Background and causes of the Iranian Revolution
Encyclopedia
The 1978-79 Iranian Islamic Revolution was a populist
, nationalist
and Shi'a Islamic revolution that replaced an ancient monarchy with a theocracy based on "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists" (or velayat-e faqih).
Its causes — why the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
) was overthrown and why he was replaced by an Islamic Republic — are a subject of historical debate. The revolution was in part a conservative backlash against the Westernizing
and secularizing efforts of the Western
-backed Shah, and a not-so-conservative reaction to social injustice and other shortcomings of the ancient regime.
The Shah was perceived by many Iranians as beholden to — if not a puppet of — a non-Muslim
Western
power (the United States
) whose culture was contaminating that of Iran. The Shah's regime was seen as oppressive, brutal, corrupt, and extravagant; it also suffered from basic functional failures — an overly-ambitious economic program that brought economic bottlenecks, shortages and inflation.
had a number of unique and significant characteristics. It produced profound change at great speed; and replaced an ancient monarchy with a theocracy based on Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih). Its outcome — an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of an 80-year-old exiled religious scholar from Qom
" — was, as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained.…"
Some of the customary causes of revolution that were lacking include
The regime it overthrew was thought to be heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security services. As one observer put it:
"Few expected the regime of the Shah, which had international support and a modern army of 400,000, to crumble in the face of unarmed demonstrators within a matter of months."
Kurzman points out that one explanation for the Shah's overthrow - the 40-day (Arba'een
) cycle of commemorating deaths of protesters - "came to a halt" on June 17, 1978, a half year before the revolution's culmination. Moderate religious leaders (Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari) called for calm and a stay-at-home strike which prevented more casualties to commemorate 40 days later. Kurzman also argues that the mourning rituals in Iran had been a political act only once before.
Alexis de Tocqueville
's idea that "steadily increasing prosperity, far from tranquilizing the population, everywhere promoted a spirit of unrest", has been offered by several observers as an explanation for the 1978-79 revolt. But this does not explain why "there was very little oppositional activity" in the recession of 1975-6 when unemployment and inflation were at similar levels to those of 1978. Furthermore, revolutions were conspicuously absent in other "high-growth autocracies" — Venezuela, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq — in the 1970s and 1980s despite the fact that those countries also suffered from oil wealth problems (corruption, debt, fraud, repression).
Another cause, or partial cause, in doubt is the Shah's liberalization as a result of the encouragement of President Jimmy Carter. Kurzman points out that "even as the shah arrived in Washington" for a state visit in late 1977, "his regime's partial tolerance of oppositional activity was disappearing. ... In November 1977, as the shah ingratiated himself with Jimmy Carter, liberals were in retreat."
Another author, Moojan Momen, questions whether Carter "could have said or done" anything to save the Shah — aside from foregoing his human rights policy — since "any direct interference by America would only have increased resentment" against the pro-American Shah.
,) have had a significant influence on the majority of Iranians, who have tended to be religious, traditional, and alienated from any process of Westernization. The clergy first showed themselves to be a powerful political force in opposition to Iran's monarch with the 1891 Tobacco Protest
boycott that effectively destroyed an unpopular concession
granted by the shah giving a British company a monopoly over buying and selling Tobacco in Iran. To some the incident demonstrated that the Shia ulama
were "Iran's first line of defense" against colonialism
.
The dynasty that the revolution overthrew — the Pahlavi dynasty
— was known for its autocracy
, its focus on modernization
and Westernization
and for its disregard for religious and democratic measures in Iran's constitution.
The founder of the dynasty, army general Reza Pahlavi
, replaced Islamic laws
with western ones, and forbade traditional Islamic clothing, separation of the sexes and veiling of women (hijab
). Women who resisted his ban on public hijab had their chador
s forcibly removed and torn. In 1935 a rebellion by pious Shi'a at the shrine of Imam Reza
in Mashad was crushed on his orders with dozens killed and hundreds injured, rupturing relations between the Shah and pious Shia in Iran.
who believed him to be sympathetic with the allies' enemy Nazi Germany. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
was installed by the allies as monarch. Prince Pahlavi (later crowned shah) reigned until the 1979 revolution with one brief interruption. In 1953 he fled the country after a power-struggle with his Prime Minister
Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh is remembered in Iran for having been voted into power through a democratic election, nationalizing Iran's British-owned oil fields, and being deposed in a military coup d'état organized by an American CIA operative and aided by the British MI6. Thus foreign powers were involved in both the installation and restoration of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The shah maintained a close relationship with the United States
, both regimes sharing a fear of/opposition to the expansion of Soviet/Russia
n state, Iran's powerful northern neighbor. Leftist, nationalist and religious groups attacked his government (often from outside Iran as they were suppressed within) for violating the Iranian constitution, political corruption
, and the political oppression by the SAVAK
(secret police).
Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution, first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his program of reforms known as the "White Revolution
", which aimed to break up landholdings owned by some Shi’a clergy, allow women to vote and religious minorities to hold office, and grant women legal equality in marital issues.
Khomeini declared that the Shah had "embarked on the destruction of Islam in Iran" and publicly denounced the Shah as a "wretched miserable man." Following Khomeini's arrest on June 5, 1963, three days of major riots erupted throughout Iran, with Khomeini supporters claiming 15,000 were killed by police fire Khomeini was detained and kept under house arrest for 8 months. After his release he continued his agitation against the Shah, condemning the regimes's close cooperation with Israel
and its "capitulations" — the extension of diplomatic immunity to American government personnel in Iran. In November 1964 Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile where he remained for 14 years until the revolution.
A period of "disaffected calm" followed. Despite political repression the budding Islamic revival began to undermine the idea of Westernization as progress that was the basis of the Shah's secular regime and form the ideology of the revolution
. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
's idea of Gharbzadegi
— that Western culture was a plague or an intoxication to be eliminated; Ali Shariati
's vision of Islam as the one true liberator of the Third World
from oppressive colonialism
, neo-colonialism, and capitalism
; and Morteza Motahhari's popularized retellings of the Shia faith, all spread and gained listeners, readers and supporters. Most importantly, Khomeini preached that revolt, and especially martyrdom, against injustice and tyranny was part of Shia Islam, and that Muslims should reject the influence of both capitalism
and communism
with the slogan "Neither East, nor West - Islamic Republic!"
