For general background on Mirza Kuchak Khan (if you're googling, also try Koochek, Koochak, Kuchik...) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Kuchak_Khan Here I wish to discuss his career in relationship to Soviet Russia's early Persian policy.
In its first years, Soviet Russia essentially faced a choice of three paths in its policy toward Persia. The first was to rely on the Persian Communist Party (not a very numerous group). The second was to support the radical regime of Kuchak Khan in Gilan and to try to use it as a springboard for influence in Persia as a whole. The third was to sacrifice both Kuchak Khan's Gilan republic *and* the Persian Communist Party for the sake of better relations with the regime in Teheran. Ultimately the Soviets chose the third of these options. This post is about what would have happened if they had chosen the second.
As E. H. Carr explains in *The Bolshevik Revolution, Volume Three*,* p. 240, the British occupation of Persia so long as it was incidental to the war against the Central Powers gave rise to no political difficulties. "But when the war was over, the British government was faced by a fatal division of counsel. On the one hand, the pressure for demobilization was strong, and military operations were subject to the keen scrutiny of parliament and of public opinion. The War Office was disinclined to accept lasting commitments in northern Persia, which lay beyond the traditional British sphere; and this tendency corresponded with Lloyd George's desire to avoid direct military action against the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, the Foreign Office, now controlled by Curzon, sought to profit from the impotence of Russia by establishing a veiled form of British protectorate over the whole of Persia..." https://books.google.com/books?id=1laU3T9HWYsC&pg=PA240 including the northern part which before the War had been recognized as in Russia's sphere of influence. The 1919 Anglo-Persian treaty was a reflection of this latter view. It was bitterly denounced by the Soviets and was very unpopular in Persia; the government did not dare to submit it immediately to the Majlis for ratification. But Bolshevik leverage in Persia in 1919 was obviously limited due to the fact that the Soviet regime was fighting for its survival in the Civil War.
By 1920, with Denikin and Kolchak defeated, and British troops being withdrawn from the Caucasus and central Asia, the Soviets were in a better position to exert influence in Persia. "The situation was complicated by the presence in Gilan, the northernmost province of Persia adjoining Azerbaijan, of a virutally independent ruler, part adventurer and part fanatic, professing nationalist and revolutionary doctrines, Kuchak Khan, whose programme appears to have included the expulsion of the English, the overthrow of the Shah, and the distribution of land to the peasants. He was strongly Turcophil, and is said to have received German subsidies during the war for his anti-British activities; this made it easy for him at a later date to substitute Bolshevik for German support. In the spring of 1920, when the Soviet Government was ready to strike, weak British forces still remained in northern Persia; but they were, for political reasons, under orders to avoid any direct engagement with Soviet troops. On the night of 18 May 1920 a considerable Soviet force under the command of [Fedor] Raskolnikov [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_Raskolnikov for some background on him--DT] landed from the Caspian on the port of Enzeli [Anzali] for the immediate purpose of taking over the Russian ships of the Caspian fleet, which, with their crews, had been abandoned there by the defeated Denikin. The *coup* was completely successful. The British garrison withdrew from Enzeli, and from the neighbouring town of Resht which was also occupied by the Soviet troops. At the same time Azerbaijan Soviet forces (or units of the Red Army posing as such) entered Gilan. At a meeting betwen Kuchak and Soviet representatives in Resht on 20 May 1920 an agreement was struck, and an independent Soviet republic of Gilan was proclaimed. In order to establish Kuchak's revolutionary credentials, a letter was addrressed by him to Lenin begging 'you and all socialists who are members of the Third International to help to liberate us and all other weak and oppressed peoples from the evil yoke of Persian and English oppressors.'" Carr, p. 242. https://books.google.com/books?id=1laU3T9HWYsC&pg=PA242
It should be remembered that at the time of the establishment of the Gilan Republic, the Persian government was very pro-British (it was widely and correctly believed to be taking British bribes) and anti-Soviet. It has been argued that "Bolshevik Russia opted to use revolutionary agitation in Gilan in order to make the government in Tehran change its attitude towards Bolshevik Russia. From the sources that are available, it seems unlikely that the Soviets would have shifted their course of action from diplomacy to belligerency if Tehran had maintained a certain degree of independence from Britain." http://www.iran-bulletin.org/ibMEF-2-completed/TheGilan Republic.htm If bringing about a change in Teheran was the real purpose of establishing the Gilan Soviet Republic, it accomplished its goal: the loss of British prestige was fatal to any chance that remained of ratifying the Anglo-Persian Treaty, and the pro-British Persian Prime Minister, Vosough od-Dowleh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vosough_od-Dowleh resigned.
