Cahiers du monde russe et

soviétique

Soviet politics and the Iranian revolution of 1919-1921

Stephen Blank

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Blank Stephen. Soviet politics and the Iranian revolution of 1919-1921. In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, vol. 21, n°2,
Avril-Juin 1980. pp. 173-194;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/cmr.1980.1384

https://www.persee.fr/doc/cmr_0008-0160_1980_num_21_2_1384

Fichier pdf généré le 11/05/2018

Abstract
Stephen Blank, Soviet politics and the Iranian revolution of 1919-1921.
The Soviet intervention in Iran during 1919-1921 arose out of the conjuncture of historic Russian
interest in dominating Iran, Leninist visions of third world revolution, Stalin's personal ambitions, and
the Pan-Islamic aspirations of radical Soviet Moslems led by Sultangaliev. This article seeks to trace
the interplay between the domestic ramifications of the Soviet debate on tactics in Iran during 1919-
1921 and the actual implementation of radical policies on the ground by Soviet troops ultimately
commanded by Stalin on the one hand and the Iranian Communists on the other. By exploring the
interconnected nature of the resolution of fundamental issues of Soviet nationality policy and foreign
policy the article seeks to uncover the roots of Stalin's international activity at this time and the
consequences of the Iranian adventure for both domestic and foreign policy after 1921.

Résumé
Stephen Blank, La politique soviétique et la révolution iranienne de 1919-1921.
L'intervention soviétique de 1919-1921 en Iran résulte de la conjoncture : désir manifesté de tout temps
par la Russie de dominer l'Iran, vision léniniste d'une troisième révolution mondiale, ambitions
personnelles de Stalin et aspirations pan-islamiques des musulmans soviétiques radicaux conduits par
Sultangaliev. Cet article s'efforce de mettre en lumière l'interdépendance des ramifications intérieures
du débat soviétique sur les tactiques à employer en Iran en 1919-1921 et de l'instauration effective
d'une politique radicale sur le terrain par les troupes soviétiques commandées à la fin par Stalin, d'une
part, et par les communistes iraniens, de l'autre. En étudiant le lien étroit entre les problèmes
fondamentaux de la politique soviétique des nationalités et de la politique étrangère, cet article se
propose de dégager les racines de l'activité internationale de Stalin à cette époque et les
conséquences de l'aventure iranienne pour la politique, tant intérieure qu'extérieure, après 1921.
 STEPHEN BLANK

SOVIET POLITICS

AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION OF 1919-1921

Iran's attraction to Russian rulers is centuries old. Tsarist rulers

and statesmen looked to Iran for geographical and political reasons.
Later, economic factors of trade and eventually of oil came into play
as factors of influence. The October Revolution, which transformed
world politics, also added two new dimensions to Russian interest in
Iran: the siren call of world revolution and the increasingly urgent
aspirations of radical Moslem nationalities and Pan-Islamists on both
sides of the border. Though both forces emerged more or less
simultaneously their relationship was not smooth. To some degree one force's
aspirations complemented the other's; but also their inner logic was
essentially violently incompatible and essentially contradictory. The
complex relationship of nationalist, radical, economic, and geopolitical
considerations in Soviet foreign policy towards Iran manifested itself
in the still obscure Soviet intervention during its Civil War and the
Iranian revolutionary period of 1919-1921. This article seeks to clarify
both the nature of that involvement by different Soviet forces and the
profound repercussions it had upon Soviet politics.
The Soviet intervention in Iran of this period both revealed and
resulted from the unresolved dialectic of conflict among these forces.
They marked the similarly unresolved antinomies of Soviet nationality
policies. The failure of this intervention to secure ultimate Soviet goals
prompted a thorough réévaluation of Soviet policies in many key areas
with important consequences for future domestic and foreign policies.
It caused the regime to reappraise and change nationality policies after
192 1. It forced the leadership to perceive anew the potential for eastern
rather than western revolutionary upheaval as a policy goal. This
réévaluation played no small role in stimulating an overall shift in Soviet
tactics and aims abroad. Yet the linkage between domestic and foreign
policies is still obscure today. That is because we have overlooked how
set-backs abroad affected domestic political calculations. In this instance
it seems clear that only partial success in Iran led those elements, who
possessed the necessary acumen, to realize that the politics of bureaucratic
manœuvre and consolidation were the paths to socialism at home and
abroad.
As previously stated Soviet interest in Iran arose from a combination

Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique, XXI (2), avril-juin rg8o, pp. IJ3-IÇ4.
174 STEPHEN BLANK

of factors. Traditional security concerns mixed with anti-British and

anti-imperialist sentiments and the ambition to inject Marxism somehow
into the East. Spokesmen for those who shared the latter emotion were
Stalin and the leaders of the Moslem Bolsheviks: Mirsaid Sultangaliev,
S. M. Effendiev, and N. Narimanov. Each one sought to move socialism
eastwards but their motives and chosen tactics often radically differed
from each other's perspective. During 1918-1919, however, these
differences remained submerged. During 1918 Stalin had presided over
the establishment of the Moslem (largely Tatar) Committee of Narkom-
nats, the Commissariat of Nationalities whose aim was to bring the Tatar
Moslems, the most advanced in Russia, to socialism. Sultangaliev, the
leader of this Muskom, was an open Pan-Islamic revolutionary whose
goal was Tatar hegemony over a renascent Islam.1 For the time being,
nevertheless, his and Stalin's aims coincided. Stalin was the only
Bolshevik leader who emphasized the East and he undoubtedly sanctioned
Sultangaliev's efforts to organize a network channelling the growth of
Moslem pro-Soviet activity at home and abroad at this time.2
In November, 19 18 the First Conference of Moslem Communists
created a central bureau for all Communist Organizations of the Peoples
of the East (henceforth Musbiuro and cope). Originally Stalin led them
under the cc's guidance; but Sultangaliev later took over.3 Musbiuro
was responsible for agitation and submission of important issues of Party
building to the government as a whole.4 Delegates forcefully voiced
their ambition to guide foreign revolutions claiming that,

"We Communist Moslems, knowing best the language, and being

of eastern peoples, the mass of whom are Moslems, find it incumbent
upon us to play the most active part in this action. The Central
Moslem Bureau of the rkp (b) thus organizes an international and
propaganda department, publishing brochures in the mother
tongues of eastern peoples, preparing cadres, propagandists, and
agitators, invites all Moslem Communists to the most active work
in these areas, hopes to unite all oppressed peoples into one
worldwide family of workers."6

This paralleled Stalin's earlier article on the East in emphasis. The

Musbiuro leaders continued by organizing an international department
of 12 sections covering all of Asia.6
These sections trained cadres to organize native masses against
domestic elites but made no mention of anti-imperialist aims.7 By
February, 1919 Musbiuro launched a comprehensive plan for the Iranian
section. This first concrete mention of the need to generate revolutionary
agitation inside Iran envisaged a complex structure. A cultural-
instructional department would be bifurcated. The instructional section
would create institutions of mass public education. A theatrical section
would oversee native language public entertainment. An agitation-
recruitment department was similarly divided. The former would
diffuse party literature and, in implanting socialist ideas in the masses,
train them by organizing and extending cells. The recruitment section
would translate party literature into Turkish and Azerbaidzhani,
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

