A Histography of Pahlavi Modernization Projects and their Transformative Effects on Iran

INTRODUCTION

The implementation of modernization programs under the Pahlavi monarchy marked a turning point in the nation’s history, drawing increased attention from scholars attempting to understand the consequences unprepared Iranians were exposed to between the 1920s and the 1970s. By analyzing and juxtaposing various scholarship, I will assess how historians have represented the social and cultural dimensions of the Pahlavi modernization efforts and the cultural change that occurred as a result of these efforts. Scholars have characterized Pahlavi modernization reforms into three categories: social, political, and economic policies implemented by Reza Shah and then his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, followed by the transformative effects these policies had on the Iranian people and society. I aim to dissect historians’ arguments according to these categories, analyzing how scholars have attempted to comprehend the metamorphosis Iranian society promptly went through as a result of Pahlavi modernization. In analyzing the effects of the Pahlavi modernization programs, historians have asserted that there is a direct causation between modernization and societal repercussions seen in contemporary Iran; however, scholars have analyzed and provided different evidence in support of this thesis. I assess the claims and evidence given by these scholars to show how the Pahlavi modernization project had significant historical, cultural, and societal repercussions still seen in modern Iran while providing my own analysis on the scholar’s different analysis and contributions to the subject at hand.

SOCIAL/CULTURAL MODERNIZATION REFORMS

Reza Shah’s Educational Reforms

Scholars have identified education as one of the central pillars of Reza Shah’s modernization reforms implemented to modernize Iranian ways of life, thinking, and worldviews through the use of propagandized education. Education reforms began with an overhaul of the traditional Iranian education system with the adoption of European education models, curriculums, and classroom settings. The goal of this was to work from the top down, using these Western forms of teaching to mold younger, more malleable generations into more educated, sophisticated, Westernized individuals that would help propel Iran towards the status held by Western first-world countries.

Historians like Nikki Keddie, who argues that modernization came with the unexpected and unwanted consequence of disrupting and completely transforming Iranian way of life support this, claiming that “the years 1925–1930 marked the beginning of educational reform,” and saw the adoption of Western technology, ideas, and languages into school curriculums.[1] Keddie further argues that Reza Shah also saw to it that “foreign and private schools were required to teach in Persian, follow the public-school curriculum… [and] integrate classes between genders.”[2] Despite the new educational opportunities that wealthier upper and middle class Iranians were able to take advantage of, scholar Cameron Michael Amin has questioned the intentions behind Reza Shah’s push towards modern education for all Iranians, arguing that while “some professional and educational opportunities were offered, an intense propaganda campaign ensued and continued until Allied occupation of Iran”[3] during World War II. Amin has also noted in his analysis of a Ministry of Education Memorandum that strategies employed by Reza Shah such as mixed kindergartens, uniform educational plans, and the encouragement of female teachers were used to push a higher agenda of “creating newer, more Western roles for men and women.”[4]

Mohammad Reza Shah’s Education Reforms

Following his father’s abdication, Mohammad Reza Shah quickly realized the potential of continuing the educational reforms started during his father’s reign. Keddie writes that in quickly looking to legitimize his reign and create a new vanguard of citizens that would lead Iran towards a more modern way of life and society, Mohammad Reza Shah made education one of his areas of focus when implementing his White Revolution modernization programs.[5] The use of strategic reforms as a tool to push the agenda of modernizing and Westernizing Iranian society has also been identified by scholars like David Menashri as having been continued and expanded under Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign, though with a significantly different approach. In his analysis of educational reforms under Mohammad Reza Shah, Menashri argues that “in the Shah’s view, education was a means for enlisting popular support and consolidation of the monarchy, and this reflected in his educational reforms.”[6] In addition to this, Menashri acknowledges that Mohammad Reza Shah viewed education not as an instructional tool for individual advancement, but as a way to foster loyalty to the monarchy through an emphasis of character formation over actual instruction; this created the tendency for the Shah to equate education with patriotism rather than erudite.[7] In doing so, Menashri’s argument pinpoints the rationale behind the Pahlavi’s emphasis of educational reform in a manner Keddie’s broader analysis misses; while Keddie is able to describe the what and how, Menashri’s analysis and evidence gives the why that drove the Pahlavi’s into action that had irreversible consequences on Iranian society and the Iranian people.

