The Islamic Republican Party of Iran in the Factory: Control over Workers’ Discourse in Posters (1979–1987)

Abstract

This article discusses how May Day posters, released by the Islamic Republican Party of Iran (which represented the core of Ayatollah Khomeini’s supporters in terms of state power between 1979 and 1987), started to express a new socially constructed identity for workers within the factory. By tracking hidden meanings and the particular use of visual language, it investigates why various styles and symbols were woven together. Finally, it shows–through the analysis of discourse in posters–how a process of appropriation of leftist symbols developed, in order to nullify a perceived ideological threat to the Islamic Republic, represented by both secular Marxists groups and those who, in Khomeini’s words, “mixed Islamic ideas with Marxist ideas and have created a concoction which is in no way in accordance with the progressive teachings of Islam” [Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah. “We Shall Confront the World with Our Ideology.” MERIP Reports (1980). doi:10.2307/3011306.].