The Failed Coup of a Gendarme: Colonel Pouladin and Shmuel Hayyim, the Conspiracy Against Reza Khan

Abstract

Colonel Mahmoud Pouladin (1885–1927), a former officer of the Gendarmerie and Cossack Brigade, served as the commander of the Pahlavi Regiment and special aide-de-camp to Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1926. Following the coronation of Reza Shah, Pouladin, in collaboration with several military officers—including Captain Ahmad Homayoun, Colonel Nasrollah Kalhor, and Captain Rouhollah Khan Nazer—as well as civilian figures such as Ahmad Pouladin (the colonel’s brother) and Shmuel Hayyim, the Jewish representative in the Fifth National Consultative Assembly, plotted a coup and assassination attempt against Reza Shah. However, upon discovery of the conspiracy by the police apparatus and the subsequent referral of the detainees’ case to a military tribunal under Reza Shah’s command, the two principal conspirators met grim fates. Colonel Mahmoud Pouladin was executed by firing squad in Bagh-e Shah on February 14, 1928 (corresponding to 24 Bahman 1306 in the Persian calendar). Shmuel Hayyim, the former Jewish representative in the Fifth National Consultative Assembly of Iran, after serving five years in prison, was ultimately executed on December 30, 1931 (8 Dey 1310), despite numerous interventions and diplomatic efforts by the British Embassy. Thus, the case of these two political and military intellectuals who had conspired to overthrow Reza Shah was permanently closed.