EVENTS | 1979
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 represented a fundamental transformation of Iran's political and social landscape, replacing a long-standing monarchy with an Islamic Republic.
This mass uprising, which culminated in the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, was initially characterised by a broad unity across social strata against a regime perceived as corrupt, violent, and repressive.
However, following its initial success, the revolution swiftly moved towards an intense struggle for power among its diverse factions, ultimately leading to a consolidation of authority by an organised minority and the establishment of a new order through widespread repression and terror.
Origins and Ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini
The revolution was precipitated by widespread discontent with the Shah's rule, which maintained power through fear, torture, and execution. Despite the Shah's formidable Western-trained army, the Iranian people, united in their opposition, successfully challenged and dismantled his autocratic regime. A central figure in this burgeoning resistance was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been living in exile in Paris. Even from abroad, Khomeini commanded significant crowds and possessed a unique charisma and mystique, allowing him to remain a strangely distant and aloof figure while serving as the revolution's central force.
Khomeini’s public statements prior to his return were notably unassuming; he claimed he would never take power, understood nothing about politics, and merely wished to return home as a scholar. This image contributed to the widespread public perception that he would act as a populist leader, representing all factions, and would then step aside to allow democracy to flourish. Such beliefs, however, proved to be strikingly naive, failing to account for the inherent dynamics of revolutionary power struggles.
On 31 January 1979, Khomeini returned to Tehran, an event greeted by an estimated five million people awaiting him in the streets. Despite the airport having been closed against him, Khomeini and his circle of revolutionary intellectuals were convinced that the popular opposition was strong enough to force the regime's hand. Upon his arrival, in a moment that shook many of his supporters, when asked how he felt returning to his country after two decades in exile, Khomeini replied, "nothing". Immediately following his landing, the Mullers, an already organised minority, encircled Khomeini, carrying him away and effectively sidelining the intellectuals who had helped orchestrate his return. This swift action demonstrated the Mullers' deep understanding of power dynamics, in contrast to the intellectuals' lack of preparedness.
With the Shah having fled, a vacuum was created in the public imagination, which Khomeini quickly filled, taking the place of the deposed monarch. While the Shah's government and army initially remained, young revolutionaries from all political and religious groupings fought together on the streets, leading to the collapse of one of the world's strongest armies. Hundreds of thousands of weapons were seized and distributed among a multitude of revolutionary organisations. Khomeini rapidly announced a provisional government, appointing Mehdi Bazargan, a man of liberal and Islamic credentials, as Prime Minister, and commanded universal obedience to this new Islamic and legitimate government.
The Struggle for Power and the Reign of Terror
The initial unity of the revolution quickly dissolved. The period immediately following the overthrow of the Shah mirrored a pattern common to many revolutions, transitioning from liberation to repression, a "road to Terror". The revolution, in essence, began to "devour its own children". This phenomenon is an almost inevitable feature of revolutions where a coalition of factions unites against a regime; once the regime falls, the most organised minority within that coalition moves decisively to eliminate rivals and consolidate its power. This pattern was observed in the Russian Revolution, where the Bolsheviks systematically eliminated those who had helped overthrow the Tsar. Revolutions, despite promising liberty, frequently result in a more tyrannical and centralised state than the one they replaced.
The growing divisions became evident in the debate surrounding the new constitution. Liberal and leftist factions advocated for a separation of Islam from the state and a sovereign parliament. However, Islamic parties, drawing inspiration from Khomeini's own writings, asserted that sovereignty belonged to God, and therefore political power should reside with a Supreme Guardian who interpreted divine law. This marked a fundamental schism that shattered the broad unity that had characterised the pre-revolutionary period.
While Prime Minister Bazargan officially governed, real power increasingly rested with Ayatollah Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council. On the streets, power was wielded by the local "comites," Tehran's equivalent of the Paris communes of the French Revolution. The struggle for power intensified, marked by targeted suppression of dissenting voices. In August, the comites ordered the closure of the newspaper _Ayandegan_, which had criticised the fundamentalist concept of the Islamic State. Although Khomeini's explicit statement was merely that he would not buy the paper, this was sufficient to justify its closure. Writers and the editorial board of the paper were arrested, prompting calls for a rally in Tehran to defend press freedom. This massive demonstration, attended by nearly a million people, was brutally attacked by organised Hizbollahi, who employed knives, stones, and bricks, demonstrating a prepared and organised assault.
The forces mobilised against the protestors were largely drawn from the "lumpens"—unemployed individuals, and those who had migrated from the countryside and lived in shanty towns around Tehran. These groups, not integrated into broader Iranian society, were easily galvanised by religious slogans and Khomeini’s authority, serving as a de facto mob to confront urban-based opposition, including students, government employees, and professionals.
In October 1979, fundamentalist students occupied the American Embassy, an event that led to Prime Minister Bazargan's resignation and a definitive shift of power to the Islamic revolutionaries. In January 1980, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, despite his closeness to Khomeini, was elected president with a 75% majority, which he interpreted as a mandate to curtail the growing power of the Mullers. Bani-Sadr, influenced by Western revolutionary theory, believed in re-establishing freedom and independence within an Islamic identity and contended that Khomeini followed the people's will. This belief in a bottom-up revolution, however, fundamentally misjudged the true nature of power consolidation.