The Consequences of Pahlavi Educational Reforms

The inequal opportunity of education and implementation of indoctrination in school curriculums cumulated into a social divide between urban and rural Iranians and a demand for higher education and jobs that the Pahlavi monarchy could not meet. Keddie’s analysis deduces that rapid modernization and militant secularization of educational programs helped create “two cultures” in Iran, with the upper and middle classes becoming increasingly Westernized while the others remained traditional and more religious.[8] This led to social tension that Mohammad Reza Shah inherited, leading Menashri to conclude that this “resulted in a growing demand for education and graduates with high expectations that the government could not meet.”[9] Menashri argues that the Pahlavi education system “failed to formulate an appropriate educational philosophy… [and] schools became a bridge to nowhere. When educationalists warned the Shah of the grave social dangers inherent in the prevailing situation… attempts to expand higher education were made… too little, too late.”[10] The consequences of modernization are acknowledged by Mohammad Reza Shah himself and are seen as necessary affairs, the Shah writing, “[I]n a country with such venerable traditions as ours, rapid change naturally brings its strains and stresses. These are the price we must pay for Westernization and modernization.”[11] While both Pahlavi’s argued that the ends justified the means, in failing to create a professional work environment that could meet the demands of newly educated Iranians, the monarchy inadvertently caused a massive brain drain of the intelligentsia to other Western countries like the United States and widespread discontentment from educated Iranians once it was apparent that the government could not provide what it promised.

The Pahlavi Dress Code

Scholars have pinpointed that Iranian women were the target of some of the most substantial and radical modernization programs implemented under the Pahlavi’s, with many of the reforms significantly and forcefully changing the way women lived and practiced their religious traditions. Historians have also argued that one of the most enduring and consequential social reform programs implemented by the Pahlavi modernization projects was the enforcement of a modern dress code that was staged to be a pivotal factor in the emancipation of women. Keddie claims that the 1928 Law of Uniformity of Dress established Western dress for all men and women began the custom of forced unveiling; these laws further encouraged the adoption of European dress in schools and in the workplace, with Reza Shah taking a unique absolutist approach to the dress code.[12] Keddie goes on to write that the dress reforms consisted of the wearing of a Pahlavi hat, which coincided with Reza Shah’s secularization of the judiciary, and the unveiling of women, which was met with harsh criticism and opposition.[13]

Historian Houchang Chehabi has supported Keddie’s overall analysis by claiming that Reza Shah saw the enforcement of a more Western dress code as a hallmark of national modernization, using it as a tool to desegregate society.[14] However, Chehabi questions the intentions behind the dress code, arguing that Reza Shah’s attempt to standardize and Europeanize people’s appearances created intra-social conflicts that are still seen today, and that through his use of military force to enforce the new dress code, dress polices were mainly enacted to promote nation-building and secularism.[15] Chehabi concludes that as upper-class Iranians travelled more frequently to Europe, they adopted European mannerisms and fashions that were then seen and promoted by the government as symbols of progress by the Pahlavi monarchy.[16] Scholar Camron Michael Amin has built off of Chehabi’s argument, providing his own evidence and analysis on the subject in citing that the radical change in attire, from the Pahlavi hat for men to the protocol of unveiling for women, was followed by “an intense propaganda campaign involving the press, the arts, and radio, and public education speeches by prominent citizens and humble employees of the Ministry of Culture.”[17]

