Efendiev, Sultan Mejid

Early years

Sultan Mejid Efendiyev was born on May 26, 1887 in Shemakha in the family of a merchant Mejid Efendiyev and was the grandson of the Transcaucasian mufti. Initially, he studied at the Mekteba, but then his father transferred him to the Shemakha three-year school ^[4] . Father’s business did not go well, and after the Shemakha earthquake of 1902 they were completely undermined, after which his father decides to move to Baku ^[5] .

In Baku, Sultan Mejid Efendiyev was identified in a six-year school, where he first met with Marxism ^[6] . In 1904 he was admitted to the RSDLP ^[7] . Then he first encountered the gendarmes . At the apartment of a friend of the Social Democrat , where Efendiyev came with proclamations, they searched. Taking the opportunity, he tore up the proclamation and threw it into the corner of the room. When the gendarmes began to search him and interrogate who he was and why he came here, the landlord’s neighbor, who was an agent of the Tsar’s secret police , picked up pieces of proclamation and said that Efendiev had tore them up and abandoned them. Efendiev spent several hours in the gendarme department, where he was interrogated and then released ^[8] .

At first, Efendiev was engaged in revolutionary activities in Bibi Heybat, in the fields of Tairov, Milov and Mukhtarov, and then they began to notice him in the Balakhani crafts, about which there are memories of S. Fatali-zade and M. Mamedyarov ^[9] . In the same period, he became one of the organizers of the social democratic organization Gummet , which produced the newspaper of the same name. As S. M. Efendiev recalled:

S. M. Efendiev took part in the general strike of the Baku workers in 1904 . He was one of the delegates at the negotiations with the oil owners, which took place on December 30, 1904 in the building of the joint-stock company Electric Power. The December strike of Baku workers culminated in the adoption of the first collective agreement in the history of the labor movement of Russia (the so-called "fuel oil constitution") ^[11] . In the summer of 1906, a strike broke out in the textile factory of G.Z. Tagiyev , in the preparation and leadership of which the gummetists participated. One of the participants in the strike, Ali Abbas Nagiyev, later mentioned S. M. Efendiyev among those who often visited and spoke ardently at meetings and meetings of textile workers. This two-month strike ended with the governor general and factory administration fulfilling the demands of the strikers ^[12] .

During the First Russian Revolution, S. M. Efendiev proved himself as a publicist. Many of his articles were published by the weekly newspaper Tekamyul (Evolution) ^[13] , which was published in the Azerbaijani language since December 16, 1906 by Gummet. In addition, he himself took part in its publication ^[14] . I received an invitation to collaborate on the pages of the newspaper "Call", published in June 1906 ^[13] . He participated in the weekly working newspaper “Gudok”, which was a body of the Union of Oil Industrial Workers ^[15] .

Arriving in Kazan in 1908, the following year he externally passed exams for a gymnasium course, having received a matriculation certificate ^[16] . Then S. M. Efendiev entered the medical faculty of Kazan University . During his studies, for participating in student performances, he once ended up in a Kazan prison ^[17] . After completing his studies in 1915, he began working in the village of Vasilsursk in the Nizhny Novgorod province as a doctor at a medical observation post (“cholera barrack”) until he was transferred to Vladimirovka ^[18] .

After the February Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the Baku Council, the Gummet Committee, and the RSDLP (b) committee. Since 1918, S. M. Efendiev has been involved in the defense of Astrakhan , the Commissioner for Muslim Affairs of the Transcaucasus under the People’s Commissar of the RSFSR and the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bureau of Communist Organizations of the East Peoples under the Central Committee of the RCP (B.)

Stay in Soviet Russia

In April 1918, Efendiev left for the Samara province . There he intended to undergo treatment with koumiss ^[19] . However, in late May, an uprising broke out of the Czechoslovak Corps , which was evacuated from Russia home through Vladivostok . The trains with Czechoslovak troops by that time were stretched along the Siberian railway from the Penza region to Vladivostok, which was about 7 thousand kilometers in length ^[20] . The performance of the Czechoslovakians frustrated Efendiev’s plans. Subsequently, he wrote: “as a result of the Czechoslovak adventure, he was stuck in Astrakhan ” ^[21] .

Soviet Astrakhan, where Efendiyev stayed, occupied an important place in the defense of Soviet Russia during the Civil War . It prevented the unification of the armies of Denikin and Kolchak and was the connecting bridge between Soviet Russia and Baku. After spending some time at the local mud resort in Tinaki, Efendiev joined the so-called Iron Regiment in August, where he served as political worker and regimental doctor ^[21] . In the same month, he fell ill with pneumonia and lay in the infirmary ^[22] . He participated in the suppression of two Astrakhan counter-revolutionary rebellions ^[23] . Here in Astrakhan he became friends with S. M. Kirov ^[24] .

