Why Put Off to Tomorrow What You Can Do Tudeh?
The situation in Iran...is fraught with extreme dangers. The Soviet Government is thus obliged to carry out immediately all measures which it is not only entitled to take but is bound to take for self-defense in strict conformity with Article 6 of the Treaty of 1921....The Soviet Government has no designs affecting the territorial integrity and the independence of the Iranian State. -Soviet Declaration, March 1942
As Molotov entered Stalin's office, he suppressed the urge to yawn. Why couldn't the Stalin hold meetings during normal hours, and not after midnight? And why couldn't it be with the cultural minister for Kazakhastan instead of him?
Stalin looked up from paperwork when he entered, and smiled genially. That was never a good sign. "
"Take some tea, Vyacheslav." As Molotov poured a cupful, stirring in a copius amount of sugar, Stalin answered his phone. "So he just arrived?" A silence. "Nichevo." He looked towards Molotov. "Zhukov is running late."
Molotov sipped his tea. "Unusual. He has a military man's punctuality."
"For a Russian?" Stalin asked. When Molotov refused to rise to the gibe, he changed the subject. "What of Yugoslavia?"
That was a question Molotov had been pondering for months. In order to stall, he retreated to the comfort of Marxist-Leninism. "The collapse of the capitalist monarchy, which has sought to rule based on crude nationalism to divide the Slavic proletariat, has dealt a blow to the heart of the Little Entente. At any other point, this would be a great triumph for Socialism in the Balkans." Molotov dreaded his next words. "But. The Capitalists are closing ranks."
Stalin looked up at the ceiling, surprisingly genial. "They do that a lot nowadays, don't they? Trade agreements. Treaties of perpetual peace. Joint research on superweapons." His voice sounded like that of a schoolteacher, not a leader of millions. "They've always allied against Russia. There were Prussian troops with Napoleon, you know."
Molotov nodded sagely. "They rushed to the aid of Finland, but no one cared for Spain. They condemned us for a nonagression pact for Japan, but who spoke for China? They allied with reactionary generals to strangle the Revolution in its birthplace, and even now keep half the world in chains."
"Ah, well. They would think twice before they attack us. I have made sure of it." [1]
Molotov sipped his tea, which was growing cold. "The Capitalists respect strength. You have given us that, General Secretary."
Stalin thought for a moment, his voice distant. "I wonder… they stood up for Ethiopia. Some of them stood up for Spain. They stood up, eventually, for China."
Molotov hesitated. "To protect market shares, no doubt. Do you think they cared more for four hundred million humans, or four hundred million customers?"
Stalin nodded. "A point, Comrade Vyacheslav. Still… they have been reluctant to go to war, no?"
"Since several million people died and we established the first Communist state the last time they did, yes. Consider Finland, though. We saw Frenchmen and Germans, Swedes and Scots, all rallying together to oppose our invasion."
Stalin's doorman opened the door to take a seat, and General Zhukov entered the room. "Ah, come in General. We were just discussing something of relevance."
The Ukrainian sat down, helping himself to a honeyed roll. "Bessarabia, Comrade? We can beat the Romanians, easily."
It was so much like chess, Molotov reflected. "Is this like how we could beat the Finns easily?"
Zhukov ate another pastry. "Of course not. Bessarabia's good tank country, and it's a much broader front. We've reformed the army. "And," he added, "unlike in Finland, I'll be commanding."
While Molotov wondered when Soviet soldiers had become politicians, Stalin raised another question. "But it won't be just the Romanians, will it? The Polish militarists have strong ties to the Romanian fascists."
Molotov nodded. "And after Finland, one imagines the Germans and French might be quick to aid them. La Rocque is a fascist in all but name."
Zhukov shrugged. "Deploying troops to Romania would be a job for the devil's grandmother. But they wouldn't have to; planes fly quickly, and our border with Poland is wide and open." He laughed. "Much like their women."
Still a peasant, thought Molotov. Aloud, he said, "Counterattacking would be risky. That could lead to a major war." He shrugged. "But who ever went wrong betting on the Poles to be reckless?"
Stalin was silent. "So the western powers are distracted by Japan. The Balkans are a mess, rife with seething hatred. Italy has destroyed any pretense of European unity. But if we act, we risk provoking a worse situation. Even if it doesn't lead to a major war, we risk the capitalists closing ranks."
And then Molotov played his trump card. "If we act in Europe, Comrade Stalin. If we act in Europe."
“You don’t understand our situation as regards oil and Iran.... The Baku oil fields are our major source of supply. They are close to the Iranian border and they are vulnerable. Beria [the head of the M.V.D.] and others tell me that saboteurs— even a man with a box of matches— might cause us serious damage. We are not going to risk our oil supply.”-Stalin to the American ambassador, 1944
And yet the British were not the only nation active in Iran. In 1920, the Soviets had actually invaded Northern Iran, and established a short-lived "Gilan People's Republic." Ultimately they withdrew when Reza Khan consolidated his hold on the country and established the short-lived Pahlavi dynasty, but in 1941 they returned with a vengeance.
The Soviets had been well aware of British and French plans to bomb Baku from Middle Eastern bases, and the Red Army knew of the region's obvious importance in future wars, thanks to oil discoveries in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. And as even America began to become involved in the region, it should surprise no one the Soviets responded. Shortly after the Pacific War began, the Soviet ambassador in Tehran approached the government about obtaining oil concessions in the northern provinces, only to be told that they would not be considered for the duration of the war.