Government enforcement of the Europeanization of clothing continued on a smaller scale during the years of Mohammad Reza Shah, however, Chehabi’s analysis of the Pahlavi dress codes makes it clear that the majority of social reform through dress codes and its consequences was conducted under Reza Shah, and that his son merely inherited the social unrest it caused amongst the Iranian people.[18] While many scholars have contributed their own arguments on the transformative nature of the dress reforms, particularly in regards to women, Chehabi’s nuanced analysis of the dress code and its consequences on individuals and their religious beliefs and cultural traditions makes a much more convincing argument on how the modernization programs weren’t fully understood or appreciated by the Iranian people and had widespread consequences on Iranian society. While many Iranians were looking to also improve society and ways of life, there was a disconnect between the people and the monarchy on how improvement could and should be made; the violent enforcement of these policies further exacerbated this disconnection, creating resentment and unrest in Iranian society that festered into contemporary times and consequences for the Pahlavi’s.

Dress Code Consequences on Women and Society

The modern Western dress, particularly unveiling for women, transformed Iranian society in a way that did not align with traditional values; the enforcement of Western dress further created a social divide among Iranians according to their social class and status that contributed to the 1979 Revolution that deposed the Pahlavi’s of power. The backlash of the Pahlavi dress code was “accompanied by a catastrophic dislocation of the lives of the common people.”[19] Amin argues that as the social constrictions on Iranian dress faced were eased and lifted, women especially were faced with the crossroads of continuing to don traditional, religious dress or be labeled as “immoral” and “corruptive”; or in the case of men, “rash.”[20] Chehabi supports Amin’s argument, by claiming that while modernist upper-classes saw [the dress code] as a form of liberation and progress, Europeanization and modernization of Iranian daywear was staged and not brought about by freedom of choice, creating social tensions and resentment towards the Pahlavi monarchy[21] that continued into the reign of Mohmmad Reza Shah. Chehabi supports his claims through primary source material: “The new hat has nothing to do with religion, but it does have something to do with nationality”[22]; “When my mother had learned that she was to lose the age-old modesty of her veil, she was beside herself. She and all traditional people regarded Reza's order as the worst thing he had yet done.”[23] Keddie concludes that the suppression of opposition to the dress code, combined with a lack of choice, growing cultural divides between classes, urban and rural areas, combined with increased discontentment and disagreement from clerical institutions and the different identities of Iranian nationalism and tradition created problems and resentments that carried over the decades and fed into other problems faced by Iran.[24]

POLITICAL MODERNIZATION REFORMS

The Pahlavi Conscription Programs

Historians have cited that another central pillar in the Pahlavi modernization programs were the various reforms that affected Iran politically, the most prominent and most analyzed of these reforms being the implementation of a national conscription program that began under Reza Shah and continued with greater severity under Mohammad Reza Shah. Keddie writes that under Reza Shah, a conscription law with universal service was first enacted in 1926, and that army reform and strengthening was a primary concern of Reza Shah.[25] As Reza Shah seized power from the previous Qajar monarchy, he needed to build up the armed forces and make sure they were large enough to maintain governmental authority.[26] Stephanie Cronin supports Keddie’s analysis, claiming that conscription served as an essential element of the regime’s Persification campaign and the building of a secular nationalist ideology.[27] Cronin goes on to argue that Reza Shah believed that “conscription would give the Iranian army a national character and would give all families in the country an interest in defending their nation and their independence… [and] that the army would be made strong enough to ward off any attack.”[28] The first systematic conscription program in Iran was the bunichah system implemented under Reza Shah, which Cronin claims was a central pillar of Reza Shah’s program to build a modern, centralized state centered around the ideology of secular nationalism.[29] Keddie however, focuses more on conscription during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, asserting that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi continued conscription during his reign, but mainly focused on building up an army not to defend Iran from outside attacks, but to discourage dissent and opposition from those within Iran, a desire spurred on by the 1953 coup d’état against Premier Mosaddeq.[30] Keddie goes on to write that this culminated into the creation of SAVAK, an internal security service created to monitor and suppress oppositional groups and opponents of his regime.

