Abadan is one of the largest cities of Khuzestan province and is called Abadan Island because it is bounded by Karun, Bahmanshir, and Arvandroud (Shatt al-Arab) rivers near the Persian Gulf. The old name of this city was Ebadan, which was changed to Abadan in 1935. Its older name had been Opatan which means a castle or a tower that is built for observation. This tower was used for monitoring the movements of ships or pirates. If this rainless city had been famous for its watch tower, scorching summer heat, humidity, temples and fish in the past, in recent history it became dependent on two phenomena: oil and war.
After the first well of oil was drilled on 26 May 1908 in Masjed Soleyman, it required building a refinery nearby. And because Abadan is a coastal city and could be used as a good anchorage for oil tankers, Iran’s first refinery was built there. Abadan Refinery started working in 1912 and a few years later it was described as the largest refinery in the world. Abadan gradually became an industrial area. At first, all the employees of this refinery were from the United Kingdom, because it had been built by them. After a while, they started using Iranians as ordinary workers.
Over time, this job gap turned into a class gap. That is, the British living in Abadan lived in the best neighbourhoods with good facilities, whereas Iranians were residing in backward neighbourhoods with minimal facilities. This issue sometimes caused Iranian workers to go on strike. Although oil made Abadan a rich city, this class gap remained and did not disappear even with the gradual replacement of British personnel with Iranians and the nationalization of the oil industry.
When the Islamic Revolution of Iran took place in 1979, 66 years had passed since the Abadan Refinery kicked off operation. The workers of the oil industry, who were dissatisfied with six decades of discrimination, joined the Islamic Revolution and shut down the oil pipelines and deprived the imperial government of its most sensitive asset. The strike of the employees and workers of the oil industry was one of the important factors in the victory of the Islamic Revolution.
The tragic event that happened on August 19, 1978, in Abadan before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, was setting fire to the Rex Cinema in Abadan. This disaster happened during the time of Jamshid Amouzgar, the Prime Minister under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and 377 people of Abadan who were sitting in the movie theatre to watch “Gavaznha [The Deer]” were burned alive. A few days after this tragic incident, the government of Jamshid Amouzgar collapsed.
As the discovery of oil and the construction of a refinery were effective in the development of Abadan, Iraq’s sudden attack on Iran and the beginning of the eight-year-long war turned this city into a ruin. On September 22, 1980, Iraq’s twelve divisions invaded Iran from the western and southwestern parts of the country which resulted in the occupation and blocking of some cities. Abadan was encircled by the Iraqi forces on 11 October 1980. The city’s giant refinery, which is also close to the Iraqi border, was bombarded on the second day of the invasion, and 85% of it was damaged due to the continued attacks of the enemy. Therefore, Iran faced a shortage of petroleum products. As the bombings continued – which included the residential areas as well- the city gradually became empty of people and only a group of young Abadani people along with volunteers who came to this area from other cities stayed to defend the city.
A few days after the siege of Abadan, Imam Khomeini (ra) in one of his speeches asked the armed forces to break the siege: “I am waiting for the lifting of this siege of Abadan… Does not rest in the thought that you will drive them out if at all they enter. If they enter, they will inflict losses upon us. Do not let them enter Abadan.”
Finally, on September 27, 1981, after eleven months, the siege of Abadan was broken with the help of armed forces and volunteers. The name of this operation was Samen al-Aemmah.
According to statistics, 897 people of Abadan were martyred during the Islamic Revolution and the eight-year-long war.
At the end of the war, Abadan became a war-torn city. After the war, Abadan was rebuilt. The big refinery of the city came to life again. The war-stricken people who had migrated to other cities returned to their hometowns, but the great wound that was found in this city by the invasion of Iraq will never be erased from the mind of history.
Reference: The Encyclopedia of the Islamic Revolution
Archive of The History of the Islamic Revolution
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