White Revolution

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Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1963

The White Revolution ( Persian اانقلاب سفید Enghelāb-e Sefid ), actuallyانقلاب شاه و مردم Enghelab-e Shah o Mardom , 'Revolution of Shah and People' (or Enghelāb-e Schāh o Mellat , "Revolution of Shah and Nation"), was originally a 6-point reform program that was developed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi according to plans by Ali Amini was presented on January 11, 1963 at the National Congress of Farmers of Iran in Tehran andpassedby referendum on January 26, 1963. It should modernize Iran and improve the social situation there.

prehistory

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Prime Minister Amini and Agriculture Minister Arsanjani distributing land deeds in Kermanshah, 1961

As early as 1943, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had formulated five basic social rights for all Iranians in his New Year's address: the right to an appropriate minimum of food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

“In any case, a man's earnings must be sufficient to secure the aforementioned things for him and his family. If this is not the case, the government or charities, or both, must step in and help him. "

In 1961, 75% of Iran's population worked in agriculture. A reform that was supposed to improve the economic situation of the Iranian people therefore had to be started in the agricultural sector. A special task was the implementation of a land reform , with which the ownership structure of the agricultural land was to be fundamentally changed.

The first step in land reform, a redistribution of land from large landowners to smaller farm workers, was actually started in the late 1950s. The Shah in particular gave more than 500,000 hectares of land to around 30,000 dispossessed families. Before the land reform, 70% of arable land was owned by a small class of landowners or religious foundations. There was still no official land register. Rather, the land ownership was evidenced by title deeds, whereby the deed did not certify a specific, measured area of ​​land, but a specific village and the land belonging to the village. Before the land reform, 50% of Iran's arable land was in the hands of large landowners, 20% belonged to charitable or religious foundations, 10% belonged to the state or the Crown and only 20% belonged to free farmers. Before the land reform began, 18,000 villages had been recorded whose land was to be divided among the farmers living in the village.

The Shah had spoken of the need for land reform for many years, but clergy opposition had repeatedly led him to postpone reform. At the end of the reign of Prime Minister Manouchehr Eghbal by the then Minister of Agriculture was Jamshid Amusegar the Parliament submitted a bill on land reform, which was however diluted by the representatives of the big landowners as in Parliament that despite the adopted 6 June 1960 the first law is to Land reform did not result in a fundamental redistribution of land ownership in Iran.

On November 11, 1961, the Shah commissioned Prime Minister Ali Amini to work out proposals for implementing the planned reform program. On November 14, 1961, Amini declared that the Shah had given him special powers to implement the reform program. The MPs of the National Front expressed massive criticism of Amini, so that in the end Amini had the leaders of the reform critics arrested. In January 1962, he directed his Agriculture Minister, Hassan Arsanjani , to revise the 1960 Land Reform Act. From now on the large landowners were only allowed to own a single village. They had to sell the rest of their land to the state, which in turn would give it to the landless farmers at a much lower price. The state also granted farmers cheap loans when they formed agricultural cooperatives. Prime Minister Amini resigned on July 18, 1962, due to ongoing protests against the reform program and a growing budget deficit. Amini wanted to achieve the budget deficit by cutting armaments spending, which, however, could not be achieved politically.

With the White Revolution , Mohammad Reza Shah wanted to promote Iran's economic and social reform in a coordinated reform project. After Amini's resignation, Prime Minister Asadollah Alam's cabinet was tasked with putting the reforms into appropriate laws. In January 1963, an amendment to the land reform law drafted by Agriculture Minister Arsanjani was passed, which was supposed to put an end to the feudal system that existed in Iran from the Qajar era . The land reform critics from the ranks of the big landowners accused Arsanjani that the reform law violated the constitution, the laws of Islam and the existing laws of the country.

Women first vote, 1963

It became clear that the program of the White Revolution and, above all, the land reform against the opposition of the landowners and the clergy could only be implemented if it were supported by the vast majority of the population of Iran. For this reason, the Shah planned a referendum in which the Iranian citizens would vote on whether they would support or reject the reform projects. Ruhollah Khomeini , clergyman and wealthy landowner, spoke out against the referendum of January 26, 1963 . He branded this as an anti-God project and called on all believers not to take part in the vote. In the referendum, 5,598,711 Iranians spoke out in favor and 4,115 against. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Borudscherdi had also spoken out against the reform program, but his death in March 1961 invalidated the anti-White Revolution fatwa .