The Soviets then had to decide among the three courses I mentioned earlier, suppport of the Persian Communist Party (which had been founded in Anzali in the wake of the Soviet incursion, and was pretty much a transplant from the Azerbaijan Communist Party in Baku), support of Kuchak Khan (who in Carr's words was "no communist but might be used against the British or against a hostile Persian Government") or to woo the Perisan government at the expense of any "separatist" and communist movements. (I put separatist in quotation marks, because Kuchak Khan was not actually a separatist. The official name of his Gilan Soviet Republic was the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic, and he aimed at eventually taking power in all of Persia. Still, there is no doubt that the *Jangal* [forest] of Gilan was his stronghold.) The most prominent advocate in Moscow of reconciliation with Teheran was the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Chicherin. The chief sponsors of the Gilan adventure were Stalin and his close associates Ordzhonikidze and Kirov. They urged the Persian Communists to form a "united front" with Kuchak Khan. As Mikhail I. Volodarsky writes in *The Soviet Union and Its Southern Neighbours: Iran and Afghanistan, 1917-1933* , "This stratagem had a well-concealed aim: gradually to oust Kuchak Khan's supporters from all key positions and to replace them with Communists." But the Persian Communists clumsily gave the game away, and said *openly* that their support for Kuchak Khan was only temporary and tactical and that they aimed at eventually ousting him! The resolution of their Central Committee adopted in July 1920 read:
"In order to achieve the unity of all active anti-British forces, the Party supports the present leaders of the Persian movement. It currently tolerates them with the aim of gradually undermining thier personal influence, isolating them and increasing the Party's influence on the masses which follow them today."
According to Volodarsky, "Moscow was outraged when its intention became known. After this statement Kuchuk Khan ceased to trust the Communists and the united front in Gilan disintegrated." https://books.google.com/books?id=BitpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA40
Until the break between Kuchak Khan and the Persian Communists, Lenin had taken a position somewhere between Stalin's and Chicherin's. He had agreed with Chicherin that Soviet Russia should not formally recognize the Gilan Soviet Republic, but he nevertheless instructed Chicherin to establish semi-official contacts, which brought about a protest from the government in Teheran. However, after the Kuchak Khan/Communist split and the emergence of a less British-dominated regime in Teheran, Lenin decided to support Chicherin's proposal for a diplomatic rapprochement with Teheran. By the time a Persian-Soviet treaty was ready for signature, in February 1921, Reza Khan had seized effective power in Teheran, and had made it clear that he was going to liquidate the Gilan republic and all other "separatist" ventures. The Soviets agreed that they would pull all their forces out of Persia as soon as the British did likewise--which the British did in May 1921.
"It was at this moment that the Soviet supporters of Kuchak and his independent republic in Gilan, who were radically opposed to the policy of appeasement of a national Persian Government, attempted their last throw. In the summer of 1921, Kuchak started to march on Teheran--a venture in which he received the support not only of his Soviet advisers, but of reinforcements sent across the Caspian sea from the Azerbaijan SSR. The attempt proved a fiasco, and was disowned by Chicherin in Moscow and by [Soviet Ambasador Fyodor] Rothstein in Teheran, who is said to have made a personal protest to Lenin. The policy of support for Kuchak was now formally abandoned. the withdrawal of Soviet forces proceeded accoridng to plan...This paved the way for the final collapse of the Gilan republic..." Carr, p. 465. According to Louis Fischer (*Men and Politics*, p. 136) Rothstein was furious with Stalin and Ordzhonikidze for sabotoging the Soviet-Persian treaty by supporting Kuchak Khan, and actually encouraged Reza Khan to go after Kuchak Khan (not that I think he needed much encouragement...):
"Rothstein thereupon urged Riza Khan, the virtual ruler of Persia--later Shah--to march into Ghilan and suppress the tribal leaders and notably a certain Kuchik Khan, who had obtained support from [Soviet] Georgia. Kuchik Khan was defeated and froze to death in the mountains. Riza cut off his head and displayed it in Teheran. 'Among the prisoners Riza took,' Chicherin told me, 'were Russian peasants from the province of Tula. Those were the soldiers of Stalin's Ghilan Soviet Republic,' Chicherin sneered." https://archive.org/stream/menandpolitics006501mbp#page/n147/mode/2up
(To me the most surprising aspect of this story is that even though Stalin was infuriated, Rothstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Rothstein survived the purges of the 1930s and died in 1953 at the age of 82...)
