Iranian famine of 1942–1943

The Iranian famine of 1942–1943 was a period of mass starvation during the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran during World War II.

Iran had been invaded in August 1941 by the joint forces of the Soviet Union and United Kingdom despite being a neutral country during World War II, resulting in the collapse of Reza Shah's military, political and social order as well as his deposition and exile. The British preferred to restore a Qajar to the throne but begrudgingly accepted the 21 year-old Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after finding no suitable Qajar candidates. Despite this, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would exercise no real power in Iran until the end of the occupation five years later.

In order to transport oil and other supplies to the Soviet Union, the Allies took control of the Trans-Iranian Railway and forcibly "contracted" half of Iran's publicly and privately owned trucks, thus controlling 75 percent of the country's food distribution capacity within months of the invasion. Famine began in earnest and spread rapidly thereafter.

Initial American relief efforts fell through when the American ambassador Louis G. Dreyfus reported to Washington that Iran was not suffering from a serious famine and insisted that it should not be prioritized above the broader war effort against the Axis powers. In many cities, including the capital of Tehran, Iranians organized mass protests against the Allied forces, accusing them not only of causing the mass famine and inflation, but also of looting the country. These protests were brutally suppressed by authorities under British-backed Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam.

The traumatic events of the Anglo-Soviet occupation contributed to growing anti-Western sentiment in Iran, which, along with subsequent interventions like the 1953 coup, would later inform anti-Western rhetoric during the Iranian Revolution.