Iran Revolution of 1979
Abstract
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 involved the popular uprising in Iran against the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. This paper examines many of the leading explanations for the uprising, including the rise of militant Islam, structural weaknesses of the Shah regime, the coalition of three important social groups (e.g. woman, youth, and the intelligentsia), the composition of the reform movement, and the effect of the Shah’s policies of accommodation and repression, to name a few. This paper also draws on leading theories in social movement theory, contemporary field work involving discussions with the Mullahs and their pupils in the holy city of Qum, commentaries from leading academics on Iranian culture, as well as novel attempts to add to the body of scholarship on the revolution for purposes of exploring any new lines of interpretation. Additionally, this paper also briefly examines the legacy of the Iranian Revolution on contemporary Iranian society.
Keywords: Social Movements, Iran, Political Revolutions, Pahlavi dynasty
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which culminated in the collapse of the Western backed Pahlavi dynasty and its eventual replacement with an Islamic Republic, lacked many of expected catalysts for political upheaval. In particular, four customary foundations for revolution were clearly lacking in the Iranian context: the ruling dictatorial monarchy had not been defeated in war; there was no widespread rebellion amongst the underclass; the Iranian economy was not burdened by an oversized national debt; and the Iranian military was not disgruntled. In fact, the Shah regime was overthrown and replaced with a theocracy guided by the wisdom of an exiled religious scholar. Most surprising was the fact that the Shah regime was overthrown by unarmed, peaceful demonstrations despite broad international support and protection by a well-financed army and security services. It is in this context that over the last few decades an extensive body of scholarship has emerged to formulate predictive models for atypical revolutions, generally, and the unique features and characteristics of the 1979 revolution, particularly. The catalysts for the Iranian Revolution are legion, but can be grouped into four discrete dimensions: an accumulation of political and policy mistakes; missed opportunities and victories of political and cultural forces within Iran; letdowns and successes of foreign forces; and external factors.
Interpretive Frameworks for the 1979 Revolution
Admittedly, the catalysts for the revolution -explanations for how a pro-Western dictatorial monarchy was overthrown and eventually replaced with a decidedly anti-Western authoritarian, Islamic theocracy is the subject of an ongoing debate- are legion: the old regimes unpopular polices of westernization and liberalization, the increasing perception that the Pahlavi dynasty was but a mere “puppet” of the United States, discontent over worsening social injustice as well as other perceived shortcomings of the shah regime; and, recently, the Islamic revolutionary discourse that overtook the country in response to the popular belief that the old regime disregarded Iran’s traditional Shi’a Muslim identity. Even so, the genesis of the revolution can be reduced to four factors: growing discontent and disorientation in response to the political missteps of the Shah regime, failures and successes within Iran’s political and cultural influences, meddling of foreign powers (namely, the U.S. Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China), and a host of external factors that occurred against the backdrop of the forgoing factors.
In the view of many leading academics, the collapse of the Shah’s regimes is reducible to a combination of several political failures that had the predictable effect of mobilization and collaboration amongst a broad coalition of disaffected Iranian dissidents, including influential religious scholars (ulama), merchants (bazaaris), the intelligentsia, and students, all of whom coalesced around rising anti-Western sentiments that peaked over the course of the immediate decades preceding the revolution (Pesaran 693). In their book Foucault and the Iranian revolution: Gender and the seductions of Islamism, scholars Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson agree, putting forth the theory that the 1979 Revolution was organized in the context of Iranian aspirations for “political spirituality” (123). From this viewpoint, the revolution synced with the increasing influence of militant Islamic thoughout the Middle East. An essential premise of this hypothesis is that the new Islamic movement drew on the emerging cultural, political and social disentanglement from the both the modern Western influence, as well as the growing power of the Soviets and China. This perspective also considers how the discourse of the new Islamic movement had fundamental implications for the global strategic equilibrium.
For instance, the Shah pursued a controversial policy of Westernization and close alignment with the United States, even as the policy clashed with Iran’s traditional Shi’a Muslim identity (Mackay 259 – 261). This dated back to his initial installation as leader of Iran with the assistance of the Allied Powers, and included the counsel of numerous U.S. military advisors, as well as granting them diplomatic immunity. These policies provided the perfect breeding ground for rising nationalist tendencies within the Iranian populace, both from religious and secular groups. Meanwhile, the Shah’s regime implemented a host of policies (the most unpopular of which included a 1976 introduction of an Imperial calendar to replace Iran’s Islamic calendar) that discounted Iran’s Islamic traditions.
