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the streets would henceforth be enforced. The Prime Minister also issued a state
ment to the press giving a complete reply to the statement issued by Kavtaradze
on the 24th October. Trouble was now reported from Tabriz, Resht, Isfahan and
Sultanabad. In Tabriz the mob tried to rush the police headquarters and was
fired on, one man being killed and several wounded. Russian troops intervened
and prevented the Persian police and military from interfering with the mob.
<< r.The officer commanding the Persian troops was given twenty-four hours to leave
the town. At Resht the shops were closed and the Persian police were similarly
prevented from dispersing the crowd. In Isfahan and Sultanabad, where there
are no Russian troops, the demonstrations were small and soon dispersed without
incident.
10. All the efforts of the Russians to incite the press and the Tudeh to
agitate in their favour served only to show that public opinion was opposed to the
grant of this concession and was being antagonised and disillusioned by the
methods adopted by the Russians. An increasing number of newspapers began to
support the Government on the oil question. The Russian censors did their best
to ensure that only Moscow’s partisan account of the matter should reach the
outside world. They not only stopped any press telegrams giving an objective
opinion, but suppressed the official Persian version which M. Sa’id tried to tele
graph to Persian representatives in London, Washington and elsewhere, first in
plain language and then in cypher. In spite of Russian censorship obstruction,
however, the Persian Government’s version of the matter eventually reached the
newspapers abroad. As a result of the publicity which the dispute had now
acquired, Russian propaganda began to shift its ground. Sa’id was attacked,
not so much for refusing the concession as for upsetting Russo-Persian relations,
and he was accused of trying to establish in Persia a base for Fascist aggression
against Russia; and the facts were falsified sc as to appear to justify Russian
indignation.
11. Nevertheless, in spite of public support of Sa’id and the Government,
a number of deputies began to find the strain intolerable and the opinion in
the Majlis was gaining ground that Sa’id should resign, as a sop to the Russians.
The various fractions in parliament began to hold meetings to discuss Sa’id’s
successor. The majority appeared to favour Dr. Musaddiq, who on the
29th October made a very long speech in the Majlis which created some impression.
In this, he went over a lot of old history and criticised the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company concession but finished by advising the Government not to give a con
cession to the Russians but to form a Persian or an international company to
exploit the Northern oilfields and sell the surplus oil.
12. By the 3rd November there seemed to be a slight detente in the crisis
and it was said that the Russians were prepared to drop their demand for a
concession. The Russians permitted the transport of grain to Tehran to be
resumed on the Northern railways and the Russian censor passed oil crisis tele
grams, albeit very discreet ones, addressed to Reuter and American agencies.
But pressure on Sa’id to resign was intensified. The campaign against him in
the Russian sponsored press increased in violence and on the 6th November Moscow
radio broadcast in Persian “ a national protest against the Government of Sa’id,”
giving reports of alleged mass meetings throughout Persia against his reactionary
Government. The Government also had to take steps to suppress another Tudeh
demonstration on the 7th November by sending troops to occupy their premises
and by arresting some of their leaders. Sa’id was by now receiving information
by indirect means from the Russians that if he resigned they would drop their
demand for a concession and Kavtaradze would go. Sa’id therefore on the
8th November invited some twenty deputies representing all sections of the
Majlis to a meeting and told them to choose his successor.
13. Finally, on the 10th November Sa’id resigned. The Shah informed His
Majesty’s Ambassador that Sa’id’s resignation had been accepted for fear lest
the Russians should resort to extreme measures such as instigating a separatist
movement in Azerbaijan. For some days after Sa’id’s resignation Majlis dis
cussion continued to centre round the nomination of Dr. Musaddiq. On the
14th November the deputies voted almost unanimously for Dr. Musaddiq, but
almost equally unanimously against accepting his condition that special legisla
tion be passed authorising him to resume his seat in parliament if he had to
resign from the premiership at any time before the end of the 14th Majlis. The
various Majlis fractions therefore went into conclave again to choose a Prime
Minister, and it was not until the 20th November that Mustafa Quli Bavat was
elected Prime Minister with fifty votes against forty-five given to Sadiq Sadiqi.
Until the last moment the favourite was Sami’i, formerly n diplomat but now