To replace the shah's regime Khomeini developed the ideology of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) as government, that Muslims — in fact everyone — required "guardianship," in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists. Such rule would protect Islam from deviation from traditional sharia
law, and in so doing eliminate poverty, injustice, and the "plundering" of Muslim land by foreign unbelievers. Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was "actually an expression of obedience to God", ultimately "more necessary even than prayer and fasting" in Islam, and a commandment for all the world, not one confined to Iran.
Publicly, Khomeini focused on the socio-economic problems of the shah's regime (corruption, unequal income and development), not his solution of rule by Islamic jurists.
His entourage later went so far as to disown the book, maintaining "it was either a SAVAK
forgery or the rough notes of an student listener."
He believed a propaganda campaign by Western
imperialists had prejudiced most Iranians against theocratic rule.
But his book was widely distributed in religious circles, especially among Khomeini's students (talabeh), ex-students (clerics), and traditional business leaders (bazaari). A powerful and efficient network of opposition began to develop inside Iran, employing mosque sermons, smuggled cassette speeches by Khomeini, and other means. Added to this religious opposition were secular and Islamic modernist students and guerrilla groups
who admired Khomeini's history of resistance, though they were to clash with his theocracy and be suppressed by his movement after the revolution.
, Marxist, and Islamist groups opposed the Shah:
The very first signs of opposition in 1977 came from Iranian constitutionalist liberals
. Based in the urban middle class
, this was a section of the population that was fairly secular and wanted the Shah to adhere to the Iranian Constitution of 1906 rather than religious rule. Prominent in it was Mehdi Bazargan
and his liberal, moderate Islamic group Freedom Movement of Iran
, and the more secular National Front.
The clergy were divided, allying variously with the liberals, Marxists and Islamists. The various anti-Shah groups operated from outside Iran, mostly in London, Paris
, Iraq, and Turkey
. Speeches by the leaders of these groups were placed on audio cassettes to be smuggled into Iran. Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq
, worked to unite clerical and secular, liberal and radical opposition under his leadership by avoiding specifics — at least in public — that might divide the factions.
Marxists groups were illegal and heavily suppressed by SAVAK
internal security apparatus. They included the communist Tudeh Party of Iran
; two armed organizations, the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
(OIPFG) and the breakaway Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
(IPFG); and some minor groups. The guerillas aim was to defeat the Pahlavi regime by assassination and guerilla war. Although they played an important part in the 1979 overthrow of the regime, they had been weakened considerably by government repression and factionalization in the first half of the 1970s.
Islamists were divided into several groups. The Freedom Movement of Iran
, made up of religious members of the National Front of Iran who wanted to use lawful political methods against the Shah and led by Bazargan
and Mahmoud Taleghani
. The People's Mujahedin of Iran
, a quasi-Marxist armed organization that opposed the influence of the clergy and later fought Khomeini's Islamic government.
The Islamist group that ultimately prevailed was that containing the core supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. Amongst them were some minor armed Islamist groups which joined together after the revolution in the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization
. The Coalition of Islamic Societies
was founded by religious bazaaris (traditional merchants). The Combatant Clergy Association comprised Morteza Motahhari
, Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
and Mohammad Mofatteh
), who later became the major leaders of the Islamic Republic. They used a cultural approach to fight the Shah.
Because of internal repression, opposition groups abroad, like the Confederation of Iranian students, the foreign branch of Freedom Movement of Iran
and the Islamic association of students, were important to the revolution.
In October 1971, the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire
was held at the site of Persepolis
. Only foreign dignitaries were invited to the three-day party whose extravagances included over one ton of caviar
, and preparation by some two hundred chefs flown in from Paris
. Cost was officially $40 million but estimated to be more in the range of $100–120 million. Meanwhile drought ravaged the provinces of Baluchistan, Sistan, and even Fars where the celebrations were held. "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."
By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not "the Great Civilization" promised by the Shah, but an "alarming" increase in inflation and waste and an "accelerating gap" between the rich and poor, the city and the country. Nationalistic Iranians were angered by the tens of thousand of skilled foreign workers who came to Iran, many of them to help operate the already unpopular and expensive American high-tech military equipment that the Shah had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.
The next year the Rastakhiz
party was created. It became not only the only party Iranians were permitted to belong to, but one the "whole adult population" was required to belong and pay dues to. The party attempted by to take a populist stand fining and jailing merchants in its "anti-profiteering" campaigns, but this proved not only economically harmful but also politically counterproductive. Inflation morphed into a black market and business activity declined. Merchants were angered and politicized.
In 1976, the Shah's government angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great
. "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535." The same year the Shah declared economic austerity measures to dampen inflation and waste. The resulting unemployment disproportionately affected the thousands of recent poor and unskilled migrants to the cities. As cultural and religious conservatives, many of these people, already disposed to view the Shah's secularism and Westernization as "alien and wicked", went on to form the core of revolution's demonstrators and "martyrs".
In 1977 a new American President, Jimmy Carter
, was inaugurated. Carter sought to make American post-Vietnam foreign policy and power excersise more benevolent, and created a special Office of Human Rights. It sent the Shah a "polite reminder" of the importance of political rights and freedom. The Shah responded by granting amnesty to 357 political prisoners in February, and allowing Red Cross to visit prisons, beginning what is said to be 'a trend of liberalization by the Shah'. Through the late spring, summer and autumn liberal opposition formed organizations and issued open letters denouncing the regime. Later that year a dissent group (the Writers' Association) gathered without the customary police break-up and arrests, starting a new era of political action by the Shah's opponents.
That year also saw the death of the very popular and influential modernist Islamist leader Ali Shariati
, allegedly at the hands of SAVAK, removing a potential revolutionary rival to Khomeini. Finally, in October Khomeini's son Mostafa died. Though the cause appeared to be a heart attack, anti-Shah groups blamed SAVAK poisoning and proclaimed him a 'martyr.' A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight and began the process of building Khomeini into the leading opponent of the Shah.