Overall, as Karen Rasler points out in her article Concessions, Repression and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution, the Shah’s policies of accommodation and repression was the most significant catalyst for the nationwide revolt within the Iranian population (134-5). From this perspective, which draws on several leading theories on social movements (such as micro mobilization theory, value expectancy, and bandwagon models, to name a few), the Shah’s pattern and practice of repression had direct empirical linkages to the protest behavior of the Iranian people. In short, the Shah’s policies of repression had a short-term inverse negative effect, but a long-term positive effect on the willingness of the Iranian people to revolt.
Failures and successes within Iran’s political and cultural influences
Another important explanation for the revolution draws on what Mansor Moadell describes as the “episodic discourse” occurring in Iran during the build up to the nationwide revolt against the Shah regime. From this perspective, conventional explanations for the cultural and political influences occurring during Iran’s revolutionary phase were guided by three interpretive, sociological models: a subjectivist model that presupposes that ideological dogma re-orients disaffected and sullen dissidents during periods of social strain; an organizational model which examines and defines dogma in the context of structured struggles for power, emphasizing ordered scenarios by which ideological producers react to revolts against their authority; and Marxian models that reduce causal primacy to class warfare (370 - 375). Moadell advances a fourth model that defines dogma as an “episodic discource,” one guided by well-defined, customary principles, conceptions, symbolism and sacraments. From this perspective, the Iranian revolution can be considered as “a revolutionary phenomenon [characterized] as a particular mode of historical action constituted by revolutionary ideology” (353). The episodic discourse model seems to better explain the Iranian context because the other three theoretical constructs are oriented toward reductionism – ideology is reducible to psychological dimensions of malcontented individuals. And so, conventional interpretive models overlook the autonomous nature of the militant Islamic ideology that shaped the revolutionary process in Iran, whereas the “episodic discourse” model is a better framework because it accurately examines the role of Shia ideology in the Iranian revolution.
On the failures and successes of foreign influences
Many academics trace the collapse of the Shah regime to a string of misguided policies that contributed to the perception that the old regime was beholden and thus a “puppet” of the American government. The basic critique can be summarized as follows: It was a colossal mistake of the U.S. government to have played such a high profile role in the affairs of the Iranian government at a time when anti-Western sentiments were on the rise. The most egregious example was the early 1950s subversion of the Shah regime. What’s more Western influences pressured the old regime to liberalize, which many consider to have intensified the radicalization of the revolutionary forces by failing to accurately assess the nature of anti-Western sentiments (especially the aspirations of Khomeni), and failure to formulate an appropriate policy response to these forces. Meanwhile, beginning in the 1970s there was fading support for the Shah regime, both amongst Western politicians (particularly during the presidential administration of Jimmy Carter) and in the media. Many scholars attribute this waning support to the Shah regimes advocacy for higher OPEC petroleum prices (Cooper 22-31).
External Factors
In the decades preceding the Revolution, the United Kingdom, United States, and Soviet Union were all engaged in long-standing competitions for strategic domination of Iran. For instance, Britain maintained a sphere of influence over the Iranian oil sector through its strategic alliances with Iranian courts and landlords, which had an appreciate effect on the influences of the United States and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Soviets and the U.S. were less concerned about dominion of the oil sector as they were on the logistic importance of being able to exert influence from within Iran due to its strategic location in the Middle East. However, both the Soviets and the U.S. did seek concessions that allowed it to control oil reserves in the Northern region of Iran. Additionally, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in Iran was to exert influence over Iranian army and security forces. By the early 1960s, disillusioned by pervasive corruption throughout all levels of Iranian government, the US began decreasing its financial assistance to the Iranian government and began looking for viable replacements to overthrow the Shah regime.
Skepticisms
It is worth nothing that in decades following the revolution, new lines of interpretation have emerged to challenge the conventional explanations for the revolution. For instance, in his book The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, Charles Kurzman endeavors to identify gaps in theories that attempt to argue that, in hindsight, the 1979 Revolution, let alone other significant social movements are inevitable. According to Kurzman, so-called “reductive predictions” fall apart under closer scrutiny and historians should move beyond what he derides as glorified guesswork, instead syncing the recorded experiences of historical events with the extant record on comparative studies of revolution. In his view, this approach allows historians to take closer looks as anomalies within revolutionary experiences. As an illustrative example, Kurzman astutely exposes gaps in the popular hypothesis that the revolution succeeded, in part, due to the 40-day (Arbaeen) cycle of mourning by the Shia that culminated in street protests. Kurzman rightly states that this event occurred nearly a half-year before the Shah was overthrown. Moreover, this hypothesis overlooks the efforts of Moderate religious leaders such as Mohammad Shariatmadari in helping to calm tensions that allowed the protests to resume their relatively non-violent nature (51). Kurzman also accurately points out that the Iranian mourning rituals had only once before occurred in the context of a political act.
