Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Source

• Born: 26 October 1919
• Birthplace: Tehran, Iran
• Died: 27 July 1980 (cancer)
• Best Known As: The Shah of Iran, 1941-1979

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi became Crown Prince in 1925, when his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, became the official monarch of modern Iran. His father was forced into exile in 1941 and Mohammad Reza took the throne. In 1953 political opposition forced him to leave the country, but he was restored to power with the help of the United States. Mohammad Reza embarked on a domestic policy that encouraged nationalism and modernization, but by the late 1970s his repressive regime was becoming increasingly unpopular. In 1979 a theocratic revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, sent the Shah into exile. He went to the U.S., where he was treated for lymphatic cancer; Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and demanded the Shah's extradition in exchange for 50 hostages. The U.S. refused and the Shah eventually moved to Egypt, where he died.

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(b. Tehran, 26 Oct. 1919; d. 27 Jul. 1980) Iranian; Shah 1941 – 79 Iran was occupied by British and Soviet forces when Mohammed Reza succeeded his father as Shah in 1941. The autocratic regime he inherited disintegrated over the next twelve years under the pressure of foreign interference and mounting domestic unrest, culminating in the Mossadeq government's challenge of 1951 – 3.

After his restoration to the throne in 1953, the Shah rebuilt the royal autocracy with American assistance. Organized opposition was crushed with the imprisonment of Mossadeq, the National Front's abolition and suppression of the Communist Tudeh party. Parliament was turned into a constitutional façade controlled by client landlords, government officials, and businessmen, in which only loyalist political parties were permitted. The Shah, however, took all important decisions. In 1975, he replaced the "yes" and "yes sir" parties by the National Resurgence Party to mobilize mass support for his regime, chiefly through propagandizing a monarchical form of nationalism. The central pillar of his regime's support was an extensive security apparatus that included SAVAK — formed in 1957 with CIA, FBI, and Mossad's assistance — as the front-line organization for intelligence gathering and destructive operations against the regime's opponents. When the security apparatus failed to repress internal opposition, as in 1963 and 1977 – 9, the armed forces were deployed to secure the regime's survival. (On the Nixon doctrine, they also had a regional gendarme role.)

From 1963, the Shah sought to modernize Iran on Western lines and mask his repressive, corrupt regime, principally through the non-violent "White Revolution". At its core was land redistribution to peasants, a campaign against rural illiteracy and female political emancipation. Extensive social welfare provisions were added later. These, and other measures, which included banning marriage until 15; giving women a right to divorce; allowing polygamy only with the wife's consent; the glorification of pre-Islamic Iran; and widespread Western fashions and consumer behaviour, by their perceived anti-Islamic character, helped to precipitate the Islamic revolution which overthrew the Shah in 1979.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980) was king of Iran and second in the Pahlavi dynasty. A revolution, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, forced him into exile.

Mohammad Reza was born on Oct. 27, 1919. His father, who was then an officer in the Persian Cossack regiment, later became shah of Iran as Reza Shah Pahlavi. Upon his coronation in April 1926, his 6-year-old son, Mohammad Reza, was proclaimed crown prince. While at home he was carefully educated for his future role by his imposing and stern father. In 1931 he was sent to Switzerland and attended LeRosey school for boys. He returned to Iran in 1936 and entered the military school. He was married to Princess Fawzia of Egypt. He developed into a sportsman, enjoying soccer and skiing, and later became a licensed pilot.

World War II

In the fall of 1941 Mohammad Reza's father was forced to abdicate the throne by the British and Russian forces who had occupied the country after a short struggle. On Sept. 27, 1941, he succeeded his father as Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. This was a most confused and perilous period for Iran. Not only was there a global war, but Iran was squeezed between the traditionally bitter rivalry of Russia and Britain. To this was added the lure of the vast resources of oil in Iran, which were eagerly sought by the Russians, Americans, and British.

Furthermore, the Soviet pressure on Iran had an ideological dimension which sought revolutionary change in the country. The young Shah was caught in the midst of this struggle between the pro-Soviet Tudeh party, which wanted social revolution without the Shah, and the pro-British National Will party, which wanted the Shah but no social change. The Shah himself was not happy with either.

The Soviet Union refused to evacuate Iran after World War II as it had promised and instead stayed to help a branch of the Persian Communist party set up a separate government in the northwest province of Azarbayjan. Iran complained to the fledgling United Nations organization. After much negotiations the Soviet Union evacuated Azarbayjan on May 9, 1946, and the Shah entered the province in the midst of popular jubilation.

