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Dossier. L'URSS et l'Iran

Les bolcheviks au Guilan

La chute du gouvernement de Koutchek Khan (juin-juillet 1920)
Vladimir L. Genis
p. 459-496

Abstracts

The Bolsheviks in Gilan: the overthrow of Kuchek Khan’s government. – The Bolsheviks’ arrival in northern Persia and the overthrow of Kuchek Khan’s government in June and July 1920 are among the most dramatic episodes of the Gilan revolution of 1920-1921. First, the stationing of a red squadron in the Caspian sea port of Anzali together with the evacuation of the British garrison from Rasht, the capital of the Gilan province, had led to the proclamation on June 14, 1920 of the “Soviet Republic of Persia,” whose head was Mirza Kuchek Khan, the leader of the Jangali nationalist partisans group. Moscow’s intention was to set up a “Soviet-type” government without imposing a social revolution because it wanted to avoid the Jangalis’ withdrawal from the struggle for national liberation. Thus, by supporting this revolution, the government of the RSFSR was seeking less a sovietization of the shah’s empire than a way of pressuring the British government with the threat of a “red expansion” in Asia in order to bring Moscow and London to the negotiating table. At stake was the raising of the British embargo on the RSFSR in exchange for the cessation of the Russian offensive in the East. However, local communists opposed this “façade Sovietization” and fomented a plot against the “bourgeois democrat” Kuchek Khan. They successfully overthrew his government and replaced it with a puppet Revkom which attempted to set up a land expropriation policy. This Revkom was able temporarily to remain in power thanks only to reinforcements in Russian and Azerbaijanian troops. The de facto occupation of Gilan, the population’s hostility as well as a series of defeats on the front obliged Moscow to start negotiations with the shah’s government. These negotiations led to the Soviet-Persian agreement of February 26, 1921, the evacuation of Russian troops, and the end of the Gilan Republic.

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References

Bibliographical reference

Vladimir L. Genis, “Les bolcheviks au Guilan”Cahiers du monde russe, 40/3 | 1999, 459-496.

Electronic reference

Vladimir L. Genis, “Les bolcheviks au Guilan”Cahiers du monde russe [Online], 40/3 | 1999, Online since 15 January 2007, connection on 29 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/21; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/monderusse.21

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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