According to Ervand Abrahamian, Qavam had two paradoxical reasons to establish the party, a "double-edged sword directed at the left as well as the right". He intended to defeat royalist and pro-British candidates in the 1947 Iranian legislative election and to use it to "mobilize non-communist reformers, steal the thunder from the left, and hence build a counterbalance to the Tudeh Party".[1]