By that time, Soviet power in Baku was overthrown, and the Bolshevik gummetists ( Narimanov , Buniatzade , Sardarov , Sultanov and others) moved to Astrakhan and joined in the work to strengthen the defense of the city . As a military doctor, Efendiyev attended a meeting held in Astrakhan on March 28-29, 1919. The meeting elected the Gummet Bureau of five people, among whom was Efendiev ^[25] . According to Karenin and J. Guliyev, he was the one whom the gummetists sent to Moscow . Only one spoke of this in the context of establishing relations with the Central Committee and the Soviet Government ^[24] , the other in the context of the final solution of the question of the activities of the Astrakhan group of gummetists ^[26] . Karenin’s conclusion was based, among other things, on Efendiev’s own questionnaire, which shows that he was in Astrakhan until May 1919 ^[24] . However, even before that, on April 5, Efendiyev sent a telegram to Narimanov in Astrakhan, informing him: “The Commissariat of Transcaucasian Muslims is closed. The opening has not yet been decided, we are waiting for the arrival of Stalin . The issue of “Gummet” will soon be resolved in the Central Committee of the party ” ^[27] . Be that as it may, he went to Moscow, as evidenced by the record left by him later: “After recovery, he was recalled by the party and sent to Moscow to the Central Committee of our party with instructions on Azerbaijani affairs” ^[26] .

According to the decision of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), in June he was appointed deputy chairman of the Central Bureau of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East under the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and at the same time he was the Commissioner for Muslim Affairs of Transcaucasia at the People's Commissariat for Nationalities (Narcomnats) ^{[28] [29]} . On June 21, the Central Bureau delegated Efendiev to a meeting on drafting the charter of the national sections of the RCP (b) ^[29] .

Here in Moscow, on the pages of the weekly organ of the People's Commissariat of Education - the newspaper “Life of Nationalities”, his comments, messages, articles were published (for example, “Baku is the center of Bolshevism in the Transcaucasus”, “Azerbaijan and Armenia” and others) ^[30] . During June 1919 - January 1920, Life of Nationalities published 30 of his articles ^[31] . He was a delegate to the Second Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East, which opened in Moscow on November 22, 1919 ^[32] .

In February 1920, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) sent him to the Crimean Front, at the disposal of the Crimean Revolutionary Committee and the Crimean Regional Bureau of the RCP (b) ^[31] ) ^[29] . While in Crimea, he served as chairman of the commission for the control of typhus , participated in the battles of Perekop with Wrangelites ^[31] .

Government Activities

On April 28, 1920, Soviet power was established in Azerbaijan, and on May 10, the Crimean Regional Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.) Sent SM Efendiev to his homeland ^[31] . After his arrival, he replaced D. Buniatzadeh for the first few weeks as commissar of education. On June 8, an order was issued signed by S. M. Efendiev to transfer all private educational institutions to the hands of the workers and peasants ^[33] . Being a deputy from the Balakhano-Sabunchi region, Efendiev participated in the Baku Council of Workers, Red Army and Sailor Deputies ^[34] .

In May-June 1920, the Central Committee of the AKP (b) sent several leading party workers to the counties. Efendiyev Central Committee of the AKP (b) was appointed Extraordinary Commissioner in Ganja County ^[35] .

People's Commissariat

At the 1st All-Azerbaijan Congress of Soviets, held in May 1921, he was elected a member of the Azerbaijan Central Executive Committee (AzTsIK). In the composition of the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK), approved on May 21, at the first meeting of the AzTsIK, he took the post of People’s Commissar for Agriculture (People’s Commissariat) ^[36] . Not being a specialist in agriculture, Efendiev began to study the economics and practice of agriculture ^[37] . He thoroughly studied land management and skillfully carried out an equalizing land use policy in the Azerbaijani village ^[38]

Arriving at the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (People's Commissariat of Agriculture), Efendiev proceeded to reorganize its apparatus. Instead of departments, by the fall of 1920 in the structure of the People's Commissariat appeared land management departments, cotton, agriculture, water and others. In the counties, their branches were agronomic and veterinary stations, forestries, water areas, and others, which were also subordinate to local authorities ^[39] . The approach to work has changed. At the suggestion of S. M. Efendiev, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, its special commissioners, now bore all responsibility for conducting economic campaigns in the republic ^[39] .

