Huge protests and riots against the ayatollahs’ regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards have been going on in Iran for more than a month, with countless harrowing pictures being shared on social media and the regime blocking internet access. Iranian dissident sources speak of more than 30,000 deaths in just a few weeks.

In the most widespread narrative, current events in Iran are read through the prism of 1953: after the nationalisation of the oil industry (1951) and the crisis with London, the government of Mohammad Mossadeq was overthrown in August 1953 by a coup d’état supported by the CIA and MI6. Often a direct causality, or almost a direct causality, is sought between the 1953 coup d’état and the situation in Iran today, even in a somewhat forced way. However, there is another invasion (and occupation) of Iran that the public and the media seem to have forgotten and that was of fundamental importance in recent history: the Anglo-Soviet invasion of 1941.

Iran and the Second World War

Shah Reza Pahlavi’s Iran had moved towards modernity and sought to reduce foreign interference, especially that of two actors who had been clashing for centuries over influence over Iran and its resources: the United Kingdom and Russia (tsarist first, Soviet later). To counterbalance the influence of these two actors, Pahlavi found an excellent ally in Germany, a supplier of industrial and technical know-how, consultants, engineers, trade relations, and above all an ally that did not seem willing to put such a big foot in Iran. The country had declared itself neutral at the outbreak of World War II, but its friendly relations with Germany caused the Allies much concern, not least because many German citizens resided in the country. The number and influence they had was, however, exaggerated by Allied propaganda to justify the need for an invasion, with estimates of around a thousand people in total.

In June 1941, with the German invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa), the Soviet situation became critical. The Shah refused to arrest and hand over German citizens in the country and allow free passage to the British and Soviets, as he did not want to lose sovereignty over his territory; the invasion by the UK and the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Countenance, followed. The British entered the country from the Iraqi border and the Soviets from the border with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan from 25 August 1941. The country quickly collapsed, lacking the military resources to counter the two invading countries, and on 16 September the Shah declared surrender, abdicated in favour of his son Mohammad Reza, and went into exile. Both he and his son died in exile. The Anglo-Soviet occupation took its toll on the Iranian people, who had to endure drastic reductions in food (a bread riot broke out in Tehran in 1942) and logistical problems, as well as the obvious loss of sovereignty: roads, railways and power apparatus bent to the needs of the Allies.

The Lend-Lease and the Persian Corridor

To understand why Iran was so important, it is necessary to take a brief step back and examine what one of the most decisive elements of the Allied victory in World War II actually was: the US Lend-Lease Act. The Lend-Lease Act (11 March 1941) was a paradigm shift: Congress gave the US president the power to provide (lend, lease, transfer) military equipment and services to countries whose defence was considered vital to the US. In practice, Washington paid for its own industries and then delivered goods to the allied countries: aircraft, trucks, ammunition, railways, locomotives, food, raw materials, fuel and more.

The logistical problem remained: tons of ready useful material had to physically arrive on Soviet territory. The main (though not the only) American supply routes to the USSR were three: the Arctic route, the Pacific route and the aforementioned Persian corridor. The Arctic route risked being compromised during the German invasion, as there was a real risk for the Soviets of losing the port of Murmansk, the only major Soviet port on the Arctic that was operational all year round and had direct access to global ocean routes. Through the Persian corridor passed about 24% of American aid arriving in the USSR, Winston Churchill went so far as to call Iran the ‘bridge of victory’ to emphasise its importance.

The Lend-Lease was not a classic financing with instalments and interest such as a private individual asks a bank for. The logic, black on white in the post-war negotiations, was this: no payment for what had been consumed in the war effort; and, in general, no payment for strictly military material that remained in storage, accounting focused, if anything, on what still had residual economic value after the war was over. Cars and trucks, railway equipment, machine tools. In the case of the Soviet Union, the matter went on for a long time: in 1972 alone , the Soviets agreed to payments totalling 722 million dollars, out of some 2.6 billion dollars of residual value estimated by the Americans. However, the payments stopped at 48 million, the rest being stranded in the political and commercial conditions of the Cold War.

