Coll 28/103 ‘Persia. Perso Russian Relations’ [‎4r] (7/190)

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exercise of the same difficult qualities, and probably at least as many years in
opposition. In competition with Soviet propaganda we are at the disadvantage
(to use a comparison which I may have used before) which is felt by the Christian
missionary in pagan Africa in competing with the offers of Islam. A religion
which demands above all self-sacrifice of its followers would be difficult enough
to accept even if it were not presented differently by different exponents, and a
primitive mind finds it easier to embrace Islam with its five simple duties, one
of which offers the fun and excitement and community feeling of the pilgrimage.
4. It is regrettable, but a fact, that the Persians are ideal Stalin-fodder.
They are untruthful, backbiters, undisciplined, incapable of unity, without a
plan. The Soviet system is equipped with a complete theoretical scheme for
everything from God to goloshes, and power to impose discipline and unity; and
the Soviet authorities do not require from their followers the impossible feat of
refraining from lying and backbiting, but only that these qualities shall be
canalised according to the orders of the day. And to their supporters the Soviet
Government offer quick results and office for life. To quote from a despatch
which I wrote nearly three years ago (circular despatch No. 34 of the 3rd May,
1943—No. 170 to Foreign Office) : —
“ In India we hope that the problem of the Hindu widow will be solved
by the gradual extension of liberal 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 the 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 far away.”
The apparently unconquerable problem of the too-rapid growth of the population
of India could be easily dealt with by the Soviet Government, which for years
exhibited abortion as a triumph of Soviet culture and then, in face of public
opinion expressed on that occasion only, turned it into a crime overnight because,
it seems, they decided that they needed a larger population to fill up the great
open spaces.
5. Is the conclusion then that the Soviet system is better for Persia than
ours? It depends on one’s ultimate aim. Mr. Wallace, when he was Vice-
President of the United States, stated in a speech about the Soviet Union that
America could learn much from Russia in the matter of the treatment of
minorities. Now the lesson that America could learn is that, if she exchanged
her present system of government for government by a self-elected, irresponsible
and all-powerful committee in complete control of all armed forces and of all
forms of education and propaganda, equality between the white and coloured
populations could be established by the reduction of the two elements to a common
level of subservience. The Americans have not yet discovered a solution of the
problem of the coloured population, but it is clear that the Soviet solution would
not suit them, because it presupposes a form of arbitrary government which the
Americans grew out of long ago. But it does not follow that more primitive
people, especially those whose elementary economic interests have been neglected,
would not find Soviet methods attractive. There is a great deal of humbug about
the Soviet treatment of minorities. It may be too strong to say that it consists
of folk-songs tempered by executions, but it is true that the uniformity of opinion
imposed by the Soviet system is a high price to pay for social reforms and the
permission to use one’s mother tongue. Nevertheless, the Kurd would not see
the objections that are patent to us. It is true that the feudal chiefs who are
being used by the Soviet Government as their instruments would soon be liqui
dated, but the rank and file of Kurds might well be better off materially, they
would have wide educational opportunities, and their nationalist feelings, hostile
alike to Turk and Arab and Persian, would be flattered by the union of the three
territories in which they live, and by the encouragement of their language, even
if it was used in the main to fill them with the chaffy propaganda of the Soviet
Government.
6. The moral of this is not that we should acquiesce without resistance or
protest in the absorption of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan in the Soviet State,
whether directly or under the guise of a specious autonomy cc within the frame
work of the Persian Constitution.” Such a solution would be contrary to our
interests, to the engagements we ^ave in the 1942 treaty, and to the principles
of the United Nations Organisation. The moral is that we must realise that
the policy of the Soviet Government, however evil it may appear sub specie
ceternitaiis as tending to produce a sort of performing dog rather than a nobler