Another widely popular reductionist hypothesis draws on Alexi de Tocqueville’s assertion that economic prosperity in Iran played a role in the mobilization of a nationwide sprit of unrest. However, this view does not take into account the fact that there was very little oppositional activity within Iran when the economic indicators were analogous to those in the country during 1978-9, when revolutionary impulses in Iran were at their apex. Furthermore, Kurzman aptly points out several contexts in which revolutions were conspicuously absent from other “high-growth autocracies” (93). The most obvious examples include countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, where revolutions were noticeably absent despite these countries witnessing the same oil wealth concerns (corruption, fraud, and repression) that plagued the Shah regime.
Some historians also call into question the widely-held view that the old regimes policies of liberalization and westernization occurred at the encouragement of the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Of course, this view overlooks the fact that even as the Shah traveled to the U.S. in 1977 for a state visit with President Carter, his regime was tightening restrictions on oppositional activity (Kurzman 25). At least one other notable historian and author, Moojan Momen, agrees, explaining that by the late 1970s, the Carter administration was fully aware that America had waning influence on the Shah regime, attributable to the fact that any Western interference would have intensified resentment against the pro-Western Shah (Momen 285).
Aftermath of Revolution
Post-revolutionary Iran has witnessed the emergence of three primary social movements: women, intellectuals and youth. Each of these social movements have played integral roles in the modernization and cultural openness of Iran. What’s more, each of these of these movements have contributed to the democratization of Iranian society (Hooglund 3 - 29). For instance, from this perspective, these three social groups formed a key voting bloc that helped elect President Khatami in 1997. The election of Khatami is widely considered to have ushered in sweeping political changes in Iran that had empirical linkages to the increased capacity of these groups to self-mobilize and formulate an organized advocacy for the political and cultural openness of Iran that dates back to the late 1990s and continued into the early years of the 21st century.
Conclusion
The Iranian Revolution was characterized by three unique features: populism, nationalism guided by strong Anti-Western sentiments, and a militant Islamic revolutionary discourse. Notably, it lacked many of the conventional hallmarks of political and social unrest. As illustrative examples, the revolution occurred notwithstanding the absence of customary leading indicators (i.e defeat at war, disgruntled army and security services, economic inequality), befell a nation experiencing relative economic prosperity, exchanged a pro-Western dictatorial monarchy with a militant anti-Western theocracy. What’s more, the 1979 revolution succeeded in spite of its relatively non-violent character, and ushered in new lines of interpretive modeling of modern revolution. As Cheryl Benard and Zalmay Khalilzad aptly stated in another context, its aftermath (an Islamic Republic structured around the concepts of a Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists) is clearly an occurrence worthy of the extensive body of scholarship it has inspired (18). Overall, post-revolutionary Iran has been characterized by three primary social movements (woman, intellectuals, and youth) that has helped to modernize Iran and usher in an unprecedented era of democratization and cultural openness.
Bibliography
Afary, Janet and Kevin B Anderson. Foucault and the Iranian revolution: Gender and the seductions of Islamism. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Benard, Cheryl and Zalmay Khalizad. The Government of God: Iran's Islamic Republic. Columbia University Press, 1984. Book.
Brumberg, Daniel. Reinventing Khomeini. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Cooper, Andrew Scott. The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East. Simon & Schuster, 2011.
Fischer, Michael. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Hooglund, Eric James. Twenty years of Islamic revolution: Political and social transition in Iran since 1979. Syracuse University Press, 2002.
Kurzman, Charles. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Harvard University Press, 2009.
Mackey, Sandra. The Iranians; Persia, Islam, and the soul of a nation. Dutton, 1996.
Moaddell, Mansor. "Ideology as Episodic Discourse: The Case of the Iranian Revolution." American Sociological Review (1992): 353 - 379.
Moghadam, Valentine M. "Gender and Revolutionary Tranformation Iran 1979 and East Central Europe." Gender & Society 9.3 (1995): 328-358.
Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi'a Islam. Yale University Press, 1985.
Rasler, Karen. "Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution." American Sociological Review 61.1 (1996): 132-152.
