About Rebwar

A veteran revolutionary author, poet and songwriter, Mosleh Rebwar has published an anthology of poetry and short stories based on actual working class struggles that shook the region since the 1960s.

These works were broadcast into towns and cities across Iran’s Kurdistan province by the radio station of the Komala (and the Communist Party of Iran).

Rebwar was the first to translate The Internationale (the anthem of the international working class) into Kurdish (Sorani).

His revolutionary songs remain popular across the region, and among the progressive Iranian Kurdish émigré communities scattered around the world.

Born in 1947 in the Kurdish town of Mariwan, Rebwar grew up under the brutal Shah’s regime. The neighbouring Soviet Union represented a beacon of hope for social justice and development.

Rebwar sharpened his politics while a student in Tehran in the 1960s, and was a founding member of Komala, (now the Kurdistan Organisation of the Communist Party of Iran). The organisation remained an underground one until the eve of the 1979 uprising in Iran, which toppled the monarchy.

Komala led the resistance to the Islamist takeover in Kurdistan before activists were killed or forced into exile during a bloody campaign waged by the new Islamic Republic against communists and progressives.

But the struggle did not end there. Komala set up guerilla camps that won the support of people by refusing to submit to the Islamist regime, and continued the fight for socialism as a part of the wider international communist movement.

Rebwar remained an active member of the party until its split in the late ´80s and then continued in the new established Worker Communist Party until the late of the ´90s. Since then he continues his political activities independently.

Rebwar has worked as a secondary school teacher near by Gothenburg, Sweden.

He continues to campaign against racism, sexism and for working class power.

Aso Nousratpour