At the time of the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, the economy in the republic was in serious condition. Compared with the pre-war level, the total area of ​​crops in 1920 decreased by 40%, the area under cotton - by 99%, vineyards - by 30%, and the decline in livestock production as a whole occurred by 60-70% ^[40] . Orchards were cut down to 40% ^[41] . The planting of tobacco completely stopped ^[41] . The field irrigation system has also declined. As a result of a sharp reduction in cotton crops amounted to 2.3% of the pre-war level ^[42] (cotton crops, compared with 1913, decreased by about 100 times) ^[41] .

By the time of the establishment of Soviet power, the throughput capacity of irrigation canals in Mugani decreased by 4 times, about 200 thousand acres of irrigated land were out of order throughout Azerbaijan ^[43] . Restoring the irrigation system was one of the most important tasks. In his letter to the “Comrade Communists of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Dagestan, the Mountain Republic” dated April 14, 1921, Lenin wrote that “irrigation is especially important in order to raise agriculture and cattle breeding at all costs ... Irrigation. .. will strengthen the transition to socialism ” ^[44] . The fact that the question of water is inseparable from the question of land was understood by Efendiev. When he traveled to counties, he visited irrigation facilities ^[45] .

Restoration of the irrigation system and expansion of irrigated sowing fields began primarily with Mugani. Already in the summer of 1921, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture was engaged in the restoration of water channels in Northern Mugan, which Efendiyev called the "golden bottom" ^[45] . Great financial assistance was provided by Soviet Russia. The Labor and Defense Council of the RSFSR in October established a special department for the management of militia-civil works in the Mugan steppe - Mugmelstroy ^[46] . Financial and material resources went to Azerbaijan. At the 1st Congress of Communist Organizations of Transcaucasia, G. K. Ordzhonikidze said:

At the II All-Azerbaijan Congress of Soviets, S. M. Efendiev informed the delegates about the first results of the builders in Mugan: the water of the canals put into operation was supposed to irrigate 30 thousand acres of land ^[48] . In 1923, it was possible to irrigate up to 50 thousand acres of land, and by the spring of 1924 the amount of land irrigated by canals reached 62 thousand acres ^[49] .

Thousands of peasants participated in the restoration of the canals, the digging of irrigation ditches, and the repair of kyagrises and water drains. Efendiev himself called for the mobilization of the peasant masses. At the II All-Azerbaijan Congress of Soviets, he said that “in Shusha district, on my proposal to jointly restore the neglected kyagries, the peasants immediately and vividly took up work. We did the same in other districts and now most of the kyagrises in Ganja , Shamkhor and Shusha districts have already been dismantled ” ^[45] .

In another job

In 1924, at the plenum of the Central Control Commission of the AKP (b), which opened a few days after the Sixth Congress of the AKP (b), Efendiev was not only elected chairman of the Central Control Commission of the AKP (b), but was also included in the party board ^[50] . Very soon, on May 31, the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) elected him a member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) ^[51] , and on December 31, 1925 the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b) ^[52] did the same and, as a result, Efendiev remained until December 2, 1927 ^[53] .

From the end of 1927 he was deputy chairman of the AzTsIK, and on December 13, 1930 became his chairman, having worked in this position until June 1937 ^[54] .

With his participation, the Regulation on the Azerbaijan State Research Institute under the AzTsIK - AzGNII was developed, which became the predecessor of the current NAS of Azerbaijan ^[55] . S. M. Efendiev was appointed director of the AzGNII and was elected one of the full members ^[55] .

He was a member of the Constitutional Commission, compiled by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the AKP (b) to develop a draft Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR ^[56] . He opened in March 1937 the Extraordinary IX All-Azerbaijan Congress of Soviets, at which the new Constitution of Soviet Azerbaijan was adopted ^[57] .

He was a delegate to the XII and XIII congresses of the RCP (b), the Bureau of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b), a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR .

At the level of the

Since 1921, the republics of Transcaucasia have begun work on unification into a single federal state. On November 3, 1921, a plenary meeting of the RCP (b) Caucasus Bureau convened in Baku, which approved the commission (chairman Sh. Z. Eliava ) on the development of the draft Union Treaty and Efendiev became a member of the Azerbaijan Party Organization ^[58] .

On March 3, 1922, the third session of the AzTsIK adopted a regulation on a federal union of the Transcaucasian republics, and on the same day the Political Bureau and the Organizing Bureau of the AKP (b) approved Efendiev among 25 delegates from the AzTsIK to the Transcaucasian Plenipotentiary Conference ^[59] . The Plenipotentiary Conference of the CEC representatives of the Azerbaijan, Georgian and Armenian SSR, by decision of the Zakraikom RKP (b), opened on March 11 and the next day it adopted a union agreement that approved the Federal Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia (FSSSRZ).

