Hamid Hasan oglu Sultanov ( az, Həmid Sultanov; 26 May 1889 – 1938) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

i politician, People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR and later Chair of the Council of People's Commissars of the

Nakhchivan ASSR The Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as Nakhichevan ASSR was an autonomous republic within the Azerbaijan SSR, itself a republic within the Soviet Union. It was formed on 16 March 1921 and became a part of the Az ...

Life and career

Hamid Sultanov was born on 26 May 1889 in the village of Shynykh-Ayrum,

Kazakh Uyezd The Kazakh uezd was a county (''uezd'') of the Elizavetpol Governorate of the Russian Empire and later of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic with its center in Kazakh (present-day Qazax) from 1868 until its formal abolition in 1929 by the Soviet a ...

(present-day

Gadabay Rayon Gadabay District ( az, Gədəbəy rayonu) is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the west of the country and belongs to the Gazakh-Tovuz Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Dashkasan, Shamkir, Tovuz, and ...

, Azerbaijan). In autumn 1906, Sultanov moved to Baku where he was hired as a plumber's assistant on Balakhany oilfields.Рабочее движение в Азербайджане в годы нового революционного подъёма (1910-1914 гг.): Документы и материалы по истории рабочего движения в Азербайджане в конце XIX-начале XX вв. V. 2. Azerbaijan SSR Academy of Sciences Publication, 1967; p. 449 In 1907, he joined the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Party. In 1913, he graduated from a polytechnicum in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

,Гражданская война и военная интервенция в СССР: энциклопедия. Soviet Encyclopædia, 1983; p. 571 after which he returned to Baku. He participated in the general labour strike in Baku in 1914. In 1917, Sultanov joined Hummet and later that year became an executive member of the Baku Council. Beginning in 1918, he fulfilled various duties with the Bolshevik administration of Baku. After the

Battle of Baku The Battle of Baku ( az, Bakı döyüşü, tr, Bakü Muharebesi, russian: Битва за Баку) was a battle in World War I that took place between August–September 1918 between the Ottoman–Azerbaijani coalition forces led by Nuri Pas ...

, resulting in the Bolshevik's temporary loss of control of the city, Sultanov relocated to

Astrakhan Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...

, Russia, where he headed the Muslim bureau of the Astrakhan regional committee of the Communist Party. In the summer of 1919, he was sent to the

South Caucasus The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

on an underground mission with

Dadash Bunyadzade Dadash Hodge oglu Bunyadzade (1888–1938) was the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic from 14 March 1930 to 23 October 1932. During the Great Purge, he was arrested, accused of ...

and Viktor Naneishvili. In February 1920, he joined the

Communist Party of Azerbaijan The Azerbaijan Communist Party ( az, Azərbaycan Kommunist Partiyası; russian: Коммунистическая партия Азербайджана) was the ruling political party in the Azerbaijan SSR, making it effectively a branch of the ...

and the Central Military Headquarters of the Baku branch of the Russian Communist Party. On 28 April 1920, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

invaded Azerbaijan and the Military Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan, of which Sultanov was a member, became the sole authority in the country. He was appointed People's Commissar (Minister) for Internal Affairs. He was directly involved in carrying out repressive measures against leaders of the short-lived

Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic), or simply as Azerbaijan in Paris Peace Conference, 1919–1920,''Bulletin d'Information de l'Azerbaidjan'', No. I, September 1, 1919, pp. 6–7''125 H.C.Debs.'', 58., February 24, 1920, p. 1467. Caucasian Az ...

and namely in ordering the execution of hundreds of people arrested for their involvement in the 1920 Ganja revolt. Swietochowski, Tadeusz. ''Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community''. Part III. New York : Columbia University Press, 1995 Hamid Sultanov was married to

Ayna Sultanova Ayna Mahmud gizi Sultanova (1895 – 1938) was an Azerbaijani Communist party activist and statesperson. She was one of the first Azerbaijani female revolutionaries and in 1938, became the first Azerbaijani female cabinet minister. Life and caree ...

, sister of the Chair of the Central Executive Committee of Azerbaijan SSR

Gazanfar Musabekov Gazanfar Mahmud oghlu Musabeyov or Musabekov ( az, Qəzənfər Mahmud oğlu Musabəyov, , Perebidil, Baku Governorate - 9 February 1938, Moscow) was an Azerbaijani Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman. He was Chairman of the Central Exe ...

, and People's Commissar of Justice in 1934–1937. All three of them were arrested on counter-revolution charges and executed by firing squad in 1938.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sultanov, Hamid 1889 births 1938 deaths People from Gadabay District People from Elizavetpol Governorate Azerbaijani communists Azerbaijani revolutionaries Executed politicians Old Bolsheviks Great Purge victims from Azerbaijan Soviet Azerbaijani people Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union