Iran Revolution Essay, Research Paper
Iran is a country located in the Middle East. The main
source of income for the country is oil, the one object that
had greatly influenced its history. Iran’s present
government is run as an Islamic Republic. A president,
cabinet, judicial branch, and Majilesor or legislative
branch, makes up the governmental positions. A revolution
that overthrew the monarch, which was set in 1930, lasted
over 15 years. Crane Brinton’s book, An Anatomy of a
Revolution, explains set of four steps a country
experiences when a revolution occurs. Symptoms, rising
fever, crisis, and convalescence are the steps that occur.
The Iranian Revolution followed the four steps in Crane
Brinton’s theory, symptoms, rising fever, crisis, and
convalescence occurred. Numerous symptoms led to the
crumbling downfall of Reza Shah Pahlavi, ruler of Iran
until 1978. One of these symptoms is rising expectations
which can be seen during the 1960’s and 70’s. The rich
Shah cleared the way for the land reform law, enacted in
1962. The land minority had to give up its land to the
government, and among those stripped of land, were the
Shi’ah Muslims. Iran’s power structure was radically
changed in a program termed the “White Revolution”. On
January 26, 1963, the White Revolution was endorsed by
the nation. By 1971, when land distribution ended, about
2,500,000 families of the farm population benefited from
the reforms. From 1960-72 the percentage of owner
occupied farmland in Iran rose from 26 to 78 percent. Per
capita income rose from $176 in 1960 to $2,500 in 1978.
From 1970-77 the gross national product was reported to
increase to an annual rate of 7.8% (”Iran” 896). As a result
of this thriving economy, the income gap rapidly widened.
Exclusive homes, extravagant restaurants, and night clubs
and streets loaded with expensive automobiles served as
daily reminders of a growing income spread. This created
a perfect environment for many conflicts to arise between
the classes. Iran’s elite class consisted of wealthy land
owners, intelligencia, military leaders, politicians, and
diplomats. The Elite continued to support the monarchy
and the Shah. The peasants were victim of unfulfilled
political expectations, surveillance by the secret police,
and the severe social and economic problems that resulted
from modernization. The middle class favored socialism
over capitalism, because capitalism in their view
supported the elite, and does not benefit the lower classes.
The middle class was the most changeable element in the
group, because they enjoyed some of the privileges of the
elite, which they would like to protect. At the same time,
they believed that they had been cheated by the elite out of
their share of the industrialization wealth (Orwin 43).
About this time, the middle class, which included students,
technocrats, and modernist professionals, became
discontent with the economy. The key event should have
further stabilized the royal dictatorship, but the increase in
oil prices and oil income beginning in 1974 caused
extreme inflation. This was due to the investment strategy
followed by the Shah, which led to a spectacular 42%
growth rate in 1974. (Cottam 14). And because of the
Shah’s support structure which enabled the new rich to
benefit from inflation, the government effort to deal with
inflation was aimless. Poor Iranians and Iranians with a
fixed income suffered major losses in real income. Better
standards of living were no longer visible. Thus, the
majority of the Iranian people developed a revolutionary
predisposition. As the middle class became discontent in
Iran throughout the 1970’s, the desertion of intellectuals
could be found in great excess. Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini represented much of the discontent of the
religious sector of Iran. For speaking out against the Shah’s
autocratic rule, Khomeini was exiled to Turkey in 1963. In
1965, Khomeini moved to Iraq where he became the
central spokesperson for expatriate opposition to the Shah.
On October 6, 1978, Khomeini was expelled from Iraq
and moved to Paris, where he was accessible to a larger
body of opposition forces. He was also accessible to the
Western Press. Khomeini preached that he would displace
the Shah and expel the foreigners. He also said he would
enforce religious and traditional values, and redirect Iran’s
wealth away from large industrialization schemes and
toward reforms needed by the common people. Throughout
the 1970’s, Khomeini gained tremendous popularity with
the masses, and he became the symbol of the opposition
towards the Shah. As Khomeini gained popularity, many
religious groups grew in numbers and in status. In the early
1950’s, the technocrats had showed core support for
Mohammad Mossedeq and Iran’s national movement. They
saw Mossadeq’s overthrow as the removal of the symbolic
leader of the Iranian nation by an American directed coup
d’etat. Many of his followers formed groups in opposition
to the Shah. Leaders of the Freedom Front, one of the
groups that grew out of the Mossadeq movement, were a
group composed of intellectuals who tended to be centrist
in philosophy, more religious, anti-Marxist, and militant
(Cottam 13). They recognized Khomeini’s large and
potentially enormous following, and associated themselves
with him. The rise of religious opposition groups and
Khomeini proved to be a great test for the Shah. As time
progressed the weakness of the Shah became apparent.
