The six days of protests beginning on July 7, 1999 will undoubtedly go down in history as the signal for the start of a new era in Iranian politics. The new era which will have its twists and turns, and even its surprises. Despite these the road leading to the total overthrow of the Islamic Republic will be one way. The significance of those six eventful days could be summed up:

1. The numerous schemes to reform the existing system have hit an impasse and Khatami's administration is paralysed by its own contradictions.

2. The crisis of the legitimacy of the existing political order has reached extraordinary dimensions and is fast moving towards a crisis of authority and control.

3. Institutional channels and permissible outlets are incapable of responding to the peoples' grievances and demands. It is not surprising, therefore, that people resorted to "direct action". We saw how a large section of those who had taken aim at the heart of the system used this first opportunity that came their way since 1981 to take a shot at it.

To have a clear grasp and accurate assessment of the historic place of the current events we must first of all explore its specific features. The most important detail is that the students who started the protest managed to go beyond their own circles and involved other sections of society in particular other youth (the unemployed and high school pupils), creating a mass movement with broad popular support. Three factors in particular account for the spread of the movement beyond the narrow confines of student circles:

Firstly, the extreme violence of the attack on the students' dormitory shocked a wide section of society and legitimised the furious reaction to it. Secondly, people were conscious that the ultra-conservative factions are determined to re-impose a total repression, which had partially lifted since the presidential elections of two years ago, and were increasingly willing to resist it. Thirdly, the general dissatisfaction with unemployment and rising prices, and the mounting sense of desperation as individual attempts to combat this poverty proved futile, especially amongst the young.

In the background was the split within the Islamic regime. There were also the experience of the various mass movements of the last two years. One can single out the presidential elections of May 1997, the mass reception for the Iranian World Cup soccer team, the defiant celebrations of the pre-Islamic Chahar Shanbeh Suri festivities last spring (banned by the regime as a pagan festival), the municipal council elections, and previous protests by students, intellectuals, as well as the activities of the semi-independent media, all of which helped to tone down the atmosphere of terror.

Autonomy and internal independence was the second feature of these protests. On the one hand they were a direct action in confrontation with political power. That is they took form outside legal and officially tolerated channels which in one form or other are amalgamated in the system, and stood up against them. On the other hand they were spontaneous. There was no prior leadership, no organisation and no pre-conceived slogans and demands. These all evolved in the process of the protests. Neither political parties and groups, nor student organisations had any significant control over them – at least not initially.

On the contrary one could see that the spontaneous protests forced the official student organisations to follow suite, and radicalised the slogans of the student movement. This feature clearly distinguishes the recent protests from the events of 1981, where political groups and organisations had a major guiding role. It also marks them out from previous student protests where official student organisations took the lead.

Indeed the autonomy and the spontaneity of these protests places them in the same category as riots of the poor and shanty town dwellers between 1992-1995in Mashad , Ghazvin, Arak, Shiraz, and Eslam Shahr.

In trying to explain this situation, firstly it is important to remember that there are no institutional channels for expressing discontent and protests, or to present demands. In other words two years of efforts by the reformist elites in establishing the rule of law, creating "civil" organisations and increasing participation in politics within the framework of the existing order based on velayat [absolute rule of the supreme religious leader] and guardianship have patently failed. The Khatami administration’s political reform programme remained on paper.

Second these events marked the absence of a trusted, radical and independent leadership in the student and popular movements. The limitations of formal institutions as well as failure of political parties and organisations to link with grass root activities and to influence emerging collective actions made spontaneous moves from below inevitable.

The July protests also went beyond acceptable and tolerated slogans. It had overstepped the undeclared "red line", radicalising the strategy of the student protest and with it the mass movement in its collision with the ruling political power. Strivings for political reforms within the framework of the existing system, were replaced by clear calls for a renewal of the political structure, and even looked beyond it, for the overthrow of the religious state. There is widespread frustration and gloom amongst the masses, and in particular among the students and intellectuals, at achieving political reforms without attacking the structure of power and the main pillars of the religious dictatorship. These were the most important elements shaping an intellectual climate that directly challenged the ruling power. The intellectual climate for such about turns has also been strengthened by increasing tendency in the last few years to formulate a more basic critique of the regime, and to highlight the structural and institutional obstacles to reformist platforms.

Moreover, the spontaneous and the mass action-like forms of the movement and its independence helped them transcend institutional limitations, and the usual counsells for prudence. Without mass protests the slogans would not have moved so quickly to question directly such "taboo" subjects as the rule of the religious leader. In a matter of days slogans jumped by leaps and bounds. Instead of "Ansar haya kon" (shame on Ansar Hezbollah) the demonstrators shouted: "Khamenei’ boro haya kon" (Khamenei’, have some shame, go), and even slogans implicitly comparing him to the deposed Shah.

Our emphasis on the spontaneity, un-institutionalised nature and self-mobilisation of the six-day demonstrations is not to deny the "rational choice" and "innate logic" of the demonstrators. The point is that in moments when the political crises reach explosive point because of police-security brutality, to take this opportunity to radicalise slogans, to break old moulds, and finally to place a new landmark in the struggle against the regime is a form of rational choice. For the first time, under the security umbrella of mass popular demonstrations, it became possible to override "conventional wisdom" and to resort to "extremism". It was the epitome of rationality.

The demonstrations also overcame their spatial limitations. The protest started in Teheran University campus, but became a nation-wide protest in a way which was unprecedented in the last few years. This peculiarity is rare in spontaneous movements and has had no equivalent in any of the political protests of the last 18 years.