smuggle it into Iran, and prepare the ground for a revolution there.8
Additionally the plan's authors decided to send 10 % of the cadres to
Moscow for training, others to agitate on the Caucasian front, and to
demand sums left over in the deposed Iranian "bourgeois" organizations.9
Spokesmen reported in March that Musbiuro's organizations embraced
30 million people, 10 thousand worker-peasant political bodies, and
50 thousand troops.10 In the Iranian case Musbiuro had made great
strides in reaching several hundred thousand Iranian emigres in Russia,
forming colonies, and guiding them to socialism.11 First steps in 1918
had been exclusion of upper class elements and takeover of key agencies,
e.g., the Moscow Persian Relief Union. From this point the Moslem
Bolsheviks branched out to create local cells and organizations that
became centers of agitations and the arenas for the emergence of an
Iranian ср.12 For instance, the Iranian agency within Musbiuro recruited
actively in Odessa, sought to mobilize eastern opinion for Soviet Russia,
mobilized Red Army recruits, and set up a center for Iranian Communists
in Astrakhan where the guberniia nationality department organized an
Iranian subdepartment.13
Once organized Moslem Communists began to debate the tactics and
aims of Iran, reflecting not only personal views, but also crystallizing
factions for which these personalities spoke. Most of those concerned
with Iran clearly saw the utility of striking at British imperialism in its
weakest sector but not much further; though some called for an outright
takeover of Iran.14 Irandust, a Soviet commentator, has written that
in 1918, on the initiative of local Russian soldiers, Soviets were formed
at Resht and Enzeli. He claimed that they were composed of
revolutionary Russian soldiers, Turkestani and Caucasian Communists, and elements
of the radical Adalet Party of Baku which was undergoing Bolshevization
and was to become the nucleus of the Iranian cp.15 Armed squads of
Iranian workers had assembled in Azerbaidzhan, Turkestan, and
Dagestan.16 And Adalet was then organizing radical Moslems to unify them
into a "Moslem Red Army" that ended up in the future Ghilan republic.17
Iran itself was also torn by strife. The adroit Soviet renunciation of
Tsarist claims and attacks against British imperial designs triggered a
national unrest. In the Ghilan area on the Soviet border a guerilla revolt,
led by Kuchik Khan, accelerated in intensity. He was a kind of populist-
nationalist, anti- western but not a Marxist, if anything a Moslem. Anti-
westernism motivated his revolt more than social grievances did.
By mid-summer 19 19 political and military agencies were taking
shape, Iran itself was unstable, and ideological as well as political
conditions favored a strike against Britain. The time to outline strategy and
tactics had arrived. An anonymous commentator had, on April 27,
expressed the goal of liberating Turkey following the capture of Odessa
by means of a Turkish Bolshevik army in Anatolia.18 Central Asian
Russified Bolsheviks retorted by endorsing Central Asia as the base of
exportable revolution directed at Iran and also using Soviet Moslem
troops, a propaganda apparat, and a regular official exchange of
representatives and agents with all eastern countries.19
In the same journal issue there appeared the first of a series of articles
on Kuchik Khan's Jengeli movement. The author rendered a generally
I76 STEPHEN BLANK

favorable account of its "populist-nationalist" program. It implied the

desirability of state support for him as well as the affinity of his ideas with
Communism and Sufi psychology.20 In the next number the author
clarified his conception of the conduct of general socialist propaganda.
The older generation and new revolutionaries should take the lead here.
Their cells being multiplied by the Military-Revolutionary Committees
in Baku and Astrakhan (the latter being Kirov's and Ordzhonikidze's
headquarters), they now has to widen their organization and extend class
consciousness into Iran itself.21 The author asserted that,

"In general, revolutionary work in Persia, at present [. . .] must

carry the preliminary character of a close link with national
conditions of Persian life and their psychology. Agitational
work must inevitably, in Persia, in turn, originate in the all round
hatred toward England, as the resulting basis of propaganda must
use the already revolutionized materials among the population."22

Due to Iran's backwardness only such a tactic might succeed.

Therefore, he implied that the use of Soviet Moslems— not the Red Army — as a
political force propelling Kuchik Khan into power was the desirable
tactic.23 But which Moslems would be the candidates for this
assignment? Certainly volunteers were not lacking. In May and June
Turkestan's claimants asserted Central Asian primacy for the role. But
in July S. M. Effendiev, a leading Azerbaidzhani Bolshevik entered the
debate and raised its level of sophistication. His ideas, as then presented,
adumbrated important but differing elements of both Lenin's and Sul-
tangaliev's later thinking about foreign Moslem revolution.
Effendiev advocated an International that united both oppressed
colonies and European workers. He contended that the aspirations of
the former towards national liberation were perfectly compatible with
the latter's to socialism.24 The existing eastern movements, he opined,
were led by bourgeois mercantile nationalists sympathetic to Russia but
domestically anti-Communist. They also shared a common Pan-
Islamic outlook. Thus it was possible to strike jointly with them while
marching separately to the convergence of eastern and western
revolutions.26 What was needed was a supra-national Moslem party to
undertake the required organizational work. Nor surprisingly, he soon called
for a Soviet-led revival of the Azerbaidzhani Marxist Hummet Party as
such an instrument.26 This aroused many Bolsheviks' ire, e.g., Mikoian,
because of the obvious leanings towards the Bolshevik anathema of
extra-territoriality.27

Effendiev proceeded to paint a glowing picture of Kuchik Khan's

mass support and the chances for its extension.28 But attacks upon him
led him to break away somewhat from his controversial ideas.
Turkestan's boosters returned claiming that Turkestan's existence as a Central
Asian Soviet republic in itself opened up all kinds of revolutionary
opportunity abroad.29 Effendiev countered in an article about Turkey,
pointing to the Turkish and Iranian conditions of land tenure which
were similar and should thus lead to the same conclusion worker-peasant
unity. Both national and class (i.e., anti-feudal and anti-bourgeois)
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION 177

revolutions were on the East's agenda.80 He then began to write about

Pan-Islamism.
In shedding his ideas of class cooperation for those of class war
against the national bourgeoisie Effendiev linked himself ideologically
with Sultangaliev. In 1920 Lenin and his supporters took up the idea of
striking together but marching separately with the national bourgeoisie.
And, in commenting favorably on Pan-Islamism, Effendiev revealed the
extent of his alignment with Sultangaliev's ideas. He saw Pan-Islamism
as being based on common Moslem cultural and religious ties. Its
motivating impulse was unified resistance to western imperialism. Thus
it
"reactionary"
meritedaspects
Soviet
of the
support.
movement:
On the
theother
wish hand
to protect
he admitted
the remaining
the forms
of production and life from capitalist incursions. Even so, the unification
of Turkey, Iran, and Russian Islam, not to mention Arabia and Africa,
might provide the key to a new eastern International.31 He went as far
as claiming that the Turkic language and shared Turco-Tatar
consciousness of unity must become, in the opinion of the Young Turks, the cement
of those peoples' unity.38
By now the question of goals and tactics in the East had begun to
reach the topmost levels of the government where divided counsels
existed. Everyone considered revolution and a British exodus from the
area to be desirable but it was not certain that the two were compatible
in execution or even how one might implement necessary political
actions apart from rhetoric. For example, Trotsky, despairing of
western revolution for lack of a cavalry, proposed sending 30-40,000
horsemen into India instead to force a revolution.33 Something of this mingled
exaltation and pessimism, fantasy, and frustrated impatience found
expression in numerous sources as in this case from Zhizri natsional'nostei.

