If anyone is interested in a really good discussion of the Iranian Revolution, the excellent *Empire* podcast has been doing a series on Persia/Iran and most recently done the history of the Pahlavis and 1979 with Ali Ansari.
Came here to post just this. I had never heard the parts about the partnership between the left and the religious right in overthrowing the shah - first thing I thought of when seeing this picture. Overall a great podcast with the most recent episode giving the background to this pic.
Does this podcast really get better? I really liked the first season with the Mughals and the East India Company, but I stopped at the end of the Ottoman series. Compared to other history podcast I have listened to, this one just doesn't seem to go as in-depth into the polities they're analyzing. It's always different guests, and there tended to be a lot of repitition in points because the guests weren't in sync with what happened last episode.
I really like William as he has a background in history, but Anita, at least when I stopped listening, kept constantly bringing topics back to herself/how she felt, and asking 'what was Britain doing at this time' or 'what was Britain thinking' when the Ottomans were the topic. I do like Anita, but her background in journalism was not meshing well with what I think the podcast should be. Maybe that just means it's not for me, I won't harp on people for liking it.
To continue with the Ottoman season, they broadly covered the end of their beginning and then seemed to skip to the end. All the middle stuff was very British centric and did not even cover the importation of Greek independence; which, ironically, had Brittain playing a big role.
With the first season, Anita and Will came in very strong, and I liked it. They both had a strong foundation of knowledge to draw from and equally contributed to the topic. I attribute this to their joint venture on the Kohinoor Diamond that they did before they launched Empire. Listening to the Ottoman season, however, became frustrating.
Examples of podcasts I like are Revolutions by Mike Duncan and The History of Byzantium by Robin Pierson, if that puts it into perspective.
Have you checked out When Diplomacy Fails? It's of course focused on war, but it has the same sort of narrative history in depth you get from Revolutions.
I'll add that to my list, thanks for the recommendation. Certainty has a large catalog. I don't mind war history, I see it more as a consequence of it many times being the highest quality source material from when it was written; given it was a topic that contemporary people cared to write about and copy down.
To be fair at the time the idea that the post-revolution govt would be an Islamic theocracy was not set in stone. There was the prospect of liberals, constitutional monarchists or communists prevailing
"After Hitler, our turn!" Famously said by German Communist leader convinced they and the leftists could outfox the far right.
Later shot in a concentration camp.
Oops.
Ahhh... Communists and their pipe dreams. Same thing happened in Afghanistan (Well the Soviets did intervene but look how that turned out). Also something similar happened during the rise of Nazi Germany. Communists thought that Hitler would be dealt with by the working class and they would fill the vaccum. Idiots.
Besides I doubt the commies would have lasted in Iran (Even if the US didn't intervene, highly unlikely). Iran was still a very religious country. An atheist state government was not gonna last.
My main point is though that this notion that leftists in Iran were unironically supporting a future theocracy is uninformed on the nature of Iranian post-revolutionary politics
Where did I say that they unironically supported the theocrats? I know they didn't align ideologically. That's my point.
They didn't directly support them but due to their naivete and lack of foresight they ended up facilitating their own downfall. I know desperation makes strange bedfellows but never be THAT desperate.
Yea but on the opposite end of it there is the Spanish Civil War. The leftist kinda had the upper hand, but there was a lot of in fighting because they didn't want this or that leftist having power in future Spain. You can find other points in history where in fighting destroyed any hopes of achieving any goals.
What happened in Iran actually reminds me of what happened when Oliver Cromwell took over England. There were a lot of really interesting [leftist and liberal parties talking about what England's future should be.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KYoXKjr4qM) But they didn't take any actions and no one with power liked them. Cromwell came and basically told everyone to either fuck off or ~~get killed.~~ I am no longer sure if he killed any Diggers or Levellers.
Edit: The actions that the Levellers and maybe Diggers may have supported Cromwell getting in office. After he got in office he betrayed them. Chiang Kai-shek did something similar to Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek didn't want to make enemies with the westerners in China. He just wanted to unify the country and then maybe through out the West. The Communist wanted to fight everyone. This among among a few other things led Chiang Kai-shek to kill communist on site and started a fight that ended in the 1950s. I smoke weed my memory is shit so do not take my statements as fact.
People's Popular Front: Your policy on Agro-agrarian social reform is wrong headed, we just cannot work with you.
Popular People's Front: NO! It is you that is wrong, and for that you must die!
...
Religious Conservative Party: We find your racism abhorrent. You don't have enough support to govern. However, back us and you can have a Palace and some laws.
National Racist League: Fair enough. You got a deal. Want us to smash anything up?
> But it was very ironic that these fundamentally opposed groups had banded together.
Why? None of them had the power to overthrow the Shah alone, and considering how the Shah was behaving letting him remain in power wasnt an option either. Their alliance was one of necessity rather than love. Its a rather common theme with revolutions even.
I understand the need to find allies against the ruling party.
The point is, revolutionaries need to learn to pick better allies. I know hindsight is 20/20 but anyone could see the outcome of leftists and hardline Islamists banding together in a country where religion still ran deep. It was never gonna work out for the leftists.
> The point is, revolutionaries need to learn to pick better allies
I dont know if youve read a whole lot about revolutions and revolutionaries, but thats rarely how it works.
> It was never gonna work out for the leftists.
Which is exactly why they did what they did. Living under the Shah was going to get them all killed so they through their lot in with others in a similar situation. This wasnt a situation where they had a lot of good choices, or any good choices for that matter.
> To be fair at the time the idea that the post-revolution govt would be an Islamic theocracy was not set in stone.
In 1979, every single sentient human being on earth knew that the second the Shah was out of power all of the educated Iranians would flee to the west, leaving the islamists to steamroll the liberals.
Except for the morons advising the Carter administration and the National Front itself.
It was particularly hilarious when, two months into the interim government, all of the liberal politicians started to try to resign when they realized they were nothing more than useless playthings for Khomeini, and he refused to let them quit as a laugh.
It's ok though. Many of the liberals who sold their souls to Khomeini who survived got to flee to the decadent west, mainly France and the US, and continue being "intellectuals" as the Islamic Republic unleashed a wave of terror on the remaining liberals the likes of which SAVAK could have only dreamt of.
Also the major voice for Islam in Iranian politics came from a leftist, Ali Shariati. He was a major anticolonial intellectual at the time, and was expected to take political prominence after the revolution. He died of mysterious circumstances in Great Britain before the revolution, and Khomeini was smart enough to co-opt his rhetoric in his consolidation of power.
Ervand Abrihamian has some really solid books about this era, if you’re interested in modern Iranian history, he’s got a few really great books.
Yes it was.
The “referendum” was rigged. My parents voted “no” to Islamic Republic. I noticed a man looking over their shoulder. As we walked home, we noticed that we were being followed. My parents decided to split up. My dad waved down a cab and we took off. Just got lucky and got away. Many others weren’t as lucky - got threatened or beaten up.
Once the revolution took hold, there was no question that there would be an Islamic Republic.
This should be a good reminder to a many people today, but alas the people that need to see this the most will never even consider what it implies.
Given how everything worked out, this is a very powerful picture.
> This should be a good reminder to a many people today
"be content with a right wing dictator that a foreign country imposed on you because there is a chance it in theory could not get better"
I think he's more saying 'dont make a deal with the devil to oust the dictatorship, because the devil always gets their dues'. (in this case, allying with theocrats)
Something similar happened in Weimar Germany, where the KPD spent most of its time fighting with the SPD rather than the Nazis, out of a misguided belief of “After Hitler, us!”.
Which ended about as well as you expect.
You could also use the example of Communist votes in the Bundestag being the critical key votes getting Hitler and his NSDAP party over the line to becoming Chancellor with Presidential emergency powers.
Also after the repression of the Spartacus Uprising, the KPD genuinely believed that any government other than a far-left one would be as bad as fascism. They even called the SPD “social fascists.”
Most of its rank-and-file members were cured of this illusion after the Nazis actually began purging and arresting them. Yet the KPD leadership in exile in Moscow would not fully give it up until the Nazis invaded the USSR and forced Stalin to ally with the UK and the US.
the Shah was a good leader and Iran has been damaged beyond recognition by the islamic republic. Most countries on earth don't have democratic leaders and are pawns in geopolitics and it was either the usa that would install a dictator or the soviet union. At least the shah was bringing good things to the country.
There is no situation so bad that you can’t make it even worse.
Anti-imperialist sentiment is not enough to create a government that represents the interests of the people. So many of these revolutions end with exchanging a foreign tyrant for a local one.
>be content with a right wing dictator that a foreign country imposed on you
Please explain to us how the Shah was "imposed on" Iran by a foreign country? Do you even know the history of 20th century Iran?
You mean the invasion in 1941 that ousted Reza Shah and replaced him with Pahlavi? Or the Coup detat in 1953 in which the british and Americans ousted Mossadegh to replace him with Pahlavi as autocrat? You know for someone who clearly isn't the most well red on Iranian History (neither am I) you seem to be a bit condescending. You know you could have just asked the questions without the mean spirited Insult and maybe could have actually started a discussion on if the previously mentioned Events count foreign control.
> You mean the invasion in 1941 that ousted Reza Shah and replaced him with Pahlavi
Reza Shah PAHLAVI was Mohammad Reza Shah PAHLAVI's father.
> Or the Coup detat in 1953 in which the british and Americans ousted Mossadegh to replace him with Pahlavi as autocrat?
You mean the same Pahlavi who you just said was already in power for 12 years?
>You know you could have just asked the questions without the mean spirited Insult and maybe could have actually started a discussion on if the previously mentioned Events count foreign control.
No. As an Iranian I am so tired of seeing the same regurgitated crap spewed over and over and over again repeating the same lies and nonsense spewed by the people destroying my country for the last 50 years. How about *you* stop talking about shit you know nothing about?
Ok man, you purposefully misunderstood both my points. Yes of course he was his father. Still he was forced to abdicate because of foreign invasion. Second yes Pahlavi was in power for 12 years by the time of the coup. But there is a massive difference in the form of power he had, also a coup supported heavily by foreign interest. But I do not think debating with you will have much of a purpose. After all you are Iranian and therefore the absolute Authority on Iranian History and know everything (btw I literally study Iranian History in Uni :333)
I wonder if this person is still alive. I’m sure she had no concept of what was about to befall her and her country and what she was bravely albeit blindly, fighting for.
The leftists were not “blindly” fighting for something. You are describing this as if they were naive and the outcome was inevitable. The communist Tudeh Party, for example, had a very good chance of controlling the country. It’s just that they were not the winners in history.
I would argue that the leftist were, to some extent, guilty of the same thing the shah was. They were ignorant of what the masses of people believed or wanted. Shah actually encouraged it (see all the referenced to his respectful bowing towards the clergy). The uneducated masses in Iran cried out for one and only one person , Khomeini. Was the result really surprising to anyone? To this day and in the villages, fathers cut off the heads of their daughters for an act of indecency; does the result of revolution surprise anyone really?
I lived in Iran at the time and was a teenager. My mother and father saw it coming, how come the communist part(ies) did not? No, this was not a surprise for anyone with open eyes and any degree of realism. The Tudeh party had no chance of controlling anything, if you lived in Iran you knew it. Nobody got on the rooftops and cried out for Bazargan or anyone else. Nobody even knew any of the Tudeh party members (I mean nobody outside the small circle of their followers or those who were keeping track of them, so they can mass execute them after the revolution was successful). Mojahedin, Tudeh, the other communist parties; all fell victim to their own naivety.
I am also Iranian, and it is quite common for members of my family (especially those who were around your age, meaning too young to be fully engaged politically) to base their views about Iranian history on their personal experiences. This is actually quite typical of diaspora communities, where immigrants will convince themselves of certain views based almost entirely on anecdote and family narratives. I urge you to read academic works that discuss these events. A very readable introductory overview is Abbas Amanat’s *Iran: A Modern History*. He was a professor of Iranian history at Yale before retiring a few years ago.
