Sultan Majid Afandiyev (; ), also spelled Efendiyev (May 26, 1887 – April 21, 1938) was an Azerbaijani revolutionary and statesman, one of the founders of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. He was repressed during the

Great Terror The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev ...

Early years

Born at

Shamakhi Shamakhi (, ) is a city in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Shamakhi District. The city's estimated population was 31,704. It is famous for its traditional dancers, the Shamakhi Dancers, and also for perhaps giving its name to th ...

in what is modern day

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

as the son of a merchant and grandson of the Transcaucasian mufti. His family moved to

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

after his father's trading business collapsed after the 1902 Shamakhi earthquake. In Baku, Afandiyev was sent to a six-year school, where he first became acquainted with Marxism. Afandiyev participated in the revolutionary movement of

—at that time a region of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

—beginning in 1902. In 1904 he became a member of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

. It was then that he first encountered the police, when they were conducting a search of the apartment of a social democrat he knew. Afandiyev arrived at the apartment with leaflets, which he tore up and threw into the corner of the room. At that point, however, the neighbor of the apartment owner, who was an agent of the tsarist secret police, picked up the scraps of the leaflet and informed them that Afandiyev had torn them up and thrown them away. Afandiyev spent several hours at the police office, where he was interrogated and then released. Afandiyev went on to become one of the organizers of the

Hummet The Muslim Social Democratic Party, usually referred to as Hummet (), was a political party in South Caucasus. In 1920, it merged with the Baku communist group Adalat ( 'Justice') to form the first Communist Party of Azerbaijan. "Old" Hummet (1 ...

party, created to bring Muslim workers into the social democratic movement, in 1904. As he recalled:

Due to the shortage of Turkic workers at that time, I performed the duties of an agitator, propagandist, organizer, newspaper worker, etc. In addition, I had to carry out all the work on printing proclamations and illegal newspapers in the Turkic language using hectographic and typographic methods.

Afandiyev took part in the general strike of Baku workers in 1904, acting as one of the delegates at the negotiations with oil industrialists, which took place on December 30, 1904 in the building of the Electric Power Joint-Stock Company. The December strike of Baku workers resulted in the adoption of the first collective bargaining agreement in the history of the Russian labor movement (the so-called "fuel oil constitution") that reduced working hours, raised wages and provided further benefits for oil workers. During the

1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

, Afandiyev distinguished himself as a publicist. Following that strike Afandiyev also participated in the 1906 strike by textile workers at the firm owned by Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, speaking passionately at meetings and rallies of textile workers. This two-month strike ended with the governor-general and the factory administration fulfilling the demands of the strikers. Afandiyev then enrolled in the Medicine Department of

Kazan State University Kazan Federal University (; ) is a public research university located in Kazan, Russia. The university was founded in 1804 as Imperial Kazan University, which makes it the second oldest continuously existing tertiary education institution in Rus ...

. During his studies he was imprisoned for participating in student protests. After qualifying as a

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

in 1915 he began working as a doctor at a medical observation point ("cholera barracks") in the village of Vasilsursk in the

Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Nizhny Novgorod Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, roughly corresponding to the Volga region, Upper and ...

until he was transferred to Vladimirovka.

Soviet career

After the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917, he became a member of the

Council, the Hummet Committee, and the

(

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

) Committee. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

he took part in the defense of

Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) 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 Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...

. From 1918 to 1931 Afandiyev was appointed to many roles: Commissar for Muslim Affairs of the Transcaucasus of the Narkomnats of the

RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

, deputy chairman of the Central Bureau of the Congress of the Peoples of the East, member of the executive committee of Baku Council, Extraordinary Commissioner of the Central Committee of the

Azerbaijan Communist Party The Azerbaijan Communist Party (; ) was the ruling political party in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, making it effectively a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was formed on 20 February 1920, when ...

("AKP"), Commissar of Ganja Province (where he led the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik rebellion in

Ganja ''Ganja'' (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for cannabis flower, specifically marijuana or hashish. Its usage in English dates to before 1689. Etymology ''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi (, IPA: �aːɲd͡ʒa� ...

), member of the Central Executive Committee, People's Commissar of Lands, People's Commissar of Revolutionary Commissariat of

Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, also referred to as the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, Azerbaijani SSR, AzSSR, Soviet Azerbaijan or simply Azerbaijan, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent re ...

