Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Nonviolent Struggle

Abstract

The 1979 Iranian Revolution ousted an unpopular monarchy and led to the establishment of an Islamic republic following an intense period of mass mobilization and collective civil disobedience. Earlier attempts to depose Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime through assassinations and guerrilla warfare had failed to achieve what mass protests, strikes, stay-aways, and noncooperation achieved in less than 100 days. Whereas the main guerrilla groups in Iran were infiltrated and decimated by the shah’s security apparatus in the 1970s, the civil resistance that began in earnest in late 1977 exerted significant pressure on the monarchy and became impossible to contain or suppress. The withdrawal of consent and cooperation by Iranian workers, students, professionals, clerics, and others separated the regime from its most important social, economic, political, and military pillars of support. The final page turned on the monarchy when on February 11, 1979 the joint staff of the Iranian armed forces declared that the military would “remain neutral” in disputes between the shah’s regime and the Iranian people.