Ideology, Culture, and Ambiguity: The Revolutionary Process in Iran

Author(s): Gene Burns

Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 25, No. 3, (Jun., 1996), pp. 349-388
Published by: Springer Science + Business Media
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Ideology, culture, and ambiguity: The revolutionary
process in Iran

GENE BURNS
Franklin and Marshall College

In recent years, sociologists of revolution have devoted increasing

attention to the role of ideology and political culture. This literature has
drawn upon the historiography of a number of revolutions, especially
the French and English, and has gained momentum from study of the
Iranian Revolution.1 The most significant of the cultural arguments
(e.g., by William H, Sewell, Jr. and Jack A. Goldstone2), following
Theda Skocpol,3 are state-centered; that is, ideological struggles are
struggles over the control and direction of the state.

A recent development in state-centered approaches is a more process-

oriented explanation of revolutionary regime characteristics than was
true of Skocpol's original approach.4 For Skocpol, the process of strug-
gle among revolutionary factions, following the fall of the old regime, is
not of much analytic importance: structural constraints limit state-
building options and determine what kind of revolutionary state re-
places the old regime. Implicitly, once the old regime falls, structural
constraints allow only one type of revolutionary regime to emerge vic-
torious, thus rendering the actual process of revolutionary struggle
irrelevant to the outcome. Goldstone and Foran and Goodwin5 argue,
on the other hand, that the ideology of dominant factions helps deter-
mine the ultimate outcome of the revolution, and the role of ideology is
most crucial during the power struggle among revolutionary factions
after the fall of the old regime.

This article continues this emphasis on revolutionary process but

argues that the role of ideology during such a process has been inad-
equately conceptualized and thus misunderstood. Goldstone and
Foran and Goodwin equate ideology with political programs and thus
reduce the importance of "ideology" to factional struggle over such
programs, after the fall of the old regime. This article argues instead

Theory and Society 25: 349-388, 1996.

? 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
350

that ideology, and specifically ideological unity, is central in the struggle

against the old regime, but ideology should not be defined as political
programs. I argue that ideological unity against the old regime is built
upon an ambiguous (i.e., polysemous) set of images and concepts. Both
revolutionary participants and researchers can identify these images
and concepts, typically quite easily, as they usually can be described
with just a few words and are appealed to repeatedly in the struggle
against the old regime. But their ultimate meaning and interpretation
can vary widely from revolutionary faction to revolutionary faction.

Furthermore, I argue, the existence of divergent interpretations of the

meaning of these images and concepts is crucial to understanding the
battle that follows the fall of the old regime over programs. Defini-
tionally, then, it is this set of polysemous images and concepts that I
identify as "revolutionary ideology"; I reject the definition of ideology
as "programs,"as such a definition leads to misleading interpretations
of the symbolic dynamics of revolutionary struggle. Factional struggle
over programs is indeed important in determining the outcome of a
revolution, but the battle over programs cannot be fully comprehended
without an adequate conceptualization of the role of ideology in uniting
the revolutionary coalition that opposes the old regime. Revolutionary
factions, despite their diversity, typically appeal to a small set of images
and concepts, which most significant factions treat as legitimate. How-
ever, these images and concepts are more significant for their con-
notative rather than their denotative nature: within the process of
revolutionary upheaval, their content is neither agreed upon nor
publicly specified. These images and concepts typically include a vilifi-
cation of the old regime (or at least a broad conception that the regime
is outdated or otherwise beyond hope) and some appeal to generalized
cultural images that are uncontroversial within the society. The unifying
ideology might also identify some consensual view of the central
aspects or origins of the problems of the old regime. For example, in
the Iranian Revolution, the central points of agreement unifying the
opposition to the regime were anti-imperialism and the underspecified
beliefs that the Shah's regime was evil and beyond redemption and that
"Islam"provided an indigenous alternative.6

As John Dunn has noted,7 revolutionary factions interpret these unify-

ing images and concepts in multiple ways; the fact that they do so is one
of the primary reasons they can act together in the type of broad
oppositional coalition characteristic of revolutionary crises. It is also
one of the central reasons that apparent revolutionary unity can dis-
 351

solve into violent conflict once the old regime collapses8: in the con-
struction of a revolutionary state, the primary ideological battle is the
attempt to specify the meaning of ambiguous (i.e., polysemous) images
and concepts, that is, to translate an underspecified ideology into
specific revolutionary state programs. Revolutionary crisis typically
leaves a legacy of ideological unity organized primarily around opposi-
tion to the old regime and flexible images that draw upon shared
cultural symbols; it looks to the past and the present but does not
specify, and only partly constrains, what is to be done in the future.9

My argument is most applicable to revolutions that include a sudden

collapse of the old regime, accompanied by mass mobilization.10 The
reason that revolutionary ideology consists of images and concepts
that are widely shared and identifiable but, nevertheless, of indeter-
minate content, is that the revolutionary process of sudden collapse
and mass mobilization typically implies a sudden revolutionary unity
that does not require or allow for an elaborated program or detailed
consensus.11

However, while there is not consensus on an elaborated program, there

is a strong consensus on the limited set of ambiguous images and con-
cepts.12The particular meaning that one faction attaches to revolution-
ary ideology may or may not be ambiguous, but different factions use
and interpret that ideology differently. In revolutions characterized by
mass mobilization and sudden collapse of the old regime, especially,
factions within the revolutionary coalition may not realize the extent to
which their apparent allies are attempting to implement quite different
interpretations of ambiguous revolutionary ideology, or they have
strategic reasons (e.g., not alienating potential allies) for avoiding
specification of shared but loosely defined goals. That is, the ambiguity
is a characteristic of the ideology of the coalition as a whole, not
necessarily of all individual factions.

This conceptualization of revolutionary ideology rejects explanations

that characterize revolutionary ideology as factional political programs
or as the embodiment of a cultural heritage (such as "Islam" or
"Shi'ism"),explanations that are very common in studies of the politi-
cal culture of revolutions, especially studies of the Iranian Revolution. I
argue that even those theorists of revolution who emphasize political
programs do not ultimately accord them much empirical significance.
There is no point defining ideology as political programs, as is often
done, when those programs are empirically insignificant. Programs can
352

be important in certain limited ways that are theoretically accounted

for only by an approach that distinguishes unifying revolutionary
ideology from particular programs (a point I develop later in the
article). Contrary to what a number of theorists have argued, specific,
articulated programs are likely to hamper rather than aid revolutionary
mobilization (because they alienate potential allies), especially in the
early stages of a revolution.

Similarly, while I agree that revolutionary ideology draws upon a larger

cultural heritage, invoking that heritage alone is quite inadequate in
explaining the particulars of revolutionary process and the dynamics of
revolutionary ideology. The meaning of traditional cultural symbols
and concepts is quite flexible in practice; thus, such cultural heritages
help determine the range of possibilities that could be acceptable to a
given revolutionary coalition but only broadly inform actual revolu-
tionary ideology. The fact that revolutionary ideology has much more
connotative than denotative significance means that the actual ideo-
logical results of the revolution depend much more on the power strug-
gles that develop within the coalition (including the skillful manipula-
tion of symbols) than upon the society's cultural heritage.

The following section of the article examines existing conceptualiza-

tions of revolutionary ideology in order to demonstrate why an
emphasis on programs or on broad cultural heritage does not explain
revolutionary ideology, the reason being that it does not take into
account the dynamics of revolutionary process. I then sketch the
ambiguous nature of revolutionary ideology in Iran,13 and in a sub-
sequent section, develop my own approach in greater detail, drawing
on the case study of revolutionary process in Iran. Included in that dis-
cussion is consideration of the significance of ambiguous ideology for
revolutionary outcomes. I conclude with a brief consideration of the
applicability of this approach to other revolutionary cases.

Conceptualizing ideology as programs or "culture"

One of the issues implicit in the literature on revolutionary ideology is

the question of whether ideology should be considered the specific
political programs of particular groups or should be conceptualized as
a pre-existing, overarching system of meaning that incorporates all
significant revolutionary factions. Voluntarist approaches developed in
response to the Iranian Revolution14 emphasize conscious programs;
 353

diverse approaches to a number of revolutions emphasize discourses or

cultural structures that precede revolutionary struggle and are larger
than a particular revolution;15 still other approaches emphasize both
larger, preexisting cultures and conscious programs.16

Skocpol's original approach to revolution, in States and Social Revolu-

tions, encourages a voluntarist conceptualization of ideology as the
conscious programs of different factions. Indeed, even though Skocpol,
in considering the Iranian Revolution in a 1982 article,17 rejects her
earlier view that ideology is irrelevant to revolutionary dynamics,18 in
both cases she defines ideology as a conscious program by which
activists construct a revolution in voluntarist fashion.19

But it is rarely, if ever, the case that an entire revolution is guided by

some conscious program, as we shall see in the case of Iran. At the
most basic level, a problem with such conceptualizations is that revolu-
tionary coalitions are typically very diverse.

Given, then, the implausibility of arguing that one program guides a

revolution from beginning to end,2" some approaches that define
ideology as conscious, factional programs have also argued that
ideologies draw upon larger cultural frameworks and change in the
course of revolutions. These approaches, the most prominent of which
is Goldstone's, draw from Ann Swidler's2' view of culture as strategies
of action that actors shape by drawing upon a large and diverse cul-
tural "tool kit."

Within this tool-kit approach, there is a distinction made between

"ideology," defined as a self-conscious, articulated political and social
program, and "culture," referring to the background assumptions,
values, etc., that inform social action but are broad enough to serve
as a repertoire allowing for diverse applications.22 According to
Swidler,23 ideologies are innovative strategies of action that are dis-
tinct from, and in competition with, existing cultural frameworks.
Revolutions might include a number of ideologies, but these ultimately
must become part of the larger, more durable "culture"to have lasting
influence. (A 1985 paper by Skocpol is generally compatible with this
approach.24)

However, while this approach is more sophisticated than straight volun-

tarism, continuing to conceptualize ideology as conscious political pro-
grams does not advance our understanding. The fact that even those
354

who explicitlycite Swidlerdevelop argumentsthat, upon close exami-

nation, do not ultimatelyarguethat such programsdeterminethe out-
comes of revolutionsis itself evidence for the problemsin such a con-
ceptualization.The two most prominentexamplesare Jack Goldstone
and MansoorMoaddel.

Goldstone25initially states that conscious revolutionaryprograms-

what what he calls "ideologies"- matterand thus he distinguishessuch
ideologies from more stable and comprehensive"cultures."But ulti-
mately the distinctioncollapses and conscious programsdo not really
matter.To understandwhy will requiresome explicationof his argu-
ments.

For Goldstone, ideology is not important until the competition for

power after the fall of the old regime;ideology emerges within the
revolutionaryprocess. This competition, at least in Western revolu-
tions, typically leads to ideological stages, beginning with rectifica-
tionist themes and then followed by redistributionistthemes (to
broadenthe coalition and obtain mass support)and, finally,nationalist
themes.