Anyway, some thoughts (I readily acknowledge I am no expert on modern Iranian history and would welcome comments from those better informed):
(1) What if Kuchak Khan, with Soviet support, and still having a united front with the Persian Communists, had moved against Teheran in the summer of 1920 (instead of doing so as a desperation move after the Soviet-Persian treaty of 1921)? At that point, British prestige in Persia was at a low ebb, and there was no strong leadership in Teheran (Reza Khan had not yet taken control of the Persian Cossack Brigade, let alone of the Persian government. [1]) Carr thinks that "Had the Soviet Government been able to press home its advantage, it might have established its authority in Teheran in the summer of 1920. But its power was not yet great enough, *especially with its current preoccupations in Europe*, for decisive action." (p. 246; emphasis added) So while I have in the past been skeptical of claims that Pilsudski saved western Europe, maybe he did save Persia?... (And not just from the Soviets, since a pro-Soviet regime in northern Iran would be an inducement for the British to stay in southern Iran.)
(2) Was a long-lasting united front between Kuchak Khan and the Persian Communists possible if they hadn't blown everything by openly stating their intentions? It is of course certainly possible that Kuchak Khan would--especially if he did manage to seize Teheran--have "done a Chiang Kai-shek" and broken with the Soviets and the Persian Communists regardless of what the latter two would have done. Yet we should remember that at least two groups have had an interest in downplaying Kuchak Khan's 1920 radicalism, "soviet" rhetoric, and ties with Moscow. The first is Soviet historians, in order to justify Moscow's subsequent abandonment of Kuchak Khan. The second is post-1979 Iranian historians; Kuchak Khan became a hero in the Islamic Republic, being regarded as one of the first martyrs to what would become the Pahlevi dynasty. Obviously, it was convenient to minimize such a man's alliance with the atheistic Bolsheviks.
(3) Given Stalin's support for Kuchak Khan, is there any way (in the event of Lenin dying or being incapacitated earlier than in OTL) Stalin could have come to power earlier, if not yet as a sole dictator, at least as a sufficiently powerful oligarch to save the Gilan Republic? (Note that Stalin for some time to come would not entirely give up the possiblity of supporting "autonomous" regimes in northern Iran, as the Kurdish and Azerbaijan republics of the 1940's would show...) Even if the other party leaders did not share his obsession, perhaps they would not be interested enough to come out against him and support Rothstein, as Lenin evidently did?
(4) What would the reaction from foreign nations--notably Turkey and Great Britian--have been? I think the Kemalists would welcome a Kuchak Khan/Soviet victory. At this point Kemal was very pro-Soviet (which of course was quite compatible with suppressing Communists within Turkey) and anti-British, and Kuchak Khan's record had been anti-British and pro-Turkish. Remember that Kemal made no objection to the Soviet conquest of the three Transcaucasian republics, including Azerbaijan, which was ethnically Turkish. "Kemal and his emissaries assured the government of Soviet Russia that they shared none of the Panturanian ambitions of the Young Turks who had ruled the Ottoman Empire during the war, and had given up all claim to the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan." Richard Pipes, *The Creation of the Soviet Union,* (Harvard UP 1964), p. 222
Now it is true that Transcaucasia had been Russian before 1917. But northern Persia had after all been recognized as a Russian sphere of influence by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. If Kuchak Khan would attempt to take over not just Teheran but all Persia, I suppose that even Lloyd George, who favored a less aggressive Persian policy than Curzon, would object, but I am not certain what he would do. At the very least, there could be an attempt to detach Khuzistan and other oil-rich parts of the south from Persia. Actually, the British attempted to do this even with Reza Khan in OTL:
"[On becoming prime minister in 1923] Reza Khan also retained his post as minister of war and continued his efforts to suppress the tribes and rebellious elements in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Fars, Mazandaran, Luristan, Gorgan. Khorasan, and Baluchistan. None of these campaigns was easy, but the riskiest move by far was the decision in 1924 to attack Sheikh Khazal of Mohammareh in Khuzistan (then called Arabistan). It was rumored that Ahmad Shah was inciting Sheikh Khazal in order to make trouble for Reza Khan, and the British certainly regarded him as a key protege in the web of petty emirates they had created around their interests in the Persian Gulf. Khazal had refused to pay taxes, written the Majles to complain that Reza Khan was a menace to the shah, and plotted to have Khuzistan incorporated as part of the British mandate in Iraq; Britain warned Reza Khan against intervening and sent gunships to the area. Unintimidated, Reza Khan caled the bluff and marched on Mohammareh in person. In the end, the British were more concerned about damage to their oil installations than Sheikh Khazal's autonomy and did nothing to defend him. He quickly surrendered and was later arrested and sent into a comfortable exile in Tehran. Probably no other event so enhanced Reza Khan's reputation as his willingness to confront the British lion in one of its chief lairs." Elton L. Daniel,*The History of Iran* (Greenwood Press, second edition 2012), pp. 135-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=mri93AaexX8C&pg=PA135
With Reza Khan, the British were just bluffing; with Kuchak Khan, given his anti-British, pro-Turkish, pro-German, and pro-Bolshevik past (even if he were to break with the Bolsheviks), they might actually insist on the separation of Khuzistan and use force to accomplish it. It could then become the same target for Iranian irridentists that Kuwait would be for Iraqis...
[1] I am not certain how efficiently the Cossack Brigade would have fought against Kuchak Khan before Reza Khan took control of it. Reza's son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi, was later to write that "At the beginning of 1920, Russian officers still commanded the Persian Cossack Brigade. They were nominally all White Russians, but some of them had sold out to the Bolsheviks. When the brigade went into action against Red Russian units which had invaded northern Persia, the Bolshevik officers were guilty of outright treachery to us. My father's nationalism convinced him that he must get rid of all Russians in the brigade. In August of 1920, my father acted as his conscience required. He engineered the dimsissal of the Russians in the brigade and he himself became commander." *Mission for My Country*, p. 38. Obviously, the late Shah is not being entirely objective in trying to justify his father's grab for power, but the Cossack Brigade does not seem to have resisted the Bolshevik incursion of 1920 very strongly...
In its first years, Soviet Russia essentially faced a choice of three paths in its policy toward Persia. The first was to rely on the Persian Communist Party (not a very numerous group). The second was to support the radical regime of Kuchak Khan in Gilan and to try to use it as a springboard for influence in Persia as a whole. The third was to sacrifice both Kuchak Khan's Gilan republic *and* the Persian Communist Party for the sake of better relations with the regime in Teheran. Ultimately the Soviets chose the third of these options. This post is about what would have happened if they had chosen the second.
As E. H. Carr explains in *The Bolshevik Revolution, Volume Three*,* p. 240, the British occupation of Persia so long as it was incidental to the war against the Central Powers gave rise to no political difficulties. "But when the war was over, the British government was faced by a fatal division of counsel. On the one hand, the pressure for demobilization was strong, and military operations were subject to the keen scrutiny of parliament and of public opinion. The War Office was disinclined to accept lasting commitments in northern Persia, which lay beyond the traditional British sphere; and this tendency corresponded with Lloyd George's desire to avoid direct military action against the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, the Foreign Office, now controlled by Curzon, sought to profit from the impotence of Russia by establishing a veiled form of British protectorate over the whole of Persia..." https://books.google.com/books?id=1laU3T9HWYsC&pg=PA240 including the northern part which before the War had been recognized as in Russia's sphere of influence. The 1919 Anglo-Persian treaty was a reflection of this latter view. It was bitterly denounced by the Soviets and was very unpopular in Persia; the government did not dare to submit it immediately to the Majlis for ratification. But Bolshevik leverage in Persia in 1919 was obviously limited due to the fact that the Soviet regime was fighting for its survival in the Civil War.
