Iranian Revolution in Retrospect: Peculiarities of the Iranian Revolution

On the 34^th anniversary of the Iranian 1979 revolution we are still facing unsolved questions about the revolution and its aftermath. The revolution successfully overthrow Pahlavi’s regime; one of the most brutal regimes of repression in 1960s and 1970s, and the most important ally of the world imperialism in the Middle East. However, the police of the region that was to protect the West’s friends against threats was doomed to a crushing fall.

            The whole post-World War II is filled with unrests and revolutions but what are peculiarities of the Iranian revolution?

Since the Russian Revolution 1917 we don’t have a revolution in a classic form. Months of mass demonstrations and gradual rise of the people’s morale and their determination not to yield to the old ways of life and the ruler’s inability to dictate their desires as before and therefore a fracture at the top, and finally an armed insurrection that put an end to old social institutions. Furthermore, unlike other “third world” revolutions and liberation movement, the motive force of the 1979 revolution was the urban population.

The Iranian revolution was the product of favourable internal and external conditions. Internally, the regime’s economic ambitious policies slowed down as the result of fall in oil prices. On the world arena, the US had just came out of a crushing defeat in Vietnam. In its lowest morale since the end of the World War II, the US was at the threshold of a big shift in foreign policy that set in motion in 1990s by changing violent dictatorships with “directed democracies”. Robert Jervis, Columbia University professor, was employed by US intelligence authorities to find out what was the problem that prevented Americans from anticipating the revolution. The book titled Why Intelligence Fails says the US intelligence agencies and American Embassy relied on SAVAK’s reports, and reasonably SAVAK never handed over precise information to their American colleagues, perhaps because reports on growing discontent revealed the imminent storm that was to pass over the “island of stability”. This double play between the Shah’s regime and the US created a mess in the camp of counter-revolution. The Shah believed Americans and the British were aware of secrets and latent trends of society and, other hand, Americans believed the situation was not too bad because in this case the Shah reacted with an iron fist.

Contrary to some authors who view the Shah’s “White Revolution” and subsequent economic reforms as mere sham gestures we cannot deny effects of these reforms on the socioeconomic conditions and improving living conditions for a short period. These reforms boosted consumption and demand in a period but this came to an end owing to full dependence on oil revenues.

The leadership of the Iranian revolution appeared around the charisma of Khomeini. From the autumn of 1978 he was in an indisputable position. In the absence of the Left and a democratic alternative he, though had been apparently marginalized, based on his defiance to the Shah in early 1960s, was still present in the memory of urban petty-bourgeois masses. The political vacuum allowed him to unite people around anti-monarchy slogans. He did not directly attack the West but criticized it for supporting the Shah.

A peculiarity of the religious leadership of the movement was its dual attitude towards women. A fanatic and male-centred ideology should naturally prevent women from engaging in political and social activities but interestingly it not only did not prevent women from doing so but encouraged them to have a strong partnership.

The last months of the Pahlavi regime is full of dazzling events, political manoeuvres, lucky accidents and bad-omen ones for fighting players. The US that had just came out of a historic failure in Vietnam was in lowest morale and soon in autumn 1978 found out the Shah was not the winning horse so no risk to bet on him. Despite the myth propounded by monarchists that the Shah was ousted by Americans because of their dissatisfaction with the Shah’s ambitions and independent (!) policies we now have plenty of evidences that the US and its Western allies did their best to keep the Shah in power and had to give in only when they understood the revolution had become to radicalized to do this.

The last days of the regime was the manifestation of discrepancy between masse’s initiatives and leaders’ manoeuvres. While masses in streets called for arm leaders were managing a so-called peaceful transition behind the scene. And the irony of history was that the people’s initiative only strengthened the position of the leaders in bargaining with world powers and remnants of the former regime.

What appeared as the product of the revolution was like an offshoot considerably different from the quality and nature of the plant itself. The revolution did not lose its momentum easily and quickly but three years later it faces a crushing defeat to find a place in the long list of lost revolutions. However, history is built not just by successful revolution but by lost ones not because only we can find roots of the defeat but because of its deep social and political effects on the society. For masses it was a school of gaining self confidence that they can radically chance and destroy even ancient institutes with thousand year history.