Contrary to the persistent modern myth of the “stolen revolution,” the Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime did not steal anything. It gained power through the active and enthusiastic support of the Iranian left — communists, Marxists, and secular socialists — who viewed the Islamists as allies in the struggle against “Western imperialism” and the Shah
This was no reluctant or tactical compromise. The pro-Soviet Tudeh Party publicly endorsed Khomeini’s leadership and called for unity behind him. Marxist guerrilla groups such as the Fedayeen openly aligned with the Islamists, while the Islamist-Marxist Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) marched alongside them.

Leftist newspapers and student organizations amplified Khomeini’s message from his Paris exile, where he carefully spoke the language of “freedom” and “anti-imperialism” while concealing his vision of absolute clerical rule (velayat-e faqih). For the Iranian left, the Shah’s modernization — women’s rights, secular education, land reform — was not progress; it was Western oppression that had to be destroyed at all costs. The enemy of their enemy was, for a time, their friend.

Once Khomeini returned to Iran in February 1979 and the monarchy collapsed, the tactical alliance began to unravel. The Islamists moved swiftly to consolidate theocratic power. By 1980, a “Cultural Revolution” purged universities of secular and leftist influence. Opposition rallies were crushed. Revolutionary courts, often presided over by figures like the infamous “hanging judge” Sadeq Khalkhali, issued summary death sentences.
The purges intensified. In 1981–1983, thousands of leftists were arrested, tortured, and executed. Tudeh Party leaders were forced to deliver humiliating televised confessions before the party itself was dismantled in 1983. Even groups that had initially supported the regime found themselves targeted.

The bloodiest chapter came in the summer of 1988. Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the execution of political prisoners who remained loyal to opposition groups — above all the MEK, but also remnants of the Fedayeen, Tudeh, and other leftist factions. Estimates of the death toll in that single massacre range from several thousand to as high as 30,000, with bodies dumped in mass graves. Thousands more had already been killed in the preceding years. The left that had helped bring Khomeini to power was decimated.

Iranian leftists were not naïve innocents suddenly betrayed out of nowhere. Many had cheered the early revolutionary tribunals and even participated in the elimination of real or perceived “counter-revolutionaries.” Yet when the Islamists no longer needed them, the theocrats turned on their former partners with ruthless efficiency. There was never any intention of sharing power with secular socialists, feminists, or atheists. The alliance was always temporary — a means to an end.

The pattern was visible even in real time. Prominent Western leftists, most notoriously the French philosopher Michel Foucault, traveled to Iran and celebrated the uprising as a thrilling new form of “political spirituality” against soulless Western modernity. Foucault praised the collective will of the masses and dismissed warnings from Iranian feminists and secularists about the dangers of clerical rule.

When the veils came down on women and executions multiplied, many on the Western left quietly moved on or reframed the outcome as a “hijacking” rather than a logical consequence of the coalition they had romanticized.

This “stolen revolution” myth persists today because it is comforting. It allows people to preserve the image of a pure popular uprising against dictatorship while ignoring the inconvenient truth: the Islamists won because large parts of the organized left actively helped them win.

Why does this history matter now? Because the same tactical alliance — what the French have bluntly called islamo-gauchisme — is playing out in the West today, with similar incentives and similar blind spots.
Shared hatred of “Western imperialism,” “Zionism,” and liberal modernity creates temporary common cause. Leftist activists and parties provide intellectual cover (“resistance,” “anti-colonialism,” “punching up”) and political legitimacy. Islamist networks gain votes, street muscle, and protection from criticism under the banner of “Islamophobia.” The result is visible in surging antisemitic incidents, pressure for open borders without integration demands, and mainstream left parties caving to demands from Islamist-leaning constituencies in key districts.

Just as in 1979, the left assumes it can ride the tiger and dismount later. Just as in 1979, the theocratic side has no intention of respecting secular values — women’s rights, gay rights, free speech, or pluralism — once it gains leverage. The human cost in Iran was measured in mass graves. In the West, it appears in eroded secular norms, parallel societies, and record levels of antisemitism on campuses and streets.
Iran’s own younger generation has been rejecting this legacy for years. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests after Mahsa Amini’s death showed massive opposition to the Islamic Republic — including among those whose families once supported the revolution. The original leftist dream of an anti-imperialist paradise was never realized; it was crushed under the weight of the theocracy the left helped empower.
Alliances with movements that fundamentally reject your core values rarely end in shared power. They end with the more ruthless partner dictating terms. The Iranian left discovered this too late. The West does not have to repeat the experiment.

Teaching the full, unvarnished history of 1979 — the coalition, the enthusiasm, the purges, the massacres — is one small but necessary step. So is rejecting the comforting myth that the revolution was simply “stolen.” It was not stolen. It was delivered, with the willing help of those who later became its victims.
The pattern only breaks when enough people stop pretending that tactical alliances with theocrats are harmless or “progressive.” History has already written the warning in blood. Ignoring it won’t make the warning disappear.

Subject thought up by me and the article written with the help of Grok.

By David Meir - Photo - Use according to Section 27 A of the law