Iranian History and Politics: State and Society in Perpetual Conflict (Routledge Curzon Bips Persian Studies Series)

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IRANIAN HISTO RY AND POLITICS

This book is the first modern theory of Iranian history. It explains Iran’s history and politics – past, recent and present – and solves many of the puzzles that both lay and professional observers have long felt about them. For example, it shows why there was a revolution in 1905–1906 for democracy and modernisation, and one in 1977–1979 for an Islamic republic (or communist state). Or why many of the Iranians who, in 1979, angrily supported the occupation and hostagetaking of American diplomats in Tehran, are now emotionally pro-American and wish that the United States would help them directly in changing Iran’s regime. The book offers a completely new and alternative approach to the understanding of Iranian history, politics and society, and its consequences for political action and behaviour in that country. Homa Katouzian is a social scientist and literary critic. He has taught at various universities, including UCLA and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. A Fellow of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, his publications include State and Society in Iran (2000), Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (1991), Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (1990), The Political Economy of Modern Iran (1981) and Ideology and Method in Economics (1980).

ROUTLEDGECURZON/BIPS PERSIAN STUDIES SERIES Editorial Board C. E. Bosworth, V. S. Curtis, R. M. Gleave and V. A. Martin

The RoutledgeCurzon/BIPS Persian Studies Series publishes scholarly books in the social sciences and humanities on Iran. Such works include: original research monographs, suitably revised theses, specially planned books deriving from conferences, specially commissioned, multi-authored research books, and translations. IRANIAN HISTO RY AND POLITICS The dialectic of state and society Homa Katouzian THE MAKING OF MODERN IRAN State and society under Riza Shah 1921–1941 Edited by Stephanie Cronin

IRANIAN HISTO RY AND POLITICS The dialectic of state and society

Homa Katouzian

First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2003 Homa Katouzian All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Katouzian, Homa. Iranian history and politics: the dialectic of state and society / Homa Katouzian. p. cm. – (RoutledgeCurzon/BIPS Persian studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Iran – Politics and government – 20th century. 2. Constitutional history – Iran. 3. Opposition (Political science) I. Title. II. Series. DS315 .K38 2003 955.05–dc21 2002068278 ISBN 0-203-22255-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-27700-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–29754–0 (Print Edition)

TO JAHAN DANIEL, AND HOPES FO R THE NEW CENTURY

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Preface Introduction

ix x xii

PART I Arbitrary rule: a theory of Iranian history and politics

1

1 The theory of arbitrary rule: status and implications

3

2 Towards a general theory of Iranian revolutions

16

3 Arbitrary rule: a comparative theory of state, politics and society in Iran

35

4 The Aridisolatic society: a model of long-term social and economic development in Iran

61

5 European liberalisms and modern concepts of liberty in Iran

77

6 Problems of democracy and the public sphere in modern Iran PART II Arbitrary rule: applications to Iranian history and politics

101

115

7 Problems of political development in Iran: democracy, dictatorship or arbitrary government?

117

8 Liberty and licence in the constitutional revolution of Iran

134

9 The campaign against the Anglo-Iranian agreement of 1919

160

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CONTENTS

10 The revolt of Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani

203

11 Iran’s fiscal history and the nature of state and society in Iran

236

12 The execution of Amir Hasanak the vazir: some lessons for the historical sociology of Iran

250

Index

265

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

John Gurney and Stephanie Cronin read the manuscript for the publishers, and I wish to express my deep gratitude for their unqualified support and encouragement. Thanks are also due to Vanessa Martin and Jonathan Price who, respectively, represented the British Institute of Persian Studies and the publishers, and to Hossein Shahidi who prepared the index. In the final stages of preparing the material for publication I had a visiting post at the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, to whom I am grateful for providing a most stimulating intellectual environment and generous material support. The views expressed and errors committed are entirely my responsibility, of course. Homa Katouzian Faculty of Oriental Studies University of Oxford October 2002

ix

PREFACE

The origins of these studies are in the 1960s. The Shah’s White Revolution in 1963 was shortly followed by the riots of June that year, and the elimination of the established social classes, notably landlords, the higher ulama, and other – loyal but reformist – political groups, from real participation in the processes of politics and government.1 The important point, both from the theoretical and the practical point of view, was that the politically eliminated social classes and political groups were not replaced by new classes, for example, the commercial and professional urban classes, as the state’s social base, that is, as classes which would have a say in running the country and would therefore legitimise its political power, its rule. On the contrary the regime lost its social base, concentrated all power in its own hands, and increasingly turned all the social classes, virtually the whole society, into a hostile or (to a decreasing extent) indifferent position. It was not a change from democracy to dictatorship; it was a change from limited constitutionalism (something akin to European dictatorships) to arbitrary government. The growing and later exploding oil revenues, which were freely received and disbursed by the state, both facilitated and intensified the re-emergence of arbitrary rule. But they did not create it. For arbitrary rule had been the norm in Iranian history. Indeed a similar process had taken place once before at the close of the Constitutional Era, between the late 1920s and 1941. It looked – to this author, at any rate – that the existing intellectual modes, models, approaches or theories (all of which were virtually based on theories of European history) could not offer adequate explanations for the ongoing social and political events in Iran, and indicate their probable consequences. For example, despite the hopes and aspirations of many Iranian activists and enthusiasts of various ideologies, it would have been impossible to anticipate with any degree of probability that that regime would fall swiftly as a result of a mass – and virtually unopposed – revolution in the midst of plenty, when the country had an average standard of living which could not have been dreamed of even fifteen years before. For this would conflict with European history and common sense, and with the analyses based on them, whether in Iran, western Europe, the United States or the Soviet Union. x

PREFACE

It therefore seemed necessary to try and examine Iran’s past as well as present through an approach that would have real explanatory and predictive potential. Begun in the mid-1960s, the study led to the development of a theory of Iranian history, politics and society, which in this volume has been described and elaborated in some detail, at the same time as it has been applied to a few specific topics in those fields. I believe that this approach and the studies based on it help make sense of Iranian history and politics, where many others have not succeeded. It contributes to the solution of many an enigmatic question, for example, the reasons for continuing antagonism between Iranian state and society regardless of change of rulers, dynasties, regimes, religions and ideologies: that is, reasons for the unaccountability of the state and the ungovernability of the society. Or why Iranian revolutions, both traditional and modern, are revolts of the society against the state, rather than of the lower social classes against the higher ones. It provides a theoretical outlook for the study of Iranian history, ancient, classical as well as modern, well beyond what has been done by this author so far; indeed, well outside the capacity of a single student of the subject. It might also be useful for finding more realistic approaches to the study of other societies, which display similar features to those observed for Iran, or in the study of which established models and theories do not seem to have been successful. This is part of an ongoing effort to discover the scope of our ignorance by trying to approach the limits of our knowledge.

1 The basic elements of the model were first suggested in a study of the Iranian land reform. See ‘Land Reform in Iran, A Case Study of the Political Economy of Social Engineering’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 1974. Earlier attempts (dating back to 1969) at putting forward the model itself, both independently and in connection to the impact of the oil revenues on the political economy of Iran and other oil-exporting countries, had to wait until the late 1970s to look credible to readers for journals and publishers.

xi

INTRODUCTION

The essays in this volume have been written over a period of twenty years and more. The very first one to be published, ‘The Aridioslatic Society’, was an extension and elaboration of a model of the logic and sociology of Iranian social development – or a theory of Iranian history – first written in 1978, which itself had been developed through earlier studies dating back to the late 1960s.1 Therefore, the theory of arbitrary rule, describing the long-term dynamics of arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule, runs through each and every one of the essays, not surprisingly, because it is within that as distinct from any other theoretical framework that they have all been written. And, likewise, not only are some basic analytical points restated – though usually in different forms – in all of these essays, but also some of the same historical evidence has been presented in a few of them. But the main reason, perhaps, for some of the overlapping was that, since the theory was new and not well known, each time it was applied, it had to be, at least briefly, described and explained. Yet, while they are necessarily interdependent, and collectively present the argument and evidence for the theory of arbitrary rule, at the same time, each one is a separate and distinct essay in its own right. In fact, their interdependence indicates the evolution both of the theory of arbitrary rule through these studies, in part one, and of its specific historical applications, in part two of the book. At the same time, each essay is distinct from the other because, as an essay on its subject, it has an integrity of its own, and, apart from the general theory which runs through it, focuses on a particular aspect of Iranian history and politics. The exceptions are Chapters 3 and 4, which complement each other to present a systematic exposition of the theory itself. Chapter 1 has been written especially for this volume. It discusses the origins, status and implications of the theory of arbitrary rule systematically. That is, it examines the history of the theory itself and the wider topics and theories which are related to it, its methodological aspects, and what it involves both for studying and understanding past history, present problems and future prospects. Chapters 2–11 present the theory and the related evidence and case studies in descending order. Chapters 2–5 are essentially theoretical. These chapters expose the theory in its entirety, cover almost every aspect of the argument xii

INTRODUCTION

arising from history, politics and sociology, and compare and contrast them with corresponding theories and issues in studies of European society. And they do so by presenting the relevant evidence both in the case of Iran and Europe. Chapter 2 explains the methodological impossibility of a universal theory of all revolutions everywhere, and argues that, although not impossible, there does not exist even a general theory of European revolutions. At the same time it makes some basic suggestions for the construction of a general theory of Iranian revolutions, that is, a theory which would explain all the main Iranian revolts and revolutions, both traditional and modern, and explain their structural differences with European revolutions. Chapter 3 presents the theory of arbitrary rule in all its aspects, in the form of a number of closely interconnected theses, which put together explain the entire theory. These theses both show the logic, sociology, politics and philosophy of Iranian history, and, at the same time, compare and contrast them with those which have been constructed against the background of European history. Chapter 4 discusses the argument that aridity in the nearabsence of great rivers led to the emergence of the peculiar Iranian village system, made up of distant, often isolated and almost entirely self-sufficient villages, as the country’s basic economic and social units. It describes the traditional organisation of production in these villages. And it argues that it was by requisitioning the collective surplus product of such isolated villages that martial and mobile nomadic forces managed to establish large and powerful arbitrary states throughout history, a function, which was increasingly assumed by the export of oil in the twentieth century. Chapter 5 looks at the other, overtly political, side of the same theory, and compares European concepts of liberty and liberal doctrines with one another, and with those that emerged in nineteenthcentury Iran when close contact with Europe showed Iranian reformers and intellectuals that arbitrary government was neither natural nor inevitable. Chapters 6–8 apply the theory thus developed to modern Iranian history since the Constitutional Revolution. They explain and discuss how and why conscious efforts, and widespread campaigns, for political development since the nineteenth century were largely frustrated in the twentieth century, despite some considerable advances made at certain turning points. They show how powerful ancient traditions led to the confusion of liberty with licence, democracy with chaos, strong government with absolutism, dictatorship with arbitrary rule. And how the long-term cycle of arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule, which has been endemic in Iranian history, became also a feature of modern Iranian politics, despite awareness of European models of politics and government and campaigns for their application to Iran. There remain the last four chapters. They contain the most empirical chapters in this volume, though they too are based on the theory of arbitrary rule, while at the same time supplying evidence for it in some considerable detail. Chapters 9 and 10 study, in a new light, two of the most important episodes in the history of twentieth-century Iran, which were somewhat related and overlapped in time. They put forward material evidence which had not been used before, and lead to xiii

INTRODUCTION

a few significant pieces of historical revisionism in their conclusions. Chapters 11 and 12 look further back at Iranian history and politics. Chapter 11 presents some of the evidence for the period 1500–1925, within the context of a critical discussion of a recent study of important aspects of the Iranian political economy in the Safavid and Qajar periods, with some comparative evidence from the economic history of France and England. It examines numerous and elaborate modes of taxation, profiteering, confiscation and plunder. It also contains direct evidence for the chronic insecurity, not only of property, but also of life itself under arbitrary regimes. The last chapter takes both the argument and the history further back to the mid-Ghaznavid era. It both exposes and discusses a particularly dramatic example of the fall and execution of a great vazir, so characteristic of Iranian history, by arbitrary ‘justice’. The same ‘justice’ which, when they flourished, they too used in dealing with the sultan’s or their own victims. As noted in the Preface, the origins of this study go back to the 1960s. There were two principal motives behind it at the time. One was to try and make sense of Iranian history and society, because observations, even of the contemporary situation, seemed to be at odds with predictions arising from the general theories developed against the background of European history. The other was to make a contribution to the development of Iranian society by trying to find out how it works, and in what ways it may experience positive as well as long-lasting change. The motives still remain the same.

1 ‘The Aridisolatic Society’ was first published, in German, in 1980. See, ‘Ein Modell einer langerfristrigen Entwicklung in Iran’, Peripheri (Zeitschrift fur Ökonomie und Politik in der Dritten Welten), December 1980. The earlier model was developed in The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981), especially in chs 2 and 15. Thus the more developed model was published before its earlier version (written in 1978) appeared in the above-mentioned book.

xiv

Part I ARBITRARY RULE A theory of Iranian history and politics

1 THE THEO RY OF ARBITRARY RULE Status and implications

As a theory of history, the theory of arbitrary rule has the same scientific and epistemological status as any other such theory proposed from the classical age until our time, in providing an analytical framework – described in recent times as a ‘paradigm’ – for the study of the society or societies to which it refers through time as well as space. This may give rise to two types of questions, which are at opposite poles. First, why there should be any analytical framework at all for a study of history and society. Second, what justifies the construction of a new one for such studies given ‘the’ existing theory. The answer to the first question is that every observation, including the evidence from empirical sources of history, is – either tacitly or explicitly – based on some such theory or analytical framework. One does not simply observe. One observes because one has questions, problems, hypotheses, all of which are a priori, prior to observation, theoretical. And this is true as much of history as of both natural and social sciences.1 This argument may be demonstrated at two levels. To give but one example at the first level, when it is said that classical feudalism began to decline from the mid-fourteenth century, the statement automatically implies a theory. For feudalism is not a fact, but a simple and abstract concept which corresponds to many – and otherwise diverse – societies over a long but certain period of history, and is, likewise, analytically distinguished from other periods in (European) history. At the second – more mundane, more detailed, but no less important – level, when a scholar of history examines the sources – whether classical and traditional accounts, or public and private documents, or indeed both – she is not normally just looking, but looking for some evidence. And she is looking for that evidence, because, she has a theory, a hypothesis, a notion, a conception of the problem, for the testing of which – for determining the truth or falsehood of which – she is seeking evidence. That notion, view or whatever is prior to the examination of the sources, prior to the facts; and hence, it is theoretical. It is very rare, but it does happen, that a scholar reads a specialised source, or a document, simply for its own sake, just as it is rare, but it does happen, that someone reads a dictionary without wanting to look for the properties of specific words. But such reading does not lead to the formation of new knowledge. 3

ARBITRARY RULE: THEO RY

And if by chance the reader is suddenly struck by a special significance of something she comes upon, it will be related to a subject for which she has already had a question, a hypothesis, a ‘hunch’. Even the legend that Newton discovered the law of gravity when he observed an apple fall to the ground, unquestionably implies that, for a long time, he had been thinking about the problem. Otherwise, he would have discovered the law of gravity the first time he had seen anything fall to the ground; more likely, this would have been discovered long before his time. Mere looking, mere observation of facts, does not lead to any knowledge beyond itself; it might do so only if there is an a priori question; only if the facts are sought for reasons which are prior to them.2 So much for the first of the two diametrically opposite objections, mentioned above, regarding the virtual necessity of the tacit or explicit use of concepts and categories in studies of history. The second question was that there already exists such a (presumably successful) theory, and that, therefore, the suggestion of another theory is irrelevant. Here too, the matter may be dealt with at two levels. First, even at the level of very basic, very large, very general questions, there is not just one theory but several, perhaps many. As regards history, for example, there are a number of relatively successful theories, or broader approaches – successful, in the sense of having a large number of adherents among scholars, and hence having generated a large amount of work based on them. (Incidentally, this poses the question of competing frameworks, and whether or not these frameworks are bound to be incompatible, even incommensurable. But that is not of fundamental relevance to our present task.)3 Even regarding a single theoretical framework or approach, say Marxist theory, there are usually a number of alternative, sometimes even contradictory, interpretations, so that it would be virtually impossible to speak of ‘the’ Marxist, or whatever, theory. Yet, it is at its second level that this objection is more often put forward against the suggestion of a new theory of history. It is this: the theories or approaches which have been so far developed for the study of history are general. Therefore, either one of them must be used for the study of all societies or a new general theory must be proposed for the same purpose. But in no case could there be one theory which would suit the study of – say European – and another, of – say – Iranian, societies. This is a common methodological confusion which is frequently found among both natural and social scientists. It is a confusion between universal and general theories. There may be a general theory about European societies, which is fundamentally unsuited to the study of Iran or elsewhere, because of the basic differences in the historical realities – material, cultural, etc. – between the two types of society. Or, to give an example from the natural sciences, a theory may be generally true of a certain phenomenon or event on the earth, but untrue of innumerable places elsewhere in the universe. A remarkable contribution of Einstein’s theory of relativity – certainly its most important single contribution to scientific method – was the demonstration of this fact: the demonstration, not 4

THE THEO RY OF ARBITRARY RULE: STATUS AND IMPLICATIONS

that Newtonian physics was wrong, but that it lacked universal validity; the demonstration that the universe was open. I shall say no more here about this particular objection – the most frequently made by social scientists – to suggesting a theory of history for Iran, because it has been sufficiently dealt with in Chapter 3, in the section entitled ‘A note on method’.4 What then is the significance of the theory of Iranian history offered in these pages and, regardless of its being correct or incorrect, how novel may it claim to be? Is this not the same thing as ‘oriental despotism’, or as ‘the Asiatic mode of production’? The answer is ‘Yes’, if it may be also said that Marx’s economic theory is the same as Ricardo’s, and Ricardo’s, of Smith’s. That Rousseau’s social contract theory is the same as Locke’s, and Locke’s, of Hobbes’s. That St Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics is the same as Aristotle’s, and Aristotle’s, of Plato’s. And so on. Otherwise, the answer is ‘No’. In other words, the subject is similar if not quite the same. But the theory is new. Apart from that, there are certain objections to concepts commonly known as oriental despotism, which I shall briefly mention later in this essay. In the last decade or so, the theory of Iranian arbitrary rule has been attracting growing attention both outside and – especially – inside Iran, largely because established theories have been facing massive contrary evidence, and seen to lack fundamental explanatory and predictive powers. Therefore, it would be appropriate to say something about the history and background to it. A basic familiarity with Greco-Roman sources of history – with Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Plutarch, etc. – and with Greco-Roman philosophical traditions, especially as they affected theories of government, politics, law, liberty, rights, citizenship, etc., shows that classical European thinkers and writers, either tacitly or explicitly, saw some basic and important differences between their societies and those of their eastern neighbours. The first time, perhaps, that the world was categorically divided between East and West was in reference to Greece and Persia. These differences concerned many aspects of the two societies, though they could all be reduced to a fundamental fact. It was not that there was less corruption and cruelty in the West than in the East. It was that, in Greece, law as a framework established and defined the rights of both state and society, and provided a formal, long-term, and essentially inviolable justification for the independence of citizens and governing classes. It was, for example, that a citizen’s life, freedom or property could not be officially violated without recourse to the established procedures, laid down in tacit or explicit forms, which it was unlawful to violate. It was that rulers were not in real danger, most of the time, of being assassinated, and replaced by whoever managed to seize power, without arousing much concern about the legitimacy of their rule. Or that the death of rulers did not normally create actual or potential chaos, even when it happened peacefully and without foul play, over who should or would succeed them. Hence, it should perhaps be mentioned at this point that the issue has nothing whatever to do with race or nationality, or with claims of racial superiority, but 5

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with social structures which have given rise to different systems of government and what has sprung from them; and with material conditions, which have both contributed to the formation of those structures, and have been, in turn, influenced by them. Besides, whatever the motives of theorists, historians or philosophers – which are likely to have been varied, in any case – the scientifically important matter is the validity or otherwise of their arguments and evidence. Apart from that, it must be noted that – at any given time, or indeed for longer periods – a society which was based in law might well have been poorer, or militarily weaker, even scientifically less advanced than one that was subject to arbitrary rule. Indeed, it is not impossible to imagine an ideal arbitrary ruler – wise, just, efficient, responsible, etc. – who will bring happiness to his society (although, by definition, this is unlikely to last after him; a matter which arises from the ‘short-term’ nature of the arbitrary society, discussed in some chapters of this volume).5 The debate regarding the nature of Iranian society – to the very limited extent to which the question has been posed at all – has been focused on ‘feudalism versus oriental despotism’ or – in Marxist jargon – ‘feudalism versus the Asiatic mode of production’. Whereas, as discussed above, the issue concerns a basic comparative study of traditional European society, whether ancient or feudal, with that of Iran (and perhaps other non-European societies as well, which is not the concern of our study, but to which a brief reference will be made later in this chapter). Feudalism refers to just one period of European history. In its fully developed form it lasted perhaps from the ninth and tenth to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although many of its structural remnants and cultural features survived until the eighteenth and even nineteenth centuries in western and central Europe, and, serfdom was, if anything, extended and reinforced in Russia and its domains, in the eighteenth century.6 The collapse of Roman Europe – the Europe of Pax Romana – was followed by the Dark Ages, so-called, in part, because of the great decline of the first few centuries; in part, because little detailed and reliable information exists about this long period. It was the Catholic Church which managed to fill some of the gap and bring a degree of order to western- and central-European society. Not only that, but also the feudal society and state which emerged from it in Medieval Europe were still less developed – in a number of important respects – than some Eastern societies of their time, notably the world of Islam, of which Iran was a part. Nevertheless, the classical feudal state was based in law. And so, in the case of the absolutist Renaissance and post-Renaissance, the liberal capitalist, etc., states that followed.7 Therefore, and this is the crucial point, the question is not one of European feudalism compared with Iranian ‘despotism’, it is one of lawbased European states and societies of various types compared with Iranian, and perhaps other, arbitrary states and societies. But why Iranian? Why not Eastern or Asiatic? It was mentioned above that some basic differences between East and West – notably between Greece–Rome 6

THE THEO RY OF ARBITRARY RULE: STATUS AND IMPLICATIONS

and Persia – had been observed by Greco-Roman historians and philosophers. At the close of Medieval Europe two things in particular led to a renewal of attention to such differences between the two types of society: the cultural Renaissance or return to classical history, philosophy, etc., and the rise of Ottoman Turkey as a great power in eastern Europe. It was no longer Persia – then under the Safavids, and described in Europe as land of the Great Sophy – that (from the vantage point of Europe) provided the immediate example of ‘the Eastern type of society’. But the Ottoman empire, which on one or two occasions almost conquered Vienna itself, the capital of the vast Habsburg (Holy Roman) empire; the expanding power that western Europeans were praying the Great Sophy would be able to check from its eastern borders. Once again, fear and prejudice might have been an important motive in this, but, once again, what matters is the scientific significance – the compelling theory and evidence – which it may or may not possess. Nevertheless, Persia was still in the background. And it was no coincidence that the author of Persian Letters, Montesquieu, was the same as that of The Spirit of the Laws, even though the former book was intended more as a critique of contemporary French society and politics. In the meantime, Western Europe had gained control of the high seas and extended its contact and influence to countries further east, notably India and, later, China. Thus, Montesquieu’s observation of basic differences between different types of society, and his emphasis on climatic conditions as their main cause.8 Thus, Adam Smith’s brief observations on China and India, especially the fact that the state drew most of its revenue from the land, and that it spent on large public projects.9 Thus James Mill’s studies of Indian history, and his observations on so many relevant issues, whether land tenure or the extraordinary nature of power.10 Hence also Hegel’s observations – based on the aforementioned and other previous authors – on oriental despotism; hence Marx’s description of ‘the Asiatic society’ as a distinct type of its own, and his (and Engels’s) intelligent but rather unsystematic, and unfinished, discussions of ‘the Asiatic mode of production’.11 The last concept is also largely based on the preceding ideas, especially from Montesqiueu to Hegel, expressed in terms of the Marxian ‘mode of production approach’ to historical dynamics. Except, of course, the implication that there is no dynamic in this case (as there was no dynamic in it either, in terms of Hegel’s ‘idealistic’ scheme of the evolution of human society, by stages, towards the kingdom of Freedom and Reason). It is worth pausing at this point for a moment. The Marxian concept of mode of production is, among one or two other things, but perhaps most important of all, a theoretical instrument through which large scale historical dynamics are explained. Indeed, in Marxian theory, such changes occur by virtue of the process whereby one mode of production succeeds another. For example – and to put the case very simply and briefly for illustrative purposes – the feudal mode of production gave way to the capitalist, in consequence of long-term accumulation of capital, scientific and technological developments, and the rise of classical individualist liberal ideology. Somehow, the Reformation and (Christian as well 7

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as non-Christian) humanist philosophies, were part of the process. The important thing for our purpose here is that – according to this scheme – basic, large-scale, comprehensive and magnificent historical change occurs through social transformation from one mode of production to the next, a transformation which is preceded by long-term structural developments towards it, and which will take place via ideological conflicts resulting in class war and revolution. As noted above, Marx (and Engels) did not offer a systematic theory of ‘the Asiatic society’. But it is clear from what he did say, and from what Hegel and the others (who spoke about Eastern or oriental despotism) had said before them, that ‘the Asiatic society’ looked almost static, almost unchanged and unchangeable, apparently never to reach Hegel’s millenium of Freedom and Reason or Marx’s classless society. There were many reasons – theoretical, power-political, etc. – why almost all the main Marxist trends later declared the matter as a heresy, ignored it altogether, or tried to refute it.12 From the purely intellectual vantagepoint, however, the apparent timelessness, non-evolutionary, unchangeable implications of the concept looked the most extraordinary, the least credible. Before discussing this, one point must be emphasised: clearly, Marx himself did not think that his theory of social development – especially the transformation from slavery to feudalism, and from feudalism to capitalism – had universal application. This was a theory pertaining only to European developments. ‘The Asiatic society’ was just ‘Asiatic’, and apparently would remain ‘Asiatic’; in any case, there is nothing in Marx’s theory through which it would be possible to predict its future developments. It is true that, given the Marxian theoretical scheme for describing the features and explaining changes in (European) modes of production, the conclusion is virtually inescapable that ‘the Asiatic society’ did not change through time. But this is not a necessary conclusion otherwise. The conclusion would be unavoidable in that and similar cases alone. On the other hand, if historical change is not defined only along Marxian or Hegelian or similarly evolutionary theories of European social development, then it would not be necessary to conclude that no change took place in ‘the Asiatic society’; merely, that changes in these societies would not be explained by the application of the theories which have been developed for Europe, and against the background of European realities. There was change in Iran (I shall briefly comment on the concept of ‘oriental despotism’ or ‘the Asiatic society’ as a whole later in this chapter). There were changes in states and dynasties, religions, languages, art and literature, knowledge, technology, etc. This is obvious. Yet, the dilemma for the theorist – whether Marxist or other – used to European patterns is how such changes may be related to one another, and explained within an evolutionary, perhaps even ‘progressive’, scheme. This introduces the further (metaphysical) problem of the nature and (in its teleological version) purpose of long-term changes and movements in history, of magnificent dynamics. How and according to what mechanisms did these societies change, and where have they been going and are likely to go?13 8

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Before discussing the issue with respect to Iran, let us comment briefly on the concepts of ‘oriental despotism’ and ‘the Asiatic society’. How operational are these as general concepts? There has been a tendency towards much simplification and over-generalisation about Eastern and Asiatic societies since ancient times. Whereas there have been important differences among these societies through both time and place. And furthermore, there are important differences in any given one of them from one period to another. Indeed, the pace of change has generally tended to be significantly quicker in these than in European societies, precisely because of the basic differences in state, law and politics. These, if anything, are the basic features which are generally shared by such – Oriental, Asiatic or whatever – societies, and are different from Europe. To go considerably beyond this and try to produce a general theory of these societies taken together would first require the development of separate theories and models with respect to many or most of them by theorists with an intimate knowledge of their historical background and cultural characteristics. This would be likely to reveal important differences among these societies themselves, even as regards social and political organisation. Only then might it be possible to construct a systematic general theory for them, which would incidentally explain – that is, reveal the basic reasons for – the differences among them (see Chapter 3). Even then, such a theory is unlikely to be applicable equally to Asia, North Africa, Moorish Spain, the Mayas and Aztecs and the Iberian empires which replaced them in Latin America, as is implied by Wittfogel’s theory of oriental despotism, whose near-universalist methodology rather resembles the nineteenthcentury theories it criticises. The aridity of much of the lands, and the existence of one or more large rivers in some of them, must have made an important contribution to the features of their states and their societies, although still in different ways. But other (both related and unrelated) factors, too, have been at work in shaping each one into its particular forms, both at its ‘beginning’ and over time. And that includes specific forms of government, cultural norms and mores, etc. Apart from that, it is far less important (as well as far more difficult) to determine the very ancient origins, the First Cause, of specific social formations. And it is much more appropriate to study their features and peculiarities, their logic and their sociology, without determining, with any degree of confidence, what the ‘initial’ causal connection might have been. ‘What was it then if it was not water?’, an enthusiastic correspondent once asked the author of this book sometime after the publication of The Political Economy of Modern Iran (although the question itself was due to a misunderstanding). At best, this reflects the persistence of the methodological essentialism (prevalent among social theorists even more than natural scientists) of the nineteenth century; otherwise, it betrays habits of thought, which – while they have their own logic whence they come – are closer to religious belief than to scientific curiosity. Therefore, concepts of oriental despotism and the Asiatic society, and the simple generalisations based on them, are both unclear and underdeveloped, 9

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though it does not follow that they are entirely fictitious or useless, and that scientific general theories could not be developed for studying the phenomena which these more or less traditional concepts have sought to explain. Whether or not the above comments on ‘the oriental society’, etc., prove to be persuasive, my studies in this volume and related works have been solely focused on Iranian state, society and politics, although they are not unlikely to be useful in looking at similar phenomena in other societies. The theoretical upshot – extensively explained and discussed throughout the book, but especially in Chapters 3 and 4, which are in many respects complementary – is that Iran has been an arbitrary state and society throughout its history. That is, power and authority has not been based in law; state and society have been virtually independent from, hence, antagonistic towards, each other; the state has not been representative of the higher social classes; on the contrary, they have been its clients by virtue of the privileges it has bestowed upon them, and has withdrawn at will; property ownership has been a privilege not a right; and so on. For all this, there is truly massive evidence from long pages of Iranian history. The part offered in this volume, though by no means inconsiderable, is inevitably a small fraction of it. But the field is wide open to anyone who would wish to examine the sources, both historical and literary, a considerable number of which have been cited in the following chapters. As it was indicated above, to recognise that Iran has been an arbitrary state and society is not to say or imply that there has been no change in the long Iranian history. That misunderstanding is due to the reason discussed above. If anything, it could be argued that change has been more frequent and, often, more rapid as well as more drastic. Furthermore, I have pointed out ‘lack of continuity’ as a basic feature of Iranian society, being precisely a consequence of the absence of long-term social classes and institutions, including the non-existence of a propertied, aristocratic peer class. Even in recent times, when modernity and constitutionalism made it look possible to have established and long-term ruling social classes – once between 1910 and 1930, a second time between 1941 and 1963 – they were easily lost by the re-emergence of the arbitrary state, respectively, between 1930 and 1941, and 1963 and 1978.14 Hence my designation of Iran as the ‘short-term society’ (see especially Chapters 6 and 11). It is a society in which change – even important and fundamental change – has tended to be a short-term phenomenon. And this is precisely due to the absence of an established and inviolable legal framework which would guarantee long-term continuity. Over any short term in time, there were notable, military, administrative and property-owning classes, but their composition would not remain the same beyond one or two generations, unlike traditional European aristocracies, even merchant classes. In the Iranian case, property and social positions were short term, precisely because they were regarded as personal privileges rather than inherited and inviolable social rights. The situation of those who possessed rank and property – except in very rare examples – was not the result of long-term inheritance (say, beyond two generations 10

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before) and they did not expect their heirs to continue in the same positions as a matter of course. The heirs could do so if only they managed to establish themselves on their own merits – merits being the personal traits necessary for success within the given social context. This did not exclude the position of the Shah himself, since legitimacy and the right of succession were nearly always subject to serious challenge, even rebellion.15 Lack of long-term continuity, by definition, resulted in significant change from one short period to the next, such that history became a series of connected short runs. In this sense, therefore, change was more frequent – usually also more drastic – and social mobility across various classes considerably higher than in traditional European societies. But, also by definition, it rendered very difficult cumulative change in the long term, including the long-term accumulation of property, wealth, capital, social and private institutions, even the institutions of learning. These did normally proceed or exist in every short term, but had to be reconstructed or drastically altered in the following short terms. There, therefore, was change, and often too much of it. But long-term accumulation was greatly discouraged by the rules and norms of social reality, especially the absence of an inviolable legal cover, which, even if it would not guarantee life and property, it would at least make changes in them predictable. Take the one, very important, example of the accumulation of capital. There have been various theories of capitalist development, that is, theories which have sought to identify key factors making for the development of commercial and industrial capitalism in Europe. Many of these theories conflict in various ways, especially as regards causal relationships. It is however safe to say that no successful social and economic theory has denied that capitalist development, or simply industrialisation, was possible without the accumulation of commercial capital. And that that, in turn, helped finance the accumulation of industrial capital, before the state itself became an active agent for industrialisation later in some countries.16 Capital accumulation would require significant continuous saving for long-term investment. The saving may be made by the propertied classes, by the state or – in the last century and a half – by both. Its classic and earliest example was the longterm accumulation of – first commercial, then industrial – capital in England, mainly by the bourgeoisie, the commercial classes, although ‘enlightened landlords’ also participated in the process from mid-seventeenth century onwards. To save continuously and at a significant rate would be rational only in a social framework where there was no endemic fear of plunder and confiscation. Even in Europe, long-term capital accumulation was greatly encouraged, first by the emergence of free towns, burgs, etc., which provided protection from feudal encroachments, in general, and, second, by the rise of the Renaissance and absolutist monarchies, with the full blessing of the commercial and middle classes, which gave them protection vis-à-vis the great aristocratic magnates. It was the accumulation of financial capital which made possible the financing of technical innovations, and, through time, this led to modern technological 11

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development and industrial expansion – that is, what used to be generally known as ‘the industrial revolution’. There used to be a puzzle posed by classical economists, and later economic historians and development economists, to which no solution satisfactory to themselves and others has been offered. It was this: why did the process of capital accumulation not begin in societies like Iran in their rich and technologically advanced times, say in the early medieval period. The clearest answer to that question is that it was not safe to engage in long-term saving for fear of plunder and confiscation; and that in a small number of cases where such attempts were made, or for other reasons a very large commercial fortune was amassed, later plunder and confiscation put an end to the process. Max Weber’s solution to that old puzzle was that the other, non-accumulating, societies lacked something corresponding to the Protestant ethics. Weber’s theory of the crucial role played by these ethics in shaping ‘the spirit of capitalism’ in Europe has been subjected to serious criticism.17 Notwithstanding that, the question in the context of our inquiry is whether such ethics could have become widespread in societies where, at least in practice, there was no right of long-term property ownership; and, if they did, and even lasted for reasons which are difficult to envisage, they would have resulted in long-term accumulation of capital. For even if significant saving had taken place in such highly discouraging circumstances, it would not have resulted in long-term accumulation when it was perennially plundered. There can be little doubt that Protestantism, and especially its more radical sects, actively encouraged frugality and hard work. But, from a scientific view, it is virtually impossible to know whether this was primarily a cause or consequence of the growth of the bourgeoisie and rise of commercial capitalism in western Europe. However, even assuming – as does Weber, virtually – that it was a cause, it is unlikely to have been such, if the European bourgeoisie had not had legal protection for their property, a protection which was much enhanced by the emergence of the Renaissance absolutist states with their blessing and support. It is changes of this kind – changes which required a long and continuous process, in some cases taking a few centuries to reach their peak – that seldom took place in Iran, and on the few occasions that they did for some time, the basic norms of arbitrary state and society led to their disruption, sometimes followed by decline and retrogression. And that is why, despite such commercial, cultural and technical achievements in certain periods, traditional Iranian society did not reach stages of development corresponding to post-Renaissance Europe. Between the two Iranian revolutions in the twentieth century, arbitrary and unsystematic copying from Europe did produce new institutions, organisations, goods and services, especially from the mid-1960s onwards, with the help of large and increasing oil revenues which virtually descended like manna from heaven. But the relationship between state and society remained essentially the same, such that in the second revolution the propertied classes either supported it or remained neutral, much as they had done in the first. 12

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So much for a brief note of clarification on the question of change. Another important, though basically non-scientific, source of disagreement with theories such as the theory of arbitrary rule in Iran is fear of the possible implication that, say, Iranians were inherently less humane or more cruel than Europeans. It has already been noted above that any basic differences between societies arise from structures and systems rather than race or blood. Apart from that, it will not be easy to demonstrate that there has been less humanity or greater cruelty in Iran than Europe, taking their histories as a whole. Even regarding the modern, postMedieval periods, one may point, for example, to the inhumanities committed during both Reformation and Counter-reformation; the atrocities committed during the religious wars of the sixteen and seventeen centuries; the hideous treatment in Nazi Germany, not only of the ‘lower’ races such as the Jews and the Slavs, but also of their own German opposition after the abortive coup of July 1944. In fact, any degree of atrocity may be – and, at times, has been – incorporated into a body of law. In so far as issues regarding punishment, etc., is concerned, the main distinction between the arbitrary and the law-based society is not that, inevitably and at all times, punishment is less humane in the former. The arbitrary ruler, the local governor, or whoever was allowed to use the ruler’s arbitrary authority, might after all be kind-hearted, or decide to let the offender go simply because he was impressed by his learning, by his techniques of persuasion (either in putting him into a good mood, or arousing his pity), or by effective intervention, etc. In such a case the result of the arbitrary decision is far from inhumane, and such degree of clemency would not be possible in a system where binding legal procedures are used (except where the prerogative of mercy is invoked after conviction). The point, however, is that – despite the apparent humanity of the above example – the decision is still arbitrary, does not involve established procedures, and is not based on long-term and predictable laws or traditions. Furthermore, the absence of independent social classes meant that, not just the lower strata, but, almost unexceptionably, every member of the society was subject to arbitrary rule, and that therefore there were no legal procedures, etc., in judging charges or suspicions against members of the higher social classes, even royal persons, including princes of the blood. Otherwise, so many princes and high officials would not have been blinded, killed or destroyed in other ways so quickly. These are the status and the implications of the theory developed in the following pages and applied to Iranian history, state and society.

Notes and references 1 Popper used to make this point by saying that ‘all observations are theoryimpregnated’. See, for example, K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963); Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1980), ch. 7.

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2 See ibid. 3 See, however, K. Popper, ‘The Myth of the Framework’, reprinted in The Myth of the Framework, ed., M.A. Notturno (London and New York, 1994); T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1970). 4 But see Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics. 5 See, in particular, Chapters 2, 7 and 9. 6 This happened at two stages, first under Peter the Great, then under Catherine the Great. See, for example, B.H. Sumner, Surveys of Russian History, 2nd edn (London: Duckworth, 1947), ch. 3. G.S. Thomson, Catherine the Great and the Expansion of Russia (London: English Universities Press, 1950), ch. 4. 7 See, in particular, Chapters 2, 3 and 5. 8 See, for example, J. Plamenatz, ‘Montesquieu’ in Man and Society, vol. 1 (London: Longman, 1963); I. Berlin, ‘Montesquieu’ in H. Hardy (ed.), Against the Current (London: Hogarth Press, 1979). 9 See A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations vol. 2 (E. Cannon (ed.)) (London: University Paperbacks, 1961). Book 5; H. Katouzian, Adam Smith va Servat-e Melal (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1979), part 2. 10 J. Mill, The History of British India (London: Routledge/Thoennes, 1997). 11 The more important primary references are to be found in Marx’s contributions to the American newspaper Daily Tribune in the 1850s, and his brief analytical classification of types of society – ‘the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois’ in the Preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co, 1911), p. 13. For detailed bibliographical references, see P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist States (London: New Left Books, 1974); K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, CO: Yale University Press, 1957). For a detailed discussion of the differences between the views of Marx and Engels on the subject see E. Abrahamian, ‘Oriental Despotism, the Case of Qajar Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1974. 12 See K. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. 13 The problem is ‘metaphysical’ in so far as there is no way of knowing whether history is, from the ‘beginning’ to the ‘end’, progressive, cyclical or whatever. But this observation does not render theories which try to answer such questions worthless, so long as they are not advanced as if they describe palpable truths. 14 See H. Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000), chs 1–3 and 10–11; ‘The Pahlavi Regime in Iran’ in H.E. Chehabi and J. Linz (eds), Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1997). 15 See Katouzian, State and Society, ‘Farrah-ye Izadi ve Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’ in Ettela‘at Siasi-Eqtesadi, summer (1998), 129–30 and ‘The Short-Term Society: A Study in the Problems of Long-Term Political and Economic Development in Iran’, Middle Eastern Studies, forthcoming. 16 Turgot was probably the first political economist to present a systematic account of the link between the individual firms’ rate of saving (to be automatically invested), their expansion and the growth of the economy as a whole. But Smith explained it more clearly, and advocated it enthusiastically to the point of declaring ‘parsimony’ to be more important than ‘industry’ for economic development, and describing every ‘prodigal’ as a ‘public enemy’ and every frugal person as a friend of the society. Ricardo, as usual, formalised the idea more rigorously, while Marx turned it into the magnificent historical concept of ‘primary accumulation of capital’. See A. Smith The Wealth of Nations, especially, vol. 1, Book 2, ch. 3. D. Ricardo, The Life and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed., Pierro Sraffa, vol. 1; K. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, parts vii and viii. J.

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A Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis; Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics, and Adam Smith va Servat-e Melal, part 2. 17 See M. Weber, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1930); R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1937). For a short but poignant critique of W. Sombart (as well as Weber, in whose spirit he wrote his The Jews and Modern Capitalism), see H. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Jews And Modern Capitalism’, in Historical Essays, London: Macmillan, 1957. See also his ‘The Medieval Italian Capitalists’, ibid.

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2 TOWARDS A GENERAL THEO RY OF IRANIAN REVOLUTIONS 1

There have been two full-scale revolutions in twentieth-century Iran, which confront the analyst used to applying European models with numerous important puzzles. Neither of them might be described a bourgeois, certainly not a proletarian, much less a peasant, revolution, once the basic facts regarding their participants, their opponents (or rather lack of opponents), their slogans and aims, and their consequences are studied. Nor is it clear at all, in terms of theories of European development, why and how the first revolution aspired to western social and political values, whereas the second – which occurred seventy years after the first – was overtly anti-western. Such puzzles and anomalies are – for purely scientific reasons – worth attempting to resolve. But the matter is of more interest, because the resolution of the puzzles would also carry within it a realistic theory of Iranian history, and the logic as well as sociology of modern developments in Iranian politics and society. It is of more interest still, because it shows that uncritical applications of European theories of history, society and politics should be called into question in the case of other non-European societies as well, and not least among Iran’s close and far neighbours. After a terse discussion of European revolts and revolutions through two millennia, the chapter compares and contrasts their main features with those of revolts and revolutions in Iran, and points out the basic affinity of Iranian revolutions, traditional as well as modern, notwithstanding their many differences.

Revolts against authority In spite of the colossus of work and energy spent over the past two centuries both in revolutions and on analysing and theorising about them, no one has yet quite produced a general theory of revolutions. I therefore face a dual task within a very limited compass: to try and make some general sense of revolutions as a common and general phenomenon; and to try and put forward a basic outline of the general features of Iranian revolutions. It is, of course, a truism that wherever there is a structure of authority in human society, that is, wherever there is government of any sort even at the level 16

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of the basic household, there is also the possibility – indeed, probability – of revolts and rebellions against it, and as the anti-thesis to it. Cane and Prometheus were the first formal and stylised rebels – putting aside Adam himself – in what makes up the Judaeo-Hellenic tradition of Western Christianity. Jamshid was the first rebel in Iranian myth, though he had in fact rebelled against God upon claiming divinity.2 The first real Iranian rebel from written history was Gaumata or the impostor Bardiya whom the Greek call Smerdis, and who was triumphally destroyed in a coup led by Darius.3 However that may be, it is clear that revolts occur against established authority, despite its claim to some kind of legitimacy from a law or tradition, although in the case of Iran such ‘legitimacy’ was more in the authority itself than in any firm and long term right respected by the society.4 Before entering the vast area of comparative historical analysis which my subject requires, let us clear an important methodological point away. A scientific theory is ‘general’ only in so far as its predictions are consistent with reality in the circumstances which it sets for itself. It follows that no theory in any science is universally valid. My favourite example is Galileo’s Law of Inertia, which states that, in vacuum, a freely falling body will accelerate at the rate of 9.81 m/s. This is one of the most eventful as well as successful theories ever proposed in the history of science. It is generally valid on earth, but it lacks universal validity. In the universe where there is no gravity nothing will fall. And where – as on the moon – the force of gravity is significantly different from the earth, the theory would be falsified. It follows that, if successful, all theories are generally valid, but they do not possess universal validity.5

A general theory of revolutions? I began by saying that there is no general theory of revolutions. I must now qualify that in two ways. First, by a general theory of revolutions I do not mean one that would equally apply to everywhere on the globe. That would be a universal theory, which as I have just explained cannot come out of any science, be it natural or social. Given the supremacy of Europe in science and society in the past few centuries, any general theory of revolutions would in fact be a general theory of European revolutions, which would then be automatically assumed to have universal validity everywhere in the globe. Indeed, this is the story of many a theory in the modern social sciences, and an important reason why they often run into trouble as soon as they are stretched to lands where historical and social reality has been significantly different from European society and its offshoots elsewhere in the world. Therefore, by saying that there is no general theory of revolutions, I had meant that there was no general theory of European revolutions, which would then have been regarded as being universal. My second qualification is that, though a fully developed general theory of European revolutions has not been proposed, the main elements of a theory 17

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might be discerned from Marx’s theory of European social development, although a theory with adequate explanatory powers is lacking even in this case. Since, according to Marx, European society develops essentially through a discreet and long-term process of class struggle, it could be argued that revolutions are consequences of these class struggles when the relevant set of (Marxian) infrastructural and superstructural factors are ready for them. But at closer examination it would be clear that that would not supply an adequate theory of European revolutions. For it is one thing to say, or even show, that revolts and rebellions have their roots in class antagonisms, and quite another to offer a theory which would adequately explain at least the major European revolts and rebellions as they occurred in the past, and as they might occur in the future. Referring to Marx’s theory of European history, it does not appear that any specific revolt was the cause of the downfall of slavery in Europe. Indeed, the one such spectacular movement, that of Spartacus, was defeated shortly before the fall of the Roman Republic, and rise of the imperial system, that is, before the birth of Christ, and before most of the power and glory for which ancient Rome is known and admired. The failure of the Spartacists may be explained, of course, by the argument that it was too early, and that the material conditions for its success did not yet exist. The argument is tautological. But, putting that aside, it implies that at a later, more relevant and more appropriate, time there was such a revolution against Roman slavery, which led to its downfall and the slave-based economic system. The decline of classical Rome in fact was due to the rise of Christianity and the relentless onslaught of the northern barbarians over a long period of time. There was no successful revolution which destroyed the Roman system of slavery. The next epoch-making revolution in the Marxian scheme, which is due to bring down European feudalism and establish the rule of the bourgeoisie, is the bourgeois revolution. The best and most successful example of this was the French revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, which so much inspired radicals, activists and theorists; and which is probably the most important single historical event both for Hegel’s idealist interpretation of history, and for Marx’s ‘standing Hegel on his head’ in offering his own materialist theory of social development. But before passing a few comments on that most central revolution of all, let us note that it is a great exaggeration to say that it brought down feudalism. At best, it might be said that it brought down feudalism in a major European country, which in time had consequences for other countries in the continent of Europe. But even that needs some important qualifications. Feudalism had begun to decline late in the medieval period in all its aspects since at least the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century which took a large toll of the European peasantry, and resulted in a labour scarcity which rendered untenable the continuation of the system of bondage or serfdom. Even earlier than that, the rise of a more secure bourgeoisie in the new free towns had begun 18

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to increase the material and social power of that class, and incidentally provide a growingly important social base with which the Renaissance states of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries managed to reduce to size the power of the big feudal aristocratic magnates. Therefore, the French revolution, epoch making as it undoubtedly was, was not ‘the revolution that brought down feudalism’, but a revolution that destroyed the remnants of an ailing, bankrupt and demoralised feudal aristocracy in that country. It helped industrial capital, and many of the peasantry who inherited the great estates as small farmers. But in England, and later in Germany and Austria, industrial capital grew in size and strength, while at the same time the great estates and much of the aristocratic privileges remained in place. In France itself, the Restoration of 1815 removed part of what had been achieved, not just in the radical Jacobin era, but even under the dictatorial Bonapartist empire. It took the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, together with the debâcle and defeat of 1870, and the Paris Commune of 1871, for much of the democratic spirit of the French revolution to be incorporated into the constitution of the Third Republic, although even then Charles X’s grandson would have been put on the throne had he not insisted on an implicit repudiation of all the previous revolutions. But by the time, in the 1880s, that General Boulanger’s populist coup was averted, a whole century of revolution, war, civil war, and industrial development had passed.6 Talking about bourgeois revolutions, no mention has yet been made of that Cinderella of the type, the English civil wars and revolution of mid-seventeenth century. They are normally downplayed in the great chain of modern revolutions, whereas in their consequences – both material and intellectual, both for England and elsewhere – they were no less momentous than the French revolution of 150 years later. A great expert on the subject, Christopher Hill, began by maintaining that it was an early and incomplete bourgeois revolution, and ended by arguing that it was a revolt of all the social classes against a tyrannical state.7 Both views exaggerate. It is true that the English civil wars had an unusually large social base for European revolutions, which included many of the gentry and some of the (mainly lower) aristocracy. But, first, there was more of the aristocracy on the King’s side, especially in some of the provinces. Second, as soon as the civil war ended and the revolution began – highly symbolised by the trial and execution of the King – almost all of his opponents among the nobility and higher gentry turned against Cromwell, his Commonwealth, and his dictatorship. Even Thomas Fairfax’s wife, thinly disguised by a mask, was shouting slogans for the King and against Cromwell from the observers’ gallery during the historic trial.8 The restoration of 1660 consolidated much of the basic aims of the civil wars, though not of the revolution. And the Glorious Revolution of 1688 established those consolidated gains irreversibly. Paul Mantoux found very significant the fact that the City of London did not lend to James, but did to his successors, William and Mary. He also found it significant that the Bank of England, the first 19

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modern bank in history, was founded only a few years after the Glorious Revolution.9 Thus in the Glorious Revolution we may find the roots of bourgeoisliberal government 101 years before the French Revolution. There is one other revolution in the historical galaxy of Western revolutions before the French that sits rather uneasily in relation to any general theory of European revolutions. I refer to the successful revolt of the thirteen English colonies in North America. That was indeed a revolt of society against the state, in so far as there was no social class that fought against it. But by then the state had become foreign, so that in truth the revolt was against a colonial power and for independence. But it also had important social implications.10 It almost looked like the English revolution of the previous century – to which many an ancestor of the American rebels had directly or indirectly contributed – succeeding in a land where there was no feudal aristocracy, no established church, and none of the deep-seated traditions with which these were bound. It looked very much as if the wildest dream of John Lilburne and his Levellers, of a representative republic with equality before the law, had been fulfilled a century later in another land. In its foreign aspects, the American Revolution was a war of independence; but in the same very aspects it was also a democratic revolution, for which, in those special circumstances, almost all that was needed was independence from England. So much for the French revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1870–1871, and the English and American revolutions which came before them, although I did not manage even to mention, let alone discuss the status of the peasant revolts in medieval Europe and during Reformation. Looking at the upheavals that came after the French revolutions, and were greatly influenced by them, how would the great revolutions of the twentieth century fit into a general theory? The February and October revolutions in Russia, though serious and epoch making, do not easily fit into the theoretical scheme based on the French revolution and before it in Western Europe. February was a spontaneous mass revolt, almost unopposed, against a corrupt and inefficient government that had been defeated and humiliated first by Japan and now, much more effectively, by Germany. October can hardly be described as a proletarian revolution in any scientific sense rendered by Marx’s theory of social development, although it certainly involved class conflict. Indeed, after the three years of civil war consolidated the new Bolshevik regime, without any other socialist revolution occurring anywhere else in Europe, and especially Germany, argument broke out as to whether one might speak of socialist revolution ‘in one country’ alone; and – as none other than Joseph Stalin put it – a country that was poor and underdeveloped.11 That was indeed a very difficult theoretical problem, but as Trotsky was to discover for himself, a revolution, party or state does not effectively dissolve itself because of difficulties arising from their scientific status. On the contrary, they bend the science, and the reality to which it corresponds, sufficiently to make it look both scientific and realistic. 20

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By the time we get to the Chinese revolution, or rather its extension away from and in opposition to the Kuomingtong, things have advanced too far to require any explanation at all. For here we are supposed to have witnessed a revolution fought by the peasantry on behalf of a virtually non-existing industrial proletariat, with strong nationalist tendencies which later, in the Cultural Revolution, acquired noticeably mystic and utopian elements, before ending up – since Deng Hsiao-Ping and the rise of ‘Modern Confucianism’ – to look, in the end, increasingly like a successful bourgeois democratic revolution.12 I have come a long way through a very fast lane, and I am yet to mention the revolts in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire after the First World War, the Young Turks movement and the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate after the First World War, Free Officers and the rise of modern Arab nationalism, Mexico, the revolt against Maximillian, and Zapata, Panco Villa and whoever, the Ba’thist movements in parts of the Arab lands, and so on and so forth. But what little I have said shows that there is neither a universal theory of revolutions, which in any case would not be possible, nor even a complete general theory of European revolutions, which in principle would be possible. But I have omitted more. I did not mention the Nazi revolution, which, although now universally hated, displayed many of the basic characteristics of the rise and decline of a revolution. I did not mention either, a revolution quite contrary to that from every point of view. I refer to the Thatcher revolution in Britain, a bloodless yet very fundamental revolution in one of the most advanced countries of the world, which set both to overthrow an elite social and political culture and, at the same time, to diminish the most advanced welfare state the world had yet seen. And it generally succeeded in doing both, the imminent reform of the House of Lords being rather an epitaph than a preamble to it, as is the low bargaining power of British labour, which had not been experienced since before the Second World War. However one would explain this radical, but bloodless and truly bourgeois, revolution at the end of the twentieth century in the first bourgeois society of the world, the difficulties it poses for theories of revolution, even theories of European revolution, are themselves difficult to contemplate.

Iranian revolts and revolutions The methodological justification for attempting to formulate a general theory of Iranian revolutions is already in the simple fact that there cannot be one that would apply to all times and places. It is further in the fact that, as argued above, there has not yet been an adequate theory of European revolutions, although there is no doubt that elements of one such theory exist both in sociological analysis and in vast historical studies. But, apart from the formal, methodological argument, the substantive, sociological reason is that Iranian revolutions have not been quite like any of the European revolutions, old or modern. If there is one thing which is true of all European revolts and revolutions, it is that they have been revolts of a part of the society against the rest, that is, against 21

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the part which makes up the more prosperous and powerful social classes, and which therefore is strongly represented by the existing state. Whether the Spartacist, Medieval and Reformation peasant revolts, the English revolutions of the seventeenth century, the French revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the Russian revolutions of the twentieth century, or any other – except those which have been fought solely against foreign domination – European revolutions have all this feature in common. The reason for this is well known and it is implicit in the fact itself. European society consisted of functional and autonomous social classes on which European states depended. Since the classical times – since the Greeks and Romans – European states have been bound by law, that is, by a tradition, code or contract which has been hard to break and difficult to change. Functional and autonomous social classes, a dependent state, and a seemingly inviolable law and tradition were the origins of long-term development in Europe. Development requires not only acquisition and innovation, but also, and especially, accumulation and preservation, whether of wealth, of rights and privileges, or of knowledge and science. Turgot and Adam Smith believed that it was not so much technical progress, but saving and investment, making its application possible, that was the cause of industrial development. Following in their footsteps, Marx’s gigantic and fundamental historical generalisation in the concept of ‘primary (or original) capital accumulation’ was a major contribution to our understanding of modern economic development.13 European society was a long-term society. Major change, whether the fall of feudalism, the rise of capitalism, and the emergence of the liberal state, whether the rejection of Aristotelian physics and Ptolemic cosmography, the Greco-Roman political thought, or the Roman Catholic hegemony – all of these took a long time and a great deal of effort – usually even struggle – to occur, but when they finally did, the change was irreversible, and a new social framework, a new law, a new science, even a new religion was established that would once again take much time and effort to change, even to reform.14 The long-term society makes possible long-term accumulation, precisely because the law and traditions that govern it, and its institutions, afford a certain amount of security by making the future reasonably predictable. At the same time, and for the same reason, it makes major change in the short run very difficult. In the long-term society, revolution is a rare and extraordinary occurrence, but when it does happen, whether in society or science, it has a long-term effect. Iran was a short-term society. It is a society even at the moment that declares any sound and solid building as a ‘pickaxe building’ – sakhteman-e kolangi – as soon as it has become thirty or even twenty years old. For that reason, I have also called it ‘the pickaxe society’ (jame‘eh-ye kolangi). Its main historical features have been quite the opposite of the long-term European society. I have described these features at length in other works, in relation to the concepts of the arbitrary state and arbitrary society.15 22

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Here I shall just point out that rather than the social classes, it was the state that was functional, that the higher the social classes the more dependent were they on the state, that although both wealth and privileges, and knowledge, science and technology existed, sometimes at very high levels, they did not persist through long-term development. And that while there were perennial attempts at accumulating them, little long-term accumulation did in fact take place. There was no law, no long-term code or tradition that governed the relationship between the state and society, or within the society itself. Virtually every change was possible in the short run, and therefore little lasting real change was possible over the long run. Indeed it is difficult to speak of the long run, as we know it from the European history and society. History was a series of short runs, one succeeding the other through short-term cycles. To give but one important example, at any moment in time there were people with great power, privilege and property, but it was virtually certain – and they knew it themselves as the stomach knows the laws of digestion – that their grandchildren, perhaps even their children, would have none of it unless they would manage to be successful in their own short run. It follows that the function, meaning, causes and consequences of revolutions were different from Europe. These were not revolts only of the underprivileged social classes against the privileged ones that controlled the state, in order to change the law and the social framework. They were revolts against rulers who were not bound by any law outside their own will, and who were deemed to be or to have become ‘unjust’. According to the ancient concept of Farrah-ye Izadi, or God’s Grace, God anointed rulers to rule on earth. They were intrinsically superior to all human beings and were not answerable to any of them for whatever they did. They were thus in complete charge of the person and property of their subjects, however high they might have been. The only limit to their power was that they were bound to rule justly. If they did not, God would withdraw His Grace, and they would then be overthrown by the society, although in practice, many a ruler that was deemed to be unjust by the society did not suffer that fate.16 Justice itself is, of course, society-bound, culture-bound and time-bound. But the abstract notion of the Just Ruler – finding its most famous examples in Khosraw I (Anushiravan) and Abbas I – referred to a strong ruler who made the borders secure, social life stable, and hence short-term security and prosperity possible. Revolutions were therefore revolts against rulers that were perceived to be unjust, which usually meant weak and/or unusually predatory rulers who did not fulfil expectations pertaining to security and prosperity, and who allowed ruthless, even cruel, state officials to behave as they wished towards the society. There were of course rebellions which had less popular motives, the most frequent being over succession. But that too was consistent with the logic of the short-term society, the arbitrary society. Since there was no entrenched law or tradition that guaranteed succession, the will of the ruler on its own did not carry 23

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much weight after he was dead. Just as no rich and powerful man expected his son to be also rich and powerful as a matter of course, no ruler was certain that his heir-designate would succeed him. When Sir John Malcolm expressed amazement to Fath‘ali Shah at the scope of the power of Iranian rulers, the latter agreed but – just like the stomach that unconsciously knows the laws of digestion17 – pointed out that, at the same time, Iranian rulers never quite knew who would succeed him. He himself made his grandson, Mohammad (son of Abbas Mirza, the Prince Regent) his heir. But no sooner had he died that many of his sons rebelled against his will. And after they were defeated, one of them soon died in jail, another was ordered to be blinded in both eyes by his nephew Mohammad Shah, who also blinded two of his own brothers, and together with a few other princes had them imprisoned in the Ardebil Castle.18 This is just one example, deliberately chosen from very recent times, in the case of a meek and moderate ruler, who was an ardent admirer of sufis and dervishes. Otherwise, the issue of legitimacy and succession has a long and turbulent history, dating back as far as Gaumata, the impostor Bardiya, mentioned above. Putting aside the specific question of struggle over succession, I said that revolts were led by the society against the state when it was deemed to be unjust as well as weak. In such situations, the ruler was normally abandoned to his fate, so that not only no important social class defended him, but even many of his own civil and military officials defected to the other side. This is contrary to European history, because the Iranian upper classes did not see the revolt as being essentially aimed at themselves, since the state was not their representative, and stood over and above them as well as the rest of the society. And for the same reason they knew that as long as they were not tainted irrevocably by their association with it they might even share in the fruits of victory. A thousand years ago, the rebellion of Mas‘ud, son of Mahmud of Ghazna against his younger brother Mohammad whom their father had done so much to secure in the throne was a conflict over succession. He won the contest, typically after a couple of sharp and short battles, and the mass defection even of those notables and officials who did not have much to hope for. But the rebellion of Khorasan, which included much of present-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, was caused by the wholesale injustice of the governor appointed by Mas‘ud for the province.19 Baihaqi who witnessed it all relates a courtier to whom Mas‘ud had praised the governor as a ‘good lackey’, adding that if he had a couple of other lackeys like him his financial situation would be sound. The courtier told Baihaqi that he had confirmed the Sultan’s opinion, adding that he did not have ‘the guts’ to tell him that ‘it is the Khorasan subjects, high as well as low, who must be asked as to how much suffering he must have caused them … and the future would show what the consequences of his action would be’. Baihaqi confirms that opinion, adding that it was in the face of this injustice that the ordinary people prayed to God against the Sultan, and the notables invited the Seljuq Turks from Transoxiana to come 24

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and rid them of Ghaznavi injustice.20 That of course was the origin of the Seljuq empire in Iran and beyond, and the later formation of the Ottoman empire. Incidentally, this example lays bare the role played by Iranians themselves in bringing down their unjust and/or incapable and ineffective rulers with the help of foreigners. Not much historical material is available, but it may be suspected that deep-seated discontent and disloyalty made a contribution to the swift and complete defeat of Darius III at the hands of Alexander.21 More can be claimed in the case of the even more swift and devastating defeat of the Sassanians at the hands of Muslim Arabs: the country had been exhausted by Khosraw II (Parviz)’s long campaigns and wasteful as well as underhanded style of ruling. Both he and many other rulers before and after him had been overthrown, blinded and/or killed over a short period of time, by continuous rebellion, before the onslaught of the Arabs.22 The battle of Qadesiyeh was won with incredible ease, and the battle of Nahavand was a forgone conclusion. Yazdegerd was abandoned even by his own military and civilian officials, had to run away as far as Merv, and there he was murdered, very likely by a high official, as Darius III had been long before him.23 The ideology of Islam must have been highly instrumental, not only in motivating and energising the conquerors, but also the willing losers among the Iranians. But much of the explanation for the otherwise inexplicable collapse of a great empire must go to the lack of will to support the decadent and incompetent regime. How else can one explain the swift and ignominious fall of the great Safavid empire in the first half of the eighteenth century, not against a great army led by an even greater general such as Alexander, nor against an extremely potent ideology and revolutionary movement that was Islam, but in the face of rebellion by the Ghaljeh tribe, some of its poorest and most backward subjects in the eastern reaches of the empire?24 There not being a framework of law and tradition of legitimacy, the fall of an arbitrary state let loose the arbitrary society. There followed anarchy, the traditional Iranian terms being fetneh, fesad, ashub, khan-khani, harj-o-marj and even enqelabat. There were now many centres of arbitrary power, each trying to eliminate the others and impose its exclusive rule. The resulting chaos, removing normal stability – that is, the one good thing in the absolute and arbitrary state which was taken for granted until it disappeared with the fall of absolute power – made ordinary people long for its return and restoration. That is why when one of the contesting factions eventually triumphed, it was welcomed by the people, who did not really care who and what it was, so long as it brought a measure of normality and stability with it. This explains why, despite the ruthlessness and cruelty with which Aqa Mohammad succeeded in establishing Qajar rule after decades of persistent conflict and chaos in the eighteenth century, he was welcomed especially by the ordinary people who had suffered so much during the years of civil war and plunder. I have described this process as the recurring cycle of arbitrary rule– chaos–arbitrary rule.25 Almost a thousand years ago, Nezam al-Molk-e Tusi 25

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described it in his own words and style in his Siyar al-Muluk or Siyasatnameh. He did not say that injustice – that is, the ruler’s transgression from God’s Grace – was the cause of rebellion, though he knew very well that such was the theory. Instead, he said that it was the people’s transgression against God that would result, in the disappearance of a good ruler (padeshahi nik), a number of swords would be drawn, and much blood would be spilt – and whoever has more power would do whatever he pleases – until all those sinners would be destroyed amidst all the chaotic rebellions (fetneh-ha) and blood-lettings…And in consequence of the bad omen created by these sinners many an innocent person would be destroyed in those chaotic rebellions.26 So much for the causes and consequences of chaos in Nezam al-Molk. But he is also aware (along his natural sense of digestion) of the fact that this would be brought to an end by one of the forces of chaos, who brings stability by stamping out all other power besides its own. And he describes the winner as the Just Ruler. It is almost as if he is describing Malekshah, who was later to arrange his own death at the hands of the Isma‘ilis, and through the good offices of his successor Taj al-Molk, according to the good maxim of the arbitrary state that an able and powerful vizier must be removed and killed before he even began to contemplate treachery. He writes, repeating the ancient theory of God’s Grace, the Farrah-ye Izadi, in the case of a Muslim Turkic ruler, even using the term Izad for God: In every age, Izad Almighty will choose one person from the midst of the people, and will bestow upon him the qualities of rule, and will rest upon him the interest of the world and stability of the lives of His slaves (bandegan), and through him He will shut the door to sedition, chaos and rebellion (fesad va ashub va fetneh), and will spread his fear and pomp in the hearts and eyes of the people, so that the people will live under his just rule, and feel safe and wish that his governance will be permanent.27

The two revolutions in the twentieth century But there were two revolutions in the twentieth century, which on the surface – that is, with regard to some of their slogans, terminology, etc. – looked almost every bit like those experienced by western societies. Yet, once one penetrates the edifice and looks for the detail in a realistic light, one will find that, in their basic features, these revolutions too were almost every bit like traditional Iranian revolts against unjust rulers. Writing exactly twenty years ago, I made a close comparison between the Constitutional Revolution and the revolution of February 1979, and concluded 26

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that – notwithstanding otherwise great differences in the aims and slogans of most of their participants – they were both revolutions against arbitrary rule. Subsequent developments in the real world and further studies have, if anything, tended to agree to that conclusion.28 For a long time it used to be taken for granted that the Constitutional Revolution was a ‘bourgeois revolution’, comparable to the French revolution of 1789. I have argued at length elsewhere why this model is entirely inapplicable for the Constitutional Revolution. There had been no feudalism, nor any accumulation of capital worthy of note, and the economy had been steadily declining in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, with rapidly increasing inflation and trade deficits. Furthermore, the movement was not led against the existing social framework together with the law that upheld it. There was no law, and the movement’s central aim was precisely to overthrow arbitrary rule and establish a state bound by an independent legal code, and run by a responsible, answerable, government. For the first time in Iranian history, the window that had opened up to European politics and society in the nineteenth century had shown that arbitrary government was not a natural phenomenon and that a legal, constitutional, framework could ‘condition’ government power.29 Various features of the system of arbitrary rule in Iran and elsewhere in the East, though not so named, have been noted in modern times by thinkers as diverse as Marx, Engels, Richard Jones, Hegel, James Mill, and especially Montesquieu and Adam Smith. But some of its aspects had already been noticed by Iran’s classical Greek neighbours. For example, in Aeschlyus’ famous tragedy, The Persians, when Attosa, sister of Cyrus, wife of Darius and mother of Xerxes, asks the Chorus ‘Who shepherds [the Greeks]? What master do their ranks obey?’, it answers ‘Master? They are not called servants to any man’.30 The nature of any revolution may be discerned by a study of its aims, its supporters, and its opponents. Here, the central objective – indeed the very desideratum and password – was mashruteh, that is government ‘conditioned’ by law, before the coining of which the Persianised word ‘qonstitusiun’ was almost invariably used. Regarding the social structure of its supporters, almost all the merchants, shopkeepers and artisans, most of the ulama and religious community, many if not most of the landlords and nomadic chieftains, most of the ordinary urban public, and the entire intelligentsia, many of whom were educated religious types, either actively or passively supported the revolution. In particular, the triumph of 1909 would not have been possible without the full support of the great religious leaders such as Hajj Mirza Hossein Tehrani, Akhund Mullah Kazem Khorasani, Shaikh Abdollah Mazandarani and others, as well as such powerful landlords and nomadic chieftains as Sepahdar-e (later Sepahsalar-e) Tonokaboni, Sardar Mansur (later Sepahdar-e Rashti), Aliqoli Khan Sardar As‘ad and Najafqoli Khan Samsam al-Saltaneh. What is more revealing perhaps is that no social class (qua class) resisted the revolution, in total contrast to the minor as well as major European revolts since the Greeks. And finally, the most important achievement of the revolution was mashruteh 27

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itself, that is, constitutional government as it had been understood by its campaigners and supporters.31 That at any rate was what they achieved on paper and in appearance. What happened in reality after the revolution is fascinating evidence for Tocqueville’s generalisation that revolutions normally repeat the old structures in a new garb. That of course is an exaggeration even from the Iranian experience. Or, putting it in other words, the new garb itself is much more than mere façade, mere window dressing. For any new form – in art, science as well as society – is bound to have consequences for the substance. But it is true that, rather than creating a constitutional system as it was known from the history of Europe, the society began to display growing signs of chaos, exactly as it had always done upon the fall of an arbitrary state. Indeed, in these basic elements, it was once again the arbitrary society, relieved from the shackles of the arbitrary state to divide power and reduce government to an ever-changing ineffectual group of men, euphemistically described as ‘the executive’. It is sometimes thought that this was mainly, if not wholly, a product of chaos in immeasurable distances, at the borders, in outlandish regions, and among unruly nomads. But this is far from the full picture. There was chaos in towns, in the capital, in the very centre of politics, among the political factions, parties and magnates, and within the Majlis itself. Indeed, without such chaos it is unlikely that there would have been chaos in the regions, as in fact there was none for as long as Naser al-Din was at the helm.32 That comparison was made at the very time by the people whose unconscious knowledge of biology was good. That is how they became deeply disappointed with the revolution they themselves had made, and attributed it to a British conspiracy. And that is also how the hated Naser al-Din became ‘the Martyr Shah’ (Shah-e Shahid), not unlike how decades later Mohammad Reza became the Blessed One (Khoda Biyamorz) after a very popular revolution which many of its participants later began to discover had been made by America. When Reza Khan captured power and brought order to society, increasing numbers of people – including Mosaddeq, of all men – appreciated his work. But when he began to establish dictatorship and later restore arbitrary rule in a modern form, a growing number of people began to discover that he had been put there by Britain as their obedient servant.33 Up to a century and a half ago hardly anyone attributed perceived injustice to the machinations of western powers or their paid Iranian agents. But since then, because of the growing weakness of Iran vis-à-vis imperial powers, almost all injustice emanating from arbitrary states was attributed to imperialism. Imperialism was real enough, but it did not create the arbitrary system of government in Iran, although it clearly did what in the circumstances it thought would serve its interest best. At any rate when the Allies came to Iran in 1941, the entire society rejoiced at Reza Shah’s abdication, and then, true to its historical form, it quickly reverted back to the politics of chaos, of disintegration, of irreconcilable conflict, and of 28

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a wish to eliminate, as of almost every party against every party. The chaos ended by the 1953 coup, organised by American and British governments, but executed by a strong coalition in the Iranian politics of chaos. It established an authoritarian or dictatorial, but not arbitrary, regime. That was restored in the 1960s and 1970s.34 Twenty years ago I argued that if the US hold over the Shah had not weakened in the 1960s and especially 1970s because of the growing and then exploding oil revenues which he could spend at will, making him independent of American foreign aid, and much stronger vis-à-vis the domestic social classes, then the consequences of his arbitrary regime would have been much less fatal to himself as well as the society. Power would then have been both less absolute and less arbitrary.35 But the matter was perceived very differently by almost all the social classes, not least the educated, well-to-do, privileged modern middle classes, most of whom were clients and dependent beneficiaries of the arbitrary oil state, or of what I then described as ‘petrolic despotism’. They all considered it as the work of the hated imperialism, although hardly anyone of them bothered to study and assess its true consequences for the country. The reason was that the real imperialism and its deeds did not matter much for mellat, the society, the opponents of the state. What mattered was the very strong emotional conviction that western imperialism was behind all the doings of the modern arbitrary regime. If the Soviet Union had had a similarly close relationship with the regime, it would have been hated as much. Indeed, it was also disparaged to the extent that it had good relations with the regime, just as did China the minute it changed its attitude towards it. The reality of the very strong feelings against the United States in particular can hardly be ignored. And there were many reasons for it. But the central reason was that it was perceived as the real power behind, and the daily instructor of the absolute and arbitrary state. Just as Britain had been under Reza Shah who in fact disliked Britain, quite unlike his son, who, though not a helpless puppet of the United States, loved and admired that country and valued its support and approval.36 The slogans against arbitrary government were some of the most prominent during the revolution of 1977–1979. But they did not appear to be so unique and central as they had been during the Constitutional Revolution. This was partly because, as noted, some of the anti-arbitrary objectives had found expression in anti-imperialist slogans. It is also true that various ideologies and programmes such as various concepts of Islamist state, Marxist–Leninist system and democratic government were represented, just as similar radical, moderate and conservative agendas had been represented within the general framework of the Constitutional Movement. What bound all of them together, nonetheless, was the determination to remove one man at all costs. The most widespread slogan which united all the revolutionaries and supporters regardless of party and programme was ‘Let him 29

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[the Shah] go and let there be flood afterwards’ (In beravad va har cheh mikhahad beshavad). It is not just that the leading political organisations and movement were united behind this slogan. The sociology of the slogan is even more impressive than its politics. That is, the fact that almost every class and rank in the society, both rich and poor, both modern and traditional, both educated and uneducated, were united behind it. Apart from that, there was not a single social class as such that took one step against the revolution, whatever the misgivings of some of their members might have been regarding a swift and ignominious collapse of the regime. Those who lost their lives in various cities throughout the revolution certainly played an important part in the process. But the outcome would have been significantly different if the commercial and financial classes, who had benefited from the oil bonanza certainly no less than any other single social class, had not paid for it, and – more especially – if the Oil Company employees, civil servants, judges, lawyers, university and school teachers, students, etc. had not declared an indefinite general strike, or if the military had united and resolved to crush the movement.37 Thus the pattern reveals itself to be very similar to the Constitutional Revolution, although, instead of constitutionalism and modernism, now authoritarian and anti-western agendas of different brands had much the upper hand. Many changed their minds afterwards and at various stages, but they did not and would not have changed their minds so long as the objective of removing the absolute and arbitrary ruler had not yet been achieved. Indeed, doubts and conflicts quickly resulting from the intra-revolutionary clashes after the triumph of February quickly disappeared for a crucial period following the hostage-taking of November 1979, because – certainly in the minds of those masses of people who frenetically supported it – the hatred of the arbitrary ruler, and the fear that America would somehow bring him back upon them was very great. There were those in both revolutions who saw that total revolutionary triumph would make some, perhaps many, of the revolutionaries regret the results afterwards, but very few of them dared to step forward. In one case they were represented by Shaikh Fazlollah, in the other by Shahpour Bakhtiyar. But they were both doomed because they had no social base, or in other words they were seen as having joined the other side, however hard they protested that they had the best of intentions. It is a rule in a revolt against an absolute and arbitrary ruler that whoever wants anything short of his removal is branded a traitor. That is the logic of the slogan ‘Let him go and let there be flood afterwards’.

A summing up There is no universal theory of revolutions, since, in any case, scientific theories are not and cannot be universal. There is no general theory of European revolutions either, which is likely to have been regarded as universal, and uncritically 30

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applied to all revolutions, as this has been done in the case of many other theories of European history. Yet there do exist many elements of a general theory of European revolutions. The central feature of almost all western revolts and revolutions has been the fact that they have been manned and – with some exceptions – led by the underprivileged classes against the privileged ones which were much more closely represented by the state. Revolts, rebellions and revolutions in Iran have had various motives and causes, one frequent cause being conflict over succession. Succession was usually a subject of dispute because, unlike Europe, legitimacy was not based in some long term and binding law or tradition. And this was a consistent feature of the arbitrary state. The arbitrary state certainly tried to fulfil such of its major obligations as defending the realm against foreign invasion or intrusion and creating stability, that is, preventing anarchy in society. But, rather than being dependent on important social classes, it was the latter that were dependent on the arbitrary state. Apart from succession, however, there were perennial, partial or total, revolts against the arbitrary state, when it was deemed not to be ‘just’, or, more often, to be too ‘unjust’. And when it looked as if the contest had a fair chance, no social class as such – sometimes not even the state officials – fought against the rebellion. This was also true in many cases when the enemy of the state was foreign. The collapse of the state led to chaos and disintegration, until one of the power centres in the chaos managed to form a new absolute and arbitrary rule. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 and the revolution of February 1979 were different in many of their aims and slogans, although they both contained a variety of specific programmes and ideologies. But they both shared the basic features of traditional Iranian revolts inasmuch as they were aimed at the overthrow of the state – indeed the person of the ruler – at all costs, they had the support of the entire political society, and they were not resisted by any social class. And they were both followed by conflict and chaos, the forms of which were somewhat different between them, and between them and the states of anarchy which followed traditional revolts. With all the differences among them, there has been a familiar pattern in the revolts of society against the state since ancient Persia.

Notes and references 1 Keynote address to the annual conference of Centre for Iranian Research and Analysis, 1999, published in Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis 2 (1999), 15. 2 See H. Katouzian, ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’, Ettela‘at Siyasi va Eqtesadi, nos. 129–30, July 1998, and ‘The Short-Term Society: A Study in the Problems of Long-Term Political and Economic Development in Iran’, Middle Eastern Studies, forthcoming. 3 See, for example, R. Ghirshman, Iran from the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954).

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4 This point has been extensively discussed in H. Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory of State, Politics and Society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 24(1) (1997), 49–73 (reprinted in this volume). 5 See H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1980), especially ch. 7. 6 Sources for the above observations are virtually unlimited. See, for example, H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Edward Arnold and Co, 1936); R.H.C. Davis, Medieval Europe (London: Longman Group Limited, 1970); J.M. Roberts, The French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); L. Gershoy, The Era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1957); E.L. Woodward, French Revolutions (London: Oxford University Press, 1965); A. Goodwin, The French Revolution (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1956); M. Krazberg (ed.), 1848, A Turning Point? (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1959); K. Marx, Class Struggles in France (1841–1850) (London: Martin Lawrence, n.d.); A. Cobban, A History of Modern France: Volume 1: 1715–1799, Volume 2, 1799–1945, Volume 3, 1871–1962 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961–1965); I. Collins, The Age of Progress, A Survey of European History between 1789 and 1870 (London: Edward Arnold, 1964). 7 The contrast is especially striking in his following two books: The English Revolution, 1640 (London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd, 1940); A Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (London: Sphere Books, 1969). See also His Puritanism and Revolution (London: Panther History, 1968); God’s Englishman, Oliver Cromwell and The English Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972). 8 See C.V. Wedgwood, The King’s Peace, 1637–1641 (London; Collins, 1958); The King’s War, 1641–1647 (London: Collins, 1958); The Trial of Charles I (London: Collins, 1964); R.H. Parry (ed.), The English Civil War and After, 1642–1658 (London: Macmillan, 1970); E.W. Ives (ed.), The English Revolution, 1500–1660 (London: Edward Arnold, 1968). 9 See P. Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century: An Outline of the Beginning of the Modern Factory System (London: Jonathan Cape, 1961), New and revised edition with a preface by Thomas Ashton. 10 See, for example, J.R. Alden, The American Revolution, 1775–1783 (New York: Harper and Row, 1962); B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1967); The Unfinished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism and the American Revolution (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1990). 11 Thus he argued in his Foundations of Leninism (1924), but he changed his mind in the revised and expanded editions that were later published under the new title of Problems of Leninism. See, for example, I. Deutcher, Stalin (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977) especially chs 5 and 7; E.H. Carr, Socialism in One Country, 1924–1926, 3 vols (London: Macmillan, 1958–1964). 12 See, for example, B. Arendrup, China in the 1980’s, and Beyond (London: Curzon, 1986); Ban Wang, The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in TwentiethCentury China (California: Stanford University Press, 1997); Jerome Ch’ên, Mao and the Chinese Revolution (London, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1965). 13 See A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, E. Cannan (ed.) (London: University Paperbacks, 1961), especially, Book 2, ch. 3; K. Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977) parts vii and viii; H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics, and Adam Smith va Servat-e Melal (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1979). 14 This discreet and long-term process of change in science as well as society had been well known. In the case of society it had been well documented and subjected to much theorising. In the case of knowledge and science, it had once been discussed in the

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15

16 17 18

19 20 21

22 23

24

25 26 27

original Hegelian and Marxian concepts of ideology. Thomas Kuhn offered a new model in the case of ‘scientific revolutions’, though he overlooked the fact that it was equally valid for the history of all (not just scientific) knowledge, and implied that it was necessarily the best procedure for the advancement of science. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970); H. Katouzian, ‘T. S. Kuhn, Functionalism and Sociology of Knowledge’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, June 1984; ‘The Hallmarks of Science and Scholasticism, A Historical Analysis’, in The Yearbook of the Sociology of the Sciences (Dordrecht, Boston and London: D. Reidel, 1982); Ideology and Method in Economics, ch. 4. See, for example, H. Katouzian, ‘The Short-Term Society: A Study in the Problems of Long-Term Political and Economic Development in Iran’, ‘Arbitrary Rule’, ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran: Democracy, Dictatorship or Arbitrary Rule?’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 22, (1995) (reprinted in this volume); Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998); The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981). For an extensive exposition of this myth mainly form Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh, and its comparison with the European theory of ‘the divine right of kings’ which purported to justify absolutist monarchy, see Katouzian, ‘Farrah-ye Izadi’. Marx once observed that, although the stomach did not know biology, it nevertheless carried out its digestive functions precisely according to its laws. See, for example, entries for ‘Hasan ‘Ali Mirza Shoja‘ al-Saltaneh’, and ‘Khosraw Mirza’, in Mehdi Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal-e Rejal-e Iran dar Qarn-e 12, 13 va 14-e Hejri, vol. 1 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1992); and, further, under Hossein ‘Ali Mirza in the following volumes. See Abolfazl Baihaqi, Tarikh-e Baihaqi, Ali Akbar Fayyaz (ed.) (Mashad: The University Press, 1971); H. Katouzian, ‘The Execution of Amir Hasanak The Vazir’, Pembroke Papers, 1990, pp. 73–88 (reprinted in this volume). See Baihaqi, Tarikh, pp. 530–1. After the assassination of Xerxes by his son, the Achaemenid state seldom experienced normal stability, when most of his descendants likewise succeeded, and were destroyed, by assassination and treachery. And this would have been the fate of Darius III as well, had he not managed to make Bagoas – the killer of his father and brother – drink first the poison that he had intended for him. After being defeated by Alexander, he was murdered by two of his own satraps. See, for example, Ghirshman, Iran from the Earliest Times, and Alessandro Bausani, The Persians form the Earliest Days to the Twentieth Century (London: Elek Books Ltd, 1971). Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh is an excellent source for all this. The legend is that he was killed by a miller who robbed him of his clothes and jewellery, but there is strong suspicion that the governor of Merv, Mahuy Suri, was the real culprit. Indeed, the Shah was refused any help, sometimes even hospitality, by his own civilian and military governors all through his long flight from the west of his empire to the east. For the classic sources, see Ferdawsi’s Shanameh, Tabari’s Tarikh, Bal‘ami’s Tarikh, etc. For a general discussion of the legend by a modern historian, see Mohammad Ebrahim Bastani Parizi, Asiyab-e Haftsang (Tehran: Bastani Parizi, 1988). See, for example, L. Lockhart, The Fall of the Safavid Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958); Mohammad Hashem Asef Rostam al-Hokama, Rostam al-Tavarikh, Mohammad Moshiri (ed.) (Tehran, 1969). In several books and articles; see, for example, ‘Arbitrary Rule’, and ‘Demokrasi, Diktatori va Mas‘uliyat-e Mellat’ in Estebdad, Demokrsi va Nehzat-e Melli. See his Siyar al-Muluk, H. Darke (ed.) (Tehran: Bongah-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketab, 1961), pp. 13–14. Ibid., p. 13.