By 1920, with Denikin and Kolchak defeated, and British troops being withdrawn from the Caucasus and central Asia, the Soviets were in a better position to exert influence in Persia. "The situation was complicated by the presence in Gilan, the northernmost province of Persia adjoining Azerbaijan, of a virutally independent ruler, part adventurer and part fanatic, professing nationalist and revolutionary doctrines, Kuchak Khan, whose programme appears to have included the expulsion of the English, the overthrow of the Shah, and the distribution of land to the peasants. He was strongly Turcophil, and is said to have received German subsidies during the war for his anti-British activities; this made it easy for him at a later date to substitute Bolshevik for German support. In the spring of 1920, when the Soviet Government was ready to strike, weak British forces still remained in northern Persia; but they were, for political reasons, under orders to avoid any direct engagement with Soviet troops. On the night of 18 May 1920 a considerable Soviet force under the command of [Fedor] Raskolnikov [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_Raskolnikov for some background on him--DT] landed from the Caspian on the port of Enzeli [Anzali] for the immediate purpose of taking over the Russian ships of the Caspian fleet, which, with their crews, had been abandoned there by the defeated Denikin. The *coup* was completely successful. The British garrison withdrew from Enzeli, and from the neighbouring town of Resht which was also occupied by the Soviet troops. At the same time Azerbaijan Soviet forces (or units of the Red Army posing as such) entered Gilan. At a meeting betwen Kuchak and Soviet representatives in Resht on 20 May 1920 an agreement was struck, and an independent Soviet republic of Gilan was proclaimed. In order to establish Kuchak's revolutionary credentials, a letter was addrressed by him to Lenin begging 'you and all socialists who are members of the Third International to help to liberate us and all other weak and oppressed peoples from the evil yoke of Persian and English oppressors.'" Carr, p. 242. https://books.google.com/books?id=1laU3T9HWYsC&pg=PA242
It should be remembered that at the time of the establishment of the Gilan Republic, the Persian government was very pro-British (it was widely and correctly believed to be taking British bribes) and anti-Soviet. It has been argued that "Bolshevik Russia opted to use revolutionary agitation in Gilan in order to make the government in Tehran change its attitude towards Bolshevik Russia. From the sources that are available, it seems unlikely that the Soviets would have shifted their course of action from diplomacy to belligerency if Tehran had maintained a certain degree of independence from Britain." http://www.iran-bulletin.org/ibMEF-2-completed/TheGilan Republic.htm If bringing about a change in Teheran was the real purpose of establishing the Gilan Soviet Republic, it accomplished its goal: the loss of British prestige was fatal to any chance that remained of ratifying the Anglo-Persian Treaty, and the pro-British Persian Prime Minister, Vosough od-Dowleh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vosough_od-Dowleh resigned.
The Soviets then had to decide among the three courses I mentioned earlier, suppport of the Persian Communist Party (which had been founded in Anzali in the wake of the Soviet incursion, and was pretty much a transplant from the Azerbaijan Communist Party in Baku), support of Kuchak Khan (who in Carr's words was "no communist but might be used against the British or against a hostile Persian Government") or to woo the Perisan government at the expense of any "separatist" and communist movements. (I put separatist in quotation marks, because Kuchak Khan was not actually a separatist. The official name of his Gilan Soviet Republic was the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic, and he aimed at eventually taking power in all of Persia. Still, there is no doubt that the *Jangal* [forest] of Gilan was his stronghold.) The most prominent advocate in Moscow of reconciliation with Teheran was the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Chicherin. The chief sponsors of the Gilan adventure were Stalin and his close associates Ordzhonikidze and Kirov. They urged the Persian Communists to form a "united front" with Kuchak Khan. As Mikhail I. Volodarsky writes in *The Soviet Union and Its Southern Neighbours: Iran and Afghanistan, 1917-1933* , "This stratagem had a well-concealed aim: gradually to oust Kuchak Khan's supporters from all key positions and to replace them with Communists." But the Persian Communists clumsily gave the game away, and said *openly* that their support for Kuchak Khan was only temporary and tactical and that they aimed at eventually ousting him! The resolution of their Central Committee adopted in July 1920 read:
"In order to achieve the unity of all active anti-British forces, the Party supports the present leaders of the Persian movement. It currently tolerates them with the aim of gradually undermining thier personal influence, isolating them and increasing the Party's influence on the masses which follow them today."
