Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎9r] (17/248)

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to the world. At present, Russia was (through the Tass Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. , which, being
official, was exempt from censorship) presenting one side and at the same time
using the censorship to prevent the dissemination of even the mildest reports
written from another point of view. This could not be reasonably claimed as
necessary for the protection of Allied communications now that aid to Russia
was no longer passing across Persia.
42. After discussion between the Foreign Office, the embassy, the United
States Ambassador and Persia and Iraq Command, it was agreed that the
definition of condemnations in article 5 of the agreement of January 1942 under
which the censorship was exercised should be replaced by the following :—
“Any communication which conveys information concerning the
deployment of troops or supplies in the prosecution of the war against Japan
and the output in Persia, and distribution, of petroleum or other strategic
products for use in the w T ar against Japan.”
43. Meanwhile, on the 31st July the Persian Government sent to the British
and Soviet Embassies an official request for the abandonment of the political
censorship.
44. The embassy was still pressing His Majesty’s Government to accept the
redefinition of condemnations described above, as political trouble in Azerbaijan
made it important that political news should get out untrammelled, when the
end of the war with Japan arrived. His Majesty’s Government immediately
instructed the embassy to inform the Persian Government and the Soviet Embassy
that they regarded the continuance of Allied censorship as unnecessary. The
embassy were to make a joint communication to the Persian Government with the
Soviet Embassy, but, if the latter had no instructions within a week, His Majesty’s
Embassy were to make the communication alone. The Soviet Embassy, as usual,
received no instructions, so His Majesty’s Embassy, acting alone, duly informed
the Persian Government on the 30th August that British censorship had ceased
that day.
45. Inspired by this the Soviet section, on the 3rd September, ceased
censorship of all telegraphic and postal communications between Persia and the
British Empire and United States.
46. On the 18th September the Persian Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and
Telephones instructed the Persian Post Office to cease sending mail to the Soviet
section of the censorship and the Soviet censor protested. This courageous move
on the part of the Persian Government, however, passed unnoticed as it was
immediately overtaken by further developments. On the 19th September the
Soviet Ambassador informed the Persian Government that all Soviet censorship
was ceasing forthwith.
The Persian Army.
47. — A . Morale .—Certain factors militating against good discipline have
been noticed in previous reviews of the Persian army. They still persist.
Recently discontent at their financial position among the officers has increased.
The Russians were not slow to notice this and, through their agents, the Tudeh
party, fanned the flames of this discontent. In mid-August eighteen officers of
the Meshed garrison, headed by a lieutenant-colonel in the Supply Department,
obtained possession of a jeep, two lorries, a wireless-telegraphy set and arms and
ammunition. To prevent pursuit they immobilised the remaining army vehicles
by removing their switch keys and by putting salt in their petrol tanks (sugar,
though more effective, is too expensive in Persia). With the connivance of "the
Russian control post (gome say avoiding the control post by a detour) they made
their way to Bujnurd, having taken the precaution of cutting the telegraph lines
between Meshed and Kuchan. On arrival there they gave out that they were come
on an inspection of the cavalry squadron stationed there. They disarmed the
squadron and made for the Turcoman Steppe. It was thought in Meshed, and
the General Staff was so informed by the Russians, that these mutineers would
join forces with a band of armed Turcomans said to number between 1,000 and
2,000 and subsequently attack Meshed. The Chief of the General Staff, having
much experience of Russians, did not think that they would go out of their wav
to give him accurate information about a gang of mutineers with whom they were
probably in sympathy, nor did he think it likely that the Russians would tamelv
allow them to attack one of their garrison towns. He acted, therefore, on the
assumption that their information was wilfully misleading and reckoned on the
mutineers heading in the opposite direction. Having no troops in Gunhad-i-
Qabus, through which place they must pass, he asked for the assistance of the