from surrounding villages” entering the town, M.Baghirov names a

specific person, i.e. Alibey Zizikski, as the mastermind of an attack

on Guba. He also presents the data on casualties of the 3-day-long

battle:

“About 200 killed warriors and around 1500 slaughtered and

butchered Muslim civilians, Russians, Armenians, Jews, etc”

. (81) These

figures differ a lot from those provided by Aliabbasbey Alibeyov, the

head of local municipality, i.e. 200 Lezghins and 70 civilians slain. (82)

Needless to say, there was no way for M.Baghirov to stay in town

after these events. As he admitted in his autobiography, as of 1917,

the Guba elite and clergy had little love lost with him due to his re-

ported revolutionary activities and links with the Bolsheviks.

“They

unleashed the most overt and dishonest agitation against me present-

ing me to peasants as a spy of the Baku-based Armenians and traitor

of the faith and nation. Ultimately, the two mostly influential religious

leaders of Guba, Abdulrahim Efendi and Hajji Mullah Baba Akhundov

ordered my execution”,

- Baghirov wrote. (83)

If this were true, local religious leaders in Guba could ‘anathe-

matize’ Baghirov only for leading a gang he made out of “some WW1

demobs of Jewish and Russian origin, as well as a handful of Mus-

lim criminals”. The first action of this gang was “a violent attack on

the former Uyezd Political Department’s armory, thus getting access

to firearms and assassinating

beys

(landlords) and their supporters

wherever possible”. In his autobiography M.Baghirov refers to this

gang as

“flying squad”

combating

“counter-revolutionary elements in

Guba Uyezd”

. (84)

In 1956, during M.Baghirov’s trial, this squad was mentioned

again. In the files of the case it was mentioned that the so-called

‘flying squad’ had nothing to do with revolutionary activities. Rather,

this was a mere criminal gang. Baghirov denied any facts of attacking

armory and assassinations of local landlords and their aides. (85)

The evidence presented in the course of investigation disproves

the fact of Mirjafar Baghirov’s joining the Bolshevik Party in 1917. On

the contrary, the files indicate that after February 1917 (i.e. abdication

of the Romanov royal family) M.Baghirov was appointed the com-

missar of Guba’s Second Precinct (the Jewish quarter). The appoint-

ment was made by no one else but Alibey Zizikski, the head of local

administration in Guba and the Uyezd (District) Commissar of Russia’s

Provisional Government. From May to November 1917, Baghirov was

Events of 1918 in Guba in the Context of Plans for Mass Extermination

of Azerbaijan’s Muslim Population