Learning From Khomeini—Leadership, Coalitions, and Defeating the Instruments of Repression

Learning From Khomeini—Leadership, Coalitions, and Defeating the Instruments of Repression

By Major Nathaniel Martins

Despite remaining essentially leaderless, social unrest precipitated by death of Mahsa Amini in September continues at a scale and intensity in Iran unseen since the Revolution of 1979.[1] As the popular slogan “Death to the Dictator” indicates, many Iranians believe moderate reforms such as making the hijab optional will be impossible under the current theocratic regime.[2] The futility of reform efforts is further demonstrated by the litany of ineffective protests over the last 20 years.[3] Yet the overthrow of a regime that possesses a daunting security apparatus is easier said than done. Statistical and case study analysis by non-violent revolution experts Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan indicate that mass participation will be critical to success.[4] Accordingly, comparison of today’s protests to those led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 reveal a valuable commodity leadership might provide current protests—the ability to maintain the broad yet inherently precarious coalition necessary to defeat the state’s security apparatus.

How Khomeini Defeated the Instruments of Repression

Today’s protests face an adept police state. The Basij, the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), and police suppressed a number of nationwide protests including those in 1999, 2009, and 2017-2021. Similarly, the Shah’s regime used the Army, police, and SAVAK—an internal security organization originally trained by the CIA—to suppress large scale protests in 1963 over the arrest of Khomeini.[5]

Although some scholars assert that Marxist guerillas played a critical role in defeating the Shah’s security apparatus in February 1979, Khomeini achieved the decisive internal collapse of the military beforehand.[6] Indicators of the breakdown included the replacement of a division commander because of unit-wide dissent, a mass murder of officers of the Shah’s Imperial Guard committed by subordinates, and discussions between top-ranked generals and revolutionary leaders concerning impending regime change.[7] This military collapse instigated and permitted guerilla action prior to the Shah’s overthrow. On 10 February 1979, a group of Airforce technicians known as homafars initiated hostilities that guerillas later joined. Furthermore, the defection of an opposing commander undermined military efforts to subdue the revolt.[8] When Iran’s top generals met to declare their neutrality on 11 February 1979, a chief complaint was the assessment that the Shah’s military was no longer reliable.[9]

Khomeini deliberately pursued the internal collapse of the military. His guidance was “do not attack the enemy in its breast, but its heart…even if they fire on you and kill you.”[10] As protestors placed flowers on the rifles of soldiers and incorporated their grievances into their chants, Khomeini issued religious edicts threatening to declare jihad and demanding that soldiers defect.[11] US Ambassador William Sullivan observed the effect of Khomeini’s efforts when his guard force intentionally limited contact with protestors to prevent the defection of soldiers.[12]

Social commonalities enabled Khomeini’s overtures to the military. Most conscripts shared two characteristics with the average protestor—they were working class and devoted to the clergy. Understandably, poor economic conditions and Khomeini’s religious authority induced support for the revolutionary cause. [13]

The subversive pull of Khomeini’s movement also targeted senior ranking officers of the army, but from a different vector. Khomeini’s political allies included Mehdi Bazargan, a “lay-religious” political leader representing the middle class who was committed to democracy instead of the cleric’s brand of theocratic authoritarianism.[14] Often described as a moderate, Bazargan was an apt vehicle to encourage the defection of the affluent leadership of Iran’s security apparatus who would be concerned about their status upon regime change. Using military contacts and familial ties, Bazargan met with various generals to commandeer them to the revolutionary cause.[15] Ultimately, the differences between Khomeini’s supporters and Bazargan are what Chenoweth and Stephan describe as “thick social networks”—a web of diverse contacts, familial ties, and shared interest groups critical to compelling security forces to cooperate.[16]

An Initial Comparison—Similarities and Shortfalls

Today’s protests in Iran are undeniably large, but do they possess the requisite social diversity to overcome Iran’s security apparatus? Chenoweth and Stephan note “the quality of participation …may be as important as the quantity of participation.”[17] As with the Iranian Revolution, current protests involve every economic strata. Compared to 1979, current strikes have been largely ineffective, but they also indicate support across several economic sectors.[18] The inclusion of ethno-religious minorities provides another similarity. In 1978, Kurds joined the revolutionary movement with a range of activity including violent protests and strikes.[19] Today Mahsa Amini’s Kurdish heritage has galvanized the Kurdish population, but current protests are mobilizing additional minorities, including the Baluch, Azerbaijanis, and Arabs.[20]

