Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎95v] (190/248)

4
to entrust to the Persian Government, the Soviet Ambassador was quite unable to
obtain any instructions from Moscow. The fear in w 7 hich Russia is held suffices
as a rule to prevent any danger to Russian interests from Persians in the Russian
zone, and it the Russian authorities have any suspicion of a Persian officer or
official, the Persian Government are requested to remove him, whereupon he is
transferred to the area in wffiich the responsibility is ours. Not only do the
Russians remain aloof from our security policy and thereby escape any share in
the inevitable odium, but they even tried to secure our co-operation in dealing
with some persons in Tabriz who w 7 ere believed to be spreading pro-German
propaganda. This invitation was refused.
11 . In the time of Reza Shah, Soviet propaganda was kept under as
effectively as in Nazi Germany. There w^ere no Soviet films; no Soviet propa
ganda—not even Soviet newspapers*—could be sold; and a sharp eye was kept
on refugees from Russia, whether the fifty or sixty thousand-odd Persian subjects
who migrated to Persia some seven years ago, or the Soviet citizens who entered
Persia from time to time on the plea of escaping from Soviet tyranny. Now
several cinemas show different Soviet films at the same time, and there is a
provincial service of Soviet films so lavish that we are unable to compete with it.
The Toss newspaper in Russian has much about Russia, but almost nothing about
the British or American w r ar effort, and it is followed in this respect by the
Persian organ of the Tudeh party, wffiich is undoubtedly supported by the Soviet
authorities. This newspaper recently profited by an unimportant article in an
American paper to attribute imperialist aims to Great Britain and the l nited
States, and to say how T happy Persia could be in the confidence that Soviet Russia
harboured no such designs. Another paper, whose owner confessed to us that he
had been obliged to accept a present of newsprint from the Russian Embassy,
immediately published an article about the export of sheep from the north, saying
that the Russians would certainly allow it if they could be sure that the meat
was intended for Persian consumption. A third paper which hap recently
attacked us violently was run (it has since been suppressed) by a cynical black
mailer who pretends to have been converted to communism. It is difficult to
believe that such phenomena have not received the specific approval of persons
in touch with the Soviet Embassy, and more than one editor who has been
allowed to buy newsprint from the Embassy has spoken of the pressure put upon
him to induce him to write articles favourable to Russia. Other evidence of the
existence of active Soviet propaganda is hard to find. The official Soviet organisa
tions seem to confine themselves to propaganda about the war and about Soviet
culture, though His Majesty’s Consul-General at Meshed has gained the impres
sion that the Soviet army is busily engaged in underground political propaganda.
Chauffeurs who travel on convoy into and out of the Soviet zone seem to be eager
to report how much better conditions are there, and there is some reason to think
that this is not spontaneous. . . .
12. One advantage which the Russians enjoy in tnis country is the tear
with which they are regarded by the Persians. It has not been forgotten that the
Russian advance in the 18th century was effected partly at the expense of Persian
sovereignty, and that but for the outbreak of the war of 1914 about one-half and
that the richer half—of Persia would sooner or later have become, if not part
of Russia, at least in practice a Russian protectorate. If the Persians were
somewhat reassured by the treaty of 1921, the ruthlessness with which the Soviet
Government exercised its economic power, e.ff-, in closing the C aucasus to the
Persian transit trade as a means of coercion, kept the old dread alive. More
over, although the behaviour of Soviet Russia until 1939 tallied with its slogan .
“ We don’t want an inch of anyone else’s territory; we won’t give up an inch of
our own,” the Soviet attitude, since 1939, towards Finland,-Roumama, the Baltic
States and Poland has tended to confirm the Persian’s worst fears. Finally, the
neatness and despatch with which the Soviet rulers dispose of malcontents m
Soviet Russia, coupled with the disappearance in Persia of a number of persons
of Caucasian origin who are believed, on good evidence, to have been kidnapped
bv the Soviet authorities, suffices to keep the unheroic Persian in a state of
respectful awe towards the Russians. This enables the Russians to do with
impunity things which they know will be kept secret out of fear, fo conclude
an outrageous^ contract for the manufacture of arms and ammunition by the
Persian Government for the benefit of Soviet Russia, which requires an outlay
by the Persian Government of over £2 million, though the price to be paid for
the finished articles has not even been fixed and cannot in any case ever pa\ the
Persian Government for that outlay. When the Soviet Ambassador made the
recent offer to bring in from Russia 25,000 tons of wheat he urged the Prime