How the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic Was Born and Tragically Vanished
Today, Russia and Iran are connected by many things—above all, their conflict with the United States and numerous Western sanctions. But in the past, Russia and Iran were fierce rivals who spent nearly two centuries at war.
The so-called Russo-Persian (or Russo-Iranian) wars lasted from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century. These were a series of armed conflicts between Iran (then known as Persia) and the Russian Empire. The main focus of these wars was the struggle for control over the Caucasus, including places such as Georgia, Armenia, Dagestan… a region often referred to as Transcaucasia or the South Caucasus.
A significant part of that territory once belonged to Iran, specifically to the Iranian Safavid Empire, named after the Safavid dynasty which ruled from 1501 to 1736. Predictably, as the Russian Empire expanded southward, it sought to seize this area, aiming to establish its so-called southern physical barrier in the Caucasus.
Five intense wars were fought between Russia and Iran from 1651 to 1828. The situation was further complicated by the presence of another ambitious empire nearby—the Ottoman Empire. Both Russians and Iranians repeatedly tried to sway the Ottomans to their side and sometimes succeeded. Nearly two centuries of war eventually ended in a Russian victory, and Persia had to surrender much of the Caucasus to the Russian Empire.
Looking at today’s map, several countries now lie between Russia and Iran—on the western side of the Caspian Sea are Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia; on the eastern side are Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. But back then, Russia and Persia were two empires sharing a border, in direct contact, and with a strong desire to defeat one another.
Before the wars broke out, relations were quite good. Once the Mongol threat had faded, intensive trade relations between Russia and Persia began in the 16th century. By 1586, the two had already exchanged ambassadors. At the time, Russia was a vital trade route for Britain, as it allowed them to trade with Persia while bypassing the Ottoman Empire. During this period, Russian companies also significantly expanded their presence in Persia. However, when Russia began constructing fortresses along the northern border of the Safavid Empire, the Iranians had had enough—they sent in troops to destroy the Russian forts, and so began the long era of warfare.
After the last major Russo-Persian war ended (and with the powerful Safavid dynasty having already collapsed in 1736), Russia consolidated its control and by the early 20th century controlled a significant part of what is now northern Iran—including Tabriz, Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan… When you add in the fact that the British controlled the southern regions (along the Persian Gulf), by the early 20th century, once-mighty Persia had been reduced to only a neutral “interior” zone.
It’s also worth noting that after the fall of the Safavid dynasty, a new ruling dynasty came to power in Iran—the Qajar dynasty, which ruled from 1795 until 1925.
For Persia to recover, something had to happen—ideally involving Russia. And indeed, something did happen: World War I and the October Revolution.
An opportunity for Iran? Yes, but the story is certainly complex. First, after the fall of the Russian Empire, civil war broke out in Russia, and many Russians fled from the Bolsheviks, taking refuge in northern Iran (their descendants still live there today). For many Iranians, the rise of Bolshevism seemed like an opportunity, and some began advocating for cooperation. Chief among them was a revolutionary leader from northern Iran—Mirza Kuchik Khan. His followers—perhaps even more than him, due to religious reasons—wanted an alliance with the Russian communists, some of whom they themselves had become.
The goal was clear and simple: to restore Iranian control over the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and to fight together against the domestic bourgeoisie and foreign imperialists (at this point after WWI, the only major empire still in the region was, of course, the British Empire).
Thus, in May 1920, on the Caspian coast in what is now the Iranian province of Gilan, something was created that can certainly be seen as a historical-political curiosity: the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic (PSSR).
It was a bold attempt to create a socialist future on Iranian soil, but there’s a reason you may not have heard of the PSSR—it was extremely short-lived.
The first (and only) president of the PSSR was Mirza Kuchik Khan himself, but the republic only lasted until September of the following year, 1921. What happened? Problems plagued the PSSR from the beginning. Its leaders couldn’t agree on how the country should be governed, whether land reform should be implemented immediately, what stance to take toward Moscow… The only thing they seemed to agree on with ease was the national anthem—The Internationale.
Clearly, for the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic to survive, it had to rely on Russia, or more precisely, the emerging USSR. But chaos reigned—in Russia, in Iran, refugees were flooding in, and the communists of the PSSR began to lose the support of the local population. They failed to carry out land reforms, and their anti-religious propaganda did not resonate with the people…
But what truly “buried” the PSSR was a move by Vladimir Lenin. On February 26, 1921, he decided to sign a Russian-Persian Treaty of Friendship with Persia, which was still ruled by the Qajar dynasty (which the PSSR opposed). This extensive treaty effectively nullified many of the unfavorable provisions from the Tsarist era—among other things, Iran regained full access to the Caspian Sea. Lenin made this deal primarily to prevent anti-Bolshevik Russian forces from launching attacks on the USSR via Iran. He needed the treaty with the Qajars—and he got it. At the time, Iran was already strongly anti-British, and the new Russian communist authorities sought to exploit that.
But this meant they had to stop supporting the PSSR, which, caught in the whirlwind of history, had no choice but to vanish…
And so it did. Reza Khan was sent to the PSSR and launched a coup that overthrew the Iranian socialist authorities. His name, of course, sounds familiar—soon, in 1925, he would become far better known as Reza Shah Pahlavi. He would go on to overthrow the Qajar dynasty and take control of Iran on December 15, 1925. He remained in power until December 16, 1941, when a joint British-Soviet invasion forced him to step down.
And what happened to Mirza, the first and only president of the Persian Socialist Soviet Republic? He managed to flee when the coup began. He and his friend Gauook escaped alone into the Alborz Mountains… and there they died from the cold.
Thus ends a rather unusual and by now largely forgotten story from northern Iran. Today, new chapters are beginning, but in Iran they certainly remember the old ones—centuries of conflict with Russia and the fact that, quite often, the Russians allied with the British against them.
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