Iranian Revolution 1979: The Fall of the Shah and Khomeini's Rise

The Iranian Revolution was the popular uprising of 1978-79 that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and turned Iran into an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Months of mass protests and strikes forced the Shah into exile on 16 January 1979, Khomeini returned on 1 February, and the monarchy collapsed on 11 February. The revolution reshaped the Middle East, introduced a new model of religious government and turned Iran from a close ally of the United States into one of its main adversaries.

Background: the Shah’s Iran

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had become Shah in 1941, when Britain and the Soviet Union forced his father to abdicate. His power was secured by the Anglo-American-backed coup of 1953, which removed the nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. From then on, he ruled as an increasingly autocratic monarch, relying on the army and on SAVAK, a secret police force notorious for surveillance, imprisonment and torture.

In 1963 the Shah launched the “White Revolution”, a programme of land reform, women’s suffrage, literacy campaigns and industrialisation. Its reforms brought real change but also angered landowners and many clerics. When the cleric Ruhollah Khomeini denounced the Shah in June 1963, his arrest set off riots that were crushed with many deaths. Khomeini was exiled in November 1964, first to Turkey and then to the Shiite holy city of Najaf in Iraq.

The oil price rises of 1973-74 brought Iran enormous revenue. The Shah spent heavily on development and weapons, but the boom produced inflation, housing shortages, corruption and visible inequality. Millions of rural migrants crowded into the shanty towns of Tehran, while lavish displays such as the 1971 celebration of 2,500 years of monarchy at Persepolis offended many Iranians.

In 1975 the Shah abolished the existing parties and created a single party, Rastakhiz (Resurgence). Political life was closed, yet the opposition, from liberal nationalists to Marxist guerrillas and Islamist activists, was growing.

Causes of the revolution

Historians stress a combination of factors rather than a single cause. Political repression left no legal outlet for dissent. Economic dislocation after the oil boom hurt the bazaar merchants and the urban poor. Many Iranians saw the Shah as dependent on the United States, a view sharpened by the memory of 1953.

Religion provided organisation and a shared vocabulary. Iran’s Shiite clergy had independent income, a nationwide network of mosques and seminaries, and moral authority. Thinkers such as the sociologist Ali Shariati, who died in 1977, had recast Shiism as a language of revolt that appealed to educated young people.

In 1977 the Shah, under pressure from human rights groups and the administration of US President Jimmy Carter, eased censorship and released some prisoners. The opening encouraged critics to speak out, and petitions and poetry evenings in Tehran in autumn 1977 became early signs of protest. The Shah was also secretly ill with cancer, which may have made him hesitant during the crisis.

What happened: the year of protest, 1978

On 7 January 1978 the newspaper Ettela’at published an article, planted by the government, insulting Khomeini. Seminary students in Qom protested on 9 January, and security forces killed several of them. Shiite custom marks a death after 40 days, and memorial gatherings became a cycle of protests: in Tabriz in February, in several cities in March, and again in May, each producing new deaths and new mourning.

On 19 August 1978 the Cinema Rex in Abadan was set on fire, killing an estimated 370 to 470 people. Many Iranians blamed SAVAK, though later evidence pointed to Islamist militants. The tragedy deepened public anger at the regime.

The Shah imposed martial law in Tehran and other cities on 8 September. That morning troops opened fire on a crowd in Jaleh Square in Tehran, an event remembered as Black Friday. The opposition claimed thousands of dead; later research suggests a toll of under 100 that day, but the massacre destroyed hopes of compromise.

From October, strikes spread to the oil industry, banks, ministries and the bazaar, crippling the economy. Khomeini, expelled from Iraq, moved to Neauphle-le-Château near Paris, where foreign media gave him a global platform and his recorded speeches circulated in Iran on cassette tapes.

On 10 and 11 December, during the religious days of Tasua and Ashura, enormous peaceful marches filled Tehran’s streets, with crowds estimated at one to two million or more. The marchers called for the Shah’s departure and Khomeini’s leadership.

The fall of the monarchy

Late in December 1978 the Shah asked Shapour Bakhtiar, a veteran of the secular National Front, to form a government. Bakhtiar dissolved SAVAK, freed political prisoners and promised elections, but his own party expelled him and the streets rejected him.

On 16 January 1979 the Shah and his family left Iran. Crowds celebrated across the country. Khomeini returned from Paris on 1 February aboard a chartered Air France flight and was welcomed by millions. On 4 February he named Mehdi Bazargan, a liberal Islamic politician, as head of a provisional government, creating a rival to Bakhtiar’s.

