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Iran
The Coming of the Revolution
By late 1976 and early 1977, it was evident that the Iranian
economy was in trouble. The shah's attempt to use Iran's vastly
expanded oil revenues after 1973 for an unrealistically ambitious
industrial and construction program and a massive military buildup
greatly strained Iran's human and institutional resources and
caused severe economic and social dislocation. Widespread official
corruption, rapid inflation, and a growing gap in incomes between
the wealthier and the poorer strata of society fed public dissatisfaction.
In response, the government attempted to provide the working
and middle classes with some immediate and tangible benefits of
the country's new oil wealth. The government nationalized private
secondary schools, declared that secondary education would be
free for all Iranians, and started a free meal program in schools.
It took over private community colleges and extended financial
support to university students. It lowered income taxes, inaugurated
an ambitious health insurance plan, and speeded up implementation
of a program introduced in 1972, under which industrialists were
required to sell 49 percent of the shares of their companies to
their employees. The programs were badly implemented, however,
and did not adequately compensate for the deteriorating economic
position of the urban working class and those, who, like civil
servants, were on fixed salaries. To deal with the disruptive
effects of excessive spending, the government adopted policies
that appeared threatening to the propertied classes and to bazaar,
business, and industrial elements who had benefited from economic
expansion and might have been expected to support the regime.
For example, in an effort to bring down rents, municipalities
were empowered to take over empty houses and apartments and to
rent and administer them in place of the owners. In an effort
to bring down prices in 1975 and 1976, the government declared
a war on profiteers, arrested and fined thousands of shopkeepers
and petty merchants, and sent two prominent industrialists into
exile.
Moreover, by 1978 there were 60,000 foreigners in Iran--45,000
of them Americans--engaged in business or in military training
and advisory missions. Combined with a superficial Westernization
evident in dress, life styles, music, films, and television programs,
this foreign presence tended to intensify the perception that
the shah's modernization program was threatening the society's
Islamic and Iranian cultural values and identity. Increasing political
repression and the establishment of a one-party state in 1975
further alienated the educated classes.
The shah was aware of the rising resentment and dissatisfaction
in the country and the increasing international concern about
the suppression of basic freedoms in Iran. Organizations such
as the International Council of Jurists and Amnesty International
were drawing attention to mistreatment of political prisoners
and violation of the rights of the accused in Iranian courts.
More important, President Jimmy Carter, who took office in January
1977, was making an issue of human rights violations in countries
with which the United States was associated. The shah, who had
been pressed into a program of land reform and political liberalization
by the Kennedy administration, was sensitive to possible new pressures
from Washington.
Beginning in early 1977, the shah took a number of steps to meet
both domestic and foreign criticism of Iran's human rights record.
He released political prisoners and announced new regulations
to protect the legal rights of civilians brought before military
courts. In July the shah replaced Hoveyda, his prime minister
of twelve years, with Jamshid Amuzegar, who had served for over
a decade in various cabinet posts. Unfortunately for the shah,
however, Amuzegar also became unpopular, as he attempted to slow
the overheated economy with measures that, although generally
thought necessary, triggered a downturn in employment and private
sector profits that would later compound the government's problems.
Leaders of the moderate opposition, professional groups, and
the intelligentsia took advantage of the shah's accommodations
and the more helpful attitude of the Carter administration to
organize and speak out. Many did so in the form of open letters
addressed to prominent officials in which the writers demanded
adherence to the constitution and restoration of basic freedoms.
Lawyers, judges, university professors, and writers formed professional
associations to press these demands. The National Front, the IFM,
and other political groups resumed activity.
The protest movement took a new turn in January 1978, when a
government-inspired article in Ettelaat, one of the country's
leading newspapers, cast doubt on Khomeini's piety and suggested
that he was a British agent. The article caused a scandal in the
religious community. Senior clerics, including Ayatollah Kazem
Shariatmadari, denounced the article. Seminary students took to
the streets in Qom and clashed with police, and several demonstrators
were killed. The Esfahan bazaar closed in protest. On February
18, mosque services and demonstrations were held in several cities
to honor those killed in the Qom demonstrations. In Tabriz these
demonstrations turned violent, and it was two days before order
could be restored. By the summer, riots and antigovernment demonstrations
had swept dozens of towns and cities. Shootings inevitably occurred,
and deaths of protesters fueled public feeling against the regime.
The cycle of protests that began in Qom and Tabriz differed in
nature, composition, and intent from the protests of the preceding
year. The 1977 protests were primarily the work of middle-class
intellectuals, lawyers, and secular politicians. They took the
form of letters, resolutions, and declarations and were aimed
at the restoration of constitutional rule. The protests that rocked
Iranian cities in the first half of 1978, by contrast, were led
by religious elements and were centered on mosques and religious
events. They drew on traditional groups in the bazaar and among
the urban working class for support. The protesters used a form
of calculated violence to achieve their ends, attacking and destroying
carefully selected targets that represented objectionable features
of the regime: nightclubs and cinemas as symbols of moral corruption
and the influence of Western culture; banks as symbols of economic
exploitation; Rastakhiz (the party created by the shah in 1975
to run a one-party state) offices; and police stations as symbols
of political repression. The protests, moreover, aimed at more
fundamental change: in slogans and leaflets, the protesters attacked
the shah and demanded his removal, and they depicted Khomeini
as their leader and an Islamic state as their ideal. From his
exile in Iraq, Khomeini continued to issue statements calling
for further demonstrations, rejected any form of compromise with
the regime, and called for the overthrow of the shah.