There are a couple of problemswith applyingthis approach.First,Iran

is among a number of revolutionsin which redistributionwas never
part of a unifyingideology or basis of a revolutionarystate. More sig-
nificantthan the particularpoint about redistributionistthemes per se
is Goldstone'sexplanationfor why such themes emerge:he arguesthat
these are an attempt to broaden the regime's appeal. But, because
revolutionarycoalitionsare typicallyheterogeneous(and thus ultimate-
ly unworkable)alliances,the tendency duringrevolutionarystruggleis
necessarilyto narrowratherthanbroadenthe regime.26

Second, it is these themes that Goldstone equateswith programs(that

is, what he defines as "ideologies"),but he is not entirelyclear whether
these themes really have causal significance.That is, part of his argu-
ment implies that these themes are mainlypropagandathat elites may
use to mask their true actions and intentions. In addition, while the
ideologies may emergewithinthe revolutionaryprocess, he arguesthat
these ideologies' greatestlegacy is the long-termculturalbarrierthey
provide against a return to prerevolutionarysocial and political
arrangements.27 That is, ideologies may have social ramificationslong
after the revolutionarydust has settled ratherthan duringthe revolu-
tion itself.
 355

Despite Goldstone's initial statements that ideology (in the sense of

political programs) is an important part of revolutionary process, then,
ideology so defined does not seem to matter very much during an
actual revolution. Another recent discussion of "ideology" that cites
Swidler as a precedent, by Mansoor Moaddel, likewise does not
actually argue that conscious programs are consequential.28 Moaddel
argues that ideology influences revolutionary dynamics in the form of
"episodic discourses." But his definition of "ideology" as "episodic dis-
course" is actually what the tool-kit approach calls "culture," despite
the reversal of terminology.29 The "episodes" to which he refers are
somewhat large historical periods, as Moaddel means to refer to trans-
national discourses that develop and hold sway over the course of
decades.30 Ideology as episodic discourse refers to "a set of general
principles, concepts, symbols, and rituals used by actors to address
problems in a particular historical episode."31 Thus, Moaddel seeks to
explain revolutionary change by resorting to what tool-kit theorists call
"culture" and does not attempt to argue for a significant explanatory
role for what tool-kit theorists call "ideology."

In practice, then, theorists who draw upon the tool-kit approach focus
only on "cultures"and thus do not argue for any empirically significant
role for "ideology" during the revolutionary process. The problem
originates in their definition of ideology as conscious, specified politi-
cal programs: because it is so rare to find a case where such programs
really initiate and then guide a revolution, "ideology" (so defined)
disappears from the analysis.

Such cases are rare because, contrary to the tool-kit claim that highly
elaborated programs are particularly important during unsettled times,
revolutionary coalitions are unified by polysemous images and con-
cepts rather than specific programs. The type of "ideology" that is
important in revolutions - polysemous ideology - is quite the opposite
of the type that tool-kit theories predict should be effective.

Rejecting the importance of programs leaves the tool-kit approach only

the option of invoking "cultures" that pre-date a revolution; but
invoking cultural heritage does not allow an adequate explanation of
what happens during the revolution itself. Such an approach loses
Goldstone's initial insight that revolutionary process greatly determines
the construction of revolutionary ideology. Without such an emphasis
on revolutionary process, such approaches have great difficulty
acknowledging or explaining revolutionary innovation, the great diver-
356

sity among different factions' programs, and the factional struggles that
follow the fall of the old regime. If all one has to say about the symbolic
aspects of a revolution is that all revolutionary factions embody or
draw upon some overarching, inclusive culture, it is especially difficult
to explain why this factional fighting is typically the most violent,
divisive phase of a revolution. Especially significant here is that the
tool-kit definition of culture emphasizes how flexible cultural reper-
toires are, so that it is difficult to see how they constrain (and thus
explain) revolutionary process.32

Such problems also appear in other approaches that focus on a cul-

tural heritage that predates the revolution. The problem of accounting
for revolutionary process is most obvious in functionalist approaches
(not so labelled by their proponents). According to functionalist
explanations of the Iranian Revolution, Shiite ideology guided the
revolution from beginning to end; that ideology is defined as a world-
view, which includes orienting frames and value systems.33 For exam-
ple, Arjomand argues that an evolving Islamic political culture over-
whelmed Iranian society.34 The typical problems with functionalism
emerge (and are similar to types of problems that voluntarist ap-
proaches to ideology encounter): it is unclear exactly how this ideology
overwhelmed Iranian society, and the theoretical explanation must
largely ignore the historical reality of important factions that did not
share in the theocratic vision that ultimately dominated the revolution.
It is difficult to identify any revolution where the ideology of the post-
revolutionary state had been shared by all significant revolutionary
factions.

Sewell's approach,35 building upon his earlier work,36 is the most

sophisticated, emphasizing ideology as a belief system that pre-
dates the revolutionary process. Sewell avoids many of the prob-
lems of voluntarist and functionalist approaches by arguing that revolu-
tionary ideology is a cultural structure that includes diversity and
conflict. Thus, while all revolutionary groups participate in the ideolog-
ical structure, and their views all relate to each other in a coherent way
(much as it takes diverse classes to form a coherent class structure),
they do not all believe the same thing. As in the case of any structure,
ideologies cannot be fully comprehended without an understanding
that their various components ("ideological variants") differ from each
other and yet form a coherent whole. Furthermore no one group fully
comprehends or controls the structure of revolutionary ideology as a
whole. Sewell emphasizes the active nature of ideological conflict by
 357

arguing, following Anthony Giddens, that the structural constraints

that one group faces may precisely be the struggle and opposition
initiated by another group. One faction's structural constraint is
another faction's agency.

Sewell applies this approach to the French Revolution, arguing that a

new Enlightenment ideology embedded within forms of social order
existed alongside a contradictory corporatist ideology. The revolution
- which had diverse origins, including those Skocpol identifies37 -
involved the displacement of corporatist ideology by Enlightenment
ideology, which had its ideological variants (though he examines only
one variant - that of the sans-culottes - in any detail).

However, there are problems with Sewell's approach, problems con-

cerning the question of how much ideological unity (or what tool-kit
theorists might call cultural unity) actually exists in revolutions. It is
unclear how much diversity is possible among the "variants" so that
they still constitute, collectively, an ideological structure.38Even while
Sewell allows diversity and conflict within a common ideology, he
implies an extensive ideological unity39 that would seem quite inappro-
priate for a great many revolutionary coalitions. And he tends to forget
the fact of ideological diversity when actually explaining revolutionary
dynamics; for example, it remains quite unclear why one ideological
variant (e.g., that of the privileged rather than the unprivileged) wins
out over others in revolutionary competition.

Because he argues that the structure and content of the ideology pre-
cedes the revolution itself, Sewell may be forced, like Moaddel, to
argue that the internal logic of a revolutionary ideology drives events
forward on its own.40 In a particular example from the French Revolu-
tion - the Constituent Assembly's abolition of privileges on the night of
August 4, 1789 - Sewell does make a persuasive case that the logic of
Enlightenment ideology drove events forward. But Sewell does not
argue that such a logic created the revolution or fully determined even
the strictly ideological dynamics of the revolution; and so it is unclear,
for example, why the internal logic of a revolution overrides class and
state structures sometimes and not others.

Still, there is great value in Sewell's implicit point that the dominant fac-
tions of a revolution are often in a struggle (one might even say a heated
conversation) with each other about the meaning of shared beliefs.
And he does provide a framework acknowledging that the ideology
358

of a revolution is not equal to the sum of a society's cultural heritage, as

more than one ideological structure can exist simultaneously.41 The
approach advanced by Sewell is a more accurate description of the ideo-
logical struggles of revolutionary process than, for example, Gold-
stone's emphasis on conscious programs. However, it is not the case
that the parameters of ideological struggle are established before the
revolution. Goldstone is correct to emphasize that the dynamics of
ideological division develop primarily after the fall of the old regime
(especially when that fall is sudden and takes place amidst mass mobili-
zation), as we see in the discussion of the Iranian case below.

Revolution and ideology in Iran

The Islamic Revolution

In the Iranian Revolution, radical change emerged primarily in the

cultural aspects of Iranian politics and society; a number of observers42
have noted that there is sparse evidence of major changes in internal
economic structure. Yet there can be little doubt that Iran underwent a
social revolution. A regime that was a central pillar of a superpower's
foreign policy, a regime apparently in charge of brutal and effective
means of coercion, and in charge of a powerful economy, collapsed in a
matter of months. It collapsed in the face of massive demonstrations
that sometimes involved millions of people on the streets in a single
day. Iran is now governed by a state that hardly anyone outside
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's central core of supporters could have
imagined, even after open rebellion against the Shah had begun. And
nearly two decades later, much of the rest of the world finds itself off
balance in attempts to make geopolitical adjustments to the revolution.

An understanding of social revolution in Iran, then, must focus upon

the establishment of an Islamic state. But the transformation of the
political culture of Iran was so surprising, and yet so thorough, that it
presents quite a puzzle for theories of revolution to explain.

The puzzle is that, hindsight notwithstanding, the rebellion against the

Shah did not involve widespread calls for theocracy; indeed, one of the
most common observations made by analysts of the revolution, though
they generally attach no theoretical significance to the fact, is how sur-
prising the ultimate outcome of the revolution was to many of the
revolutionaries themselves.
 359

Amidst a rapid disintegration of support for the regime, there emerged

a motley alliance that did not have any specific unified program.43
There was little reason to develop such a program, since a revolu-
tionary movement cannot know exactly how, when, or whether it will
succeed in toppling a hated regime. Typically, revolutions involve a
conjuncture of many events that conspire to weaken support for the
regime among sectors, and in ways that previously had been unlikely
or even unimaginable.

The Shah's regime could be classified as a neopatrimonial dictatorship,

a type of regime in which opposition can come to be focussed on the
person of the despot.44 A great variety of discontents, some very much
of the Shah's making, converged in the 1970s. A troublesome world oil
market led to wild domestic economic fluctuations, and the Shah
responded with policies that often weakened his political support, for
example, an anti-profiteering campaign in which thousands of busi-
nessmen were arrested. Economic insecurity and the Shah's own poli-
cies helped alienate sectors of society, such as middle-class government
workers and otherwise well-off oil workers, who would not normally
have been rebellious.45

Long-standing opposition already existed among those who had

suffered the Shah's repression in the past, such as middle-class intellec-
tuals. The bazaari, that is, the traditional merchant class, and the
ulama, or clergy, resented the fact that the Shah's policies appeared
aimed to undermine their social and economic positions.46 The Shah's
close relationship to the United States was widely unpopular among
varieties of nationalists - liberal, Islamic, leftist, etc. - who remem-
bered how the United States had helped the Shah retain power through
a coup in the 1950s. In the late 1970s, however, the Shah could not
even count on full support from the United States, as the Carter
Administration was critical of the government's human-rights record.