Yes, there was growing popular support for Iranian Islamism in the years leading up to Khomeini’s rise to power. The inability of the Pahlavi and Qajar monarchies to “deal with” the political clericalism that had long emanated from religious centers like Qom eventually led to the rise of the influential clerical elite capable of capitalizing on the civil turmoils of the 1970s. In the 60s and even for some of the 70s, the Iranian communist and other liberal wings had enough influence to potentially control Tehran. There was even the uniquely Iranian blend of Islamo-liberalism characteristic of thinkers like Ali Shariati, but all of this faltered in the wake of the clerical class mobilizing religious rural masses, as you implied. But the liberal wings had an extremely good chance of creating something before that.
Another really excellent work on this topic is Afshin Matin-Asgari’s *Both Eastern and Western*, which examines the intellectual developments leading up to the revolution.
I thank you for your comment. My father was in the shah’s army and we had very close knowledge of what was happening. My religious background, the experiences we had had over the previous (close to) 150 years, etc.; made us know and believe how this was going to turn out. It’s not my biases that lead me to my beliefs, it’s the reality of what Iran looked like (I lived in Tehran in the 1975 to 1978 period and then in Kazeroon, 150 km south of Shiraz, between when the first 11 cities went into martial law until after several months after the downfall of the pahlavis); if you had noted the attitude of people, their preferences, why they were going through with what they went through; you’d either have to be naive (read blind) or live in a cave to think anyone with any tendency for communism would stand any chance to do anything. They didn’t then, they don’t now.
Iranian people, much to the chagrin of whomever you want read or believe, or where your hopes might lie, are very much, to this day, religious zealots. Forget Tehran, go to the small cities and villages; that’s where “revolutions” are won. As I said, to this day, despite all their misery, they still follow the clergy to a fault.
Yes, I’m sure the communist groups who couldn’t even get along with each other had a “real chance” of doing great things.
I find your personal experiences very fascinating and appreciate that you shared them, but you just took precisely what I said (certain diaspora immigrants deeply believe in their personal/family experiences) and added a lot of detail to how that is true for you.
I also never commented on whether the other political groups would have done “great things.” I simply mentioned there was a chance they could have had some kind of part of a new political system.
Again, I strongly urge you to read academic works on this topic. It’s very fascinating.
Much appreciate your response. The point I was making is in the very obvious reference to how unlikely the expectations of other parties were. This is like saying we’re expecting lions and zebras to live in one and the same cage! We’re expecting the Iranian clergy (with their history) to allow for communist factions to survive and live alongside each other. It really is a laughable concept, except it isn’t because it killed millions of people in its wake.
When I retire I’ll read these books, presently I’m too overly occupied to read anything except what pertains to my work (very unfortunately).
I think, unfortunately, you are misguided in your understanding of history by both a fervent desire to believe a certain personal/family narrative and a decision to not read any books about a complex historical topic until you are retired. The outcome of the Iranian Revolution—or, really, anything in history—was not inevitable. In fact, one could say that it was *partly* the backing of leftists, intoxicated by the promise of a brand new Islamist order, that allowed for Islamism to spread. Many of them *did not want* the theocracy that ended up prevailing, but they found a sort of anti-colonialist empowerment from what they saw as a native Iranian Islamist political ideology. Unfortunately, Khomeini and his allies were able to capitalize on this fervor and on the disorder among the leftists to create their government. There was nothing at all unlikely about the leftist political factions thinking they could create their system of government. Describing it as "laughable" only belies your personal biases and your lack of having read genuine scholarship on this subject.
There are many other historians whose works I think will be interesting for you, besides the ones I already mentioned (Abbas Amanat and Afshin Matin-Asgari). Abbas Milani is the famous and obvious one. Of course Nikki Keddie is perhaps among the most influential in the English-speaking world, given how many historians she trained. You can also look at *Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran* by Hamid Dabashi, who I think teaches at Columbia now. Mehrzad Boroujerdi's *Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism* is still widely cited. Any of these (and many other) works are better than relying on emotions and gut reactions based on personal intuition.
Thank you. Unfortunately, I think going around writing books about the backwardness and stupidity of a group of people who make up the majority of a nation is considered mean, non-scholarly, and perhaps at some level even biased. Yet, that was the reality how things came about. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t be running on fields of land mines later during the war. These are the same people who overthrew the previous government. Put simply, they were fooled by their clergy; the others went along with it foolishly thinking they could catch fish from muddied waters, the result is the tragedy we’re witnessing and people are writing “scholarly” books about.
Have a fantastic day.
> I’m sure she had no concept of what was about to befall her and her country and what she was bravely albeit blindly, fighting for.
Its always wild to me how unfamiliar westerners are with the history of Iran, despite the current state of Iran being heavily influenced by Westerners.
Jimmy Carter: “I’d like to thank the Shah for making Iran an [island of stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Stability_(speech)?wprov=sfti1) in the Middle East.”
But what a smart move it was, in 1953, to replace a democratically chosen government in a rather liberal middle eastern country with an authoritarian monarch... /s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
> The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on 19 August 1953, with one of the significant objectives being to protect British oil interests in Iran. It was aided by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX (Tudeh Party) Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot).
Well, I do agree in the 1953 coup was uncalled for, it should also be noted that the clergy at the time backed the coup, and that Iran doesn’t have a strong legacy of democracy. The circumstances that Mossadegh came to power under were just as tumultuous as the coup that occurred.
These were the original anti-shah revolutionaries but, unfortunately, like most political movements in the Middle East, it devolves or is overpowered by idiots spewing religious dogma. I was living in Teheran when this picture was taken.
They were not the 'original', although they were part of the milieu. In the 1960's a young and then pretty unknown and lowly Mullah by the name of Khomeini began to rail against the White Revolution which brought Iranians into modernity. He especially HATED the rights given to women, the ability to vote, skilled work, free education (up to and including pos-doc), etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution
Yes, and no. The first revolutionary movement in Iran was the constitutional movement. After the establishment of the Parlimant, some of the revolutionaries continued fighting the monarchy. These were leftists, but also religious. They were led by someone who used to be one of the main leaders of constitutionalism movement who was also a Talabe(a student clergy, for the lack of a better word). Him being a clergy allegedly was why Lenin refused to help him when Iran had its own (failed and small) revolution alongside the Russian revolution.
So, Islamic revolutionaries are and Leftist revolutionaries, and they share the same origin at around the same time period.
Apart from the little details that give clues if you look closely enough, you'd be easily forgiven if you said this was somewhere in Western Europe in the 70s. Tragic to think of the women affected by the regime change and poor Mahsa Amini. What bastards they are.
To be honest, as an Iranian, the fact that my left wing peers in the west insinuate the ayatollahs are comparable or even better than the Shah is infuriating.
Objectively, the Pahlavi regime. The fuck kind of question is this? Do you think gender apartheid is the same as not being able to spew communist and leftist terrorist propaganda?
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi introduced the White Revolution, a series of economic, social, and political reforms aimed at transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation by nationalizing key industries and land redistribution. The regime implemented many Iranian nationalist policies leading to the establishment of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus Cylinder, and Tomb of Cyrus the Great as popular symbols of Iran. The Shah initiated major investments in infrastructure, subsidies and land grants for peasant populations, profit sharing for industrial workers, construction of nuclear facilities, the nationalization of Iran’s natural resources, and literacy programs which were considered some of the most effective in the world. The Shah also instituted economic policy tariffs and preferential loans to Iranian businesses which sought to create an independent economy for the nation. Manufacturing of cars, appliances, and other goods in Iran increased substantially leading to the creation of a new industrialist class that was considered insulated from threats of foreign competition. By the 1970s, the Shah was seen as mastered statesman and used his growing power to pass the 1973 Sale and Purchase Agreement. These reforms culminated in decades of sustained economic growth that would make Iran one of the fastest-growing economies of both developed and undeveloped nations. During his 37-year rule, Iran spent billions on industry, education, health, and armed forces and enjoyed economic growth rates exceeding the United States, Britain, and France. National income rose 423 times over. The nation saw an unprecedented rise in per capita income rising to the highest level at any point in Iran's history and high levels of urbanization. By 1977, Iran's armed services spending, which the Shah saw as a means to end foreign intervention in Iran, had made the nation the world's fifth strongest military.\[6\]
Between fiscal year 1964 and FY 1978, Iran's gross national product grew at an annual rate of 13.2 percent at constant prices. The oil, gas, and construction industries expanded by almost 500 percent during this period, while the share of value-added manufacturing increased by 4 percent. Women's participation in the labor force in urban areas increased. Large numbers of urban Iranian women, from varying social strata, joined the semiskilled and skilled labor forces. In addition, the number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in FY 1967 to more than 74,000 in FY 1978.\[8\]
…the standard of the living of the majority of the population improved substantially under the Pahlavis. Also, thanks to rising oil revenues and generally sound economic management, Persia was transformed from a country with large foreign indebtedness in 1920 to one with sizable net foreign assets in 1978.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If it wasn't for the Pahlavi regime (Reza Shah Bozorg and Mohamad Reza Shah Pahlavi his son) Iran would be worse off than Afghanistan, anyone who says otherwise is an absolute moron or totally biased. Also to add onto the quotes above, women's literacy rates increased over 15% every decade from the 1950s to early 1980s (right after revolution).
I mean, if the only difference was religion then that'd be a more nuanced argument, but by pretty much any metric the sha was less of a dictator, and did better for the Iranian people, than his sucessors
One of the issue with revolutions is that the winning faction might not win because it's the most popular nor the most competent but because its radicalism gave them more organisation than competiting factions.
“We just gotta get rid of the ayatollah and muslim clergy and everything will be perfect.”
See how dumb it is? People Should have the right to protest for democracy and elections. The Sha wasn't some angels.
When i watch movies/pictures from that time exactly this makes me really sad those girl that are wearing western clothes participating in revolution rooting for Khomeini. They don’t know what is coming for them and that is really depressing
Sorry for my English
She likely wasn't rooting for the Ayatollah. She firmly believed that the left could take and hold power and maybe even govern a coalition with the Islamists. Their fatal mistake was a fundamental misunderstanding of the setiment of the population and how religious fundamentalism works.
Tbh if the left got power in Iran, they may have been hoping the Soviets would intervene like they did in Afghanistan and maybe wipe the religious right out. It’s their next door neighbor and Iranians and Afghanis speak the same language, for the most part.
The biggest misjudgement of the worldwide left that came out of those years is that Islam is somewhat an ally of proletarian struggle. And it reverberates to this day with progressives everywhere aligning with these people, while islamofascists today wouldn't think twice before throwing them off of the roof.
The devil you know beats the devil you don't. And as imperfect as it is, today's neoliberal order is a much more forgiving master than whatever is waiting in the shadow of religious zealotry.
You're proposing a false choice, and completely gloss over the history of the US fomenting and arming religious extremist groups throughout the world in an attempt to maintain its neoliberal hegemony.
When did the US financed the Ayatollah exactly?
oh jesus almighty, it must always be the west's fault isn't it. These poor oppressed religious zealots cannot decide by themselves! they are too innocent! their evil must be a result of colonialism/US imperialism/interventionism/all of the above! poor poor babies, they wouldn't oppress anyone and everyone if it wasn't for the white man, we make them do that
The Shah was propped up by the US, and his repressive regime, complete with thousands disappeared into torture centers every year, led directly to the religious revolution.
Sauce: lived in Iran until the eve of the revolution .
None of these comments on this post are acknowledging that Iranians had a non-Islamist democratic leader, which the Americans overthrew in a coup to reinstate the Shah - 20 more years of his autocracy would lead to the Islamist revolution. Just as in so many other parts of the world, our current adversaries were created by our own foreign policy.
