Iranian communist congress opens in Anzali

Iran’s government signed an agreement for British advisers, military assistance and finance. Opposition in Iran and abroad, including Soviet Russia, challenged its implications for independence.

Soviet forces landed at Anzali to seize a White Russian fleet sheltered there. Their intervention displaced British forces and opened a new phase in the Iranian Jangali movement.

A Soviet diplomatic note claimed the Anzali operation occurred without prior central approval. Iran confronted intervention despite Moscow’s language of non-interference.

The Bolshevik Politburo approved material assistance for Kuchik Khan’s movement. Support for local revolution coexisted uneasily with Soviet diplomatic assurances to Iran.

Kuchik Khan proclaimed a Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran in Rasht. The alliance linked Iranian resistance to foreign domination with Soviet-backed revolution, while differences persisted.

The Congress of the Peoples of the East opened in Baku. Iranian participation connected local struggles with a Comintern campaign against imperial rule.

A coup brought Reza Khan and Seyyed Zia to power. The Persian Cossack force’s Russian institutional origins formed part of the background to Iran’s changing state and foreign relations.

Iran and Soviet Russia signed a friendship treaty in Moscow. Soviet Russia repudiated the former tsarist policy and unequal agreements, marking a formal break with imperial practice while leaving...

Britain and Soviet Russia signed a trade agreement requiring restraint in hostile propaganda. Its Asian provisions placed diplomatic limits on Soviet encouragement of anti-British movements.

Kuchik Khan died in the Talesh mountains after the collapse of the Gilan revolutionary experiment. His death marked the defeat of an Iranian movement with an unstable Soviet alliance.