From Ill Will
Traversing a century of revolution, counter-revolution, and regime change in Iran, Arya Zahedi traces out the social, political, and ideological tensions that continuously push the country toward the brink of insurrection.
It has been forty-five years since the mass revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Muhammad Reza Shah and led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. And it has been over a year now since the 2022 murder of Jina “Mahsa” Amini by the “guidance patrol” set off an insurrectionary uprising large enough to draw comparisons with the revolution of 1979.1 While talk of the imminent fall of the Islamic Republic now seems premature, the situation is far from the image of order and stability that the state would like to put forth. The past year has seen the state respond with great repression, including show trials ending in executions for participants in the riots. Workers from a variety of sectors have been sacked. As the anniversary of the uprising approached, families of those killed during the riots and those executed were forbidden to hold commemorations. Yet actions continue nationwide. Strikes and demonstrations have been constant, while violent confrontations in the provinces have continued to recur, albeit at a lower degree of intensity. Far from being a sign of strength, the severity of the repression demonstrates just how fragile the situation remains.
Anyone can see that last year’s uprising was about much more than dress codes. It was a product of deep contradictions within the system itself. Revolts have occurred in Iran every year for the past decade. While much of this turbulence is rooted in the particular system in Iran, it must also be situated within the more general social crisis of the global capitalist system. The social causes that provoked last year’s explosion are still present, forming a crisis that cannot be overcome and will, in all likelihood, only become more severe. Not only have such explosions become more frequent, they also are increasing in both scope and depth. Nevertheless, the latest explosion was indeed a turning point. Previously distinct sources of discontent and issues of importance have begun to flow together into a single stream, allowing the totality of the system to be called into question. Whether the Islamic Republic will survive another year or ten years, no one can predict. What is certain is not only that another explosion is inevitable, but that an authentic revolutionary movement and culture has meanwhile reawakened and now exists in Iran today. What we are seeing are not isolated, spontaneous, or random explosions, but a response to the profound alienation and dispossession of an ever-larger mass of people. It may not have the formalities of revolutionary movements of the past, but perhaps we should let some of those go.
The current revolutionary struggle is not only important to the future of Iran but will have consequences for the wider region. As it was during the last decade of the Shah’s regime, the Islamic Republic has grown to be an important participant in inter-imperialist rivalries. As present conflicts in the Middle East threaten to generalize into a broader war, it is important to understand the Iranian regime, what constitutes it, and how it relates to the broader imperialist orbit. At the same time that it is engaged in a revolutionary struggle against “its own” government, the Iranian working class is caught in the crossfire of a potential inter-imperialist war. As the so-called “proxy wars” between Iran and the US/Israel (of which the assault on Gaza is but one theater) threaten to generalize into a broader war, the revolutionary struggle takes on importance for not just Iran but the entire politics of the region, just as the events in the surrounding region impact what goes on inside Iran.
While imperialism is often discussed in relation to Iran and the Middle East, this is usually framed in a unidirectional manner, concerned primarily with external domination. Less attended to is the relation between external imperialist domination, on the one hand, and the internal class conflicts, on the other. But it is precisely this relation between the internal and external that proves most illuminating.
Arya Zahedi is a PhD candidate in politics at the New School for Social Research, with a concentration in political theory and comparative politics. His research interests include social movements, revolutions, capitalism and class struggle, imperialism, democracy, ideology, and the politics of the modern Middle East.