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28 See Political Economy, chs 4 and 18. 29 See H. Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 8, 2, (1998) 159–80 (reprinted in this volume), and Political Economy, ch. 4. 30 For a longer quotation, see Bausani, The Persians, p. 31. 31 See H. Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence’. 32 See H. Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000), ch. 3. 33 See ibid., chs 9–11; H. Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1990), ch. 3. 34 See the interview with Homa Katouzian on factionalism in modern Iranian politics, in Saïd Barzin, Jenahbandi-ye Siyasi dar Iran (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998), pp. 98–125. 35 See Political Economy, chs 11–16. 36 Lest there be any doubt left that the Shah was not a helpless (or wanton) American puppet, see Asadollh Alam, The Shah and I, Alinaghi Alikhani (ed.) (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1991). 37 The above analysis has been more widely presented and discussed in several of my works, including ‘The Pahlavi Regime in Iran’, in H.E. Chehabi and J. Linz (eds), Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1997), ‘Arbitrary Rule’, and Political Economy, chs. 17 and 18. For other studies of the subject, see, for example, J. Foran (ed.) A Century of Revolution (Mineapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); H.E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Islamic Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (New York: Cornell University Press, 1990); V. Moghadam, ‘Populist Revolution and the Islamic State in Iran’, in T. Boswell (ed.) Revolution in the World System (New York and London: Greenwood, 1989); ‘Iran: Development, Revolution and the Problem of Analysis’, Review of Radical Political Economics, (1984) 227– 40; Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Mansoor Moaddel, Class, Politics and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982) ch. 11; N. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, with a section by Yann Richard (New Haven and London: Yale University press, 1981) ch. 7.

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3 ARBITRARY RULE: A COMPARATIVE THEO RY OF STATE, POLITICS AND SO CIETY IN IRAN 1 This chapter offers an approach to the study of Iranian society for more realistic explanations of its past and present, and more appropriate ways of looking at its future. Modern studies of Iranian state, politics and society have often been based, either tacitly or explicitly, on theories developed for the study of European society. This has given rise to important anomalies, such as why the growing prosperity and the apparently rapid economic development along capitalist lines, in the 1960s and 1970s, should result in the massive revolt of the society to bring down the state. The simple reason for such anomalies is that the basic features of Iranian society, and the history to which they have given rise, are in many ways fundamentally different from their European counterparts. Such basic differences may be observed in the meaning and social implications of property ownership, social stratification and social mobility, the nature of the power of the state, and the questions of law, legitimacy, succession, rebellion and the like. For example, the explanation and prediction of the behaviour of the social classes is bound up with their real meanings and functions in society, and if these are fundamentally different from the models supplied by the study of other societies, their application would render misleading results, and could even have eventful consequences for any programmes which are set to direct the society towards predictable goals. The section entitled ‘The basic theses’ presents a comparative theory of Iranian state, society and politics, developed by an application of the general models and techniques of the social sciences to the historical and empirical realities of Iranian society. It is ‘comparative’ because it compares and contrasts the Iranian experience to that of Europe, laying bare the important – but often covert and concealed – differences between them. Thus, it is not merely an abstract and mechanical device, but one which contains evidence from both sides to show the need for a new interpretation of Iranian history and society. The chapter opens with a brief note in anticipation of methodological questions which may arise from the very conception of the argument. It explains why and how, on sound methodological grounds, there should be a need for a new 35

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theory in this case: a theory that is contained within the existing body of the social sciences explaining both types of society. It ends with a direct application of the theory thus developed to major social and political trends in twentieth-century Iran, showing its efficacy in explaining events, ideas and personages which have often confounded comprehension by the use of traditional theories and approaches to the problem.

A note on method The claim itself of a need for a specific theory of society and social change in Iran may pose questions at the very conceptual and methodological levels of the argument. In this brief note it will be shown that such a claim, and such a requirement, is entirely consistent with – indeed called for by – received methodological doctrines in both social and natural sciences. There have been many theories of state, politics and society in the history of European political thought and social analysis. The most successful and influential of modern European theories include the variety of social contract theories, other liberal theories, Hegelian and Marxian theories, and the totalitarian theories of the twentieth century. Yet it must be emphasised that although many of the European theories disagree with each other in their basic premises, implications and predictions, sometimes almost irreconcilably, all of them reflect the background of European history and experience: they reflect European systems of government, social structures and relations, public and private institutions, and so on, and their changes through time as a result of socio-economic, technological and ideological developments. European theorists such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Vico, Herder, Hegel, Marx, J.S. Mill, Spencer, Lenin, Hayek, Rosenberg et al., had the background of European political culture and civilisation in mind so that, although they may disagree with each other’s approaches as being ‘materialistic’, ‘idealistic’, ‘atomistic’, ‘institutional’, ‘sociological’ – or downright ‘liberal’, ‘racist’, and ‘totalitarian’ – none would argue that the social framework to which they refer is alien to the experience of European society from the classical age to modern times. Marx may describe the state as representing the interest of the propertied classes which would ‘wither away’ after the socialist state has presided over the abolition of private property in society: Hayek may describe this process as ‘the road to reform’. Yet, it is clear even from much of their terminology, that they both have in their premises the general background of European society and its developments. In other words, the disagreement and dispute is much less about the facts and much more about theories which give them analytical significance for a description of the past and prediction of the future. It is perhaps not surprising that (except in rare moments of reflection) European theories of state and society were usually applied to the historical experience of non-European societies like Iran in the nineteenth and (especially) twentieth centuries. European analysts took the facts as corresponding to seemingly similar facts 36

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from European history. Iranian analysts did not have theories of their own, and what they understood from European theories they applied – more or less uncritically – to the facts of Iranian history and society. They saw Iranian landlords, tribal chieftains and state officials as an aristocracy, merchants as bourgeoisie, peasants as serfs, and so on, and the state as the representative of the ruling classes. There is a basic methodological aspect to this matter which goes beyond the point in hand. It is the confusion between generalisation and universalism in natural as well as social sciences. Scientific theories are characteristically abstract and general; but for that very reason they are incapable of universal application. Moreover, the more abstract and general a theory, the narrower its scope of application. Abstraction enables a theory to specify the conditions in which it claims to hold. Thus, it excludes the many more situations in which it would be inapplicable. The resulting theory is nevertheless general in the sense of explaining the relevant events or phenomena in all the circumstances which correspond to those specific conditions. If the theory is borne out in those circumstances then it may be correct; if not, then it is false. I have elaborated on this point elsewhere at some length.2 Here, the example of a fundamental physical theory may suffice. Galileo’s Law of Inertia states that, given a force of gravity, freely falling bodies will accelerate at the rate of 9.81 m/s in a state of vacuum. In other words, outside a vacuum the rate of acceleration would be different, although not so much as to make the law generally invalid. The important qualifications, however, are that where in the universe there is no gravity nothing would fall, and where (as on the moon) the force of gravity is significantly different from the earth, the Law of Inertia would be invalid. Therefore, the Law of Inertia is generally valid where there is a force of gravity, and it is the same as the earth; but it lacks universal validity. What is true of theories of physics can scarcely be untrue of theories of state and society. In fact, it is likely to be more true of the latter because usually there are many more variables involved, and the pace of their change is more rapid. Human society is the universe of social and historical theory: therefore theories which are generally valid for some of its parts may not be valid for the rest. For example, theories which explain European revolutions as being essentially due to conflicts among the social classes cannot satisfactorily be applied to the case of Iran, because Iranian states have not been representative of any social classes in the sense which is rendered by the experience of Europe (see the section on ‘The basic theses’). The Law of Inertia itself contains the reasons for its universal inapplicability, that is, the reason why it may not be valid everywhere. Likewise, a successful theory in the case of a given society or group of societies would normally contain the reasons why it may not be valid elsewhere. The analytical logic and scientific techniques (being products of the human mind) could be applied everywhere, but the meaning, significance and functions of the social categories to which they are applied may be different, thus resulting in different theories. Hence, there is no need for a separate social science in the case of different societies, 37

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only different theories pertinent to significantly different societies, within a uniform social science. This brief note on the methodological aspects of the argument was intended to forestall some basic misunderstandings which may result from the theory of Iranian state and society presented in the rest of this chapter. Of course, no theory (in any science) is the description of things as they are. If the Law of Inertia was a mere description of the acceleration rate of falling bodies, it would have suggested innumerable rates in countless places. Likewise, the theory presented below is no more a pure description of the long Iranian history than are theories of European feudalism – with all its spatial and temporal varieties – pure descriptions of their subject. Finally, some of the basic observations and arguments presented here could be more or less relevant to some other societies as well, be they ancient Sumeria, Egypt Assyria and China, or the much more recent Moghul India and Ottoman Turkey. It is no part of our purpose, however, to present a general theory of the history of all such societies because there are important differences among them through time and space, and a competent general theory would require extensive knowledge of them all, which may be beyond the capacity of a single theorist. If such theories are formulated by competent analysts in the case of each of these societies, it may then be possible to use all of them in suggesting a general theory which could also contain within itself the reasons for the remaining variations among them.

The basic theses Some of the following theses have been extensively explained in the author’s other works on the subject. To save space and avoid unnecessary repetition they will be given a short treatment here, and the reader may consult the references for further explanation. Others – such as the notions of law, legitimacy, centralisation, etc. – which have not been adequately explained before, or the explanation has not been sufficiently convincing for some readers, will be discussed more extensively. Thesis 1 Historically, Iran has been an arbitrary state and society where there has been no state, social class, law, politics, and so on, as they have been observed in European history and explained and analysed by European theorists. Thesis 2 The system of arbitrary rule was based on the state monopoly of property rights, and the concentrated – although not necessarily centralised – bureaucratic and military power to which it gave rise. There could be no rights of property ownership 38

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in land, only privileges which the state granted to individuals (and some clans and communities), and which it could therefore withdraw at any time. Thesis 3 The state directly owned large, though varying, amounts of agricultural land. It assigned much of the remaining to individuals, usually members of the royal household, state functionaries and other magnates. There was no contractual security of title to ownership and no automatic rights of bequest. Otherwise various systems of tax-farming were in use which were different in time and space. (It is significant that the class of tax-farmers in Moghul India whom the 1808 British Act of Land Settlement turned into independent landlords were known as Zamindars – a Persian word meaning landholders.) Thesis 4 The state monopoly of property ownership was formally in land alone, which until recent times was the most important form of property. But the arbitrary power to which it gave rise also resulted in a similar insecurity and fragility of ownership for merchant capital, both when the owner lived and after he died. Merchant capital was more obviously earned, although here, too, good relations with the state and its functionaries were very helpful. It could also be more easily realised in money, spent, hidden or even buried. On the other hand, the commercial classes were generally more distant from the state, and their property ran the risk of violation by state officials, and local governors and magnates as well. Thesis 5 It follows that there always existed social classes in terms of differences in official position, occupation, type of property, wealth and income: royal persons, state functionaries, religious dignitaries, merchants, traders, artisans, town labourers, peasants, and so on. But the nature of their relationship vis-à-vis the state (as well as each other) was basically different from European society; in Europe it was the social classes which were functional; in Iran it was the state which was functional, while the social classes were empirical (see Thesis 8). Thesis 6 There could be, and in fact there was, no peerage and aristocracy which was founded upon the feudal class monopoly of landownership as an independent and individual right, maintained and reinforced by such laws as primogeniture and entail, and perpetuated through time. In Iran, as in Europe, the peasant had to surrender his surplus product to some agent of exploitation; in feudal Europe, to aristocratic landlords and – in later periods – rural gentry as well; in Iran, to 39

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state officials, land assignees, tax-farmers and the like. The important difference, however, was that landlords did not have the right of independent ownership, could not be certain of enjoying the benefit of their privilege through their own lifetime, and could not perpetuate it through generations of their descendants. Therefore, they did not constitute an aristocratic or gentry class, and, hence, did not have any political rights independently from the state. Thesis 7 Iran has always been a trading nation. The Persian words bazar and bazargan are as ancient as is domestic and international trade in that country. There is much evidence in Persian classical texts of countrywide banking and credit facilities long before they emerged in modern Europe. Naser Khosraw alone attests to the existence of two hundred Sarrafs in Isfahan which he witnessed on a visit to that city in the eleventh century.3 But there was no long-term accumulation of commercial capital (which might have led to the accumulation of physical capital in agriculture and manufacturing) as in Western Europe. The accumulation of commercial capital requires postponement of present consumption, that is, saving. And long-term saving requires a minimum degree of security over a reasonable time-scale. Property must not be threatened with arbitrary violations in the owner’s life and afterwards, and there must be a minimum degree of future peace and stability in the saver’s expectations. The European bourgeoisie was given protection from feudal encroachments by the free towns and the emerging ‘New Monarchies’, that is, the absolutist state. The Iranian monied classes could not count on such protection and security from any powerful social category.4 Thesis 8 In Europe, the state was (more or less) dependent upon, and it (more or less) represented, the interests of the social classes. The higher the social class, the higher the dependence of the state upon it, and the greater the state’s representation of its interest. In Iran, by contrast, it was the social classes which were generally dependent on the state. And the higher the social class, the greater its dependence upon it. In other words – as mentioned above – in Iran the state was functional and the social classes were empirical. In Europe it was the other way round. Thesis 9 This explains the great differences in social mobility between the two societies. Absence of functional social classes which was associated with the transitory nature of private ownership and the state’s monopoly of all independent power 40

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meant that, in principle, any humble individual or family could rise to the highest positions and greatest fortunes even within their own lifetime; and the highest people of society and state could likewise lose everything, sometimes including their lives, within the same generation. These included chief ministers, departmental secretaries, provincial governors, army commanders, men of science and letters and even rulers and whole dynasties. In a word, both the mighty and the humble rightly understood that, in principle, anything was possible. Just as a chief minister’s life and property could be taken at the will of the ruler, the humblest person could become chief minister upon his pleasure. Thesis 10 There was no law in the sense of basic rules which set a boundary to the exercise of state power, and made it generally predictable. Where there are no rights there is no law. That is, where the ‘Law’ is little more than the arbitrary decisions of the Law-giver, the concept of Law becomes redundant even though there exists a body of public rules and regulations which, however, may change at any moment and without any established procedures. This is indeed the literal meaning of estebdad, of arbitrary government. The argument needs further elaboration as it could be a source of misunderstanding and even disbelief. In Europe, the law was regarded as a binding force which regulated – that is, it brought order and discipline to – the relationship between state and society, as well as within the society itself. It could change either as a result of organised efforts at reform through the existing legal procedures or, in the last resort, by rebellion and revolution. The law was generally inviolable and usually difficult to change. And it was even more so in the case of those fundamental – later described as constitutional – laws which defined the rights and obligations of individuals, social groups and the state. Such (written or unwritten) laws, contracts or established traditions, did not exist in Iran. This indeed is what made the arbitrary exercise of power possible, in fact, normal. Regarding judicial matters, a body of rules must have existed before Islam, and the Shari‘a supplied an extensive and elaborate civil and criminal code in Islamic times. These were far from systematic in interpretation, and could vary considerably in application even at the same time and place. Yet, the most restricting factor was that they could be applied only in so far as they did not conflict with the wishes of the state. That is why the state could deal out such punishments against persons, families or whole towns which had no sanction in Shari‘a law; that is how the condemned could sometimes escape execution if they could make the Shah or the local ruler laugh at the right moment. In Europe’s feudal society there were (written or unwritten) laws which were seemingly never changing, and which greatly inhibited social and geographical mobility, perpetuated monopoly and class privilege, and restricted the emergence of new techniques and ideas. The liberal thinkers of the modern age attacked 41

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both the extent of the laws and customs, and their resistance to change. They advocated their ‘negative’ concept of freedom – that is, freedom from traditional legal restraints – which won the contest in the nineteenth century, and is once again claiming precedence in our time. It was the European concept of law which the leaders of the constitutional movement of Iran had in mind when they campaigned for qanun as opposed to estebdad. They did not have a theory, but clearly saw the stark fact, the differentia specifica between the two societies. Qanun was the title of the opposition newspaper which Malkam Khan published in London. It was also intended by the title of Mostashar al-Dawleh’s book, One Word (Yek Kalameh), published earlier in Iran, for which he was jailed and tortured, and his house was looted.5 The Perso-Arabic word of Greek origin – usually used in philosophy and science – had long been in existence. What had been absent were ‘canons’ of law which could make life and labour in society a good deal more secure and predictable. The above comparison is not just with feudal Europe but with European society in general. European society, whether ancient, medieval or modern, had always been founded upon some kind of written or unwritten law, or deeply entrenched custom, between the state and society. This was very different in Greek city states from modern democracies in terms of the scope and limits of the power of the state, the extent of its social base and political legitimacy, and the administration of justice as it affected social groups and classes. These rights were different – through space as well as time – both among the social classes, and between them and the state. But they always existed, and hence, there was always law of one kind or another. This was the ‘one word’ which had been lacking in Iranian society. Thesis 11 Since law was absent, so was politics. Politics existed only in the tautological sense that even the most primitive or elementary human associations (e.g. tribes and households) would involve activities on the part of their members for promoting their own interest; that is, in the sense of communal exchange. Otherwise, politics cannot exist without law, because it is within a legal framework where rights and obligations are defined that independent thoughts and actions become possible. Up to the turn of the present century the word Siyasat had two interrelated meanings: first, the art of governing the realm successfully, as in the title of Nezam al-Molk’s Siyasatnameh (the alternative title of the book is Siyar al-Muluk which – significantly – had been the title of the Arabic translations, from the Pahlavi original, of Shahnameh); second, the punishment (usually execution) of fallen notables and state officials – of the ‘politicians’. Since politics did not exist, there was no appropriate word for it. Increasing contacts with Europe in the nineteenth century led the Shah, state functionaries and intellectuals to use polteek and polteeki (both of them corruptions of the French word Politique)6 in 42

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reference to European political affairs. They even constructed the term Polteek-chi for European politicians. Those words were later translated into Siyasat, Siyasi and Siyasatmadar during and after the Constitutional Revolution when it looked as if politics had at last come to Iran. Thesis 12 The implication of all this for long-term socio-economic development may be summed up in ‘lack of continuity’. Iranian states could be strong or weak; rulers could be intelligent or dim, prodigal, frugal or miserly, just or unjust, able in bringing peace, security and prosperity, or feeble and ineffectual. Thus, the exercise of arbitrary power did not mean that the consequences of the state or rulers were all the same throughout history. On the contrary, precisely because power was arbitrary, much depended on the personality of the ruler (and his organisation of the state), which is perhaps the most important factor in explaining the large and rapid fluctuations in the society’s life and the country’s fortunes. The trend of events in the Achaemenid empire after Darius I (and possibly Xerxes), in the Sassanian empire after Shapur I, and Khosraw I (Anushiravan), under the Ghaznavids after Sultan Mahmud (and possibly Mas‘ud), and the Seljuqs after Malekshah (and possibly Sanjar) … under the Safavids after Isma‘il I, Tahmasp I and Abbas I (and possibly Abbas II), under the Afsharids after Nader, under the Zand after Karim Khan, during the Qajar rule after Aqa Mohammad (and possibly Fath‘ali), and Naser al-Din – these are just a few examples as evidence for frequent, swift and substantial discontinuities in Iranian history. The persistence of arbitrary rule resulted in greater and more frequent changes than is observed from the history of Europe. And the absence of law, the high social mobility, and so on – hence the absence of organised and continuous social institutions – were the most important factors behind it. On the other hand, the same factors greatly inhibited continuous and cumulative social, economic, scientific and technological development. Thesis 13 There were inter-related problems affecting legitimacy and succession. The state being independent of the social classes – being above the society – it did not enjoy legitimacy comparable to states in Europe. The absence of such a legitimacy rendered indeterminate the question of succession. The issue of lack of legitimacy needs further explanation. As in the case of law and politics discussed above, there will always be a kind of legitimacy attached to the rule of even a tribal chief. The ‘legitimacy’ of the arbitrary ruler depended on his relative ability to keep the peace, put down rebellion and perform his other social and economic functions. But for all the reasons described 43

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in the points above, it was not rooted in law, tradition and socio-political rights. In other words, rebellion was, in principle, as ‘legitimate’ as arbitrary rule, and the ultimate test of ‘legitimacy’ was in the ability to seize and maintain power. Rebels seldom became rulers because they had any legal or traditional right to rule, but because they succeeded in establishing themselves in power. It would be difficult to find counterparts in European history to Saboktegin, Nader, Karim Khan or Aqa Mohammad, let alone to Mahmud and Ashraf of the Ghalzeh tribe who were crowned after the fall of Safavid Isfahan. Therefore, we speak not of the ‘legitimacy’ enjoyed by an Abbas I, because of his strong and successful government, which eluded a Soltanhossein because of his feeble and incompetent rule; but the legitimacy enjoyed by Louis XIV – the ‘Sun King’, the most absolutist French ruler who, according to a legend, had once claimed: ‘L’état c’est moi’ – which even Abbas I did not possess.7 The possession of ‘God’s Grace’ (Farrah-ye Izadi) legitimised the position of ancient Iranian rulers in the heroic, legendary as well as historical ages. A close study of the subject in Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh has shown that the Grace was bestowed to the person of the ruler, and it was not necessary for him to be first in the line of succession.8 For example, Kaikhosraw succeeded his grandfather Kaikavus in preference to his uncle Fariborz because he was believed to hold the Grace. For the same reason, the claim of Tus – army commander-in-chief and grandson of a former Shah – was brushed aside.9 In some cases (as those of Feraidun, Kaikhosaw and Ardashir Babakan) the Grace was revealed through feats of supernatural acts performed by its holder.10 But in most other cases it was not clear how the Grace was acquired by the ruler except by virtue of succeeding to win power. He who ruled must have had the Grace because he held the reins of power: post hoc ergo propter hoc. It is noteworthy that not only Iranian but also Turanian rulers, for example, Afrasiyab, were held to possess the Grace.11 The term ‘Farrah’ (Grace) was also used to confirm the divine legitimacy of post-Islamic rulers (e.g. by Ferdawsi in the case of Sulatan Mahmud),12 but its content and implications were later expressed more often in such titles as ‘Shadow of the Almighty’ and ‘Pivot of the Universe’. The Qur’anic verse which orders the believer to obey ‘God, the Prophet, and the holders of authority (ul al-Amr) among you’ (emphasis added), and was often invoked to legitimise earthly rule, is ambiguous, and so it has been subject to various conflicting interpretations.13 However, it is not clear from the text itself how the legitimacy bestowed by God’s command to a ruler may be known except by virtue of the fact that he holds authority. Therefore, from the point of view of the subject in hand, its practical implications are similar to those of the concept of ‘God’s Grace’. It is clear that, however the Grace may have been acquired, the Shah was God’s vicegerent on earth, and so his will was beyond human limits. That is, his rule was divinely ordained, and he was legitimate by virtue of God’s Grace. Therefore he was not bound by any earthly contract. His legitimacy was not even due to primogeniture or some other established rule of succession. As mentioned before, he was above, not just at the head of, the society. 44

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Succession almost invariably presented a problem. It was never clear who would succeed to the throne after the ruler’s death. The Shah himself might have his own candidate, usually one of his sons, though not necessarily the eldest. But this did not guarantee his succession because there was no legal sanction behind it. For example, Mahmud of Ghazneh nominated his younger son Mohammad, and did everything he could before his own death to ensure his succession. Shortly after Mohammad succeeded, his elder brother Mas‘ud – the governor of Isfahan – rebelled, fought and defeated him and thereby became the legitimate successor.14 The problem persisted down to the nineteenth century. Fath‘ali Shah chose his grandson Mohammad Mirza as his successor after the death of his son Abbas Mirza, the Prince Regent and Mohammad’s father. Yet, some of Mohammad’s uncles rebelled against him when he succeeded to the throne.15 Later, Mohammad Shah himself favoured his younger son Abbas Mirza (Molk Ara) in preference to his eldest son, Naser al-Din, the heir designate. When the latter managed to succeed his father, the nine-year-old Abbas Mirza would have lost his life, or been blinded, if some foreign envoys had not intervened on his behalf. But his court was looted on official orders, and he spent much of his life as a refugee in Mesopotamia and Russia. Permission for him to go to Mesopotamia as an exile was obtained as a result of persistent interventions of both the Russian and, particularly, the British ministers in Tehran to stop him being killed at the age of thirteen by his brother the Shah on the mere supposition that he might be regarded as their alternative candidate for the throne by some unknown intriguers. The correspondence between the two foreign envoys and the chief minister makes fascinating reading. At one stage when the British minister wrote that they should not sacrifice ‘fairness’ to mere imagination (that there is a plot centred around the boy), the chief minister revealed the logic of arbitrary injustice, by pointing out that in that country one should act on mere supposition, for otherwise he may lose the game. And this was so precisely because ‘legitimacy’ always belonged to the winner. He wrote that he had reported the British minister’s letter to the Shah. The Shah had agreed with the minister that he meant well, but had added that: Your excellency must pay attention to some peculiar Iranian customs and traditions and realise that, in Iran, the things that your excellency has in mind will not work, and one cannot be immune from the evil intent of seditious and rebellious people. If the leaders of the Iranian state wish to act on the basis of fairness and justice to maintain order and security for all their subjects, they would have no choice but at the slightest thought, imagination or supposition of rebellion, irrespective of who it might be, to try to put it down forthwith and not to hesitate even for a moment.16 At any rate, the problem of royal succession eventually came to an end as a result of guarantees by the great powers of the succession of the heir-designate to the throne. 45

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This being the case, it is not surprising that there was so much filicide, fratricide and parricide within the royal household. The blinding and/or permanent incarceration of princes within the women’s compound (andarun) was a favourite Safavid device. It was from the andarun that Shah Safi emerged to claim the throne of his grandfather, Abbas I. And it would not take much imagination to think of the magnitude of insecurity in which ministers, chieftains and magnates lived and worked – and sometimes died. The familiar story – from ancient to modern times – of the long line of such powerful persons who (alone or together with their family and clan) perished on the order of their rulers, told in detail, would fill several volumes of chilling history. With regard to our theory, however, the most important point is that whether prince, minister, army commander or whoever, there was no procedure, no hearing, no defence, no law when they fell: to incur the Shah’s displeasure, suspicion and wrath was all that was necessary for their destruction. It follows, therefore, that rebellion was as legitimate as the state when it succeeded. In Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh when an ‘unjust’ ruler is about to fall, we are informed that he has lost the Grace, whereas there are other ‘unjust’ rulers who do not fall at all. In other words, the ruler is deemed to have lost the Grace by virtue of being overthrown, and the successor or rebel, to have gained it, by virtue of his victory. The ideal concept of the ‘Just Ruler’ (in the Islamic period: Malek-e Adel) became the test of the ruler’s legitimacy. There can be no clear notion of justice without reference to a legal framework. In such a case justice may be perceived to exist only in relation to the existing social expectations. The evidence shows that the just ruler corresponding to the ideal concept was one who ran the country well, maintained peace and security within as well as without his realm, employed able officials and governors (and punished them for injustice – that is, actions not permitted by the ruler himself), and thus promoted peace and prosperity.17 The unjust ruler was contrary to that, and therefore rebellion against him was legitimate. But many unjust rulers were not overthrown, and so, in theory, they still had the Grace and remained the Shadow of Almighty. At this point we should make brief reference to the period of absolutist (or despotic) ‘New Monarchies’ in Europe which, for the continent as a whole, lasted for about four centuries, though it had an appreciably shorter life-span in its western parts, specifically, England, France and Prussia, but also the Austrian (Holy Roman) empire because of its highly decentralised nature. The power of the absolute ruler was based in law. The strong absolute ruler exercised extensive powers in laying down the law by virtue of the ‘royal prerogative’. But there were definite limits to the royal prerogative, and the king (or queen) was not entirely free from legal bond and contract. Whatever his personal motives for reforming the church, Henry VIII’s Reformation (in the sixteenth century) was approved by the English parliament;18 so were the religious settlements of his daughter Elizabeth I who was probably the most powerful absolute ruler in the history of England.19 Absolute government in England was severely 46

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checked at the Restoration of Charles II (after the English civil wars and revolution of 1641–1660), and came to a complete end by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which overthrew James II and established William and Mary in his place.20 In France, where absolute monarchy began roughly with the reign of Francis I (Henry’s contemporary), it took almost a century, a long period of religious and civil war – with the houses of Guise and Bourbon each claiming the throne of the Valois – until Henry IV re-established peace, religious tolerance and absolute government at the turn of the seventeenth century.21 His early assassination by a Catholic fanatic, and the succession of his very young (and feeble) son, led to further turmoil until the able, strong and dedicated Cardinal Richelieu built the French state and ruthlessly imposed absolute government.22 Yet, his death which was followed by that of Louis XIII led to the Regency of Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin which was seriously threatened by the revolts (known as the Frondes) of the ‘forces of feudal anarchy’, led by the great aristocratic magnates and the Parlement (judicial authorities) of Paris.23 Only when Louis XIV began his direct rule after Mazarin’s death did he manage to re-establish the long absolutist Bourbon rule, which with rapidly declining force, continued until the French Revolution of 1789.24 Far from lacking a social base, the absolute monarchies extended it to the lower gentry and the bourgeoisie, which is how they became known as protectors of ‘the people’ from the power of the aristocratic magnates. The aristocracy and many of their rights and privileges remained, but they lost some of their power, and it became easier for lower orders to join their ranks. Private property ownership in land remained as strong as ever, and in capital it became much stronger than before. Church law was observed, and the church retained much (though not all) of its power and privileges. Judicial processes – which included the prerogative courts – were respected, and any act of doubtful legality by the state was the exception which proved the rule. It occasionally led to massive revolts, such as in the case of the English civil wars and revolution.25 In no sense, therefore, did estebdad or arbitrary rule exist in the European absolutist state, although in Russia the absolute ruler wielded much more power than in other parts of Europe. ‘Divine Right of Kings’ was the theory developed in the sixteenth and – particularly – seventeenth centuries as the basis for the legitimacy of absolute monarchy. There were many – and sometimes conflicting – versions of this theory. In general, they cited the divinely ordained kingship of biblical rulers such as David as the source of their argument (Filmer being an important exception to this), but it is sometimes believed that their real model was that of ancient Persian kingship which they knew from classical European sources.26 Yet, neither the divine right theory is the same as the Persian God’s Grace theory, nor, especially, the practice of absolute monarchy similar to arbitrary government. James I of England came closest to the God’s Grace theory when he wrote that the kings were God’s vicegerents on earth.27 And in a conflict with the judges of the 47

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prerogative court he wrote that to put in doubt what belonged to the ‘mystery’ of the king’s power was against the law.28 Yet the very fact that he had to argue with judges about his prerogatives, and even to invoke ‘the Law’ against them, gives the lie to any supposition of the right of arbitrary rule. Besides, James himself was emphatic about the rule of primogeniture as the basis of his own legitimacy, and his son Charles I took his stand in 1649 against his revolutionary accusers solely on the basis of the law of the land. And he soon became known as the Martyred King, because his trial and execution had been unlawful.29 Thesis 14 Arbitrary rulers and states sometimes fell as a result of palace coups, massive revolts or foreign invasions. Mention has already been made of palace coups, the fear of which tended to take a big toll of potential successors. Foreign invasion has been a common cause of the fall of the state in all societies. But in Iran, they were not seriously resisted – and were sometimes even invited and supported – where the ruler was believed to be unjust or simply doomed. For example, Baihaqi says that the people of (the Greater) Khorasan invited the Seljuq of Transoxiana who came and conquered it with their support, because the Ghaznavid governor systematically plundered ‘both the rich and the poor’, and sent one-half of his booty to the court so that he would not be dismissed for his unjust behaviour against the people of the province.30 Local revolts usually spread and proliferated when the degree of perceived injustice was felt to be beyond endurance, and the chance of success reasonably good. Since the arbitrary state had no permanent, or traditional, social base (and no legitimacy based in law), it was natural for many – of high as well as low status – to join the revolt, and few (often including state officials) to resist it. In Europe, massive rebellions divided the society itself. In the English civil wars and revolution some social classes and regions of the country sided with the king, and others with the parliament (although, of course, such divisions were not entirely neat). And after the king was defeated, the Presbyterians, the House of Lords and most of the Commons (and the people and classes they represented) parted company with Puritans (or independents), the Army and the Levellers long before the revolution was over.31 In the early stages of the French Revolution (1789–1799), Louis enjoyed considerable legitimacy and support. Radicalisation alienated constitutional monarchists such as Lafayette and Barnave, and it later led to the fall of the Girondins and even of ‘moderate’ Jacobins like Danton, until the Thermidor overthrew the radical purists led by Robespiere, and put the Directoire in power. In Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution led to three years of massive civil war to defeat the opposition and the social classes which they represented.32 The point is that in these revolutions: (a) there was a massive revolt against the existing law and social order so as to establish new ones. In the case of 48

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England it is true that Charles had misused the law, but when the revolutionaries tried and executed him they put themselves outside the existing legal framework; (b) the society was divided along recognisable lines for and against the revolution and (c) the revolt was not just intended to overthrow an unpopular or unjust regime, but to replace it with a new constitutional structure, about which there was disagreement among the revolutionary parties, depending on their socio-economic background and interest. In the absence of detailed studies of (at least) the more important Iranian revolts and rebellions (for many of which there is little reliable historical evidence), it would be difficult to formulate a general theory of revolutions in Iran. Even then, it would be unlikely for a single theory to supply adequate analytical insight into all the major revolts which have occurred over the span of two-and-a-half millennia. Yet, it can be observed with confidence that the basic features of European revolutions outlined above would not apply in their case: there was no established law to rebel against, much less to replace with a different legal framework; the society was not divided between the state’s socio-economic base (which was represented by it) and the opponents of that base; the basic aim of the revolt was to bring down the ‘unjust’ ruler or state, and replace it with another which would be hopefully ‘just’ or less ‘unjust’. They were not revolts by a part of the society against the rest; they were revolts of the society (mellat) against the state (dawlat).33 There were great differences between traditional Iranian revolts and the two revolutions in the present century, the Constitutional Revolution and the revolution of 1977–1979. There were also important differences between these two revolutions. Yet, they shared the basic features of traditional Iranian revolts: they were both massive revolts of the urban social classes – almost irrespective of occupation, rank, wealth and income, education or degree of religious commitment – against the state (peasant participation, where and when it occurred, being merely a function of the urban movement and leadership, as it had been true of traditional revolts as well). Moreover, although (contrary to the past) there were more or less clear objectives, or more accurately, slogans, for replacing the existing state – constitutional monarchy, democracy, republic, Islamic government and so on – the collective energy expended over the negative programme of bringing the state down at any cost was by far the greatest, and the social bond the firmest. It is well known that during the revolution of 1977–1979 when the modern educated activists and sympathisers were questioned about their programme and the chances of its success, they responded by saying ‘let him [the Shah] go, and let there be flood afterwards.34 Thesis 15 The history of arbitrary rule is therefore punctuated by palace coups, periodic rebellions and occasionally massive revolts which may or may not have been 49

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successful. But when they were, the breakdown and fall of the state resulted in general disorder, the division of arbitrary power and its exercise both by one party against another, and by all parties against the society. As with feudal and capitalist states and societies, an arbitrary state represented an arbitrary society. In a European revolution, when the existing state was overthrown, its law ceased to be binding, but the sense of law as such, and the idea of legal propriety (albeit according to a new code of conduct) did not altogether vanish. But the fall of the state in an arbitrary society issued a licence to any and to all of those with a certain amount of power to use it in an arbitrary way. Hence, a single arbitrary power centre was replaced by many, and this resulted in much greater insecurity and lawlessness in the society. The repetitive looting and destruction of Isfahan by conflicting forces after the fall of the Safavid state is a well-documented example of such disparate and uncontrolled use of arbitrary power. Given the generalised lawlessness – reminiscent of Tomas Hobbes’ state of nature – it is not surprising that, within a short space of time, the society felt nostalgic about the loss of the stability under the former regime, and prayed for the rise of a ‘strong man’ who would put an end to the use of divided and disorganised arbitrary power, and bring peace, stability and better material standards by establishing a new arbitrary state. Despite the ruthlessness and cruelty with which Aqa Mohammad Khan founded the Qajar state, the people – and especially the humblest of them – were grateful to him for bringing an end to the devastating disorder and insecurity of many decades in the eighteenth century. The history of arbitrary society is thus characterised by the cycle of the arbitrary state, ending with rebellion and being replaced by disorder and chaos, until a new state brings it to an end and restores arbitrary rule.35 Thesis 16 The concentration of arbitrary power was not necessarily accompanied by the centralisation of the state administration. For example, it is well known that there was no extensive countrywide and centrally organised bureaucratic network in Qajar Iran.36 To begin with, administrative centralisation itself is relative to given systems of government. It is probably true that even the liberal democratic, let alone totalitarian, states of the twentieth century were in many senses more interventionist and centralised than many of the arbitrary or absolutist states of the past. Generally, this has been the result of great changes in technology, social organisation and political programmes in the recent past. Putting that aside, however, there is no reason why concentration of power must of necessity result in central bureaucratic organisation, intervention and control. The association of concentration of power with bureaucratic centralisation is (vaguely) based on the experience of absolutist states, or ‘New Monarchies’, which replaced the feudal states of Europe, and which, relatively to the feudal period, were often more centralised. But concentration of power does not necessarily 50

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result in administrative centralisation, and there has been much exaggeration about administrative centralisation in absolutist states. As Lousse has put it succinctly: Absolutism does not invariably entail the centralisation of power and administration. To be sure, it favours centralisation and uses it, and centralisation is itself consonant with its interests. But the one can exist without the other. Absolutism adjusts perfectly well to a federal state, or to a simple commonwealth with a monarchial constitution, as Spain, Austria and Prussia were until the end of the ancien régime … It is in some cases only, and even then only in a specific period, as for example in France, that absolutism and centralisation advance side-by-side … [Yet], the high point of administrative centralisation in France is not reached during the period of absolute monarchy at all, but after its demise. In the case of France – the most favourable example so far – royal absolutism is an important but an intermediary stage in the evolution of centralisation.37 Major, who carefully distinguishes between the Renaissance and the seventeenth and eighteenth century, states: I have described the Renaissance Monarchy as being a decentralised state with confused boundaries and jurisdictions, but motivated by the force of dynasticism, legality and tradition. Its strength lay not in the size or loyalty of its army, but rather in the support of its people … Medieval decentralisation was derived largely from the activities of the great feudal nobles and their vassals. Renaissance decentralisation was essentially bureaucratic … The break between the Renaissance Monarchy and that of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is more pronounced. Dynastic politics did not completely disappear, but national and economic considerations became more important. Armies became larger and the kings won effective control over them.38 The same basic principle applies to the arbitrary state. The hallmark of the arbitrary state is that power is concentrated and used arbitrarily. The provincial governor who was appointed to run the affairs of the province used his power just as arbitrarily within the general norms set by the central ruler, and was otherwise sacked or even punished. He did not have freedom of action, in an autonomous way, outside the general policy of the state. There did not have to be direct bureaucratic centralisation. Some Iranian states were centralised in a manner which was relative to the prevailing technology and the cost of transport and communications. Others were not. The Achaemenid, Sassanian and Safavid states are examples of the former; the Arscid, Zand and Qajar, of the latter. Apart from differences in 51

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technology, many factors must explain the relative differences in the degree of their administrative centralisation. The Arscid state, usually regarded as being philhellenic, might have been particularly influenced by the tradition of the Alexandrian Greek states in western Asia, including Iran. There can be little doubt that their administration was looser and less centralised than the Achaemenid state before them, and the Sassanian state after. They were described by early Arab historians after Islam as the Muluk al-Tawa’if, which may be roughly translated as ‘rulers of the [various] communities’. Regarding the implications of the term itself, it could describe any multiethnic or multi-national state or empire, although the decentralised character of the Arscid state may have had something to do with its being coined. At the turn of the present century it was used by the Iranian intelligentsia to describe the Qajar realm which was also a decentralised arbitrary state. It is very likely that an important factor behind bureaucratic decentralisation under the Qajars was the high cost of bureaucratic centralisation in view of the decline of the country’s economic fortunes since the eighteenth century. However, the European term ‘feudalism’ was then translated into the ‘Muluk al-Tawa’ifi system’, and this gave rise to three eventful confusions at one stroke: that European feudalism was such a system; that Iran had always been a decentralised state; that Iran had been a feudal society throughout its history.39 The point, in a word, is that – centralised or not – Iran was always an arbitrary state and society. Thesis 17 There remains the question of the origin of the arbitrary state. In this connection, two basic points should be raised initially: (a) the theory sketched above explaining the basic features of the arbitrary state and society is completely independent of any theory (or knowledge) of the factors which brought it about; (b) it is notoriously difficult, if not foolhardy, to supply definitive answers to such massive historical questions, partly because of the great paucity of reliable evidence. Subject to these important qualifications, the following hypothesis seems reasonable. Aridity probably played a basic role in shaping the structure of the Iranian political economy. There are two main reasons for this. First, it served to create isolated and autonomous village units of production, none of which could produce a sufficiently large surplus to provide a feudal power base; and second, given the expanses of the region, the collective surplus of all or most of the isolated villages was so large that, once taken by an ‘external force’, it could be used as the economic base of a countrywide arbitrary state or empire. The arbitrary system could then be used to prevent the subsequent fragmentation of power until such time that a combination of internal and/or external pressures would destroy it and replace it by another state. The size of the direct and indirect collective agricultural surplus was so large as to enable the state to 52

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retain the monopoly of power, and to prevent the later emergence of feudal autonomy in agriculture, or bourgeois citizenship in towns. Apart from that, it created its own pre-legal and pre-political culture which – as in the case of other systems anywhere – grew their own independent roots in the society through time. This martial and mobile force was originally provided by invading nomads, and thereafter both by the existing and the incoming nomads who succeeded in setting up strong and arbitrary states, and who almost invariably gave way to their successors (in the end) through a short, sharp and general upheaval: the Medes, the Persians (Achaemenids), the Greeks (Seleucids), the Parthians (Arscids), the Persian Sassanian, the Muslim Arabs, the Ghaznavid Turks, the Seljuq Turks, the Ilkhan Mongols, the Teimurid Turks, the Safavid Turkamans, the Zand Lor-Persians, and the Qajar Turkamans.40

A brief note on twentieth-century Iran The Constitutional Revolution was the first general upheaval in the history of Iran which – contrary to past revolts against arbitrary rulers – not only intended to bring down a given arbitrary rule, but also had a clear positive programme – suggested by an awareness of the experience of Europe – of ending such rule altogether and replacing it with the rule of law in the form of a constitutional monarchy. It eventually succeeded by establishing a constitution which, in addition to providing a legal basis for the state (as opposed to the ancient arbitrary rule) created parliamentary government along basic democratic principles. It benefited both the landlords and the commercial classes by securing the basis of their property ownership, and by affording a large amount of political power (as opposed to mere privileges) to them. Ideally, this could have resulted in the formation of a new state representing a powerful social base. Yet the radically new situation had no cultural roots, and the ancient traditions of chaos resulting from the fall of the state were as strong as ever. Therefore, the teens of the present century which followed the victory of the revolution witnessed growing division and instability both at the centre and in the provinces, such that a cool observer might have predicted the complete disintegration and fragmentation of the country, as happened after the fall of the Safavid state in the eighteenth century. Increasing foreign – especially Russian but also British – intervention had much to do with this, and the activities of the armies and agents of Russia, Turkey, Britain and Germany during the First World War greatly strengthened the process towards disintegration. Nevertheless, domestic factors in favour of the disintegrative trends were also at work which had their roots in the long tradition of disorders following upheavals. The fall of an arbitrary rule had always been followed by chaos until another strong (and arbitrary) state was formed to bring domestic peace and security. Thus, although the intervention of alien powers played a very important role, the pattern was familiar, and the domestic forces of destructive conflict 53

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needed little encouragement for bringing chaos to the country. These were not just nomadic, ethnic and regional; they existed right at the centre as well, in the Majlis, among the factions and parties, and within the ranks of the competing political magnates. The rule of law (hokumat-e qanun), constitutional monarchy (saltanat-e mashruteh) and even democracy (hokumat-e melli) had apparently been established. Yet the public response was similar to the age-old pattern of the fall of an arbitrary government followed by the arbitrary behaviour of the society at large. The terms Law (qanun) and freedom (azadi) were used almost synonymously, because law was associated with freedom from arbitrary rule. Therefore, in practice, both law – and especially freedom – came to mean freedom from all restraint, that is, from the law itself. It was the (much more familiar) traditional practice clad in modern forms. That is how – much as it had happened before, after the fall of a powerful ruler – nostalgia broke out for Naser al-Din’s strong rule, whom they now began to call the ‘Martyr Shah’ (Shah-e Shahid).41 It was this threat of civil war and disintegration more than any other factor which finally resulted in the 1921 coup, even though it was helped and organised – without the British government’s knowledge – by British officers and diplomats in Tehran. The coup was greeted with joy by modern nationalist intellectuals; and Reza Khan’s military leadership, and later government, attracted a good deal of support from an even larger public because of the peace and stability which it brought. Seen from this angle, the foundation of the Pahlavi state was in line with the emergence of a strong state after the chaos which had followed Iranian upheavals throughout the country’s history. If Reza Shah’s rule had remained firm but basically constitutional as in its early years, socioeconomic development would have taken root, and the history of twentiethcentury Iran would have been different. But from the early 1930s power was exercised with increasing arbitrariness, not just alienating landlords and merchants, traditional politicians and young democrats, but even the state’s own bureaucratic and military chiefs. In 1941, Reza Shah’s rule was ended by the invading allies. Had he had a reasonably strong and committed social base, however, his abdication would have been unnecessary and unlikely, as he was then prepared to cooperate with Britain and Russia.42 The years 1941–1953 were once again a period of interregnum, a period displaying the same old tendencies towards social and political upheaval after the fall of an arbitrary regime. If the foreign powers had not been there, first in full force, then by force of influence, it is likely that there would have been much greater chaos than was in fact experienced. Yet the same trends and tendencies which always followed the fall of a strong state were present, and not least in the capital and within the Majlis itself. Freedom, once again, meant destructive conflict and absence of restraint. A growing number of people began to wish that another Reza Shah would restore order and discipline, and only six years after his abdication amid public rejoicing, the fifteenth Majlis passed a private members’ bill that he should be officially described as Reza Shah the Great. Mosaddeq’s 54

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popular government, at least in its first one-and-a-half years, created a strong sense of public solidarity if only because the main adversary was foreign, although even in that period destructive conflict was still much in evidence. This was followed by a much wider and more powerful domestic struggle in which the forces opposed to the popular government were eventually helped and organised by the American and British governments to bring it down in the 1953 coup.43 This led to an authoritarian or dictatorial but not arbitrary government for which the landlords and the religious establishment provided the main power base. There was therefore a significant degree of political participation and constitutional restraint. Within a few years power began to become concentrated, but the process was interrupted by the economic crisis of 1959–1960, just at the time when the regime had lost the goodwill of the Soviet Union and the undivided support of the United States. The failure of attempts to initiate democratic control, and even mere participation at the level of the first few years after the 1953 coup, led to the riots of June 1963 which were put down with considerable severity. From 1963 to 1977 power became concentrated at an accelerating rate because all opposition had been beaten, the oil revenues were accruing to the state at a rapidly increasing (and later exploding) rate, and foreign powers, western as well as Soviet and Eastern European, became more and more uncritical towards the regime, not least because of the absence of an organised opposition and the increasing oil wealth. Therefore, when in 1977, and at the height of such domestic power and foreign support, a combination of economic dislocation and foreign criticism led the regime to allow a certain amount of political openness, it quickly led to its downfall by early 1979. There was a massive revolt, true to the ancient pattern, of the society against the state. No social class resisted the revolution, and no organised political force defended the regime.44 It is difficult to know how the chaos and destructive conflict which followed its victory would have come to an end had there not been a long foreign war to establish and consolidate the exclusive power of the Islamic state. But many of those who actively supported the revolution have now come to regret it, and large numbers of people now freely refer to Mohammad Reza Shah as ‘The Blessed One’ (Khoda Biyamorz). The pattern remains familiar.45

Notes and references 1 Paper published in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (24)1, 1997. For an extended version of the same theory see Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris), ch. 1. 2 See H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1980), especially, ch. 7. 3 See his travelogue Safarmaeh-ye Naser Khosraw, R. Nicholson (ed.) (Tehran: Donyaye Ketab, 1982), p. 138. 4 Theses 1–7 above have been discussed and documented at some length in the author’s following works to which (and their sources) reference should be made for further information and appraisal: ‘The Aridisolatic Society, A Model of Long Term Social

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and Economic Development in Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, July (1983), 259–81 (reprinted in this volume), (and its German version, ‘Ein Modell einer langfristigen Entwicklung in Iran’, Peripherie December 1980); The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981); ‘ ’Radd-e Olguy-e Bardehdari-Feodalism-Kapitalism dar Tahavvolat-e Jameh‘eh-ye Iran, Payam-e Emruz’ (July 1994), reprinted in the author’s Chahardah Maqaleh dar Adabiyat Ejtima‘, Falsafeh va Eqtesad (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1995); ‘Tarh-e Kutahi as Nazariyeh-ye Estebdad-e Tarikhi-ye Iran’ and ‘Estebdad, Hokumate Qanun … ’ in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1994); the author’s introduction to the second edition of Eqtesad-e Siyasi-ye Iran, M. Nafissi and K. Azizi (trans.), sixth impression (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998), pp. 5–41; Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, 2nd edn (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998). For a scholarly study of the systems of land assignment and tax-farming, see A.K.S. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia (London: Oxford University Press, 1953). For different responses to the theory of arbitrary state, see J. Foran, ‘The Modes of Production Approach to Seventeenth-century Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies (August 1988); A Century of Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Abbas Vali, Pre-capitalist Iran (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1993). For an alternative explanation for lack of capitalist development in Iran, see Ahmad Ashraf, ‘Historical Obstacles to the Development of a Bourgeoisie in Iran’ in M.A. Cook (ed.), Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). 5 Mostashar al-Dawleh was much more of a reformist than a revolutionary. His conception of law – similar to that of the early loyal reformers such as his mentor Mirza Hossein Khan Sepahsalar – was meant to bring order and discipline as well as responsibility to the administration of the state. See Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 1 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1981), pp. 120–7. The failure of this reformist attempt later led to the radicalisation of the campaign for the rule of law. Thus, it was to evolve – first in emphasis, then in substance – from the establishment of official order and discipline to the attainment of freedom from arbitrary rule, constitutional monarchy, popular sovereignty, and even (ultimately) freedom from the state itself, that is, the traditional Iranian chaos as the antithesis of arbitrary government (see p. 54). Yet it is illuminating that as late as 1893, in a letter on his death-bed to Mozaffar al-Din Mirza, the heir-designate, Mostashar al-Dawleh still laid the emphasis on orderly government. He had been deputy minister of justice under Mirza Hossein Khan Sepahsalar, and had seen all seasons, including flogging and imprisonment followed by appointment as head of state finance in Azerbaijan. All this occurred before he was arrested and put in chains, his home looted, his property confiscated, and his pension stopped for writing his book, One Word. The letter to Mozaffar al-Din Mirza was expressly intended to be delivered after the author’s death by no less a person than the aged, grand and highly respected Hasan Ali Khan Garrusi, Amir Nezam, whom no one could suspect of revolutionary aspirations. This was to prove, as he said at the outset, his selfless motives. He wrote that the country was in danger in the face of European progress and power, and because of the lawless behaviour of state and court officials; that law was necessary so that state officials ‘whether of high or low rank’, would be bound ‘by legal rules and articles’ in their sphere of action; that European governments were strong because ‘their ground rules are based in law, which is occasionally changed to suit the times … and for this reason the rights and obligations of the people are defined’, whereas ‘the ground rules of Iranians exist in the minds of our enlightened courtiers, such that whatever suits their wills and whims is right, and whatever does not is wrong’. And he emphasised that, without the establishment of law and orderly administration (tanzimat), all pretension to the reform of government was no more than ‘window dressing’. See, for his

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6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17

18

long, reasoned as well as impassioned letter, Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, in Sa‘idi Sirjani (ed.) Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, vol. 1 (Tehran: Agah, 1983), pp. 172–7. Politique is both a noun and an adjective: it means both ‘politics’ and ‘political’. See H. Katouzian, ‘Barayeh Inkeh Bahaneh’i Namanad’, in Payam-e Emruz (September 1995). See H. Katouzian, ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’, Ettel‘at SiyasiEqtesadi, nos 129–30, July 1998. See Ferdawsi’s Shahdameh, Sa‘id Nafissi (ed.) vol. 3 (Tehran: Berukhim, 1935), pp. 752–4. See, ibid., vol. 1, the story of Feraidun and his magical passage through River Ervand (Tigris); vol. 3, the account of Kaikhosraw’s magical passage (together with his mother Farangis, and his brother Behzad, in the shape of a black horse) through the Oxus, while running away from his Turanian grandfather Afrasiyab, and the account of his magical conquest of Dezh-e Bahman (Bahman Fortress) all of which proved his possession of God’s Grace. See vol. 7 for the citation of the Grace, in physical form, accompanying Ardashir Babakan when he was running away from Ardavan. See Karnameh-ye Ardashir Babakan, translated from the Pahlavi original by Sadeq Hedayat, in Zand-e Vohuman Yasn (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1963), pp. 179–81. Ferdawsi, Shahnameh, vol. 4, p. 1029, and vol. 5, pp. 1290–1. Ibid., vol. 6, p. 1554. See A.K.S. Lambton, ‘Islamic Political Thought’, in J. Schacht and C.E. Bosworth (eds), The Legacy of Islam, 2nd edn (Oxford: University Press, 1972). See Ali Akbar Fayyaz (ed.), Tarikh-e Baihaqi (Mashhad: The University Press, 1971); see H. Katouzian, ‘The Execution of Amir Hasanak the Vazir’, Pembroke Papers, 1990, pp. 73–88 (reprinted in this volume). See, for example, Abdolhossein Nava’i, Iran va Jahan, vol. 2 (Tehran: Homa, 1990), pp. 318–22. Incidentally, both this and its first volume (1987) are a very good single source on specific instances of arbitrary government. For just one significant example, see vol. 2, pp. 147–50. It recounts that when Isma‘il I, the founder of the Safavid State, entered Tabriz without resistance, he nevertheless massacred ‘his opponents’ and plundered the city. And in order to avenge his father, Shaikh Haidar, he had the corpses of his dead opponents exhumed, and set fire to them in public, together with the bodies of two hundred prostitutes and four hundred thieves whom he had ordered to be slaughtered for the purpose … When he came to Tabriz the second time, he ordered twelve of the city’s prettiest boys (who must have been from the upper classes) to be rounded up. He then raped them all personally, and turned them over to his generals to do the same. It goes without saying, of course, that not only were these acts religiously sinful, but – much more significantly – they were in stark violation of Shari‘a law as well. See Abdolhossein Nava’i (ed.), Sharh-e Hal-e Abbas Mirza Molk Ara, 2nd edn (Tehran: Babak, 1982). The letters have been published from the Iranian archives in Abbas Eqbal-e Ashtiyani’s introduction to the book; see pp. 29–31, emphasis added. Khosraw I (Anushiravan) in ancient times and Abbas I in the sixteenth century are perhaps the best prototypes of the ‘Just Ruler’ in the sense described above, though hardly in any other sense. The concept of the ‘Just Ruler’ is to be found, with some variations, in a few Persian classical texts, especially Ferdawsi’s Shahnameh and Nezam al-Molk’s Siyasatnameh or Siyar al-Muluk. See H. Katouzian, ‘Demokrasi, diktatori va mas’uliyat-e mellat’ in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli, pp. 52–63. See, for example, S.T. Bindoff, Tudor England (London: Pelican Books, 1952), ch. 3; W.C. Richardson, ‘The “New Monarchy” and Tudor Government’, and G.R. Elton, ‘The Tudor Revolution: The Modern State is Formed’, in A.J. Salvin (ed.) The New Monarchies and Representative Assemblies: Medieval Constitutionalism or Modern Absolutism? (Boston: D.C. Heth, 1964).

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19 Bindoff, Tudor England, chs 6 and 7. 20 See, for example, M. Ashley, England in the Seventeenth Century (London: Pelican Books, 1952), chs 6, 7 and 12. 21 See, for example, H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe, From the Earliest Times to 1713, vol. I (London: Fontana, 1964), chs 30, 33 and 49; H. Butterfield et al., A Short History of France, Part 3, ‘Centralisation and Expansion’ (Cambridge: University Press, 1959). 22 See, for example, C.V. Wedgwood, Richelieu and the French Monarchy (London: The English Universities Press, 1949). 23 See, for example, A. Hassall, Mazarin (London: Macmillan, 1903). 24 See, for example, M. Ashley, Louis XIV and the Greatness of France (London: The English Universities Press, 1946); D. Ogg, Louis XIV (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). 25 See, for example, H. Lubasz (ed.) The Development of the Modern State (London: Macmillan, 1964); P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: New Left Books, 1974). 26 For a comprehensive study of Divine Right of Kings, see J.N. Figgs, The Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914). For a classical version of the theory, see J. Beningne Bousset, ‘The Divine Right of Kings’ in W.F. Church (ed.), The Greatness of Louis XIV (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1959). For arguments over the divine right theory among Robert Filmer, Algernon Sidney, John Locke et al., see, for example, F.J. Hearnshaw (ed.) The Social and Political Ideas of Some English Thinkers of the Augustan Age, 1650–1750 (London: Harraps, 1928), especially, ch. 2. 27 See C.H. McIlwain (ed.), The Political Works of James (Cambridge, MA: 1918), p. 307. 28 Ibid., p. 333. 29 See, for example, C.V. Wedgwood, The Trial of Charles I (London: World Books, 1964), chs 6–13 especially. 30 Ali Akbar Fayyaz (ed.), Tarikh-e Baihaqi, pp. 530–1. 31 See, for example, M. Ashley, England in the Seventeenth Century, chs 6 and 7; C.V. Wedgwood, The King’s Peace 1637–1641 (London: Collins, 1955); The King’s War, 1641–1647 (London: Collins, 1958), The Trial of Charles I (London: Collins, 1964); C. Hill, The English Revolution, 3rd edn (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1955), and The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714, 2nd edn (London: Van Nostrand Reinhold (UK), 1988). 32 See, for example, E.L.Woodward, French Revolutions (London: Oxford University Press, 1965); Leo Gershoy, The Era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) (Princeton: D. van Nostrand, 1957); From Despotism to Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). 33 For the dichotomy of mellat and dawlat, see Katouzian, ‘The Aridisolatic Society … ’ (reprinted in this volume), and ‘Yaddashti darbareh-ye ‘mellat’, ‘melli’, ‘melli-gara’ va ‘nasionalism’ in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli. 34 In Persian: ‘In beravad va har cheh mikhahad beshavad’. 35 On the cycle of arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule, see also Katouzian, ‘Demokrasi diktatori va mas’uliyat-e, mellat’ in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli, pp. 38–51. 36 See E. Abrahamian, ‘Oriental Despotism: The Case of Qajar Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies (1974), 3–31. 37 E. Lousse, ‘Absolutism’, in Heinz Lubasz (ed.) The Development of the Modern State, p. 44. 38 R. Major, ‘The Limitations of Absolutism in the “New Monarchies” ’, in A.J. Salvin (ed.) The New Monarchies and Representative Assemblies: Medieval Constitutionalism or Modern Absolutism? pp. 83–4. 39 See Katouzian, ‘The Aridisolatic Society … ’ and ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’.

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40 See H. Katouzian, ibid. 41 See E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions; J. Foran (ed.), A Century of Revolution; Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran. 42 See Katouzian, ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran: Democracy, Dictatorship or Arbitrary Government?’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 22(4) (1995), 5–20 (reprinted in this volume); Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1990); and ‘The Pahlavi Regime in Iran’, in H.E. Chehabi and J. Linz (eds), Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 43 See Fakhreddin Azimi, Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, 1941–1953 (London and New York: I.B. Tauris and St Martin’s Press, 1989); Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran. 44 For the history of the period as a whole see, for example, E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions; J. Foran, A Century of Revolutions; N. Keddie, with a section by Y. Richard, Roots of Revolution (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981), and Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran. For a remarkable analysis of the political situation in Iran in the mid-1960s, see M.F. Herz, A View from Tehran: A Diplomatist Looks at the Shah’s Regime in June 1964, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington, 1979. The late Mr (later, Ambassador) Herz was counsellor for political affairs at the American Embassy in Tehran when he sent this dispatch to the Department of State. Significantly, it was labelled as ‘Some Intangible Factors in Iranian Politics’. It would be difficult to exaggerate the breadth of information and, especially, depth of insight in this unusually long diplomatic dispatch. While he points out that the Shah had been thoroughly successful in the recent power struggles against the National Front, the Amini group and the religious leadership, he observes that he lacks a social base, and that his rule lacks a firm basis even among its beneficiaries. Here is a passage from the dispatch which is particularly relevant to our present analysis: Since the opposition is weak, divided and dispirited, the regime ought to be feeling happy and secure, particularly as it has important political assets in its favour. But one of the remarkable factors in the present situation is that the regime has so few convinced supporters. Evidence of this is to be found at every turn: prominent members of the New Iran Party who express the belief, quietly and privately, that their party is a sham and a fraud and that no political party can be expected to do useful work as long as the Shah’s heavy hand rests on the decision-making process; hand-picked Majlis members who deplore ‘American Support’ for a regime which they call a travesty of democracy; civil adjutants of the Shah, who belong to his most devoted supporters, yet who express the belief that Iran will never be able to solve its problems as long as there is no freedom of expression, no delegation of authority, and so little selection of personnel for merit; prominent judges who declare, with surprising lack of circumspection, that the anticorruption campaign cannot get anywhere as long as it is known that certain people are immune from prosecution; military officers who tip off the National Front regarding actions planned against its demonstrators; Foreign Ministry officials who privately advise against courses of action they are officially urging on the United States with respect to the treatment of opposition spokesmen in the United States. These are not members of the opposition. They are members of the Establishment who, even while loyal to the Shah, are suffering from a profound malaise, from lack of conviction in what they are doing, from doubts about whether the regime deserves to endure. Here, and not in particular activities of the opposition, lies the real weakness of the present regime, for even a militant minority in charge of the apparatus of government

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could create respect in the rest of a country … Even when ample allowance is made for the ungovernable nature of the Iranian middle class … there remains the fact that the Shah’s regime is regarded as a highly unpopular dictatorship not only by its opponents but, far more significantly, by its proponents as well … (pp. 6–7, emphases added) From Herz’s own analysis it is clear that what he describes as ‘highly unpopular dictatorship’ refers to what, in our analytical scheme, is arbitrary government. 45 For some analytical discussions of the revolution of 1977–1979, see Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 17 and 18, ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran’, and ‘The Pahlavi in Regime Iran’; J. Foran, A Century of Revolution, ch. 7; H.E. Chahabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (New York: Cornell University Press, 1990); V. Moghadam, ‘Iran: Development, Revolution and the Problem of Analysis’, Review of Radical Political Economics, 16 (1984), 227–40; and ‘Populist Revolution and the Islamic State in Iran’, in Revolution in the World System, Terry Boswell (ed.), (New York and London: Greenwood, 1989), 147–63. Mansoor Moaddel, Class, Politics and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); N. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, ch. 9; E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, ch. 11.

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4 THE ARIDISOLATIC SO CIETY: A MODEL OF LONG-TERM SO CIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN IRAN 1 The recent Iranian revolution has brought into light the question of the nature and significance of both the logic and the sociology of long-term social and economic development in that country. This subject is of considerable interest in its own right, but it is of even greater significance for a realistic understanding of the country’s recent developments, its present situation and its future prospects. For it was mainly the lack of such an understanding and insight which led the vast majority of modern Iranian intellectuals and educated masses of all political and ideological persuasions to misconstrue the logic of the events since 1963, and fail to predict the form, content and consequences of the recent revolution. Furthermore, such a realistic framework is indispensible to any attempt at formulating ways and means for the promotion of social and economic progress in Iran. For even purely technological approaches to modern economic development presume a broader frame of reference which, if inappropriate, will fail to realise their objectives. Indeed, this must be an important cause of the frequent failure of technological blueprints both in Iran and elsewhere: such blueprints are based on a cultural and historical background which makes them of little use for direct application to radically different social and historical realities.2 This chapter will suggest a realistic framework for the analysis of the historical development, the current trends, and the future prospects of Iranian political economy. It may also be of some methodological use for the study of other – both old and new – political economies.

Feudalism or oriental despotism? The theoretical model of feudalism has been based on the experience of European medieval society which, in its varied forms, was a product of the collapse of the Roman Empire. It replaced a slave-based political economy, led to the monopoly of private land ownership (which was perpetuated by the rules of primogeniture and entail), resulted in the institution of serfdom, the concentration of politiconomic power in the rural society, the creation of a permanent (though not unchangeable) aristocratic order, the division of state power, the formation of a parallel hierarchical organisation in the Church, and so forth; it 61

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was also based on a set of contractual rights and obligations regarded as sacred and inviolable in theory, and highly resistant to change in practice.3 That is why liberal thinkers of the modern age who raised the intellectual standards against the declining feudalism of western Europe, concentrated their attacks on its traditional and legal restrictions, and contrasted it with their own (‘negative’) concept of freedom; that is, freedom from (legal and traditional) restraint.4 In feudal society, life and labour may have been ‘poor, nasty, brutish and short’, but there was no institutionalised lawlessness, either in general or with respect to civil, criminal and ecclesiastical codes of conduct. On the contrary, it was the seemingly never-changing feudal customs, traditions and laws which restricted social and geographical mobility, perpetuated monopoly and class privilege, and restrained the emergence of new techniques and ideas. None of these basic historical, social and institutional characteristics and relations is true of Iranian society at any stage of its social and economic development. This requires a systematic as well as comprehensive examination of the issues, which will be briefly outlined here. Class structure and social relations (A) The origin of the so-called Iranian feudalism is unknown. There was no slave economy which, because of internal and/or external forces, gave way to a feudal society.5 (B) There is no evidence for the existence of any form of serfdom or bondage in Iranian history. The peasant may have been ‘fair game’, permanently at the mercy of the landlord; but this itself is a negation of a well-defined network of productive relations which characterises the manorial system. The term ra
iyat, which in the past few centuries has been commonly applied to all classes of the Iranian peasantry, simply means subject. That is why until the Mashruteh Revolution (1905–1909), the term was generally applied to every single member of the community except the Shah himself. The peasant was of course obliged to pass on the surplus of production, in the form of shares, dues, taxes, etc., to some agent of exploitation: the state, the land assignee, the tax farmer, or whoever. But this is no evidence, much less proof, of feudal relations. (C) There existed no manorial system, and the landlord was characteristically based in the urban centres. That is why the application of the concept of ‘absentee landlord’ to the case of Iran is not appropriate. Historically, the term refers to a minority of European landlords who neglected their duties and responsibilities by their absence from their estates. But ‘the obligations’ (as also ‘the rights’) of Iranian landlords were entirely different in nature, and they did not generally include residential supervision of life and labour in the village. (D) The class structure was anything but rigid; there was no peerage, no aristocracy, and no oligarchical distribution of power. On the contrary, the laws of inheritance, both before and after Islam, inhibited the concentration of private wealth and the perpetuation of social station. At any rate, there was no 62

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guarantee that a man’s fortune, of whatever form, would be passed on to any or all of his descendents; they could be easily confiscated or usurped by public bodies or ‘private’ persons. There was no church, and the religious bodies were normally independent from – sometimes even hostile to – the state.6 All classes of the society, irrespective of significant differences in wealth and position, were ultimately subjects in the sense described above. Consequently, there was a high degree of ‘social mobility’ (even over short periods of time) of a kind which is wholly uncharacteristic of a feudal society: men, and sometimes whole families, could rise and fall in fame and fortune even within a single generation; occasionally, they both rose and fell within the same generation.7 (E) There were no lasting (i.e. constitutional) contractual rights and obligations among various classes, and none between the state and the people. Clearly, there were functions which if the state systematically failed to perform, would eventually lead to its downfall. Yet, precisely for this reason, these functions were not fulfilled in accordance with any contractual (or constitutional) obligations; they were carried out in order to maintain the state itself in power. It is one thing to pay a person for his services and quite another to ‘pay him off’ for his support or complacency. There was great insight in Marx’s reference to the ‘egalitarian’ nature of the oriental society even though he did not, perhaps could not, develop it further. For the Iranian people, at any rate, were all ultimately equal before naked power: the grand vizier’s person and property were just as easily subject to any degree of violation by the Shah as were those of the lesser magnates by the grand vizier, and the people, of towns and villages, by the lesser magnates; furthermore, the lives and possessions of them all were potentially at the will of one single arbiter at the top. A well-known Persian expression summarises the position: ‘equal injustice is just’. Down to the present day the clearest line of social demarcation (even stratification) has been that which divides the state (dawlat) from the people (mellat). The Perso-Arabic term mellat does not mean ‘the nation’, as it is invariably believed: it means the people as opposed to dawlat, or the state. The people themselves are obviously classified into different ethnic, linguistic, professional and income groups and classes. Yet, the most persistent Persian equivalent to European class conflict, even antagonism, has been manifested between ‘the people’, as a whole, against the state: a wealthy merchant with no links with the state is regarded as melli, ‘of the people’; a much less wealthy state official is categorised as dawlati, ‘of the state’. Until a few decades ago, members of the civil service were universally described as nawkar-e dawlat, or ‘lackey of the state’; this was later officially replaced by the term ‘state official’, and subsequently, by ‘state employee’. Yet the older and much more meaningful term persists in informal usage. It follows that, contrary to the European feudal system, economic and political power was concentrated in the urban (not rural) sector, which included a 63

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large merchant community centuries before the rise of ‘free boroughs’ (and the bourgeoisie) in Europe: the terms bazar and bazargan (merchant), still in vogue, are pre-Islamic. There existed, at least since ten centuries ago, an extensive network of credit transfer between distant cities through bills of exchange. (F) There was no church before or after Islam with features comparable to the role and significance of the Roman Catholic Church in feudal Europe. The Zoroastrian spiritual leadership was perhaps somewhat more ordinal than the Islamic. The absence of a church (not to be confused with an ordinary religious institution) in Islam is well known. As for the Shi
a sect, which has played a very important role in post-Islamic Persian society, it was basically a communal movement which drew its legitimacy and power from its membership. Shi
ism has been usually in theory and sometimes in practice, in opposition to the state. The nature of property ownership At present, the most studious single source of knowledge on the variety of land ownership and its evolution in Iran is A.K.S. Lambton’s classic work of scholarship, Landlord and Peasant in Persia (1953). Indeed, this is the main source of such information for many of the proponents of the concept of ‘feudalism in Iran’, as well as its opponents. Here we shall not provide yet another summary of her work, for considerations both of space and of originality. Instead, we assert that the invaluable information provided by Lambton, as well as the wealth of classical Persian literature, both historical and literary (a few of which are cited in note 9) would lead us to the following conclusions: (A) The direct state ownership of land, known as khasseh, and, later, khaleseh, was – even though varying in proportion – always quite extensive. (B) Uncultivable and uncultivated lands were all state property, at least in principle. (C) Most of the remaining cultivable lands were assigned by the state to individuals, usually members of the royal household and state functionaries. There was no contractual security of title to ownership, and there was no automatic right of bequest. (D) Otherwise various systems of tax farming were in use. It is interesting to note that a class of tax farmers in Moghul India were known as zamindars – a Persian word meaning ‘landlords,’ or better, ‘landholders’. (E) There were scattered small-holdings of local cultivators; but even in their case, there was no security of ownership. (F) There were both charitable and private endowments in land. The former – enjoying greater security – were a source of income for religious dignitaries and colleges, including scholarship grants; the latter were a source of income for the descendants of the rich – landlords as well as merchants. Neither was nearly as inviolable as private ownership in Europe, let alone European endowments. Let us emphasise the fact that the weakness of private property was not merely or mainly due to the existence of a large ‘public sector’. On the contrary, private 64

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property was weak because it was simply an empirical institution whereas state property was a functional one. Therefore, it was the ‘propertied’ classes that depended on the state, not the other way round: only the state was an independent owner of property and could therefore use its economic power in a way which was functionally comparable to the feudal and (later) capitalist classes of Europe. It followed that the closer an Iranian social class was to the state, the more dependent was the power and property of its members on the state’s favours, and the more swiftly and decisively could they gain or lose by its arbitrary decisions. For example, landlords were generally richer and more powerful than merchants, but their position and property was relatively more vulnerable than those of the latter. In other words, since the landlords were the direct servants, retainers or appointees of the state, their position was actually more powerful but potentially weaker than those of the less dependent classes. Even if we put aside our previous comments and observations on the subject these simple facts about the nature of property and property relations must make it very difficult to think of Iran as a feudal (and, later, capitalist) political economy. Social and economic development This is a curious source of worry for some of the advocates of the feudal view of Iranian society, for it implies that in the absence of a European-style class structure, class conflict, etc., there could have been no technological change and social transformation. The subject can be discussed extensively, and in detail; but the limitations of space and scope forbid this. Therefore, the following notes may suffice for the time being: (A) Social change everywhere must have a certain (though not absolutely deterministic and impersonal) mechanism; it does not follow that specific modes of social change (say those of European history) must be equally applicable everywhere. (B) Although Marx’s and similar models of social development put the greatest emphasis on internal, domestic forces of social transformation, even these models do not wholly disregard the influence of external, foreign forces. For example, according to Marx’s model, changes in the ‘forces of production’ must have played the most significant role in the basic destabilisation of the Roman slave economy; yet, even in this case, the fall of that system would have taken a different form without the persistent onslaught of the northern barbarians who founded the feudal system afterwards. Or, to take another example, capitalism would not have emerged without technical progress and the accumulation of (physical) capital; but Marx was well aware of the significance of the preceding accumulation of commercial capital, and the role of international trade (even official piracy) in the drive for financial accumulation. (C) Persia has always been an ‘open’ country from its very foundation. It has both conquered and been conquered many a time; and (international) trading has been one of her permanent features, since much earlier times than 65

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the rise of commercial capitalism in Europe. It is unthinkable that such (violent and peaceful) contacts with foreign peoples have had little or no impact on basic changes – technological as well as institutional – in Iranian society. Even in recent times, the Mashruteh Revolution of 1905–1909 owed a great deal – both directly and indirectly – to the rise of industry and empire in Europe. And the subsequent drive for modernism in this century was almost entirely influenced by (ill-adapted) European ideas and techniques. (D) Apart from that, domestic forces have also played their separate part. This is a country which has already witnessed the rise and fall of science and technology; the growth of urbanisation and public welfare at levels which would have been unimaginable in medieval Europe, followed, though gradually, by depopulation, poverty and destitution. (E) Clearly, there has been no private accumulation of physical capital (similar to the modern European experience) in Persian history which might have led to an industrial revolution. The question of the ‘obstacles to the development of an Iranian bourgeoisie’ (at least until the nineteenth century) has been discussed by a few scholars some of whom have shed light on certain aspects of the problem.8 Yet, they have tended to overlook the most important ‘obstacle’: the weakness, discontinuity and insecurity of all forms of private property. The private monopoly of land-ownership in feudal Europe automatically implied restrictions on the freedom of ownership; restrictions which did not apply to capital in capitalist Europe, until the present century when reformist state interventions (through progressive taxation, death duties, etc.) began to be applied.9 Yet, even though the European feudal landlord did not enjoy perfect freedom to alienate, transfer or dispose of his property at his own will, his title to ownership and his right of enjoying its fruits were inviolable, both for him and for his descendants. The Iranian ‘landlord’, whether a land assignee, a tax farmer, an endowment beneficiary or even a local smallholder, enjoyed no such right to his title, or security of his income. If European capitalist property involved an inviolable (natural) freedom, and feudal property an inalienable (natural) right, the Iranian landed income and wealth was an alienable (arbitrary) privilege. The Iranian landlord was certainly in a higher stratum of the society than, say, the merchant. But this was not because of his ownership of land; on the contrary, it was because of his relation to the state which would initially afford him his landed privileges. The same state of insecurity of income and wealth applied to merchant capital – both in the merchant’s lifetime and afterwards. The difference was that (a) merchant capital was more obviously earned, rather than granted by privilege, though even here good relations with the state were very helpful and (b) merchant capital could be more easily realised in money form, moved from place to place, or even buried. Capital accumulation requires postponement of present consumption, that is, saving; and saving necessitates a minimum degree of security and certainty concerning the future. In a country in which money 66

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itself – let alone financial and physical assets – has been under the threat of confiscation and expropriation on the slightest pretext, it is impressive that financial capital was accumulated and trade was carried out to the extent that they were. The Iranian merchant was not naturally charitable or spendthrift; and it was certainly not the mere teachings of Islam which encouraged him to spend rather than accumulate; on the contrary, the sociopolitical environment simply left him with no rational alternative. All this is not to mention the question of inheritance laws which, together with both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic urban practice of polygamy, would have agitated against the concentration of wealth, even in the best of circumstances. In general, the absence of a legal code of conduct – that is, the arbitrary nature of power at all levels – leaves little room for personal, let alone political economic or financial security and predictability. The entire course of Iranian history, and the existing chronicles of its events are crowded with (only the wellknown) examples of this state of insecurity and unpredictability, too numerous, and somewhat embarrassing, to cite. And Persian literature abounds with subtle and indirect social and onological evidence for it.10 Iranian history and ‘oriental despotism’ The system was despotic, and the country, by the wider definition of this term, oriental. The question is whether or not Iranian society answers to the analytical models variously described as the Asiatic mode of production, or oriental despotism. It should by now be clear that many, thought not all, of the features of life and labour, described by Marx, Engels and their precursors for Asiatic society have been present in the economic and social relations of the country. Furthermore, the climatic and environmental conditions, including general aridity which has made water scarce and artificial irrigation widespread, is characteristic of the land. Yet, Wittfogel’s specific model of the hydraulic society is not applicable to the case of Iran, because (a) there is little evidence of the control, provision or allocation of water by the state; (b) there is also little evidence of the state management of agricultural resources and agricultural production and (c) the existence of a large and extensive bureaucracy has not been a necessary feature of Persian despotism thoughout its history, though there has always been a functional bureaucratic network. Finally, Wittfogel’s emphasis on the totality of the state power has, unwittingly, diverted attention from its more important feature: that is, its arbitrary nature which has infected the exercise of power at all levels, and not merely at the top of the social pyramid. Apart from that, it has encouraged the development of alternative views, such as royal absolutism and absolutist states, which tend to underemphasise the distinction of Eastern despotism, by focusing attention on degrees of absolutism from western Europe to eastern Asia.11 The distinctive characteristic of the Iranian state is that it monopolised not just power, but arbitrary power – not the absolute power in laying down the law, 67

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but the absolute power of exercising lawlessness. We will present the main reasons for the inapplicability of the model of the hydraulic society further in the following section.