"If decrepit Tsarism, for the extraction of riches, could, with

some reality, project an offensive to India and conquer it through
a series of hostile countries [. . .] why can't worker-peasant Russia,
awakening so many hopes in groups of peoples of the East, realize
something in this direction."34

Chicherin and Narkomindel also played their expected role in the

debate. In mid-1919 Narkomindel issued inflammatory appeals to the
Turks and Iranians. These proclamations stressed liberation from
England, which was only attainable by union of workers and peasants;
but only made a pro forma bow to the ideal of internal class struggle.
Chicherin's annual report of 1919 to vtsik spoke with similar restraint,
evincing a clear preference for working with "progressive strata" or even
governments wherever feasible. Despite the Entente Soviet Russia
would deal with anyone.86 Throughout the period Stalin kept silent
except to caution against overestimating Turkestan's potential.36
During the fall the debate intensified. Sultangaliev now expounded
his political line which set him apart from the crystallizing approach of
the government. Following Effendiev he posited the impossibility of
any peaceful coexistence which would be at the colonies' expense. He
chided the regime for its Europocentrism, ignorance, and fear of the
I78 STEPHEN BLANK

East which allegedly "profaned" the idea of eastern participation in the

revolution. This attitude, he charged with having caused the failure
of revolutions in both the East and West.37 Obviously he felt that his
counsel carried insufficient weight in policy deliberations.
His entry into the public debate stemmed from the cumulative
weakening of the Tatar domestic position under the centralizing assault
of the regime. Foreign policy might become the means of escaping
from Moscow's increasingly onerous centralization.38 To buttress Mus-
biuro's position and that of Tatar supporters he mobilized his forces for
a determined stand for final victory at the Ilnd Congress of the cope in
November-December, 1919. At first he baldly stated that victory in
the East was a necessary precondition of global victory, thus standing
official doctrine on its head.39 He saw this congress as "our own congress
which must transfer the embryonic Communist revolutionary energy in
Soviet Russia to the East."40 And his resolutions embodied these
premises.41 Indeed, in foreign affairs the Congress spoke in one voice,
testifying to common Pan-Islamic sentiment. In domestic affairs,
however, the congress decisively rebuffed Tatar ambitions and exposed deep
divisions among Moslem nationalities. Sultangaliev answered by
insisting more strongly on Musbiuro's primacy in foreign policy. The congress
summoned the state to devise concrete tactics for advancing eastern
revolution, implying past neglect and the absence of such tactics. It
oulined a two-sided course of action.
One determining factor at a given time was the class revolutionary
program of the party — i.e., readiness of a native party for admission to
the Komintern. The other critical factor was the constellation of socio-
economic-political conditions in the country which determined how long
the Bolsheviks could preserve the national anti-imperialist movement.
This was either a compromise between the view of internal cooperation
abroad and that of class war in places like Iran; or a postponement of the
issue until concrete details could be worked out. In any case, the congress
adopted Musbiuro's organizational claims. Its resolutions declared that
all instruction must go through cope which would differentiate itself
between territorial and organizational principles. Further resolutions
demanded strengthening the party preparation of cadres, creation of a
corps of orientalists, and fulfilment of the VHIth Party Congress
resolution on self-determination.42 However, as the Turkish radicals
proposed, for the moment a purely anti-imperialist line sufficed for foreign
movements.43 But there were dissenters to Musbiuro's claims. Kate-
nian and Lukashov of the Revvoensovet and Azerbaidzhan emphatically
defended the government's right to dispose of Moslem troops as it saw
fit in the revolution's interest.44 Thus while other Moslems actively
challenged Sultangaliev's claims, Lenin too, during 1919-1920, refrained
from any positive support for his ideas.46
Early 1920 was the preparatory period for the conquest of both
Azerbaidzhan and the Caucasus as well as consolidation in Central Asia; so
organizational efforts prevailed until mid-Spring. But the debate
continued. Effendiev offered a new idea, that of employing Turkish
prisoners. They were valuable as soldiers and officers from their ranks
could be trained and selected on political grounds. They could serve
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION I79

as Turkish battle units in Moslem borderlands, conduct agitation and

propaganda in Turkish, and recruit Moslem cadres all while serving as
civil-military governors in key Turkish areas.46 He advocated this also
for Iran where this armed nucleus could function as the future Iranian
Red Guard and then unite with native radicals.47
Azerbaidzhan's native Communists, led by N. Narimanov, a local
leader and head of Narkomindel's Middle Eastern Bureau, also raised their
voices against Sultangaliev's call for a colonial International and a Moslem
Red Army. Certainly Narkomindel resented such intrusions into its
responsibility. The Azerbaidzhanians were unwilling to let their home
be Sultangaliev's laboratory. Thus Narimanov, writing about Turkestan,
spoke in platitudes.48 In the future it could become a model republic
but for now he had no specific recommendations. Sultangaliev's article
on the Soviet conquest of Azerbaidzhan provides a striking contrast: to wit,

"If Red Turkestan has hitherto played the role of the

revolutionary beacon for China, Turkestan, Afghanistan, India, Bukhara,
and Khiva; then Soviet Azerbaidzhan, with its old and experienced
revolutionary proletariat and already well fortified Communist
Party 'Hummet', appears in this connection as the red beacon for
all Persia, Arabia, and Turkey. "4e

Azerbaidzhan's conquest, on April 28, placed Iran squarely on the

Sovnarkom's agenda. Once the Polish attack failed it appeared in
midyear that revolution was attainable both in the East and West. By this
time activities of Soviet style organizations were well underway in Iran.60
Kuchik Khan's record was well known to policy makers as was the debate
over assisting him. An indicator of a preparatory move was Adalet's 1919
attachment of a squadron of Iranian Communists to the Moslem Red
Army, it then directed to Ghilan, to aid Kuchik Khan's separatist
movement.61 Communists formed cells and organized among Iranians in
and out of the Red Army, dispatching agents into native zones to extend
their organization.62 Throughout 1920 Adalet and cope jointly launched
a massive recruitment campaign in the Caucasus and Central Asia to
recruit still more people.63
The conquest of Azerbaidzhan linked these efforts directly to Baku
and Moscow via the Red Army political-military organization. Contact
with Iran on a regular basis improved. Previously nobody had foreseen
the new possibilities for action. It had sufficed for Lenin to hasten the
preparatory acts for a revolution but not the revolution itself.64 Indeed,
no overall leader had been selected to coordinate the work although
Musbiuro had nominated Stalin to be commissar of foreign affairs in the
East to direct Soviet internal and foreign policies there.66 Narimanov
and Lukashov still doubted in the reality of a revolution since objective
conditions were absent and they held to a cautious gradualist strategy
of stage by stage extension of the movement.56 Narimanov felt it rash
for Iranian left Communists to promote socialist slogans that weakened
the united anti-imperialist bloc.67 He showed a similar preference for
amicable relations and not for revolution in the Turkish case, once again
conforming with Chicherin against Stalin and Sultangaliev's policies.68
l80 STEPHEN BLANK

Nonetheless Bolshevik leaders seized upon Azerbaidzhan's capture

with alacrity. Several republican appointments connoted a wider then
national significance. Narimanov himself had long-standing ties with
the native Iranian radicals. Budu Mdivani, a Georgian of long Iranian
residence, became a member of the supervisory Kavbiuro.69 Ordzhoni-
kidze, a participant in the Tabriz revolts of 1906-1911, became responsible
for all Azerbaidzhani domestic and foreign policies including supervision
of fulfilment of cc directives and Narkomindel instructions on relations
with neighboring states.60 His ties to Stalin were already of public
knowledge. Local parties such as the Armenian had long announced
their intention of Sovietizing Iran.61
On April 3 Adalet declared its own program. According to its
rapporteur, Sultan Zade, the party's task was to explain to the Iranian toilers
that only joint worker-peasant power could liberate them. The
conference approved sequestration and confiscation of gentry and clerical lands
by the peasantry as a means of winning support.62 Within Kuchik
Khan's camps at Resht and Enzeli a significant leftist faction led by
Ekhansullah Khan, had developed. During 1919-1920 he pressured
Kuchik Khan leftwards. When the latter inclined to parley with Teheran
he called for a march on Teheran. Perhaps he prevailed upon Kuchik
Khan to sanction a Red invasion. But Kuchik Khan saw it only as a
single shot to evict the White, i.e., as an incident in the Russian Civil
War, not as an intervention in Iran. Ekhansullah Khan desired a full
scale Communist revolution, possibly casting himself as its tribune.68
Whether invited or not the Bolsheviks arrived in Enzeli in this
manner.

