ABSTRACT
In June 1920, Moscow newspapers hailed the birth of a new communist state. A Soviet republic had been proclaimed in Gilan, carved from Iran’s Caspian Sea province of the same name. Gilan’s Soviet experience is instructive in shedding light on the difficulties of exporting communist revolution to neighboring Muslim states. The mainstay of revolution in Gilan was a native movement which had begun by 1915 in Azerbaijan. Even more important was the Soviet military occupation of points of Gilan during the life of the Soviet republic. To appreciate the continuity with the past, it is necessary to review the course of events in Gilan prior to the Soviet landing at Anzali. The Adalat branch of the Communist Party, although weak, sent workers to Iran to carry on propaganda, especially in the north. The arrival of the Red Army from the Soviet Union naturally influenced the future course of the Gilani movement.
