the following passage is from wikipedia on the critics of reza khan :
Reza Shah’s main critics were the so-called “new intelligentsia”, often educated in Europe, for whom the Shah “was not a state-builder but an `oriental despot` … not a reformer but a plutocrat strengthening the landed upper class; not a real nationalist but a jack-booted Cossack trained by the Tsarists and brought to power by British imperialists.[49] His defenders included Ahmad Kasravi, an older intellectual who defended the Shah saying
Our younger intellectuals cannot possibly understand, and thus cannot possibly judge Reza Shah. They cannot because they were too young to remember the chaotic and desperate conditions out of which he arose.