As the Cold War moved increasingly away from the traditional Western European centres of power to Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East during the 1950s, modernization theory appeared to offer both explanations of, and solutions to, the problems that faced the United States in the developing world.
In 1960, the John F. Kennedy administration came to office determined to shift the Shah’s preoccupation from military security to economic progress. The Americans were even willing to limit American aid as leverage.
In Iran, American influence was clearly reflected in the Shah’s decision to inaugurate land reform. It seemed as if the American was successfully dictating the terms of Iran’s future development. Iran was expected to use its own oil revenues.
In September 1959, at the request of Iran’s Minister of Agriculture, the Agency for International Development (AID) mission actually drafted the first part of the program, the initial land reform law.
American insistence on reform reflected the Kennedy administration’s concern over the likelihood of peasant uprisings and communist revolutions such as those that had taken place in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. In the case of Iran, the American government was especially worried about the impact of the Iraqi revolution of 1958 and fears of possible similar mass uprisings in Iran. The Americans hoped that land reform would stabilize the countryside and prevent the development of major pressures from below extensive economic problems and political discontents, prompted the American government to demand agrarian reform as a condition for financial assistance to Iran.
John F. Kennedy, in particular, embraced the theory of modernization espoused by Walt Whitman Rostow, employing him as a foreign policy advisor first during his presidential campaign and then later in key positions within his administration. It is little wonder, then, that the Kennedy years are typically seen as representing the high-water mark of modernization in American foreign policy.
Iran’s ruler, Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941–1979), in January 1963 launched a series of reform policies that he called the White Revolution (Later known as the Revolution of the Shah and the People). The domestic aim was to undermine the political appeal of an influential but diffuse opposition movement by appropriating programs such as land tenure reform that it long had advocated. There also was an international objective: to win favour with Iran’s principal foreign ally, the United States, which then was a major source of economic and military assistance. During the administration of John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), American policy supported economic and social reforms in countries such as Iran as a means of undercutting the appeal of anti-regime movements that were perceived as being allied with the Soviet Union. Thus the major element of the Shah’s White Revolution was a land reform program (actually begun a year earlier) that eventually would redistribute about one-half of private agricultural land to peasants holding traditional sharecropping rights (approximately one-half of all village families). Five other programs also comprised the White Revolution at its outset. By the mid-1970s the White Revolution comprised a total of nineteen programs.
Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi advertised the White Revolution as a step towards modernization. He had intended it to be a non-violent regeneration of Iranian society through economic and social reforms, with the ultimate long-term aim of transforming Iran into a global economic and industrial power, but there is some doubt that he also had political motives; the White Revolution (a name attributed to the fact it was bloodless) was a way for him to legitimize the Pahlavi dynasty. Part of the reason for launching the White Revolution was that the Shah hoped to get rid of the landlords’ influence and create a new base of support among the peasants and working class. The bulk of the program was aimed at Iran’s peasantry, a class the Shah hoped to gain as an ally to thwart the threat of the increasingly hostile middle class. Thus the White Revolution in Iran represented a new attempt to introduce reform from above and preserve traditional power patterns. Through land reform, the essence of the White Revolution, the Shah hoped to ally himself with the peasantry in the countryside and to sever their ties with the aristocracy in the city.
The original bill was modified by the landlord-dominated Parliament to such an extent that it became almost impossible to implement.
In January 1962, a land reform decree was promulgated, with the encouragement and advice of American officials. According to some contemporary historians, during its first phase:
”The landowning Thousand Families, including the tribal chiefs, lost their socio-legal base and were thus liquidated as a class. Though many of its members retained large holdings of land and became mechanized commercial farmers, joining the petro-bourgeoisie in the prosperity of the 1970s, and many even remained in the Pahlavi political elite, there can be no doubt that the traditional peasant-landlord relationship which was the power basis of the landowning class and accounted for its prominence in the parliament, was destroyed. Furthermore, by failing to give any or enough land to the majority of the peasants, the land reform accelerated the massive migration from the rural areas into the cities.”
