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Imperial Power And Dictatorship: Britain And The Rise Of Reza Shah, 1921–1926, Michael P. Zirinsky

Michael Zirinsky

Born in obscurity about 1878 and soon orphaned, Reza Pahlavi enlisted at fifteen in a Russian-officered Cossack brigade. Rising through the ranks, he provided force for a February 1921 coup d'etat, seizing power for journalist Sayyid Zia alDin Tabatabai. Reza Khan provided strength in the new government and rose from army commander to minister of war (April 1921) to prime minister (1923) and, after failing to make a republic in 1924, to the throne in 1925. As shah he ruled with increasingly arbitrary power until Britain and Russia deposed him in 1941. He died in exile in 1944.1 This paper …