The Aridisolatic society Iran has never been a feudal political economy: private property ownership (especially in land) was weak and tenuous, based on various land assignment systems as a military-bureaucratic privilege rather than an aristocratic right, and – both for these and other reasons – it could neither perpetuate nor concentrate; the state itself had a significant share of the agricultural land; there was no manorial system, landlords characteristically made up an urban social class, there was no serfdom, and no traditional system of peasant obligations other than the payment of crop shares (or, occasionally, rents) and taxes to various agents of exploitation; towns and cities were relatively large and numerous, commerce was extensive and elaborate, and money played a significant role both as a medium of exchange and as a store of value, in the urban sector. Consequently, politiconomic power was historically concentrated in cities (shahristan ⫽ ‘country’) not the other way around: political power was both absolute and arbitrary (at all ‘administrative’ levels, regardless of whether or not there existed a large centralised bureaucracy), social mobility was high, there existed neither aristocratic peerage nor bourgeois citizenship in time or space. Nor has it been a ‘hydraulic society’ as described by Wilttfogel, in spite of the fact that the so-called superstructural features of Iranian society seem to answer to some of the descriptions of oriental despotism. This will become more clear from the following sketch of what may be described as ‘The Aridisolatic Society: A Model of Persian Despotism’. The Iranian village: structure and relations In general, the village provided the social boundary, as well as the production unit of peasant life and labour. It was normally made up of households with traditional right of cultivation (the nasaq-holders), households without such rights (khoshnishins), and a number of traders and moneylenders who supplied small amounts of credit in cash or in kind at high (implicit) interest rates by advance purchases of a part of the crop. In many villages, some nasaq-holders and/or khoshnishins, (known as gavbands) rented out one or two pairs of oxen to other cultivators against a share of the crop. In more recent times, the development of Ejareh kari (a form of small-scale tenant farming) in some part of the country had encouraged the use of wage labour which was usually supplied by the khoshnishin community. The traditional mode and method of production was communal. The Iranian village ‘commune’ is described by various terms in different regions, of which boneh (and sahra) are the most common; there are also some differences in their strength of communality, the boneh being the strongest of all the regional 68

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varieties. This does bear a similarity to the old Russian village commune, (or mir), though it has its own peculiar features and, in any case, it is a looser and less comprehensive institution: purely linguistically, the mir means ‘the world’ whereas the boneh only refers to a person’s base, and network of social intercourse. Apart from that, each Russian village had a single mir, whereas Persian villages usually formed themselves into more than one boneh, in consequence of which the composition of bonehs could vary over time (a household being able to leave one and join another). The boneh must owe its origins to the fact that water is the country’s most scarce agricultural resource, except in one or two small regions, or pockets of land: the scarcity of water encouraged communal cooperation for the construction and upkeep of underground water channels (qanat or kariz), as well as the distribution of water among the cultivators hence also the peasant rank of the abyar or ‘water assistant’. Therefore the climatic aridity did not turn Persia into a hydraulic society as defined by Wittfogel because (a) of the near absence of great rivers (like the Nile and the Euphrates) which could have led to extensive construction of dams and canals by the state: typically, the village community itself, as one unit, organised the supply and distribution of water and (b) the despotic state did not emerge as a result of a need for it to fulfil such social and economic functions, but because of the economic and military weakness of each isolated unit of life and labour (i.e. each village) taken separately. We will explain these two points further below. Apart from its role as a communal unit of production, the boneh also developed other socioeconomic functions, such as decisions concerning crop rotation, fallow fields, etc. One (though not universal) consequence of this institution was that peasant holdings were usually ‘open’ and ‘scattered’ in order to ensure an average equality of fertility for the holdings of all the cultivators, but there were also cases of ‘consolidated’ holdings: in general, the more arid the location, the stronger the boneh and the greater the likelihood of scattered holdings. The landlord (who could be a land assignee, the state itself or the trustee of a charitable endowment) was generally an outsider and, in any case, not a part of the boneh, but his local agent (the mobasher) provided the necessary link between the two. The traditional mode and method of distribution (of output) was cropsharing (or sharecropping), theoretically based on the ‘five-inputs’ rule, the inputs being land, water, seeds, oxen and labour: the landlord would take the two shares of ‘land’ (i.e. land and water), the peasant would take the share of labour, and the two shares of capital (seeds and oxen) would go to their respective suppliers: the landlord, the peasant, or a gavband (ox-tier). In practice, the mode of distribution (sometimes significantly) varied from this theoretical rule, though not as much as making it irrelevant; besides, in a few cases a ‘system’ of rent payment was also practised. However, the share of the peasant was further subject to the state tax, the payment of religious dues, and the settlement of debt obligations to creditors. This happened at the harvest time, hence the Persian expression, 69

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‘promises for the harvest time’ (i.e. empty promises): occasionally the peasants could not meet all these obligations, and not infrequently, they hid a part of the crop in order to reduce the actual share of the exploitative agents.12 It is worth rendering the peculiarities of this mode of distribution more explicit. The most striking feature of the five-inputs rule for distribution is that it allocates two equal shares, not one, to the landlord for both land and water which, apart from its emphasis on the scarcity of water as such, also shows the great injustice of the system. For land in the sense of space has never been scarce in Iran, only fertile and cultivable land which are directly related to the amount of natural and artificial water supplies. That is, the landlord effectively took two shares of the output for a single scarce input, water; moreover, the two shares taken together amounted to 40 per cent of total output. Second, capital likewise took two shares, not one, of the village produce, that is, another 40 per cent of total output. As we have said before, the five-inputs rule for the distribution of the product provided more of a theoretical principle, and was not always strictly observed in practice everywhere and at all times. Besides, the oxen and seeds may have been supplied by the village rentier (gavband) or the peasant himself. But the general framework still indicates the possibility of a high degree of exploitation and – among other things – points to one important factor in why the accumulation of (private) capital from within the village, and the development of a system of independent or even tenant farming was not possible: the whole of the agricultural surplus over and above peasants’ subsistence was taken by the state or its (direct and indirect) dependents – that is, the landlords – for urban consumption as well as unproductive investment. Therefore, both the internal socioeconomic structure and relations and the external (geographical as well as politiconomic) conditions made the Iranian village an independent unit of life and labour, with few links with other (usually distant) villages, and little interest in the urban outsiders who came and left a the right time taking ‘their shares’ of the village output. As mentioned earlier, Iranian agriculture and peasantry were not dependent on the state for the provision and regulation of water supplies, or anything else. It was the state that drew its economic power from the exploitation of scattered and isolated village units, the agricultural surplus of which it either directly requisitioned or assigned to landlords and tax farmers. This is the likely origin of the Iranian despotic state which, basing itself on urban centres and military outposts linked together by a countrywide transport system, dominated the scattered village units of agricultural production. In this way the peasantry, being isolated from the organised urban state and divided into small units which were independent from each other, served its two major (social and historical) functions: it was exploited by the cities through the despotic state and its dependents; and it helped preserve the basic cultural continuity of the land, in spite of periodic internal upheavals (which are a part of the ‘logic’ of despotism) as well as external invasions and plunders. At least the latter ‘function’ 70

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is still being served by those peasants who have remained on the land. That is, they care little for what goes on ‘outside’ even if it is a popular revolution among the ‘outsiders’: they have seen it all for millenia, and they have few illusions about any of the ‘outsiders’, whoever they may be whatever they may promise. The village and the supply of water It is necessary to emphasise the lack of dependence of Iranian agriculture and rural society on the state, especially in order to show the fundamental difference between the Iranian case and Wittfogel’s most basic explanation for the emergence of oriental despotism. According to this theory, it was (at least in the first instance) the technological necessity of the provision and/or control of water supplies which led to the appearance of the Asiatic state, and its various institutional characteristics. However, whether or not this model is reasonably applicable to China, India and elsewhere, it does not apply to the case of Persia. The despotic Persian state, once established, was expected to provide many public ‘services’, but (a) these services predominantly took the form of urban construction, utilities and military-bureaucratic organisations as well as the related networks of countrywide roads and outposts; (b) the state never spent any significant amount of public funds on the general provision of the water through the construction of irrigation networks, even after they had emerged and established themselves, although in a few regions and on a few historical occasions a couple of dams were constructed by the state13 and (c) they certainly played no role in the construction of the main instruments of agricultural irrigation – that is, the qanats – even though they may have made some indirect contribution to this activity in their role as ‘landlord’ in the (vast and extensive) state lands. There remains the question of who bore the cost of digging and maintaining the underground water channels. It is unlikely that an answer to this question can be found which would be generally applicable through time and space. There is evidence that qanat construction dates back to periods before the emergence of despotic states and their monopoly of land ownership in the region. Therefore, at least prior to urbanisation and the rise of the despotic state, villages themselves – that is, villages without direct or indirect landlords – must have innovated this technology and put it into use. As for the extension and upkeep of the qanats in later periods, there is no doubt that the village community invariably supplied the necessary labour, the questions however being who supplied the capital. In this case, capital was – even until recent times – the cost of subsistence of those peasants engaged in such constructive work or, what is the same thing, the cost of labour time spent on them. Off-peak labour is, however, ‘costless’ especially in the production of landintensive crops such as wheat and barley, which have always dominated the crop pattern in the region. In other words, the peasant would receive his annual share of the output irrespective of what he did with his time for most of the period between tilling, sowing and harvesting. This means that the peasantry as a whole 71

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could take their turn in such maintenance and construction activities (a) without a consequent decline in output and (b) without the necessity of extra payments to those engaged in such work, because each household in their turn would make their contribution, and each would ‘receive’ their share of its benefits through the upkeep or increase in the water supplies for production. This gets rid of the great mystery which is sometimes cited in relation to the cost of qanat construction: observers have usually pointed out that the qanat technology is extremely costly, and this has posed the question as to how and by whom these high costs have been met. There is no question about the costliness of the operations, but once it is related to its socioeconomic context, the riddle is easy to solve: the village community produced the output (i.e. grain) in the peak seasons and supplied its most important input (i.e. water) in the off-peak periods. As a piece of independent evidence for such a productive organisation, one can refer to the fact that (at least until the Land Reform of the 1960s) many villages which tended to specialise in fruit and vegetable production (for nearby towns and cities) used collective household labour – each in their turn – for the construction of feeder motor-roads with the clear purpose of reducing the cost of transport, and, hence, cutting both the cost of their own produce to the urban market and the cost of urban goods (tea, sugar, salt, fabrics, etc.) to themselves. Whether or not, and to what extent, the landlord bore a share of the costs of qanat construction and maintenance is in fact the one question for which there is unlikely to be a general answer for all times and places in the region. In some cases the landlord may have made a contribution, perhaps in accordance with his usual share of the village output, in others he may not: where the state was the landlord, it is unlikely to have made any reasonable contribution to these activities, and where the landlord was an assignee or tax farmer, the relative security of ‘ownership’ in each case must have been an important factor in determining his attitude towards such productive improvements. In any case, it would be wrong to believe that because the landlord received a share of the output for the ownership of water, he must therefore have borne the cost of its supply: the ‘water share’ was in the nature of a rent (in the strict economic sense of this term) for the ownership of a scarce natural resource, not a return on capital investment for the production of the commodity water. Both in Persia and elsewhere, landlords took a share of the output for the ownership of the land itself which they had obviously not produced via any amount of capital investment. Persian despotism and the Aridisolatic society To sum up, aridity did play a basic role in shaping the structure of the Iranian political economy and its institutional features, but it did so (to borrow Tolstoy’s words) in its own peculiar way: (a) it served to create autonomous village units of production, none of which could produce a sufficiently large surplus to provide a feudal power base and (b) but, given the expanses of the region, the collective surplus of all these isolated and autonomous villages taken together was so large 72

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that, once taken by an ‘external’ force, it could be used as the economic source of a countrywide despotic power. The despotic apparatus could then impose itself and its arbitrary will on all the social classes, and prevent the subsequent fragmentation of politiconomic power until such time that a combination of internal and/or external pressures would destroy it, and – sooner or later – replace it by another despotic apparatus. The size of the direct and indirect collective agricultural surplus was so large as to enable these despotic states to spend on transport, communications, military and bureaucratic organisations, and so on, which both maintained their hold on the land and prevented the later emergence of feudal autonomy in agriculture, or bourgeois citizenship in towns. Thus, the Iranian state was not ‘hanging in the air’ any more than the English aristocratic (and, later, bourgeois) classes. On the contrary, it was firmly based on the ownership of functional property. This martial and mobile force was originally provided by invading nomadic tribes, and thereafter both by the existing and by the further incoming nomads who succeeded in setting up various urban states at different stages of history, and who almost invariably gave way to their successors (in the end) through a short, sharp and total upheaval: that is how the Medes, the Persians (Achaemenids), the Greeks (Seleucids), the Parthians (Arscid), the Persian Sassanians, the Muslim Arabs, the Ghaznavid Turks, the Seljuq Turks, the Ilkhan Mongols, the Teimurid Turks, the Safavid Perso-Turkamans, the Afsharid Perso-Turkamans, the Zand Lor-Persians, and the Qajar Perso-Turkamans rose, ruled and were toppled. Clearly, all these (originally nomadic) imperial despotic states owed their rise and fall to various factors which are significantly different in detail; likewise, the political, economic and social conditions under their rule varied greatly. But they all owed both their success and their failure to decisive upheavals which usually began as a partial and regional intrusion or insurgency, and quickly resulted in general chaos and disorder. For it is a fact of the (dialectical) logic of such total and arbitrary rule that a small but significant crack in the apparatus of organised and comprehensive terror would quickly lead to the collapse of the entire apparatus. It is by this sort of logic that the rapid and inglorious destruction and annihilation of such great states as the Sassanian and Safavid empires could make sense. But, in addition and in spite of all the differences in politiconomic and historical detail as well as considerations arising from developments in modern Iran, the same logic and mechanism also explains the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909, the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty (in 1926), and its overthrow in consequence of the revolution of 1977–1979 … The Iranian revolution of 1977–1979 was entirely characteristic of the history of despotic rule punctuated by total (though not always successful) revolts of the urban people – including various social classes – against the state. Whether or not it will eventually end in a broadly democratic synthesis is by no means certain, and, given the lessons of Iranian history, certainly not inevitable. For the institution of Iranian despotism is extremely deep-rooted, its antithesis of chaos 73

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and indiscipline equally strong, the related absence of democratic channels and relations a formidable barrier to positive politiconomic achievements, and the oil resources as vast as ever. The failure to establish a democratic framework can only result in the perpetuation of the age-old vicious circle of despotism: revolution, chaos, dictatorship and despotism, in one guise or another. Success in establishing a democratic framework is the only route to the destruction of this vicious circle, and to irreversable social and economic progress.

Notes and references 1 Paper published in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 15 (1983). 2 See H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London: Macmillan, 1980; New York: New York University Press, 1980); ‘Towards the Progress of Economic Knowledge’, in J. Wiseman (ed.) Beyond Positive Economics (London: Macmillan, 1983) and ‘Bauerngesellschaften und industrialisierung – Eine Kritik des Modernismus und Pseudo-Modernismus in der Entwicklungs-theorie’, in J. Blaschke (ed.) Bruchstellen Industrialisierung und ‘planung in der Dritten Welt (Frankfurt: Syndikat, 1981). 3 (i) The term ‘politiconomic’ is used instead of ‘politico-economic’. For an explanation see Katouzian; Ideology and Method in Economics, Appendix to ch. 6; Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London: Macmillan and New York: New York University Press, 1981), ch. 1. (ii) Recent publications on the controversy over ‘feudalism versus oriental despotism’ (both in general, and as concerns the Iranian case) are already too many to cite. E. Abrahamian’s ‘Oriental Depotism: The Case of Qajar Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 6 (1974), 3–31 is a studious piece of research but it confines its argument to the nineteenth century alone. Ahmad Ashraf’s ‘Historical Obstacles to the Development of Bourgeoisie in Iran’, in M.A. Cook (ed.), Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, takes for granted his basic view (propounded in many of his Persian publications) that Persia was a Hydraulic Society. Farhad Nomani’s extensive article. ‘The Origin and Development of Feudalism in Iran … ’. Tahqiqat-e Eqtesadi, IX (1972), 5–61 fails to establish its case on numerous grounds, one example being its assumption that the mere fact that the surplus of agricultural output is requisitioned by some agent must be both necessary and sufficient evidence for the existence of a feudal system. Some of the Iranian writers who uphold the model of feudalism seem to have been greatly influenced by the works of some European (mainly, though not exclusively, Russian) historians of ancient Persia, such as Diakanov. According to a relatively recent account by Ernest Gellner, however, there is a growing tendency among Russian scholars to seek alternative models for the historical development of non-European societies. For example, he quotes from L.V. Danielova: Mankind faces many new problems which did not face the founders of Marxist theory and for which, naturally, one cannot seek solutions in their work … . The scale and vigour of current discussions is largely explained by the fact that for a long time, concrete research was limited by the five-term scheme (primitive society, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, communism) … this scheme … arises from the historical experience of Europe … data drawn from the history of other continents makes clear the limitations of an approach to world history as an unilineal process … (emphasis added) See E. Gellner, ‘The Soviet and the Savage’, Times Literary Supplement, October 18, 1974. Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Penguin Books, 1967) and Perry Anderson’s Lineages of the Absolutist States (New Left Books, 1974). Though

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4

5

6

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both in their own ways useful and considerable, make an eventful mistake in describing ‘absolutism’ (especially in a comparison of Europe and Asia) in terms of degree rather than kind (this subject will be discussed further in the text below). Anderson’s book also tends to put too much emphasis on the Islamic ideology as a cause of Middle Eastern (including Persian) despotism, which both leaves the pre-Islamic situation unexplained and (thus) tends to confuse causes with effects. The latter confusion is, in a different way, also apparent in Maxime Rodinson’s Islam and Capitalism (Allen Lane, 1974). Rodinson is right in saying that, by themselves, Islamic doctrines could not have created effective barriers against the rise of capitalism in Muslim countries (in this respect, a case of serious confusion is the incorrect identification of the concept of riba, or ‘usury’, with modern interest on credit; see H. Katouzian, ‘Riba and Interest in an Islamic Political Economy’, Peuples Méditerranéen, March 1981). But he does not explain the obstacles (and their social origins) to such developments, almost as if – regardless of the role of Islam – such obstacles did not in fact exist. The main reason for this important omission, and its implications, is the fact that Rodinson seems to regard ‘capitalism’ merely as a system in which financial capital is privately owned and used in trade: the conditions for the long-term accumulation of such capital and (partly as a result) their conversion into fixed (physical) capitalist assets, at once encouraging and incorporating technical progress, and the consequent organisation of manufacturing production on the basis of wage-contracts and minute specialisation – they all seem to be excluded by Rodinson’s use of the term (rather than the concept of) capitalism. The rejection by B. Hindess and P. Hurst in Pre-capitalist Modes of Production (Routledge, 1975) ch. 7, of the model (or models) of ‘The Asiatic Mode of Production’ because, they say, it is ‘conceptually incorrect’, is methodologically strange, even though in their later Autocritique. Mode of Production and Social Formation (Macmillan, 1977), they somewhat modify their previous position. But, in any case, the rejection of a model is no proof for the unique and universal applicability of another, namely the model of feudalism. Consider, for example, Adam Smith’s attack on the laws of primogeniture and entail (see The Wealth of Nations, Book III, especially ch. 2). On the liberal and other European concepts of freedom see I. Berlin, The Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). Some authors have tended to confuse the institution of domestic slavery with a slave-based system of political economy. For example, in his History of the Medes (Persian translation, 1966) Diakanov speaks of a ‘semi-patrimonial, semi-slavery’ system, and refers to the use of domestic slaves as corvee labour, as part of the evidence for this classification. And, following his lead, an Iranian sociologist drops all distinction between functional slaves, domestic slaves, and serfs as well as workers who (in his own words) engaged in ‘the advance sale of their labour to landlords or feudals …’. See C. Ensafpur, A History of the Economic Life of Peasants and Social Classes of Iran (1971), especially pp. 159 and 236 (in Persian). There is, in fact, no evidence of a stage of functional slavery in Iranian history, which must be explained by exactly the same reasons (given below in the text) why a feudal political economy never emerged in that region. But even if there had existed such a stage in Iranian history, then there must have been a cut-off period (that no one has ever identified) in which some powerful socioeconomic forces resulted in a fairly rapid tranformation of the slave economy into a feudal system. With the major exception of the Safavid period, although even in this case the religious leadership lacked homogeneity and was not an organised instrument of the state. See Katouzian. The Political Economy of Modern Iran, ch. 4, especially pp. 61, 62 and 70. The evidence for this – from histories, chronicles, memoirs, etc. – can truly fill volumes. For a single but significant example, consider Baihaqi’s report as a witness (in his great Tarikh-e Mas
udi) that immediately after the honourable death in office of

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8 9

10

11 12

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Bunasr-e Moshkan, the highly respected Master Secretary with more than thirty years of state service behind him, the state registrars were sent into his house in order to register and account for his entire wealth and transfer it to the Sultan’s personal treasury. It is all the more remarkable that although Baihaqi himself had been both a subordinate and a great personal admirer of Bunasr, he describes this event purely as a matter of routine. There are many more examples in the same source, which dates back to the eleventh century AD. As a matter of interest, the Sultan in question was the grandson of a Trukish (military) slave who was the effective founder of the Ghaznavid empire. For example, Ashraf, ‘Historical Obstacles’, who puts a great deal of emphasis on the role of the Iranian guilds (asnaf). See C.B. Macpherson’s ‘A Political Theory of Property’, in his Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford, 1973) on this simple, important, but long-neglected distinction in the social and legal conceptions of property between feudalism and capitalism. This distinction can be found in Book III of Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Here is a list of the most well-known histories, chronicles, memoirs, etc., which contain a great deal of both direct and indirect, explicit and implicit evidence for the nature of state power; the relationship between the state and the people; the state ownership and control of landed property; the insecurity of life, limb, possessions and property at all levels of the society; the high degree of (both upward and downward) social mobility; the concept of sociopolitical justice as mere expediency, and moral justice as equality before lawlessness, etc.: Baihaqi’s Tarikh-e Mas‘udi, Nezami Aruzi’s Chahar Maqaleh, Ibn-e Balkhi’s Farsnameh, Kaikavus ibn Eskandar’s Qabusnameh, Awfi’s Javame‘ al-Hekayat, Nezam al-Molk’s Siyasatnameh, Jovaini’s Tarikh-e Jahangosha, Rashid al-Din Fazllolah’s Jame‘ al-Tavarikh, Hamdollah Mostawfi’s Tarikh-e Gozideh, Eskandar Monshi’s Alam-aray-e Abbasi, Mahdi Ester-Abadi’s Dorreh-ye Nadereh, Lessan al-Molk’s Nasekh al-Tavarikh, Abbas Mirza Molk-Ara’s Khaterat, Abdollah Mostawfi’s Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, Dawlat-Abadi’s Hayat-e Yahya, Mehdiqoli Hedayat’s Khaterat va Khatarat, Makki’s Tarikh-e Bistsaleh, Khajeh-Nuri’s, Bazigaran-e Asr-e Tala’i. As for poetry and prose, there would be many, even in a sample of the best and most relevant. Here is a list of a few: Ferdawsi’s Shahnamenh, Sa‘di’s Golestan, Bustan and Qasa’ed, Rumi’s Mathnavi, Nezami Ganjavi’s Khamseh, but, perhaps, especially, Khosraw and Shirin and Eskandamameh, Hafiz’s Divan, Anvari’s Divan, Jami’s various works in prose and poetry, Sa’eb’s Divan, Saba’s Shah-an-shahnameh and Nasihatnameh, Qa’em-maqam’s Monsha’at, Qa’ani’s Divan, Bahar’s Divan. K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. A Comparative Study of Total Power (Yale University Press, 1957). Cf. Moore, Social Origins and Anderson, Lineages. See ch. 1 in this volume. For the various aspects and elements of this system, see A.K.S. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia (London: Oxford University Press, 1953); see also this author’s ‘Land Reform in Iran …’ Journal of Peasant Studies (April, 1978), 347–69 and ‘The Agrarian Question in Iran’, in A.K. Ghose (ed.), Agrarian Reform in Contemporary Developing Countries (Crrom Helm, 1983). For example by some later Sassanid Shahs on the Eupharates (for the control of water) – a practice which must have been inherited from the earlier semitic civilisations of Mesopotamia, whose ecology is in any case very different from most of the greater Iranian region. There is also evidence of such a dam (the Band-e Amir) in the Fars province (apparently) constructed by the (eleventh century) Buyid king, Fana Khosraw (entitled Azad al-Dawleh).

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5 EUROPEAN LIBERALISMS AND MODERN CONCEPTS OF LIBERTY IN IRAN 1

Almost a century ago there was a massive revolution in Iran primarily for the establishment of law and lawful government. This may still come as a surprise to some who are nurtured and versed in the history of modern Europe. Modern European revolutions, or indeed fundamental reforms which succeeded in averting revolutions, did not aim at establishing law in society. On the contrary, they intended to replace the existing law by one which would extend the rights and freedoms of the less privileged.2 Apart from that, in the classical liberal age, revolutions and reforms also aimed at limiting the law, that is, at drastically reducing the scale of state intervention in the private sphere. Indeed, the liberals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries virtually equated an increase in liberty with a decrease in legal restraints. Yet Iranian constitutionalists campaigned for law itself in order to attain freedom. My talk tonight aims to discuss and explain this apparent dichotomy, with reference to the basic differences in the social and historical realities of Iran and Europe.

European absolutism and Iranian arbitrary rule European states had always been based in law, however narrow in scope or – by modern standards – unjust the law may have been. Even in the relatively short period of absolutism or despotism, the rights of the state were not unlimited, or, what is the same thing, they were not limited only by the extent of its physical power. The absolutist state was exceedingly more powerful than the European state had ever been in medieval times. Nevertheless, it was subject to definite restraints. The power of the state was absolute, but it was not arbitrary. Neither Henry VIII nor his daughter Elizabeth, nor the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, nor Francis I and Henry IV of France, or the latter’s glorious grandson Louis XIV, Le Roi de Soleil, nor Fredrick the Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria – to name but a few of the grandest and most successful monarchs of the age of absolutism – was an arbitrary ruler. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and some other Russian rulers had still wider powers, but even they could not be described as arbitrary rulers. European absolutism was a relatively short historical phenomenon. It reigned over Europe during four centuries for the continent taken as a whole. In England 77

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it took two centuries, from the beginning of the Tudors to the end of the Stuarts. In France it lasted for three centuries, from Louis XII to Louis the XVI. In Prussia, from the peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the Revolution of 1848. In The Holy Roman, later Austrian, Empire from the early sixteenth century also until the 1848 revolution. In Russia from the accession of the Romanovs early in the seventeenth century till the 1905 revolution. There are two aspects – one, legal, the other, sociological – to the crucial distinction between absolutist and arbitrary states. Even during the high tides of absolutist government, although the king and state ‘had the absolute power of laying down the law’, they did not ‘have the absolute power of exercising lawlessness’.3 Louis XIV, for example, who was the most powerful absolutist ruler of France could not take the life or property of a nobleman, a state official, a judge, a merchant or trader, at will and without recourse to the existing legal framework and procedures.4 To this legal aspect of the absolutist state corresponded its basic sociological characteristic, that is, the fact that the social classes were independent, and the state depended on the consent and cooperation of the propertied classes. This was possible because there were independent and inalienable rights of propertyownership so that even in the few centuries of absolutist rule the state did not monopolise the right of land-ownership, nor could it confiscate and plunder private wealth, whether in land or capital. And, therefore, it did not, indeed could not, rise above the society. Far from lacking a social base, the absolute monarchies extended it to the lower gentry and the bourgeoisie, which is how they became known as protectors of ‘the people’ from the power of aristocratic magnates. The aristocracy and many of their rights and privileges remained, but they lost some of their power, and it became easier for lower orders to join their ranks. Private property ownership in land remained as strong as ever, and in capital, it became much stronger than before. Church law was generally observed, and the church retained a considerable amount of its power and privileges. Judicial processes – which included the prerogative courts – were respected, and any act of doubtful legality by the state was the exception that proved the rule. It occasionally led to massive revolts, such as the English civil wars and revolution of 1641–1660. In no sense, therefore, did estebdad or arbitrary rule exist in the European absolutist state, although in Russia the absolute ruler wielded considerably more power than in other parts of Europe.5 ‘Divine Right of Kings’ was the theory developed in the sixteenth and, particularly, seventeenth centuries as the basis for the legitimacy of absolute monarchy. The theory was advanced in various, and sometimes conflicting, versions. In general, they cited the divinely ordained kingship of biblical rulers such as David to prove their case (Filmer being an important exception to this), but it is sometimes believed that their real model was that of the ancient Persian kingship, which they knew from classical European sources. The divine right theory is not quite the same as the Persian God’s Grace theory, which I shall briefly describe below.6 Of much greater importance, however, is that the practice of absolute 78

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monarchy – which the theory sought to justify – was far from arbitrary government. James I of England came closest to the Persian God’s Grace theory when he wrote that the kings were God’s vicegerents on earth. And in a conflict with the judges of the prerogative court he wrote that to put in doubt what belonged to the ‘mystery’ of the king’s power was against the law.7 Yet the very fact that he had to argue with judges about his prerogatives, and even to invoke ‘the Law’ against them, gives the lie to any supposition of the right of arbitrary rule. Besides, James himself was emphatic about the rule of primogeniture as the basis of his own legitimacy, and his son Charles I took his stand in 1649 against his revolutionary accusers solely on the basis of the law of the land.8 In pre-Islamic Iran, the principle of Farrah-ye Izadi (God’s Grace, sometimes literally translated as Divine Effulgence) legitimised the arbitrary power of the ruler. According to this principle or myth, the power of rulers was both absolute and arbitrary for the simple reason that they owed their position to the Grace bestowed upon them directly by the Divine Will. This was true both of the Just and the Unjust rulers, but it was believed that the Unjust would lose the Grace, and somehow fall from power, although in practice this did not necessarily happen. The same principle was used to legitimise Iran’s postIslamic rulers, sometimes the term Farrah-ye Izadi still being applied, but later its equivalents, Shadow of God, Pivot of the Universe, etc., were preferred.9 When the ruler, as the personification of the state, is completely independent from the society, there may be no rights independently from him. That is, in the final analysis, no person or class of people may be able to claim any rights except that which is bestowed or reaffirmed by the ruler as a privilege. And what a ruler bestows as a privilege he or his successors may withdraw, so long as they have the power to enforce their will. There was no law, in the sense of basic precepts and principles, which set a boundary to the exercise of state power, and made it generally predictable. Where there are no rights there is no law. That is, where the ‘law’ is little more than the arbitrary decisions of the Law-giver, the concept of Law becomes redundant, even though there may exist a body of public rules and regulations which, however, may change at any moment, unpredictably and without any established procedures. This indeed is the literal meaning of estebdad, of arbitrary government. It is necessary to dwell on this point for another moment since it is far from palpable and could result in misunderstanding, even disbelief. In Europe, the law was regarded as a binding force which regulated – that is, brought order and discipline to – the relationship between state and society, as well as within the society itself. It could change either as a result of organised efforts at reform through the existing legal procedures or, in the last resort, by rebellion and revolution. The law was generally inviolable and usually difficult to change. And it was even more so in the case of those fundamental – later described as constitutional – laws which defined the basic rights and obligations of individuals, social groups and the state. Such (written or unwritten) laws or established traditions 79

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did not exist in Iran. Indeed, this is what made the arbitrary exercise of power possible, in fact, normal. There were thus no inviolable fundamental laws and traditions to make life, property and labour reasonably secure and predictable. As for judicial laws, a body of rules must have existed before Islam, and the Shari‘a supplied an extensive and elaborate civil and criminal code in Islamic times. Yet, the most restricting factor was that they could be applied only so long as they did not conflict with the wishes of the state. That is why the state could plunder anyone’s property at will, or deal out such punishments against persons, families or whole towns which had no sanction in Shari‘a law; that is how the condemned would sometimes escape execution if they could make the shah or the local governor laugh at the right moment.

European liberalisms I began by saying that the constitutional movement was primarily a campaign for law itself, whereas the early liberal movements in modern Europe sought to change the law in order to extend rights and liberties to the less privileged, while at the same time limiting the role of the state in society. It would not do too much violence to our sense of political and intellectual history, I hope, to say that modern liberalism was invented in the seventeenth century; that it was invented in England, especially in the circumstances leading to the Glorious Revolution of 1688; and that its chief theorist was John Locke who openly espoused and glorified that revolution. Almost forty years before, Charles Stuart had been charged with attempting to impose arbitrary rule, and executed in the name of the law. Whether or not the charge was fair, the revolution led by Cromwell had abolished absolute monarchy, though not absolute government itself. The Restoration of 1660 was based on a compromise that James II later tried to contravene. But his so-called abdication – for it was scarcely as dignified as that – marked the end of absolute monarchy in England. The social contract theory was not Locke’s invention. It went farther back even than Thomas Hobbes, who is its first celebrated advocate. He too had assumed a state of nature in which at some point human beings entered a social contract. Hobbes’s state of nature was close to primeval chaos, a ‘state of Warre as of everyone against everyone’, as he described it. Therefore, in order to protect their own lives, people made a contract to surrender their rights to an absolute sovereign, ‘the Great Leviathan’. It did not matter to Hobbes whether this was an absolute monarch, an absolute parliament, or some other absolute lawgiver, so long as it had absolute power to maintain peace and security. But the theory was fundamentally different from the traditional absolute monarchy precisely because it placed the sovereign power not in any tradition, or divine right or even hereditary principle, but in the original social contract. That is how Hobbes lost the sympathy of his fellow royalists as well as the leaders of the Puritan revolution. Locke’s concepts of the state of nature and the social contract were very different. He wrote during the following revolution that overthrew absolutist 80

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government. The state of nature was, according to him, not primeval chaos but a happy anarchy bound by the moral framework of the law of nature, which was accessible to human reason. Natural law was, of course, as old as classical philosophy, and had been popular also with schoolmen, its most intelligent medieval advocate being no less than St Thomas Aquinas himself. Yet Locke’s concept was far from a theological one. And at any rate, his blissful state of nature came to an end because of the need for an impartial judge in cases of criminals who violated the natural code of conduct. But the contract into which they entered was not, as in Hobbes, to surrender their rights collectively to an absolute sovereign. They surrendered their natural rights, each one to the other, in establishing civil society. There is, of course, no real foundation to the social contract theory of Locke or anyone else. Apart from that, the concept is highly static, non-evolutionary, unhistorical. But he used it well to justify his liberal theory of government in modern society. Locke put much emphasis on the natural right of property, although, judging by his political economy and labour theory of value, this was a notion of property which firmly included capital as well as landed estate. And his psychological theory, the tabula rasa concept, the theory that all knowledge is acquired only by sense perception, not only rivalled the traditional theological theories, but also denied aristocratic claims to inherited superiority.10 Yet Locke’s theory did not offer a full justification for a democratic society. Its practical counterpart was Whig liberalism of the eighteenth century, which replaced absolute monarchy by a government representing, in different portions, the claims of the crown, the church, the aristocracy and the common people. It is important to note that for a long time in Europe a liberal did not have to be also a democrat. In the same century that Locke and other philosophers appealed to the law of nature in the realm of political theory, laws of nature of a different kind had been discovered in the realm of natural philosophy. The new physics had a great impact on the liberal rationalist thought of the eighteenth century. And it owed so much to Newton alone that it is sometimes described as Newtonian physics. In Alexander Pope’s epigrammatic verse: Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night: God said, Let Newton be! And all was light!11 Locke and Newton combined were the most important sources of eighteenthcentury liberal theories, led by the French philosophes, the men of the Enlightenment. These came in different generations, and were different in temper and degree of enthusiasm. There are, for example, ponderable differences in the tenor and tone, the degree of learning, the scope of vision, and the level of abstraction in the arguments of Montesquieu and Condorcet. Voltaire and – to a lesser degree – Diderot were less idealistic than some of the others, despite their 81

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greater fame as leaders of the Movement. And there was Rousseau’s exception to the rule, divided as he was between the scientific and the emotional routes to naturalism. That is, between the unmitigated rationalism of his time and the unbridled romanticism of the next century, which was partially inspired by his own appeal to the emotions; and for which the current term in the fashionable salons of the time was ‘sensibility’, the term that was soon to appear in the title of a famous novel by Jane Austen. These intellectuals of the Enlightenment radicalised Locke’s concept of liberty as well as his methodological empiricism, and combined it with a rationalism based on Newton’s physics to construct a new faith which promised the Jerusalem of freedom, reason and unfettered economic progress. The Scottish thinkers Adam Smith and David Hume, who befriended them, were more in the tradition of Locke’s English moderation and gradualism. Smith’s moral philosophy was based on the assumption of natural harmony, but later when he wrote on political economy he realised the simplicity of that assumption for a study of human society. He presented a persuasive case for freedom of trade and limitation of government, but did so in a relatively sober and moderate tone. Some of their French correspondents and collocutors, however, predicted little short of the Millennium. Helvétius, Holbach, Turgot and Condorcet in particular put forward extremely optimistic visions of the future, once the war against the declining absolute monarchy, medieval philosophy and the Roman Church had been won. Yet, their concrete ideas did not go much further than the liberty of conscience and expression, and the economic policy of laissez faire. And perhaps even more than their English hero, Locke, they did not advocate representative government – certainly, not popular democracy – with any degree of enthusiasm, not even universal equality before the law. Indeed, many of the philosophes were quite prepared to settle for what became known as ‘enlightened despotism’. Diderot, in particular, used the tern ‘despotisme eclairée’ in some of his letters, while some Physiocrats spoke of a ‘despotisme légale’. There was logic to this. They saw the fundamental struggle, not against the state, but against the powerful social classes, the nobility and the higher clergy. And, as a reforming elite of the society, they preferred an enlightened monarchy to a mass revolt, to reduce the immense power and privileges of those classes. The ideal of democratic, or at least representative, government were later pursued by the American and French revolutions, though in different forms and with different consequences. The philosophes’ concept of liberty was therefore largely negative, in the sense used by T.H. Green, which I shall discuss shortly. That is, they demanded the removal of legal fetters against freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of trade. And the legacy of the more radical of them became the foundation of the liberal individualism of the nineteenth century, developed by thinkers known as the Philosophical Radicals, men like Jeremy Bentham and James Mill who brought to a completion the theory of utilitarian or individualist liberalism. The well-known principle of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest 82

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number’ was a product of ‘the calculus of pleasure and pain’: that is, maximisation of pleasure and minimisation of pain, once individuals had the maximum possible freedom from legal restraint. This was what Thomas Carlyle later mocked as ‘Anarchy plus the Constable’, a view not far from F.A. Hayek’s liberalism in the twentieth century, which at the revival of classical individualist liberalism in our time led to the famous remark, ‘There is no such thing as society’.12 John Stuart Mill had trouble with that. He carried the mantles of Bentham’s and his father’s utilitarianism as well as Ricardo’s political economy over a single pair of shoulders, and increasingly found it difficult to wear them without some additional linings and stitches. After the parliamentary Reform Act of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and campaigns for a better deal for the new industrial working class, the radical wind had been taken out of the sails of utilitarian or individualist liberalism. Apart from that, the younger Mill was too sophisticated a thinker and too conscientious a social reformer to be complaisant about the universal beneficence of laissez-faire liberalism. He conceded that the highest degree of liberty was not necessarily achieved by the minimum amount of legislation. But it fell to a new generation of political theorists and philosophers to draw explicit conclusions from Mill’s revision of individualist liberal theory. It was T.H. Green, a distinguished Oxford philosopher of the late nineteenth century, who first formulated the dilemma of classical individualist liberalism, and proposed a distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedom, which later in this century was brilliantly restated by another distinguished Oxford philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. The negative concept of liberty, defined freedom entirely as absence of legal restraint. Green found this limited. He understood its importance for the time that classical liberals had campaigned against outmoded legislation, which perpetuated social and economic privilege. But by his time this war had been decisively won, and now the freedom of contract, that is, lack of government regulations in the labour market, gave unequal power to employers and other privileged social classes. Apart from that, there was need for government intervention and expenditure to improve the education and health of the majority of the people. But Green went further than just the economic necessity and social justice of state legislation, though this seems to have been overlooked by Berlin. He saw ‘positive freedom’ (this is his own term) also as the ability of the individual personality to ‘realise’ itself by finding a significant part to play in society. Positive freedom must contribute to the enjoyment of the general public, not just of material, but also of spiritual goods. His conception of positive freedom thus went significantly beyond the arguments and policies, even, of the welfare state in the twentieth century, because it also put a high premium on moral and spiritual growth, something that had been hinted at by Adam Smith and discussed by Hegel and the young Marx, and was to become fashionable for a time, late in the twentieth century, as the concept of alienation.13 To sum up, two principal liberal concepts of freedom emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The individualist or negative concept, which defined 83

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freedom as the absence of legal restraint, although it still regarded law and government as necessary for the maintenance of peace and security. And the positive or social concept of freedom, which went beyond that and demanded public intervention to enable the large majority of people to realise the rights and freedoms which they had been allowed to enjoy but did not have the means to enjoy them. But there was yet another concept of liberty that developed in nineteenth-century Europe, though it was far from liberal. I refer to what is sometimes described as romantic individualism, to which I shall come back later when I discuss Iranian concepts of liberty. Classical liberalism, therefore, advocated the abolition of legal restraints, so that individuals would have the maximum possible amount of freedom to enjoy life as best they could. But it did not advocate licence or chaos. It did not even imply anarchism, although, as a radical outgrowth of classical liberalism, not even anarchist theory aspired to chaos in its vision of the good society. Classical liberalism, let me emphasise, campaigned for the removal of as many legal restraints as possible, but it did not oppose law itself. J.S. Mill formulated its concepts of freedom and law, succinctly, as the freedom to pursue one’s interest to the extent that it would not deprive others to do the same.

Liberty as law Iranian reformers and constitutionalists of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, campaigned for law as such. Mainly through Russia, Britain and France, Europe was exposed to the ears and eyes of Iranians as the magic model of power, prosperity and progress. The intelligentsia, who included many Qajar noblemen and state officials, looked for the key to this great and wonderful secret, and they found it, writ large, as LAW. They saw law first as responsible and, especially, orderly government, and later as freedom. It would make private property safe and powerful, official positions less insecure and more responsible, and life and limb less in danger of arbitrary violation. As late as 1906 when the first national assembly had just been established, Sayyed Jamal al-Din Isfahani – the famous radical preacher and thinker of the Movement – asked his audience in a sermon what they thought the country needed most. A few individuals shouted slogans such as ‘unity’, ‘patriotism’, etc. Admitting the desirability of all of these, the Sayyed nevertheless said that first and foremost there was need for QANUN. And, in the traditional style of teachers trying to teach the Persian alphabet to little children, he began to spell out each letter, then two letters together – that is, Q, A, QA – etc., and asking the entire audience to repeat after him. He then launched out the following, which must be the most intensive single eulogy ever sung in praise of LAW in the annals of any modern revolution (in reading the following it must be remembered that, in Persian, qanun both means ‘law’ and ‘the law’): People! Nothing would help your country progress other than subjection to law, observation of law, preservation of law, respect for 84

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law, implementation of the law, and again law, and once again law. Children must from childhood read and learn at schools that no sin in religion and the Shri‘a is worse than opposing law … Observing religion means law, religion means law, Islam, the Qur’an, mean God’s law. My dear man, qanun, qanun, children must understand, women must understand, that the ruler is law and law alone, and no one’s rule is valid but that of law. The parliament is the protector of law … the legislative assembly and legislature is the assembly which legislates the law, the sultan is the head of the executive which implements the law. The soldier is defender of the law, the police are defenders of the law, justice means law, prosperity means implementing the law, the independence of the monarchy makes sense through the rules of law. In a word, the development of any country, the foundation of every nationality, and the solidarity of every nation arises from the implementation of the law.14 Imagine what Adam Smith, Hevétius, Condorcet, Bentham, etc., would have thought of this Sayyed and his fellow thinkers and revolutionaries, had they heard this passionate praise of law. They might have suspected the secret influence of Edmund Burke, perhaps even of Metternich, although they knew that Burke at least would not go that far. In the first half of the nineteenth-century Iran’s growing weakness vis-à-vis European powers had been largely attributed to technological underdevelopment. From the 1850s, however, the reformers’ attention was increasingly drawn to the social framework, which lay behind Europe’s modern technical progress. This suggested an urgent need for orderly and responsible administration, and that implied government based in law, that is, lawful as opposed to arbitrary rule. Malkam Khan was the first thinker to present a systematic framework – indeed a blueprint – for creating lawful government. Some critics have doubted the sincerity of his motives. Any comprehensive study of Malkam’s biography must involve an assessment of their arguments. But these are of little relevance to an appraisal of his ideas which – independently from his personality traits – had much influence in shaping the theory and practice of the constitutionalist movement, just as such considerations would be irrelevant in an analysis of the role of Mirabeau and Danton in the French revolution, the charges against whom are probably both heavier and easier to prove than those levelled at Malkam.15 He submitted his long and comprehensive constitutional frame to Naser al-Din Shah, apparently at the Shah’s own bidding, shortly after the collapse of the siege of Heart, and the resulting Paris peace treaty, which exposed Iran’s weakness vis-à-vis Europe once again since the Russo-Iranian wars of decades before. Its most striking feature, perhaps, is the distinction he makes between absolute monarchy and arbitrary rule. There were two types of monarchy, he said at the outset: Absolute Monarchy, such as those of the Russians and Ottomans, and Moderate Monarchy, such as in England and France. He then distinguished 85

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between two types of absolute monarchy, one that he called, ‘organised and orderly absolute monarchies’ – giving the examples of Russia, Austria and Ottoman Turkey. The other type of absolute monarchy, he described as ‘disorganised and disorderly absolute monarchies’. He gave no example of this, though it was obvious that he meant arbitrary governments. He said that Moderate Monarchy – by which he meant one that was both lawful and representative – was irrelevant to the case of Iran. What was needed was an orderly absolute monarchy, that is, one that was based in law: an absolute monarchy in which the crown laid down the law, and it was observed as well as executed by an organised, disciplined and responsible administration. It was an extremely clever scheme, given that it had been intended for constitutional reform from above by an arbitrary ruler. It made the fundamental distinction between absolute government and arbitrary rule, arguing that absolute government is in reality more powerful than arbitrary rule. When it came to the legislative and executive functions of the state, however, he proposed the formation of a legislative and an executive council to which the Shah would delegate his absolute powers for the legislation and application of the law. There then followed a comprehensive draft constitution which required the entire state and religious law to be organised and written by the legislative council. Ministers must be independent and responsible. Administrative regulations must be consistent with the law. No one could be arrested except by order of the law. Nothing could be taken from anyone except by order of the law. No-one’s home could be entered into without the authority of the law. Taxes must be collected on a basis laid down by the law. And, in the reassuring guise of ‘orderly absolute monarchy’, he even managed to slip in the rule that ‘the people of Iran would enjoy freedom of thought’. This is a large and elaborate document, although all the other articles follow from these basic rules.16 It was the theoretical background to the formation of the government of Mirza Hossein Khan Moshir al-Dawleh, known as Sepahsalar, in 1871 as an experiment in lawful and orderly administration, which survived only for two years. Malkam was a chief adviser to Sepahsalar; Mirza Yusef Khan Mostashar al-Dawleh was deputy minister of justice. He is the author of the famous book, One Word (Yek Kalameh). It was a highly dramatic way of publicising the all-importance of that ‘one word’ – that is, LAW. He had once virtually believed that the construction of railways would be the most effective instrument for inaugurating social and economic progress. This was an echo of earlier reformers such as Abbas Mirza, the Price Regent, who had seen the technological gap as the chief cause of Iran’s weakness vis-à-vis Europe. Now following the diagnosis of his master, Malkam, Mostashar al-Dawleh denied that European development was primarily due to scientific and technological progress. On the contrary, he said, ‘the one word which is the source of Europe’s orderly system is the book of law’.17 Malkam’s later writings on constitutional reforms became more open, no longer paying lip service to absolute monarchy.18 But even in his official blueprint for reform from above, he envisaged various rights and freedoms, including 86

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freedom of conscience. So did Mostashar al-Dawleh. Such freedoms did correspond to the negative concept of liberty in Europe, except – and this is the crucial distinction – whereas in Europe, they would be realised by limiting the law, in Iran, they would be established by abolishing arbitrary government. The Iranian reformers’ concept of freedom was, therefore, first and foremost, law itself. Any individual freedoms, such as freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of movement, etc., would not be possible outside a legal framework, whether in chaos or in arbitrary rule. This must be true of any society, European or Iranian, Eastern or Western. But the absence of any such framework in Iranian society made it obvious that without law there would be no freedom at all except that which may be given and taken away arbitrarily, and as a privilege. The reformers did not tire of emphasising the primacy of the security of life and property. So long as people’s lives and property were not protected by law, there would be no sense in advocating individual freedoms. Throughout the ages, arbitrary government had been able to take the life and property of anyone – regardless of rank and position – without ceremony, without legal procedures, without even a right of defence, so long as it had had the physical force to do so. There was no recourse to law against naked power. The only remedy, when possible, had been rebellion. I have presented extensive evidence of this from the long pages of Iranian history. Here I shall suffice by giving a few examples of the very period when these reformers were campaigning for lawful government. Asef al-Dawleh, onetime governor-general of Khorasan, appeared to have gone mad. He had a large fortune, and rumour had it that he was pretending to be mad for fear that the Shah would take his wealth from him. When he died, they sealed off his personal treasury on the Shah’s orders, so that there was no access even to the special shroud he had purchased for himself, but in the end they opened the seal, got the shroud, and sealed off the treasury again. Eventually, they got a total of 150,000 tomans from his heirs.19 Mostafa Khan-e Amir Tuman, governor of Ardebil and Khoy died. ‘The Shah expressed much regret’, wrote E‘temad al-Saltaneh in his voluminous diary, but ‘I have subsequently heard that he sent a man to seal off his house, because they say he has a lot of money’.20 Yahya Khan Khajeh Nuri had endowed most of his property for fear that the Shah would take it after his death.21 Mehdi Khan was an official who had amassed a large fortune. When he died, the Shah had his house sealed off, and took a large part of his wealth.22 Kamran Mirza, the Shah’s third son and Minister of War, jailed the wife of the Commander of Artillery, after his death, to obtain money from her, and eventually accepted 3000 tomans. Having heard this, Nezam al-Dawleh, who was then the richest commander in the army, endowed the whole of his property.23 On the eve of the Constitutional Revolution Mirza Mahmud Khan Hakim al-Molk, Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s long-standing physician and favourite, and recently minister of the royal court died as governor of Gilan. He was believed to have amassed a fortune of about two and a half million tomans. Rumours were 87

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rife that he had been poisoned by the Grand Vazir. His entire fortune was sealed off on the orders of the state.24 To put the matter in its proper context it is important to bear in mind the logic of the system, for, according to Mokhber al-Saltaneh, since much of the riches amassed by state officials were themselves due to ‘plunder’, confiscation of their property by the state was not viewed as an extraordinary act.25 In other words, lawless behaviour was not specific but general, and this is inevitable in a system run by arbitrary decisions at every level of authority. These are just a few examples of plunder of property when the victim had not fallen from office or grace, or become an object of the ruler’s wrath. They are examples of cases when the ruler demanded money from an otherwise ‘innocent’ notable. But things could be much worse. There were even occasions when the ruler traded the life of an ‘innocent’ notable or official for money, ‘innocent’ here meaning that the ruler himself did not have the slightest anger or grudge against the unfortunate man. In an example from nine hundred years ago, Ravandi says that Sultan Mohammad of the Seljuqs was a good-natured ruler ‘but he had a great love for accumulating riches’. His Grand Vazir, Zia al-Molk (son of Nezam al-Molk), had offered him 500,000 dinars, to put a very important man ‘at his disposal’ and the Sultan had agreed. Having got wind of the situation in time, the would-be victim quickly saw the Sultan, and offered 800,000 for him to put Zia al-Molk at his disposal instead. The Sultan accepted the new offer and sold his own vazir for money.26 Now at the close of the nineteenth century – when the Shah himself had occasionally spoken of the necessity of the rule of law as the magic wand for social and economic progress and power – Rokn al-Dawleh, the governor-general of Fars, bore a deep grudge against Qavam al-Molk, the biggest landlord and most important magnate in the province. He had the soles of his feet beaten by sticks and threw him into jail. He then offered substantial sums to the Shah and the Grand Vazir to ‘sell’ Qavam al-Molk to him. They did not accept, partly because of the influence of his uncle, and partly – perhaps mainly – for fear of bad publicity in Europe. E‘temad al-Saltaneh writes in his diaries: After entering Shiraz, Rokn al-Dawleh had had [Qavam al-Molk] bastinadoed and imprisoned, and then written a letter to Tehran saying that he would pay 100,000 tomans to the Shah and 30,000 to Amin al-Soltan to sell Qavam to him, that is, for him to have the life and property of Qavam at his disposal. But he did not manage to buy Qavam, since he is a nephew of Saheb-Divan, and, apart from that, this is not like the age of Fath‘ali Shah for it to be possible to buy and sell magnates and notables; the Europeans would make a fuss. He did not manage to buy Qavam …27 Let me further emphasise that such behaviour was a product of the country’s social structure and system of government. For that reason, it would be a mistake 88

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to attribute them to the moral dejection of the person of rulers, vazirs, governors, or whoever. No doubt some of these were less kind or more greedy than the others. But the matter was deep-seated and systemic. This then was the logic of the constitutionalist thinkers and reformers in placing such importance on law, in general, and on the security of life and property, in particular. In emphasising the importance of law, they were demanding a freedom that, in various ways, had existed in Europe since its classical foundations. It was the freedom from arbitrary rule, a negative concept in form, but a positive one in substance since it implied the right to a secure life. For it was only through law as freedom – that is, as the right to a secure and predictable life – that other freedoms, which they also listed and advocated, could be pursued. It was not the removal of existing legal restraints as in classical European liberalism, but the creation of a legal framework through which it was possible to legislate for personal freedoms.

Liberty, romanticism and nationalism There was disagreement among the thinkers themselves on the extent to which religion or the religious leaders would be amenable to their proposed reforms. Malkam argued consistently that there was no essential conflict between constitutionalism and the Islamic doctrine, once the matter had been clearly explained and understood and adapted to Iran’s culture and society. Mostashar al-Dawleh was of the same mind. Sayyed Jamal al-Din Afghani (Asad-Abadi) – that complex and enigmatic figure – was campaigning for modernisation in a united Islamic world, and he had no obvious quarrel with Malkam over religion, law and freedom. On the other hand, Mirza Fath‘ali Akhundzadeh, despite his great respect for Malkam and his ideas, disagreed and believed that religion would be a serious, even insurmountable, barrier. Later, Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, who belonged to the next generation, echoed the views of Akhundzadeh, but argued that, nevertheless, they must avoid alarming the religious leaders and community.28 They too were aware of the central importance of law. They too advocated various individual liberties. But, contradictory as it would sound, their ideas were as much in line with the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century as with the rationalist and individualist liberalism of the preceding century, which it rejected. Taking one or two leaves out of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s book, this Romantic Movement was not as coherent as rationalist liberalism, and its roots and causes differed, even conflicted, in different countries of western Europe. In England and France, it had been both a reaction to the French revolution and Napoleon, as in the case of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Chateaubriand; and a response to the failure of revolution and Napoleon followed by reaction and the Holy Alliance in Europe, as in the case of Byron, Shelley and Victor Hugo. In Germany, it had been more a product of the Counter-Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century – which, to some extent and for some time, even included 89

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men as even-tempered as Goethe and Schiller – and of the rise of German nationalism, inspired by the thoughts of Hamann, Herder and Fichte, among others.29 Thus nineteenth-century romanticism was far more diverse than classical liberalism, to which it was opposed. And it made a definite impact on later irrationalist thinking, including nihilism and existentialism, represented by such figures as Kierkegaard, Schopenhaur, and Nietzsche.30 It has given rise to the concept of ‘romantic individualism’, but the term individualism, being so much associated with classical liberalism, is somewhat misleading. Yet, although not a liberal concept, the romantic dissent may still be regarded as a concept of liberty, the liberty to defy norms and traditions; reject established values; disregard popular and/or powerful opinions. It was a libertarian radicalism that did not measure truth or justice by success, and took pride in the ethic of renunciation, in loneliness, even failure, when this was a consequence of standing by one’s ideals. ‘I have written’, Byron told his publisher in 1819, ‘from the fullness of my mind, from passion – from impulse – from motives – but not for [the public’s] “sweet voices” – I know the precise worth of public applause’.31 It was from the romantic quarters that the slogan ‘Art for Art’s sake’ was first shouted.32 As noted, an important aspect of this Romantic Movement in Germany was the rise of German nationalism. To a considerable extent, it was a reaction to the long period of pervasive French influence in German politics and culture since the Thirty-Year War and the peace of Westphalia in the first half of the seventeenth century; a product of hurt pride. It is virtually impossible to know the extent of any direct impact made by the romantic thinkers and writers of such variety and nationalities on Iranian thinkers and reformers of the time. Certainly there is scarcely any trace of it in the thoughts of Malkam, Mostashar al-Dawleh and other like-minded reformers. But, however indirect it might have been, the romantic influence may be clearly seen in the ideas of Jalal al-Din Mirza, a son of Fath‘ali Shah and head of an unofficial grouping of Freemason sympathisers (known as Faramush-khaneh) organised by Malkam, as well as the thoughts of Akhudzadeh, Mirza Aqa Khan, and so many other intellectuals, poets, political campaigners, etc., later in the twentieth century, who were initiated by them. Both Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan saw the origins of Iranian social ills in the Arab conquest and influence of Islam, and both of them romanticised the real and imagined glories of ancient Persia. Aqa Khan went even further in this, and identified other culprits as well, including Alexander the Great.33 This was the background to the widespread romantic nationalist movement which spread later in the twentieth century, with its official and unofficial trends and tendencies. A description and assessment of these views is beyond the present talk, assuming for a moment that I could do justice to them in the time available.34 It is, however, interesting, that whereas the original German movement had been largely a reaction against the French cultural hegemony, against ‘progress’, so to 90

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speak, its Iranian version was a reaction to the Arabs, Turks and others who no longer had political or cultural hold over the country, except, of course, for the influence of Islam. The German nationalists’ return to their roots was a reaction against something that was supposed to be more advanced than their own, now humiliating, now patronising them. But the romantic Iranians’ return to their roots was something pro-European, looking up to the society that was more advanced and more powerful than them, and thinking, sometimes even claiming, that they would have been there already had the Sassanian empire not fallen to Muslim Arabs in the seventh century. It took another century for this radical romanticism – now expressed in terms of different ideologies – to look like the original German reaction, when the hurt pride manifested itself against the West, and against all that the reformers of the nineteenth century had admired – sometimes even worshipped. The idealised roots this time – the lost paradise – were no longer the real and imagined Achaemenid or Sassanian glories, but the real and imagined post-Islamic, pre-modern, traditions.35

Liberty as licence For the time being, however, the removal of arbitrary government was the reformers’ most urgent agenda, including those of them who displayed the influence of romantic nationalism. Yet there was another side to the dialectics of Iranian history, the ancient Iranian chaos as the anti-thesis of the ancient Iranian arbitrary rule. The persistent opposition of the society to the state – of mellat to dawlat – had been something normal, even when there was no chance of rebellion. Its logic is rather obvious. Since the state was independent from society, and there was no law to regulate their relationship, society – even the upper and influential classes – saw it more as an oppressive power than a guarantor of their rights. Hence the latent conflict of society with the state even in normal times. Hence also the absence of any alternative to arbitrary rule for maintaining peace and stability. When the state was greatly weakened as a result of communal strife, or collapsed because of a successful revolt, the consequence was chaos reminiscent of Hobbes’s state of nature, the state of ‘Warre as of everyone against everyone’. Chaos was in fact none other than divided arbitrary rule, incorporating all its ills, but excluding its supreme function in maintaining peace and stability. That is why, within a short space of time, the people – and not least the humblest of them – hoped for and welcomed the return of another absolute and arbitrary government. Just as arbitrary rule had been regarded as the natural system of government until the middle of the nineteenth century, so chaos – described variously as fetneh, fesad, ashub, haj-o marj, even enqelabat – was regarded as the natural product of its collapse. When Fath‘ali Shah expressed amazement to his European visitors as to how it would be possible to run a country with others having a share 91

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in the ruler’s decision making, he was reflecting the universal belief that chaos was the natural and inevitable antithesis to arbitrary rule.36 Later in the nineteenth century, greater contact with Europe – including visits to European countries by the Shah, notables, even students – demonstrated that order was possible in the absence of arbitrary rule; indeed it was even more secure and long lasting. Prince Zel al-Soltan who was not particularly noted for reformist zeal wrote after a visit to Paris: Although they say there is freedom and republic, and there is absolute licence (har keh har keh ast), this is not the case … In this country, it looks as if everyone – whether king or beggar, rich, master or lackey – has the book of law under his arm and before his eyes, and he knows that there is no escaping from the claws of the law … The power of the police must be seen, it cannot be gauged from the description of others.37 This shows the extent to which fear of chaos prevailed, even as late as the end of the nineteenth century. The Iranian reformers were well aware of the potency of this fear. And the more sober of them were at pains to emphasise that lawful government would bring real, long lasting, law and order, rather than chaos. Malkam wrote a whole essay arguing that, contrary to popular opinion, it was possible to establish order in Iran. He said: No idiot has ever said that we should give people the liberty to say what they will. It is true that most foreign (i.e., European) nations speak of nothing but freedom for the sake of the progress and prosperity of their country. But what kind of freedom? Legal freedom, not arbitrary freedom.38 These words were written in a long essay addressed to Mozaffar al-Din Shah a year or so before he issued the order for constitutional government. A couple of years later, they were echoed in a sophisticated statement, by the ulama of Najaf, of the aims and implications of constitutional government, against arguments put forward by the disciples of Shaikh Fazlollah Nuri, who advocated Mashru‘eh as their alternative to constitutionalism. It read: The meaning of freedom in constitutional states is not absolute licence, which would permit everyone to do what they like to the point of violating the lives, property and dignity of others. Such a thing has never existed and will never exist in any community of human beings, as it would permit of none other than absolute disruption, and general anarchy in the affairs of the people. On the contrary, the meaning of freedom is the liberty of the general public from arbitrary and unaccountable government by force, so that no powerful individual – that is, the shah – could use his power against the least powerful member of the 92

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community, and impose anything on him except that which is permitted by the law of the land, and before which all the people – be they shah or beggar – would be equal. And freedom in this sense is a rational precept and one of the pillars of the Islamic faith.39 (emphasis added) Two points are worthy of emphasis here. First, the explicit definition of liberty as freedom from arbitrary rule, which, as noted, was the interchangeable concepts of law and freedom held by the constitutionalists. Not only the Najaf Ulama, but also the radical Democrat Sayyed Mohammad Reza Shirazi gave the same definition for freedom at about the same time in his newspaper Mosavat. He wrote: Whenever [the terms] liberty and equality are used in civilised countries, they render certain clear meanings which have been gradually obtained as a result of the passage of ages and centuries. For example, liberty is used in the sense of political freedom, and whenever the word is uttered it means … [freedom] from arbitrary rule by the state …40 Even as late as the early 1920s when both law and liberty had lost much of their force as a panacea for peace and progress, the poet and journalist Farrokhi Yazdi defined freedom as law. He wrote in a quatrain: Since law is the cause of our liberty, We shall survive as long as there is law, A people will never be lost, In a land which is ruled by law.41 So much about the ulama’s point on liberty as law. The second important point of the Najaf statement was the distinction between liberty and licence, between law and chaos, in a constitutional regime, which, at least in practice, many if not most of those who were both for and against constitutional government did not make. To the latter, law meant liberty and liberty meant liberation from the state, without however making a clear distinction between liberation from the lawful state which had just been created, and from the lawless state, the antithesis to which had always been chaos. It was destructive conflict, borne of ancient traditions, of habits that die hard, which led to chaos, and chaos resulted in the failure of the experiment of constitutionalism in the first quarter of the last century. It is very important to note that – contrary to common belief – the chaos was not just nomadic, ethnic and regional; it existed right at the centre, in the Majlis, among the factions and parties, and within the ranks of the competing political magnates. Indeed, had there not been such rift and chaos in the very centre of politics, it is unlikely that such powerful centrifugal forces would have been released, or been so effective, in the provinces. For it is characteristic of the country’s history that whoever has the centre also has the periphery. 93

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The politics of elimination – as I have called it – of each party virtually wishing to eliminate its rivals, which is so characteristic of the history of twentiethcentury Iran, began shortly after the triumph of the campaign for lawful government, first between the constitutionalists and the remnants of the old regime, then among the constitutionalists themselves. It was at that early point in the destructive conflict and war of elimination, that Abd al-Rahim Talebof, a foremost thinker, intellectual and writer of the Movement spoke out against the chaotic trends, and predicted darkly its consequences for the country. He wrote, barely a month after the constitution had been signed: If liberty in fact means that anyone commit any transgression, highwaymen rob any caravan they wish, the mob grab what they like, the hooligans beat and kill, every illiterate person publishes whatever occurs to him of libel and defamation [etc., etc.], can we congratulate each other and celebrate this state of wild lawlessness and terrifying chaos? 42 And further, as he wrote to a Tabriz newspaper: Until now Iran was captive to the double-horned bull of arbitrary government, but from now on – if it does not succeed in bringing order to itself – it will be struck by the thousand-horn ox of the rabble and the mob. I openly declare that I see this as being inevitable.43 Whether or not it was inevitable, his prediction proved right, and that is how constitutionalism was effectively lost. Within a decade, constitutionalism, that is, law and freedom, came to be known to a growing number of people as nothing but chaos. Each time they wished to say someone had achieved his selfish and corrupt aims, they would cynically say that he had ‘made it to his constitutionalism’ (beh mashruteh-ash resid). There even came a time, soon after the triumph of 1909, when they described incidents of looting and plunder by saying ‘there was constitutionalism’. This is mentioned in a comment by a contemporary historian on the lawless behaviour of a revolutionary hero who had become governor-general of Kurdistan just after the Shah had been deposed and the constitutional government firmly established in Tehran. This is what he wrote: There was loss of faith in constitutionalism and constitutionalists alike. Indeed, among the people, the word constitutionalism came to mean killing and looting, so that whenever anyone killed anyone and anywhere was looted, they said ‘there was constitutionalism’ (mashruteh shod).44 By 1920, chaos and disorder resulting from the powerlessness of the state in implementing the law had reached the point where, Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani, the prominent radical Democrat who had taken charge of the 94

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Azerbaijan province without proper constitutional authority, used the prevalence of chaos as one of the main reasons for the Tabriz Democrats’ seizure of power, so that they would be able to bring order and discipline at least to their own province. He said in a speech: The fourteen-year-old [Constitutional] Revolution was a sudden change, and so it led to disorder. But this time discipline [he uses the European word] will be imposed on events, and you shall be exposed to light gradually. (emphasis added)45 Order and discipline were the recurring themes of Khiyabani’s endless speeches, for example: We would like Iranian democracy to become familiar with that civil and voluntary discipline … and therefore attain real and practical freedom.46 Much of this was clearly a reaction to how chaos and disorder had been misunderstood for law, constitutionalism, democracy and freedom after the fall of the arbitrary state. Indeed, it is against that general background that Khiyabani’s emphasis on obedience – by which he means governability – must be viewed: No nation can progress without obedience. No concept of freedom would be imaginable if it was not combined with obedience. No matter how radical a creed might be, it could not deny the need for obedience …47 Khiyabani’s ‘real and practical freedom’ and his ‘concept of freedom … combined with obedience’ were none other than freedom within the law, the common European concept of liberty, which had been understood only by a few Iranian reformists but – at least in practice – misunderstood by many as complete independence from the state, therefore from the law itself. By this time, liberty, law and constitutionalism had fallen into great disrepute, and the 1921 coup which occurred eight or nine months after these speeches were made was largely a response to a desperate desire for a change that would end the chaos and bring stability. And this is what had happened in the country’s long history, every time the collapse of an arbitrary government had led to generalised lawlessness.

Liberty’s decline and rise But it was no end of the cycle of chaos and arbitrary rule in the twentieth century, through which liberty had a chequered career both in theory and practice, falling victim, now to chaos and now to arbitrary rule. So chequered, indeed, that in the last thirty-five years of the century, it became an undesirable commodity, hated both by the rulers, who saw it as chaos, and a product of Western 95

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decline and decadence, and by the ruled, to whom it either meant bourgeois deception, or licence for immoral behaviour, or indeed both. The large coincidence of sentiments here was remarkable, even though they were justified by conflicting arguments. There were very few who would be ready to sing Poet Laureate Bahar’s song for liberty in the Constitutional era, boldly and with commensurate conviction: O’ Liberty, blessed Liberty I shall not stop loving you Until you call me to yourself Or I call you to myself And yet this moment – a hundred years after the Constitutional Revolution – law, liberty and democracy are once again heading the agenda for political change in Iran. How did this change come about (to paraphrase Rousseau)? That question I shall try to answer somewhere else.

Notes and references 1 Seventeenth Hamid Enayat Memorial Lecture, delivered at St Antony’s College, Oxford, 11 May 2000, published in Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, 16, 2, 2000. Hamid Enayat was a distinguished scholar, who combined wide learning with clear analysis and appraisal in diverse fields, a writer of very good prose both in Persian and in English, a teacher whose ability has been witnessed by his students in three continents. He was also a man of even temper and good humour, with a passion for life, a Joie de vivre that was extinguished only by his untimely death. I remember, with much fondness, my uninterrupted friendship with him of over two decades, separated though we were for most of the period. But I especially cherish the memory of those times, before he took up his first academic post away from this country, when we virtually spent all of our free time together, sometimes conversing, occasionally even arguing, over both intellectual and emotional subjects, until the early hours of the morning. 2 For a comparative analysis of European and Iranian revolutions, see H. Katouzian, ‘Towards A General Theory of Iranian Revolutions’, Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, 15(2) (1999) (reprinted in this volume). 3 H. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981), p. 21. 4 For a more elaborate comparative study of arbitrary rule in Iran and absolutism in Europe, see H. Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory of State, Politics and Society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 1(24) (1997) (reprinted in this volume). 5 See Katouzian ‘Arbitrary rule’. See, for example, H. Lubasz (ed.) The Development of the Modern State (London: Macmillan, 1964); P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: New Left Books, 1974). 6 For a comprehensive study of divine right of kings, see J.N. Figgs, The Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914). For a classical version of the theory, see J.B. Boussuet, ‘The Divine Right of Kings’ in W.F. Church (ed.), The Greatness of Louis XIV (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1959). For arguments over the divine right theory among Robert Filmer, Algernon Sidney, John Locke et al., see, for example, F.J. Hearnshaw (ed.) The Social and Political Ideas of Some English Thinkers of the Augustan Age, 1650–1750 (London: Harraps, 1928), especially ch. 2.

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7 See C.H. McIlwain (ed.), The Political Works of James I (Cambridge, MA: 1918), p. 307. 8 See, for example, C.V. Wedgwood, The Trial of Charles I (London: World Books, 1964), especially chs 6–13. 9 See Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule’, and ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’, Ettel‘at Siyasi-Eqtesadi, 9&10, June–July 1998. 10 References on Locke and Hobbes could be virtually endless. See, for example, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, P. Laslett (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, J. Plamenatz (ed.), The Fontana Library: London, 1967. C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Hobbes to Locke, London: Oxford University Press, 1970. ‘Hobbes’ and ‘Locke’ in John Plamentz, Man and Society, vol. 1, chs 4 and 6, London: Longman, 1963. Social Contract, Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, with an introduction by Sir Ernest Barker (London: Oxford University Press, 1958). Isaiah Berlin, The Age of Enlightenment, introduction and ch. 1 (New York, The New American Library: 1956). 11 See Pat Rogers (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 278. 12 Once again references, both primary and secondary, could be numerous. See, for example, E. Haléy, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism (New York, 1928). John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Essay on Bentham, and selections from the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, edited with an introduction by M. Warnock (London: Fontana Press, 1990). J. Plamenatz, Man and Society, vol. 1, chs 4, 6–8 and 10; and vol. 2, ch. 1. H.J. Laski, Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (London, 1920). ‘Montesquieu’ in Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current, Essays in the History of Ideas, H. Hardy (ed.) (London: Pimlico, 1997). Kingsley Martin, French Political Thought in the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1929). J.S. Schapiro, Condorcet and the Rise of Liberalism (New York, 1934). F.J.E. Hearnshaw, The Social and Political Ideas of some Great French Thinkers of the Age of Reason (London, 1930). H.J. Laski, The Rise of European Liberalism, London, 1936. Roger Wines (ed.), Enlightened Despotism, Reform or Reaction? (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1967). A. Quinton (ed.), Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). H. Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1980), ch. 2. Idem Adam Smith va Servat-e Melal (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1979). 13 See, in particular, J.S. Mill, ‘Essay on Liberty’ in Warnock (ed.), Utilitarianism, etc. Y.L. Chin, The Political Theory of Thomas Hill Green (New York, 1920). F.P. Harris, The NeoIdealist Political Theory (New York, 1944). I. Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarenden Press, 1959). Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, E. Cannan (ed.) (London: University Paperbacks, 1961), Book 5. K. Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1944 (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1961), section on ‘Estranged Labour’. H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). 14 See Sayyed Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, ‘Sayyed Jamal al-Din Va‘ez-e Isfahani va Ba‘zi Mobarezat-e U’ in Ali Dehbashi (ed.) Yad-e Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh (Tehran: Nashr-e Sales, 1998), pp. 51–52. The quotation from Sayyed Jamal’s sermon is direct from the AlJamal newspaper (which published the text of his sermons and homilies), no. 35, 1905. 15 For further comments on this issue, see H. Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3, 8, 2, July 1998 (reprinted in this volume). For various accounts and views of the subject, see, for example, Hamid Algar, Malkum Khan, A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkely: Californian University Press, 1973). Fereshteh Nura’i, Mirza Malkam Khan Nazem al-Dawleh (Tehran: Jibi, 1973). Khan Malek-e Sasani, Siyasatgaran-e Dawrehye Qajar, (Tehran, n.d., date of preface 1959). Ehatesham al-Saltaneh, Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh, S.M. Musavi (ed.) (Tehran: Zavvar, 1988). Mahmud Katira’i,

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16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29

Feramasoneri dar Iran (Tehran: Eqbal, 1968). Malkam is so controversial a historical figure that many more conflicting sources may be cited over his personality, although our point about the irrelevance of this to the nature and impact of his thoughts still remains valid. See Malkam’s ‘Ketabcheh-ye Ghaibi ya Daftar-e Tanzimat’ in Mohammad Mohit-e Tabatab’i (ed.), Majmu‘eh-ye Athar-e Mirza Malkam Khan (Tehran, 1948), pp. 1–52. See Mostashar al-Dawleh’s Yek Kalameh (Tehran: Nashr-e Tarikh-e Iran), p. 12. See Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 1 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1964). Nazem al-Islam Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, Sa‘idi Sirjani (ed.) (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1983). Iraj Afshar (ed.) Ruznameh-ye Kharerat-e E‘temad al-Saltaneh (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1966). Mehhdi Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal-e Rejal-e Iran, vol. 4 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1992). Feraidun Adamiyat, Andisheh-ye Taraqqi va Hokumat-e Qanun, Asr-e Sepahsalar (Tehran: Kharazmi, 1972). Idem, and Homa Nateq, Afkar-e Ejtema’i va Siyasi va Eqtesadi dar Athar-e Montasher Nashodeh-ye Dawran-e Qajar (Saarbruken: Navid, 1989), especially ‘Resaleh-ye Siyasi’ by Mirza Mohammad Hossein Khan-e Dabir al-Molk. See his other essays in Mohit-e Tabatab’i, Majmu‘eh-ye Athar. See Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal-e Rejal-e Iran, vol. 2, pp. 301–17; Afshar, Ruznameh-ye Khaterat-e E‘temad al-Saltaneh, pp. 345–545. See E‘temad al -Saltaneh, ibid., p. 543. See Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 5, p. 333. Bamdad, ibid., p. 303. For a somewhat different, though not contradictory, version see E‘temad al-Saltaneh, p. 601. Bamdad, vol. 5, pp. 291–2, and vol. 1, pp. 151–3. See Abdolhossein Khan Sepehr, Mer’at al-waqaye‘-e Mozaffari va Yaddashtha-ye Malek al- Movarrekhin, Abdolhossein Nava’I (ed.) (Tehran, 1989), Part 2, p. 28; Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 4, pp. 35–8. See Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Mehdiqoli Hedayat), Khaterat va Khatarat, Tehran: Zavvar, 1984, which is a relatively reliable source on the political culture of the Qajar and early Pahlavi period. See Ravandi, Rahat al-Sudur, Muhammad Iqbal (ed.), (London: Luzac, 1921), pp. 162–5. See E‘temad al-Saltaneh, Ruznameh-ye Khaterat, pp. 939–40; Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 3, p. 403. See further on the above and other historical examples of the insecurity of life and property, Homa Katouzian, ‘Iran’s Fiscal History and the Nature of State and Society in Iran’, (review article), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, forthcoming. See, for example, Malkam Khan, Majmu‘eh-ye Athar; Mostashar al-Dawleh Yek Kalameh; Feraidun Adamiyat, Andisheh-ha-ye Mirza Fath‘ali Akhundzadeh (Tehran: Kharazmi, 1970); idem, Andisheh-ha-ye Mirza Aqa Khan-e Kermani (Tehran: Payam, 1978). As indicated, some English romantics such as Wordsworth and, especially, Coleridge do not quite answer to this description, their romanticism having more of a nostalgic quality about medieval Christian society and culture, and being closer to the German romantics’. See, for example, ‘The Counter-Enlightenment’, ‘Hume and the Sources of German Anti-Rationalism’, and ‘Nationalism: Past Neglect and Present Power’, in I. Berlin, Against the Current. R. Bolster, ‘Chateaubriand and the French Revolution’, Hans Reiss, ‘Goethe and the French Revolution’, S. Körner, ‘On Rousseau’s, Robespierre’s and Kant’s Criteria of Moral Action’, and T.C.W. Blanning, ‘France during the French Revolution through German eyes’ in H.T. Mason and W. Doyle (eds) The Impact of the French Revolution on European Consciousness (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1989). I. Berlin, ‘The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will: The Revolt against the Myth of an Ideal World’, and ‘The Bent Twig: On the Rise of Nationalism’, in

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30

31 32

33

34

35

36

37 38 39 40 41 42

H. Hardy (ed.), The Crooked Timber of Humanity (London: Fontana Press, 1990). I. Berlin, ‘The Romantic Revolution’, and ‘Kant as an unfamiliar Source of Nationalism’, in The Sense of Reality, Studies in Ideas and Their History, H. Hardy (ed.) (London: Pimlico, 1997). I. Berlin, Vico and Herder (London: Hogarth, 1992). See, for example, H.J. Balckman, Six Existentialist Thinkers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967). B. Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1996), part 2: From Rousseau to the Present Day. I. Berlin, ‘The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will’. Quoted in A. Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 380. The theoretical origin of this goes back to German aesthetics towards the end of the eighteenth century, but, having been developed in the early nineteenth century by Benjamin Constant, Victor Cousin, etc., it found its most vocal expression in France of the 1830s, by Victor Hugo and his admiring fellow writer and critic Théophile Gautier. But the concept later spread more widely, to be adopted, for example, by Oscar Wilde, and many of the later symbolists and modernists. See Akhundzadeh, Maktubat (Europe: Mard-e Emruz, 1985). Jalal al-Din Mirza, Nameh-ye Khosrovan (Tehran: Bist va Panj-e Shahrivar, 1976). Adamiyat, Andishehha-ye Akhundzadeh; idem, Andisheh-ha-ye Mirza Aqa Khan. Mahmud Katira’i, Feramasoneri dar Iran. N. Keddie, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Berkeley and Los Angeles: California University Press, 1972). For this author’s further discussion and analysis of this, see, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, especially chs 3–5; Sadeq Hedayat, The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991), especially chs 1 and 5; and ‘Nationalist Trends in Iran, 1921–1926’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, November 1979. I am referring to the third worldist and anti-Westernist movement, of which the two leading intellectuals were Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Ali Shari‘ati. But the movement was very widespread indeed, including most of the religious and non-religious political groups, parties and trends. See Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence’, p. 161. For the theory of arbitrary rule, see idem, ‘Arbitrary Rule’; idem, ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran, Democracy, Dictatorship or Arbitrary Rule?’ BJMES, 22, 1995 (reprinted in this volume); idem, ‘The Aridisolatic Society, A Model of Long Term Social and Economic Development in Iran’ IJMES, July 1983 (reprinted in this volume); idem, The Political Economy of Modern Iran; idem, ‘Nationalist Trends in Iran’. For the evidence of rift and chaos after the Constitutional Revolution, see idem, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajar and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000); Wm.J. Olson, Anglo-Iranian Relations during World War I (London: Frank Cass, 1984); E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-e Hijdahsaleh-ye Azerbaijan (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1992). Quoted in Ebrahim Bastani Parizi, Zir-e In Haft Asman (Tehran: Javidan, 1983), p. 55. See his ‘Neda-ye Edalat beh Majlis-e Vozara-ye Iran’, in Majmu‘eh-ye Athar p. 207. See the full statement in Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, pp. 367–71. See his newspaper, Mosavat, no. 1, 13 October 1907, p. 2. See Hossein Makki (ed.), Divan-e Farrokhi Yazdi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1978), p. 213. Talebof, Izahat dar Khosus-e Azadi, quoted in Yahya Arianpur, Az Saba ta Nima (Tehran: Zavvar, 1993), p. 303. See Iraj Afshar (ed.), Azadi va Siyasat, Abd al-Rahim Talebof-e Tabrizi (Tehran: Damavand, 1978); Fereidun Adamiyat, Andisheh-ha-ye Talebof-e Tabrizi (Tehran: Sahar, 1984).

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43 Ibid., p. 291. See Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence’. 44 See Shaikh Mohammad Mardukh Kordestani, Tarikh-e Mardukh, quoted directly in Mehdi Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal-e Rejal-e Iran, vol. 6, pp. 133–5. See also p. 293, on another case of ‘constitutionalising (i.e. looting) the people’. 45 See S.A. Azari, Qiyam-e Shiakh Mohammad Khiyabani, quoted in H. Katouzian, ‘The Revolt of Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani’, IRAN, published by the British Institute of Persian Studies, XXXVII 1999, p. 163 (reprinted in this volume). 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid.

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6 PROBLEMS OF DEMO CRACY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN MODERN IRAN 1

To begin with, it would be useful to say a few words about the main elements of the topic of our discussion. We are talking about modern Iran. Modern Europe normally refers to Europe since the Renaissance. Modern Iran, on the other hand, could refer to the country since the early nineteenth century when it was defeated in an unprecedented, that is, modern-way, by Russia. It could refer to the mid-nineteenth century, when subsequent developments had led to steps being taken to modernise education and administration, though they did not get very far either then, or when they were tried again in a different form at the turn of the 1870s. And finally it could refer to developments since the turn of the twentieth century, when the movement for lawful and responsible – as opposed to arbitrary – government led to the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909. Indeed, at least until the revolution of February 1979, some historians of Iran spoke of ‘modern Iran’ mainly with reference to the Pahlavi era, which began in 1925 when Reza Khan became shah, or perhaps a few years before, when he led the coup of February 1921. Democracy, or at least the campaign for democracy, in modern Iran definitely begins at the turn of the century with the constitutionalist movement, although, as we shall soon see, the concept of democracy in theory, and especially its application in practice, was not quite the same as it was understood and applied in the west. In fact the movement for constitutional government was a product of earlier attempts at reform, especially, though not exclusively, administrative modernisation. The idea had been abroad that Europe had advanced so much because European governments were organised, orderly and responsible. But it was soon realised, especially when practical steps were taken towards reform, that orderly and responsible administration was possible only if the state and government were based in law, whereas, since the foundation of state in ancient Iran, power had been arbitrary, not legitimate and legal. Orderly and responsible administration meant the abandonment of arbitrary government, and the arbitrary state was not too keen to give up arbitrary power voluntarily for the sake of administrative reform. Apart from that, they were probably afraid that any attempt at reform would result in chaos. 101

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It was then that the movement spread beyond the administrative elite and notables, and was radically extended to the demand for the abolition of arbitrary rule, and establishment of government based in law.2 At this stage it is necessary to dwell briefly on the concept and history of the arbitrary state, and draw its fundamental distinctions with European states from classical times until the modern periods. The distinctions are absolutely crucial to a realistic understanding of every phenomenon from Iranian history and, therefore, for constructing a relevant theory of the sociology of that history. Unlike Europe, the Iranian state was not based in any law, contract or entrenched custom or tradition, which both limited and legitimised the exercise of power. That is to say, on the one hand, whoever managed to hold or seize power was ‘legitimate’; and, on the other hand, the exercise of power was limited only by the scope and extent of power itself. This, of course, is a simple and abstract generalisation, comparable to similar simple and abstract generalisations about European society. Otherwise, there were some rulers who were thought to be more legitimate than others; and the arbitrary exercise of power was sometimes moderated by mediating agents and practices, such as the tradition of intervention by bureaucratic and religious figures on behalf of some of those accused of a capital offence; or attempts by the accused to seek protection from a sanctuary over the critical period. The arbitrary nature of government in Iran is a fact that may be demonstrated from many pages of Iranian history, both ancient and modern, both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic. But the fact itself poses the question of why this has been the case: why was it that European states were normally based on some notion of law, and enjoyed some sort of legitimacy, whereas Iranian states were not and did not? The answer to that question takes us to the realm of historical sociology, the Iranian social structure, and the very logic of historical change in Iran. In Europe, social classes were functional, and were based on independent private property. Private property was an inalienable right. The state was largely representative and dependent upon the powerful and propertied social classes. The state was not, of course, just the executive committee of the influential social classes, and it could sometimes surmount them. But it had to have their consent; it had to be legitimate at least in the eyes of the upper and influential classes. In Iran it was the state that was independent, and the higher social classes that were dependent on it. Landed property was, in principle, owned by the state, and merchant capital was even weaker than it had been in feudal Europe. Private property in land was not a right but a privilege granted or tolerated by the state for as long as it wished. There were various social classes that looked like their counterparts in European society: landlords, merchants, artisans, peasants, etc. But there was no aristocracy and no ruling classes as there always were in European society. Let us emphasise the point that wealth and status was a privilege that was granted or confirmed by the state. Therefore, at any moment in time, there were 102

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those who belonged to the privileged classes. Indeed the most important people in the land were the high state officials who still held office – for losing office was usually followed by execution, or at least loss of every privilege, including one’s entire property. But precisely for these reasons, there could be no aristocracy, a ruling class that would continue in the long run. For the same reason, social mobility was high. Beggars could literally become rich and powerful in their own lifetime, and the other way around. Since power was arbitrary there was no law in the sense of a written or unwritten framework that would set an independent limit to the exercise of power and thereby make social and economic life reasonably predictable. There was no fundamental or constitutional law. But, despite the fact that there were always many administrative and judicial rules and regulations, there was never any guarantee that they would be enforced nor, especially, that they would not change without notice at the whim of the ruler or the local governor. The political implications of all this may be obvious. But a most important social and economic consequence of it was the impossibility of long-term accumulation of capital, at least for the society taken as a whole. Accumulation was, of course, the key factor for the development of commerce and industry in the west. But the matter goes further than that and may be extended to academic and scientific activities. Any long-term development in knowledge and science requires continuity in the achievements and institutions, or there will be just short term oscillations, rediscoveries of past knowledge, or indeed decumulations and the loss of some of those achievements. The answer to the old puzzle as to why did countries like Iran not accumulate capital, seems to have been found through this study. They did not accumulate because the arbitrary state and society were too insecure to make long-term saving and investment look rational, and to the extent that accumulation did take place it was lost in consequence of the endemic insecurity of the arbitrary state and society, including plunder and confiscation. For all these reasons I have described the arbitrary society as ‘the short term society’.3 It was not just the state but also the society that was arbitrary. The society was opposed to the state, except in very exceptional times when it regarded a ruler as being just. The Just Ruler was one that protected the realm, put down brigands, bandits and rebels, created stability, and did not allow his officials to behave in ways that were not approved by him.4 The society was perennially in a state of potential rebellion because the rulers were deemed to be unjust. And rebellion occurred when the state was exceptionally weak as well as unjust, the two features normally going together. The distinctive difference with European revolts and revolutions was that it was a rebellion of the society against the state, supported by the whole of the society, or by much of the society while the remainder remained neutral. That is, unlike European societies, they were not revolts of the underprivileged classes against the privileged ones. Therefore, no social class – often not even the state officials – defended the ruler against the rebels. 103

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Revolts were not always successful. But once the arbitrary state was brought down, the society plunged into chaos. Chaos was a product of arbitrary society, the other side of the coin to the arbitrary state. It was arbitrary power divided between various rivals in deadly conflict with each other. It resembled Thomas Hobbes’s ‘state of nature’, which he describes in The Leviathan, as a state of ‘Warre, as of everyone against everyone’. Hence, within a short period, the society that had celebrated the fall of the previous ruler began to long for another absolute and arbitrary ruler to bring stability and end the chaos. In time someone managed to capture absolute power, and for a short period was welcomed by the society as a saviour. This traditional cycle of change, more of oscillation than of development, I have described as the cycle of arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule.5 We are thus brought back to the concept of modern Iran, and concepts of democracy in the constitutional era. Before that, revolts had been led not against arbitrary rule, which was thought to be the natural system of government, but against the unjust ruler, deemed unnatural, lacking Farrah-ye Izadi – God’s Grace, sometimes literally translated as Divine Effulgence – which legitimised terrestrial power.6 On the other hand, the constitutionalist movement was a product of acute observations of the European system, especially the fact that it was based in law, by reforming Iranian notables and officials. It was the first revolt in Iranian history that intended to abolish arbitrary government itself and replace it with one that was bound by a legal framework. In the process they discovered democracy as well, that is, not just lawful but also representative government. The resulting constitution was more democratic than the constitution that created the Duma after the Russian revolution of 1905. It was even more democratic than the constitutions of such advanced European powers as the German and Austrian empires. At this point it is possible to make a brief reference to the emergence of the modern public sphere, which happened alongside the constitutional movement towards the end of the nineteenth century. According to Habermas, the public sphere as a sphere of critical association and discussion which is autonomous both from the state and the private sphere, emerged in eighteenth-century Europe, although, as Habermas himself seems to be aware in parts of his discussion, the origins of it may be traced to seventeenth-century England.7 It would be difficult to enter a satisfactory discussion here of the existence or non-existence of civil society in Iran prior to the modern times. In recent years arguments have been put forward (in various countries of the Middle East) that something resembling that had existed in Muslim societies since early Islam. It is true that the arbitrary state normally left much of the sphere of social activity alone. And there did exist relatively autonomous spheres of literary discourse. It all depends on how precisely and acutely the concept of the civil society is applied. Habermas decidedly excludes the ancient European spheres of literary interaction and communication from the concept of modern public sphere.

