A HISTORY OF MODERN IRAN - Stoa

Muhammad Reza Shah’s White Revolution 131
encourage large scale party activity free from the strait-jacket of one party rule or
the one party state.” 19 In these years, the shah still liked to bill himself as a sincere
“democrat” determined to “modernize” ahighly“traditional society.”
social transformations (1953–77)
The shah used his newly gained power to bring about changes in the larger
society. He began slowly with modest programs designed to complete those
started by his father. He picked up pace after 1963, when he launched a White
Revolution explicitly designed both to compete with and preempt a Red
Revolution from below. He outdid his father by staging with much fanfare a
multi-million dollar coronation in which he crowned not only himself but
also his new wife, Farah Diba. Soraya, his second wife, had been discarded for
failing to produce an heir – again reminiscent of Napoleon. Farah was named
Shahbanou (Lady Shah) – a Sassanid title. To mark the occasion, he built on
the main western entry into Tehran the gigantic Shahyad Monument which
literally meant remember the Aryamehr Shah. What is more, he took full
advantage of the oil boom to inaugurate with even more fanfare his new Great
Civilization. He declared that Iran was at the gates of the Great Civilization;
its future would be more glorious than its past – including the Achaemenid,
Sassanid, and Pathian empires; its standard of living would soon surpass that
of Europe; it would produce a way of life superior to both capitalism and
communism; and indeed within a generation it would be the world’s fifth
most powerful country – after the USA, Soviet Union, Japan, and China. He
also lectured Westerners on how they were not working hard enough, not
paying enough for oil, not conserving valuable resources, not teaching the
virtues of social responsibility, and, by not disciplining their youngsters,
producing human monsters like those in the popular film Clockwork
Orange. 20 Westerners retorted that the shah had become a “megalomaniac”
with “Napoleonic illusions of grandeur.” One secretary of the treasury in
Washington described him as a “nut case”.
Land reform constituted the centerpiece of the White Revolution.
Initiated by Premier Amini in 1962, land reform was adopted by the shah
in 1963 and touted as his most important achievement. Amini’s initial plan
limited landlords to one village. Excess land was to be transferred to sharecroppers
with tenancy rights. The watered-down version allowed landlords
to pass villages to close relatives as well as to keep for themselves orchards,
woodlands, plantations, mechanized farms, and agrobusinesses. Religious
foundations were also allowed to keep their long-standing endowments
(awqafs). Despite these dilutions, land reform accomplished what it was