The causes and premises of the Islamic revolution in Iran and their international aspect

The article is devoted to the causes and premises of the 1978 – 1979 revolution in Iran. Particular attention is also paid to the international aspect of these causes. The material examines the problem of determining the nature of the revolution and the justification of its name ‘Islamic’. Based on the studied works of leading Iranists N. Mamedova, E. Doroshenko, S. Aliyev, S. Druzhilovsky, S.L. Agaev, A.Z Arabajyan, the reasons that plunged the country into a mass anti-government movement and led to the fall of the last Shah dynasty were considered. The objectives of the study were to highlight the international aspect of the Iran Islamic revolution causes, as well as to reveal the foreign policy factor that led to the deterioration of the social crisis in Iran into a revolution. In the course of the work, the following tasks were set:
– using literature to determine what role the external factor played in shaping the causes and premises of the Islamic revolution;
– identify the international aspect of the causes of the revolution.

Speaking about the relevance of the topic, the Islamic Revolution in Iran is essential to understand modern political processes and conflicts in the Middle East. It had a huge impact on the emergence of the Islamic society of social justice, the consolidation of the Muslim world around the ideas of anti‐imperialism, the development of the “Arab spring” in 2011, as well as the creation of a new political system: the Islamic republic. In order to characterize the causes of the Iranian revolution of 1978 – 1979, it is necessary to turn to the reforms of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, called the “White Revolution” or the
“bloodless revolution of the Shah and the people”. The reforms posed a number of problems for the state: the agricultural reform carried out in the country since 1963 did not stop the growth of social tensions in the village and, moreover, moved it to cities. The state’s economy was in a difficult situation, since most of the government spending was used to modernize the army, which was carried out by the shah via concluding multi‐billion‐dollar contracts with Western countries — the USA, Great Britain and France. The modernization program did not correspond to the budget possibilities, replenished at the expense of petrodollars, the flow of which increased critically after the 1973 oil shock.
The influx of foreign experts caused discontent among the conservative traditional Iranian class — the clergy. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Shiite opposition to the Shah’s government, led the fight to overthrow the Shah and created the concept of the Velayat‐e Faqih, the reign of a just theologian, on which the Islamic Republic of Iran will be based in the future. Thus, in the course of the study, the following conclusion was made: problems of an international nature and the international situation that had developed by the end of the 1970s became a decisive factor in the deterioration of the Iranian crisis into a revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy.

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