According to Volodarsky, "Moscow was outraged when its intention became known. After this statement Kuchuk Khan ceased to trust the Communists and the united front in Gilan disintegrated." https://books.google.com/books?id=BitpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA40
Until the break between Kuchak Khan and the Persian Communists, Lenin had taken a position somewhere between Stalin's and Chicherin's. He had agreed with Chicherin that Soviet Russia should not formally recognize the Gilan Soviet Republic, but he nevertheless instructed Chicherin to establish semi-official contacts, which brought about a protest from the government in Teheran. However, after the Kuchak Khan/Communist split and the emergence of a less British-dominated regime in Teheran, Lenin decided to support Chicherin's proposal for a diplomatic rapprochement with Teheran. By the time a Persian-Soviet treaty was ready for signature, in February 1921, Reza Khan had seized effective power in Teheran, and had made it clear that he was going to liquidate the Gilan republic and all other "separatist" ventures. The Soviets agreed that they would pull all their forces out of Persia as soon as the British did likewise--which the British did in May 1921.
"It was at this moment that the Soviet supporters of Kuchak and his independent republic in Gilan, who were radically opposed to the policy of appeasement of a national Persian Government, attempted their last throw. In the summer of 1921, Kuchak started to march on Teheran--a venture in which he received the support not only of his Soviet advisers, but of reinforcements sent across the Caspian sea from the Azerbaijan SSR. The attempt proved a fiasco, and was disowned by Chicherin in Moscow and by [Soviet Ambasador Fyodor] Rothstein in Teheran, who is said to have made a personal protest to Lenin. The policy of support for Kuchak was now formally abandoned. the withdrawal of Soviet forces proceeded accoridng to plan...This paved the way for the final collapse of the Gilan republic..." Carr, p. 465. According to Louis Fischer (*Men and Politics*, p. 136) Rothstein was furious with Stalin and Ordzhonikidze for sabotoging the Soviet-Persian treaty by supporting Kuchak Khan, and actually encouraged Reza Khan to go after Kuchak Khan (not that I think he needed much encouragement...):
"Rothstein thereupon urged Riza Khan, the virtual ruler of Persia--later Shah--to march into Ghilan and suppress the tribal leaders and notably a certain Kuchik Khan, who had obtained support from [Soviet] Georgia. Kuchik Khan was defeated and froze to death in the mountains. Riza cut off his head and displayed it in Teheran. 'Among the prisoners Riza took,' Chicherin told me, 'were Russian peasants from the province of Tula. Those were the soldiers of Stalin's Ghilan Soviet Republic,' Chicherin sneered." https://archive.org/stream/menandpolitics006501mbp#page/n147/mode/2up
(To me the most surprising aspect of this story is that even though Stalin was infuriated, Rothstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Rothstein survived the purges of the 1930s and died in 1953 at the age of 82...)
Anyway, some thoughts (I readily acknowledge I am no expert on modern Iranian history and would welcome comments from those better informed):
(1) What if Kuchak Khan, with Soviet support, and still having a united front with the Persian Communists, had moved against Teheran in the summer of 1920 (instead of doing so as a desperation move after the Soviet-Persian treaty of 1921)? At that point, British prestige in Persia was at a low ebb, and there was no strong leadership in Teheran (Reza Khan had not yet taken control of the Persian Cossack Brigade, let alone of the Persian government. [1]) Carr thinks that "Had the Soviet Government been able to press home its advantage, it might have established its authority in Teheran in the summer of 1920. But its power was not yet great enough, *especially with its current preoccupations in Europe*, for decisive action." (p. 246; emphasis added) So while I have in the past been skeptical of claims that Pilsudski saved western Europe, maybe he did save Persia?... (And not just from the Soviets, since a pro-Soviet regime in northern Iran would be an inducement for the British to stay in southern Iran.)
(2) Was a long-lasting united front between Kuchak Khan and the Persian Communists possible if they hadn't blown everything by openly stating their intentions? It is of course certainly possible that Kuchak Khan would--especially if he did manage to seize Teheran--have "done a Chiang Kai-shek" and broken with the Soviets and the Persian Communists regardless of what the latter two would have done. Yet we should remember that at least two groups have had an interest in downplaying Kuchak Khan's 1920 radicalism, "soviet" rhetoric, and ties with Moscow. The first is Soviet historians, in order to justify Moscow's subsequent abandonment of Kuchak Khan. The second is post-1979 Iranian historians; Kuchak Khan became a hero in the Islamic Republic, being regarded as one of the first martyrs to what would become the Pahlevi dynasty. Obviously, it was convenient to minimize such a man's alliance with the atheistic Bolsheviks.
