RUSSIA’S SOUTHWARD DRIVE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21979, 25 March 1946, Page 4

RUSSIA’S SOUTHWARD DRIVE

PRESSURE ON PERSIA AND TURKEY

MIDDLE EAST INFLUENCE SOUGHT

Anyone who seeks to understand the motives behind Russia’s drive for a revision of the frontier with Turkey at Turkey’s expense should begin by studying a map of Transcaucasia and, on it, the very considerable vulnerability of Baku —centre of the Russian oil industry. 80 per cent of which lies in Soviet Azerbaijan, says the London Economist. It is only just over 100 miles from the Persian frontier’and its pipe line to Batum adjoins Turkish territory. In recent years, Russia’s three Caucasian republics—Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan—have blossomed as components of a great nation; they look forward to development as such. Even without any special effort on Moscow's part this flowering would have attracted notice from blood relations beyond Russia’s borders. Both the Armenian and the Azerbaijan republics have become motherlands for which sons abroad can yearn. These now think of “home ’ in a spirit of general goodwill toward the U.S.S.R.

Autonomous Government

Appeal to Armenians

The Armenians of Aleppo, _ for Instance, have no intention of quitting prosperous local business ties, but get much psychological satisfaction from listening in to Erivan and from meeting Syrians as equals. A splendid publication in Armenian, called “Armenia Through the Ages,” recently sold out in a few days in Cairo, even though it •was priced at £EI. Not unnaturally, the Russian Government has made some effort to bring about the desired frame of mind among them, profiting by ties of blood, religion and language in order to do so. To Armenians, the chief appeal has been made through their church. To Azerbaijanis (who are Shiah Moslems like the Persians but who suffered some special hardships under the dictatorship of Reza Shah), it to made in the'name of democracy.

Diplomatic Background

The latter effort has lately attracted the greater public notice. But it is more than matched by a similar process in Armenia. The relevant RussoTurkish diplomatic background is not new. It largely concerns the problem of the Straits. But it also covers RussoTurkish relations in the Caucasus because the Russians have mentioned that, before renewing the out-of-date treaty of non-aggression which they denounced in March, they would like a revision of the Armenian frontier settled “under pressure”-in 1921. In fact, that frontier was freely negotiated between Lenin and Mustapha Kemal at a time when the international stock of both stood low. To secure Turkish agreement to frontier revision will not be easy, and how Moscow will go about it remains to be seen. It has begun with references to “pressure” which the Turks find dishonest, and it has used the support of the Armenian Church in a way that they find too adroit to counter easily. The drive that Turkey finds hardest to counter is a spate of Armenian appeals from overseas for a Greater Soviet Armenia. It began last spring, in California, and then surged up in France, the Lebanon and elsewhere. In June churchmen from all over the world, most of them unaware of the diplomatic struggle proceeding in the background, were invited to Soviet Armenia for the enthronement of a new Catholicos, an office which was revived last year.

Economic Motives \

Turks Astonished

Their meeting produced the first mention of the Greater Armenia project to be made on Russian soil. To the astonishment of the Turks, its mouthpiece was the Dean of Canterbury. Speaking with more ejmdour -than political acumen, he revealed that most Armenian churchmen and their sponsors have swallowed whole the current Russian interpretation of the 1921 Treaty. “I fully and sincerely agree,” he said, "that the regions annexed by Turkey should he returned to Armenia as quickly as possible.” Since then the Catholicos himself has reiterated the point in a call addressed to the Big Three. The recent letter from the Georgian pro-

lessors in the Russian press seems to presage the opening of a new phase of intense pressure. The weakest point in the Russian case is the scarcity of Armenians in Turkish Armenia. Conversely, the biggest gap in Turkey’s defence is wrought by years o'f ruthless anti-Armenian policy, beginning with massacres and ending with lesser oppressive devices such as the capital levy of 1940, planned so as to fall most heavily on foreigners, including Jews and Armenians.

The affair in Azerbaijan, which has ripened faster than that in Armenia, docs not seem to involve any desire for frontier change. The new Azerbaijan autonomous Government has gone out of its way to stress its wish for provincial autonomy within Persia. Since the frontier of the Russian zone is all but sealed, judgment of the situation must perforce be passed on the basis of such evidence as is available in Teheran. There, the presence of numbers of outcasts from the north suggests to anyone who knew Azerbaijan before the war that almost all the men of education or consequence have left either voluntarily or as virtual deportees. Since December, 1944, the same has applied to all senior Persian officials. The officer commanding the local division at Tabriz, who was popular, and the Governor of Tabriz were both forced by the Russian military authorities to cross the southern boundary of the zone. It is, of course, on the cards that some of the leading minds left in Azerbaijan genuinely want their province to be a Russian satellite, but the result of the local elections, at which, out of 47 candidates for 12 seats, the official nominees received about 23,000 votes while none of the others polled more than 50 apiece, does not suggest an election fair enough to be a proper test of public opinion. Pending better Russian evidence to the contrary, the situation looks like a Russian move to manufacture a strategic shock absorber for understandable reasons' but by inexcusable methods. No picture of Transcaucasia would be complete without mention of the Kurds, who are spread over Western Azerbaijan (both Persian and Russian), Eastern Turkey and Northern Iraq. They are a potential centre of discord, but so quarrelsome among themselves that Russian support for Kurdish independence is imnrobable. for the Russians know as well as anyone that their domestic rivalries are such that to stir them up may prove as tiresome to the stirrer as to his neighbours. It would be false to suggest that anxiety to cushion Baku against modern weapons is the only motive for Russian pressure upon Turkey and Persia. There was during the years of the Revolution a lapse in Russia’s long-standing and historic policy in the Middle East, but to-day geography and human nature are reasserting themselves.

As in the nineteenth century Russia seeks to offset Anglo-Saxon influence not only in the Middle East but in Europe by itself possessing influence in the Middle Eastern world where AngloSaxons predominate. The main point of difference from the nineteenth century is that now there are two AngloSaxon influences to counter instead of one. Economic motives also play some part in the Russian drive southwards.

The Middle East, backward in industrial techniques, is one of the great potential markets for manufacturing nations, and -the Russians, on whose very borders it lies, naturally seek a share of this asset. The whole Caucasian picture suggests that an insurance is being taken out against the power and influence of America and Britain. But it also follows from this that any lessening of tension between the Big Three would have immediate and beneficial effects in Transcaucasia.

The problems of this area—and of most areas—are soluble if diplomatic relations between the Great Powers are sound. Equally, they are insoluble if there is discord at the top.