There was tremendous tension between the crown and the Majles. The shah had long had a distaste for parliamentary democracy. According to the U.S. ambassador to Iran at the time, the shah had sought American advice on ways to amend the constitution in order to restrict the powers of the parliament.8 The constitutional powers granted to the monarchy were already extensive, and the Majles was weak and fractured. Nevertheless, to strengthen his hand against the Majles, the shah forged close ties with the military and with those in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. In some ways, his privileged position in handing out patronage and cementing clientelistic ties made such an alliance inevitable, and the powers of the Majles steadily eroded as those of the monarchy increased. When in February 1949 the shah was slightly wounded in an unsuccessful attempt on his life, he seized the initiative by sponsoring legislation that further augmented his constitutional powers and limited those of the Majles. Also, new elections were called for a senate, which had been stipulated in the constitution of 1907 but had never convened.9 The senate, half of whose members were to be appointed by the shah, significantly strengthened the powers of the monarchy in relation to the Majles.
The second phase in the history of the Pahlavi state ended when the shah overcame what was perhaps the most serious challenge to his rule. One of his most vocal opponents in the Majles had been an old-time politician named Dr. Muhammad Musaddiq. Over the years, Musaddiq had emerged as one of the main champions of Iranian nationalism, especially with regard to British control over the country’s oil resources. Despite the steady erosion of the powers of the parliament beginning in 1949, in March 1951 Musaddiq managed to get an oil nationalization bill passed in both the Majles and the senate, following which the shah was left with no alternative but to appoint his old foe as the new prime minister. Protracted and bitter negotiations followed with Britain over the fate of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which Musaddiq now replaced with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). In the end, the negotiations were to no avail. In retaliation for the nationalization, Britain imposed a blockade on the export and sale of Iranian oil, resulting in a drastic deterioration of the country’s economy. Musaddiq’s two requests to the United States for financial assistance were, meanwhile, both rejected. The prime minister’s popularity, once unassailable, began to decline as the initial euphoria of the nationalization gave way to worsening economic realities and the conservative clergy’s reluctance to openly side with him.
On February 28, 1953, the shah made his first serious move against Musaddiq by organizing a paid mob to attack the prime minister. The plot failed. A second attempt, set into motion on August 15, also failed, and the shah hurriedly left Iran, first for Baghdad and then for Rome. Musaddiq, meanwhile, had further undermined his own popularity and position by holding an unconstitutional referendum for the closure of the Majles and the election of new deputies.10 By now, the U.S. government had identified Musaddiq as a potential communist sympathizer whose initiatives were inimical to the interests of the United States and its allies, most notably Britain. The third attempt to overthrow Musaddiq, this time organized by the CIA, did not fail.11 On August 19, hired mobs started demonstrating against the prime minister and in support of the shah.12 That evening, Musaddiq’s house was captured and looted, although the prime minister had earlier escaped to a safe location. A royal decree was issued dismissing Musaddiq from the prime minister’s post and appointing a loyal general, Fazlollah Zahedi, in his place. The next day, Musaddiq and some of his associates surrendered themselves to the police, and a new era, one of near-complete monarchical absolutism, dawned in Iranian politics.
The whole coup took no more than nine hours. The move against Musaddiq had involved several retired and active military commanders, both hired and spontaneous demonstrators, and a few clerics who were worried about the possibilities of a rise in anticlericalism. Many of the ulama also saw threats of republicanism and communism arising from the Musaddiq movement.13 As soon as the coup succeeded, many of the prime minister’s former associates were tried and imprisoned. Some were sentenced to death. Musaddiq, frail and still too popular to be executed, was tried and sentenced to three years’ solitary confinement.14 After his release, he spent the rest of his days under virtual house arrest in a village on the outskirts of Tehran, where he died in 1967.
Musaddiq’s overthrow ushered in a third phase in the history of the Pahlavi state, the era of royal absolutism, which lasted from 1953 until about 1975. The 1953 coup put an effective end to the independence and powers of the Majles and practically every other institution in the state other than the crown. Parliamentary elections became charades that no one, even members of the political establishment, took seriously. For example, provincial governors were authorized to use the rural gendarmeries and the city police to ensure that only the government’s candidates were elected to office.15 Parliament again became the rubber stamp it had been under Reza Shah. If, on rare occasions, an unapproved candidate somehow slipped into office, he was duly disqualified and arrested.16 The crown, and more specifically the person of the shah, became the state.