Mohammad Reza Shah had declared before the referendum:

“If I have decided to hold a referendum on these reforms, it is because I want to prevent our peasants from ever becoming serfs again, that our country's natural resources benefit the profit making of a few, and that the significance of these revolutionary changes is not more can be impaired or destroyed at the instigation of a minority. "

Another important point of the reforms was the empowerment of women. In the run-up to the referendum, there were discussions as to whether women who had not yet had the right to vote should also take part in the vote. In order not to jeopardize the legality of the referendum, it was agreed that women should cast their votes in separate urns from men, that the votes of women should be counted separately but not added to the legally binding result of the vote.

On February 27, 1963, the Shah passed a decree granting Iranian women universal and free suffrage .

Objective in terms of content

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi handing over land tenure deeds

The 6-point program

The original 6 points of the White Revolution included:

  1. Abolition of the feudal system and distribution of arable land from large landowners to farmers
  2. Nationalization of all forests and pastures
  3. Privatization of state industrial companies to finance the compensation payments to the large landowners
  4. Profit sharing for workers and employees of companies
  5. General active and passive women's suffrage
  6. Combating illiteracy by building an auxiliary teacher corps ( army of knowledge)

The most controversial issues of this reform program were land reform and the empowerment of women. In both areas the reform ideas of Mohammad Reza Shah contradicted the ideas of the clergy. In their opposition to land reform, the clergy found strong allies with the large landowners. The alliance against the strengthening of women's rights was less clearly defined. In return, broad strata of the population were found who did not want to give up their conservative ideas about the role of women in marriage and society. The clergy formed the mouthpiece of the conservatives and the bazaar merchants financed the clergy's campaign against change.

Army of Knowledge (Sepah-e Danesch)

The Army of Knowledge at a parade, Tehran, 1965

In October 1963 parliament passed a law mandating the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense to train conscripts who had graduated from high school to become auxiliary teachers, the Army of Knowledge (Sepah-e Danesch) , in order to help the to remedy the acute shortage of teachers in the villages. Young conscripts, both young men and young women, were able to register for this alternative service after completing their basic training and were then sent to the appropriate village schools after four months of training. Anyone who had started studying before completing their military service could complete it and was then obliged to do their military service with the Army of Knowledge .

The deployment of the Army of Knowledge proved a success. From the founding of the Army of Knowledge to its dissolution after the Islamic Revolution, nearly 200,000 young men and women taught more than 2.2 million boys and girls and more than 1 million adults. The rate of adult illiteracy in the villages was 95% at the start of the program, with many people who could read and write unable to provide evidence of a regular school leaving certificate. Ten years after the program began, the illiteracy rate in the villages was below 80%. Only those people who were able to prove a school-leaving certificate were recorded in this number as being able to read and write. In 1969, in villages across Iran, 293,000 students were educated in 7,541 schools newly built as part of the literacy program; in 1976 there were already 656,000 students in 14,732 new schools. In a study published by UNESCO in 1973, the contribution of the Army of Knowledge was described as "considerable". As a result of this success, the idea of ​​involving young conscripts more closely in the development of the country was expanded and plans were drawn up for the establishment of a health army.

In 1972 the Army of Knowledge was awarded the UNESCO K. Kruskaya Education Prize for its successful work . In 1968, 493,247 students attended classes. In 1969 there were already 861,657. During this period, in addition to the 8,873 "Teachers in Uniform" from the "Army of Knowledge", another 23,856 volunteers worked as teachers in 161 institutions that organized local education campaigns. The fact that conscripts were able to do their military service as teachers was particularly recognized by UNESCO .

Mohammad Reza Shah had already founded the " Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Education Prize " in 1967 , which was awarded until 1976 on September 8th, World Literacy Day .

