Russia and the Middle East 273
baijan. Agreement was, however, finally reached in June: Azer-
baijan was to have an autonomous provincial council, with a
governor-general appointed by the central government; it was to
retain three-quarters of the provincial revenues; its 'national army'
was to come under the command of the Persian army, details being
worked out by a joint commission. While, therefore, the central
government received acknowledgment of its dejure authority in
Azerbaijan, the 'Democrats' remained in actual control; and for
five months the name of the province disappeared from the news-
paper-headlines. The Soviet propaganda-machine had, however,
been carrying on a campaign against the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in
South Persia for some time. It was accused of encouraging opium-
smoking among its Persian workers in order to render them, in-
sensible of their poverty, and Pravda righteously remarked that
'the brazen and imperious behaviour of the British oil company is
an example of disrespect for the sovereignty of a small country'.
In July the local Tudeh party organized a political strike of 100,000
of the oil-company's workers, and seventeen people were killed in a
clash between Tudch adherents and Arab workers. Simultaneously
the Iraq Petroleum Co. had to deal with a strike at Kirkuk, in which
five people were killed in a clash between strikers and police. Evi-
dently this was the beginning of a typical 'softening-up* process,
but the despatch of a brigade group of troops from India to Basra
prevented further developments. In September the Persian Pro-
paganda Minister, Prince Muza'far Firuz, who had shown himself
outspokenly pro-Russian in recent months, announced that while
visiting Isfahan he had unearthed a separatist plot among the chiefs
of the powerful Bakhtiari tribe to set up with foreign help a 'reac-
tionary feudal tribal government'. Moscow radio named two
British consular officials whom it accused of inciting the Bakhtiari
to revolt, and the Persian Ambassador in London asked the Foreign
Office to inquire into their conduct; but evidence in support of
these allegations was not forthcoming from the Persian govern-
ment. Later in September the great Qashqai tribe revolted in Pars
province, seizing the provincial capital of Sliiraz and the port of
Bushire; simultaneously the Arab tribal chiefs of Khuzistan
province appealed to the Arab League for protection against Per-
sian oppression. The Qashqai chiefs demanded the creation of an
autonomous provincial council with the right to retain two thirds
of the provincial revenues, and to approve or veto the appointment