Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎97v] (194/248)

we have to teach. Unless the American advisers stay here for some years and
are given all the opportunities required to make their influence felt, it is difficult
to see how a generation of Persians is to arise who can manage some form of
government that will not degenerate either into anarchy or into an authoritarian
regime. At the present moment the outlook for the Persian who is honest and
who believes in gradual reform (and there are such men), is dark. On the other
hand, Soviet propaganda can offer a speedy solution. In India we hope that the^
problem of the Hindu widow will be solved by the gradual extension of liberal 1
and humane ideas; a Soviet commissar would appoint one of the less merry
widows to the local Soviet, and leave it to her to ensure the escape of other widows
from domestic slavery as well as the observation of the child marriage law. the
abolition of temple prostitution, and other reforms which at present seem so
far away.
18. It would seem that we shall have a difficult time in Persia after the
war. The resentment which the Persian feels against us dates back to 1907, when
we abandoned the role which he had supposed to be permanent, viz., that of
fighting the Russians to protect not only Turkey but Persia also, and endeavoured
to limit Russian designs on Persia to the northern provinces not by arms but
by agreement. This resentment was increased by the 1919 Agreement, which the
Persians, after initial acquiescence, eventually decided to regard as an attempt
to establish some form of protectorate over their country. To satisfy their
resentment, and to evade responsibility for the consequences of their owm
cowardice, the Persians then invented the theory that we placed Reza Shah on
the throne and, what is more absurd, kept him there for our own ends. They now
have at least some shadow of justification for their resentment, in that we and
the Russians invaded their country when, as they consider, they had given us
no cause; and since it is dangerous to show any feeling against the Russians, they
vent their spite on us. This is likely to manifest itself strongly after the war,
in violent newspaper attacks against which we shall have no protection, in
the persecution of any Persian subjects who may be held to have helped us
during the war, and in revenge on the. A.I.O.C. for being British, for
having helped in the war effort and for having escaped from the corrupt
control of Persian officialdom for several years. The attitude that Russia will
take up officially will depend to a large extent on the need she has of British
and American help in the restoration of her devastated provinces. If we can
judge by the past she will try to induce or compel her people to submit to great
hardship rather than be indebted to the capitalist wx>rld, and even the help she
does accept may not bind Soviet policy very tightly to ours in regard to Persia.
Russia will be able to count on twx> factors of importance—the waning of public
interest in any place so remote as Persia, and the existence among the British
public of a pro-Russian feeling so strong and so blind that any British
Government will have to take it into account. In any case, to encourage Persian
hostility to our interests in secret, while preserving outwardly a correct attitude,
would be very easy for the Soviet Government, given the venality and the
cowardice of most Persians. At the back of the Persian mind there used to be,
and often still is, the feeling that in the end the British will have to support him
against Russia. At the best he will continue to hold this belief, which will
encourage him to act as irresponsibly towards us as he is doing at the present
moment; at the worst, he may conclude that we are never going to quarrel
seriously with Russia about him and try to conciliate the Russians as the more
dangerous. In this he may be wise on a short view, since it is, in fact, not
conceivable that we should ever fight Russia for the'sake of Persia, though British
people are still to be found who talk seriously of our keeping troops in the south
of Persia as a barrier against Russian penetration. If Persia is to be defended
against Russian domination, it can only be done as part of a wide system of
co-operation, the foundations of which, we hope, have been laid by the twenty-
year pact. Tussles of the type which prevailed between the 1907 Agreement and
the outbreak of war in 1914 must be ruled out. It is a question whether we can
count upon Persia to do much to maintain her own independence. Throughout
the long period of despotic rule, which lasted until 1906, it is difficult to recall
a ruler who was benevolent as well as capable, unless we go back to Shah Abbass,
and that means going back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. On the other hand,
Persia’s brief period of parlimentary government has not encouraged optimism
in her friends. It is true that representative government has hardly had a fair
chance on Persia; from 1906 to 1914 it was menaced by Russian encroachment
in the northern provinces; from 1914 to 1924 it was embarrassed by the war and
the confusion which followed; from September 1941, when Reza Shah abdicated,