The Revolutionary War Council of the Persian Red Army, which is now fighting against foreign and domestic oppression, has sent the following message of greeting to our Red Army.
‘The Revolutionary War Council of the Persian Republic, organised by decision of Persia’s Council of People’s Commissars, sends heartfelt greetings to the Red Army and the Red Navy. With great difficulty and enduring all manner of privations we have succeeded in defeating the internal counterrevolution, which was nothing more nor less than the hireling of international capitalism. By the will of the working people, Soviet power has been organised in Persia, and this has set about creating a Persian Red Army on the lines on which Russia’s Red Army was formed, in order to destroy the enslavers of the Persian people.
‘Long live the fraternal alliance of the Russian Red Army with the young Persian army.
‘Long live the alliance of the working people of the whole world – the Third International.
‘Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council, Mirza Kuchuk.
‘Commander of the Armed Forces, Eskhanulla.
‘Member of the Revolutionary War Council, MuzafferZade.’
I have sent the following reply on behalf of the Red Army:
‘The news of the formation of the Persian Red Army has filled our hearts with joy. During the last fifteen years the Persian working people have fought stubbornly for their freedom. By so doing they have proved their right to it, in the eyes of the whole world. In the name of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army of Russia I express firm confidence that, under the leadership of your Revolutionary War Council, Persia will conquer her right to freedom, independence and fraternal labour.
‘Long live the free working people of Persia, in the family of free peoples of Asia, Europe and the whole world.’
Bringing this exchange of fraternal greetings to the notice of all Red fighting men, I express my confidence that the bond between the revolutionary armies of Persia and Russia will strengthen and grow, to the great benefit of the working people.
1. An anti-imperialist movement of Persian nationalists, led by Kuchuk, had begun in the forests of Gilan province, on the Caspian Sea, during World War I. In 1920 Kuchuk made contact with the Bolsheviks in Baku, and after Soviet troops had landed at Enzeli he proclaimed a Soviet Republic, which did not, however, extend its authority far inland, and was beset by internal disputes. In August Moscow informed the Teheran Government that a new Russo-Persian Treaty was a possibility. On 22 October the recently-formed Commnist Party of Persia adopted a resolution stating that their country must first go through the stage of a bourgeois revolution before Soviet power could be established, and on 25 October an envoy from the Tehran Government arrived in Moscow. In February 1921 a treaty between Soviet Russia and Persia was signed. In September the last Soviet troops left Persian soil. Troops of the Teheran Government entered Gilan and suppressed what remained of the ‘Persian Soviet Republic’. Kuchuk’s head was sent to Teheran.
Last updated on: 27.12.2006