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
, nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and Shi'a Islamic revolution that replaced an ancient monarchy with a theocracy based on "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists" (or velayat-e faqih).
Its causes — why the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
) was overthrown and why he was replaced by an Islamic Republic — are a subject of historical debate. The revolution was in part a conservative backlash against the Westernizing
Westernization
Westernization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...
and secularizing efforts of the Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
-backed Shah, and a not-so-conservative reaction to social injustice and other shortcomings of the ancient regime.
The Shah was perceived by many Iranians as beholden to — if not a puppet of — a non-Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
power (the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) whose culture was contaminating that of Iran. The Shah's regime was seen as oppressive, brutal, corrupt, and extravagant; it also suffered from basic functional failures — an overly-ambitious economic program that brought economic bottlenecks, shortages and inflation.
General causes
The 1978-79 Iranian RevolutionIranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
had a number of unique and significant characteristics. It produced profound change at great speed; and replaced an ancient monarchy with a theocracy based on Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih). Its outcome — an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of an 80-year-old exiled religious scholar from Qom
Qom
Qom is a city in Iran. It lies by road southwest of Tehran and is the capital of Qom Province. At the 2006 census, its population was 957,496, in 241,827 families. It is situated on the banks of the Qom River....
" — was, as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained.…"
Surprise and absence of customary causes
The revolution was unique for the surprise it created throughout the world.Some of the customary causes of revolution that were lacking include
- defeat at war,
- a financial crisis,
- peasant rebellion,
- gigantic national debt,
- disgruntled military;
The regime it overthrew was thought to be heavily protected by a lavishly financed army and security services. As one observer put it:
"Few expected the regime of the Shah, which had international support and a modern army of 400,000, to crumble in the face of unarmed demonstrators within a matter of months."
Causes
Explanations advanced for why the revolution happened and took the form it did include actions of the Shah and the mistakes and successes of the different political forces:Policies and policy mistakes of the Shah
- His strong policy of WesternizationWesternizationWesternization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...
and close identification with a Western power (the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) despite the resulting clash with Iran's Shi'a Muslim identity. This included his original installation by Allied Powers and assistance from the CIA in 1953 to restore him to the throne, the use of large numbers of US military advisers and technicians and the capitulationCapitulation (surrender)Capitulation , an agreement in time of war for the surrender to a hostile armed force of a particular body of troops, a town or a territory....
or granting of diplomatic immunityDiplomatic immunityDiplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws...
from prosecution to them, all of which led nationalistic Iranians, both religious and secular to consider him a puppet of the West; - Unpopular disregard for Islamic tradition in his 1976 change from an Islamic calendar to an Imperial calendar, marking the birth of CyrusCyrus the GreatCyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
as the first day, instead of the flightHijra (Islam)The Hijra is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Alternate spellings of this Arabic word are Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira, the latter following the spelling rules of Latin.- Hijra of Muhammad :In September 622, warned of a plot to...
of the Prophet MuhammadMuhammadMuhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
from MeccaMeccaMecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
to MedinaMedinaMedina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. Overnight, the year changed from 1355 to 2535. - Extravagance, corruption and elitism (both real and perceived) of the Shah's policies and of his royal courtRoyal courtRoyal court, as distinguished from a court of law, may refer to:* The Royal Court , Timbaland's production company*Court , the household and entourage of a monarch or other ruler, the princely court...
. - His failure to cultivate supporters in the Shi'a religious leadership to counter Khomeini's campaign against him.
- Focusing of government surveillance and repression on the People's Mujahedin of IranPeople's Mujahedin of IranThe People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....
, the communist Tudeh Party of IranTudeh Party of IranThe Tudeh Party of Iran is an Iranian communist party. Formed in 1941, with Soleiman Mohsen Eskandari as its head, it had considerable influence in its early years and played an important role during Mohammad Mosaddeq's campaign to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and his term as prime...
, and other leftist groups, while the more popular religious opposition organized, grew and gradually undermined the authority of his regime. - Authoritarian tendenciesDespotismDespotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group, as in an oligarchy...
that violated the Iran Constitution of 1906Iran Constitution of 1906The Persia Constitution of 1906 was Persia's first constitution that resulted from the Persian Constitutional Revolution and it was written by Ismail Mumtaz. It divides into five chapters with many articles that developed over several years...
, including repression of dissent by security servicesSecurity agencyA security agency is a governmental organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies...
like the SAVAKSAVAKSAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور...
, followed by appeasementAppeasementThe term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
and appearance of weakness as the revolution gained momentum; The idea of Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de TocquevilleAlexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
that "when a people which has put up with an oppressive rule over a long period without protest suddenly finds the government relaxing its pressure, it takes up arms against it."
- Failure of his overly ambitious 1974 economic program to meet expectations raised by the oil revenue windfall. A short, sharp period of economic contraction and decline in 1977-78 following a considerable period of economic growth, that according to scholar of revolutions Crane Brinton creates disappointment much greater "than if people had been left in poverty all along."
- Bottlenecks, shortages and inflation that were followed by austerity measures, attacks on alleged price gougers and black-markets, that angered both the bazaar and the masses.
- His antagonizing of formerly apolitical Iranians, especially merchants of the bazaars, with the creation of a single party political monopoly (the RastakhizRastakhizRastakhiz Party was founded on March 2, 1975 by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. The party was intended as Iran's new single party, holding a monopoly on political activity in Iran, and to which all Iranians were required to belong...
Party), with compulsory membership and dues, and general aggressive interference in the political, economic, and religious concerns of people's lives. - His overconfident neglect of governanceGovernanceGovernance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
and preoccupation with playing the world statesman during the oil boom, followed by a loss of self-confidence and resolution and a weakening of his health from cancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
as the revolution gained momentum. The shah's terminal illness was a secret at the time, but the shah knew he was dying of cancer, and his medication made him "depressed and listless". In addition several of the shah's closest advisers had recently died, and palace personnel were reportedly fired wholesale in the summer of 1978. - Underestimation of the strength of the opposition — particularly religious opposition — and the failure to offer either enough carrots or sticksCarrot and stickCarrot and stick is an idiom that refers to a policy of offering a combination of rewards and punishment to induce behavior. It is named in reference to a cart driver dangling a carrot in front of a mule and holding a stick behind it...
