Rezā Shāh
The publication of Agabekov's English-language book "OGPU: The Russian Secret Terror" in 1931 led to sweeping arrests of hundreds of Soviet agents and sympathisers in Persia as well as other Near Eastern countries and caused a sharp deterioration of Moscow's relations with Rezā Shāh. He also published two Russian-language books in Berlin, which had an autobiographical element. Agabekov stated that in 1929, the OGPU Foreign Branch actively used Armenian Apostolic Church clergy from both the Soviet Union and abroad for espionage.