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Why the seemingly successful Westernization of the country turned out to be the overthrow of the reformer and the victory of the Muslim clergy.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was considered by the Western world to be one of the most progressive and secular countries in the Muslim region. It was an important foreign policy ally of the United States and Israel. In just one calendar year, the country’s fortunes changed abruptly. After the 1979 revolution, it became the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Why did this happen? Why did the Iranian people choose Westernization over strict adherence to religious tradition and the political power of the Muslim clergy? And could the nation have taken a different path? The debate continues to this day.
White Revolution
The last ruler of old Iran was Mohammed of the Pahlavi dynasty, who ruled from 1941 to 1979. Formally, Mohammed held the archaic title of shahinshah (“king of kings”), which corresponded to the European concept of “emperor”. In practice, he was known simply as the Shah.
Pahlavi received a European education, spoke several languages, and traveled extensively, visiting different regions of his country. Since 1963, the Shah pursued a policy of modernization called the “White Revolution”. He believed that under his rule, Iran would become “the fifth industrialized power in the world.
Modern plants and factories were built in the country. The army was rearmed, and revenues from oil and gas exports to the West increased manifold. The state redistributed arable land in favor of small farmers, buying the surplus from large landowners.
New educational institutions were established throughout the country, from primary schools to universities. The number of universities in the country quadrupled during the Shah’s reign, and the number of technical schools increased 20-fold. In 1953, just over 700,000 Iranian children attended school; by 1979, the number of students exceeded 4 million.
Thousands of young Iranians, girls and boys, studied abroad each year – in the United States, France, and other Western countries – on a budget. The Shah welcomed the Western way of life, and urban Iranians became accustomed to embracing it. By 1979, it seemed commonplace to wear Western clothes, listen to Western music, and watch Western movies.
The country’s major cities looked less and less like European cities. Banks, casinos, movie theaters, and nightclubs were no longer considered curiosities. The most Westernized look was adopted by the capital, Tehran, where the Shah managed to build blocks of high-rise buildings with modern wide streets.
The last king of ancient Persia
Within the “White Revolution” there were its own contradictions. Economic modernization was not accompanied by political liberalization. On the contrary, the Shah’s rule became more and more authoritarian from year to year.
By 1979, all political parties were banned in the country except for the pro-government Rastakhiz (Renaissance). The Mejlis (parliament) became an organ of nominal power. Any dissent was suppressed by the Shah’s secret police SAVAK. The official media were under the control of the authorities, tirelessly glorifying the Shah and his policies.
Industrial development and economic growth complemented the obsessive cult of pre-Islamic Ancient Persia. In 1971, the Shah organized a lavish celebration of the 2500th anniversary of that empire. The celebrations, attended by foreign guests, cost the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars, while the inhabitants of several provinces suffered crop failures and famine.
In 1976, Pahlavi announced the replacement of the traditional Muslim chronology of the Hijra with a new one from the beginning of the Ahmenid dynasty. For the devout majority of Iranians, this reform was a great insult.
The Shah’s attempts to exploit the legacy of the Akhmenids and Sassanids, who had ruled many centuries before, looked ridiculous even to secular, educated Iranians. After all, Pahlavi himself was not descended from any ancient dynasties, but was simply the son of a successful adventurer who seized power during the turmoil of the 1920s.
Mohammad Pahlavi came to power not only through inheritance, but also through foreign aid. After World War II, Iran was a constitutional monarchy with a strong parliament and limited powers for the shah. In 1953, the monarch was helped by U.S. and British intelligence to establish absolute power.
Thanks to the Shah’s remarkable leadership, Iran is a reliable island of stability in one of the world’s most turbulent regions. This is your merit, Your Majesty, and the merit of your leadership, a tribute to the respect, admiration and love with which your people regard you.
Jimmy Carter
During Operation Ajax, Western spies succeeded in overthrowing the centrist government of Mohammed Mosaddegh and making Pahlavi Jr. the sole ruler. Moreover, at the crucial moment of confrontation with the popular prime minister, the Shah himself faltered and fled the country. The monarch returned to Iran only after the military and Western intelligence loyal to him deposed Mosaddegh.