Both Keddie and Cronin conclude that both Shah’s used conscription as a method of building a secular nationalist identity that would support the government, furthering urbanization, and creating more jobs for a growing working class. However, Cronin has argued, that the political consequences of enforced military conscription were widespread and felt by everyone, stating that “conscription changed the relationship between the army and Iranian society as the military intruded upon ordinary people and their lives.”[31] Keddie does not dispute this and applies this analysis to Mohammad Reza Shah’s polices, arguing that the shah believed conscription would help Iranians accept and expect the changes that would be wrought by their modernization programs, with the benefit of consolidating monarchical power.[32] Cronin extends Keddie’s argument by stating that like other Pahlavi reforms, conscription resulted in little more than a veneer of modernization… destroying the effectiveness of the military by creating personal guards for the Shah’s that allowed the Pahlavi’s to reconsolidate the country under one sole authority.[33] This created a politization of the masses and discontentment with the clergy, who objected, had little strength against the bureaucracy, the army, and the commercial middle class to formally oppose the changes made; a displeasure which Keddie argues increased as the desirability of modernization began to fade and people were faced with increased violent suppression from the monarchy if they expressed their discontent.[34]

Like the majority of the Pahlavi modernization programs, conscription was no more than a veneer of modernization used by the monarchy to consolidate power. While Keddie provides and initial analysis for this claim, Cronin provides a more through argument on how the Pahlavi’s used conscription and the resulting building of the military to consolidate power, continue the implementation of their other modernization programs, and convince the Iranian people that the consequences of modernization and Westernization were necessary. Furthermore, Cronin’s analysis articulates how conscription was used as a method of building a secular nationalist identity that would support the government, furthering urbanization, and creating more jobs for a growing working class and transforming Iranian society as the decades passed.

Consolidation of Monarchial Power Through Reform

The increased size and funding of the military allowed the Pahlavi monarchs to further centralize the country under one sole authority: the monarchy. Keddie describes this trend by claiming that policies like conscription laws “helped maintain government authority and contributed to the growth of a bureaucracy.”[35] Cronin supports Keddie claim by arguing that “following the stabilization of [Reza Shah’s] newly founded dynasty, his regime introduced a raft of radical secularizing, centralizing reforms, and began their implementation in an aggressive manner.”[36]

This new centralization of the country under a monarchy undermined the power and influence the ulama had previously, creating political tension between the Pahlavi’s and formal religious leaders. Cronin examines this relationship, maintaining that “the ulama were aware that the balance of power between themselves and the regime was about to alter decisively to their detriment, [and] although on the defensive, they were bracing themselves for a struggle.”[37] Keddie agrees with this claim, citing that the ulama had little strength against the bureaucracy, the army, and the commercial middle class that grew as a result of centralization.[38] The loss of power the ulama faced under Reza Shah was followed by a series of legal reforms that introduced a modern, non-clerical judiciary and centrally controlled legal system that carried over into the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah. Keddie writes that once Mohammad Reza Shah took the throne, he was “increasingly prepared to engage in repressive and dictatorial acts, however much they might be covered over by superficially democratic or Western forms. ”[39] Furthermore, Keddie maintains that he was supported by Western governments and corporations who “felt safter with a centralized government under a pro-Western ruler who would not again allow into power a regime that might threaten economic and political relations with the West.”[40]

