Iran: Empire of the Mind (36 page)

But the political dislocation at least was less grave than it might appear. The devolved rule of local tribal leaders had, after all, been pretty much the normal state of affairs under the Qajars. Some accounts of the
period suggest that there was a disillusionment with constitutionalism and a yearning for strong government, but it is not fully clear that either was a general mood, nor that the two necessarily went together.
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In the aftermath of the First World War Britain was juggling a series of complex and weighty problems over the territory of the Middle East, the resolution of which would be fateful for the future in several different contexts. The size and shape of post-war Turkey had to be resolved, and the nature and borders of the post-Ottoman states in Palestine, Syria and Iraq. The British were concerned also about containing, or if possible overturning, the new communist regime in Russia. All of this with much reduced financial means, as a result of the crippling debt incurred during the war, and with the United States under Woodrow Wilson preaching a new philosophy of international relations, a democratic principle of self-determination, that appeared to undermine the very foundation of British imperialism. Iranian nationalists welcomed Wilson’s principles, and again were encouraged to think of the US as Iran’s great hope among the great powers. But, like other Middle Eastern states (notably Egypt), representatives of the Iranian government were refused access to the peace negotiations at Versailles.

Anglo-Persian Non-Agreement, and Reza Khan

So Britain, having won the war and having achieved supremacy in Persia, was overstretched; with too many calls on too scarce means, and with important distractions elsewhere. The British Foreign Secretary at the time, Lord Curzon, knew Persia well and had written a thoughtful, magisterial book,
Persia and the Persian Question
on the basis of his travels in 1889-90. But although that book was sympathetic to the people of Iran in many respects, Curzon seems to have overlooked some of its guiding principles, and to have failed to absorb the significance of the constitutionalist period.
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In 1919 he proposed, or rather, he attempted to force through, an Anglo-Persian agreement that would have reduced Persia to the status of a protectorate (parallel with the mandate arrangements being set up at the same time for Iraq and Palestine), with the military and fiscal responsibilities of government given over to the British. The agreement was
rather like earlier concession agreements, writ large; security guarantees and some promises of infrastructure development for the Persians, and a dollop of cash (a loan of two million pounds sterling—much of which would have been absorbed by the salaries of various British officers, officials and advisers).

The government of the young Ahmad Shah obligingly accepted the agreement (it was signed in August 1919), but when its details became known it was thoroughly unpopular, over the whole range of opinion from Democrats to the ulema. Although the agreement might have yielded some benefits for the development of the country, it was further discredited by the plentiful bribes with which the British were rumoured to be smoothing its passage. All sectors of opinion condemned the agreement, from socialists and nationalist former members of the Majles to leading mojtaheds blasting it by telegram from Karbala. A revolt broke out in Azerbaijan, asserting Democrat constitutionalist principles and renaming the province Azadistan (‘Freedom Land’); it was not put down until September. The Shah’s government sent five leading members of the Majles into internal exile, but gradually even the government signatories of the agreement began to recognise the opprobrium heaped on it from all sides, and avoided convening a Majles to ratify it (without which it could not, under the constitution, be legally applied). The British tried to apply the provisions of the agreement willy-nilly, bringing in British officers to command army units, but succeeded only in hastening the collapse of the government and the resignation of the first minister in June 1920.
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In London Lord Curzon still expected to be able to force through the Anglo-Persian agreement. But on the ground local British commanders thought differently—to them and everyone else in Iran, the agreement looked like a dead duck. The British forces that had been commanded by Dunsterville, which had been resisted successfully by the Jangalis and their Bolshevik allies, were commanded from October 1920 by General Ironside (both men embodied certain Edwardian virtues, and both had literary connections: Dunsterville was the model for Kipling’s ‘Stalky’, and it has been suggested that Ironside inspired John Buchan’s hero Richard Hannay).