Following a typical revolutionary pattern, middle-class and elite groups

initiated the process of dissent from a reform-minded perspective
emphasizing liberal freedoms.47 Certain features of Iranian society
allowed a rapid mobilization of the opposition; Iran was a society with
a number of significant urban centers in which opponents of the Shah -
clerics, bazaaris, students, workers, professionals, urban poor, and so
forth - were highly concentrated.48 Protests that began in 1977 greatly
accelerated in 1978 and came to be massive in size. Some of the pro-
tests were scheduled according to the Islamic practice of commemorat-
360

ing deaths (i.e., previous protesters killed by agents of the Shah) at

specified intervals. During this time, secular and religious opponents of
the Shah protested together. The unity of hatred for the Shah greatly
overwhelmed their differences. Educational establishments often
closed in acts of protest, and students - some of whom had become
radicalized through the Mujahedin, proponents of Islamic (but non-
clerical) socialism, or the Fedai Khalq, which was Marxist-Leninist -
were active participants in the demonstrations.

Khomeini's personal history of uncompromising opposition to the

Shah and his writings on the requirements of an Islamic society (which
foreshadowed some of his ultimate program) might have suggested that
he would be equally uncompromising in insisting on the implemen-
tation of his own, specific program once the Shah was overthrown.49
But during the actual rebellion, through the early months of 1979,
Khomeini emphasized revolutionary unity. For example, before the
actual overthrow of the Shah, Khomeini did not condemn the secular-
ism of other opposition groups, save for Marxists. That the imple-
mentation of theocracy simply was not considered a serious possibility
is suggested by the fact that this condemnation did not prevent the
Marxist-Leninist Fedai Khalq from continuing to support the religious
leadership well after the fall of the Shah, because they thought it ad-
vanced their goals.50

Focussing on the specifics of what post-revolutionary Iranian society

would look like could only be divisive, and so Khomeini (and often his
closest allies) "maintained a studied silence on such controversial issues
as democracy, agrarian reform, the ulama's role in the future Islamic
republic, and the status of women."51 He agreed in November 1978
that the revolutionary government would be "democratic and Islamic";
while he probably never agreed with liberals about the criteria for
democracy, not until after the fall of the Shah did he publicly back away
from the commitment to a "democratic" republic.52 It is thus not sur-
prising that much of Iranian society did not expect a theocracy to
emerge from the overthrow of the Shah,53Khomeini's leadership of the
opposition notwithstanding. One example is workers in the oil indus-
try; Ashraf and Banuazizi believed the oil workers' October 1978
strike "had a particularly devastating impact on the morale of the
regime."54 It is true that the strike was in response to a call from
Khomeini,55 but such workers would not normally have been prime
candidates to be his followers. Indeed, Amjad reported that the oil
workers believed that Khomeini had no intention of running the
government.56
 361

Thus, the revolutionary coalition - too disparate to be united by a

specific post-revolutionary program - focussed on a common (but
diversely interpreted) opposition to the Shah and his links to foreign
powers, with substantively vague (but strongly felt) endorsements of
Islam as an alternative. Khomeini's references to the Shah's regime as
"satanic" found many receptive audiences. "Death to the Shah!" (not
"Rule by the ayatollahs!") was a central slogan and theme of demon-
strations in 1978. That the Shah was widely credited with the deaths of
prominent opposition figures, and his troops shot and killed demon-
strators, helped focus the rebellion on the evil nature of the regime,
especially the Shah himself.57 After the slogan "Death to the Shah!"
first emerged in February 1978, Khomeini, referring to protests that
included closures of bazaars and universities, stated in a speech in Iraq:
"These closings represent a form of active protest against the person of
the Shah.... The people have identified the true criminal."Keeping to
the themes of the demonstrations, a week later he congratulated those
"who have risen up ... with the cries of 'Death to the Shah!"'58

Khomeini's speeches repeatedly referred to the "Islamic Revolution"

against the Shah,59 but public discussion of what such a revolution
entailed, other than opposition to the evil Shah, did not move much
beyond revolutionary slogans. Even when leading clerics made specific
demands of the Shah, including a strong emphasis on clerical autono-
my and the abrogation of laws they judged to be immoral and anti-
Islamic, the demands focussed on the elimination of existing evils, not a
program for a post-Shah society. The same can be said of demands
during some demonstrations that "We want an Islamic government."60
"Islam" was implicitly defined as a contrast to the Shah's evil - for
example, in Khomeini's declaration that anyone cooperating with the
Shah would be considered a traitor to Islam - but exactly what "Islam"
positively implied was left unspecified. When Khomeini declared that
actions of the Shah's government were contrary to Islam, he followed
such declarations with calls for specific means of resistance against
specific government actions, not declarations about the programs of a
new regime that would follow the Shah.61 As late as January 1979,
Khomeini's reference to "an Islamic Republic that guarantees freedom
of the people, independence of the country, and attainment of social
justice" would hardly have given the public much insight into the
specific policies of the Iranian government in the 1980s.62

It was not only Khomeini who focussed the rebellion on the person of
the Shah. In the interest of unity, the Mujahedin agreed to a unified
362

front and downplayed specific organizational identities and platforms

in protests against the Shah.63 They downplayed differences with the
clerical radicals, even though, for example, at a non-publicized meeting
with Khomeini immediately after the fall of the Shah, a leader of the
Mujahedin (later claimed that he) had scandalized Khomeini by
embracing the ayatollah as a fellow revolutionary, rather than bowing
and thus recognizing him as a clerical leader.64 Despite these dis-
agreements, the Mujahedin put the anti-imperialist struggle ahead of all
considerations; because they feared the same type of CIA-supported
coup that Iran had experienced in 1953, other goals that differentiat-
ed them from the clerics were relegated to a secondary status until the
later months of 1979.65 (And by this time, the Mujahedin could no
longer benefit from alliance with a central leader of the revolution,
Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani, who died of a heart attack in September.
Taleqani, probably second in popularity only to Khomeini, had previ-
ously intervened to challenge the growing coercive monopoly of the
clerical radicals.)

It is striking how many observers of the Iranian Revolution have noted

(usually in passing) that participants in the revolutionary coalition mis-
understood Khomeini's intentions66 or, at least, had little sense of what
to expect.67 It is easy to forget how odd it appeared to both diplomats
and social scientists in 1979-1980 that a strict and severe religious
ideology could come to dominate a large nation whose politics had
included significant secularization for much of the twentieth century.68
This unexpected turn in the Iranian Revolution is one of the prime
reasons for recent theoretical interest in the role of revolutionary
ideology. It is the ideological component of the Iranian Revolution
that has been so surprising and, to sociologists of revolution, so
intriguing. No one expected a theocratic state.

Most supporters of the revolution knew little about Khomeini's specific

political beliefs, other than that he opposed the Shah vehemently.69
Khomeini became "all things to all people."70 Even after a diverse
revolutionary coalition had secured victory first over the Shah, and
later over what Khomeini considered un-Islamic opponents, he was a
master at avoiding controversies that could split effective coalitions. In
the March 1979 referendum asking voters simply whether Iran should
be an Islamic Republic, Khomeini refused to specify what an "Islamic
Republic" would be. A number of revolutionary groups boycotted the
referendum because Khomeini refused to allow voters a choice
between an "Islamic Republic" and a "Democratic Islamic Republic."
 363

(The Mujahedin, however, went along, because they put the anti-
imperialist struggle ahead of the democratic struggle.)71But support of
the referendum, in the minds of many Iranians, probably meant a gen-
eral endorsement of the overthrow of the Shah's regime. A referendum,
by its nature, does not allow people to condition their approval; it
offers the choice of the unknown (in a "no"vote) vs. an affirmative vote
that the state commonly interprets as unqualified endorsement. There
were not many people in Iran who actually considered themselves
opponents of Islam, and, we shall see below, even politicized Islam was
an umbrella of diverse ideas. And so, not surprisingly, voters over-
whelmingly approved an "Islamic Republic."72

Khomeini often publicly treated the revolution's early coalition govern-

ments, led by Medhi Bazargan and Abolhassan Bani Sadr, as the legiti-
mate state authority. Bani Sadr, initially a close associate of Khomeini's,
had won election to the presidency after Khomeini declared that clergy
should not be candidates. Even after the Islamic Republican Party
(IRP), with Khomeini's approval, began the process of declaring that
former allies were now enemies, Khomeini's actions were not unambi-
guous. For example, early in his presidency, Bani Sadr attempted to
centralize the state under his own command and tame the independent
revolutionary courts and militias, which were allied with the clerical
radicals. Khomeini's statements were often vague, and he ultimately
was more an adversary than friend to Bani Sadr. But the ayatollah was
initially indirectly supportive and did not always automatically favor
the clerical radicals against Beni Sadr.73

Through at least early 1979, Khomeini maintained that the revolution's

purpose was not to repress political freedom or establish a dictator-
ship.74 Central to an understanding of the ambiguity and ideology of
the revolution is an acknowledgement that other members of the coali-
tion took those statements seriously, or at least saw them as evidence
that the distribution of power and other constraints would require that
the clerical radicals compromise or step aside.

The absence of a cultural precedent

It is implausible to argue that a theocratic program guided the revolu-

tion from beginning to end, or that the Islamic cultural heritage of
Iranian society came to fruition through the revolution. The revolution,
as well as Iran's Shiite heritage, meant many different things to different
364

people, and large numbers of participants misjudged Khomeini's

ultimate intentions. That many would have neither anticipated nor
desired the theocratic turn that the revolution ultimately took should
not be surprising, given that theocracy was not a strong Iranian tradi-
tion, even among politically engaged clerics.

For a couple of centuries, an important component of Iranian Islam (in

contrast to the Sunni Islam that dominates the Arab world) has been
the requirement that the faithful follow the rulings of a clerical leader (a
mujtahid).75But this was overwhelmingly interpreted as a spiritual and
moral requirement, not a political one: widespread support for theoc-
racy was a novel development within Shi'ism.76

Although occasionally rebellious, the Shiite ulama had generally

accommodated themselves to the rule and policies of the last Shah and
his father. The 1906 constitution did provide for a body of five clerics
to veto religiously objectionable laws, but the twentieth-century shahs
ignored this provision, and it ceased to be a live issue.77 Even at the
time of this constitution, the ulama were generally much more moder-
ate in their approach to politics than Khomeini would come to be; they
did not advocate an actual theocracy. Late nineteenth- and twentieth-
century shahs had generally successfully appeased the ulama at times
of monarchical weakness and attacked their economic security and
influence in society when possible. Thus, at the beginning of their
reigns, Reza Khan and his son, Muhammed Reza Pahlavi (the last
shah), first acted as if they would uphold the importance of traditional
Islam in Iranian society.78 Once their regimes were more established,
they worked to undermine clerical power. They could do so because, as
many historians and social scientists have noted, before 1977 one
could hardly claim that the basic political tendency of the ulama was
rebellious. Occasionally some were, but generally in a way that sought
to protect religious independence, not to challenge the shahs' rule or
institute clerical government.

Not surprisingly, then, when we move beyond the ulama, there again is
little evidence for theocracy as part of some revolutionary consensus.
For example, the Islamic worldview of the ulama's allies in the bazaar,
as Parsa pointed out,79 did not necessarily translate into support for
authoritarian theocracy. Indeed, after the fall of the Shah and the estab-
lishment of clerical dominance of the revolutionary government, dif-
ferent groups of bazaaris opposed that clerical dominance and sup-
ported various political factions, even liberals occasionally.80
 365

Almost all Iranians had at least some identification with Islam, of

course, and so did not see promotion of Islamic themes per se particu-
larly troublesome. But, within the culture of Islam there was the poten-
tial for great diversity. Keddie81 is among a number of historians and
social scientists who have pointed out that a diverse group of Iranians
were attracted to indigenous Islamic ideas because "so many liberal
and even leftist ideals were contained in different strands of the Islamic
revival." Considered as a part of Iranian culture (and putting aside the
question of exactly how much diversity there is in Islam as a theology),
Islam was an assortment of beliefs and political possibilities.