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Therefore, the modern public sphere, or something resembling it, emerged in Iran at the turn of the century in the form of independent and critical newspapers and journals, as well as rapidly increasing voluntary associations and societies. But it could be argued that the parliament itself formed a part of the public sphere at the time. This takes us back to the features of the arbitrary society. As noted earlier, the collapse of the arbitrary state always led to chaos brought about by the arbitrary society, until a new absolute and arbitrary ruler emerged from the ashes of civil conflict and destruction. Now for the first time, the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 had been intended not just to overthrow an unjust ruler but to establish lawful and responsible government. Nevertheless, when the old regime collapsed and an all powerful national assembly was established, the society rapidly tended towards the tradition of chaos which it had known since its foundation. Tocqueville once observed that the basic structures of a society tend to remain intact even when a revolution changes many of its forms. That may be an exaggeration, but it is true that old habits die hard. Indeed, the idea is rather similar to Ibn Khaldun’s use of his concept of ‘asabiyah in explaining why power was quickly regained by the Ummayyds after the Rashidun. Even some leading intellectuals of the Constitutional Revolution confused liberty with licence, and thought that law meant complete freedom from the state. Montesquieu’s concept of the ‘separation of powers’ was, if not in theory then certainly in practice, interpreted to mean ‘confrontation of powers’. The legislature was claiming all power to rule, reducing the executive to the status of a docile civil service. The press behaved as if there was no bound to freedom of expression, not only in their lack of display of social and political responsibility, but in their liberal recourse sometimes to the vilest language against anyone, including ministers, parliamentary deputies, even the Shah himself. It was more like the traditional Iranian chaos after the collapse of an arbitrary state than constitutional and, further, democratic government, and the free and critical political discussion by an autonomous public.8 It is worth dwelling on this for a moment. The modern public sphere did not come to Iran as a result of a long and difficult process of the emergence of public opinion, in line with the socialisation of public information independently both from private commercial transactions and the sphere of state bureaucracy. It had not been a complex product of Renaissance, Reformation, bourgeois development and revolts against absolutist or authoritarian governments as in the English revolutions of the seventeenth and the French revolution of the eighteenth century, or the European revolutions of 1848. It came along almost suddenly at the same time as the campaign for law and democracy in the movement for constitutional government. Like most things Iranian, lawful government and democracy came to Iran and captured the mood of the whole society, all with a great bang.

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And that was the difficulty. It was not just the suddenness, though that in itself would have caused important problems. It went much further than that. It was a reflection of the traditional cycle of arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule, which was briefly described above. Chaos of course, did not manifest itself just in the form of politics, journalism and public opinion. There was growing unrest, rebellion and brigandage at the borders, among the nomads and in the provinces. Indeed, that is almost the only form of chaos that has been recognised by the historians and analysts of the period. I have argued at some length elsewhere that little of that visible and disintegrative chaos would have occurred or endured if there had not been chaos, instability, confrontation and destructive conflict at the center and in the center of politics itself, among the parliamentary deputies, between them and the cabinet, among them all with political parties, associations and groups, exposed and enhanced by press and the political poetry.9 The revolution for constitutional government had been very different from traditional revolts, because for the first time it had intended to abolish arbitrary rule itself, although true to the past no social class as such had defended the regime. Yet the consequences in their essence resembled closely the chaos that used to follow the fall of the state in pre-modern times. There were, of course, important new or modern forms, instruments and vehicles that had not been quite seen before. The parliament was entirely new, although in recent times a selective Privy Council had been formed on a couple of occasions. As a collectively responsible body, the cabinet was also entirely new, the previous experience at the turn of the 1870s having hardly taken off. And, although newspaper publication dated back to the first half of the nineteenth century, the press was entirely new, in language, content, style, purpose, readership as well as sheer numbers. The emergence and introduction of these new forms certainly cannot be ignored. Yet democracy had been increasingly leading to chaos, the public sphere to lawless or anti-social behaviour, liberty to licence. That was the main reason behind the 1921 coup. It would never have happened if things had not got so bad that the people became deeply disappointed in the revolution, began to attribute it to a British conspiracy, and felt nostalgic about the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, the last arbitrary ruler who had been able to provide normal security for daily living. Some British officers and diplomats helped organise the coup, but they would not have done so, indeed could not have done so, if the country had not plunged into the deepest chaos and disorder in 1920.10 What followed looks very much like the process, in pre-modern times, whereby arbitrary rule returned after a period of chaos. First, there was military backlash to the visible and tangible chaos; at the same time, steadily rising pressure was applied on the parliament, parties and press to give up some of their more licentious attitudes. Over a period of four years, life and politics became much more stable, in the provinces, at the centre as well as in the center of politics, than they had been for thirty years. Reza Khan Pahlavi could not quite be 106

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described as a popular leader outside the army, even in this, his most popular period, his finest hour. But he did have the support of many of the modern educated middle classes, many members of the intellectual elite, an increasing number of parliamentary deputies, including those of the Democrat and Social Democrat parties, most of the higher civil servants, and even quite a few important and influential religious pontiffs and dignitaries. When he became shah in 1925–1926, government was basically still constitutional, the parliament still largely independent though no longer all powerful, the press functioning, though curbed of much of its licence, but some of its liberties too. But quite like similar periods in Iranian history the stage was set for a rapid concentration of power. From the early 1920s to the early 1930s there is growing dictatorship, spreading widely and deeply among and into the various organs of the state. That is also much the more dynamic and positive part of Reza Shah’s rule in terms of economic expansion, investment in modern light industries, and the development of infrastructural sectors such as education and transport. But – also true to the traditional form – from the early 1930s there began arbitrary rule, the rule of one man whose word was above the law. By the time the society reached that stage, there was literally nothing left of democracy or the modern public sphere, although a literary public sphere existed within the state’s margins of toleration, and the new forms of government and administration, for example, the parliament and government departments, were maintained. Indeed, the latter expanded rapidly in line with the political bureaucratisation and economic étatisme, which had not quite had a precedent in Iranian history. The interventionism was modern and resembled, in some ways, the role of the French and, in other ways, Soviet state in society and economy. To give but one economic example all foreign trade, and some important domestic trades such as the wholesale trade in wheat, were taken over by the state. To give but one social example, the people of towns had to obtain an internal pass in order to leave town even for short periods of time. Nothing quite like that had existed in the pre-modern times, and before the Constitutional Revolution. There was an onslaught on nomadic peoples. The tribes were divided up and forced to settle in designated areas, at very high human costs. They all went back to their lands after the Shah’s enforced abdication, when, in 1941, the Allies came to Iran.11 When war came to Iran, Reza Shah was indirectly persuaded by the Allies to abdicate, but this would not have happened if he had had some significant support in the country, especially as he was then fully prepared to cooperate with the Allies. Two factors made his abdication inevitable. First, his widespread – indeed, universal – unpopularity, so that his abdication was the one consequence of the war coming to Iran that made the Allies popular with the people. Second, it would have been very difficult indeed to square the presence of an iron-willed absolute and arbitrary rule with the return of democracy and public opinion which was an unavoidable consequence of the new situation.12 107

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There was a renewal of a democracy and a public sphere similar to those which had followed the Constitutional Revolution from 1909 until the early 1920s. Once again there was serious unrest in the provinces and among nomadic tribes. Once again there was deadly and destructive conflict in the centre of politics, within the parliament and the press, and between them, on the one hand, and the powerless cabinets, on the other, who had to take a public bill to parliament each time the central bank wanted to increase the stock of money in circulation. There was physical as well as verbal violence and intolerance. Cabinets lasted only a few months, and they were even incapable of passing an annual budget through the parliament.13 The spread and then explosion of the oil dispute with Britain and the AngloIranian Oil Company cut both ways in relation to the domestic situation. On the one hand it sharpened conflict and the struggle for power. On the other hand it provided a strong rallying point, given that this time the main adversary was foreign. For the first time in twenty-five years the government had popular support. But the politics of elimination was still strong. If there had been, not so much national unity as simply lack of confrontation between the main political forces, it would have been extremely difficult for the British and American governments to organise and coordinate the fall of Mosaddeq and the popular movement. The coup of August 1953 was organised by them, but they did not bomb or send troops as in fact this was not a possible option at the time. The coup succeeded because some of the important domestic forces opposed to the government let themselves be coordinated by the foreign forces, and carried it out.14 It is normal practice to describe the period 1953–1977, that is, from the coup to the onset of the revolution, as a period of dictatorship. In fact it should be categorically divided into two periods: 1953–1963, when government was increasingly dictatorial or authoritarian; and 1963–1977, when there was arbitrary rule. In the first ten years after the coup, there was neither democracy nor political chaos, but there was limited constitutional government, the parliament, though not freely elected, still represented some parts of the society, and had a certain amount of power. And there was some freedom of expression and publication, and public debate and discussion. All this was because the regime still had a social base, consisting of the landlords, the religious establishment, the army, the higher bureaucracy and much of the small but growing modern business sector.15 Between 1960 and 1963 there was a power struggle, when democratic groups got a chance of staging a come-back, the loyal reformists tried to extend constitutional government, and the landlords and religious establishment tried to defend their share of political power. They all lost in the end, and the Shah managed to concentrate all power in his own hands. This is the period in which the government became increasingly arbitrary, personal rule replaced ordinary dictatorship and, true to the historical form, including the second period of Reza Shah’s rule, the state virtually lacked a social base, despite the fact that its 108

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clientele and dependent groups increased, not least in consequence of the rising, then exploding, oil revenues. As early as 1964, Martin Herz, the political counsellor at the US embassy in Tehran assessed the situation brilliantly in an unusually long dispatch to the Department of State. Very significantly, he gave it the title ‘Some Intangible Factors in Iranian Politics’. He wrote: Since the opposition is weak, divided and dispirited, the regime ought to be feeling happy and secure, particularly as it has important political assets in its favour. But one of the most remarkable intangible factors in the present situation is that the regime has so few supporters. Evidence of this is to be found at every turn: prominent members of the New Iran party who express the belief, quietly and privately, that the party is a sham and a fraud and that no political party can be expected to do useful work as long as the Shah’s heavy hand rests on the decision-making process; hand-picked Majlis members who deplore ‘American support’, for a regime which they call a travesty of democracy; civil adjutants of the Shah, who belong to his most devoted supporters, yet who express the belief that Iran will never be able to solve its problems as long there is no freedom of expression, no delegation of authority, and so little selection of personnel for merit; prominent judges who declare, with surprising lack of circumspection, that the anti-corruption campaign cannot get anywhere as long as it is known that certain people are immune from prosecution; military officers who tip off the National Front regarding actions planned against its demonstrators; Foreign Ministry officials who privately advise against courses of action they are officially urging on the US with respect to the treatment of opposition spokesmen in the United States. Herz goes on to emphasise: These are not members of the opposition. They are members of the Establishment who, even while loyal to the Shah, are suffering from a profound malaise, from lack of conviction in what they are doing, from doubts about whether the regime deserves to endure. And he concludes this part of his dispatch in the following words: Here, and not in the particular activities of the exponents of the opposition, lies the real weakness of the regime, for even a militant minority in charge of the apparatus of government could create respect in the rest of a country. Even when ample allowance is made for the ungovernable nature of the Iranian middle class … there remains the fact that the Shah’s regime is regarded as a highly unpopular dictatorship not only by its opponents, but far more significantly, by its proponents as well.16 109

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What Herz described as ‘a highly unpopular dictatorship’ in an analysis of ‘the intangible factors in Iranian politics’ was a brilliant intuitive discovery for which he had no independent concept and category, namely the concept of arbitrary rule. This being the report, in 1964, of a diplomat from a superpower, and the foreign power that was closest to the regime, it would be very easy to piece together the process that ended up in the crash of 1979. From 1963 to 1977 power became concentrated at an accelerating rate because all opposition had been beaten, the oil revenues were accruing to the state at a rapidly increasing (later exploding) rate, and foreign powers, Western as well as Soviet and east European, became increasingly uncritical towards the regime, not least because of the absence of an organised opposition, and the increasing oil wealth. Yet when in 1977, at the height of such domestic power and foreign support, the combination of a mild economic dislocation and foreign criticism of human rights abuses led the regime to allow a certain amount of public debate, it quickly led to its downfall in 1979. Once again, there was a massive revolt, true to the ancient pattern, of the society against the state, almost irrespective of occupation, rank, wealth and income, education or degree of religious commitment. No social class resisted the revolution, and no organised political force defended the regime. Despite all its differences with the Constitutional Revolution of seventy years before, and even greater differences with the traditional Iranian revolts, this too was a revolution against arbitrary rule. Once again there was a democracy which looked more like anarchy, and a public sphere which was closer to abuse and violence. But this time it quickly turned into the politics of elimination, and one that – in many of its features – was not very different from other popular revolutions elsewhere in the world. In the French Revolution, the period of argument, oratory and solidarity rapidly gave way to wholesale expropriation and indiscriminate killing, followed by the reign of terror – or ‘despotisme de la liberté’, to quote St Just’s words – in which many of the revolutionary leaders themselves, both Girondin and Jacobin, perished in the name of the very principles for which they had fought – a process which was helped and intensified by domestic strife and foreign intervention. In the aftermath of the October Revolution in Russia, similar events took place during the civil war and the war of foreign intervention, when not only liberals but even Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries ceased to exist as independent political parties. One could scarcely have expected a significantly different outcome from the revolution in Iran, which was – in some important ways – less developed politically than the France of late eighteenth century, and Russia of early twentieth century. Almost all the dominant revolutionary forces and ideologies were absolutely certain of their particular way, and the incorrectness and evil intent of the others, and convinced that they would be able to create the perfect society within a short period of time, once they had managed to eliminate their 110

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rivals. There was violence and terror, war and destruction, mass exodus of some of the educated and skilled groups of the society, decline and dislocation of the economy, and a sustained fall in the average standard of living.17 Yet in the process some important lessons were also learnt, which are now being followed by some considerable political forces, and which may result in lasting political development, perhaps even democracy and civil society as we know them from western political theory and practice. It became clear to these forces that no individual, social class, party or ideology could resurrect the lost paradise anywhere in the world, let alone in a country where some basic rights and freedoms had not existed before; and that even less ambitious, but still very important political and social achievements would be impossible by means of generalised (physical or verbal) violence based upon bitterness, hatred, rift, confrontation and elimination. And it is becoming increasingly clear that political legitimacy and government by consent is not consistent with arbitrary rule, whether exercised by a central authority, or through a mob let loose in the streets, and that lawlessness – whether practiced by the state, the mob or society at large – is bound to hurt both rulers and the ruled in the long run; that democracy is far from political chaos; that the public sphere would not last if the citizens’ rights and freedoms are applied without a minimum of social cohesion and public responsibility; and that not only arbitrary rule but even dictatorship are usually weaker and less inefficient than democracy. There is now a period of transition, where the political factions and tendencies in favour of lawful and legitimate government, and basic democracy and civil society are in a state of sustained struggle with others which still wish to save the larger part of a populist, authoritarian and semi-chaotic regime, and which effectively equate the modern public sphere with what they call ‘the cultural onslaught of the west’.18 In a society as ungovernable and unpredictable as Iran, it would require a biblical prophet to predict the future with a degree of certainty, and even he might be cheated by events. Yet, although the means of both formal and informal coercion are still largely in the hands of the traditionalists, there is no mistaking that the country’s young electorate, men as well as women, are massively in favour of political development in the direction of law, democracy and civil society.

Notes and references 1 Paper published in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, XVIII (2) (1998), and presented to the Department of History, Illinois State University, April 1999. 2 This brief analysis is based on H. Katouzian, ‘Liberty and License in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3(8) (1988) reprinted in this volume. Sources on the Constitutional Revolution are, of course, numerous. See, for example, Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 1 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1981); Nazem al-Islam Kermani, Sa‘idi Sirjani (ed.), Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, vols 1 and 2 (Tehran: Agah, 1983); Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-e Mashruteh-ye

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3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10

11 12 13

Iran (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1967); V. Martin, Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1989); J. Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Mangol Philip Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution, Shi‘ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). This very brief account of the theory of Iranian history is based on the author’s earlier works. For the principal references see Homa Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory of State, Politics and Society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 24(1) (1997) reprinted in this volume; ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran: Democracy, Dictatorship Or Arbitrary Government?’, ibid, 22(4) (1995) reprinted in this volume; Musaddiq and The Struggle for Power in Iran, 2nd edn (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999); Noh Maqaleh dar Jami‘ehshenasi-ye Tarikhiye Iran (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998); Chahardah Maqaleh dar Adabiyat, Ejtema‘, Falsafeh va Eqtesad, 2nd edn (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1996); Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli, 2nd edn (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1996); ‘The Aridisolatic Society, A Model of Long Term Social and Economic Development in Iran’, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, 15 (1983) reprinted in this volume; The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York: Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981). See, for example, ‘Demokrasi, Diktatori va Mas‘uliyat-e Mellat’, in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli. Most of the references in note 2, above, contain a comparative discussion of Iranian rebellions, revolts and revolutions. See especially ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory’. For a comprehensive treatment of the subject see Homa Katouzian, ‘Towards A General Theory of Iranian Revolutions’, Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, 15(2) (1999), reprinted in this volume. See H. Katouzian, ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’, Ettela‘at-e Siyasi va Eqtesadi, summer (1998), 129–30. See, for example, J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Great Britain: Polity Press, 1989); and ‘The Public Sphere, An Encyclopedia Article (1964)’, New German Critique, 3, 1974. See also Peter Hohendahl, ‘Jürgen Habermas: The Public Sphere (1964)’, ibid. See Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’. For a comprehensive study of this subject by the present author see, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000); and ‘The Revolt of Shaykh Muhammad Khiyabani’, IRAN, Journal of The British Institute for Persian Studies, June 1999, reprinted in this volume. See Katouzian, ibid. State and Society, and ‘The Campaign Against The Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25, 1, 1998, reprinted in this volume. See also Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Rule (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998). For an extensive documentation and analysis of the above points see Katouzian State and Society in Iran; and ‘The Pahlavi Regime in Iran’, in H.E. Chehabi and J. Linz (eds) Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1997). See Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory’ and ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran’. See Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran; Fakhreddin Azimi, Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, 1941–1953 (London and New York: I.B. Tauris and St Martin’s Press, 1989); E. Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983); N. Keddie, Roots of Revolution (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981); J. Foran, A Century of Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).

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14 See the references in note 11. 15 This subject has been discussed in the author’s works on modern Iranian history and politics including ‘Arbitrary Rule, A Comparative Theory’, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power, and The Political Economy of Modern Iran. 16 See M.F. Herz, A Diplomatist looks at the Shah’s Regime in June 1964 (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, Washington, 1979). 17 For further discussions, by the author, of the above analysis and assessment, see his ‘Problems of Political Development’, ‘Islamic Government and Politics: The Practice and Theory of the Absolute Guardianship of Jurisconsult’, in C. Davis (ed.) After the War: Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf (London: Croom Helm, 1990), and ‘The Political Economy of Iran Since the Revolution’, Comparative Economic Studies, 31(3) (1989). 18 See Said Barzin, Jenahbandi-ye Siyasi dar Iran (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998), including the text of an interview with this author on ‘Factionalism in Modern Iran’.

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7 PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRAN Democracy, dictatorship or arbitrary government?1 Iran is an ancient as well as a third-world country, an oil-exporting economy, and a Middle Eastern state which has experienced two popular revolutions in the twentieth century. What are its prospects for political growth and development towards a mature democratic society?2 Iran came to the twentieth century confused about its past and unsure of its future – caught as it was between the traditional and the modern, the Asiatic and the European – and a helpless pawn in the diplomatic, economic and military rivalry between the Russian and British empires. The most important and immediate programme of its modernising intellectuals was to abolish the traditional system of absolute and arbitrary rule (estebdad), and replace it by the rule of law (qanun); hence their campaign for constitutional, constrained or ‘conditioned’ (mashruteh) government. The religious leadership and community generally supported their position, because there was nothing in Islamic doctrine which approved of arbitrary rule, the arbitrary state was not legitimate in the Shi
a theory of government, and the ulama would not alienate themselves from urban society – including landlords, merchants and the ordinary public – which was committed to the constitutionalist movement. A relatively small, but significant, group of the ulama, led by Shaikh Fazlallah Nuri, opposed the constitutionalist movement at its later stages, and advocated a vague notion of strictly religious constitutionalism (i.e. mashru‘eh as opposed to mashruteh). And in the civil conflict that followed they sided with the existing arbitrary government which was supported by Tsarist Russia. But they did not have the necessary strength either among the ulama or within the religious community to carry the day. The revolutionary programme was eventually extended by the more radical and intellectual leaders of the revolution to include democratic government, and a written constitution adapted from the Belgian model was established. This, however, did not – and in fact could not – quickly change the realities of a weak and traditional society, especially as Iran soon became a battleground for Russia, Britain and Turkey during the First World War. It emerged from that war – to which it was not officially a party – physically, politically and economically devastated, and on the brink of chaos and disintegration. The experience

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fanned the fires of the Iranian conspiratorial theory of politics which, since 1919, has often reached the scales of social paranoia.3 The Iranian conspiratorial theory of politics and government had been an inevitable product of a system of absolute and arbitrary rule where law and politics in the normal senses of the term could not, an in fact did not, exist.4 This was accompanied by a certain degree of xenophobia which – at least in part – was a consequence of frequent invasions of the border provinces and regions, and the occasional conquest of the whole country by her western, northern and eastern neighbours. These two traditional features of the country’s social psychology were heightened in the nineteenth century when Russia and Britain began their systematic intervention and interference in Iranian affairs. They were further strengthened by the Iranian Thermidor of 1911 when, as a result of a Russian ultimatum in which the British government acquiesced, the helpless Iranian government closed the national assembly (Majlis) by the use of force, and ordered the expulsion of the conscientious and popular American adviser to the Iranian treasury. But there was more to come. The invasion of the country by the warring parties in the First World War, and the disclosure of the Anglo-Russian agreement in 1907, put more ammunition into the cannons of xenophobia and the conspiracy theory. The 1907 agreement had divided Iran into three – Russian, British and neutral – zones. Yet the conspiracy view and the fear of foreigners reached new heights with the disclosure of the much more sinister agreement of 1915 between Russia and Britain – known as the Constantinople Protocol – which implied an accord for the dismemberment of Iran after the allied victory in the war. Indeed, this disclosure (by the Bolshevik government) was the strongest and most immediate reason behind the great public outcry and agitation against the 1919 agreement between Iran and Britain. According to this agreement, Iran would employ British military and financial advisers, at her own expense, for a basic reform of her public finance, the creation of a uniform army, and the conduct of feasibility studies for the construction of railways and other public transport facilities.5 The whole project was to be financed by a British loan of £2 million, against Iranian customs revenues, to be paid back at a 7 per cent annual interest over a period of twenty years. This agreement was received by the entire Iranian body politic (except a small group of politicians and journalists) with total indignation and rejection. They were convinced that it was a plot to turn Iran into a British protectorate.6 The Agreement was never ratified. And the 1921 coup, which prestaged its official annulment by the new government, was greeted by the modernist Iranian nationalists and radicals with joy and optimism. Yet, it did not take very long before the large majority of politicians as well as the political public became convinced that the coup had been planned by the British government, and that its leaders – Reza Khan and Sayyed Zia – were agents of British imperialism.7 Ever since then, there has seldom been any significant (major as well as minor) political event, which (at least) a large section of the Iranian public has not 118

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believed to have been planned and executed by foreign powers through their Iranian agents. To forestall misunderstanding it must be emphasised that foreign powers have in fact interfered and intervened in Iranian affairs in this as in the previous century. I have already referred to a few earlier examples. To mention the other well-known cases, the 1921 coup was helped and organised by a handful of British military officers and diplomats in Iran; the 1933 Oil Agreement was ultimately reached as a result of British pressure; in 1941 Iran was invaded by Britain and the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union was behind the Azerbaijan uprising of 1945–1946; and the American and British governments organised the coup d’état of August 1953. On the other hand, the British government as such was not privy to the 1921 coup; a much better oil agreement could have been reached in 1933 had not Reza Shah been both jealous and suspicious of his able ministers who were in charge of the negotiations with the concessionaries; the invasion of 1941 could have been avoided through better diplomacy, and, in any case, Reza Shah would not have had to abdicate had he based his authority on some social base and a reasonable degree of public consent; the 1953 coup could not have been carried out without the collaboration and support of the Shah, conservative politicians and the religious establishment in Iran – besides, it could have been avoided or defeated if the popular government had not made some of its major mistakes.8 Yet, even if we assume that these events took place exactly as the popular theories claim, it would not follow that all the other major and minor events in the country were necessarily a simple product of foreign intrigue and machination. For example, the Qarani plot (of 1958) was not a foreign conspiracy even if some foreign powers may have had advanced knowledge of it;9 the economic crisis and political discontent of 1960–1963 was not the product of a foreign power; the uprising of June 1963 was neither initiated nor supported by any foreign government; the land reform was of the Iranians’ own making, even though America and the Soviet Union may have indirectly encouraged it before, and directly welcomed it after, the event; the Shah’s active role in the oil price increases of the early 1970s was not intended to please the Soviet Union, nor was it played on the orders of Western powers, unless they are assumed to have taken leave of their senses. And the revolution of 1977–1979 was manned, organized and led by Iranians themselves, even though, when the fall of the former regime became apparent, the interested foreign parties began to hedge their bets.10 The conspiracy theory of politics and government itself was a product of the traditional system of arbitrary rule in Iran. This system was based on the state monopoly of property rights, and the concentrated – though not necessarily centralised – economic, bureaucratic and military power to which it gave rise. There could be no rights of private property, only privileges which were granted to individuals by the state, and which, therefore, could be withdrawn at a clap of the hands. There always existed social classes in terms of differences of wealth, position and occupation – landlords, merchants, artisans, peasants, etc. However 119

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(and unlike European societies) the composition of these classes was changing rapidly through time, because the state could arbitrarily withdraw a privilege from a person, family, clan or community, and grant it to others. Consequently, there could be no established peerage or aristocracy, and there was an unusually high degree of mobility up and down the social ladder.11 Lest there be any misunderstanding, it should be emphasised that a given Iranian regime, dynasty, or ruler might be very different from another in some important respects. For example, rulers might be just, able, weak, generous, miserly, cruel or whatever. But, in all cases, government was based on the arbitrary system. Indeed, this was the most important reason why so much depended on the personal attributes of the ruler himself, and how power, progress and prosperity could be lost within a short period of time.12 The absence of law and politics was the institutional counterpart to this sociological base. Where there are no rights there is no law. Or, in other words, where the law is little more than the arbitrary decisions, whims or desires of the law-giver, the concept of law itself becomes redundant, despite the existence of a body of public rules and regulations at any moment of time. It is only independent rights, not dependent privileges, which can form the basis for real economic and social power by individuals and social classes. Hence, the absence of rights results in the absence of law, and the absence of law must mean the absence of politics. Note that it is not just laws and rational politics (being usually associated with the rise of modern European society in the past few centuries) which are absent, but law and politics themselves – ‘just’ or unjust, traditional or ‘rational’. European society, whether ancient, medieval or modern, had been always founded upon some kind of written or unwritten law and contract, or deeply entrenched custom, between the state and society. This was very different in Greek city states from modern democracies, in terms of the scope and limits of the power of the state, the extent of its social base and political legitimacy, and the administration of justice as it affected social groups and classes. Yet, the power of the state was subject to (varying but) definite limits which were determined by the rights of the social classes. These rights were different – through space as well as time – both among the social classes, and between them and the state. But they always existed; and, hence, there was always law and politics of one kind or another.13 Modern European revolutions were not fought for law itself; they were led against existing legal and constitutional arrangements with the aim of extending social rights in scope as well as application. In Iran, by contrast, the power of the state was not limited by any tacit or explicit law, contract or custom, but by the extent of that power itself. Absence of law did not mean absence of rules of conduct; on the contrary, it meant that the state could arbitrarily make or break ‘laws’ at will and to the limits of its physical power. Estebdad literally means arbitrary rule, and where decisions are made arbitrarily, there can be no meaningful notion of law. Hence, while European revolutions had fought for freedom from the traditional legal framework, the 120

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Constitutional Revolution in Iran was fought for freedom from arbitrary rule – that is, for law itself. This incidentally reveals the differences between the concept of freedom in Iran before the Constitutional Revolution and the ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ concepts of liberty in Europe, as discussed by Isaiah Berlin: expressed in ‘negative’ terms, it meant freedom from arbitrary rule; and, in positive terms, it meant the right to a secure and predictable living guaranteed by an independent and inviolable legal framework.l4 Therefore, the society was pre-legal (or pre-constitutional) as well as prepolitical. And that is how the state (dawlat) stood above as well as opposite to the people or society (mellat). It should be emphasised that while contract and politics exist even in dictatorial systems, they are principally absent in an arbitrary state. Hence, to speak of political processes or relationships in such a state is in fact inaccurate. Towards the end of the last century, when Iran had come into close contact with modern European societies, the terms polteek and polteeki began to be used for ‘politics’ and ‘political’ in reference to European political events and entities. ‘Siyast’ and ‘Siyasi’, which were later invented for these terms, had had no such meaning in their original usage.15 These sociological and institutional structures and phenomena – which contain an unusually strong element of insecurity and unpredictability – have been the main reasons behind the absence of feudalism (as it is known from European history) in Iranian society. Furthermore, they provided the strongest barriers against the accumulation of financial and (later) physical capital in industry and agriculture alike, for history and experience had shown that money and possessions could easily be lost, not infrequently together with the lives of those who possessed them. The resulting social psychology and pattern of public behaviour is thus easy to discern. Dawlat is, in principle, regarded as the actual or potential enemy by both individuals and social classes, including its own servants. Both the systemic arbitrariness (estebdad) and the resulting individual examples of injustice (zolm) create an acute sense of fear and insecurity, mistrust, disbelief, frustration, resentment and alienation. There may be loyalty and attachment to one’s own family and community, the popular (i.e. non-state) culture, or even the whole of the country. But, once a given regime has managed to identify the arbitrary system with itself, it lasts not by consent or by sectional or class loyalty, nor even by otherwise overriding considerations for the defence of the realm, but merely by the dialectics of force and fear. Clearly the continuity of arbitrary rule does not mean that there has been no change in Iranian society since the fall of Adam. Indeed, compared with Europe, Iran has gone through too many changes – a fact which is at least partly due to the basic social features described above. Furthermore, a characteristic feature of Iranian history is the cycle of arbitrary rule, public rebellion and disorder, followed by arbitrary rule. Since the state monopolised all rights it inevitably monopolised all obligations as well. Contrariwise, since society had no rights it did not feel any obligations towards the state. In fact, when it was (rightly or wrongly) thought that the state was 121

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about to fall, the public reaction was such that it either helped bring it about when it might otherwise have been averted, or shortened the pace of its death agony. But rebellion was invariably directed against the government in power, not the arbitrary system itself, for which no alternative had yet been conceived. Thus, chaos and disorder appears to have been the only alternative to arbitrary rule in Iranian history. Disorder merely served to intensify lawlessness, and increase the state of insecurity and unpredictability. Therefore, before long, society began to yearn for order and discipline, and hoped for the return of another arbitrary ruler. In the nineteenth century, a real alternative to chaos suggested itself through the window that was opened by European advancement. This, as I said before, was the rule of law. Thus, for the first time in Iranian history, the problematic became that of demolishing arbitrary government rather than just getting rid of an arbitrary ruler or dynasty. This led to the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909. But the result was still a disorderly and centrifugal situation rather than a constitutional, let alone democratic, government. It is true that the invasion and intervention of the warring parties during the First World War played an important role in this. But it can be shown that the main causes of disorder were indigenous rather than external. For while constitutional (or even democratic) government had been theoretically discovered as a working alternative to arbitrary rule, there was no sudden change in the attitude of the public towards the state as an alien and coercive force. And, of course, the institutions of a civil, let alone democratic, government were almost entirely lacking.16 That is why when Reza Khan Pahlavi took over the realm, it was at first supported by a substantial section of the body politic. Yet. when he fell twenty years later, in 1941, his departure was greeted with unmitigated joy and approval by the vast majority of the people of all social classes. For by then, his regime had changed from mere dictatorship to arbitrary government. Between 1941 and 1953 there was a disorderly constitutional regime. The 1953 coup d’état brought a dictatorial government to power which was supported by landlords and the religious establishment. It was not an arbitrary regime, although gradually power began to concentrate. From 1960, both because of serious economic difficulties and because of decline in foreign support, there was a power struggle for constitutional government which ended in the riots of June 1963. This led to the concentration of power and the re-emergence of arbitrary rule in the 1960s and 1970s, which was greatly helped by sustained, rapid and eventually explosive growth of oil revenues which the state freely received and arbitrarily disbursed.17 The relaxation of arbitrary rule in 1977 rapidly resulted in rebellion and disorder which ended in the revolution of February 1979. Once again the urban (and urbanized) society had rejected the claim of an arbitrary government that it intended to reform itself, and combined to bring down the state.18 The purpose of this rapid and rather sweeping brief about the character of state and society, and the logic and sociology of Iranian revolutions, is to pinpoint the 122

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dichotomy of arbitrary rule on the one hand, and chaos and disorder on the other, which would never have allowed sustained and cumulative political development, let alone the emergence of democratic institutions and government. What followed the revolution of 1979 was familiar from other popular revolutions elsewhere in the world. In the French revolution, the period of argument, oratory and solidarity rapidly gave way to wholesale expropriation and indiscriminate killing, followed by the reign of terror – or ‘despotisme de la liberté’ – in which many of the revolutionary leaders themselves, both Girondin and Jacobin, perished in the name of the very principles for which they had fought – a process which was helped and intensified by domestic strife and foreign intervention. In the aftermath of the October Revolution in Russia, similar events took place during the civil war and the war of foreign intervention, when not only liberals, but even Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries ceased to exist as independent political parties. One could scarcely have expected a significantly different outcome from the revolution in Iran, which – in some important ways – was less developed politically than the France of the late eighteenth, and the Russia of the early twentieth century. Almost all the dominant revolutionary forces and ideologies were absolutely certain of their own way, and the incorrectness or evil intent of the others, and convinced that they would be able to create the perfect society within a short period of time, once they had managed to eliminate all of their rivals. There was violence and terror, war and destruction, mass exodus of some of the educated and skilled groups of the society, decline and dislocation of the economy, and a sustained fall in the average standard of living. Yet it was not all in vain, for some highly important lessons were also learnt, which, if they are put into practice by all the major political tendencies, could result in lasting political development. It became clear that no individual, social class, party or ideology could resurrect the lost paradise anywhere in the world, let alone in a country where some basic rights and freedoms had not existed before; that even less ambitious, but still very important social and political achievements would not be possible by means of generalised (physical or verbal) violence based upon bitterness, hatred, rift and confrontation. It also became clear that economic progress and social welfare are constrained by the country’s economic, political and cultural resources and capacities; that while these resources could be put to efficient use for greater progress and prosperity, there was no magic formula or extraordinary act of will – through the ideologies of étatisme, the free market, or any other – which would perform miracles in the field of economic growth and justice, and that productive performance is a much better indicator of economic progress than the level of consumption, especially if this is not wholly earned by the society’s productive effort. And it is becoming increasingly clear that political legitimacy and government by consent is not consistent with arbitrary rule, whether exercised by a central authority, or through a mob let loose in the streets, and that lawlessness – whether practised by the state, the mob or society at large – is bound to hurt all 123

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of the parties concerned in the long run; that while the existence of basic rights and freedoms, and of political tolerance and cultural pluralism, is one of the main pillars on which the democratic edifice stands, democracy is not a weak and ineffectual system of government; that unlimited freedom does not and cannot exist anywhere in the world; that democracy would not have succeeded as the most advanced as well as efficient system of government if democratic societies did not exercise their rights and freedoms with a mature sense of social cohesion and public responsibility; and that dictatorship is not only less developed, but also usually weaker and less efficient than democracy. In the development of events a certain degree of realism in dealing with local and global issues had slowly begun to impose itself through rising politicoeconomic constraints, and decreasing revolutionary passion and resilience. This was strengthened by the cessation of the long hostilities between Iraq and Iran, and the death – not long afterwards – of Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iraq–Iran war could have been ended sooner by Iran with greater advantage to herself. But, overdue as it was, the ceasefire tended to diffuse the domestic and foreign situation to a significant extent, although a lasting settlement of the differences with Iraq is yet to be reached. Furthermore, and within a broader context, Iran’s decision to remain neutral in the international conflict over Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait was in line with previous developments. From the political standpoint, the impact of Khomeini’s demise was greater even than the ceasefire with Iraq, because it effectively ended the dynamic era of the Islamic revolution. He was a highly charismatic leader who had created and established his own personal legitimacy over and above both constitutional and institutional frameworks. Therefore, there could not be – and in fact there was not – a complete replacement for him from the ranks of the remaining religiopolitical dignitaries as a self-dependent and self-legitimising leader of both the state and society – both dawlat and mellat – and the personification of ultimate religious and political authority. In other words, there could no longer be velayat-e faqih as it had been theoretically conceived and actually practised by Khomeini himself. Ayatollah Khameneh’i who succeeded him was in fact chosen by the standing constituent assembly, known as the Assembly of Experts: he did not carry the title of Imam, and was not regularly described as Vali-ye faqih, but as Leader of the Revolution.19 Indeed, he tended to present the consensus opinion, over important matters, of the various Islamist factions, among which the leading collectivity of Islamist religious dignitaries carry the greater weight. The most recent example (in January 1995) was the disagreement on the position of the Marja‘ al-Taqlid, after the death of one Marja‘, Ayatollah Araki. Putting aside those of the ulama who reject the concept of velayat-e faqih, there were several opinions which – ignoring the minor differences among them – could be reduced to two alternative viewpoints. According to one of these – of which the chief advocate and spokesman was Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi – Khameneh’i should have been recognised as the sole Marja‘. This view was consistent with Khomeini’s conception of velayat-e 124

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faqih, although – in practice – it had not been explicitly enforced during the latter’s own Velayat. The alternative view, espoused by several of the important Islamist ulama, was more in line with traditional theory and practice: the Maraje‘ usually emerged through consensus and adherence, as opposed to selection by the state or by a spiritual college; and there was usually more than one Marja‘ serving the Shi‘a community. In the end, Khameneh’i announced that he did not wish to be the sole Marja‘, and that he merely regarded himself as the sole political Marja‘ for the Shi‘a community outside Iran. This was consistent with the long tradition of Iranian heads of state being regarded as protectors of Shi‘a communities in other countries. Apart from the ceasefire with Iraq, and the disappearance of Khomeini’s supraconstitutional power and authority, there were other important factors which concurrently helped reduce the high degree of revolutionary self-confidence, coercion and intolerance, and encourage a somewhat greater degree of realism in the formulation of both internal and external policies. The most important of these were the systematic collapse of oil prices since the mid-1980s; the breakdown of the Soviet Union as a superpower, quickly followed by its disintegration into a number of independent states; and the (partly related) worldwide decline in totalitarian beliefs and centralist state policies. The financial burden and destructive effects of the war with Iraq, the considerable decline in gross as well as net investment, the rationing of subsidised consumption goods, the persistently high population growth, and the steady decline in per capita income and welfare – all in the face of rapidly declining oil prices and revenues, and increasing difficulties of obtaining foreign credit – necessitated the use of more practical economic and social policies. The extreme forms of étatiste economic and social policies were set aside, some state industries were privatised, and public subsidies of consumer goods and services were reduced in scope, amount and application. Drastic changes in the regional and international situation made their independent impact on political developments in Iran. The disappearance of the Soviet Union as a superpower removed a countervailing power to the United States (and the Western alliance) which the Islamic Republic had used in defending its foreign and domestic policies. And although some such lever continued to be exercised through relatively better relationships with Germany, Japan, France and Italy, it was not comparable to what it had been before. In the same vein, the worldwide campaign for greater human rights and more personal and cultural freedoms was – in addition to the other factors mentioned above – influential in making the Iranian press relatively more independent, and the books and articles which were not regarded as being either offensive to Islam or dangerous to the regime, easier to publish. No organised opposition of any sort (including peaceful opposition) outside the Islamist framework was, however, tolerated. The formation of political parties and professional associations independently from the state was not permitted. The most recent example was an attempt by a group of more than a hundred and thirty 125

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writers to set up a writers’ association. This was given a hostile reception by the official press, and it is by no means clear that the writers would be able to proceed with their declared objective of forming a professional body within a legal framework. The issue goes beyond the strict problem of organising political, social and professional parties and associations independently from the state. It reflects the exclusion of large sections and groups of society which represent (mainly, though not exclusively) the modern middle classes. They thus regard themselves as being dispossessed even of political rights and liberties which are theoretically guaranteed under the Islamic constitution itself. Therefore, a real sense of alienation from the regime and the state is felt by social classes which are not only quantitatively numerous but – even more significantly – qualitatively effective and influential in the economic, social, cultural and educational sectors. It would be difficult to envisage significant political progress so long as such important social groups are excluded from normal participation in social and political processes. A general discourse on the problems of political development in Iran would be incomplete without a brief discussion of the country’s ethnic and linguistic plurality and multiplicity, and the socio-political problems to which they have given rise (mainly) in the twentieth century. The subject has been made even more relevant – and perhaps urgent – as a result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union into independent states, some of which have had long associations with Iran in the past, and contain large numbers of citizens whose mother tongues are close relatives of modern Persian. Iran is a plateau and a cultural region which makes up a number of independent countries, including that which is known by this name. This cultural region was not always ruled by a unified state or empire. And when it was, it was not always governed by the people of the Iranian hinterland: it was ruled for almost two centuries by the Alexandrian Greeks known as the Seleucids; for more than two centuries by Muslim Arabs; and for several centuries afterwards by various native as well as Turkic and Mongol states and empires – some of which ruled at the same time in different parts of the region – before it was reunited by the Safavids not long after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, and at about the same time as the discovery of America at the close of the European Middle Ages. It was disunited once again for much of the eighteenth century, and – both then and later in the nineteenth century – lost territory to foreign or foreign-supported powers, until its present borders were established in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It was inhabited (and is still inhabited) by ethnic, linguistic and racial groups and communities, which themselves were subdivided along regional, linguistic or nomadic-tribal lines. For example, not only do the Persian-speaking people of the Khorasan, Kerman, Fars, Isfahan, Tehran and the Caspian provinces have different accents or speak a dialect which is not understood by the others, but they have (and often take pride in) their own specific provincial identities, 126

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ranging from poetical genres and styles to local cuisines. Furthermore, the typical Isfahani’s character is clearly distinct from the typical Shirazi’s, despite the fact that both of these cities belong to the heartland of ancient Persia. This being true of the Persian speakers among themselves, it is even more true between Persian speakers, Kurds, the Baluch, various Turkic-speaking communities, and so on. Yet, as I said before, Iran is both geographically and historically a region which contains parts or the whole of a number of countries. The group of Iranian languages – of which New Persian is the most widespread – includes many living and dead languages and vernaculars, ranging from the ancient Avestan, Soghdian, Khotani, Parthian and Pahlavi, to the classical and modern Dari, Tajiki, Persian, Kurdish and Lari. These languages are more or less closely related to each other, and make up a family in the network of the Indo-European languages. Apart from Dari and Tajiki (which, as it happens, are spoken outside present-day Iran), none of these other Iranian languages and vernaculars can be comprehended by modern Persian speakers. It is perhaps worth emphasising this point: modern Persian speakers understand Dari and Tajiki which are spoken outside of present-day Iran, but do not understand Kurdish and Lari, both of which are also Iranian languages, and are spoken within the country’s borders; they do not even understand the dialects of their own language which are spoken in the Caspian provinces. I therefore propose a distinction between Iranianism in general, and Persianism in particular, although, as I have already suggested, even Persianism does not refer to a monolithic tradition. Hence the uniformities and diversities of the broader Iranian culture, to which all the peoples of the Iranian region have made important contributions. Dari, Tajiki and Persian grew out of the Iranian languages which were no longer spoken, and they have been strongly influenced by classical Arabic and – to a lesser extent – old Mongolian and various Turkic dialects, all of which are non-Iranian languages. The Safavid Turkamans who reunited Iran under its ancient name for the first time since the Arab conquest, and rejuvenated the Iranian culture in a vast empire, nevertheless spoke a Turkic dialect at their court. There seemed to be no conflict between the uniformities of the looser and broader Iranian culture, and the multiplicity of its ethnic and linguistic parts. Massive evidence for this broader Iranianism – which remained alive even during centuries of political disunity, mainly through the media of the Persian language and literature – is provided, not only by great chronicles and literary anthologies and works of criticism ranging from Bal‘ami’s Tarikh, Baihaqi’s Tarikh, Nezam al-Molk’s Siyasatnameh, Nezami Aruzi’s Chahar Maqaleh and Kaykavus ibn Eskandar’s Qabusnameh, through Jovaini’s Tarikh-e Jahangosha and Rashid al-Din Fazlollah’s Jame‘ al-Tavarikh to Eskandar Monshi’s Tarikh-e Alamara, Esterabadi’s Dorreh-ye Nadereh and Lesan al-Molk’s Nasekh al-Tavarikh, but even by classical Persian literature in the narrower sense. Here I shall give only two examples of what may take volumes to document comprehensively. 127

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The great twelfth-century Persian poet Khaqani – who is especially well known for his odes which rival Beethoven’s symphonies in their Olympian thunder – was a native of Shirvan, in the Caucasus, from a Christian – probably Armenian – mother, to whom he was exceptionally attached. When he received the news of the sacking of Outer Khorasan, which was then a part of the eastern Seljuq empire, and was about as far away from his native land as central Europe, he wrote two long and mighty qasidehs mourning that catastrophe. The poems are in the form of elegies for Imam Mohammad-e Yahya, the religious leader whom the invaders had put to death by pouring dust into his mouth. He says in one of the poems: ‘The heavens watched his mouth being filled with dust; although they knew that dust is not worthy of his mouth’. And this is the matla‘ of the other poem: ‘That civilized kingdom which you saw was destroyed; that sea of chivalry which you heard of became a mirage’. My second example is from Sa‘di, the thirteenth-century poet and so much besides, whom I presume to need no introduction. He wrote in his Golestan that when he visited Kashghar, the Khwarazmian city in central Asia, he met in the college ( jame‘) a youthful scholar who was reading Zamakhshari’s classic introduction to Arabic grammar. He quoted a short Arabic poem to the boy and was told that he should translate it into Persian so he would understand its meaning. And when he told the boy he came from Shiraz, he asked him to quote something from Sa‘di. Next day, when he was leaving the city, the boy learned that he was Sa‘dıi himself, and there followed a moving farewell scene. I have not seen any evidence in the vast expanses of Persian prose and poetry that any of the peoples of this extensive land had ever thought of themselves as being inherently superior or inferior to any other on account of their ethnic and linguistic origins until we arrive at the twentieth century. Indeed, since the formation of the Ghaznavid state in the tenth century until the fall of the Qajars at the beginning of the twentieth, most parts of the Iranian cultural region were ruled by Turkic-speaking dynasties most of the time. At the same time, the official language was Persian, the court literature was in Persian, and most of the chancellors, ministers and mandarins were Persian speakers of the highest learning and ability. To demonstrate this point, it should be sufficient just to mention the names of Maimandi. Baihaqi, Nezam al-Molk, Nasir al-Din Tusi, the brothers Shams al-Din and Ata Malek Jovaini. Rashid al-Din Fazlollah, Eskandar Monshi, Mahdi Esterabadi, the two Qa’emmaqams, Amir Nezam (Amir Kabir) and the two Mostawfi al-Mamaleks – starting with the Ghaznavids and ending with the Qajars. Turkic (or Mongolian) was the language of the rulers most of the time when Persian was the language of literature and of formal administration. But this did not convey any sense of inherent superiority or inferiority to any of these or other communities within the region. In the Indian subcontinent, which is another vast cultural region of Asia, Persian was the court and literary language of the so-called Mughal empire, and to know the Persian language and its literature in that subcontinent is still a prestigious cultural and intellectual achievement. To elaborate 128

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the point, India is a distinct as well as distinguished cultural region in its own right, yet its people did not, and do not, feel a sense of oppression or inferiority because of the exceptional status of Persian in their culture as a foreign language. And incidentally, many more languages, vernaculars, religions and ethnic groups may be found in the Indian subcontinent than in the Iranian cultural region. As mentioned above, conflicts over race, language and ethnicity in Iran are almost as new as the twentieth century itself, although their roots lie in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when Iran began to look at Europe through its own window, and look at herself through what she perceived to be the window of Europe. That was how a localised version of the modern ideology of romantic nationalism first made an impact on the psyche of a small group of modern Iranian intellectuals, and – after the Constitutional Revolution – spread widely as well as deeply among modernised Iranians, until it became the official creed of the Pahlavi state, from the 1930s until its downfall in 1979. I have explained this process, its causes and its consequences elsewhere and the present limitations of space forbid but the barest allusions to them.20 It had something to do with economic backwardness and military weakness against the might of industry and empire in Europe; something to do with a sense of inferiority about the present, and a sense of superiority about the past; something to do with the contemporary power, success and prestige of Europe, and the decline, weakness and underdevelopment of Arabs and Turks who had conquered and ruled Iran in the past; something to do with the contemporary European theory and practice of nationalism, Aryanism and racism – with Gobineau, (Stewart) Chamberlain, the Kaiser as well as Mussolini, Hitler, Rosenberg and Goebbels; something to do with intellectuals such as Akhundzadeh, Mirza Aga Khan Kermani, Aref, Farrokhi, Purdavud, Eshqi, Hedayat, Behruz and Shafaq; and something to do with public personages such as Dabir A‘zam, Taimurtash, Generals Shaibani, Amir-Ahmadi and Yazdanpanah, Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. The outcome was not just patriotism nor even the release of broader PanIranian feelings and energies alone. It was an eruption of deep Pan-Persianist emotions which spread across the powerful modern educated community of Persian speakers and (many) non-Persian speakers alike, and was later sanctified as the state ideology. The country’s history was re-written to suit the Aryanist/Persianist theory, and state education and propaganda created public amnesia among the younger generations about much of Iranian culture as it had been known by their fathers and grandfathers. Arabs and Turks were blamed for Iran’s backwardness, and were described as being inherently backward, unintelligent, aggressive and uncivilised. There was a terrible onslaught, not just on nomadic brigandage and outlawry, but on nomadic life and culture itself. The provinces were remapped from their existing natural borders, and for some time were identified only by the numbers that were officially given to them – a policy which was intended to play down, as much as possible, the identification of particular ethnic and linguistic groups with a single province. The 129

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existence of Arabic-speaking communities in the country’s southwest was all but denied. Azerbaijani and other Turkic dialects were forbidden to be printed or otherwise published and publicised in writing. The Kurdish language was officially described as a dialect of Persian. That, too, was forbidden to be printed and published. The provincial governors, military commanders and administrators were mostly selected from Persian speakers or Persianised non-Persian speakers, many of whom, even in the lower ranks, were sent directly from Tehran itself. There was general discrimination against all the provinces in the interest of Tehran, and in favour of the Persian-speaking provinces in comparison with the others. The policy that was supposed to safeguard the unity and integrity of Iran thus created deep divisions, frustrations and resentments across the country. It did not achieve much for Persian language and literature, yet it encouraged the nonPersian speakers – for the first time in history – to begin to regard themselves as subjects of discrimination, oppression and persecution. It served little the true interests of Persian language and culture, but it dealt a blow to the broader sense of Iranianism which had always existed, and for which the Persian language and literature had provided the oldest, strongest and most widespread channels. As a result, when the lid was taken off, once in 1941 and the second time in 1979, the centrifugal nomadic, linguistic, ethnic and provincial forces burst into the open and threatened the unity and integrity of a culture that had even managed to survive foreign invasions, conquests and rule throughout millennia. It follows that the interests, both of Persian language and literature, and of Iran and the broader Iranian culture, are consistent and complementary with each other, and are threatened, not by each other, but by the ahistorical racist and Pan-Persianist theories and practices which swept over and controlled the land for sixty-five years. This was bound to encourage similar reactions by the non-Persian speaking Iranian communities, and so threaten the integrity of Iran and the solidarity of the broader Iranian culture. In other words, the reaction to this ahistorical Pan-Persianism was itself greatly influenced by it. It was manifested in equally ahistorical pan-ethnicisms, the emotional rejection of Persian language and literature, and the denial altogether of the broader Iranian culture and traditions. If both of these attitudes manage to grow strong roots, they could result in the break-up of the country, and this, in turn, would result in the cultural impoverishment, economic decline and political weakness of both Persian and other ethnic communities in Iran. It would also lead to the emergence of a number of small and oppressive states along ethnic or linguistic lines, fanning the fires of a historically and geographically alien concept of nationalism, getting into conflict and hostility with each other, losing the economic benefits of a larger and unified home market, and becoming weaker vis-à-vis greater local and global powers. Thus, political development in Iran would be incomplete without greater cultural as well as administrative democratisation, such that there would be no conflict between Iran’s broader uniformity and integrity, and the development of 130

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her ethnic, linguistic and provincial parts. The use and development of the other languages and dialects would not damage Persian language and literature. Likewise, the use of Persian as the global Iranian language would not in the least hinder the other languages, while it would act both as a strong unifying factor, and a necessary medium for economic, administrative and social efficiency, as is done in India by the English language, even though English is a completely foreign – non-Indian as well as non-Asian – language which was taken there as the language of the British Empire. Finally, Persian literature is a historical achievement of human civilisation, in which the civilised humanity has taken pleasure and pride, and to which non-Persian-speaking communities of Iran have contributed down to the present time. Given the strict administrative centralism and the prevailing attitudes and policies towards the provinces and ethnic and linguistic minorities under the former regime, a considerable degree of conflict and strife was all but inevitable in the post-revolution period. The abdication of Reza Shah in the 1940s had been followed by unrest and rebellion in the provinces of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, and among the nomadic tribes (notably the Qashqa’i confederation, the Khamseh federation, and – briefly at one stage – the Bakhtiyaris) in the south and southwest. It had taken more than twenty years for these revolts to be completely stamped out. The sense of grievance and alienation had, however, persisted beneath the apparent calm, and the revolution of 1979 once again brought them to the surface. Immediately after the revolution conflict broke out in the Gorgan province which includes a large minority of Turkaman descent. But the main confrontation came in the Kurdistan province where a number of Kurdish organisations – of which the Iranian Kurdish Democratic party was the most powerful – demanded home rule. In the following years there was a certain amount of unrest among the Baluchi community in the southeastern provinces of Sistan and Kerman. The Islamic Republic’s response to these armed conflicts was swift as well as heavy-handed. On the other hand, it tended to pursue relatively less centralistic and more redistributive policies towards the provinces, and afforded a certain degree of latitude to ethnic and linguistic minorities for cultural self-development, including the publication of books and journals in the non-Persian languages and dialects. Such policies have tended to contain the extent and intensity of ethnic unrest, but a long-term solution would require a more fundamental strategy to ensure greater participation of the provinces and ethnic groups in local and regional affairs, within a firmly established framework of national unity and territorial integrity. To sum up, the fundamental historical barrier to steady political development in Iran has been the repetitive cycle of arbitrary rule and public rebellion and disorder followed by arbitrary rule, which has been a product of the absence of law, and the lack of social legitimacy for the state. Therefore, political development would require the rejection of physical and verbal violence and intolerance by the state as well as by all other political trends and tendencies, and the 131

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repudiation of the conspiracy theory of politics in addition to the morbid fear and suspicion of foreigners. It would also require the rejection of Pan-Persianist and other pan-ethnicist and racist ideologies, greater ethnic and provincial participation in local and regional affairs, the recognition of the uniformity and integrity of Iran as a whole, the toleration of the use and development of the non-Persian languages, and the confirmation of the Persian language as a highly efficient socio-economic as well as cultural medium for the country at large. But the most important requirement, perhaps, for political development would be the extension of basic rights and freedoms to those social and professional groups – and especially the modern middle classes – which are, in practice, excluded from the social and political processes, and can (at best) present critical or alternative views as individuals, by writing books and articles which have a limited circulation. Furthermore, neither political freedom nor public discipline and social responsibility is likely to be established in the absence of social and political institutions, including political parties and professional associations. Political change would still occur as it did in the past, but steady political development would require a considerable extension of political rights and freedoms by the state, and a corresponding degree of public responsibility by society.

Notes and references 1 This is a revised version of the text of the public lecture delivered on 2 February 1994, in Berlin, at the joint invitation of Berliner Institut für Vergleichende Sozialforschung and Haus der Kulturen der Welt published in British Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(22) (1995). 2 See H. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London: Macmillan and New York: New York University Press, 1981), ch. 4. 3 See The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 5 and 6; and H. Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1991), ch. 2. 4 See further below. 5 The text of the 1919 Agreement has been published in a number of English and Persian sources, the oldest being J.M. Balfour, Recent Happenings in Persia (London and Edinburgh: Blackwood and Son, 1922). 6 For the contemporary reaction to the 1919 Agreement see, for example, ‘Ebtal al-batel’ [Refutation of the falsehood] in Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 3 (Tehran: Zavvar, 1360 [1981]); Yahya Dawlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 4 (Tehran: ¯ ref (Tehran: Attar and Ferdaws, 1371 [1992]); Saif-e Azad (ed.), Divan-e Abolqasem ‘A Saif-e Azad, 1327 [1948]); Ali Akbar Moshir-Salimi (ed.), Kolliyat-e Mosavvar-e Eshqi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, n.d.); Hossein Makki (ed.), Dı¯va¯ n-e Farrokhi (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1366 [1987]). This view has persisted throughout the twentieth century. See, for example, H. Katouzian (ed.), Musaddiq’s Memoirs (London: Jebheh, 1988), Book I. See H. Katouzian, ‘The Campaign Against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25(1) (1998), reprinted in this volume. 7 For contemporary descriptions and interpretations of the 1921 coup, see Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 3; Dawlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 4; Poet-Laureate Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhtasar-e Ahzab-e Siyasi, vol. 1 (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1323 [1944]); Eshqi, Kolliyat; and ‘Aref, Divan. See Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran,

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8

9 10

11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000). For a discussion and documentation of all of the above points, see H. Katouzian, Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehz. at-e Melli (London and Washington: Mehregan, 1993, and Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1994); Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran; The Political Economy of Modern Iran. See H. Katouzian, Khat.arat-e Siyasi-ye Khalil Maleki, Introduction, ch. 2, 2nd edn (Tehran: Sherkat-e Enteshar, 1368 [1989]), and Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, ch. 15. For a discussion and documentation of the above points, see H. Katouzian ‘Oil and Economic Development in the Middle East’, in G. Sabagh (ed.), The Modern Economic History of the Middle East in its World Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); ‘The Political Economy of Oil-exporting Countries’, Peuples Méditerranéens (1979); ‘Die Politische Okonomie der Oil exportierenden Lander: Ein Analytisches Modell’, in K. Greussing and J.-H. Grevemeyer (eds), Revolution in Iran and Afghanistan (Frankfurt: Syndicat, 1980); Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, ch. 17; and The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 17 and 18. See H. Katouzian, ‘The Aridisolatic Society: A Model of Long Term Social and Economic Development in Iran’, International Journal of Middle East Studies (July 1983); ‘Ein Modell einer langerfristrigen Entwicklung in Iran’, Peripherie (Dezember 1980). The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 2 and 15. See H. Katouzian, Eqtesad-e Siyasi-ye Iran, author’s introduction to the second edition of the Persian translation (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1372 [1993]). See H. Katouzian, ‘The Execution of Amir Hasanak the Vazir’, Pembroke Papers, 1, 1993, reprinted in this volume. See ‘European Liberalisms and Modern Concepts of Liberty in Iran’, Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, 16, 2, 2000, reprinted in this volume. See H. Katouzian, ‘Nameh-resani va Maquleh-ye Siyasat’, Adineh (September 1372 [1993]), reprinted in Chahardah Maqaleh dar Adabiyat, Ejtema‘, Falsafeh va Eqtesad (Fourteen Essays on Literature, Society, Philosophy and Economics), (Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1995). See H. Katouzian, ‘Demokrasi, Diktaori, va Mas‘uliyat-e Mellat’, Ettela‘at-e Siyasi Eqtesadi (April–May 1993) 67–68. See H. Katouzian, ‘The Aridisolatic Society’; ‘The Political Economy of Oil Exporting Countries’; and The Political Economy of Modern Iran, ch. 17. See The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 17 and 18; and ‘The Aridisolatic Society’. See H. Katouzian, ‘Islamic Government and Politics: The Practice and Theory of the Guardianship of Jurisconsult’, in C. Davies (ed.), After the War: Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf (London, 1990). See H. Katouzian, Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1991), especially chs 1 and 5; ‘Nationalist Trends in Iran: 1921–26’, International Journal of Middle East Studies (1979); Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, chs 2–4; The Political Economy of Modern Iran, chs 5–7; and Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Khalil Maleki, Introduction.

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It is characteristic of Iranian revolts and rebellions that they usually occur when the state is perceived to be weak and unable to enforce its authority. Naser al-Din Shah was an arbitrary ruler like all his predecessors. But, the consequences of arbitrary rulers were not all alike either for themselves or for the country. Much depended on their personalities as well as the circumstances in which they lived. For example, the fall of the Safavid state and its dreadful consequences for Iranian society and economy were largely due to the personality traits of Shah Soltanhossein which combined extreme promiscuity and intemperance with common superstition, susceptibility to influence, and timidity and indecisiveness at moments of crisis. Otherwise, the state would not have fallen so swiftly and miserably in the face of rebellion by some of the poorest and most backward nomads of the far eastern provinces of the empire.1 For all his love of women and hunting – neither of which was unusual among Iranian rulers – Naser al-Din was no Soltanhossein. On the contrary, he was an intelligent, self-confident, upright and strong man: it would be sufficient to examine his photograph together with the Prince and Princess of Wales, Lord and Lady Salisbury, and British and Iranian officials and dignitaries to read much of these traits off the picture itself.2 The decline of the state – especially, though not exclusively, during the last three decades of his reign – was therefore much more a result of the long-term trend of the rise of industry and empire in Europe than of any unusual weakness in his character. Throughout his reign he managed to maintain as well as exert his authority in the centre and provinces, and preserve his dignity towards foreign powers; and he managed the decline in Iran’s political, economic and military power better than many other arbitrary rulers might have done. The relative erosion of his own authority towards the end of his reign was partly due to the publicly evident fact of his growing weakness vis-à-vis European powers, and the increasing belief that all the country’s ills were due to arbitrary rule, a belief which was entirely a result of direct – and rather simplistic – comparisons with Europe. The Tobacco Rebellion had some obvious economic motives, but it was the first political movement of its kind in the country’s history in as much as (a) the society challenged the state on a specific issue, 134

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(b) it was an attack on arbitrary government, not just an arbitrary ruler and (c) it succeeded in reversing an arbitrary decision without the complete destruction of the regime itself. Thus it would be described as the first political movement in the country’s history: there was a struggle over a major specific issue which was resolved by a political decision; it badly damaged the Shah’s authority; but he still managed to minimise his losses.3 Large scale historical speculation is usually of little consequence, but it would seem eminently reasonable to suggest that if someone like his son and successor had ruled in his place in the second half of the nineteenth century, the country might even have been ripped apart from within if not from without. It was not just the enlightened public that saw arbitrary government as the source of the country’s backwardness and decline. The Shah himself shared the belief, and that was why he lent his own authority to Sepahsalar-e Qazvini’s reformist measures towards the creation of an orderly and responsible government.4 He could see the benefits of an organised and orderly administration to himself as well as the country, but it took no more than a little while for him to recognise the implications of responsible government for his own position and role in the country. Yet it is significant that he came back to the theme immediately after returning from his third visit to Europe when he ordered the state luminaries to set up a council of state. His brother, Abbas Mirza Molk Ara, who was present in that fruitless meeting, even quotes him as saying: all the order and progress which we observed in Europe in our recent visit is due to the existence of law. Therefore, we too have made up our mind to introduce a law and act according to it.5 The main reason why this gesture too came to nothing – indeed it came to far less than the Sepahsalar attempt – may have been the conflict between his interest in social progress and his reluctance to give up his arbitrary power. But there may well have been another factor equally at work in his mind against a genuine reform of the system along constitutional lines. The problem had once been echoed by his great-grandfather when he expressed amazement to his European visitors as to how it would be possible to run a country where others had a share in the ruler’s decision making.6 His disbelief would appear to be perfectly understandable once we remember that in Iran’s historical experience chaos and disorder had been the only alternative to arbitrary government, and that he would only have had to refresh his memory about the country’s fate after the fall of the Safavid state. Down to the present day most Iranians – and many, if not most, Iranian intellectuals – use the terms estebdad, hokumat-e motlaqeh (i.e. absolutism and despotism) and diktatori interchangeably, and believed that demokrasi is a weak and ineffectual system which would invariably result in rebellion, chaos, disorder and disintegration – in fetneh, ashub, harj-o-marj and khan-khani. That is, they identify Iranian estebdad with European dictatorship, and Iranian ashub or khan-khani with European democracy. 135

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Fath‘ali Shah may therefore be excused for his lack of faith in responsible government, but Naser al-Din had seen for himself that, in Europe, government based on law was orderly, efficient and successful. Yet he may have been worried about losing control precisely because Iranian society had known no alternative to arbitrary government but chaos. The story put forward by his daughter, Taj al-Saltaneh, that his assassination was arranged by Amin al-Soltan and his associates who knew that he was determined to inaugurate a constitutional regime immediately after the celebration of his golden jubilee, cannot be taken seriously. Yet there is an insight in her view that the Shah had been mindful of the possible ungovernability of the state if he gave up his arbitrary power.7 At any rate that is what increasingly happened through and after the constitutional revolution. In fact the process began shortly after Naser al-Din’s own death. In Iranian history, rebellion normally began and succeeded at times of crisis, and when the government was weak, divided, and ineffectual. Already, the country had been in a state of crisis for some time, when Naser al-Din’s assassination both demonstrated and exacerbated the extent of the rift between state and society. The new Shah was timid and feeble, and there was a relentless power struggle among courtiers, ministers and state officials. Slowly, the process of disintegration began both at the centre and in the provinces, several years before widespread public agitation started for a reform of the regime. Almost every contemporary source cites ‘the hungry and frustrated Turks’ as quickly setting about to loot the treasury immediately after the arrival of the new Shah from Tabriz. The ‘Turks’ in question were the Azerbaijani and other courtiers, favourites and entourage of Mozaffar al-Din who had endured long years in his service as governor in Tabriz eagerly counting the days for the termination of his father’s long reign.8 They were uncouth and inexperienced, and could influence his decisions much more successfully than the more able and experienced state officials at the centre. The latter in their turn were at loggerheads, and – as usual – engaged in mutually destructive rivalry. At first, Amin al-Soltan was retained as chief minister, but he was quickly dismissed in favour of Amin al-Dawleh. Talebof believed that Amin al-Dawleh could have saved the situation in the interest of both dawlat and mellat, and succeeded in bringing about orderly constitutional reform.9 Perhaps. But in any case he was dismissed after a relatively short period, mainly – some contemporary sources say wholly – because he put a stop to the financial gains and extraordinary powers of the ‘Turks’ as well as many others. He was replaced by his much more cunning and self-interested – but probably also more able – predecessor. And, although he lasted longer than the man whose downfall he had helped, he in turn was replaced by one of the ‘Turks’, the Qajar nobleman (shahzadeh) Ain al-Dawleh, who was unsuited to the management of the growing crisis both within the state and among the people. To show the extent of confusion, chaos and inability to deal with day-to-day matters within the state and government itself long before the onset of the confrontation with society, it would be useful to cite a few examples briefly from two important contemporary sources, both by the same author, which have been 136

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recently published in one volume for the first time, and report on daily events between the new Shah’s succession in 1896 and when the struggle began for an independent judiciary early in 1905. These are the Mer ’at al-Vaqaye‘-e Mozaffari and the Notes and Diaries of Abdolhossein Khan Sepehr. Entitled Malek al-Movarrekhin as well as Lesan al-Saltaneh, the author was no revolutionary hot head. A grandson of the famous Lesan al-Molk, author of Nasekh al-Tavarikh, he was not a political activist, and even dedicated and formally presented the first book to the Shah himself. In 1897 Amin al-Dawleh becomes Vazir-e A‘zam and declares that letters written to him should exclude the customary flattering addresses or he would not read them. Otherwise he would read in toto every letter which he receives. After his fall these practices are discontinued. Later in the year there is unrest among Tehran’s notables, ulama and privileged people because the Vazir plans to cut off their privy purses. Besides, he is very much in control of the seal of his office, does not seal any written order without reading it first, does not grant money to anyone without good reason, pays no attention to the contradictory edicts of the ulama, and to some extent has blocked their ways of making illicit money. Amin al-Soltan, the former Sadr-e A‘zam, is busy promising to reverse all this if he replaces the incumbent. Shortly afterwards this happens.10 Aziz Mirza is a Qajar nobleman and ‘one of the noblest ruffians of Tehran’. Together with his band he causes a great public mischief, and the governor of Tehran – apparently ignorant of his being a shazdeh – has the soles of his feet beaten with a stick. While the governor is watching the beating, Aziz Mirza pulls a ‘revolver’ out of his pocket and fires a bullet which misses him. The governor reports the incident to the Shah and the latter orders them to cut off his hand. This causes unrest among other young shazdehs, the Shah sacks the governor and orders him to pay 600 tomans compensation to the mutilated man, and expels the officer who had arrested him from town.11 In the royal farman for the new grand vazir it is mentioned that ‘he is an expert in the affairs and polteek of the state, be they domestic or foreign’.12 Early in 1899 bread is short in Tabriz. The landlords are suspected of hoarding, there are riots in the city, shops strike, and many people take bast at a shrine. Enemies of Nazem al-Ulama – a leading landlord and religious figure – declare him to be the main culprit. The mob attack his house, and there are a few deaths and injuries. The exceptionally able and respected Hasan Ali Khan Garrusi, the Amir Nezam, twice intervenes and humours the mob and public to relent. Nazem al-Ulama leaves for Tehran. Next day, ‘the hooligans and ruffians’ (ashrar va awbash) attack his house again, and loot and set fire to it. They also attack and loot the homes of his brother and his nephew, the latter of whom is chêf-de-cabinet to the heir designate and governor of Azerbaijan.13 Ain al-Dawleh, Tehran’s governor, receives a regular ‘bribe’ of about 1000 tomans a day from the bakers and butchers. Bread as well as meat are short and expensive. Some women stop the Shah’s and Ain al-Dawleh’s carriages and complain. The governor orders them to be beaten up. There is an on-going 137

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struggle between the chief minister and ‘the Shah’s Turkish lackeys’. Salar al-Dawleh – one of the Shah’s sons and governor of Borujerd and Arabistan (later Khuzistan) – is behaving very unjustly towards the people and families there, and rapes the women. A brother of the Shah who rules Kashan has behaved so unjustly that the people have taken bast in Qom’s shrine. When the Vazir is told that money is so short and injustice so great that the state is about to fall, he answers that he is so busy defending his own position that he has no time to see to these problems. In the following month ‘the Shah’s Turkish lackeys’ together with Ain al-Dawleh are agitating against the Vazir. There is a great shortage of bread in Kashan.14 The governor of Mashhad – a grandson of Fath‘ali Shah – has angered the people so much that they strike and go on the rampage. The governor runs away. The Shah sends 300 troops without success. Then the Shah backs down and sacks the governor. This does not satisfy the people who set fire to his father’s grave. Shortly afterwards they riot again and kill Hajeb al-Tawlieh (one of the town’s rabble). The Russians send word that unless the government quells the unrest they would send troops to protect their subjects. The Shah is frightened, but the Vazir says he is unable to act successfully unless he is given real power. The Shah agrees. This happens when thirty men closest to the Shah have conspired against the Vazir, and he is about to fall. Next month one of the Shah’s sons who was governor of Araq, Golpaigan and Khansar is removed because he has done grave injustice to the people, taking their money, raping their women, and accumulating 100,000 tomans over a short period.15 There are riots in Azerbaijan. They say there should be no Armenians in Tabriz, and the heads of post and customs offices should be Muslim. The ulama of Tabriz are behind ‘the rabble’. The governor of Gilan has died. Some say he has been poisoned. He was a favourite of the Shah and an enemy of the chief minister. Within a short period he made two-and-a-half million tomans. After his death the government orders his house to be sealed off on the ‘pretext that his accounts would have to be investigated’.16 The governor of Fars summons the Qashqa’i chiefs. They refuse, and say if it is for taxes someone should be sent to them and they would pay up. The governor is angered and sends troops against them. They shoot forty of them down, and the government is now helpless against the Qashqa’is.17 The Bakhtiyaris refuse to pay their tax. Mounted troops are sent from Tehran to collect it. They kill a few of them and the rest run away.18 The chief minister, Amin al-Soltan, resigns, and two months later Ain al-Dawleh replaces him.19 ‘The Shah has told those around him that he likes three things in life and regards all other things as worthless: eating, hunting and copulation’.20 A note of obituary for a grandson of Fath‘ali Shah. It said that the late Shah used to have illicit relations with him. When he was governor of Astrabad – later Gorgan – he subdued the rebel Turkamans, and then killed and looted the property of the loyal Turkamans who had helped him subdue the rebels. 138

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As governor of Khamseh he also killed and looted the property of many innocent people. Although the Shah had been told of all this, he was made head of the armed forces and took much of their pay for himself. They say his estate is worth five million tomans.21 Qavam al-Dawleh has become Vazir-e Lashkar despite the fact that the year before he had been publicly flogged and imprisoned, because he has paid 20,000 tomans for the post.22 In Russian Azerbaijan Shi‘as and Armenians have clashed. ‘They say Ingilis-ha have been behind it so as to destroy the Russian government completely’.23 In 1904, a prominent Qajar nobleman quarrels with a merchant over property and seeks the help of Sayyed Abdollah Behbahani whose students beat up the police (farrash), and the nobleman in question breaks the rib of one of them. The heir-designate, Mohammad Ali Mirza, has him brought before himself, personally beats him, orders that the soles of his feet be heavily beaten by a stick, and throws him into jail. Next morning he orders his release, apologises to him, and gives him a ring.24 It is years now that the Lor nomads around Behbahan loot the town people’s property, rape the women and sell the men into slavery at lucrative prices.25 The people of Quchan run away to Akhal over the Russian border to escape from the injustices of local rulers and, being destitute, sell their daughters to Turkamans.26 Political agitation begins in mosques. The sermon of Sayyed Jamal al-Din Isfahani and the activities of Tabataba’i and Behbahani are noted.27 The Russian revolution of 1905 is also noted as is the decision of the Tsar to grant constitutional government. It is described as hokumat-e mashruteh in Persian.28 Vazir Nezam ‘takes for himself’ one toman of the pay of every soldier under him (as a rule they gave the soldiers’ pay to their commanders to distribute among them). The soldiers get together and give him a good beating. The Shah dismisses him and gives his regiment to someone else.29 The Imam Jom‘eh gives the home of a dead prostitute to a prayer leader. The relatives of the deceased complain to the governor of Tehran. The governor sends for the prayer leader, swears at him as well as the Imam Jom‘eh, and restores the property to the beneficiaries of the dead woman. Shaikh Fazlollah Nuri intervenes, but the governor sends him a message full of invectives, saying that he has no authority, is neither the Shah nor the Grand Vazir, and even if the latter likes him he does not.30 A Zoroastrian has had illicit relations with a married sister of the Shah. The governor arrests him but lets him go after he pays 25,000 tomans. The gobetween is also arrested and the soles of his feet are heavily beaten, but he is released after he pays the governor more than a thousand tomans.31 Bread is short and expensive in Tehran. The bakers’ leader (Nanva Bashi) is ordered to be brought before the Grand Vazir and the governor. To frighten him, the Vazir tells the executioner to ‘tear off his belly’, but the governor pretends to intervene on his behalf. Instead, they have the soles of his feet heavily beaten and obtain a pledge that he would solve the bread problem. Next day the price of bread rises even further.32 The next day the famous heavy flogging of the sugar merchants 139

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on the governor’s orders occurs which results in angry public reactions and ends in the bast of many of the leading ulama and their supporters in the shrine of Hazrat-e Abdol‘azim. Malek al-Movarrekhin’s Yaddashtha come to a sudden end with his note on the meeting of the royal council convened on the Shah’s orders to set up an independent judiciary, in which Ehtesham al-Saltaneh – former head of Iran’s legation in Berlin – famously attacks Amir Bahador-e Jang, the Shah’s ‘Turkish lackey’ par excellence, for opposing legal justice.33

An analysis of the revolution Throughout most of this century almost all modern Iranian as well as Soviet analytical assessments of the Constitutional Revolution agreed that it was a bourgeois revolution. This view was held not just by Marxist intellectuals but by the great majority of modern educated Iranians. The only alternative explanation attributed the whole of the movement to a plot by Britain in order to put an end to Russian influence in Iran. This was a popular view among the generations who themselves had supported or participated in the revolution, but had later regretted it partly because their utopian hopes were dashed but mainly as a consequence of the chaos which prevailed and the threat of disintegration which the country faced shortly after their victory celebrations had ended. Not even the fact that after the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 the attitude of the British legation in Tehran became indifferent towards the revolution – to the great dismay if not anger of the revolutionaries and their leaders – seemed to need an explanation by the holders of the conspiracy theory. Their attitude was almost perfectly analogous to that of so many ardent supporters of, and participants in, the revolution of 1977–1979 who later maintained that it had been the work of America, Britain, or both, that the hostage taking of US diplomats in Tehran was engineered by America herself, that America and other Western powers had instigated the Iraq–Iran war, and that the currently running worldwide American campaign against the Islamic government is no more than a camouflage. The fact that the later generations did not advocate the convenient conspiracy theory of their forebears was due to four principal factors: (a) they had little experience of ‘constitutional’ disorder and chaos; (b) they contrasted the aims of the constitutional revolution with the reality of dictatorial or arbitrary regimes under which they lived; (c) they lived at a time when revolutions and revolutionaries were highly respectable in Iran and in many other third world countries; (d) there was the attractive alternative explanation that it was a bourgeois revolution – high sounding, and associated with an ideology which was politically powerful and intellectually stimulating. Marx’s concept of bourgeois revolutions is a product of his theory of (European) history or his historical sociology (of Europe). This in turn was based on his philosophy of social change in the wider sense of the term. The two are 140

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often believed to be synonymous, and this has been another factor in giving rise to the view that Marx’s theory of European history is universal in time and space. The former is universal in scope because – like all such philosophies – it is in the nature of a grand metaphysical conception (the appellation ‘metaphysical’ is not intended as a pejorative term; it defines all universal categories which are inherently untestable, but which may none the less be useful in formulating testable general theories with limited scopes of application; rather like theories of knowledge and epistemological concepts which, too, are both universal and inherently untestable, but may be usefully employed for the construction of specific methods of scientific discovery). In his philosophy of social change, Marx disagreed with Hegel and Hegelians – often described as Idealists – who held the view that ideas alone determined the course of events, and stressed the role of the natural environment, the productive technology and social institutions in influencing individual and social existence. But he also rejected Materialism which denied any independent role for human consciousness – as in Feurbach’s ‘man is what he eats’ – though most of his followers in this century accepted it. The extent of human knowledge and the scope of further discovery at each stage of history was limited because, at every stage, humans set themselves such problems as they could possibly solve. Or, what is the same thing, problems which demanded solutions bore a definite relationship to the changing needs and requirements of human existence. Social and material constraints did not prevent speculation into the nature of any conceivable problem. But when a problem was too abstract, too irrelevant to the contemporary environment, it would be very difficult to resolve satisfactorily; and if somehow (by accident or ultra-genious) it was resolved, it would languish for want of application and would be generally ignored until later, when socioenvironmental relevance would force its being uncovered or rediscovered.34 In this context, Marx drew a distinction between the base (or infrastructure) of a social system – broadly characterised by the state and nature of its existing technological achievements – and the social edifice, or superstructure, that is, the existing social relations, which set the constitution of social, political and legal conduct, and the institutions of public and private morality. There are at least three interpretations of Marx’s theory of social change; one which makes superstructural change a rigid function of basic infrastructural transformations; another which allows superstructural changes (and, in particular, changes in socio-political constitutions and norms of moral behaviour) even on the basis of the existing infrastructure; and a third which regards social change (even including major superstructural changes) as a consequence of the interaction between the basic and superstructural forces.35 The first interpretation – favoured by most twentieth-century Marxists – is due to Engels, Kautsky and their Russian followers, and others who have followed them in their turn and the only clear evidence for it in the works of Marx occurs in an unusually simplistic passage in the preface to his Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). Marx’s own view oscillated between the second interpretation (as in the first volume of Capital, 141

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1864) and the third, as in his earlier works such as The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852, Poverty of Philosophy, 1847, The German Ideology, 1845, and The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844.36 Marx argued that, in their conception of social reality, humans were strongly influenced not only by their personal history and self interest but notably by their social history and class interest. Here he had in mind the independent, functional, classes of European society: classes which were ruled by, but were independent from, the state, and the movement in and out of which was rare and unusual – they were solid, not malleable, social entities. He saw European history as a process of struggle between social classes – masters and slaves, patricians and plebians, feudal lords and serfs, the nobility and the bourgeoisie, industrial capitalists and the proletariat; and their sub-divisions. He cited as his major evidence the revolt of the Spartacist slaves in ancient Rome, the European peasant revolts in the thirteenth century and beyond it, the peasant revolts in sixteenth-century Germany after Luther’s attack on the church of Rome, the English revolutions and civil wars in the seventeenth century, the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and the European revolutions of 1848 which he himself witnessed and supported.37 It was against such empirical and historical evidence from European history and society that he put forward his theory of social change. And he expressly excluded Asiatic societies from this theory of European history because he realized that both the sociology and the pattern of historical change in Asian societies had been fundamentally different from the experience of Europe.38 Marxist analyses of the Constitutional Revolution have run along the following lines. Economic development in the nineteenth century – especially as a result of increasing trade with Russia and Western Europe – led to the growth of an urban bourgeoisie who could not be accommodated within the existing feudal – or ‘semi-feudal’ – system. In the well known Marxist terminology, the forces of production – that is, the combined effects of capital accumulation and technical progress – had developed to the extent that the relations of production (i.e. the prevailing class structure, and the social, legal and moral institutions corresponding to it) could no longer contain them. The resulting conflict between the technological base and the institutional superstructure – in other words, the socio-economic reality and the ideological appearance – eventually manifested itself in a political upheaval for the establishment of a new (and historically relevant) institutional framework. This is a brief and basic statement of a familiar model, for the original formulation of which the French Revolution had supplied much of the empirical data. It has also been used by some historians and sociologists of Iran with some (occasionally significant) qualifications. For example, the adapted versions have tended to put more emphasis on the accumulation of financial as opposed to physical (i.e. industrial) capital in nineteenth-century Iran, or they have considered the political and economic impact of imperialism, and European ideologies, also as important factors. There is no doubt that all such factors among others must be 142

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included in any analysis of the Constitutional Revolution, but the question is whether or not the Marxist model itself would make sense in this case. It has been shown in the author’s earlier studies that Iran was not a feudal society, and that the arbitrary system did not allow the long term accumulation of capital, and investment in expensive and extensive means of industrial production which could not be quickly realised in money form. Apart from these general points, a close statistical and historical study of the Iranian economy in the nineteenth century has not revealed a pattern of development consistent with the above model.39 It is true that the impact of the rise of industry and empire in Europe jolted the Iranian economy out of its traditional equilibrium and opened it up more than before to international trade such that it tended to export cash crops and import manufactured products.40 Apart from that, loss of territory reshaped the map of the country, robbing it (sometimes) of some of its best natural and human resources, diminishing both its productive capacity and its internal market, and reducing its military and political power. Among other things, the process of relative weakening resulted in the preferential tariff treaties which left the economically weak and technologically underdeveloped industry unprotected against the import of both cheap and fashionable machine-made products, which in turn led to a loss of manufactured exports, a shift to primary cash crop production, a possible decline in staple-food production, and a general rise in imports. The balance-of-payments deficit and its inflationary consequences were reinforced, as if by the wrath of God, through a dramatic fall in the international price of silver – on which most of Iran’s money was based – in the last three decades of the century. Meanwhile the slow but fairly steady growth of population tended to depress the general living standards still further.41 There was no significant technical progress in the economic sense of the term. One could even observe economic regress in the sense of loss of traditional knowhow, refined over centuries, without the acquisition of a suitable substitute which – in economic terms – would be at least as useful as the foregone technique. The ‘technical progress’ to which political historians usually point apart from the telegraph network – almost invariably refers to the minority consumption of the products of modern European technology. Likewise, there could not have been any significant increase in the accumulation of financial, and rise in the stock of physical, capital. There are no statistical figures for these important economic categories, but indirect evidence makes it very improbable that there was a significant increase in the stock of financial or physical capital: there had been no progress in the productive technology, both the internal and the external markets for Iran’s manufactured goods had declined, taxes and other distortions had become more and more oppressive, the domestic debasement of the currency coupled with the great fall in the international price of silver had added much force to persistent inflation, and the traditionally high Iranian sense of social and economic uncertainty and insecurity had grown even further in consequence of these and other depressing factors.42 143

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Foreign trade grew and it was a main factor behind the tendency for the concentration as well as centralisation of financial capital. But this was not the same as a substantial growth and accumulation of financial capital; it indicated shifts between different trade sectors as well as different individual merchants. Foreign trade benefited the big merchants, and by increasing their actual fortunes it increased their potential political power at the expense of the state. It also played an important role in weakening the arbitrary system in a number of indirect ways. First, the growing role and influence of imperial powers exposed the weakness of the Iranian state and robbed it of the traditional belief in its omnipotence in dealing with domestic questions. Second, their illicit payments to the Shah and state officials helped weaken the structure of arbitrary rule from within. Third, the greater specialisation in the production and export of raw materials, the relative decline of traditional manufacturing, the use of modern means of communication such as the telegraph, the endemically rising inflationary trends, the crippling deficit in foreign payments and the resulting accumulation of foreign debts, etc., led to a structural change in the economy which the traditional state apparatus could not comprehend, let alone cope with. Mainly through Russia, Britain and France, Europe was exposed to the eyes and ears of Iranians as the magic model of power, prosperity and progress. The intelligentsia, who included many Qajar noblemen and state officials, looked for the key to this great and wonderful secret, and they found it – writ large – as LAW.43 They saw law first as responsible and, especially, orderly government, and later as freedom. It would make private property safe and powerful, official positions less insecure and more responsible, and protect life and limb against arbitrary decisions. And they believed that this alone would turn the country into a powerful and prosperous state. The nature of any revolution may be discerned by an examination of its aims, its supporters, its opponents, and its results. Here, the central objective – indeed the very desideratum and password – was mashruteh, that is, government conditioned by law, before the coining of which the Persianised term ‘qonstitisiyun’ was almost invariably used. Almost all merchants, artisans and shopkeepers, most of the ulama and religious community, many if not most of the landlords and nomadic chieftains, most of the ordinary urban public, and the entire modern intelligentsia either actively or passively supported it. In particular, the triumph of 1909 would not have been possible without the full support of the great religious leaders such as Hajj Mirza Hossein Tehrani, Akhund Mullah Kazem Khorasani, Shaikh Abdollah Mazandarani and others, as well as such powerful landlords and nomadic chieftains as Sepahdar-e (later, Sepahsalar-e) Tonokaboni, Sepahdar-e Rashti, Aliqoli Khan Sardar As‘ad and Najafqoli Khan Samsam al-Saltaneh. What is more revealing, perhaps, is that not a single social class (qua class) resisted the revolution, in total contrast to all the minor as well as major modern European revolutions since the seventeenth century. And the most important achievement of the revolution was mashruteh itself, that is, constitutional government as it had been understood by its campaigners and supporters. It is clear from 144

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all that, that the Constitutional Revolution was not a bourgeois – nor any other European-type – revolution.