. Efforts to please the opposition were "too little too late," but no concerted counter-attack was made against the revolutionaries either. - Failure to prepare and train security forces for dealing with protest and demonstration, failure to use crowd control without excessive violence (troops used live ammunition, not Plexiglas shields or water cannons), and use of the military officer corps more as a powerbase to be pampered than as a force to control threats to security.
- The personalised nature of the Shah's government, where prevention of any possible competitor to the monarch trumped efficient and effective government and led to the crown's cultivation of divisions within the army and the political elite, and ultimately to a lack of support for the regime by its natural allies when needed most (thousands of upper and middle class Iranians and their money left Iran during the beginning of the revolution). The monarch "took a personal interest in the most picayune governmental matters, discouraged initiative by frequently overruling and dismissing officials, and refusing to allow officials to cooperate, for fear of regicidal conspiracies. The shah was careful to meet with each of his top aides and generals individually. In the absence of a fully functioning shah, the system could not function."
Failures and successes of other Iranian political or cultural forces
- The Ayatollah Khomeini's self-confidence, charisma, and most importantly his ability to grip the imagination of the masses by casting himself as following in the footsteps of the beloved Shi'a Imam Husayn ibn AliHusayn ibn AliHussein ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib was the son of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Fātimah Zahrā...
, while portraying the Shah as a modern day version of Husayn's foe, the hated tyrant Yazid IYazid IYazīd ibn Mu‘āwiya ibn Abī Sufyān , commonly known as Yazid I, was the second Caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate . He ruled for three years from 680 CE until his death in 683 CE. Many Muslims condemn Yazid's rule as contentious and unjust...
. or alternately as the Hidden ImamMuhammad al-MahdiMuḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Mahdī is believed by Twelver Shī‘a Muslims to be the Mahdī, an ultimate savior of humankind and the final Imām of the Twelve Imams...
in distant Paris, sending his messages through special representatives. In so doing he was seen by millions as a savior figure, and inspiring hundreds to feats of martyrdom fighting the regime. - Success of modernist Islamists Abolhassan BanisadrAbolhassan BanisadrAbulhassan Banisadr is an Iranian politician, economist and human rights activist who served as the first President of Iran from 4 February 1980 after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the abolition of the monarchy until his impeachment on 21 June 1981 by the Parliament of Iran...
and Ali ShariatiAli ShariatiAli Shariati was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist, who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'.-Biography:Ali....
in presenting an Islamic ideology that "appeared modern, liberal and appealing," and in so doing won over much of the Iranian middle class. - Overconfidence of the secularists and modernist Muslims, of liberals and leftists, in their power and ability to control the revolution, a belief that "the clergy would not be capable of governing the state ... and would have to hand over power to others," so that "even the opponents of the Islamicists accepted their leadership of the revolution" at first, and failure to anticipate Khomeini's "total domination of the Iranian revolution" and to study his writings and try to understand what his true goals were.
- The 40-day (Arba'eenArba'eenArba'een or Chelom , is one of the largest pilgrimage gatherings on Earth, in which over 10 million people go to the city of Karbala in Iraq. As it is known by Persian-speaking and Urdu-speaking Muslims in Central and South Asia, Arba'een is a Shia Muslim religious observation that occurs 40 days...
) cycle of mourning by Shia that commemorated with new street protests the deaths of earlier protesters, thus strengthening or keeping alive and alive mobilization of anti-Shah feeling over many months. - Shrewdness of the Ayatollah KhomeiniRuhollah KhomeiniGrand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
in winning the support of these liberals and leftists when he needed them to overthrow the Shah by underplaying his hand and avoiding issues (such as rule by clerics or "guardianship of the jurists") he planned to implement but knew would be a deal breaker for his more secular and modernist Muslim allies. - Cleverness and energy of Khomeini's organizers in Iran who outwitted the Shah's security forces and won broad support with their tactical ingenuity — amongst other things, convincing Iranians that the Shah's security was more brutal than it was.
Failures and successes of foreign forces
- Policies of the American government, which helped create an image of the Shah as American "puppet" with their high profile and the 1953 subversion of the government on his behalf, but helped trigger the revolution by pressuring the Shah to liberalize, and then finally may have heightened the radicalism of the revolution by failing to read its nature accurately (particularly the goals of Khomeini), or to clearly respond to it.
- Alleged treachery of the Americans and other foreigners. Among those who blame American or Western forces for the collapse of the shah's regime include the director-general of the French intelligence service (who claimed that American President Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
`decided to replace` the Shah; one of the shah's generals, who claimed the U.S. `took the Shah by the tail, and threw him into exile like a dead rat,` Iranian expatriates surveyed in Southern California", and Iranians surveyed in Isfahan. These beliefs have usually been mentioned by historians as examples of how "Iranians hostile to the revolution appeared to feel more comfortable blaming outside forces than their own compatriots," rather than as plausible explanations for the revolution. Still another conspiracy theory is that when American general Robert E. HuyserRobert E. HuyserRobert Ernest Huyser was a four star general in the United States Air Force who served as Deputy Commander in Chief, United States European Command from 1975 to 1979; and as Commander in Chief, Military Airlift Command from 1979 to 1981.-Early life:Huyser was born in 1924, in Paonia, Colorado,...
