the first half of the twentieth century, Iran's oil was the British government's single largest overseas investment; 51 percent of the company was owned by the British government. The AIOC, which later became BP, consistently violated the terms of the agreement that had been updated in 1933, and was reluctant to change the terms of the agreement even as Iran's movement for nationalization grew in the late 1940s. Although AIOC was highly profitable, "its Iranian workers were poorly paid and lived in squalid conditions."
  The goal of the National Front was to nationalize Iran's oil resources and to counteract British dominance of Iran's internal affairs by initiating direct relations with the United States. The Front became the governing coalition when it took office in April 1951, with Mosaddegh elected Prime Minister. Mosaddegh's minister of foreign affairs Hosseyn Fâtemi enforced the "Oil Nationalization Act", passed by the Majlis in March and ratified by the Senate. The Act, reluctantly signed by the Shah, called for nationalization of the assets held by AIOC, from which the government of Iran had hitherto only received minimal compensation. This led to British counter-moves and the loss of nearly all income during the Abadan Crisis.
  Following Britain's request, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to overthrow the Mossadegh government, in an event known as the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. Prior to the coup, the National Front was made up of four main parties; the Iran Party, which was founded in 1946 as a platform for Iranian liberals, including figures such as Karim Sanjâbi, Gholam Hossein Sadighi, Ahmad Zirakzadeh and Allah-Yar Saleh; the Toilers Party of the Iranian Nation (a left-wing party that advocated a non-communist socialist Iran, led by Mozzafar Baghai and Khalil Maleki); and the Mojâhedine Eslâm (an Islamic party led by Âyatollâh Âbol-Ghâsem Kâšâni).
caption: Mohammed Mosaddegh, Founder of National Front
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