The Fifty-Three were a group of 53 Iranians arrested for involvement in communist political activities in 1937 and brought to trial in November 1938 in the most sensational of the political trials held during the reign of Rezā Shāh.
As a result of the similarity with the prosecution of the Old Bolsheviks in the Stalinist show trials in the Soviet Union in 1936-1938, some jested that Rezā Shāh was performing an imitation of Joseph Stalin.
The fifty-three were:
References
The Fifty-Three Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA