The Iranian Revolution of 1979 and what it tells us about today

It is easy to slip into binary choices. The current wave of protests in Iran is an example.

In the past, many Western liberals argued that the Iranian revolution of 1979-80 led to a terrible result – Khomeini and domination by the ‘mad mullahs’. No matter how much you pointed to the history of revolt, levels of literacy, and a growing working class, it was assumed that Iran could never have a successful revolt.

Today, this false binary has been reversed. The Western media now celebrates the protests and assumes that the masses of people want a return to the Pahlavi dynasty. You can almost hear the smug whisper, ‘they have awoken to OUR liberal values’. In response, a minority of leftists see themselves as belonging to the ‘axis of resistance’ and fail to support the protests.

Both views are wrong.

Iran was originally an informal colony of Britain, whose government owned 51% of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Winston Churchill called it ‘a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams’. Britain helped Reza Shah Pahlavi establish a monarchy in 1921 and then pushed him out in favour of his son, Mohammad, in 1941. When the leader of Iran’s National Front Party, Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalised the oil company, the British and the CIA staged a coup against him. Opposition came mainly from the left-wing Tudeh Party, which mobilised nearly 100,000 supporters in Tehran in July 1953.

The Shah, however, stayed in power and enforced a brutal regime. His secret police, the SAVAK, tortured and murdered opponents. His thugs were stationed at every major university to prevent protests. In the West, the Shah was seen as a liberal, primarily because he supported the US during the Cold War and followed the Turkish leader, Ataturk, in promoting a secular mode of dress. He used the oil money to buy advanced weaponry and took bribes for himself. Meanwhile, he imposed high taxes on a population who were often kept illiterate. He tried to win popularity by imposing a policy of Persianization, which discriminated against minorities such as the Kurds and Azeris.

The Iranian Revolution – A Revolt from Below

No wonder that the revolt of 1979 was a huge popular event. It began when the merchants of the bazars and the urban poor protested about rising prices. But a key element was the emergence of workers councils or shoras in the oil refining districts. One historian described how they worked:

‘Revolution in stages’

In the case of the Tudeh, however, it was not just revolutionary enthusiasm, but a theory which saw revolutions progressing in stages. There would first have to be an anti-imperialist revolt shaped by Islam, and only later would a socialist development follow. The party’s newspaper wrote,  ‘Islamic ideology, political and societal, was a very important spiritual flag in the first stage of the victorious Iranian revolution against the Pahlavi dynasty … and still in the current revolutionary phase plays a progressive role in expanding and spreading the achievements of the revolution’. It was not just that the Tudeh promoted an alliance with the Islamists, but they wanted to subordinate the revolution to them, at this stage.

Khomeini, however, played a tactical game. Before the 1979 revolution, he promised that a future government would be chosen by the people through a constituent assembly; that religious and ethnic minorities would be respected; that women’s rights would be protected; and that political parties would enjoy freedom of action.

But after the overthrow of the Shah, Khomeini changed his stance. On March 7, 1979, he decreed that women were no longer to enter their workplace or a government office unveiled, which he termed as “naked“: He wrote, “At Islamic ministries, women should not appear naked. Women can be present as long as they wear a hijab. They face no barrier to work as long as they observe the Islamic hijab’.

In response, 100,000 women and male supporters protested on International Women’s Day, chanting ‘In the dawn of freedom, we have no freedom.’ The protests lasted for days but were attacked by pro-Khomeini thugs.

Shamefully, the Tudeh party failed to give any real support, and the more left-wing, People’s Fedayeen, withdrew support after the Palestinian Liberation Organisation leader, Yasser Arafat, told them it was weakening the revolution in the face of US imperialism.

Khomeini takes the initiative

Khomeini now pulled off a master stroke after the deposed Shah was allowed into the US for cancer treatment. In response, Islamic students occupied the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages. Under the cover of this militant anti-imperialism. Khomeini pushed through a constitution, known as Velayat-e faqih, which gave power to Muslim clerics and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. He also brought the shoras under Islamic control.