Bani-Sadr attempted to counter the Mullers' ascendancy by encouraging continued political activity among the populace. Yet, by the summer of 1980, internal conflict escalated, with former revolutionary allies openly engaging in armed clashes. Radical left-wing groups, such as the Mujahideen, gained significant followings by offering an alternative vision of society. Recognizing Bani-Sadr's growing popularity as a direct threat, the Mullers, whose power base was firmly in the Iranian Parliament, successfully persuaded Khomeini in June 1981 to allow a motion for Bani-Sadr's impeachment. The mob played a decisive role in this process; Bani-Sadr, fearing assassination, did not attend the parliamentary debate, which ultimately resulted in his deposition. His flight into hiding prompted Mujahideen and other opposition groups to declare armed resistance, leading to widespread street battles in Tehran and other cities.
The ensuing period was marked by a systematic reign of terror. Hundreds of the regime's political opponents were executed, particularly members of the middle classes who had participated in the initial revolution. Lists of those executed were published, prompting even senior figures like Ayatollah Montazeri, then Khomeini's spiritual heir, to plead for a halt to the killings, describing them as a disregard for the law and an act of vengeance. All political prisoners were compelled to repent their beliefs, with systematic execution for those who refused, representing a "liquidation pure and simple" of opposition organisations. Both sides in the conflict resorted to terror tactics. Revolutionary guards exploited the ongoing war as a pretext to search for and arrest perceived subversives. Thousands were executed in Evin Prison, sometimes over a hundred in a single night, under the direction of Revolutionary prosecutor Asadollahi Lajevardi, who openly acknowledged the killings on television.
The justification for this terror echoed precedents set by the French Revolution. Robespierre, in the French context, had declared terror to be the "despotism of Liberty against tyranny," necessary to destroy moral corruption and enable a new, virtuous society. Similarly, in Iran, the widespread executions were often carried out with the belief that they served God's command and were necessary to preserve the revolution's purity and the regime's power. The objective was to "force the people to be free," to regenerate a society deemed not fully aware of what was good for it.
This period also contained a significant element of class revenge. The revolution's base lay heavily within the peasantry and the urban poor, particularly those from South Tehran, who constituted the "fuel and basis" of Khomeini's revolution. The victims of the executions, in contrast, were often described as the "cream of Iranian society," including university students, high school students, modern political women, physicians, lawyers, and professionals. Their systematic targeting was, in effect, a rejection of Western liberal or even Marxist notions of progress, as the new regime sought to establish a distinct, non-Western vision for the country. From the perspective of Khomeini's supporters, these middle classes, with their Western-leaning ideals, were seen as enemies.
Post-Revolutionary Developments and International Relations
Having consolidated his vision of a revolutionary Islamic society, Khomeini's regime became committed to exporting its ideas and vociferously criticising Western nations. The new leadership accused America of hypocrisy, asserting that the US, which had used violence to dominate Iran for over 50 years, now feigned concern for human rights. Khomeini proclaimed that mankind was enslaved by tyrannical powers, claiming themselves pious and competent, and even questioned traditional Christian tenets, stating that Jesus Christ would not endorse turning the other cheek as suggested in the Bible.
Unlike the relatively short period of terror in the French Revolution, the terror in Iran unfortunately continued. This prolonged violence stemmed from a tension between Khomeini's anachronistic vision of a Utopia harking back 14 centuries and the complex reality of late 20th-century Iranian society. Khomeini’s static Islamic rules and ideas required either radical reinterpretation for modern society or a regression of Iran to a tribal image, a tension that proved to be a constant source of violence.
The Iran-Iraq War, which began in 1980, further exacerbated the internal dynamics of terror. While Iran successfully repelled the initial Iraqi invasion by 1982, the regime made a strategic error by launching a counter-offensive aimed at Baghdad.
This prolonged the conflict for an additional six years, inadvertently providing the United States and Israel with an incentive to arm Saddam Hussein and bog down the war, preventing Iran from consolidating its initial victory. The conflict's protracted nature created a climate of insecurity that was exploited to further the machinery of terror. In 1988, as Iran prepared to accept a United Nations ceasefire, an invasion by the Mujahideen from Iraq, viewed as an act of "pointless treachery," triggered another wave of executions.
Thousands of political prisoners, some having been jailed for over six years, were subjected to demands for repentance and executed if they refused. Their bodies were often buried in unmarked graves far from Tehran, with families left to discover their fate.
In conclusion
The Iranian Revolution, beginning as a unified mass movement against an oppressive monarchy, quickly transformed into a complex struggle for power.
This struggle was characterised by the systematic elimination of rival factions by an organised minority, the extensive use of terror as a tool for governance and social engineering, and a profound societal restructuring based on a religiously-derived political ideology.
The revolution's trajectory, marked by initial idealism followed by repression and enduring conflict, offers a significant case study in the dynamics of revolutionary change and the often brutal realities of power consolidation.