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Mustafa Barzani’s Soviet exile: Popular myths vs. Evidence in Russian archives (Part II)
 
Код статьиS086919080029952-4-1
DOI10.31696/S086919080029952-4
Тип публикации Статья
Статус публикации Опубликовано
Авторы
Мосаки Нодар Зейналович 
Должность: Старший научный сотрудник
Аффилиация: Институт востоковедения РАН
Адрес: Москва, Москва, ул. Рождественка, 12
Раванди-Фадаи Лана Меджидовна
Должность: старший научный сотрудник; доцент
Аффилиация:
Институт востоковедения РАН (ИВ РАН)
РГГУ
НИУ ВШЭ
Адрес: Российская Федерация, Москва
Название журналаВосток. Афро-Азиатские общества: история и современность
ВыпускВыпуск 3
Страницы45-56
Аннотация

The second part of the article about case file of the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, preserved in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) provides information regarding his material support, in particular, the allocation of apartments, including at an address previously unknown in historical literature. The article also examines information about Mustafa Barzani and the activities of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), contained in the documents, in particular, in KGB reports. In some of them, Mustafa Barzani is characterized extremely negatively – as a reactionary and clerical leader, opposing the integration of Iraqi Kurds into Soviet society and being anti-Soviet; in another, later reference, the personality of Mustafa Barzani is already assessed in the opposite way, due to the Soviet Union's support for the Kurdish liberation movement movements in Iraq. Interesting information is presented about the contradictions in the leadership of the KDP and various aspects of relations with the communists. Considerable attention is paid to documents relating to Barzani’s interaction with his comrades, maintaining control over them, relations with Iraqi public figures, as well as Kurdish activists. Three letters from Barzani to Nikita Khrushchev are studied in detail. 

Archive materials show that Moscow had a very high estimation of Barzani’s role, so information about him was reported to the higher tiers of power, where he was regarded as the most influential person in the Kurdish national movement. Almost every document demonstrates his unwavering adherence to the national idea and his resolve to return to Kurdistan to continue the struggle.

Ключевые словаMustafa Barzani, Barzanis, Kurds, Iraqi Kurdistan, Barzani’s exile, Soviet policy
Получено12.02.2024
Дата публикации16.06.2024
Кол-во символов40575
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Оглавление

BARZANI’S LIVING QUARTERS
ASSESSMENT FORMS REGARDING MUSTAFA BARZANI AND THE KDP
COMPROMISED CONVERSATIONS: INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ON BARZANI’S MEETINGS
KGB REPORTS ON MUSTAFA BARZANI’S MEETINGS WITH IRAQI PUBLIC FIGURES
KGB REPORTS ON BARZANI’S MEETINGS WITH KURDISH POLITICAL AND PUBLIC FIGURES FROM ABROAD
BARZANI’S LETTERS TO KHRUSHCHEV
INFORMATION ON KGB SURVEILLANCE OF BARZANI
CONCLUSION
1

BARZANI’S LIVING QUARTERS
2 At a meeting with Voloshin on 27 November 1953, Barzani asked the Soviet representative “whether he would soon be moved from the hotel to an apartment” [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 292].
3 A document dated 8 January 1954 states that “according to the report of 29.12.1953 by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Council of Deputies Soviet,1 Comrade [Mikhail Alexeevich] Yasnov”, Mustafa Barzani was allocated a two-room apartment of 36.38 sqm at 68 Novopeschanaya ulitsa, Apt. 22 [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 292]. It is notable that there is no mention of this residential address in the literature, or in Kurdish sources. There is a memorial plaque at 50/1 Novoslobodskaya ulitsa, Building 1, with the inscription “The leading figure of the Kurdish national movement, Mustafa Barzani, lived in this building from 1954 to 1958.”2 The report by the head of Moscow to the ID of the CC CPSU on allocating accommodation to Mustafa Barzani evidently shows that the Kurdish leader had quite a high status in the Soviet capital. 1. Corresponds to the present-day Mayor of Moscow.

