Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎86r] (172/1237)

£Ms Uaa oestn follciwed up ar&iolea ia ta# Iud«li n*wepa¥p«F
AiiAVar^ . all souMlafe tha 1 ^alltrir «ai aii% that if aouetk'ilng is
aot 5speedily, aapaolally ^^out taa Municipal Council, tlw Party
will tu^« matter., iuto its »wa n^nds.
Qunurale Jan^nbanl and Khosropana were aatertuiiwia at dinuar
ay dartip DuraXhai&ani on A-agu^t 2 ! "tu* The itugalan 0ene r al and hi a
Chief oi Staff, and tha Russian Consal-Oeaeral and Oounaellor were
there, as '*as the Tythah .Deputy dlfhavari*
The only concrete suggest ion Jeaanbaai wavs heard to a a fee here
■ or the settliidt of Aseroeijan’s problems was the egtsoliohjaent of
o&rtial law in the town of tturagha (see para 1?5 helow)•
1^^* ^i.- v-^a 1 ii-: 1 (Last Diary, para 159}. Thi« iucident,
whioh brought Aaerbaljen eo^evrhat violently to the notice of the
Central Government, ie now being inveatigated by two offloiala of the
Ministry of Justice, Agha Jlddi end Agrha Hunari, who arrived here on
August 19th. they expect their investigation to last about one month.
Various version© of what happened at Li^vam have been heard since
writing the last Dii ry. The mly difference a of interest are that the
Tun eh rarty Insist that only throe on their side were 'illed, where; afi
everyone ^lao, including tnt Judicial inveetigatcro, ia certain thot
t our Tuueh £ie'Mbure were killed * The Pideh insistence on their
version may U« due to amour-propre, since only throe of the Ligvaaers
were killed, tout local opinion prefers the more sinister axpl&natl n
that tag fourth de©J man wa» a Husalan in disguise. Secondly, while
Tudeh and official sources breathe .no word of Russian participation
in the incident, there are oircuaatahtiai stories current in the
town of tne part played toy the Soviet Town Lajor and troops. One
fairly x»gliable luloraant, who claims to h*jve had his story from a
relative wire was one of the Tudeh force,xxxxXxxxxjKxxax^xiteie
^xx^xfeaXtygxdjestoa^xIOMcxIUiMabdbCTiixaaKiniJ^ludaataHeteavaVx^atoi^
state. . that tiiree truck loads of Russian troop© f illowed the Tudeh
iorce (whose trucks were supplied oy the Acting Head of the Road
Transport Administration at Tator.1 *) md to sited at s imo distance from
tne village. The Russian officer in charge instructsi the main Tudeh
body to approach the village from behind, declsrin; that he would
hold uis in reserve. The Assistant Frosvoutor General of Tabris
had been forced to accompany the expedition. Ho wrote a message on
air card and sent it to H.&jji Xhtlsham by the hand of a Tudeh
volunteer. The envoy, however, waa fired on and killed, and the
battle then joined. The Kasaiana did not go Into action. The
some inior&ant declares that the bulk of the Tudeh force eonalated of
Armaniaos and ’’huhajire” specially |>icited by the Ohalmait of the
woi*feurfc 1 Uiiion, and that very few Tabriz maelims took pert. The
iniormont aimacli, however, ia a auallm. The loot taken from the
vill agg, inoluding a quantity of women’s geld eminent a. Is popularly
eallMaU'd at about 400,000 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , of which aua the Soviet Town
OommaMant is firmly toelievvd to have pocketed the half.
The Acting bovemor-Oeneral, for his part, coi^plains of the
rgi&isansss of the Chief of Gendarmerie at Tabriz. He declares that
when he & ot wind oi the expedition he toeg t ad the Chief of Gendarmerie
to ©end acme of his men, but no notice war taken.
Xhtishsm’s son, Dawud Ktoka, and two of sons arv still in
Tabriz jail. All three ar-. wounded.
174* Jail -u-rgaa . (Lee laat Diary, para !6l). The
~of Persiaii Troops declarug that fudeh engiueered the
ntw^m^ted jail break on August iJBth* Their Intention wee to get the
prisoners out, arm them and start a riot in tho town. He takes grsat
eraait to himself for havlaM foiled them, and thus explains the Tudeh
rage against him which hroki out suddenly after this affair*
17b. ^venis in L;.^' del into le information asout the course of
cveaua in g^ragha in the period under review la meagre. There has
been for a long time a vigorous Tudeh Party branch there 'under the
leadership of a certain Rabl’i Kstoiri. Regularly, throughout the
last wight or nine months the fudeh Rarty hove oompi-lnod of assaults
against law Party by reactionaries in and round haragha, sad there
/have