The government's position deteriorated further in August 1978,
when more than 400 people died in a fire at the Rex Cinema in
Abadan. Although evidence available after the Revolution suggested
that the fire was deliberately started by religiously inclined
students, the opposition carefully cultivated a widespread conviction
that the fire was the work of SAVAK agents. Following the Rex
Cinema fire, the shah removed Amuzegar and named Jafar Sharif-Emami
prime minister. Sharif-Emami, a former minister and prime minister
and a trusted royalist, had for many years served as president
of the Senate. The new prime minister adopted a policy of conciliation.
He eased press controls and permitted more open debate in the
Majlis. He released a number of imprisoned clerics, revoked the
imperial calendar, closed gambling casinos, and obtained from
the shah the dismissal from court and public office of members
of the Bahai religion, a sect to which the clerics strongly objected
(see Non-Muslim Minorities , ch. 2). These measures, however,
did not quell public protests. On September 4, more than 100,000
took part in the public prayers to mark the end of Ramazan, the
Muslim fasting month. The ceremony became an occasion for antigovernment
demonstrations that continued for the next two days, growing larger
and more radical in composition and in the slogans of the participants.
The government declared martial law in Tehran and eleven other
cities on the night of September 7-8, 1978. The next day, troops
fired into a crowd of demonstrators at Tehran's Jaleh Square.
A large number of protesters, certainly many more than the official
figure of eighty-seven, were killed. The Jaleh Square shooting
came to be known as "Black Friday." It considerably radicalized
the opposition movement and made compromise with the regime, even
by the moderates, less likely. In October the Iraqi authorities,
unable to persuade Khomeini to refrain from further political
activity, expelled him from the country. Khomeini went to France
and established his headquarters at Neauphle-le-Château, outside
Paris. Khomeini's arrival in France provided new impetus to the
revolutionary movement. It gave Khomeini and his movement exposure
in the world press and media. It made possible easy telephone
communication with lieutenants in Tehran and other Iranian cities,
thus permitting better coordination of the opposition movement.
It allowed Iranian political and religious leaders, who were cut
off from Khomeini while he was in Iraq, to visit him for direct
consultations. One of these visitors was National Front leader
Karim Sanjabi. After a meeting with Khomeini early in November
1978, Sanjabi issued a three-point statement that for the first
time committed the National Front to the Khomeini demand for the
deposition of the shah and the establishment of a government that
would be "democratic and Islamic."
Scattered strikes had occurred in a few private sector and government
industries between June and August 1978. Beginning in September,
workers in the public sector began to go on strike on a large
scale. When the demands of strikers for improved salary and working
benefits were quickly met by the Sharif-Emami government, oil
workers and civil servants made demands for changes in the political
system. The unavailability of fuel oil and freight transport and
shortages of raw materials resulting from a customs strike led
to the shutting down of most private sector industries in November.
On November 5, 1978, after violent demonstrations in Tehran,
the shah replaced Sharif-Emami with General Gholam-Reza Azhari,
commander of the Imperial Guard. The shah, addressing the nation
for the first time in many months, declared he had heard the people's
"revolutionary message," promised to correct past mistakes, and
urged a period of quiet and order so that the government could
undertake the necessary reforms. Presumably to placate public
opinion, the shah allowed the arrest of 132 former leaders and
government officials, including former Prime Minister Hoveyda,
a former chief of SAVAK, and several former cabinet ministers.
He also ordered the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners,
including a Khomeini associate, Ayatollah Hosain Ali Montazeri.
The appointment of a government dominated by the military brought
about some short-lived abatement in the strike fever, and oil
production improved. Khomeini dismissed the shah's promises as
worthless, however, and called for continued protests. The Azhari
government did not, as expected, use coercion to bring striking
government workers back to work. The strikes resumed, virtually
shutting down the government, and clashes between demonstrators
and troops became a daily occurrence. On December 9 and 10, 1978,
in the largest antigovernment demonstrations in a year, several
hundred thousand persons participated in marches in Tehran and
the provinces to mark Moharram, the month in which Shia mourning
occurs.
In December 1978, the shah finally began exploratory talks with
members of the moderate opposition. Discussions with Karim Sanjabi
proved unfruitful: the National Front leader was bound by his
agreement with Khomeini. At the end of December another National
Front leader, Shapour Bakhtiar, agreed to form a government on
condition the shah leave the country. Bakhtiar secured a vote
of confidence from the two houses of the Majlis on January 3,
1979, and presented his cabinet to the shah three days later.
The shah, announcing he was going abroad for a short holiday,
left the country on January 16, 1979. As his aircraft took off,
celebrations broke out across the country.
Data as of December 1987
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