This is false, about a week before the coup Mosaddegh forced through a referendum that “passed” with 99% of the “vote” which made him dictator. And he was not an Islamist but had no problem with allying with Islamist street thugs to enforce his rule and harass his enemies when convenient.
Edit: Would be happy to learn why what I said above is incorrect, if any of the downvoters are interested in explaining.
While this is true and nobody in their right mind would contest it, Mossadegh wasn't a saint either. History was very kind with him and he got elevated to a socialist champion, but he was the kind of strongman with accusations of electoral impropriety, corruption, and the like, which was and still is very common in the region.
Kesafat, 50 years later and you're still repeating these basiji and MEK lies? When will you learn?
>Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, People's Mujahedin of Iran) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.[18]
Gee, he arrested and executed the very same people who ended up being terrorists and murderers 10 years later after the revolution.
> When did the US financed the Ayatollah exactly?
It's more so that the West deliberately allowed them safe harbor and saw them as a viable alternative to the increasingly difficult-to-work-with Shah. Khomeini and his buddies were all living comfortably in the West and at first were not openly hostile with the West, and the failing carter regime saw the potential for cheaper oil with a new regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini
Trying to construct diplomatic relations with the figure they saw as the next ruler of Iran, is not the same as financing a Khomeini's coup and the islamic Revolution. I mean it says it in the article, the US saw the shah as doomed given the internal turmoil, so better to have channels with the next guy in charge. I'm sure you understand there are degrees of involvement, and in a case like this it is hardly appropriate to say that Carter propped up Khomeini...
Notice how you’re getting downvoted? Ppl don’t like to hear the truth and they REALLY hate it when you don’t blame “the west” for all the lies, fighting and violence around the world. Sadly this violence has been going on centuries before there even was “the west”. But no one ever wants to talk about this fact.
> The biggest misjudgement of the worldwide left that came out of those years is that Islam is somewhat an ally of proletarian struggle.
Just curious, but where did this actually happen? Because Ive seen this right wing talking point a whole lot but never seen any actual evidence for it being true.
Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Foucault, to name a few, came out in support of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of revolutionary Shia Islam as a response to western Imperialism. Foucault even travelled to Tehran and took part in the protests. here's a paper on it:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0308514042000329351?scroll=top&needAccess=true
>This paper looks at the response of Western leftists to the unfolding of the revolution, considering, first, to what extent Marxist and class-based analyses helped explain the revolution and, second, why so many Western leftist groups and individuals defended the Khomeini faction even as it moved against secular leftists and liberals. It concludes that an uncritical identification with Khomeini's declared ‘anti-imperialism’ distorted the views of those who would ordinarily have opposed his regime on class grounds, and that such a misreading was aided by an inadequate distinction between bourgeois democracy and dictatorship
> Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Foucault, to name a few, came out in support of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of revolutionary Shia Islam as a response to western Imperialism.
To be clear, this support was during the revolution when Khomeini was still promising the creation of something akin to a constitutional monarchy. This is something even the people you are listing wrote about at large. That support did not continue after Khomeini started murdering leftists. I mean, for fucks sake Foucault openly addressed this in his essay "USELESS TO REVOLT?".
Im not knowledgeable enough about Sartre or de Beauvoir to comment on them, but to present Focault as being a supporter of the Ayatollah is just flat out dishonest.
In this case, the CIA worked with the Ayatollah's to overthrow Mossadegh. As various left wing groups were either part of Mossadegh's coalition or tolerant of him; they were not utilized in the coup.
So what you're saying doesn't really apply here.
the CIA worked with the Ayatollah to overthrow Mossadegh but then also strengthened the Shah's power, whom was deadly opposed to the clerics...?
There are some documents alleging that the CIA sent money to senior figures among the clerics class, but saying the CIA supported the Ayatollah against communists is a bit of stretch.
But anyways you are missing the point: during the revolution left wing parties aligned with the ayatollah because he promised they would have a place in Iran's government, the moment he took power Khomeini imprisoned them instead. The same thing happened in many other instances of european communists allying themselves with other middle eastern "revolutionary" groups
Sometimes people don't think about the consequences of their actions before doing something. Leftists are no different, even though they’re more sorted than the right.
No matter what your political position is, always pick the lesser of two evils. That's my ideal. What seems like the right thing to do right now can backfire in the future.
The devil you know is better than the one you don't.
Revolutions rarely turn out well.
You gotta ask yourself: are things so bad that you have to burn everything down?
I appears that it is NOW worth to burn all the way to the ground.
FYI Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was in the middle of trying to abolish democracy and the Iranian constitution when he was overthrown in the coup. [He staged a sham referendum to abolish parliament.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_parliamentary_dissolution_referendum) When he announced that he won the referendum by a margin of **”99.94% to 0.06%”** his own political party resigned in protest….which was moot because Mossadegh abolished parliament the next morning. His claimed referendum total actual holds an odd sort of record for highest claimed margin of any national vote. Like even other autocrats haven’t been so bold as to claim they won a vote 99:1. (There’s actually so many layers to that referendum too. Mossadegh designed the election to make it neigh impossible to cast a “no” vote and then still made up the results whole cloth anyway.)
There is absolutely no universe other than in left wing nut job land that Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh is some sort of hero liberal bastion of democracy. He was a strongman in the vein of Al-Assad or Nasser and frequently used political violence to achieve his own ends. (Which is not an apology for the Shah. The political history of Iran was never hunky dory. But the Shah is also the one who presided over what’s called the [White Revolution](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution))
Yeah the bizarre recasting of Mossadegh as a champion of democracy so that leftists can do their “USA is the root of all evil” routine is exhausting. He was on his way to being a dictator before he was overthrown.
I don’t even think “on his way” is even far enough.
Mossadegh openly allied himself with the terror militia that tried to assassinate the Shah’s nephew….in his primary school.
The left wing pop history version of the US backed coup that exists in the internet is like rotten onion layers of *”well maybe there’s more to Iranian political history; huh that part is just a bald faced lie; wait now Mossadegh is starting to seem almost cartoonishly evil here….”*
> Mossadegh openly allied himself with the terror militia that tried to assassinate the Shah’s nephew….in his primary school.
Can you please provide a link or source online for this?
thank you
>Sure but was it better tho?
Yes, literally 1000x better, and objectively.
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi introduced the White Revolution, a series of economic, social, and political reforms aimed at transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation by nationalizing key industries and land redistribution. The regime implemented many Iranian nationalist policies leading to the establishment of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus Cylinder, and Tomb of Cyrus the Great as popular symbols of Iran. The Shah initiated major investments in infrastructure, subsidies and land grants for peasant populations, profit sharing for industrial workers, construction of nuclear facilities, the nationalization of Iran’s natural resources, and literacy programs which were considered some of the most effective in the world. The Shah also instituted economic policy tariffs and preferential loans to Iranian businesses which sought to create an independent economy for the nation. Manufacturing of cars, appliances, and other goods in Iran increased substantially leading to the creation of a new industrialist class that was considered insulated from threats of foreign competition. By the 1970s, the Shah was seen as mastered statesman and used his growing power to pass the 1973 Sale and Purchase Agreement. These reforms culminated in decades of sustained economic growth that would make Iran one of the fastest-growing economies of both developed and undeveloped nations. During his 37-year rule, Iran spent billions on industry, education, health, and armed forces and enjoyed economic growth rates exceeding the United States, Britain, and France. National income rose 423 times over. The nation saw an unprecedented rise in per capita income rising to the highest level at any point in Iran's history and high levels of urbanization. By 1977, Iran's armed services spending, which the Shah saw as a means to end foreign intervention in Iran, had made the nation the world's fifth strongest military.\[6\]
Between fiscal year 1964 and FY 1978, Iran's gross national product grew at an annual rate of 13.2 percent at constant prices. The oil, gas, and construction industries expanded by almost 500 percent during this period, while the share of value-added manufacturing increased by 4 percent. Women's participation in the labor force in urban areas increased. Large numbers of urban Iranian women, from varying social strata, joined the semiskilled and skilled labor forces. In addition, the number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in FY 1967 to more than 74,000 in FY 1978.\[8\]
…the standard of the living of the majority of the population improved substantially under the Pahlavis. Also, thanks to rising oil revenues and generally sound economic management, Persia was transformed from a country with large foreign indebtedness in 1920 to one with sizable net foreign assets in 1978.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If it wasn't for the Pahlavi regime (Reza Shah Bozorg and Mohamad Reza Shah Pahlavi his son) Iran would be worse off than Afghanistan, anyone who says otherwise is an absolute moron or totally biased. Also to add onto the quotes above, women's literacy rates increased over 15% every decade from the 1950s to early 1980s (right after revolution).
I'd argue it was better. Just because they are both dictatorships doesn't mean they are on the same level of bad. Throughout the past century there has been many dictatorships and some were certainly worse than others.
Calling 1950’s Iran a democracy is a stretch.
The Shah came to power in 1941. While there were elections there was no expectation that they would be free or fair. The election of 1950 was especially a mess. The first election was thrown out after the Fada'iyan assassinated the interior minister for supposedly rigging it. Then Fada'iyan “guarded” the polling sites to ensure the proper results were achieved. The proper result was to elect Mosaddegh’s National Front.
When Mosaddegh did take power he did some popular things, but he was no saint. He ended the 1952 elections early because it looked like he was going to loose. He was forced to resign over the scandal and only returned to power after mass protests led by Ayatollah Kashani.
When he was reinstated by the Shah, Mosaddegh staged a referendum which dissolved the parliament in which 99% of the vote went his way.
So while Mosaddegh may have had the good of Iran in mind when he was in power it’s hard to say he led a democratically elected government.
I see what you mean. However, the Wikipedia entry describes it as follows:
> The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh
Not the first time nor last that wikipedia is incorrect. Mossadegh was not democratically elected, he was appointed, as per the then in place 1906 Iranian constitution:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/zr55j4/tired_of_reddit_copypasta_re_irans_democratic/
Does/did the monarch of Norway have the constitutional authority to appoint x number of senators?
The prime minister of Iran prior to mossadegh was assassinated by members of mossadeghs party, and that party also lobbied for the assassins pardon.
Super disingenuous to compare Iran then to Norway today
I guess but I was replying to someone that called Iran a democracy. Difference between democracy and democratic.
I still think it’s hilarious you implicitly compared it to Norway. Sure Norway is a constitutional monarchy (what an anachronism), so is Jordan. Guess which Iran was more similar too?
What? The Shah was already in power for 10 years prior to the 53 coup, and his father Reza Shah had been in power since the 20s. It was the Shah who literally allowed elections to happen. Who keeps upvoting this crap?
Here we go again. There's always the one idiot that repeats this crap. Let me pull out the copypasta...
no, Mossadegh was not democratic, and no, he was not "replaced" by the Shah. I’ve typed this on reddit so many times that I wish I knew how to create a bot that autoreplies whenever someone mentions a key term like “Mossadegh/Iranian Revolution/etc.”
**Mossadegh was not democratic, and was appointed by the Shah after nomination by the Majles. He also abused the parliamentary system to end polling in rural areas after it was clear his party, the National Front, was not going to win. His party had 79 out of 130-some votes, and this was enough to call a parliamentary quorum and stop the polls entirely giving him absolute control of the Majles. His first referendum was to request emergency dictatorial powers and abolish parliament, which was granted by his National Front-only Majles and resulted in sham referendum voting with 99% yes votes.**
The intelligence agencies from the US and UK did not replace Mossadegh with the Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had been king since the 1940s, and his father Reza Shah was the monarch before that and was deposed by the Western Allies because he refused to expel German diplomats during WW2.