The decisive break came on 9-11 February, when air force technicians in Tehran sided with the revolution and fighting broke out with the Imperial Guard. Armed civilians and guerrillas seized police stations and barracks. On 11 February the military high command declared its neutrality, Bakhtiar went into hiding and the monarchy was finished.

Key people

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980) ruled for 37 years. He was a modernising but increasingly isolated monarch whose indecision during 1978, partly linked to his illness, puzzled both allies and opponents.

Ruhollah Khomeini (c. 1902-1989) was a senior Shiite cleric and jurist. His uncompromising opposition to the Shah made him the symbol of the revolution, and his theory of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist) became the basis of the new state.

Shapour Bakhtiar (1914-1991) was the last prime minister under the monarchy. He fled to France, where he was assassinated in 1991.

Mehdi Bazargan (1907-1995) led the provisional government until he resigned in November 1979 after the seizure of the US embassy.

Consequences: building the Islamic Republic

A referendum on 30-31 March 1979 asked voters to approve an Islamic Republic, with official results of about 98 per cent in favour. Khomeini proclaimed the Islamic Republic on 1 April. A new constitution, approved in December 1979, gave supreme authority to a leading jurist, a role Khomeini held until his death in 1989.

Revolutionary courts tried and executed hundreds of officials of the old regime, including former prime minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda in April 1979. Revolutionary Guards and committees enforced the new order, and new laws imposed religious rules on dress and public life, including compulsory veiling for women.

The revolutionary coalition soon broke apart. Liberals, secular nationalists, ethnic minorities and left-wing groups such as the People’s Mojahedin and the Tudeh communist party were pushed aside or suppressed between 1979 and 1983, often violently.

Abroad, the seizure of the US embassy in November 1979 began the Iran hostage crisis, and in September 1980 Iraq invaded, starting the long and bloody Iran-Iraq War. The war helped the new authorities consolidate their power.

The international dimension

Few foreign governments foresaw the revolution. On 31 December 1977, during a visit to Tehran, President Carter toasted Iran as “an island of stability” in a troubled region. Within a year, US officials were divided over whether to back a military crackdown, seek a deal with the moderate opposition or let events take their course.

The upheaval also shook the world economy. Strikes cut Iranian oil exports sharply in late 1978 and early 1979, and the resulting panic helped to more than double world oil prices in what became known as the second oil shock. Inflation and recession followed in many Western countries.

In the region, the new government declared its intention to export the revolution and denounced the Gulf monarchies, Israel and both superpowers under the slogan “Neither East nor West”. Its influence was later seen in the rise of Shiite movements such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, founded with Iranian support in the early 1980s, and in a lasting rivalry with Saudi Arabia.

Myths and facts

A common belief is that the revolution was purely Islamic from the start. In fact it was a broad national movement, and many participants expected a democratic or socialist outcome rather than clerical rule.

Another misconception is that the Shah was toppled by armed insurrection. For most of 1978 the protests were largely unarmed; the regime fell mainly because of mass demonstrations and strikes, and because the army disintegrated rather than being defeated. Fighting played a role only in the final days of February 1979.

Death tolls were exaggerated at the time. The revolutionary government spoke of 60,000 “martyrs”, but detailed research has documented around 2,800 deaths in the protests of 1977-79, a number that still represents a serious loss of life.

Timeline

• 1978, 9 January: Protests in Qom after a newspaper attack on Khomeini; several students are killed.
• 1978, 19 August: The Cinema Rex fire in Abadan kills hundreds of people.
• 1978, 8 September: Black Friday shootings in Jaleh Square, Tehran.
• 1978, 10-11 December: Huge Tasua and Ashura marches in Tehran.
• 1979, 16 January: The Shah leaves Iran.
• 1979, 1 February: Khomeini returns from exile in France.
• 1979, 11 February: The army declares neutrality and the monarchy collapses.
• 1979, 1 April: Khomeini proclaims the Islamic Republic after a referendum.
• 1979, 4 November: Students seize the US embassy in Tehran.

Why it matters

The Iranian Revolution was one of the great revolutions of the 20th century and the first to create a modern state ruled by Islamic jurists. It ended a key US alliance in the Gulf, helped spark the Iran-Iraq War and inspired Islamist movements across the Muslim world. Its consequences continue to shape Iran’s politics, its relations with the West and the balance of power in the Middle East.