, Deputy Commander of US forces in Europe," went to Iran to encourage the Iranian military to either support the new but non-revolutionary Bahktiar government or stage a coup detat, he was approached by "representatives of the revolutionary forces" who made it clear to him that "if the United States did not wish its personnel to be harmed or to allow uncontrolled, armed guerrillas, some with pro-Soviet sympathies, to gain access to its sophisticated weapons" he had "better see to it that the military surrendered to the popular revolutionary forces." Thus, according to Sepehr Zabih, Huyer chose between American personnel/materiel, and America's strategic ally in the Persian Gulf, and this explains why Huyser's mission to Iran was accompanied by "the disintegration of the Imperial Army" in final days of the revolution. It has also been argued that the revolution could not have succeeded without help from inside of Iranian military at some level. - OPECOPECOPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
policies that discouraged infighting among members in order to create a united front to best take advantage of the oil boom. OPEC had Iran and Iraq sat down and made to work aside differences, which resulted in relatively good relations between the two nations throughout the 1970s. In 1978 the Shah made a request to then-Vice President Saddam HusseinSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
to banish the expatriate Ayatollah Khomenei from Iraq, who had been living there in exile for the past 15 years. In light of keeping up good relations with Iran and that Khomenei was not overly supportive of the current Iraqi regime, Hussein agreed to do this. From this point Khomenei moved to France where he better coordinated the nascent Islamic Revolution.
Historical trends
The "third-worldist" and anti-imperialist discourse of the 1970s that sought freedom/independence from American and western influence.Doubts about causes
Charles Kurzman, author of The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran has postulated that the explanations offered by observers for why the revolution occurred "are only partially valid," and that "the closer we listen to the people who made the revolution - the more anomalies we find."Kurzman points out that one explanation for the Shah's overthrow - the 40-day (Arba'een
Arba'een
Arba'een or Chelom , is one of the largest pilgrimage gatherings on Earth, in which over 10 million people go to the city of Karbala in Iraq. As it is known by Persian-speaking and Urdu-speaking Muslims in Central and South Asia, Arba'een is a Shia Muslim religious observation that occurs 40 days...
) cycle of commemorating deaths of protesters - "came to a halt" on June 17, 1978, a half year before the revolution's culmination. Moderate religious leaders (Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari) called for calm and a stay-at-home strike which prevented more casualties to commemorate 40 days later. Kurzman also argues that the mourning rituals in Iran had been a political act only once before.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
's idea that "steadily increasing prosperity, far from tranquilizing the population, everywhere promoted a spirit of unrest", has been offered by several observers as an explanation for the 1978-79 revolt. But this does not explain why "there was very little oppositional activity" in the recession of 1975-6 when unemployment and inflation were at similar levels to those of 1978. Furthermore, revolutions were conspicuously absent in other "high-growth autocracies" — Venezuela, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq — in the 1970s and 1980s despite the fact that those countries also suffered from oil wealth problems (corruption, debt, fraud, repression).
Another cause, or partial cause, in doubt is the Shah's liberalization as a result of the encouragement of President Jimmy Carter. Kurzman points out that "even as the shah arrived in Washington" for a state visit in late 1977, "his regime's partial tolerance of oppositional activity was disappearing. ... In November 1977, as the shah ingratiated himself with Jimmy Carter, liberals were in retreat."
Another author, Moojan Momen, questions whether Carter "could have said or done" anything to save the Shah — aside from foregoing his human rights policy — since "any direct interference by America would only have increased resentment" against the pro-American Shah.
1906–1977
Shi'a clergy (or UlemaUlema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
,) have had a significant influence on the majority of Iranians, who have tended to be religious, traditional, and alienated from any process of Westernization. The clergy first showed themselves to be a powerful political force in opposition to Iran's monarch with the 1891 Tobacco Protest
Tobacco Protest
The Tobacco Protest, was a Shi'a cleric-led revolt in Iran against an 1890 tobacco concession granted by the Shah to the Western imperial power of Great Britain. The protest climaxed in a widely-obeyed December 1891 fatwa against tobacco use supposedly issued by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi...
boycott that effectively destroyed an unpopular concession
Concession (contract)
A concession is a business operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in business within a certain geographical area. For example, sports arenas or public parks may have concession stands. Many department stores contain numerous concessions operated by other...
granted by the shah giving a British company a monopoly over buying and selling Tobacco in Iran. To some the incident demonstrated that the Shia ulama
Ulama
-In Islam:* Ulema, also transliterated "ulama", a community of legal scholars of Islam and its laws . See:**Nahdlatul Ulama **Darul-uloom Nadwatul Ulama **Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal**Jamiat ul-Ulama -Other:...
were "Iran's first line of defense" against colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
.
Reza Shah
Pahlavi dynasty
The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi (reg. 1925–1941) and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty ...
— was known for its autocracy
Autocracy
An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
, its focus on modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
and Westernization
Westernization
Westernization or Westernisation , also occidentalization or occidentalisation , is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in such matters as industry, technology, law, politics, economics, lifestyle, diet, language, alphabet,...
and for its disregard for religious and democratic measures in Iran's constitution.
The founder of the dynasty, army general Reza Pahlavi
Reza Shah
Rezā Shāh, also known as Rezā Shāh Pahlavi and Rezā Shāh Kabir , , was the Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from December 15, 1925, until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on September 16, 1941.In 1925, Reza Shah overthrew Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar...
, replaced Islamic laws
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
with western ones, and forbade traditional Islamic clothing, separation of the sexes and veiling of women (hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
). Women who resisted his ban on public hijab had their chador
Chador
A chādor or chādar is an outer garment or open cloak worn by many Iranian women and female teenagers in public spaces. Wearing this garment is one possible way in which a Muslim woman can follow the Islamic dress code known as ḥijāb. A chador is a full-body-length semicircle of fabric that is...
s forcibly removed and torn. In 1935 a rebellion by pious Shi'a at the shrine of Imam Reza
Imam Reza shrine
Imām Reza shrine in Mashhad, Iran is a complex which contains the mausoleum of Imam Reza, the eighth Imām of Twelver Shi'ites. It is the largest mosque in the world by dimension and the second largest in capacity...
in Mashad was crushed on his orders with dozens killed and hundreds injured, rupturing relations between the Shah and pious Shia in Iran.
