Middle East Focus: New Revolutionary Classes: France, Russia, and Iran………..

Arabia Deserta

New Revolutionary Classes: France, Russia, and Iran………..

“Ayatollah Khomeini's vision encompassed the notion of a political system derived from Plato's Republic and tinged with Shia Islamic values and messianic expectations. However, 30 years after the formation of that regime, what stands out is the rise of a new ruling class; a class that sees the symbiosis and integration of the clerical and Bazari classes, which come to power after the demise of the monarchy, with the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution - the IRGC or Revolutionary Guards - and their auxiliaries, the Basijs. After the revolution, Khomeini and his clerical brethren were fearful that the armed forces might stage a coup, so they created an alternative paramilitary group, the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian experiment shows remarkable analogies with European experiences of totalitarian rule during the 20th century, where revolutionaries organised their own military forces to control the old power centres. Hitler had the SS and the Gestapo, Lenin and Stalin had the Soviet Revolutionary Guards and the Commissars……….” Interesting piece from al-Jazeera

Stalin probably never forgot that the Red Army was largely the creation of Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein), the rival he outmaneuvered after Lenin’s death. Yet the Red Army was created to fight the civil war against the Whites and to repel invading Western forces. Even that oldest of modern popular revolutions ended under military control with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. The rise of Napoleon owes much to the fears of the established European order and its attempts to restore the Bourbons which led to wars. The rise of the Iranian IRGC also owes much to the early fears of the established Middle East order and its attempts to contain, isolate, and weaken revolutionary Iran through massive military and financial support for Saddam Hussein’s first war. At the beginning of the Islamic regime, the Iranians started canceling weapons contracts, to their later regret after 1980.
As for Hitler, he did not lead a revolution, he would have lost; street thugs do not wage and win revolutions. The Nazis ‘charmed’ a German nation gone temporarily (probably?) stupid (some Brits have told me they don’t think there was anything temporary about it).
Cheers
mhg

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