Yeah, this is an untold story. I was somewhat surprised at the extent to which leftists in Iran had decided that Khomeini was going be a benign influence whom they therefore should support. (That is, they would support him initially, but they thought they would easily cast him aside later on.) But while the leftists and Marxists looked for wonderful things to come, others (who were either working for the Shah or who had greater sense) pointed out that they were inviting disaster. But Khomeini's secular fellow travelers wouldn't pay heed.
And what happened? By the end of the first decade, the Islamic Republic had dismantled labor unions, banned opposition, shuttered newspapers and summarily executed thousands, including many of its erstwhile leftist allies. This was so complete that many people today do not even know that leftists were allies in the overthrow of the Shah. Perhaps it is best left forgotten as it is not a shining moment that will inspire others.
If you want a long read on the topic, you can learn how the Carter administration was central in overthrowing the US ally the Shah and installing that nice man the Ayatollah Khomeni in power. He played Carter like a fiddle, and Carter fell for every lie he told.
On 27 January, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, the man who called the United States "the Great Satan" - sent a secret message to Washington.
From his home in exile outside Paris, the defiant leader of the Iranian revolution effectively offered the Carter administration a deal: Iranian military leaders listen to you, he said, but the Iranian people follow my orders.
If President Jimmy Carter could use his influence on the military to clear the way for his takeover, Khomeini suggested, he would calm the nation. Stability could be restored, America's interests and citizens in Iran would be protected.
In a first-person message, Khomeini told the White House not to panic at the prospect of losing a strategic ally of 37 years and assured them that he, too, would be a friend.
"You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans," said Khomeini, pledging his Islamic Republic will be "a humanitarian one, which will benefit the cause of peace and tranquillity for all mankind".
And what happened? By the end of the first decade, the Islamic Republic had dismantled labor unions, banned opposition, shuttered newspapers and summarily executed thousands, including many of its erstwhile leftist allies. This was so complete that many people today do not even know that leftists were allies in the overthrow of the Shah.
12,000 communists and Islamist-Marxists left for the Ayatollah to execute
This starts playing in my head every time some chapo has a not very ironic boner for the islamist republic
Just because some group is opposed to US imperialism doesn't mean they're one of the good guys. Unfortunately the strong feelings are so intense that they override reason, as the Iranian Marxists found out to their sorrow. The automatic gainsaying of The Other leads to some dark places.
It’s not best left forgotten, it’s shining example of what not to do not (granted leftist history has a lot of them, but that’s exactly why it should be remembered).
What left? The left that the Shah's CIA/Mossad trained SAVAK police had been torturing to death en masse?
Well, there were at least 12,000 communists and Islamist-Marxists left for the Ayatollah to execute. This site's hard on for the theocracy is fucking stupid. There's a version of Iran that's still hostile to western hegemony that doesn't treat women and Kurds like subhuman trash.
i'm not saying anything pro theocracy and idk just because they found some communists under the couch cushions doesn't mean there was much of a Left left
The Shah's repression was nowhere near the Muslims'. It's OK to say something is bad and another thing is worse.
Under the Shah: Marxists exist. Just look at the variety and diversity.
There was the Tudeh party, which was the classic pro-Soviet party, and there was Fedayeen, an urban guerilla party more similar to the Cuban leftist movement. Fedayeen was also pro-Soviet but maybe not as aligned as Tudeh. My group was close to a third party, Line Three, which was the independent left. We believed that the Soviets were an imperialist force, so that’s why we were not pro-Soviet.
There were so many different parties. There was also the Mujahedin [People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran], which mixed a Muslim line in with the leftism. But our group was nonreligious.
Under the Muslims: Marxists no longer exist due to physical removal. You know that right-wing psychopathic "free helicopter rides" thing? That's what the Muslims did. But without the free helicopter rides.
my dude the SAVAK would literally pour acid into peoples' noses, boiling water into their rectums, they'd torture them with metal masks on so that their screams were amplified enough to cause more pain, and even worse
All that you say is true. Nobody is arguing that SAVAK were the good guys. They were fascists. But so were the Muslims. The article states this very well, if you've read it (which I recommend).
The Shah had his secret police, but you knew who they were. You could recognize them. Whereas Khomeini said, we are going to create a secret police of thirty million, which was more or less the whole population. He created these Islamist surveillance presences everywhere, in every place of work and every place of study within the whole society. This is how they’ve been able to keep the power for more than forty years.
But at that time, Khomeini attacked this idea of giving the women the right to vote, saying that women are supposed to stay at home. It was a misogynistic attack, but none of the left groups took it seriously, or even criticized him for that. He was always who he was. All the opposition groups were happy with him because he was radically against the Shah.
It's OK to say that one thing is bad, and another thing is worse.
I didn't say anything is worse or better but the logical conclusion to draw after the Shah's secret police kill tens of thousands of primarily communists and subsequently there is an Islamic revolution is that there probably wasn't much of an organized Left remaining after they were tortured to death by the Shah
Uh...the entire premise is that such an organized Left did exist, it was a positive force in the Revolution, and after they helped the Muslims gain power they were physically removed from Iranian society.
After the revolution began moving forward, Tudeh supported Khomeini. Fedayeen split into a number of different groups. When they started to break up, most of their members went and supported the Tudeh line and thus supported Khomeini also. Those leftists supported the imams because they thought that was the anti-imperialist line.
Khomeini didn’t use the word “anti-imperialism.” He talked about “Big Satan” and “Small Satan.” The Big Satan was the United States. The Small Satan was Europe. The leftists who went toward him translated that as anti-imperialism in their minds. In their minds.
Chafiq emphasizes this last point, raising her eyebrows and speaking in English to ensure that I get it.
My group was independent. We were not supporting Khomeini or his line or his discourse, but we were not clear on it, either.
One thing that the whole Iranian left agreed upon was this anti-Western, anti-imperialist line. It was the most important thing.
How was there a "whole Iranian left" if the Shah's men had wiped them out?
How was there a “whole Iranian left” if the Shah’s men had wiped them out?
do you think "the left" would support Khomeini if they had 5x the numbers due to not being tortured to death by the Shah
dunno, maybe they're referring to the recent color revolution attempt
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/10/behind-the-iranian-riots.html
The interview addresses people who call these protests a "color revolution"
These people use this idea that if this regime falls, we’re going to fall into a civil war, and it’s going to be much worse. And we don’t know what’s going to come.
They are creating this fear, a panic, around that. It’s something that they’ve been pushing for many, many years. And, of course, that is an idea that comes from the regime.
The second thing is that they create this doubt, this unnecessary doubt, around activists inside Iran, saying that maybe they’re working for a foreign power like Israel. And creating this doubt allows the regime to be justified in its repression of these people, even environmental activists — people who have also been killed in the prisons, or have been tortured, or we don’t even know what’s going on with them. They’ve disappeared.
Country gets more attention when there are more news about it, more at 11.
Jacobin must be writing on Haiti because of a color revolution as well, huh.
a few interesting contradictions here
- between the left parties on the pro/anti soviet line
- between the national bourgeoisie and imperialist forces/compradors
- between liberal feminism/pink imperialism and the emancipation of women
i think these three points are particularly notable in that the emphasis on them are going to become more and more exposed as US hegemony breaks down and capitalism escapes into the third world.
we are already seeing the tension between these concepts in their modern form beginning to burgeon. the resolution of each of these contradictions also vastly differs based on your specific position within them ie people in the US have the monopoly capitalists (imperialists) as our principal enemy whereas people in Russia would have the Russian national bourgeoisie (non imperialist) as theirs.