Waves of opposition began building after 1975, due to the
formation of the Rastakhiz , the legal political party in
Iran, and the banning of opposition political parties. It also
became clear that the increased oil revenues following oil
price increases, were spent on arms and industrialization.
In mid-1977 the religious leaders began demonstrating
against the modernization brought on by the Shah. In
November, several people were killed when police broke
up demonstrations. As time went on, protests became more
radical. To try and quiet dissent, the Shah became more of
a dictator. As a result, those who had been moderate in
demands for reform became more radical. In the fall of
1978, strikes against the oil industry, the post office,
government factories, and banks demolished the economy.
This pattern continued throughout most of 1978 (Orwin
45). As these protests became more frequent there were
more and more people killed. This reflects the Shah’s loss
of power over his government and his people. In late
1978, the Shah came to the conclusion that he would and
could not rule a country in which he had to stand in the
flowing blood of his people. In short, he understood that he
could not militarily occupy his own country. The Shah’s
early mistakes had been devastating as the years went on.
His forceful actions did not work and it’s no wonder that
his grip weakened and his mid wavered. These events all
led to the march against the government of the Shah, in
which eight million Iranians protested on December 10,
1978 (Bill 25). One-fifth of the Iranian government was
willing to join in a massive and nonviolent manifestation
of opposition even though most of them knew that
thousands of their countrymen had been shot in previous
demonstrations. The banners and slogans made clear the
religious and political essence of the revolutionary
movement. This massive demonstration was the turning
point from symptoms to rising fever. It clearly reflected the
weakness of the Shah, and the inevitability of revolution in
Iran. After a year of public demonstrations against him, the
Shah of Iran left Tehran on January 16, 1979, for an
“extended vacation” (Orwin 46). He left the country in the
hands of a regency council and Prime Minister Shahpur
Bakhtiar, who was a former member of the National Front.
The opposition leader, Khomeini, was to become the new
ruler, and he returned to Iran on February 1, 1979.
Khomeini occupied preeminent positions among Iran’s
most respected religious scholars, the Mujahedin-e Khalq..
Although Khomeini wanted a stable government that could
cope with the problems of reconstruction, he wanted to
eradicate the evil roots of the old system, which he
describes as satanic. He denounced the materialism of the
recent past and called for a climate in which social justice
would prevail. On April 1, 1979, after a landslide victory
in a national referendum, Khomeini declared an Islamic
republic. This republic consisted of a new constitution
reflecting Khomeini’s ideals of Islamic government. He
was named Iran’s political and religious leader for life.
Khomeini tapped the deep-seated conservatism of the
Muslim fundamentalists by making moderate changes in the
law. Women were required to wear the veil, Western
music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments
described by Islamic law were reinstated. Political
vengeance was taken, executing hundreds of people who
had worked with the Shah’s regime (”Iran” 897). The large
moderate center composed of the professional and
bourgeois middle class had proved to be ineffective in
their leadership abilities. Moderate Bakhtiar, the last
prime minister under Pahlavi rule, was very unpopular,
and he was unable to compromise with his former
National Front colleagues or with Khomeini. He was then
forced to flee to France. On April 1, 1979, his
replacement, Mehdi Bazergan was appointed by Khomeini
(Cottam 15). This 73-year-old engineer was a leader of
the Freedom Front, and president of the committee of
human rights. The middle and upper middle classes looked
to Bazergan to provide stability so the economy would
recover and the government services could be restored.
