Iran shook last week with its worst crisis since the revolt in Azerbaijan in 1945-46. Just as Premier Hussein Ala's strategy of conciliation seemed to be cooling off his heated country, disorder flared up again. The new outbreak of violence was plainly Red-inspired; it aimed at seizing the leadership of the popular and inflammable oil nationalization drive.
In the oil port of Bandar Mashur, troops shot down one woman in a mob of strikers. At Abadan nine strikers were killed. With clubs, rocks and fists, the mob battered to death three British employees of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., mauled six others....