"In the early spring of 1920 the Jengelis received a letter from a
Bolshevik commander in the Caucasus informing them that the
Bolsheviks would soon capture Baku. Evidently the Soviet
forces were seeking closer liaison with Iranian rebels in
anticipation of their invasion of Iran. This letter was followed by the
dispatch of a special emissary. On the night of May 17, wrote
Ekhansullah, 'A Russian comrade came to the forest and revealed
that in a few days the Bolsheviks would come to Enzeli'."64

Following Soviet custom, the Soviet force consisted of regular Red

Army units, Kronstadt sailors, Communist Azerbaidzhani troops, and
armed Iranian longshoremen of Baku.66 On May 24 Kuchik Khan
proclaimed himself head of a Persian ssr and unveiled a program
pledging the following points : establishment of a Persian republic, defense of
the persons and property of the whole population, liquidation of all
agreements with foreign states, equality of all nationalities, and defense
of Islam.66 Persian Communists, such as Khaidar Khan, and Russian
Bolsheviks received posts in this government.67 Karakhan cabled Raskol-
nikov, commander of the Soviet flotilla, from Narkomindel illustrating
Bolshevik hopes and tactics.

"The reaction of Kuchik Khan to the establishment of the Soviet

system in Iran must be carefully ascertained [. . .] The toilers
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION l8l

and the bourgeois democrats should be made to unite in the name

of Persia's liberty and be instigated to rise up against the British
and expel them from the country [. . .] It is necessary to unite
Kuchik Khan's forces and the Persian Communists and democratic
groups against the British. I will not oppose the establishment
of [. . . peasant] Soviets [. . .] but I believe that the principles
should be changed, for I fear any haste in establishing Soviet
principles there could result in class antagonism and weaken the
struggle in Persia."68

Several prominent leaders envisaged Sovietization as an arduous and

protracted process at best. Their preference was for using the potential
for revolution as a lever to be grasped at will in order to bargain with
England. On June 4 Trotsky adopted this view and Chicherin cabled
Krasin on June 25 to take the same line in London to frighten Britain
into concessions.69
But this seeming moderation was constantly undercut by the unruly
and uncontrolled leftism of the Iranian Communists and their Soviet
supporters. Soviet leaders were alternately tempted or dragged into
increasing their military investment by prolonging it at the same time
that they negotiated with Iran and Britain. And in the back of their
minds they knew that these twin courses were ultimately incompatible.
The persistence of leftist currents in Persian ranks is also partly
attributable to covert support by certain Soviet factions inclined towards that
course, presumably Sultangaliev and Stalin. In the latter's case the
balance of evidence leans towards considering him to have "adventurist"
tendencies during 1920-1921. His motives remain murky but Chicherin's
contemptuous remark about the Iranian troops being Stalin's Iranians
from Tula guberniia strengthens that contention.70 An American
intelligence report of 1921, commenting on events beginning in 1920,
explicitly asserts his authority in the Eastern question and his possession
of operational responsibility and superiority over Chicherin in this area.71
It thus seems likely that Iranian Communists enjoyed at least some
measure of his tolerance for their radicalism.72
Soviet intervention also provoked an internal crisis in Iran leading
to the fall of the government. Bold concerted action at that stage might
have been successful but may well have meant war with England or the
threat of it which was out of the question for Moscow. On the other
hand there was no clear line between supporting Kuchik Khan against
London and Teheran, the Iranian Communists against all comers, or
Teheran against the other forces. Each course had supporters and a
bruising debate occurred back home over Iran. While the choices were
incompatible with each other nobody could see the regime through to
a clear willingness to assume the burdens, costs, and risks of a definite
decision. Thus during mid-1920 alternate lines competed for
prominence.78
Duringof June-
heedless Moscow's
July the
injunctions.
Persian radicals
They held
followed
themselves
their own
responsible
course,
solely to the Executive Committee of the Komintern and refused to
participate without conditions in the Ghilan republic as Kuchik Khan
l82 STEPHEN BLANK

wished.74 They unleashed rural class terror, prorogued the civil service,
harassed Moslem agencies, unveiled women, and organized a Cheka which
organized peasant Soviets, and, with the Red Army, supervised and armed
Kuchik Khan's armies. He himself was nearly reduced to a figurehead.76
The reign of terror included confiscation of landlord's lands.76 Kuchik
Khan first resisted this and by June 3 we find Ordzhonikidze complaining
to Lenin that,
"There can be no kind of Soviet power in Persia. Kuchik Khan
won't agree even to the raising of the land question. He displays
only a single slogan: down with the English and the Teheran
government crushed by them."77
Undeterred, the Iranians formed their own Communist Party in June.
Sultan Zade advocated a program of class and national strife whereas
Moscow's or Baku's delegate, Naneishvili, urged subordination of class
to national slogans because of Iranian backwardness. Yet the Left won
out and imposed a line contrary to that of the government, expressed
by Kirov. This line saw the Jengeli movement as being opposed to
Communism but as the first stage in a process leading to an eventual
socialist Iran.78 This dogmatic leftism clashed with the evolving line
which Lenin would soon impose upon the Komintern and even alarmed
Ordzhonikidze to call agrarian uprisings premature because of apathy
on the peasant's part and superior enemy forces.79
Their rashness forced Narkomindel to admonish them in June-July
to cooperate with the Jengeli and not to exacerbate tensions, inasmuch
as they were, together, the only anti-imperialist force. The Ghilan
government was, for Narkomindel if not for Stalin and Ordzhonikidze,
a united front temporarily rallying around it all the progressive anti-
English elements.80 But the leftists persisted in their heresy. Their
ascendancy reflected itself in the aforementioned 1st Congress of the ikp
on June 27. All agreed that the slogans of struggle must embrace such
potentially or actively hostile enemies as England, the Shah, etc.
Moreover, Sultan Zade felt that the anti-imperialist national stage for the
revolution was rapidly developing into a social one.81 Despite opposition
to this view on the grounds of prematureness, his opinion found
embodiment in the congress' resolutions.82
The ikp members were so insistent on these points that they eagerly
crossed swords with Lenin over Iran at the famous Ilnd Congress of the
Komintern. Sultan Zade asserted that backwardness, undeveloped, and
weak class relations facilitated rather than retarded the peasants' and
craftsmen's struggles.83 He criticized Lenin's thesis calling for marching
separately but striking together with the national bourgeoisie charging
that,
"The thesis on support of the bourgeois democrats was correct
only in those backward countries where the movement was in its
infancy, but, for example, in Persia, to carry out such a tactic
means 'pushing the masses into the arms of counterrevolution'.
In the given case it is a question of creating a purely Communist
movement."84
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION 183

This agreed with the views of radical Moslems apart, from Narimanov
as well as those of the ikp. Soviet historians contend that they failed
to distinguish between progressive and reactionary bourgeoisie,
er oneously took proletarian consciousness for granted, and mechanically
transferred Soviet experience to a rather different scene.86 Furthermore, they
tended to assume that their countries were advanced capitalist societies
because of internal and external exploitation. This view was common to
the Soviet Moslem radicals, except Narimanov, and they fought
vigorously for its adoption in the Iranian and Turkish cases.86
They held that an organized propaganda machine was all-powerful and
that class revolution abroad (but not at home because of backwardness
there) was essential. Thus it followed from consideration of the poorly
developed class relations abroad that a Moslem Red Army was necessary.
Sultangaliev, Effendiev, Mustafa Subkhi, the leader of the Turkish
Party, Ryskulov of Central Asia, and the ikp, all demanded the creation of
such a force to carry the revolution to the East. 87 Sultangaliev demanded
the arming of the East "to the teeth" triggering a barrage of bitter
attacks against him by other nationality spokesmen as well as by Great
Russians.88 The difference between his views and the current Iranian
reality was that the troops there were standing in place and were Great
Moslems'
Russians controlled
aspirationsbyboth
Stalin.
domestically
This contrasted
and externally.89
sharply with Stalin
the radical
and
the government feared both war with Iran or with England as well as the
unleashing of a Pan-Islamic tide they increasingly distrusted.90 Still
they hoped to exploit that sentiment as a catalyst for future gains. But
for the Moslems Russian domination of their Pan-Islamic movement was
intolerable. Sultangaliev's anti-imperialist vision so obsessed him that
he even recklessly took up Bukharin's and Stalin's earlier line that true
self-determination really excluded the bourgeoisie, and that only the
proletariat could be authentically self-determining. In so doing he hoped
to rally Russians' support for his domestic and foreign policy goals.91
At this time, on July 19, Kuchik Khan broke with his allies over their
radicalism and decamped into the woods. Moscow knew nothing of this
and only recaptured Resht after a series of battles lasting into October.
Then it elected a new ikp cc led by Khaidar Khan.92 But while the
eventual news of Kuchik' s move probably contributed to a final decision
(except for Stalin) in the government on the ikp, it took some time to
implement the decisions after arriving at them. By now nearly everyone
distrusted the ikp and blamed it for what happened. On July 28, during
the Komintern congress, Ordzhonikidze, Lenin and Guseinov, Azer-
baidzhan's commissar of foreign relations, met with Sultan Zade and
rebuffed his call for peasant uprisings as being premature and
counterproductive.98 Soon afterwards the Komintern adopted Lenin's theses
on the colonial issue directly opposed to those of Sultan Zade and his
Soviet allies. Lenin's theses were themselves the product of great
thought and debate at the governmental level. Before the congress
Chicherin wrote him that,

