Hamid Sultanov

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Hamid Sultanov (26 May 1889 – 1938) was a Soviet Azerbaijani politician who held important posts in the early Soviet era. He served as the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR (1920–1921) and later as the Chair of the Council of People's Commissars of the Nakhchivan ASSR (1925–1929).

He was born in Shynykh-Ayrum, in what is now Azerbaijan. In 1906 he moved to Baku to work as a plumber’s assistant at the Balakhany oilfields. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1907, studied in Leipzig (graduating in 1913), and returned to Baku. He took part in the 1914 general labor strike and joined Hummet in 1917, becoming a leading member of the Baku Council. From 1918 he worked in the Bolshevik administration in Baku. After the Battle of Baku, he moved to Astrakhan and headed the Muslim bureau of the local Communist Party. In 1919 he carried out an underground mission in the South Caucasus. In February 1920 he joined the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and the Baku branch’s Central Military Headquarters. When the Red Army took control of Azerbaijan on 28 April 1920, he became the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs and helped carry out repressive actions, including the execution of hundreds of people tied to the 1920 Ganja revolt.

Sultanov was married to Ayna Sultanova, the sister of Gazanfar Musabekov, and they had a son, Vladlen Sultanov. In 1938, during the Stalinist purges, Hamid Sultanov, his wife, and Gazanfar Musabekov were arrested on counter-revolution charges and executed by firing squad in Baku.