In response, the Soviets quickly overran the northern provinces of Iran, ultimately spreading between 85,000 and 100,000 troops across 250,000 square miles, encompassing the provinces of Azerbaijan, Gilan, Mazanderan, Khorasan, Zanjan, Gorgan, and Qazvin. The USSR essentially sealed these provinces off from the outside world, denying British or other European nationals entry. Within "the occupied territories," despite a pledge to respect Iranian customs, the outlawed Communist party reappeared under the name Tudeh, or party of the masses. [2] The Soviets also began supporting the Kurds, in an effort to stir up conflict in Northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey. The Kurds had lost much of their power under Reza Shah, as he built roads to tie Iranian Kurdistan to the rest of the country and sent in the army to suppress unruly tribes. And so in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation, Kurdish intellectuals founded a leftist-nationalist group called Komala in the town of Malabad. A Farsi paper, entitled, Thoughts of the People, was established to disperse Soviet propaganda, and the USSR constructed a major military base in Azerbaijan, as well as well as began to improve the region's infrastructure. In short, they had begun establishing themselves a mere hundred miles from the oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Things only continued to worsen. In response to Soviet aggression, the British were forced to divert forces from the Pacific theater to Iraq [2], and offered to rearm the Shah's regime. However, some of this "assistance" was frankly designed to ensure control of the Adaban oil field, no matter what happened, and so Britain's Labor government offered to station British forces in the region. In 1945 [3] Komala was replaced with the more overtly pro-Soviet Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Qazi Muhammed an Iranian Kurd, whom the Soviet authorities had guided and educated during a trip to Baku, in Soviet Azerbaijan. As a sign of pan-Kurdish ambitions, The KDP's army included two thousand Iraqi Kurds, armed and supplied with the finest Soviet weaponry.
This did not, to put it mildly, go well in Tehran. Reza, after all, had come to power after the Great War, and was well aware how Persia had once been divided into Anglo-Russian spheres of influence. And so Reza dithered, promising that he would allow British forces into Iran if the situation worsened; but, "given historic national feeling," would abstain from inviting permanent military bases. Historians still debate whether this was his undoing; or if, by keeping Britain out, he at least saved a united Iran. [4]
For you see, while Britain may have feared a Soviet invasion in 1942, and breathed easy when Stalin did not advance beyond the northern provinces, Stalin still desired a base on the Indian Ocean.
The ultimate spark, of course, was the Abadan Refinery, one of the largest in the world. The Abadan Field was viewed by Iranians as a sore on the national conscience, a reminder of British imperialism in their country and region. Workers were paid a pittance, and lived in tenements known as Paper City. In the summer their houses were pervaded with the sulfurous oil of burning oil, while sandstorms buffeted their houses. Without running water or electricity, winter was little better, as the ground became a muddy swamp. While the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had promised in the 1933 agreement to build a hospital, school, and a telephone system, it had failed to do so. And it probably astonishes you all that Tudeh propaganda and demands for unionization spread like wildfire among the workers.
And so at the end of 1944, as the war in the Pacific wound down, they launched a strike. This was a major attack on British interests; the oil field provided hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, viewed as vital to Britain's economy and balance of payments. And of course the Labour Party needed that money to build the "Land Fit for Heroes" it had promised after the war. In response to the strike, the British government demanded Reza Shah's help in suppressing it, which he agreed to do in return for a series of concessions. But Reza's reputation as the Shah of Iran was at a nadir; unable to expel the Soviets from the north, or to stop British intrigue in the south, the military refused to obey his orders. And with a cry of revolution, the Tudeh movement was swept into power.
And so everyone was now put in an awkward position. Pishevari wasn't willing to nationalize the refineries, at least immediately; but he taken power on an anti-British tide. He indicated he would be willing to negotiate, but the British would have to allow Iranian involvement in the field's management, give a much greater share of profits, and end the extraterritorial provisions of the agreement. But he did so via back channels, while taking a fierce stand in public. And Attlee, mindful of upcoming elections, had no desire to back down against someone who was perceived as a Russian pawn. British technicians were ordered not to help manage the fields, and the situation worsened. MI5 engaged in conversations with members of the Iranian military about a counter-coup, which fired off on May 4, 1945.
And it was during that countercoup that the presence of Soviet forces in Northern Iran became very, very useful.
Iran would not become a Soviet client; the Tudeh were unwilling to grant the Soviets a permanent naval base along the Persian Gulf. (Everyone is aware how Britain would react to that). But at the show trials, a substantial amount of evidence revealed British complicity in the aborted coup, and the new Iranian government had a cause to rally the people around.
And for Britain? Attlee's response led to a vote of no confidence, and the fall of the Labor government. It led to a Conservative victory in the 1945 elections. Coming with the accession of India to Dominion Status, the start of the Chinese Civil War, and now the Middle East Crises, the Conservative Party looked for a hero. And they turned to a man who had warned of the Communist threat for decades.
[2] While Tudeh was nominally not a Communist part, its leader, Jaafar Pishevari, had spent the last two decades in the USSR or Iranian prisons, and so was a firm supporter of the Soviet cause.
[3] OTL this happened in 1946
[4] For some reason, Iranians trust neither Britons nor Russians.
