Ruhulla Akhundov (; 1 January 1897 – 21 April 1938) was an Azerbaijani Soviet politician, publisher and journalist who was the Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan from 1925 to 1926, under the

Soviet 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 ...

leadership of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

Life and career

Akhundov was born in to the family of a teacher. He spoke several eastern and western languages. Since 1916 Akhundov worked in a printing house. In 1917 he was a member of a group of Azerbaijani Left-Socialist-Revolutionaries called the Farmers' Party. In 1918 he was the editor of the newspaper Izvestia of the Baku Council, and in 1919, the Azerbaijani illegal Bolshevik newspaper "Kommunist ". In the same year he joined the Communist Party. After the final establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he became the head of the department for work in the villages of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Azerbaijan SSR, then secretary of the Baku party committee, editor of the newspaper "Communist" and other periodicals. In the period from 1924 to 1930 Akhundov secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Azerbaijan SSR, director of Azerneshra (state book publishing house) and served as People's Commissar of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR. He was criticized as a member of the “right-leftist bloc”. He made an admission of mistakes. In 1930 Rukhulla Akhundov was elected secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the VKP (b). Delegate of the 10 to17th Party Congresses and the 2nd Congress of the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

. The last years of his life he worked at the Institute of Party History under the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan and was head of the department for arts affairs under the Council of People's Commissars of the Azerbaijan SSR. He participated in the organization and management of the Azerbaijan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Akhundov was one of the first translators of the works of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

into Azerbaijani. He was an author of several works on the history, art, literature, editor of the two-volume Russian-Azerbaijani Dictionary (1928 -29). In the 1930s, he was a member of the editorial board of the journal Revolution and Nationalities, which was the press organ of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities.

Arrest and execution

In December 1936, Akhundov was removed from all posts and expelled from the party. In 1938, he was arrested for "participation in terrorist activities" and sentenced to

execution by firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French , rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually rea ...

by Military Tribunal. He was executed on April 21, 1938, at

Butovo firing range The Butovo Firing Range or Butovo Shooting Range () was an execution site of the Soviet secret police located near Drozhzhino in Leninsky District, Moscow Oblast from 1938 to 1953. Its use for mass execution has been documented; it was prepa ...

. In 1959, he was posthumously rehabilitated by Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Akhundov, Ruhulla 1897 births 1938 deaths Politicians from Baku People from Baku Governorate Azerbaijani atheists Azerbaijani revolutionaries Bolsheviks Deaths by firearm in Azerbaijan Executed politicians People of the Russian Civil War Great Purge victims from Azerbaijan Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution First secretaries of the Azerbaijan Communist Party 20th-century Azerbaijani educators Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union