Shah comes to power
Reza Shah was deposed in 1941 by an invasion of allied British and Soviet troopsAnglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran was the Allied invasion of the Imperial State of Iran during World War II, by British, Commonwealth, and Soviet armed forces. The invasion from August 25 to September 17, 1941, was codenamed Operation Countenance...
who believed him to be sympathetic with the allies' enemy Nazi Germany. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
was installed by the allies as monarch. Prince Pahlavi (later crowned shah) reigned until the 1979 revolution with one brief interruption. In 1953 he fled the country after a power-struggle with his Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh is remembered in Iran for having been voted into power through a democratic election, nationalizing Iran's British-owned oil fields, and being deposed in a military coup d'état organized by an American CIA operative and aided by the British MI6. Thus foreign powers were involved in both the installation and restoration of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The shah maintained a close relationship with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, both regimes sharing a fear of/opposition to the expansion of Soviet/Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n state, Iran's powerful northern neighbor. Leftist, nationalist and religious groups attacked his government (often from outside Iran as they were suppressed within) for violating the Iranian constitution, political corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
, and the political oppression by the SAVAK
SAVAK
SAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور...
(secret police).
Rise of Ayatollah Khomeini
Shia cleric AyatollahAyatollah
Ayatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries. The next lower clerical rank is Hojatoleslam wal-muslemin...
Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution, first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his program of reforms known as the "White Revolution
White Revolution
The White Revolution was a far-reaching series of reforms in Iran launched in 1963 by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza Shah’s reform program was built especially to strengthen those classes that supported the traditional system...
", which aimed to break up landholdings owned by some Shi’a clergy, allow women to vote and religious minorities to hold office, and grant women legal equality in marital issues.
Khomeini declared that the Shah had "embarked on the destruction of Islam in Iran" and publicly denounced the Shah as a "wretched miserable man." Following Khomeini's arrest on June 5, 1963, three days of major riots erupted throughout Iran, with Khomeini supporters claiming 15,000 were killed by police fire Khomeini was detained and kept under house arrest for 8 months. After his release he continued his agitation against the Shah, condemning the regimes's close cooperation with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and its "capitulations" — the extension of diplomatic immunity to American government personnel in Iran. In November 1964 Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile where he remained for 14 years until the revolution.
A period of "disaffected calm" followed. Despite political repression the budding Islamic revival began to undermine the idea of Westernization as progress that was the basis of the Shah's secular regime and form the ideology of the revolution
Ideology of Iranian Revolution
The ideology of the Islamic Revolution can be summarized as populist, nationalist and most of all Shi'a Islamic.The Iranian revolution expresses itself in the language of Islam, that is to say, as a religious movement with a religious leadership, a religiously formulated critique of the old order,...
. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was a prominent Iranian writer, thinker, and social and political critic.-Personal life:...
's idea of Gharbzadegi
Gharbzadegi
Gharbzadegi is a pejorative Persian term variously translated as "Westoxification," "West-struck-ness" "Westitis", "Euromania", or "Occidentosis"...
— that Western culture was a plague or an intoxication to be eliminated; Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist, who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'.-Biography:Ali....
's vision of Islam as the one true liberator of the Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
from oppressive colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, neo-colonialism, and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
; and Morteza Motahhari's popularized retellings of the Shia faith, all spread and gained listeners, readers and supporters. Most importantly, Khomeini preached that revolt, and especially martyrdom, against injustice and tyranny was part of Shia Islam, and that Muslims should reject the influence of both capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
with the slogan "Neither East, nor West - Islamic Republic!"
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law, and in so doing eliminate poverty, injustice, and the "plundering" of Muslim land by foreign unbelievers. Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was "actually an expression of obedience to God", ultimately "more necessary even than prayer and fasting" in Islam, and a commandment for all the world, not one confined to Iran.
Publicly, Khomeini focused on the socio-economic problems of the shah's regime (corruption, unequal income and development), not his solution of rule by Islamic jurists.
His entourage later went so far as to disown the book, maintaining "it was either a SAVAK
SAVAK
SAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور...
forgery or the rough notes of an student listener."
He believed a propaganda campaign by Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
imperialists had prejudiced most Iranians against theocratic rule.
But his book was widely distributed in religious circles, especially among Khomeini's students (talabeh), ex-students (clerics), and traditional business leaders (bazaari). A powerful and efficient network of opposition began to develop inside Iran, employing mosque sermons, smuggled cassette speeches by Khomeini, and other means. Added to this religious opposition were secular and Islamic modernist students and guerrilla groups
Guerrilla groups of Iran
Several leftist guerrilla groups attempting to overthrown the pro-Western regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were notable and active in Iran from 1971 to 1975. The groups shared a commitment to armed struggle, but differed in ideology...
who admired Khomeini's history of resistance, though they were to clash with his theocracy and be suppressed by his movement after the revolution.
Opposition groups and organizations
ConstitutionalistConstitutionalism
Constitutionalism has a variety of meanings. Most generally, it is "a complex of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law"....
, Marxist, and Islamist groups opposed the Shah:
The very first signs of opposition in 1977 came from Iranian constitutionalist liberals
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
. Based in the urban middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
, this was a section of the population that was fairly secular and wanted the Shah to adhere to the Iranian Constitution of 1906 rather than religious rule. Prominent in it was Mehdi Bazargan
Mehdi Bazargan
Mehdi Bazargan was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He was the head of the first engineering department of Tehran University...
and his liberal, moderate Islamic group Freedom Movement of Iran
Freedom Movement of Iran
The Freedom Movement of Iran is an Iranian political organization which was founded in 1961 by Mehdi Bazargan, Mahmoud Taleghani, Yadollah Sahabi, Mostafa Chamran, Ali Shariati, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and some other political or religious figures...
, and the more secular National Front.
The clergy were divided, allying variously with the liberals, Marxists and Islamists. The various anti-Shah groups operated from outside Iran, mostly in London, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Iraq, and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. Speeches by the leaders of these groups were placed on audio cassettes to be smuggled into Iran. Khomeini, who was in exile in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, worked to unite clerical and secular, liberal and radical opposition under his leadership by avoiding specifics — at least in public — that might divide the factions.
Marxists groups were illegal and heavily suppressed by SAVAK
SAVAK
SAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور...
internal security apparatus. They included the communist Tudeh Party of Iran
Tudeh Party of Iran
The Tudeh Party of Iran is an Iranian communist party. Formed in 1941, with Soleiman Mohsen Eskandari as its head, it had considerable influence in its early years and played an important role during Mohammad Mosaddeq's campaign to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and his term as prime...