The human corridor

In 1942, as Allied-occupied Iran saw its sovereignty curtailed and its infrastructure bent to the war effort, the country also became the port of call for one of the most forgotten exoduses of World War II: that of Polish refugees from the Soviet Union. The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement (30 July 1941) re-established relations between the Polish government-in-exile and the USSR, paving the way for the liberation of tens of thousands of Poles detained or deported during the Soviet occupation of Poland (1939-1941). From that reservoir arose the Anders Army, formed on Soviet territory and then evacuated via Iran together with a large number of civilians. After the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran in 1941, Moscow agreed that part of that army and many civilians should be evacuated to Persia: the most popular route crossed the Caspian Sea and led to the port of Pahlevi (today Bandar-e Anzali), which received up to 2,500 people a day. In total, the most quoted estimates in museum and institutional reconstructions speak of more than 116,000 soldiers and civilians transiting Iran. The landing was the beginning of a collective convalescence: many arrived ravaged by years of hunger and hardship, with malaria, typhus and malnutrition-related diseases. After days of quarantine in warehouses near the port, they were sent mainly to Tehran, where the number of people was such that public buildings had to be used to house them. There were also immediate tragedies: cases of death, especially among children, from acute dysentery related to binge eating after long periods of malnutrition. Part of the story then moves to Isfahan, where some 2,000 Polish children passed through between 1942 and 1945, so much so that the city was remembered as ‘the city of Polish children’; others ended up in orphanages in Mashhad. Among them, also thousands of Jews, including children who were nicknamed ‘Tehran children’, who later reached British Palestine in 1943.

The consequences: international relations, popular sentiment, legacy

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son who had fled into exile, obviously adopted a pro-Allied political line, and the fact that one of the most important conferences of the 20th century took place on Iranian soil (Tehran Conference between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill in 1943) is one of the most striking testimonies. Iranian public opinion was greatly scarred by the period of occupation, which culminated in a very tense stand-off with Soviet troops who did not want to leave the country, citing reasons of protection: in January 1946, the Iranian protest against the USSR was the first international crisis to be formally brought before the newly created UN Security Council. When Operation Ajax of 1953 removed Mossadeq from power, what hurt the people was the exasperation of what seemed to be a recurring fate for the country, like salt on a wound that was still very fresh: the British had abandoned the country in March 1946, the Soviets in May of the same year. Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1963, stirred up the crowd by addressing the Shah:

“People of Iran! Those of you who are in your thirties, forties or more remember well how, during the Second World War, three foreign countries attacked us. The Soviet Union, Britain and America invaded Iran and occupied our country. People’s property was endangered and their honour was trampled upon. Yet – God is my witness – everyone was happy, because the Pahlavi were gone!

Shah, I don’t want the same to happen to you; I don’t want you to end up like your father. Listen to my advice, listen to the ulema of Islam: they want the good of the nation, the good of the country. Do not listen to Israel: Israel can do nothing for you. Wretch, you are already forty-five years old: isn’t it time to stop and think a little, to reflect on where all this is leading you, to learn a lesson from your father’s experience?”

The Khomeinist battle against the ‘great Satans’

Khomeini cleverly leveraged popular discontent caused by a lack of freedom and democracy that created a powerful explosive mix, combined with the impatience of the proud Iranian people with foreign meddling in the internal affairs of the state. In his speech, he also named the US as invaders when, to be fair, no American armed forces took part in the invasion – the US entered the war in December 1941 – although American personalities were obviously involved in logistics, transport and administration.

It is difficult to say whether the Iranian people had understood that Khomeini intended to replace the dictatorship of the Shah with that of the ayatollahs, guarded by the guardians of the Islamic revolution arms in hand. Now, for more than a month, the Iranian people have been revolting against the regime, and choruses chanting ‘Javid Shah’ (‘long live the Shah’) and obvious calls for the return of the Shah: Mohammed Reza’s son, Prince Reza Pahlavi. Many expressed strong misgivings about a return of the Pahlavi monarchy, given the last monarch’s past as an authoritarian leader, fearing that the pattern would repeat itself again: replacing one authoritarian leader with another.

Pahlavi has stated that his role within the country, upon his return, would be solely that of a symbol of national unity and a transitional leader, pending a referendum to clarify the will of the Iranians and towards what he hopes will be a new era for the country, one that can finally give freedom and democracy to the Iranian people.