By Sara Flounders
September 23, 2026

Workers World Party salutes the revolutionary contributions of comrade Kazem Azin, who was deeply involved with revolutionary currents in both the U.S. and in Iran, and who died Sept. 13.

Comrade Kazem was well known as a proud Marxist-Leninist who from the earliest days militantly defended the Islamic Revolution in Iran. A salute to his life reflects the story of that revolution.

Workers World Party first met Kazem Azin during the many militant Iranian student demonstrations of the 1970s that we joined to protest the brutally repressive military dictatorship of the U.S.-installed Shah Reza Pahlavi.

At that time, many thousands of Iranian students were sent to the U.S. to study in order to reinforce ties between imperialism and the shah’s regime. These students included many young activists. The growing struggle against U.S. imperialism and against Iran’s regime radicalized these activists, who joined different left political currents.

After massive uprisings, general strikes and demonstrations of millions in 1978-79, the people overthrew the military dictatorship on Feb. 11, 1979. The shah, the Pahlavi royal family and the entire military machine, including the notorious police terror organization — the SAVAK — fled Iran. Over a million of the old feudal ruling class, landlords and Western collaborators fled the country.

Iran, at that time, was a country of 37 million people. More than half were illiterate and landless. Radical Islamic forces were the most organized and determined force, led by a radical Islamic Shia tendency whose leader was the Ayatollah Ruhollah Mostafavi Khomeini. This tendency had the overwhelming loyalty of the poorest Iranian peasants and workers.

Kazem Azin, along with many thousands of anti-regime activists, students and religious exiles who had opposed the shah, returned to participate in the new Islamic Republic, which was resoundingly declared after a national referendum on April 1, 1979.

A new political challenge

The Iranian revolution brought many profound, new political questions to the fore. There was an assumption among many returning Iranian students from the Global North that the turmoil in Iran against the shah would be led by Marxists. There were also strong social democratic forces among the middle class who were anxious to reach an accommodation with the West.

It was a new challenge for Marxists to understand how this deep, thorough-going, revolutionary upheaval of millions, under a radical Islamic leadership, was locked in a determined struggle against U.S. imperialism and its whole class of privileged collaborators within Iran.

Within a year of the revolutionary upheaval in Iran, the U.S. instigated Iraq to attack the new revolution, providing military aid. Washington saw the revolutionary upheaval in Iran as a threat to imperialism and to its many client states in West Asia.

During this time of war, invasion and radical social upheaval of the 1980s, Kazem was in Iran. Often he returned to the U.S. for medical treatment for cancer, a recurring medical challenge. When in the U.S., Kazem would reestablish contact with political groups here who supported the Iranian Revolution against imperialism, including Workers World Party.

Based on his need for healthcare, in 1989 Kazem and his family returned to the U.S. and settled in the New York City area.

Kazem translated many revolutionary documents and proclamations from Farsi into English to help explain this revolutionary process with an Islamic leadership.

Comrade Kazem crushed imperialist lies

Kazem Azin met regularly with Sam Marcy, founder and chairperson of Workers World Party and with many of WWP’s young activists. He often spoke at Workers World Party meetings and at National Conferences and at mass antiwar rallies and webinars.

His talks highlighted Iran’s enormous accomplishments in surmounting mass illiteracy to reach the highest educational levels, radical land distribution, women’s rights, family planning, healthcare — a leap in one generation. Kazem described the determined planning to survive the onerous U.S. sanctions and assassinations and to prepare the asymmetric weapons to defend their sovereignty.

At that time in the U.S. corporate media, the Iranian royalists and collaborators were always described as modern, progressive and forward thinking.

The Islamic revolutionaries, who were deeply anti-imperialist, were always described as feudal, reactionary and a terrorist force.

This had a mass impact in the U.S., especially as tens of thousands of upper-class Iranians and former landlords fled the revolutionary upheaval. When they arrived in the U.S., they were granted special subsidized refugee status here.

Kazem remained deeply in touch with the Iranian movement in Iran and in the diaspora. He helped to reach out to many different and even opposing Iranian left groupings. He helped establish study groups to find common ground.

He had the same approach within the U.S. movement, always listening and learning. He sought out new, young, militant, left forces. He played a determined role in mobilizing mass opposition to U.S. wars throughout West Asia — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon — and in building solidarity with liberation forces in Latin America.

Despite years of serious illness and a long battle with cancer, comrade Kazem Azin nevertheless continued his political activity throughout his life. He was leading a discussion among Iranian Marxists and leftists in Iran and the diaspora who support the Iranian revolution this Sept. 12. At that final meeting, Kazem gave this advice: “Comrades, continue the path. The future belongs to us.”

Comrade Kazem Azin, ¡Presente!

We include a salute from the “10 Mehr Group” of Iranian leftists. It describes the role that Kazem played to help politically reorganize and reorient left Iranian forces. english.10mehr.com

Here’s a link to one of Comrade Kazem Azin’s talks at a Workers World Party Conference. workers.org/2015/11/22909