The Tudeh Party drastically increased its activities, recruiting many youths and organizing regional committees, supporting the Islamic Revolution when others on the left opposed it. Islamic Republic During the revolution, many political prisoners were freed and the Tudeh Party and other leftist groups were able to participate in the presidential and parliamentary elections for the first time in many years. However, the majority of seats in the Majlis were won by the Islamic Republican Party of Ayatollah Beheshti and leftist and nationalist organizations were forced out of the loop. The newly elected president, Abolhassan Banisadr, who had originally been close with Ayatollah Khomeini, also became increasingly frustrated with the developments that had been taking place and opposed the domination of the clergy and the religious factions in Iranian politics. In addition, the party denounced Amnesty International's call to end the summary executions and called it "blatant interference in Iranian affairs". In 1981, the Majlis, dominated by the Islamic Republican Party, forced Banisadr out of office, which initiated a wave of protests and demonstrations from all segments of the populace. Banisadr later fled the country. Armed revolutionary committees loyal to Khomeini (which came to be known as the Pasdaran) arrested many thousands of youth and activists from both nationalist and leftist groups, many of whom were later tried by Lajevardi, known as the Hanging Judge, and executed. At this point in the history of the Tudeh Party, the Christian and Azeris within the population were prominent. Suppression While other leftist parties opposed the Islamist forces at this time and were suppressed as a result, Tudeh Party leadership as well as the Fadaian Aksariat decided to support the new clerical theocratic regime. This may have been to try to follow the pro-Tehran line of the Soviet Union. In 1982, however, the Tudeh broke ranks. The Islamist government of Iran had closed down the Tudeh newspaper and purged Tudeh members from government ministries. According to the Mitrokhin Archive, Vladimir Kuzichkin, a KGB officer stationed in Tehran, had defected to the British in 1982. MI6 used this information and shared the information with the CIA. Their information was then shared with the Iranian government by the CIA, which was secretly courting Iran, as part of the Iran–Contra affair. Quite quickly the government arrested and imprisoned its leadership and later more than 10,000 members of the party. In February 1983, the leaders of the Tudeh