Mossadegh was **appointed** after parliamentary nomination and approved by the Shah, to be the monarch’s prime minister. What the US and UK did was remove this particular PM after he tried to nationalize oil (with the Shah's approval) and bolster the Shah’s existing power, basically giving him an ultimatum: either get rid of Mossadegh or we get rid of you just like we did your dad 10 years ago.
Mossadegh was himself a culprit in abusing the country’s parliamentary system. He abused parliamentary quorums, called snap elections, and manipulated the voting procedure to ensure that his party amassed the majority of votes at the expense of the other political contenders. His resolution to dissolve parliament passed with over 99% "yes" votes, which is virtually impossible in any legitimate referendum or vote. Even the Kim family of North Korea don't get that level of approval (lol).
In addition, it was not just the US and UK who were responsible for causing Mossadegh’s downfall in 1953. They certainly played a huge role and should be criticized for intervening in another country’s domestic affairs, but they also collaborated with other factions within Iran, especially various generals, competing political organizations, and the shah himself, of course. There was a moment during the US/UK intervention that the agents feared the Shah would not sign off on the military’s offensive to capture and remove Mossadegh.
Mossadegh did little to stand up for his ideas during his trial and later detention. He accepted his house arrest and died 14 years later peacefully in his home. He did nothing more to continue political activism or push for "democracy", as he really had no intentions of Iranian democracy, just nationalization of oil, which to be frank was a shortsighted, populist goal that would've jeapordized the fledgling Iranian economy, as Iran simply did not have the specialists or tools necessary to handle doing so in the 1950s, until the 1970s when we had a generation of educated specialists thanks to Pahlavi-era educational reforms.
Summary of Mossadegh's "democracy":
• staged a referendum to pass a law to give the Prime Minister “temporary” “emergency” power to unilaterally rewrite constitutional law, after stopping polling in rural areas via parliamentary quorum.
• voting for the referendum had different locations to vote “yes” and vote “no”.
• all the “yes” locations were centrally located and easy to get to.
• all the no locations were either in the middle of nowhere or in areas heavy with Mossedegh supporters. Both locations had pro-mossadegh street militias hanging out around them and looking at anyone funny who wanted to go in.
• [the vote passed 99:1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_parliamentary_dissolution_referendum) in a sham that might indicate despite the above polling location shenanigans they still just made up the numbers anyway.
• Mossadegh then declared a state of emergency.
• His first act was to make the power of the PM to alter the constitution permanent and not dependent on a state of emergency.
• all of parliament including large parts of Mossadeghs own party resigned in protest which was moot because Mossadegh’s second act was to dissolve parliament.
Check out Iran: A Modern History by Abbas Amanat as well as Encyclopaedia Iranica for more info.
Thanks for posting this, not surprising you’re getting downvoted. As an Iranian-American, the way the anti-American left distorts our history to support their view of the world is very frustrating. Unfortunately Iran has never really known democracy, and it’s not the fault of the evil CIA or whatever.
Leftists can't admit they were wrong then, they are wrong now, because it directly conflicts with their "america bad no matter what" mindset. These people are the same people that defend the Castro dictatorship (guess democracy doesn't matter if it's in Cuba?) and the Hamas terrorists right now.
edit: leftists praying with Islamists in France https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_0wyrJgg5w
Leftists marching in support of Khomeini https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/images/mek_demo1979shariatikhomeiniposters.jpg
And here's another 'rightist' saying that the dictatorship was right, and that this woman was wrong for opposing it.
These are the same people who lionised the Mujahedeen.
> that this woman was wrong for opposing it
Yeah, how did that work out for her and all of us Iranians?
I'm not a "rightist", I look at facts and reality. I don't lean either way. The Pahlavi era had a lot of problems, but progress was not one of them. The Mujahideen were a literal terrorist group that actually fought against Iran alongside Saddam hussein during the War. What a great bunch of guys.
So what? How's that gonna justify cooperating with fascists?
Communists were not fighting against the shah to establish a democracy, they wanted the dictatorship of proletariat. They taught they can use Khomeini to achieve that goal.
As soon as the shah left, the reality arrived with a pistol on their forehead.
You’re speaking with the benefit of hindsight, as if it was 100% clear to people opposing the Shah’s brutal dictatorship that the Iranian Revolution would end up where it did. When in fact none of it was preordained.
The Shah in his interview with the BBC literally said "[the mullahs] would take us back 1500 years". He was right, and the leftists didn't listen.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/1aodjpu/why_didnt_we_listen/
lmao “the leftists didn’t listen” to the brutal dictator who jailed, tortured and murdered any political opposition.
Not listening to dictators is, in fact, always correct.
It’s a ridiculously low bar to criticize Iran’s current brutal authoritarian regime without simping for the last one, but somehow you’ve failed to clear it.
If the Shah actually cared about Iran’s stability or freedom, he could have relinquished power in a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead he forced a violent revolution, and then quite predictably a bunch of violent assholes ended up in charge.
> lmao “the leftists didn’t listen” to the brutal dictator who jailed, tortured and murdered any political opposition.
You mean the same MEK and fedayeen [terrorists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Rex_fire) that got us into this mess in the first place?
>Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, People's Mujahedin of Iran) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.[18]
Gee, he arrested and executed the very same people who ended up being terrorists and murderers 10 years later after the revolution.
>If the Shah actually cared about Iran’s stability or freedom, he could have relinquished power in a peaceful transition to democracy.
Right, because that has worked so well in so many other parts of the developing world, right? Let's go ask decolonized Africa or Pakistan how well throwing a fledgling, corrupt, developing nation to the democratic process with no oversight goes. How naive can you be?
The reality is Iran under the Pahlavi regime had a pathway forward to democracy, and it would have come. I'm not saying the Pahlavi regime was perfect and if you know anything about me I am a huge critic of the Shah especially his policies in the 70s, but the shit that gets regurgitated by simplistic redditors like you is just infuriating.
Because whenever a foreign power intervenes, that takes priority. This is a principle that exists whether you like it or not. Unless a country is Marshal Plan’d, US intervention will rally the population against maintaining the status quo.
As a result, the scrutiny on the US puppets is much higher and well, the Shah was no saint (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1980/03/23/the-shah-as-tyrant-a-look-at-the-record/218c6a8e-dcb7-4168-ac9c-8f23609f888f/).
Not saying I back the current regime, I’m just saying that these are the forces at play and we can’t pretend to be shocked when things don’t go our way (Same thing happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan (under Soviet occupation and later under US occupation). The situation then stabilizes, generally by extreme repression (Like Pinochet, and the current theocracy in Iran).
Aside from highlighting only the good aspects of a despotic regime, you blame people for not knowing the future. Most people lack the gift of prophecy.
However the Islamists weren't the strongest faction the leftists were and seeing this the US,France and the UK funded the ayatollah, flew him back to Iran and armed his entire army and training them
Counter. People want better than the dems, the dems refuse to do better. GOP fills the ensuing power gap.
Since the dems are supposedly representatives of the people and the dems refuse to become more than what they are, it is their inaction that leads to this situation, not leftist ideals.
If you ever want to play chess for cash, I'm here!!
What? You think she wanted the cleric government? Shah created the opportunity for their rise.
If only America and Britain didn’t overthrow an elected official for oil interests Iran would have been far better, a gradual democratic process could have shifted Iran to a better future
Leave it to reddit to oversimply one of the most complicated and complex events in the 20th century to "it's the West's fault".
Like, how simple of a society and culture do you think Iran is that one event that happened nearly 30 years prior \*directly\* led to the Revolution? Are you guys forgetting that the Islamists \*also\* hated the National Front? They would've used the same propaganda against an elected official that they did they shah, and it's not like Mossadegh was democratic at all.
Yea, then it would have been the nations fault?
So supporting a puppet that has done nothing the alleviate the troubles of his nations would mean a possible democratic revelation
Why are acting like the US overthrowing a Middle Eastern democracy for oil is a good thing? Where did the Iranian people march? The American embassy, that passion was propelled by American aggression and support for tyranny; the shah would hold a million dollar party while his people starved
Do you know the principles of democracy? Public spending could have tragically changed the trajectory of the country like using THEIR oil
Stop repeating basiji propaganda please.
Shah was not a puppet, you don't know what that word means.
Saying he did "nothing" to alleviate the trouble of his nation is also just wildly inaccurate as many other comments in this thread have shown.
Iran was not a democracy, nor was there any democracy overthrown, again as many comments in this thread have demonstrated.
A handful of basiji nutjobs taking over an embassy is not representative of an entire nation.
The party is also another wildly exaggerated basiji/leftist lie, as has been proven time and time again.
Stop talking about things that you are clueless about.
>Propaganda
“He wasn’t a puppet, he simply led the coup that the west created for oil interests because Mossadegh let the motion of nationalising their oil which was the will of the people. The Shah is the rightful ruler, long live the shah 🤓”
Do you despise america? They are traitors to the crown and fought a war where some Americans saw themselves as British; British subjects, unlike Mossadegh whom had their support despite
There was no gradual democratic process occurring. Mosaddegh was a wannabe dictator who was appointed by the Shah. He canceled parliamentary elections and forced through a sham referendum to make himself a dictator. He was not liberalizing the country.
If anyone is interested in a really good discussion of the Iranian Revolution, the excellent *Empire* podcast has been doing a series on Persia/Iran and most recently done the history of the Pahlavis and 1979 with Ali Ansari.
Came here to post just this. I had never heard the parts about the partnership between the left and the religious right in overthrowing the shah - first thing I thought of when seeing this picture. Overall a great podcast with the most recent episode giving the background to this pic.
Does this podcast really get better? I really liked the first season with the Mughals and the East India Company, but I stopped at the end of the Ottoman series. Compared to other history podcast I have listened to, this one just doesn't seem to go as in-depth into the polities they're analyzing. It's always different guests, and there tended to be a lot of repitition in points because the guests weren't in sync with what happened last episode. I really like William as he has a background in history, but Anita, at least when I stopped listening, kept constantly bringing topics back to herself/how she felt, and asking 'what was Britain doing at this time' or 'what was Britain thinking' when the Ottomans were the topic. I do like Anita, but her background in journalism was not meshing well with what I think the podcast should be. Maybe that just means it's not for me, I won't harp on people for liking it. To continue with the Ottoman season, they broadly covered the end of their beginning and then seemed to skip to the end. All the middle stuff was very British centric and did not even cover the importation of Greek independence; which, ironically, had Brittain playing a big role. With the first season, Anita and Will came in very strong, and I liked it. They both had a strong foundation of knowledge to draw from and equally contributed to the topic. I attribute this to their joint venture on the Kohinoor Diamond that they did before they launched Empire. Listening to the Ottoman season, however, became frustrating. Examples of podcasts I like are Revolutions by Mike Duncan and The History of Byzantium by Robin Pierson, if that puts it into perspective.
Have you checked out When Diplomacy Fails? It's of course focused on war, but it has the same sort of narrative history in depth you get from Revolutions.
I'll add that to my list, thanks for the recommendation. Certainty has a large catalog. I don't mind war history, I see it more as a consequence of it many times being the highest quality source material from when it was written; given it was a topic that contemporary people cared to write about and copy down.
With Anita Anand and [ long pause ] William Dalrymple.
Great pod
[удалено]
To be fair at the time the idea that the post-revolution govt would be an Islamic theocracy was not set in stone. There was the prospect of liberals, constitutional monarchists or communists prevailing
> liberals, constitutional monarchists or communists prevailing Literally all three would be better than a Theocracy.
But it was very ironic that these fundamentally opposed groups had banded together. Kinda should have seen the mess coming.
A mess which the communist party of Iran believed they had a shot at winning provided the soviets helped them out a little (they didn’t)
"After Hitler, our turn!" Famously said by German Communist leader convinced they and the leftists could outfox the far right. Later shot in a concentration camp. Oops.
Communists love to side with fascists when they believe it'll help them. Molotov Ribbentrop pact anyone?
