On the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian student movement underwent a strategic transformation from armed struggle to civil resistance. Despite nearly two decades of guerrilla activities among students, the central research problem lies in explaining this fundamental transition. The main research question is: "What factors and mechanisms caused the student movement's pattern of struggle to shift from radical armed action to nonviolent civil resistance in the final years of the Pahlavi era?" To address this, a historical-analytical method has been employed, drawing on library sources, while data have been analyzed within Gene Sharp's "civil resistance" framework and the structural-agency approach.
The findings reveal three key factors: the failure of guerrilla groups to gain mass support; the expansion of civil society and intermediary institutions (clergy, religious intellectuals, bazaar merchants, and workers); and the transformation of student discourse under the influence of Shari'ati's ideas and symbolic practices such as the Goethe Nights. By employing Sharp's three strategies—protest and persuasion, non-cooperation, and nonviolent intervention—the movement succeeded in transforming its pattern of struggle into inclusive collective action.
This strategic transition was not a tactical adjustment but rather the outcome of simultaneous transformations at three levels: agents (guerrilla failure), institutions (civil society expansion), and discourse (reformist religious thought). The study demonstrates that answering the research question is possible through explaining the complex interplay of prior strategic failure, changing political opportunities, and identity redefinition within the civil resistance framework