Social base of monarchists

Abbas Goya

Both the right and left wings of the bourgeois opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) possess a distinct social base. Apart from pro-west capitalists, the savagery, backwardness, impoverishment, and misery that the Islamic Republic has imposed upon the ordinary people have led a marginal segment of workers to call for the restoration of the monarchical regime. Moreover, a large section of the middle class is the organic supporter of the Pahlavi monarchy. A middle class that emerged during the rule of the IRI and owes its existence to the regime’s chronic political instability. This writing is about this middle class. 

The IRI's political instability discouraged large-scale investment, creating fertile ground for the growth of small producers, intermediaries, and brokers. As a result, a middle class developed whose position is deeply contradictory: while it owes its material existence to the IRI, it simultaneously harbors profound grievances against it.

Unresolved social and cultural grievances have pushed large sections of this middle class toward the pro-Western opposition. Yet despite their criticism of the IRI, they share several core features with the regime’s ultra-rightist rule. Like the IRI, they are deeply anti-worker; they are aggressively chauvinist—particularly toward Afghan migrants in Iran; and although they oppose compulsory hijab, they remain fundamentally misogynistic and hostile to genuine social equality.

Their opposition to the Islamic Republic’s regional interventions is rooted in racism. They object to the IRI's construction of hospitals and schools for “Arabs and Africans,” yet express little concern over the regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons or its military bullying of neighboring states in pursuit of regional hegemony. Moreover, they are largely in agreement to the Islamic Republic’s repression of working people in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the region.

At the same time, this middle class aspires to a Western lifestyle and therefore clashes with theocratic rule and religious interference in everyday life. They demand the removal of cultural restrictions that obstruct the smooth functioning of modern capitalism. Their opposition to compulsory hijab and their calls for cultural liberalization stem from this desire. Consequently, they nurture a nostalgia for the Shah’s era and advocate integration into Western economic and cultural structures.

Lacking a fundamental rupture with the Islamic Republic, this class initially aligned itself with the so-called “reformists”—a faction within the state apparatus seeking accommodation with the West. However, when workers rejected both factions with the slogan “Reformists, hardliners—game over,” this middle class gravitated toward the pro-Shah opposition.

Whether consciously or not, this class faces a deep contradiction. Replacing the Islamic Republic with a pro-Western bourgeois state would likely open the door to large-scale capital inflows, accelerating industrial concentration. Once multinational and multi-billion-dollar capital enters Iran, large segments of this middle class would end up bankrupt and pushed into wage labor, threatening their own social position.

Unlike the workers, this middle class enjoys a loud and disproportionate presence on social media and receives extensive support from mainstream Western media. Even the faintest symbolic gesture—if their Persian cat’s meow sounds like “Shah”—is enough for media outlets such as Radio Farda, Iran International, and Manoto to proclaim a “Pro-Shah march” and invite the “Prince” into their studios as the supposed leader of mass protests.

Had the workers been absent from the protests against the Islamic Republic, these forces might well have succeeded in imposing their own alternative on society. However, the independent presence of the working class in mass struggles has significantly limited—though not entirely eliminated—the possibility of such political engineering.

Alongside the right-wing opposition, the liberal left—most notably groups operating under the banner of the “Worker-Communist Party”—has pursued a populist strategy for nearly two decades. Meanwhile, workers remain deprived of an independent, genuinely socialist workers’ party.

The convergence of these dynamics increases the likelihood of right-wing hegemony over the anti-Islamic Republic movement, with or without the restoration of a “King.”