A note on the role of the ulama Constitutionalism was a revolt of the (urban) society against the state. Until the recent Iranian revolution there was a strong tendency among the Iranian intelligentsia to regard the ulama as solid supporters of the earlier revolution. Few had heard the name – or little but the name – of Shaikh Fazlollah Nuri, let alone those of Sayyed Abolqasem Imam Jom‘eh, Shaikh Mohammad Amoli, Hajj Aqa Mohsen Araqi, Mirza Hasan Tabrizi and many of the lower ulama (e.g. Shaikh Mohammad Va‘ez and Sayyed Ali Aqa Yazdi) who opposed the movement at its later stages by campaigning for mashru‘eh. Since the early 1980s, on the other hand, there have been radical revisionist tendencies against the previous consensus, and not least in some recent academic studies of the subject.44 It hardly needs emphasising that further studies of the role of the intelligentsia and specific political groups – such as democrats and social democrats – among them are to be welcomed.45 But it would be a misreading of history to underrate the importance of the ulama for the movement and its ultimate victory, especially as the attitude of the urban crowd, the merchants and even landlords was much affected by theirs. Mashru‘eh was a vague term hastily thrown into the argument by Nuri and his followers to describe constitutionalism firmly based on the shari‘eh. It was not a clear political concept as it lacked both form and content as an alternative to constitutional government, and the identification and cooperation of its advocates with the Shah’s arbitrary rule left little credit for them as constitutionalists. The hindsight provided by the present Islamic republic into the thinking of the proponents of mashru‘eh – although not unreasonable – is misleading. It even gives them more credit than they deserve: they were traditionalists who – at best – claimed that they wished to replace arbitrary rule with an authoritarian government based on the shari‘eh while at the same time preserving the existing traditional social framework intact; they were even hysterical about the publication of newspapers. For all its so-called fundamentalism, the Islamic republic is much influenced – even though in a haphazard and disorderly fashion – by modern European ideas and experiences (including the Marxist and the Liberal which it formally denounces) both in its discourse and in its conduct. In a word, past mashru‘eh was traditionalist whereas present Islamism is revisionist. During their bast at the shrine of Hazrat-e Abdol‘azim, Nuri and his followers issued a number of statements, some of which have survived in photographed copies and shed much light on their position, exposing their fears and forebodings about the consequences of mashruteh’s triumph. They are full of propagandist diatribes about Jewish men raping Muslim boys and women, allowing ‘a bunch of Zoroastrians’ to enter a mosque, forcing the religious leaders to attend a meeting in the company of Frankish women (madamha-ye farangan), the conspiracies of 145

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Babis and atheists, and more of the same.46 Yet they contain the essentials of their views and show that they were much more concerned about the application of modern European culture than the mere abolition of arbitrary government. In one of these Layehahs which they describe as ‘an account of the views of … Hajj Shaikh Fazlallah … and the other migrants to the sacred shrine’ they say that ‘a year ago an idea was introduced from Europe that in any state where the Shah, ministers and governors could do what they like (beh del-bekhah-e khod) to the people, the government is the source of injustice, transgression and plunder; that [in such a country] there could be no prosperity, and that the inevitable persistence of the people’s poverty would result in the country’s loss of independence …’ Therefore: The people should combine and ask the Shah to change the arbitrary rule (saltanat-e delkhahaneh) … and enter a contract so that, from then onwards, the Shah and his officials would strictly abide by that contract … They called that arbitrary rule – in the current parlance – saltanat-e estebdadi, and this contractual rule saltanat-e mashruteh.47 The ulama then got together and agreed that the country’s decline was due to ‘the lawlessness and unaccountability of the state’, and that therefore there should be a popular consultative assembly to pass laws which would define the duties and limit the powers of governmental departments. No sooner had the Majlis been convened, however, than ideas began to circulate about the necessity of changing and improving some of the less fundamental shari‘eh laws, and adapting them to contemporary needs and requirements, such as … the education of women and the founding of schools for girls, and the usage of funds hitherto used for rawzeh-khani and pilgrimage of sacred shrines for investment in factories and the paving of roads and streets, and in constructing railways and acquiring European industries … 48 After a long diatribe against the Anarshists, the Nehilists, the Sosialists, the Natooralists, the Babists, and – in particular – the clever machinations of the latter two groups in Iran, they list their demands as follows: (a) The word mashru‘eh should be added to mashruteh in the constitution; (b) It should be stated in the constitution that all legislation would have to be vetted by a group of the ulama who would be especially chosen by the leading Maraji‘ and no-one else; (c) The articles of the constitution such as that which declared the ‘absolute freedom of all publications’ and was suitably amended by the ulama be revised and made consistent with the shari‘eh.49 It follows from this statement that they were opposed to such modernising policies as the education of women, and the encouragement of saving and investment for economic development instead of contributing funds for such religious 146

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purposes as those mentioned by the statement; and that they were afraid of the adaptation and modernisation of the less basic shari‘eh rules, and fearful even of such things – which they described as farangi – as shouting ‘long live’, displaying fireworks, and inviting foreign emissaries in the company of their wives to be present, at the official ceremony of the first anniversary of the issuance of the farman for constitutional government. The strong fear – arising from a total sense of alienation and lack of self-confidence – of an imminent onslaught of a wholly strange culture, and of losing their entire grip – becoming outmoded and dépassé – is evident from this as well as their other texts, and it was probably no less – if not more – potent than all the other factors in shaping their hostility towards their opponents. The statements mentioned above were issued before the Shah’s coup when Nuri and his followers were on the defensive. After the Shah ordered his violent coup which led to the bombardment and closure of the Majlis, he appointed a council of the state. The council which included a number of state dignitaries, Qajar noblemen, Nuri, Imam Jom‘eh and other ulama of their persuasion, addressed a letter to the Shah begging him to disband ‘the public [omumi] consultative assembly’ which it described as being ‘contradictory with the rules of Islam’. The Shah wrote in the margin of the petition that ‘now that you have declared that the Majlis contradicts Islamic rules … we too have decided totally against it, and such a Majlis will not be heard of again, but – under the guidance of the Lord of the Time … we shall give the necessary orders for the extension of justice’.50 It will appear from this as well as from what followed in practice that – whatever Nuri’s real convictions may have been, and despite his proclamations in favour of mashruteh-ye mashru‘eh before the coup – he was all in favour of disbanding mashruteh itself as a price of preventing modernization. No wonder that the great Maraji‘ at Najaf, led by the formidable Akhund-e Khorasani, went on the offensive with unprecedented energy and vehemence.51 And it was from these quarters that the reply to the theoretical statements of Nuri and his followers came. Two articles written by a Najaf Mojtahed, Mohammad Isma‘il G’haravi ye Mahallati – and confirmed and countersigned, the first one by the Akhund, and the second one by him and Shaikh Abdollah Mazandarani (Hajj Mirza Hosain Najl-e Mirza Khalil-e Tehrani had recently died) – may be seen as a direct reply to the views put out by Nuri and his associates quoted above, as well as a refutation of the arguments put forward by the Shah and his state council for abolishing constitutional government. The first and shorter article argues that the meaning of mashruteh is that the Shah and the government would be bound by written laws (qavanin-e mazbut), in contrast to estebdadi monarchy and government which means government based on the arbitrary (khodsari) ‘decisions, passions and whims’ of the Shah. This system has been responsible for the country’s decline such that it is even in danger of losing its independence. Therefore ‘given the necessities and requirements of our time’ there is no choice other than the 147

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election by the people of their representatives to establish laws within whose limits the Shah and the government would run the country’s affairs.52 The second article is much in the same spirit, but longer and more elaborate: Statements have been put out in Tehran claiming that mashruteh and the existence of a popular consultative assembly contravene the Islamic faith and the rules of the Qur’an. As a result, the state has seized this false pretext and declared that what is against the Qur’an will never be established in the Islamic realm of Iran … But those who are familiar with mashruteh and its implications realise that this slander and defamation is but a pretext for the destruction of the country and the abolition of the rights of the Muslim people. Otherwise, there is no conflict between Islam and the Qur’an, on the one hand, and the limitation of governmental power, on the other. This is in conflict only with personal interests [of the ruler] and is vehemently opposed to the destruction of the peoples’ lives, property and dignity.53 The article goes on to elaborate these points, forcefully and at some length, until it produces a mature and sophisticated description of constitutional government which most of the contemporaries and later generations did not fully manage to absorb: The meaning of freedom in constitutional states is not absolute licence, which would permit everyone to do what they like to the point of violating the lives, property and dignity of others. Such a thing has never existed and will never exist in any community of human beings, as it would result in none other than absolute disruption and general anarchy in the affairs of the people. On the contrary, the meaning of freedom is the liberty of the general public from arbitrary and unaccountable government by force, so that no powerful individual – i.e. the Shah – could use his power even against the least powerful member of the community, and impose anything on him except that which is permitted by the law of the land, and before which all the people – be they Shah or beggar – would be equal. And freedom in this sense is a rational precept and one of the pillars of the Islamic faith.54 Two points are worthy of emphasis here: (a) the explicit definition of liberty as freedom from arbitrary rule, which – as will be argued below – was the interchangeable concept of both law and freedom implicitly held by all; and (b) the distinction between liberty and licence in a constitutional regime which, at least in practice, many if not most of those who were both for and against mashruteh did not make. Although no countrywide statistics are available, it would be hard to deny that the majority of the ulama and the faithful sided with constitutionalism even after Nuri raised his banner against the first Majlis. The role of the 148

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Sayyedain – Behbahani and Tabataba’i – in Tehran was very important, but the uncompromising defence of the Majlis and the constitution by the great ulama in Najaf was perhaps indispensable, especially after the Shah’s coup against them. They went as far as describing Nuri as a Mofsed, adding that his activities and intervention in religious affairs were against Islamic law (haram).55 And in response to the Shah’s humble pleadings to them that he was not anti-constitutionalist, they wrote him increasingly hostile and aggressive letters which contained subtle hints at the possibility of declaring jahad against him. Much space and arguments on the role of the ulama at the later stages of the struggle would be saved by posing the following hypothetical question: what would have been the consequences for the movement had the Najaf ulama – rather than giving total and unequivocal support to the constitutionalists in the civil war – issued a statement along the following lines? As from now constitutionalism is haram and equal to waging war against The Imam of the Time. Two aspects of the revisionist view of the Constitutional Revolution must be taken more seriously: the personal motives of some individuals among the constitutionalist ulama; and the general conception of the religious community and leadership of the meaning and implications of constitutionalism. It has been said that some religious leaders were self-seeking and even corrupt. No apologies whatever are intended, but it would be necessary to examine the material relevance of the issue itself. It is doubtful if many of the constitutionalists – divines, merchants, landlords or modern intellectuals – were completely selfless and puritanical in their personal motives, and that only some of those among the religious leaders of the movement were tainted with corrupt practices in the wider sense of the term. Through the French Revolution to the present time only Robespierre has earned the title of the Incorruptible as a leader of that great event, although his extreme perfectionism and puritanism had disastrous consequences for that revolution and its incorruptible leader. Not even Mirabeau and Danton – let alone the likes of Fouché and Barras – managed to pass that test, though no one would deny that at least the former two were earnest in their revolutionary professions.56 Humans are not – and do not become – either Good or Evil simply because they support one or the other side of a revolution. That has been determined already by their psychology and morality, whichever side they decide to be on. The political test is decided by the side on which they are found, not by probing deeply into their personal morals and values, although this would be pertinent for a further understanding of themselves and their political biography. To take up the example of an important non-religious constitutionalist leader, Malkam Khan has been charged with selfish and corrupt motivation.57 The point however is that he chose not to be selfish and corrupt on the side of arbitrary rule. 149

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As for the second point – that the religious leadership and community lacked a clear or even ‘correct’ understanding of what constitutionalism would involve for the society – we are once again in a basically familiar situation in any such movement. In the English revolution and civil wars the vision of the Presbyterians for what was to replace the absolutist monarchy was different from that of the Independents, much as theirs was from the aspirations of the Levellers and the Diggers. Such conflicts of opinion were by no means unimportant or irrelevant; but they go beyond the fact that all of these parties were opposed to absolutist monarchy.58 Much the same argument may be used in the case of the constitutional monarchist (Feuillant), the Federalist (Girondin), the Plain (centrist Jacobin) and the Mountain (left Jacobin) parties of the French Revolution.59 The ulama of the Constitutional Revolution opposed arbitrary rule and were in favour of constitutional government for both practical and theoretical reasons which they seem to have understood well. But their vision of the future clearly was not the same as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani’s nationalist Europeanism, Taqizadeh’s radical democratic Europeanism, and Haidar Khan’s Marxist idealism. None of their visions ultimately stood the test of the time. And although there were misconceptions about law, freedom, constitutionalism, democracy and modernisation, they were by no means unique to any particular group or party.

Constitutionalism and chaos The constitution of 1906 did not end the ancient sense of alienation of the society from the state – of mellat from dawlat; it simply gave it a respectable legal definition and institutional dressing. This point has been discussed extensively in the author’s works cited in the references. Here, it is intended to show that the roots of the problem lay in the period before the complete triumph of the revolution itself, and that the civil war and even the fall of Mohammad Ali could have been avoided had there been a realistic understanding of European constitutionalism among all the main parries concerned. Although it was seldom understood by any of the protagonists, their concepts of law and freedom – beyond an independent judiciary and responsible government – were different from those which had developed in Europe. In fact they were strongly influenced by the culture of the ancient arbitrary society itself. The original concept of freedom in Europe had meant freedom from law, including entrenched and apparently eradicable social traditions and customs. The ‘individualist’ theories and movements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were opposed to the extensive as well as discriminatory laws and traditions which governed the society and the economy. They were not opposed to law. They were against absolutist government and the extent of state interference in the society and economy, and were in favour of the individual’s right to the pursuit of his own interest as well as equality before the law.60 John Stuart Mill later formulated their concepts of law and freedom succinctly as the freedom to pursue one’s 150

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interest to the extent that it would not deprive others of the freedom to do the same.61 Still later, Isaiah Berlin described their concept as ‘the negative concept of liberty’.62 The eventual triumph of the movements (in Europe) for negative freedom and politico-judicial equality before the law, exposed their limitations for the social and economic rights of the property-less classes, and led to demands for new laws – or social legislation – to protect their rights, and enable them, too, to benefit from the fruits of legal equality and individual freedom. Harold Laski later summarised their concept of liberty as the freedom to ‘realize one’s best self’.63 Still later, Berlin described their concept as ‘the positive concept of liberty’.64 Both socialists and anarchists campaigned for it: the socialists, in different ways, tried to use the state, and the anarchists hoped to replace the state with popular administration, in pursuit of that goal. Iran’s constitutionalists – and especially the radical democrats among them – saw no conflict between law and freedom. Indeed, they virtually identified one with the other because they saw them both as freedom, but also their concept of law was negative in so far as it meant the removal, rather than active application and imposition, of something else; that is, law meant the absence of arbitrary rule and little besides. In practical terms this was consistent with the ancient dialectic in Iranian society between mellat and dawlat, and the periodic cycle of arbitrary government – rebellion and chaos – arbitrary government throughout its history. Down to the present days such notions of freedom, democracy and law are still much the most dominant among Iranians both in and out of the country, and not least in the modern educated communities, including those who favour as well as those who dislike western democracy.65 Once the constitution was granted and the Majlis elected, the confrontation was transferred from the streets, mosques and madresehs, sacred shrines and foreign legations to the first Majlis, for two inter-related reasons: the extensive powers which the constitution had granted to the legislature, leaving little for the task of governing the realm by the executive; and the persistence of the ancient suspicion and alienation between state and society. There still was no politics and therefore no room for compromise. The Majlis was literally described as ‘The Peoples’ House’ (Khaneh-ye Mellat), and the implications of this for the relationship between the state and society were the same as had existed under arbitrary government. The state was still held with great suspicion as an alien force; and the popular understanding was that the Majlis was the countervailing power to the Executive whose only role and function was to carry out the wishes of the Majlis on both minor and major matters for running the country. In effect the Majlis was both the legislature and the executive, and the Executive was at best seen as the equivalent of a European civil service. Yet the Majlis itself was divided among many irreconcilible trends and tendencies whose only common cause was to assert its right to total power. The only prominent and popular leader of the revolution whose motives could not be doubted and who grasped the problem well and spoke his mind openly about it 151

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was Abd al-Rahim Talebof. He declined his election to the first Majlis because he felt that the turn of events was different from that which a few enlightened intellectuals like himself had intended. After Mirza Ali Akbar Khan Qazvini (later Dehkhoda) had gone to Istanbul in the wake of the Shah’s coup, he wrote to Talebof seeking his assistance in resurrecting Sur Esrafil outside the country. Talebof reacted in anger and frustration to this revolutionary attitude and behaviour, although he was still emotionally sympathetic towards the sufferings of the revolutionaries: I hope that Iranian emigrants would soon go back and, instead of fighting and killing, work along the line of moderation … It is wondrous that in Iran they are supposedly fighting for the freedom of thoughts and ideas and yet no-one cares about another person’s views, and if someone expresses [independent] views he would be treated as if he had committed a capital offence … And the charge is brought by those who … neither have intellect nor knowledge nor experience; all they have is guns.66 Does Dehkhoda remember, he goes on to add, that Talebof had written to him wondering ‘what kind of animal is Tehran to be able to deliver a hundred and twenty [political] societies in a single night?’67 I am seventy-one and have known Iran for fifty years. What lunatic would try to erect a building without the aid of a builder; what madman would call up a builder without providing the material; what insane person would expect a change of the Iranian regime overnight? 68 He goes on to ask what prophet could possibly put the country on the path of incredibly rapid progress that ‘Hossein the Clothier or Mohsen the Taylor’ … were supposed to be doing. The letter is long and very instructive about the clash of subjective ideals and objective realities almost in any revolution. But his words addressed to a Tabriz newspaper were more specifically applicable to the case of Iran, turned out to be prophetic, and reveal his instinctive insight into the working of not just the arbitrary state but the arbitrary society as well: Up until now Iran was captive to the double-horned bull of arbitrary government, but from now on – if it does not succeed in bringing order to itself – it will be struck by the thousand-horn ox of the rabble and the mob. I openly declare that I see this as being inevitable.69 The assassination of Atabak is perhaps the clearest example of the refusal of both sides to compromise, that is, not to be satisfied with any outcome other than the complete elimination of the other side as a political force. The rejection of 152

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the principle of compromise is a clear sign of the persistence of pre-politics as discussed in the author’s works cited in note 1 of the references to this chapter. On the one hand, it indicates a state of distrust between the conflicting parties; on the other hand, it shows their willingness either to win or to lose completely and at any cost. This has been a persistent pattern in twentieth-century Iranian politics down to our own time when on almost every occasion compromise has been denounced as sazeshkari which is regarded as little short of surrender and betrayal.70 The plot to assassinate Atabak has not yet been fully uncovered. Both the radicals and the Shah’s men were around, in and out of the Majlis, on that fateful night. The balance of probability is that Abbas Aqa – the agent of the revolutionary Secret Committee (Anjoman-e Ghaibi) – fired at the chief minister, although it is not clear whether he then turned the gun on himself or was shot by his own comrades as part of a cover up. But there can be little doubt that both parties wanted Amin al-Soltan out of the way because any settlement reached by him – which was likely to have the backing of both Russia and Britain – would have been short of the maximum demands of either party. This was as true of the Shah as of Haidar Khan (Amu-oghlu), the leading Secret Committee activist in making and throwing bombs; but it was also true of many who were a good deal less radical than them.71 And it is not as if Atabak’s survival would have seen the end of the problem even if he had managed to put a package together which the two uncompromising parties somehow would have felt obliged to accept, just as any agreement reached by Mosaddeq short of the ideal over the oil dispute would have been condemned as a sell out, and any compromise in the revolution of 1977–1979 would have been described as a betrayal by bourgeois liberals, committed on the orders of their foreign masters, by most of those who later criticised democratic leaders for accepting the leadership of the radicals despite their own grave misgivings. Atabak was unpopular, and he was not trusted either by the constitutionalists or by the radicals. But there were others with much better credentials among political and revolutionary leaders who were trying to arrange a compromise along basic constitutionalist principles. Men like Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Naser al-Molk and Behbahani – even, to a lesser extent, Mostawfi al-Mamalek, Moshir al-Dawleh and Mo’tamen al-Molk – still look dull, grey and even suspicious, in the annals of Iranian historiography, on account of their conciliatory attitudes and their attempts at forging a compromise, although there can be no doubt about their commitment to the general principles of constitutional government. The Shah did not want a compromise so long as he hoped to crush the movement; the radicals responded in like manner by attacking him and his family with unprintable verbal abuse, even to the point of publicly accusing his mother – daughter of Amir Nezam (Amir Kabir) – of highly promiscuous behaviour;72 and the crowds were, as usual, loud and hysterical. And when at long last the Shah saw no alternative but to sue for a compromise solution before the battle of Tehran, the radicals would accept no accommodation 153

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short of his removal (khal‘) from the throne. Once again we may be reminded of events of an Iranian revolution which is much closer to living memory. Decades later, Taqizadeh had confided his deep regrets to a close friend for his insistence that there should be no solution short of the Shah’s dismissal at that historic moment. No wonder that he of all the commentators praised Behbahani – in his memoirs – in great admiration, especially emphasising the latter’s political insight and courage.73

Concluding remarks The Constitutional Revolution was basically in the long line of historic revolts by the Iranian society against the ancient arbitrary state. To a different degree, all the urban classes participated in the revolution and not even a single social class (qua class) fought against it. In this case, however, there was a specific and very important difference which was due to what had been learnt from the experience of Europe: the revolution was fought not just against a particular arbitrary regime but specifically against the arbitrary system itself; that is, for law and – what was meant to be almost the same thing – freedom. As in previous Iranian revolts, it occurred when the state was very weak and the ruler feeble and incompetent so that the arbitrary government’s minimum but vital traditional function of maintaining physical order and security was being rapidly eroded. Yet, despite its modern European trimmings, the consequences of the revolution were more in line with the traditional clash of dawlat and mellat – of unaccountable government and ungovernable society – so that neither side was prepared to reach a modus vivendi (let alone a modus operandi) along the lines of constitutional governments in Europe. The result was a war of elimination in which the revolutionaries triumphed. But the age-old problem of rift between the government and the governed continued such that – among large sections of the society – qanun came to mean little but liberty, and liberty was seldom distinguished from licence. No wonder that constitutionalism did not last for more than fifteen years during which it looked increasingly unlikely that the country would last at all.

Notes and references 1 See H. Katouzian, ‘Problem of political development in Iran: democracy, dictatorship or arbitrary government?’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, (22)4, 1995 (reprinted in this volume); Estebdad, Demokrasi Va Nehzat-e Melli (London and Tehran, 1993/1372), especially chs 1 and 5; ‘Arbitrary rule: a theory of state, politics and society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, (24)1, 1997 (reprinted in this volume); ‘The aridisolatic society: a model of long term social and economic development in Iran’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, July 1983 (reprinted in this volume); The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York, 1981), especially chs 2–5. For a detailed description of events in the specific case of the collapse of the Safavid state, see Lawrence Lockhart, The Fall of the Safavid Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge, 1958); Nadir Shah (London, 1938).

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2 The picture in question has been published in Denis Wright, The Persians amongst the English: Episodes in Anglo-Persian History (London, 1985). 3 When he had decided to back down, he wrote in his first letter to Hajj Mirza Hasan Mojtahed-e Ashtiyani: ‘As for the tobacco question, no-one is infallible, and – among human beings – perfect knowledge belongs to the pure person of our prophet, peace be unto him. There are times when one takes a decision which he later regrets. Just on this tobacco business I had already thought of withdrawing the domestic monopoly … such that they would not be able to complain and ask for a large compensation and, at the same time, the people be rid of the European monopoly of internal trade which was truly harmful. We were about to take action when the edict (hokm) of Mirza-ye Shirazi … was published in Isfahan and gradually reached Tehran … Would it not have been better if you had petitioned us – either individually or collectively – to withdraw the monopoly … without all the noise and the stopping (tark) of qalian’. See Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, ed., Sa‘idi Sirjani (Tehran, 1362/1983), pp. 22–39. 4 After Sepahsalar-e Qazvini submitted his draft constitution to the Shah for the creation of a responsible Council of Ministers, the Shah wrote beneath it: ‘Jenab-e Sadr-e A‘zam: I very much approve of this account which you have written concerning the Council of Ministers. With God’s blessings make the necessary arrangements and put it into action soon, since any delay would mean a loss to the state’. Quoted in Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1360/1981), p. 123. See also Mostashar al-Dawleh’s death-bed letter to the heir-designate, Mozaffar al-Din Mirza, in Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, pp. 172–7. See Feraidun Adamiyat, Fekr-e Ejtema‘i-ye Demokrasi dar Nehzat-e Mashrutiyat-e Iran (Tehran, 1354/1975). 5 See Abdolhossein Nava’i, ed., Sharh-e Hal-e Abbas Mirza Molk Ara (Tehran, 1361/1982), p. 175, emphasis added. 6 See Abdolhossein Nava’i, Iran va Jahan, vol. 2 (Tehran: 1369/1990). 7 See Khaterat-e Taj al-Saltaneh, eds Mansureh Ettehadiyeh and Sirus Sa‘dvandiyan (Tehran, 1362/1983). She quotes her stepmother, Anis al-Dawleh (p. 60) that – shortly before his fateful visit to Hazrat-e Abdol ‘azim – the Shah had told her that, after the golden jubilee celebrations, ‘I would abolish the [land] tax, establish a consultative assembly, and call for elected deputies from the provinces. I don’t think that my assassination would serve the ra‘iyat’s interest’. E‘temad al-Saltaneh, who died before the Shah, thought that Amin-al Soltan was disloyal towards his master (see, Ruznameh-ye Khaterat-e E‘temad al-Saltaneh, ed. Iraj Afshar, Tehran, 1350/1971). The two men were great enemies to the extent that when the former died, Atabak and Hajj Amin al-Zarb were accused of having arranged his death by a Florentine technique. See, for example, Khan Malek-e Sasani, Siyasatgaran-e Dawreh-ye Qajar (Tehran, n.d., date of the preface, 1338/1959), and Abdolhossein Nava’i, Iran va Jahan, vol. 2, who goes on to add that they then contacted Mirza Reza to prepare for the assassination of the Shah. The allegations cannot be taken seriously and are typical of Iranian conspiracy theories. See Khaterat-e Siyasi-ye Mirza Ali Khan-e Amin al-Dawleh, ed. Hafez Farmanfarmanyan (Tehran, 1370/1991). 8 Two very good contemporary sources on the ‘Turks’ are Khaterat-e Taj al-Saltaneh and Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh (S.M. Musavi, ed., Tehran, 1367/1988) although rarely does a contemporary source omit to mention them and their deeds. 9 After Amin al-Dawleh’s death, Talebof wrote in a private letter: ‘God immerse him in his blessings. It is extremely sad that he is not alive now to end the problem of our lack of statesmanship. A long time would have to pass before anyone of his calibre could emerge …’ See Yaghma, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 179. 10 Yaddasht-ha-ye Malek al-Movarrekhin va Mer’at al-Vaqaye‘-e Mozaffari, Abdolhossein Nava’i, ed. (Tehran, 1368/1989). See Mer’at, pp. 127–247. It is worth emphasizing that evidence of increasing disorder and chaos may be found in almost all contemporary

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36

37

sources and the sources written later by and with first-hand experience of the events. Indeed, in his voluminous memoirs Abdollah Mostawfi occasionally refers to the period between the turn of the twentieth century and the coup d’état of 1921 as ‘the twenty-year chaos’. Here we shall cite the evidence from Malek al-Movarrekhin’s two books because they have almost just come to light, they cover the years immediately before the onset of the revolution, and they have systematically recorded the events at the time of their happening. For corroborating evidence, see for example, Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man …, vol. 2 & 3 (Tehran, 1360/1981); Yahya Dawlat-Abadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vols. 3 & 4 (Tehran, 1372/1992); Hajj Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat va Khatarat (Tehran, 1363/1984); Khaterat-ce Ehtesham al-Saltaneh. Ibid., p. 267. Ibid., p. 270. Ibid., pp. 306–7. See Yaddasht-ha, pp. 20–2. Ibid., pp. 23–6. Ibid., pp. 26–7. Ibid., pp. 27–8. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., pp. 30–2. Ibid., p. 92. Ibid., pp. 102–3. Ibid., p. 113. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 184. Ibid., p. 231. Ibid., p. 241. Ibid., pp. 251–2. Ibid., p. 260. Incidentally this should end speculation about whether or not the term mashruteh had had currency before the constitution was granted. The traditional term, of course, was qonstitisiyun. This became a matter of dispute between Mohammad Ali Shah and the Majlis when the former insisted that his father’s farman which he too had endorsed at the time had specifically granted qonstitisiyun not mashruteh. See, for example, Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Gozaresh-e Iran: Qajariyeh va Mashrutiyat, Tehran, 1363/1984) who had told the Shah that the former term could have a more radical meaning than the latter. Ibid., p. 269. Ibid., p. 271. Ibid., pp. 271–2. Ibid., p. 273. See Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh, Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, and Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran (Tehran, 1346/1967). See, among other sources, Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, second edition (London, 1955). W.A. Kaufman, Hegel (New York, 1957); and From Shakespeare to Existentialism (New York, 1960). David McLellan, Young Hegelians and Karl Marx (London, 1969). Bertrand Russell, Philosophy and Politics (Cambridge, 1947). See Homa Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics (London and New York, 1980), pp. 151–2. See, for example, Friedrich Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science: AntiDühring, C.P. Dutt (ed.) (London, 1943); Dialectics of Nature (Moscow, 1964); Nikkoli Bukharin, Historical Materialism (New York, 1928); Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (London, 1941). See, for example, Homa Katouzian, Ideology and Method in Economics. George Lichtheim, Marxism (London, 1962). J. Plamenatz, German Marxism and Russian

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38

39 40 41 42 43

44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55 56 57

Communism (London, 1954). I. Berlin, Karl Marx (Oxford, third edition, 1963); D. McLellan, Karl Marx (London, 1973). The more important primary references are to be found in Marx’s contributions to the American newspaper Daily Tribune in the 1850s, and his brief analytical classification of societies in the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). For detailed bibliographical references, see P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974); and K. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957). See H. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, ch. 2, text as well as the appendix. See, ibid., Tables 3.2–3.8. The structural change in favour of primary production and exports, and against manufacturing, may be seen particularly from Table 3.7. For the extent and effects of debasement, depreciation, inflation, etc., see, ibid., text as well as Tables 3.2–3.5. For detailed analysis and evidence, see ibid. They were many among the nobles and notables who raised the issue of law and responsible government before younger middle class intellectuals stepped in, including Abbas Mirza Molk Ara, Sepahsalar-e Qazvini, Malkam Khan, Mostashar al-Dawleh, Amin al-Dawleh, E‘temad al-Saltaneh, Sa‘d al-Dawleh, Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Sani‘al-Dawleh and Ehtesham al-Saltaneh. For an especially uncompromising academic example of the revisionist account see Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution, Shi‘ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909. Vanessa Martin has examined the new view against the evidence and found that about two-thirds of the ulama supported constitutional government. See her Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (London, 1989). However, as will be seen in the text below, no-one but Nuri among the mashru‘eh supporters could compete qualitatively even with Behbahani and Tabataba’i, let alone the great ulama at Najaf. For a very recent study of the role of democrats, women, etc., Janet Afari, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism. (New York, 1996). See Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran, pp. 415–23. Ibid., pp. 415–16. Ibid., pp. 416–17. Ibid., pp. 432–8. See Nazem al-Islam-e Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, pp. 241–3. See their numerous statements, their correspondence with the ulama in Iran, and their aggressive and uncompromising letters to the Shah himself in Kasravi’s Tarikh-e Mashruteh and Nazem al-Islam’s Tarikh-e Bidari. Here is a small sample from the latter (Tarikh-e Bidari, vol. 2, p. 214) quoted from a telegram by Tehrani, Khorasani, and Mazandarani to Behbahani, Tabataba’i and Afjeh’i: ‘Now we openly declare [to all the armed forces] that following orders, and shooting at the people and the supporters of the Majlis is the same as taking orders from Yazid son of Mo ‘avieh, and is a negation of Islam’. See, ibid., pp. 365–71. Ibid., pp. 365–71. Ibid., pp. 367–71. For the full fatva, see H. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, p. 64. See, for example, R. Korngold, Robespierre (London, 1937). A. Valentin, Mirabeau, Voice of The Revolution (London, 1948). Sir Llewelyn Woodward, French Revolutions (Oxford, 1965). See Hamid Algar, Mirza Malkam Khan, A Study in the History of Iranian Modernism (Berkeley, 1973). Many contemporary sources are – at times highly – uncomplimentary about Malkam Khan’s ethics; see, for example, Khaterat-e Ehtesham al-Saltaneh.

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58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72

According to E‘temad al-Saltaneh, Reuter had paid large bribes to Sepahsalar-e Qazvini and Malkam – among others – for obtaining the Reuter Concession. See Javad Shaikholeslami, ‘Emtiyaz-e Este ‘mari-ye Reuter’ in Qatl-e Atabak va Shanzdah Maqaleh-ye Tahqiqi-ye Digar (Tehran, 1367/1988). See, for example, C.V. Wedgewood, The King’s Peace, 1637–1641 (London, 1955); The King’s War, 1641–1647 (London, 1958); The Trial of Charles I (London, 1964). Christopher Hill, The English Revolution (London, 1955); The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (London, 1988). See, for example, the sources mentioned in note (56), above, as well as Leo Gershoy, The Era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) (Princeton, 1957); From Despotism to Revolution (New York, 1963). The most famous of them are some of the leading social contract theorists such as John Locke, and liberal economists such as Adam Smith, David Hume and the French Physiocrats. See, in particular, his famous essay, On Liberty (London, 1938). I. Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford, 1959). H. Laski, A Grammar of Politics (London, 1963). See I. Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty. See H. Katouzian, ‘Demokrasi, Diktatori va mas’uliyyat-e Mellat’ in Estebdad, Demokrasi va Nehzat-e Melli. See Yahya Ariyanpur, Az Saba ta Nima, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1351/1972), pp. 289–90. Ibid., p. 290. Ibid. Ibid., p. 291. See H. Katouzian, Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York, 1990); ‘Introduction’ to Musaddiq’s Memoirs, ed. H. Katouzian (London, 1988); and The Political Economy of Modern Iran. Of the contemporary sources, Hajj Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Khaterat va Khatarat, and Gozaresh-e Iran: Qajariyeh va Mashrutiyat) believed that Atabak had been murdered by the Shah’s hatchet men – Movaqqar al-Saltaneh, Mafakher al-Molk and Modabber alSoltan – who were certainly around when the Majlis adjourned on that fateful night; Dawlat Abadi (Hayat-e Yahya, vol. 2), points out that the Shah did not want Atabak and hints that he may have been planning to have him assassinated, but still believes that Abbas Aqa was the sole assailant; Nazem al-Islam, too (Tarikh-e Bidari, vol. 2), says that Arshad al-Dawleh was intent on arranging Atabak’s assassination on behalf of the Shah when Abbas Aqa relieved him of the task. Of the later historians, Kasravi (Tarikh-e Mashruteh) insists that it was the work of the young revolutionary and none other, although he too is aware of the Shah’s dislike of Atabak; Shaikholeslami (‘Majera-ye Qatl-e Atabak’ in Qatl-e Atabak va Shanzdah Maqaleh-ye Tahqiqi-ye Digar) also believes that it was the work of the young man and the secret committee behind him but emphasises – along Nazem al-Islam’s line – that the Shah, too, was intent on ridding himself of Atabak. The argument between him and Taqizadeh over this subject has been published in full, where the latter has emphatically and categorically denied any previous knowledge of the assassination of Atabak, and – somewhat unconvincingly – added that he even disapproved of it when it happened. Kasravi (Tarikh-e Mashruteh) cites some evidence of the personal attacks on the Shah published in Sayyed Mohammad Reza Shirazi’s newspaper Mosavat (a direct translation of the French Revolution slogan égalité), and says that when the Shah turned to the courts for protection, The Sayyed refused to answer the summons of the court and published a special issue making fun of it. Kasravi the moralist has the better of Kasravi the revolutionary when he comments (pp. 593–5) that ‘if some in the ranks of the freedom party deserved to be killed this man was the first among them’. He does

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however mention that not even Sur Esrafil was immune from this kind of transgression. For obscene personal attacks on the Shah see also Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye Man, vol. 2, p. 258. 73 See Zendegi-ye Tufani-ye Taqizadeh, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1368/1989). Taqizadeh probably did not know of the plan to assassinate Behbahani before the event, but it is not very likely that he regretted it when it happened. His own later development into a sophisticated modern politician earned him the suspicion and distrust of all the main parties, and that – as he had told Iraj Afshar in his old age – must have reminded him of his own radical idealism as a leader of the Constitutional Revolution.

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9 THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE ANGLO-IRANIAN AGREEMENT OF 1919 1

If there is one point on which almost every shade of Iranian political opinion – pro-Qajar, pro-Pahlavi, conservative, liberal, democrat, Marxist– Leninist and Islamist – has agreed, it is the view that the 1919 Agreement had been designed by the British government to turn Iran into a British protectorate. This was not merely a product of the famous conspiracy theory. It was the consequence of the fact that Curzon, Cox, Vosuq and his two colleagues had conducted the negotiations for the Agreement in total secrecy, British money had been paid for ‘oiling the wheels’, and they defended it in complete disregard for both Iranian public opinion, and the ‘jealousies and suspicions’ of the other world powers. In fact, Curzon had pushed through the Agreement against the wishes of the government of India, and with the more or less reluctant acquiescence of the India Office, the War Office and the Treasury, by insisting to his own British colleagues that he did not intend to undermine Iran’s independence. And – after the Agreement had been signed – he went on to issue numerous statements on important public occasions to that effect. But the damage had been done already by alienating the leaders of Iranian public opinion as well as the other world powers. This chapter is a study of the successful campaign against the 1919 Agreement up to the Bolshevik landing at Enzeli, the declaration of the Gilan Republic and the fall of Vosuq, after which the Agreement was suspended and never recovered ground until its annulment by Iran in February 1921.

Background In August 1918, Vosuq al-Dawleh formed a cabinet with active British support. The country was in absolute chaos and in danger of disintegration. British and Turkish forces as well as German agents (operating mainly in the south and southwestern provinces) were still active in parts of the country, though the Russians had departed since the Bolshevik revolution. All politicians agreed that there was urgent need for the restoration of order at the centre as well as in the provinces, and all agreed that this required the reorganisation of the country’s financial system, and the creation of a unified military force. There was no argument about ends, but there were serious disagreements about means. The 160

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country was dependent on British financial subsidies to run the administration and – in part – its only active force, the Cossack Division. In the first year of his office, Vosuq managed to bring some order and discipline, though a great deal still remained to be done. In the meantime, First World War ended and Iran sent a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in pursuit of international aid, primarily from America and France (see section on ‘Russian Campaigns’). At the same time, Sir Percy Cox, the interim minister in Tehran, opened confidential negotiations with Vosuq and two members of his cabinet, Nosrat al-Dawleh (Firuz) and Sarem al-Dawleh (Mas‘ud), for an exclusive Anglo-Iranian Agreement. There were serious interdepartmental divisions within the British government on the nature of the proposed agreement and the degree of British involvement in Iran. Curzon and the Foreign Office wanted a high profile relationship, whereas the Treasury, the War Office, the India Office and the government of India regarded that as costly and/or offensive to the surging nationalist sentiments in Iran. Curzon won the argument in the end, and the ill-fated Anglo-Iranian Agreement was signed in Tehran on 9 August 1919. While emphatically reaffirming Iran’s independence, it envisaged the appointment of a British adviser for the Iranian treasury, and a military adviser to help organise and run a unified force, both (together with their assistants) being employed and paid by the Iranian government. It also included a couple of other, non-controversial points, for example, the revision of the Iranian customs and the construction of modern transport facilities. The project was to be financed by a British loan of £2 million for twenty years at 7 per cent annual interest. The Agreement would become fully in force upon the ratification of the Majlis, then in a long recess, for which elections were due to be held. During the negotiations, Vosuq and his two colleagues – who became known as the triumvirate – asked for 500,000 tomans (⫽£200,000) as campaign money for the smooth passage of the Agreement. Curzon (along with others concerned in the British government) was extremely unhappy about such a payment, tried to avoid it or reduce it to an insignificant sum, but in the end gave up and left the decision to Cox who arranged for the payment of 400,000 tomans (slightly more than £131,000). Firuz and Sarem cashed their own shares, but Vosuq lent the remainder to Tomaniantz Company – against title deeds of agricultural lands – to save them from insolvency. Cox wrote to Curzon that it was the other two rather than Vosuq who had insisted on payment. The full facts became public in November 1920, months after the fall of Vosuq, but from the start rumours were rife about ‘the British bribe’, and this added force to the instant campaign which began against the Agreement when it was announced.2 As almost all other historical events, the failure of the Agreement had a number of important causes. The vehement campaign against it was naturally the most important cause of its failure, but that too was due to several factors, the most important of which was the manner in which Cox and Curzon had conducted the negotiations – the thick veil of secrecy, the exclusion of the Paris 161

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peace delegation both from the Conference and from the negotiations, which angered the French and American delegations as well. It lit the touchpaper of the surging Iranian nationalism and aroused the anger and suspicion of the other great powers into the belief that Iran had lost her independence, and henceforth would be ruled by the combined dictatorship of Britain’s Iranian agents and her technical advisers. There would have been some – perhaps considerable – opposition to the Agreement as the triumvirate themselves had anticipated, even if foreign reaction had not been as vehement and as widespread as it turned out to be. But the unanimously negative response of America, France and Bolshevik Russia could have left no doubt in the minds of even the mild and moderate Iranians – outside the small group of politicians and journalists who supported the triumvirate – that their rulers had sold out the country to the British empire.

The internal campaign The rising modern Iranian nationalism, by itself, was not yet sufficiently strong to result in such a wide and deep outburst of emotions in every layer of the Iranian body politic. They were no longer afraid of Russia, whose two successive revolutions they had greeted with unbounded relief and optimism. On the contrary, they had received the news of the fall of the Tsarist regime as well as the Bolshevik declarations of friendship and goodwill towards their country with unmitigated joy and satisfaction. They viewed France as a disinterested and friendly power with which the country had already struck a close cultural bond. They regarded America as an almost selfless power – ‘the protector of world peace’, as Iraj put it in verse. This gave the impression that Britain was now the most powerful foreign power likely to interfere in the affairs of the region. She was obtaining an international mandate on Mesopotamia, a Shi‘a country which housed the most sacred Shi‘a shrines and colleges, and which contained large numbers of Iranian residents in its towns and cities, where there soon was to be an anti-British revolt which was supported by the Shi‘a ulama there as well as in Iran (for reasons which are not difficult to understand, the French mandate on Syria did not create much excitement among Iranians). Thus, not only the modern nationalists, but the ulama and religious community, Democrats and popular constitutionalists (e.g. Mostwafi al-Mamalek), the Gendarmerie and some of the Cossack officers were united in the belief that Iran had become a British protectorate. The nationalist poet Eshqi was a companion of Hajj Aqa Jamal Isfahani – a famous Tehran mojtahed of conservative views who was not normally involved in politics – in his active opposition to the Agreement. Hossein Saba, the owner–editor of Setareh-ye Iran, later to become a staunch supporter of Reza Khan, was banished to Qazvin together with a few other journalists. Five political notables, including Hajj Mo‘in Bushehri and Momtaz al-Dawleh (erstwhile Majlis speaker and head of the legislature, and brother of 162

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Momtaz al-Saltaneh, Iranian minister in Paris) were likewise banished to Kashan. Dawlat-Abadi, a respectable and moderate constitutionalist, was opposed to the Agreement, as he said to Cox himself, irrespective of its content, because it had been concluded secretly and without public discussion.3 Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Hedayat), another moderate constitutionalist who had been a minister or provincial governor for much of the previous twenty years, was likewise against the Agreement.4 The three most respected and publicly trusted politicians – Mostawfi al-Mamalek and the brothers, Moshir al-Dawleh and Mo’tamen al-Molk – did not campaign against it, but it was well known that they were critical of it. Indeed, the latter two together with other important notables such as Ain al-Dawleh and Mo‘in al-Tojjar met with Vosuq shortly after the Agreement had been signed, saying that they were convinced of his good intentions, but the Agreement was against the country’s interest and should not have been concluded without wider discussion. Vosuq’s replies to their points reportedly convinced Moshir, Mo’tamen and Ain, but not the others.5 A week later, Cox addressed a letter to Vosuq (because, he-said, some self-seekers might mislead the public), with emphatic and repeated reassurances of Britain’s good intentions, of which this is a specimen: [The] essential objects of this agreement … are: the complete internal and external independence of the Persian State, the preparation of means of strengthening the power of the Persian Government to enable them to maintain internal order and guard against frontier dangers; and finally to devise means for the development and progress of the country. In no way has it been the aim of the British Government by this agreement to limit the independence and authority of Persia, on the contrary, it is their desire that this ancient kingdom that has so long been in jeopardy and discord should be made capable of preserving its independence, and (having regard to the important geographical position of Persia) that the mutual interests of the two States should be better respected and safeguarded.6 It was translated and published in the Persian press, but it did not work. Many of the opponents did not trust Vosuq’s government even before the Agreement was announced, but its announcement also threw Modarres – who had done so much to install Vosuq in power – into uncompromising opposition. The matter was very important not only for that reason but particularly because Modarres was a shrewd and level-headed politician, and carried a great deal of weight in every political circle outside the radical democrats. He was aided by Imam Jom‘eh Kho’i (father of Jamal Imami, a famous politician from the 1940s onwards), another powerful religious and public figure in Tehran. Cox evidently regarded their opposition as sufficiently important to be reported to London.7 The list of famous figures who campaigned against the Agreement is lengthy. One of them, Abdollah Mostawfi, wrote a long pamphlet – entitled Ibtal al-batil 163

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(Refuting the Untruth) – against it as well as against Vosuq and his government. It covers over a hundred pages of his memoirs. Mostawfi was a moderate constitutionalist and a high civil servant who had had both a traditional and a modern education, had been a diplomat in London and in Moscow, and at the time was head of a department of the Ministry of Finance. He wrote, addressing Vosuq: You may have imagined that Iran has other things too, which you have not given as a gift to the British … Do not worry. The present level of service which you have rendered to the British has made them the owners of everything in Iran, and you can rest assured that – as a satirical magazine in Paris has put it – you have sold this country to the British for fifty centimes.8 He wrote that the previous prime ministers, ‘because they did not accept bribes’, were not able to spend money on propagandists and makers of false public opinion.9 Somewhere else in the pamphlet, he repeatedly referred to ‘the British money’ and the uses to which it was being put to beef up support for the government. On fourteen consecutive occasions he opened a sentence by saying ‘if it had not been for the British money’ then this and that would not have been possible for Vosuq to do.10 Inevitably, poets and poetry were drawn into the campaign, and poems and songs – often of the most vehement and venomous nature – poured out from the tongues and pens of both famous and not-so-famous poets. The prime minister, who was a poet of some note, published a lyric in a newspaper which encouraged – in the tradition of esteqbal writing – a number of poems in the same metre, rhyme and radif by friendly poets, including Bahar. Iraj wrote one that was respectable and another (apparently unfinished) which was an attack on Vosuq, though he did not mention his name.11 Aref wrote one addressed to Vosuq which was extremely scathing and it opened with the verse, ‘Thou, the doors of whose home are open to whores’. He wrote in another poem: God condemn to everlasting shame He who betrayed the land of Sassan. Tell the zealous Artaxerexes The Long-armed The enemy annexed your kingdom to England.12 Eshqi wrote several poems, some of which are very long and include invectives. The most venomous included the verse: ‘O’ Vosuq al-Dawleh, Iran was not your daddy’s estate … ’. In a long poem against the Agreement, he wrote: It is the story of cat and mouse, our pact with Britain, Once it catches the mouse, how would the cat let it go? Even if we be lion, she is the fox of our time, The fox famously deceives the lion.13 164

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Farrokhi Yazdi felt that the share of Firuz must be also acknowledged: Nosrat al-Dawleh is busy in Europe Annihilating the motherland – look and see … Like a dealer for the sale of the motherland Constantly finding customers – look and see … To deliver the motherland to Britain He is even keener than her – look and see. And in a poem he wrote in jail for his campaign against the Agreement: Take this message to Vosuq al-Dawleh, O’ Morning Breeze, It is not nice to treat Iranian patriots badly. He whose only offence is love of the motherland No creed would condemn to a dark cell … The one who affirmed our independence in the Agreement Means none but to appropriate [Iran] by those ominous points [of the Agreement].14 In 1926, Vosuq had a chance of defending himself and his policy at length in the Majlis, the only public occasion which he used to do so after his fall from office. This was when Mostawfi al-Mamalek introduced his cabinet to the Majlis, which was the first administration under Reza Shah after Forughi’s caretaker cabinet for a few months. This cabinet had been the product of an accord between Modarres and the Shah, and it was Modarres who had insisted on Vosuq being included as minister of justice. Mostawfi had offered the foreign ministry to Mosaddeq, which the latter had emphatically declined, saying that it was not possible to work with the Shah in a constitutional framework.15 When the new cabinet was being introduced to the Majlis for approval, Mosaddeq delivered a very long, reasoned, as well as impassioned, speech against it only because it included Vosuq and Forughi (as Minister of War, who happened to be absent on a foreign mission). It was a scathing attack on the two men for different reasons, but the share of Vosuq and the 1919 Agreement took almost the whole of his time. His attack on Vosuq covered many points but the Agreement was its central theme. He spoke about the British money – quoting the figure of £131,000 – and about betrayal. He quoted Secretary of State Lansing, as well as the American legation’s communiqué against the Agreement (see section on ‘The American Campaign’). He detailed the arrest and the banishment of the Agreement’s opponents. He warned the highly popular Mostawfi not to ‘commit suicide with Vosuq’s hand, because, for patriots, patricide (mamlekat-koshi) was as bad as suicide’. He cited both secular and Shari‘a law that the crime befitted capital punishment. He shouted: Deputies! the people’s eye turned dark as it saw so much wrongdoing and betrayal. Tribunes! The same eye went white in the hope of seeing the 165

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trial of political leaders who sell out their country. In a country where ministerial responsibility is more apparent than real, and where the people are so forgetful, the treason of the traitors infects every individual …16 Modarres rushed to the rescue. He said at the very outset that he knew nothing about the British money and no doubt Vosuq himself would reply to that point. He explained that he had helped Vosuq to become prime minister in 1918 and Vosuq had managed to bring a semblance of order to the country. He had opposed him when the 1919 Agreement had been signed. It was – in jurisprudential terms – an ‘unauthorised contract’ (aqd-e fozuli) because it did not have parliamentary sanction. Yet he had not said a single insulting word against any of its supporters, because the matter was political and ‘God only knows who was right’. He himself had joined the others in 1916 to form the provisional government of Kermanshah which accepted money from the Germans while telling them that ‘we would not give [you] a receipt’, and spent it without betraying the country. The 1919 Agreement was wrong, but it was now dead and buried. The country faced great problems of reconstruction and needed the co-operation of all of her able politicians. If everyone was rejected for one reason or another no one would be left for the tasks ahead.17 Vosuq then took the tribune, and delivered a long, cool and reasoned speech. He began with a lengthy preamble about the dreadful circumstances of the country when he had taken office. He had been aware of the great risks of unpopularity, yet ready to put the country’s interest above his own. He did not claim to be faultless, but he had never consciously wronged the country. The Agreement had provided for the employment of British advisers and experts by Iran, their scope of action being determined jointly by them and the Iranian government. He had emphasised from the outset that the full implementation of the Agreement would be subject to parliamentary ratification, and the few steps which – because of the country’s urgent needs – were taken in the meantime, were beneficial and, in any case, could have been reversed by the Majlis. ‘The philosophy behind the Agreement’ and all that happened afterwards, he could not expound – he said, in a clear reference to the 1921 coup and its aftermath – because the circumstances made it inexpedient. But, in a fleeting remark, he mentioned ‘the difficulties of one of the two contracting governments in fulfilling its commitments’. For reasons which will become clear later in this chapter, he was referring to the British government. ‘As for the £131,000, I can only submit that if Dr Mosaddeq has received any of it then so have I, and if it is proven that I have taken such a fund, apart form being ready to return it twice over, I would accept the whole of Dr Mosaddeq’s criticisms’. The speech was measured and polite throughout, but he did not end it without a parting shot: There is one other point of which I wish to remind him [Mosaddeq]. Most of the students and novices of politics regard a course in public 166

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popularity as being necessary. And if, at present, he is now at that stage of his studies, I, of course, do not object to his criticisms. But I would like to submit that in my student days I completely avoided that course, and moved up to the next stage. Thus, I may lose the contest for demagogy and popularity. I would only ask him that, at least when the higher interests of the state are at stake, would it not be better for him to go beyond the exercises of that course, or become my pupil.18 Firuz was a deputy in the same Majlis and joined Mosaddeq and ten others in abstaining when the House divided on the endorsement of the cabinet.

The external campaign The campaign against the Agreement outside Iran was led by France, the United States and Bolshevik Russia as well as Iranian expatriates in western Europe, including members of Iran’s peace delegation and the legation in Paris. Early on 12 January 1918 Karl Bravin, an unofficial Soviet representative to Tehran, had brought an official message from Lenin declaring the repudiation of ‘all Tsarist privileges and agreements that are contrary to the sovereignty of Persia’. Two days later, Trotsky issued a formal diplomatic note on behalf of the Bolshevik government which declared that ‘the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907, in view of its inconsistency with the freedom and independence of the Persian nation, is completely and irrevocably annulled’. This was months before Vosuq formed his cabinet. But less than two months before the 1919 Agreement was announced, Georgi Chicherin, now foreign commissar after Trotsky, sent another diplomatic note to the Iranian government which unilaterally cancelled all Iranian debts to Russia and renounced all Russian privileges and concessions in the country. It even added that the Russo-Iranian boundary will be determined by the wishes of the peoples living along the frontiers.19 Three weeks after the announcement of the 1919 Agreement, however, Chicherin issued a very different kind of statement: At this moment when the triumphant victor, the English robber, is trying to lasso the Persian people into total slavery, the Soviet … Russian Republic solemnly declares that it does not recognise the Anglo-Persian Treaty which carried out this enslavement. … [It] regards as a scrap of paper the shameful Anglo-Persian Treaty by which your rulers have sold themselves and sold you to the English robbers, and will never recognise their legality.20 Nevertheless, the statement repeated the abolition of the Tsarist treaties and privileges as in the June declaration.21 Some of the intemperate language may be attributed to familiar revolutionary zeal, but the rest must be because Britain was then at war against the Bolsheviks, 167

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and they saw the Agreement as turning Iran into a permanent British military base against Soviet Russia. Curzon and Cox did not appreciate the extent to which the Bolshevik’s unilateral gestures of good will had enchanted the Iranians, and how much their violent attack on the Agreement and Vosuq would encourage opposition among young political activists and radicals. Apart from that, the White Russian government of Admiral Kolchak were also annoyed because they had not been consulted, and particularly as the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907 had been effectively set aside.22 This had an impact on the attitude of the Russian officers of the Cossack Division (see the section on ‘Russian campaigns’). The impact of the American and French deprecation of the Agreement, however, was much greater, because it came from seemingly disinterested great powers who, together with Britain, were then world leaders, and the Iranian peace delegation had been initially sent to Paris to try and obtain financial and technical help from them. Among the major mistakes that Curzon and Cox made in pursuit of their policy, the biggest blunder perhaps was the fanaticism with which they sought and managed to exclude the delegation both from the Paris Conference and from their negotiations with the triumvirate in Tehran. The evidence shows that Curzon had allowed for the possibility of talking to them, and later believed that it was unnecessary because the government in Tehran was willing to negotiate directly with Cox. And, instead of correcting this impression, Cox – who ought to have known better – kept reinforcing it (both directly and indirectly) in his dispatches. He thus turned out to be too efficient an emissary, who would win the battle and lose the war. In November 1918 Vosuq had intended to lead the Paris delegation himself. This had been ‘vetoed’ by the Shah on the pretext that he ‘could not be spared’, but in fact because he distrusted Vosuq. Both Moshir al-Dawleh and Naser al-Molk declined the offer,23 and the Shah insisted on Moshaver al-Mamalek (Aliqoli Khan Ansari), then Foreign Minister, who was more of a diplomat than a politician. The other two members of the delegation were Zoka al-Molk (Forughi) and Mo‘in al-Vezareh (Hossein Ala) who were, respectively, described by Cox as ‘an independent Nationalist of not very extremist views’ and ‘an honest patriot with visionary ideas’. But he thought that Moshaver was ‘a time server’ who, though not genuinely friendly towards Britain, ‘will probably think it in his interests to keep the right side of us’.24 Events, however, did not justify that belief. According to a long (private) letter written by Forughi in May 1919 from Paris to Tehran, the subject of their mission had been discussed before their departure. They had been asked to seek advisers from France and America though there had been some conflict of opinion on whether the military adviser should be sought from America and the financial adviser from France, or vice versa, Vosuq’s own view being in favour of the former combination. In Paris, Forughi’s letter went on, they were particularly successful in obtaining the goodwill of the American delegation, so that Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, in a banquet given by Iranians in his honour, publicly promised them support on behalf of the 168

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US president. But Vosuq – having heard the news – wired them not to jeopardise the country’s chances (see below). On the other hand, their efforts to obtain a sympathetic hearing from the British delegation did not succeed. They said that they were negotiating with the government in Tehran. The Iranian delegation offered to go to London for negotiations, but the British told them that the Iranian government must either negotiate with the British government or take their case to the Conference; they could not do both at the same time.25 But even before the delegation reached Paris, Curzon was determined not to let them be admitted to the Conference. He wrote to Cox that because Iran had been non-belligerent, ‘her position at the Peace Conference is more than questionable’, but he might be prepared to discuss the future Anglo-Iranian relations with the delegation if they had the authority from Tehran to do so ‘with complete candour’.26 It was at that very time that Cox reported the triumvirate’s readiness to negotiate with him so that a delighted Curzon responded by saying that since the Paris delegation had been sent with ‘very different instructions’ there could not be ‘one policy agreed upon by Persian Cabinet and ourselves, and another advocated at Paris and possibly backed by the Shah’.27 This he followed with a telegram to Arthur Balfour in Paris asking him not to enter any discussions with the Iranian delegation which would prejudice Cox’s negotiations in Tehran.28 By March 1919, when the Tehran negotiations were well under way, Curzon still envisaged the possibility of the delegation – finding ‘their position [in Paris] untenable’ – coming to London to co-ordinate the talks.29 But he turned down Balfour’s suggestion that he might receive Moshaver, unless and until the delegation regarded their mission to the Conference as abortive, and wrote to Cox that he had told the Iranian minister in London that ‘the Persian Government could not ride two different horses in this fashion’ (see Forughi above).30 Shortly afterwards he opposed the Shah’s visit to Europe before knowing the definite intentions of the Paris delegation.31 No sooner than Curzon had sent this telegram, Cox wired him some definite information about those intentions. Moshaver had sent a long telegram to Vosuq asking ‘urgently for authority to enter forthwith into relations with American financiers’. With ‘the concurrence of the Shah’, Vosuq had replied that the Government had no intention of ‘ruining the enemies [sic; it must be ‘country’s’] future by substituting America for Germany’ (see Forughi above).32 From that moment onwards, at any rate, the possibility of talking to the peace delegation in London was discarded, and Moshaver’s own suggestion of doing so was turned down.33 It was immediately after the signing of the Agreement in August that Curzon sent him a formal invitation to come to London which he in turn declined to accept on the grounds that he was no longer Foreign Minister and Chief Delegate to the Conference, and was about to go and meet the Shah in Istanbul as the new ambassador to Turkey.34 Yet, back in April, Moshaver did not give up his efforts for admission to the Conference. He sent another long telegram to Vosuq. He wrote that the 169

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Americans were very encouraging on all scores, including ‘help in commerce’, and the disagreements between the French and the British over Syria could be used to gain the support of France. This was ‘absolutely reliable’ information which Curzon had received from Paris.35 Cox’s information from Tehran was that Moshaver had wired that the French would not help without British concurrence, but the Americans were ready to do so ‘provided they receive a formal request from the Persian Government’.36 A few days after Cox had sent the draft proposal of the Agreement to London, Vosuq received another telegram from Moshaver. He had asked Lord Hardinge (permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office) in Paris if Britain would support their admission to the Conference. Hardinge had replied that it would depend on the results of the Tehran negotiations. In his telegram to Vosuq, Moshaver had asked for the details of the negotiations, and the latter had replied that, as he had been already informed, it was about the employment of advisers. Vosuq had asked Cox whether they wished to inform America and France of the nature of the proposed agreement ‘before the fact, or when it was fait accompli’.37 Curzon wrote to Balfour in Paris that, given the negotiations in Tehran, Moshaver’s activities in Paris should logically be curtailed by his government ‘but this would be contrary to Persian methods’. In his view they should wait and present Moshaver ‘with fait accompli, simultaneously informing America and France’.38 Thenceforth, the Tehran negotiations proceeded apace until the Agreement was announced in August. The French campaign This was the background to the American (direct) and the French (indirect) attacks on the Agreement, and the campaigns of Iranian diplomats and expatriates along with the European press, that the country had been sold out to Britain. The Anglo-French Entente had much weakened during the Paris Conference for a number of reasons, partly, though not mainly, over the question of Syria.39 As early as March 1919, Paul Cambon, the distinguished French ambassador to London (and descendent of the famous Jacobin leader in the French Revolution) had written to Curzon frankly that they had received a request from the Iranians to send them a financial adviser, and were willing to do so if there was no objection from Britain. Curzon had responded, with equal frankness, that the request was inconsistent with the attitude of the Tehran government, that Britain was footing a large bill for her army in Iran as well as for the Iranian administration and the Cossack Division; and that, therefore, if Iran was to appoint a foreign financial adviser, it had to be from no country other than Britain.40 Thus the French were not prepared to support the Iranian delegation without British concurrence, but were still annoyed when the Agreement was published. A French cabinet minister went so far as to say in a speech in the National Assembly that, given his regard and admiration for Britain, he could not ‘remain silent in face of facts such as those which have been announced to us in regard 170

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to Persia’, though he did not name the Agreement.41 At the same time, the Iranian minister in Paris (who, incidentally was publicly known to be against the Agreement) had informed Balfour that Moshaver and Ala were engaged in ‘antiBritish propaganda … largely incited by the Americans and encouraged by the French’.42 Yet, the French government made no public statements on the matter, then or later, leaving it to their minister in Tehran to lead an effective campaign against the Agreement which, in the face of repeated British protests, they promised to curtail though without avail (see the section on ‘American campaigns’). The French press, on the other hand, felt no restraint in attacking the Agreement. Le Figaro was quoted in Tehran as having gone so far as to say that ‘the half-a-centimetre tall Shah had sold his country for one centime’.43 To give only one important example, in a long article on 17 August, the influential Paris daily, Temps, wrote that the Agreement was prejudicial – ‘pone alliente’ – to the independence of Iran. True, it had reaffirmed the ‘independence and integrity’ of Iran, but the same declaration using the same words had been made in the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907. The fact that both her army and her finance had been entrusted to British experts showed that the country’s independence would not be what it had been before, and thus it would not be qualified for membership of the League of Nations. The Anglo-Iranian negotiations in Tehran, while the Iranian peace delegation was in Paris, were indefensible. And, alluding to the secrecy surrounding the negotiations, the paper concluded that British promises to her allies must be kept ‘even when they apply to Asia’. In no time, the same points about Iran’s ‘integrity and independence’ and the implications of using British military and financial experts were being made by Modarres and other opponents of the Agreement in Tehran. The press campaign in France (and Switzerland and Belgium) continued for some time, declined thereafter when the story lost its news value, but increased again in the wake of the Bolshevik landing at Enzeli which dealt a great blow to British prestige and policy. The Temps led the attack on 24 May 1920, once again rejecting the view that the Agreement was consistent with Iran’s independence, and commenting that ‘if we wish that the national sentiment of the Turks and the Persians should bar the way to the Bolshevists, we must first of all know how to act ourselves’. The evening newspaper Journal de Debats said that the Agreement had clearly failed to protect Iran and warned about the danger of Bolshevik ‘contamination’ in the country. The Echo de Paris described the Agreement, on the following day, as a ‘quasi-protectorate treaty’. The Gaulois wrote that it was clear that Britain could not defend Iran from the Bolshevik attack: ‘it is quite understandable that the Persians should turn against the authors of a policy, the errors of which they are now beginning to experience’. The French minister in Tehran wasted no time in going to work against the Agreement. Only two days after it had been signed he spoke about it with anger and indignation at Firuz’s first reception in Tehran as the new foreign minister.44 This prompted a complaint by Curzon to the French ambassador in London, who explained that that was not official French policy, and that Bonin, the minister 171

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in Tehran, would be instructed to desist.45 A month later, Lord Hardinge complained to Cambon in person, reminding him that he had twice declared ‘complete disinterestedness of French Government in Persia’. Reaffirming that position, Cambon said that the French press reflected ‘wounded susceptibilities’ because of lack of prior warning to France about the Agreement, but he promised to bring Benin’s activities to his government’s attention.46 Hardinge did not mention the fact that the French government had conferred the Legion of Honour on Moshaver, the former Iranian chief delegate in Paris.47 The French legation in Tehran continued its campaign by supplying the hostile comments of the French press, by campaigning among Iranian press and politicians, and by encouraging key figures and forces to attack the Agreement and Vosuq’s government. Bonin himself – as the European minister responsible for Sweden’s interests in Iran – wrote to the three Swedish officers running the Iranian police and Gendarmerie whether the Agreement would have adverse effects on their employment position, although he had never before contacted the Swedes.48 This was followed by further inquiries made of the Swedes and the Gendarmerie by the French military attache, and the vice-consul enticing a mullah attached to the Gendarmerie to tell the Iranian officers that they would have French and American backing if they resisted the Agreement.49 In fact, the French legation continued its campaign in Tehran so well that the Foreign Office once again intervened – and this time with greater vigour – through their embassy in London, so that Cambon visited Hardinge in person and read out the telegram he had sent to Bonin in Tehran with instructions to ‘cooperate closely’ with Cox and make no unfavourable comments on the Agreement.50 Bonin paused and resumed his offensive afterwards. The Foreign Office once again complained and was told that Bonin had been recalled from Tehran. But he was still there in May when the Bolsheviks landed at Enzeli, and he went overboard. Curzon summoned Cambon to the Foreign Office, reminded him of the background and the current activities of Bonin, and mentioned that Firuz – then in London – had also ‘complained bitterly of the implacable hostility of M. Bonin’. For good measure, Curzon also reminded the French ambassador of Britain’s ‘heavy co-operation with the French Government’ with regard to Syria. Being somewhat embarrassed, Cambon made some excuses but promised to bring the matter to the attention of Millerand, the French prime minister as well as foreign minister.51 This was barely three weeks before the fall of Vosuq and the beginning of the end for the Agreement. Much alarmed, as well as encouraged, by the European press campaign against the Agreement, pockets of Iranian expatriates in Europe ranging from the remnants of the Iranian National Committee in Berlin such as Taqizadeh, Jamalzadeh and Kazemzadeh (Iranshahr) to Forughi. Ala and Momtaz al-Saltaneh (the minister in Paris who had been sacked by Firuz despite last-minute efforts to save his job) in France, and Mosaddeq, Davar and Mahmud Afshar (the future owner and editor of Ayandeh) in Switzerland, launched a campaign in Persian and European languages against the Agreement. One of their French manifestos, published in 172

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Switzerland and entitled ‘Appel du Parti National Persan’, declared that ‘after five years [i.e. since the beginning of World War I] of protest against imperialism, Great Britain today wishes to annexe Iran to her empire’, because – it declared – the Agreement had robbed Iran of her independence. It concluded by demanding the withdrawal of British troops from Iran, and the enforcement of the Agreement only upon the approval of the League of Nations.52 The American campaign The United States, like France, did not lodge a formal protest against the Agreement. But her opposition to it came from the highest official levels, was the loudest and most explicit, and was by far the most effective, though it was launched a month after the Agreement had been signed. Indeed, having watched the French reaction in the early days, Curzon rushed to talk to John Davis, American ambassador to London, mentioned the French annoyance, and asked for the support of the American minister in Tehran. Davis passed very positive remarks on the Agreement, and said that he ‘would gladly act upon’ Curzon’s suggestion.53 Three weeks later, the American legation in Tehran published a communique which exploded like a bomb over the heads of Cox and Vosuq. It was the Persian translation of a statement by the State Department, bearing instructions that it should be published in Tehran. The Statement had been issued ‘in view of misrepresentations contained in an article in Raad of August 19th last with reference to attitude of President Wilson, American peace mission [in Paris] and America towards Persia’.54 This referred to a report received by the State Department from Tehran quoting Sayyed Zia’s newspaper as follows: America, the only Government able to assist Persia, abandoned her. The Four Great Powers at Paris, decided that Persia should be under protection and that it is a part of Great Britain’s portion. Persia has been deceived by President Wilson’s good words and Persia is in the same position as Egypt.55 This, it later turned out, was not a quotation from the very long article in defence of the Agreement in Ra‘d, but a misleading summary. The article had referred to America in two stages. First, it said that, though America speciously displayed benevolence towards all nations, it had nevertheless made no move to support Iran when Russia demanded Shuster’s expulsion. None of the great powers had supported Iran’s admission to the Peace Conference or offered it anything but resignation to a mandatory arrangement. They had divided the globe into three zones of influence, Iran falling into the British zone, and her destiny was settled here. Thus the weak nations had misinterpreted President Wilson’s 14 points which had prompted Egypt into revolt for complete independence, but America had then declared that British control of Egypt was not inconsistent with Wilson’s 14 points. 173

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The most tactless reference to America came at a later stage of the article which referred to Iran’s peace delegation having been misled by ‘President Wilson’s pious words of justice’.56 The article reflects Sayyed Zia’s zeal to defend the Agreement against critics who argued that America would have given Iran a better deal had she been approached. But in the circumstances it was wide open to misunderstanding. The damage was done. The official US communique declared that she had not refused aid to Iran; that America’s peace delegation in Paris had tried to obtain a hearing for Iran but had not been supported by others [i.e. Britain], and this was probably explained by the present Agreement; that the Iranian government itself had not supported their own peace delegation which had openly sought urgent American aid and assistance, and that the Agreement – having come as a surprise to America – indicated that Iran did not wish her aid or support.57 Curzon addressed a long letter, couched in very polite terms, to the American ambassador next day. Reminding him of his earlier talk with the Ambassador about the Agreement, and Davis’s positive remarks on it, he said that, while on a visit to Paris before the Agreement had been concluded, he had informed President Wilson of the Tehran negotiations through one of his aids, Colonel House. He had now heard about the communique issued in Tehran which ‘while hardly in accord with the ordinary forms of diplomatic procedure, would undoubtedly be regarded locally, and indeed was regarded, as a challenge to the Anglo-Persian Agreement of an unfriendly and almost a hostile character’. There was nothing in the Agreement that should make a friend of Iran suspicious; indeed it was very similar to the agreement which America had lately been negotiating with Liberia. Curzon was not responsible for the misrepresentation of the Ra‘d article, but he hoped that America would immediately inform the Iranian government that their communiqué had been intended to correct misunderstandings caused by Ra‘d rather than ‘cast any aspersion on the AngloPersian Agreement’.58 Davis promptly replied that his favourable comments had been a reflection of press reports. The American government was not favourably impressed with the ‘secrecy and lack of frankness’ surrounding the negotiations for the Agreement, and were not able to take action which would indicate their approval of ‘the treaty thus negotiated’. He had also contacted Colonel House whose recollection was that Curzon had suggested the inadvisability of receiving the Iranian delegation before the Conference, but did not recall any reference to the nature and implications of ‘the instant treaty’.59 Curzon responded with equal promptness. He had in fact told Colonel House, he wrote, that he was negotiating an agreement directly with the Iranian government, and that was his sole reason for asking the Colonel to pass on the information to the President whom he himself had not found available in his brief visit to Paris.60 A lull of four weeks was followed by something of a diplomatic storm. Davis had contacted Colonel House again who said that ‘there was no discussion of 174

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details and I was left with no impression as to what the agreement with Persia was to be’, adding that ‘it was so casual that I am sure it made no impression upon the President either’. Accordingly, Davis had been instructed by his government to point out that they did not have any foreknowledge of the Agreement, that they had always been willing to assist Iran as shown by their recent famine relief operation in the country, and that not only Ra‘d but also the highest Iranian officials had openly said that America had refused to help Iran. Therefore, they had thought it essential to put the facts right, and the responsibility rested with the British government who, without their knowledge, had entered an agreement ‘with the Government of the Shah which promises to affect so materially the relations between Persia and the United States’. Much of Davis’s long letter was on Curzon’s reference to the US–Liberian treaty negotiations which had clearly added insult to the American injury. The Liberian republic had been founded with American assistance a century before, he wrote, and ever since she had received American help against attempts by ‘foreign nations to infringe for their own ends the sovereignty of Liberia’. But, as they had once written to the French government, they exercised ‘no protectorate over Liberia’. Therefore, there was an underlying dissimilarity between the two agreements because Britain had entered an agreement ‘with the Shah’ without American knowledge, whereas America had informed and extensively negotiated with Britain for her approval of the proposed treaty with Liberia. He concluded that the American government could not give its approval to the Agreement ‘unless and until it is clear that the authorities and people of Persia are united in their approval and support of that undertaking’.61 Curzon noted in minutes that, in a private letter accompanying the official one, Davis had offered to meet him for a discussion of the issue, adding bitterly that he did not ‘feel much inclined for polemics on a question on which the US Govt have gone out of their way to be nasty. Perhaps on some future occasion they may find us less enthusiastic about some proposal of theirs than they would desire’.62 Nevertheless, he was shortly to note his ‘friendly conversation’ with Davis, in which he had fully explained the reasons for having kept the negotiations with Tehran confidential, and had the impression that the American government would ‘not wish to reopen the case’.63 In fact, the American government did not reopen the case, but the damage done to the Agreement in Iran by their communique, and by the persisting negative attitude of their legation in Tehran, was enormous. Apart from that, the argument persisted through the American press, congress and public opinion for some time. On 5 October, two days before the date of Davis’s last letter to Curzon, an article in the Washington Post described the Agreement as a blow to the League of Nations whose creation was being discussed in Paris, because it involved the surrender of Iran’s independence, and the control of the Iranian people by Britain. Meanwhile, Lord Grey, British ambassador to Washington, wrote to Curzon that he would try and explain that the purpose of the Agreement had been none 175

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other than to ‘encourage a strong and independent Persia as a buffer State on Indian frontier’. But he was worried about the repercussions of the American communique in Iran, and suggested an open invitation by Britain to America for participation in financial and technical assistance to that country.64 Curzon did not agree. While pointing out that the Agreement had not postulated ‘a monopoly of British employment and assistance in Persia’ – as there were French and Belgian experts already in the country – he thought that a deliberate invitation to America would ‘open the door to similar pressure from other Powers’ and ‘would merely drive Persia back into the rut of international rivalry in Tehran from which it was main object of agreement to relieve her’.65 The allusion is clearly to the traditional Anglo-Russian rivalry in Iran, and it comes close to explaining both the political and psychological motives of Curzon regarding the secrecy with which he had negotiated for the Agreement, and the jealousy with which he wished to guard his special relationship with Iran – motives, which if they had been somewhat less obsessive, then the abject failure of his policy might well have been avoided. Predictably, Cox completely endorsed Curzon’s view.66 Grey accused Cox of ‘in effect’ advocating ‘a virtual British protectorate of Persia’.67 Curzon wrote back that if the Iranian government wished to employ American experts ‘with our approval’ there would be no obstacle.68 Grey retorted that if he repeated that point in Washington ‘it would confirm the impression that we treat Persia as a Protectorate’.69 Curzon threw up his hands and minuted that ‘nothing we can say or do will give satisfaction to Lord Grey and I propose to desist from the attempt. He was not sent to America with a view to making trouble about the Persian Agreement. But he seems to regard that as his main preoccupation’.70 Cox later reported that the new American minister in Tehran had claimed that he had achieved some modifications of the Agreement, which was probably an allusion to his contacts with Lord Grey and the latter’s correspondence with London.71 Curzon replied that there had been no further discussion with the American government and he did not ‘contemplate any modification whatever in the agreement’.72 Early in 1920, the American government inquired if Curzon intended to reply to the letter of 10 October by Davis, and whether there would be any objection to the publication of the two letters already exchanged between him and Davis.73 Curzon was almost indignant. He had privately told Davis, he wrote, what he thought of that letter, but ‘on grounds of friendship’ he was not going to write a reply. He strongly objected, however, to the official publication of ‘this unofficial correspondence’.74 Thus, America did not alter her public posture about the Agreement, and that was proof for its growing Iranian opponents that their worst fears had been justified.