The critics of the program, especially since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, counter that it had removed children in rural areas from the influence of the clergy who had previously taught the children according to traditional ideas. The mostly young and inexperienced conscripts from the cities were mostly unable to develop a relationship with the rural residents: they often spoke different languages, faced resistance from families and clergy, and were mostly involuntarily sent to teach in the countryside. Given the reality in the villages, some of the conscripts became radicalized. The influence of the Army of Knowledge on rural illiteracy was low, according to the programme's critics.

Health Army (Sepah-e Behdascht)

An Army soldier for reconstruction doing foundation work for a school

On February 9, 1964, Parliament passed the law establishing a health army. The aim of the health army was to improve health care in rural areas. Doctors, dentists, veterinarians and those who had trained in health care could serve in the health army instead of military service. For volunteers, the army offered training to become paramedics. Those who had completed their military service in the health army were given preference in the state health service.

Army for Reconstruction and Beautification (Sepah-e Tarvidsch va Abadani)

The third “Army of the White Revolution” was the Army for Reconstruction and Beautification (Sepah-e Tarvisch va Abadani) , which was established by a law passed on January 10, 1965. The conscripts were trained and deployed in cooperation between the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Housing. Initially, it was intended to work in the area of ​​modernizing agriculture and building schools, public baths, etc. in order to improve the quality of life in the villages. Students in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry had to do their military service in this army in order to be able to inform farmers and farmers about modern methods of agriculture and animal husbandry.

Land reform

As part of the land reform, around 2 million farmers became landowners for the first time. A farmer from a village near Shiraz describes the effects of the reform program as follows: "Of course my life has improved. Ten years ago neither I nor my wife could read or write. Our children did not go to school. They worked up with us the field that belonged to a stranger. If I was lucky, I would get a fifth of the harvest. More often the harvest was poor. Today the land is ours. We have machines for work. All my children were in school. My oldest Daughter married an engineer from the city. My wife and I elect our village council. We can read and write because a young man from the Army of Knowledge taught us. "

Critics complained that 65% of farmers received less than 5 hectares of land; 1.1 million remained completely landless or lived nomadically. The mechanization that was driven at the same time led to the fact that unemployed farm workers poured into the cities; internal migration rose to around 8% and the urban population to 46% of the total population. Agricultural production, meanwhile, fell because the fixed maximum prices for agricultural products offered no incentive to increase production, because cheap imports made agricultural production inland uneconomical, and because tried and tested traditional methods were abandoned.

Reactions

His quietistic attitude did not prevent Grand Ayatollah Hossein Borudscherdi from exercising his influence on important political issues. Opposed to women's emancipation and land reform, he issued a fatwa on May 16, 1960 against the reforms of the Shah. Out of consideration for Borudscherdi, the Shah only implemented his reform program after Borudscherdi's death and after a series of concessions to the clergy. Islam classes in schools were expanded, entertainment events were banned in public places and in public institutions during religious holidays, the Shah's obligation to advocate Shiite Islam was renewed, state support for the construction of mosques increased and the number of pilgrims, who were able to travel to Mecca with the support of public funds increased.

Despite the overwhelming support of the Iranians in the January 26, 1963 referendum, some clerics continued to oppose the White Revolution. The fiercest opponent of the proposed reforms was Ruhollah Khomeini . On June 3, 1963, during the Ashura celebrations , Khomeini personally attacked the Shah in a speech at Ghom's Faizieh School by delivering a speech against the tyrant of our time :

“This government is directed against Islam. Israel is against the fact that the laws of the Koran apply in Iran. Israel is against the enlightened clergy ... Israel is using its agents in this land to remove the resistance against Israel ... the Koran, the clergy ... Oh Mr. Shah, oh exalted Shah, I give you good advice to give in and (from these reforms). I don't want to see the people dancing for joy on the day when you will leave the country by order of your masters, as everyone cheered when your father left the country. "

After this speech, Khomeini was arrested on June 5, 1963 (15th Khordad). He should have to leave the country and not Mohammad Reza Shah, as Khomeini had foreseen, if he did not abandon his reform program.

