From Gdansk to Tehran

Xenophobia. The Polish communist regime routinely painted opponents as tools of the West or Radio Free Europe. During the student protests in March 1968, they even staged the same kind of "confessions" that Iranian TV features now, showing young people who admitted that they were led astray by Western broadcasts. The message in both cases is that loyal citizens recognize the evil designs of the outside world and reject them. But a driving force of the protests in Poland then and Iran now is to break through the country's isolation, allowing their citizens to participate in a global society. The "them vs. us" argument worked with ZOMO, the Polish riot police force that was routinely sent out to bash heads, and still works with their Iranian counterparts today, but it's not an argument that is convincing to anyone who doesn't live in a completely isolated world.

Government tactics. Most dictatorships or authoritarian regimes like to present themselves as democratic and find some way to back up that claim. "People's democracies" in the Soviet bloc were notorious for only going through the motions by holding uncontested elections. When the pressure for change became too great, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski's regime agreed to hold the famous partly free elections in June 1989. The party elite were convinced they had cleverly devised a way of making themselves look good by allowing people to vote freely in some contests, but guaranteeing the majority of seats in Parliament to the Communist Party and its allies. In other words, they tried to rig the outcome from the beginning. That tactic backfired when Solidarity scored such a resounding victory for the contested seats that even that the smaller parties, which had been considered puppets before, defected. 

In Iran, the rulers allowed several candidates to run for president, and then apparently tried to guarantee a landslide by fiddling with the vote count (hence the districts where there were more votes counted than registered voters).  Whether or not they will get away with this depends to a large degree on what happens within the leadership itself. Real splits are visible, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has antagonized several key political figures with his strong-arm tactics. For all the tensions within the Polish Communist Party, there was general unity on the question of maintaining power at all costs—until it became impossible to do so. In Iran, the ruling elites aren't nearly as unified on this key point.

The opposition.  The big unanswered question in Iran is where the protest movement goes from here. Unlike Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, the de facto leader of the opposition is Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who was once very much a part of the governing elite. Can he rally the opposition in the face of repression, will he be willing to take the bold risks that his new role requires, or will he gradually back down? There's the classic question whether man makes history or history makes the man. Right now, history has propelled Mousavi into his new role; the next step would be for him to make history by truly taking it on. Under different circumstances, that's exactly what Walesa did.

Radicalization. Even if it is successful in crushing the protests now, the Iranian government faces the same danger that Poland's rulers did. Repression breeds radicalization, and an unwillingness to compromise. When I first went to Poland as a student in 1968, those who had participated in the March protests clung to a vague belief in the possibility of creating a democratic socialist system. After all, this was the year when Czechoslovakia's reformer Alexander Dubcek had popularized the notion of "socialism with a human face." When I covered the strikes and protests in May 1988, students I met scoffed at that 1960s idea. There was no middle way, they maintained. "What's the difference between democracy and socialist democracy?" they asked rhetorically. Their answer:  "The same as between a chair and an electric chair." Like Poland's rulers in an earlier era, the Iranian government may lose the chance to compromise with their younger generation if they rely only on repression now.

One final lesson that is worth keeping in mind: appearances can be extremely deceiving when it comes to judging what's likely to happen next. During those protests in May 1988, I watched riot police and plainclothesman break up a demonstration and make numerous arrests with relative ease. They were merciless with anyone who didn't run away fast enough, which often meant the older people, especially women. The Jaruzelski regime still felt that it could show everyone it was still firmly in charge. Even many Solidarity activists privately admitted they were right, and had a hard time summoning any hope that the situation would change anytime soon.  But within a year, the tables had turned completely. 

This doesn't mean that Iran will change just as fast or the same way. But even if President Ahmadinejad and his followers prevail in the current crisis, they should not take anything for granted. Iran isn't Poland, but it isn't immune to many of the same forces that produced the remarkable change in fortunes there. 

NAGORSKI is vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute and the author of The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II. He wrote this essay for NEWSWEEK's Polish edition, NEWSWEEK POLSKA.     

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