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redounded to the credit of the Russians in the very area which is half starved
for lack of Azerbaijan grain, the argument being that the existence of larger
food supplies in the Russian zone must be due to the greater humanity and
forbearance of the Russians—or to British purchases of food in the south. Apart
from the major question of the wheat of Azerbaijan, it is not easy to obtain
positive evidence as to the policy of the Russians in regard to food-stuffs, but I
am convinced that, although some acts of apparent obstruction have been due to
the truculence of individual officers and to the fact well known to foreign officials
in Soviet Russia, that there is always a Captain Ivanov who hasn't received
any orders, the Russians have more than once held up exports of food-stuffs from
their zone to Tehran when they wished to secure some concession from the Persian
Government, and that they have prevented the export of sheep, ghi, eggs and
other food-stuffs and of charcoal, either to keep these commodities for their own
consumption (at a relatively low price), or to maintain supplies for the local
population and to keep them content.
8 . It is difficult to believe that the recent offer of 25,000 tons of wheat by
the Soviet Government to the Persian Government was not planned with the
object of damaging us as well as securing credit for the Soviet Government. We
had consulted the Soviet authorities in all matters relating to supplies, and invited
them to sign the Food Agreement of December last, even though at the time there
was no prospect whatever that they would, in fact, be able to supply any grain
to Persia; yet they gave us no notice that they were going to offer wheat to
Persia—an offer all the more improbable in that at that moment the Soviet
authorities in Persia were pressing hard for the delivery in Azerbaijan of the
balance of grain due under a contract which binds the Persian Government to
supply the Soviet army with 5.000 tons of wheat and 15,000 tons of barley. The
propaganda aim of the offer is evident from the fact that the Soviet authorities
are still insisting on the delivery of the full amounts of wheat and barley, and
that they will not allow the Persian Government to deliver to the Red Army in
Azerbaijan, in settlement of the balance. Soviet wheat instead of Persian wheat.
Finally, it is perhaps not by accident that the Soviet offer was so timed that it
was bound to be reported in the press at the same moment as the report of the
opening of a British hospital, complete with doctors, nurses and orderlies, for
the treatment of Persian typhus patients.
9. It seems that the great harm which British interests have recently
suffered in Persia owing to the oil shortage is due in great part to the slackness^—
to use no harsher word—of the Soviet authorities. Nothing has injured our
interests more than the shortage of kerosene and fuel oil which occurred in March
and April. If the demand for kerosene has not been fully met, that is partly
due to the fact that it has doubled because kerosene has hardly risen at all in
price, whereas the prices of other kinds of fuel have become prohibitive; but
the demand for fuel oil, though it has also increased, has not increased to the
same extent, and the inability to meet it is due largely to short delivery by the
Soviet authorities. They undertook to bring in 150 tons of fuel oil a day for the
railways in February and March; they felt short of fulfilment by 1.100 tons in
February and 700 tons in March, and to keep the railway running the Americans
operating it seized 700 tons of fuel oil consigned to the A.I.O.C. and intended for
civilian use. The feeling which the shortage has aroused against the A.I.O.C.,
who are in no way responsible, and in general against the British, to whom is
attributed everything that goes wrong outside the Russian zone, is intense, and
will do us harm for many years to come. The failure by the Soviet authorities
to deliver the full quota of oil may have been due to force majeure, but the fact
that the failure was Russia’s and that, nevertheless, all the blame fell on the
A.I.O.C. and His Majesty’s Government cannot be expected to wring withers so
tough as those of the Soviet Government.
10. It is not only in the matter of food supplies that we have done most of
the work and yet received all the blame. In dealing with suspects, the Soviet
authorities have allowed us to work for the benefit of both the Allies, while
themselves evading any responsibility in the matter. Being responsible for
communications up to Tehran, it follows that we have to maintain security over
some two-thirds of Persia. Whenever we have had difficulty with the Persian
Government in this respect we have received no help from the Soviet Embassy.
On one occasion, when we wished to establish the principle that the Persian
Government must hand over to us at Sultanabad for interrogation any suspects
for whom we asked, the Soviet Embassy held aloof, and when we proposed to
effect ourselves the arrest of several men who were concerned in a plot directed
not only against us but against the Russians also, and whose arrest we were afraid
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