Protests and demonstrations

Protests against the White Revolution

Khomeini's speech against the reforms of the White Revolution was accompanied by violent demonstrations in Qom , Shiraz , Mashhad and Tehran. More than 10,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Tehran on June 5, 1963 to protest against Khomeini's arrest. Prime Minister Alam called on the army after he was only able to leave the seat of government in an armored vehicle. For the first time after the Second World War, there was a state of emergency in Tehran. Troops marched in the streets and demonstrators were shot at. Thousands were injured. Prime Minister Alam put the number of deaths at 20. Khomeini and his supporters spoke of 15,000 dead demonstrators, for Khomeini clear evidence of the “crimes of the Shah against the Iranian people”. According to an investigation carried out by Emad al-Din Baghi in the late 1990s, in which he relied on data from the Iranian " Martyrs Foundation " ( Bonyade Shahid ), on June 5, 1963, 32 demonstrators were killed in the violent riots in Tehran came. The resistance against Mohammad Reza Shah under Khomeini had formed. Leading politicians of the Islamic Republic of Iran declare today that the uprising in June 1963 against the Alam's electoral reforms marked the birth of the Islamic revolution.

Despite considerable resistance from the clergy, the Shah pushed through his reform plans, which in 1963 were supported by the majority of the population. Prime Minister Alam was the first to pay the political price for the planned reforms: after the violent suppression of the anti-reform protests, his political fate as Prime Minister was sealed. On March 7, 1964, Alam resigned.

The assassination of Prime Minister Mansour

After Prime Minister Alam's resignation, Hassan Ali Mansour followed . While Alam was merely forced to resign by the reform opponents, Prime Minister Mansour paid for his commitment to the reforms with his life. On January 22, 1965, a few days before the second anniversary of the White Revolution, Mansour's car stopped in front of the Parliament building at around 10 a.m. Mansour wanted to deliver his first State of the Union address to Parliament. Mansour got out of the car and Mohammad Bokharaii, a member of Fedayeen -e Islam , stepped up to Mansour from the crowd of waiting spectators and shot three times. Mansour was put back in the car and driven to the hospital, where he died five days later.

Amir Abbas Hoveyda becomes Prime Minister

Mohammad Reza Shah did not want to be dissuaded from his reform plans by an assassination attempt on the prime minister. He appointed Mansour's close confidante Amir Abbas Hoveyda as acting prime minister pending his approval by parliament. Hoveyda would remain Prime Minister for the next 13 years and ultimately lead the White Revolution to economic success.

After the death of the Grand Ayatollah Borudscherdi and Khomeini's expulsion, the clergy were divided in their attitude to the reform program. Grand Ayatollah Kasem Shariatmadari , who had ties to the National Front , did not speak out against reform in principle as long as the clergy were involved in the reform process. The majority of the clergy were against the expansion of the education system and the strengthening of women's rights. The traditionalists believed that education and more political rights for women would only encourage prostitution.

Despite their opposition, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi wanted to win over the clergy for his reform program by ordering the construction of the Farhabad Mosque in Doschan Tape and commissioning the reprint of a particularly precious Koran , the Neiziri Koran . He held out the prospect of founding an Islamic university in Qom or Mashhad and emphasized that his reform program would be based on Islamic principles and that he wanted to implement Islamic ideals in the way the Prophet had intended. The Shah donated valuable and artistically designed doors with gold and silver fittings for the Shah-e Tscheraq mosque in Shiraz, and from 1967 mourning ceremonies were broadcast on state television during the mourning month of Muharram. After his coronation, the Shah went on a pilgrimage to Mashhad.

Expansion of the reform program

In the following years the reform program of the White Revolution was expanded to include the following points:

1964

  1. Free medical care
  2. Establishment of cooperative cooperatives in agriculture
  3. Establishment of arbitration tribunals

1967

  1. Nationalization of rivers and lakes
  2. Reconstruction program for cities and rural areas
  3. Reorganization of the state administration
  4. Decentralization of education

1975

  1. New family law with extensive equality between men and women, de facto abolition of plural marriage, equal divorce law for women, compulsory maintenance payments for women and children in the event of divorce, assignment of custody of common children to the widow in the event of the death of the spouse
  2. Employee participation in state and private companies
  3. State price monitoring
  4. Free nutritional supplements for pregnant women and toddlers up to 3 years of age
  5. Free education and free school meals for all children from kindergarten to 6th grade (primary level)
  6. Introduction of a nationwide social assistance system
  7. More western films are shown (also uncut)

1977

  1. Price control for land
  2. Publication of the income of senior government officials and their wives and children

Political liberalization and "opening of political space"

When Jimmy Carter took over the US presidency in January 1977 and his political focus on human rights was also changed, the political reform program of Mohammad Reza Shah changed. The social reforms that were still part of the reform program at the beginning of the White Revolution had been neglected in comparison to the economic reforms. This should now change fundamentally.