Russian campaigns Yet none of this would necessarily have spelt doom for the Agreement. It could have succeeded either if it had not been rejected so widely and so categorically by 176

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its internal/external opponents or if the British government as a whole – specifically, the government of India, the India Office, the Treasury and the War Office – had been prepared to provide the means – that is, sufficient financial and military support – to defend the Agreement in Iran itself. Curzon had pushed it through against opposition, or serious doubts, from these departments in the belief that he would not require more than the basic and modest price they had eventually agreed to pay for their acquiescence. The real requirements turned out to be of a considerably taller order than Curzon (greatly encouraged by Cox’s optimistic reports during his negotiations in Tehran) had foreseen, and when this became obvious neither India nor the other British government departments were prepared to help Curzon. The internal/external opposition to the Agreement culminated in the Bolshevik landing of May 1920 at Enzeli which led to the declaration of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran in Rasht, with the express objective of marching to Tehran and toppling the Qajar dynasty. This could be met only with much greater military/financial facility than Curzon and Cox had at their disposal. By the time Cox’s interim mission to Tehran terminated in June 1920, many important British officers on the ground – most importantly, the military and financial advisers who were there to implement the Agreement itself – had serious doubts about how it was concluded and was being enforced, and quickly converted the new British minister, Herman Norman, to their position. The Russian opposition to the Agreement took three forms. The most effective was the strong reaction from Moscow, which was largely motivated by the fear that Iran would become a British military base against them. Further effective Russian opposition emanated from the White Russian officers of Iran’s Cossack Division, both for patriotic reasons and from motives of self-interest. The third source of opposition was the government of the Whites based in Paris, who were still recognised by Iran as well as Britain and maintained a small legation in Tehran. The outcome of the civil war in Russia was still uncertain when the Agreement, and the abrogation of the 1907 convention, was announced. Clearly, the Whites were much in need of British support and would not upset Curzon over the loss of their privileges in Iran. But their legation in Tehran quietly encouraged the activities of the Russian Cossack officers against the Agreement.75 The February revolution in Russia divided the Russian officers of the Cossack Brigade into Tsarist and democratic camps. Colonel Clergé, the commander put in their charge by Kerensky’s government, was naturally loyal to the new regime in Russia, but most of the officers under him were still loyal to the Tsar, though they put up with him as long as that regime survived as the only legitimate government of Russia.76 The October revolution changed this, when in opposing the Bolsheviks in Russia, the democratic element quickly faded into the background, and the Tsarist generals and admirals took charge of the campaign against Bolshevism. Clergé was still loyal to the February regime, and the Tsarist officers decided to overthrow him.77 The ‘coup against Clergé’ – as it is often called in Persian sources – was organised by another senior Russian officer, 177

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Colonel Starosselski, and led by Colonel Filartov, and Reza Khan’s atriad of Cossacks, who surprised and disarmed him in his barracks in Tehran and forced him to leave the country.78 Whether or not the Shah had been privy to the move is uncertain, but it could not have been opposed by the Russian legation, and apparently had British backing or acquiescence.79 With the benefit of hindsight, this is sometimes cited as ‘Reza Khan’s first coup’. But Reza Khan would not have even conceived of such a move without the prior decision of the senior Russian officers. It is even highly doubtful if he would have (or indeed could have) led the coup of February 1921, had it not been organised by General Ironside and some other British officers, and supported – at least immediately after the event – by the British legation in Tehran. The Shah, at any rate, put Starosselski in charge of the force. With the Bolsheviks having already repudiated the Tsarist interests and privileges in Iran, Britain felt that they should take on most of the force’s finance, now upgraded to a division. From December 1917 they paid a 100,000 tomans monthly subsidy80 to be added to the Iranian contribution of 60,000 tomans. The men and the NCOs were poorly paid, and often their superior officers would pocket their pay, either in part or as a whole. They survived partly by plundering and looting the villages around their posts, if not with the encouragement, then certainly with the acquiescence of their commanding officers.81 The Agreement had envisaged the organisation of a unified Iranian force based on the existing Cossacks, the Gendarmerie and the British SCRs in the south. Whatever their patriotic feelings and loyalties, the Russian Cossack officers could clearly see the writing on the wall for their own careers and privileges, which were hard to predict in the post-war chaos of their own country and much of eastern and central Europe. They were therefore intent on working against the implementation of the military plan. The Shah did not trust the triumvirate, Britain and the Agreement, besides, he wished to retain the Cossack Division as his personal force under his own supreme command for as long as he could. Thus he lent quiet support to Starosselski’s resistance to the change, and his campaign against the Agreement in secret contact with leading anti-Agreement politicians. Starosselski, indeed, had begun active opposition shortly before the Agreement had been signed. The Shah left for his visit to Europe a few days after the Agreement was signed and Cox had an interview with Starosselski and attempted to reassure him that no precipitate action was envisaged, and that there would be full consultation when any decision was made. He tried to allay any misgivings of the Tsarist Russian minister in Tehran. Both men told him that, ultimately, any decision had to be made by the (White) Russian government in Paris, and Cox optimistically concluded that he would have no more trouble from Starosselski.82 His optimism was short lived; a month later, he reported that both Starosselski and the Russian legation as well as Bolshevik elements were active against Vosuq and the Agreement.83 Starosselski had presented a long 178

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report to Vosuq about a serious Bolshevik threat to the northern provinces, and suggested that the scattered Cossack detachments be brought together under his own command in the north to meet any Bolshevik action with effective force.84 Cox (and Vosuq) were suspicious of Starosseski’s motives – perhaps including the possibility of a coup d’état – but they took the factual side of the report seriously, and Vosuq suggested reinforcing Norperforce in Qazvin as well as sending a British force to Tabriz.85 In September 1919, while still in London to prepare for the Shah’s impending state visit, Firuz told Curzon that Starosselski was working in the interests of Tsarist Russia, that he was trusted by the Shah who regarded the force as his own bodyguard, and that he had already shown ‘what a serious menace he might become’. Firuz and his colleagues were seriously discussing the possibility of sacking him, which they thought they could easily do, but Curzon passed no comment on it because it was a matter ‘for the Persian Government rather than for ourselves’.86 They would soon discover that Starosselski’s dismissal was far from easy87 (see section on ‘The Bolshevik landing at Enzeli’). Meanwhile, Curzon contacted the War office on Vosuq’s proposals for British reinforcements, which they did not accept.88 Cox did not wish to sound alarmist, he wrote to Curzon, but his report on (and response to) the situation in the north and northwest might well fit that description. Norperforce at Qazvin was barely adequate for its present task. There was no British force in Tabriz. There might be serious Bolshevik trouble in Khorasan where General Malleson’s East Persian Cordon Field Force was still deployed. Despite the recent successful operation of Iranian and British troops against the Jangalis in Gilan, ‘the behaviour of Cossack detachments … has been so atrocious and incompetency of Persian (administrative) officials so complete that the peasantry would welcome the return of the Jangali regime, and the movement is gathering headway again in close collusion with Bolshevist and Turkish elements in Baku’. Moreover, it was certain that the moment (the White Russian) General Denikin came back to the Caspian coast, they would ‘once again establish their old control on Persian coast of Caspian’. Cox was now beginning to see his erstwhile optimism flying in the face of the facts, and was ready to acknowledge it when he concluded his long and detailed dispatch: In view of effect of recent agreement are we called upon to sit still and watch this process which has only been made possible owing to our assistance [to Denikin] with our ships and money? Are we not now rather under an obligation to assist Persia to re-establish her rightful position on her Caspian coast and prevent restoration of Russian influence?89 This was followed by a further report on ominous contacts and activities by Denikin’s men, asserting that ‘there can be no doubt that these activities are part of Denikin, in communication with Russian legation and Starosselski, to restore and strengthen Russian position in Northern Persia’.90 Denikin was defeated in the Russian civil war before he could make such a move; instead, the Bolsheviks 179

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landed at Enzeli a few months later. By now both Vosuq and Cox were well alive to that possibility. With 1920 fast approaching, Cox received a short and sour telegram from Curzon which said that India Office would ‘refuse categorically’ to pay the monthly Cossack subsidy as from the end of December.91 As it turned out the Cossack subsidy continued to be paid for another six months, but it would not be difficult to guess some of Cox’s Christmas prayers for the New Year. The ‘Bolshevik menace’ was growing daily as the Red Army was pushing south through the Whites’ positions. Anticipating a Bolshevik landing at Enzeli soon after the fall of Petrovsk and Krasnovodsk, Vosuq and – increasingly – Cox began to press harder for a British military and naval presence to hold the Caspian coast.92 But the War Office would not be moved. The situation was ‘thoroughly understood and exhaustively considered’ in London, wrote Curzon: We should have liked to replace British flotilla and personnel … But Admiralty were unable to sanction the venture unless War office would guarantee the security of Baku, and War Office would not do the latter unless two Allied divisions with a third in reserve would be provided to hold the Batoum-Baku line. These were not forthcoming, and the scheme was reluctantly dropped. They were trying to help Iran as best they could, but he was ‘a little tired of their constant attempt to make us responsible for the consequences of their own inertia and incapacity in the past, and think that they are disposed both to ask and to complain over much’.93 These are early signs of Curzon’s irritability at being constantly reminded that he lacked the proper instruments of implementing his policy. Cox did not let that pass without comment. Vosuq’s government had been a success but ‘against active aggression now the Government is powerless and as our own interests are involved as well as those of Persia, it is incumbent on me to ensure that His Majesty’s Government are under no illusion as to outlook’. Bolshevik agents had helped organise pro-Bolshevik committees inside Iran, and the government were trying to contain them. The crucial factor, however, was the control of the line going through the Caspian coast up to Tabriz. He asked again for the issue to be reconsidered.94 The Bolsheviks were looking to an already existing guerrilla base in Gilan. These were the Jangali guerrillas, organised and led by Mirza Kuchik Khan since 1915, who had later joined the pro-Turkish Union of Islam (Ettahad-e Islam) before it collapsed at the end of the War. Kuchik was in contact with popular politicians in Tehran, and sometimes sought their advice for his decisions. Typically, he lay dormant whenever there was a popular (melli) cabinet in Tehran, but became active under pro-Russian or pro-British cabinets. Predictably, he opposed Vosuq’s government in 1918, launched a series of guerrilla operations, and – at one stage – held Rasht as well as some other major towns in northern Gilan.95 In the spring of 1918, when General Dunsterville’s Dunsterforce was trying to move through Enzeli to Baku to meet the Turkish forces in the 180

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Caucasus, it had to negotiate its passage with the Jangalis. Eventually, the two sides entered an eight-point agreement for a peaceful passage. In September, Dunsterforce had to evacuate Baku back through Enzeli to Iran, and was stationed in Qazvin as North Persia Force, or Norperforce, under a new commanding general.96 There was another Jangali uprising in the wake of the announcement of the 1919 Agreement, but a major offensive by Cossacks, helped by Norperforce, forced them into retreat, though (as mentioned in Cox’s report) the atrocious behaviour of the Cossacks made the peasants long for Kuchik’s return. From mid1919 the Bolsheviks had sent missions to Kuchik to woo him for combined operations.97 He had remained non-committal, and even entered serious negotiations for a possible settlement with Vosuq’s government. In November 1919 he offered terms to the government – through the acting Governor-General, Mirza Ahmad Khan Azari – on which he was prepared to settle, along with a signed copy of the Qur’an ‘for endorsement’. By January 1920, Kuchik and some of his fighters had entered Rasht peacefully, reported Major Edmonds, the British army political officer, amid shouts of ‘long live Kuchik Khan’ by the people, but ‘the return of the Cossacks a few days later failed to arouse any enthusiasm’. ‘Comment is unnecessary’, added Edmonds. Edmonds did not know the exact terms offered by Kuchik to the government, but believed that they included the absorption of most of Kuchik’s men in the Gendarmerie, and financial compensation (to the people?) for damages caused by government troops. ‘With Bolshevism knocking at the door’ commented Edmonds ‘the solution of the Jangali question has come none too soon.’98 By March, Edmonds was reporting that the deal seemed to be heading for the rocks because of Azari’s duplicity. He had discovered that Azari had entered two agreements with Kuchik but then ‘devoted all the resources of his vulpine nature to evading fulfilment of his part of the obligations’. The Jangalis ‘naturally became suspicious’, and Azari tried to use it as an excuse to resume hostilities towards them. The matter was brought to Vosuq’s attention who recalled Azari and sent a high court judge on a fact-finding mission. Edmonds’s assistant had received ‘a most cordial reception’ by Kuchik who had promised him to try and prevent any Bolshevik movement in Gilan. Edmonds believed that the immediate appointment of a ‘substantive’ governor-general was needed.99 In the same month (March 1920), the joint military commission of British and Iranian officers, chaired by General Dickson and including the Cossack senior officer Amir Movassaq (later General Mohammad Nakhjavan) and the Gendarmerie Colonel Fazllolah Khan Aqevli, submitted its report for the creation of a unified military force. As anticipated, its main point was to merge the Cossack, Gendarmerie and SCRs under a unified command.100 Starosselski stepped up his campaign against the proposal. The Cossack force had been created by a treaty with Russia, he argued, and the Shah himself (who was then still in Europe) had reassured him that it would remain an independent force. Vosuq asked the British government to prompt the White Russian authorities in 181

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Paris to tell Starosselski to desist.101 Soon after the Commission’s report was submitted, Colonel Aqevli committed suicide. It was widely believed by the public that it was because of his opposition to the report.102 Meanwhile, the Iranian cabinet, in consultation with Cox, sought other ways of dealing with the Starosselski problem in the light of the additional fear of ‘the Bolshevik menace’. One alternative was to stop paying the British subsidy to the Cossacks, thus reducing it to a much smaller force financed by the 60,000 tomans paid by the government. Another alternative – though couched in very cautious terms in view of Curzon’s susceptibilities – was to approach Soviet Russia directly.103 A couple of days earlier, Vosuq had wondered whether – ‘if seriously pressed’ – Britain contemplated ‘retiring from Persia and simply defending the frontiers of India, thus leaving Persia to be overrun’.104 Cox concluded that, apart from getting reinforcement from India and Baghdad: [The best way] of protecting our own interests and of responding to Persians’ moral claims to our protection and support now is to regain the control of Caspian, and we earnestly hope possibility of doing this may again be considered.105 Curzon felt that he needed support from his colleagues, and discussed the matter at length in a meeting of the ad hoc Inter-departmental Conference which had replaced the standing Eastern Committee of the Cabinet. It was not possible, he wrote, to ask the White Russian authorities in Paris to intervene with Starosselski. The best alternative among those communicated by Cox was to stop the British subsidy and reduce the Cossack force. Military opinion in London was that a Bolshevik attack on Iran was very unlikely, and the infiltration of small Bolshevik groups could not be prevented by a stronger military force. Reinforcements from Baghdad and India would not be forthcoming, but there was a consensus that the resumption of British naval command in the Caspian would be of the utmost benefit. The Admiralty refused to consider that option without the necessary military base, and the army could not accept that condition. Having had no satisfaction at all from his own colleagues, Curzon decided to vent his frustration on Vosuq’s (and Cox’s) inquiry on whether Britain would let Iran be overrun by the Bolsheviks: [S]uch remarks are both ungracious and uncalled for, and when made should be resented … [The Agreement had provided for] no obligation to defend the present frontiers of Persia against all attack. We accepted a moral obligation to do our best on Persia’s behalf, and this we are doing and shall continue to do … While, therefore, we are keeping such troops as possible in the country and are furnishing all available officers as advisers, and munitions, etc., we cannot be subjected to perpetual whines and complaints that Persian Government are being left in the lurch.106 182

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In despair, Vosuq repeated the possibility of sending a mission to Soviet Russia, and Cox advised him to ask Firuz in Europe to discuss it with Curzon.107 Firuz saw Curzon in London and ‘startled’ him by testing his view about ‘the Persian Government entering into direct relations with the Soviet Government of Russia and concluding a treaty with them’. Curzon replied that communication with Bolshevik forces who were threatening Iran’s frontier was understandable, but to send a mission to Moscow to enter formal relations with the Soviet government was a very different question ‘on which I could not possibly give any favourable advice to the Persian Government and which I could not recommend them to pursue except on their own responsibility’: I was indeed rather painfully impressed by the fact that whereas the Persian Government had recently made an agreement with us, which we were doing our best to carry out, Persia now appeared to be running about in every direction trying to make herself secure by all sorts of arrangements with other people.108 Curzon had also been alarmed by a recent letter by Firuz to The Times hinting at the possible recognition of Soviet Russia by Iran. ‘[I]t was not my business’, he had told Firuz, ‘to impose veto upon their action’, but he could not sympathise with such actions by Iran ‘when she was beginning to reap first fruits of AngloPersian Agreement’.109 It all sounds like a jealous lover who is suspecting a new relationship, and reflects the same psychology – now in the face of such grave and unforeseen difficulties – which had resulted in the secrecy with which the Agreement had been concluded. The idea of talking directly to Moscow was eminently sound and would almost certainly have prevented the Bolshevik landing and occupation at Enzeli, and altered the course of history for Iran as well as the Agreement. Moshir al-Dawleh who replaced Vosuq in July 1920 pursued that policy despite Curzon’s great annoyance, although his government had fallen by February 1921, when Sayyed Zia signed the resulting Irano-Soviet agreement a few days after the coup. Thus Reza Khan became its real beneficiary, when the Bolsheviks withdrew from Gilan (which led to the collapse and defeat of both the Iranian Bolsheviks and the Jangalis) entering friendly relations with the Iranian government, and increasingly with Reza Khan himself. The problem of Vosuq’s government was not only that it entirely depended on the existing British financial and military support, but that – unlike Moshir’s that followed it – it could not afford to incur Curzon’s wrath when it was so isolated both inside and outside the country. Curzon would not – and could not – veto their proposal to recognise Soviet Russia, but it was enough for him to tell them that they would do so entirely ‘on their own responsibility’. Meanwhile, Vosuq and Firuz were grasping at every possible straw to improve their internal and external position. If they could obtain, through the Paris Peace Conference, some rectification of past territorial losses to the Russian and 183

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Ottoman empires, it would directly improve their image at home. If they could involve American capital in Iranian investment projects it would do the same as well as prove to the world that Iran was not a British protectorate. If they established close relations with the new (and as yet non-Bolshevik) Republic of Azerbaijan, it would make the western Caspian coast safer from Bolshevik operations. If they could get the Shah in Europe to order Starosselski to submit, it would help the situation, and, if not, it was best to try and keep the Shah in Europe until the government’s position was stronger in the country. They tried all of these options, and failed in all of them. At the end of March the Shah complained to Lord Derby, British ambassador to Paris, that Vosuq’s government – which he said he was keeping out of loyalty to the British government – were being unfriendly to him, creating obstacles for his return home. He required 400,000 French francs for his travelling expenses, and British arrangements to convey him back to Iran.110 Vosuq was of the opinion that the Shah’s early return would add to the existing problems, and correctly predicted that he himself would not be able to continue in office. Besides, the Shah had taken 120,000 tomans of government money for his European visit, had 5 million francs since, and was constantly pressing for more.111 Firuz tried to persuade the Shah not to return ‘till after the hot weather’,112 but he thought that this was a British plot ‘to get rid of him’, and alternately said that he would abdicate, or that he would ask the French or Americans to convey him home. Firuz and Derby felt that it would be better to comply with his wishes. The Shah told them that he would support Vosuq and ‘loyally adhere to the Anglo-Persian Agreement’.113 In the meantime, Vosuq had telegraphed the Shah, with no success, asking him to order Starosselski to conform with government policy. He now asked Curzon through Cox to tell the Shah that unless he put an end to the Cossack chief’s intrigues his monthly British subsidy would be stopped and facilities for sending him home would not be made. Cox added: If he refuses we shall be justified in doing the necessary before he returns; if he complies we can similarly go ahead but with less trouble.114 Curzon asked Derby to try.115 The Shah obstinately refused despite Derby’s and Firuz’s insistence, saying that he was only prepared to send a telegram – to Vosuq – of general support for government policy, and even then Starosselski must not be informed of its content.116 Two weeks later the Shah was in Cairo on his way home whence (on 7 May) Herman Norman informed Curzon through Field Marshal Allenby that he had given ‘categorical assurances’ of loyalty to Vosuq’s government as well as co-operation over the Cossack issue once he reached the Iranian capital.117 He did not keep either of his two promises, but before he had received Allenby’s telegram Curzon had wired Cox that: In view of Shah’s obstinate attitude, there appears no harm in action being taken as anticipated in penultimate paragraph of your telegram No. 219 (of 21st April).118 184

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This is the paragraph quoted above in which Cox had referred to ‘doing the necessary’. What was it? It could not have been getting rid of the Shah one way or another, because Cox had written that if the Shah agreed to co-operate in the matter of Starosselski ‘we can similarly go ahead but with less trouble’. And in any case it would have been easier to dispatch the Shah while he was still in Europe. It could conceivably be any number of things but, given the context, the likeliest possibility is the idea of cutting Starosselski’s trouble by force. There obviously was no plan, because Cox replied to Curzon that Vosuq was temporarily indisposed, but that he would ‘discuss plans with him as soon as possible’.119 Whatever it was, nothing came of it. The Shah later told Vosuq in Tehran that, before leaving Iran, he had told Starosselski not to follow any orders sent by him from Europe even if he was certain of their authenticity.120 The issue of frontier rectification had been extensively discussed with Curzon when Firuz was in London before and during the Shah’s state visit. Firuz took the matter up again with equal vigour and persistence in later visits to London. This time he enlisted Vosuq’s personal support and intervention in the form of a long telegram to himself, a copy of which he duly handed to the Foreign Office. Vosuq pointed out that both the letter and the spirit of the Agreement, as well as Curzon’s subsequent speeches, had projected ‘a strong position [for Persia] in the Middle East’ and ‘the restoration of Persia to her former greatness and to the important position due to her in Asia’. And if the Iranian people became conscious of the fact that these objectives were being ignored – he said pointedly – then friend as well as foe would combine against them, and the least result would be the demise of the Agreement. If the spirit of the Agreement was what they had been given to understand during the negotiations and by Curzon’s public pronouncements, then it could make Iran a strong link between East and West, and would enable them ‘to procure progress and policy for the country with Great Britain’s assistance’. But if this was not the case – and here he was prophetic: [W]e shall be deprived of the means of resisting the fierce onslaughts of the opponents of the Agreement and of those who encourage an opposite policy to Persia, for it cannot be denied that with a half-hearted and hesitating attitude not only will the interests and rights of the country be jeopardized but all that we have been anxiously at pains for a long time to set up will only have served to expose your highness and myself to everlasting recrimination and execration. He combined this very strong plea with a detailed and reasoned argument for the case of Iran’s frontier rectifications, and said in response to Curzon’s noncommittal replies to Firuz: Your Highness says that Lord Curzon assures you that he himself and the British delegates will not oppose the claims of Persia when they are 185

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submitted to the [Paris] Peace Conference. An indifferent attitude on the part of the representatives of Great Britain would not suffice, their active support will be essential to our cause, more especially as our requests are quite moderate and justifiable.121 Having handed in Vosuq’s telegram, Firuz discussed Iran’s claims at length with Lord Hardinge in Curzon’s absence from the Foreign Office. Hardinge pointed out that the claims went far beyond the question of rectification of frontier infringements by other powers; that the aim of the Agreement had been to ‘make Persia strong and independent within her frontiers’ and resist ‘any infringement by any other Powers of her existing territories’; and that it would not be right for Britain to support actively the recognition of Iran’s claims by the Conference, when it did not have the means of helping Iran to enforce the claims and annex the territories in question. Firuz said that he understood Britain’s position, and would settle for a discussion of Iran’s claims by the Conference with active British support for a Conference resolution along the following lines: The Conference recognises that the territorial claims of Persia in Trancaspia are well founded, but that the whole of this question, depending as it does upon the solution of the Russian problem, cannot be decided at present.122 He emphasised that such a resolution would greatly strengthen the hand of the Iranian government at home. Hardinge replied that he would refer the matter to Curzon but was not very hopeful. Curzon commented to Cox that he found the Iranian claims ‘utterly unreasonable’, and that it had not occurred to him during the negotiations for the Agreement that by supporting frontier readjustments ‘we were to dig into bygone history’.123 He also wrote a formal reply to Firuz, reiterating his previous pronouncement on the issue: it was not for him to veto Iran’s full claims which she could submit to the Conference on her own; alternatively, they could submit ‘a more moderate assertion of the Persian desiderata backed by the support of His Majesty’s Government’.124 From the discussions and the correspondence it would appear that there had been a mutual misunderstanding of the nature and implications of ‘the Persian desiderata’. However, it was considerations arising from realpolitik which divided the two sides. Curzon and the Foreign Office must have anticipated strong opposition from the French and, especially, the Americans to Iran’s claims if only because of their opinion about the Agreement. They must also have been mindful of the implications of these claims for the White as well as Red Russian governments, and the whole question of future relations of Western powers with Russia. Last but not least was what was briefly and subtly pointed out by Hardinge to Firuz: it was already difficult for them to obtain (from the Treasury, 186

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the War Office, the India Office and the government of India) the means of keeping the Agreement afloat, if the Conference did affirm Iran’s territorial claims with their active support, they would be in no position to provide the instruments – directly and indirectly – for her to recover and maintain those territories. The Iranians, on the other hand, were desperately cornered by a strong internal and external opposition which declared that the Agreement had turned Iran into a British protectorate. They thus needed, not just public announcements by Curzon and themselves about Iran’s independence and strength, but spectacular proof of their sincerity. There could thus be no resolution of the issue which was satisfactory to both sides. Curzon’s position on the question of territorial claims was not unreasonable. But while he could not deliver the means of protecting the Caspian coastline, his opposition to an attempt by Iran to come directly to terms with Moscow was unreasonable, as was his jealous reaction to Iran’s attempt to obtain domestic and international approval by involving American capital and skill in her development. The matter was introduced to Curzon by the hapless Firuz in a further meeting with Curzon. Curzon saw no possible objection to the employment of ‘two or three [Americans] here or there’. Firuz ‘startled’ him with vague references to various projects and then ‘dropped in world oil’. Curzon took the hint to mean that the American Standard Oil Company ‘was endeavouring to secure a foothold on Persian soil’, and ‘warned him [Firuz] strongly against’ such a project.125 It was in the same meeting that Curzon objected that while they had entered an agreement with Iran and were trying to do their best to carry it out, the Iranians ‘were running about in every direction’: ‘One day it was a treaty with Azerbaijan and another day a financial arrangement with the Americans, and now it was a proposal to come to terms with the Soviet Government’.126 Curzon, at least, had not objected to the negotiations with the newly founded Republic of Azerbaijan for a cultural and commercial treaty. As early as October 1919, the Norperforce political officer had reported that restive elements in the Iranian Azerbaijan were relying on support from the Republic.127 At the same time the Iranians floated the idea of recognising the new republic on grounds of providing protection for Iranian subjects – merchants, professionals and oil workers – in that country. The White Russian chargé d’affaires in Tehran had objected, and dropped a hint at the possibility of Denikin’s adopting an ‘unfriendly attitude towards Persians within his reach’.128 Firuz, in any case, was not much enamoured by the presence of the White Russian representative in Tehran; but, independently from that, he believed that the recognition of Azerbaijan would also contain the Pan-Turanian movement which the Turks had encouraged there as well as in Iranian Azerbaijan. 129 Curzon did not remark on the idea, but still asked Oliphant to write to the White Russian chargé d’affaires in London to warn them in friendly but firm terms about the threat they had made to the Iranian government over their wish to recognise Azerbaijan.130 In November Vosuq sent Sayyed Zia to Baku at the head of a six-man official mission which included the Gendarmerie captain, Kazem Khan Sayyah, his 187

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future collaborator in the coup d’état of 1921. They left for Baku on 28 November 1919, and were going to be met there by Colonel C.B. [Claude] Stokes,131 an old friend of Sayyed Zia’s from 1911 when the Russians had rejected his nomination by Shuster to command the latter’s Treasury Gendarmes,132 who had been British military attache in Tehran in 1918, and who was later to try and obtain, without much success, Foreign Office support for Sayyed Zia’s abortive government after the coup.133 Apart from everything else, Iran and the new republic needed mutual co-operation to meet the threat of Bolshevism. By the end of March the Sayyed had concluded a treaty with the Azerbaijan government and sent it to Tehran for ratification.134 In April, he returned to Iran, warned Tehran about recent Bolshevik successes in the Caucasus, and suggested ways of making clear to Soviet Russia that Iran was not hostile towards them135 (see the section on ‘Bolshevik landing at Enzeli’). But by the end of the month the Republic of Azerbaijan fell to Bolshevik forces and matters took a decisive turn against Vosuq’s government.

The revolt of Khiyabani Before the fall of Azerbaijan, however, Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani had taken charge of Tabriz and most of Iranian Azerbaijan at the head of the Tabriz section of the Democrat party. To this day, it is firmly believed by almost all shades of political opinion that the Shaikh’s primary motive had been to oppose the Agreement and Vosuq’s government; even Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Hedayat), who later put down the revolt under Moshir al-Dawleh’s government, was under that impression,136 as is the latest author to comment on that incident.137 There was also a strong suspicion of separatist motives either for independence from Iran or, more likely, an arrangement with Turkey or Soviet Russia. The alleged Turkish connection was extremely far-fetched (see p. 190) and quickly faded away. But the pro-Bolshevik legend was spread by Iran’s first communist party almost immediately afterwards, and by leaders of another revolt in Azerbaijan as well as the Tudeh party twenty-five years later. It became an article of faith among all the Marxist–Leninist tendencies. However, recent evidence virtually discards all these theories. It shows that Khiyabani’s revolt had been intended to establish a strong autonomous rule in Azerbaijan as a part of Iran to stamp out the chaos and disorder in the province, and to promote modern projects, especially in the fields of education, culture and administration. It also shows that, far from being pro-Bolshevik, the Shaikh and his men outlawed the Tabriz Bolsheviks and took up arms against them, and that Vosuq’s government acquiesced in their rule in Azerbaijan. The sources in question are Ahmad Kasravi’s unpublished manuscript of 1923 entitled The Revolt of Shiakh Mohammad Khiyabani, Major Edmonds’ unpublished papers, and – as a less important supplementary source – the recently published memoirs of Abolqasem Kahhalzadeh, then Iranian secretary at the German legation in Tehran. At the time of his uprising, Khiyabani was about forty. He had been an educated prayer leader at a Tabriz mosque, though not a mojtahed, and had been a teacher 188

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at the Talebiyeh College of Tabriz where Kasravi had been taught by him. A constitutional revolutionary, he had joined the Democrat party at its very inception, and had been elected a deputy for Tabriz to the second Majlis. In 1911, the Shuster crisis led to the dissolution of the Majlis and the Russian occupation of Tabriz. Fearing the Russians, Khiyabani took refuge in the Caucasus until the Imam Jom‘eh of Tabriz obtained immunity for him to return to his home town where he first became a prayer leader, once again, and then opened a shop in the bazaar and quietly maintained contact with his fellow Democrats. After the Russian revolution, The Tabriz Democrats resumed activity, but soon divided into two factions – the Tajaddodiyun (or Tajaddod Faction, because they were responsible for the party newspaper of that name), and the Tanqidiyun (Critical Faction). The former was led by Khiyabani, and the latter by Dr Zain al-‘abedin Khan (Kazemzadeh-ye Iranshahr’s brother). From the start, Kasravi belonged to the Tanqidiyun who were specifically critical of what they described as Khiyabani’s ‘dictatorial’ style of leadership. For about a year, he and the Democrats were increasingly active in running the town and – as much as possible – the rest of the province, and the two successive governors were quite helplessly in their hands. They appropriated about one-half of the arms and ammunitions left by the Russians (leaving the rest for the government), and efficiently organised the famine relief by stamping out hoarding and speculation, and assisting the poor and hungry. But Kasravi also attributes the assassination of some ‘undesirable’ as well as a few ‘innocent’ community figures to the Khiyabani faction.138 When the Turkish army occupied Tabriz in the name of the Unity of Islam movement, they banished Khiyabani from the town until they pulled out their forces in November 1918. Khiyabani’s return to Tabriz once again resulted in the supremacy of the Democrats and the renewal of internal disagreements over Khiyabani’s style of leadership. After the announcement of the 1919 Agreement the Tabriz Democrats responded in their newspaper, Tajaddod, by emphasising that it would not be valid without Majlis approval, but did not discuss it again, even when they took power.139 In November 1919, Sardar Entesar (later, Mozaffar A‘lam) was sent as military commander to Azerbaijan, and Khiyabani established good relations with him. This was followed by the appointment to governor-general of the aged Ain al-Dawleh who – it appears both from Kasravi and Edmonds – was in no hurry whatsoever to reach Tabriz, and after slowly reaching Zanjan remained there until well after the revolt. Meanwhile, two Swedish Gendarmerie officers were sent from Tehran to run the police force. For different reasons, neither Khiyabani nor Sardar Entesar was pleased with their arrival, especially as it seems that they had taken their duties seriously. According to Kasravi, the Sardar had secretly given the green light to Khiyabani for his revolt. The incident which triggered off the uprising occurred a few days before Nawruz (21 March 1920) when, on Khiyabani’s orders, armed Democrats forcibly removed a prisoner from a police station, and the Tabriz police laid siege to their headquarters. At this point 189

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Sardar Entesar appeared on the scene and ordered the police to disperse. Next day, the Democrats declared a general strike which was also observed by some policemen and the deputy governor-general (who was then acting governorgeneral in the absence of Ain) ordered the two Swedish officers to leave town. Thus, with the help of Sardar Entesar, the Democrats took over the government with hardly a shot being fired.140 It is therefore clear that the Democrats had been effectively in control for much of the time – other than the period of Turkish occupation – since the departure of the Russians, and the trend for a complete takeover had existed since Autumn 1919. That must be one of the reasons why Vosuq’s government did not react in anger, fear or surprise at the event. There were other more important, reasons, however. Khiyabani issued a short but broad statement in favour of effective and orderly constitutional government in Azerbaijan, but said nothing against Vosuq, Britain and the Agreement.141 And even when he and his men were specifically asked about these issues they were evasive and noncommittal.142 Kasravi notes that some time after the uprising, Major Edmonds visited Tabriz, met Khiyabani in private, and reached an understanding with him.143 This is entirely borne out by Edmonds’ reports at the time and subsequently. Edmonds saw the Shaikh in Tabriz on 1 May 1920. The Shaikh ‘spoke with conviction that he had Tabriz in his hands and that his decisions could admit of no discussion’. He reiterated their public demands for constitutional and orderly government; he categorically denied allegations of separatism, emphasising that Azerbaijan was an integral part of Iran; he said that ‘his first duty was to preserve order and he was determined to do it’; he explained the restrictions imposed on political meetings by referring to the danger arising from the activities of Bolshevik and pro-Turkish elements; he said that he and his men were hostile only to Germany and Turkey, the latter having caused much damage to, and having campaigned for the annexation of, Azerbaijan. He further told Edmonds that: … his party did not oppose the Anglo-Persian agreement as such but they would expect the people to have some voice in controlling its interpretation … An instrument like the agreement was necessary and inevitable but it should not be between two or three men but between peoples. And while even some moderate constitutionalists had condemned both Vosuq and the Agreement, he said about the latter: Poor Vusuq he [sic] has handicapped himself hopelessly by electing to play a lone hand. He is distracted from the administration of the state by those around him … I think you may tell higher [British] authority that your relationship with Persia would be on a much firmer basis if the Prime Minister would take the country into his confidence.144 190

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In his general report for the month of May, in the briefing item on Tabriz, Edmonds mentioned the above interview, and commented further: In P[olitical] O[fficer]’s opinion the movement started as a genuinely patriotic agitation for the restoration of the constitution, there was nothing Separatist or Bolshevik about it. It is of course impossible to foresee the results of mishandling by the Central Government. This view is rather confirmed by latest news of steps taken by the Democrats, since the Russian descent on Enzeli, to suppress bolshevik [sic] activity in Tabriz and prevent communication by the German Consul (who was endeavouring to profit by the situation) with the outside world.145 The reference to ‘mishandling’ must be an allusion to Edmonds’ earlier reports on the case of the Jangalis. However, Cox must certainly have informed Vosuq of Edmonds’ reports and comments on the situation in Tabriz, and Vosuq could only have been pleased that, while the Democrats were not attacking him or the Agreement, they were trying to bring order to the town and parts of the province, and were also suppressing Bolshevik agitation. There is some fairly direct evidence for this in connection with the affair of the German consul in Tabriz. Edmonds mentioned in his report for May that the Democrats had surrounded the German consulate. This was true, and it ended with the death of the consul. The consul, a very excitable young man, had been in league with Bolshevik agitators in town, more likely from anti-British rather than pro-Bolshevik motives. In the wake of the Bolshevik landing at Enzeli the Tabriz Bolsheviks became very active, and ‘it was generally believed that Wustrow, the German Consul, was at the bottom of it’.146 The Democrats decided to arrest their leaders, and Wustrow gave them refuge in the consulate. When Khiyabani’s men surrounded the building, Wustrow – whose staff ‘refused to follow his orders’ – began to shoot from the rooftop, but he was quickly hit in the mouth and died. It was not clear whether he had committed suicide or had been hit by a bullet.147 Khiyabani’s own violent death was described with exactly the same ambiguity in September of that year. A few days later, Vosuq asked Kahhalzadeh, the Persian Secretary at the German legation in Tehran, to his office and told him to inform the legation that Wustrow had committed suicide. Next day, the German minister, accompanied by Kahhalzadeh, went to the foreign ministry and was officially informed of the consul’s death. They were told that it was ‘widely believed that he had taken his own life’, and that in any case ‘it was his own fault’. The German minister did not take the last comment at all comfortably.148 It is clear that, at least for the time being, Vosuq was not losing sleep on account of Khiyabani and the Tabriz Democrats. This was shortly after the Bolshevik landing at Enzeli which was not welcomed by them; indeed, Khiyabani did not approve of Kuchik Khan’s subsequent deal with the Bolsheviks in declaring the Socialist Republic of Iran in Rasht. 191

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The Bolshevik landing at Enzeli On 19 April, Sayyed Zia, en route from Baku to Tehran, visited Major Edmonds in Qazvin. He said that the Baku government was in chaos, and he believed that the Bolshevik committee was planning a ‘coup’ in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Bolshevik ships had set out from the Baltic for the Caspian via the Volga, and he took ‘a very pessimistic view of the situation at Enzeli’. The Bolsheviks believed, he further explained, that, in the event of their invasion of Iran, British forces would withdraw to the Indian frontier. He was going to impress the need for urgent decisions upon the government in Tehran.149 Ten days later, the Revolutionary Committee of Baku proclaimed the Soviet Socialist Government of Azerbaijan. The following day, the Russian Bolshevik army began to enter the city, and soon numbered 20,000. The Edalat committee of Iranian Bolsheviks then began to take possession of Iranian property.150 The worst fears of Vosuq and Cox were thus about to be realised. During the first week of May, intelligence reports began to pour in about Bolshevik troop and naval reinforcements, and on 8 May Starosselski received intelligence about an impending Bolshevik landing at Enzeli, which included attempts to woo over the Cossack garrison at Astara. They had emphasised that their quarrel was not with Iran, only with the British.151 Curzon, though concerned, was still not very convinced of the likelihood of an actual attack.152 Vosuq made an urgent appeal through Cox, and suggested some detailed measures, the most important being that ‘Norperforce be substantially reinforced from Baghdad sufficiently to enable it to deal effectively with any probable development from Enzeli and to maintain stability of situation at Teheran after Shah’s return’. Cox concluded his telegram in a language which reflected gloom and despair: If they are not taken he [Vosuq] fears that unfavourable developments must supervene involving fall of present Government … He argues, and I agree, that failure to take measures to keep situation under control, will be short-sighted economy and that infinitely greater loss or expenditure will result from failure to do so.153 Three days later, on 17 May, Vosuq instructed Firuz in Paris to make urgent and strong representations through Derby to Curzon.154 On 18 May, Curzon replied to Cox that the military situation in northern Iran had been ‘exhaustively examined at meeting of Eastern Committee [i.e. the Inter-departmental Conference]’, but Vosuq’s proposals cited above were not endorsed, and particularly ‘His Majesty’s Government are not in a position to augment their forces in Persia’. He added that ‘position at Enzeli does not appear to be exposed to immediate danger either by land or sea’ although the situation might change, and it was left to General Champain to fall back on Qazvin ‘should the Enzeli position be in real danger’.155 On the same day, a Bolshevik fleet of 13 ships, including a destroyer, appeared at Enzeli, bombarded Ghaziyan, and landed.156 General Champain, the Norperforce 192

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GOC, who was present at Enzeli for inspection, ordered the withdrawal of his considerably inferior force to Rasht. Wires began humming between Tehran, London and Paris. Cox immediately informed Curzon that Champain had withdrawn to Rasht partly because ‘no instructions had reached him’, a view which was to persist in comments, books and articles,157 though there was no foundation to it.158 Firuz was ‘very much perturbed’ at the news. He told Derby that ‘the Persian Cossack force is not dissolved and frankly hostile. French Minister [in Tehran] also hostile and evidently pleased at Persia’s present difficulties’. He made three suggestions for reinforcements; failing these he renewed the question of talking to Moscow.159 Champain’s withdrawal from Enzeli had neither been hasty nor due to lack of instructions. On the contrary, as early as 28 February (almost three months before the Bolshevik landing) Champain had received clear instructions to withdraw if attacked in force. The telegram sent by the War Office to General Headquarters in Baghdad, and copied by them to Champain in Qazvin reads as follows: The Cabinet has approved of the following telegram … The South Russian military Situation renders it probable that the Bolshevicks [sic] may shortly gain naval command of the Caspian … [T]he role outlined for Norperforce is that of an outpost which if attacked in force will fall back to the main line of resistance which must be within reach of railhead. In case of an attack: [T]he detachment now at ENZELI would probably provide such a deterrent to the naval forces of the Bolshevicks as to prevent their attempting a serious landing … Arrangements should therefore be made to offer a bold definite front to Bolshevicks … should they threaten ENZELI and by bluff endeavour to prevent the port being seriously attacked by them. At the same lime, there is no intention of holding on to ENZELI should it be seriously attacked, and you should make arrangements to assure the withdrawal of your detachment at ENZELI.160 Cox’s reference to lack of instructions is a source of puzzle, because the above telegram had been repeated to him at the same time.161 Curzon was obviously aware of the cabinet decision. The retreat from Enzeli was a major blow to British prestige. The French press, as noted above, enjoyed a field day. On 20 May The Times attacked the assumption of ‘enormous responsibilities’ by ministers ‘with light-hearted eagerness, without counting the costs, without reckoning up their resources, and without considering where they will be if something unexpected happens’. There were bitter recriminations within the British cabinet. In a letter written to Curzon on 20 May, Churchill, Secretary of State for War, attacked both him and his policy. 193

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He intended to seek cabinet approval to withdraw all the British forces in Iran to Mesopotamia, and to dissolve the ‘Eastern Committee’ which, he implied, was Curzon’s captive instrument. The evacuation of Enzeli, he pointed out, had been contemplated by the War Office shortly before the Bolshevik landing, but had been stopped by a decision of the ‘Eastern Committee’ from which Churchill had been absent: I do not see that anything we can do now within the present limits of our policy avert the complete loss of British influence throughout the Caucasus, Trans-Caspia, and Persia. If we are not able to resist the Bolsheviks in these areas, it is much better by timely withdrawals to keep out of harm’s way and avoid disaster and the shameful incidents such as that which has just occurred.162 In the following crisis meeting of the cabinet on 21 May, Curzon led a ‘violent attack’ on the General Staff for not having made clear the gravity of the situation at Enzeli. There was much pressure for withdrawing all the British forces to Mesopotamia. This was successfully resisted by Curzon.163 The day before, Hardinge had written a long memorandum to Curzon, warning of dire consequences for the British position in the region if this happened: Once the evacuation of Tabriz and Kasvin is effected the fall of Tehran is inevitable, but before that happens the Government of Vossouk-edDowleh will have disappeared. The Anglo-Persian Agreement will have become a scrap of paper, the Europeans of Tehran will be obliged to fly towards the south, and anarchy and destruction will prevail. If and when a large Bolshevik force is concentrated at Kasvin and Tehran, the flanks of both India and Mesopotamia will be exposed and the Bolsheviks will be in a position to choose whether to attack in the east or in the west.164 This was but a small sample of the Foreign Office opinion and the cabinet reached a compromise on keeping Norperforce at Qazvin.165 Accordingly, orders were sent out by the War Office for a retreat from Rasht to Qazvin, but a small force was stationed on the elevations of the Manjil pass as a first line of defence. The retreat from Rasht was probably an eventful mistake. Raskolnikov, the Bolshevik naval commander (and namesake of the anti-hero in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment) had said that his mission was only to appropriate the vessels which had been interned at Enzeli, and had negotiated for the retreat of the British garrison from there to Rasht. This had been repeated by another Bolshevik commander, Kazhanov, who ‘stated that his object was simply to recover Russian property at Enzeli, chiefly the Volunteer Fleet, and that he had no immediate intention of going further’.166 On 27 May, Chicherin replied to 194

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Firuz’s formal protest at the landing in a friendly tone, citing his very favourable declaration of June of the previous year towards Iran, and saying that the Soviet commander had landed at Enzeli on his own local initiative and would leave after further negotiations.167 A careful study of the Russian archival material may show exactly what the thinking had been on the Bolshevik side. The present evidence would seem to indicate that they were wary of a massive military operation in Iran. Indeed, their column at Ardebil was attacked by Shahsavan and other local forces, losing many men, all their guns, and many of their rifles before retreating into Russian territory.168 However that may be, if Rasht had not been evacuated, it is unlikely that Kuchik Khan would have thrown in his lot with the Bolsheviks, as he did for a short but crucial period which provided the basic local legitimacy for the declaration of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Gilan. Kuchik was a patriotic constitutionalist and a practising Muslim who looked up to political leaders like Moshir al-Dawleh and Mostawfi al-Mamalek. Edmonds’ reports cited above tend to support the view that he would not have been too eager to join hands with the Bolsheviks. At the end of May, his entry on ‘Kuchik Khan and the Bolsheviks’ was as follows: Kuchik Khan went to Enzeli on 22nd and received an ovation. He had several interviews with Kajanoff [Kazhanov] but is stated to have differences with them over their programme. He left on May 29th. He was subsequently interviewed by the Governor General, Gilan, and promised to assist in the preservation of order in Resht area.169 On 4 June, just as Norperforce evacuated Rasht, Kuchik entered the town and, together with Iranian Bolsheviks and their Soviet advisers, declared the Socialist Republic in a coalition headed by himself. It is unlikely that the Iranian Bolsheviks would have made such a move merely on the strength of Soviet support, and against the opposition of the Jangalis, especially given that Khiyabani’s popular movement in Azerbaijan was actively against them. Predictably, the coalition lasted for one and a half months, and fell apart shortly after Moshir al-Dawleh formed a cabinet in July. But that was sufficient to establish the Bolshevik hold in Gilan, and not only spell doom for Vosuq’s government and the Agreement, but also pave the way for the coup of 1921. Meanwhile Firuz had rushed to London to talk to Curzon, and had sent his note of protest (drafted by Vosuq himself in Tehran) to Moscow with Curzon’s approval, who in their reply played down the matter as a local incident. The crisis cabinet meeting in London had recommended that the Iranians should talk directly to Moscow. Curzon clearly did not make that suggestion to Firuz despite the repeated representation they had been making (both before and after the Enzeli landing) for just such a move, which, had it been made in time, would probably have averted the event. Indeed, on 27 May, the very day on which Firuz and Curzon had a meeting, Leonid Krassin had arrived for negotiations in 195

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London at the head of what was officially described as a Soviet trade delegation. Firuz asked Curzon if he should meet with Krassin. Curzon said that he had no objection to that, but thought that it would be better if he himself first raised the issue with Krassin. Curzon’s old fear of Iran ‘playing one side against the other’ was still as strong as ever, and there was still no inkling that it was wreaking havoc with his own Persian Policy. Far from it, Curzon was in an optimistic mood, telling Firuz that they ‘should not be overmuch disturbed by local or partisan intrigues, should deal firmly but quietly with Starsselski [sic], and should fight the battle of the Anglo-Persian Agreement with renewed vigour’: Indeed I said I could not understand why they had not already convened the Mejilis, placed the agreement before it and openly challenged a verdict. I could not myself conceive that any Persian Assembly would prefer to exchange the enhanced stability and security which Persia had already begun to enjoy for the chaos which would follow the abandonment of this policy, and if I were in the position of the Persian Government I would feel tempted to adopt a bolder line. Reporting the conversation to Cox, he concluded that Firuz had left him in a ‘far from despondent mood’.170 This must have increased Cox’s admiration for Firuz’s skills at the art of ‘the stiff upper lip’. After the Gilan Republic was declared, Firuz lodged a formal complaint at the newly constituted League of Nations. That created an embarrassing situation for both Britain and France because a full hearing of the case would have involved the presence of Soviet representatives, and therefore the international recognition of the Soviet government. Neither of the two European powers was yet ready for that, especially as at that time Baron Wrangel’s Polish armies had penetrated deep into Russia, and the Iranian situation could not be discussed at the League with Soviet representatives, in complete isolation from the Polish invasion of their country. In the end, in view of Iran’s ongoing ‘negotiations’ with the Soviet government – that is, the exchange of telegrams between Moscow and Tehran, and the projected meeting between Firuz and Krassin in London – the League’s Council decided to commend Iran’s action in lodging her complaint and asked to be kept informed of further developments.171 The Curzon–Krassin negotiations finally led to a British ‘ultimatum’ that they would not continue the talks unless Moscow promised to refrain from any attempts by whatever means of encouraging any of the peoples of Asia against the interests of the British empire. This was accepted by Chicherin, and Curzon apparently believed – as he wired Norman – that it was helpful ‘for protection of Persia’.172 By then it was three weeks after Vosuq’s government had fallen, and the Agreement had been officially declared as being ‘in abeyance’. The successive cabinets of Moshir al-Dawleh and Sepahdar which followed Vosuq’s did not manage to solve either the Bolshevik or the Agreement problem – Moshir did open negotiations with Moscow, but the situation after the Enzeli landing and 196

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the declaration of the Gilan Republic was very different from what it had been before it. The Shah finally dismissed Starosselski under extreme British pressure late in October 1920, and the Cossacks were placed, in practice though not in name, under the command of General Ironside and Colonel Smyth in the village of Aqbaba (Aqa Baba) near Qazvin. In February 1921, just before he left Iran, Ironside released them under the command of the Iranian Cossack officer Reza Khan, and they marched on Tehran in an almost bloodless coup which made Sayyed Zia Prime Minister and Reza Khan the military chief. A few days later, and much to the annoyance of Curzon, the Sayyed annulled the Agreement. Thus, a long new chapter opened in the turbulent history of Iran in the twentieth century.173

Concluding remarks There were four main reasons for the failure of the 1919 Agreement: its unqualified rejection by Iran’s body politic; the confirmation of their worst fears by France, America and Russia; the refusal of the War Office, the Treasury, the India Office and the government of India to supply the necessary instruments for its defence; and Curzon’s incredible rigidity in dealing with a rapidly deteriorating situation, even to the extent of effectively stopping Vosuq from opening negotiations with Moscow to forestall the Enzeli landing. The combination and continuation of all four factors spelt doom for the Agreement and paved the way for the coup d’état of 1921.

Notes and references 1 Paper published in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25(1) (1998). 2 This brief account of the background to the present study is based on numerous British and Iranian sources. See, for example, W.J. Olson, ‘The Genesis of the AngloPersian Agreement of 1919’, in E. Kedourie and S.G. Haim (eds), Towards A Modern Iran (London: Frank Cass, 1980), pp. 185–216; Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, 1918–1925 (London: Frank Cass, 1990); Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendagani-ye Man vols 2 and 3 (Tehran: Zawar, 1964); Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Hedayat), Khaterat va Khatart (Tehran: Zawar, 1984), British Public Record Office files F.O. 371/3263, F.O. 371/3858, F.O.371/3859, F.O. 371/3860. See further, Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000). 3 See Yaya Dawlat-Abadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vols 3 and 4 (Tehran: Attar & Ferdawsi, 1983), pp. 127–8. 4 See Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat va Khalarat, pp. 309–10. See further Kollyiat-e Eshqi, Ali Akbar Moshir Salimi (ed.) (Tehran: Javidan, 1978), Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani … vol. 3. 5 Cox to Curzon, 1/9/19, British Documents of Foreign Policy (hereafter, BDFP), vol. iv, no. 749. 6 Cox to Vosuq, 9/9/19, ibid., no. 785. 7 Cox to Curzon, 22/8/19, ibid., no. 732.

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8 See Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani … , vol. 3, p. 20. The pamphlet was not published at the time, but it is the most comprehensive and articulate source on the subject. 9 Ibid., p. 24. 10 Ibid., pp. 45–6. 11 See Divan-e Bahar, Mohammad Malekzadeh (ed.) vol. 2 (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1956), pp. 395–6 for Bahar’s contribution, and the matla’ of Vosuq’s lyric which is as follows: Thou who plunder the tribe of the heart and the faith/Who transgress against the harvest of the hearts; Divan-e Kamel-e Iraj Mirza, Mohammad Ja’far Mahjub (ed.), 5th edn (America: Sherkat-e Ketab, 1989), pp. 71, 225. 12 See Divan-e Aref, Abd al-Rahman Saif-e Azad (ed.) (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1979), respectively p. 325, and pp. 246–8. Aref has another esteqbal for Vosuq’s poem which contains critical asides but no invective. See, ibid. p. 235. 13 See Kolliyat-e Eshqi, respectively, pp. 309–11, 334–6. 14 See Divan-e Farrohki Yazdi, Hossein Makki (ed.), (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1978), respectively, pp. 194 and 196. 15 See Homa Katouzian, Musaddiq and The Struggle for Power in Iran (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1990), Homa Katouzian (ed. and intro.), Musaddiq’s Memoirs (London: Jebheh, 1988). 16 The full text of the speech is quoted in Hossein Makki, Tarikh-e Bistsaleh-ye Iran, vol. 4 (Tehran: Elmi, 1995). See p. 152. See also, idem, Doktor Mosaddeq va Notq-ha-ye Tarikhi-ye U (Tehran: Elmi, 1985). 17 For the full text of the speech, see Makki, ibid., and Tarikhh-e Bistsaleh. 18 For the full text of the speech, see Makki, ibid., pp. 167–76, and Doktor Mosaddeq … , pp. 209–19. 19 See Martin Sicker, The Bear and The Lion (London: Praeger, 1988), ch. 2, pp. 36–8. 20 Ibid., p. 39. 21 Curzon to Cox, 4/9/19, BDFP, vol. iv, no. 756. 22 Cox to Curzon, 22/8/19, ibid., no. 732. 23 Cox to Curzon, 30/11/18, F.O. 371/3263. 24 Cox to Curzon, 6/12/19, F.O. 371/3263. The three-man delegation also took two Iranian and a French assistant with them, though this is not mentioned in Cox’s telegram. 25 The letter is quoted in Javad Shaikholeslami, Sima-ye Ahmad Shah Qajar, vol. 1 (Tehran: Nashr-e Goftar, 1989), pp. 173–5. 26 Curzon to Cox, 12/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 27 Curzon to Cox, 23/1/19, F.O. 371/3858. 28 Curzon to Balfour, F.O. 25/1/19, 371/3858. 29 Curzon to Cox, 5/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 30 Curzon to Balfour, 11/3/19, F.O. 371/3859; Curzon to Cox, 12/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 31 Curzon to Cox, 17/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 32 Cox to Curzon, 18/13/19, F.O. 371/3859. 33 Curzon to Cox, 21/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 34 Sir G. Grahame (Paris) to Curzon, BDFP, vol. iv, no. 722. 35 Curzon to Cox, 6/4/19, F.O., 371/3860. 36 Cox to Curzon, 14/4/19, F.O. 371/3860. 37 Cox to Curzon, 19/4/19, F.O. 371/3860. 38 Curzon to Balfour, 23/4/19, F.O. 371/3860. 39 See, for example, A. Cobban, A History of Modern France, vol. 3, part II (London: Pelican Books, 1965). 40 Curzon to Cambon, 11/3/19, F.O. 371/3859. 41 Grahame to Curzon, 30/8/19, BDFP, vol. iv, no. 747. 42 Grahame to Curzon, 21/8/19, ibid., no. 730.

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Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani … , vol. 3, p. 20. Cox to Curzon, 13/8/19, BDFP, vol. iv, no. 716. Curzon to Cox, 19/8/19, ibid., no. 728. Curzon to Cox, 25/9/19, ibid., no. 793. Curzon to Cox, 11/9/19, ibid., no. 773. Cox to Curzon, 28/8/19, ibid., no. 738. Cox to Curzon, 13/9/19, ibid., no. 779. Curzon to Cox, 1/11/19, ibid., no. 832. Curzon to Cox, 31/5/20, ibid., vol. xiii, no. 448. Wardrop (Tiflis) to Curzon, 28/11/19, ibid., vol. iv, no. 855, and its Enclosure 1. Curzon to Lindsay (Washington), 18/8/19, ibid., no. 727; Curzon to Cox, 1/9/19, ibid., no. 748. Cox to Curzon 10/9/19, ibid., no. 770. For the full text of the US statement (as released by their legation in Tehran) in Persian, see Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat va Khatarat, p. 310; Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani … , p. 73. Davis to Curzon, 9/10/19, no. 808. Cox to Curzon, 8/11/19, ibid., no. 840. Cox to Curzon, 10/9/19, ibid., no. 770. Curzon to Davis, 11/9/19, ibid., no. 774. Davis to Curzon, 12/9/19, ibid., no. 778. Curzon to Davis, 14/9/19, ibid., no. 780. Davis to Curzon, 7/10/19, ibid., no. 808, emphasis added. Minute by Curzon, ibid. Curzon to Grey, 21/10/19, ibid., no. 824. Grey to Curzon, 28/9/19, ibid., no. 794. Curzon to Grey, 1/10/19, ibid., no. 803, emphasis added. Cox to Curzon, 9/10/19, ibid., no. 812. Grey to Curzon, 17/10/19, ibid., no. 818. Curzon to Grey, 21/10/19, ibid., no. 824. Grey to Curzon, 27/10/19, ibid., no. 826. Minute by Curzon, ibid. Cox to Curzon, 21/12/19, ibid., no. 876. Ibid., n. 2. Lindsay to Curzon, 13/1/20, ibid., vol. xiii, no. 366. Curzon to Lidsay, 20/1/20, ibid., no. 368. There are a number of sources on the history of the Iranian Cossack force. For the latest and most comprehensive study, see Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997). See General Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London: John Murray, 1964), ch. 5; Malek al-Sho‘ara Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhtasar-e Ahzab-e Siyasi dar Iran, vol. 1 (Tehran: Jibi, 1978), ch. 20. See ibid., and Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921, vol. 3, The Anglo-Soviet Accord (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhtasar … , vol. 1, is very explicit on the reason behind the coup. It is also mentioned in Arfa, Under Five Shahs. See Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhlasar, vol. 1, ch. 20, General Ahmad Amir-Ahmadi, Khaterat-e Nakhostin Sepahbod-e Iran, Gholamhossein Zargarinezhad (ed.), vol. 1 (Tehran: Mo’ssehseh-ye Pazhuhesh-ha-ye Farhangi, 1994), pp. 117–18. See Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State, p. 69. See, ibid., ch. 2, Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, ch. 2; James Balfour, Recent Happenings in Persia (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1922), ch. v.

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81 The Cossacks were notorious for looting and plundering peaceful villages. For first-hand neutral reports of the attitude of the peasants and common folk towards them, see The Edmonds Papers, The Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford. 82 Cox to Curzon, 29/8/19, BDFP, vol. iv, no. 741. 83 Cox to Curzon, 30/9/19, ibid., 798. 84 Cox to Curzon, 30/9/19, ibid., no. 799. 85 Cox to Curzon, 1/10/19, ibid., no. 800. 86 Curzon to Cox, 21/10/19, ibid., no. 822. 87 Curzon to Cox, 4/12/19, ibid., no. 861. 88 Curzon to Cox, 29/10/19, ibid., no. 828. 89 Cox to Curzon, 21/11/19. ibid., no. 852. 90 Cox to Curzon, 4/12/19, ibid., no. 860. 91 Curzon to Cox, 20/12/19, ibid., no. 873. 92 Cox to Curzon, 17/1/20, ibid., vol. xiii, 367, 29/1/20, no. 371; Cox to Curzon, 18/2/20, no. 374. 93 Curzon to Cox, 7/2/20, ibid., no. 373. 94 Cox to Curzon, 21/2/20, ibid., no. 375. 95 The sources on Kuchik and the Jangalis are now numerous. See, for example, Ebrahim Fakhra’i, Sardar-e Jangal, Mirza Kuchik Khan (Tehran: Javidan, 1978); Ahmad Kasravi, Tarikh-e Hijdahsaleh-ye Azerbaijan (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1992), Cosroe Chaquri, The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1995); Y. Yodfat, The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran (London: Croom Helm, 1984); Sicker, The Bear and The Lion; Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord. For a very informative contemporary source on the period under consideration, see The Edmonds Papers. 96 For the text of the agreement, see Fakhra’i, Sardar-e Jangal, pp. 153–55. See further, Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord; Arfa, Under Five Shahs. 97 See Major Edmonds’ report for January 1920, The Edmonds Papers. 98 Ibid. 99 See Edmonds’ report for March 1919. 100 Cox to Curzon 13/3/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 387. For details of the report see Cox to Curzon, 9/4/20, ibid., no. 403. 101 Cox to Curzon, 13/3/20, ibid., no. 387. 102 This is mentioned in most contemporary sources, for example, Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhtasar. 103 Cox to Curzon, 13/3/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 387. 104 Cox to Curzon, 12/3/20, ibid., no. 386. 105 Cox to Curzon, 13/3/20, ibid., no. 387. 106 Curzon to Cox, 22/3/20, ibid., no. 395. 107 Cox to Curzon, 5/4/20, ibid., no. 401. 108 Curzon to Cox, 10/4/20, ibid., no. 406. 109 Curzon to Cox, 11/4/20, ibid., no. 407. 110 Derby to Curzon, 30/3/20, ibid., no. 397. 111 Cox to Curzon, 9/4/20, ibid., no. 402. 112 Derby to Curzon, 13/4/20, ibid., no. 408. 113 Derby to Curzon, 15/4/20, ibid., no. 410. 114 Cox to Curzon, 21/30/20, ibid., no. 414, emphasis added. 115 Curzon to Derby, 24/4/20, ibid., no. 415. 116 Derby to Curzon, 26/4/20, ibid., no. 416. 117 Allenby to Curzon, 7/5/20, ibid., no. 418. 118 Curzon to Cox 27/4/20, ibid., no. 417, emphasis added. 119 Ibid., n. 2.

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120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136

137 138

139 140 141 142 143 144

145 146 147 148

Norman to Curzon, 13/6/20, no. 461. Vosuq to Firuz, ibid., vol. iv, Enclosure in no. 877. Curzon to Cox, 30/12/19, ibid., no. 877. Ibid. Ibid., Curzon to Firuz, 19/12/19, ibid., no. 871; Note by Oliphant of a conversation with Firuz, 20/12/19, ibid., no. 872; Firuz to Curzon, 20/12/19, Annex, to no. 872. Curzon to Cox, 10/4/20, ibid., vol. xiii, no. 406. Ibid. Edmonds’ report for October 1919, The Edmonds papers. Cox to Curzon, 19/10/19, DBFP, vol. iv, no. 820. Curzon to Cox, 21/10/19, ibid.., no. 822. Oliphant to Sabline, 29/10/19, ibid., no. 829. Edmonds’ report for November 1919, The Edmonds Papers; Arfa, Under Five Shahs, ch. 5, pp. 85–6. See Malcolm E. Yapp, ‘The Last Years of The Qajar Dynasty’, in Hossien Amirsadeghi and R.W. Ferrier (eds), Twentieth Century Iran (London: Heinemann, 1977), p. 15. Stokes (Tiflis) to Curzon, 3/3/21, F.O. 371/6409. See further, Katouzian, State and Society in Iran. Edmonds’ report for April 1920, The Edmonds Papers. Edmonds’ special report on his meeting with Sayyed Zia in Qazvin, 19/4/20, The Edmonds Papers. See Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat va Khatarat; Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani, Bahar, Tarikh-e Mokhtasar; Dawlat-Abadi, Hayat-e Yahya, Abolqasem Kahhalzadeh, Didehha va Shenideh-ha, Khaterat-e Abolqasem Kahhalzadeh, Morteza Kamran (ed.) (Tehran: Nashr-e Farhang, 1984). See Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State, p. 73. This brief note on the background to Khiyabani and his revolt is based on the abovementioned manuscript of Ahmad Kasravi, written in 1923 and put at this author’s disposal for publication by his family. See H. Katouzian (ed. and intro.), Ahmad Kasravi: Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani, Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz, 1998. In two other, published, sources Kasravi has discussed Khiyabani’s revolt, but the manuscript is much more extensive and comprehensive in coverage and throws important new light on the whole affair. See his Tarikh-e Hijdahsaleh, and Zendeganiye Man (Tehran: Nashr va Pakhsh-e Ketab, 1976). See further, H. Katouzian. ‘The Revolt of Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani’, IRAN (published by the British Institute of Persian Studies) 1999 (reprinted in this volume). See Hajj Mohammad Ali Aqa Badamchi, ‘Shaiki Mohammad Khiyabani’, in Sharh-e Hal va Eqdamat-e Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani, special issue, Iranshahr, Berlin, no. 14, 1926, reprinted in Entesharat-e Iranshahr (Tehran: Eqbal, 1972). See Katouzian, ‘Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad’. See Kasravi, Tarikh-e Hijdahsaleh, p. 868. Ibid., p. 846. Katouzian, ‘Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad’; Kasravi, Tarikh-e Hijdahsaleh. C.J. Edmonds, ‘Note on an Interview with Shaikh Muhammad Khiyabani,’ sent – on 12 May – together with a memorandum to the British minister in Tehran, the British civil commissioner in Baghdad, and assistant political officer in Tabriz, The Edmonds Papers. Edmonds’ report for April–May, 1920. See Ernest Bristow, British consul in Tabriz, ‘Report on Azerbijan during 1920’, The Edmonds Papers. Ibid., and Katouzian, ‘Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad’. See also Kasravi, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, ch. 5. See Kahhalzadeh, Dideheh-ha va Shenideh-ha, pp. 432–3.

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149 Edmonds’ special report of 19/4/20 on his meeting with Sayyed Zia in Qazvin, The Edmonds Papers. 150 Edmonds’ report for April–May 1920. 151 Cox to Curzon, 9/5/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 422. 152 Curzon to Cox, 11/5/20 ibid., no. 423. 153 Cox to Curzon, 14/5/20, ibid., no. 425, emphasis added. 154 Derby to Curzon, 20/5/20, ibid., no. 437. 155 Curzon to Cox, 20/5/20, ibid., no. 433. 156 Cox to Curzon, 18/5/20, ibid., no. 434, Edmonds’ report for April–May 1920, Sicker, The Bear and the Lion, p. 40. 157 See, for example, Lord Ironside (ed.) High Road to Command, The Diaries of MajorGeneral Sir Edmund Ironside. 1926–1922 (London: Leo Cooper, 1972), p. 138; Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord, p. 362. 158 Cox to Curzon, 18/5/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 434. 159 Derby to Curzon, 20/5/20, ibid., no. 438. 160 War Office to Baghdad, 25/2/20, copy to Champain, 2812120, W.O. 158/697, emphasis added. 161 Ibid. 162 Churchill to Curzon, 20/5/20, Curzon MS box 65, quoted in Ullman, The AngloSoviet Accord, p. 363. 163 Wilson MS diary, quoted in Ullman, ibid., p. 364. 164 Curzon to Cox, 18/5/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 433, n. 4. 165 See Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord. 166 Edmonds’ report for April–May 1920. 167 Cox to Curzon, 27/5/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 446. 168 Edmonds’ report for April–May, 1920. 169 Ibid. 170 Curzon to Cox, 27/5/20, BDFP, vol. xiii, no. 445. 171 Explaining the French objections, Balfour wrote that – among other reasons – ‘they think that if the Council is forced to apply Article 17 (which allows them to invite the Soviet Government under conditions, to take part in their deliberations) this would be a long step towards such a consummation [i.e. recognition of the Soviet Union]’. See Balfour to Hardinge, 5/6/20, ibid., no. 452; and minutes by Hardinge and Curzon, ibid., n. 3; Oliphant’s memorandum on his conversation with Firuz, 10/6/20, ibid., no. 458. See Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord, pp. 368–9, who discusses the problem arising from the ongoing Polish-Soviet war with reference to Sir Eric Drumund’s memorandum of 26 May 1920. 172 Curzon to Norman, 13/7/20, ibid., no. 510. 173 See BDFP, vol xiii, Ironside, High Road to Command, Part 3, Katouzian, State and Society in Iran; Mehdiniya, Zendeginameh-ye Sayyed Zia.; Makki, Tarikh-e Bistsaleh., vol. 1; Nasrollah Saifpur Fatemi A’ineh-ye ‘Ebrat, vol. 1 (London: Nashr-e Ketab, 1990); Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet Accord.

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10 THE REVOLT OF SHAIKH MOHAMMAD KHIYABANI 1

This chapter is a study of Khiyabani’s revolt against the background of the Constitutional Revolution, and within the context of the political rift and chaos that existed at the time in Iran. Its general theoretical framework is the theory of arbitrary rule, with its central concept of the cycle of arbitrary rule– chaos–arbitrary rule that explains the major dynamics of Iranian history. The chapter is the first comprehensive study of its subject, and uses important new sources for both a description and analysis of the causes and implications of the revolt and of Khiyabani’s central role as its charismatic leader. It shows that – contrary to the established views – the revolt had not been intended mainly, let alone solely, as a reaction to the 1919 agreement, was not pro-Bolshevik and was not separatist. Its primary aim was to obtain a form of home rule, led by Khiyabani himself, to impose order and discipline in Azerbaijan, and bring about modernisation along European lines.

Background Traditional Iranian revolts had been led against an ‘unjust’ arbitrary ruler in the hope of replacing him with a ‘just’ one. When successful, the collapse of the state had invariably led to destructive conflict, disorder and chaos until a new arbitrary rule was established. This led to the cycle of ‘arbitrary rule–chaos–arbitrary rule’. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, acquaintance with European society suggested a political system based on law as opposed to arbitrary rule. Therefore, for the first time in Iranian history, the Constitutional Revolution was aimed, not just against an unjust arbitrary ruler, but at the destruction of the ancient arbitrary rule itself and its replacement by lawful government. It ended by establishing a constitution, which, besides providing a legal basis for the state, created parliamentary government along basic democratic principles. Ideally, this might have resulted in the formation of a new state representing an extensive social base. Yet the radically new situation had no cultural roots, and the ancient traditions of chaos resulting from the fall of the state were as strong as ever. Therefore, the teens of the present century, which followed the victory of the revolution, witnessed growing destructive conflict both at the 203

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centre and in the provinces. It almost looked as if the country would disintegrate as it had done after the fall of the Safavid state in the eighteenth century. Foreign intervention and occupation during the First World War encouraged the chaotic trends, but domestic factors had been independently at work, and had their roots in the long Iranian tradition of disorders following upheavals. Thus, although the foreign factor was important especially during the War, the pattern was familiar, and the domestic forces needed little encouragement for engaging in destructive conflict, which both created and perpetuated chaos. It is very important to note that – contrary to common belief – these were not just nomadic, ethnic and regional; they existed right at the centre, in the Majlis, among the factions and parties, and within the ranks of the competing political magnates. Indeed, had there not been such rifts and chaos in the very centre of politics, it is unlikely that such powerful centrifugal forces would have been released, or would have been so effective, in the provinces. For it is characteristic of the country’s history that, whoever has the centre, also has the periphery.2 Shortly before the end of the War, Vosuq al-Dawleh formed a ministry with active British support. Almost all the leading politicians felt the need for a strong government that would organise a unified army, reorganise the country’s financial system, and stamp out disorder. Some of them were opposed to Vosuq, but he had his own personal supporters within the political hierarchy, by far the most effective and influential among whom was Sayyed Hasan Modarres.3 In his first year of office, Vosuq managed to bring some order to government and administration. These measures did not change the hearts of his radical opponents, but they did tend to soften the attitude of some of his critics among popular politicians and moderate constitutitonalists. During the same year, he and his two closest allies within the cabinet negotiated the Anglo-Iranian agreement, which was signed in Tehran in August 1919. Both inside and outside the country, the Agreement was denounced as an instrument for turning Iran into a British protectorate, and was rejected by the political public with growing resentment and vehemence. Even Modarres went over to the opposition.4 The Agreement had been the brainchild of Lord Curzon and the Foreign Office alone. Moreover, it had been met with strong opposition from the Government of India, the India Office, the Treasury and the War Office, the first two being opposed to extensive British involvement in Iran, while the latter two were wary of its financial and military implications. The agreement that finally came into being was the result of much debate and disagreement, and took considerable account of the British critics of Curzon’s policy. Nevertheless, the Government of India retained its opposition to it, and the other departments returned to their critical position as soon as it faced serious trouble. It was not so much the text of the terms of the Agreement that led to the stormy reaction against it, but the secret manner (on which Curzon and Sir Percy Cox had insisted) of conducting the negotiations. Curzon managed even to exclude the official Iranian delegation from the Paris Peace Conference, and keep France and America more or less in the dark about the negotiations in 204

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Tehran. Rumours (later confirmed) that British money had been paid to help smooth the Agreement’s passage made matters much worse. When the Agreement was announced, Bolshevik Russia – which had hitherto issued several unilateral declarations of the abrogation of Tsarist privileges in Iran – violently denounced it. This was enough to seal the opposition of Iranian radicals to it. But the strongly worded public attack by the United States, and the campaign against it by the French press, left little doubt in the minds of even most of the moderates that the country had been ‘sold out to Britain’.5 This encouraged another upsurge of Kuchik Khan’s Jangal campaign which, however, was driven back by a combined operation of Iranian Cossacks and the British Norperforce (North Persia Force) with its headquarters at Qazvin. Yet Vosuq followed this by an appeasement policy and, for a while, a permanent settlement between the government and the Jangalis looked likely. The policy had been largely encouraged by the fact that Iranian Bolsheviks both in the Caucasus and in the Iranian Azerbaijan, were making friendly overtures to Kuchik and his men, while the attitude of Colonel Starosselski, the Russian chief of the Iranian Cossacks, was far from reassuring.6 The fear of a Bolshevik thrust across the frontier was indeed daily growing. Vosuq and Firuz wisely thought of talking directly to Moscow, but, though stressing that he would not veto such a move, Curzon effectively stopped it. He did, however, support (and even help) their decision to recognise the newly formed non-Bolshevik Republic of Azerbaijan (formerly Russian Transcaucasus), and send an official delegation, led by Sayyed Zia, for a trade and cultural agreement. By the beginnings of April 1920 when the draft agreement reached Tehran, Khiyabani led his successful revolt in Tabriz. Three weeks later, the Azerbaijan republic fell to the local Bolsheviks. On 18 May, a Russian fleet landed at Enzeli, and the Norperforce units retreated to Rasht. A few days later, Norperforce received orders from London to retreat further to their base at Qazvin. On 4 June, Kuchik entered Rasht and, together with Iranian Bolsheviks and their Soviet advisers, declared the Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran in a coalition government headed by himself. Both Vosuq and Norperforce were holding their breath over the possibility – which looked likely to most people – of Khiyabani reaching an accord with the Gilan republic.7 They were therefore pleasantly surprised when, as we shall see further below (pp. 222–3), Khiyabani suppressed Bolshevik activists in Tabriz. This brief background partly explains the legend that Khiyabani and his party were pro-Bolshevik revolutionaries with possible designs to secure the secession of Azerbaijan, a view which was greatly reinforced decades later, when the Pishehvari Democrats (and the Tudeh party) described Khiyabani’s movement as a true precursor of the Azerbaijan revolt of 1945. It also explains the origins of the commonly held view that Khiyabani’s revolt had been provoked by, and was primarily aimed against, the 1919 agreement. Most people in Tehran sincerely believed that at the time, and many also thought that it was a separatist movement. This is evident from the memoirs of Abdollah Mostawfi, Yahya Dawlat-Abad and Mokhber 205

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al-Saltaneh (later, Mehdiqoli Hedayat), all of them moderate constitutionalists, all of them opposed to the Agreement, all of them critical of Vosuq’s government, who were nevertheless critical of Khiyabani because of his presumed separatism.8 On the other hand, his former lieutenants and later admirers in Azerbaijan, while claiming that the revolt had been primarily intended against Vosuq and the 1919 agreement, denied the charge of separatism. Evidence recently come to light rejects the belief that the revolt was pro-Bolshevik, that it had been primarily or even mainly a reaction to Vosuq and the Agreement, and that it had been a separatist movement. It also throws considerable light on Khiyabani’s personality as a charismatic political leader, on the movement which he led, and on the rise and fall of the revolt. It consists of Ahmad Kasravi’s recently-discovered manuscript, The Revolt of Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani; Major C.J. Edmonds’ (weekly as well as monthly) reports on the north-western provinces of Iran and the Caucasus for 1919 and 1920; reports by Ottoman and Bolshevik secret agents in Iran on Khiyabani and his movement; reports of the British consul in Tabriz; the recently published memoirs of Abolqasem Kahhalzadeh; the virtually unused memoirs of Abdollah Bahrami, the Tabriz police chief until some time before the revolt; and some additional historical notes by Mokhber al-Saltaneh. Major Edmonds was Political Officer attached to Norperforce at Qazvin, and his unpublished reports and other papers are held at the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford. Kasravi’s manuscript, signed Sayyed Ahmad Tabrizi, Ahvaz, 1923, was put at this author’s disposal, by his family, for publication.9 The manuscript had been commissioned by Hossein Kazemzadeh (later known also as Iranshahr) to be published in a special issue of his Berlin publication Iranshahr on Khiyabani, which included extremely favourable contributions by Hajj Mohammad Ali Badamchi and Reza-zadeh Shafaq, among others. It was, however, politely turned down as ‘a lengthy essay’ which, it was claimed, Kasravi ‘wished to publish as a separate book’.10 The manuscript was certainly too long for inclusion in that special issue, but its critical content, however shortened, would have forbidden its inclusion in a collection of articles which could be fairly described as hagiographic. Thus, in his own introduction, Kazemzadeh described the Shaikh as a ‘genius’, ‘an exceptional statesman of recent times’ who had been drenched by the ‘celestial chalice’ of ‘thought and will’, or ideas and action. The date of publication (1926) being just after Reza Shah’s accession to the throne, the general political circumstances are reflected in all of the articles, but most explicitly in Kazemzadeh’s introduction when he wrote: Now that the state and society (dawlat va mellat) have been united, and barriers to progress and modernisation have been removed, and revolts and revolutions are no longer necessary, it is our duty to take advantage of the Shaikh’s social and philosophical thoughts in order to reform morals, promote modernity and make good the [country’s] short-comings.11 206

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Shafaq’s contribution was also extremely favourable to Khiyabani. It ended by noting that ‘Truth is a spark that, however it may be extinguished or buried under dust and cinder, it would flame up again and bedazzle the eyes’.12 Badamchi had been a leading figure in the revolt, and had recently (in December 1925) represented Tabriz in the constituent assembly, and had voted for the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty.13 The then prevailing political mood required the movement to be represented as nationalist and anti-imperialist (and particularly anti-Agreement); and as centralist as opposed to separatist or even federalist. With regard to the aims of the revolt, Badamchi made two points. First, that the revolt had been solely a reaction to Vosuq’s government and the 1919 Agreement. Indeed, it went much further and made the very unlikely claim that Vosuq had been trying to arrange the assassination of Khiyabani and other Democrat leaders in Tabriz even before they rose. He implicitly acknowledged the fact that Tabriz Democrats had not said much in public against the Agreement or Vosuq’s government, yet claimed that their victory in the Tabriz elections had worried Vosuq to the extent that: Being aware that once the Azerbaijan deputies enter the Majlis under the leadership of the late Khiyabani, their able and beloved leader, the Agreement would never pass through the Majlis, Vosuq decided to extinguish this light, stifle Azerbaijan, this cradle of liberty, thus attaining his own corrupt objective. He therefore sent the Swedish [officers], Biverling and Vogelklu, together with a number of [Iranian] police officers, with instructions to stifle the Democrat Party and kill its leading members at any cost. (For one of the police officers, whom I do not wish to name at the moment, once when he was drunk had said that their mission was to kill the leading Democrats.) Apart from that, seeing that Vosuq was apparently implementing the Agreement before its approval by the Majlis (which had not yet met), the Democrat Party regarded silence at that moment as treason against the motherland, and felt impelled to rise against government actions which were destroying the country’s independence, led by their brave and gallant commander, and able and respectable leader, Aqa Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani. This, as we shall see below, is incorrect. The article has been written against the background both of the extreme unpopularity of the Agreement, and of the strong backlash against disintegrative trends in the 1920s. Hence Badamchi’s second explanation of the revolt is not unrelated to the first: The Democrats and their beloved commander and leader had no other objective except patriotism, protection of Iran’s greatness, and the strengthening of the constitution. And they curse those … who accuse 207

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the Democrats of being rebels who had tried to secure the secession of Azerbaijan [from Iran].14 All of these views and sentiments have been repeated and reflected by many later admirers of Khiyabani, such as Azari.15 It will be shown below that, while the claim that the revolt was wholly or even mainly intended against Vosuq and the Agreement is incorrect, the evidence suggests that it was not a separatist movement. But the issues regarding its background, objectives and developments go well beyond those two questions, especially as the new evidence reveals that the revolt itself had been the climax of a long process whereby Khiyabani and his supporters had extended their grip over the government and administration of Tabriz.