Internal Unrest

But this did not bring tranquility, for the oil problem had not been solved. The new National Front party, formed under the leadership of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, followed a philosophy of "negative neutralism." This stated that, since Iran had refused to give oil concessions to the Soviet Union, it should take them away from the British.

The country was plunged into such a crisis that by 1953 communication broke down between the Shah and Prime Minister Mosaddeq and also among the prime minister, his cabinet, and the parliament. The crisis, in which the Tudeh party was daily gaining the upper hand, forced the Shah and Sorayya (his second wife) to leave the country. Nine days later Mosaddeq was overthrown, and the Shah returned in triumph.

Mohammad Reza Shah returned with a new resolve. Whereas he had tried to reign as a constitutional monarch, he decided to rule under the constitution. He had distributed his land among the peasants, hoping that other landlords would follow his example, but they ignored the hint and dubbed him the "Bolshevik Shah." It was then that he started what later was called the "White Revolution." After distributing the land among the peasants, he nationalized forests and water, established profit-sharing plans for the workers, emancipated women, and established literacy, sanitation, and development corps, in which educated men spent 2 years of their time in lieu of military service. New industries were created, and Iran became one of the most stable countries in the Middle East.

On Oct. 27, 1967, his forty-eighth birthday, and after 26 years as king, he was crowned as His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Aryamehr, Shahanshah of Iran. What made this coronation a unique one in the annals of Persian history was that his third wife, Farah, was crowned as empress, the first since the coming of Islam in the 7th century. Their 6-year-old son, Reza, was declared crown prince.

During the 1970s, oil-exporting countries such as Iran exercised much world power. It was also the strongest military country in the Middle East. However, the Shah was an autocratic ruler who saw his popularity decreasing, especially among the conservative Muslims who were followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah led a revolution in 1979, forcing the Shah and his family into exile. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi died in Cairo on July 27, 1980.

Further Reading

The best accounts in English of Mohammad Reza Shah are those written by the Shah himself, My Mission for My Country (1961) and The White Revolution of Iran (1967). The first full-length biography of the Shah in English is Ramesh Sanghvi, The Shah of Iran (1969). A scholarly treatment is E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition: Conversations with a Monarch Whose Office is Traditional and Whose Goal is Modernization (1968).

Additional Sources

Karanjia, Rustom Khurshedji, The mind of a monarch, London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1977.

Laing, Margaret Irene, The Shah, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1977.

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Answer to history, New York: Stein and Day, 1980.

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, The Shah's story, London: M. Joseph, 1980.

Shawcross, William, The Shah's last ride: the fate of an ally, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Taheri, Amir, The unknown life of the Shah, London: Hutchinson, 1991.

Zonis, Marvin, Majestic failure: the fall of the Shah, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi (mūhäm'mäd rĭzä shä pă'ləvē), 1919-80, shah of Iran (1941-79). Educated in Switzerland, he returned (1935) to Iran to attend the military academy in Tehran. He ascended the throne in 1941 after his father, Reza Shah Pahlevi, suspected of collaboration with the Germans, was deposed by British and Soviet troops. He narrowly escaped assassination (1949) by a member of the leftist Tudeh party, and in 1953 briefly fled the country after a clash with supporters of Muhammad Mussadegh. The shah launched (1963) a reform program with U.S. assistance called the "White Revolution," which included land redistribution among citizens, extensive construction, the promotion of literacy, and the emancipation of women, but wealth, emanating from the oil industry, was unequally distributed among Iranians and the clergy disapproved of his pro-Western policies. As popular discontent grew, particularly in the early 1970s, the shah became more repressive, calling upon his brutal secret police (SAVAK) to put down domestic strife. By 1978 demonstrations and unrest had become widespread. On Jan. 16, 1979, Shah Pahlevi fled the country; the exiled religious leader Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran and took control. When in Oct., 1979, Iranian extremists stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, they demanded the shah in return for the American hostages being held in the embassy. The shah remained abroad and died in Egypt in 1980.

Bibliography

See biography by A. Milani (2011).

1919 - 1980

Shah of Iran, 1941 - 1979.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was born in Tehran on 26 October 1919 to Brigadier Reza Khan (later Reza Shah Pahlavi). He was designated crown prince in April 1926 and graduated from a special primary military school in Tehran in 1931, from Le Rosey secondary school in Switzerland in 1936, and from Tehran Military College in 1938. In 1939, he married Princess Fawzia, the sister of King Farouk of Egypt; they had a daughter, Shahnaz, in 1940 and were divorced in 1948. In 1950, he married Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari; this marriage, too, ended in divorce in 1958 because she was not able to produce a male heir. In 1959, he married Farah Diba, who gave birth to Crown Prince Reza in 1961, and three other children thereafter.