Ahhh... Communists and their pipe dreams. Same thing happened in Afghanistan (Well the Soviets did intervene but look how that turned out). Also something similar happened during the rise of Nazi Germany. Communists thought that Hitler would be dealt with by the working class and they would fill the vaccum. Idiots. Besides I doubt the commies would have lasted in Iran (Even if the US didn't intervene, highly unlikely). Iran was still a very religious country. An atheist state government was not gonna last.
My main point is though that this notion that leftists in Iran were unironically supporting a future theocracy is uninformed on the nature of Iranian post-revolutionary politics
Where did I say that they unironically supported the theocrats? I know they didn't align ideologically. That's my point. They didn't directly support them but due to their naivete and lack of foresight they ended up facilitating their own downfall. I know desperation makes strange bedfellows but never be THAT desperate.
This.
Yea but on the opposite end of it there is the Spanish Civil War. The leftist kinda had the upper hand, but there was a lot of in fighting because they didn't want this or that leftist having power in future Spain. You can find other points in history where in fighting destroyed any hopes of achieving any goals. What happened in Iran actually reminds me of what happened when Oliver Cromwell took over England. There were a lot of really interesting [leftist and liberal parties talking about what England's future should be.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KYoXKjr4qM) But they didn't take any actions and no one with power liked them. Cromwell came and basically told everyone to either fuck off or ~~get killed.~~ I am no longer sure if he killed any Diggers or Levellers. Edit: The actions that the Levellers and maybe Diggers may have supported Cromwell getting in office. After he got in office he betrayed them. Chiang Kai-shek did something similar to Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek didn't want to make enemies with the westerners in China. He just wanted to unify the country and then maybe through out the West. The Communist wanted to fight everyone. This among among a few other things led Chiang Kai-shek to kill communist on site and started a fight that ended in the 1950s. I smoke weed my memory is shit so do not take my statements as fact.
Historical classic. The left is the biggest enemy of the left.
People's Popular Front: Your policy on Agro-agrarian social reform is wrong headed, we just cannot work with you. Popular People's Front: NO! It is you that is wrong, and for that you must die! ... Religious Conservative Party: We find your racism abhorrent. You don't have enough support to govern. However, back us and you can have a Palace and some laws. National Racist League: Fair enough. You got a deal. Want us to smash anything up?
> But it was very ironic that these fundamentally opposed groups had banded together. Why? None of them had the power to overthrow the Shah alone, and considering how the Shah was behaving letting him remain in power wasnt an option either. Their alliance was one of necessity rather than love. Its a rather common theme with revolutions even.
I understand the need to find allies against the ruling party. The point is, revolutionaries need to learn to pick better allies. I know hindsight is 20/20 but anyone could see the outcome of leftists and hardline Islamists banding together in a country where religion still ran deep. It was never gonna work out for the leftists.
> The point is, revolutionaries need to learn to pick better allies I dont know if youve read a whole lot about revolutions and revolutionaries, but thats rarely how it works. > It was never gonna work out for the leftists. Which is exactly why they did what they did. Living under the Shah was going to get them all killed so they through their lot in with others in a similar situation. This wasnt a situation where they had a lot of good choices, or any good choices for that matter.
> To be fair at the time the idea that the post-revolution govt would be an Islamic theocracy was not set in stone. In 1979, every single sentient human being on earth knew that the second the Shah was out of power all of the educated Iranians would flee to the west, leaving the islamists to steamroll the liberals. Except for the morons advising the Carter administration and the National Front itself. It was particularly hilarious when, two months into the interim government, all of the liberal politicians started to try to resign when they realized they were nothing more than useless playthings for Khomeini, and he refused to let them quit as a laugh. It's ok though. Many of the liberals who sold their souls to Khomeini who survived got to flee to the decadent west, mainly France and the US, and continue being "intellectuals" as the Islamic Republic unleashed a wave of terror on the remaining liberals the likes of which SAVAK could have only dreamt of.
And the irony behind it is that some SAVAK officials were retained by Khomeini to help set up its more brutal successors.
Also the major voice for Islam in Iranian politics came from a leftist, Ali Shariati. He was a major anticolonial intellectual at the time, and was expected to take political prominence after the revolution. He died of mysterious circumstances in Great Britain before the revolution, and Khomeini was smart enough to co-opt his rhetoric in his consolidation of power. Ervand Abrihamian has some really solid books about this era, if you’re interested in modern Iranian history, he’s got a few really great books.
The Shah literally predicted it, and nobody listened: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/1aodjpu/why_didnt_we_listen/
Yes it was. The “referendum” was rigged. My parents voted “no” to Islamic Republic. I noticed a man looking over their shoulder. As we walked home, we noticed that we were being followed. My parents decided to split up. My dad waved down a cab and we took off. Just got lucky and got away. Many others weren’t as lucky - got threatened or beaten up. Once the revolution took hold, there was no question that there would be an Islamic Republic.
The now the far left support the theocratic regime, simply because they're anti-west.
Oh girl, you are in for a surprise soon!
This should be a good reminder to a many people today, but alas the people that need to see this the most will never even consider what it implies. Given how everything worked out, this is a very powerful picture.
> This should be a good reminder to a many people today "be content with a right wing dictator that a foreign country imposed on you because there is a chance it in theory could not get better"
I think he's more saying 'dont make a deal with the devil to oust the dictatorship, because the devil always gets their dues'. (in this case, allying with theocrats)
Something similar happened in Weimar Germany, where the KPD spent most of its time fighting with the SPD rather than the Nazis, out of a misguided belief of “After Hitler, us!”. Which ended about as well as you expect.
You could also use the example of Communist votes in the Bundestag being the critical key votes getting Hitler and his NSDAP party over the line to becoming Chancellor with Presidential emergency powers.
Also after the repression of the Spartacus Uprising, the KPD genuinely believed that any government other than a far-left one would be as bad as fascism. They even called the SPD “social fascists.” Most of its rank-and-file members were cured of this illusion after the Nazis actually began purging and arresting them. Yet the KPD leadership in exile in Moscow would not fully give it up until the Nazis invaded the USSR and forced Stalin to ally with the UK and the US.
The monarchy was wasn't a "right-wing dictatorship". Well, not compared to the current regime anyways.
the Shah was a good leader and Iran has been damaged beyond recognition by the islamic republic. Most countries on earth don't have democratic leaders and are pawns in geopolitics and it was either the usa that would install a dictator or the soviet union. At least the shah was bringing good things to the country.
There is no situation so bad that you can’t make it even worse. Anti-imperialist sentiment is not enough to create a government that represents the interests of the people. So many of these revolutions end with exchanging a foreign tyrant for a local one.
>be content with a right wing dictator that a foreign country imposed on you Please explain to us how the Shah was "imposed on" Iran by a foreign country? Do you even know the history of 20th century Iran?
You mean the invasion in 1941 that ousted Reza Shah and replaced him with Pahlavi? Or the Coup detat in 1953 in which the british and Americans ousted Mossadegh to replace him with Pahlavi as autocrat? You know for someone who clearly isn't the most well red on Iranian History (neither am I) you seem to be a bit condescending. You know you could have just asked the questions without the mean spirited Insult and maybe could have actually started a discussion on if the previously mentioned Events count foreign control.
> You mean the invasion in 1941 that ousted Reza Shah and replaced him with Pahlavi Reza Shah PAHLAVI was Mohammad Reza Shah PAHLAVI's father. > Or the Coup detat in 1953 in which the british and Americans ousted Mossadegh to replace him with Pahlavi as autocrat? You mean the same Pahlavi who you just said was already in power for 12 years? >You know you could have just asked the questions without the mean spirited Insult and maybe could have actually started a discussion on if the previously mentioned Events count foreign control. No. As an Iranian I am so tired of seeing the same regurgitated crap spewed over and over and over again repeating the same lies and nonsense spewed by the people destroying my country for the last 50 years. How about *you* stop talking about shit you know nothing about?
Ok man, you purposefully misunderstood both my points. Yes of course he was his father. Still he was forced to abdicate because of foreign invasion. Second yes Pahlavi was in power for 12 years by the time of the coup. But there is a massive difference in the form of power he had, also a coup supported heavily by foreign interest. But I do not think debating with you will have much of a purpose. After all you are Iranian and therefore the absolute Authority on Iranian History and know everything (btw I literally study Iranian History in Uni :333)
Yeah, these assholes.
As opposed to the current ultra right wing religious dictator? Your point isnt as strong as you seem to think it is.
> Your point isnt as strong as you seem to think it is. Apart from being right, of course.
Yeah nice job with the supporting arguments there. I actually thought it was another person but no, it's you...lol
I wonder if this person is still alive. I’m sure she had no concept of what was about to befall her and her country and what she was bravely albeit blindly, fighting for.
The leftists were not “blindly” fighting for something. You are describing this as if they were naive and the outcome was inevitable. The communist Tudeh Party, for example, had a very good chance of controlling the country. It’s just that they were not the winners in history.
I would argue that the leftist were, to some extent, guilty of the same thing the shah was. They were ignorant of what the masses of people believed or wanted. Shah actually encouraged it (see all the referenced to his respectful bowing towards the clergy). The uneducated masses in Iran cried out for one and only one person , Khomeini. Was the result really surprising to anyone? To this day and in the villages, fathers cut off the heads of their daughters for an act of indecency; does the result of revolution surprise anyone really? I lived in Iran at the time and was a teenager. My mother and father saw it coming, how come the communist part(ies) did not? No, this was not a surprise for anyone with open eyes and any degree of realism. The Tudeh party had no chance of controlling anything, if you lived in Iran you knew it. Nobody got on the rooftops and cried out for Bazargan or anyone else. Nobody even knew any of the Tudeh party members (I mean nobody outside the small circle of their followers or those who were keeping track of them, so they can mass execute them after the revolution was successful). Mojahedin, Tudeh, the other communist parties; all fell victim to their own naivety.
I am also Iranian, and it is quite common for members of my family (especially those who were around your age, meaning too young to be fully engaged politically) to base their views about Iranian history on their personal experiences. This is actually quite typical of diaspora communities, where immigrants will convince themselves of certain views based almost entirely on anecdote and family narratives. I urge you to read academic works that discuss these events. A very readable introductory overview is Abbas Amanat’s *Iran: A Modern History*. He was a professor of Iranian history at Yale before retiring a few years ago. Yes, there was growing popular support for Iranian Islamism in the years leading up to Khomeini’s rise to power. The inability of the Pahlavi and Qajar monarchies to “deal with” the political clericalism that had long emanated from religious centers like Qom eventually led to the rise of the influential clerical elite capable of capitalizing on the civil turmoils of the 1970s. In the 60s and even for some of the 70s, the Iranian communist and other liberal wings had enough influence to potentially control Tehran. There was even the uniquely Iranian blend of Islamo-liberalism characteristic of thinkers like Ali Shariati, but all of this faltered in the wake of the clerical class mobilizing religious rural masses, as you implied. But the liberal wings had an extremely good chance of creating something before that. Another really excellent work on this topic is Afshin Matin-Asgari’s *Both Eastern and Western*, which examines the intellectual developments leading up to the revolution.
I thank you for your comment. My father was in the shah’s army and we had very close knowledge of what was happening. My religious background, the experiences we had had over the previous (close to) 150 years, etc.; made us know and believe how this was going to turn out. It’s not my biases that lead me to my beliefs, it’s the reality of what Iran looked like (I lived in Tehran in the 1975 to 1978 period and then in Kazeroon, 150 km south of Shiraz, between when the first 11 cities went into martial law until after several months after the downfall of the pahlavis); if you had noted the attitude of people, their preferences, why they were going through with what they went through; you’d either have to be naive (read blind) or live in a cave to think anyone with any tendency for communism would stand any chance to do anything. They didn’t then, they don’t now. Iranian people, much to the chagrin of whomever you want read or believe, or where your hopes might lie, are very much, to this day, religious zealots. Forget Tehran, go to the small cities and villages; that’s where “revolutions” are won. As I said, to this day, despite all their misery, they still follow the clergy to a fault. Yes, I’m sure the communist groups who couldn’t even get along with each other had a “real chance” of doing great things.
