Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1923–2003
○ Natural causes
The KGB general who rose from Baku to the Kremlin and founded independent Azerbaijan
F. D. Bobkov, first deputy KGB chairman, asked him after three years: "What have you managed to achieve?" Aliyev replied: "I can guarantee only one thing — in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, no one takes bribes."
An Azerbaijani who served 28 years in Soviet state security, Aliyev rose from KGB chairman to First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party in 1969. Under Brezhnev, he drove rapid economic growth in the republic, expanding grape, oil, and cotton production, and became one of the few non-Slavs to reach the post of First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and full Politburo member in 1982. Returning to Azerbaijan as it descended into civil war after the Soviet collapse, he became president in 1993, stabilized the country, and signed the 'Contract of the Century' for Caspian oil development, securing his legacy as the founder of independent Azerbaijan.
Career timeline
1944–1967KGB Azerbaijan SSR: operative, head of counterintelligence, deputy chairman
1967–1969Chairman, KGB under the Council of Ministers, Azerbaijan SSR (Major General)
1969–1982First Secretary, Central Committee, Communist Party of Azerbaijan
1976–1982Candidate member, Politburo CPSU → full member (1982)
1982–1987First Deputy Chairman, USSR Council of Ministers (machine-building, light industry, transport, culture, education)
The pan-Turkist dissident who became Azerbaijan's first democratically elected president
On a November 1992 visit to Ankara he visited Atatürk's grave at Anıtkabir and wrote in the memorial book that he was a soldier of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Azerbaijani politician, born 24 June 1938 in Kalaki, Nakhchivan, died 22 August 2000 in Ankara. Trained in Arabic philology at Baku State University, he took a Candidate degree in history in 1969, was known from the 1970s as a Turkist and anti-communist, and was arrested in January 1975 by the State Security Committee, serving until July 1976 at the Qaradagh stone quarry. A founder and chairman of the Popular Front from 1989, he organized a National Defence Council in January 1990 in the crisis that culminated in the anti-Armenian Baku pogrom and Black January. Elected president in June 1992, he was ousted in June 1993 amid Karabakh defeats and Huseynov's revolt; Heydar Aliyev succeeded him. He returned to Baku in 1997 and led the opposition until his death.
Career timeline
1957–1962Entered the Arabic philology department, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Baku State University in 1957; graduation dated 1962 in the Azerbaijani account, conflicting with a 1957 graduation given in an English account
1963–1964Worked as a translator in Egypt
1968–1975Lecturer in the History of Asian and African Countries, Baku State University → arrested January 1975 by the State Security Committee, held until July 1976 at the Qaradagh stone quarry
1976–1992Researcher, then senior researcher and department head, Institute of Manuscripts, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, until 16 July 1992
1989–1992Chairman, Azerbaijani Popular Front
1990.01Organized and chaired the National Defence Council in Baku on 12 January 1990
1992–1993President, Republic of Azerbaijan. Elected 7 June 1992, took office 17 June; formally stripped of the office by referendum on 29 August 1993
1997–2000Leader, Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (in opposition). Returned to Baku on 30 October 1997 and led it until his death
The last Soviet leader caught between a renewed union and independence
He supported a new union treaty from the view that the federation should exist for the republics.
Ayaz Mutalibov was a politician who rose from the Soviet Azerbaijani bureaucracy to become the republic’s last Communist leader and its first president. At the 1991 Novo-Ogaryovo 9+1 talks, he supported a renewed union that would guarantee republican sovereignty, arguing that the federation should exist for the republics, and he took an active position on the status of autonomous republics. His government confronted the Nagorno-Karabakh war and mounting domestic struggles, which ultimately destroyed its political base. Ousted in 1992, he lived in exile in Moscow, returned to Azerbaijan in 2012, and died in Baku in 2022.
Career timeline
1964–1977Director of the Baku Refrigerator Factory, then general director of a state industrial combine
1977–1979Second secretary of the Narimanov District Party Committee in Baku
1979–1982Minister of Local Industry of the Azerbaijan SSR
1982–1989Chairman of the State Planning Committee and deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR
1989–1990Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR
1990–1991First secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party and president of Soviet Azerbaijan
1991–1992First president of Azerbaijan
1992–2012Exile in Moscow after his ouster, followed by a return in 2012
Deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Popular Front who warned Primakov there would be resistance
Polyanichko told him that at midnight troops would enter the city "whatever the cost." Mammadov replied that the army would meet resistance.
As deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Popular Front, Etibar Mammadov stood at the forefront of the national independence movement and met with Yevgeny Primakov and Viktor Polyanichko on January 19, 1990, where he was warned that troops would enter Baku. That evening Polyanichko told him the army would go in "whatever the cost"; Mammadov replied there would be resistance, and he later became a key witness to the Kremlin's bloody crackdown on the city. He went on to found the Azerbaijan National Independence Party, finished second in the 1998 presidential election, and remained a durable opposition leader in independent Azerbaijan.
Career timeline
1978–1988Lecturer in history, Baku State University
1988–1991Deputy chairman and board member, Azerbaijani Popular Front
1990.01–11Imprisoned at Lefortovo Prison (arrested after Black January)
1990–2000Deputy, Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR / National Assembly
1991Member, National Defence Council; co-authored the Constitutional Act on State Independence
1992–2004Founder and chairman, Azerbaijan National Independence Party (NIPA)
