In 1961 the Shah and his Prime Minister Alam announced their intention for major reforms in the country according to a plan later known as the White Revolution or the Shah-People Revolution. The Grand Ayatollah Broujerdi opposed the proposal despite his general attitude of keeping away from politics but his opposition was not very vocal. When Ayatollah Broujerdi died a year later the regime became confident that no single cleric would be strong enough to halt their mission.
Despite the suppression of dissident groups after his return to power, the Shah had not formed a social base for his regime, and therefore in 1961 he appointed a liberal prime minister to appease internal and external political criticism. Key among the changes was land reform. The Land Reform Law of 1962 was envisioned as a method to prepare the agricultural sector for modern techniques of production, and simultaneously to undermine the political power of landowning families and attempt directly to mobilize the peasantry via state institutions. This limited program became the first plank of the Shah’s White Revolution, which was to be approved in a plebiscite in January 1963. All the major political factions opposed the plebiscite, including the second National Front, the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI), and the many members of the clergy. The Tehran Bazaar staged a strike for three days prior to the plebiscite. The state responded by arresting the leadership of the National Front and the LMI, including a number of activists from the Tehran Bazaar. With the liberal nationalist organisations stifled, Bazaaries turned to a new protest network, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s seminary circle in Qom.383
In an effort to show the popularity of the regime the government announced a referendum on a six- point reform plan. (1) land reform; (2) sale of government-owned factories to finance land reform; (3) a new election law including women suffrages; (4) the nationalisation of forests; (5) a national literacy corps; (6) a plan to give workers a share of industrial profits.384
The Bazaar started sending letters to Ayatollah Khomeini asking for guidance and action. Encouraged by the support of many Bazaaries and heyat attendees Khomeini gave an infuriated sermon in which he fiercely criticised the Shah’s new referendum bill, He also issued a statement
382
Government's Nabavi on Inflation and Labor Unrest, MERIP Reports, No. 98, Iran Two Years After (Jul. - Aug.,
1981), pp. 25-26, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3011357], 14 July 2011
383 Arang Keshavarzian, Bazaar and State in Iran, p. 238.
known as Estensar [call for assistance]. A group of religious Bazaaries who attended the same heyats in Tehran decided to visit Khomeini and show their support for his brave stance. This group called themselves the Chivalrous Muslims Front Jebhei-e Mosalmanan-e Azadeh.
A year after the formation of Motalefeh, Khomeini noticed that there were a considerable number of devotees around him yet the problem was they were scattered. There were other Bazaaries who were pro-Khomeini but did not have any organic relation with Motalefeh therefore Ayatollah Khomeini took the initiative and asked them to unite around the axis in their heyats. Three main groupings joined together and formed a new organisation. They called themselves the Islamic Coalition Association or Heyathai-e Motalefeh Eslami as a show of obedience to Khomeini’s request. Immediately the Motalefeh started its activities spreading Khomeini’s words against the regime. They were copying Ayatollah Rohollah’s letters and sermons and distributing them around in the mosques and Bazaars round Iran, holding demonstration when called by Khomeini and announcing Bazaar strikes in Tehran to show their support to Khomeini’s agenda. Khomeini’s infuriated sermons were usually followed by a mass protest and strike in Tehran and Qom. Eventually after a number of successive demonstrations and protests, the unrest reached its climax in the 15th of Khordad [5 June 1963] when Khomeini was arrested and put into the Qassr prison. The Shah regime resorted to violence in the face of thousands of angry demonstrators who protested against the arrest of Ayatollah Khomeini and tens of people were killed.
The June protests were suppressed but the regime released Khomeini after a while hoping that the dissident cleric would remain silent, after his followers were crushed. However the regime soon realised that this was wishful thinking, since it was only a matter of time before Khomeini restarted his campaign against the Shah, this time in opposition to passing a law that gave a statute similar to diplomatic immunity to every American in Iran. Khomeini was arrested again and this time he was sent to exile in Turkey.
When their Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Khomeini was sent to exile, Motalefeh turned to terrorist methods to show anger and revenge. However after the assassination of prime minister Hassan Ali Mansour, most of the key members of the party were arrested, put on trial and given long prison sentences.
After that the Motalefeh activities decreased and they could not operate in public any more. Two decades later, the Shah, in an effort to appease the young Democrat American President,
announced his “Open Door Policy” according to which many political prisoners were pardoned and restrictions on freedom of expression were reduced.
