Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎94v] (188/248)

7 ^OAOC^rn-
Kussians were most difficult in this matter in Azerbaijan, where the wea kening
of the Central Government miu, h t be expected to be p l easing to the local popula -
tTon who are mainly of the same race and language as~the inhabitants oi Soviet
Azerbaijan and who tend to regard the Government at Tehran not only as
exploiters but as aliens too. If Russian policy has in effect tended to encourage
the growth of an autonomist or even a separatist movement in Azerbaijan, this
would hardly be repugnant to the Soviet Government. C
4 . At first the Soviet authorities encouraged the Kurds, even to the extent
of inviting several of the leaders to see the glories of Soviet Russia as found
in Baku. Recently, however, they abandoned this policy, and it seems probable
that the change was due mainly to the discovery that Soviet Russia had nothing
to fear from Turkey and therefore would not need Kurdish help against the
Turks, though the Russians may also have been influenced by the fact that in
of course of ‘certain Kurdish “atrocities’' at Rezaieh in the spring of 1942,
the chief sufferers were the Turki-speaking Shias, i.e., precisely the element
which would necessarily be the nucleus of any movement against the Persian
Government if one should ever develop. This sudden abandonment of the Kurds
after a period of cosseting is in complete accordance with the realistic nature of
Soviet principles and recalls the crash with which, when President Roosevelt
renewed diplomatic relations with Russia, the Soviet authorities abandoned, half
finished, the film which was to have told the world of the horror of lynching
in the United States, and left the American negro actors open-mouthed at this
sudden neglect.
5. The Russians have also taken up the Armenians and have so far shown
no tendency to drop them. Reza Shah closed down the Armenian schools;
Sawaz- al-Saltanah allowed them to be reopened, and there is no doubt that this
was done under pressure from the Soviet Embassy. The Bashnaks, who were
inclined to be pro-German, seem to have been brought to heel, and it would seem
that most of the Armenians in Persia are now pro-Russian, at least, in the north.
Being a pervasive if small minority, their influence is considerable, and since
they may well tear that the Persians would like to take revenge on the Christian
minorities after the war, for real or alleged collaboration with the invader, they
are likely to wish to retain the protection of the Soviet Government.
6 . In financial and economic affairs, the policy of the Soviet Government
affords a striking contrast to our own; it has been less frank and honest, yet it
has possibly been a greater political success. When we were struggling for
months to secure, by straightforward means, enough local currency to carry on
the common war effort, the Russians were acquiring rials by methods which
weakened the Persian Government but won private friends for themselves. In
that they failed to a large extent to keep their promise to hand over Soviet
goods to the Persian Government against the large credit of about £500.000
which they had extorted, they helped to embarrass the Government and to increase
inflation; but when they sold these goods to wholesalers or retailers or individuals
at the market price, they not only benefited by the taxes or monopoly dues which
ought to have gone to the Government, but they used a political weapon of great
power, since commodities such as sugar and piece-goods are so scarce that any
Persian who can secure a supply is likely to regard the supplier with great
favour. There is little doubt that the Russians have secured many friends by
this preferential treatment, while we, in our desire to assist the Persian
Government and to prevent speculation and hoarding, have been stiff with the
private trader and have encouraged the concentration of essential goods in the
hands of the Government, in the hope that this would lead to a fairer distribu
tion and to some check on the rise in prices. At the present time the Soviet
authorities are paying customs dues on some goods which they import, but not,
it is believed, on all.
7. The effect of Soviet policy on the flow of supplies from the richer northern
part of Persia to less favoured parts of the country outside the Soviet zone has
been much debated. The Soviet authorities refer rather unctuously to their policy
of non-interference, which is an implied criticism of British policy. It is a fact
that whereas we have assisted the Persian authorities not only to collect wheat
for local centres, but to obtain wheat for Tehran from some of those centres,
thereby incurring at times the accusation that we were taking the wheat for
ourselves, the Russians have done nothing to encourage the local authorities in
Azerbaijan to collect the large surplus of wheat which might have furnished a
three or four-months’ supply of bread for Tehran. It was to be expected that
this would win the favour of the hoarders in Azerbaijan, and even of the ordinary
inhabitant, who does not wish to be “exploited ” by the capital, but it has even