In cooperation with Noureddin Kianouri, Farman Farmaian established a women’s division of the Tudeh Party. Following the attempted assassination of Mohammad Reza Shah on 4 February 1949, the Tudeh party was blamed and her husband was imputed to have been one of the masterminds of the operation. She and her husband were forced into exile in 1956. She started her life in exile in the USSR and then lived in East Berlin, in the former German Democratic Republic. During her years of exile she completed her university studies and later taught French in the universities of Leipzig and Berlin.