A SWEET DREAM THAT TURNED INTO A TERRIBLE, BITTER NIGHTMARE!

رؤیای شیرینی که به یک کابوس وحشتناک و تلخ تبدیل شد

On February 11, 1979, Iran’s millennia-old monarchy was overthrown by a bloody uprising. The Pahlavi Dynasty, possessing the world’s fifth most powerful armed forces, capitulated to preserve the socio-economic system. Demonstrators chanted, “When the Devil (Shah) goes away, then the Angel (Khomeini) comes in,” but this was a tragically mistaken belief. One dictatorship replaced another. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an even more ruthless figure, returned from exile on February 1, 1979. The hereditary monarchy was replaced by a hereditary caliphate under the guise of the “Islamic Republic.” The Pahlavi regime, despite its military power, yielded to maintain the socio-economic status quo. A pending secular social movement, which had the potential to challenge the capitalist system, was thwarted by global powers who clandestinely installed Khomeini with the cooperation of Iran’s military and the notorious SAVAK security service. The Shah was replaced by Khomeini, but the socio-economic system remained unscathed. Therefore, it is incorrect to refer to this process in Iran as a revolution in the true socio-political sense.

Iran’s weak Left movement, lacking a robust and unified workers’ organization and a clear strategy, was misled by the “Spring of Freedom,” which conveyed ambiguous political messages about the new regime and harbored a strong illusion of a “Revolution.” The revolutionary aspirations of the working people for social transformation, rooted in demands for Bread, Housing, and Freedom since 1977, were ensnared by Khomeini’s deceit by late 1978, leading them into the oppressive depths of the Shia-Islamic Caliphate. Many left-wing intellectuals overlooked Khomeini’s foundations built on lies and hypocrisy (Taqiyya). Before the February uprising, while in Paris, Khomeini promised the Iranian people “gold and green forests,” freedom, independence, moral upliftment, and free utilities and housing.

Radical protests against the Shah’s regime began in the early 1960s, spurred by the top-down reforms known as the “White Revolution.” Initially, the Shia Islamic organization “People’s Mujahedin” and later the Marxist-Leninist “People’s Fedaei” began their underground armed struggle against the Shah’s dictatorship, influenced by Latin American guerrilla movements. Fearing the Soviet Union’s influence, the Shah established thousands of mosques and religious institutions to combat the threat of communism.

The White Revolution exacerbated class distinctions, enriching the big landowners and impoverishing small farmers, who then migrated to urban slums. By the late 1970s, dissatisfaction sparked widespread demonstrations, culminating in a powerful general strike by oil workers in southern Iran, which destabilized the Shah’s political system, but not the economic structure.

Soon after seizing power, Khomeini dismissed the importance of the economy and lamented not crushing dissidents early on. He suggested that executing and burning thousands of “counter-revolutionaries” would have solved the country’s problems. In the early 1980s, he authorized the massacre of political prisoners opposing Shia Islamic rule, resulting in the execution of thousands, including children and pregnant women, who were buried in secret mass graves.

Today, after 41 years, the Iranian people endure a fascist Shia Islamic Caliphate regime that has devastated the country. The regime’s legacy includes widespread poverty, high inflation and unemployment, corruption, environmental crises, an eight-year war with Iraq, terrorism, repression, torture, execution, and an unnecessary nuclear project leading to US sanctions.

According to an Iranian proverb: “The one who sows the wind will reap the hurricane.” The working people’s uprising is on the horizon, poised to transform into a sociopolitical tsunami that will dismantle the Capitalist Shia-Islamic Caliphate system and pave the way for a humane, just, egalitarian, and libertarian society. That time is not far off.