"Union with one's own bourgeoisie is fully appropriate in oppressed

nations only where it is necessary to destroy local feudalism
184 STEPHEN BLANK

propped up by the bayonets of an oppressing nation as in Persia.

Mainly for the Persians a joint movement of toilers and bourgeoisie
for the destruction of the insufferable oppression of the feudals
sold to England is the order of the day. Union with the
bourgeoisie in the given case is called for by the internal causes, and not
by the expediency of the national liberation. [But] as a general
principle union with the native bourgeoisie for the sake of
liberation must be rejected unconditionally in the given historical
period."94

Chicherin, aligning himself in theory with the radical Moslems, firmly

opposed their policy in the one place that it was a real option. Lenin's
reply indicated his greater reliance on an alliance with the peasantry as
a corrective device but also developed his program of a tactical alliance
with the national bourgeoisie.96 Nevertheless his views exhibited an
even more Russo-centric view in the conceptualization of national-
colonial issues' place in world politics.

"The mutual relations of peoples, the whole world system of

states is determined by the struggle of a small group of imperialist
nations with the Soviet movement and Soviet states, at the head
of which stands Soviet Russia. If we lose sight of this then we
cannot pose a single national or colonial question correctly."96

The entire conception of an alliance with the native bourgeoisie was a

singularly manipulative and cynical one, recalling Lenin's definition of
support in the metaphor of the rope supporting a hanging man.

"We, as Communists, must and will support bourgeois liberation

movements in colonial countries only in those cases where these
movements are really revolutionary, when their representatives
will not hinder us from training and organizing in a revolutionary
spirit the peasants and broad masses of the exploited. If these
conditions are not present then Communists in these countries
fight against the reformist bourgeoisie."97

His objectives were both to spread and to safeguard the revolution and
to integrate eastern colonies as closely as possible to Russia in a union
knowing no boundaries. This was the time of great optimism over
Poland and the East despite the ikp's recalcitrance (Kuchik Khan's
action not yet being known to Moscow). But this view doomed the
efforts of Moslem radicals at home and abroad. Under such pressure
the ikp, between July, 1920 and mid-1921, had little choice, despite its
resistance, but to move rightwards.
But this decision did not yet settle the contradictions enmeshing
Soviet Russia's Iranian policy. This was the choice between supporting
the national bourgeoisie or the national cp, between national and socialist
revolutions in the East.98 For all Lenin's skill at this congress the
contradiction was not resolved (perhaps it was unresolvable) in concrete
terms. Thus policy towards Iran continued to be debated and to be one
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION 185

of utilizing parallel or alternate tracks." However, it became

increasingly difficult to reconcile the emerging contradictions as time passed.
For instance, many party members thought, as did Preobrazhensku, that,

"From the moment of proletarian victory in London and Paris

the national-revolutionary movement in the East is converted into
a counter-revolutionary one. Upon the territory of the rsfsr the
national movements in Turkestan, Bukhara, and Kirgizia
(Kazakhstan) are already counter-revolutionary."100

Lenin dismissed such views disdainfully. But the press was full of
continuing polemics and debate over the course of the eastern revolution.
One writer insisted that the Iranian revolution could not organize
workers against capitalist exploiters as the ikp had tried; but must
organize them against religious and national oppression.101 During July
and August a propaganda train, "Krasnyi vostok" (The Red East)
published theses on eastern revolution embodying Lenin's and the Komin-
tern's resolutions.102 These decisions received enormous publicity and
distribution throughout Russia and Komintern member parties. Pav-
lovich-Vel'tmann, a leading Narkomnats spokesman and orientalist,
sounded the official note of optimism in August that,

"The analysis made by us of the economic situation in Persia,

leads us to the conclusion that in Persia there exist the
preconditions for a social revolution [. . .] Together with Russia this
inexhaustible reservoir of revolutionary energy plays the role of
a vanguard in the acceleration of the revolutionary process in
Persia."103

For all its optimism this assertion studiously avoided the choice of
a tactical line. The Komintern congress did not resolve the actual
tactical execution of oriental policy so parallel policies and argumentation
for them continued. In part this was due to the fact that time had not
yet forced the government into a choice. Since the regime was
progressing steadily towards treaties with England and Iran it could still play the
Red Army's card with some impunity. Since its arrival in Resht the
Red Army had not moved forward but the potential was always there.
It is in view of this condition of unresolved policy debate and parallel
policy actions that we must approach an examination of the ill-fated
Baku Congress of September, 1920. On July 29 the Politbiuro entrusted
Ordzhonikidze and Stasova with responsibility for organizing the congress
there and for coordination with Zinov'ev, chairman of the congress and
nominal chief of the Komintern.104 Simultaneously Lenin reconfirmed
Ordzhonikidze's mandate as supervisor of fulfilment of cc and Nar-
komindel directives throughout the Transcaucasus and Iran.105 Since
Ordzhonikidze, Stalin's lieutenant, differed with Zinov'ev over policy,
Lenin retained his position as arbiter of disputes and his ultimate
authority. In the Harper collection cited above there is an intelligence report
that illuminates the policy debate at the regime's highest levels. It
quotes Pavlovich-Vel'tmann stating views he later repeated at Baku.
l86 STEPHEN BLANK

"The Communists believe in the practical possibility of the

introduction of a Communist regime in eastern countries. The
Communist Party does not believe that eastern countries must pass
through the capitalist stage of a national economy, and say that
undeveloped races may go over to the Soviet form of government
and stage of development. The Communists consider that the
absence of an industrial proletariat in the East is made up for by
the presence of a half feudal class of peasants, among whom, in
Lenin's opinion, propaganda in favor of a peasant Soviet
government would meet with great success."106

Presumably he echoed Lenin's views. But these words could have come
from any of the top leaders. The real problem was finding a means to
cement firmly the divergent forces of anti-imperialist nationalism and an
increasingly Russo-centric internationalist socialism. Obviously the
believers in the active possibility of an imminent revolution in the East
constituted an important faction of leading Komintern figures who
favored an eastern strategy there.107 Only Stalin had publicly espoused
such a view at that time so perhaps this part of the report followed his
thinking. This paper went on to outline the other views of relevant
decision makers.

