Who Revolutionized and Why Did They Revolt?

February 11, 2019 marks the fortieth anniversary of the 1979 Revolution. It has been said and continues to be said: the Shah's regime was a good government. "Unemployment, poverty, and inflation did not exist under the Pahlavi regime." "Iran's economic growth was similar to that of Turkey, Taiwan, and South Korea." "The middle class, urban dwellers, and technocrats were growing rapidly." We had good relations with all countries in the world. We were the leaders of the Middle East, and all regional leaders came to pay their respects to the Shah. The Shah's regime was a reformable regime. The Shah's era was the golden age of Iran. If the Shah's government was as the claimants assert, why did it collapse and fall? In response, they say that under these conditions, a group of communists and fanatical religious individuals rose up and revolted out of euphoria. All our misfortunes are their fault. If only they had been wise and had not revolted. The fanatical religious individuals, with the support, collaboration, and cooperation of the communists, ended that golden age and led Iranians into a period of ruin, darkness, ignorance, the misfortune of women, superstitions, poverty, misery, and a return to the Qajar era. The revolutionaries were reactionaries and must be held accountable. Let's assume all these claims are correct. However: First, these claims cannot reduce the occurrence of the revolution to the revolutionaries. Social phenomena—especially a significant event like a revolution—are the result of hundreds of causes and reasons. Any single-cause analysis is reductionist, ideological, and false. The revolution must be explained with a network of causes and reasons. The revolutionaries are one of the factors in the occurrence and victory of the revolution. Second, a rational person, while distinguishing possible matters from impossible ones, does not entertain impossible desires. Changing the past is impossible. A century of lamenting the 1979 Revolution and condemning the revolution and the revolutionaries will not change that historical reality. The French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban revolutions, and so on—like the First and Second World Wars—are historical realities. Emotions such as anger, hatred, revenge, etc., cannot change the past. Nostalgia, even if it can create a future similar to the past, cannot alter the past. Third, the scientific duty of a sociologist is to view collective behaviors as meaningful collective actions and to explain them. Agents and actors have realized their meaningful actions with specific motives and goals and have made history. From this perspective, revolutionaries cannot be labeled as insane, foolish, ignorant, etc. Their motives and goals must be discovered, and it must be understood how historical agents made sense of their behaviors. Through empathetic understanding—rather than sitting as a historical actor and viewing the social world from their perspective—one can approach the reality of the February 11, 1979 Revolution. The current observer analyst must act in such a way that if they were in the place of the historical actor, they would do exactly what that actor did. About 50 million of Iran's 82 million population were born after the revolution. This vast population has no personal experience of the Shah's era. Fourth, subsequent analysts and actors can only reconstruct the history of the past in their explanations. It is true that historical agents had motives and goals, and their behaviors were meaningful, but future analysts have the opportunity to provide better explanations of the actions of past actors. The most important reasons for this are: a) the consequences of actions—especially unintended consequences—that gradually reveal themselves throughout history. b) the collection of information from future generations about the past. Historical agents were unaware of many realities of their time, and later, when this information (confidential regime documents, documents from powerful global governments, various memoirs of influential individuals, etc.) is published, only analysts will be able to utilize them. Thus, contemporary observers may interpret the actions of the actors of the 1340s and 1350s better than the actors themselves. Fifth, some individuals and groups reconstruct the past history in a way that bears no resemblance to reality. Every historical interpretation and analysis is selective, but no analysis or interpretation contradicts strong evidence and clues. Explanations that reduce the entire reality to a single cause are ideological and incorrect. Preconceptions and prejudices are also very effective in historical construction. For example, consider these prejudices: "The Shah was good and Khomeini was bad," "The Shah was bad and Khomeini was good," "The Shah's era was the golden age of Iran," "Khomeini's era was the golden age of Iran," etc. These prejudices and preconceptions lead to different and conflicting reconstructions of history. The transition of the Shah's opponents from peaceful struggle discourse to discourse of overthrow and armed struggle. Sixth, history is instructive. Far-sighted individuals strive not to reproduce the mistakes of the past. They seek to see what the past could not see due to being confined in context. Dictators also learn from history. They too ask: Why did powerful figures like Mohammad Reza Shah in Iran, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, etc., lose power? What should we do to avoid being overthrown? General Sisi, who came to power in Egypt through a coup, has learned his lesson well from history. According to reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, his brutal crackdowns have absolutely no parallel during Hosni Mubarak's era. This ruling by Ayatollah Khomeini that "Preserving the regime is the most important obligation" is also a kind of lesson from history. Seventh, the revolutionaries said: The Shah created an unparalleled repressive autocracy. The Shah's regime is dependent on Western governments led by the American government. The Shah's regime is corrupt, and the royal family is trapped in a web of financial corruption, drug trafficking, and sexual corruption. Poverty, misery, class inequality, illiteracy, and marginalization are immense. The Shah's regime is irreformable and does not allow any peaceful activity within the framework of the constitutional law to its opponents. The Shah tortured opponents in the worst possible way through SAVAK and has the highest number of political prisoners in the world. "Do you even know that the nation has risen against oppression, terror, repression, and unqualified dictatorship and has sacrificed more than 60,000 martyrs?" If given the chance, the Shah would establish the same absolute government again, not that he would refrain from interfering in affairs. Imperialism has everywhere brought puppet governments to power and made the Shah the gendarme of the region. The Shah is in the service of imperialism, against the revolutionaries in the region, and a friend of Israel. And other such claims. These beliefs drove them toward revolution. Eighth, about 50 million of Iran's 82 million population were born after the revolution. This vast population has no personal experience of the Shah's era. If we also add the young children under 10 to 12 years old in February 1979 to this population, the number of this population will increase by millions more. Young children likely do not have accurate memories of the situation during that time. Despite all this, some individuals, groups, fronts, and those born during the Islamic Republic say that the February 22, 1979 revolution was very bad, misplaced, and costly. But now, the Islamic Republic must be overthrown through revolution. The implicit meaning of this judgment is that revolutions are divided into two types: bad and good. In other words, revolution is a completely neutral event. It is like wax in the hands of individuals that can be shaped in any way they want. Thus, with this preconception about the phenomenon of revolution, it is claimed that the revolution against the Shah was bad, while the revolution against the Islamic Republic is good. However, if they did not consider revolution as a neutral phenomenon, if they viewed the rare phenomenon of revolution as Alexis de Tocqueville, Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper, Anthony Giddens, etc. did, then they would consider revolution a mistake and a great failure that should not be repeated. In that case, they would say: The revolution of the youth and middle-aged individuals of the 1340s and 1350s against the Shah was a mistake, so we should not repeat that mistake. Because revolution has not been and is not an effective method for achieving legitimate goals. In the attached long article, I have provided a historical report showing how the opponents of the Shah transitioned from peaceful struggle to armed struggle and then to revolution. I have then critically examined the activities of the Shah's opponents and drawn lessons for today from them. The information in this article may be useful for individuals unfamiliar with the activities of that era. However, for generations that experienced that time, it is a recollection. Errors in the writing will be corrected through critique.