ABSTRACT
Discussion and research concerning various historical “roots” and preconditions of the Revolution in Iran (1978/79) concentrate (explicitly or clandestinely) in many cases on political movements and organizations, intellectual debates and discourses from the 1950s until the eve of the Revolution and even later. One of the most seriously discussed topics was, as early as the late 1960s and early 1970s of the twentieth century, the somewhat contradictory relationship between the opposition of the Iranian left and those oppositional movements which were embedded in the religious sphere of the country. However, a closer look at the interactions and demands of leftist and religious movements in Iran reveals their somewhat strange compatibility in political goals. Studying pre-Revolutionary Iran through the prism of “history of mentalities” may offer new perspectives on this period.