("ASSR"), member of Central Committee of VKP(b) (All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks), member of Transcaucasian Regional Committee of VKP(b) (All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks), Bureau of the Central Committee of the AKP, member of the Central Executive Committee of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Deputy Chairman (and from 1931) the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Azerbaijani SSR, and one of the chairmen of the Central Executive Committee of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Arrest and execution

At the 22nd Baku Party Conference, held in May 1937, Afandiyev was accused of harboring enemies of Soviet power. The resolution adopted following the conference included a clause on the insincere behavior of Afandiyev, Hamid Sultanov and other communists and the investigation of their "case". On June 5, speaking at a meeting of the 13th Congress of the AKP, Afandiyev rejected the charges brought against him. Mir Jafar Baghirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the AKP, and Yuvelian Sumbatov-Topuridze, minister of internal affairs of the ASSR, demanded that he confess to anti-Soviet, counterrevolutionary activities. Baghirov's principal accusation against Afandiyev was that "you sent your so-called relatives in quotation marks to Moscow, giving them a statement on the leadership of the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Azerbaijan." During the debate, Baghirov recalled that Afandiyev mentioned the name Mahammad Amin Rasulzade in one of his articles in 1924. Afandiyev explained this by the requirement to observe “historical truthfulness”, in response to which Baghirov said: “Comrades, whose language is this? Comrades, this is the language of Trotsky.” Other delegates to the congress also made accusations. Thus, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the republic, Huseyn Rahmanov, said:

Afandiyev tried to recognize the most evil enemy of the Azerbaijani people, Mahammad Amin Rasulzade, as his leader. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain why he called Rasulzade his comrade... To call him his comrade and to consider that he fought in the Baku organization to pacify the so-called national hatred is a pure counter-revolutionary trick and it is not accidental on the part of Afandiyev”.

On June 24, he was arrested by the NKVD. At the end of the month, the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR

Mikhail Kalinin Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (, ; 3 June 1946) was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the first chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1938 until his resignation in 1946. From ...

requested information about the circumstances of Afandiyev’s case, but Baghirov reported that he had been removed from his post and arrested for counterrevolutionary activity. According to witnesses, he was subjected to severe beatings by the employees of the Azerbaijani NKVD, who demanded the testimony they needed from him. Nevertheless, he held out for a long time, refusing to give the required testimony. According to D. P. Voznichuk, who worked as a senior prison warden, “…the chairman of the Central Election Commission Afandiyev and former employee of the agencies Pavlov were subjected to brutal beatings. Moreover, Afandiyev was beaten so hard that after interrogations he could only lie down…”. Former NKVD operative of Azerbaijan V. M. Dudiyev said:

Once I went into the office of Sonkin or Ermakov - I don’t remember exactly - there was operative Musatov Nikolay (a boxer), head of the department Tsinman, People's Commissar Sumbatov-Topuridze and some other employees. Among those arrested in the office was Afandiyev Sultan Mejid, he was sitting on the floor in a torn shirt, beaten all over. One of the investigators poured water on him and brought him to his senses, and at that time another one said to him: “Give evidence…”.

Finally, on August 16, 1937, Tsinman drew up a report:

The accused, Sultan Mejid Afandiyev, who was brought into the investigation, reported that although he did not participate in counter-revolutionary activities, given the current political situation, he was ready to testify about his participation in a nationalist counter-revolutionary organization.

Afandiyev did not plead guilty at the trial and retracted his testimony during the preliminary investigation, which he declared was false. On April 21, 1938, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death. He was executed at Baku on April 21, 1938.

Rehabilitation

On November 23, 1955, the Prosecutor General of the USSR

Roman Rudenko Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (, ; – 23 January 1981) was a Soviet Union, Soviet lawyer and statesman. Procurator General of the Soviet Union , Procurator-General of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became Procu ...

sent a note to the Central Committee of the CPSU on the rehabilitation of S. M. Afandiyev. On November 30, members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU decided by poll: "To accept the proposal of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Comrade Rudenko, set out in the note of November 23, 1955, No. 214ls". Afandiyev was formally exonerated in 1956. With the downfall and execution of

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria ka, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია} ''Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria'' ( – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph ...

in 1954 Baghirov not only lost his chief protector but found himself on trial for, among other things, bringing about the deaths of Afandiyev and other senior communists during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

. Baghirov's trial took place in April 1956. According to the verdict handed down on April 26 by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Afandiyev, like a number of other leading party and Soviet workers of Soviet Azerbaijan, was groundlessly arrested "on the criminal orders of Baghirov." The court also found that Agasalim Atakishiyev had taken part in falsifying the interrogation protocols in the Afandiyev case.

References

Caucasian Knot : Persons : Efendiev, Sultan Medjid
at eng.kavkaz.memo.ru

Early years

Soviet career

Arrest and execution

Rehabilitation

References

Further reading