Many liberals, including the first prime minister approved by Kho-

meini, Bazargan, saw themselves as devout Muslims who found Islam
quite compatible with liberal freedoms. A major element of the anti-
Shah coalition, the Mujahedin, interpreted Islam in a socialist fashion;
a year after the overthrow of the Shah, an Islamic socialist (though one
linked to Khomeini), Bani Sadr, was elected the first president of the
Islamic Republic with 75 percent of the vote.

Ayatollah Khomeini's approach to issues of church and state was, until

1979, considered extremist even among ayatollahs82 and was not what
most participants expected to be the revolutionary goal. Khomeini
became the universally acknowledged leader of the opposition not
because his version of politicized Islam defined the entire revolution,
as both voluntarist and functionalist analyses of Iranian revolutionary
ideology imply. The reasons Khomeini became the leader, and the rea-
son that he was of enough concern to the Shah that the monarch
attempted to discredit the ayatollah, are well understood and have little
to do with the specific program he began to institute in 1979. First, of
course, the Islamic clergy did have a certain status in Iranian society
(but, again, not in the sense that there were widespread calls for the-
ocracy). Second, his exile to Iraq for the last fifteen years of the Shah's
reign aided as much as hindered his ability to communicate his protests
against the regime. He had gathered a significant following, especial-
ly among theological students, before he was exiled. And in Iraq,
Khomeini was beyond the Shah's reach. Thus cassette tapes of
Khomeini's condemnations circulated throughout Iran, and his expul-
sion from Iraq to Paris in 1978 made access to the international media
even greater. Third, and most important, Khomeini had tremendous
moral authority as a result of his long-standing, uncompromising, and
fearless opposition to the Shah's regime, which led to his exile in the
first place.
366

The importance of strategy

Whether ambiguous ideology mattered partly depends upon whether

there existed a viable alternative to theocracy within the revolutionary
process itself. Rejecting the argument that the ideological innovation of
theocracy was, structurally,the only possible outcome, I argue here that
there was potential for a liberal-left alternative. That potential failed as
a result of a strategic battle, not because it was inevitably doomed.

It is difficult to know what every faction of the revolutionary coalition

thought about the revolutionary process, but almost certainly there was
a combination of misunderstanding of Khomeini's intentions - fueled
by many of Khomeini's own actions and statements - and strategic mis-
calculations. Those miscalculations, among the opponents of theoc-
racy, consisted of an optimism that events would lead Khomeini and
the clerical radicals to compromise or fade into the background, to the
point that fighting theocracy was, in practice, not always made a high
priority.

In Iran, the struggle was organized a great deal around differing con-
ceptions of Islam, a cultural concept that evoked widely differing pro-
grammatic interpretations. Some elements of the Iranian Left and the
"modern" middle class had no allegiance to Islam, but Islam was at
least a general part of the cultural identity of most sectors of society.
And, as Dabashi has noted, by the time of the revolution non-Islamic
political options had become severely handicapped. The legacy of the
Tudeh (communist) Party's support for Stalinism had damaged its
credibility, and the conflict that had emerged from the Mossadeq peri-
od of the early 1950s had weakened Iranian liberals. In addition, both
had been organizationally weakened by the Shah's repression.83

In addition to hatred of the Shah, any dominant faction in the Iranian

Revolution would have had to emphasize some version of anti-imperi-
alism and at least compatibility with Islamic traditions. In practice,
there were primarily two options, although each could have had varia-
tions. First, there was the ultimate result, a militant, anti-imperialist
(but not economically radical), theocratic option implacably opposed
to everything radical clerics associated with the Shah. But quite feasible
also would have been an alliance dominated by the Islamic Left
(especially the Mujahedin) that drew upon support from students,
workers, and intellectuals, at least some sympathy or even support
from less theocratically inclined clerics and bazaaris, and alliance with
 367

liberals(especiallyIslamic liberals).Such an option could presumably

also have developed a relationshipwith the majority of the secular
leftist factions that was at least mutually tolerant.84As Foran and
Goodwin noted:

The outcome of the Iranianrevolutionwas not firmly "settled"until 1981,

and only then after a violent strugglebetween the ulama and their leftist
opponents.In the course of this struggle,furthermore,any effectiveopposi-
tion in Iran (not only the left, but also liberalsand monarchists)was essen-
tiallyeliminated.85

The IranianLeft was potentiallyvery strong,especiallyif it had had the

foresight,from the beginning,to ally with other opponents of theoc-
racy.The Left had a history of several decades of opposition to the
Shah, had extensive organizedsupport,and did not simply follow the
lead of Khomeini'ssupporters.One of the reasons both the Shah and
the anti-Shah liberals underestimatedthe potential of the religious
radicalswas that they were more worried about the evident power of
the Left. Abrahamian86reported that, as the slogans and message of
the demonstrationsagainstthe Shah radicalized,especiallyin Septem-
ber 1978, support for the Mujahedin (as well as, of course, for
Khomeini)was prominent.At demonstrationstwo months later,it was
the Mujahedinand the Fedai who pushed for furtherradicalizationin
advocatingviolent opposition to the Shah.87In the early days after the
overthrowof the Shah, an ayatollahwho was a prominentmember of
the Islamic Revolutionary Council and a founder of the Islamic
RepublicanParty (IRP) praised the Mujahedinas one of the central
pillarsof the revolution.88

The IranianLeft did not pursue the possibility of an anti-theocratic

alliance until it was too late, indeed until after they themselves had
helped suppresssome of their potential allies in such an alliance.The
most effective, theoreticallyinformed analysisof the role of the Left,
and of the revolutionaryprocess in general,comes from Moghadam.89
She argues that the victory of the religiousradicalswas at least partly
due to the unsuccessfulstrategiesof the IranianLeft. Specifically,the
Left sharedan anti-imperialismwith clericalopponentsof the Shahbut
failed to recognize that anti-imperialismcould be tied to a theocratic,
authoritarianpolitics.90

Some leaders of the Mujahedinlater claimed that they understood

Khomeini'strue naturebut were worried about counter-revolutionary
coups or felt they could not risk immediately challenging Kho-
368

meini's popularity.9' Again, whether they miscalculated or simply mis-

understood is not the central point: it is instead that, in early 1979,
there was more than one possible strategy open to them.

The failure of the Left's perceptions and strategies affected the course
of the revolution. After Shahpour Bakhtiar - who became prime
minister in a deal through which the Shah left the country - was forced
from office soon after Khomeini's return to Iran in February 1979,
Bazargan, the new prime minister, attempted to enlist the Left's sup-
port through a number of appointments to government posts.92 But the
Mujahedin (and not only Mujahedin) opposed what they saw as a
liberal dilution of the revolution. The Left's policy towards Bazargan's
government played into the hands of the Islamic Republican Party, or
IRP. During this time Khomeini was constructing the Islamic Revolu-
tionary Council. In a situation of dual sovereignty, the religious radicals
(who formed the IRP) undermined Bazargan's Provisional Govern-
ment, as they began to construct an alternative, theocratic judicial and
state apparatus. (Bazargan resigned in November 1979 after it was
clear that Khomeini and his allies did not intend to reverse the taking of
American hostages a few days previously.)

The liberals could not have ruled on their own, as they suffered from
certain structural disadvantages93 that made success of the Bazargan
government unlikely without an alliance with the Left. Their lonely
position may explain why Bazargan, and other liberal revolutionaries,
supported Khomeini early on even though they disagreed with his
strategies, including his rigidity in opposing any compromise or
negotiation with anyone connected to the Shah.94

The only plausible explanation of the Mujahedin's role in the revolu-

tion is that, as Moghadam argues,95they made a deadly strategic error
in expecting that Khomeini and his supporters' anti-imperialism made
them allies (or that their other differences were manageable).96 The
Mujahedin, after the fall of the Shah, made their first priority criti-
cism of what they saw as the liberal, bourgeois government of Bazar-
gan. Given the particular composition of the anti-Shah coalition,
Ervand Abrahamian argues that "lf]ew realized that the real choice was
not between bourgeois and socialist societies, but between liberal
democracy as epitomized by Bazargan, and populist theocracy as
envisaged by Khomeini."97 Bazargan and the liberals could not have
survived on their own, and, to modify Abrahamian's statement, a
liberal-Left alliance would not necessarily have been a pure liberal
 369

democracy. But in any case an anti-theocratic coalition, established

from the beginning, would have been formidable. The (secular and
Islamic) Left's overemphasis on class politics was the same kind of
error that Ernesto Laclau98 argued was made by German and Italian
socialists who failed to develop a cross-class alliance to oppose fascism.

As the year 1979 progressed and the clerical plan to dominate the
revolutionary government became increasingly clear, the Left, espe-
cially the Mujahedin, gathered increasing support and became more
and more of an opposition to the clerical radicals. By this time,
Khomeini's forces had taken enough control of the revolutionary state,
and built enough of a coercive force to defend theocracy, that opposi-
tion was difficult. Nevertheless, while much of the Fedai continued to
support Khomeini and rejected Bani Sadr as a liberal,99the Mujahedin
arguably realized their error almost in time. Indeed, by the summer of
1981, the Mujahedin, forced to go underground several months before
and conduct a guerilla opposition, threatened the existence of the
Islamic Republic itself.100

There is evidence that, in late 1979, as the dominance of the clerical

forces became increasingly obvious, student support shifted from the
clergy's Islamic Republican Party to forces of the Left.101The Muja-
hedin had extensive networks of support and propaganda and became
the central worry of the Islamic Republic in 1980 and 1981. The Muja-
hedin forged an alliance with President Bani Sadr,102emphasized
democracy, supported liberal dissidents like Bazargan it had originally
opposed, and organized a number of mass rallies in 1981. The Muja-
hedin militia was powerful enough to protect the demonstrators and
intimidate the regime; it is possible that Bani Sadr channeled arms to
this militia. When we also consider the assassination of some seventy
leading members of the IRP in a June 1981 bombing (that may or may
not have been carried out by the Mujahedin), it is not difficult to con-
clude that the IRP was not really in control until it successfully
repressed the Mujahedin through a reign of terror initiated in mid-
1981.103After many of their members had been executed or forced to
leave the country, and Bani Sadr himself narrowly escaped Iran with his
life, internal opposition to the clerical government decreased in 1982.

