The crisis irano-Soviet called also Iranian crisis or crisis of Azerbaïdjan was the very first showdown of what was going to become the Cold war and has as an aim the Iran. At the summer 1941, the Soviet Union and the the United Kingdom, in the search of a transport route of the weapons and supply bound for the face of the East, had been intended to occupy each one a half and to deposit of it the shah Reza Pahlevi, culprit of too much sympathy with the Axe.

His/her son, Mohamed Reza, which succeeded to him, concluded with these powers a treaty envisaging the withdrawal from their troops six months after the end from the war. The five allied Foreign Ministers had thus agreed themselves at the time of their meeting in London in September 1945, that this withdrawal would intervene at the latest on March 2nd, 1946.

Very quickly however, it becomes obvious that the USSR is with the mounting of a pretext not to take account of this engagement. Three reasons push there: the absence, on its southern border, of a glacis comparable with that which it succeeded in putting in Europe; vulnerability of the layers of the the Caucasus, from where the USSR then draws the essence of its provisioning of Pétrole; secular effort of a country whose majority of the ports are blocked during months by the ices to secure an access to the hot seas.

Revolts in Iran and claims Soviet

The pretext is provided by a revolt to Tabriz, capital of the part of the Azerbaïdjan remained Persian after the annexation by the Russian Empire, in 1828, of the north of this Turkish-speaking province . The insurrectionists proclaim in December 1945, a autonomous republic of which stations - keys are held by communist , some of them having already taken part in an attempt similar the shortly after the First World War.

In the tread, another autonomous republic is proclaimed with the Iranian Kurdistan, which hastens to conclude an alliance with the insurrectionists from Tabriz.

The Red Army prevents the Gendarmerie from restoring the order. In the last days of February 1946, after weeks of what it is agreed to call a “intense diplomatic activity”, Stalin agree to receive new the Prime Minister Ghavam Sultaneh, who passes for Russophile and took Communists in his cabinet.

It is to say to him that the Red Army will continue to station in the septentrional provinces of the Iranian empire and the remainder of its zone of occupation will not evacuate that if he recognizes the autonomy of L `Azerbaïdjan and grants to the USSR a concession on the oil of the province. It is too for Ghavam which sets out again without to have given its agreement.

London announces the withdrawal of its own forces, as agreed, for on March 2nd, 1946. 6, the E. - U. invites Moscow firmly to do as much of it. 24 hours earlier, the cold war entered the public domain with the resounding speech by Churchill to the university of Fulton denouncing the Soviet efforts to extend their empire, where the expression of the Iron curtain is used for the first time.

Soviet units make already movement towards Teheran. The United States threatens to seize the Safety advice if Iran does not do it itself.

Stalin then moderates a little his tone, promising to evacuate the totality of Iran before May 9th if Ghavam gives its downstream for the creation of an oil company controlled by the USSR.

Persan the Prime Minister accepts, but in the condition that the agreement is ratified by a Parlement to elect in the seven months following the end of the foreign occupation. Does it already at the head have the scenario which was to lead to the total Soviet failure?

Soviet failure

Strikes having burst in the installations of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, London causes among the tribes of the South a rising which obliges Ghavam to separate from its communist ministers.

When Moscow claims the ratification of the oil agreement, this last makes the point that the obstacles put by the authorities of Tabriz at the activity of the formations favorable to Teheran make impossible the election of a new Parliament. Strongly encouraged by the Anglo-Saxon S, it gives the order to its troops to reconquer the rebellious province.

The Soviets in vain multiplied the warnings and massed important forces at the border, they do not move. The separatist mode of Tabriz, whose president finds shortly after death in an car accident, collapses in a few days as well as the prosovietic République of Kurdistan, whose chief, Moustafa Barzani, takes refuge in the USSR with a thousand of his partisans. One finds this one with work in Iraq, starting from 1958.

The Majlis, the Iranian Parliament, which is elected in 1948, of course rejects with a vast majority the oil treaty signed by Ghavam, which yields soon the place to a anglophile declared. The Soviet forces evacuate shortly after the country.

Was Stalin swindled in the business? It is possible. In any case, it showed that it was able to move back when the risk was too great. Harry S. Truman was not mistaken there. Until death in 1953 of the Guide considered brilliant, the great battles of the cold war will balance all by a failure of the USSR.

Sources

• the cold war 1917-1991 , Andre Fontaine, Editions of Martinière, 2004, ISBN 2846751390
• George Lenczowski, " The Communist Movement in Iran" , Middle East Newspaper, No 1 (January 1947) pp. 29-45
• archie Roosevelt, Jr., " The Kurdish Republic off Mahabad" , Middle East Newspaper, No 1 (July 1947), pp. 247-69

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