A reflection on the attitude of Ehsan Tabari in rereading the history of ancient Iran

The Marxist narrative of Iranian history around the 1960s and 1970s was strongly influenced by the rise of the Marxist historical school in the Soviet Union, which narrated the history of Iran within Marxist theoretical-conceptual frameworks. Ehsan Tabari, not as a historian, but as one of the most important theorists of the Tudeh Party, tried to read the history of ancient Iran in accordance with the party views and in line with its political goals. This type of re-reading has several important features: first, he formulated the periods of ancient Iranian history on the basis of Marxist intellectual-conceptual logic and in accordance with Marx's proposed formations. Second, in proportion to the characteristics of the Iranian social system, he considered the characteristics of the social formations of the history of this period to be not pure and homogeneous, but mixed. Third, explained and analyzed the Zoroastrian duality in the form of a prototype of the Marxist dialectic. Fourth had an empathetic and praiseworthy attitude combined with an internationalist approach to the social and cultural spheres of ancient Iranian society. The question of the present study is about the historical attitude of Ehsan Tabari towards the ancient history of Iran. Findings indicate that Ehsan Tabari narrated the history of ancient Iran in a special theoretical-conceptual framework based on Marxist logic and dialectical materialism. This narrative was accompanied by aspects of pride in cultural heritage or, in fact, a combination of Marxist anti-nationalist foundations and non-chauvinist patriotism or patriotism.