Khiyabani Shaikh Mohammad, a son of Hajj Abd al-Hamid, a merchant of the Khameneh district of Tabriz, was born in 1880. In his youth he had both assisted his father in his business and attended courses in traditional religious sciences.16 His education reached the level of a local prayer leader, and he knew some mathematics and traditional cosmography as well. In 1906 he was already teaching at Talebiyeh College, ‘a Tabriz traditional school where they teach religious sciences’, when Kasravi became his student.17 Shortly afterwards he gave up teaching and became a prayer leader at a mosque in the Khiyaban district of Tabriz. After Mohammad Ali Shah’s coup against the Majlis, Khiyabani joined the constitutionalists of Tabriz, and when the Shah fell, he was elected a deputy for the town in the second Majlis. Having joined the radical wing of the Democrat party, he played a leading role in the debates of later 1911, which led to the dissolution of the Majlis, as a result of the Russian ultimatum for the removal of Morgan Shuster, the American chief financial adviser to Iran. Russian forces stationed at Qazvin would have occupied Tehran if the ultimatum had not been accepted. The pro-Democrat government of Samsam al-Saltaneh, and its Foreign Minister Vosuq, saw no alternative but to comply with the Russian demand. Public feelings were running high, and, in the Majlis, most of the Moderates joined the radical Democrats in rejecting the government’s plea for compliance. The result was disaster for all of them and for Iran.18 Almost twenty years ago, the present author compared the Iranian disaster of 1911 with Thermidor 1794 in the French Revolution.19 The analogy is a fair one in so far as the idealists had a major setback on both occasions. But it must be further observed that, in both cases, the idealists played an important role in bringing the disaster upon themselves. It must also be emphasised that, unlike the case of France, the conflict in Iran over the Russian ultimatum was not a domestic matter, and so no domestic political force had engineered the

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‘Thermidor’. It was the Russian oppression as well as the emotionally-charged response to it which resulted in an unnecessary domestic struggle, entailing the worst possible outcome for the country. The highly arrogant behaviour of Russia and its occupying forces in Iran was flagrant, and against all norms of behaviour towards an independent country. This, indeed, was the very reason behind the great emotional outburst of Democrats, Moderates and the urban crowds in defence of their country’s, and, indeed, their own, dignity and integrity. On the other hand, it was clear that every act of Iranian defiance would simply raise the stakes, escalate the crisis and result in a much greater Iranian defeat, as in fact it happened. Thus the conflict was far from domestic, and the government of Samsam al-Saltaneh was trying to make the best of a bad job vis-à-vis a much more powerful foreign foe against whom Britain no longer would move to contain. Yet the Majlis and the crowd were facing the cabinet almost as if they were responsible for the Russian threat, and that they or anyone else in Iran could possibly put an end to Russian aggression. There was therefore a destructive conflict between the Majlis and the cabinet, by means of which both of them, as well as the country, would end up as losers. It would not be possible to present even a brief outline of the debates and disagreements here. The most fundamental point, however, is that the Majlis saw itself as the representative body of the people or society (mellat) as opposed to the state or dawlat. This was much in the spirit of the ancien régime when, either passively or actively, there had been a permanent state of destructive conflict and distrust between society and state. And now that there was constitutional government, ‘the state’ which previously had been the Shah, was being identified with the executive cabinet, ‘the government’, for which the term dawlat was also used.20 Indeed, much of the parliamentary debate, including Vosuq’s and Khiyabani’s contributions, was on the relative powers of the Majlis and the government. Vosuq bitterly complained of the cabinet’s lack of power to act, and Khiyabani argued that any more power would bring the former régime back in a new guise.21 Unless it is seen in this historical context, the conflict makes no sense at all, for the result was a total and unmitigated defeat for both the state and the society. This was anticipated at the very time even by no less a radical Democrat leader than Taqizadeh, who had recently been effectively driven out of the country because of his radical views. He sent thirteen telegrams to various leading figures of different views, including Solaiman Mirza, Vosuq, Sayyed Mohammad Reza Shirazi (Mosavat) and Mo’tamen al-Molk, imploring them to come to terms with the Russians so as to avoid a disastrous defeat. For example, in his telegrams to Solaiman Mirza, the parliamentary Democrat leader, he wrote: I am absolutely astonished at the attitude which the Majlis has adopted towards the question of the [Russian] ultimatum … At this moment, hostility and stubbornness would result in eternal damnation.22

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And he went on to say that ‘the Majlis and the government’ must act as one, form a crisis committee and meet the Russian demand of a formal apology. In his telegram to Mo’tamen al-Molk, he wondered whether ‘there was no-one among the country’s leaders to comprehend the delicacy of the situation, and realise that the whole world would reproach us for showing such stubbornness over a mere apology’.23 In yet another telegram to Mo’tamen, he ‘begged [him] in the name of the motherland to give courageous advice in this dangerous situation, so that the cabinet withdraws its resignation, the apology is made, and the motherland is saved from the risk of destruction’. He even asked Mo’tamen to present his telegram to the Majlis.24 His advice and efforts, like those of the government, were not heeded, and this led to the Russian ultimatum, their occupation of Rasht and Tabriz, and their pause for occupying the capital. It led to abject surrender: the ultimatum was accepted, and the Regent dissolved the Majlis.25 If the earlier Russian protest against the confiscation of the properties of Sho‘a‘ al-Saltaneh had been favourably received, there would have been no ultimatum, no need for an apology, no Russian occupation of Tabriz, no expulsion of Shuster, no dissolution of the Majlis, and no such sense of unmitigated defeat by the public. That the Russian protest violated Iranian sovereignty was stark and brutal; but the worst could have been avoided if the Majlis had cooperated with the government on a matter over which there was no real domestic conflict. This was a major example of chaos at the centre in the name of constitutional government, one which was to spread more widely and deeply through the world war and after until the 1921 coup. And although Khiyabani himself had been on the radical side of that conflict, it is clear from his later attitude that he drew a hard lesson from it. It was at least one important reason for the great emphasis which he put on order, discipline, solidarity and security – both in speech and in action – in the brief period that he was the undisputed master of Tabriz (see the section on ‘The origins of Khiyabani’s revolt’). After the closure of the Majlis and Russian occupation of Tabriz, Khiyabani first went to Mashad, then to the Caucasus, but sometime afterwards, Samad Khan Shoja‘ al-Dawleh, the lawless and fearsome Russian-appointed governor of Tabriz, gave him immunity to return to Tabriz through the intervention of the Imam Jom‘eh of the town.26 At first he went back to the mosque, but later opened a shop in the bazaar where ‘the freedom-loving people of Tabriz’ went to talk to him quietly about the country’s situation. ‘And as Khiyabani combined wisdom and respectability with intelligence, his influence grew daily, and he even had a number of devotees who were totally committed to him and his leadership’.27 The February revolution in Russia and the consequent departure of Russian forces from Tabriz made it possible for Tabriz Democrats to resume activity, but, according to Kasravi, Khiyabani’s personal style of leadership had already divided the party. Kasravi himself was among the critics, because he believed that ‘for Khiyabani, the leadership of the Democrat party was as if he himself was the ruler 210

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of Azerbaijan … And we shall see that, in the very name of the leader of Democrats, he took very important decisions, and eventually established his dictatorship (diktatori) under the banner of “uprising’’ ’.28 He even writes about a secret terrorist organisation which became active in Tabriz between the departure of the Russians and occupation of the Turks, and believes that it was run by Khiyabani and his deputy Esma‘il Nobari. He says that many of those whom the ‘Committee of Terror’ assassinated had been Russian collaborators and hated by the public: But the point is that the Committee of Terror … destroyed some innocent people by its fire, even one of the freedom-seeking people (azadi-khahan) … Sayyed Ni‘matollah Khan, editor of the Kelid-e Nejat newspaper … whose only crime was that he was opposed to Khiyabani and Nobari … 29 Abdollah Bahrami was then chief of the Azerbaijan police. He admits that he was a member of the Democrat party, and even that he had a regular ‘secret meeting’ every week with the Khiyabani faction leaders, including himself, Nobari, Hariri and Badamchi (Kasravi also says that he ‘was in league’ with them, see p. 212). He mentions briefly the terrorist campaign of the ‘Committee of Punishment’, but is rather uninformative about the perpetrators, and says that ‘the public believed that these acts [of terrorism] were committed by the Democrats and that I was giving them support’. Only in one case does he attribute it to Democrats, the case of the Imam Jom‘eh of Tabriz, which both he and Kasravi describe as having shocked the town. Bahrami says that Imam Jom‘eh was killed by three Democrats who were under Hariri’s supervision, and that they had decided to kill him without higher authority. Nevertheless, it lends support to Kasravi’s account that the Khiyabani faction was involved in the terrorist campaign.30 Throughout his account, Kasravi emphasises two aspects of Khiyabani’s personality and leadership: that he was highly intelligent, very clever and ‘a champion in the field of politics’, and that he was a ‘dictator’, given to personal rule. The two aspects might well have been two sides of the same coin. Khiyabani had become very critical of disorder and chaos, which an increasing number of people now associated with ‘freedom’, ‘law’, ‘constitutionalism’ and ‘democracy’. And, as we shall see in the section on ‘The revolt’, through many of his words and actions, he emerges as an astute politician, trying to provide a strong leadership in the midst of a chaotic political culture. The irony is that Kasravi, too, detested chaos, yet apparently he did not see the kinship between his own attitude and that of Khiyabani, and was especially upset by the latter’s skilful manoeuvrings. For example, when Kasravi and a fellow critic (the brother of Kazemzadeh-ye Iranshahr) successfully attacked him in a party meeting, he verbally agreed with them but carried on in the same old way. A major bone of contention was over Taqi Raf‘at’s editorship of Tajaddod, 211

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the official party newspaper, because he had shown much deference to the Turks when they occupied Tabriz. But Khiyabani kept him in that post, saying ‘I like Mirza Taqi Khan very much’.31 Raf ‘at is especially known, and revered among many literary modernists, for his radical views regarding the modernisation of Persian poetry, which led to the famous debate between him and Poet-Laureate Bahar through the pages of Tajaddod in Tabriz and (Bahar’s) Daneshkadeh in Tehran.32

The origins of Khiyabani’s revolt An important piece of historical revisionism revealed by the Kasravi manuscript is that the revolt was far from sudden, its origins going as far back as early 1917. He writes at length on how Khiyabani and Nobari effectively ran Tabriz (even though there were Governors-General) for 10 months, between the evacuation of the Russians and the occupation of the Turks. The Russians had left a large arms and ammunitions depot behind which contained many heavy weapons. The Democrats appropriated more than a half of its stocks (and made 14,000 tomans by selling some of them), leaving the rest for the government. Yet Kasravi emphasises that even that would not have been left for the government if the Democrats had not taken charge of the depot. There was famine both in town and in the province because of a bad harvest, combined with plunder by the departing Russian armies and hoarding by traders. The Assyrians rose and sacked several villages, especially in Urmiya and Salmas. Khiyabani and Nobari, says Kasravi, could not do much about the Assyrian revolt except bringing pressure on the Governor-General who sent a force of Iranian Cossacks to stop them but did not succeed. The terrorist gang, as mentioned above, was in their control, but later Khiyabani was remorseful about some of the assassinations, and tried to blame Nobari alone for it. On the other hand, they were very active and largely effective in dealing with the famine in Tabriz.33 One particular episode is worth mentioning. Kasravi briefly says in the manuscript that the Crown Prince (whose seat was traditionally in Tabriz) and the Governor-General tried to remove the police chief (the aforementioned Abdollah Bahrami) ‘who was in league with’ the Khiyabani faction; but Khiyabani and Nobari stopped them. Bahrami himself relates the story at much greater length, saying that Khiyabani had told the Governor-General that either the police chief should be returned to his post by noon ‘or you too must go’.34 Then came the Turks, who banished the two leaders to Maragheh, but released them after they pulled out later in 1918. The following report by Esma‘il Haqqi, the leading agent of Enver Pasha’s intelligence network, the Teshkilat Mahsusa, confirms both the conflict between Khiyabani’s movement with the Ottomans and his rapport with the Tabriz government: In Tabriz, next to the Democrat party which is run by Khiyabani, Nobari and Hariri, who, incidentally, enjoy the support of the Police 212

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force [i.e. of Bahrami], there exist a few trivial parties such as the Ahrar, Taraqqiyun and Mojahedin. Among them it is only the Mojahedin which is worth mentioning … with its pro-Turkish stance … On the other hand, the Democrat party, with its clear Iranian patriotic and xenophobic stance, is the most serious and popular party, which not only enjoys the good graces of the people, but has the support of the police, gendarmerie and regular soldiers.35 This report also shows some coincidence of interest between the Democrats and the British in the region, which, as we shall see below, was further strengthened after Khiyabani’s revolt: Furthermore, our explicit support of the Mojahedin’s Pan-Turkist policy has allowed the British to launch a counter-campaign in the city … the campaign has bolstered the Democrats’ anti-Ottoman position.36 It was at this time that, according to Kasravi, Khiyabani established good relations with the Governor-General, and arranged for Nobari’s banishment as the erstwhile terrorist leader. Another Governor-General came and went, but was replaced by a weak man, Sardar Mo‘tazed, as the acting Governor-General early in the autumn of 1919. It was from that time, almost six months before the event in March 1920, that the idea of an open revolt to began to take shape. Before the return of Khiyabani and Nobari to Tabriz, the Democrats had begun to reorganise their party and activities, and had aired criticism of Khiyabani’s style of leadership. When Khiyabani returned, says Kasravi, as a result of his charismatic influence, his rapport with the Governor-General, and the greater activism and better organisation of his supporters, he took over the party leadership in his usual style. This led to complaints, which he simply brushed aside by ‘a host of coarse and unseemly words’. The party was now openly divided into two factions: the Tajaddodiyyun (because they published the party newspaper, Tajaddod) and the Tanqidiyyun, or Critical Faction.37 According to Kasravi’s account, the foundations of the revolt were laid in September 1919. This is confirmed by a speech by Khiyabani of May 1920 when he said that the decision for the revolt had been taken ‘eight months before’.38 The Democrats, even though informally, were still playing a large role in the running of the provincial affairs. Isma‘il Aqa Simku (also known as Semitqu), the legendary leader of the Shakkak Kurdish rebels, rose again in the province. In his Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, Kasravi presents a detailed account of Simku’s plunders and massacres before as well as at this time.39 But in his account of Khiyabani’s revolt, he largely confines himself to the matter as it affected Tabriz politics. The last village in the Salmas area was captured in December 1919 and, according to Major Edmonds’ report, ‘nearly all the men were massacred’.40 Both he and Kasravi maintain that the acting Governor-General was corrupt and secretly in league with the rebel leader. Edmonds reported that troops mutinied in Tabriz, imprisoned him and demanded their arrears of pay. 213

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Sardar Entesar (later Mozaffar A‘lam) was sent from Tehran as commander-inchief of all the government forces in Azerbaijan, and shortly afterwards also became acting Governor-General. Kasravi describes him as an able man who quickly managed to defeat Simku. But Simku himself managed to escape, and widely believed rumours had it that the Sardar and Colonel Philipov, Russian commander of the local Cossack force, had let him go for a large bribe. Ernest Bristow, the British consul in Tabriz, wrote in his end-of-the-year report for 1920: The expedition of 5000 men under the Russian Colonel Phillipoff left Tabriz in January and on the 17th announced a great victory; the matter however dragged … The only manifest result of this expedition, which is said to have cost the Persian government some five hundred thousand tomans, was that the Chief of the expedition returned to Tabriz the richer by a considerable sum.41 Another source of anger in Tabriz, was the appointment of Majid Mirza Ain al-Dawleh as Governor-General of the province. He did not have a good reputation among the constitutionalists (least of all in Tabriz), but he was taking his time to get to his post. By the beginning of January 1920 he reached Zanjan and remained there for two months, ‘where’, reported Edmonds, ‘he did not fail to line his pocket’.42 ‘The passage of HRH Ain-ud-Dauleh’, he wrote in a subsequent report, ‘was, here [in the Khamseh province] as elsewhere, the signal for general unrest and disorder’.43 Ain al-Dawleh was still in the small town of Miyaneh (Miyanaj) at the time of the revolt early in April. Azari confirms that the appointment of Ain al-Dawleh had played a role in provoking the revolt,44 although (see section on ‘The origins of Khiyabani’s revolt’) the decision had been taken already, and such unpopular events as Ain al-Dawleh’s appointment had merely helped the process. Indeed, as we shall see further below, he took a long time to arrive in Tabriz after the event, and even then he left matters entirely in Khiyabani’s hands. Apart from that, the people of Tabriz soon had a specific grievance against him. While still in Zanjan, he had sent someone to Tabriz as the chief of Azerbaijan’s finance department, and the latter in turn had taken a large team of men to replace the existing civil servants in the department. It intensified feelings, and angered the influential local employees who were about to lose their jobs.45 The arrival of two Swedish officers, Major Biverling and Captain Vogelklu, from Tehran provided the ultimate pretext for the uprising. Swedish officers then ran the country’s police force, and the two men would normally have been appointed to run me provincial police by the Chief Prefect, General Westdahl. They, too, brought a number of Tehrani officers with them who displaced some of the existing ones, adding to the discontent among the local government employees. At the same time, the new police team began to interview former terrorist suspects and, according to Kasravi, this worried Khiyabani and his men who thought that it could ‘result in the revelation of many a secret’.46 It must also be the source of the claim by Badamchi, quoted above, that their mission 214

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was to ‘kill’ Democrat leaders, and, following his lead, Azari’s claim that they were Vosuq’s ‘spies’.47 The zeal as well as cultural insensitivity of the Swedish major in fulfilling his duties provided the opportunity. A thief having run away, they took his wife for questioning to find the stolen cash. According to Kasravi, this was the first woman to be put in jail in Tabriz, and she happened to be related to a highly respected and revered prayer leader (although, as we shall see in the next section, Khiyabani himself mentioned two women in his interview with Major Edmonds). There were loud protests, but Biverling did not respond, and his not being a Muslim made matters worse, invoking the religious duty of not tolerating the rule of the infidel. The final twist was the arrival in Tabriz of Ain al-Dawleh’s deputy, Amin al-Molk (later, Dr Esma‘il Marzban). This did not please Sardar Entesar who, as we have just seen, had been both commander-in-chief and acting GovernorGeneral, presumably hoping to be deputy under Ain al-Dawleh. He therefore agreed to help Khiyabani ‘with his acumen and ability’, in exchange for the Shaikh’s support both for his own position and for his brother to be elected a Majlis deputy for a provincial town.48

The revolt The revolt began on 5 April. Two days later, the town was in Khiyabani’s hands with hardly a shot being fired. On 5 April, Khiyabani ordered his men to go, fully armed, to the office of the Tajaddod newspaper. He then sent a detachment to release a prisoner from a police station. The man was a non-entity, but Khiyabani had decided to seize the moment. Faced with about sixty armed men, the station chief surrendered the prisoner to them but reported the matter to the police headquarters via telephone. Biverling sent his deputy, Vogelklu, at the head of a detachment of mounted police, who, seeing that the men were numerous and well-armed, did not stop them but surrounded the Tajaddod building once they had entered it.49 At this point, Sardar Entesar personally arrived on the scene and, as Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces, ordered Vogelklu to relent.50 Khiyabani and his men spent the night in the building and conferred with the Sardar on their next move. The following morning they had the shops and schools closed, and Khiyabani sent word to soldiers, gendarmes and policemen to go and collect their back pay at the Tajaddod office. There was a large rally where passionate speeches were made. The crowd was then sent round to the police headquarters to take it over and drive the Swedish officers out of town. Ordinary policemen were not prepared to fight, and Amin al-Molk, the deputy governor, ordered the Swedes and ‘their company’ to leave town. The motives and programme of the revolt were left deliberately vague until the very end. Kasravi emphasises that Khiyabani’s faction of the Tabriz Democrats was silent about the 1919 agreement. Khiyabani himself would not 215

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express an opinion about it, and his disciples would simply say that ‘it is not easy to know whether the agreement is in our interest or against it’.51 Azari claims that the revolt’s highest motive was to oppose the Agreement but does not cite any evidence for it, least of all from Khiyabani’s own speeches and articles, which contain no reference to it at all. Indeed, the one short public communiqué about their aims, which the Democrats published immediately after they took over the town, and one reprinted by both Kasravi and Azari, was vague and general. It simply said that they had risen in protest against ‘a host of unconstitutional actions of [the various] provincial governments’, and that they expected the government officials to respect their ‘free regime’ and implement their decisions with sincerity. The ‘freedom-seekers’, it said, were well aware of the ‘country’s highly sensitive situation’ and were determined to ‘establish older and security’. Their programme, ‘in two words’, was, ‘the establishment of public security; the actualisation of the constitutional regime’.52 There was no mention of, and not even an allusion to, the 1919 agreement. Kasravi complains that, when they were asked about the movement’s specific objectives, they would simply reply that they had a ‘sublime ideal’ which it was not yet opportune to reveal. Mokhber al-Saltaneh independently confirms this. He says that when he arrived in Tabriz as Governor-General September 1920, he told two of Khiyabani’s closest men, Sayyed al-Mohaqqeqin and the aforementioned Badamchi, that Vosuq had gone, the Agreement was in abeyance, members of the cabinet (as they knew) were honest men, and civil war and separatism would be destructive, i.e. all the reasons that he and most others believed to have motivated the revolt. They replied, and went on repeating, that they had a great ideal which they were not yet ready to reveal.53 A close study of Khiyabani’s speeches and articles in this period confirms this. It also gives much information about his basic aims, his attitude to politics, and his style of leadership.54 He said in an early speech after the revolt that the movement’s objectives, like those of an army at war, should not be revealed to the enemy.55 And on another occasion that ‘the enemy must be kept in the dark … so that he would not learn the plans and tactics of his adversary’.56 On the other hand, he systematically attacked chaos and indiscipline, and emphasised the supreme importance of strong leadership. In a speech specifically aimed against factionalism and chaos, he said that they should act with ‘one voice’, that the new regime would be ‘that which is relevant to our time’, and that, before it is established, it would be ‘wrong to divide the freedom-seeking people’.57 In a later speech, he emphasised that the revolt had not yet put forward any specific programme, and said that ‘there is reflection and gradualism in our course of action’.58 The speeches are marked with emphasis on the importance of the will to act, on unity, on order and discipline, and (save for the usual slogans on freedom, democracy, etc.) on avoidance of highly ambitious proclamations about largely unattainable goals: a problem which is all too familiar in Iranian politics in the twentieth century. Fear must be set aside; the movement must have utter self-confidence and know that he who has the will to act will succeed.59 216

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Modernisation and progress are frequently mentioned as the movement’s long term objectives. For example: Iran must independently gather the means for her modernisation (tajaddod) and progress (taraqqi), and must soon – as fast as possible – join the world’s civilised nations. This is our basic aim, and in the name of Iranianism (Iraniyyat) we shall adopt the best ideas of the world’s modern nations.60 But it is emphasised that progress would have to be gradual to succeed: An ignorant person will not become instantly knowledgeable. Likewise, a democracy cannot change past injustice and arbitrary government in a single day. As philosophical opinion has it, civilisation arises from the gradual disappearance of the existing traditions, and their replacement by new ones.61 And the lessons which he had derived from the post-revolutionary chaos found an explicit echo in the following: He who is used to the dark will be bedazzled and even blinded if he is suddenly exposed to light … The fourteen-year-old [Constitutional] Revolution was a sudden change, and so it led to disorder. But this time discipline [he uses the European word] will be imposed on events, and you shall be exposed to light gradually (emphasis added).62 And again, in another speech: Haste is a powerful factor in causing failure. It makes it possible for us to lose our balance, go over the top with idealism, and achieve nothing.63 The themes of ‘discipline’, ‘order’, ‘singleness of voice’, ‘centralisation’ and ‘central decision making’ are the most frequent ones, if only because they affected the daily running of the affairs of the town and province. He talked about ‘the single voice of Tabriz’, and the need for ‘centralisation in every respect’.64 He said in another speech: We say that in Azadistan [Azerbaijan], and all over Iran, there should be just one idea, one voice, so that it would determine and inform the country’s regime. Our actions stem from this conviction (emphasis added).65 He described two types of discipline: one which was ‘imposed’ (Ejbari), and one which was ‘voluntary’ (Ekhtiyari). The latter was the ‘common discipline’ accepted by the movement.66 This was a recurring theme in his speeches: We would like Iranian democracy to become familiar with that civil and voluntary discipline, which is one of the sources of civilisation, and therefore attain real and practical freedom.67 217

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Thus there was to be no letting or relenting on opposition, whether from inside or outside of the movement, and this was the worst grievance that Kasravi and other members of the Critical Faction had of Khiyabani and the Tajaddod Faction of their own party. Elaborating on the themes of centralisation, order and discipline, Khiyabani said that opponents and critics would be ‘punished without pity’. He went even further and said that anyone with any special skill or ability who would refuse to help the movement would be punished as a traitor.68 This attitude is explained in another speech where he said: One often needs to take hard decisions and resort to extreme action in order to propagate a new creed (maslak), most of which may be in fundamental conflict with the creed itself. But this is a necessary evil, and temporary resort to hard choices in the interest of mankind is needed to ensure success.69 Much of this was clearly a reaction against how chaos and disorder had been misunderstood for law, constitutionalism, democracy and freedom after the fall of the arbitrary state. Indeed, it is against this general background that his emphasis on obedience must be viewed: No nation can progress without obedience. No concept of freedom would be imaginable if it was not combined with obedience. No matter how radical a creed might be, it could not deny the need for obedience … If you wish your country to be free, independent, peaceful and secure, then after learning, deciding on your ideas, and choosing your commander, you must prepare yourselves for complete and unquestioning obedience.70 That is as good a piece of evidence as any for Kasravıi’s complaint that Khiyabani and his men ‘expected blind obedience from the people in he name of the “maintenance of discipline’’ ’.71 And it is on that basis that he levels the charge of dictatorship against the Shaikh. He brings no charges of separatism against him, however, and – coming as it does from a critic who was an enemy of disintegration – it should have been sufficient to seal the argument.72 But there is also widespread evidence in support of it in Khiyabani’s own speeches, though the emphasis and frequency increases with time, presumably in response to fears and rumours of separatism in Tehran. A couple of examples have been incidentally cited in the above quotations. Here is another specimen: The foundation of some states is so strong that is not easily shaken by [adverse] events. Britain is like that, and the British are lucky. Is our own Iran like that too? Never! On the contrary, the symbol of our governments is discontinuity. That is why the entire foundations and structures of Iran must be rebuilt. No one knows what Iran’s policy, and the basis of her policy, is. It is not clear whether it belongs to England, Russia, the 218

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Cossacks’ headquarters or somewhere else … If Iran belongs to Iranians, the country’s foundation must be laid anew, and its structure must be built again.73 This incidentally is centred on the theme of orderly and continuous government, and the observation that ‘the symbol of our governments is discontinuity’ is astute. They did, however, rename the province Azadistan (Freedomland), though they did not explain its significance beyond the literal meaning of the term. In his Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh Kasravi says that it had been suggested by Esma‘il Amirkhizi, a close Khiyabani lieutenant, on the arguments that the province had fought hard for freedom during the Constitutional Revolution, and that the newly-formed Transcaucasian republic had called itself the Republic of Azerbaijan.74 Azari has also produced the same story, apparently from Kasravi. But it does not exist in Kasravıi’s manuscript, and though it might well have been true, it looks more like an apology in the light of the prevailing centralist ideology of the Reza Shah period. Kasravi’s insight in the manuscript is that the change of name was due to the desire for establishing some form of home rule in the province, led by Khiyabani and his men. He says that after Moshıir al-Dawleh became Prime Minister in July 1920, and approached Khiyabani in a conciliatory manner, Khiyabani replies that, unless the government recognises “Azadistan” he would not be ready to engage in any negotiations (and, in fact, what was meant by “Azadistan” was the situation as it was then in Azerbaijan, which he wanted to remain eternal, that is, the government recognise his rule in Azerbaijan).75 This seems to be borne out by Khiyabani’s own references to the subject. For example, on one occasion he said that if any government department (in the province) did not officially use the new name after a certain deadline, its head would be immediately dismissed.76 On another occasion, he complained that ‘Tehran has not yet accepted the name “Azadistan’’ ’.77 Clearly, the great importance which he attached to the change of name of the province could not have been only due to the later explanation offered by Amirkhizi. Three weeks after the revolt, Major Edmonds, Norperforce’s political officer, met Khiyabani in Tabriz. Kasravi says that Edmonds had interviewed him too, and talked about the possibility of their faction working against Khiyabani, which he had rejected. He also says that someone representing Tehran had contacted him and received the same reply.78 From what follows, it looks more likely that theirs was a fact-finding mission, probably couched in such terms as to give Kasravi that impression. At any rate, Kasravi says that Edmonds met with Khiyabani, and since it was in both their interests, ‘not much argument was needed for them to enter a pact’.79 219

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Although there was no ‘pact’ as such, Kasravi’s account is borne out by a special report sent by Edmonds to Cox in Tehran on his interview with the Shaikh on 1 May 1920: On April 30th I with Captain Geard attended a “Garden Party” given by the democratic party in honour of those who fell in the fight for the constitution at Tabriz … The primary objective was doubtless to raise the wind with the democrats who doubt[less] also wished to invest their present movement with the halo of the struggle for the constitution … Later, he watched Khiyabani address the guests: Towards the sunset Shaikh Muhammad Khiyabani, president of the “Tajaddud” and a virtual dictator of Tabriz ascended the stage … a man of about 40 of slight build, with black beard thin below the corners of the mouth … he spoke with restraint deliberately and with no hesitation as one who knew exactly what he wanted … He spoke in Turki and I was unfortunately not able to follow it all. Among other things he announced that, especially during the coming Ramazan when the people would constantly be meeting together, no political discussion would be permitted without the previous consent of the Tajaddud. Next day Edmonds met Khiyabani at the house of Fakhr al-Atebba: On closer acquaintance he does not give that impression of the cold impassive revolutionary I got the previous day. Indeed, he was almost shy but for all that spoke with a conviction that he had Tabriz in his hand and that his decisions could not admit of any discussion. It was indeed a real interview, for much of the time was spent on Khiyabani’s answering Edmonds’ specific questions: He explained that his party expelled the Swedes [Biverling and Vogelklu] because they had been made the tool of others to suppress freedom. They had been tactless in at least two cases of imprisonment of women, including one who was pregnant. As for the aims of the movement: Their object were [sic] summarised in their manifesto of 9th April (quoted above) … nothing more and nothing less. They demanded constitutional government according to the fundamental law and pure administration … 220

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Asked ‘how long it would be necessary for an unofficial body to exercise supervision over government departments’, Khiyabani replied that He could not admit a Committee representing the people were unofficial – government officials were servants of the public and the public had every right to and would control their actions. He quoted the dishonesty of successive chiefs of the revenue department, the wicked waste over the Simko expedition, etc. Asked, if the movement was ‘a struggle for freedom’ why it was necessary for meetings to have the permission of the Tajaddod, He replied that Persia was not like England where a law passed by the majority was enforced on all although minorities were free to raise their voice against it. They had Bolshevik and Turkish propagandists, reactionaries and other parties ready to seize such opportunity to creat[e] disorder … Expression of opinion would be allowed but not in meetings and provided there was [no] incitement to disturbance. Discussing foreign relations, he said he was not opposed to the 1919 agreement: His party had at bottom a great affection for England which had gained them the constitution … Though it was primarily for the Majlis to accept or reject the Anglo-Persian agreement, his party did not oppose the agreement as such but they would expect the people to have some voice in its interpretation, e.g. in the choice of advisers – Swedes for instance had been quite unsuitable for Azerbaijan. An instrument like the agreement was necessary and inevitable, but should not be between two or three men but between peoples. Nor was Khiyabani’s view of Vosuq, as expressed to Edmonds, anything like as negative as that of most radicals and constitutionalists at the time: Poor Vusuq he [sic] has handicapped himself hopelessly by electing to play a lone hand. He is distracted from the administration of the state by the intrigues around him … I think yon may tell higher [British] authority that your relations with Persia would be on a much firmer basis if the Prime Minister would take the country into his confidence. And, while emphatically denying the charge of separatism, he went even further on Vosuq al-Dawleh and the Agreement: He could assure me in the most positive terms that there was nothing of a separatist nature in their movement. They considered Azerbaijan as 221

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an integral part of Persia and had announced this to the Turks when they had tried annexationist propaganda. He admitted that on the 7th [of April] there had been cheers for a republic and cries of ‘death to the English’ and ‘death to Vusuq-ud-Dauleh’. At times of popular uprising there were always elements that did not understand and indulged in this sort of thing. We would have noticed that such cries had been rigorously suppressed.80 Khiyabani may not have put all his cards on the table, and Edmonds is unlikely to have expected that he would. Yet he was so reassured as to write further in his following report for April and May: In P[olitical] O[fficer]’s opinion the movement started as a genuinely patriotic agitation for the restoration of the constitution, there was nothing Separatist or Bolshevik about it. It is of course impossible to foresee the results of mishandling by the Central Government. This view is rather confirmed by the latest news of steps being taken by the Democrats, since the Russian descent on Enzeli, to suppress bolshevik [sic] activity in Tabriz and prevent communication by the German Consul (who was endeavouring to profit by it) with the outside.81 The reference to ‘mishandling by the Central Government’ was an aside on how the Jangali problem had been mishandled by the provincial governors of Gilan, and a warning to Tehran to be more careful this time. But Vosuq could not have received better news in the midst of bad luck pouring down from everywhere: Khiyabani was not separatist, nor pro-Bolshevik, nor pan-Turanian, nor anti-Agreement, and he was trying to impose order and discipline in a highly sensitive province. The death of the German consul was related to that fact. Bolshevik agents and local sympathisers had stepped up their agitation since the fall of Baku at the end of April, and the Bolshevik landing at Enzeli on 18 May had further emboldened them. Kurt Wustrow, the German consul, was ‘endeavouring to profit by’ the situation, it appears, purely out of anti-British feeling, and this had been known even when Edmonds had met Khiyabani.82 In his annual report for the year 1920, Ernest Bristow, the British consul in Tabriz, wrote: The situation was so threatening that it was decided to remove the two platoons of British Indian troops … The platoons left on June 1st. Very active Bolshevik propaganda was being carried on in Tabriz about this time and it was generally believed that Wustrow … was at the bottom of it.83 Both Kasravi and Azari confirm that Wustrow had stored up an arsenal, including heavy weapons, in his consulate, and had threatened to explode the consulate and the adjacent district when, he had been asked to surrender them. Moreover, this had already happened before Khiyabani’s revolt. 222

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The Bolsheviks in Gilan were about to conclude a coalition pact with Kuchik Khan, and it was concluded at the early days of June, in fact on the very day that Khiyabani’s fighters and the regular police attacked the German consulate. Some leading Bolsheviks had taken refuge in the building, but the real fear was that the consul was arming and organising a Bolshevik insurrection. The battle did not take very long because, while shooting from the roof-top, Wustrow was either killed or committed suicide, both of which possibilities are mentioned by all the existing accounts.84 Indeed, Bristow also mentions the possibility that he was shot by a fellow German, ‘who regarded him as a madman’.85 That ended the siege of the consulate as well as Bolshevik agitation in Tabriz. In a report sent to Moscow, a Bolshevik agent in Tabriz compared the Democrats with the Russian Kadet (liberal) party, clearly implied that there were not separatists, and confirmed their hostile attitude towards the Bolsheviks, though he thought they were anti-British as well: The Democrats, while stressing Iranian nationalism and seeking changes and reforms for the whole of the country, have extended their struggle along two fronts, an anti-British and an anti-Bolshevik one.86 Any doubts about Vosuqs attitude towards the situation in Azerbaijan is dispelled by the account of Kahhalzadeh, Persian secretary at the German legation in Tehran, of his reaction to the news of Wustrow’s death. In the evening of 4 or 5 June, Vosuq sent for him, giving him the news of the consul’s death, and asking him to tell the German legation next morning that ‘there is a rumour in town that Mr Wustrow committed suicide’. This he did, and he later accompanied the German Chargé d’Affaires to the Foreign Ministry, where they officially told them of the rumour, adding that the matter would be investigated, though ‘there is no doubt that it was his own fault’. The German Chargé did not at all take kindly to that comment.87 At no stage did Vosuq al-Dawleh’s government declare Khiyabani’s movement to be a rebellion. There is no evidence of direct contact between the two men, although it might just have happened after Edmonds’ reports had been sent to Cox. It has not been possible to trace a single reference to Khiyabani’s revolt in the voluminous correspondence between Cox and Curzon, which are full of fear and foreboding about the situation in the Caspian provinces, the Bolshevik agitation there as well as in Azerbaijan, the danger of a Bolshevik landing at Enzeli (which proved to be real), and the intrigues of Colonel Starosselski, the Cossack chief, against Vosuq and the Agreement.88 Whether or not Vosuq and Khiyabani made any direct contact, it is clear that, at least for the time being, neither side felt unsafe regarding the other. Sardar Entesar, the military Commander-in-Chief, had been co-operating with Khiyabani, as had been all the regular government departments. The offending chief finance officer, Tarjoman al-Dawleh, had left Tabriz. In mid-May, a couple of weeks after Edmonds’ first report had been sent to Tehran, Ain al-Dawleh, the 223

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slow-moving Governor-General, at last arrived in Tabriz, leaving his horse and rifle guards ten miles outside the town. Describing himself as a father to the people of Tabriz, he dismissed Amin al-Molk, the deputy governor, at Khiyabani’s request but otherwise did not interfere in running the affairs.89 It was shortly after Ain al-Dawleh’s arrival that Khiyabani finally ordered the arrest and banishment of the leaders of Democrat party’s Critical Faction, including its leader, Dr Zain al-‘abedin Khan (Iranshahr’s brother), on the charge that they had tried to make direct contact with Ain al-Dawleh.90 Kasravi managed to give them the slip, escaping to Qal‘eh Afshar, where he nursed an illness for a month before making his way to Tehran. Yet he later managed to piece together the circumstances of the fall of the revolt in some detail. As we shall see below, his account corresponds almost completely to that of Mokhber al-Saltaneh, and this is important since neither of the two men had been aware of the other’s version before he wrote his own. Ain al-Dawleh left town ‘early in July’, thus reported the British consul, as peacefully as he had arrived, having been dismissed by the new Prime Minister, Moshir al-Dawleh. But an unofficial party of Democrats held his caravan up a few miles outside the town ‘until he disgorged forty thousand tomans of his ill-gotten gains during the five weeks of Governor-Generalship’.91 Long before then, Sardar Entesar, the military commander, had been eased out of town, although it is unlikely that someone like him would have left head down if he had had Vosuq’s backing for resistance.

The fall of Khiyabani Vosuq al-Dawleh’s government had already fallen by ‘early in July’. The Shah had returned to Tehran from Europe on 2 June, and had not accepted Vosuq’s conditions – mainly involving the dismissal of Starosselski – for continuing in office. He told Herman Norman, the new British minister in Tehran, that ‘he disliked and distrusted him [Vosuq] so extremely that he would never be able to work with him sincerely’.92 On 25 June, he accepted Vosuq resignation, and it took Moshir al-Dawleh (later, Hasan Pirniya) two weeks and much haggling, through the intermediacy of Norman, with Curzon in London in order to form a cabinet.93 Moshir al-Dawleh was an honest, urbane and respected constitutionalist. He had a reputation among both left and right (including the British Foreign Office) for lacking political will and acumen. The reputation may be considered fair in so far as, whenever he was Prime Minister, he tried to govern by constitution and consent during hard and turbulent times. A close study of his government between July and November 1920, however, has shown that he fulfilled his extremely difficult task with wisdom as well as firmness.94 Kuchik Khan had already run into trouble with his Bolshevik partners in Rasht, largely because of the zeal and lack of tact which the latter used in implementing their own social policy. On the other hand, he drew his own legitimacy 224

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from his basic constitutionalist and patriotic convictions, and if there were three politicians to whom he looked up for guidance and approval, they were none other than Moshir al-Dawleh, his brother Mo’tamen al-Molk and Mostawfi al-Mamalek (who was also in Moshir al-Dawleh’s cabinet). Shortly after the latter formally accepted office, Kuchik parted company with the Bolsheviks and left for the forests. Moshir then sent a strong Cossack force, led by Starosselski himself, against the Bolsheviks. At first they made rapid progress, then they had serious setbacks in mid-October, and that played a decisive role in the fall of Moshir’s cabinet.95 It would have been difficult for him to have tried to suppress someone like Kuchik by force, but the Azerbaijan problem must have looked much simpler than that. Moshir al-Dawleh and his colleagues had personally known and respected Khiyabani as an old constitutionalist democrat from his time as a Tabriz deputy in the second Majlis. Kasravi writes in his manuscript: We all know Moshir al-Dawleh … as a renowned freedom-seeking man. And there can be no doubt that he had no wish for fighting and bloodshed with those involved in the rising (qiyamiyan) of Tabriz, who belonged to the freedom-seeking public … And so it was that for over two months the government was making conciliatory overtures to Khiyabani. But he and his lieutenants were in no mood to listen to such words … 96 That is right. Moshir dismissed Ain al-Dawleh, without naming a successor for him. It was weeks later that he appointed Mokhber al-Saltaneh, his finance minister, as Governor-General of Azerbaijan, through which period he had been trying to reach a settlement with Khiyabani via telegraphic correspondence. Mokhber al-Saltaneh was an old constitutionalist, several times minister and Governor-General, and twice previously Governor-General of Azerbaijan. His popularity did not quite rise to that of Moshir, but he was a respected statesman with a good reputation in Azerbaijan, and he had been openly critical of the 1919 agreement. Hence Khiyabani’s saying that Tehran was ‘using a deceptive policy’, and sending ‘a famous Governor-General’.97 Mokhber’s account of the events leading to the fall of Khiyabani is very similar to Kasravi’s independent narrative, except that it is more detailed and, occasionally, more precise. Both of them confirm that, when Mokhber al-Saltaneh’s appointment was announced, Khiyabani wired back that a Governor-General was not needed, and that Tehran had to recognise ‘Azadistan’ (this is also alluded to in a Khiyabani speech of the time98), by which he probably meant his own rule in the province. Both of them write that Moshir al-Dawleh’s government sent money to Khiyabani for the government expenses in Tabriz, Mokhber specifically mentioning ‘two 20,000 tumans’ followed by another 15,000.99 Badamchi, Khiyabani’s devotee, says that the latter had told Moshir al-Dawleh that it was ‘in the interest of the patriots for this revolt to continue’ because Moshir’s government would not last long.100 225

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Khiyabani knew Mokhber al-Saltaneh personally, and sent him telegrams couched in highly respectable terms when he joined the cabinet, saying how the latter’s ‘wise, learned and true’ view of the political situation corresponded to his own.101 But when he was named Governor-General, Khiyabani somewhat cooled off, and eventually sent a message to him that he should go to Tabriz alone, that is, without military escort and new civil servants. Mokhber observed these conditions. He left at the end of August and reached Basminj, near Tabriz, after a couple of days of typically hazardous journey on roads infested with nomadic brigands, and through villages hostile to strangers, a situation attested to by Kasravi’s manuscript as well. Here is a specimen of the prevailing chaos on the roads and in the countryside: Everywhere on the way the harvest had been left unthreshed, herds were inside the village walls, and – fearing the Shahsavan [nomads] – the peasants were sitting in the watch towers with gnus in their hands … In Tikma Dash we came across a group of Shahsavans. They had thirty riders and I had seventy, led by Garmrudi khans. A horse was killed on either side, but they passed and so did we. At Jangavar peasants began to shoot at us, thinking that we were Shahsavans. We put the carriages in the front and the shooting stopped.102 Kasravi writes in the manuscript that ‘in those very days lawlessness in Azerbaijan had become so bad that the Tabriz-Miyaneh road was cut off … and the Shahsavans were looting the villages up to a few miles to Tabriz’.103 At Basminj, Mokhber al-Saltaneh dismissed his Garmrudi guards. Sa‘ed al-Saltaneh, a Tabriz community leader and go-between, met him there and suggested that he should attend Khiyabani’s regular meetings at the Government House in Tabriz. He agreed, but Khiyabani later told Sa‘ed on the telephone that he did not wish to see Mokhber nor would he be allowed to take up residence in the Ali Qapu (the Government House) or in the other two government buildings. According to Mokhber al-Saltaneh, he declined the Tabriz Cossacks’ suggestion of sending a welcoming party, and, since he had been barred from government buildings by Khiyabani, he arrived at Saed al-Saltaneh’s house in the town.104 Kasravi independently confirms all this, but says that he does not know what was exchanged between Mokhber and Saed in Basmenj.105 He was visited by Khiyabani’s close lieutenants, and especially Badamchi and Sayyed al-Mohaqqeqin, several times, and he told them that the 1919 agreement had now been put in abeyance, and that civil war and separatism would be destructive, that is, all the reasons that he and most others in Tehran believed to lie behind the revolt. But they gave the familiar reply that they had a great ideal which they were not yet ready to reveal. Mokhber tried to use the British and American consuls as peacemakers, but it did not work, and, according to him, the American consul then described Khiyabani as a ‘rebel’.106 The latter refused Mokhber invitations to a meeting, saying that he was a fast talker and would have the better of him.107 226

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The Russian Cossack chief of Tabriz had visited Mokhber and had told him that Khiyabani’s men could easily be reduced. The commander of the less important but much more popular gendarmes also reassured him of his cooperation, and this he would not have done under Vosuq’s government.108 But it was Khiyabani who made the first move. On 13 September, the tenth day of Mokhber’s arrival in Tabriz, Sayyed al-Mohaqqeqin brought word to him from Khiyabani that he should leave town. He wrote in his inimitably telegraphic style: On Sunday 13 September Sayyed al Mohaqqeqin saw me and said “Khiyabani says, What are you waiting for?” I said, “I am waiting for you to give up your stubbornness.” He said, “Our position is unchangeable”. I said that I had not come on my own initiative so that I could leave when I wished; I must speak to Tehran. He said, “The telegraph is under censorship”. I said, “If I lie, do not communicate.” He said, “Have it done hozuri (i.e. when the correspondents were personally in the respective telegraph offices).” I said, “Tomorrow is a holiday (because of Moharram); I shall have it done hozuri on Tuesday.” I then told the Sayyed that, assuming I was to go, “What about security on the road?” He said that they would send riders with me. I said, “I do not trust your riders.” He said, “Take Cossacks with you.” I said, “That makes sense.”109 Kasravi wrote independently in the manuscript: For ten days Mokhber al-Saltaneh was there, and no matter how many times he sent messages to Khiyabani that he had been appointed Governor-General of the province and wished to talk to him, he would only reply through some of his collaborators that “The people do not want you” … Eventually, Khiyabani sent a message to Mokhber al-Saltaneh, saying “Leave town or you will be thrown out”.110 Meanwhile, the Cossack chief and his Iranian assistant, Zafar al-Dawleh (later, General Hasan Moqaddam), had contacted Mokhber al-Saltaneh again and declared their readiness for action. That Sunday afternoon there was as usual an open-house tea party at the Cossack headquarters on the outskirts of the town. Mokhber al-Saltaneh went there ‘two hours before the sunset’ and stayed behind after all the other guests had left. He then told the Cossacks to get ready for action during the night, and to move early in the morning. On the other hand, Khiyabani and his people, as Kasravi pointedly writes, were completely surprised, probably because they were sure that Mokhber al-Saltaneh would soon leave town. Both Mokhber al-Saltaneh and Kasravi write that, by sunrise, all the government buildings had been re-taken, after very little resistance resulting in a couple 227

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of deaths on both sides. Both of them also say that, late on that very Sunday night, Khiyabani, going home alone, had been recognised by the Cossack chief, but that he did not arrest him because, says Mokhber, he had ordered the Cossack chief against it. Thus the movement collapsed, in the same way as it had succeeded, within a few hours, and with hardly a shot being fired. The Cossacks, as usual, looted the homes of some of the leading figures in the revolt, including that of Khiyabani, though Mokhber was able to stop them in time from looting the homes of a few others. He also says that, since he could not find Sa‘ed al-Saltaneh on the telephone, he instructed another intermediary to tell Khiyabani that he could go and remain at his home unmolested, and when the intermediary asked him to write it down, he did so.111 Khiyabani hid in the basement of a neighbour’s house. A couple of Cossacks on regular patrol were told by a little girl that he was hiding at the house of Shaikh Hossein Basmenji. Instead of a little girl (mentioned by Mokhber al-Saltaneh) Kasravi says a beggar, but in his Iranshahr article cited above, Badamchi refers to ‘that dog of a child’. Perhaps it was a beggar girl.112 At any rate, the Cossacks entered the house, there was an exchange of fire, and Khiyabani was killed. It was not clear who had fired first, and there was a rumour that, having been hit in the foot or leg, Khiyabani had shot himself in the head. Mokhber alSaltaneh does not insist on the truth of this rumour, merely saying wa ’l ‘ilmu
ind Allah (God knows best).113 Nonetheless, Mokhber quotes verbatim a suicide note, allegedly found in Khiyabani’s pocket, which had been handed to him. If true, it must have been ready in his pocket in case he was discovered: Farewell comrades. Since I was all on my own, and determined not to be arrested, I took my own life. Follow my principles. Do not forget my people. I have no one. They looted my home. So much for Mokhber al-Saltaneh’s love of freedom (azadikhahi). 14 September [1920], Mohammad Khiyabani.114 The rabble, most of whom, says Kasravi, had been applauding his speeches until a few days before, tried to take his corpse round the bazaar, but Mokhber al-Saltaneh stopped them and ordered it to be buried in a local Imamzadeh. Kasravi confirms this, and so does Badamchi who bitterly complains that Mokhber al-Saltaneh ‘did not arrange a respectable funeral’ for ‘that blessed martyr’.115 Mokhber says that he repaired Khiyabani’s home, replaced his looted furniture, and paid 6000 tomans (which up to then had been collected from an entry-and-exit tax for Tabriz under Khiyabani himself) to his family.116 Predictably, meetings were held in Tehran, and elegies and other poems were written in mourning for Khiyabani’s violent death, although many popular politicians and activists did not blame the government for it. Democrat meetings and publications attacked the government, and the most effective work of that kind was a poem by Poet-Laureate Bahar who, because of his recent collaboration with 228

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Vosu‘q al-Dawleh, was no longer regarded a member of the Democrat party. It was a tarji‘ band with the following tarji‘: If the blood of the innocent [mazlum] Khiyabani should come to boil, Iran would wear a red shroud from one end to the other. The name of both Vosuq and Moshir al-Dawleh was Hasan. Bahar, who was a Vosuq supporter, compared the latter’s execution of a couple of leaders of the rebel band of Nayeb Hossein Kashi (Kashani) with the death of Khiyabani in the following verse: If that Hasan killed a couple of Kashis for the motherland’s sake, This Hasan killed the motherland’s freedom-lovers like beasts.117 Kasravi briefly mentions the hagiographies published at the time, including Bahar’s poem, which he says had been really intended as an attack on Moshir because he had replaced Vosuq.118 However that may be, when Bahar came to write the history of that period a quarter of a century later, his view had radically changed when he wrote of the incident: These acts of Moshir al-Dawleh were very brilliant, and though they hurt the feelings of sentimentalisers (manfi-bafan) and even some popular constitutionalists, there can be no doubt that, from the point of view of the basic interest of the state, and service to the country, they were wisely taken. Also, the Prime Minister’s personal standing was such that it could not be shaken by the critical reactions to them.119 That last remark provides an excellent clue to the swift rise and equally swift fall of Khiyabani and his revolt.

An analysis of the revolt The Constitutional Revolution’s single unifying object was to bring down the ancient arbitrary regime, and to replace it with a system based on a legal framework. But there was another side to the dialectics of Iranian history, the ancient Iranian chaos as the antithesis of the ancient Iranian arbitrary rule. Despite the great aspirations and good intentions of many of its leaders and activists, the revolution brought chaos, not just in the provinces, but – more effectively – at the centre, and in the very centre of ‘politics’, even among ‘politicians’ themselves. Foreign intervention and occupation certainly contributed to the chaos but did not create it. When the First World War ended, the country was in ruins and in danger of disintegration. Almost all political leaders were of one accord that the chaos must be brought to an end, and that required the formation of a unified army, and the reorganisation 229

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of the country’s finances. But a large majority of them opposed the Anglo-Iranian agreement of August 1919, which they believed would compromise the country’s independence. Given the Shah’s tacit, but well-known, opposition to Vosuq’s government, the lack of co-operation by the Russian chief of the Iranian Cossack force, and the continued defiance of the Jangal movement, Vosuq had been left with little legitimacy within a few months after signing the Agreement. Khiyabani was a charismatic Tabriz Democrat leader and an influential deputy in the second Majlis, who had experienced the extremities of chaos at first hand both in Tehran and Azerbaijan, and both in the Majlis and among the Tabriz Democrats. He had increasingly assumed the role of the undisputed Democrat leader in the province, and had played an increasingly important role in running it since 1917. In Lenin’s words about Russia, power was then lying in the streets ready to be picked up even in Tehran, let alone in Tabriz, after the Russian and Turkish forces had departed. Khiyabani and his men decided to pick it up in Tabriz, but did so cautiously and with deliberation. They were far from separatists as many, then and subsequently, believed, but they wished to have a considerable amount of autonomy in governing the province. It is clear from Khiyabani’s speeches that they were strongly opposed to chaos and in favour of firm rule, so that they would be able to bring modernisation along European lines. The idea, mentioned above, of stopping the chaotic and disintegrative trends to make possible effective government and social progress, was shared by many, even by those with conflicting ideologies and strategies. Not only was Khiyabani not a separatist, but he often spoke as if he wished to extend his activities and programme to the whole of Iran. Yet if he was serious in the latter point, it is difficult to know how he hoped to achieve his aim, even assuming that he would manage to formalise his own rule in Azerbaijan, which seems to have been his most cherished objective. He applied himself forcefully towards that goal, curbing argument even within the Democrat ranks, and that is the reason why Kasravi and other party critics saw him as a dictator who put his own power above all else. That, too, was the reason for his emphasis on prudence, on not revealing one’s hand too soon. He must have been (at least) somewhat critical of the 1919 agreement, and this is seen even from his diplomatic replies to Edmonds’ questions. But he did not campaign against it, and – contrary to near-universal belief – his revolt had not solely or even mainly been motivated by opposition to the Agreement. Nor was he a Bolshevik or pro-Bolshevik, as it has been often claimed, although there is no evidence that he was ideologically anti-Bolshevik. He suppressed their activities, which were being supported by the German consul in Tabriz, both in the interest of maintaining his own grip on the situation, and in order to appease Norperforce and Vosuq. These were the reasons why the latter left him alone, at least for the time being. Vosuq did not even declare him a rebel either when he seized power, or afterwards. For he was not causing any trouble to Vosuq, and he enjoyed a considerable amount of popular legitimacy in his own land, whereas Vosuq was fast losing 230

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what was left of his legitimacy. Khiyabani was apparently caught in a paradox, that of trying to bring order to the province while being disobedient towards the centre. But the paradox became real when he defied Moshir al-Dawleh’s government whose popular legitimacy was second to none everywhere, including in Azerbaijan. Had Vosuq tried to topple Khiyabani by force, there would have been a strong popular resistance in Tabriz, and a popular outcry in Tehran. Moshir al-Dawleh’s ‘weakness’ as a strict constitutionalist was also his source of strength as a popular legitimate Prime Minister, being thus able to deal with Kuchik and Khiyabani much more easily than Vosuq could have done, even though their different responses led to different outcomes for themselves. No doubt there were many factors working for the decline of Khiyabani’s authority before he fell. But by far the most effective was that, by confronting Moshir al-Dawleh’s government, he appeared as a rebel. It was not so easy to tell Mokhber al-Saltaneh to leave town as it had been to tell Amin al-Molk or Sardar Entesar, for he and his political master enjoyed the kind of legitimacy, hence self-confidence, that they and their political master did not. Khiyabani’s revolt was another episode in the politics of chaos after the Constitutional Revolution, which reached its anti-climax first in the coup d’état of 1921 and was then followed by the fall of the Qajars in 1925. Only at that point did both constitutionalism and chaos come to an end for 16 years.

Notes and references 1 Paper published in IRAN (published by the British Institute of Persian Studies) XXXVII 1999. 2 For an analysis of the Constitutional Revolution, see H. Katouzian, ‘Liberty and Licence in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran’, JRAS, Series 3, vol. VIII, 2 (1998) (reprinted in this volume). For the theory of arbitrary rule, see idem, ‘Arbitrary Rule: A Comparative Theory of State, Politics and Society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies XXIV (1997), 49–73 (reprinted in this volume); idem, ‘Problems of Political Development in Iran: Democracy, Dictatorship or Arbitrary Government?’, BJMES XXII (1995), 5–20 (reprinted in this volume); idem, ‘The Aridisolatic Society. A Model of Long Term Social and Economic Development in Iran’, IJMES XV (1983), 259–81 (reprinted in this volume); idem, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, (London and New York, 1980), chs 1–4; idem, ‘Nationalist Trends in Iran, 1921–1926’, IJMES XI, (1979). For evidence of rift and chaos after the revolution, see W.J. Olson, Anglo-Iranian Relations during World War I (London, 1984); Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, 1982). 3 See, for example, Abdollah Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani-ye man, vol. II (Tehran, 1964); Yahya Dawlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya, vols III and IV (Tehran, 1983); Malek al-Sho‘ara Bahar, Tarikh-e mokhtasar-e ahzab-e siyasi dar Iran, vol. I (Tehran, 1978); Javad Shaikholeslami, Sima-ye Soltan Ahmad Shah Qajar, vol. I (Tehran, 1989); Olson, op. cit. 4 The references are numerous. See, for example, the documents in British Public Record Office files F.O. 371/3558, F.O. 371/3859, F.O. 371/3860, and British Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. IV, Olson, ‘The Genesis of the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919’, in Elie Kedourie and Sylvia G. Haim (eds), Towards a Modern Iran (London, 1980); Shaykholeslami, op. cit.; H. Sabahi, British Policy in Persia, 1918–1925 (London, 1990); J. Balfour, Recent Happenings in Persia (London, 1922).

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5 See Katouzian, ‘The Campaign against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’, BJMES XXV, (1998) (reprinted in this volume); M. Sicker, The Bear and the Lion, Soviet Imperialism in Iran (New York, 1988); A.Y. Yodfat, The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Iran (London, 1984); British Documents on Foreign Policy, vols IV, XIII. 6 See Katouzian, op. cit.; further, Ebrahim Fakhra ’i, Sardar-e Jangal (Tehran, 1978); Cosroe Chaqueri, The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran: Birth of the Trauma (Pittsburgh, 1995). But for the specific point in hand see especially Major C.J. Edmonds’ reports to Cox for the months of October 1919 to May 1920, The Edmonds Papers, St Antony’s College, Oxford. 7 See Katouzian, op. cit.; British Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. VI; Edmonds’ reports to Cox for November 1919, and February and March 1920, and his special report of his meeting with Sayyed Zia (Iran’s chief delegate, then en route back to Tehran) at Qazvin, The Edmonds Papers; General Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London, 1964). 8 Mostawfi, Sharh-e Zendegani; Dawlatabadi, Hayat-e Yahya; Mokhber al-Saltaneh (Mehdiqoli Hedayat), Khaterat va khatarat (Tehran, 1984). 9 See Ahmad Kasravi, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani, ed. and introd. Katouzian (Tehran, 1998). In his Tarikh-e hijdah sala-ye Azarbarijan (Tehran, 1992), Kasravi’s discussion of Khiyabani and the revolt, though still critical, is less extensive and more circumspect, probably in deference to popular opinion. In his autobiographical Zandagani-ye man (Tehran, 1976), there is more on his personal relationship with Khiyabani. 10 Sharh-e hal va eqdamat-e Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani, Special Issue of Iranshahr, no. 14, p. 8, repr. in Entesharat-e Iranshahr (Tehran, 1972). 11 Ibid., p. 4. 12 Ibid., pp. 19–21. 13 See Hossein Makki, Tarikh-e bistsala-ye Iran, vol. III (Tehran, 1995), p. 646. 14 Iranshahr, no. 14, pp. 32–3. The name of Biverling has been transliterated back from the Persian into the Latin script, as its original European form does not exist in any of the sources. 15 See Ali Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad Khiyabani dar Tabriz (Tehran, 1983); Naseh Nateq, ‘Chehre-ye Tabnak-e Khiyabani’, reprinted in an appendix to ibid. It had been originally published in Yaghma (1965); Ali Azari, Qiyam-e Kolonel Mohammad Taqi Khan Pesyan (Tehran, n.d.), pp. 160–74. 16 Azari, op. cit., p. 10. 17 Kasravi, op. cit., pp. 90–1. 18 See Mostawfi, op. cit. 19 See Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran, p. 68. See E.L. Woodward, French Revolutions (London, 1965); Leo Gershoy, The Era of the French Revolution (1789–1799) (Princeton, 1957), and From Despotism to Revolution (New York, 1963). 20 See Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary Rule’. 21 Vosuq al-Dawleh’s, Khiyabani’s and other speeches have been reproduced in Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, pp. 27–81. 22 See Zendegi-ye Tufani. Khaterat-e Sayyed Hasan Taqizadeh, ed. Iraj Afshar, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 1993), p. 459. 23 Ibid., p. 458. 24 Ibid., pp. 458–9. For the full text of all the telegrams, see pp. 457–64. 25 There are a number of primary Persian sources on the affair, of which Kasravi’s in Tarikh-e hijdah saleh-ye Azarbaijan, Part 1, chs 28–33, is the most comprehensive, and in which he very cautiously says that the government probably meant well in its attempt to reconcile the Russians, ‘because Iran could not fight the Russians’. (p. 241). For a recent detailed account of the events, see Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911 (New York, 1996). For a full analysis and

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26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

appraisal of the episode, see Katouzian, State and Society in Iran, The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis, London of New York, 2000, ch. 3. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad; Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani. Kasravi, ibid. ch. 1, pp. 96–8. Ibid., ch. 2, p. 106. Ibid., p. 113. Kasravi’s account of the terrorist activities in his Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh is less extensive as well as more circumspect; in Zendagani-ye man, p. 88, there is a fleeting reference to it, and though Khiyabani’s name is mentioned, it is so submerged that the reader would be likely to miss the point. See Abdollah Bahrami, Khaterat-e Abdollah Bahrami az akhar-e saltanat-e Naser al-Din Shah ta avval-e Kudeta, Tehran, date of preface 1965, pp. 544–9. Ibid., p. 130. In Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, p. 844, Kasravi makes the same complaint of Khiyabani’s behaviour but does not mention Raf ‘at’s name. There is an extensive, though somewhat uncritical, discussion of Raf ‘at’s views, and his debates with Bahar, in Yahya Aryianpur, Az Saba ta Nima, vol. II (Tehran, 1993). Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, ch. 2; Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, Part 3. See also Bahrami, op. cit., pp. 549–51. Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 117; Bahrami, op. cit., pp. 563–5. The Turkish General Staff Military History and Strategic Studies (ATASE) – Ankara, K. 1859, D. 88/142, F. 1–20, 19/5/1918. I am grateful to Touraj Atabaki for supplying me with this material as well as that which will be cited in n. 82 below. Ibid. Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, ch. 3. See also his Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, Part 3. See Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 367; Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, ch. 4. See Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, Part 3, ch. 16, and Part 4, chs 4–6. See Edmonds’ report for December 1919, The Edmonds Papers. Bristow, ‘Report on Azerbaijan during 1920’, in ibid. Edmonds’ report for January and February 1920, in ibid. Edmonds’ report for April and May, in ibid. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 262. Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani; Azari, Qiyam-i Shaikh Mohammad. Kasravi, op. cit., pp. 138–9. Azari, op. cit., pp. 238, 261. Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, and Tarikh-i hijdahsaleh. Kasravi, Qiyam-i Khiyabani, ch. 5. Ibid., p. 144; Azari, op. cit., pp. 261–2. See his Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, p. 846. Kasravi, op. cit, p. 868, and Azari, op. cit., p. 263. See Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat, p. 316. Most of his speeches have been reprinted, in full or in part, over some 200 pages in Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, pp. 289–488; a few others have been published in Iranshahr, no. 14, pp. 50–7. Azari, op. cit., p. 298. Ibid., p. 350. Ibid., p. 393. Ibid., p. 404. Ibid., pp. 344–6, 358, 360, etc. Ibid., p. 377. Iranshahr, no. 14, p. 51. Ibid. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 465. Ibid., p. 304. Ibid., p. 393.

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66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

Ibid., pp. 333–4. Ibid., p. 354. Ibid., p. 359. Iranshahr, no. 14, p. 50. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 454. Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, p. 845. Kasravi makes the same point repeatedly, and sometimes even more emphatically, in Qiyam-e Khiyabani. For the most comprehensive study of Kasravi’s thoughts on this point, see Abrahamian, ‘Kasravi, the Integrative Nationalist of Iran’, in Kedourie and Haim (eds), Towards a Modern Iran, pp. 96–131. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 410. Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, p. 873. Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 163–4. Ibid., p. 402. Ibid., p. 469. Qiyam-e Khiyabani, ch. 5, Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh, Part 4, ch. 8. Qiyam-e Khiyabani, ch. 5, pp. 156–7. Edmonds’ report of the interview on 1 May 1920, The Edmonds Papers. For a report of the garden party and speech attended by Edmonds, reprinted from the newspaper Tajaddod, see Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, pp. 306–11. Edmonds’ report for April and May, The Edmonds Papers. Edmonds’ report of the interview, 1 May 1920. Bristow, ‘Report on Azerbaijan’. See Kasravi, Qiyam-i Khiyabani, and Tarikh-e hijdahsaleh; Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad; Abolghasem Kahhalzadeh, Dideh-ha va Shenideh-ha, Khaterat-e Abolghasem Kahhalzadeh, ed. Morteza Kamran, Tehran 1984. Bristow, ‘Report on Azerbaijan’. Russian Central State Archives, Archive of October Revolution, Fonds 5402, Inventory 1, File 514, list 4. See Kahhalzadeh, Dideh-ha va shenideh-ha, pp. 431–3. See Katouzian, ‘The Campaign against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’ (reprinted in this volume). Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani; Azari, Qiyam-i Shaikh Mohammad. See Azari, op. cit., pp. 375–7, for Khiyabani’s own speech reporting the arrests; Kasravi, Tarikh-e hijdahsehla and Qiyam-e Khiyabani. Bristow, ‘Report on Azerbaijan’. Norman to Curzon, 23 June 1923, British Documents on Foreign Policy, vol. XIII, no. 483. See various telegrams exchanged by Norman and Curzon, June–July 1920, in ibid. See Katouzian, State and Society in Iran. Ibid., chs 6 and 7. Ibid. Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 163. See Khiyabani’s speech in Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 478. Khiyabani’s speech, in ibid. p. 469. See Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat, and ‘Nokteh-ha’i dar tarikh-e Mashrutiyyat’, Ayandeh (January–March 1993), pp. 959–71. Iranshahr, p. 136. See the full text of his letter in Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat, pp. 313–14. Ibid., p. 315. Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 161. Mokhber al-Saltaneh, Khaterat and ‘Nokteh-ha’i’. Qiyam-e Khiyabani, pp. 164–5.

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106 ‘Nokteh-ha’i’, p. 996, and Khaterat, p. 316. 107 Ibid., pp. 315–16. 108 Ibid., Azari also confirms the cooperation of the gendarmerie with Mokhber al-Saltaneh. See Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, p. 490. 109 Khaterat, p. 316, repeated more briefly in “Nokteh-ha’i”, p. 968. 110 Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 165. 111 Khaterat, p. 317. 112 Mokhber al-Saltaneh, op. cit., and ‘Nokteh-ha’i’; Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 167; Badamchi, Iranshahr, p. 38. For a colourful account of the incident of Khiyabani’s death by an alleged eyewitness, see Azari, Qiyam-e Shaikh Mohammad, pp. 490–2. 113 ‘Nokteh-ha’i’, p. 968. 114 Khaterat, p. 318, n. 1. 115 Ibid. and ‘Nokteh-ha’i’, Kasravi, Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 167; Badamchi, Iranshahr, p. 38. 116 ‘Nokteh-ha’i’, p. 969, and Khaterat, p. 319. 117 For the full text of the long tarji‘ band, see Divan-e Bahar, vol. I, ed. Mohammad Malekzadeh (Tehran, 1956, pp. 313–15). 118 Qiyam-e Khiyabani, p. 170. 119 See Bahar, Tarikh-e mokhtasar-e ahzab-e siyasi, p. 54.

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11 IRAN’S FISCAL HISTO RY 1 AND THE NATURE OF STATE AND SO CIETY IN IRAN

This chapter discusses the substantial as well as important evidence contained in a recently published book about the fiscal history and other aspects of Iranian political economy over a long stretch of medieval and modern Iranian history. Willem Floor’s latest contribution towards a social and economic history of Iran is substantive and would be most useful to any attempt to reconstruct the history of Iran within a modern, scientific and realistic framework.2 It is a detailed, painstaking and conscientious study of the fiscal history of Iran, 1500–1925, with aspects and implications which (for reasons discussed below) reach well beyond a fiscal history as this may be understood, for example, from a fiscal history of France. The book begins with a useful introductory chapter on the political economy of Safavid and Qajar Iran. It sets the general framework for the detailed study that follows, and incidentally shows that – despite all the changes that took place in the economy and polity (sometimes, even, over a short period) the nature of the political economy remained essentially the same, that is, it was what this reviewer has described as an arbitrary state and society, and a ‘short-term’ political economy. The short-term nature of the political economy was itself a product of the arbitrary basis of the state and society. And, as we shall see below, the appellation ‘short-term political economy’, or ‘short-term society’, highlights in an explicit way the reasons for lack of basic, continuous, long-term, political and economic development. Where there is little security of life and property, let alone of official positions, both logic and sociology explain why there should be a strong urge to acquire as much as possible, and by whatever means, in the short run, and spend as much as possible for as long as it has not been taken away, confiscated or plundered.3 It is the logic and sociology of what, on more than one occasion, Floor cautiously describes as a ‘spoils system’. There were both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ rulers, governors, landlords, merchants, etc. But the nature of the state and society, and the social, political and economic structures, and the culture to which they gave rise, transcended personal ethics. The other chapters of the book discuss the fiscal and administrative systems – the two are closely bound together – of the Safavid and Qajar dynasties, and the intervening decades in the eighteenth century. These include the administrative 236

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structure and hierarchy, the tax structure and its changes, the numerous agricultural and urban taxes, imposts, cesses and other techniques of ‘fleecing’ the ra‘iyat (meaning ‘subjects’, both high and low, though it literally means flock), the customs and similar duties, the various forms of revenue assignment and land-holding, and the ways and means of state expenditure. The reason why it was pointed out at the outset that this is more than just a fiscal history of Iran as this might be understood from the same title for a European society is now becoming clear, though it would become clearer later in this review. For, although much space has been devoted to the description of taxes, etc., here we are essentially dealing with something broader and more comprehensive, perhaps a system of political economy, although the word ‘system’ is used for want of a more appropriate term. The system as such has by now been fairly well documented for the whole of the post-Islamic era, though there is evidence that, in its fundamental aspects, it was the same before Islam as well. Indeed, in her seminal study, Landlord and Peasant in Persia, AKS Lambton observed, regarding the early Islamic period: The origins of these taxes and the methods by which they must have been assessed must in any case be sought in local (i.e. Iranian) custom, which dates back to pre-Islamic times. Indeed for the most part the tax regime of the Sasanian empire, in so far as it concerned the land, was taken over [by Arab rulers], and the task of the [Islamic] jurist in this case also was to rationalise historic precedent and to fit this into the framework of [Islamic] law.4 It may be asserted with a greater degree of certainty that at no time in Iranian history has there been a feudal system of landownership, or indeed any other system whereby landlords enjoyed independent rights of ownership of land, although in all periods there had been land assignees, revenue farmers and the like who – besides the state which alone had independent right of ownership – had a considerable share in the surplus produce of the peasants. This much may be concluded from the main sources of pre-Islamic Iranian history as well, although there is much less detail regarding the system and its changes than is to be desired. Floor’s study, more detailed and more extensive as it is for the period 1500–1925, especially as regard non-agricultural taxes and customs, is nevertheless within the general framework of Lambton’s work (although the period studied by Lambton stretches from the Islamic conquest to the eve of the land-reform in the twentieth century). It is therefore not surprising that its broader implications regarding the position of the landlords (in their large variety), the peasants, the nomads and the urban population, and the relationship between the state and all of them taken together – that is, the relationship of state and society – is basically consistent with the earlier study. This is because landownership – if this is an appropriate term to use – was closely bound up with the country’s fiscal system. Landlords did not make up an 237

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independent long-term social class, giving rise to an aristocratic hierarchy on whom the state depended. On the contrary, they were usually (direct or indirect) revenue assignees, tax collectors, tax-farmers and other government agents and officials, rather than feudal lords, agricultural gentry, or even free-holding farmers. Indeed the status of ownership of almost all of them, both high and low, was somewhat similar to the class of ‘tenants-at-will’ in traditional English agriculture – before the Enclosure Movement of the eighteenth century – with three important qualifications. One, that these English tenants were themselves peasant cultivators not rent or revenue collectors. Two, that they were tenants of their landlords, who were the rightful owner of the estate, whereas the Iranian landlords ultimately owed their status to the will of the state, the central and provincial government. Three, that though their tenancy was ‘at the will of the lord’ (i.e. theoretically they could be evicted without further ado) they still enjoyed a certain amount of traditional legal protection. And, let it be emphasised, that these English tenants were no more than a class of peasant cultivators, unlike the Iranian landlords, who were nobles, notables, tribal chiefs, provincial magnates, state officials, religious leaders and so on. Taxes and other imposts and dues were indeed numerous. They sometimes changed in definition, the rate at which they were imposed, the class or classes of population on whom they fell, and the method by which they were evaluated. Sometimes a given tax – for example, the tamgha which dated back to the pre-Safavid Ilkhan period, and which in most cases was once abolished and later restored under the Safavids – was imposed on different activities at the same time. That is, it was a generic tax, but one that might fall on diverse – in some cases unrelated – types of activity. Sometimes, the rate and method of evaluation of the same tax varied in different regions at the same time. The ambiguity and/or variety of purposes for which taxes were imposed, and ways and forms by which they were collected, may be exemplified by one important example (from many), the case of malujehat. Originally it had consisted of its two parts, mal, va jehat, but it always referred to two types of tax: jehat was a tax on the agricultural produce, a kind of bahreh-ye malekaneh. This was collected in kind. Whereas mal was ‘the tax on looms, trees, houses, domestic animals, wells and mills’ (pp. 129–33). It fell both on other rural activities (e.g. mal-e baghat) and on urban and/or rural industry (e.g. mal-e asnaf). And it was most likely collected in cash rather than in kind. Hence Floor’s definition of malujehat as ‘agricultural and industrial tax’. Yet it also seems to have been a kind of capital or wealth tax, because it was imposed on looms, houses and mills as well. In this case it was the ownership, it seems, that was subject to the tax – whatever it might have earned the owner – rather than the income arising from its use. It would make no sense to give a sample here of the large number of generic and specific taxes on rural and urban income and wealth, so numerous as they are, and subject to so many variations in almost all their aspects in time as well as space. More interesting from the point of view of the nature of the state, society and political economy are the equally varied imposts, extraordinary duties and 238

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other extortions that must be added to the canonical charges to arrive at the total tax burden of peasants, other producers as well as traders. Indeed an example of a regular, ‘canonical’, yet extortionate practice, stretching from the Ilkhans to the Qajars was the imposition of tarh. This was a generic term for the compulsory sale of agricultural produce by the government to peasants and traders at extortionate prices. It meant that they had to buy dear and sell cheap, for the government to pocket the difference. There seems to have been some doubt in the sources as to the exact nature of tarh, but a poetical letter by Sa‘di makes it plain that tarh was indeed forced sale by the government at abovemarket prices. Under Shams al-Din Tazikuy, military officials ‘had got some dates from the peasants at a low price (beh tas‘ir-e andak), and sold to traders at a high price, by tarh’. Sa‘di’s brother was one of these unfortunate traders, so the poet wrote to the ‘Malek-e Adel’: You are not informed, no doubt, of my brother’s plight, They give him dates by tarh, and he could not be more unfortunate … Then you send a tax collector A Turk worse than whom it is difficult to find They beat him [my brother] so much, O’ Lord That he cannot step outside his house5 That was a regular extortion. Examples of others, both regular and irregular, and the burden they imposed, and responses shown by the subjects, are scattered all over Floor’s book, as of Lambton’s before him. For example, both authors mention the burden created by government officials as they passed through the country, not only being accommodated, fed, etc., by the subjects but often pillaging them as well. As Lambton writes, for the pre-Safavid Ilkhan period: Officials of all kinds lived on the country. Ilchis with their large trains as they passed through the country made all kinds of requisitions on the peasantry in spite of the fact that the government also levied taxes for their entertainment, and had established post stations … throughout the empire to provide for their needs … They would stir up local disputes (in order to exact money for settling them) and would take the animals of the peasants … Robbers would even pretend they were Ilchis and seize animals from the peasants and others to this extent. The royal hunters, of whom there were large numbers throughout the empire, were another source of oppression. They, too, lived on the country, and like the Ilchis, revenue officials and others would seize the peasants’ mules and donkeys, a practice that was clearly disastrous to agricultural work …6 Lambton then goes on to describe the practice of writing drafts (barat) on provincial districts, and the private exploitation resulting from it: ‘The writing of 239

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drafts on provincial districts was in itself, apart from the methods adopted to collect what was assigned, a fruitful source of peculation and exploitation. The money and goods so collected would be shared between the officials passing through and the local officials. Revenue was swallowed up in this way, and nothing remitted to the treasury’.7 Floor describes a similar situation regarding official guests under the Safavids (pp. 197–8). He gives a graphic description of another kind of extortion and exploitation under the Qajars (though the general principles are familiar from all times in the country) which is worth a long quotation. Talking about the sale and purchase of official positions, he writes: The pishkesh was not the only payment that passed between the appointer and appointee; it was only the up-front payment. The system worked as follows. In Jandaq, for example, when the na’eb al-hokumeh had been appointed, he appointed in each village a trustworthy person … who was charged to collect the haqq al-hokumeh and other extraordinary dues from the population. This sum had to be transferred to the governor. The na’eb al-hokumeh, also appointed a range of local officials … who in turn paid him various dues known as shirini and reshveh. The na’eb al-hokumeh, on handing over the haqq al-hokumeh and other dues, had to add his own contribution, known as ta‘arof. The governor himself, to smooth relations with the central government, sent contributions to Tehran throughout the year … Floor then quotes a contemporary witness: Most of these offices are bought and sold. By the amount of the purchase is therefore regulated the rate of oppression. The scale descends; every minor agent is expected to accomplish an appointed task; but is left to choose his own means, and to have no other controul [sic] but his own conscience (p. 263). The level of exploitation being such, economic activity continued nevertheless, however uncertainly, unpredictably and miraculously, for every system creates its own means of survival, though not necessarily development. There are sporadic reports from different periods that despite this situation the lot of the ordinary people was, after all, not much worse than European societies. These reports must be treated with caution as they refer to specific observations for specific regions at specific times. It is impossible to have a reasonable idea of ‘the standard of living’ even for a given period. Yet they must be considered along with the rest of the evidence. Chardin, for example, who is as good a witness as any – foreign or domestic – on the politics and economics of exploitation and insecurity under arbitrary rule, found the crop-sharing peasants ‘living in reasonable comfort, in fact doing better than their European counterparts’ (p. 30). 240

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This is important. Chardin was a contemporary of Louis XIV, the French king who ruled in the most successful era of the French monarchy, the Grand Siècle, the seventeenth century. There is general agreement among historians of the period that, on the whole, 80 per cent of the French agricultural produce was taken in rents, taxes and dues. This is higher than the reports for the same century in Iran, although the burden of ‘non-canonical’ exaction in Iran must be borne in mind, and although the rate of exploitation in France varied much less from region to region as compared with Iran. All that considered, it is nevertheless clear that the vast majority of the French people under the Sun King were living at a subsistence level in the very traditional sense of that term. In 1661 the peasantry owned about one-fifth of the soil. Taine compared ‘the situation of the rural population to that of a man walking through a pond with water up to his chin, a slight fall in the economic level and he goes under’.8 There were a number of standard taxes, of which the taille – the old levy raised in feudal times from sections of the population that did not supply military service – and the gabelle, the salt tax, were the most exploitative and widespread. Both of them varied in rate – and sometimes fell on different classes of the population – in different regions and provinces of the country.9 Nevertheless the taille was borne largely by the rural population and especially by the poorest peasantry. Attempts by men like Colbert to reform it, even to impose it solely on agricultural property, did not succeed. Peasants frequently were unable to pay, so their cattle and even household effects were seized.10 In 1646 three hundred thousand people had been imprisoned for failing to pay the taille.11 Sometimes they tried to evade payment – just as Iranian peasants frequently disappeared on sighting Illchis and tax collectors – running away or hiding in wells and qanats (see Lambton and Floor). ‘[A]t the sight of a regiment’, writes a historian of seventeenth-century France, ‘a whole village might take to flight’.12 Sometimes they abandoned their land because they were unable to pay13 as did Iranian peasants. The salt tax was no less exploitative and no less uneven across the country’s regions. Salt was an important productive input for preserving meat and fish. It was also used as fertiliser, and was fed to cattle to immunise them from the common diseases. Salt was a government monopoly. A certain minimum amount had to be taken for household use, and a coarser variety was supplied for other purposes. A large army of inspectors ensured that the minimum was taken, that the cheaper and coarser variety was not substituted for the finer, and that salt was not made secretly from brine.14 It is just comparable to the Iranian tarh mentioned above, except that this was systematic, and arose from the government monopoly of salt trade, which enabled it to fix the price and exploit its user, whether he used it for consumption or as a productive input. Communities of fishermen are known to have abandoned their livelihood, as they could not afford to pay the heavy salt tax. Some even migrated to other countries such as Holland. What then, the reader might ask, was the alleged important difference, claimed by this reviewer, between the French and Iranian systems. For it seems 241

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that the vast majority of producers in both counties were subject to a heavy – and at times insufferable – burden of dues, especially when one adds the other dues and obligations of the French peasantry – to their lords, to the church, to royal prerogatives, etc. – to the list? The answer to that question comes from considerations of fundamental differences in social and legal structures, and their changes through time, between the two types of society. There are two aspects to the matter, one legal, the other sociological, which are closely related to each other. European state and society was based in law, although the extent, definition, and social implications of law evolved through the ages. In France, for example, the period of absolutism (or despotism) did not take more than three centuries, from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth century. The power and role of the state, and with it, of the king, increased greatly at the expense of the aristocratic magnates, although – and this is a crucial point – there was a commensurate rise in the rights of the lower gentry and the urban middle classes. The most important point however is that, though the power of the state was absolute it was not arbitrary. Absolutism itself was based in law, so that the king and state ‘had the absolute power of laying down the law, but [not] the absolute power of exercising lawlessness’.15 That is, at any moment of time the state could not violate the law in an arbitrary and unpredictable fashion. On the contrary, the law was normally observed, and changes therein were possible along fairly well-defined procedures. Louis XIV who was the most powerful absolutist ruler of France could not take the life or property of a nobleman, a government official, a merchant or trader, at will and without recourse to the existing legal framework and procedures.16 To this legal aspect corresponded its sociological basis, the fact that, in France, the social classes – and especially those of them that had economic power – were independent from the state. This was possible because there were independent and inalienable rights of property-ownership, so that even in the few centuries of absolutism the state did not monopolise the right of property-ownership, could not confiscate and plunder private wealth, and did not rise above the society. In pre-Islamic Iran, the principle of Farrah-ye Izadi (God’s Grace, sometimes literally translated as Divine Effulgence)17 legitimised the arbitrary power of the ruler. The power of rulers was both absolute and arbitrary for the simple reason that, in the first instance, they owed their position to the Grace bestowed upon them directly by the Divine Will. This was true both of the Just and the Unjust rulers, but it was believed that the Unjust would be likely to lose the Grace, and somehow fall from power, although in practice this did not necessarily happen. The same theory was used to legitimise Iran’s post-Islamic rulers, sometimes the same ancient terms (Farrah-ye Izadi) being applied, but later its equivalents, Shadow of God, Pivot of Universe, etc., being preferred.18 When the ruler as the personification of the state is completely independent from the society, there may be no rights independently from him. That is, in the final analysis, no person or class of people may be able to claim any rights except 242

