ABSTRACT
By the end of 1977, the Pahlavi state, centred on the person ofMohammad Reza Shah, appeared secure and well entrenched. Critics had either been silenced or co-opted, and economic growth, while
erratic and occasionally showing signs of strain, appeared to provide its own justification for a continuation of Pahlavi rule. A substantial increase in oil revenues in December 1973 provided the Shah with a financial cushion his predecessors could only envy. Yet the surfeit of money which had been injected into the Iranian economy after 1974 only seemed to accentuate and exaggerate the worst excesses of the regime. Not only were income disparities growing at an exponential rate, but corruption (especially at the higher levels of the regime), normally tolerated as an accepted part of social and economic life, now grew to such proportions that even the tolerant considered it obscene. Particularly embarrassing for the regime were allegations of commissions in arms procurement, frequently involving senior army officers and tarnishing the reputation of an institution regularly heralded as the epitome of national integrity.4 That such payments were involved in the procurement of weapons many critics of the regime considered unnecessary if not altogether harmful to the economic prosperity of the country, only confirmed the belief that such purchases were fraudulent and of more benefit to the US arms industry. While income disparities were nothing new in Iran – and monarchists complained that critics talked as if the Shah had invented poverty – it was the increasing absence of social safety valves to contain and control the poverty which resulted in heightened anger among sections of the populace and a growing belief that social justice had been sacrificed at the altar of rapid economic growth.
