Coll 28/112A ‘Persia. Tabriz – Monthly despatches of internal situation in Azerbaijan & misc. reports.’ [‎597r] (1196/1237)

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Khan’ for one section and “ Khiaban Bagher Khan for another, after two
local Nationalist firebrands of the 1909 revolutionary days. Last week they held
a meeting in a schoolroom at which Azerbaijan rights and lehran wror^gg were
proclaimed, but the gathering then seems to have been taken over by some Kussian
political officers, who made speeches (in local Turkish) about the war against the
^Fascists, and ended with the despatch of a congratulatory telegram to Moscow.
8. The present policy of the Governor-General and local authorities appeals
to be to humour the malcontents to a certain extent, although this attitude is
not altogether to the police liking. Moreover, the country landlords have been
advised to abate their demands on the peasantry for the time being and, in cases
where produce was stolen or disappeared during the autumn, to cut their losses
rather than irritate the villagers further. This presumably means that the
gendarmerie will not now be lent to landowners to collect forcibly their dues, as
they have been during the last month or two—a mistaken policy, as 1 several
times pointed out to the authorities, since the gendarmes were sure to behave in
the same old merciless way to any villagers they found defenceless, and thus
encourage armed resistance among the others. Three more cases are reported of
gendarmerie posts being disarmed by peasant bands last week between fabriz
and the Karadagh area.
9. Incidentally, the Soviet authorities also have been advising the gendar
merie to treat the country-folk gently, since then they will have no trouble. The
Governor-General’s rejoinder was to ask how the gendarmerie were to treat the
lawless bands who surrounded and disarmed them, and whether they should not
send extra forces to cope with them. Of course, any such Russian advice is
immediately suspect to the Persian mind, particularly as Soviet officers are
repeatedly said to be carrying on propaganda and other forms of interference
among the rural inhabitants. An officer named Bagaroff (probably a Russo-
Armenian) is reported to be very active in the Ardebil area. At Ardebil itself
the Soviet military commandant is stated definitely to have demanded the release
from prison of certain individuals who he said were being punished by the Persian
authorities solely because they had shown themselves friendly to the Russians at
the time of the occupation in August. The local authorities protested that, on the
contrary, all had been sentenced after proper trial for various acts of violence, but
in the end they had to give way and release the prisoners. Even in Tabriz the
Soviet town-commandant visited the gaol in exactly the same sense, but was
persuaded that his information was incorrect and no prisoners were taken out.
10. The sugar-rationing coupon scheme is getting under way after many
upsets. The seething and fighting mobs round the coupon-issuing offices rivalled
those round the sugar-selling shops before. Suddenly a large number of spurious
coupons were discovered in circulation, a printer’s assistant having been unable
to resist the temptation to print extra sheets and slip them under a door to a
waiting accomplice. A black market in sugar-loaves at three or four times the
official price is still flourishing, but illicit purchasers were sadly bitten one day
recently when they arrived home to find that their cones, with genuine wrappers,
were actually lumps of gypsum and cement. The bread situation is still very
good, and about 5,000 tons of wheat have now been accumulated in the Tabriz
silo. Although surpluses are reported from almost every district here, the Soviet
authorities recently bought in 3,000 tons of wheat and flour and pressed the local
authorities into buying it. Yet the various demagogues and trouble-makers in
Tabriz are still fiercely resentful of any rumour that local wheat is going to
Tehran or other parts of Persia, and even send unofficial deputations of busy-
bodies to suspected areas to make sure that this is not happening.
11. Meanwhile, wheat is known to be slipping secretly in fair quantities
over the frontier into Iraq, and perhaps to a less extent into Turkey. Locally-
made matches are also being smuggled out by that way, and a shortage threatens.
Until recently there were large stocks of German paper in this town, but these
have now been heavily reduced—it is said by consignments to Hamadan and
Kermanshah, where they were immediately bought up for despatch to Iraq,
before the decree prohibiting such exports was hurriedly published.
12. The local authorities are at present saying that some form of popular
demonstration with red banners is being staged for New Year's Day in Tabriz by
the so-called democratic elements (with Russian connivance, it need hardly be
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