Like many other opposition parties Motalefeh came out of its political marginalisation and intensified its activities to catch up for the lost time. After the victory of the revolution Motalefeh put all its resources in Khomeini’s service. Consequently the Ayatollah asked them to converge into IRP, in order to coordinate their steps with the other pro-Khomeini parties in a larger, more powerful organisation.
9.8.2.1.2.1. Party loyalty, to IRP or Motalefeh?
Panebianco explains that parties are conservative in nature and do not change for the sake of change. He ascribes a few factors that account for change In the party such as leadership change, changes in the dominant factions within the parties and external stimuli such as electoral shocks. Party merger, thus like any other change in the party, must happen for one of the above-mentioned reasons. However there is little theoretical work on the specific subject of party merger. A theoretical investigation is conducted by Bélanger and Godbout through their case study of the recent merger between the Progressive-Conservative Party and the Reform/Canadian Alliance parties. The conclusion they reached was as follows,
The explanatory framework outlined in this article squarely rests on a rational- choice approach, just like party coalition theory does. There may be other, less rational factors that might help in accounting for whether parties decide to merge or not. We can think of different leadership styles, of an overestimation of a party’s chances of survival (perhaps simply due to wishful thinking on the part of party members), or of growing hopelessness in the face of continued adversity. While affect and emotions are factors that stand somewhat outside the basic theoretical approach adopted herein, they too may advance our understanding of party mergers. That said, we do think that parties may want to merge to gain access to new resources (money, votes and members) and that they will not be interested to merge if they are over-represented in parliament, or if a merger will not significantly alter their party’s image or brand.385
Following the above theory line we can suggest that Motalefeh’s merger with the IRP was the rational choice of Motalefeh elites. It was a decision to maximise their representation in the Majles and to increase their presence in the state apparatus. However, it is not clear that entering into this
385
Éric Bélanger and Jean-François Godbout“Why Do Parties Merge? The Case of the Conservative Party of Canada”,
merger was a rational choice on the part of IRP. It is very possible that the elites of the left wing of IRP would not have accepted the merger if it wasn’t for Khomeini’s order.
After joining IRP the Motalefeh members developed a conflict between loyalty to their former organisation and their loyalty to their new home, the IRP. The Motalefeh elites kept most of their former structure as a party alive; they had their own meeting on Tuesdays which made them look arranged as a block whenever taking part in the IRP meetings. In addition they never abandoned their organic relationship with Bazaar. The Motalefeh was a party within the party and this double identity and mixed loyalty did not appease those IRP elites who were aspiring for IRP’s maturity as a party, like Rafsanjani who believed in the precedence of IRP party loyalty over other organisational affiliations.386
During the premiership of Mousavi, Motalefeh’s criticism of the way Mir-Hossein Mousavi handled the economy made the conflict between the two affiliations even more obvious. Mousavi, who had to deal with war with Iraq and the inflation and shortage of goods inside the country at the same time, could not tolerate the Motalefeh organ Resalat’s harsh criticisms of his government. Motalefeh’s attitude frustrated Ayatollah Khomeini who thought that criticising the government at the time of war without taking into consideration its complicated situation was not acceptable.387 Khomeini repeatedly criticised Resalat’s editorials for its disrupting of the “unity of word”. For a while, Khomeini even banned the distribution of the paper in the front lines.388 Even after the closing down of IRP, in a harsh criticism focused on the high-ranking Motalefeh members, Ayatollah Khomeini told the Prime Minister: “Mr Mousavi, those who are against you couldn’t run a bakery.” This was a warning sign to the Motalefeh director general, Habibollah Asgaroladi the minister of commerce in Mousavi’s first cabinet, during whose time in office the country experienced shortage of bread.389
The fact that Motalefeh was the only party that had an organic relationship with its social base, which was the Bazaar, had obliged its leaders to protect the interests of the Bazaaries. This is while the Prime Minister, who was also the leader of the left wing of the IRP, had other plans in mind.
386
Kheirollah Esmaili, Hezbe jomhourie eslami [Islamic Republic Party], Tehran, The Centre for Islamic Revolution Documents, 2007, pp. 82-83.
387
388 Ebtekar, Shahrivar 03, [http://www.ebtekarnews.com/ebtekar/News.aspx?NID=19030], 25 August 2007 389 Imam ebarate marofe kasani ke nemitavanand ik nunvaii [Imam’s Famous Comment, “Those who can not run a
This severe conflict of interests and visions among the IRP elites was among the reasons that persuaded Khomeini, Khamenie and Hashemi to end IRP’s life.