In addition to his successful destruction of the parliament’s political autonomy, the shah ensured his ascendancy over the system by a combination of structural changes to the state machinery. One of the most important was the construction of an elaborate and highly efficient police apparatus that permeated, or at least was thought to permeate, every aspect of life in Iran. With the CIA’s help, in 1957 the shah established an intelligence organization under the name SAVAK (acronym for Sazman-e Ettelaʾat va Amniyat-e Keshvar). SAVAK soon developed a reputation for ruthlessness and omnipotence, and the mere mention of its name evoked fear among average Iranians. There was also a massive buildup of the armed forces, a goal whose fulfillment was always one of the shah’s top priorities. Locked in a Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, the United States was only too happy to satisfy the shah’s insatiable appetite for advanced weapons. By the mid-1970s, when the dramatic rise in oil prices was enriching the Iranian treasury to unprecedented amounts, the shah was purchasing weaponry from the United States faster than his armed forces could effectively absorb.17
These and other structural changes were complemented by initiatives designed to enhance the stature and credibility of the royal household. As a counterbalance to Musaddiq’s highly popular policy of “negative equilibrium,” whose main premise had been diplomatic nonalignment, the shah touted what he called positive nationalism and promised to expedite Iran’s march toward a “Great Civilization.” In one of his books, the shah defined his concept of positive nationalism as “a policy of maximum political and economic independence consistent with the interests of one’s country. On the other hand, it does not mean non-alignment or sitting on the fence. It means that we make any agreement which is in our own interests, regardless of the wishes or policies of others.”18 In another book, this one published after his overthrow, he offered a definition of his vision of the Great Civilization: “an effort toward understanding and peace which creates the perfect environment in which everyone can work. I believe each nation has the right, the duty to reach or to return to a Great Civilization.”19 The regime also made a concerted effort to co-opt members of the intelligentsia into its own ranks, an endeavor in which it had considerable success. As a result, the higher echelons of the bureaucracy and many university faculties were staffed mostly by loyal technocrats and academics.
Perhaps most significant of all these initiatives was the highly publicized Land Reform Law of 1962, which the following year grew into a larger campaign that the shah called the White Revolution (Inqilab-e Sefeed). He later changed the name of his campaign to the politically loaded “Revolution of the Shah and the People.” In hindsight, the whole endeavor can be seen as a clever royal move designed to void the term revolution (inqilab) of any politically oppositional substance by making it part of the parlance of the state. Banners praising the virtues of the White Revolution were hoisted in
streets and boulevards throughout the country, and the revolution’s anniversary and the genius of its chief architect, the shah, were annually celebrated. “The real strength of our Revolution,” the shah wrote confidently shortly after its inception, “will easily address the needs of all classes of Iranian society and in the process bring us in line with the world’s greatest scientific, technical, and social advances.”20 At least temporarily, the state’s make-believe “revolution” succeeded in preempting a real one.
Along with land reform, the White Revolution originally called for the nationalization of forests; the sale of state-owned enterprises to the public; workers’ profit sharing in 20 percent of net corporate earnings; the extension of voting rights to women; and the formation of a Literacy Corps, composed of fifty thousand high school graduates to be sent to villages to teach. Initially these reforms met with considerable enthusiasm among some secular intellectuals, who were especially attracted to its land reform and women’s franchise provisions. But the opposition to these two provisions was far stronger than the support they generated. This opposition was spearheaded by a cleric named Rouhollah Khomeini.
The conservative clergy saw the White Revolution as evidence of yet another frontal assault on their position and prestige. Most, however, refrained from open opposition to the crown, probably because of their innate conservatism and divisions and disagreements within their ranks.21 But Khomeini was unrelenting in his attacks, and this quickly won him respect and popularity. His popularity was reinforced by his unique radicalism within the clerical establishment and by his esteemed position as an ayatollah.22 The disturbances were eventually quelled, though not until some fifty people were killed in the mayhem. Khomeini was exiled to Turkey. From there he found his way to the Iraqi Shiʿite holy city of Najaf.
The shah, emerging from the 1963 riots more confident than before, went on to add a few more principles to his People’s Revolution every other year or so. By late 1975, his revolutionary principles had grown to a total of nineteen, by now including such empty slogans as “fight against corruption” and “campaign against profiteering.”23 Even the regime’s most loyal supporters began to see the White Revolution as merely a (mostly failed) political gimmick.
