The legacy of a revolution

It is impossible to understand the experience of the 1979 revolution in Iran, or the subsequent Islamisation of state and society, without first seeing the roots of the changes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the country was never colonised or formally ruled by a foreign power, capitalist development in Iran in the nineteenth century, though unique in some ways, shared many features of uneven economic development experienced by countries that were so colonised (Tabari 1983: 53; Poya 1999: 29). Fundamentally, the development derived from the need of the European capitalist market to import Iranian goods and to export European manufactured goods back to Iran.

An increase in Iran's trade with Russia and Britain led gradually to the transformation of a largely barter-based economy into a monetised one. The influence of Western capitalism served to increase trade and the import of foreign goods; this accelerated the growth of the urban population, of non-agricultural activities and of commercial agriculture. Participation in the global market changed pre-existing patterns of economic and social life through the reorganisation of labour into proletarians, semi-proletarians and petty commodity producers, sectors which broadly persist today.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Britain and Russia imposed their banks upon Iran and began indirect exploitation by acquiring 'concessions' to collect taxes and to extract and market raw materials and agricultural products, in exchange for an often paltry sum paid to the Qajar Shah's dynasty. For example, in 1890 a British company obtained the monopoly over the production, sale and export of tobacco from Iran, a concession that produced a massive wave of popular discontent. Strikes and street demonstrations made the campaign against tobacco concession highly successful. This experience led to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906–11 and consequently to the fall of the Qajar dynasty (Algar 1969; Keddie 1966; Browne 1910; Abrahamian 1982). As is argued by Vanessa Martin (1989), the Constitutional Revolution formed part of a process of change and conflict between the old and the new order.

With the discovery of large quantities of oil in Iran in 1909 Britain established the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to exploit the country's new-found natural wealth (Issawi 1971: 316–22). During the First World War, British and Russian troops occupied almost all of Iran, creating widespread popular opposition to the occupying powers. However, after the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks quickly abandoned tsarist privileges such as various concessions in Iran. This concentrated popular anger against Britain, which both controlled the oil and supported the governing autocratic regime in Iran. In this period the labour movement was associated with the Communist movements in Iran and in Russia and played an important role in the struggle against the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (Zabih 1966: 1–35; Lajevardi 1985: 14; Rostami-Povey 2004, 2005).

In December 1925, Reza Pahlavi declared himself the Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. Under the influence of the British he was committed to building a modern secular state, promoting nationalism, looking to pre-Islamic identities and curbing the role of the ulema (religious authorities). Iranian economic development in this period centred largely on infrastructure. This was linked to the Shah's desire to control the country effectively through the army, and to the desire of British capital to exploit the oil resources with greater ease, but it also laid the foundation for industrial development in this period. Peasant and nomad communities, which suffered as a consequence of the economic reconstruction, resisted the unjust social relations brought about by the landlords and the state (Cronin 2008: 141–70). Industrial development under Reza Shah began during the global depression of the 1930s, when the terms of trade were in Iran's favour, as oil was exported in return for imported capital goods. Rapid integration into the world economy meant that the landed aristocracy and the propertied middle class declined in terms of economic, social and political power, being replaced by a new bourgeoisie and professional salary-earners. The aim of Reza Shah's state-building was to centralise state power and to keep the clergy and religious institutions under strict control. Development was accompanied by massive repression of all political groups, from communists to liberals, protesting clergy, trade unions, women's organisations and ethnic minority groups (Najmabadi 1991: 52; Abrahamian 1982: 135–65; Cronin 2003).

Iran's population has always been only two-thirds Persian and Farsi-speaking (the official language); the remaining third comprises other ethnic groups (Azeri, Kurd, Arab, Baluch, Turkmen, Gilaki, Qashqai, Bakhtiari, Shahsevan, Lur). The official religion is Shi'a Islam, but there are other religious minorities – Sunni Muslims, Sufi Muslims, Jews, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldians, Zoroastrians and Bahais (Sanasarian 2000; Abrahamian 1982: 12). Under Reza Shah's state these minorities were denied linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic rights – this in addition to the denial of civil rights to the whole population. This repression produced a desire to fight the central state authority which, I argue, had become part of politics in Iran.

When the economic depression reached Iran, the imposition of low wages, long working hours and bad labour conditions caused widespread industrial discontent. Reza Shah's state increasingly faced opposition by women, by workers, as well as by ethnic and religious social groups. In 1941, Britain and Russia invaded Iran, fearing Reza Shah's support for Nazism. The occupying powers forced the Shah to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah (hereafter referred to as 'the Shah') and to leave the country.

Throughout the 1940 s, the political groups that had been suppressed by Reza Shah – liberal nationalists, communists and Islamists – organised and offered political alternatives (Abrahamian 1982: 135–65; Gheissari and Nasr 2006: 45–6; Poya 1999: 40, 36). In 1947, following World War II, Mohammad Mossadeq founded the National Front, demanding free elections, an improvement in economic conditions, press freedom and the right to political participation. In 1950, the National Front denounced the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company for paying inadequate royalties, bypassing local taxes, refusing to employ Iranian workers and interfering in the national sovereignty of Iran. The Tudeh (Communist) Party and the Islamists supported Mossadeq and the National Front and demanded the...