Mohammad Reza Shah's thirty-seven-year reign can be divided into five distinct phases: from the 1941 occupation of Iran by the Allied forces to the 1953 coup d'état; the postcoup period (1953 - 1959); the period of political strife (1960 - 1963); the period of the shah's increasingly autocratic rule (1963 - 1976); and the period of revolutionary crisis that ultimately led to the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty (1977 - 1979).

From 1941 Occupation to 1953 Coup d'Etat

Mohammad Reza acceded to the throne on 17 September 1941, after Russian and British troops invaded Iran on 25 August, forcing Reza Shah to abdicate. A major crisis in the early years of his reign came in 1945 when the Soviet Union refused to withdraw its forces from northern Iran. Through a combination of international pressures and internal maneuverings by Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam, the Russian force finally left Iran in late 1946, and the pro-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan collapsed. For much of this period, the shah was forced to conform to the will of the majles (parliament), which as a political institution dominated both the young monarch and the cabinet. Following an assassination attempt on 4 February 1949, a Constitutional Assembly was convened on 21 April; it granted him the right to dissolve the majles. In March 1951, the British-dominated Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was nationalized by an act of the majles under the initiative of Mohammad Mossadegh, the leader of the National Front, who subsequently became prime minister. Although 1951 to 1953 were "the worst years" of the shah's reign, he did not take any initiative to dismiss Mossadegh until he was urged to do so by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Dwight Eisenhower, who also urged him to appoint Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister. When Mossadegh refused to accept the shah's dismissal order on 16 August, the shah fled the country and went to Rome. On 19 August 1953, he was reinstated to power in a coup conceived by MI-6 (British Military Intelligence) and carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. The leading ulama, the old-guard politicians, the propertied classes, and a core of army generals supported the shah and the coup.

Post-Coup Period

The period 1953 to 1959 began with the repression of members of the intelligentsia who had supported either the National Front or the pro-Soviet Tudeh party, and saw a gradual increase of the shah's power vis-à-vis the old-guard politicians, the propertied classes, and the ulama. In this period, the government signed an agreement with a consortium of major Western oil companies in August 1954, joined the Baghdad Pact (later the Central Treaty Organization, CENTO) in October 1955, established an effective intelligence agency (SAVAK) in 1957, and launched the 1954 - 1962 development plan.

Political Strife (1960 - 1963)

The period from 1960 to 1963 began with a reactivation of opposition groups and increasing pressures from the administration of John F. Kennedy for reforms. In May 1961, the shah appointed Dr. Ali Amini as prime minister and Hasan Arsanjani as minister of agriculture; the latter became the architect of land reform. The shah, who could not tolerate an independent-minded prime minister, dismissed Amini in July 1962 and asked Amir Asadollah Alam, his closest confidant, to form a new cabinet and continue the reform. The land reform program, which was the centerpiece of the shah's White Revolution, and women's suffrage met with strong resistance from the ulama, who joined the opposition forces and instigated urban riots on 5 June 1963 to protest Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's imprisonment. The shah was indecisive in responding to the situation, but Alam took command and gave the shoot-to-kill order to the security forces; more than 100 were killed, and resistance of religious groups was crushed. This event marked the suppression of all opposition forces and the beginning of increasingly autocratic rule by the shah.

Increased Autocratic Rule (1963 - 1976)

In the period 1963 to 1976, the shah emerged as the sole policymaker; he allocated oil revenues among various agencies and projects and directly supervised the armed forces and security organizations, foreign policy and oil negotiations, nuclear power plants, and huge development projects. In this period, Iran's gross domestic product grew in real terms by an average annual rate of around 10 percent. Meantime, public services substantially expanded and modernized, and the enrollment at all educational levels increased rapidly. The shah also dramatically expanded the military and security forces and equipped them with advanced weapon systems. In the early 1970s he played a key leadership role in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and helped the organization to raise the price of oil sharply. Meanwhile, he emerged as the leading figure in the Persian Gulf after the withdrawal of British forces in 1971. Furthermore, he signed an agreement with the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 1975, ending the two countries' border disputes. By the mid-1970s, the shah managed to establish close ties not only with the United States, Western Europe, and Muslim countries but also with the Communist bloc countries, South Africa, and Israel.