The British troops (now based in Qazvin) were both unpopular with the Persians and, after their retreat from Gilan, somewhat discredited—a dangerous combination not calculated to overawe nationalist dislike. Ironside was an intelligent, tough, decisive career soldier and had been given responsibility to help with the re-equipment of the Cossack Brigade (now grown to the equivalent of division strength), which had also recently withdrawn from the Caspian coast to a position near Qazvin. He decided almost as he took up his appointment to exceed his orders, and with the reluctant agreement of the Shah, he dismissed the remaining Russian officers of the Cossack corps, judging that although the Persian troops were good, sound soldiers, the Russian officers were demoralised, anti-British and susceptible to Bolshevik infiltration. When Curzon found out, he did not approve, but by then it was too late. Ironside reassured the Persian Cossacks that he had no intention of imposing British officers on them, and Persian officers were appointed. Acting through his second-in-command, Lt Col Smyth, Ironside then selected a former sergeant, Reza Khan, as the most effective, and arranged matters so that Reza Khan became the de facto commander. He was worried that as time went on, the position of the British would deteriorate, that the Bolsheviks might move on Tehran, and that if that happened, the Persian Cossacks might side with them. He pondered that perhaps it would be better to let the Cossacks take over while the British were still in a strong position; the British troops could then make a peaceful withdrawal. Shortly afterwards, in January 1921, Ironside wrote in his diary:

Personally, I am of opinion that we ought to let these people go before I disappear… In fact, a military dictatorship would solve our troubles and let us out of the country without any trouble at all.
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The whole question of Britain’s role at this point is controversial, but there is no direct evidence of a plot as such. The idea that the world of politics revolves only through the agency of plots and conspiracies is a dangerously misleading notion. Ironside knew what he wanted; he wanted British troops out of Persia (he was personally due to leave in April, but his departure date was brought forward to 18 February), and he had a lighter touch. All he really had to do was give the Cossacks to understand that the
British would not intervene if they acted against their government. He felt no pressing need to consult London, nor the British Minister in Tehran. Ironside had an eye for an able soldier; events were to show that he also had a canny political sense, and his choice of Reza Khan showed that too. Reza Khan also proved to have a sharper political sense than expected, or than ordinary soldiers are usually credited with.

On 16 February 1921 Reza Khan marched 2,500 of his Cossacks from their camp near Qazvin towards Tehran. On 21 February he was able to take them into the capital without opposition, and the Shah allowed him to set up a new government, headed by a nationalist journalist, Seyyed Zia Tabataba’i (not to be confused with the mojtahed Seyyed Mohammad Tabataba’i, who had died in 1918). Reza Khan became Sardar-e Sepah (Commander of the Army). A few months later Tabataba’i fell from power (having alienated both the Shah, by reducing the court, and Reza Khan, by proposing the appointment of British officers to the army). Reza Khan had managed in the interim to make new friends and broaden his support, as the effective guarantor of continued government. He enhanced his position and became Minister for War.

Later in the same year Reza Khan moved against the Jangalis in Gilan and quickly overcame them (their Soviet allies having departed under the terms of a new treaty with the Persian government). Their leader, Kuchek Khan, took refuge in the mountains but died in the snow, and after his body was found his head was brought to Tehran. After this important early success, Reza Khan’s priorities were to regularise state revenue, strengthen the armed forces and enforce government control over the whole territory of Persia, which meant tough action against tribes like the Bakhtiari and the Lors, and later the Shahsevan in Azerbaijan and the Turkmen in the north-east. He also acted against one of the Arab tribes allied with the British in the south-west, and was again successful. These actions were popular with most Persians because the tribes had so often facilitated foreign interventions in the past; but also because of the ancient, uneasy hostility between tribesmen on the one hand, and the peasants and townspeople on the other.

