Chasing My Dream of Socialism

This is the second of three volumes entailing the memoirs of political activist Reza Yazdi in the period of political upheaval in Iran following the 1979 revolution, and the brutal suppression of political opposition groups by the new Islamic regime. Yazdi's narrative details the personal accounts of a man whose misguided dreams of socialism drew him to the Tudeh Party of Iran, in order to incite and organize the labor movement. As the Islamic government of Iran began to crush all opposing and non-Islamic political groups, including the Tudeh Party, Yazdi was arrested and spent a full year in an interrogation camp run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps before receiving a death sentence for his political beliefs, which was later reduced to a 20-year sentence of which he served 5 years in Vakil-Abad prison, in the northwestern city of Mashhad, Yazdi's hometown. Yazdi makes note of various clippings from publications run by activist groups, and their government counterparts in order to show the diverging narratives that tore the country apart. Nonetheless, the author's firsthand experience in grassroots political activism, and the story of his struggle to pave the road for socialism in Iran inform a detailed account of the interpersonal experience of Iranians in various political factions both within the government, and within opposition groups. Ultimately, Yazdi struggles with the disastrous end that came to leftist factions within Iran, marked by arrest and execution: namely, the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, to which he bore witness.