"Red Shi'ism": What if Ali Shariati led the Iranian Revolution?

[GoulashComrade]

Hey, everyone! I'm new here and just I wanted to see what people thought about this alternate Iranian Revolution. If Shariati doesn't die soon after his exile to Britain, keeping Khomeini and the conservative mullahs from usurping the role of revolutionary firebrands, what would modern Iran look like? His brand of Shi'a Islam, unlike the so-called "Black" Shi'ism of the clerical class, was explicitly revolutionary and drew heavily from Marxist thought (he often quoted Engels and Guevara in his university lectures) as well as the rationalist (Mu'tazili) traditions of Islam. Despite the use of Marxism in his "revolutionary Islam", he seemed just as critical of Warsaw Pact communism as he was of Western liberalism.

Would we get a democratic socialist Iran following Shariati's "commitment democracy?" Maybe something more like an Islamic version of Communism with a Human Face? Would Shariati become fast friends with Tito thanks to their mutual status as anti-Moscow leftists? If so, what would having Iran as part of Yugoslavia's bloc change?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Frankly, anything would have better than the Ayatollah and his radical ilk. Anything. The US may gripe, not understanding in this alternate world how bad they could have had it, but that is precisely the point. A radical reactionary theocracy, which killed the soul of its citizenry and was willing to do the same physically to Iranians and people elsewhere was about the worst possible thing that could have happened.

 

[GoulashComrade]

Yeah, the Shah and his SAVAK secret police were certainly violent autocrats, but Khomeini isn't exactly an improvement. I don't want to let my own political beliefs color this too much, but I could see Shariati's Shi'a "liberation theology" really taking the wind out of the sails for a lot of reactionary forms of Islam that begin to emerge around that time by presenting a different road for Muslims that still criticizes neo-colonial ventures and keeps popular religion in mind. Perhaps it might even butterfly the Ba'athists to start moving further towards left-wing Arab nationalism in response as well...or going towards reaction and wholeheartedly embracing the more proto-fascist trends in the ideology.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

On the plus side, Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) may not make his horrible statement that completely went against what he had once represented. Really, its all plus sides here, it seems. Heck, I'll just quote myself from another thread.

One of the things to suffer from Iran's revolution were the artists. Despite a dictatorship, Iran was an advanced nation and culture of the First World. After the revolution, Iran was shut off from the world, and was taken over by draconian, backwards fanatics. Among the people to suffer was this man, who had a major career immediately destroyed by the theocracy. The Shah was certainly a dictator, responsible for transgressions against human rights. However, it really drives home how much normalcy there was in this nation which had the chance to reform beyond the dictatorship, oppression and transgressions of the monarchy, with everything ruined by religious tyrants in opposition to the Shah who became immediately worse than anything the Shah ever was. The Shah could kill the body, but the Ayatollah killed the soul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kourosh_Yaghmaei

 

[Cryptic]

IOTL, following the Shah's over throw, Iranian leftists (some secular, others with religious "liberation theology" type motivations) fought a drive by shooting and bombing campaign against Khomeini's faction before being overwhelmed. I believe a very prominent pro Khomeini mullah was killed by a bomb concealed in a pulpit. In another attack, several dozen members of a pro Khomeini street militia were killed when leftists car bombed a hotel being used as a barracks.

That aside, I think a leftist victory over Khomeini would have huge impact on the Iran-Iraq war. Iranian business owners told Khomeini that they could grudgingly accept a capitalist theology- but not a socialist one. My guess is that factional fighting between the right wing Khomeini faction and the leftwing mullahs would longer, harder, bloodier and significantly weaken Iran before Saddam Hussein's invasion. Could the Iraqis seize control of and break away the Arabistan province?

Absent an Iraqi invasion, I could also see the victorious, but weakened socialists splitting into a theocratic wing and a secular wing- then fighting with each other. Would Iran dissolve into political and ethnic fiefdoms as the chaos escalates? Perhaps, Iranian Kurdistan is the first Kurdish region to gain de facto independence.