The fourth Majles convened in 1921 and Reza Khan was able to keep them broadly supportive of his reform programmes by allying with conservative elements. In 1923 he made himself Prime Minister, the Shah went on what was to prove an extended holiday in Europe, and at the end of the year a fifth Majles convened, later approving a controversial initiative to introduce conscription (after the ulema had been conciliated with an exemption for religious students). In 1924 Reza Khan (inspired by the example of Atatürk’s reforms in Turkey) encouraged a movement to create a republic, and acquired four Rolls-Royce armoured cars, which helped him to keep order in Tehran. But he misjudged the mood of the country and had to stage a resignation for a time, abandoning the republican project. In 1925 Reza Khan consolidated his support by visiting Najaf on pilgrimage, temporarily concealing his Westernising intentions; and took the name Pahlavi, which resonated with nationalists as the name of the Middle Persian language of pre-Islamic times. The Majles deposed Ahmad Shah and the Qajar dynasty in October (after Ahmad Shah had let it be known that he intended to return to the country). Shortly before the end of the year a constituent assembly agreed a changeover from the Qajar to the Pahlavi dynasty, and Reza was crowned as Shah early in 1926. Ahmad Shah never did return, and died in Paris in 1930.

Reza Khan’s rise to power was facilitated in 1921 by local British commanders for their own reasons, but it is incorrect to see his success as a success for British foreign policy, or him as a British stooge. On the contrary, Ironside supported an action by Reza Khan precisely because he perceived current British policy to have failed. Reza Khan took advantage of Ironside’s willingness to give him his chance, but made no commitment to future pro-British alignment, and there is no indication that Ironside expected or asked for any such guarantees. The coup of 1921 and its aftermath came about as a result of a temporary coincidence of interests. As for the people of Iran, it is not entirely correct to see Reza Khan’s success as the outcome of the desire of the people for a strong man on a white horse to overcome political chaos, after a failed democratic experiment (the period 1921-1926 has been compared with the period of regency leading up to Nader Shah’s coronation in 1736, in which he too
prepared the way with military successes; but the comparison, though attractive, is not entirely apposite). The constitutional revolution had aimed, among other things, at modernisation, centralisation, strong government and an end to foreign meddling in the country. Reza Khan became Shah in 1925-1926 with the connivance of the Majles, because they judged he would fulfil those purposes, where earlier attempts by others had failed. He largely justified their confidence in him; but his reforming success was achieved at the expense of liberal, representative government. He was to an extent the nemesis of the constitutional revolution, but he was also the child of it.
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7

THE PAHLAVIS, AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1979

Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

Marlowe

Reza Khan was about forty-two when he became Sardar-e Sepah after the coup in 1921. Although there was much supposition and myth-making after he became Shah, little is known of his origins for sure beyond that he was born in the village of Alasht in the thickly-wooded Savad Kuh region of Mazanderan. Some have suggested that his family had Turkic origins (others Pashtun). It seems his father died when he was still an infant, and that his mother brought him to Tehran, where he grew up in her brother’s household. Through the uncle’s connections with the Cossack brigade, the young Reza was able to enlist with them when he was fifteen. He grew up to be tall and tough, with a grim expression and a heavy jaw. Some of the better-educated technocrats that he appointed to fulfil his modernisation programme found his manner and speech embarrassingly crude, and some sneered at his lack of culture, but none would have done so to his face, and most found his presence daunting.
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Man of Action

Reza Khan’s attitudes and motivations emerge above all from his actions. He came to power not just to be Shah or to preside, as the Qajars had
done—he disdained their ineffectual style of rule. The Pahlavi monarchy was an odd kind of monarchy, with no real roots in tradition and only established after Reza Khan had failed to set up a republic. Being Shah was a means to an end, not an end in itself. And the underlying purpose was to control the country, to make the country strong, to develop it so that it could be truly independent, to modernise it so that it could deal with the great powers on an equal basis, to have a strong army to resist foreign interventions and to impose order internally so that, as in other modern countries, the state enjoyed sole control. These aims, and the autocratic methods used to realise them, reflected his military background and the Russian influence he had lived with in the Cossack brigade. Initially he had to compromise with the Majles, but time would show that he was no friend to free political expression. In addition, he had a model—Kemal Atatürk, who after a successful military career, had established himself as the supreme authority in Turkey on secular, nationalist principles, backed by a strong army; and had with great determination set about a plan for state-directed industrialisation and economic development. Much has been made of Reza Shah’s connections with fascism, but this was the age of dictators, whether fascist, communist or other; and Reza Shah had little need to look further afield than Turkey; at least, not in the 1920s.