never mind the u.s. left, i worked with folks in the iranian students assn and the u.s. left - whatever was *left* of it by the mid to late 70s - paid little attention, one exception to that was the revolutionary communist party and several of my friends in isa either joined rcp or had good close relations...
what of the metaphysical iranian left, well, its reality was comparatively small and tremendously divided...
my recollection of the folks i knew in isa is that their different political positions reflected splits in the iranian opposiition to the shah at home, a good number identified with mujahedin, fedayi probably had the second most adherents, and a few looked to peykar, no one was tudeh...
mujahedin was a merging of islam and marxism, theorist ali shariati had forged a left-wing islamic political ideology and theology of liberation, influenced by frantz fanon and che guevara sans their rejecton of religion, shariati asserted the necessity of reclaiming iran's religious roots (he died just prior to the revolution of a heart attack in britain to where he'd been exiled following several years in an prison Iranian prison, his supporters suspected the savak in his death)...
according to several of my iranian friends who went from being anti-shah to anti-khomeini, few in iran were familiar with the latter's views on the relationship between religion and politics, most specifically, his belief in direct clerical rule and elite guardianship, the politico-religious unity of khomeini's clerical cohorts and their lay supporters overwhelmed the cacophony of other clerical/lay, religious/secular voices, *all* of whom would eventually be subjected to so-called "islamic justice", in the process, they consolidated control over the country's cultural and social institutions...
certainly there were mistakes aglore by the marxist/secular left, for example, its concern with 'the masses' led left groups to essentially cede cultural issues to more conservative social elements, in effect, accepting 'traditional values', this proved to be extremely detrimental with respect to alienating *masses* of women and youth...
but i digress...
tudeh received attention in the west because of its historical relations with the soviet union, but tudeh's influence had long since waned, u.s. media characterized tudeh as 'communist' but it was, in fact, a popular front group, tudeh's public statement about 3 months prior to the pahlavi regime's end that it was 'taking up the armed struggle' was met with ridcule...
following the revo, tudeh and a majority faction of mujahedin called for/supported - and in some instances - worked in the new government, however, a minority mujahedin faction, fedayi (the result of a pre-revo split between religious and secular oriented mujahedin), peykar (organization for struggle), and the communist unity group *never* advocated working with the clerics or cooperating with the islamic republic...
the communist and socialist workers parties added to the iranian left's disunity even as their influence/role before was pretty minimal...
the marxist left in iran had been largely decimated by the shah's regime, leaders who had not been killed had been imprisoned, no doubt, the growth of urban guerrilla activities from the mid-70s on by marxist (and marxist-influenced) groups - most prominently the fedayi - eroded the pahlavi government's ability to sustain itself, however, few of those involved had political experience outside of that context *and* a sizeable percentage of guerrilla fighters did not even live to see the revolution that they played an important part in expanding, the eventual popular uprising was itself neither led by revolutionary marxists nor under the ideological influence of revolutionary maxism (and to see it that way is to see it through the same basic lens that u.s. policy elites saw it, as a cold war domino)... mh