"Trotsky believes that only the union of the Third International

with the Soviet government will make it possible to carry on a
purely military policy, which alone is capable of spreading
Bolshevism [. . .] The eastern policy of the Bolsheviks is further involved
by the fact that local political organizations in the Caucasus and
Turkestan and the higher military commands in these regions, are
conducting their own policy which is in contradiction to the
decisions of the center."108

From other sources we know that it was Stalin and Ordzhonikidze who
headed the Caucasus' military and political commands, maintaining
watchful control over their activities, while conducting a private eastern
policy. Another significant factor is the extent to which each of
the aforementioned policy makers' functional responsibilities colored their
view of tactics required in Iran.109

Thus the Baku Congress is intelligible as an attempt to pursue the

policy associated with Zinov'ev, i.e., one of the parallel tracks, as far as
would be useful to the regime. But at about the same time Stalin
continued his preparations for a more purely military operation into the
East from Azerbaidzhan. The September 30 treaty between the rsfsr
and Azerbaidzhan's ssr contained the following clause,

"The army of Azerbaidzhan as well as the military-administrative

administration, at the time of military operations of the rsfsr is,
in all relations, subordinate to the Revvoensovet of the Caucasus
front, while the army of the assr enters into the structure of the
corresponding army of the rsfsr. Further relationships of the
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION 187

armed forces of the rsfsr and assr after liquidation of the

Caucasian front will be determined by special agreement."110

Additionally an extensive road-building and reinforcement program for

front took place.111 Stalin toured the area in November and advocated
a policy of thoroughgoing advance and expansion. On November 8 he
cabled Lenin with reference to Armenia that,

"One thing is not in doubt. It is necessary to move troops rapidly

to Armenia's borders with the necessity of entering with them to
Erevan. Ordzhonikidze is conducting the preparatory work in
this spirit (i.e., before receiving an operational sanction from
Moscow)."112

Soon he conducted talks with Armenia's emissary, Legran, and played a

major role behind the scenes in Armenia's conquest that nearly caused a
war with Turkey.118
Meanwhile, Zinov'ev, at Baku, revealed that all he had to offer was
empty rhetoric, not a well-conceived policy.114 Outside of the call for a
Jehad against Britain all that emerged from this congress was another
agitation-propaganda organization run by Stasova et al., in competition
with the Komintern, Musbiuro, and Stalin's burgeoning political-military
apparat. Moreover, many of the delegates behaved in an openly
commercial and /or religious manner. Others, notably Ryskulov and Narbuta-
bekov, openly attacked Soviet nationality policy. Zinov'ev and Radek
allowed themselves to be carried away and were taken to task by Lenin
for painting nationalism red. Zinov'ev's policy manifested itself as anti-
English rhetoric which, if practiced seriously, would have been foolhardy
and dangerous. The Council of Propaganda, formed at Baku, broke down
in differences between Pavlovich-Vel'tmann and Sultan Zade. Stalin, on
his tour of inspection, approved the congress line but subverted it in
typical fashion in Moscow through third parties on December 25. According
to this article the council's record confirmed its incapacity for the job
at hand.116
The Baku fiasco was, in retrospect, a decisive turning point. Not
only was Zinov'ev's policy line discredited thereby, the entire possibility
of posing as the upholder of Islamic interests was utterly compromised.
Soviet leaders stood face to face with the awareness that no basis at all
existed for the convergence of Soviet state interests and those of Islamic
ethnocentrism or nationalism. If Soviet leaders tried to use that force
abroad they would either be rebuffed because of their socialism, or dragged
unwillingly into a war with England by Moslem forces not under their
control. That course also meant the rupture of negotiations with both
Poland and Iran. And it was evident to all that another war was a
prelude only to an anti-Bolshevik revolution in economically prostrate
Russia. Zinov'ev's failure invalidated the course of parallel policies and
initiated the process whereby decisive weight shifted to the side of
accommodation with a nationalist Iran, trade ties and relations with
England and Europe, a check to Stalin's military adventures, and an end
to schemes of boundaryless confederations in Asia and Europe. Hence-
l88 STEPHEN BLANK

forth Soviet policy would reflect the reality of a state competing with
other states in a system of states. Domestic and foreign parties with a
role in foreign policy would come under state control so that they could
not risk state security in pursuit of their goals.
This development is discernible, naturally, only retrospectively. At
the time a serious political struggle of only slowly developing character
took place with regard to Soviet goals, Kuchik Khan, and the role of the
Iranian Communists. Thus, immediately after the Baku Congress
Soviet Russia commenced treaty negotiations with Iran, approving the
terms of the basic outline of the treaty in the Central Committee session
of December y.116 Yet simultaneously Stalin pushed his quasi-Russifying
adventurist policy; and the Soviet state, through Komintern mechanisms,
exercised steady pressure upon the Iranian Party. Since the rupture
with Kuchik Khan that party had been split. The left wing, under
Ekhansullah Khan, adopted the militant leftist War Communism stance
adding domestic struggle to anti-imperialist one. This position proved to
be fruitless.

"The absence of solid and steady leadership, economic devastation,

and the fall of the front forced the Revkom to reexamine the
methods of its work which was expressed in its economic aspects
by a transition to a 'New Economic Policy'. In the political field
this led to a unification of all revolutionary forces and
accommodation with Kuchik Khan."117

This mirrored Soviet developments in 1920-1921 and due to Soviet

pressure the ikp leadership changed in October, 1920. Under Khaidar
Khan it now acknowledged that Iran must first undergo national
revolution, delaying class war for the future; and that the party must come to
terms with peasant traditionalism.118 Chicherin applauded the victory
of his line and interpreted it with conspicuous satisfaction.119
Still, in late 1920, the trend towards resolution and clarity was not
in the ascendant and competing policy preferences continued to contend
among themselves for primacy. Based on Stalin's November reports the
Politbiuro announced a directive resolution late in the month. This
decision reflected ambivalence or the failure to discern clearly the
incompatible nature of competing policies in Iran and the government's
hesitation in making a decision. Obviously satisfaction over the emerging
treaty with Iran that would minimize England's position in Iran was
voiced. Yet the Politbiuro resolved matters in such a way to justify the
fears of those who claimed that Soviet goals were maximalist in Iran and
elsewhere. For instance,

"The Politbiuro recognized the main task as the defense of Azer-

baidzhan and the firm mastery of the entire Caspian Sea. With
this aim the Politbiuro felt it necessary to hasten the transfer of
no less than seven divisions and to do all to strengthen Azerbai-
dzhan. I. V. Stalin was charged by the Orbgiuro tsk rkp with
mobilizing the maximum number of Moslem Communists for work
in Azerbaidzhan."120
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION 189

This was clearly provocative behavior, closely linked to Stalin's personal

aspiration to liberate all of Transcaucasia and the East. Yet immediately
following in the resolution's text comes the utterly contradictory
adjuration,

"The Politbiuro again recognized the necessity of adopting, in

relation to Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, and Persia, a maximally
adaptive policy, i.e., directed most of all to avoiding war. We
do not pose our task as an offensive one upon Georgia, or upon
Armenia, nor upon Persia."121

Almost two months later, following conquest of Armenia, on

January 22, 1921 Karakhan declared that Soviet troops would leave Iran as the
British ones left. Reza Khan's accession to power soon thereafter
indicated a neutralist and nationalist Iran to come.122 The February 192 1
treaty with Iran represented the victory of Chicherin's line in Iran. In
the interval Stalin, however, had interpreted the November 27 resolution
to provoke war with Turkey, forcibly invade Armenia and Georgia, and
sow the seeds of national rancors there for years to come. Perhaps the
signing of the treaty immediately after Georgia's conquest was more than
coincidental, i.e., a rebuke to Stalin for his methods.
Once the treaty was signed the Soviet troops in Iran became hostage
'to
experiment'
fortune,
of exporting
more so revolution
after signing
based
the treaty
on insufficient
with England.
appreciation
The of local
factors and domestic constraints, not to add external ones and planless
execution, was abandoned in favor of the tangible benefits of relations
with Iran.123 Soviet troops had to go since their presence violated the
treaties and could lead to war which Soviet conditions obviously ruled
out.
Chicherin naturally feared that England would claim Soviet support
for Kuchik Khan as a pretense to tie down Soviet troops in a foreign civil
war with unforeseeable consequences — another intolerable possibility.
Thus he persuaded Lenin, as did Ambassador Rothstein, to support Reza
Khan.124 And despite renewed collaboration with Kuchik Khan, the
alliance disintegrated in mid-1921. In September Kuchik Khan
murdered Khaidar Khan, only to be killed in his turn by the Shah's troops. This
effectively ended the Iranian intervention and Soviet troops returned.
But this return home occurred only after six or seven months of
obstruction by Georgian and Azerbaidzhani organizations, under Stalin's
control, of previous departure orders. Chicherin later told Louis Fischer
that after the February treaty the Georgian poured in more troops and
established a Soviet republic at Resht. Iran protested to Rothstein, who
protested to Lenin that Iran was unready for revolution, and that England
might intervene. Then Rothstein, presumably on Lenin's intructions,
invited the Shah to overthrow the Ghilan republic. Fischer recounts
that,

