The Role of the " Lumpen" in Elections and Uprisings in the Period of the 17th and 18th National Consultative Assemblies

A Review of the contemporary sociopolitical history of Iran, and in particular that of the period after the Constitutional Revolution, would reveal a disturbing fact. In the wake of the establishment of a law-based system, the country witnessed events whose causes, reactionary natures and means were initiated from individuals and groups belonging to the lowest social ranks. In fact, the tacit disapproval of the constitutional system by the last Qajar and afterwards the Pahlavi kings was the motive for the Kings to take advantage of lumpen individuals and groups, whose unproductivity in the society made them the right tool for fulfilling aspirations of the ruling class and other political groups. The election periods of the 17th and 18th National Consultative Assemblies and the lifetime of these Assemblies are good gauges for studying the role of the lumpen in the country’s contemporary history. In this period, during which important events unfolded in the country, the lumpen played an efficient role both in creating a charged atmosphere during the elections which affected the results and in sparking uprisings in the lifetime of the Assemblies. The present paper studies this important issue. The main question of the study is: What roles the lumpen class played in changing the atmosphere of elections and provoking uprisings in the lifetimes of the 17th and 18th National Consultative Assemblies? The study then tests the following hypothesis: The lumpen were the cause of the fraudulent elections and the trigger of the uprisings during the lifetime of the 17th and 18th Assemblies. The findings reveal that, in the contemporary history of Iran, lumpen groups caused the greatest losses in the country’s sociopolitical system while incurring the least expenses on those manipulating them.