Coll 28/112B Persia. Tabriz. Monthly dispatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan, & misc: reports.’ [‎208r] (416/451)

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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
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January 30, 1946.
PERSIA.
Section 2 .
SECRET.
[E 904 / 5 / 34 ]
Copy No. 143
Consul-General Wall to Sir R. W. Bullard (Tehran)^— {Communicated by Tabriz
Despatch No. 9, 17^4 January, Received in Foreign Office 30^ January.)
(No. 2. Secret.)
Tabriz, 12th January, 1946.
I HAVE the honour to submit herewith an appreciation ot conditions in
this consular district between the 13th August and the 31st December, 1945.
Persian Administration.
2. The pessimism of the Persian officials and merchants which I mentioned
in the conclusion of my despatch No. 12 of the 23rd August, 1945, has been
• . • tl .1 i Pil 1 a O .i. 1 _ ~ ~ . J 4 - T-t s-v 1 y-v 4 - r\ i VA rv 11 O i 1 /"Wl •
justified by the events of the last four months and the long-standing question :
“ What will happen to Azerbaijan after the war,' 1 has been answered in fairly
plain terms. That some people were sure about the answer long ago can be seen
now from the efficient planning and timing of the assault on the Persian Adminis
tration in this province. The aim of the Tudeh party was to reduce to a minimum
the authority of the Tehran Government in Azerbaijan, the practice of the
Kussian authorities, adjusted to this aim, was to prevent any strengthening of
the local administration by the appointment of more competent and patriotic
officials.
3. Even in Persia it is possible that a weak local administration might
in certain circumstances be bolstered up by patriotic and public-spirited local
citizens. Thus, in Azerbaijan, the Persian Government might have found
strength, first, in an organisation of merchants and manufacturers in some anti-
Tudeh party and, second, in the combination of wealthy landlords whose interests
were threatened by the Tudeh-Democratic movement. The Democrats were well
aware of these dangers and took the initiative. By a little terrorism and a lot of
threats and bluff they frightened the townspeople‘out of any attempt to combine
in a “ reactionary Seyyid Zia party.” When necessary they could always count
on Russian support to secure the expulsion of persons likely to be active in such
combinations, because such persons could always be “ proved ” to be inimical to
Russian interests. By August 1945, there had been enough of such expulsions
to convince everyone that there was no hope whatever of forming an anti-Tudeh
party. At the same time a campaign of terrorism was being carried on against
the landowners and had reached its height at harvest time, when the Tudeh
weapon of withholding rents in kind could most effectively be brought to bear.
This campaign also was a complete success and served a double purpose : it robbed
the Persian Administration of the potential support of the landowners, and it
freed and emboldened the peasants on whom the Tudeh-Democrat party counted
as forces in the next stage.
4. The Administration thus isolated was powerless : it could make no
regulations and undertake no activity which had not the approval of the Tudeh-
Democrats. It was headed, not by a substantive Governor-General, but by an
acting official whose avowed purpose was simply to keep the wheels on the cart
as long as he could and to get out when he couldn't. An attempt to substitute
a substantive Governor-General, Mehdi Farrukh, for the acting official, AbuT
Path Nikjou, was frustrated by a violent Democrat press campaign and by a
plain statement of the Russians that they would consider his appointment
“ provocative.”
5. By December the work of undermining the Persian Administration had
left only two main props still to knock out : the gendarmerie and the army. Of
these, the former was the stouter. Its role in Azerbaijan, besides keeping'order
in the country places, had been quite openly to assist the landowners in collecting
rents and disciplining their peasants, whose condition approximated more nearly
to that of serfs than tenants. The peasants could therefore be counted on to
give their support against the gendarmerie as they had in general given it against
the landowners. The army, like the civil administration, had been efficiently
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neutralised by the Russians, who, by the res its movements,
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