The Muslim Social Democratic Party, usually referred to as Hummet (), was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

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

. In 1920, it merged with the Baku communist group Adalat ( 'Justice') to form the first Communist Party of Azerbaijan.

"Old" Hummet (1904 – 1920)

At the end of 1904, the Baku committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party created the Hummet in order to attract Muslim workers. Prominent Hummet politicians included

Mammed Amin Rasulzade Mahammad Amin Akhund Haji Molla Alakbar oghlu Rasulzade (31 January 1884 – 6 March 1955) was an Azerbaijani politician, journalist and the head of the Azerbaijani National Council. He is mainly considered the founder of Azerbaijan Democratic ...

(until 1913), Meshadi Azizbekov, Prokopius Dzhaparidze, Sultan Medjid Efendiev, Zeynal Zeynalov and

Nariman Narimanov Nariman Karbalayi Najaf oghlu Narimanov (, ; – 19 March 1925) was an Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijani Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary, writer, publicist, politician and statesman. For just over one year, beginning in May 1920, Narimanov headed th ...

. A series of arrests in 1911 weakened the activities of the party, but 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 ...

, the Hummet renewed its operations. From 1918 to 1920 the Hummet was represented in the parliament of the

Azerbaijan Democratic Republic The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (), also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic (; ), was the first secular democracy, democratic republic in the Turkic peoples, Turkic and Muslim worlds. *Tadeusz Swietochowski. ''Russia and Azerbaijan: ...

. On 20 February 1920, it merged with the Adalat Party, the Ahrar Party of Iran and Baku Bolsheviks to establish 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 ...

. Some sources report that pro-Bolshevik Muslims from the Hummet party participated in the March Events, massacres by the Bolshevik-led Baku Commune and Dashnak militias against Azerbaijanis in Baku, in a bid to suppress the

Musavat The Müsavat Party (, from ''musāwāt'', ) is the oldest existing political party in Azerbaijan. Its history can be divided into three periods: Early Musavat, Musavat-in-exile and New Musavat. The party was prohibited from contesting the 1995 ...

party and to gain control of Baku. Other sources, on the contrary, report that Hummet party members were very critical of the conduct of the events. Sultan Majid Efendiyev, a member of the Hummet party, wrote: ::The Dashnaks, who for handsome pay protected the capitalists, Taghiev, Naghiev, and others, massacred to a man, in the name of the Soviet, the population of entire blocks and sections inhabited by the Muslim poor. The Dashnaks under the command of such millionaires as Lalaiev and others, were now destroying not only the Musavatists but Muslims in general... The course of events led to a situation in which the comrades who stood at the head of the Soviet, Shaumyan, Japaridze, and others, became themselves prisoners of Dashnaks.'' Жизнь Национальностей'', No. 25 (33), 6 July 1919 as cited in Firuz Kazemzadeh, ''open citation'', p. 74.

References

Гуммет , Баку , Энциклопедия , История
Defunct political parties in Azerbaijan Factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Pre-1920 political parties in Azerbaijan Political parties established in 1904 Political parties of minorities in Imperial Russia Political parties of the Russian Revolution Social democratic parties in Azerbaijan Islamic socialist political parties Political parties disestablished in 1920 {{Azerbaijan-party-stub