ECONOMIC MODERNIZATION REFORMS

Land Registration Laws

Both the social and political reform policies of the Pahlavi modernization programs culminated into significant economic policies that too had their share of consequences on the Iranian people. Keddie cites land registration laws as one of the first economic modernization steps taken, with the Land Registration Laws of 1928-1929 requiring landowners to register their property and assets with the government.[41] Keddie goes on to argue that as a result, poorer villagers were forced to relocate to urban centers, encouraging urbanization and industrialization and uneven development in urban centers that would contribute to Iran’s growing social and economic problems.[42] However, Keddie claims that it was a combination of judicial reforms, new taxes, and internal security and centralization that allowed a new modern economy to form under Reza Shah’s administration; so as some reforms encouraged capitalism, others strengthened the position of landlords.[43]Serberny-Mohammadi agrees with Keddie’s analysis and applies this thinking towards the reform policies conducted under Mohammad Reza Shah, claiming that while the 1950s were a poor time for independent political expression, it was an excellent time for entrepreneurship, this decade showing “the beginnings of full-fledged capitalist development in Iran.”[44] Serberny-Mohammadi further argues that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi also continued his father’s initial reforms, establishing the Pahlavi Foundation and incorporating land reform into a more revolutionary project that included “the sale of state-owned factories to finance land reform.”[45]

A Growing Bureaucracy

Keddie identifies that as a result of economic reform, a significant modern bourgeoisie was created the middle class was augmented by several new groups: a growing bureaucracy, increasingly influenced by Western education and ideas and working urban classes.[46] Serberny-Mohammadi agrees with Keddie’s analysis by claiming that rapid urbanization was the major demographic change of the 1960s under Mohammad Reza Shah, with “industrial expansion and educational investment particularly promoting the development of the two modern classes, the salaried middle class and the urban working class.”[47]Historians have found that the attempts at economic reform during the Pahlavi monarchy had repercussions on the Iranian state and people. Keddie claims that “it should be clear then that the "great transformation" of Iranian society in the 1930s was, like the Industrial Revolution in Europe accompanied by a catastrophic dislocation of the lives of the common people. There was no fit between the cultural transformations attempted and the socioeconomic reality of Iran.”[48] This statement is advanced by Cyrus Schayegh who argues that the economic consequences of Pahlavi modernization could be seen as early as Reza Shah’s early years of reign. Schayegh uses example of Tehran to prove his claim, asserting that “in the case of Tehran, the living conditions in the working-class quarters of the south end, the locus of many new factories, were often appalling, and a 'dual urbanism' emerged due to Reza Shah's policy of expanding the city.”[49]

Serberny-Mohammadi agrees with this analysis and has noted that under Mohammad Reza Shah, the main demographic impact of economic reform policies implemented during the White Revolution created a landless peasant migration to urban areas; and as there was to support system for those entering urban centers from rural parts of the country, uneven development occurred in major cities.[50] However, Schayegh has concluded that while the desirability of modernization wasn’t disputed by the Iranian people, “incipient industrialization and growing urbanization created at least as many new social problems as it improved Iran's position in the world economy.”[51] Considering this, Schayegh’s analysis combined with Serberny-Mohammadi’s provides a stronger, pointed analysis than Keddie’s introduction into how a major goal of both modernization programs was increasing the power of the monarchy through the secularization of different departments and aspects of Iranian government and society; this secularization was carried out through modernization policies and reform attempts and came with intended and unintended consequences that ultimately cultivated in the end of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979.

ANALYSIS OF PROPONENTS & OPPONETS OF MODERNIZATION

Historians and scholars have gathered evidence and provided their own analysis on the various social, political, and economic reforms the Pahlavi’s implemented in their attempt to modernize Iran. The research given examines the various consequences on Iranian society and culture that have resulted from these programs and how Iranian scholars have attempted to understand these consequences and changes and frame them to advocate for the modernization projects or dissent from them. Keddie cites that the sharp divide between proponents and opponents of Pahlavi modernization came as a result of the “two-culture” phenomenon, which defines the different cultures for the elite and the masses that occurred as a result of modernization.[52] Keddie argues that interaction with the West, encouraged by Pahlavi modernization, altered the nature of socio-economic change in Iran, creating different opinions on what parts of Western culture should be adapted to improve Iranian society and what parts were detrimental to Iran’s traditional and culture.[53] Keddie extends this thesis, claiming that “reformist thought did not begin in Iran after interaction with the West; rather Islamic Iran has always had important reformists and dissidents in such fields as philosophy, poetry, religion, and politics,”[54] and that these writings were found heavily throughout the Pahlavi era as the consequential, transformative nature of modernization became known.

