ABSTRACT
The revolution which broke out in Iran in 1978 and led to the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic republic forms one of the major episodes of conflict in the political history of twentiethcentury Iran, The focus of the present study is to explain the causes of that revolution and the phases which it has gone through, by putting emphasis on the social aspects of the conflict. In this endeavour the introductory Chapter 1 analyses the evolution of the state structure in Iran from the beginning of this century to the consolidation of the Shah's regime in 1963. It thus puts the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9. in a longer historical context of political conflict arising from the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11. In Chapter 2 the nature of the royal regime obtaining before the revolution will be studied in terms of its foundations of power and stability in the 1963-78 period. Oil wealth, economic stabilisation, cooperation between the state and the upper class, repression and US political support formed the bases of the Shah's power. In turn, the crumbling of these foundations of power eventually led to the disintegration of his regime. In Chapters 3, 4 and 5 we will seek to explain the major causes of the revolution. To do this, we will use a concept that will bring together several factors which by themselves are insufficient to explain the revolution. They include the development of a revolutionary ideology portraying a better possible society in a decade or so before the revolution; the economic crisis of 1973-8 leading to the generation of economic discontent and grievances on a mass scale; the emergence of some fundamental conflicts of interest between the state and the upper bourgeoisie; the disintegration of the regime's foreign support; the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses by a network of mobilising organisations; and the occurrence of a political alliance between diverse forces of opposition to the monarchy. Thus we will treat the revolution as a conjuncture taking into account the internal contradictions of the state such as its conflict with the upper class and the disintegration of the army, and the external revolutionary pressures brought to bear on the regime such as political mobilisation and political alliances.
