Reading On the Edge of Empire: From Brezhnev to Putin by Salam Musafir, a journalist who spent many years living in the Soviet Union and its aftermath, prompted me to compare the Soviet Union with Iran.
The similarities between the two are striking. Both can be classified as authoritarian systems, though one was secular and the other religious. In both cases, power erected a wall of intellectual isolation, leaving people with two choices: obedience or survival.
I do not believe history repeats itself, but I do believe that political systems may differ in ideology while sharing the same sources of weakness. The factors that make a state appear strong abroad can also render it incapable of addressing its internal ailments.
The testimonies of journalists who witnessed the Soviet Union's decline reveal a society that gradually drifted away from the language spoken by its leadership. The Communist Party boasted of socialism's triumphs while ordinary citizens stood in long lines for basic necessities.
The privileges enjoyed by officials and their families conveyed a reality very different from the one proclaimed by official platforms. The first cracks appeared in the gap between rhetoric and lived experience. The state could send a man into space while farmers still harvested crops with sickles. It could manufacture missiles while its leaders remained trapped in ritualized displays of power.
I see something similar in Iran's experience. The revolution was launched under the banner of defending the oppressed, yet a network of institutions and vested interests emerged around the state that proved difficult to hold accountable. Citizens who hear promises of justice want to see them reflected in their incomes, employment opportunities, and their children's future. Constant appeals for patience are not enough, especially when sacrifices appear unevenly distributed and those closest to power seem least burdened by their costs.
The second factor is economic. The Soviet economy did not collapse overnight. Stagnation accumulated, incentives weakened, and meaningful reforms were delayed. In Iran, repression is compounded by poor governance, inflation, and distorted investment patterns.
Then there is the cost of foreign ambitions. The Soviet Union carried the burdens of an arms race, military commitments, allies, and wars, even as domestic needs continued to grow. In Iran's case, regional expansion through armed proxies has, in my view, imposed costs beyond available resources and narrowed opportunities for domestic development. What value is influence in an Arab capital if citizens at home endure power outages and a steadily depreciating currency?
The two experiences also converge in the belief that ideology grants those in power a unique understanding denied to others. The Communist Party claimed a monopoly over interpreting the course of history, while Iran's leadership derives part of its legitimacy from a particular religious interpretation of politics. The problem arises when political judgment is elevated into a truth beyond criticism. In such circumstances, the ruler himself becomes a doctrine.
The Soviet leadership eventually recognized that the system required change, but it acted too late. Its hesitant reforms unleashed conflicts it could no longer control. In Tehran, fear of a similar fate appears to inform resistance to political opening. Yet blocking the path to reform does not eliminate the need for it; it merely postpones addressing underlying imbalances, allowing them to deepen within institutions that increasingly depend on security measures for protection.
Nor does society remain frozen at the moment of a revolution. In the Soviet Union, new generations emerged that no longer responded to old promises. In Iran, younger generations seek a normal life, personal freedoms, and greater engagement with the wider world.
The case of Mahsa Amini in 2022, whose death after demanding her rights sparked widespread protests, illustrates this. So too does the worker demanding fair wages and the student rejecting paternalistic control. Their grievances cannot all be dismissed as the work of foreign agents. Such explanations may comfort those in power, but they prevent genuine understanding.
The writings of Iran's opposition add another layer to this picture, criticizing the concentration of wealth, deteriorating public services, and the prioritization of foreign commitments over domestic needs.
I do not treat everything the opposition says as unquestionable truth. It is diverse, divided, and driven by its own calculations. Yet the persistent repetition of economic and political grievances deserves examination, particularly when economic indicators lend them credibility. They cannot simply be dismissed by questioning the motives of those who voice them.
There is also the question of the center and the periphery. The Soviet federal structure enabled local elites to transform dissent into demands for independence. Iran is different, and it would be wrong to assume that its ethnic and sectarian diversity will inevitably lead to fragmentation.
What can be compared, however, is the impact of discrimination and exclusion from political participation. Equal citizenship strengthens the state, whereas responding to local grievances primarily through security measures makes national cohesion more fragile, as can be seen among Kurds, Turkmen, Baluchis, and Arabs.
Finally, the Soviet Union's fate was not determined by popular dissatisfaction alone. Divisions within the leadership and the breakdown of its ability to reach consensus were decisive factors. This point is worth considering when examining Iran. Public approval may decline, yet the system can endure as long as its core institutions remain cohesive.
For that reason, monitoring tensions among Iran's centers of power is particularly important. In my view, such internal divisions are among the main obstacles preventing Iran from reaching lasting accommodation with the outside world.
External pressure, I believe, accelerates the appearance of existing flaws rather than creating them from nothing. It may allow governments to postpone accountability in the name of confronting an enemy, but it cannot repair failed governance or turn political slogans into bread on people's tables.
My conviction is that the fundamental factors are shared: an ideology resistant to self-examination, an economy weighed down by poor political choices, an elite determined to protect its privileges, and a society changing more rapidly than its rulers.
What differs is the form and timing of the outcome. The result may be a long process of transformation rather than a sudden collapse. The real task is not to predict the date of a system's fall, but to understand the causes of its gradual erosion.
Final thought: Abandoning a belief may sometimes be less painful than continuing to live with its contradictions.