And so, rather than the Mujahedin, the strategic victor in the revolu-
tion was Khomeini. Briefly stated, theocracy emerged because
Khomeini and his supporters so successfully built an institutional and
coercive apparatus while avoiding political division over the meaning
370

of "Islam"and anti-imperialismuntil they had the means to enforce

their interpretations.Other membersof the anti-Shahcoalition helped
destroy each other as the clericals built a new revolutionarystate, a
process that many misunderstoodor incorrectlyassumedwas unlikely.
Alternativepolitical programswere eliminatedbefore their advocates
realizedwhat had happened, so that it was too late for anti-theocratic
oppositionto succeed.104

The radical Islamic approach, i.e., a state constructed according to

Khomeini'sworldview, did not clearly emerge until, at the earliest,
several months after the fall of Bakhtiar'sgovernment in February
1979. While publicly often supportingBazarganand then Bani Sadr,
Khomeinialso signalledapprovalof the IslamicRepublicanPartyand
the secretiveIslamic RevolutionaryCouncil, a privatestate within the
state dominated by clerics and oriented towards narrowingthe dis-
tributionof power and implementinga more specific and less tolerant
revolutionary program. Khomeini also endorsed the well-armed
Islamic RevolutionaryGuards,a militaryforce of undisputedloyalty.
Meanwhile, as I noted above, Khomeini avoided alienatingcoalition
partnersuntilhe had the coercivemeansto destroythem.

It is the case that when a split between the IRP and other coalition
members became irreparable,Khomeini would attack his former
revolutionaryallies, often mercilessly.It is, however,not clear whether
the successful strategyof Khomeini and his theocratic followers was
primarilya matterof Machiavelliandeceit or perhapsinvolveda com-
bination of political skill and luck under chaotic circumstances.Per-
haps Khomeini was at times genuinely surprised to find that other
revolutionariescould not see the errors in their interpretationsof
Islam.105 But that is not the central issue here: most importantis that
the outcome of the revolution remained in question even after the
IslamicRepublichad officiallybeen established.

A different view of revolutionary ideology

Revolutionary situations and ambiguous ideology

One of the central reasons that the revolutionaryprocess favors an

ambiguousideology is that the circumstancesof revolutionarycrisis
lead to a motley allianceof opponentsof the old regime.
 371

A number of students of revolution have continued Skocpol's empha-

sis, in States and Social Revolutions, on the conjunctural, partly con-
tingent causes of revolutions.'06 Some of those analysts have also
emphasized that culture includes a multiplicity of symbols and tradi-
tions.'07 I would emphasize the "contingent" aspect more than Skocpol
does and argue that this aspect favors diverse interpretations of the
ambiguous images and concepts that comprise the ideological unity of
a revolutionary coalition. I would argue that revolutions are rare pre-
cisely because it is highly unusual that events conspire to allow the type
of socially and politically diverse coalition that can make a feared
regime so suddenly ineffective.

The rapidity with which revolutions typically develop, and the sudden-
ness of the fall of the old regime, favor both a committed revolutionary
consensus and a lack of attention to post-revolutionary details. In Iran,
for example, even after the Shah's overthrow, participants could have
read their revolution in various ways. In the euphoria of revolutionary
victory, unity can obscure divisions; and in the process of constructing
a post-revolutionary state and society, it is not always clear who might
be amenable to negotiations, who might be politically inept, and who
might ultimately be an implacable enemy. And, as we have seen in Iran,
it may be strategically useful for some revolutionary factions or leaders
to avoid specifying a program as long as possible.

Many coalitions, alliances, or even social circles adhere precisely

because there is a structural allowance for disagreement and/or
because diverse interpretations do not have bearing on participation in
the group as a whole. Diverse literary publics or other audiences can
appreciate or endorse the same body of work in a way that would be
impossible if they had to agree on all artistic interpretations.108Voting
blocs with opposing goals can often support the same candidate if that
candidate has not defined stands on the issues in sufficient detail to
make the coalition unworkable.

In the uncertainty of situations of rapid social change - that is,

"unsettled times"'09 - polysemous images and concepts will be espe-
cially important. Such times are extreme versions of the type of regime
instability that Charles Tilly and others identify as particularly prone to
protest activity1?; thus these times are thick with initiative (and its
uncertain implications), negotiation, and unresolved conflicts. Indeed,
it is difficult to imagine a situation more fraught with ambiguity than
the sudden collapse of an old regime state. Participants in the chaos
372

and euphoria of revolutionary unity typically are more focussed upon

overthrowing the old regime than they are on the specifics of post-
revolutionary policy, and they do not have time to develop a consensus
on such specifics. Individual groups may have their own detailed post-
revolutionary programs - although most will probably not - but these
programs, before the fall of the old regime, do not constitute the
ideology of the coalition as a whole. Indeed, within such a coalition,
specifying a post-revolutionary program is more likely than not to
hamper the cause of the revolutionaries, as it can split the coalition.
Before victory, rebels are focussed on the evils of the old regime and
cannot always be sure that the rebellion will end in success, and often
cannot even be sure they will survive the existing regime's attempts to
put down the insurrection. Given those circumstances, why destroy an
alliance because one party to the alliance - who, for all one knows, may
ultimately be politically inept or malleable - appears to have a post-
revolutionary program with which one disagrees?

Still, the ideological unity of the revolutionary coalition is essential;

without the promise of a euphoric victory over a hated regime, without
the hope of a better or even utopian society, revolutionaries would not
take the risks necessary for victory.11 Revolutionary coalitions are
ideologically charged, and revolutionary unity depends on uncom-
promising opposition to the old regime, not on commitment to par-
ticular, post-revolutionary programs.

Thus when the Shah, in a last ditch effort at the end of 1978, agreed to
leave the country and appoint as his new prime minister Shahpour
Bakhtiar, a liberal, other liberals refused to cooperate with Bakhtiar.
This was despite the fact that Bakhtiar had been a member of the
liberal National Front, had been jailed several times by the Shah's
government, and by all indications attempted to institute the type of
constitutional regime that liberals had been advocating for decades.
Upon assuming office, Bakhtiar had acted quickly to dismantle much
of the repressive apparatus and to institute reforms. But he was
replaced by Bazargan, again a liberal, though one who had not com-
promised his reputation through association with the Shah and who did
command the respect of a number of religious opponents. Bakhtiar
experienced liberal opposition even though those same liberals prob-
ably would have agreed with his program less than a year earlier. But by
1979 they believed he had done what was now unthinkable: he had
compromised with a despicable tyrant whose continued rule would be
evil and intolerable.
 373

When interpretedsomewhatdifferentlyfrom whatthe authorintended,

Moaddel'sdescriptionof the unifyingpower of revolutionaryideology
is quiteinstructive:
In a revolution, ideology takes over politics, transcends social differences
among participants, moving them in a communitarian relation and orienting
them to act directly against the state. It is ideology that distinguishes revolu-
tion from routine contentions for power.' 2

Revolutions are chaotic; revolutionary participation is dangerous;

successfuloverthrowof the old regimeis euphoric.Moaddel is wrong
when he implies that the ideology that infuses revolutionaryparti-
cipantsis a culturalunitythat leaves little room for disagreement.But it
is the case thatrevolutionarycoalitionsare stronglyunifiedin a waythat
is rarelymatchedor exceeded; one of the few examples would be the
unity of a people fightingand winninga war againsta despised enemy.
In either case, it is an error to assume that, to experience that unity,
participantsmust all have the same beliefs or agree on a blueprintfor
the future.

Immediatelyafter the fall of the old regime, the power of ideology is

presentin the trustthat the populace, and often manyof the leadersof
differentcomponentsof the revolutionarycoalition,place in the coali-
tion leaders.The fightover interestsand politicalpower often bypasses
the populace, unawarethat it is even taking place. Events and ideas
move quickly,if chaotically,so that leaderssometimesrejoicein attacks
on their own programs,if revolutionaryunity is served. Thus French
elites could vote against their own privileges,evidence that Sewell13
cites in support of his argumentfor the importanceof ideology in the
French Revolution.Iranianliberals could rejoice that an agent of the
Shah (Bakhtiar) was overthrown, though they had been trying to
implementBakhtiar'sprogramfor decades.

Ambiguous ideology and revolutionary outcomes

As I noted in the introductionof this article,the ideological dynamics

of the struggle against the old regime set the stage for the strategic
battle over programs;that battle cannot be fully comprehendedwith-
out an adequateconceptualizationof the role of ideology in unitingthe
revolutionarycoalition that opposes the old regime. The struggleto
implementprogramsis indeed a centralpartof revolutionarydynamics
afterthe old regime,as Goldstone, Foran,and Goodwin would predict.
374

However, it does not develop simply as a battle over explicit political

programs: for a given faction to make plausible its claim that it is
implementing the true revolutionary goals, it may often hide as much as
disclose its program. In addition, it is important to note that the
dominant programs are not simply a random collection of unrelated
revolutionary plans: they speak to each other in the sense that each
appeals to the images and concepts that had united the coalition
opposing the old regime.

Multiple interpretations of revolutionary ideology imply conflicting

visions of revolutionary outcomes. The coalition as a whole conceived
of the Shah as evil, of course, but was he evil primarily because he was
repressive? because he attacked clerics? because he supported inter-
national capitalist hegemony? because he did not respect liberal free-
doms? because he allowed the corruption of women? Was imperialism
problematic for economic, political, or cultural reasons? And once the
Shah was gone, what image of Islam was the correct one? What exactly
was the proper Islamic solution? Different factions gave very different
answers to these questions.

Because revolutionary ideologies (like cultural symbols, in general) are

ambiguous and flexible in application, and because opposition to the
old regime was a central source of unity, after the fall of the old regime
a struggle emerges over what the revolution is really about, and over
how to interpret the society's cultural heritage. Revolutions eat their
children because success - overthrow of the old regime - removes a
crucial point of unity. The political competition among former coali-
tion partners involves a variety of weapons, including ideological ap-
peal, institutional control, firepower, and any combination of the three.
To take control of the revolution involves both appealing for support
and coercing others into compliance. This is a much riskier, and com-
monly much more violent, phase of revolution, as any given strategy
may be based on an incomplete understanding of a chaotic and fluid
situation: it will not always be clear even who is a potential supporter
and who is an implacable enemy.

It is indeed a new phase of the revolution: the conditions that produce

mass mobilization and the sudden collapse of the old regime are not in
themselves sufficient to determine exactly what type of post-revo-
lutionary regime will emerge. No factions and no leaders can make a
new regime just as they please; but some are more successful than
others in maneuvering towards a strategic victory.
 375

Conclusion

To varying degrees, polysemous appeals are a feature of nearly all

political coalitions and negotiations. But they are especially important
in revolutions in which mass protests accompany a sudden collapse and
elimination of the old regime state. In such a situation, it is not the case
that a few coalition planks are ambiguous in an otherwise institution-
alized political structure; instead, even the main outlines of how politics
will operate in a new regime is undetermined. Given the chaos and
uncertainty, revolutionary unity necessarily focusses upon rejection of
the regime itself, and revolutionaries appeal to widely familiar cultural
images (as in the appeal to Islam) whose durability within the society
has depended on a degree of flexibility in interpretation and applica-
tion. There is neither time nor reason for the opposition coalition to
settle upon a detailed post-revolutionary program.

Ambiguous (i.e., polysemous) ideology is an essential component of

revolutionary unity and sets the stage for the struggle over the meaning
of the revolution, after the fall of the old regime. Different factions
struggle over the particular meaning of the images and concepts that
had united the revolutionary coalition as a whole. However, this
ambiguity makes quite probable an outcome in which revolutions eat
their children; the initial revolutionary unity cannot possibly survive, as
the construction of a new revolutionary state will necessarily reject
some interpretations of the meaning of ambiguous revolutionary
ideology.