'"Among the prisoners Reza took were Russian peasants from Tula',
Chicherin said to me in recounting the story. 'Those', he sneered,
'were the soldiers of Stalin's Ghilan Soviet republic'."126
 STEPHEN BLANK

From March to October, 1921 Lenin and Chicherin had continually

ordered evacuation of troops, meeting only obstruction until the bitter end.126
Of significance here are the experience and lessons which Stalin absorbed
about the dangers of ambitious proconsuls operating on the peripheries
and immune to central control.
The hopes of the partisans of Iranian revolution thus foundered on the
hard rock of Soviet raison d'état. In Moscow it became more apparent
that following Zinov'ev, Stalin's, Sultangaliev's or the ikp's policies meant
surrendering a vital aspect of their control over the state's destiny.
Stalin's preferred course led to serious internal difficulties in border regions
and came perilously close to war with either Iran, Turkey, or England.
Zinov'ev ran similar risks with regard to England but without the military
force of Stalin's plans. His line also sacrificed some part of Soviet
sovereignty to the unreliable (from the Soviet viewpoint) force of Pan-
Islamism. Sultangaliev's and the ikp's policies both signified the attempt
of a faction of Moslem radicals to usurp a veto power over critical aspects
of Soviet domestic and foreign policies. It also constituted a standing
ethnic and ideological challenge to the essence of Leninist theory and
nationality policy by substituting the Moslem nationalities for the
proletariat and party and shifting the gravity of international revolution
eastwards.
All these threatened to involve Soviet leaders in an enterprise where
the predictable costs of direct intervention far exceeded the intangible
benefits. State to state relations and movement within that framework
was a far more secure way of securing minimum, if not greater goals. All
the other courses risked a great deal for vague and distant benefits. The
Polish war and the Iranian intervention set the seal on the old
internationalist vision of a borderless socialist state. They also decisively
influenced future domestic Soviet policies.
Once the danger of espousing Pan-Islamism became clear, repression
of that movement began in earnest in 1921.127 Sultangaliev and his
supporters were steadily moved out of power within the apparat. No
more would any organized faction aspire to a veto power over Soviet
diplomacy. Perhaps this experience also contributed to the easing of
policy in Moslem areas on statehood, land, and religious issues of 1920
which channelled Moslem energies into more manageable and discrete
structures. It may have partly contributed to the resolution on
factionalism and the Xth Party Congress resolution on nationality policy.
The Iranian, and possibly Polish, experience probably led those, like
Stalin, with requisite acumen, to realize that foreign revolution was out
of the question until the Soviet state disposed of greater control over the
mechanisms of foreign policy. It also displayed the danger posed by
ambitious proconsuls operating on their own. All this pointed towards
greater centralized authority and control, consolidation, recovery, and
industrialization for military purposes. China in 1927 again confirmed
this perspective and the dangers of factionalism for foreign affairs.
The costs of intervention in 1919-1921 precluded the option of decisive
military action or even risking it. But where the international situation
has changed and with it the power of the Soviet state and its standing,
it remains an open question whether those costs still outweigh the po-
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

tential advantages of direct Soviet action. And in Iran and Afghanistan

we may soon have the opportunity of witnessing a re-enactment of this
fateful choice.

Riverside, California, juillet 1979.

1. A. Bennigsen, Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, Les mouvements nationaux chez les

Musulmans de Russie: le sultangalievisme au Tatarstan (Paris: Mouton, i960);
St. Blank, The unknown commissariat: the Soviet commissariat of nationalities:
Narkomnats, 1917-1924 (unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, Univ. of Chicago, 1979).
2. Zhizri natsional 'nostei, 3, 24. 11. 1978: 1 (henceforth Zhn).
3. Komintern i Vostok: bor'ba za leninskuiu strategiiu i taktiki v natsional' no-
osvoboditel'nom dvizhenii (Moscow: Glavnaiared. vostochnoi literatury, 1969): 63-64.
4. В. G. Gafurov, Lenin i natsional' no-osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie v stranakh
vostoka (Moscow: Glavnaiared. vostochnoi literatury, 1970): 57.
5. Zhn, 5, 15.12.1918.
6. Zhn, 5(13), 16.2. 1919.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Zhn, 8 (16), 9.3.1919.
11. R. G. Khairutdinov, « Iranskie internatsionalisty v sovetskoi Rossii. 1918-
1920, » Národy Azii i Afriki, 6 (1977): 13.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.: 14-19.
14. G. Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran. 1918-1948 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
Univ. Press, 1949): 9-10; E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik revolution 1917-1923 (Harmonds-
worth, Middlesex: 1966), III: 236-239.
15. Trudy Instituta istorii partii pri TsK KP A zerbaidzhana (Baku: 1967): 56.
16. Lenin v bor'be za revoliutsionnyi Inter natsional (Moscow: Nauka, 1970): 572.
17. V. N. Plastun, "Iranskie trudiashchiesiia v grazhdanskoi voine v Rossii,"
Národy Azii i Afriki, 2 (1972): 57-58.
18. Zhn, 15(23), 27.4.1919: 1.
19. Zhn, 18(26), 18.5. 1919; 19(27), 25.5. 1919: 1-2.
20. Ibid.: 2.
21. Zhn, 20(28), 1.6.1919: 1.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Zhn, 26(34), 6.7.1919.
25. Zhn, 27(35), 13.7.1919; 28(36), 20.7.1919.
26. Zhn, 29(37), 27.7.1919.
27. This went back as far as the Party's Ilnd Congress of 1903 which triggered
an acrimonious debate.
28. Zhn, 30(38), 10.8.1919.
29. Zhn, 31(39). 17.8. 1919.
30. Zhn, 32(40), 24.8. 1919.
31. Zhn, 33(41), 31.8.1919; 34(42), 7.9.1919; 35(43), 14.9.1919.
32. Zhn, 34(42), 7.9.1919.
33. Vtoroi Kongress Kominterna (Moscow: izd. polit, literatury, 1972): 32-33.
34. Ibid.; Zhn, 41(49), 26. 10. 19 19.
noiabr'
35. 1918-dekabr'
Narodnyi komissariat po inostrannym delam: otchet sed'momu s"ezdu sovetov,
1919 (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1919): 26.
36. Zhn, 7(15), 2.3.1919: 1.
37. Zhn, 39(47). 12.10.1919.
38. St. Blank, op. cit. ; A. Bennigsen, Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, op. cit.
39. Zhn, 45(53), 30.11. 1919.
192 STEPHEN BLANK

