This article reexamines how the Pahlavi state outsourced repression to pro-Shah armed non-state actors. Existing scholarship has largely approached these actors through three frameworks: as Tehran-based mobs during the 1953 coup, as chomaqdaran (club-wielders) in the historiography of the Islamic Republic, or as apolitical thugs whose persistence beyond the early 1960s remains unexplained. Drawing on archival documents, newspapers, memoirs, and oral testimonies, this article examines the Liberation Organization of Iran (LOI), a pro-Shah organization founded in Tabriz in 1952 and later incorporated into the National Resistance Organization and the Resistance Force. It argues that the LOI was not a spontaneous mob but a pro-government militia with a defined structure, ideological orientation, and enduring ties to state institutions. The article further suggests that such militias emerged from nationalist mobilization during the Allied occupation and the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1945–1946 and were later reinforced through state-building projects under Mohammad Reza Shah. By tracing the organizational continuity from the LOI to later pro-Shah militias, this study offers a new perspective on the relationship between the Pahlavi state and armed non-state actors and contributes to a broader understanding of the outsourcing of repression in modern Iran.
Milad Heidari (Tue,) studied this question.