Particularly astute revolutionary leaders - Khomeini or Lenin, for

instance - can take advantage of such a situation to create a new
revolutionary state in their own image, before many of their potential
adversaries fully understand what is happening or how most effectively
to resist. In such a case, there often is no obvious, specific program that
could truly represent the coalition as a whole, or even a majority of
it."4 The faction that defines the ideology of the revolution by taking
control of revolutionary state formation and suppressing alternatives
may forever remain a minority. To take one illustration, while both the
Bolsheviks and the Islamic Republican Party redefined political dis-
course, in both cases voting patterns suggested their minority status
even after the seizure of power. The Bolsheviks, outpolled by the
Socialist Revolutionaries, remained a minority in the voting for the
Constituent Assembly after the October Revolution, and thus disband-
ed the assembly. As the Islamic Republic was institutionalized as a
376

theocracy, voting participation steadily declined.11 There remains

broad opposition to the clerical regime among many initial supporters
of the revolution.116

Nevertheless, while revolutions are situations in which ambiguity is

likely to be especially significant, there are different kinds of revolu-
tions; ambiguity will matter more or less depending on exactly how the
revolutionary crisis emerges and plays itself out. (Thus the following
discussion is partly a response to Skocpol's call117for a closer examina-
tion of the different revolutionary circumstances that allow ideology to
have different kinds of effects.)

In some revolutions (though the exception more than the rule) unifying
revolutionary ideology will be more specific than the connotative
images and concepts that unified the Iranian opposition to the Shah.
This is especially likely when there is a revolutionary group poised to
implement a program (after the fall of the old regime) because it has a
history as an organized, clearly dominant opposition, with an identifi-
able program and a mass following. This fact may explain why Poland,
benefitting from the earlier establishment of Solidarity, at least initially
seemed more directed than some of its neighbors in establishing a new
political and social order after the collapse of communist states in
1988-1989.

Solidarity, then, is an example of the fact that the more time there is for
the identity and intentions of a revolutionary group to become known,
the less likely that such a group can hide behind an ambiguous pro-
gram. Protracted civil war is another context that will generally clarify
the ideologies of the adversaries, though those adversaries may have
initially been united by an ambiguous ideology. And the context of civil
war will place great pressure on all organized political groups to choose
one side or another.

However, sudden revolutionary crises may involve some political

floundering for some time, in cases where there is not a long-standing,
organized opposition and there do not emerge leaders with a coherent
revolutionary vision and the strategic skill to take advantage of the
ambiguous ideology and uncertain outcome of revolutionary situations.
In the absence of leaders willing or able to negotiate through such
unknown terrain, to construct a new state on the basis of a new pro-
gram - without turning allies into adversaries too quickly - the ultimate
meaning of the revolution may be contested for some time.
 377

In the case of Madero's "anti-reelection" revolution in Mexico, for

example, mass mobilization and sudden victory over the Diaz regime
was followed by the absence of any coherent program, and a sub-
sequent slide into chaos and civil war.118A different version of this
scenario may be developing in much of Eastern Europe today. Clearly
the nations of Eastern Europe experienced sudden state collapse
precipitated by mass mobilization. Participants experienced the ectasy
and unity of opposition to, and sudden success against, the old regime.
But it quickly became unclear what was to be done next. In some cases,
there was an apparent commitment to a free-market ideology, but there
was little commitment to the details and difficulties that a free-market
program would actually entail. While free-market advocates initially
appeared dynamic and exciting, their ultimate success may prove
superficial. In other cases, as in the former Czechoslovakia, there
seemed to be less a post-revolutionary program than an uncertain pat-
tern of continued dismantling of the past, with no obvious replacement
offered to guide the future. 19

In such cases, where dominant factions do not commit themselves to a

coherent program, Goldstone's explanation of the rise of nationalism
may be quite relevant. He argues that nationalism becomes the rallying
cry, to a large extent, because revolutionary leaders are unable to
deliver on initial promises about economic rejuvenation. Nationalism
has of course been one of the primary ideological developments in
Eastern Europe in the 1990s.120Goldstone's schema also helps explain
revolutions in which no faction attempts, or is able, to implement a
coherent program soon after the fall of the old regime. For example, in
cases where the initial crisis weakens but does not eliminate the old
regime state, and elites and masses do not both emphasize total
elimination of a hated regime, the revolutionary crisis can initiate a pro-
tracted process of increasing revolutionary mobilization best explained
by Goldstone's approach. Such would be the case in the French Revo-
lution, for example, where none of the main revolutionary players
initially advocated what ultimately became the program of the revolu-
tion. Still, even in such cases, ambiguous propositions can be a power-
ful aspect of unifying ideology: Goldstone notes121 that, in the heady
early days of the French Revolution, "the will of the people" was the
"one principle that all accepted for the resolution of conflicts ...." One
could add to Goldstone's observation that this unifying principle was a
very ambiguous one.'22
378

There are additional factors that may be relevant to the role of

ambiguity in revolutionary process and ideology, and whose signifi-
cance is worthy of further inquiry. For example, it seems likely that
some significant degree of shared cultural or political identity is neces-
sary for an ambiguous ideology to serve as a point of unity at all. Thus,
while ethnic divisions in Iran were certainly significant in the revolu-
tion, the main revolutionary proponents thought of themselves fun-
damentally as Iranians and, usually, as Shiites. However, to unite
ideologically all the societies of the former Soviet Union, after the
August 1991 failed coup, would have required such extensive ambigu-
ity as to be unworkable. While the images and concepts that unite a
diverse revolutionary coalition can be quite general in nature and sub-
ject to diverse interpretations, they do have to be shared and strongly
felt.

The Iranian Revolution demonstrated how significant shared but

unspecified revolutionary ideology can be; and Ayatollah Khomeini
and the clerical radicals demonstrated what new ideological directions
a revolution can take as a result of the perilous and uncertain struggle
to define the new regime of meaning that is a crucial aspect of revolu-
tionary states.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Fred Block, Frank Dobbin, John Foran, Anne Kane,

Charles Kurzman, Jeffrey Paige, William H. Sewell, Jr., students in my
Fall 1993 graduate revolutions seminar, and the Editors of Theory and
Society for helpful comments (and, in some cases, helpful dis-
agreements!) on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. See, e.g., the discussion in John Foran, "Theories of revolution revisited: Toward a
fourth generation?" Sociological Theory 11 (1993): 12-13.
2. Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions: Reflections on the French case,"
Journal of Modern History 57 (1985): 57-85; Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural
frameworks, and the process of revolution," Theory and Society 20 (1991):
405-453. This latter article also appears (with minor changes) as chapter 5 of
Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1991), and is the part of the book most relevant to
the analysis of revolutionary ideology.
 379

3. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France,

Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
4. See especially Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and the process of
revolution"; John Foran and Jeff Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and
Nicaragua: Coalition fragmentation, war, and the limits of social transformation,"
Theory and Society 2/2(1993): 210.
5. Goldstone, ibid.; Foran and Goodwin, ibid. On the role of culture in revolutionary
process, cf. also Charles Tilly, "Singular models of revolution: Impossible but
fruitful," Working Paper No. 138, New School for Social Research, Center for
Studies of Social Change, 14-15.
6. Foran and Goodwin, ibid., especially, emphasize the unity in opposition against
the old regime. Also see Goldstone's passing references (ibid., 448, n.19; "An
analytical framework," in Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri,
editors, Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century [Boulder: Westview, 19911,
46). However, there is little if any connection made to the ideological dynamics of
revolution. Concerning the appeal to shared cultural images, it is possible in some
cases that such images or symbols are reinforced because collective action
repertoires (i.e., rituals and tactics) associated with them are so familiar. Thus a
number of observers have emphasized the fact that Iranian protestors against the
Shah used Islamic practices of commemorating deaths (of fellow protestors),
prayer days, etc., as bases of mobilization; see, e.g., David A. Snow and Susan E.
Marshall, "Cultural imperialism, social movements, and the Islamic revival," in
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, vol. 7 (Greenwich, Conn.:
JAI, 1984), 140-141. This point is consistent with my argument that dominant
factions are united by common images and concepts; thus they are free to inter-
pret each ritual, each rally, etc., according to the meaning they attach to those
images and concepts. In this article, then, considering such repertoires separately
would likely make the argument more complex without adding much substantive-
ly. For more on collective action repertoires, see Charles Tilly's numerous studies,
including "Collective violence in European perspective," in Hugh Davis Graham
and Ted Robert Gurr, editors, Violence in America: Historical and Comparative
Perspectives (New York: Bantam, 1969), 4-45; From Mobilization to Revolution
(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978), 143-166; and The Contentious French
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). See also Sidney Tarrow,
"Modular collective action and the rise of the social movement: Why the French
revolution was not enough," Politics & Society 21 (1993): 69-90.
7. Modern Revolutions, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), 236.
8. Again, Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua,"
very appropriately refocuses studies of revolution on the fragmentation of coali-
tions and consequent bloody struggle after the fall of the old regime. (See also
James DeFronzo, Revolution and Revolutionary Movements [Boulder, Co.: West-
view, 19911, 49; Jeff Goodwin and Theda Skocpol, "Explaining revolutions in the
contemporary Third World," Politics & Society 17 [1989]: 492.) However, despite
brief reference to ideology (pp. 236-237), Foran and Goodwin explain the
factional struggle for power in terms consistent with Skocpol's States and Social
Revolutions (see, e.g., pp. 212, 240) and thus do not emphasize ideology.
9. William Doyle argues that this lack of a program for the future was true of the
French Revolution. While he does not frame his discussion in terms of theories of
revolutionary ideology, Doyle asserts, consistent with my argument, that the
380

