Islamic Revolution at 45: How Khomeini Transformed Iran's Relations With Moscow

Pictured: The famous Azadi (Freedom) Tower is illuminated with historical photographs of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution, and Iran's national flag during a ceremony of the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Tehran, February 10, 2024.

After February 1979, it took Moscow and Tehran time to calibrate their new relationship. Then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev hailed the revolution as a "great historical victory for the Iranian people," with the USSR becoming the first country in the world to recognize the new government. Moscow was undoubtedly relieved by the ouster of an American puppet regime in such a strategically vital country bordering its soft southern underbelly, and heartened by Tehran's decision to break off relations with Washington and join the Non-Aligned Movement.

Pictured: Revelers celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Relations worsened through the first half of the 1980s, with Iran's revocation of two articles of the 1921 Soviet-Iranian Treaty pledging both countries not to deploy military contingents hostile to one another on one another's territory, the USSR's military operation in Afghanistan in support of a communist government besieged by CIA-backed rebels, and Moscow's failed attempts to reconcile Baghdad with Tehran during the brutal Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 negatively impacting bilateral relations.

Ayatollah Khomeini's statements about the incompatibility of Islam with communist ideology further strained ties, with the supreme leader characterizing the USSR as the "Lesser Satan" in the Cold War confrontation against the American "Great Satan," signaling that Iran would not support either side.

Pictured: Fireworks over Tehran's Milad Tower during the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

In the second half of the 1980s, relations began to thaw, with economic ties remaining close, and cultural cooperation continuing. Iranian airlines received the right to fly through Soviet airspace in 1985. In 1987, Aeroflot resumed flights to Iranian cities, and in 1990, Iranian pipeline gas deliveries to the USSR were resumed, paid for on a barter basis, including the work of Soviet engineers working on important social and infrastructure projects in the Islamic Republic. By 1990, Soviet-Iranian trade turnover had reached the equivalent of about $1.3 billion US.

Pictured: Closeup of the Azadi (Freedom) Tower, illuminated with pictures of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during a ceremony of the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran, February 10, 2024.

In January 1989, five months before his death, Ayatollah Khomeini wrote his first and only message ever to a foreign leader - addressing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In it, he called on the USSR to abandon its ideology of communism, and particularly its principles of materialism and atheistic hostility to religion, while simultaneously warning him against a return to capitalism. Khomeini suggested Iran's Islamic system as an ideological alternative.

"Your difficulties lie in the lack of true faith in God, and this leads and will lead the West into a quagmire of vulgarity, into a dead end. Your main difficulty lies in the futile, long-term struggle against God, the main source of being and everything that exists," Khomeini wrote.

Pictured: Fireworks light up the night sky as revelers watch during celebrations of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Gorbachev sent a written response to Khomeini several days later, addressing issues of bilateral cooperation, the situation in the Middle East, and his “New Thinking” proposals for convergence between the superpowers to tackle global problems.

"I am disappointed," Khomeini responded in a message to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the only senior foreign official he ever met as supreme leader. "I heard that Gorbachev is a thinking man. I did not write him a letter by chance. The letter talked about the place of humanity in this world and the world beyond...As for the normalization of relations, I support it."

Pictured: Iranians gather in Tehran to mark the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Following the USSR's collapse in 1991, notwithstanding the Boris Yeltsin government's attempts to forge closer ties with the West, relations with Tehran quickly came to enjoy a minor boom as well, with both countries facing economic difficulties and realizing they could complement one another's needs. Russia agreed to help Iran with its peaceful nuclear program, and agreed to assist the country in rearming its Army, Navy, and Air Force with then-modern Soviet weaponry.

Pictured: Reveler watches fireworks over Tehran's Milad Tower during the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

In Moscow foreign policy circles, some strategists began formulating proposals to establish a strategic partnership with Iran and other rising powers to help counterbalance US and NATO hegemony. This approach would begin to be realized in the 2000s.

Trade relations remained weak through the 1990s due to both countries' lack of hard currency, but would eventually surpass Soviet-era levels from 2003 onward.

Pictured: Ayatollah Khomeini waving to supporters in a historic photo projected onto the Azadi (Freedom)Tower in Tehran.

After the start of the CIA dirty war in Syria in 2011, Russia and Iran joined forces to assist the country in its battle against terrorism, with Moscow deploying a limited contingent of military aircraft and warships in 2015 to conduct coordinated strikes against terrorist targets, reportedly after encouragement by late Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.

In 2019, Russian, Iranian, and Chinese warships held their first-ever joint drills in the Gulf of Oman, signaling strengthening strategic ties between the three nations.

Throughout this period, economic cooperation continued to expand as well, with trade turnover hitting $4.9 billion in 2022 and expected to grow further after the completion of ambitious strategic infrastructure projects like the North-South Transport Corridor initiative.

Pictured: Fireworks explode near Azadi (Freedom) Tower during celebrations of the 45th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, February 10, 2024.

The construction of an economic and security bloc involving Russia and Iran accelerated dramatically in 2023, when Tehran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.

At the same time, bilateral ties continue to grow stronger, with Moscow announcing in December 2023 that the two countries would be speeding up work to complete a "major new interstate agreement," widely speculated to be a strategic partnership pact involving economic, security, cultural, technical, scientific, and other cooperation.

Pictured: Fireworks explode in the night sky against the background of Milad Tower during celebration of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Relations between Russia and Iran have been forged by over 500 years of diplomatic contacts, and more than a millennium of ties going back to commercial exchanges between the Persian Empire and Russian peoples in the 8th century. This history has seen periods of friendship and cooperation, strife and conflict, but as former Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei said in 2018, "at no point in the last 500 years has the level of dialogue between Iran and Russia been so high."