The economic and ethnic composition of today’s protests increases the likelihood of valuable social linkages with Iran’s security organizations, ultimately providing opportunities for subversive pull. As with the Iranian Revolution, working class participation likely mirrors the economic status of poorer conscripts. Middle and upper class protestors reflect the more affluent members of the officer corps. Although the regime has inflicted disproportional levels of violence against minorities and seeks to exploit ethnic divisions, the participation of these groups provides a clear advantage as well.[21] The fact that ethnic minorities represent half of Iran’s population means the military likely contains large numbers of minorities across its junior ranks, producing more social commonalities between protestors and Iran’s security apparatus.[22]

Despite their evident diversity, protests lack a prominent interest group from the Iranian Revolution—the clergy. The prominent slogan “Death to Ali Khameini” exhibits obvious hostility to Iran’s supreme leader. In November protestors reportedly set fire to Khomeini’s family home.[23] Revealing slogans like “mullahs get lost” display aggression towards the clergy writ large.[24] Finally, the new social trend of “turban tipping” in which people surprise Shia ulema in public and forcibly remove their headgear may be the strongest indicator of discontent with the clergy.[25]

Although the clergy are clearly an object of popular discontent towards the government, the ulema are not uniformly devoted to the country’s theocracy. In recent years, Iranian clergy have started to study at the holy city of Najaf, Iraq where Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani advocates separation of religion and state.[26] Moreover, although clergy in Iran have refrained from supporting the protests, there are exceptions. Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani and Ayatollah Javad Alavi Boroujerdi recently made comments supporting the right to protest.[27] Despite these encouraging signs, there are significant obstacles to clerical participation in protests, including the ulema’s growing financial dependence on the Iranian government and religious sensitivity towards the wear of the hijab.[28] Overcoming these obstacles will require less hostility by protestors. Curbing hostility will require leadership that can influence protestors and avoid internal conflicts.

Khomeini’s Leadership and his Coalition of Convenience

Like today, Khomeini’s Iran contained a diverse array of interest groups, but he deftly avoided conflict between them to build a coalition with immense subversive pull on the Shah’s police state. These interest groups included the secular National Front, separatist minorities such as the Kurds, religious proponents of democracy like Bazargan, and even Marxists such as the Mujahidin and the Fedayeen. Historical interpretation of Khomeini’s approach to these groups falls into two camps. Some scholars argue that Khomeini made his concept of theocratic autocracy, velayat-e faqih clear to these groups, but they ignored Khomeini or believed they could manipulate him.[29] Others hold Khomeini was a shrewd politician that built a coalition of convenience to secure implementation of velayat-e faqih after the revolution.[30]  

The first theory undoubtably contains truth—the latter is supported by clear evidence, the most convincing of which is the membership of the Revolutionary Council. When Khomeini established the Revolutionary Council to direct actions against the Shah’s regime, he chose to include a variety of leaders representing other interests opposed to velayat-e faqih.[31] This group was not comprehensive and clerics loyal to Khomeini held a controlling majority, but it did contain moderates such as Bazargan, illustrating Khomeini’s willingness to temporarily accommodate disparate interests in pursuit of the Shah’s overthrow.

To overcome Iran’s formidable instruments of repression, protests must win meaningful clerical support. The ethnic and economic diversity of today’s protests provide common social cleavages with the Army, IRGC, and Basij, but these organizations, especially the latter two, contain a strong religious identity. If protestors in Iran fail to accommodate the interests of moderate Shia clergy, there is little hope that the soldiers and police maintaining Iran’s monopoly of violence will ever align themselves against Iran’s theocratic regime. Khomeini was not altruistic in his approach to a revolutionary coalition—after the Revolution he quickly marginalized the power of political competitors. However, his method of defeating the Shah’s security forces was sound. Success in 1979 required a revolutionary movement that matched the social composition of the police state it needed to subvert. Today’s movement requires the same combination of interests. Without leadership that can assemble and maintain such a coalition, the outlook is grim.