Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎584r] (1170/1237)

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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
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With the Co
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Under Secret*
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March 24. 1942.
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Section 1.
Copy No. 9 (
Sir R. Bullard to Mr. EdenXz-(RecXrrtd March 24.)
(No. 61.)
HIS Majesty's representative presents his compliments to His Majesty’s
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and has the honour to transmit
herewith a copy of despatch No. 5 from His Majesty’s Consul at Tabriz, dated
the 20th February, 1942, on the subject of the internal situation in Azerbaijan.
Tehran, February 27, 1942.
Enclosure.
Consul Cook to Sir R. Bullard.
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(No. 5.
Sir,
Confidential.)
Tabriz, February 20, 1942.
situation in the Tabriz district
I HAVE the honour to report that the
remains disturbed, but on a minor scale compared with a month or two ago. Apart
from the fighting on the Kurdistan border, there have been no large outbreaks
of banditry in the last fortnight, although plenty of bandits are in being in
most parts of Azerbaijan. In Tabriz itself the position is still unsatisfactory
because of the continual armed burglaries and killings, which arouse or sustain
the feeling of trepidation or almost panic among all classes except the poorest,
who have nothing to lose. While these burglaries are probably less numerous
than before the Russian entry, it is the bold and ruthless nature of the house
breakers which causes alarm. Before it was the houses of unpopular officials
and rich upstart merchants which suffered, and police complacency or connivance
in the robberies was often hinted at or taken for granted, but now no respectable
family feels safe from the ruffianly strangers who swarm in the town and are
invariably saddled with every crime or misdeed, while it is now Soviet
complacency, if not connivance, which is suspected by all.
2. These strangers are mostly the “ muhajirs” or refugees from the U.S.S.R.
who were kept well in hand by the authorities in recent years and mostly forced
to live in out of the way villages, but are now able to defy all regulations and
have come to the town in search of work, money and a less down-trodden existence.
They all speak Russian, of course, and some hob-nob with the Soviet troops,
especially with those from the Caucasus. Their presence is highly resented by
all classes of society here, although they cannot all be criminals. While Persians
in general now take their own greater liberties and freedom from fear and
restraint for granted, they apparently hate to see these shared by what they
consider as undesirable intruders—and this extends also to the Armenians and
Assyrians, who are expected to remain ground down and unprivileged as before,
and among whom any attempt at self-expression or self-assertion in these unsettled
times is regarded as alarming and revolutionary, and as certainly connected with
sinister Soviet influences.
3. My last despatch mentioned the sudden appearance in Tabriz of a number
of “committees” or clubs, some of a “proletarian” label. These at present
form the chief topic of conversation and theme for apprehension, although most
of them are probably harmless. One particular one in the Armenian quarter
is stated by everyone to be nothing but a collection of Kurdish, Azerbaijani and
Armenian undesirables, living on robberies and blackmail, and prepared to sell
protection to any wrongdoer who will join. All these clubs are issuing prospec
tuses and invitations to all and sundry, and the somewhat backward working-men
here are puzzled how to de al with all Jfie alluring offers of social reform, not to
T 27 — 93 ] IrECo.MMu.CEPtT
-9 APR1942
- INDIA OFFICE The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. ..