ultimate outcome was determined by struggle after the fall of the old regime and
thus was distant from the ideals that inspired many of the revolutionaries:
"Revolution and counter-revolution in France," in E. E. Rice, editor, Revolution
and Counter-Revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 95-108.
10. I mean to refer to revolutions in which sudden collapse takes place during a
period of mass mobilization, without insisting that one necessarily causes the
other.
11. A number of analysts note the heterogeneity of revolutionary coalitions, a central
aspect of the sudden revolutionary unity that I emphasize. However, such
analyses do not generally make theoretical links between that heterogeneity and
the dynamics of revolutionary ideology: Michael S. Kimmel, Revolution: A
Sociological Interpretation (Oxford: Polity/Basil Blackwell, 1990), 11, 49-50;
Wayne te Brake, Regents and Rebels: Revolutionary World of an Eighteenth-Cen-
tury Dutch City (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 78-79, 119-122; Goodwin and
Skocpol, "Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third World," 492, 503;
DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements, 16, 49; and Goldstone,
"An analytical framework," 44-45. Goldstone ("Ideology, cultural frameworks,
and the process of revolution," 412, 423-424) is distinctive among studies of
revolutionary ideology in noting that the heterogeneity of revolutionary coalitions
means that there is not a single program; however, as a result, he does not see any
importance to ideology in holding together the coalition. "New social movement"
theorists note the diverse understandings present within social movements, but
the point is undeveloped, probably as a result of their essentialist assumption that
all social movements of a given era have the same origins (e.g., as a reaction
against a certain kind of state): Alberto Melucci, "Symbolic challenge of con-
temporary movements," Social Research 52 (1985): 794; Claus Offe, "New social
movements: challenging the boundaries of institutional politics," Social Research
52 (1985): 830, 841. (For an appropriate critique of these theorists relevant to
this point, see Jean L. Cohen, "Strategy or identity: New theoretical paradigms
and contemporary social movements," Social Research 52 [1985]: 665.)
12. There are a number of approaches within sociology and political science that
inform my view, though their conceptualizations differ from mine. Analysts of
organizations and decision-making focus on uncertainty as a central, ongoing
component of social interaction and decision making, e.g., R. Duncan Luce and
Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (New York: Wiley, 1957), 13, 275; James
G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958). Some-
times such uncertainty is referred to as "ambiguity,"though the term has also been
used to include other aspects of organizational decision-making, including incon-
sistency and polysemous messages (James G. March and Johan P. Olsen,
Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1976).
Angus Campbell et al. (American Voter [New York: Wiley, 19601, 543) defined
ambiguity simply as a state of ignorance. Some of these uses of the term "ambi-
guity," then, are quite different from my use of the term to refer to polysemous,
shared images and concepts. Some recent work on political culture makes passing
reference to the strategic use of polysemous messages (Lynn Hunt, Politics, Cul-
ture, and Class in the French Revolution [Berkeley: University of California Press,
19841, 226; Alan Wolfe, Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation
[Berkeley: University of California Press, 19891, 231-232), but there has been
little or no systematic analysis of their ideological importance or the conditions
under which they serve as a means of social solidarity. William H. Sewell, Jr.,
 381

however makes a passing reference to an interesting case where political action

consisted of exploiting the polysemous nature of conceptions of liberalism:
"Artisans, factory workers, and the formation of the French working class, 1789-
1848," in Ira Katznelson and Aristide R. Zolberg, editors, Working-Class Forma-
tion: Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 62.
13. I dwell on the specific events of the revolution and specific ideas of particular
factions only to the extent directly necessary to make my argument. For more
particulars that go beyond my concern with the relationship between revolu-
tionary process and a unifying but polysemous ideology, and for a more detailed
sketch of the events of the revolution than is possible here, I refer readers to the
many accomplished works on such topics. For example: Ervand Abrahamian,
Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982) and
Iranian Mojahedin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989); Shaul
Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs (New York: Basic Books, 1984); Hamid
Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolu-
tion in Iran (New York and London: New York University Press, 1993); John
Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolu-
tion (Boulder, Co.: Westview, 1993); Dilip Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); Misagh Parsa, Social Origins of the
Iranian Revolution (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press,
1989); Mansoor Moaddel, Class, Politics, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
14. Theda Skocpol, "Rentier state and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian revolution," Theory
and Society 11 (1982): 265-283; Shahrough Akhavi, "Ideology and praxis of
Shi'ism in the Iranian revolution," Comparative Studies in Society and History 25
(1983): 195-221; Michael Tien-Lung Liu, "States and urban revolutions:
Explaining the revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Poland," Theory and Society
17 (1988): 179.
15. Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions"; Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic
revolution in comparative perspective," World Politics 38 (1986): 383-414;
Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: Islamic Revolution in Iran (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Farideh Farhi, States and Urban-
based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua (Urbana and Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1990), 83-84, 111; Mansoor Moaddel, "Ideology as episodic dis-
course: The Case of the Iranian revolution," American Sociological Review 57
(1991): 353-379; Moaddel, Class, Politics, and Ideology.
16. Theda Skocpol, "Cultural idioms and political ideologies in the revolutionary
reconstruction of state power: A rejoinder to Sewell," Journal of Modern History
57 (1985): 86-96; Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and the process of
revolution."
17. "Rentier state and Shi'a Islam."
18. Another example of the treatment of ideology as incidental is an early article by
Mansoor Moaddel from a different perspective than his later work: "Shi'i Ulama
and the state in Iran," Theory and Society 15 (1986): 519-556. He briefly con-
siders the possibility of the relative autonomy of ideology (pp. 545-547), but he
generally considers ideology to be the servant of class interest.
19. See also Akhavi, "Ideology and praxis of Shi'ism"; Liu, "States and urban revolu-
tions," 179.
382

20. See, for example, Eqbal Ahmad, "Comments on Skocpol," Theory and Society 11
(1982): 293-300; Walter L. Goldfrank, "Commentary on Skocpol," Theory and
Society 11 (1982): 301-304; Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions," 60.
21. Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and the process of revolution"; Ann
Swidler, "Culture in action: Symbols and strategies," American Sociological
Review 51 (1986): 273-286.
22. Goldstone, ibid.; Swidler, ibid.; Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (New
York: Basic Books, 1973), 216-220; David G. Hackett, Rude Hand of Innova-
tion: Religion and Social Order in Albany, New York, 1652-1836 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1991), 161-164. For a discussion analogous to
Swidler's view of the role of ideology in settled versus unsettled times (but from a
neo-Marxist perspective), see Ernesto Laclau, "Fascism and ideology," in Politics
and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London: New Left Books/Verso, 1977), 102-
103.
23. Swidler, ibid., 279-280.
24. Skocpol, "Cultural idioms and political ideologies"; Swidler herself notes the
similarity (ibid., 279fn.).
25. "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and the process of revolution." John Foran's
approach in "Theories of revolutions revisited," especially pp. 13-14, is roughly
compatible with Goldstone's but is not developed theoretically in great detail.
26. For Goldstone's own comments in support of this view, see "An analytical frame-
work," 46. Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley notes an analogous pattern of Latin
American revolutionary movements ideologically narrowing as they perceived
victory to be in their grasp: Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A
Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1956 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1992), 33. However, this occurred before the fall of the old
regime, as these were not cases of sudden collapse of the old regime; guerrilla
movements who plan and unambiguously lead a revolution are, by definition, a
different type of movement from what is the subject of this article.
27. On themes as propaganda, see Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and
the process of revolution," 427,434; on long-term cultural barriers, see 440-441,
443. For an analogous argument about how new themes that emerged in a revolu-
tion contributed to the cultural repertoire, and thus set new cultural boundaries,
see Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York:
Knopf, 1992), 7-8, 355-357.
28. "Ideology as episodic discourse"; Class, Politics, and Ideology. Evaluating
Moaddel's arguments is complex; his very accomplished empirical analysis is
quite compatible with much of my argument. He explicitly notes (Class, Politics,
and Ideology, 269) that the "power of Shi'i revolutionary discourse lay in the fact
that it represented different things to the diverse groups and classes involved in
the revolution" and he notes that harmony disappeared as soon as the coalition
was faced with actually constructing a post-revolutionary order (202). But his
theoretical analysis seems unable to account for these empirical aspects of the
revolution, as that analysis emphasizes a generalized Shiite discourse that pre-
ceded the revolution. It is presumably this theoretical assumption that leads him
to an unexplained appeal to the internal logic of that discourse (204, 269) in pro-
ducing the consolidation of power by Khomeini. In this analysis, "discourse" has
an unexplained independent power to determine the course of events, without
regard to how revolutionary actors actually interpret that discourse.
29. See especially "Ideology as episodic discourse," 359, 363.
 383

30. Ibid., 361-362.

31. Ibid., 359.
32. For a similar point made in critique of the view of culture in Skocpol's "Cultural
idioms and political ideologies" (which is essentially a tool-kit approach), see
Gene Burns, "Materialism, ideology, and political change," in Robert Wuthnow,
editor, Vocabularies of Public Life (London and New York: Routledge, 1992),
258-259.
33. Farideh Farhi, "State disintegration and urban-based revolutionary crisis: A com-
parative analysis of Iran and Nicaragua," Comparative Political Studies 21 (1988):
231-256. In this article, Farhi is only mildly functionalist (see especially 259); her
view of ideology is not particularly well developed. Despite explicitly conceptual-
izing ideology as general worldview (pp. 249-259), she also implicitly treats
ideology as purposive revolutionary plans (p. 251). My approach has something
in common with the more sophisticated conceptualization in her later book (States
and Urban-based Revolutions) in that both emphasize ideology as a complex, col-
lective construction rather than as conscious programs, and as a force that fuses
diverse and sometimes contradictory strands of ideas. However, her approach (in
which ideology is an important, but not the central, topic) links revolutionary
ideology too much to preexisting cultures and thus does not easily account for
what is new in Iranian revolutionary ideology.
34. Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic revolution in comparative perspective" and Turbanfor
the Crown. For a short but appropriate critique of Arjomand's arguments, see
Moaddel, Class, Politics, and Ideology, 5-6.
35. "Ideologies and social revolutions."
36. Work and Revolution in France: Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
37. In States and Social Revolutions.
38. Burns, "Materialism, ideology, and political change," 257.
39. Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions," 68-69.
40. Moaddel, "Ideology as episodic discourse," 368, claims that the "extremism" that
won out "emanated from the internal logic of Shi'i discourse itself," contradicting
an earlier statement (p. 366) that Ayatollah Khomeini's theocratic version of
revolutionary Islam had no ideological precedent in Iranian society.
41. While not particularly relevant here, I should mention that Sewell's approach is
strengthened if one also acknowledges that there can be important participants in
the revolution (for example, peasants in the French Revolution) who do not take
much part in that symbolic struggle. (Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions,"
places the peasantry outside of Enlightenment ideology at one point (pp. 70-71)
but otherwise seems to drop that possibility.) These will typically be groups so far
removed from the center of revolutionary power that they will be locked out of an
active role in the construction of a post-revolutionary state. Such groups are
important to consider in a discussion of revolutions as a whole, but not in analysis
of revolutionary ideologies per se, the subject of this article.
42. Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua," 220-221,
237; Hooshang Amirahmadi, "Regional planning in Iran: A survey of problems
and policies," The Journal of Developing Areas 20 (1986): 523-524; Ahmad,
"Comments on Skocpol," 300; Shahrough Akhavi, "Institutionalizing the new
order in Iran," Current History, 86 (1987): 54; Sohrab Behdad, "Winners and
losers of the Iranian revolution: A study in income distribution," International
Journal of Middle East Studies 21 (1989): 327-358.
384

43. Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 99; Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 73-74.
44. Jack A. Goldstone, "Revolutions and superpowers," in Jonathan R. Adelman,
editor, Superpowers and Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1986), 38-48. See also
Goodwin and Skocpol, "Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third
World," 495-500; Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and
Nicaragua," 209-210.
45. On the Shah's contributions to the crisis, see, e.g., Marvin Zonis, "Iran:A theory
of revolution from accounts of the revolution," World Politics 35 (1983): 586-
606, especially 595-606.
46. See, e.g., Liu, "States and urban revolutions," 196-200.
47. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 14; Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin,
29-30.
48. See, e.g., Josef Gugler, "The urban character of contemporary revolutions,"
Studies in Comparative International Development 17 (1982): 60-73; Farhi, States
and Urban-based Revolutions, 65-73.
49. See Dabashi, Theology of Discontent, 409-484; Eric Hooglund and William
Royce, "The Shi'i clergy of Iran and the conception of an Islamic state," State,
Culture and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 102-117.
50. Mohammed Amjad, Iran: From Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 134.
51. Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 99; see also Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian
Revolution, 257-258.
52. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 72-73.
53. Val Moghadam, "Socialism or anti-imperialism? The left and revolution in Iran,"
New Left Review 166 (1987): 6; Ahmad, "Comments on Skocpol," 299.
54. Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi, "The state, classes and modes of mobilization
in the Iranian revolution," State, Culture and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 12.
55. Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 80.
56. Amjad, Iran, 122-123.
57. DeFronzo, Revolutions & Revolutionary Movements, 253-254; Hiro, Iran under
the Ayatollahs, 67, 69, 74, 76; Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution,
212.
58. Khomeini quoted in Hiro, ibid., 72. See also Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 45;
Arjomand, The Turbanfor the Crown, 103.
59. Hiro, ibid., 75.
60. Ibid., 75-77; Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, 213,215.
61. See, e.g., Hiro, ibid., 80, 82; Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 48.
62. Quoted in Hiro, ibid., 88.
63. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 171.
64. Ibid., 189.
65. Ibid., 187-197.
66. Ahmad, "Comments on Skocpol," 296; Amjad, Iran, 122-123; Said Amir
Arjomand, "The causes and significance of the Iranian revolution," State, Culture
and Society 1, no. 3 (1985): 52; Arjomand, The Turbanfor the Crown, 103, 105;
Moaddel, "Ideology as Episodic Discourse," 366-367.
67. Amirahmadi, "Regional planning in Iran," 518.
68. Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York:
Random House, 1985), 164-168; Skocpol, "Rentier state and Shi'a Islam," 265;
Nikki R. Keddie, "Can revolutions be predicted; Can their causes be under-
stood?," Contention 1, no. 2 (1992): 159-182.
 385

69. Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 99.

70. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 19.
71. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 189.
72. See, e.g., Moaddel, Class, Politics, and Ideology, 206.
73. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 92-102,104-105, 111-113,146-147.
74. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, 256.
75. Nikki R. Keddie, "Iranian revolutions in comparative perspective," American
Historical Review 88 (1983): 582.
76. Keddie, ibid., 595; Moaddel, "Ideology as episodic discourse," 366.
77. Hiro, Iran under the Ayatollahs, 19-20.
78. Ibid., 25, 30.
79. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, 119-123.
80. Ibid., 275-283; Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 138-139; Foran and Goodwin,
"Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua," 216.
81. "Iranian revolutions in comparative perspective," 595.
82. Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, 26; Misagh Parsa, "Theories of collective action
and the Iranian revolution," Sociological Forum 3 (1988): 57; Hiro, Iran under the
Ayatollahs, 31.
83. Dabashi, Theology of Discontent, 493-496,498.
84. In terms of a recent debate over whether revolutions are predictable, I am skepti-
cal that the complex, partly contingent, and conjunctural nature of revolutionary
crises can reliably be predicted and thus, in a general sense would agree more with
Keddie, "Can revolutions be predicted," than Goldstone, "Predicting revolutions:
why we could (and should) have foreseen the revolutions of 1989-1991 in the
U.S.S.R. and eastern Europe," Contention 2, no. 2 (1993): 127-152. However, I
would disagree with Keddie's statement (p. 178) that only one possible path could
have been taken in any revolution, a statement that contradicts her earlier argu-
ment (pp. 176-177). Keddie's and Goldstone's interchange (see also Charles
Tilly, "The Bourgeois Gentilshommes of revolutionary theory," Contention 2, no.
2 [1993]: 153-158; Keddie, "Response to Goldstone," Contention 2, no. 2 [19931:
159-170) primarily concerns the origins of revolutions, but my own view that
once a revolutionary process is set in motion, there are limited options but usually
more than one option, is probably compatible with Goldstone's general perspec-
tive (Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frameworks, and the process of revolution,"
and Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World). See also Said Amir
Arjomand, "Plea for an alternative view of revolution," Contention 2, no. 2
(1993): 171; and especially Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran
and Nicaragua," 211.
85. Foran and Goodwin, ibid., 236.
86. The Iranian Mojahedin, 34.
87. Ibid., 36.
88. Ibid., 189.
89. "Socialism or anti-imperialism?"
90. See also Keddie, "Iranian revolutions in comparative perspective," 595-596;
Snow and Marshall, "Cultural imperialism, social movements, and the Islamic
revival."
91. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 186-187.
92. Ibid., 188-189.
93. See, e.g., ibid., 48-51; Richard Cottam, "Inside revolutionary Iran," Middle East
Journal 43 (1989): 170-171.
386

94. H. E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Move-
ment of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1990), 242-243.
95. "Socialism or anti-imperialism?"; see also Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin,
186-187.
96. Or, possibly if they recognized the direction of Khomeini's politics (as, we have
seen, some of their leaders later claimed), the error was in assuming they had
some time after the overthrow of the Shah before they needed to challenge
clerical rule.
97. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 187.
98. "Fascism and ideology," especially 115-142.
99. Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua," 216.
100. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 42.
101. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, 266-267.
102. Khomeini had disqualified the Mujahedin from fielding a presidential candidate
because of their opposition to the process by which the Islamic Republic had been
established. The Mujahedin then gave electoral support to Bani Sadr, whose
socialist approach to Islam made him ideologically compatible even though he
was not associated with the organization. The new president's somewhat des-
perate attempts to strengthen his base of support occasionally led him to incon-
sistent policies, including some attacks on potential allies. However, he generally
advocated leftist economics and, even more, an expanded political pluralism and
rule of law. The surprisingly effective performance of the Iranian forces, after the
Iraqi invasion of September 1980, strengthened his position. He then had con-
siderable success forging a new, broad-based anti-theocratic alliance with the
Mujahedin.
103. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 206-223. See also Bakhash, Reign of the
Ayatollahs, 138-143; Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary Outcomes in Iran and
Nicaragua," 216-218.
104. To a significant extent, then, to use Bourdieu's terminology, Khomeini converted
political - or military - capital into cultural capital.
105. Some analysts claim that the theocrats deceitfully and intentionally misled their
former coalition partners (e.g., Ahmad, "Comments on Skocpol," 296; Arjomand,
"The causes and significance of the Iranian revolution," 52). But it could also be
that Khomeini's political style included an initial reluctance to cut ties with
formerly close associates, such as Bani Sadr, and he may have been occasionally
indecisive or unconcerned with what seemed to him petty details of policy
(Cottam, "Inside revolutionary Iran," 172-173). Even after consolidating power,
Khomeini continued to avoid early commitment within disputes among factions
of his government (Akhavi, "Institutionalizing the new order in Iran," 54).
106. Skocpol, "Cultural idioms and political ideologies"; Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural
frameworks, and the process of revolution" and Revolution and Rebellion in the
Early Modern World; Foran, Fragile Resistance and "Theories of revolution
revisited"; Foran and Goodwin, "Revolutionary outcomes in Iran and Nicaragua."
For a particularly systematic, even elegant approach to the conjuncture of revolu-
tionary causation, see Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin
America, especially 319-325. For a different (rational choice) approach to the
contingent nature of the emergence of revolutionary crises, see Timur Kuran,
"Now out of never: The element of surprise in the East European revolution of
1989," World Politics 44 (1991): 7-48; and Kuran, "Why revolutions are better
 387

understood than predicted: The essential role of preference falsification," Conten-

tion 1, no. 3 (1992): 199-207.
107. Sewell, "Ideologies and social revolutions"; Goldstone, "Ideology, cultural frame-
works, and the process of revolution," 435, following Swidler, "Culture in action,"
277, 280; Farhi, States and Urban-based Revolutions.
108. Wendy Griswold, "The fabrication of meaning: Literary interpretation in the
United States, Great Britain, and the West Indies," American Journal of Sociology
92 (1987): 1077-1117; Mabel Berezin, "The organization of political ideology:
Culture, state, and theater in fascist Italy," American Sociological Review 56
(1991): 639-651; Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz, "The Vietnam
veterans memorial: Commemorating a difficult past," American Journal of
Sociology 97 (1991): 408.
109. Swidler, "Culture in Action."
110. Charles Tilly, "Does modernization breed revolution?," Comparative Politics 5
(1973): 443; Tilly, "Collective violence in European perspective," 41; Doug
McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, "Social movements," in Neil J.
Smelser, editor, Handbook of Sociology (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1988), 700.
111. However, I would reject the rational-choice view that revolutionary unity and the
sudden collapse of old regimes is purely a matter of rational perceptions of risk.
Timur Kuran ("Now out of never" and "Why revolutions are better understood
than predicted") makes a particularly persuasive argument that there is sudden
abandonment of the old regime once people realize how many others dislike the
regime but had been afraid to say so, and once it seems the opposition is likely to
win. But like most rational-choice views of revolution, this approach cannot
explain why anyone is willing to lead revolutions or engage in various activ-
ities in which death is a quite reasonable possibility. Such risks are too immense to
be explained in simple rational-choice terms, as the probability and magnitude of
personal gain is comparatively small. (The only possible explanation is via
tautological appeal to gains in public stature or satisfaction of one's conscience.
Tautology aside, even these gains are of questionable personal utility if one is
killed.)
112. Moaddel, "Ideology as episodic discourse," 354. Moaddel (see also Class, Politics,
and Ideology) distinguishes between revolution as "content" (including outcomes,
etc.) versus revolution as a "mode" of historical action, as described in the quota-
tion I cite. Though it could use more explanation, this distinction is an insightful
contribution.
113. "Ideologies and social revolutions," 69.
114. Cf. Goldstone, "An analytical framework," 45.
115. Parsa, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, 257-258.
116. See, e.g., Cottam, "Inside revolutionary Iran," 178-181.
117. In "Cultural idioms and political ideologies," 94-95.
118. Once civil war emerged (and Madero himself was out of the picture), however, the
situation changed along the lines mentioned above. That is, years of civil war clari-
fied the outlines of the programs of the major participants, including the fact that
Villa and Zapata had no coherent national program and so could not take control
of the revolution, despite their initial military success. However, the intentions of
the Constitutionalists became increasingly clear: active revolutionaries were, by
1917, more aware of what Carranza wanted in Mexico than what Lenin wanted in
Russia.
119. This statement may be more true of Slovakia than the Czech Republic. In the
388

latter, there is arguablya unifyingpost-revolutionaryprogramin the sense that

there seems to be more of a commitmentto institutionalizingrepresentative
democracyin the Czech Republicthanelsewherein EasternEurope.
120. Goldstone argues that a redistributioniststage typicallyprecedes the nationalist
stage; in the case of the Eastern European countries,there was even less of a
redistributioniststage than there was in Iran,given the rejectionof communism.
However, one should allow for the fact that Goldstone developed his argument
primarilywith Early Moderncases in mind.It is impressivethat the detailsof his
approachare applicableto twentieth-centurycases at all.
121. "Ideology,culturalframeworks,and the process of revolution,"421.
122. Cf. Hunt,Politics,Culture,and Classin the FrenchRevolution,42.