; two armed organizations, the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
The Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas emerged as radical Marxist-Leninist movement in Iran in 1971, formed to overthrow the Pahlavi regime...
(OIPFG) and the breakaway Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas
The Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas is an Iranian opposition organization. It has a Marxist-Leninist ideology. The group was formed in 1979, when Ashraf Dehghani broke away from the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas...
(IPFG); and some minor groups. The guerillas aim was to defeat the Pahlavi regime by assassination and guerilla war. Although they played an important part in the 1979 overthrow of the regime, they had been weakened considerably by government repression and factionalization in the first half of the 1970s.
Islamists were divided into several groups. The Freedom Movement of Iran
Freedom Movement of Iran
The Freedom Movement of Iran is an Iranian political organization which was founded in 1961 by Mehdi Bazargan, Mahmoud Taleghani, Yadollah Sahabi, Mostafa Chamran, Ali Shariati, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and some other political or religious figures...
, made up of religious members of the National Front of Iran who wanted to use lawful political methods against the Shah and led by Bazargan
Mehdi Bazargan
Mehdi Bazargan was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He was the head of the first engineering department of Tehran University...
and Mahmoud Taleghani
Mahmoud Taleghani
Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani was an Iranian theologian, humanist, Muslim reformer, democracy advocate and a senior Shi'a cleric of Iran. Taleghani was a contemporary of the Iranian Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a leader in his own right of Iran's Shi'a resistance movement...
. The People's Mujahedin of Iran
People's Mujahedin of Iran
The People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....
, a quasi-Marxist armed organization that opposed the influence of the clergy and later fought Khomeini's Islamic government.
The Islamist group that ultimately prevailed was that containing the core supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. Amongst them were some minor armed Islamist groups which joined together after the revolution in the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization
Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization
Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization , sometimes abbreviated to MIRO, is a reformist Iranian political organization. It is a small yet influential organization, and participates in political activities similar to a political party...
. The Coalition of Islamic Societies
Islamic Coalition Party
The Islamic Coalition Party is a conservative Islamist political party in Iran...
was founded by religious bazaaris (traditional merchants). The Combatant Clergy Association comprised Morteza Motahhari
Morteza Motahhari
Ayatollah Murtaza Motahhari was an Iranian scholar, cleric, lecturer, and politician.Motahhari is considered among the important influences on the ideologies of the Islamic Republic, and was a co-founder of Hosseiniye Ershad and the Combatant Clergy Association...
, Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is an influential Iranian politician and writer, who was the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until his resignation in 2011...
and Mohammad Mofatteh
Mohammad Mofatteh
Mohammad Mofatteh was an Iranian philosopher.Dr. Mohammad Mofateh, the skillful philosopher, was born in 1928 in Hamedan.- Education :He had attended Akhund Mullah Ali Hamedani’s school in Hamadan...
), who later became the major leaders of the Islamic Republic. They used a cultural approach to fight the Shah.
Because of internal repression, opposition groups abroad, like the Confederation of Iranian students, the foreign branch of Freedom Movement of Iran
Freedom Movement of Iran
The Freedom Movement of Iran is an Iranian political organization which was founded in 1961 by Mehdi Bazargan, Mahmoud Taleghani, Yadollah Sahabi, Mostafa Chamran, Ali Shariati, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and some other political or religious figures...
and the Islamic association of students, were important to the revolution.
1970–1975
Several events in the 1970s set the stage for the 1979 revolution:In October 1971, the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire
2,500 year celebration of Iran's monarchy
The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire consisted of an elaborate set of festivities that took place October 12–16, 1971, on the occasion of the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Iranian monarchy by Cyrus the Great...
was held at the site of Persepolis
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...
. Only foreign dignitaries were invited to the three-day party whose extravagances included over one ton of caviar
Caviar
Caviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....
, and preparation by some two hundred chefs flown in from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Cost was officially $40 million but estimated to be more in the range of $100–120 million. Meanwhile drought ravaged the provinces of Baluchistan, Sistan, and even Fars where the celebrations were held. "As the foreigners reveled on drink forbidden by Islam, Iranians were not only excluded from the festivities, some were starving."
By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not "the Great Civilization" promised by the Shah, but an "alarming" increase in inflation and waste and an "accelerating gap" between the rich and poor, the city and the country. Nationalistic Iranians were angered by the tens of thousand of skilled foreign workers who came to Iran, many of them to help operate the already unpopular and expensive American high-tech military equipment that the Shah had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.
The next year the Rastakhiz
Rastakhiz
Rastakhiz Party was founded on March 2, 1975 by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. The party was intended as Iran's new single party, holding a monopoly on political activity in Iran, and to which all Iranians were required to belong...
party was created. It became not only the only party Iranians were permitted to belong to, but one the "whole adult population" was required to belong and pay dues to. The party attempted by to take a populist stand fining and jailing merchants in its "anti-profiteering" campaigns, but this proved not only economically harmful but also politically counterproductive. Inflation morphed into a black market and business activity declined. Merchants were angered and politicized.
In 1976, the Shah's government angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
. "Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535." The same year the Shah declared economic austerity measures to dampen inflation and waste. The resulting unemployment disproportionately affected the thousands of recent poor and unskilled migrants to the cities. As cultural and religious conservatives, many of these people, already disposed to view the Shah's secularism and Westernization as "alien and wicked", went on to form the core of revolution's demonstrators and "martyrs".
In 1977 a new American President, Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, was inaugurated. Carter sought to make American post-Vietnam foreign policy and power excersise more benevolent, and created a special Office of Human Rights. It sent the Shah a "polite reminder" of the importance of political rights and freedom. The Shah responded by granting amnesty to 357 political prisoners in February, and allowing Red Cross to visit prisons, beginning what is said to be 'a trend of liberalization by the Shah'. Through the late spring, summer and autumn liberal opposition formed organizations and issued open letters denouncing the regime. Later that year a dissent group (the Writers' Association) gathered without the customary police break-up and arrests, starting a new era of political action by the Shah's opponents.