The many diplomatic and economic achievements of the shah led to ostentatious displays of royal hubris. For example, in October 1971 he celebrated the 2,500th anniversary of the foundation of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great and formed, in March 1975, a one-party system. Both acts were resented by the intelligentsia and middle classes. He also replaced powerful, independent-minded politicians with more accommodating and submissive aides, a strategy that cost him dearly at times of international and domestic crisis. Concurrently, the shah's White Revolution had undermined the traditional foundation of his authority - the ulama, the bazaar merchants, and the landowning classes. They were replaced by the entrepreneurs, the young Western-educated bureaucratic elites, and new middle classes who had developed uneasy relations with the shah. The intelligentsia resented the lack of political freedom and violations of human rights, the rigged elections, corruption, and close ties with the United States. The old religious groups and the bazaar merchants and artisans resented the un-Islamic Western lifestyle promoted by the shah's modernization policies. The entrepreneurial and political elites were discontented with the shah's autocratic rule, and with the lack of their own political power and autonomous organizational base. Under these circumstances the nucleus of an anti-shah revolutionary coalition was formed by a large group of liberal and radical intelligentsia, and a small group of militant ulama and their important followers in the bazaar.

Pahlavi Dynasty Collapse (1977 - 1979)

The opportunity for the opposition to challenge the shah came after the victory of Jimmy Carter in the U.S. presidential race of November 1976 and the ensuing active support given by his administration to the cause of human rights. When the political upheavals began (1977), the shah's weak and indecisive character contributed to the collapse of the Pahlavi regime and the rise of the Islamic Republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a charismatic figure with a strong will to power. Despite the mass-based nature of the Iranian Revolution, however, not all sectors of the population opposed the shah. The peasantry, for example, constituting over half of the population at the time, continued to support him, though passively. Even labor and the majority of public-sector employees and the middle and lower-middle classes did not join the uprising until the last phases of the revolution, when the shah's regime was on the verge of collapse. After a series of mass demonstrations, mass strikes, and clashes between the shah's security forces and opposition groups in the latter half of 1978, the shah left the country in January 1979; he died of cancer in Cairo on 27 July 1980.

For the shah the ideal model of the imperial persona was the Persian image of the "benevolent autocrat," as exemplified by great Persian monarchs, including his father, Reza Shah. Although this model implied that he should be determined, self-confident, and brave, in reality he was gentle, timid, and indecisive. The shah's inherently fragile character became evident particularly during periods of instability and crisis, whereas his "benevolent autocrat" tendencies came up during periods of stability and success. Furthermore, he was not immune to conspiracy theories. He therefore often saw the secret hands of foreign powers, specifically those of the British, behind virtually every international and domestic incident. He believed, for example, that the Anglophobic Mohammad Mossadegh and the xenophobic Ayatollah Khomeini were British agents. Referring to an Anglo-Russian conspiracy, the shah attributed the Islamic revolution to the "unholy alliance of Red and Black." Belief in conspiracy theories further intensified his inherent vulnerability during periods of crisis. As a result, in the critical periods of 1941 to 1953 and 1960 to 1963, Mohammad Reza showed considerable indecisiveness. On the other hand, in the post-coup period (1953 - 1959) he began to show more determination, and in the stable period of 1963 - 1976, he emerged as a "benevolent autocrat," who devoted himself, in his own way, to the welfare of his people. Finally, during the period of revolutionary crisis (1977 - 1979), the shah, for the third time during his reign, turned indecisive, once again embraced conspiracy theories, and displayed a mood of withdrawal - traits and reactions that may have contributed significantly to his downfall.

Bibliography

Alam, Asadollah. The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran'sRoyal Court, 1969 - 1977, edited and translated by Alinaghi Alikhani. New York: St. Martin's, 1992.

Ashraf, Ahmad. "From the White Revolution to the Islamic Revolution." In Iran After the Revolution: Crisis of an Islamic State, edited by Sohrab Behda and Saeed Rahnema. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995.

Ashraf, Ahmad, and Banuazizi, Ali. "The State, Classes, and Modes of Mobilization in the Iranian Revolution." State, Culture and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 3 - 40.

Azimi, Fakhreddin. Iran: The Crisis of Democracy. London: I. B. Tauris, 1989.

Banuazizi, Ali. "Iran: The Making of a Regional Power," in The Middle East: Oil, Conflict, and Hope, edited by A. L. Udovitch. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1976.

Jacqz, Jane, ed. Iran: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1976.

Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Answer to History, translated by Michael Joseph Ltd. New York: Stein and Day, 1980.

Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza. Mission for My Country. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

Roosevelt, Kermit. Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control ofIran. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.

Wright, Denis. "Ten Years in Iran." Asian Affairs 12 (1991): 259 - 271.

Zonis, Marvin. Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

— AHMAD ASHRAF