IMPERIALISM IN PERSIA

BY:
Ana Sofia
WHAT IS IMPERIALISM?
The term imperialism refers to the attitude, doctrine or action that leads to the
dominance of one state over another or others through the use of military ,
economic or political force.
During the last third of the nineteenth century the European powers and some
outside Europe (USA and later Japan ) developed a policy of colonial expansion
accelerated and had been brewing since the beginning of the century. This new
phase of colonialism, which is referred to imperialism , led to the foundation of
great empires and was a constant source of conflict that led to World War 1 .
WHAT IS PERSIA?
Persian civilization.
The Persians had the country scenario to the Plateau of Iran in Central Asia. Its territory limited to the north, the Caspian and
Turkestan; on the south, with the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, and west, with Mesopotamia. The Persians lived where now the
modern country of Iran is. From the sixth century (BC), the Persians began the conquest of the territories adjacent to them and
thus formed one of the greatest empires of antiquity.

Location
The Persians formed the largest ancient oriental empire, united to various peoples of the Fertile Crescent, its borders extended
from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. They inhabited the plateau of Iran, located east of the region of Mesopotamia, a
semiarid region with mineral rich mountains, deserts and few fertile valleys, dry climate, with large temperature swings.

Persian Empire
Origin

From 2000 (BC), the region was occupied by people of herdsmen and farmers (Medes and Persian peoples), which saw South
Actual Russia, these peoples invaded the plateau of Iran. The Medes settled north of the Plateau of Iran, while the Persians
settled in the southeast part of the plateau of Iran, near the Persian Gulf.

The first inhabitants of the Plateau of Iran for grazing and agriculture, in these fertile valleys, they developed the cultivation of
cereals, fruits and vegetables. The region was also rich in minerals, which led to manufacture metal tools to improve agricultural
production and the art of war in the mountains they found iron, copper, silver, etc.
WHATS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BOTH

British-Russian rivalry over the control of Persia had, by

the beginning of the twentieth century, a long history.

Donald Ewalt shows how this conflict was greatly

intensified by the discovery of oil and a growing realisation

of its importance.
IMPERIALISM IN PERSIA (QUIESTIONS)

Who fought over Persia for a long time?

Britain and Russia
Who ruled Persia during the 19th and 20th centuries?
Qajar family
What religion was the country of Persia and how did this affect later concessions?
Shiite Islam
affected because in this type of world, religious rulers had more influence than the secular ruler (talk more in
detail in later notecards)
Why did Britain want Persia?
they wanted Afghanistan (Persia had control of it) as a buffer for their most prized colony, India
Why did Russia want Persia?
they wanted the warm water ports
what is a concession?
allowed businesses to buy the right to operate in a certain area
what is an example of a British concession in Persia having to do with oil?
Persian Oil Company- British can bring a lot of machines into Persia, Persia has the resources, but Britain has
the technology to get the oil
who gets rich from the oil in Persia?
Britain and the Persian government--> The Persian NEED the British to get the oil out
This creates social unrest because the government got a lot of money, but does not share it with the people
what other country is an example like Persia that has a lot of oil in their country, but the
people in the country is very poor?
Nigeria
who is the secular ruler who grants the British a concession for tobacco? The religious one?
Nasir al-Din= secular
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani= religious
what did Jamal do?
he started a tobacco boycott because he thought the Persians were "selling their identity" to the west (wasn't
against modernization, but against selling the country)
BRITISH OVER PERSIA

British diplomacy in Persia; and as this same diplomacy is closing in every year on strangled Persia, and is
further spreading its tentacles into Mesopotamia, it is well for the workers of Britain (in whose name these evil
deeds are, done, so long as they submit to the dictatorship of the middle-classes) to have under their eyes
chapter and verse of the tortuous and lying diplomacy of Imperialist capitalism. As K. Malik points out, once
Tsarist Russia developed into Soviet Russia, all Russian claims on Persia were withdrawn; the Dictatorship of
the People has no Imperialist aims; it has no desire to grab the oil-fields of another country in order to procure
an inexhaustible supply of fuel for an Imperial Navy, though it would be perfectly willing, if it needed oil, to
trade with that other country, exchanging its own superfluous products for the oil it might require for industrial
or other purposes.
 The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is in effect nothing else than the British Government itself; it holds a majority
of, the shares, and on its Council sits a delegate from the British Treasury and Admiralty, which delegate
possesses the right of veto. So long as Russia remained Tsarist and imperialist, so long was there constant
friction in Persia between the two imperialist grabbing governments, and in January, 1914, the Indian
Government, in a confidential letter to the Marquis of Crewe, remarked: “It is becoming increasingly evident,
especially in view of the activity that Russia is now showing in regard to the construction of railway lines from
the north, that the only really effective means of safeguarding and promoting British trades in Persia is the
simultaneous construction of railway lines into Persia from the south coast.” I hope the workers will here note
what Imperialism costs them. Here is the picture of two rival imperial countries, whose workers in 1914 were
badly housed, badly paid, indifferently educated, and who submitted to this state of things, because they were
constantly being told there was no money available to provide them and their families with a better life. Yet, at
the same time, railways were being constructed in far distant lands by these rival imperialist governments—
railways whose construction could never benefit either Russian or British workers, but only Russian or British
rival traders! Again, not content with exploiting and harassing Persia, the British Government undertook in 1915
(when it already had a world-war on its hands) the Irak expedition, and in December, 1915, “The Economist,” an
English paper for investors, writes: “The unfortunate campaign into Mesopotamia was undertaken with the
essential object of securing interests in the important oil fields which the Admiralty had acquired.”