Mir Jafar Abbas oghlu Baghirov ( az, Мирҹәфәр Аббас оғлу Бағыров, italic=no, Mircəfər Abbas oğlu Bağırov, russian: Мир Джафар Аббасович Багиров; 17 September 1896 – 7 May 1956) was the communist leader of the

Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...

from 1932 to 1953, under the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

leadership of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

Early life

Born in Quba of

Baku Governorate The Baku Governorate, known before 1859 as the Shemakha Governorate, was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its center in the booming metropolis and Caspian Sea port of Baku. Area (1897): 34,400 s ...

in 1896, Baghirov studied

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

in Petrovsk. During 1915–1917, M J. Baghirov worked as a school teacher in a village in Khudat. He joined the

Bolsheviks 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 ...

in March 1917 and was elected deputy chairman of the Quba revolutionary committee. During 1918 - 1921, he participated in the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...

and

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

in ranks of a commander of

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscript ...

, military commissar of Azerbaijani division, advisor of the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

corps of the Russian military command, and the head of

revolutionary tribunal The Revolutionary Tribunal (french: Tribunal révolutionnaire; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. It eventually became one of the ...

of Azerbaijani division. After the Soviet takeover of Azerbaijan, Baghirov was appointed the Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. It was reported that Baghirov worked also for the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic's police. In February 1921, he joined

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...

, later renamed the

Ogpu The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...

. In 1927–29, he served as the director of Department for Water Distribution of Transcaucasia. In December 1929 to August 1930, Baghirov was the head of state security services in Azerbaijan.

Relationship with Beria

In 1921, one of Baghirov's subordinates in Cheka was the young

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...

, whose career he sponsored. Beria repaid him when he was appointed overlord of the three Transcaucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) in 1932, first by arranging for Baghirov to be appointed the 'responsible instructor' of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee direct ...

in Azerbaijan, and then the boss of the Azerbaijan communist party. According to Beria's son, Sergo:

First Secretary of Communist Party

Baghirov was the first secretary of the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...

of the

Azerbaijan Communist Party 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 th ...

from December 1933 to April 1953. He was the only regional party boss apart from

Andrei Zhdanov Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов, p=ɐnˈdrej ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐdanəf, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War ...

in Leningrad to remain in office throughout the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

, during which more than 10,000 people in Azerbaijan were shot on a charge of plotting to assassinate Baghirov. In October 1937, he was raised to full membership of the

after a clutch of incumbents had been denounced as 'enemies of the people'. On 7 March 1953, just after the death of

, Baghirov was appointed a candidate member of the Praesidium (

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contracti ...

) of the Central Committee, which means that he was officially the most senior communist official based in any of the smaller Soviet republics outside Russia. On 21 April, he transferred himself to the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR, but on 19 July was sacked, in the wake of the arrest of Beria.

Trial and Execution

Baghirov was arrested in 1954, and charged with having been a bandit during the

, with having been responsible for the deaths of a large number of senior Azerbaijani communists during the Great Purge, including Gazanfar Musabekov, Huseyn Rahmanov.

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

, Ayna Sultanova and many more, and of "being one of the most active and intimate accomplices of the traitor Beria." He was tried with five others at a special sessions of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court in Baku on 12–26 April 1956. In his final 17-minute speech before the court, he favored the sentence and refused to apply for any pardon. Baghirov was executed in 1956. Mir Jafar Baghirov is a controversial figure in Azerbaijani history. By 1940 an estimated 70,000 Azeris had died as a result of

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...

s carried out under Baghirov. The intelligentsia was decimated, broken, and eliminated as a social force and the old guard Communist elite was destroyed. However, Baghirov was also successful in resisting the Armenian demands to cede the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR to the

Armenian SSR The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic,; russian: Армянская Советская Социалистическая Республика, translit=Armyanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika) also commonly referred to as Soviet A ...

. He was credited for treating his junior son as an ordinary Soviet citizen. Baghirov sent his son, Vladimir (Jahangir) Baghirov, a military pilot, to the Soviet Army to fight against Nazi Germany. He was killed in battle in June 1943, after performing an

aerial ramming Aerial ramming or air ramming is the ramming of one aircraft with another. It is a last-ditch tactic in air combat, sometimes used when all else has failed. Long before the invention of aircraft, ramming tactics in naval warfare and ground warf ...

Honours and awards

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner (russian: Орден Красного Знамени, Orden Krasnogo Znameni) was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of th ...

(twice) * Five Orders of Lenin *

Order of the Red Banner of Labor The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the ...

(twice) * Order of the Red Banner of the Azerbaijan SSR * Order of the Patriotic War

References

External links

M.J.Baghirov biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baghirov, Mir Jafar 1896 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Azerbaijani educators People from Quba People from Baku Governorate Azerbaijani atheists Azerbaijani revolutionaries Bolsheviks First secretaries in national subdivisions of the Soviet Union Executed politicians Executed Soviet people from Azerbaijan Party leaders of the Soviet Union Executed Azerbaijani people Azerbaijani people executed by the Soviet Union People of the Russian Civil War People of the Russian Revolution Azerbaijani educators Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union candidate members Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members First secretaries of the Azerbaijan Communist Party Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour First convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Second convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Third convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Heads of the government of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic Deaths by firearm in Azerbaijan Great Purge perpetrators Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union