Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎589v] (1181/1237)

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5. On the next day I called first on the Farmandar, who was left acting as
Ustandar when General Cupal departed so hurriedly the week before. I found
an elderly man of 68 with a quavering voice and feeble gait, a reputed opium-
smoker but undoubtedly intelligent and in no mind to quit his post with the rest.
In fact, he expressed himself as anxious to be properly appointed as Acting
Governor-General by Tehran as soon as possible, instead of being left to carrjj^
on without proper authority. In the course of a long conversation I found tlu
general position much as it was at Tabriz a few months ago, with the same story
of a collapse of administrative discipline, helplessness and incompetence among
the police and gendarmerie, nervousness of the Russians and critical misgivings
at their non-co-operation on the one hand and their meddling and alleged
disruptive tactics on the other, lack of social or civic sense among the middle-class
population, and a readiness of the undesirable elements in town and country to
take advantage of the unpopular Tehran administrations’s obvious weakness and
lack of direction. «»
6. The Farmandar said that while General Cupal had had difficulties with
the Soviet authorities, he himself had little to complain of from them, but he
did wish they would leave him to maintain law and order without interference. t
Only recently they had told him that the local police force must be reduced from
117 men to a figure of 54 only. He had demurred, pointing out that
there were too few police already in view of the disturbed state of the district,
but had thought best to dismiss fifteen men to begin with. Rezaieh had one
hundred gendarmes, but only forty-six had had rifles until this week, when forty-
four more arms arrived; such a force was completely unable to maintain security
along the main roads and in the country districts and, in fact, had ceased thinking
of doing so. Officers and men flatly refused to carry out their duties outside the
town, and threatened to resign rather than do so. As a result, Government
influence outside Rezaieh itself was practically nil; the landowners dared not
visit their villages to collect their wheat and other dues, and so refused to pay
the legal tax of 3 per cent, themselves. Any man of property in the countryside
was liable to be robbed and (as had happened) murdered, while discontented
elements, sometimes Armenian or Assyrian, had more or less set up independent
village rule. In the town itself conditions were not much better. There had been
a meeting in a principal mosque at which a crowd had resolved that the present
Administration should be deposed, a committee of five appointed to govern the
town, and a person named Sheikh Taha set up as Governor-General in place of
General Cupal, who had fled. (Nothing more had come of this, however.) Hardly
any taxes were being paid, except on small controlled commodities like opium
and cigarettes. The peasants who brought produce into the town either refused
to pay octroi-tax at the entrance, or paid what they thought fit, and the officials
and police there were too nervous to deal with them. The leading local firm of
distillers and wine-sellers openly refused to pay any excise-tax or put any tax-
banderolles on their bottles, and had threatened an exciseman with a revolver
when he called. On the other hand, there was a semi- secret committee Pre-1784, the Committee responsible for protecting East India Company shipping. Post-1784, its main role was to transmit communications between the Board of Control and the Company's Indian governments on matters requiring secrecy. who held
meetings in a house near the governorate (and the Russian headquarters, too,
incidentally), and who seemed to be developing some terrorist power over certain
elements of the town’s population, especially Armenians and Assyrians. Their
activities, and still more their rumoured and supposed activities, had been largely
responsible for the exodus of officials and well-to-do merchants, as everyone was
convinced that they were known to the Soviet authorities and had their approval
and support. This committee contained some sinister individuals and was
enlisting the support of others by threats and fear, while it was supposed to be
maintaining itself by the nightly robberies and burglaries which took place in the
; town, without the police daring to interfere. I heard about this committee both
from the refugees in Tabriz and from every individual I met in Rezaieh. and
no amount of questioning or incredulity on my part would shake anyone’s belief
in, and knowledge of, its existence, or of its being definitely in touch with the
Russians. I also mentioned it to the Soviet Colonel Commandant in Rezaieh
during my interview with him; as usual he at first denied any knowledge of such
a body, and then said it must be a Fascist organisation and would be dealt with.
Next day. according to confidential information received by the Farmandar. the
Russians told the committee that it had to disperse.