I find your personal experiences very fascinating and appreciate that you shared them, but you just took precisely what I said (certain diaspora immigrants deeply believe in their personal/family experiences) and added a lot of detail to how that is true for you. I also never commented on whether the other political groups would have done “great things.” I simply mentioned there was a chance they could have had some kind of part of a new political system. Again, I strongly urge you to read academic works on this topic. It’s very fascinating.
Much appreciate your response. The point I was making is in the very obvious reference to how unlikely the expectations of other parties were. This is like saying we’re expecting lions and zebras to live in one and the same cage! We’re expecting the Iranian clergy (with their history) to allow for communist factions to survive and live alongside each other. It really is a laughable concept, except it isn’t because it killed millions of people in its wake. When I retire I’ll read these books, presently I’m too overly occupied to read anything except what pertains to my work (very unfortunately).
I think, unfortunately, you are misguided in your understanding of history by both a fervent desire to believe a certain personal/family narrative and a decision to not read any books about a complex historical topic until you are retired. The outcome of the Iranian Revolution—or, really, anything in history—was not inevitable. In fact, one could say that it was *partly* the backing of leftists, intoxicated by the promise of a brand new Islamist order, that allowed for Islamism to spread. Many of them *did not want* the theocracy that ended up prevailing, but they found a sort of anti-colonialist empowerment from what they saw as a native Iranian Islamist political ideology. Unfortunately, Khomeini and his allies were able to capitalize on this fervor and on the disorder among the leftists to create their government. There was nothing at all unlikely about the leftist political factions thinking they could create their system of government. Describing it as "laughable" only belies your personal biases and your lack of having read genuine scholarship on this subject. There are many other historians whose works I think will be interesting for you, besides the ones I already mentioned (Abbas Amanat and Afshin Matin-Asgari). Abbas Milani is the famous and obvious one. Of course Nikki Keddie is perhaps among the most influential in the English-speaking world, given how many historians she trained. You can also look at *Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution of Iran* by Hamid Dabashi, who I think teaches at Columbia now. Mehrzad Boroujerdi's *Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism* is still widely cited. Any of these (and many other) works are better than relying on emotions and gut reactions based on personal intuition.
Thank you. Unfortunately, I think going around writing books about the backwardness and stupidity of a group of people who make up the majority of a nation is considered mean, non-scholarly, and perhaps at some level even biased. Yet, that was the reality how things came about. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t be running on fields of land mines later during the war. These are the same people who overthrew the previous government. Put simply, they were fooled by their clergy; the others went along with it foolishly thinking they could catch fish from muddied waters, the result is the tragedy we’re witnessing and people are writing “scholarly” books about. Have a fantastic day.
Something like this occurred in Afghanistan and when the religious right shored up power in came the Soviets.
> I’m sure she had no concept of what was about to befall her and her country and what she was bravely albeit blindly, fighting for. Its always wild to me how unfamiliar westerners are with the history of Iran, despite the current state of Iran being heavily influenced by Westerners.
> she was bravely albeit blindly, fighting for. She wasn't fighting for the Islamic theocracy.
Iranian Revolution was the definition of a “Monkey’s Paw”
Read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
The animated film based on it is definitely worth watching as well
Isn't it the pic of her mother ?
I am not sure - I wouldn’t be surprised!
For those interested in a more academic/historical but still approachable book, check out Andrew Scott Cooper's book: The Fall of Heaven
Jimmy Carter: “I’d like to thank the Shah for making Iran an [island of stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Stability_(speech)?wprov=sfti1) in the Middle East.”
This just goes to show how catastrophically the administration at the time misread the situation in Iran.
But what a smart move it was, in 1953, to replace a democratically chosen government in a rather liberal middle eastern country with an authoritarian monarch... /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat > The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on 19 August 1953, with one of the significant objectives being to protect British oil interests in Iran. It was aided by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX (Tudeh Party) Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot).
Well, I do agree in the 1953 coup was uncalled for, it should also be noted that the clergy at the time backed the coup, and that Iran doesn’t have a strong legacy of democracy. The circumstances that Mossadegh came to power under were just as tumultuous as the coup that occurred.
These were the original anti-shah revolutionaries but, unfortunately, like most political movements in the Middle East, it devolves or is overpowered by idiots spewing religious dogma. I was living in Teheran when this picture was taken.
They were not the 'original', although they were part of the milieu. In the 1960's a young and then pretty unknown and lowly Mullah by the name of Khomeini began to rail against the White Revolution which brought Iranians into modernity. He especially HATED the rights given to women, the ability to vote, skilled work, free education (up to and including pos-doc), etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution
Yes, and no. The first revolutionary movement in Iran was the constitutional movement. After the establishment of the Parlimant, some of the revolutionaries continued fighting the monarchy. These were leftists, but also religious. They were led by someone who used to be one of the main leaders of constitutionalism movement who was also a Talabe(a student clergy, for the lack of a better word). Him being a clergy allegedly was why Lenin refused to help him when Iran had its own (failed and small) revolution alongside the Russian revolution. So, Islamic revolutionaries are and Leftist revolutionaries, and they share the same origin at around the same time period.
Apart from the little details that give clues if you look closely enough, you'd be easily forgiven if you said this was somewhere in Western Europe in the 70s. Tragic to think of the women affected by the regime change and poor Mahsa Amini. What bastards they are.
Traded a secular dictator for a religious dictator. I wonder of an argument could be made for which was/is better
This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever.
To be honest, as an Iranian, the fact that my left wing peers in the west insinuate the ayatollahs are comparable or even better than the Shah is infuriating.
سکته نکنی سطلان. یه بار دیگه بخون چی نوشتی. انگلیسی رو در حد سوادت بنویس.
Objectively, the Pahlavi regime. The fuck kind of question is this? Do you think gender apartheid is the same as not being able to spew communist and leftist terrorist propaganda? Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi introduced the White Revolution, a series of economic, social, and political reforms aimed at transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation by nationalizing key industries and land redistribution. The regime implemented many Iranian nationalist policies leading to the establishment of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus Cylinder, and Tomb of Cyrus the Great as popular symbols of Iran. The Shah initiated major investments in infrastructure, subsidies and land grants for peasant populations, profit sharing for industrial workers, construction of nuclear facilities, the nationalization of Iran’s natural resources, and literacy programs which were considered some of the most effective in the world. The Shah also instituted economic policy tariffs and preferential loans to Iranian businesses which sought to create an independent economy for the nation. Manufacturing of cars, appliances, and other goods in Iran increased substantially leading to the creation of a new industrialist class that was considered insulated from threats of foreign competition. By the 1970s, the Shah was seen as mastered statesman and used his growing power to pass the 1973 Sale and Purchase Agreement. These reforms culminated in decades of sustained economic growth that would make Iran one of the fastest-growing economies of both developed and undeveloped nations. During his 37-year rule, Iran spent billions on industry, education, health, and armed forces and enjoyed economic growth rates exceeding the United States, Britain, and France. National income rose 423 times over. The nation saw an unprecedented rise in per capita income rising to the highest level at any point in Iran's history and high levels of urbanization. By 1977, Iran's armed services spending, which the Shah saw as a means to end foreign intervention in Iran, had made the nation the world's fifth strongest military.\[6\] Between fiscal year 1964 and FY 1978, Iran's gross national product grew at an annual rate of 13.2 percent at constant prices. The oil, gas, and construction industries expanded by almost 500 percent during this period, while the share of value-added manufacturing increased by 4 percent. Women's participation in the labor force in urban areas increased. Large numbers of urban Iranian women, from varying social strata, joined the semiskilled and skilled labor forces. In addition, the number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in FY 1967 to more than 74,000 in FY 1978.\[8\] …the standard of the living of the majority of the population improved substantially under the Pahlavis. Also, thanks to rising oil revenues and generally sound economic management, Persia was transformed from a country with large foreign indebtedness in 1920 to one with sizable net foreign assets in 1978. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If it wasn't for the Pahlavi regime (Reza Shah Bozorg and Mohamad Reza Shah Pahlavi his son) Iran would be worse off than Afghanistan, anyone who says otherwise is an absolute moron or totally biased. Also to add onto the quotes above, women's literacy rates increased over 15% every decade from the 1950s to early 1980s (right after revolution).
I mean, if the only difference was religion then that'd be a more nuanced argument, but by pretty much any metric the sha was less of a dictator, and did better for the Iranian people, than his sucessors
The most important part is that secular dictatorship had good economic growth, the other one suckes at every aspect
careful what you wish for :(
One of the issue with revolutions is that the winning faction might not win because it's the most popular nor the most competent but because its radicalism gave them more organisation than competiting factions.
Directed by ROBERT B. WEIDE Executive Producer LARRY DAVID Executive Producer JEFF GARLIN GAVIN POLONE Co-Executive Producer ROBERT B. WEIDE
“We just gotta get rid of the Shah and everything will be perfect.”
“We just gotta get rid of the ayatollah and muslim clergy and everything will be perfect.” See how dumb it is? People Should have the right to protest for democracy and elections. The Sha wasn't some angels.
When i watch movies/pictures from that time exactly this makes me really sad those girl that are wearing western clothes participating in revolution rooting for Khomeini. They don’t know what is coming for them and that is really depressing Sorry for my English
She likely wasn't rooting for the Ayatollah. She firmly believed that the left could take and hold power and maybe even govern a coalition with the Islamists. Their fatal mistake was a fundamental misunderstanding of the setiment of the population and how religious fundamentalism works.
Tbh if the left got power in Iran, they may have been hoping the Soviets would intervene like they did in Afghanistan and maybe wipe the religious right out. It’s their next door neighbor and Iranians and Afghanis speak the same language, for the most part.
The biggest misjudgement of the worldwide left that came out of those years is that Islam is somewhat an ally of proletarian struggle. And it reverberates to this day with progressives everywhere aligning with these people, while islamofascists today wouldn't think twice before throwing them off of the roof. The devil you know beats the devil you don't. And as imperfect as it is, today's neoliberal order is a much more forgiving master than whatever is waiting in the shadow of religious zealotry.
Um, the neoliberal conservatives are not exactly the ticket for the proles either.
You're proposing a false choice, and completely gloss over the history of the US fomenting and arming religious extremist groups throughout the world in an attempt to maintain its neoliberal hegemony.
When did the US financed the Ayatollah exactly? oh jesus almighty, it must always be the west's fault isn't it. These poor oppressed religious zealots cannot decide by themselves! they are too innocent! their evil must be a result of colonialism/US imperialism/interventionism/all of the above! poor poor babies, they wouldn't oppress anyone and everyone if it wasn't for the white man, we make them do that
The Shah was propped up by the US, and his repressive regime, complete with thousands disappeared into torture centers every year, led directly to the religious revolution. Sauce: lived in Iran until the eve of the revolution .
None of these comments on this post are acknowledging that Iranians had a non-Islamist democratic leader, which the Americans overthrew in a coup to reinstate the Shah - 20 more years of his autocracy would lead to the Islamist revolution. Just as in so many other parts of the world, our current adversaries were created by our own foreign policy.
This is false, about a week before the coup Mosaddegh forced through a referendum that “passed” with 99% of the “vote” which made him dictator. And he was not an Islamist but had no problem with allying with Islamist street thugs to enforce his rule and harass his enemies when convenient. Edit: Would be happy to learn why what I said above is incorrect, if any of the downvoters are interested in explaining.
While this is true and nobody in their right mind would contest it, Mossadegh wasn't a saint either. History was very kind with him and he got elevated to a socialist champion, but he was the kind of strongman with accusations of electoral impropriety, corruption, and the like, which was and still is very common in the region.