The left, already disoriented by their belief in the stages theory, and now the hostage crisis, failed to campaign against the referendum. They were outflanked, and the radical Islamists took control of the revolution.

Worse was to follow.

In 1982, M16 and the CIA, in an attempt to ingratiate themselves, handed over alleged spies for Moscow to the new Iranian regime. The Tudeh Party was banned, accused of espionage for the Soviet Union. Its leader, Nourredin Kianuri, was arrested along with his wife, subjected to horrific tortures and then forced to appear on television making a public confession to denounce communism.

After the US encouraged Iraq to attack Iran, one left-wing group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation, which originally tried to blend Islam with socialism, mistakenly based itself in Iraq and launched an armed struggle against Iran. Khomeini used this disastrous policy to launch a series of executions in 1988 when thousands of left-wingers, from all factions, were murdered in his jails.

Lessons for today

Some clear lessons follow from the Iranian Revolution in relation to the current protests in Iran.

First, imperialism has no positive role to play in events in Iran. The people of Iran must determine their own future – and are capable of doing so without interference. It is ironic that both Trump and the Iranian leadership attack ’domestic terrorists’ – the former in reference to solidarity action against ICE in Minneapolis and the latter against the mass protests. Trump’s rhetoric about democracy is entirely hollow and self-serving. He is in full support of dictatorships like the Saudi regime when it is in the interests of the US. The US bears significant responsibility for the economic hardships Iranians are facing because of the sanctions it has imposed.

Second, while the Western media will try to promote a return to Pahlavi, this is not the goal of many protesters. They want democracy and an end to economic hardship. The Zionist state of Israel is also attempting to capitalise on the protests and re-order the Middle East by promoting Pahlavi as the figurehead of the protest. Swapping a dictatorship of Muslim clerics for a monarchy which has been drenched in blood – and a minion of Western imperialism – will not give the protesters what they desire. The 1979-80 revolution was necessary to overthrow the Shah. A return to the power for the dynasty is no step forward.

Third, there are those on the Left who do not support the Iranian protesters for fear it will weaken the Iranian regime and therefore weaken support for the Palestinian resistance, who Iran has armed. However, despite the best efforts of the armed resistance in Gaza, Israel has been able to continue its genocide for two years. Our best hope for the liberation of Palestine is not through the support of repressive regimes acting to further their own interests in the region – which determines the nature of Iran’s support – but through the overthrow of neighbouring Arab regimes like Egypt and Jordan that prop up the Israeli state. Apologising for the actions of the Iranian regime on the basis that it might provide some kind of bulwark against US imperialism undermines the kind of solidarity from below required to change the system and challenge imperialism and oppression everywhere.

Finally, there are many very good reasons for Iranians to protest and rise up against the regime, including economic hardships, the oppression of women, the targeting of ethnic minorities and the repression of workers. In this case, the protests erupted over hyperinflation but soon they also began raising political demands. The protests did not come out of the blue – there were mass protests with the Green movement in 2009-10 and more recently with the Women, Life, Freedom movement of 2022. This recent wave of protests has a poorer, more working-class character. The Iranian protests may spread to neighbouring countries and spark another Arab Spring – let us hope that the flame of revolt spreads across the region.

Working class organisation in Iran has not yet recovered since it was crushed after the revolution, but green shoots are showing. This is evident from the support of the Tehran bus workers and by the reports of a workers’ council being formed in the industrial city of Arak. Anger over growing material deprivation and the political rejection of the Islamic Republican regime have fused. If workers can begin to exert their power through mass strikes, the protests could develop into a broad based movement for real democracy.

In Ireland we should wholeheartedly support the protests, while opposing any interference by the US or EU. We should expose their double standards, which present a liberal face on Iran but duplicity on Israel, and challenge the Irish Government to be a voice against imperial intervention and the current sanction regime enacted by the West. We should study the history of the Iranian Revolution to learn key lessons, but our foremost priority must be a rejection of any interference by imperialism.