The Iranian Brand of Marxism and Issues in its Interpretive and Theoretical Elements

Marxist studies has traditionally prompted considerable studies about Iran’s economic history. In its cognitive approach the Iranian Marxist tradition has been markedly under the influence of the Soviet-style Marxism and has consequently encountered ideological, theoretical and methodological impasses with consequential impact on its evaluation of economic and social structures in Iran. The present article is an effort to offer a critical evaluation of the cognitive process of the Iranian brand of Marxism, its complications and their role in shaping the foundations of research in this tradition. The topics in this article are offered in two separate sections. The first section addresses the relation between the Iranian brand of Marxism and “experimentalism”, and the second section covers the theoretical and methodological complications rooted in the Russian interpretation of Marxism and their consequential historical evaluation of economic and societal structures in Iran.