Bazergan appointed a cabinet, mainly, from the ranks of
the Freedom Front, the National Front, and the religious
bureaucracy. Bazergan’s position was weak, however, and
he steadily lost ground to the due to the attacks from the far
right and left. As their base of support narrowed, their
dependence on Khomeini intensified. During this time,
Iran’s relation with the US went downhill. It reached a
stage of outright confrontation, when, on November 4,
1979, 500 extremist students seized the US embassy in
Tehran. They took hostage 66 citizens at the embassy and
the foreign ministry (”The Iranian Revolution” 835). The
takeover seemingly sanctioned by Khomeini, continued for
the next 444 days, and American-Iranian relations sunk to
an all-time low. This led to trade conflicts with the United
States and its allies, causing economic problems. During
the rising fever stage there is a presence of a dual
government. During Bazergan’s rule, it became difficult to
administer justice with a court system that had been
particularly lenient to the royal will. To deal with these
problems on a temporary basis. Khomeini set up a system
of revolutionary committees presided over by a
revolutionary council. Religious leaders clearly
predominated in the revolutionary council-
committee-courts system, which came to be almost a
parallel government. In November, 1979, Bazergan
resigned, and in his place Khomeini appointed Abol
Hassan Bani Sadr. Bani Sadr was an idealist, a
bookworm, and most personally ambitious of all the
liberal revolutionaries. Like the other moderates, he was a
representative of the professional middle class, who had
little skill or patience to build political organizations. Bani
Sadr’s efforts were fruitless in dealing with the hostage
releases. After being elected Iran’s first president in
January 1980, he and his followers, out of self defense and
desperation, formed an alliance with the Mujahedin-e
Khalq (”Iran” 897). He also attempted to work hard to
establish close relations with the military leaders. He
ineffectively tried to appeal to the Iranian people, who had
little in common with a Paris trained intellectual. One can
see that during this stage of rising fever, moderate control
is losing power. The people of Iran became upset with the
little change that was taking place, and wanted more
extreme measures taken. In mid-1981, leaders of the
Islamic Republican Party (IRP) convinced Khomeini that
Bani Sadr was plotting against them, and suggested
evidence indicating that he was a threat to the revolution.
This led to his dismissal on June 20, of position of
commander-in-chief of the armed forces. His presidency
lasted 17 months. He was arrested and dismissed as
president on June 22. Forced into hiding, he fled Iran on
July 29, 1981, and was granted political asylum in Paris.
On July 24, extremist Muhammad Ali Rajai with
substantial IRP backing, won the electoral victory over the
moderates. Thus, the period of rising fever ended, and the
period of crisis began. In 1981, Khomeini took complete
control over Iran and took many extremist measures. He
made sure the government completely controlled the
media, as well as newspapers, television broadcasts, and
radio programs. He had strict control of everything,
including the treasury and flow of money to religious
leaders. Those who disagreed with him faced severe
economic retribution. The crisis had begun and radicals
had taken over. Under Khomeini’s rule (1981-1989) came
a great period of reign of terror. For example, after a
speech the Ayatollah made, right wing revolutionary
guards fired into a rally of approximately one hundred
thousand Muslim leftists outside the U.S. Embassy in
Teheran. Five people were killed and more than 300 were
wounded. Supporters held food riots in Tunisia, and others
held six car bombings in Kuwait. The Islamic Jihad held
suicide bombings that killed two hundred-forty one U.S.
Servicemen, and fifty-eight French troops in Beirut. These
acts were not looked at as being bad acts of terrorism, but
rather as acts of patriotic heroes. The reign of terror, the
next step in the crisis, brought extremists into complete
control. The people of Iran in the early 1980’s, had just
about enough of all these laws and regulations, and were
outraged at their standard of living. People were finally
starting to revolt against the way that they have been
treated. This period according to Crane Brinton, is known
as the civil war. Civil war started in Iran with the conflict
with the Kurds. These people were pushed out of their
homes, religious temples, and places of business, because
of the overpowering radicals. An entire religious group
was almost completely annihilated because of the savage
behavior of the radicals. It was later found that the Kurdish
problem was merely a pretext on Iran’s part to engage in
meetings and collaborations with two influential middle
eastern states, Turkey and Syria. People suffered so that
government could gain allies. The poor treatment of the
Kurds led to confusion in the nation. Because of all of the
chaos in the country, due to different public demonstrations
and mass rioting, government groups were forming. The
IRP, one of these groups, was in support of a nationalistic
movement. Opposed to it was the Hojatieh, and a third
party, which represented the Mullahs and the high
ayatollahs. This third group thought Khomeini was
reckless, so there was great hostility towards the IRP.
