“Our Attention to Iran, as a Neighboring Country, Should Certainly be Sharply Increased”: the Documents on the Visit of the Delegation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to Iran, January 1968

What follows here below is the publication of documents from the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the visit of the delegation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to Iran, which took place from 15–25 January 1968. This delegation was headed by Dinmukhamed Kunaev. These archival materials are important in the context of studying Soviet-Iranian economic and political relations in the 1960s and 1970s, when interaction between the two countries became more intensive. The paper demonstrates that the visit of the Soviet delegation was not just a protocol event, but an important milestone in building specific areas of co-operation, primarily the construction of a metallurgical plant in Isfahan. The documents introduced into the academic circuit for the first time, above all, testify to the deep interest of the Soviet side in the “white revolution” in Iran. At the same time, they do not record the contradictions of the ongoing reforms and the presence in the country of significant opposition to the Shah, especially on the part of the Islamic clergy. The archival documents clearly demonstrate certain difficulties in the development of bilateral relations. The appendices to the report of Dinmukhamed Kunaev contain rather sharp criticism of Soviet practices of cooperation with Tehran. Moreover, the edge of this criticism is directed at the all-powerful sectoral ministries and organizations, at the slowness of the Soviet planned economy. In the reporting documents of 1968, Soviet-Iranian cooperation in certain areas was essentially called a failure. Moreover, this applies to such an important area as oil exploration, production, and refining.