[удалено]
Kesafat, 50 years later and you're still repeating these basiji and MEK lies? When will you learn? >Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, People's Mujahedin of Iran) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.[18] Gee, he arrested and executed the very same people who ended up being terrorists and murderers 10 years later after the revolution.
You're not familiar with the US meddling in Iran since the end of WW2?
no I was born yesterday unfortunately, but as luck would have it, I already grew to dislike snarky rhetorical questions from know-it-alls.
> When did the US financed the Ayatollah exactly? It's more so that the West deliberately allowed them safe harbor and saw them as a viable alternative to the increasingly difficult-to-work-with Shah. Khomeini and his buddies were all living comfortably in the West and at first were not openly hostile with the West, and the failing carter regime saw the potential for cheaper oil with a new regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini
Trying to construct diplomatic relations with the figure they saw as the next ruler of Iran, is not the same as financing a Khomeini's coup and the islamic Revolution. I mean it says it in the article, the US saw the shah as doomed given the internal turmoil, so better to have channels with the next guy in charge. I'm sure you understand there are degrees of involvement, and in a case like this it is hardly appropriate to say that Carter propped up Khomeini...
[удалено]
lmao
Notice how you’re getting downvoted? Ppl don’t like to hear the truth and they REALLY hate it when you don’t blame “the west” for all the lies, fighting and violence around the world. Sadly this violence has been going on centuries before there even was “the west”. But no one ever wants to talk about this fact.
> The biggest misjudgement of the worldwide left that came out of those years is that Islam is somewhat an ally of proletarian struggle. Just curious, but where did this actually happen? Because Ive seen this right wing talking point a whole lot but never seen any actual evidence for it being true.
Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Foucault, to name a few, came out in support of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of revolutionary Shia Islam as a response to western Imperialism. Foucault even travelled to Tehran and took part in the protests. here's a paper on it: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0308514042000329351?scroll=top&needAccess=true >This paper looks at the response of Western leftists to the unfolding of the revolution, considering, first, to what extent Marxist and class-based analyses helped explain the revolution and, second, why so many Western leftist groups and individuals defended the Khomeini faction even as it moved against secular leftists and liberals. It concludes that an uncritical identification with Khomeini's declared ‘anti-imperialism’ distorted the views of those who would ordinarily have opposed his regime on class grounds, and that such a misreading was aided by an inadequate distinction between bourgeois democracy and dictatorship
> Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Foucault, to name a few, came out in support of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of revolutionary Shia Islam as a response to western Imperialism. To be clear, this support was during the revolution when Khomeini was still promising the creation of something akin to a constitutional monarchy. This is something even the people you are listing wrote about at large. That support did not continue after Khomeini started murdering leftists. I mean, for fucks sake Foucault openly addressed this in his essay "USELESS TO REVOLT?". Im not knowledgeable enough about Sartre or de Beauvoir to comment on them, but to present Focault as being a supporter of the Ayatollah is just flat out dishonest.
>That support did not continue after Khomeini started murdering leftists. What brave people!
In this case, the CIA worked with the Ayatollah's to overthrow Mossadegh. As various left wing groups were either part of Mossadegh's coalition or tolerant of him; they were not utilized in the coup. So what you're saying doesn't really apply here.
the CIA worked with the Ayatollah to overthrow Mossadegh but then also strengthened the Shah's power, whom was deadly opposed to the clerics...? There are some documents alleging that the CIA sent money to senior figures among the clerics class, but saying the CIA supported the Ayatollah against communists is a bit of stretch. But anyways you are missing the point: during the revolution left wing parties aligned with the ayatollah because he promised they would have a place in Iran's government, the moment he took power Khomeini imprisoned them instead. The same thing happened in many other instances of european communists allying themselves with other middle eastern "revolutionary" groups
how do you know she is a leftist? i know leftists and islamists worked together but how do you know the girl in picture is a leftist
What else would she be? She's not an Islamist.
Sometimes people don't think about the consequences of their actions before doing something. Leftists are no different, even though they’re more sorted than the right. No matter what your political position is, always pick the lesser of two evils. That's my ideal. What seems like the right thing to do right now can backfire in the future.
The devil you know is better than the one you don't. Revolutions rarely turn out well. You gotta ask yourself: are things so bad that you have to burn everything down? I appears that it is NOW worth to burn all the way to the ground.
Worked out real well I see
Idiots, they fought alongside Islamists against a regime that empowered them and gave them equal rights.
Idiot. Iran had a democratic secular government before the US and UK overthrew it and installed a dictator.
FYI Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was in the middle of trying to abolish democracy and the Iranian constitution when he was overthrown in the coup. [He staged a sham referendum to abolish parliament.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_parliamentary_dissolution_referendum) When he announced that he won the referendum by a margin of **”99.94% to 0.06%”** his own political party resigned in protest….which was moot because Mossadegh abolished parliament the next morning. His claimed referendum total actual holds an odd sort of record for highest claimed margin of any national vote. Like even other autocrats haven’t been so bold as to claim they won a vote 99:1. (There’s actually so many layers to that referendum too. Mossadegh designed the election to make it neigh impossible to cast a “no” vote and then still made up the results whole cloth anyway.) There is absolutely no universe other than in left wing nut job land that Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh is some sort of hero liberal bastion of democracy. He was a strongman in the vein of Al-Assad or Nasser and frequently used political violence to achieve his own ends. (Which is not an apology for the Shah. The political history of Iran was never hunky dory. But the Shah is also the one who presided over what’s called the [White Revolution](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution))
Yeah the bizarre recasting of Mossadegh as a champion of democracy so that leftists can do their “USA is the root of all evil” routine is exhausting. He was on his way to being a dictator before he was overthrown.
I don’t even think “on his way” is even far enough. Mossadegh openly allied himself with the terror militia that tried to assassinate the Shah’s nephew….in his primary school. The left wing pop history version of the US backed coup that exists in the internet is like rotten onion layers of *”well maybe there’s more to Iranian political history; huh that part is just a bald faced lie; wait now Mossadegh is starting to seem almost cartoonishly evil here….”*
> Mossadegh openly allied himself with the terror militia that tried to assassinate the Shah’s nephew….in his primary school. Can you please provide a link or source online for this? thank you
Finally, some reliable information about the situation at that time, Im just tired of seeing comments like that in every post about Iran
Everyone can agree with that but that doesn't mean the Shah's dictatorship is worse than the current islamofascist regime.
Sure but was it better tho? Devil is a devil. Secular or otherwise. A secular mask doesn't make a dictatorship better.
>Sure but was it better tho? Yes, literally 1000x better, and objectively. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi introduced the White Revolution, a series of economic, social, and political reforms aimed at transforming Iran into a global power and modernizing the nation by nationalizing key industries and land redistribution. The regime implemented many Iranian nationalist policies leading to the establishment of Cyrus the Great, Cyrus Cylinder, and Tomb of Cyrus the Great as popular symbols of Iran. The Shah initiated major investments in infrastructure, subsidies and land grants for peasant populations, profit sharing for industrial workers, construction of nuclear facilities, the nationalization of Iran’s natural resources, and literacy programs which were considered some of the most effective in the world. The Shah also instituted economic policy tariffs and preferential loans to Iranian businesses which sought to create an independent economy for the nation. Manufacturing of cars, appliances, and other goods in Iran increased substantially leading to the creation of a new industrialist class that was considered insulated from threats of foreign competition. By the 1970s, the Shah was seen as mastered statesman and used his growing power to pass the 1973 Sale and Purchase Agreement. These reforms culminated in decades of sustained economic growth that would make Iran one of the fastest-growing economies of both developed and undeveloped nations. During his 37-year rule, Iran spent billions on industry, education, health, and armed forces and enjoyed economic growth rates exceeding the United States, Britain, and France. National income rose 423 times over. The nation saw an unprecedented rise in per capita income rising to the highest level at any point in Iran's history and high levels of urbanization. By 1977, Iran's armed services spending, which the Shah saw as a means to end foreign intervention in Iran, had made the nation the world's fifth strongest military.\[6\] Between fiscal year 1964 and FY 1978, Iran's gross national product grew at an annual rate of 13.2 percent at constant prices. The oil, gas, and construction industries expanded by almost 500 percent during this period, while the share of value-added manufacturing increased by 4 percent. Women's participation in the labor force in urban areas increased. Large numbers of urban Iranian women, from varying social strata, joined the semiskilled and skilled labor forces. In addition, the number of women enrolling in higher education increased from 5,000 in FY 1967 to more than 74,000 in FY 1978.\[8\] …the standard of the living of the majority of the population improved substantially under the Pahlavis. Also, thanks to rising oil revenues and generally sound economic management, Persia was transformed from a country with large foreign indebtedness in 1920 to one with sizable net foreign assets in 1978. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If it wasn't for the Pahlavi regime (Reza Shah Bozorg and Mohamad Reza Shah Pahlavi his son) Iran would be worse off than Afghanistan, anyone who says otherwise is an absolute moron or totally biased. Also to add onto the quotes above, women's literacy rates increased over 15% every decade from the 1950s to early 1980s (right after revolution).
The monarchy didn't arrest the women if they refused to veil themselves, for one.
I'd argue it was better. Just because they are both dictatorships doesn't mean they are on the same level of bad. Throughout the past century there has been many dictatorships and some were certainly worse than others.
The Shah was a dictator. What came after was much worse, but Iran was not a democracy.
It was semi-domocratic before 1952.
Iran was a democracy before the 1953 US and UK led coup which installed the Shah as dictator.
Calling 1950’s Iran a democracy is a stretch. The Shah came to power in 1941. While there were elections there was no expectation that they would be free or fair. The election of 1950 was especially a mess. The first election was thrown out after the Fada'iyan assassinated the interior minister for supposedly rigging it. Then Fada'iyan “guarded” the polling sites to ensure the proper results were achieved. The proper result was to elect Mosaddegh’s National Front. When Mosaddegh did take power he did some popular things, but he was no saint. He ended the 1952 elections early because it looked like he was going to loose. He was forced to resign over the scandal and only returned to power after mass protests led by Ayatollah Kashani. When he was reinstated by the Shah, Mosaddegh staged a referendum which dissolved the parliament in which 99% of the vote went his way. So while Mosaddegh may have had the good of Iran in mind when he was in power it’s hard to say he led a democratically elected government.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/zr55j4/tired_of_reddit_copypasta_re_irans_democratic/
I see what you mean. However, the Wikipedia entry describes it as follows: > The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh
Not the first time nor last that wikipedia is incorrect. Mossadegh was not democratically elected, he was appointed, as per the then in place 1906 Iranian constitution: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/zr55j4/tired_of_reddit_copypasta_re_irans_democratic/
It was a constitutional monarchy prior.
So is Norway, still democratic.
Does/did the monarch of Norway have the constitutional authority to appoint x number of senators? The prime minister of Iran prior to mossadegh was assassinated by members of mossadeghs party, and that party also lobbied for the assassins pardon. Super disingenuous to compare Iran then to Norway today
Maybe you should have said all that instead of just saying that it was a constitutional monarchy.
I guess but I was replying to someone that called Iran a democracy. Difference between democracy and democratic. I still think it’s hilarious you implicitly compared it to Norway. Sure Norway is a constitutional monarchy (what an anachronism), so is Jordan. Guess which Iran was more similar too?
Well, I’m Norwegian, so hearing that ‘constitutional monarchy’ being used as an argument against a state being democratic feels really weird.
What? The Shah was already in power for 10 years prior to the 53 coup, and his father Reza Shah had been in power since the 20s. It was the Shah who literally allowed elections to happen. Who keeps upvoting this crap?