At the latest when Jamjid Amusegar took office as Prime Minister, the “open political space” was declared policy. As early as May and June 1977, the government invited the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to inspect the Iranian prisons. Discussions were held with senior officials from Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists on the elimination of torture and improvements in prisons, as well as on strengthening the legal position of detainees.

Darius Homayun , Amzuegar's Minister of Information, stated:

"Nobody should be afraid to criticize the government."

Democratization was the general political objective. However, Mohammad Reza Shah was convinced that democracy in Iran could not simply be adopted from abroad, but had to develop on the basis of Iranian particularities. He published his ideas of the future Iranian democratic state in 1978 in the book "On the Way to Great Civilization".

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mohammed Reza Pahlevi: In the service of my country. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, undated, p. 171.
  2. ↑ Mohammed Reza Pahlevi: In the service of my country. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart, undated, p. 184.
  3. ^ Gérard de Villiers: The Shah. Page 460
  4. ^ Farah Diba-Pahlavi: Memories. Bergisch-Gladbach, 2004, p. 135.
  5. ^ Kristen Blake: The US-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945-1962. University Press of America, 2009, p. 155.
  6. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 88.
  7. ↑ DER SPIEGEL 23/1984
  8. ↑ [Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi - speech given at the farmers' congress on January 9, 1963 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0bDSP_YdC8 ]
  9. ^ Farah Diba-Pahlavi: Memories. Bergisch-Gladbach, 2004, p. 141.
  10. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 233.
  11. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 231.
  12. ↑ a b Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 237.
  13. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 229.
  14. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tarh.majlis.ir
  15. ↑ Farian Sabhani: The Literacy Corps in Pahlavi Iran (1963-1979) - Political, Social and Literary Implications. Ph.D. School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) University of Londong. Lugano 2002, p. 15.
  16. ^ National Committee for Combat against Illiteray. Tehran Sept. 1976. (Persian)
  17. ^ Statistical Yearbook Iran. Plan and Budget Organization. Statistical Center of Iran (SCI). Tehran, year 2535. Serial No 637. pp. 92-93. (Persian)
  18. ↑ Pierre Furter: Possibilities and limitations of functional literacy: The Iranian experiment. UNESCO, Paris 1973, p. 11. PDF on unesco.org
  19. ↑ UNESCO: Literacy 1967-1969. Paris, 1970. p. 34.
  20. ↑ Farian Sabahi: LITERACY CORPS . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , as of July 20, 2004, accessed on July 31, 2015 (English, including references)
  21. ↑ Michael Axworthy: Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic . 1st edition. Penguin Books, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84614-291-8 , pp. 74 .
  22. ↑ http://tarh.majlis.ir/?ShowRule&Rid=D5A67C65-304B-4792-ABF0-F0F351F5D943  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / tarh.majlis.ir  
  23. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 16, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tarh.majlis.ir
  24. ↑ Andrew Scott Cooper: The Fall of Heaven . 1st edition. Henry Hoöt and Company, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-8050-9897-6 , pp. 160 .
  25. ↑ Michael Axworthy: Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic . 1st edition. Penguin Books, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84614-291-8 , pp. 73 .
  26. ↑ Shahrough Akhavi: Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran. State University of New York Press, 1980, p. 92.
  27. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. University of California Press. 2009, p. 234.
  28. ^ Cyrus Kadivar: A Question of Numbers . In: Rouzegar-Now , August 8, 2003.
  29. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2009, p. 51.
  30. ↑ Farian Sabahi: The Literacy Corps in Pahlavi Iran (1963-1979). Lugano, 2002, p. 230.
  31. ↑ Farian Sabahi: The Literacy Corps in Pahlavi Iran (1963-1979). Lugano, 2002, p. 231.
  32. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 601.
  33. ↑ a b Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. UC Press 2009. p. 447.