Historical Organization
Rastakhiz Party
Rastakhiz Party
Details
Organization Timeline
The Shah announces the Rastakhiz one-party state
📅 2 March 1975Existing loyal parties were dissolved into a compulsory national party. Citizens were told to join, accept the political system or leave the country.
Legal political pluralism is abolished
📅 2 March 1975The single-party system made the authoritarian character of the monarchy more explicit and alienated bazaar merchants, professionals and religious opponents.
Rastakhiz targets bazaar autonomy
📅 2 March 1975Party campaigns against alleged profiteering intruded into traditional commercial networks that later financed and organized revolutionary protest.
Khomeini calls for a boycott of Rastakhiz
📅 12 March 1975From Najaf, he declared compulsory party membership illegitimate and urged Iranians not to cooperate with the one-party state.
The Rastakhiz boycott links religion and political freedom
📅 12 March 1975Khomeini argued that forced membership violated both Islamic duty and the nation’s right to oppose tyranny.
Iran holds elections under the one-party system
📅 20 June 1975All candidates belonged to Rastakhiz, demonstrating the absence of meaningful electoral competition.
The state-sponsored Rastakhiz Party is dissolved
📅 25 September 1978The one-party institution created by the Shah in 1975 collapsed under revolutionary pressure.
The monarchy abandons its compulsory party project
📅 25 September 1978Ending Rastakhiz acknowledged the failure of an organization designed to absorb all legal political activity.
Former party structures lose authority
📅 25 September 1978Officials and local elites tied to Rastakhiz could no longer present it as a channel for popular participation.
Opposition demands move beyond party reform
📅 25 September 1978Dissolution did not satisfy a movement increasingly committed to ending monarchical rule.