The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 56
episode of the open letter published in A Luta de Classe. Guimarães also informed that the Uruguayan
communists were alerted that Alberto’s brother Augusto, had become one of the main leaders of the Trotskyist
movement in Brazil. As leader of the PCB, Guimarães gave the following instructions: »I suggest that measures
[should] be taken to control his activities and that if nothing more serious is found, that our Spanish comrades
make him understand that he must cut all relations with people who are entirely on the other side of the
barricade. It would be very good if he could be brought to make written declarations against Trotskyism and his
brother’s position which he could publish in our press.« 51
This allows us to raise the question if it was not at that time that Besouchet has been arrested during some
»interrogation« and if Guimarães’ letter can be considered as an element to construct an accusation record
against Besouchet. The information about him had been requested by »Jack« (there is only a hypothesis that
»Jack« could have been Vittorio Vidali). after the latter had received it verbally. If this hypothesis is true,
Guimareas’ letter may also be considered a death sentence for Besouchet.
What we cannot doubt is that, if there was opportunity, it was looked for, through the most brutal tortures, on
one hand, »to make Besouchet understand« and on the other hand to »extract« declarations against the
Trotskyites. But in the same way as it had happened with others put in the same situation, nothing could be
extracted from Besouchet.
If no concrete evidence could be obtained about how Besouchet was eliminated, the elements presented here
show some of the murderers’ footprints exported from the Soviet Union and covered by the Spanish State.
C. Chaqueri, Paris: 52 A Triple Gaffe. Throwing a Light on Avetis Sultanzade (Mikhailian),
Intellectual, Theoretician and Leading Personality of the Iranian Communist Party.
In light of the Soviet suppression of Stalin’s opponents and victims, the identity of the Iranian Communist
Party’s leading theoretician, Avetis Sultanzade, has often been confused, at times deliberately. One such time
was the attempt by George Lenczowski, an »Iran expert«, at the Hoover Institution in the US, who presented
Sultanzade as having been the same as his close collaborator, S. Jafar Javadzadeh 53 (present along with him at
the third Comintern congress in 1921) who in 1945 led the Autonomous Government of Azerbaijan in northern
Iran. In addition to the decades of dirt that Soviet historians threw at Sultanzadeh as a »German agent«, now a
former Tudeh member 54 has confused him with an NKVD agent who was also Armenian, a certain Orbeliani,
and a Comintern operative, possibly also an NKVD agent in Iran. These three short biographies should throw
light on the three persons the former Tudeh cadres confuses.
51 Arquivo Edgar Leuenroth, UNICAMP Microfilm received by RCCHIDNI, Moscow.
52 Cosrow Chaqueri, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. E-mail: shakeri@ehess.fr
53 See Russia and the West in Iran, Ithaca, NY, 1948, p. 224; for a detailed rebuff, see C. Chaqueri, vol. 4,
Introduction.
54 Rad: »Dar jostojou-ye Arabali«, Negah-e no, no 8, 2002.