The memory of the tragic events of 1953 and the Shah’s inconsistency lived on in Iranian society. Many of the country’s inhabitants did not see Shah Mohammad as a legitimate ruler. To them, he was the son of a usurper whose power was secured by Western aid, not by sacred tradition or popular support.
Operation Ajax
Operation Ajax was a visible victory for the West and the Shah. The British regained control of Iranian oil, which had been nationalized by the Mosaddegh government. The Americans got rid of a recalcitrant politician suspected of sympathizing with the Soviet Union.
However, the 1953 coup and the subsequent defeat of the National Front and Communist Party centrists did not result in a final victory over those dissatisfied with the Shah’s policies. Shiite clerics, rather than political parties, began to attract the protest vote.
In Iran, the majority of believers have historically been Shiite Muslims rather than followers of the more widespread Sunni Islam. The revolutionary events were influenced by such features of Shiism as the unquestioned authority of the highest clerics, the ayatollahs, the historic cult of martyrdom, and the sacrificial struggle.
In the summer of 1963, the first religious riots broke out in Iran. Supporters of the Islamic clergy protested the beginning of the “white revolution”: land reform and the emancipation of women. At the time, Iranian clerics had no experience in revolutionary struggle. Security forces quickly dispersed the crowds of supporters.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the ideological mastermind behind the unrest. The cleric was arrested and expelled from the country. Khomeini remained in exile for nearly 15 years, living in Turkey, Iraq and France. During this time, the Ayatollah kept in touch with like-minded people inside the country. Khomeini became an unquestioned authority for a significant portion of Iranians. Shia Islam became an ideology of protest. The eclectic attitudes of the “White Revolution” began to lose out to religion in the minds of Iranians.
Rumors circulated among the people about the luxury in which the monarch’s family lived, the corruption of the Shah’s henchmen, and the brutality of the SAVAK secret police. There were grounds for such talk, but the extent of the phenomena was greatly exaggerated by opponents of the rulers.
In the 1970s, the Shiite clergy adopted the “leftist agenda” of the Communist Party, which had been defeated by the Shah. Iranian theologian-intellectuals such as Ali Shariati and Murtaza Mutahhari managed to synthesize socialist ideas with religious teachings. The result was something in the spirit of Catholic “liberation theology.
The downside of modernization
Pahlavi hoped to win the loyalty of the people through an economic boom. However, the resentful Shah ignored the fact that under his rule the country suffered from famine, epidemics, and high infant mortality. The country’s overall mortality rate was halved during the White Revolution, but critics of the regime pointed to the economic mismanagement of Pahlavi and his government.
In the 1970s, the monarch’s drive to build large infrastructure projects and massive social programs led to hyperinflation. The authorities tried to slow the pace by punishing “speculators. This angered merchants in Iran’s bazaars, where they had lived for centuries under the laws of the free market, without any government regulation.
The “White Revolution” disrupted the established order in various sectors of Iranian economic life. Traditional crafts such as shoe and clothing production became unprofitable due to the emergence of large factories and mills. More and more artisans and landowners were ruined from year to year. The Shah’s reforms began to be perceived as a destructive intrusion into the lives of ordinary people.
After the 1979 revolution, the last head of the SAVAK secret police, Hossein Fardoust, defected to serve the victorious Islamists. He later claimed that Pahlavi was aware of the corruption of his cronies and did not consciously fight it.
According to the monarch’s logic, such people were easier to control. For example, the commander of the Shah’s guard, Gholam Ali Oveisi, and members of his family ‘covered up’ the drug trade in the country,” the ex-SAVAK chief wrote.
Iran’s economic performance at the time was impressive. By 1979, the country was close to being one of the world’s “top 10” economies. GDP per capita was growing many times faster than in China or South Korea at the time. In practice, these successes were offset by high birth rates (Iran’s population doubled under the Shah), uneven development across regions, and corrupt officials. Social inequality became palpable.
Even his successes turned against Pahlavi. During the “White Revolution,” the authorities eliminated mass illiteracy. The number of educated people increased many times over. However, the growth in the number of jobs did not keep pace with the growth in the number of university and technical school graduates. Unemployed young professionals blamed Mohammad Pahlavi and his policies for their misfortunes.