In order to legitimize the White Revolution, the Shah called for a national referendum on January 26, 1963, in which 5,598,711 people voted for the reforms, and 4,115 voted against the reforms.
The second stage of reform came into effect in January 1963, but it was considered so radical that its provisions were diluted in 1964.
The White Revolution consisted of 19 articles that were introduced over a period of 16 years, with the first major 6 introduced in 1962:
1. Land reform program and abolishing “feudalism”: The government bought the land from the feudal landlords at what was considered to be a fair price and sold it to the peasants at 30% below the market value, with the loan being payable over 25 years at very low-interest rates. This made it possible for 1.5 million peasant families, who had once been little more than slaves, to own the lands that they had been cultivating all their lives. Given that the average size of a peasant family was 5, the land reforms program brought freedom to approximately 9 million people or 40% of Iran’s population.
2. Nationalization of forests and pasturelands: Many measures were introduced, not only to protect the national resources and stop the destruction of forests and pasturelands but also to further develop and cultivate them. More than 9 million trees were planted in 26 regions, creating 70,000 acres (280 km²) of “green belts” around cities and on the borders of the major highways.
3. Privatization of government-owned enterprises, selling shares in manufacturing plants and factories to the public and the old feudal lords, thus creating a whole new class of factory owners who could now help to industrialize the country.
4. Profit-sharing for industrial workers in private sector enterprises, giving the factory workers and employees a 20% share of the net profits of the places where they worked and securing bonuses based on higher productivity or reductions in costs.
5. Extending the right to vote to women, who previously did not enjoy this right. This measure was criticized by some of the clergy.
6. Formation of the Literacy Corps (Sepah-e Danesh), so that those who had a high school diploma and were required to serve their country as soldiers could do so by fighting illiteracy in the villages. In 1963 approximately 2/3 of the population was illiterate, with 1/3 found mainly in the capital city of Tehran. Later, the literacy corps model was extended to a health corps (for draftees who had college-level training in medicine) and a development corps (for college graduate draftees).
The results of the White Revolution were mixed. On the positive side, about half a million peasants obtained adequate land under the land reform program to engage in profitable farming, primary schools were established in several hundred villages that previously had none, and small towns and rural areas benefited from various government development initiatives. On the negative side, perhaps the most serious deficiency of the White Revolution was the raising of popular expectations that remained unfulfilled. With respect to land reform, for example, one-half of all rural families received no land at all; among those obtaining land, about 73 percent got less than six hectares, an amount sufficient only for subsistence farming. The net result was the creation of widespread disillusionment in villages. This pattern — some benefits accruing to a minority but overall disappointment for the majority — characterized many of the White Revolution programs by the early 1970s.
There was a minor industrial revolution during this period of reform. Port facilities were improved, the Trans-Iranian Railway was expanded, and the main roads connecting Tehran and provincial capitals were asphalted. Many small factories opened up specializing in clothing, food processing, cement, tiles, paper, and home appliances. Larger factories for textiles, machine tools, and car assembly were also opened. Educational institutions also grew after the launching of the White Revolution. Enrollment in kindergarten increased from 13,300 to 221,990, elementary schools from 1,640,000 to 4,080,000, secondary schools from 370,000 to 741,000 and colleges from 24,885 to 145,210. Not only were new schools opening, but they were also instituting new educational policies designed to undercut clerical control over education and religious education. The Literacy Corps also helped raise the literacy rate from 26 to 42 percent. The White Revolution also included certain reforms of women’s rights. Women gained the right to vote, to run for elected office and to serve as lawyers and later judges. The marriageable age for women was also raised to fifteen.
It was true that Iran had made progress with various social programs from the White Revolution, but it was equally true that Iran still had one of the worst infant mortality rates and doctor-patient ratios in the Middle East. It also had one of the lowest percentages of people who were receiving a higher education. For example, 68 percent of the adult population still remained illiterate, and 60 percent of children did not complete primary school.
