ABSTRACT
Soviet Communists continued to follow with passionate interest the course of events in the outside world, but no longer expected events of great revolutionary significance to occur in the near future, as most had done in 1919 and 1920. Everyone now agreed that it had become more difficult to generalize about the East: the tactics to be followed in a very backward colonial country without an industrial proletariat would necessarily have to differ from the political line in more developed Eastern lands. Some Soviet leaders realized that there was not much sense in trying to split ideological hairs about the precise form and character of the coming revolution in Asia. In the chaotic Persia of 1920 it was merely a question of time before the providential strong man would take over. The Soviet appraisal of Reza Khan has undergone marked changes since he first appeared on the political scene in 1921.