That year also saw the death of the very popular and influential modernist Islamist leader Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati
Ali Shariati was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist, who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'.-Biography:Ali....
, allegedly at the hands of SAVAK, removing a potential revolutionary rival to Khomeini. Finally, in October Khomeini's son Mostafa died. Though the cause appeared to be a heart attack, anti-Shah groups blamed SAVAK poisoning and proclaimed him a 'martyr.' A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight and began the process of building Khomeini into the leading opponent of the Shah.
See also
- Iranian RevolutionIranian RevolutionThe Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
- History of the Islamic Republic of IranHistory of the Islamic Republic of IranOne of the most dramatic changes in government in Iran's history was seen with the 1979 Iranian Revolution where Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...
- Ruhollah KhomeiniRuhollah KhomeiniGrand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
- History of political Islam in Iran
- 1953 Iranian coup d'état
- 1979 energy crisis1979 energy crisisThe 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...
- Guerrilla groups of IranGuerrilla groups of IranSeveral leftist guerrilla groups attempting to overthrown the pro-Western regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi were notable and active in Iran from 1971 to 1975. The groups shared a commitment to armed struggle, but differed in ideology...
- History of IranHistory of IranThe history of Iran has been intertwined with the history of a larger historical region, comprising the area from the Danube River in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and Egypt...
- Hokumat-e Islami : Velayat-e faqih (book by Khomeini)
- Human rights in Islamic Republic of IranHuman rights in Islamic Republic of IranThe state of human rights in Iran has been criticized both by Iranians and international human right activists, writers, and NGOs. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions.The...
- Iran hostage crisisIran hostage crisisThe Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
- People's Mujahedin of IranPeople's Mujahedin of IranThe People's Mujahedin of Iran is a terrorist militant organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran....
- Persecution of Bahá'ísPersecution of Bahá'ísThe persecution of Bahá'ís is the religious persecution of Bahá'ís in various countries, especially in Iran, where the Bahá'í Faith originated and the location of one of the largest Bahá'í populations in the world...
- Persian Constitutional Revolution
- Timeline of Iranian revolution
- White RevolutionWhite RevolutionThe White Revolution was a far-reaching series of reforms in Iran launched in 1963 by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza Shah’s reform program was built especially to strengthen those classes that supported the traditional system...
- Wilayat al-Faqih
- Organizations of the Iranian RevolutionOrganizations of the Iranian RevolutionMany organizations, parties and guerilla movements were involved in the 1978-9 revolution in Iran. Some were part of Ayatollah Khomeini's network and supported the theocracy of Islamic Republic, others did not support theocracy and were suppressed. Some were created after the fall of the Pahlavi...
Further reading
(Chapter 6: Iran: Revolutionary Fundamentalism in Power.)- Kapuściński, RyszardRyszard KapuscinskiRyszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...
. Shah of ShahsShah of ShahsShah of Shahs, published in 1982, is Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński's analysis of the decline and fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran....
. Translated from Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. New York: Vintage International, 1992. - Kurzman, CharlesCharles KurzmanCharles Kurzman is a Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in Middle East and Islamic studies. Among his publications are:* * * * * -External links:*...
. The Unthinkable Revolution. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 2004. - Ladjevardi, Habib (editor), Memoirs of Shapour Bakhtiar, Harvard University Press, 1996.
- Legum, Colin, et al., eds. Middle East Contemporary Survey: Volume III, 1978–79. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1980. + *Legum, Colin, et al., eds. Middle East Conte
- Milani, AbbasAbbas MilaniAbbas Malekzadeh Milani is an Iranian-American historian and author. Milani is a visiting professor of Political Science and the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University. He is also a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford University's...
, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, Mage Publishers, 2000, ISBN 0-934211-61-2. - Munson, Henry, Jr. Islam and Revolution in the Middle East. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
- Nafisi, Azar. "Reading Lolita in Tehran." New York: Random House, 2003.
- Nobari, Ali RezaAli Reza NobariAli Reza Nobari is the former Governor of the central bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran . Nobari was appointed to this post by President Abolhassan Banisadr in late 1979 after the Revolutionary Council assumed executive control following the resignation of Mehdi Bazargan and The Interim...
, ed. Iran Erupts: Independence: News and Analysis of the Iranian National Movement. Stanford: Iran-America Documentation Group, 1978. - Nomani, Farhad & Sohrab Behdad, Class and Labor in Iran; Did the Revolution Matter? Syracuse University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-8156-3094-8
- Pahlavi, Mohammad RezaMohammad Reza PahlaviMohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
, Response to History, Stein & Day Pub, 1980, ISBN 0-8128-2755-4. - Rahnema, Saeed & Sohrab Behdad, eds. Iran After the Revolution: Crisis of an Islamic State. London: I.B. TaurisI.B. TaurisI. B. Tauris is an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York.-History:I.B.Tauris was founded in 1983. Its declared strategy was to fill the perceived gap between trade publishing houses and university presses—that is, to publish serious but accessible works on international...
, 1995. - Sick, Gary. All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
- Shawcross, WilliamWilliam ShawcrossWilliam Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO is a British writer and commentator.-Career:Shawcross was educated at St. Aubyns Preparatory School, Rottingdean, Eton College and University College, Oxford. He attended St. Martin's Art School to study sculpture after leaving Oxford. He worked as a journalist...
, The Shah's last ride: The death of an ally, Touchstone, 1989, ISBN 0-671-68745-X. - Smith, Frank E. The Iranian Revolution. 1998.
- Society for Iranian Studies, Iranian Revolution in Perspective. Special volume of Iranian Studies, 1980. Volume 13, nos. 1–4.
- Time magazine, January 7, 1980. Man of the Year (Ayatollah Khomeini).
- U.S. Department of State, American Foreign Policy Basic Documents, 1977–1980. Washington, DC: GPO, 1983. JX 1417 A56 1977–80 REF - 67 pages on Iran.
- Yapp, M.E. The Near East Since the First World War: A History to 1995. London: Longman, 1996. Chapter 13: Iran, 1960–1989.