In late 1978, there had been widespread dissatisfaction among Iranian farmers concerning land reforms that were supposed to empower them. The Shah’s reforms overvalued grandiose inefficient industries over agriculture leading to a sense of negligence among the farmers. Mismanagement and corruption resulted in the waste of many funds designated for agricultural development. Emigrations to cities resulted in more demand than could be met by production. Even though reforms turned many peasants into land-owners it imposed on them costs such as taxes, purchase of seeds, water, and equipment that they were not burdened with when they worked for landowners, while also eliminating services such as health and education that were provided for them by landlords under the traditional system. An influx of agricultural imports from the Americans also reduced the farmers’ market share.
The White Revolution’s economic “trickle-down” strategy also did not work as intended. In theory, oil money funnelled to the elite was supposed to be used to create jobs and factories, eventually distributing the money, but instead, the wealth tended to get stuck at the top and concentrated in the hands of the very few.
What the Shah did not expect was that the White Revolution led to new social tensions that helped create many of the problems the Shah had been trying to avoid. The Shah’s reforms more than quadrupled the combined size of the two classes that had posed the most challenges to his monarchy in the past — the intelligentsia and the urban working class. Their resentment towards the Shah also grew since they were now stripped of organizations that had represented them in the past, such as political parties, professional associations, trade unions, and independent newspapers. Land reform, instead of allying the peasants with the government, produced large numbers of independent farmers and landless labourers who became loose political cannons, with no feeling of loyalty to the Shah. Many of the masses felt resentment towards the increasingly corrupt government; their loyalty to the clergy, who were seen as more concerned with the fate of the populace, remained consistent or increased.
In the beginning, the White Revolution received most of its criticism from two main groups: the clergy, and the landlords. The landlords were angry about the land reforms because their land was bought by the government and then sold in smaller plots to the citizenry at a lower price. They also did not appreciate the government undercutting their authority when it came to dealing with peasants or land labourers.
Protests against the Shah’s reform effort began at the time of the Iranian New Year in March (Norouz). The confrontation came to a head later that spring and summer. Demonstrations were centred in the urban areas of the country, especially Tehran, Qom, Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashhad, Kashan, and Isfahan. Rallies occurred in the bazaar areas where “small traders, shopkeepers and artisans, students, workers, the unemployed, and political activists” participated.
The most important and relevant consequence of the White Revolution and the reforms it brought, was the rising popularity of Sayyed Ruhollah Khomeini. Assuming a leadership role for the first time, Ayatollah Khomeini was adept at centring attention on concerns that resonated with the general public.
The White Revolution was the catalyst for Khomeini’s change in thought. Once Khomeini, as a respected member of the clergy, started to openly oppose the Shah and call for his overthrow, people of all different professions and economic statuses began to see him as a figure to rally behind.
Khomeini’s famous speech at Feyziyeh School in June 1963 spoke out against the Shah’s brutality towards student protests, and for the first time, it was a speech attacking the Shah as a person. This speech did lead to Khomeini’s exile, but being outside of Iran did not stop Khomeini’s protests, nor did it weaken his influence inside Iran. He also denounced the regime for living off corruption, rigging referendum, violating the constitutional laws, stifling the press and the political parties, destroying the independence of the university, neglecting the economic needs of merchants, workers, and peasants, undermining the country’s Islamic beliefs, encouraging westernization, granting “Capitulation” to foreigners, selling oil to Israel, and constantly expanding the size of the central bureaucracies.
Two days later, on June 5, Khomeini was arrested. This sparked three days of rioting and left several hundred dead. The riots were remembered in speeches and writings as the time when the army “slaughtered no less than 15,000.” Khomeini was released from house arrest in April 1964 but sent into exile that November.
Though the White Revolution contributed towards the economic and technological advancement of Iran, the failures of some of the land reform programs and the partial lack of democratic reforms, as well as severe antagonism towards the White Revolution from the clergy and landed elites, would ultimately contribute to the Shah’s downfall and the Iranian Revolution in 1979, or more interestingly “The White Revolution had been designed to preempt a Red Revolution. Instead, it surprisingly paved the way for an Islamic Revolution.”
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