Meshadi Azizbekov

Who was Meshadi Azizbekov?

Meshadi Aziz-bey oghlu Azizbekov, also spelled Azizbeyov was a legendary Soviet revolutionary of Azerbaijani origin, leader of the revolutionary movement in Azerbaijan, one of the first Azeri Marxists, Provincial Commissioner and Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, gubernial commissar for Baku. He was one of the 26 Baku Commissars.

Azizbekov became the member of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and one of the leaders of Muslim Social Democratic Party. After the October Revolution he joined to Baku Comissars. As the Baku Commune was voted out of power in July 1918, Azizbekov and rest of the Commissars abandoned Baku and fled across the Caspian Sea. However they were captured by anti-Soviet forces. On the night of September 20, Azizbekov was executed by a firing squad in a remote location between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Trans-Caspian railway.

Currently the views on Azizbekov are mixed. Azerbaijani nationalism, the ruling New Azerbaijan Party as well as the main opposition parties Musavat and APFP doesn't see Azizbekov as a positive figure. Though Azerbaijan Communist Party and many other local left-wing politicians and the people sees Azizbekov as an important, notable and positive figure in the history of Azerbaijan.