Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎593v] (1189/1237)

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fomenting trouble in the villages were not Russians, but agents 'provocateurs in
disguise, that the unrest was caused largely by greedy landlords going to extort
money and produce from the peasantry, that the Persian authorities made trouble
by persecuting those villagers who had been sympathetic or helpful to the Soviet
forces of occupation (my despatch No. 56 of the 29th December last, paragraph 9,
mentions the Persian version of this accusation), and that, if the local authont^^.
really wished to put down disorder, they could easily do so. I again mentione^
however, their diffidence and timidity, and stressed what I termed our joint
need for law and order in this important part of Persia, where British tanks
and military supplies were due to pass shortly. I also took the opportunity of
getting in a few digs at the Soviet Political Bureaus methods in this province,
in flagrant contradiction with the policy enunciated by M. Stalin and the Soviet
diplomats generally. To my surprise he admitted that the military (meaning
doubtless the Politbureau or Ogpu in uniform, whose existence is never openly
acknowledged as such) had undoubtedly made some mistakes here, but he himself
hoped to put things right.
4. Later I saw various Persian officials, and, when they sounded me tor
my opinion, told them to take strong measures. I learnt that the gendai mei ie
commandant was away at Rezaieh or Ma ku, unable to return because of snow
and bad roads, and that there were onI)T fifty gendarmes in reserve at Tabriz
for sending against the rebels. Luckily these had just received arms from Tehran,
after much delay. Actually some fifty gendarmes had already been sent to the
threatened town of Marand, where the tribesmen were hanging about a few miles
away. It later transpired that the latter were only about 300 in number, that a
band of thirty or so had sufficed to seize the police barracks and customs-house at
Julfa without any opposition being offered, and that only a few were armed with
modern rifles, for which they had little ammunition. They were led by a refugee
named Ismailoff, who was literate to the extent of being able to Avrite Turkish
in Russian characters, and that was all. Before this second force of lift}
gendarmes arrived, they had dispersed and returned to their villages, and the
inference in Persian official circles is that the Soviet authorities merely told them
to be off for the time being. They seized a few rifles and several thousand rials
at Julfa, which have not been recovered.
5. I heard afterwards that the Soviet authorities here stressed their wish
that the Persian gendarmerie should not use uncalled-for violence against the
rebels. Such Communist tender-heartedness, strangely at variance with what
is related of their own methods in the Caucasus, Turkestan and Sinkiang in the
past, has its own meaning, of course, for the Persians. Although I try to
deprecate stories of deliberate Soviet and Communist intrigue among the
peasantry, I am now convinced that the Russians are, in fact, trying to make the
country people at least sympathetic to them. Unfortunately, their ignorant and
mass-propaganda fed agents or emissaries know of only one line of approach, the
class-warfare one, and the results may soon be distinctly unpleasant unless some
sensible corrective is administered by wiser Soviet counsels. But the
unrepentant and persistent offenders of the Politbureau, as was shown in various
parts of Asia, not to mention many parts of Europe, go their own irresponsible
way, whatever the smooth foreign commissars may be saying to the contrary to
foreign diplomats in Moscow, and so it is here. I have good reason to believe
that this Soviet political clique in Tabriz definitely resent my presence here, as
it seems to necessitate more subterfuge than would otherwise be used, and even
an occasional stoppage of activities for a short while when some clumsy
apprentice of theirs blunders too crassly. For some months now no Russian
authority, civil or military, has visited this consulate, however often I may call
to see them, although they cannot possibly accuse me of working against them in
any way. Now that a Soviet Consul-General has been appointed here, speaking
French and with a certain amount of knowledge of the world outside, relations
may be a little less one-sided. .
6 I have mentioned in previous reports the manner m which Kurds
swagger about carrying arms in Tabriz. Local opinion has averred for some time
that these arms were supplied freely on the demand by the Soviet authorities,
but I was loath to believe this, because the Russians always seemed so short of
arms themselves and keen to pick up stray Persian army rifles. But I am assured
on official authority that a few weeks ago a party of Kurds left here with a
Russian lorry containing 100 rifles for the Sauj Bulagh district, and that the
Soviet authorities sent word to the Persian gendarmerie along the route that
they were not to be examined or interfered with. The Soviet Consul-General has