Memo to Bagirov from Kuliyev about Qavam

Top Secret

Memo

via a telegraph message from Tabriz

to the Soviet government and Cde. Bagirov

As you know, after the return of our representatives from Tehran, right-wing and reactionary circles of Tehran sent troops into Azerbaijan with the objective of eliminating our liberty and destroying our democratic achievements.

Qavam-es-Saltaneh, initially concealing this with the pretext of maintaining order during the elections, in his telegrams and declarations finally admitted officially before the world his intention to unleash an attack against us under the undisguised slogans of eliminating the Azerbaijani movement and destroying its leaders.

As is known, this was not limited to words and letters.

On the 13^th of this month (4.12.46) at 0700 the armed forces sent by him attacked our fedai posts and for 12 hours tried unsuccessfully to force a path into our territory, using rifles, machine guns, [and] tanks.

Moreover, in spite of the agreement concluded, Qavam sent armed forces to Zanjan, and in spite of an official letter of his deputy, Mozafar Firuz, he not only did not remove the well-known feudal landlord [feodal], Zulfigar, and others, but on the other hand he promoted him to the rank of colonel and then armed and sent him to fight us.

All this proves that Qavam has obviously concealed his perfidious designs [and] has started on the path of brazen violation of the agreement reached with us and [of] his letter to the governor-general of Azerbaijan, Doctor Dzhavid, [and] confirmed that he had done this so quickly that the ink was not yet dry on these documents.

Now it is evident that he did not intend to fulfill his official promises given to representatives of Soviet authority, who at his invitation were intermediaries in the matter of achieving the agreement; that is, the matter of a peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani question.

In such a case, for the Azerbaijani people there remains only a single path, the defense of their liberty, relying on the power of their weapons and the heroism of their youth.

Our people are deeply convinced that neither agreements nor treaties and telegrams, but force of our arms and the might of our bayonet will be the guarantee of [our] liberty.

[Our] people cannot fail to see the troops and armed forces sent to us right after Qavam’s letter to Doctor Dzhavid; Qavam could have done this at another moment.

No letters and agreements will be able to stop his perfidious designs.

For exactly 8 months, in spite of the people’s feelings, in the interests of the cause we considered [nashli] the path of a peaceful resolution of the conflict; with the help of our great Soviet Union we tried to show the reactionary face of Qavam as democratic and progressive. Sometimes even in spite of our convictions we extolled and exalted him, in so doing striving so that there be no violations from our side.  This was in order not to give Qavam any pretext.

Thanks to our prestige and influence we halted the fedai, who were trying and had the capability to seize Qazvin, Rasht, and Tehran. All these concessions made by us are known to the entire world and most of all you.

In the name of achieving an agreement we liquidated our national government and turned the national Majlis into a district enjumen, reorganized the fedai detachments and displayed a readiness to hand over [our] national army and central command; we began to transfer all of our income to their treasury, that is, the national bank.

All this was done in order not to give them a trump card.

However, Qavam, seeing all the concessions from our side, broke his promises every day and brought things to the point that now he intends to take us by surprise and with a simultaneous attack put an end to our liberty once and for all.

He advanced the question of oil in order to withdraw the troops of the Red Army from Iran and hasten the liquidation of the Azerbaijani movement.

It is quite evident that he has been conducting this affair on orders of the British and American governments, which have been casting their greedy eyes on the riches of Iran. He hopes that he will succeed in achieving his ends by perfidy and deception. He hopes also by various machinations to hush up the question of oil. But the Azerbaijanis well understood that the British and Americans are trying at any price to resolve the oil question in their favor and Qavam is their servant. In the first place, as is well known, he did not want to let a single Azerbaijani element into the Majlis, but this was in essence a measure directed against the Soviet Union. A Majlis consisting of reactionaries will not agree to handing over concessions to the Soviet Union [and] Qavam will disavow his promises or get out of them by resigning. The government does not have the possibility of using Qavam’s promise like an official document.  Such things in the history of Iran are not unique.

After World War I Qavam’s brother, Vosug Od Dovle, concluded one agreement with the American ambassador which was rejected by the Shah and the Majlis, and the Americans could not even return the scraps of their documents which had officially been transmitted to them by the Minister of the Iranian government, in particular, from Muzafar [spelled “Mozaffar” in a previous document] Firuz.

In such a manner the question of the oil concession cannot by itself be sufficient grounds and if the Soviet state cannot have its supporters in the Majlis and in public circles, it cannot acquire the concession.

Qavam’s good will in this question cannot serve as a guarantee as he has sufficiently showed what this “good will” is in the Azerbaijani question.

Kuliyev