Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎594r] (1190/1237)

formally denied to me this story, but unfortunately spoilt the effect by adding
that the Major Nabieff whom I had named as accompanying the consignment
(I had done nothing of the sort and had never heard of the officer) could be proved
never to have left barracks in Tabriz that day. I have learnt from a different
and really reliable source that the Soviet political officers here actually presented
new army pistol, complete with ammunition, as a mark of esteem to the
-year-old son of a Kurdish chieftain whom I knew. One of the Soviet political
officers I was talking to at a party last autumn about hunting and shooting in
this part of the world confessed that he was of Kurdish origin (doubtless from
the Erivan—Mount Ararat region), and I know he occasionally visits the Kurdish
area near Sauj Bulagh, and also interviews Kurds in Tabriz.
7. As. I think I have said before, it may be that the Soviet forces still do
not feel too sure of their Turkish neighbours and wish to use the Kurds against
them if necessary. My Turkish colleague professes to have felt a certain coolness
lately in the Russian attitude here towards him, but he is already so anti-Russian
at heart that I attach no great importance to his feelings. Besides this, the
Soviet authorities have openly told me that the Turkish Consulate is “ working ”
very hard these days, leaving me to guess what at. I only know that my Turkish
colleague has two vice-consuls and two Turkish secretaries, although his
community is only about thirty all told, and mostly uncherished Armenians at
that; yet he let out that he was asking for still another vice-consul from Angora
to cope with the work. Whenever I see him his brain teems with scare-
mongering stories of the bazaar type, which I realise have been fed to him by
his hosts of Armenian spies and informers here. He says that the Russians are
continually sending along stool-pigeons to him offering their services as Turkish
spies, but that luckily he has means of knowing days beforehand that they are
coming. He told an English traveller who visited him the other day that the
Russians are killing off people in Tabriz almost daily, and that he is continually
protesting to them officially, both of which statements are completely and
flagrantly untrue, tie pretends to be a very deep and knowing servant of his
country’s interests and professes great admiration for any particularly deceitful
or machiavellian piece of work, yet if conversed with for long enough and worked
up properly will betray himself"and his opinions in the most extraordinary way.
Although he professes to me to be now pro-English, I am entirely convinced—
and so is almost every European who meets him—'that he is a thorough German
sympathiser and admirer of the Nazis.
8. In fact, I am sometimes inclined to wonder, although I have perhaps no
right to do so, whether some of the unrest in this province is not being stirred
up by the Turkish Consulates here and at Rezaieh, and that the Russians are
more truthful than one might think in saying that agents 'provocateurs are
working disguised as Russians. Any Armenian or Azerbaijani would do for
the work, with a knowledge of the Turkish dialect spoken here and a little red
in his buttonhole. The Persian rural police would not dare to arrest such an
individual, and the Russians would learn about him too late. My Turkish
colleague expresses the utmost scorn for the present Persian regime and says it
has no right to govern this country. During an astonishing outburst the other
day he told me : “ Mark my words, one day I shall be the Governor of this place,
and then you will see what kind of administration they will get.” It is not the
first time I have sensed this kind of idea, though never so baldly expressed. He
has just been for a week’s visit to the new Turkish Ambassador in Tehran, and
is in close touch with Angora. One might be tempted to wonder whether Turkey
has really hopes of annexing Azerbaijan, unless my colleague was talking
complete nonsense, and whether Germany has promised this province as a gift
in case of a Nazi break-through to the Caucasus in the spring with Turkish
connivance or assistance.
9. M. Ramazanoglou always seems to have a good repertory of the more
malicious rumours floating round the bazaar here, the latest one being that, if the
Russian forces should push the Nazis back to the German frontier, the British
would then make terms with the enemy rather than allow Europe to be invaded
by the Bolsheviks. This kind of talk, 1 of course, easily goes back to the Soviet
authorities here via their Armenian toadies and informers, as it is no doubt
meant to do. ...
10. There has been a little less “ democratic ” movement going on in Tabriz
lately, partly perhaps because of the bitter cold in all meeting-places, and because
quarrels have apparently broken out among some of the self-important and self-
seekino- leaders. Their newspaper Azerbaijan no longer fulminates so loudly in