These groups formed different factions among the people
of Iran, and led to a divided nation. In the early 1980’s,
patriotic fever was bordering on hysteria, and the
nationalism was incredible. This patriotic fever fits in to
the next part of the revolution, the republic of virtue. Iran’s
people had a great sense of nationalism inside of them.
People held many parades and marches to express their
nationalism. During this time, women were forced to wear
veils in public, modern divorce laws were repealed, and
harsh courts were set up, which set strict laws and harsh
penalties. The colliding views of the Iranian groups, as
well as the republic of virtue, made it hard for Iran to deal
with other countries. During this period, Iran’s relationship
with Iraq became troubled. The war began with a fight for
land and oil and as a result of the personalities of the two
leaders. Both Hussein, the leader of Iraq, and Khomeini
are headstrong. In addition, they disliked each other
(Orwin 42). All of the circumstances that resulted from the
war may have contributed in some measure to the outbreak
and continuation of the conflict between Iran and Iraq
(Iran-Iraq War 77-78). The situation worsened in
September of 1980 when Iraq launched an attack on Iran to
take control of the waterway that divided the two countries
(”Iranian Revolution” p. 835). During the war, industry
suffered. Chemical, steel, and iron plants in the war zone
were heavily shelled. There have been shortages in
electricity, fuel, and spare parts. The available pool of
workers has diminished as thousands of men marched off
to the front lines to fight. This caused great economic
problems throughout the mid-1980’s. Iraq attempted to
devastate oil economy even further. Tankers and ships 50
miles off the oil terminal were struck. Iran would be
deprived of a major source of income (Orwin 41). By
1984 it was reported that there were one million refuges in
the Iranian province of Khuzestan. Some 300,000 Iranian
soldiers and 250,000 Iraqi troops had been killed, or
wounded. Among the injured were Iranian soldiers who
sustained burns, blisters, and lung damage from Iraqi
chemical weapons (Orwin 47). The war lasted about 8
years and Iran suffered casualties, not only in people, but
in economy and leadership as well. Because of the war
with Iraq, and the purges going on in Iran, the economy
was severely depressed. Besides the enormous human
cost, economic losses from the war exceed $200 billion.
Agricultural growth has declined as a result of war, also
(Orwin 34). During the crisis and during the war with Iraq,
industry is plagued by poor labor management, a lack of
competent technical and managerial personnel, and
shortages of raw material and spare parts. Agricultural
suffers from shortage of capital, raw materials, and
equipment, and as a result, food production has declined.
Also, out of an estimated work force of 12 million,
unemployment is up to 3-4 million (Orwin 16). Iran’s
economy was desperate. In connection with the devastating
economy with the war, there was economic suffering
through purges, the next step in crisis. Extensive purges
were carried out in the army, in the school and university
systems, and in some of the departments of government
although the Ministries of Justice and Commerce proved
significantly more resistant because of the entrenched
power of conservative elements there). Additionally, new
institutions were created, like the Revolutionary Guards -
including the creation of a ministry for them – and the
counsel of Guardians, along with a string of other judicial
bodies (Akhavi 53). Purges eliminated many qualified
personnel, and lowered the morale of the Iranian people.
Finally, after about 9 years of crisis and fighting among
different groups, there was a breakthrough in the
revolution, with the return of conservatives. The Ayatollah
Khomeini died in May of 1989, and a new leader by the
name of Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected and came to
power two months later. This would start the
convalescence stage of Crane Brinton’s revolution.
Rafsanjani has not actually called for a reversal of strict
Islamic injunctions, but in oblique ways he is signaling that
he favors a more relaxed approach, especially in the
enforcement of the hijab (Ramazani 7). Under Rafsanjani,
the return of the church has been allowed to occur, which
is another step in the theory of a revolution. On August 2,
1991, Iran resumed diplomatic relations with Iraq and had
also resolved the issue over the pilgrimage of Iranian
Muslims to Mecca, which has been suspended for three
years. Inside Iran, the most significant development in the
last few months took place in October, when several
Iranian leaders teamed up in a maneuver to marginalize
opponents (Igram A-10). Twelve years after Khomeini
came to power, Iran’s Islamic revolution has finally
softened around the edges. The signs of fitful change are
everywhere. On Tehran’s streets women still observe hijab
(the veil), the Islamic injunction that women keep
themselves covered except for their faces and hands. But
some have exchanged their shapeless black chedors for
slightly fitted
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