Iran's Unfinished Revolution

Socialism 2018

July 05, 2018

Iran’s revolution in 1979 not only toppled the Shah’s brutal dictatorship—it was a veritable “festival of the oppressed” that brought out workers, who played a central role in it—national minorities, women, and others into mass action. But the urban mobilizations, centered on Mosques—the only arena not fully policed by the Shah—also had a strong religious component. With the assent of Khomeini to power, the radical forces of the revolution—the left, the women’s movement, the national minorities—were one by one sidelined and repressed in the new Islamic Republic. This talk will discuss the changes that Iran has undergone since the revolution, the contradictions that have developed, and the potential for a renewal of struggle to continue what was halted in its tracks in the 1979 revolution.

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