Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎121r] (242/1237)

was present and later volunteered the infomatien that he had been
challenged on this point of suppresskn. He had replied that there
could he no question of forbidding Gtoverniuent servants join the
Union because, under the Fundamental Law, ti ey had the right to
take part in any legal combination. From another source it lias been
learned that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss the proposed
drastic reduction of the staff of the Supply Department and other
Governments De artments in Azerbaijan, ihere arr ricaours that as
BMiny a? 30^ of the employees of the Supply Department, uustly uhose
employed by the day or the wee^., ait to be dismissed. Some of them,
it is said, will be given grants of Government land, ihe proposal,
whether St is put into force or not, has caused some indignation.
An unsigned pamphlet has ax^peaied which labels Mohamod All Agh fe vxi,
the He d of the Finance Department, and cthei officials, as M tocls
of Sevyifl
The Tudefa Party have always at uached imp art.: nee to being strong-
lv represented in the teiegr ph offices up and down the province.
There are n^w reports from both Kar&g a and Kianduab of agitation
against the telegraph masters in those , laces, who are accused of
the victimisation of Tudeh members.
Sever .1 observers h; ve lately remarked n increasing tendency
of the Tudeh party In Azerh ijan to open its ranks uo the bourgeois
element merch nts and even landlords, lu is intei reted as an
attempt by the Kuesiane to win over the “xegpeetable- portion of
the population. Hecently, too, the Soviet Consul-General invited
the landlords of Tabriz to send two of their number to cull on him
and disease their grievances against the Tudeh larty ~nd the
situat cn in the villages. The in vital on was accepted air: the two
spokCfiCien said they had told the Consul-General that the Hussion
policy of courting the lower classes through paid agitators and
"muii&j irs w was quite wrong and they would do well to consider th©
interests of the proprietors, who were a much more powerful class.
This, cf course, may have been a version "d*©scalier’*.
A few minor incidents of disorder between Tudeh members and
others have been repor edj On the lirut cf June there was a fight
between two Tudeh members and two Persian soldiers outside the
b'Tracks. The soldiers’ comradeii joined in and the Tudah members
were thoroughly be. ten up. In addition they wsro hauled off to
justice and sentenced (by Military Court) to two years’ imprisonment.
There is an unconfirmed report that a Tudeh agitator has been shot
dead in the village cf B bui, near Uskp in western Azerbaijan.
Two Tudeh Party journalists from Tehran, Dr. J-udat and Lhalil
U aiki, have paid a visit to labri*. Maliki was introduced by the
sub-editor of "Li: rv : r-i-hcv M as a "major theorist" of the Party.
He speak® German and was apparently in Germany from about i£DC to
1932, when., he said, i* e had to leave "for political reasons'* •
110. Reg: ieh . 3artip Durakhehani, the Coumianuuiit of the Third
DivisTcn,"*Hac paid a visit of about ten days to Rezaieh in the period
under r view. He stated cn his return that all was quiet there.
Ke coni ir?r.ed, however, that the Kurdish bandit, Zero Herki, is
interested in the J .K. Gociety. he and other IL-rki chiefs had had
a meeting in the MargivfAr area. lie said, also, th t the brother of
Mullah Hustafe Barzani? the ’Iraqi Kurdish Chieftain ht.d visited
U hrm abo t the middle of M y. He h d been arrested bry the Russians,
but cn the intervention of Qar&ini Agha oi the Zarzax, he was
released and allowed to proceed with his mission of m&kirig contact
with leaders of the "Koumala**. This brother’s n^une, the Commandant
thought, is qadir.
From another source it is laarned that Zero hue been on the war
path on his own acc unt. About May 20th. he raided the peasants in
the fields of the villages of Tarzalou and Jeiranlar and began to
drive off their draught cattle. They villagers, with the aid of
seme gendarmes, resisted. Zero, finding he had bitten off mere than
he could chew, sent to his neighbour, Karim Khan Herki, Tor help.
/Karim