On January 28, 1932, by the resolution of the 2nd session of the Central Executive Committee of the ZSFSR of the VI convocation, Efendiev was appointed chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the ZSFSR ^[53] .

Arrest and Execution

At the XXII Baku Party Conference, held in May 1937, S. M. Efendiev was accused of harboring the enemies of Soviet power. The resolution adopted at the end of the conference included a clause on the insincere behavior of S. M. Efendiev, G. Sultanov and other communists and on the investigation of their “case”. On June 5, speaking at a meeting of the XIII Congress of the AKP (b), Efendiev rejected the charges against him. M. D. Bagirov and Yu. D. Sumbatov-Topuridze demanded that he recognize him in anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary activities ^[60] .

The main fault M. D. Bagirov called the fact that "you sent your so-called relatives in quotation marks to Moscow, giving them a statement to the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan . " During the debate, Bagirov recalled the journalistic activities of S. M. Efendiev, in particular the fact that in one of his articles in 1924 he mentioned the name of Rasulzade . S. M. Efendiev explained this by the requirement of observance of “historical truthfulness”, in response to which Bagirov stated: “Comrades, whose language is this? Comrades, this is Trotsky’s language . ” Other delegates to the congress made accusations. So, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Republic, Usain Rakhmanov, said:

During the congress, S. M. Efendiev declared: “... I have been in the party for 33 years. During these 33 years, I worked immaculately in the party and I can’t be destroyed by slander and provocation ” ^[60] . On June 24, he was arrested by the NKVD ^[62] . Then, at the end of the month, the chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, M. I. Kalinin, requested the circumstances of the case of S. M. Efendiev, but M. D. Bagirov said that he was removed from his post and arrested for counter-revolutionary activities ^[60] .

According to the testimony of witnesses, he was severely beaten by officers of the Azerbaijani NKVD (Yu. D. Sumbatov, Tsinman, Gvozdev and Sonkin), demanding from him the evidence they needed. Nevertheless, he held on for a long time without giving the required testimony ^[63] . According to D.P. Voznichuk, who worked as a senior prison guard, “... the chairman of the Central Executive Committee, Efendiev, ex. employee of the organs Pavlov. Moreover, Efendiev was beaten so hard that after interrogations he could only lie ... ” ^[62] . Former operative officer of the NKVD of Azerbaijan V. M. Dudiev said:

Another witness Kh. P. Khaldybanov testified: “I personally saw how Tsinman and Musatov Kolya interrogated the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR Efendiev S. M. and beat him. Moreover, Tsinman insulted Efendiev, contemptuously called him president ” ^[62] . According to other witnesses, when S. M. Efendiev complained about the actions of the investigators, Tsinman stabbed him in the face with his fist and left, after which the investigators continued beating ^[63] . Finally, on August 16, 1937, Tsinman executed the act:

The accused Sultan Mejid Efendiev, who was involved in the investigation, said that although he did not participate in counter-revolutionary activities, he was ready to testify about his participation in the nationalist counter-revolutionary organization, given the current political situation ^[63] .

The charges against him were based on his own testimony given to him during the preliminary investigation, as well as testimonies of other arrested persons (for example R. Akhundov , G. Sultanov and others). He pleaded not guilty at the hearing. S. M. Efendiev announced that his testimony at the preliminary investigation was false and refused them ^[62] . The very name of S. M. Efendiev was on the Stalin list , approved on December 22, 1937, and he was liable to punishment according to category I, which meant execution ^[65] . On April 21, 1938, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced S. M. Efendiev to execution ^[62] .

On November 23, 1955, the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. A. Rudenko sent a note on the rehabilitation of S. M. Efendiev to the CPSU Central Committee ^[62] . On November 30, members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee through a poll decided: “To accept the proposal of the USSR Prosecutor General, Comrade Rudenko, as set out in a note dated November 23, 1955, No. 214ls” ^[66] .

The trial of Bagirov took place in April 1956. According to the verdict passed on April 26 by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, S. M. Efendiev, like a number of other leading party-Soviet workers in Soviet Azerbaijan, was unreasonably arrested “on the criminal instructions of Bagirov.” It was also established that A. Atakishiev took part in the falsification of interrogation protocols in the case of Efendiyev ^[67] .

• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1932) - Decree of the Central Executive Committee ^[3]

• “From the history of the revolutionary movement of the Azerbaijani proletariat”, Baku 1957.

• Sultan Mejid Efendiev - article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
• Biography of Sultan Mejid Efendiyev

• Karenin A. Sultan Mejid Efendiev (biographical sketch). - Baku: Azerbaijan state. Publishing House, 1963.
• Ismailov E. History of the “Great Terror” in Azerbaijan. - M .: Political Encyclopedia, 2015.