Coll 28/67 ‘Persia. Annual Reports, 1932–’ [‎293v] (586/644)

8
Government the duty of informing the Majlis of any discussions that might
take place concerning the sale of oil or the method of exploiting and administer
ing the country's oil resources. Confronted suddenly with this Bill, the
democratic character of which was undeniable, the Tudeh were completely taken
aback, and were not given time to collect their wits or discuss it amongst them
selves. The Russians subsequently asserted that the Bill had been forced through
the Majlis unconstitutionally, but this is untrue; the use of the double-urgency
procedure is entirely constitutional and by no means uncommon, and the Bill
was passed by a large majority. There is no doubt whatever that it expressed
the wishes of the Persian people as a whole. An attempt, made immediately
after the passage of the Bill, by a deputy who owed his seat to Russian influence,
to introduce another cancelling the concession of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,
was dropped for lack of a single backer, although in previous debates during
the crisis Dr. Musaddiq himself had sharply criticised the company.
23. M. Kavtaradze left Persia on the 9th December, having previously
informed the Prime Minister of his Government's displeasure at the new oil law,
which, he said, the Majlis would do well to reconsider. The Russians continued
till the end of the year (and after it) to agitate in this sense by all the innumerable
means at their disposal, and made it quite clear that they were far from regard
ing the matter as closed. The Tudeh became, if not more influential, at least
very much more active, the Soviet-controlled newspapers more abusive and out
spokenly anti-British. There were several further demonstrations in the North,
including one at Shahi in which lives were lost and the police were thwarted and
publicly humiliated by the Russians in the now customary manner. M. Saed,
living thankfully in completely inactive retirement, continued to be attacked with
as much ferocity as though he had concluded a military alliance with Hitler him
self. So too did Seyyid Zia, who was accused by the Russians—apparently with
out the slightest" justification—of having inspired and rushed through
Dr. Musaddiq's Bill in collaboration with IVf. Saed and at the behest of his fascist
masters (scilicet the British). Both, if the Russian chorus had had its way, would
have been arraigned for treason. The Seyyid retorted, indeed, with a vigorous
public indictment of Soviet methods, which caused a considerable stir and enhanced
his prestige. (In it, incidentally, he made the telling point that the Soviet
insistence on the need for a ' l protective belt in North Persia against potential
fascist enemies was virtually identical with the Nazi clamour for Lebensraum.)
But his chances of coming to power in the more or less immediate future were
undoubtedly lessened by these violent Soviet attacks. It is not difficult to conduct
a war of nerves in Persia, and at the end of the year the whole country was in
a state of apprehension bordering on panic.
24. The Russians, in fact, had not retired from the field empty-handed.
True, they had not obtained the north Persian oil; but it is very doubtful whether
they needed it for other purposes than the subversion of Persian authority and
the" deflection of a part of the Baku output from post-war internal consumption
to competition with Great Britain and America in foreign markets. They had,
however, acquired something which is often more useful to a great* and
unscrupulous Power : a permanent “ grievance value.” As long as any Persian
' Government maintained the stand adopted by M. Saed’s administration—and
no other stand was compatible with the preservation of Persian territorial
integrity—ft could be bullied and blackguarded as reactionary and Fascist, as
rejecting the proffered hand of Soviet friendship in the interests of a foreign
clique. If the withdrawal of Allied troops and the inevitable post-war deflation
brought about unemployment—as indeed they were bound to do—that would
be the criminal fault of a Government which had rejected a charitable Russian
scheme for providing employment. Furthermore, the denial to the Russians of
an oil concession was in itself an obstacle in the way of the prompt withdrawal
of Allied troops; for was not a Government that denied the Russians “ parity in
oil matters with the imperialists ” already sold to the latter and committed to a
“re-establishment of the dictatorship under foreign tutelage” once the field
was clear ? To abandon the Persian people to such unprincipled masters would
be a positive betrayal.
25. These and many similar themes were being tirelessly developed in the
Soviet-controlled press towards the end of the year. The Russians, by their
clumsy brutality during the oil crisis, may have lost a good many genuine Persian
admirers; but they had got a very neat double-nelson on all future Persian
administrations that evinced the slightest independence of spirit.
26. The theme of the “ denial of parity ” having been constantly developed,
not only in the Soviet-controlled Persian press but also in Russian official state
ments and in the Soviet Government’s correspondence with His Majesty’s