Those who received higher education abroad, especially those from poor provincial families, often experienced culture shock when they learned about life in the West. Such Iranians returned home as staunch supporters of Islamic traditions.
“Death to the Shah!”
In January 1978, Iran began a period of serious unrest. It was sparked by two coincidental events.
On January 4, police in Tehran shot and killed a peaceful student demonstration against the American president’s visit to the country. On January 7, the main pro-government newspaper, Ettela’at, published an anonymous article attacking Ayatollah Khomeini. The authors of the article unfoundedly called the cleric a homosexual, an agent of British intelligence, and an accomplice of godless communists.
The article in Ettela’at outraged the religious section of Iranian society. Thousands of protesters took to the streets of major cities. Police, state security, and army units did not tolerate the demonstrators. The dispersals were accompanied by the shooting of dozens of unarmed people. However, the protest movement did not abate.
Two events in mid-1978 became points of no return. On August 19, SAVAK officers set fire to a movie theater in the city of Abadan, intending to smoke out the protesters hiding in the building. More than 400 people, mostly ordinary moviegoers, died in the smoke. On September 8, a new anti-government rally in Tehran was broken up with the use of military equipment. This cost the lives of nearly 90 more Iranians.
Shah Mohammad’s attempts to salvage the situation by reshuffling personnel, revising reforms, and liberalizing the regime failed. The main slogan of the anti-government demonstrations was uncompromising: “Death to the Shah!”
In October 1978, strikes by workers in a wide range of industries, from journalists to oil workers, swept Iran. By November, the authorities had lost control of the situation in the country. According to Soviet observers, by this time every tenth Iranian was regularly taking part in anti-Shah rallies.
It was noticeable how the technology of the rallies improved from day to day. Usually the processions were divided into groups of 200-300 people, and in front of each group a mullah with a microphone and a boy with a loudspeaker on a long pole – for instant broadcasting. After equal pauses, the cleric would shout the next slogan, and those behind him would repeat it a certain number of times.
Georgy Yezhov
On January 4, 1979, the Shah appointed his fourth prime minister in six months. The last prime minister in the history of monarchical Iran was Shahpour Bakhtiar, leader of the secular liberal opposition. On January 16, Mohammad Pahlavi and his family left Iran for good. He lived in exile for just over a year. The Shah’s flight was greeted with jubilation by most Iranians.
The transfer of power to the moderate opposition and the Shah’s flight did not stop the revolution. By then, the situation inside the country had become so heated that Bakhtiar was branded a traitor by his own associates. To the Islamic clergy, the new prime minister was as pro-Western and “godless” as the hated Shah.
Islamic Republic
After Pahlavi’s departure, Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar attempted to stabilize the situation in the country. He disbanded the intelligence services and announced elections to the Constituent Assembly. In an effort to unite all political forces, Bakhtiar invited the exiled Ruhollah Khomeini to return.
Ayatollah Khomeini appeared to be an unbending fundamentalist. He repeatedly declared that Western capitalism and Soviet socialism were unacceptable to Muslims. Khomeini called the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan. At the same time, the Ayatollah perfectly understood the spirit of the times and at the right moment stopped being an uncompromising retrograde.
In February 1979, the Ayatollah arrived in Iran in triumph. Several million supporters gathered in Tehran to meet him. They already perceived Khomeini as the new head of state, and soon the cleric formed an alternative government from his associates.
The dual power in the country lasted only briefly. On February 9 and 11, armed Khomeinist groups gained the upper hand over the remaining army units loyal to Bakhtiar. On the evening of February 11, television screens announced to the nation that the revolution had triumphed. The new regime began to legitimize its authority and suppress all enemies, real and imagined.
The first task the Khomeini team tackled was a tactic used by the ousted Pahlavi regime – a referendum. On March 31, 99.3% of those who participated expressed their desire for Iran to become the first Islamic Republic of its kind. The ballots for the vote were pre-colored “right” (green) and “wrong” (red).
