to USSR People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs

Marshal of the Soviet Union

Cde. Beriya, L. P.

In fulfillment of the decision of the CC CP(b) of 8 October 1945 regarding the question of Iranian Azerbaijan and northern Kurdistan, we have done the following:

Twenty-one experienced NKVD and NKGB operatives of the Azerbaijan SSR have been selected who are capable of organizing work to liquidate people and organizations interfering with the development of the autonomy movement in Iranian Azerbaijan (gendarmes, policemen, officers of the Iranian Army, et al). All these comrades are to organize armed partisan detachments from the local population.

To help the operatives 75 guerillas have been selected from agricultural workers and collective farm activists [who] for a long time have been associated with NKVD-NKGB organs and tested in performing a number of specific combat missions.

The operatives and guerillas are being sent in groups in first priority to the cities of Tabriz, Ardebil’, Mianeh, Rezaye, and Maragheh; they will next be sent to other regions.

In order to keep this secret, the operational personnel are being sent to [their] places as deputies to our military commandants in the cities of Iranian Azerbaijan, and the guerillas as privates in these same commandants’ offices. The selected workers will undergo political, military, and special training in the city of Baku before being sent to their locations.

We request your permission to send these NKVD and NKGB workers on detail to carry out the planned measures (a list is attached).

Considering the need for the 96 operatives and guerillas to stay a long time in Iranian Azerbaijan, we request your orders regarding an allocation of 100,000 rials for their monthly support.

Commanding General

of the Baku Military District

General of the Army

(Maslennikov, I. I.)

Secretary of the CC CP(b)

of Azerbaijan

(Bagirov, M. D.)