Heydar Aliyev's successor who crumbled before the Karabakh crisis
In connection with the events that occurred in Nagorno-Karabakh and Sumgait, I recognize that I morally have no right to lead the party organization of the republic.
First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (1982–1988), appointed after Heydar Aliyev was promoted to Moscow. Personally honest but politically inert, he proved unable to manage the cascading crises of February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast soviet voted for transfer to Armenia and the Sumgait pogrom erupted days later. Distrusted by Gorbachev, he resigned in May declaring that he 'morally had no right to lead the republic's party organization,' and withdrew entirely from public life thereafter.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1949Mechanic, Baku gas office
- 1957Graduated Azerbaijan Polytechnic Institute; assistant, senior lecturer, deputy dean of construction
- 1968–1971Deputy Head, Construction and Public Utilities Dept, Council of Ministers, Azerbaijan SSR
- 1971–1974Head, Construction and Urban Economy Dept, CC Azerbaijan CP
- 1974–1978First Secretary, Sumgait City Party Committee
- 1978–1982Secretary, CC Azerbaijan CP
- 1982–1988First Secretary, CC Azerbaijan CP
- 1990–1992Chairman, State Committee for Industrial Safety and Mining Control, Azerbaijan
Related historical events
After 1988: retirement and the industrial safety chairmanship, 1990-1992
Baghirov did not vanish from public office immediately after resigning as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party in May 1988. According to the Russian account, he chaired Azerbaijan's State Committee for Industrial Safety and Mining Control from 9 April 1990 to 24 December 1992. The Azerbaijani account likewise records that he was appointed chairman of this committee in 1990 and served in the post for a time, adding that after leaving office he received a three-room apartment in Moscow and all-Union-level pension status. His activity in these years was a return to the profile of a construction and industrial administrator, and it did not absolve him of the political responsibility surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh and Sumgait events of 1988. Only after leaving this post at the end of 1992 did he withdraw completely from public activity; he died in Baku on 25 October 2000 at the age of 67 and was buried in the Second Alley of Honour. This phase corrects any account that presents him as having left public life entirely after 1988.