Azizbekov, Meshadi Azim-Bek-ogly

Born Jan. 6 (18), 1876; died Sept. 20, 1918. Figure in the revolutionary movement in Azerbaijan; one of the first Azerbaijani Marxists. Member of the Communist Party from 1898.

Born into the family of a bricklayer, Azizbekov was graduated from the Baku Technical Academy and the St. Petersburg Technological Institute (1908). His baptism of fire as a revolutionary came in 1897 when, as a student at the institute, he led the “Technologists” during a protest demonstration which developed when they received the news of the suicide of the political prisoner M. Vetrova, a student. Azizbekov, like the other organizers of the demonstration, was arrested and imprisoned in a solitary cell in the Kresty prison. Later, when he was a fourth-year student, he was again arrested and imprisoned. He participated actively in the Revolution of 1905–07 and was one of the leaders of the social democratic group Gummet (Energy). In 1906 he created the detachment of armed workers Znamia Svobody (Banner of Freedom) to struggle against nationalistic provocations. In 1910 he was elected a member of the Baku city duma, where he defended the interests of workers. Azizbekov, who skillfully combined underground revolutionary work with legal activity, was the vice-chairman of Nidzhat (Salvation), a cultural and educational society; he popularized the works of progressive Russian and foreign figures among the Azerbaijani workers. In 1913–14 he was one of the organizers of strikes in Baku. He played a prominent role in the task of spreading revolutionary ideas among the progressive elements of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia. In 1917 he became a member of the Baku soviet, and in September 1917 he led a general strike at the Baku oil fields and plants. He participated in the establishment of the Soviet regime in Baku (October 1917) and in the crushing of the anti-Soviet rebellion of members of the Musavat (Equality) party (March 1918). He was provincial commissar for the Baku Council of People’s Commissars and was deputy people’s commissar of internal affairs; as of May 1918 he was also chairman of the executive committee of the soviet of peasants’ deputies of the Baku district. He participated in the organization of Baku’s defense against Turkish and German interventionists. After the temporary fall of the Soviet regime in Baku (July 31, 1918), he was among the Baku commissars who were arrested and shot by British interventionists and SR’s. Raions in the Azerbaijan and Armenian SSR’s were named after him, thus perpetuating his memory.