Proponent Arguments for Modernization

Keddie cites Mehdi Bazargan as an Iranian politician who used his Western schooling to promote an intellectual vision that aligned with the Pahlavi ideals of modernization Westernization being an essential step Iran must take. Serving as Deputy Minister under Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, Keddie claims that Bazargan had educational contact with the West and was one of the most important politico-religious leaders of the revolution. Bazargan, Keddie writes, addresses chiefly middle classes, merchants, and lower civil servants in his writings, in which he presents a modern image of Islam, utilizing his reputation as an engineer and professor to show that Islam was in accord with scientific and technical progress.[55] Keddie goes on to write that Bazargan believed that Islam was a “pragmatic doctrine, adapted to the modern world” and used his ideas to write “treatises presenting Islam in modern form, with a new vocabulary and examples taken from contemporary culture and technology.”[56] Ultimately, Keddie claims Bazargan’s arguments and attitude toward the West to be “mixed admiration and disgust,” but finds that he saw the West as “the example of technical and scientific civilization.”[57]

Keddie also argues that under the Pahlavi’s female writers and activists like Parvin E’tesami (under Reza Shah) and Forugh Farrokhzad (under Mohammad Reza) were able to live and write about their “free and varied lifestyles usually reserved for men.”[58] Through Reza Shah’s integration of schools and universities, along with his policy of unveiling and implementation of the Kanun-e banovan, women were more freely able to express their desires, with Farrokhzad even writing about her sexual feelings and activates in her poetry, a bold action for women at the time.[59] The Pahlavi’s were able to use their writings and the succeses of women from upper and middle-class backgrounds to promote and support their modernization programs, citing the freedom and achievements of contemporary women as a vital accomplishment and step towards bettering Iran. However, Keddie argues that this type of intellectual thought coincided with the “growing concern from the ulama and other intellectuals about increasing deviations from what were seen as Islamic norms and about subservience to Western ways and Western powers”[60] as many soon became disillusioned with the Pahlavi’s, their autocracy, and their push for corrupt modernization.

Opponent Arguments for Modernization

However, scholars have also noted that many Iranian scholars saw the social and cultural changes of modernization to be detrimental, negative changes, leading some to become critics of Pahlavi modernization. Keddie writes that one such opponent was Jalal Al-e Ahamad, an Iranian novelist and socio-political critic who created and popularized the term Gharbzadegi or “Westoxication”/“Westernstruck.”[61] Under this term, Keddie argues that “Westernized habits were associated with Western politico-economic domination” and that scholars like Al-e Ahamad wrote against Iran’s “Westoxication,” calling for a return to Iran’s more traditional cultural identity.[62] Keddie also claims that Al-e Ahamad “defended Islam against the policy of Westernization at any price championed by the regime” and “found cultural roots and ties to the Iranian people in Islam.”[63]

Historian Abdulaziz Sachedina advances the analysis provided by Keddie and applies it to another Iranian political thinker, Ali Shariati, an Iranian revolutionary whose writings became known as the “Ideologue of the Iranian Revolution.” In his analysis, Sachedina claims that Shariati took up the part of Ahamad’s work that was devoted to giving an Islamic response to the modern world and used it to argue against the undermining of practical religious culture of Islam that was occurring under Pahlavi modernization.[64] Sachedina argues that Shariati used his time as a professor at the University of Tehran to take a sociological approach to Islamic history that had a significant political impact on Iranian society; he believed that the alienation found in Iran was caused by Western capitalism as Western countries wished to replace Iranian culture with their own and that the West modernized Iran in the name of becoming civilized, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.[65]