2. Memorial’naya doska Barzani Mustafe, Portal of open data of the Moscow Government. https://data.mos.ru/opendata/2801/row/2812948?pageNumber=48&versionNumber=1&releaseNumber=6 .
4

ASSESSMENT FORMS REGARDING MUSTAFA BARZANI AND THE KDP
5 The documents containing biographical data on Mustafa Barzani provide fascinating insights into not only the man but Soviet attitudes toward him and his movement. This kind of document is called a spravka in Russian and usually constitutes a resumé or brief description and evaluation of a subject by intelligence personnel. The archives contain only two such documents in which the information coincides to a large extent. Another spravka relates to a message from the KGB about a plenum of the KDP. The fourth contains an assessment of Barzani by the Soviet ambassador to Iraq.
6 The first is dated 13 January 1954 and is an excerpt from a report of 19 August and 10 September 1953 with reference to “Special folder (Osobaya papka) 6693” (Document description – “Special folder. Top secret” (Sovershenno sekretno), i.e. the maximum level of secrecy in the USSR). Evidently, this concerns a report by the KGB about Barzani [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 288–291]. The second is signed by Voloshin. A junior referent (information officer, bureaucrat) of the ID of the CC CPSU, R.S. Varakina,3 notes that it was received from Voloshin on 7 February 1961 [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196–198]. 3. We have not yet been able to find out the full name, only the first letters of his name and patronymic are indicated in the materials.
7 Both documents state that Mullah Mustafa Barzani was born in 1903, a native of the Barzan Region of Iraq, a Kurd by ethnicity, from a family of the sheikh of the tribe (Barzani) [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196, 288]. The first gives additional information about Mustafa Barzani’s education, his knowledge of languages and information about his family – he had secondary school education, knew Persian and Arabic, had a limited knowledge of Azeri and Russian,4 and his wife and four sons had remained in their homeland [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 288]. With small differences, both documents recount the historical role of the Barzani family and the uprisings organized by them: the father of Mullah Mustafa, Sheikh Muhammed, twice raised an uprising of Kurds against the Turks,5 in 1880 and 1885, for which he was imprisoned, and the Mullah’s elder brother, Sheikh Abdul Salam, led the uprisings of the Kurds in 1904 and 1914. As the documents indicate, “during the second uprising, he travelled through Iran to Russia and appealed to the Tsarist government for help in the battle against the Turks”. On his return from Russia, he was captured by the Turks6 and hanged. After this, the leader of the tribe became Mustafa Barzani’s second brother, Ahmed, who launched rebellions against the Iraqi government three times. After an uprising in 1932, Ahmed and Mullah Mustafa were exiled to the south of Iraq, where they remained until 1942. In 1943, they once more led a rebellion that was once more crushed [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196, 288]. The 1953 spravka states that the rebels were amnestied and the uprising itself had been staged by the British, who gave the rebels weapons, ammunition, and money [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 288], while the 1961 form states that an uprising was raised against the British and Nuri Said, which was brutally crushed [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196]. Thus, the role of the British in the uprising of the Kurds in 1943 led by Mullah Mustafa and Ahmed Barzani is assessed in contradictory ways. 4. However, in Iraq at the height of the Kurdish uprising, he spoke with correspondents of western new agencies in Russian. See for example the AP report of 1 March 1963 that Mustafa Barzani was interviewed by an AP correspondent, talking to him in Russian (in the TASS translation). See [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 101].

5. About this and Abdul Salam Barzani in general see also [Barzani, 2005, p. 18–23].

6. It must be noted that Abdul Salam was treacherously captured by the head of the local Kurdish clan Sufia Badalla, who lured Abdul Salam to visit him after his return from Tiflis, which he visited with another renowned Kurdish leader Ismail-agha Shikak (Simko). See [Barzani, 2005, p. 22].
8 Both documents state that in 1944, Barzani established contact with Soviet troop command in Iran [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196, 288]. The 1953 assessment indicates that in his letters to Soviet command, Barzani condemned “the policy of the British, who tried to use the Kurds for their own interests, and asked for assistance in organizing a new uprising” [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 288]. Both documents state that in 1945, Mullah Mustafa moved against the Iraqi government and enjoyed considerable military success, but due to the intervention of the British troops, he was forced to retreat to Iran. Barzani was sentenced to death in absentia for organizing this uprising [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196, 289].
9 Both documents concur that “in Iraq, Mullah Mustafa Barzani was a member of the progressive Kurdish organization ‘Hiva’ and later headed the ‘Kurdish freedom committee’, which sought to unite the Kurds of the Middle East in an independent Kurdistan”. Regarding Iran, the reports note that “Barzani led the forces of Democratic Kurdistan, the government of which awarded him the title of general” [RGASPI-Barzani, p. 196, 288, 289].

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