(3) Given Stalin's support for Kuchak Khan, is there any way (in the event of Lenin dying or being incapacitated earlier than in OTL) Stalin could have come to power earlier, if not yet as a sole dictator, at least as a sufficiently powerful oligarch to save the Gilan Republic? (Note that Stalin for some time to come would not entirely give up the possiblity of supporting "autonomous" regimes in northern Iran, as the Kurdish and Azerbaijan republics of the 1940's would show...) Even if the other party leaders did not share his obsession, perhaps they would not be interested enough to come out against him and support Rothstein, as Lenin evidently did?
(4) What would the reaction from foreign nations--notably Turkey and Great Britian--have been? I think the Kemalists would welcome a Kuchak Khan/Soviet victory. At this point Kemal was very pro-Soviet (which of course was quite compatible with suppressing Communists within Turkey) and anti-British, and Kuchak Khan's record had been anti-British and pro-Turkish. Remember that Kemal made no objection to the Soviet conquest of the three Transcaucasian republics, including Azerbaijan, which was ethnically Turkish. "Kemal and his emissaries assured the government of Soviet Russia that they shared none of the Panturanian ambitions of the Young Turks who had ruled the Ottoman Empire during the war, and had given up all claim to the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan." Richard Pipes, *The Creation of the Soviet Union,* (Harvard UP 1964), p. 222
Now it is true that Transcaucasia had been Russian before 1917. But northern Persia had after all been recognized as a Russian sphere of influence by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907. If Kuchak Khan would attempt to take over not just Teheran but all Persia, I suppose that even Lloyd George, who favored a less aggressive Persian policy than Curzon, would object, but I am not certain what he would do. At the very least, there could be an attempt to detach Khuzistan and other oil-rich parts of the south from Persia. Actually, the British attempted to do this even with Reza Khan in OTL:
"[On becoming prime minister in 1923] Reza Khan also retained his post as minister of war and continued his efforts to suppress the tribes and rebellious elements in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Fars, Mazandaran, Luristan, Gorgan. Khorasan, and Baluchistan. None of these campaigns was easy, but the riskiest move by far was the decision in 1924 to attack Sheikh Khazal of Mohammareh in Khuzistan (then called Arabistan). It was rumored that Ahmad Shah was inciting Sheikh Khazal in order to make trouble for Reza Khan, and the British certainly regarded him as a key protege in the web of petty emirates they had created around their interests in the Persian Gulf. Khazal had refused to pay taxes, written the Majles to complain that Reza Khan was a menace to the shah, and plotted to have Khuzistan incorporated as part of the British mandate in Iraq; Britain warned Reza Khan against intervening and sent gunships to the area. Unintimidated, Reza Khan caled the bluff and marched on Mohammareh in person. In the end, the British were more concerned about damage to their oil installations than Sheikh Khazal's autonomy and did nothing to defend him. He quickly surrendered and was later arrested and sent into a comfortable exile in Tehran. Probably no other event so enhanced Reza Khan's reputation as his willingness to confront the British lion in one of its chief lairs." Elton L. Daniel,*The History of Iran* (Greenwood Press, second edition 2012), pp. 135-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=mri93AaexX8C&pg=PA135
With Reza Khan, the British were just bluffing; with Kuchak Khan, given his anti-British, pro-Turkish, pro-German, and pro-Bolshevik past (even if he were to break with the Bolsheviks), they might actually insist on the separation of Khuzistan and use force to accomplish it. It could then become the same target for Iranian irridentists that Kuwait would be for Iraqis...
[1] I am not certain how efficiently the Cossack Brigade would have fought against Kuchak Khan before Reza Khan took control of it. Reza's son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi, was later to write that "At the beginning of 1920, Russian officers still commanded the Persian Cossack Brigade. They were nominally all White Russians, but some of them had sold out to the Bolsheviks. When the brigade went into action against Red Russian units which had invaded northern Persia, the Bolshevik officers were guilty of outright treachery to us. My father's nationalism convinced him that he must get rid of all Russians in the brigade. In August of 1920, my father acted as his conscience required. He engineered the dimsissal of the Russians in the brigade and he himself became commander." *Mission for My Country*, p. 38. Obviously, the late Shah is not being entirely objective in trying to justify his father's grab for power, but the Cossack Brigade does not seem to have resisted the Bolshevik incursion of 1920 very strongly...
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