Google 1970s Iran vs now. It’s an interesting contrast of how quickly societies can change; and some would argue, not towards the future but backwards.
Google 1970s Iran vs now. It’s an interesting contrast of how quickly societies can change; and some would argue, not towards the future but backwards.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. A “tankie” would probably tell you that the Islamic Revolution was an entirely predictable and avoidable backlash to the pro-western government that was installed via coup in the 50s. Allowing Iran to govern itself would have almost certainly lead to a better result for everyone - that is, everyone except the capitalists who pushed for the coup in order to retain control of Iranian oil for another twenty years.
In an earlier comment I reference that the material conditions in Iran are due to the coup in 1953, but I don’t think in this chain and it was in my mind when I wrote it. I was talking about a specific lesson from 1979.
The revolution was a communist revolution brought forth by Iranian leftists and students who had no ability to plan for after the collapse of the Shah’s government. They were more focused on the revolution than leadership and long term success, maybe they thought the Russians were going to help but it is hard to know because they were all executed. My uncle was among them. I don’t blame them the need for revolution is always present but before the revolution there was no solidarity among the people so when the revolution came the socialist coalitions collapsed and Khomeni came from Qom to establish the Islamic republic.
The lesson is that before we can be aggressive and support wars and violence we need the next regime to have roots in the ground. This is why I believe that orgs like Richard Wolff’s democracy@work are more important than anything else we can do as leftists because once time comes where the capitalists need to be removed we need to have the foundation of the society that comes next in place already or else we’re going to end up with barbarism, like how most of the 20th century communist attempts went and no longer exist. In this specific scenario democratizing the enterprises in Iran would have disrupted the Bazaari and may prevented the rise of the current Liberal government in Iran.
The dig at tankies was not because I am a liberal but because I am a disgusting trot.