40. Zhn, 46(54), 7.12. 1919.

41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Zhn, 47(55). 14-12.1919.
44. Komintern i Vostok, op. cit.: 94.
45. For the Crimean Tatars' coolness to Sultangaliev's dreams, cf. Zhn, 49(57),
28.12.1919; 4(61), 1.2. 1920.
46. Zhn, 1(58), 4. 1. 1920,
47. Zhn, 4(61), 1. 2. 1920.
48. Zhn, 9(66), 21.3. 1920.
49. Zhn, 13(70), 29.4.1920.
50. Komintern i Vostok, op. cit.: 75.
51. V. N. Plastun, art. cit.: 57-58.
52. Ibid.: 58.
53. Ibid.: 62.
54. Komintern i Vostok, op. cit.: 92-93.
55. Ibid. While the reasons behind this remain unstated we can only guess at
their motives; though, presumably they were misled into thinking that he shared
their policy perspective or was amenable to it.
56. Ibid.: 98.
57. Sh. A. Tagieva, "Nariman Narimanov i Vostok," Národy Azii i Afriki,
2 (1976): 83.
58. Ibid.
59. H. Kapur, Soviet Russia and Asia. IQ17-IQ27 (Geneva: V. Chevalier, 1966):
166-167.
60. G. B. Garibdzhanian, V. I. Lenin i bol'sheviki Zakavkaz'ia (Moscow: izd.
polit, literatury, 1971).
6 г . S. Kh. Karapetian, Kommunisticheskaia partita v bor'be za pobedu oktiabr'skoi
revoliutsii v Arménii (Erevan: Aipetrat, 1959).
62. G. M. Gasanov, "Velikii oktiabr' i natsional'no-osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie
v Irane," Trudy Instituta istorii partii TsK KP Azerbaidzhana (Baku: 1968) 29: 64-
65.
63. S. Zabih, The Communist movement in Iran (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
Univ. of California Press, 1966): 20-21; R. Abikh, "Natsional'noe i revoliutsionnoe
dvizhenie v Persii," Novyi Vostok, 29 (1930): 102-104.
64. G. Lenczowski, op. cit.: 56.
65. Ibid.: 52-53.
66. A. N. Kheifets, Sovetskaia Rossiia i sopredel'nye strany Vostoka v gody
grazhdanskoi voiny. 1Q18-IQ20 (Moscow: Nauka, 1964): 241-242.
67. G. Lenczowski, op. cit.: 57-59.
68. S. Zabih, op. cit.: 18.
69. R. H. Ullman, The Anglo-Soviet accord (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press,
1972): 122, 163. However I feel he is too inclined to take Soviet statements about
their goals at face value and not probe beneath them.
70. L. Fischer, The Soviets in world affairs: a history of relations between the
Soviet Union and the rest of the world. 1017-1020 (New York: Random House, 195 1):
XIII-XV.
71. S. N. Harper, Papers, Regenstein Library, Univ. of Chicago: box 55,
folder 11.
72. M. N. Roy, Memoirs (Bombay: Allied publishers private Ltd, 1964): 534;
E. D. Stasova, Stranitsy zhizni i bor'by (Moscow, Gosizdat polit, literatury, 1957):
109-110.
73. E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 245-246.
74. S. Zabih, op. cit.: 24-25.
75. N. S. Fatemi, Diplomatie history of Persia. IÇ17-IÇ23 (New York: Russell F.
Moore Co Inc., 1952): 230-232.
76. Ibid.; G. Lenczowski, op. cit.
77. A. N. Kheifets, op. cit.: 244.
Irana,"78. S. L. Agaev, V. N. Plastun, "Razrabotka programmy i taktiki kompartii
Národy Azii i Afriki, 3 (1976): 32-33.
79. Ibid.: 36-37.
80. S. Zabih, op. cit.: 23-25.
 SOVIET POLITICS AND THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION I93
81. A. N. Kheifets, op. cit. : 247.
82. Ibid.
83. Vtoroi Kongress Kominterna, op. cit.: 172-173.
84. Lenin v bor'be..., op. cit.: 582.
85. V. N. Plastun, art. cit.: 59.
86. M. A. Persits, "V. I. Lenin o levosektantskikh oshibkakh pervykh kommu-
nistov Vostoka. 1918-iiul' 1920," Národy Azii i Afriki, 2 (1970): 57-58.
87. Ibid.; M. A. Persits, "Ideinaia bor'ba po probleman sootnosheniia kommu-
nisticheskogo
Kominterna," i osvoboditel'nogo dvizhenii na Vostoke v period Il-go Kongressa
Národy Azii i Afriki, 5 (1974): 45.
88. M. A. Persits, "V. I. Lenin...," art. cit.: 66.
89. M. A. Persits, "Ideinaia bor'ba...," art. cit.
90. I. V. Stalin, Sochineniia (Moscow: 1946-1951) V, 1-2, and the CC resolution
of Febr. 21, 1920.
91. M. A. Persits, "V. I. Lenin...," art. cit.: 68.
92. A. N. Kheifets, op. cit.: 68.
93. M. A. Persits, "Ideinaia bor'ba...," art. cit.: 46; S. L. Agaev, V. N. Plastun,
art. cit.: 36.
94. Vtoroi Kongress Kominterna, op. cit.: 168-169.
95. Ibid.
96. Vtoroi Kongress kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala. Stenograficheskii otchet
(Petrograd: izd. kommun. Internatsionala, 1921): 116.
97. Ibid.: 117-118.
98. Ibid.: 119, 598-599; V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed. (Moscow:
1958-1965) XLI: 161-169; N. S. Fatemi, op. cit.: 225; V. I. Lenin i kommunisticheskii
Internatsional (Moscow: izd, polit, literatury, 1970): 199-204.
99. E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 255-260.
100. Torzhestvo leninskoi natsional'noi politiki (Cheboksary: 1972): 59.
101. Zhn, 18(75), 15.6. 1920.
102. Zhn, 24(81), 25.7.1920.
103. Zhn, 26(83), 10.8. 1920: 3.
104. B. G. Gafurov, op. cit.: 77.
105. Ibid.
106. Report of 1.4. 1922 in S. N. Harper, op. cit.; box 46, folder 2: 1. Internal
evidence suggests references to events of mid-1920, E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 264.
107. S. N. Harper, op. cit., report of 1.4. 1922: 2.
108. Ibid.
109. Thus perhaps other evidence exists from which we can adduce consistent
institutional factions or lobbies during this period.
1 10. Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1959) II: 223-224.
in. S. N. Harper, report of 1.4. 1922 quoted: 4-9.
112. A. Mnatsakanian, Poslantsy Sovetskoi Rossii v Arménii (Erevan: Aipetrat,
1959): 56-57
113. Ibid.: 117-118.
114. E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 263-269; В. Lazitch, M. M. Drachkovitch, Lenin and
the Comintern, volume I (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford Univ.
Press, 1972): 398-406; St. White, "Communism and the East: the Baku
Congress 1920," Slavic Review, 3, XXXIII (1974): 492-514.
115. E. D. Stasova, Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1969): 179-180; B. Lazitch,
M. M. Drachkovitch, op. cit.: 406-409; Zhn, 40(97), 15. 13. 1920: 1.
116. A. N. Kheifets, Lenin, velikii drug narodov Vostoka (Moscow: izd. vostochnoi
literatury, i960): 132-133.
117. Irandust, "Voprosy Gilanskoi revoliutsii, " Istorik marksist, 5 (1927): 33.
118. Zhn, 7 (105), 17.3.1921: 2; G. V. Chicherin, Statii i rechi po voprosam
mezhdunarodnoi politiki (Moscow: izd. sotsial'no-ekonom. literatury, 1961): 98.
119. S. Zabih, op. cit.: 35-39.
120. V. I. Lenin, op. cit., XLIII: 47; G. K. Zhvaniia, V. I. Lenin i bol'sheviki
Zakavkaz'ia (Tbilisi: Meroni, 1969): 253.
121. Ibid.; V. I. Lenin, loc. cit.
122. H. Kapur, op. cit.: 250; E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 293; A. N. Kheifets, Sovetskaia
Rossiia i národy Vostoka. iç2i-iç2j (Moscow: Glavnaia red. vostochnoi literatury,
1968): 58-59.
194 STEPHEN BLANK
123. E. H. Carr, op. cit.: 294.
124. A. N. Kheifets, Sovetskaia Rossiia..., op. cit.: 222.
125. L. Fischer, op. cit.
126. Ibid.; A. N. Kheifets, Lenin..., op. cit.: 64; Sovetskaia Rossiia..., op. cit.:
225-226.
127. For example, Stalin's speech of early 1921 to Moslem Communists
attacking Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism which threatened reprisals for it, I. V. Stalin,
Sochineniia, op. cit., V: 1-4.