But who dared oppose the shah? The secret police, SAVAK, were thought to be everywhere. By the mid-1960s, even the prime ministers with a modicum of independent thought were a thing of the past. Gone were such relatively able men as Ahmad Qavam (1941–43 and 1946–48), Muhammad Musaddiq (1951–53), and Ali Amini (1961–63). In 1965, the shah appointed as his premier a nonthreatening political lightweight named Amir Abbas Hoveida. Hoveida and his twelve-year tenure in office to this day remain subjects of debate and disagreement, with some accusing him of causing “more harm to Iranian society than any single individual” and others seeing him as a conscientious and honest administrator.24 But all agree that he was “the champion of the line of least resistance” and that his long premiership was both a symptom of and a catalyst for the shah’s royal absolutism.25
Mention must also be made of the Rastakhiz Party, established in 1975 by the shah as the country’s sole legal political party. All Iranians over the age of eighteen were supposed to join the party. As a political party the Rastakhiz was a complete farce, failing either to enhance the regime’s legitimacy or to foster meaningful political participation among the urban classes. The shah, however, was completely oblivious to the harm he was causing his own reign and failed to grasp the depth of popular resentment against his hollow “revolutionary” innovations. To the contrary, he believed that he enjoyed genuine and widespread popularity among the Iranian masses.26
As far as the shah was concerned, there was no reason not to like him. Even late into his reign, when the whole facade of royal power was beginning to crumble, he and other courtiers were convinced of the people’s love and affection for him.27 Those who opposed his reign, he thought, were a small minority of communists who were collaborating with reactionary clerics—“the unholy alliance of red and black,” as he called them.28 The bulk of the population was thought to be basking in the benefit of the country’s unprecedented economic growth. Indeed, the rate of economic growth in the early 1970s was phenomenal, not so much because of His Majesty’s astute leadership as because of the dramatic rise in oil revenues following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Iran’s oil revenues shot up from $2.4 billion in 1972 to $18.5 billion in 1974, and government spending multiplied accordingly.29 The Fifth Development Plan was revised to account for an increase of some 156 percent for expenditures on the oil industry, 112.5 percent for the gas sector, and 95 percent for other industries (only 2.4 percent for education and 0 percent for provincial development).30 As long as the going was good and money flowed in, the wheels of the state were sufficiently oiled to run smoothly, if undemocratically. As fate would have it, however, the oil bubble burst within only a year or two. The monarchy was soon to start a rapid and fatal descent.
The fourth and last phase in the history of the Pahlavi state started in 1975 and lasted until its formal collapse in January 1979. In many ways, the year 1975 marked the beginning of the end of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. Instead of an anticipated surplus, the government’s 1975 budget featured a deficit of $1.7 billion (a deterioration of nearly $6 billion over the previous year), and the 1976 budget had a deficit of $2.4 billion.31 Mismanagement, poor planning, and rampant corruption at all levels of the state were beginning to take their toll. After nearly thirteen years in office, Hoveida was asked to step aside, and his finance minister, Jamshid Amuzegar, became the new prime minister. The regime’s sense of panic was palpable. The shah’s words to his court minister in January 1977 reveal his paralyzing anxiety: “We’re broke. Everything seems doomed to grind to a standstill, and meanwhile many of the programs we had planned must be postponed. Oil exports have fallen by as much as 30 per cent, and the recent price rise will do little to compensate.”32 The minister’s own words, recorded the following June, were more ominous: “It terrifies me that one day everything will simply cave in around us. Please God that we may be spared this.”33
By now, the Pahlavi state was headed for total collapse, and only a miracle could save it or reverse the course that Iranian history was about to take. A revolution, not of “the shah and the people” but of the people against the shah, was brewing and would succeed in about a year. The dynasty’s collapse was now certain.
THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
The steady atrophy and implosion of the state were expedited by, and in turn reinforced, a popular movement that was increasingly assuming revolutionary dimensions. When faced with internal discord and political opposition, authoritarian states often either clamp down and suppress their opponents or, to preempt the possibility of further opposition, try to placate their opponents by introducing some token reforms. The Iranian state tried a combination of the two tactics, allowing some very controlled expressions of political discontent by a select group of individuals while reacting violently to riots and strikes that did not have official sanction.
As he had done back in 1963, the shah initially appears to have thought that he could make the brewing revolution his own: allow the masses to express their frustrations; convene commissions and parliamentary debates that would place the blame on cabinet ministers and other government officials; create an aura of responsiveness and empathy; and then emerge as the people’s chief defender against unscrupulous officials. This is a charitable interpretation of the state’s overall intent. More likely, the state’s growing incapacitation, symbolized and reinforced by the shah’s spreading cancer, robbed it of the ability to respond to the brewing crisis decisively. At a time when the state needed to respond to the deepening crisis quickly and with foresight, the shah’s legendary political instinct turned out to be more legend than reality. At the same time, the shah was becoming a prisoner of his fixation with his image abroad. His image problem was becoming all the more pronounced by President Jimmy Carter’s injection of hu
man rights concerns into U.S. foreign policy, coupled with the growing attention paid to Iran by Amnesty International and the International Association of Jurists.34 The shah himself complained bitterly about U.S. foreign policy in the crucial final months of his rule. “The fact that no one contacted me during the crisis in any official way,” he wrote later, “explains everything about the American attitude. I did not know it then—perhaps I did not want to know—but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out.”35
The regime’s inept responses to the crisis only polarized the situation by helping fan the flames of political discontent that had long been suppressed, making heroes and martyrs out of ordinary demonstrators, and further demonizing the shah and the whole Pahlavi establishment before the court of public opinion. Steadily, the once-scattered riots and strikes became more frequent and organized. Meanwhile, the more permissive political environment began to give more voice to individuals and groups that had been silenced by the SAVAK or by fear. What initially started as the implosion of a state, which in turn set off haphazard strikes and demonstrations, was becoming a full-fledged “movement,” and a revolutionary one, at that. And, slowly, the movement was beginning to acquire “leaders.” Naturally, these “leaders” came mainly from the ranks of the regime’s opponents, whose voices had long been silenced by the state’s authoritarianism.
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