The analysis presented by Sachedina advances Keddie’s conclusion that Shariati believed that the undermining of national culture had politico-economic consequences paralyzed the indigenous reactions of Muslim peoples.[66] Keddie goes on to argue that “Shariati saw in Islamic humanism the sole ideology that could save Iran and all oppressed peoples. Islam should be followed, not in the degraded form found in contemporary Muslim societies, but in the form of Mohammad’s ideal society.”[67] Both Keddie and Sachedina assert that Ahamad and Shariati found continued modernization and subsequent Westernization to be toxic and negative on Iranians as Iranians did not choose which elements from the West were incorporated into their daily lives; this lead them and others to the conclusion that the Shah’s government was attempting to undermine Islam’s moral reasonability to social, economic, and political conditions that were deteriorating in Iran and creating a younger generation that was superficial in their religious practices and roles in society.

SCHOLARLY DIALOUGE ON PAHLAVI MODERNIZATION

Looking at the substantial analysis conducted by scholars on the Pahlavi modernization projects and the consequences they had on Iranian society, historians have asserted that there is a direct link between modern reform attempts and the economy, Iranian culture, and society during the decades the Pahlavi’s were in power. Historians have asserted that the relationship between Pahlavi modernization and these factors is one of cause and effect, change and consequence. As Keddie argued earlier, the modernization programs begun under Reza Shah and continued by Mohammad Reza Shah left an important legacy in Iran. For the first time, a significant modern bourgeoisie was created along with a new urban working class, and there was an increase in the relative weight of more modern enterprises, transport, banking, and industry[68]; Keddie also argues that Iran’s development under modernization reform programs “produced some striking results: industry, transport, education, women’s and the rights of religious minorities all grew.”[69] But as Chehabi claims in his analysis, the majority of modernization was staged and not brought about by freedom of choice.[70] Landon supports this claim, the evidence in his analysis advancing the conclusion that modernization and its consequences was not fully understood by the Iranian people in his claim that while Reza Shah’s monarchy held a traditionalist veil up to conceal his modernization programs, Reza Shah Pahlavi’s government became an open instrument of the West and upper classes that allowed oppositional organizations and protests to emerge that eventually led to the 1979 Revolution.[71]

Amin concurs this the claims above, adding his own analysis to the mix when he claims that “the coercive aspects of this social experiment were ignored and its beneficent and modernizing aspects lauded” through the advancement of an intense propaganda campaign.[72] Historians have concluded that as rapid modernization was advanced at the expense of Iranian religious and cultural traditions, Iranian society, its economy, and its politics changed significantly; a relationship further backed by the onset of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, that commenced as a direct result of discontent and other problems brought around by rapid modernization. However, while the historians analyzed in this paper have come to similar conclusions, several scholars like Menashri, Chehabi, and Schayegh provided a more detailed, in depth analysis that helps elucidate the themes, events, and historical themes that explain how Iran’s past effects Iran’s present.

CONCLUSION

The historians mentioned in the paper have found that under Reza Shah’s modernization programs, a modern bourgeois middle class was created, resulting in a divide between the more Western upper and middle classes, and the more traditionalist lower classes. This has led them to conclude that the social tension brought about by Reza Shah’s reforms was then inherited by Mohammad Reza Shah, causing him to take a more militant, corrupt approach of violently suppressing opposition that became the spark that allowed opposition and political theorists to gain a mass following of supporters who wanted the Shah gone or resented the changes that modernization had wrought on Iranian society. Based on the scholarly arguments presented, historians have concluded that combined with functional failures of modernization programs, over-ambitious economic programs, and overly centralized power structure, Iran was increasingly unstable and in dire economic straits by the end of Mohammad Reza Shah reign, factors that culminated in the end of the Pahlavi monarchy and the beginnings of the Islamic Republic that continue to deal with the consequences of Pahlavi modernization to this day.

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