Khosrow Golsorkhi (Persian: خسرو گلسرخی; 23 January 1944 – 18 February 1974) was an Iranian journalist, poet, and communist.
"[1] Famous for his leftist and revolutionary poetry, Golsorkhi was convicted along with his friend, Keramat Daneshian, a director, of plotting to kidnap Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran.
[2] The military court was televised live, mainly because at the time of the trial, Mohammad Reza Shah was hosting the Conference for Human Rights in Tehran.
At the time, the shah's regime was blamed for the deaths (by a car accident) of the poet Forough Farrokhzad, a woman who promised the appearance of someone who would "distribute bread and cough mixture equally", the tragic and suspect death of the folk hero and Olympic gold medalist wrestler Gholamreza Takhti in a hotel, the drowning of the writer Samad Behrangi in the river Aras, Ali Shariati's death abroad, and the tortures, killings and executions of those who had taken to an armed uprising against the regime.
At his trial in 1974, just as it looked as if the [military] judges were getting the upper hand he turned the atmosphere of the court: "In the glorious name of the people.
[3] When colonel Ghaffarzadeh, the chief judge, admonished him to stick to his defence he replied with a wry smile: "are you frightened of my words?".
Earlier Golesorkhi had defended himself: "Iranian society should know that I am here being tried and condemned to death purely for holding Marxist views.
I draw the attention of all human rights authorities, committees, and organisations to witness this stage managed farce, this state crime that is about to take place.
I am a Marxist-Leninist, I respect Islamic sharia' and will shout my views, for which I die, in a loud voice: nowhere in the world, in countries like ours which are dependent to and dominated by neo-colonialism, can a truly national government exist unless a Marxist infrastructure is created in society".
He began with some eloquence comparing the struggle of the Iranian left with that of Imam Hussein, the revered martyr of Shia Islam.
After the 1979 revolution the entire trial was shown on public television, but again it was censored after the fall of Mehdi Bazargan's government.
The role of progressive literature is to create social movements and to help attain the goals of historic development of peoples".
Aminullah Rezaei, one of his intellectual and poet friends in his youth, wrote this long poem for him (and called him: Red Rose), despite his opposition to and criticism of his political activities:[4] ...Before sunrise I will come With a flag raised from the blood On the top of the cloud I will stand I will write a song in your name The most romantic: O freedom You are a lost debt in the homeland That song Your sorrow Languages In seven reeds They repeat...
The teacher shouted, “Yes, it is equal!” The student laughed, “If one human being was one unit, the one who had power and money would be greater than the poor one who had nothing but a kind heart.
The teacher cried: “Please write in your notebooks one is not equal to one.” Golsorkhi wrote this poem in the mid-1970s when several guerrilla movements were formed in Iran to fight against Mohammad Reza Shah.
During the last decade before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, different groups such as Mujahedin, Islamist extremists, and Lefties united for their mutual goal: Bringing the Shah down.