In December 1979, the Assembly of Experts of the highest Shiite clergy elected Khomeini as the Rahbar (Supreme Leader) of the Republic for life. Mass repression had already begun. In February, special tribunals began sentencing high-ranking military officials, former ministers, and governors to death. One of the first to be executed in the new Iran was General Hassan Pakravan, who was close to the Shah. His earlier act of persuasion against the execution of Khomeini in 1964 didn’t save him.
It’s difficult to determine the exact number of victims of the revolutionaries. It’s undeniable, however, that they killed much more frequently and extensively than the previous regime. According to Armenian-Iranian historian Ervand Abrahamian, no fewer than 9,000 Iranians were executed in the first five years of Khomeini’s dictatorship. Abroad, agents of the Islamic Republic eliminated at least 60 political exiles. At the same time, the leaders of the Islamic Revolution assured that they were only building a new, just society, free of violence and oppression.
Workers, artisans, peasants, merchants, and businessmen would all live as brothers in a unified Muslim community after the revolution: the rich would be obliged to help the poor, and everyone would take care of his neighbor.
Ruhollah Khomeini
At the same time, an “Islamic Cultural Revolution” was taking place in the country. Revolutionaries closed educational institutions and fired disloyal teachers, journalists, and cultural workers. Western fashion, movies, and literature were banned. Women were required to wear traditional Muslim dress. Adultery, alcohol and drug use became criminal offenses.
Bloody eighties
The cruelty of the revolutionaries outraged even some of Khomeini’s allies. Condemnations of terror led the Islamic Republic’s first prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, and its first president, Abolhassan Banisadr, to resign. Some spiritual authorities also criticized Khomeini’s radicalism. By this time, however, the new regime was able to silence all dissent.
The cruelty of the Islamists provoked retaliatory aggression. In the early 1980s, ultra-left groups waged urban guerrilla warfare against the Islamic Republic. Bombings, shootings, and mass executions became part of daily life in Iran.
On June 28, 1981, leftist militants carried out a terrorist attack that killed more than 70 officials of the new regime. Those who opposed the “dictatorship of the ayatollahs” didn’t cease their resistance, including monarchists who went into exile or underground. At the end of the 1980s, this confrontation ended with the victory of the Islamic Republic.
The domestic situation was exacerbated by the international environment. Post-revolutionary Iran found itself internationally isolated. This isolation worsened in November 1979 with the seizure of 66 American embassy employees in Tehran as hostages. Supporters of the Islamic revolution were protesting the U.S. decision to grant asylum to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Most of the captured diplomats (52 people) were not released until a year and a half later, after the death of the former Shah.
On September 22, 1980, Iraqi troops invaded Iran. The neighboring country’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, wanted to annex disputed border areas. The Iraqi leader expected that the Iranian army, weakened by repression, would not offer a worthy resistance. Iraq was supported by both superpowers and almost the entire Sunni Muslim world, which feared the export of the “Shiite revolution.
But the Iranian authorities did not give up. They declared the defense of the country a sacred duty and spared no means in waging war. Children were recruited into the army and popular militias, and suicidal “human waves” became the primary tactic against the enemy. During the eight years of carnage, Iran suffered colossal losses (up to 800,000 people), many times more than the enemy, but defended its territory. The Islamic Republic persevered.
During the Cold War years, Islamic fundamentalism was perceived as a marginal ideology with no future. All mass movements in Muslim countries were secular. Therefore, the outcome of the revolutionary events in Iran shook the entire world.
I would like to testify that in Soviet foreign policy at that time, the problem of [Islamic] fundamentalism did not exist on a practical level. No one discussed this issue in the Politburo or in the collegium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At that time we really did not consider it a serious problem.
Anatoly Dobrynin
The ideologues of the Iranian Revolution offered their followers something new. It was not a return to the past, but a continuation of modernization based on tradition. Iranians, like Soviet citizens in the prewar USSR, were inspired that they were the builders of a society unlike any other. Their renewed country was to become a model of justice for the whole world.
The clergy-inspired movement took on a revolutionary character. It became massive, overwhelming both the monarchical regime and alternative opposition groups. Infused with revolutionary religious fervor, Iranians enabled the Islamic Republic to withstand a difficult war with Iraq, sanctions, and international isolation.