Assuming that this breadth is an expression of the bitterness of the explosive feeling among the population, especially students and the young, the additional role of two other elements should be emphasised. The pro-Khatami media spread news of the demonstrators on a daily nationwide canvas, while the official national student organisation (like the Office of Securing Unity) had branches in most university towns and initiated and co-ordinated protests on many provincial campuses.

We emphasise this point to highlight how a spontaneous movement can utilise existing officially tolerated organisations, and the factional in fighting to overcome its limitations without allowing these to canalise the direction it is taking.

In short: The events of July and their outcome have given hope of a new political movement in Iran, a movement still in its infancy, without structure or leadership. This movement will define its strategy, ideology and identity as it moves ahead. Here is an opportunity for any serious political organisation, which they misjudge and misapply at their peril.

What are the consequences of the last few months? In many ways the July demonstrations have fundamentally changed the political equation in Iran. Events that began in the early 1990’s and acquired new features in the May 1997 presidential elections enter a new and qualitatively transformed phase.

The phase of chronic quasi-controlled political crisis and the battle for legitimacy has ended. We have entered a phase which will be distinguished by explosive political crises and the battle for power. The horizon holds prospects for a radical movements for overthrow from below and repressive coup-like moves from above. These will shape future events and act as the motor for its subsequent developments.

The recent student mass protests have also affected the relations between the two factions of regime, the balance of power between them and ultimately the fight for power at the top. These events, which were themselves an expression of the disillusionment with "legal reforms" especially among the students and youth, in turn lead to a considerable weakening in the position of the faction around president Khatami who based their strategy on such "gradualism". It has seriously weakened their bargaining power with the rivals.

In its first real trial the discourse on "civil society and the rule of law" was seen to be a rocky path with a bleak future. The apparent fragility and ineffectiveness of reformist tactics moved from the ideological to a practical sphere. Caught between those that hold real power and the direct action of the people, the reformists found that they have very little room to manoeuvre. Their ability to act as mediator between the above two has been seriously questioned. The events set off alarm bells that the noose tightening round the reform process was tightening at a phenomenal pace, counted in days and weeks rather than months and years.

However the ultra-conservatives too have not come out of the crisis any stronger. Indeed the blows they have had to absorb were both heavy and irredemiable. What damage more biting than the only real power they have, that is the bayonet of the pasdaran, the batons of the police and the knife-wielding hezbollah could not stop attacks on out of bound "sanctuaries" nor protect the sanctity of the religious ruler being dirtied by "offensive" slogans. The conservatives, and their cardinal pillars, have been damaged, a reality they cannot deny.

Their bloody attack on the campus showed them that in conditions where there is a split in power and the climate of repression had cracked, the use of force could reverberate against them and create further riots. Under these circumstances the conservatives (or those wanting total power) have only two options: either bow to "reforms" and accept its negative consequences on their position and interests, or go for another purge, face the dangerous consequences and bow to a battle with fate. Passive tolerance of Khatami has ceased to work.

Although time is against both factions, there are no signs that the squabbles between them is receding. Both factions have heard the "voice of the revolution" – as did the Shah in his broadcast to the nation in 1978. The reformists heard it some time back, maybe as early as seven or eight years ago. The other faction, with its inherent historic dimness, heard it a few days ago. They both see how the system is encircled by the protests and is fast losing its foundations. Yet it is their destiny to bet on two horses, both losers.

Their common goal is the survival of the regime although each has its own foundations and institutions, and the interests which have accumulated round these. They both understand that what they called the totality of the system, has long ago lost its ability to weather the storms. They need to fashion a new system, or sink.

One side, groans that attacks on the supreme religious ruler –the central pole holding up the tent of the Islamic system (amoud kheymeh) to them – takes place in front of the weeping eyes of revolutionary guard commanders (pasdaran). Why then hesitate to re-impose total repression on the country: either through eliminating the opponent or by bringing about his total submission?

For the other side, it is precisely the same fear of an uprising that prevents them surrendering their reform programme, and motivates them to continue to try to tie up the revolution in "civil institutions"

The consequences of six days of protest on political movements, and the various classes and social groups are likely to be profound. Before everything else demands and acts that move towards greater radicalisation will come under scrutiny. Other issues include the relation between the struggle on the streets and outside it, between education and work, between students and the unemployed, between political dictatorship and class exploitation, between factory and university… and their relation to the shaping of a mass movement.

In the short term it raises the question of how the student movement can proceed intact through the current wave of repression. With what speed can it repair the damages inflicted upon it? How can it benefit from, and use the gains of the recent protest for future actions?

And later in which direction will the new nascent movement develop and what identity will it take? How and when can this movement deepen its influence and mobilise bystander sections of society? How can it overcome ideological rifts and arrive at a unified strategy.

Will the movement of workers, the urban poor, youth, women and other social groups open new fronts against the forces of repression easing the pressures on students? Most important of all what is the nature of the political alternative to the existing ruling system which might ultimately take shape in an actual and final form, and can it create the conditions for a united mass movement?

The route taken by any of the above moves will also depend on the presence, or otherwise, of favourable social and political conditions. How will the divisions amongst rulers and the factional in-fighting develop, and how will these influence the strategy of the mass movement below? And if these factional fissures were to be filled, what direction they will take and what will their effects be on the mobilisation of the masses?

How long would the half-open political atmosphere survive? Will the semi-independent press continue to come out? At what speed will the current economic crisis, the mass unemployment, inflation and the rising levels of poverty spread? And finally in what way would the policies of world powers, global and regional crises and the existing frictions between the Islamic regime and its neighbours interact with internal processes and the overall conditions of the country. And how they will effect the movements below?

These questions will determine the ultimate destination of the one way road to oblivion opened up by the events last July.