What 'The Left' Still Gets Wrong About Iran

1979 was a 'bourgeois revolution'

In his 1993 book Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Ervand Abrahamian writes that what happened in 1979 was a “bourgeois revolution” all along. Shi’a clergy used leftist rhetoric to frame themselves as saviors of the people from the despotism of the Shah throughout the 1980s, leaving no room for a political left. Indeed, if there was a ‘reign of terror’ during the Islamic Revolution, Abrahamian says, then it was against the Iranian left.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was quite acceptable to the middle class. While the rhetoric of his smuggled exile audiotapes was populist, once returned to Iran and put in power, he mainly confined his appeals to Iran’s middle class. Indeed, it was the bazaar, that ancient commercial guild in Tehran, which gave the crucial spark to his revolution. After the Shah replaced their chamber of commerce with a puppet organization, the retail merchants of Iran retaliated by creating the Islamic Coalition Society (Mo’talafeh). It was the beginning of the end for him.

As Supreme Jurist, Khomeini constructed an entire parallel state of clerical institutions in order to have a civil service free from the political clash of left versus nationalist factions. Provision of social services, especially relief, through these bonyads gave the clerics a new set of foot soldiers to replace the leftists who had taken part in the Revolution.

As the left became unnecessary, it also became a target.