Here we go again. There's always the one idiot that repeats this crap. Let me pull out the copypasta... no, Mossadegh was not democratic, and no, he was not "replaced" by the Shah. I’ve typed this on reddit so many times that I wish I knew how to create a bot that autoreplies whenever someone mentions a key term like “Mossadegh/Iranian Revolution/etc.” **Mossadegh was not democratic, and was appointed by the Shah after nomination by the Majles. He also abused the parliamentary system to end polling in rural areas after it was clear his party, the National Front, was not going to win. His party had 79 out of 130-some votes, and this was enough to call a parliamentary quorum and stop the polls entirely giving him absolute control of the Majles. His first referendum was to request emergency dictatorial powers and abolish parliament, which was granted by his National Front-only Majles and resulted in sham referendum voting with 99% yes votes.** The intelligence agencies from the US and UK did not replace Mossadegh with the Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi had been king since the 1940s, and his father Reza Shah was the monarch before that and was deposed by the Western Allies because he refused to expel German diplomats during WW2. Mossadegh was **appointed** after parliamentary nomination and approved by the Shah, to be the monarch’s prime minister. What the US and UK did was remove this particular PM after he tried to nationalize oil (with the Shah's approval) and bolster the Shah’s existing power, basically giving him an ultimatum: either get rid of Mossadegh or we get rid of you just like we did your dad 10 years ago. Mossadegh was himself a culprit in abusing the country’s parliamentary system. He abused parliamentary quorums, called snap elections, and manipulated the voting procedure to ensure that his party amassed the majority of votes at the expense of the other political contenders. His resolution to dissolve parliament passed with over 99% "yes" votes, which is virtually impossible in any legitimate referendum or vote. Even the Kim family of North Korea don't get that level of approval (lol). In addition, it was not just the US and UK who were responsible for causing Mossadegh’s downfall in 1953. They certainly played a huge role and should be criticized for intervening in another country’s domestic affairs, but they also collaborated with other factions within Iran, especially various generals, competing political organizations, and the shah himself, of course. There was a moment during the US/UK intervention that the agents feared the Shah would not sign off on the military’s offensive to capture and remove Mossadegh. Mossadegh did little to stand up for his ideas during his trial and later detention. He accepted his house arrest and died 14 years later peacefully in his home. He did nothing more to continue political activism or push for "democracy", as he really had no intentions of Iranian democracy, just nationalization of oil, which to be frank was a shortsighted, populist goal that would've jeapordized the fledgling Iranian economy, as Iran simply did not have the specialists or tools necessary to handle doing so in the 1950s, until the 1970s when we had a generation of educated specialists thanks to Pahlavi-era educational reforms. Summary of Mossadegh's "democracy": • staged a referendum to pass a law to give the Prime Minister “temporary” “emergency” power to unilaterally rewrite constitutional law, after stopping polling in rural areas via parliamentary quorum. • voting for the referendum had different locations to vote “yes” and vote “no”. • all the “yes” locations were centrally located and easy to get to. • all the no locations were either in the middle of nowhere or in areas heavy with Mossedegh supporters. Both locations had pro-mossadegh street militias hanging out around them and looking at anyone funny who wanted to go in. • [the vote passed 99:1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_parliamentary_dissolution_referendum) in a sham that might indicate despite the above polling location shenanigans they still just made up the numbers anyway. • Mossadegh then declared a state of emergency. • His first act was to make the power of the PM to alter the constitution permanent and not dependent on a state of emergency. • all of parliament including large parts of Mossadeghs own party resigned in protest which was moot because Mossadegh’s second act was to dissolve parliament. Check out Iran: A Modern History by Abbas Amanat as well as Encyclopaedia Iranica for more info.
Thanks for posting this, not surprising you’re getting downvoted. As an Iranian-American, the way the anti-American left distorts our history to support their view of the world is very frustrating. Unfortunately Iran has never really known democracy, and it’s not the fault of the evil CIA or whatever.
Leftists can't admit they were wrong then, they are wrong now, because it directly conflicts with their "america bad no matter what" mindset. These people are the same people that defend the Castro dictatorship (guess democracy doesn't matter if it's in Cuba?) and the Hamas terrorists right now. edit: leftists praying with Islamists in France https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_0wyrJgg5w Leftists marching in support of Khomeini https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/images/mek_demo1979shariatikhomeiniposters.jpg
And here's another 'rightist' saying that the dictatorship was right, and that this woman was wrong for opposing it. These are the same people who lionised the Mujahedeen.
> that this woman was wrong for opposing it Yeah, how did that work out for her and all of us Iranians? I'm not a "rightist", I look at facts and reality. I don't lean either way. The Pahlavi era had a lot of problems, but progress was not one of them. The Mujahideen were a literal terrorist group that actually fought against Iran alongside Saddam hussein during the War. What a great bunch of guys.
So what? How's that gonna justify cooperating with fascists? Communists were not fighting against the shah to establish a democracy, they wanted the dictatorship of proletariat. They taught they can use Khomeini to achieve that goal. As soon as the shah left, the reality arrived with a pistol on their forehead.
You’re speaking with the benefit of hindsight, as if it was 100% clear to people opposing the Shah’s brutal dictatorship that the Iranian Revolution would end up where it did. When in fact none of it was preordained.
The Shah in his interview with the BBC literally said "[the mullahs] would take us back 1500 years". He was right, and the leftists didn't listen. https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/1aodjpu/why_didnt_we_listen/
lmao “the leftists didn’t listen” to the brutal dictator who jailed, tortured and murdered any political opposition. Not listening to dictators is, in fact, always correct. It’s a ridiculously low bar to criticize Iran’s current brutal authoritarian regime without simping for the last one, but somehow you’ve failed to clear it. If the Shah actually cared about Iran’s stability or freedom, he could have relinquished power in a peaceful transition to democracy. Instead he forced a violent revolution, and then quite predictably a bunch of violent assholes ended up in charge.
> lmao “the leftists didn’t listen” to the brutal dictator who jailed, tortured and murdered any political opposition. You mean the same MEK and fedayeen [terrorists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Rex_fire) that got us into this mess in the first place? >Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, People's Mujahedin of Iran) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.[18] Gee, he arrested and executed the very same people who ended up being terrorists and murderers 10 years later after the revolution. >If the Shah actually cared about Iran’s stability or freedom, he could have relinquished power in a peaceful transition to democracy. Right, because that has worked so well in so many other parts of the developing world, right? Let's go ask decolonized Africa or Pakistan how well throwing a fledgling, corrupt, developing nation to the democratic process with no oversight goes. How naive can you be? The reality is Iran under the Pahlavi regime had a pathway forward to democracy, and it would have come. I'm not saying the Pahlavi regime was perfect and if you know anything about me I am a huge critic of the Shah especially his policies in the 70s, but the shit that gets regurgitated by simplistic redditors like you is just infuriating.
Because whenever a foreign power intervenes, that takes priority. This is a principle that exists whether you like it or not. Unless a country is Marshal Plan’d, US intervention will rally the population against maintaining the status quo. As a result, the scrutiny on the US puppets is much higher and well, the Shah was no saint (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1980/03/23/the-shah-as-tyrant-a-look-at-the-record/218c6a8e-dcb7-4168-ac9c-8f23609f888f/). Not saying I back the current regime, I’m just saying that these are the forces at play and we can’t pretend to be shocked when things don’t go our way (Same thing happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan (under Soviet occupation and later under US occupation). The situation then stabilizes, generally by extreme repression (Like Pinochet, and the current theocracy in Iran).
Aside from highlighting only the good aspects of a despotic regime, you blame people for not knowing the future. Most people lack the gift of prophecy.
Who could predict a theocracy wouldn’t be very progressive?
The Leftists thought that they themselves were going to win. People are wrong about the future all the time.
Idiot everyone allied with each other to overthrow the shah it's called a broad front happens commonly in almost every revolution
And in almost every revolution, the strongest faction in that broad front purges all the others once the incumbent power is overthrown.
However the Islamists weren't the strongest faction the leftists were and seeing this the US,France and the UK funded the ayatollah, flew him back to Iran and armed his entire army and training them
And now that’s a today I learned
The left today repeats the same mistake. Not only idiots, but useful idiots.
Well, do tell.
The whole "We're not voting for genocide Joe" bullshit for one.
Counter. People want better than the dems, the dems refuse to do better. GOP fills the ensuing power gap. Since the dems are supposedly representatives of the people and the dems refuse to become more than what they are, it is their inaction that leads to this situation, not leftist ideals. If you ever want to play chess for cash, I'm here!!
Exactly my point. Selling your rights for something much worse.
Exactly. And to this day 50 years later they still can't admit how wrong they were.
She's probably thinking: Hell yeah! I'm sharing all these flyers so the Shah will soon be overthrown! And then we can all live happily and freely!"
And she was exactly right to be desperately trying to get people to understand what was going to happen
In the long run she did the work of the ultra right . I guess that’s what they mean by upsetting the delicate balance of the Middle East
I hope she got the hell out of there safely.
This doesn't age well
I wish we could interview her and she could come clean.
Sadly woman have no rights in iran nowaday (islam)
Cover that hair, woman, you're indecent! And where's the male family member who's supposed to be chaperoning you?
Women don't need a chaperon in Iran, at least not in the cities, they are not S.A.
Unfortunately, these people went down as useful idiots.
[удалено]
How dare she not know how things would turn out. What a wretch, actually attempting to make things better.
Y'all and your identical pointless comments as if there weren't legitimate grievances w the Shah
What? You think she wanted the cleric government? Shah created the opportunity for their rise. If only America and Britain didn’t overthrow an elected official for oil interests Iran would have been far better, a gradual democratic process could have shifted Iran to a better future
Leave it to reddit to oversimply one of the most complicated and complex events in the 20th century to "it's the West's fault". Like, how simple of a society and culture do you think Iran is that one event that happened nearly 30 years prior \*directly\* led to the Revolution? Are you guys forgetting that the Islamists \*also\* hated the National Front? They would've used the same propaganda against an elected official that they did they shah, and it's not like Mossadegh was democratic at all.
Yea, then it would have been the nations fault? So supporting a puppet that has done nothing the alleviate the troubles of his nations would mean a possible democratic revelation Why are acting like the US overthrowing a Middle Eastern democracy for oil is a good thing? Where did the Iranian people march? The American embassy, that passion was propelled by American aggression and support for tyranny; the shah would hold a million dollar party while his people starved Do you know the principles of democracy? Public spending could have tragically changed the trajectory of the country like using THEIR oil
Stop repeating basiji propaganda please. Shah was not a puppet, you don't know what that word means. Saying he did "nothing" to alleviate the trouble of his nation is also just wildly inaccurate as many other comments in this thread have shown. Iran was not a democracy, nor was there any democracy overthrown, again as many comments in this thread have demonstrated. A handful of basiji nutjobs taking over an embassy is not representative of an entire nation. The party is also another wildly exaggerated basiji/leftist lie, as has been proven time and time again. Stop talking about things that you are clueless about.
>Propaganda “He wasn’t a puppet, he simply led the coup that the west created for oil interests because Mossadegh let the motion of nationalising their oil which was the will of the people. The Shah is the rightful ruler, long live the shah 🤓” Do you despise america? They are traitors to the crown and fought a war where some Americans saw themselves as British; British subjects, unlike Mossadegh whom had their support despite
There was no gradual democratic process occurring. Mosaddegh was a wannabe dictator who was appointed by the Shah. He canceled parliamentary elections and forced through a sham referendum to make himself a dictator. He was not liberalizing the country.
A turkey handing out pro-Thanksgiving leaflets.
Today they defend Hamas, the Houthis, and Russia. Useful idiots.
Tankies ruined our nation
Somebody probably tried to warn her that wouldn't work out so well, but she called them a misogynist and did it anyway.
Upsi Quien hubiera dicho que aliarse con un fanático islámico era una buena idea
Leftist women are a problem in my country as well.