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that which is bestowed or reaffirmed by the ruler. And what is bestowed by a ruler may be taken away by him or his successors, so long as they have the power to enforce their will. It follows that there will not be any legal code or procedure that may limit the power of the state, or be invoked against its transgressions. Indeed the very term ‘transgression’ could not be used in any normal sense, for where there is no independent right it cannot be legally violated, although some arbitrary moral and ethical sense may be used to describe an act as transgression. This is the simple reason why there was not and there could not be private property in Iran in any sense that conveys from the history of Europe. Khasseh, khalesh and divani lands were directly or indirectly owned by the ruler and state. Their definition and extent changed from one era to the next, from one dynasty to another, sometimes even from one ruler to the next. But both Floor and Lambton before him point out that even in the same period, land that belonged to the ‘state’ could be transferred to the personal properties of the ruler. The revenue assignment systems – eqata‘, teyul, soyurghal, etc. – also varied among themselves, and within each category through time. Frequently, there were different types of each category at the same time. This itself is evidence for the absence of a fairly well defined framework, showing that not only government was arbitrary, but so was its administrative system. It is however clear from both studies that those holding land or enjoying its revenue one way or another enjoyed no independent right to it. It was a privilege rather than a right which the state (i.e. the ruler, or local governors backed by him) could take away from him at will, so long as they had the physical power to carry it out. Floor (p. 335), refers to the adage ‘All that a slave owns belongs to his master’ as the logical explanation for such confiscation. Another version of that adage is ‘The slave and all that he owns belong to his master’.19 This is a more appropriate version because (as we shall see below), not only the property but also the person of a subject, however high he might be, was ultimately at the disposal of the ruler, or those who acted within his authority. There were lands (described as molk, but perhaps more correctly melk) which were supposed to be owned by the landlord. But even this kind of property could be confiscated without much ceremony, and in any case had to have the sanction of the ruler for it to continue. That is why it was never certain to be passed on as inheritance, and seldom would it continue beyond a couple of generations. There were few exceptions, but so few that proved the rule. Private, and – more likely – religious endowments fared somewhat better, but the rule always remained that the ‘slave and whatever he owned’ belonged to his master, that is, the ruler owned the country and all that it contained. Let us now refer back to the example of seventeenth-century France which we briefly discussed above. The level of exploitation was such that the mass of the people had no opportunity to save any of their income. The aristocracy who, together with the government, were its beneficiaries by-and-large indulged in extravagance, and often found themselves in debt because of their wasteful 243

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expenditure habits (although, certainly in England, enlightened landlords had a significant role in the Industrial Revolution, both in agriculture and in industry). But, there were other, rising classes – mainly the urban classes of merchants, traders, processionals, craftsmen, etc., whom the French described as the bourgeoisie – who saved and invested a considerable proportion of their income. This provided the main channel – in France as well as England and elsewhere – for the long-term accumulation of financial capital, which directly or indirectly provided the funds for the development of the new technology, and its use in modern industrial and agricultural production. It is not possible, nor appropriate, to go beyond this simple statement regarding a matter over which innumerable volumes have been written. The point however is this. If these social classes did not enjoy the right of private property independently from the state, it would not have been possible or indeed desirable for them to accumulate capital, for it would have been taken away from them or their immediate descendants. Or, looking at the same thing from the point of view of law, since government was not arbitrary it could not confiscate their property at will. Hence Europe was a ‘long-term society’, in which life, property and inheritance was predictable. Iran, on the other hand, was a ‘short-term society’. It was a society which lacked a reasonable degree of security, and this made every aspect of living unpredictable beyond the immediate future. Since government was not based in law, power, position, possession and life itself could be taken away at short notice. It was not just the peasantry, the vast majority of the people as they were, who were fair game, and virtually lacked any rights at all, who – using a term frequently used by Floor and some of his sources – were set to be ‘fleeced’ by their rulers and masters. The structure of insecurity ran through all the orders of society, from the village headman through the local craftsman, the merchant and trader, to the governor and governor-general, the mostawfi, the vizier, and not least the shah himself.20 Unlike Europe where legitimacy was the strongest guarantee for the ruler’s power and authority, the ‘legitimacy’ of Iranian ruler was guaranteed only so long as he could maintain his power and authority by force. Ultimately, the shah could rule, even survive, so long as he was able to create and maintain (by whatever means) a balance of forces which made that possible, not by long-term social structures resulting in laws or entrenched traditions that would guarantee his power and authority. That is why it was never clear who would succeed him as his rightful heir, and there was turmoil and rebellion almost each time a ruler died. That is also why the ‘legitimacy’ of successful rebels was seldom less than the ruler they replaced. Here is an excellent comment by Floor: Because the shah was ‘the sole’ owner of the country, he also was the owner of its public offices, which were regarded as sources of revenue. It was the shah’s right to allow a servant or vassal to buy the office, but it was also his right to take it back without justification whenever he wanted. This arrangement generated a basic insecurity, through lack of contractual obligations, that permeated all layers of Qajar society. Even 244

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power and wealth only meant relative security if these were held solely at the shah’s pleasure. Appointed officials considered their public office as an opportunity to acquire rather than as a means to attain common social goals. In this sense they were rather like the shah, who treated the country ‘as a property hold of uncertain duration … his only concern [being] how to make the most of his incumbency’ (p. 252, emphasis added). The point however is that the social and political culture described above was not just typical of the Qajar period, but of Iranian history in general, as it is attested to by Floor’s own study for the whole of the period it covers, by Lambton’s for the whole of the post-Islamic era, and by the sources of Iranian history for all times. Indeed primary sources of Iranian history are packed with innumerable examples of acute insecurity of not only property but also life itself. Countless viziers and other high officials of the state were killed or otherwise destroyed, and/or their entire property was confiscated, without any legal procedure and leave to appeal, for ‘political’ reasons. Hasanak, Amid al-Molk Kondori, Shams al-Din Jovaini, Rashid al-Din Fazlollh, Imamqoli Khan, Miraz Ebrahim Kalantar (E‘temad al-Dawleh), Qa’em Maqam and Amir Kabir are just the most celebrated examples, respectively under the Ghaznavids, the Seljuqs, the Ilkhanids, the Safavids and the Qajars. These were great officials who, justly or unjustly, had fallen from grace. But the plunder of the nobles’ and notables’ property did not happen only when they fell from office and grace. It could happen at any time. Master Secretary Bunasr-e Moshkan was a very important and highly respected high official of the state under both Mahmud and Mas‘usd of Ghazna. He was also very fortunate to die in bed. Bahihaqi, who wrote his history several centuries before the Safavids, relates that shortly before Bunasr died, the Sultan, prompted by a lesser official, had demanded a number of horses and camels from each of the Persian (tazik) notables, including Bunasr. Every one of them humbly complied. But Bunasr lost his equanimity, says Bahihaqi, solely because he thought that that lesser official had aimed this scheme at him personally. He sent a list of everything he possessed to the ruler, saying that he had earned them all in his long service to the state, and they were all there for Mas‘ud to take and let him be taken into a prison-citadel. The Sultan was angry but decided to overlook the matter and drop his demand in Bunasr’s case. Shortly afterwards the latter died, ‘and they told all sorts of tales about [the causes] of his death, which I shall not mention’. At any rate, he was mourned in honour. Nevertheless, all of his possessions were transferred to the state. And it is clear from Baihaqi’s text that this was normal routine: And they took his good well-trained slave boys to the Sultan’s compound, and put the Sultan’s brand on his horses and camels. And 245

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[a Treasury official] was told to draw up a list of whatever the man had for the treasury …21 The example is important for some fairly obvious reasons, but most important of all because it shows that the appropriation of the estate of a man such as Bunasr, even though he had died in honour, was normal exercise. There are countless examples of this kind form Iranian history, showing that a man’s property, dead or alive, was always in danger of confiscation, in part or as a whole, even if he had not incurred the wrath of the shah, or whoever could exercise arbitrary power over him. Here are a few examples, from the nineteenth century – in fact, all except the first one from late nineteenth century – when many leaders of the state and society, including at times the shah himself, were convinced that the country’s salvation was in establishing orderly, responsible and lawful government. After death in office (under Mohammad Shah) of Manuchehr Khan Gorji, Mo‘tamed al-Dawleh, the very powerful governor-general of Isfahan, his estate ‘was confiscated by the state, and his body was buried in Qom, in his own special tomb’.22 Asef al-Dawleh, one-time governor of Khorasan, who, because of a major rebellion against his injustices, had been withdrawn from his post, appeared to have gone mad. He had a large fortune, and rumour had it that he was pretending to be mad for fear that Naser al-Din Shah would take his wealth from him. When he died, Amin al-Soltan, the Grand Vazir, had his personal treasury sealed off on the Shah’s orders, so that there was no access even to the special shroud he had purchased for himself, but in the end they opened the seal, got the shroud, and sealed the treasury again. Eventually, they got a total of 150,000 tomans from his heirs.23 Mostafa Khan-e Amir Tuman, governor of Ardebil and Khoy died. ‘The Shah expressed much regret. I have subsequently heard that he sent a man to seal off his house, because they say he has a lot of money’.24 Yahya Khan Khajeh Nuri had endowed most of his property for fear that the Shah would take them after his death.25 Mehdi Khan was an official who had amassed a large fortune. When he died, the Shah had his house sealed off, and took a large amount of his wealth.26 Kamran Mirza, the Shah’s third son and Minister of War, jailed the wife of the Commander of Artillery after his death to obtain money from her. She refused to pay 70,000 tomans, and he eventually accepted 3000. Having heard this, Nezam al-Dawleh, who was then the richest commander in the army, endowed the whole of his property.27 On the eve of the Constitutional Revolution Mirza Mahmud Khan Hakim al-Molk, Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s long-standing physician and favourite, and recently minister of the royal court, who was hated by Amin al-Soltan, then Grand Vazir and Chancellor, died as governor of Gilan. He was believed to have amassed a fortune of about two and a half million tomans. Rumours were rife that he had been poisoned. His entire fortune was sealed off on the orders of 246

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Amin al-Soltan.28 Once again, it is important to bear in mind the logic of the system for, according to Mokhber al-Saltaneh, since much of the riches amassed by state officials were themselves due to ‘plunder’, confiscations from their property by the state was not viewed as an extraordinary violation of their rights.29 These are just a few examples of plunder of property when the victim had not fallen from office or grace, and was not an object of wrath by the ruler. They are examples of cases when the ruler demanded money from an otherwise ‘innocent’ notable. But there were other occasions when the ruler traded the life of an ‘innocent’ notable or official for money, ‘innocent’ here meaning that the ruler himself did not have the slightest anger or grudge against the notable. Ravandi says that Sultan Mohammad of the Seljuqs was a good-natured ruler ‘but he had a great love for accumulating riches’. Zia al-Molk, son of Nezam al-Molk and currently the Sultan’s vizier, had offered him 500,000 dinars, to put a very important man (who was also a sayyed) ‘at his disposal’ and the Sultan had agreed. Having got wind of the situation in time, the sayyed quickly saw the Sultan, and offered 800,000 for him to put Zia al-Molk at his disposal instead. This is how he made his bargain. He told the Sultan: ‘I have heard that Khajeh Ahmad (Zia al-Molk) has bought this slave of yours (i.e. himself) for five hundred thousand dinars. I wish that the Lord of the Universe (i.e. the Sultan) shall not see fit to sell this descendent of the Prophet. I should raise the five hundred thousand dinars to eight hundred thousand on the condition that you would put him at my disposal’. The love of money proved stronger to the Sultan than the preservation of the vizier. He agreed (to the offer) and delivered Khajeh Ahmad to the Sayyed, who rightly took his revenge from him, and he [Ahmad] suffered Everything he had thought of doing to Amir the Sayyed.30 That was nine hundred years ago. Now at the close of the nineteenth century, Rokn al-Dawleh, a brother of Naser al-Din Shah had been governor of Fars for only seven months when he heard that the Shah was thinking of giving his post to someone else who was offering a bigger Pishkesh. He took various steps – most effective of all, using the influence of the Shah’s favourite wife – to stop that. However, he bore a deep grudge against Qavam al-Molk, the biggest landlord and most important magnate in the province, had the soles of his feet beaten by sticks and thrown him in jail. He had then offered 100,000 tomans to the Shah and 30,000 to the Grand Vizier, Amin al-Soltan, to ‘sell’ Qavam al-Molk to him. They did not accept, partly because of the influence of his uncle, and partly – perhaps mainly – because of probable adverse comments by Europeans. E‘temad al-Saltaneh writes in his diaries: After entering Shiraz, Rokn al-Dawleh had had (Qavam al-Molk) bastinadoed and imprisoned, and then written a letter to Tehran saying that he would pay 100,000 tomans to the Shah and 30,000 to Amin al-Soltan 247

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to sell Qavam to him, that is, for him to have the life and property of Qavam at his disposal. But he did not manage to buy Qavam, since he is a nephew of Sahab-Divan, and, apart from that, this is not like the age of Fath‘ali Shah to be possible to buy and sell the magnates and notables; the Europeans would make a fuss. He did not manage to buy Qavam …31 This happened in the early 1890s. The reference to the sale of important people by Fath‘ali Shah is not spurious, for Amin al-Dawleh writes in his memoirs quite independently: … The Shah (i.e. Fath‘ali) even used to sell the court officials and state dignitaries to each other … (since), as Iranian sycophants keep repeating, life and private possessions were the rightful property of the Shah-an-shah.32 But, as the above example from the Seljuq period shows, this was by no means a Qajar invention. In fact such things had been part of the country’s social structure and it is difficult to believe that they had not been practised at any length of time. For that reason, it would be a mistake to attribute them to the personal moral dejection of rulers, vazirs, governors, or whoever. No doubt some of these were less kind or more greedy than the others. But the matter was deep-seated and systemic. It is succinctly captured by the above-quoted adage, ‘The slave and all that he owns belong to his master’. There is a great deal of detailed information in Floor’s book which have taken much effort to compile, and which are of historical interest in their own right, although precisely because of the nature of the subject, they could, and probably would, be fruitfully used only by a limited number of interested scholars. Some of it, on the other hand – together with asides, allusions and insights by the author and his primary European sources – may be used for discerning the fundamental characteristics of Iranian history and, hence, of the nature of state and society in Iran. No serious and realistic history of Iran, as a whole or in part, could dispense with the recognition of the essentially non-European features of Iranian society and history.

Notes and references 1 Review published in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3, 11, 2, 2001. 2 W. Floor, A Fiscal History of Iran in the Safavid and Qajar Periods, Persian Studies Series 17, General Editor Ehsan Yarshater (New York: Bibliotheca Press, 1998), p. 573 (including Glossary, Bibliography and Index). 3 For a full description and analysis of the concept of ‘the short-term society’ see Homa Katouzian, ‘The Short-Term Society: A Study in the Problems of Long-Term Political and Economic Development in Iran’, Middle Eastern Studies, forthcoming. 4 See A.K.S. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia, A Study of Land Tenure and Land Revenue Administration (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 31.

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5 Kolliyat-e Sa‘di, Mohammad Ali Forughi and Baha al-Din Khorramshahi (eds) (Tehran: 1988), p. 921. 6 Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, p. 82. 7 See ibid. 8 See A. Cobban, A History of Modern France, vol. 1, 1715–99 (London: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 49. 9 See ibid., p. 58. 10 M. Ashley, Louis XIV and the Greatness of France (London: The English Universities Press, 1966). 11 Ibid., p. 29. 12 See D. Ogg, Loius XIV (London: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 109. 13 Ahsley, Louis XIV. 14 Ibid., p. 29 and Ogg, Louis XIV, p. 103. 15 H. Katouzian, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York, 1981), p. 21. 16 For an extended comparative study, see H. Katouzian, ‘Arbitrary rule, a comparative theory of state, politics and society in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 1(24) (1997), reprinted in this volume. 17 Farrah is the ancient, less familiar, form of the term, farr being the more familiar, classical (New Persian) form, although its classical adjective farrahi, reflects the ancient form. 18 See Katouzian ibid., and ‘Farrah-ye Izadi va Haqq-e Elahi-ye Padshahan’, Ettel‘at Siyasi-Eqtesadi, nos 129–30, July 1998. 19 Respectively, ‘Al-‘abd ma fi yaduhu li-mawlahu’ and ‘Al-‘abd wa ma fi yaduhu kan-i li-mawlahu’. 20 See Katouzian, ‘The Short-Term Society’. 21 See Tarikh-e Baihaqi, Ali Akbar Fayyaz (ed.) (Tehran: Ershad, 1995), pp. 791–9. 22 See Mehdi Bamdad, Sharah-e Hal-e Rejal-e Iran, dar Qarn-e 12, 13 va 14 Hejri, vol. 4, Tehran: Zavvar, 1992, p. 162. 23 See Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 2, pp. 301–17; Ruznameh-ye Khaterat-e E‘temad al-Saltaneh, Iraj Afshar (ed.) (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1966), pp. 345–545. 24 See E‘temad al -Saltaneh, ibid., p. 543. 25 See Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 5, p. 333. 26 Bamdad, vol. 5, p. 303. For a somewhat different, though not contradictory, version see E‘temad al-Saltaneh, p. 601. 27 Bamdad, vol. 5, pp. 291–2, and vol. 1, pp. 151–3. 28 See Abdolhossein Khan Sepehr, Mer’at al-waqaye‘-e Mozaffari va Yaddashtha-ye Malek al-Moverrekhin, Abdolhossein Nava’i (ed.) (Tehran: Zarrin, 1989), Part 2, p. 28; Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal-e Rejal, vol. 4, pp. 35–8. 29 See Molhber al-Saltaneh (Mehdiqoli Hedayat), Khaterat va Khatarat, Tehran: Zavvar, 1984, which is a good, fairly detached, source on the political culture of the Qajar and early Pahlavi period. 30 See Mohammad ibn Ali Solaiman Ravandi, Rahat al-Sudur, Muhammad Iqbal (ed.) (London: Luzac, 1921), pp. 162–5. 31 See E‘temad al-Saltaneh, Ruznameh-ye Khaterat, pp. 939–40; Bamdad, Sharh-e Hal, vol. 3, p. 403. 32 See Khaterat-e Siyasi-e Mirza Ali Khan Amin al-Dawleh, Hafiz Farmanfarmayan (ed.) (Tehran, 1991), p. 6.

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12 THE EXECUTION OF AMIR HASANAK THE VAZIR Some lessons for the historical sociology of Iran1

The background Baihaqi’s Tarikh-e Mas‘udi is an outstanding example of classical Persian prose and historiography. Written in the middle of the fifth-century hijri, it is a more voluminous and – from a literary and historical viewpoint – a more impressive treatise than similarly great works such as Qabus-nameh, Siyasat-nameh and Chahar Maqaleh, which were written up to a century after it. Yet, this is one surviving volume of a much larger study – Tarikh-e Al-e Saboktegin – although not even this part of the great history has reached us with all of its pages intact.2 ‘The account of the execution of Amir Hasanak, God have mercy upon him’ is one of the most fascinating as well as illuminating chapters of the whole volume. It is a historical drama born of treachery, and resulting in tragedy; a tale of intrigue and machination; an account of calumny, callousness, courage and crisis of conscience, which begins with the death of a great sultan, and ends with the destruction of a powerful chief minister. Abolfazl Baihaqi was himself a secretary (dabir) in the divan-e rasa’el (or divan-e resalat), and a trusted friend and confidant of the saheb-e divan (or minister), master secretary Bu Nasr-e Moshkan, a powerful as well as learned and respected chief state officer of his time. The divan-e rasa’el was a very important department of the state, combining many of the functions of the ministry of the interior and the royal court’s Special Bureau in modern times. It is indicative of the importance of this office that after Bu Nasr’s death, the saheb-e divan-e ‘arz (or minister of war) was promoted to his post. This was Bu Sahl-e Zauzani, who happens to play the chief villain in the drama of Hasanak’s downfall. Baihaqi’s master – as he frequently calls Bu Nasr – seems to have been a decent as well as prudent state dignitary. The picture that emerges of him throughout the book is one of a learned, wise as well as self-respecting mandarin who manages to walk the tightrope of his great office without losing either his heart or his head. Inevitably, he would have to compromise more than would have been necessary in a state and society founded on some basic and inviolable norms governing the exercise of power, such as have been normally absent in Iran’s history. But he does so without sacrificing his dignity, and reducing himself to the status of a mere lackey, which, once again, happens to have been the rule among the highest state officials 250

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in the land. Yet, and all of the above notwithstanding, Baihaqi does not allow his acute sense of loyalty and respect for his friend and mentor to prevent him from mentioning his human weaknesses, in addition to his outstanding qualities. If there had not been so much direct and indirect evidence throughout the book for Baihaqi’s honest and impersonal approach to his task, perhaps his careful and objective assessment of his master’s ways and views would have been sufficient for it. Hasanak was the last vazir (or chief minister) of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. He was given the office after the fall, and banishment to a prison-citadel, of Khajeh-ye Bozorg Ahmad ibn Hasan-e Maimandi. The chief ministers were called vazir, the ministers (as well as provincial governors) saheb-e divan. Khajeh was apparently a title only in the case of vazirs, but it was also used as an attribute, a term of respect, in the case of other important persons. That is probably why the attribute used for vazirs was not just khajeh, but khajeh-ye bozorg. Hasanak is sometimes mentioned in this book as khajeh, and on other occasions as Amir Hasanak. That, too, must have been intended as an extraordinary term of respect, an attribute rather than a title, for otherwise Baihaqi uses this title almost exclusively in the case of royal persons and their relations. It follows that both titles and attributes were given to an office and an individual, as opposed to members of a social class, category, or hierarchy. In Europe, dukes, earls, barons, etc., would be born with their titles and die with them. In Iran, a man would qualify for the appropriate title or attribute in relation to his official position, and regardless of his birth and social station. Likewise, he would lose the title (together with many other things) the minute he fell out of the state’s favour. Unlike in a feudal society, Iran had no peerage or aristocracy, and the various inviolable rights which their members enjoyed. The state was the supreme social, political and economic overlord, capable of granting the highest privileges to whosoever it liked, and taking them away from whosoever it willed. Ultimately, this included the privilege of property ownership, and of living itself. For this is the logic of arbitrary rule, as opposed to government on the basis of contract with one or more social classes. In other words, it is the logic of a system in which the state stands over and above society, where the state is independent from the social classes while the latter are dependent upon it. Sultan Mahmud’s favourite for succession to the throne was Amir Mohammad, his younger son, in preference to Amir Mas‘ud, who was his eldest. Inevitably, there was much intrigue and machination among those concerned with great matters of the state. Many courtiers and high officials began to champion the cause of one or the other of the two brothers, while others hoped for safety and security by sitting on the fence. Maimandi’s fall and banishment was to some extent related to this affair, although he himself was not an active intriguer. Hasanak, on the other hand, was a loyal champion of Mohammad’s cause. He was a young man of great ability, pride, courage, good looks, much ambition, and – as things turned out – little prudence. Mohammad succeeded to the throne on his father’s death, but his brother Mas‘ud, who was a more able politician and military leader, would not give up 251

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his aspirations to the throne without a fight. Being the ruler of the ‘principality’ of Isfahan, he moved quickly and captured the neighbouring provinces of Ray, Jebal and (eventually) Naishabur. And he secretly obtained the blessings of the caliph in Baghdad, who, for reasons which will be mentioned below, was especially anxious to have Hasanak removed from the helm of the Ghaznavid empire. Many generals, ministers and other high officials quickly defected to Mas‘ud’s camp, partly in order to save their lives, limbs, liberty and property, and partly because, as Baihaqi himself aptly says, quoting an Arabic expression, ‘people are slaves to gold and silver’.3 Some conspired, some defected, some swam with the tide, and others were swept by it. Here is what Amir Ali Qarib (or Dayeh), the respected hajeb-e bozorg (or army commander-in-chief) and relation of the dead sultan told Khajeh Bu Nasr, the master secretary, before the drama had reached its fatal moments for himself: You must realise that everything has been overturned, and when you reach Herat you will see for yourself, and will be astonished that a newly-converted lot have taken everything in their hands so that the Mahmudis [i.e. those loyal to the dead sultan] are regarded as traitors and outsiders, especially as Bu Sahl-e Zauzani has been at work, has laid down the law, and has bought off [sic] all of them. And Sultan Mas‘ud’s position is how it is. Unless the king has any shame at all, you are all about to be destroyed.4 And Baihaqi himself, who had heard the report of this conversation from his master, adds: And I – Abolfazl – say that men like [Amir] Ali [Qarib] are rare to find. And the fact that he spoke these words to my master would seem to show that he could foresee and foreknow what would happen to himself.5 Ali fell and was arrested ‘together with his people’ (including his brother), despite his defection to the new camp.6 Amir Mohammad was caught and banished to a prison-citadel. Maimandi was released from jail, and was given the office of vazir once again. Hasanak had been already arrested in Bust, and taken through Herat to Balkh. Bu Nasr kept a low profile during the storm, and managed to survive with his skin, his dignity as well as his office intact. In his case Maimandi’s protection outdid Bu Sahl-e Zauzani’s malicious campaign. Yet both Maimandi and Bu Nasr watched helplessly and with heavy hearts the undignified destruction of Hasanak at the whim of Mas‘ud, and at the hands of Bu Sahl who, with great delight, played the role of his voluntary hatchet man.

The execution of Hasanak All this, however, is a preface to Hasanak’s drama which – much later in the book – the author stages with great care and masterly effect. It would be useful 252

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to quote two of its opening passages in a close and faithful translation of the text, for reasons of literary as well as historical interest: This Bu Sahl was son of an imam-zadeh, an important person, and a man of learning and letters, but a kind of wickedness had become embodied in his nature … And he was permanently lying in wait for a great and mighty [jabbar] king to unleash his wrath on a lackey [chaker] … so that he would pounce from a corner and look for an opportunity to make mischief, and then boast that ‘it was I who destroyed so and so …’ Except for my master [Bu Nasr-e Moshkan] whom he did not manage to destroy, in spite of all the intrigues which he used against him. The reason why he did not succeed (in this case) was that God’s will did not accord with his machinations, and that Bu Nasr was a prudent man: during the reign of Amir Mahmud (God be pleased with him) he managed to keep the favour of this Sultan Mas‘ud (God have mercy upon him) in all things, without betraying his master [Mahmud]. For he knew that, after the father, the throne of the realm would be his.7 Hasanak, however, was proud and imprudent; he played for higher stakes and took great risks: But the attitude of Hasanak was different, as – for the sake of Amir Mohammad, and obedience to the heart as well as the will of Mahmud [their father] – he hurt this prince8 [Mas‘ud], and did and said things which one’s own peers would not tolerate, let alone a king … and Bu Sahl (with all his importance, wealth as well as men) compared to Amir Hasanak was like a drop of water in comparison with a river, putting aside his greater learning.9 But because he [Hasanak] overreached himself so many times, which I have previously mentioned in the History, therefore when the sultan [Mas‘ud] became king, he inevitably mounted the wooden horse.10 For example, he once told Abdus [Mas‘ud’s personal secretary]: ‘tell your master that whatever I do, I do according to the wishes of my own master the king. If one day the throne of this realm was passed on to you, Hasanak should be hanged from the gallows’. And who is Bu Sahl and the likes of Bu Sahl in all this, for Hasanak took the consequences of his fearlessness and transgression.11 Yet, if Bu Sahl’s role was secondary in seeking the man’s death, it was still of prime importance in the treatment which he received before he was hanged and stoned to death. Hasanak was put in Bu Sahl’s arbitrary care, and ‘as there was no control’, ‘he suffered all the contempt and belittlement – all the vengeance and vendetta – which he was made to suffer’:12 And as Amir Mas‘ud (God be pleased with him) set out from Herat for Balkh, Ali Ra’ez [‘Bu Sahl’s lackey’] was taking Hasanak, bound, and 253

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was treating him with contempt, and there was vengeance, vendetta and hostile behaviour. Although, I [Baihaqi] heard from Ali – once when he told me in confidence – that ‘whatever unseemly actions Bu Sahl ordered me to take towards this man, only one in ten was carried out, and there was much restraint’.13 Bu Sahl was constantly telling the king that Hasanak should be hanged, but ‘the Amir, being tolerant and forgiving, would not respond’. According to ‘the confidant of Abdus’ [the sultan’s personal secretary] the king had told Bu Sahl that there should be ‘a reason and an excuse for killing this man’. And Bu Sahl had replied: The most important reason is that the man is a Carmathian, and he accepted the gift of the Egyptians [i.e. the Fatemid Caliphate] so that the Commander-of-the-Faithful al-Qadiri-bi’llah was hurt, and broke off relations with Amir Mahmud,14 and is now constantly talking about this incident.15 It was this slander which they eventually used to justify Hasanak’s execution, although, judging by Baihaqi’s account, it managed to deceive no one as to the real cause of the man’s terrible fate. The reference to the king’s ‘tolerant and forgiving’ nature seems to understate his role in the affair. The charge itself is a familiar one for the time, and the nature of the charge equally familiar from similar instances in Iranian history. In the late Qajar period, for example, the label that was regularly used for branding the opponents of the regime, as well as other undesirable elements, was ‘Babi’. Under the Pahlavis, it was ‘Communist’. Yet, the fact that in Hasanak’s case an ‘excuse’ other than the real reason was felt to be necessary indicates the exceptional position and standing of the victim. Normally, no such excuses were given – either then or later in history – for destroying someone who was an object of hatred for the ruler himself. Maimandi, Bu Nasr, and many other important officials were unhappy about the impending misdeed. The king sent word to the new vazir that he was prepared to forgive Hasanak’s misdemeanours towards himself, but they said that – during his father’s reign – the caliph had sent a message saying that ‘Hasanak was a Carmathian, and he should be put on the gallows’.16 Maimandi was full of misgivings, and asked Abdus (who took him the message), ‘what has gone wrong between Bu Sahl-e Zauzani and Hasanak that he is out for his blood?’ … ‘I said I did not know for certain, but from what I had heard he had one day gone to Hasanak’s house (when he was vazir) on foot, and in an ordinary gown, and a doorman had treated him badly, and knocked him down’.17 The vazir sent a cautious reply to the king, and counselled moderation. He had been in jail, he said, for much of the time when there was the incident of the caliph’s anger over Hasanak’s visit to Syria on return from hajj. Master secretary Bu Nasr-e Moshkan was present, and he would make a better witness to the 254

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truth. It was for the king to command, but Maimandi had taken a vow not to get involved in the spilling of anyone’s blood (whether this be deserving or undeserving). And although that was all he knew about this case, he would ‘not refrain from giving the right advice to the king (as this would be treasonable) so that he would not spill his [Hasanak’s] or anyone else’s blood, for the spilling of blood ought not to be treated lightly’.18 The king then consulted Bu Nasr who (as he told Baihaqi afterwards) gave a full account of the charge against Hasanak. He spoke of ‘the [political] necessity’ for Hasanak’s acceptance of the Egyptian gift of a robe on his journey through Syria, and the fact that he did not go to Baghdad to see the caliph on the way back from Mecca. He also described how the late sultan had lost his temper when he had heard the caliph’s charge against Hasanak on account of this incident: Someone ought to write to this senile caliph [the sultan said] that – for the sake of the greatness of the Abbasids – I have stretched my hand to all corners of the world, searching for Carmathians. And whoever is found and proven, is hanged from the gallows. And if I were convinced that Hasanak was a Carmathian, the commander-of-the-faithful would have learned of what would have been done to him. I have raised him myself, and he is equal to my children and my brothers; and if he is a Carmathian, then I, too, am a Carmathian.19 Bu Nasr may have somewhat exaggerated his own role in trying to save Hasanak’s life. But, from the responses of both Maimandi and Bu Nasr, the sultan must have been convinced that the charge had been groundless, and that it could be used only as a feeble excuse for destroying his unfortunate victim. Baihaqi’s further allusion that ‘Bu Sahl, of course, did not give up the campaign’ does little to diminish the sultan’s responsibility in the matter. The most it can prove is that, without this man’s constant promptings, the king would have found himself in a difficult position. Otherwise, it is clear that Bu Sahl’s campaign was both from personal malice and in order to please the king, and that it is the latter who must take the ultimate responsibility for what they did to Hasanak. First came the ceremonial ‘consent’ of the victim for the sale of all of his possessions to the sultan ‘against the money which they had decided’ for its value.20 The event took place in the vazir’s own office, in the presence of Maimandi himself, Bu Nasr, Bu Sahl, all other high officials, the military judges, religious leaders and jurists, assessors of official taxes and religious dues, etc. Baihaqi himself (together with some others) had been standing outside the vazir’s office when Hasanak was brought from jail. When the meeting broke up, he was still there, and he heard two of the meeting’s participants saying to each other: ‘Who prompted Bu Sahl to behave like this, and ruin his reputation?’ Later, he enquired of his friend the military judge about the point of this remark, and was told: When Hasanak arrived, Khajeh [the vazir] rose to his feet. And, as he displayed this generosity, others – whether or not they so wished – also 255

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rose to their feet. Bu Sahl could not control his anger. He rose, but not fully, and was highly agitated. Khajeh Ahmad [Maimandi, the vazir] told him: ‘everything you do is half-done’.21 Maimandi then seated Hasanak in a respectable position, and Bu Sahl somewhere lower than he might have expected. He then began to speak to Hasanak in kind and reassuring words. At this point Bu Sahl completely lost his temper and said: ‘How come the lord [khodavand] speaks thus to this Carmathian dog whom they will hang on the orders of the commander-of-the-faithful?’ The vazir gave him an angry look, but Hasanak did not disappoint his enemy. And out of his reply comes the first hint at the theme of martyrdom: I know not who is a dog. My family [khanedan] and all the things which I have of possession and importance and plenty are known to the world. I lived a good life, and ran great affairs. And the final end of man’s life is death. If my end is now at hand, no one can prevent it, whether on the gallows or on something else. For I am no greater than Hossein [son] of Ali.22 And about the man and the charge which he had brought against him, he had this to say: This man who is speaking thus about me has praised me in poetry, and has stood in waiting at my house. But the story of the Carmathian should be told better than this, for they arrested him on this charge, not me. And this is well known. I know nothing about such matters [in my own case].23 Bu Sahl was enraged and was about to unleash his tongue against his victim. But the vazir cut him short, saying that Hasanak had been left in his charge for five or six months, and he could do (and go on doing) what he pleased with him. But this was ‘the sultan’s meeting’, and should be treated with respect. The meeting did not end without an apposite response from Hasanak to the kind and generous spirit in which the vazir had received him. He apologised to Maimandi for his own wrongdoings towards him, all of which, he said, had been done on the orders of the late sultan. His appointment to Maimandi’s office had been an ‘injustice’, but he himself had not had any ill-intention towards him, and he had cared for his dependants when the latter had fallen from power. He asked for the vazir’s forgiveness, and hinted at his own concern for his wife and children. He was weeping as he spoke, and tears came to Maimandi’s eyes when he replied that he had forgiven him, and that, should anything happen to him, he would look after ‘his people’. The meeting thus ended.24 According to what Maimandi’s son25 later told Baihaqi, the vazir might have made a last attempt to save Hasanak’s life. On this account, Bu Sahl visited the 256

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vazir on the eve of Hasanak’s execution. When asked about the purpose of his visit late at night, the vindictive man had replied: ‘I will not leave until the lord goes to bed, lest he would write a letter to the sultan, and intervene on Hasanak’s behalf’. The vazir said he would have done so but ‘you have spoiled everything. And it is very unfortunate’.26 That day and that night they were making preparations for Hasanak’s execution. And they presented two men who were wearing the envoy’s costume, and saying that they had come from Baghdad and were carrying the caliph’s letter which says that Hasanak the Carmathian should be hanged and stoned to death, so that in the future no one would wear an Egyptian gift of a robe and take the Hajjis to that place [in Syria] to spite the [Abbasid] caliphs.27 The reader will note the subtle hint that the envoys were likely to have been fake. At any rate, Sultan Mas‘ud’s behaviour was predictable. On the eve of the execution he issued the order for setting up the gallows ‘down in the town centre’, and left town for three days of hunting and pleasure. Bu Sahl personally rode to the scene of the execution, and stood in a position overlooking the gallows. Mika’il, a high official, was in command of the special squad for maintaining order. When Hasanak was brought from jail through Bazar-e Asheqan (or Lover’s Bazaar), Mika’il went forward and showered him with taunts and abuse: ‘Hasanak did not look at him, and gave no reply. The ordinary people cursed him for this unseemly behaviour, and what the élite said about him is unmentionable’. Evidently this Mika’il was a personal friend of Baihaqi, for he goes on to add: ‘When a friend does wrong, what choice is there but to recount it?’28 The great vazir of a great sultan was then moved towards the gallows: And Hasanak was taken to the foot of the gallows – God save us from a bad fate. And the two envoys said to have come from Baghdad had been made to stand there. And Qur’an reciters were reciting the Qur’an. They ordered Hasanak to strip. He put his hands below, secured the drawstring of his pantaloons, tightened the ankle strings lower, and took off his garment together with his shirt, and threw them off with his headdress: a body as white as silver, and a look as fine as that of a hundred pictures. And all the people were crying painfully. They then put a helmet on the vazir’s head, so that his head could be preserved, and later cut off and presented (especially to the caliph) as evidence of his execution: And they brought him an iron helmet, intentionally so small that it would not [completely] cover the whole of his head. And there was a cry that his head and face should be covered so that they are not 257

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destroyed, because we would like to send his head to Baghdad, to the caliph. And his lips were moving – reciting something, he was – until they got a bigger helmet. Next came the ceremonious public pronouncement of the charge against him: And in the midst of all this, Ahmad, Keeper of the Privy Clothes, came, mounted, faced Hasanak, and delivered a message from the lord sultan that: ‘this is your own wish in saying that when you become king, hang me from the gallows. But the commander-of-the-faithful has written that you have become a Carmathian, and you are being hanged on his orders’. Hasanak naturally gave no reply. Afterwards they covered his head and face with the bigger helmet which they had got.29 Here we approach the final stage of a crucifixion which, even in the formal style of description, compares with the account of a much better known historical example: Then athey told him to run: he did not make a sound, and did not pay any attention to them. Everyone said: are you not ashamed of making the man whom you are about to kill run to the gallows? And there nearly was a riot. The cavalry charged towards the crowd and put down the unrest. And Hasanak was taken to the gallows and placed on the platform, on the horse which he had never mounted. And the executioner tied him tight, and the ropes were let down. And they shouted for throwing stones, but no one touched a stone. And they were all crying hard, especially the Naishaburis. Then they paid a bunch of thugs to throw stones, but the man was already dead, for the executioner had put the rope round his neck and strangled him.30 And the moral? This was (an account of) Hasanak and his times … And if he usurped the Muslim’s land and water, there was no land left nor water. And so many domestic slaves, and estates and possessions, and gold and silver and plenty were of no use. He went, and this lot who were the architects of this trickery also went – God have mercy upon them. And this is a legend bearing many lessons … Stupid be the man who would love this world, for he would be exchanging a good [i.e. the other world] for an evil [i.e. this world].31 ‘And when it was all over Bu Sahl and the others left the place of the execution. And Hasanak was left alone, as lonely as he had come from his mother’s womb’. 258

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And, while we are on the subject, his mother had something profound to say on hearing the terrible news. ‘She did not cry and wail, as women do, but wept so bitterly that those present wept blood in seeing her pain. She then said: ‘What a great man my son was, that a king such as Mahmud gave him this world, and one such as Mas‘ud gave him the other’. There is something like a pun in the latter part of what she said. Did she mean that he had been martyred after all? But Bu Sahl had not been completely satisfied. One of his own men told Baihaqi later that one day they were all drinking and merry-making. A tray with a cover was brought to the banquet. Bu Sahl said it was ‘first-fruits, let us help ourselves to it’. They all agreed. But when the cover was removed Hasanak’s head was on the tray, and ‘I fainted’. The story leaked out, and they all cursed Bu Sahl for it. What of the noble and decent men who were so full of misgivings about the whole affair? And the day Hasanak mounted the gallows my master Bu Nasr did not break fast, and was sad and melancholy such that I had never seen him to be, saying what hope is there left? And Khajeh Ahmad-e Hasan [Maimandi] was also in the same mood, and did not go to his office.32 ‘And Hasanak was left on the gallows for nearly seven years such that his feet were shrivelled and no sign was left of them, until [the body] was ordered to be brought down and buried, and no one knew where the head was, and where the body’.33 Had Hasanak really usurped any estate-holder’s ‘land and water’? Baihaqi simply alludes to the possibility, but the allusion itself indicates that it would have been perfectly natural for someone of Hasanak’s rank and position to usurp other people’s property and possessions. Indeed, there is much evidence in the Tarikh itself that the arbitrary confiscation of property was common practice. For example, Baihaqi relates how on one occasion the governor (saheb-e divan) of Khorasan had sent presents to Sultan Mas‘ud – of goods, gold, carpets, slave-boys, slave-girls, etc. – worth four million dirhams. The sultan had told a court official, Bu Mansur-e Mostawfi, that if he had had a few more ‘lackies’ like Suri, the governor of Khorasan, he ‘would have made much profit’. Bu Mansur had agreed, not having ‘the guts to tell him that it is the people of Khorasan – both high and low – who should be asked what amount of suffering they had been subjected to so that these presents are gathered together, and the future would show the consequences of this deed’. The consequence of Suri’s zolm, says Baihaqi, was that the poor prayed to God, and the rich sent invitations and encouragements to Seljuq Turks to invade Khorasan ‘until, in fact, Khorasan was lost as a result of his zolm and transgression’.34

Some social and historical observations The art of language and expression apart, this literature offers a great drama which – unlike those of Shakespeare or Molière – has never been staged in Iran. 259

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Baihaqi’s historiography provides a precise, balanced and objective account of the fall of a great man, as well as the intrigue, machination, deception, ‘vengeance and vendetta’ with which it had begun and ended. What then of the social and cultural lessons which may be drawn from this story? The subject is familiar from Iranian history: Khajeh Rashid al-Din Fazlallah, Majd al-Molk Yazdi, Khajeh Shams al-Din Juvaini, Imamqoli Khan, Hajj Ebrahim Kalantar, Mirza Abolqasem Qa’em-maqam, Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Nezam (Amir Kabir), Firuz Mirza Nosrat al-Dawleh, Abdolhossein Taimurtash – this is only a short list of the long line of ministers and state dignitaries who suffered the same fate in broadly similar circumstances since Hasanak’s tragedy. They shared a common fate, not so much because almost all of them were destroyed on shallow pretexts, but because in each and every case they fell victim to arbitrary power. There is, of course, nothing unusual about ministers losing their lives and liberty from European history either. Yet, beyond and beneath the similarity of appearances there lie fundamental differences in sociological realities, a full recognition of which is vital for an understanding of Iran’s philosophy of history, its recent social developments, and its propects for the future. Thomas More could have saved his life and his freedom by signing a few documents. Furthermore, he could not be convicted and executed so long as the state – then at its most powerful in the brief period of English despotism – had not managed to supply a false witness against him in the course of a public trial. The Earl of Strafford was not the victim of an arbitrary ruler. On the contrary, he was destroyed by the forces of law and Parliament as a punishment for an unpopular and undemocratic monarch. Fouquet fell from grace during the reign of the most powerful and the most successful king in the whole of French history – ‘the Sun King’ who also claimed to be the state incarnate. Yet the terms of his demise were subject to written and unwritten laws and contracts, not the whim and pleasure of a supreme arbiter standing above custom, precedent, law and society. And the same goes for Choiseul, Necker, Turgot, and many others before and after them. Concini was the victim of an assassination plot to which Louis XIII himself was privy. Yet, it was precisely because there existed binding legal and contractual procedures that he had to be got rid of by a Florentine technique. Beckett had suffered the same fate for a similar reason. In Europe, there could be law and contract, because of the existence of social classes which were independent of the state. In Iran, there could be no law since there were no forces outside the state itself which could ultimately check and balance its decisions. The system of arbitrary rule was based on the state monopoly of property rights, and the concentrated economic, bureaucratic and military power to which it gave rise. There could be no rights of private property, only privileges which were granted to individuals by the state, and which, therefore, could be withdrawn at a clap of the hands. There always existed social classes in terms of differences of wealth, position and occupation – landlords, merchants, artisans, peasants, etc. However (and unlike European societies) the composition of these classes was 260

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changing rapidly through time, because the state could arbitrarily withdraw a privilege from a person, family, clan or community, and grant it to others. Consequently, there could be no established peerage or aristocracy, and there was an unusually high degree of mobility both up and down the social ladder. The absence of law and politics was the institutional counterpart to this sociological base. Where there are no rights there is no law. Or, in other words, where the law is little more than the arbitrary decisions, whims or desires of the law-giver, the concept of law itself becomes redundant. It is only independent rights, not dependent privileges, which can form the basis for real economic and social power by individuals and social classes. Hence, the absence of rights results in the absence of law, and the absence of law must mean the absence of politics. Note that it is not just laws and rational politics (being usually associated with the rise of modern European society in the last few centuries) which are absent, but law and politics themselves – ‘just’ or unjust, traditional or ‘rational’. Therefore, the society is pre-legal as well as pre-political. And that is how the state stands above as well as opposite to the people or society. These sociological and institutional structures and phenomena – which contain an unusually strong element of insecurity and unpredictability – have been the main reasons behind the absence of feudalism (as this is known from European history) in Iranian society. Furthermore, they provided the strongest barriers against the accumulation of financial and (later) physical capital in industry and agriculture alike, for history and experience had shown that money and possessions could be easily lost, not infrequently together with the lives of those who possessed them. The resulting social psychology and pattern of public behaviour is, thus, easy to discern. The state is, in principle, regarded as the actual or potential enemy both by individuals and social classes, including its own servants. Both the systemic arbitrariness (Estebdad) and the resulting individual examples of injustice (zolm) create an acute sense of fear and insecurity, mistrust, disbelief, frustration, resentment and alienation. There may be loyalty and attachment to one’s own family and community, the popular (i.e. non-state) culture, or even the whole of the country. But, once a given régime has managed to identify the arbitrary system with itself it lasts not by consent nor by sectional or class loyalty, nor even by otherwise overriding considerations for the defence of the realm, but merely by the dialectics of force and fear. This is not a matter for ‘purely’ psychological analysis. Since the state monopolises all rights, it must also monopolise all obligations. Contrariwise, if society has no rights, it feels no obligation towards the state. It follows that, at times of acute domestic or external crisis, the people either side with the state’s enemies or refuse to go to its help. In fact, when it is (rightly or wrongly) thought that the state is about to fall, the public reaction is such that it either helps bring it about where it might otherwise have been averted, or shortens the pace of its death agony. Hence, the continuity of the abritrary system of government does not mean (and how could it?) that there has been no change in Iranian society since 261

ARBITRARY RULE: APPLICATIONS

the fall of Adam. Indeed, compared with Europe, Iran has gone through too many rather than too few changes – a fact which is at least partly due to the basic social features described above.35 Neither the account of Hasanak’s execution nor even the work of Baihaqi’s great volume, in themselves, supply a philosophy of history, or a historical sociology for Iran. What these and other important sources – poetry and prose, as well as historical narratives and chronicles – do is to supply plenty of evidence for a functional system of arbitrary rule which not even great social upheavals and significant technolgical developments have managed to change throughout history.

Notes and references 1 Paper published in Pembroke Papers I (1990), 73–88. I am grateful to Patricia Crone for her useful comments on a draft of this chapter. 2 The complete treatise included the Tarikh-e Mahmudi, which is now totally lost. The existing volume – parts of which are missing – contains more than 900 printed pages. See Noskheh-ha-ye Khatti-ye Tarikh-e Baihaqi in Ali Akbar Fayyaz (ed.), Tarikh-e Baihaqi (Mashhad University Press: Mashhad 1350/1971); and ‘Prologue’ in Mohammad Dabir Siyaqi’s Gozideh-yi Tarikh-e Baihaqi (Jibi: Tehran 1348/1969). For a discussion of Baihaqi’s prose style, see Poet-Laureate Bahar’s Sabkshenasi, vol. 2. Before the final draft of this chapter was written, the author’s attention was drawn to the recent book by M.R. Waldman, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in PersoIslamicate Historiography (Ohio State University Press: Columbia 1980), which includes a translation of the text of the account of the execution of Hasanak, pp. 166–76. However, the passages quoted in this chapter have been translated directly from the Persian original, and an attempt has been made to keep to the wording and style of the text as closely as possible. 3 Ahl al-dunya‘abid al-dinar wa’l-dirham. See Fayyaz (ed.), Tarikh-e Baihaqi, p. 18. 4 Ibid., p. 60. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., pp. 61–5. 7 Ibid., p. 222. 8 The Persian original is khodavand-zadeh, the nearest equivalent to which would be ‘son of the lord and master’. 9 ‘Excellence in learning has its own place’, is the original. It means that Bu Sahl was more learned than Hasanak. 10 Markab-e Chubin is a literary allusion to the gallows. 11 Baihaqi, pp. 222–3. 12 Ibid., p. 223. 13 Ibid., p. 224. 14 ‘Withdrew letter from Mahmud’ is the original. 15 Baihaqi, p. 224. 16 Ibid., p. 225. 17 Ibid., p. 225. 18 Ibid., p. 226. 19 Bu Nasr goes on to say that he drafted the letter, carrying the contents of the sultan’s views, but written in extremely polite terms, ‘such as lackies write to their masters’. Ibid., pp. 227–8. 20 Ibid., p. 230. This is very unusual; the normal practice was direct and unceremonious confiscation.

262

THE EXECUTION OF AMIR HASANAK THE VAZIR

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

Ibid., p. 229. Ibid., p. 230. Ibid., p. 230. Ibid., p. 231. Khajeh-ye Amid Abd al-Razzaq. Baihaqi, p. 232. Ibid. Such terms as ‘Egyptian’, ‘the Egyptians’ and ‘that place’ are intended as a mark of contempt for the Fatimid Caliphate. Ibid., pp. 232–3. Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., p. 234. Ibid., p. 234. Something seems to have gone wrong in Marilyn Waldman’s translation of this passage. Here, the possibility of Hasanak’s usurpation of the Muslims’ (i.e. the people’s) land and water has been misunderstood for ‘Muslims plunder[ing] the land and water’. See Toward a Theory, p. 172. Baihaqi, p. 236. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 520–31. See H. Katouzian, The aridisolatic society: a model of long term social and economic development in Iran, The International Journal of Middle East Studies 15 (1983), 259–81, reprinted in this volume; and, The Political Economy of Modern Iran (London and New York 1981), especially chs 2, 4–6.

263

INDEX

Abbas I 23, 43, 44, 46, 57n Abbas II 43 Abbas Aqa 153, 158n Abbasid 255, 257 Abbas Mirza 24, 45, 86 Abbas Mirza Molk Ara 45, 57n, 76n, 135, 155n, 157n Abdus 253, 254 Achaemenid 33, 43, 51–3, 73, 91 Adam 17, 121, 262 Aeschylus 27 Afghani, Sayyed Jamal al-Din 89, 99n Afghanistan 24, 133n Afshar, Mahmud 172 Afshar (Qal‘eh) 224 Afsharid(s) 43, 73 Ain al-Dawleh 136, 224, 225 Akhal 139 Akhundzadeh, Mirza Fath‘ali 89, 90, 98n, 99n, 129 Ala, Hossein (Mo‘in al-Vezareh) 168, 171, 172 Al-e Ahmad, Jalal 99 Alexander the Great 25, 33n, 90 Alexandrian 52, 126 Ali Qapu 226 Ali Ra’ez 253, 254 Allenby, Field Marshal 184 Allies 28, 107 America 9, 20, 28, 30, 119, 126, 140, 161, 162, 168–70, 173–6, 197, 204 American(s) 14n, 20, 29, 34n, 55, 59n, 82,108, 109, 118, 119, 140, 157, 162, 165, 168–76, 184, 186, 187, 208, 226 American Standard Oil Company 187 Amin al-Dawleh 136, 137, 155n, 157n, 248, 249n

Amin al-Molk (Dr Esma‘il Marzban) 215, 224, 231 Amin al-Soltan 88, 136–8, 153, 155n, 246–8, 249n Amir-Ahmadi, General 129, 199n Amir Ali Qarib (Dayeh) 252 Amir Bahador-e Jang 140 Amir Kabir 128, 153, 245, 260 Amir Movassaq (General Nakhjavan) 181 Amir Tuman, Mostafa Khan 87, 246 Amoli, Shaikh Mohammad 145 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 108 Anglo-Iranian (Persian) Agreement 118, 132n, 160–78, 181–91, 194–7, 204–8, 216, 221, 222, 223, 230, 231n, 234n Anglo-Russian Agreement 118, 140, 167, 168, 171 Aqa Mohammad Khan 25, 43, 44, 50 Aqbaba 197 Aqevli, Colonel Fazlollah Khan 181, 182 Aquinas, St Thomas 5, 36, 81 Arab 21, 25, 43, 52, 73, 90, 91, 126, 127–9, 130, 237 Arabistan 138 Araki, Ayatollah 124 Araq 138 Araqy, Hajj Aqa Mohsen 145 Ardebil 24, 87, 195, 246 Ardashir Babakan 44, 57n Aristotle 5, 36 Aristotelian 22 Armenian 128, 138, 139 Arscid 51–3, 73 Aryanist 129 Asef al-Dawleh 87, 246 Ashraf Afghan 44

265

INDEX

Asiatic 5–9, 14n, 33n, 56, 67, 71, 75n, 117, 142 Assyria(ns) 38, 212 Astara 192 Astrabad 138 Atabak 152, 153, 155n, 158n Attosa 27 Austen, Jane 82 Austria(n) 19, 46, 51, 77, 78, 86, 104 Austro-Hungarian empire 21 Ayandeh 172 Azadistan 217, 219, 225 Azari, Mirza Ahmad Khan 181, 208, 214–16, 219, 222 Azerbaijan(i) 56n, 95, 119, 130, 131, 136–9, 184, 187–90, 192, 195, 203, 205–8, 211, 214, 217, 219, 221, 223, 225, 226, 230, 231 Aziz Mirza 137 Aztecs 9 Babis 146, 254 Badamchi, Ali 206, 207, 211, 214, 216, 225, 226, 228 Baghdad 182, 192, 193, 201, 252, 255, 257, 258 Bahar, Malek al-Sho‘ra 96, 164, 212, 228, 229, 233, 235 Bahrami, Abdollah 206, 211–13 Baihaqi, Abolfazl 24, 48, 76n, 127, 128, 245, 250–2, 254–7, 259, 260, 262 Bakhtiyar, Shahpour 30 Bakhtiyaris 131, 138 Baku 179, 180, 181, 187, 188, 192, 222 Bal‘ami 33n, 127 Balfour, Arthur 169–71, 202n Balkh 252, 253 Baltic 192 Baluch(i) 127, 131 Bank of England 19 Bardiya 17, 24 Barnave 48 Baron Wrangel 196 Barras, Paul Francois Jean Nicolas 149 Basmenji, Shaikh Hossein 228 Basmenj 226 Ba‘thist 21 Batoum 180 Bazar-e Asheqan 257 Becket, St. Thomas à 260 Beethoven 128 Behbahani, Sayyed Abdollah 139, 149, 153, 154, 157n, 159n

Behruz, Zabih 129 Belgium(ian) 117, 171, 176 Bentham, Jeremy 82, 83, 85 Berlin 140, 172, 206 Berlin, Isaiah 83, 121, 151 Biverling, Major 207, 214, 215, 220, 232n Black Death 18 Bolshevik 20, 48, 118, 160, 162, 167, 168, 171, 172, 177–84, 188, 190–6, 203, 205, 206, 221–5, 230 Bonapartist 19 Bonin 171, 172 Borujerd 138 Boulanger, General 19 Bourbon 47 Bravin, Karl 167 Bristow, Ernest 214, 222, 223 Britain 21, 28, 29, 53, 54, 84, 108, 112n, 117–19, 140, 144, 153, 162–5, 167, 168, 170–8, 182, 185, 186, 190, 196, 205, 209, 218 British 14n, 21, 29, 31n, 33n, 39, 45, 53–5, 96n, 100n, 106, 108, 112n, 117–19, 131, 134, 140, 160, 161–6, 168–71, 173, 175–88, 190–4, 196, 197, 198n–9n, 201n, 202n, 204–6, 213, 214, 218, 221–4, 226, 231–2n, 234n, 249n Bunasr-e Moshkan 76n, 245, 246, 250, 253, 254 Burke, Edmond 85 Bu Sahl-e Zauzani 250, 252–9, 262n Byron 89, 90 Cambon, Paul 170, 172 Cane 17 Carlyle, Thomas 83 Carmathian 254–8 Caspian 126, 127, 179, 180, 182, 184, 187, 192, 193, 223 Catherine the Great 14n, 77 Catholic 6, 22, 47, 64 Caucasus 128, 181, 188, 189, 194, 205, 206, 210 Chahar Maqaleh 127, 250 Chamberlain, Stewart 129 Champain, General 192, 193 Chardin 240, 241 Charles I 48, 49, 79 Charles II 47 Charles V 77 Charles X 19 Charles Stuart 80

266

INDEX

Chateaubriand 89 Chicherin, Georgi 167, 194, 196 China 7, 29, 38, 71 Chinese 21, 32n Christ 18 Christian 7, 8, 98n, 128 Christianity 17, 18 Choiseul, Duc de 260 Churchill 193, 194 City of London 19 Clergé, Colonel 177 Colbert, Jean Baptiste 241 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 89, 98n Commonwealth 19, 51 Concini 260 Condorcet, Marquis de 81, 82, 85 Confucianism 21 Constitutional Revolution 26, 27, 29–31, 33n, 43, 49, 53, 73, 87, 96, 97n, 99n, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111n, 112n, 121, 129, 140, 142, 143, 145, 149, 150, 154, 157n, 159n, 203, 219, 229, 231, 246 Counter-Enlightenment 89, 98n Cossack 161, 162, 168, 170, 177–82, 184, 192, 193, 197, 199, 200, 205, 212, 214, 219, 223, 225–8, 230 Counter-reformation 13 Cox, Sir Percy 160, 161, 163, 168–70, 172, 173, 176–86, 191–3, 196, 204, 220, 223 Cromwell, Oliver 19, 80 Curzon, George Nathaniel Lord 160, 161, 168–77, 179, 180, 182–7, 192–7, 204, 205, 223, 224 Cyrus 27 Dabir A‘zam 129 Danton, Georges Jacques 48, 85, 149 Dari 127 Darius 17, 25, 27, 33n, 43 Dark Ages 6 Davar 172 David 47, 78 Davis, John 173–6, 199n Dawlat-Abadi, Yahya 163, 205 Dehkhoda (Mirza Ali Akbar Qazvini) 152 Deng Hsiao-Ping 21 Denikin, General 179, 187 Derby, Lord 184, 192, 193 Dickson, General 181 Didero, Denis 81, 82

Diggers 150 Directoire 48 Dorreh-ye Nadereh 127 Dostoevsky 194 Duma 104 Dunsterforce 180, 181 Dunsterville, General 180 East Persian Cordon Field Force 179 Echo de Paris 171 Egypt(ian) 38, 173, 255, 257, 263n Ehtesham al-Saltaneh 140 Elizabeth I 46, 77 Enclosure Movement 238 Engels, Friedrich 7, 8, 14, 27, 67, 141 England 11, 19, 20, 46, 47, 49, 57n, 58n, 77, 79, 80, 85, 89, 97n, 104, 164, 218, 221, 244 English 19, 20, 22, 46–8, 73, 78, 82, 98n, 105, 131, 132n, 142, 150, 167, 222, 238, 260 Enzeli 160, 171, 172, 177, 180, 181, 183, 191–7, 205, 222, 223 Eshqi, Mirzadeh 129, 162, 164 Eskandar Monshi 127, 128 Estebdad 33n, 41, 42, 47, 56n, 58n, 78, 79, 112n, 117, 121, 133n, 135, 146, 147, 154n, 158n, 261 Esterabadi, Mahdi 127, 128 E‘temad al-Saltaneh 87, 88, 155n, 247 Euphrates 69 Fairfax, Thomas 19 Fakhr al-Atibba 220 Farrah-ye Izadi 23, 26, 44, 79, 104, 242 Farrokhi Yazdi 93, 129, 165 Fars 76n, 88, 126, 138, 247 Fatemid Caliphate 254 Fath‘ali Shah 24, 43, 45, 88–91, 98n, 136, 138, 248 February 1979 Revolution 26, 30, 31, 101, 122 Feraidun 44, 57n Ferdawsi 33n, 44, 46 Fetneh 25, 26, 91, 135 Feuillants 149 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 90 Figaro Le 171 Filatrov, Colonel 178 Filmer, Robert 47, 58n, 78, 96n First World War 21, 53, 117, 118, 122, 161, 204, 229

267

INDEX

Grey, Lord 175, 176 Guise 47

Firuz, Nosrat al-Dawleh 161, 165, 167, 171, 172, 179, 183–7, 192, 193, 195, 196, 205, 260 Floor, Willem 236–41, 243–5, 248 Florentine technique 155n, 260 Forughi (Zoka al-Molk) 88, 165, 168, 169, 172, 247, 248n Fouché, Joseph 149 Francis I 47, 77 Frankish 145 Fredrick the Great 77 Free Officers 21 French 7, 20, 42, 44, 47, 58n, 81, 82, 85, 90, 97n, 107, 158n, 162, 168, 170–3, 175, 176, 184, 186, 193, 198n, 202n, 205, 241, 242, 244, 260 French Revolution 18–20, 22, 27, 32n, 47, 48, 58n, 82, 85, 89, 98n, 105, 110, 123, 142, 149, 150, 157n, 158n, 170, 208, 232n Galileo 17, 37 Garmrudi 226 Garrusi, Hasan Ali Khan 56n, 137 Gaulois 171 Gaumata 17, 24 Geard, Captain 220 German(s) 13, 90, 91, 98n, 99n, 104, 125, 142, 160, 166, 188, 191, 222, 223, 230 Germany 13, 19–21, 53, 89, 90, 125, 142, 169, 190 Ghaljeh 25 Gharavi-e Mahallati, Mohammad Isma‘il 147 Ghaziyan 192 Ghaznavi 25, 43, 48, 53, 73, 76n, 128, 245, 252 Gilan 87, 138, 160, 179–81, 183, 195–7, 205, 222, 223, 246 Girondin(s) 48, 110, 123, 150 Glorious Revolution, the 19, 20, 47, 80 Gobineau 129 Goebbels 129 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 90, 98n Golpaigan 138 Gorgan 131, 138 Gorji, Manuchehr Khan 246 Greece 5, 6 Greek(s) 17, 22, 27, 42, 52, 53, 73, 120, 126 Green, Thomas Hill 82, 83

Habermas 104, 112n Habsburg Empire 7 Haidar Khan (Amu-oglu) 150, 153 Hajeb al-Tawlieh 138 Hakim al-Molk, Mirza Mahmud Khan 87, 246 Hamann, Johann Georg 90 Hardinge, Lord 170, 172, 186, 194 Harj-o-marj 25, 135 Hasanak, Amir 245, 250–62, 263n Hayek, Friedrich August von 36, 83 Hazrat-e Abdol‘azim 140, 145, 155n Heart 252, 253 Hedayat, Sadeq 57n, 129, 133n, Hedyat, Mokhber al-Saltaneh 163, 188, 206 Hegel 7, 8, 18, 27, 36, 83, 141, 156n Hegelian 8, 33n, 36 Hegelians 141, 156n Helvetius, Claude Adrien 82 Henry IV 47, 77 Henry VIII 46, 47, 77 Herder, Johann Gottfried von 36, 90, 99n Herodotus 5 Herz, Martin 59n, 60n, 109, 110, 113n, Hill, Christopher 19, 58n, 158n Hitler 129 Hobbes, Thomas 5, 50, 80, 81, 91, 97n, 104 Holbach, Baron d’ 82 Holland 241 House, Colonel 174 House of Lords 21, 48 Hugo, Victor 89, 99n Iberian empire 9 Ibn Khaldun 105 Ilkhan Mongols 53, 73, 238, 239, 245 Imam Jom‘eh, Sayyed Abolqasem 145 Imam Mohammad-e Yahya 128 Imamqoli Khan 245, 260 India(n) 7, 14n, 38, 39, 64, 71, 128, 129, 131, 160, 161, 176, 177, 180, 182, 187, 192, 194, 197, 204, 222 India Office 160, 161, 177, 180, 187, 197, 204 Iranshahr 228, 172, 189, 206, 211, 224, 228 Iraq–Iran war 124, 140

268

INDEX

Jacobin(s) 19, 48, 110, 123, 150, 170 Jalal al-Din Mirza 90 Jamalzadeh, Sayyed Mohammad Ali 172 Jame‘ al-Tavarikh 76n, 127 James I 47, 48, 79, 97n James II 47, 80 Jangal(i) 179–81, 183, 191, 195, 205, 222, 230 Jangavar 226 Japan 20, 125 Jerusalem 82 Jews 13, 15n Jones, Richard 27 Journal de Debats 171 Jovaini 76n, 127, 128, 245 Judaeo-Hellenic 17

Kermanshah 166 Khajeh-Nuri, Yahya Khan 87, 246 Khameneh (district of Tabriz) 208 Khameneh’i, Ayatollah Ali 124, 125 Khamseh 131, 139, 214 Khan-khani 25, 135 Khaqani 128 Khiyabani, Shaikh Mohammad 94, 95, 188–91, 195, 203, 205–32, 233n, 234n Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah 124, 125 Khorasan 24, 27, 48, 87, 126, 128, 144, 147, 157n, 179, 246, 259 Khorasani, Akhund Mullah Kazem 27, 144, 147, 157n Khosraw I (Anushiravan) 23, 43, 57n Khosraw II (Parviz) 25 Khwarazm 128 Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye 90 Kolangi 22 Kolchak, Admiral 168 Kondori, Amid al-Molk 245 Koumingtong 21 Krasnovodsk 180 Krassin, Leonid 195, 196 Kurd 127 Kurdish 127, 130, 213 Kurdistan 94, 131

Kahhalzadeh 188, 191, 206, 223 Kaikavus 44, 76 Kaikhosraw 44, 57n Kaiser 129 Kajanov (Kazhanov) 194, 15 Kalantar, Mirza Ebrahim 245, 260 Kamran Mirza 87, 246 Karim Khan 43, 44 Kashan 138, 163 Kashghar 128 Kashi, Nayeb Hossein 229 Kasravi, Ahmad 158n, 188–90, 201n, 206, 208, 210–16, 218, 219, 220, 222, 224, 225–30, 232, 234 Kasvin (Qazvin) 194 Kautsky, Karl 141 Kaykavus ibn Eskandar 127 Kazemzadeh-ye Iranshahr, Hossein 172, 206, 211 Kazhanov (Kajanov) 194, 15 Kerensky, Alexander Feodorovich 177 Kerman 126, 131 Kermani, Mirza Aqa Khan 89, 90, 129, 150

Lady Salisbury 134 Lafayette, Marie Joseph Marquis de 48 Lambton, A.K.S. 64, 237, 239, 241, 243, 245 Landlord and Peasant in Persia 237 Lansing, Robert 165, 168 Laski, Harlod 97n, 151, 158n Latin America 9 League of Nations 171, 173, 175, 196 Lenin 36, 167, 230 Lesan al-Molk 127, 137 Lesan al-Saltaneh 137 Levellers 20, 48, 150 Leviathan 104 Liberia(n) 174, 175 Lilburne, John 20 Locke, John 5, 80, 81, 82, 158n London 42, 163, 169–73, 176, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185, 187, 193, 195, 196, 205, 224 Lor Persians 53, 73, 139 Louis XII 78 Louis XIII 47, 260 Louis XIV 44, 47, 77, 78, 241, 242

Ironside, General 178, 197 Isfahan 40, 44, 45, 50, 126, 246, 252 Isfahani 127, 139, 155n Isfahani, Hajj Aqa Jamal 162 Isfahani, Sayyed Jamal al-Din 84, 85, 139 Islamic Republic 125, 131, 145 Islamist 29, 124, 125, 160 Isma‘il 43, 57n Isma‘ilis 26 Izad 26

269

INDEX

Louis XVI 48, 78 Louis Bonaparte 142n Lousse, E. 51 Luther 142 Machiavelli, Niccolo 36 Mahmud of Ghazna 24, 43–5, 87, 245, 246, 251–4, 259, 262n Maimandi, Ahmad ibn Hasan 128, 251, 252, 254–6, 259 Majlis 28, 54, 59n, 93, 109, 118, 143, 147–9, 151–3, 156n–8n, 161, 162, 165, 166, 189, 204, 207–10, 215, 221, 225, 230 Major Edmonds 181, 188–92, 200n, 201n, 202n, 206, 213–15, 219–23, 230, 232n, 233n, 234 Major, R. 51, 58n Malcolm, Sir John 24 Malek al-Movarrekhin 137 Malekshah 26, 43 Malkam Khan 42, 85, 86, 89, 90, 92, 97n, 98n, 149, 157n Malleson, General 179 Manjil 194 Mantoux, Paul 19, 32n Maria Theresa of Austria 77 Martyr Shah 28 Marxian 7, 8, 18, 33n, 36 Marxist 4, 6, 8, 29, 74, 140, 142, 143, 145, 150, 160, 188 Marxist-Leninist 29, 160, 188 Marx, Karl 5, 7, 8, 14n, 18, 20, 22, 27, 32n, 33n, 36, 63, 65, 67, 83, 140, 141, 142, 157n Mashhad 138 Mashruteh 27, 54, 62, 66, 94, 111n, 117, 139, 144–8, 156n–8n Mashur‘eh 92, 117, 145–7, 157n Mas‘ud of Ghazna 24, 43, 45, 245, 251–254, 257, 259 Mas‘ud, Sarem al-Dawleh 161 Maximillian 21 Mayas 9 Mazandarani, Shaikh Abdollah 27, 144, 147, 157n Mazarin, Cardinal 47 Mecca 255 Medes 53, 73, 75n Medieval 13 Mehdi Khan 87, 246 Mensheviks 110, 123 Merv 25, 33n

Mesopotamia 45, 76n, 162, 194 Metternich 85 Middle East(ern) 104, 117, 185, 206 Mika’il 257 Millerand 172 Mill, James 7, 27, 82 Mill, John Stewart 36, 83, 84, 150 Mirabeau, Comte de 85, 149, 157n Mirza Kuchik Khan 180, 181, 191, 195, 200n, 205, 223–5, 231 Miyaneh (Miyanaj) 214, 226 Modarres, Sayyed Hasan 163, 165, 166, 171, 204 Moghul 38, 39, 64 Mohammad Ali Mirza 139 Mohammad Ali Shah 150, 156n, 208 Mohammad Mirza 45 Mohammad Reza Shah 28, 55, 129 Mohammad Shah 24, 45, 246 Mo‘in al-Vezareh (Hossein Ala) 168, 171, 172 Mokhber al-Saltaneh 88,153, 158n, 163, 188, 205, 206, 216, 224, 228, 231, 247 Molière 259 Momtaz al-Dawleh 162 Momtaz al-Saltaneh 163, 172 Mongol 53, 73, 126, 127, 128 Montesquieu 7, 14n, 27, 81, 97n, 105 Moorish Spain 9 Moqaddam, General Hasan 227 Mosaddeq 28, 54, 108, 153, 165–7, 172, 198n Mosavat (newspaper) 93, 99n, 158 Moshaver al-Mamalek (Aliqoli Khan Ansari) 168–72 Moshir al-Dawleh 86, 153, 163, 168, 183, 188, 195, 196, 224, 225, 229, 231 Mostashar al-Dawleh 42, 56n, 86, 87, 89, 90, 98n, 155n, 157n Mostawfi, Abdollah 163, 154, 205 Mostawfi al-Mamalek 128, 153, 162, 165, 195, 225 Mo‘tamed al-Dawleh 246 Mo’tamen al-Molk 153, 163, 209, 210, 225 Mozaffar al-Din Shah 56n, 92, 136, 155n, 246 Mughal 128 Muluk al-Tawa’if 52 Mussolini 29 Nader 43, 44 Naishabur 252, 258

270

INDEX

Najaf 92, 93, 147, 149, 157n Napoleon 89 Nasekh al-Tavarikh 76n, 137, 127 Naser al-Din Shah 28, 43, 45, 54, 85, 134, 136, 233n, 246, 247 Naser al-Molk 153, 168 Naser Khosraw 40, 55n National Iranian Oil Company 30 Nazem al-Ulama 137 Nazi 13, 21 Necker, Jacques 260 Newton 4, 81, 82 Newtonian 5, 81 Nezam al-Dawleh 87, 246 Nezam al-Molk-e Tusi 25, 26, 42, 88, 127, 128, 247 Nezami Aruzi 76n, 127 Nietzche, Friedrich Wilhelm 90 Nile 69 Norman, Herman 177, 184, 196, 201n, 202n, 224, 234n Norperforce 179, 181, 187, 192, 193–5, 205, 206, 219, 230 Nosrat al-Dawleh, Firuz Mirza 161, 165, 260 Nuri, Shaikh Fazlollah 30, 92, 117, 139, 145, 147–9, 157n October Revolution 20, 110, 123, 177 Oliphant 187 Oriental 9, 10, 63, 67 Oriental despotism 5, 6, 8, 9, 14n, 58n, 61, 67, 68, 71, 74n, 76n, 157n Ottoman 7, 21, 25, 38, 86, 126, 184, 206, 213 Oxford 83, 206 Pahlavi(s) 42, 54, 57n, 73, 101, 106, 122, 127, 129, 160, 197, 199, 207, 254 Panco Villa 21 Pan-Persianist 129, 130, 131, 132 Pan-Turanian 187, 222 Pan-Turkist 187 Paris Commune 19 Paris Peace Conference 161, 162, 168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 182, 183, 186, 187, 192, 204 Parthian(s) 53, 73, 127 Pax Romana 6 Persia 5, 7, 31, 56, 64, 65, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74n, 76, 127, 132n, 133n, 154n, 163, 167, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 190, 192, 193,

194, 196, 197n, 199n, 202n, 205, 221, 231n, 237, 248 Persian 39, 40, 47, 53, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66–9, 71–3, 74n, 75n, 78, 79, 84, 90, 96n, 100n, 112n, 126–32, 139, 163, 167, 169, 170, 172–5, 177, 179, 182, 183, 187, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 212, 214, 221–3, 245, 250, 262 Persian Despotism 68, 72 Persianised 27, 130, 144 Persianism 127 Persianist 129, 130, 131 Persian Letters 7 Persians 27, 33, 53, 73, 155, 171, 182, 187 Peter the Great 77 Petrozsk 180 Physiocrats 82, 158n Pirnia, Hasan 224 Plato 5, 36 Plutarch 5 Polish 196 Pope, Alexander 81 Presbyterians 48, 150 Prince and Princess of Wales 134 Prometheus 17 Protestant 12, 15n Protestantism 12 Prussia 46, 51, 77, 78 Ptolemic 22 Purdavud 129 Puritan(s) 48, 80 Qabus-nameh 76n, 127 Qadesiya 25 Qa’em Maqam 76n, 128, 245, 260 Qajar 25, 34, 43, 50–3, 73, 84, 128, 136, 137, 139, 144, 147, 160, 177, 231, 236, 239, 240, 244, 245, 248, 254 Qanun (Hokumat-e) 42, 54, 56n, 84, 85, 98n, 117, 154 Qarani, Valiollah 119 Qashqa’i 131, 138 Qavam 88, 139, 247, 248 Qazvin 162, 179, 181, 192–4, 197, 205, 206, 208 Qom 138, 246 Quchan 139 Queen Anne 47 Qur’an(ic) 44, 85, 148, 181, 257 Ra‘d 173–5 Rashid al-Din Fazlollah 76n, 127, 128, 245, 260

271

INDEX

Rashidun 105 Raskolnikov 194 Ravandi 88, 247 Red Army 180 Reformation 7, 13, 20, 22, 46, 105 Renaissance 6, 7, 11, 12, 19, 51, 101, 105 Restoration 19, 47, 80 Reza Khan 28, 54, 101, 106, 118, 122, 162, 178, 183, 197 Reza Shah 28, 29, 54, 55, 107, 108, 112n, 119, 129, 131, 165, 206, 219 Ricardo, David 5, 14, 83 Robespiere 48, 98n, 149, 157n Rokn al-Dawleh 88, 247 Roman(s) 5, 6, 7, 18, 22, 46, 61, 64, 65, 77, 78, 82 Romanovs 78 Romantic Movement 89, 90 Rosenberg, Alfred 36, 129 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 5, 82, 89, 96, 97n, 98n, 99n Russia 6, 14n, 20, 45, 47, 48, 53, 54, 78, 84, 86, 101, 110, 117, 118, 123, 142, 144, 153, 162, 167, 168, 173, 177, 179, 181, 182, 183, 186, 188, 196, 197, 205, 209, 210, 218, 230 Russian 14n, 22, 45, 53, 69, 74n, 77, 85, 104, 117, 118, 138–41, 156n, 160, 167, 168, 171, 176–83, 186–95, 205, 208–12, 214, 222, 223, 227, 230, 232n, 234n Saboktegin 44, 250 Sa‘di 57n, 128, 238 Sa‘ed al-Saltaneh 226, 228 Safavids 7, 43, 126, 238, 240, 245, 247, 248, 259 Saheb Divan 88, 248 St Antony’s College 206 St Just 110 Salar al-Dawleh 138 Salt (tax, monopoly) 241 Samsam al-Saltaneh, Najafqoli Khan 27, 144, 208, 209 Sardar As‘ad, Aliqoli Khan 27, 144 Sardar Entesar 189, 190, 214, 225, 223, 231 Sardar Mansur (Sepahdar-e Rashti) 27, 144 Sarem al-Dawleh, Mas‘ud 161 Sarraf 40 Sassanian(s) 25, 43, 51–3, 73, 91 Sayyed al-Mohaqqeqin 216, 226, 227

Sayyed Zia 118, 173, 174, 183, 187, 188, 192, 197, 201n, 205, 232n Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von 90 Schopenhaur, Arthur 90 Second World War 21 Seljuq 24, 25, 43, 48, 53, 73, 88 Seleucids 53, 73, 126 Sepahdar-e Rashti (Sardar Mansur) 27, 144 Sepahsalar-e Qazvini 135, 155n, 157n, 158n, Sepehr, Abdolhossein Khan 98n, 137, 249n, Shafaq, Sadeq Reza-zadeh 129, 206, 207 Shah 11, 33n, 41, 42, 44, 45, 80, 86, 87, 88, 92, 93, 94, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155 Shah-an-shah 248 Shah, Mohammad-Reza 29, 30, 34n Shahnameh 33n, 42, 44, 46, 57n Shah Safi 46 Shahsavan 195, 226 Shaikh Fazlollah 30, 139, 145 Shaibani, General 129 Shakespeare 259 Shari‘a 41, 57n, 80, 165 Shari‘ati, Ali 99n Shelley, Percy Bysshe 89 Shi‘a 64, 125, 139, 162 Shi‘ism 64, 112n, 157n Shiraz 88, 128, 247 Shirazi 127 Shirazi, Mirza 155n Shirazi, Sayyed Mohammad Reza 93, 158n, 209 Shirvan 128 Shuster, Morgan 173, 188, 189, 208, 210 Sistan 131 Siyar al-Muluk 26, 33n, 42, 57n Siyasatnameh 26, , 42, 57n, 76n, 127 Slavs 13 Smerdis 17 Smith, Adam 5, 7, 22, 27, 75n, 76n, 82, 83, 85, 158n Smyth, Colonel Henry 197 Social Democrat 107, 145 Social Revolutionaries 110, 123 Soltanhossein, Shah 44, 134 Sophy 7 Soviet (Union) 29, 55, 107, 110, 119, 125, 126, 140, 167, 168, 177, 182, 183, 187, 188, 192, 195, 196, 202n, 205, 232n

272

INDEX

Tsar(ist) 117, 139, 162, 167, 117–79, 205 Tudors 78 Turanian 44, 57n, 187, 222 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques 14n, 22, 82, 260 Turkaman(s) 53, 73, 138, 139 Turkey 7, 38, 53, 86, 117, 169, 188, 190 Turkic 26, 126–8, 130 Turks 91, 129, 136, 155n, 171, 187, 211, 212, 222, 259 Tusi, Nasir al-Din 128

Spartacist 142, 22, 18 Spartacus 18 Spencer, Herbert 36 Spirit of the Laws (The) 7 Stalin, Joseph 20, 32n, 156 Starosselki, Colonel 178, 179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 192, 196, 197, 205, 223–5 Stokes, Colonel C.B. 188 Strafford, Earl of 260 Stuarts 77 Sumeria 38 Swedish 172, 189, 190, 207, 214, 215, 220, 221 Syria 162, 170, 172, 254, 255, 257 Tabatab’i 139, 149, 157n Tabriz 57n, 94, 95, 136–8, 145, 152, 179, 180, 188–91, 194, 205–8, 210–17, 219, 220, 222–8, 230, 231 Tabrizi, Mirza Hasan 145 Taimurtash 129 Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe 241 Taj al-Molk 26 Taj al-Saltaneh 136, 155n Tajikistan 24 Talebof, Abd al-Rahim 94, 136, 152, 155n Taqizadeh, Sayyed Hasan 150, 154, 158n, 159n, 172, 209, 232n Tarikh-e Al-e Saboktegin 250 Tarikh-e Mas‘udi 250, 259 Tehran 45, 54, 88, 94, 109, 126, 130, 137–40, 148, 149, 152, 153, 155n, 161–3, 167–78, 180, 185, 187–9, 191, 192–7, 204, 205, 208, 212, 214, 218, 219, 220, 222–5, 227, 228, 230, 231, 240, 247 Tehrani, Hajj Mirza Hossein 27, 144, 147, 157n Teimurid 53 Temps 171 Thatcher, Margaret 21 Thermidor 48, 118, 208, 209 Third Republic 19 Thirty Year War 90 Thucydides 5 Tikma Dash 226 Times, The 183, 193 Tobacco Rebellion 134 Tocqueville 28, 105 Tononkaboni, Sepahdar 27, 144 Transoxiana 24, 48 Trotsky, Leon 20, 167

Ummayyads 104 United States (US) 29, 55, 59n, 109, 125, 140, 167, 169, 173–5, 199n, 205 Uzbekistan 24 Va‘ez, Shaikh Mohammad 145 Valois 47 Vazir Nezam 139 Vico, Giambattista 36, 99n, Vienna 7 Vogelklu, Captain 207, 214, 215, 220 Volga 192 Voltaire 81 Vosuq 160, 161, 163–70, 172, 173, 178–88, 190–2, 195, 196, 197, 198n, 201n, 204–9, 215, 216, 221–5, 227, 229–31 Washington 176 Washington Post 175 Webber, Max 12, 15n Westdahl, General 214 Westphalia 78, 90 White Russian 168, 177–9, 181, 182, 187 William and Mary 19, 47 Wilson, President Thomas Woodrow 173, 174, 202n Wittfogel, Karl 9, 67, 69, 71 Wordsworth, William 89, 98n Wustrow, Kurt 191, 222, 223 Xenophon 5 Xerxes 27, 33n, 43 Yazdanpanah 129 Yazdegerd 25 Yazdi, Ayatollah Mohammad 124 Yazdi, Sayyed Ali Aqa 145

273

INDEX

Yek Kalameh 42, 86, 98n Young Turks 21 Zafar al-Dawleh 227 Zain al-‘abedin Khan, Dr 189, 224 Zamakhshari 128 Zamindars 38, 64

Zanjan 189, 214 Zapata, Emiliano 21 Zel al-Soltan 92 Zia al-Molk 88, 247 Zoka al-Molk (Forughi) 88, 165, 168, 169, 172, 248n 247 Zoroastrian 64, 139, 145

274