Guba Uprising (1920)

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On August 23, 1920, residents of the village of Kuzun in the Guba district staged an armed uprising by killing two policemen, declaring disobedience to the new Soviet government. The district committee sent a detachment of 45 armed forces from the 4th Cavalry Regiment to Kuzun, but the detachment suffered heavy losses, with only six survivors. The military commissar of Guba then dispatched troops including a machine gunner to restore Soviet power.

A new battle on August 26 saw the villagers again resist Soviet forces. On August 29, a battle occurred four versts from Guba, where Soviet troops of a hundred men sustained heavy casualties. By late August and early September, an armed rebel group had formed, including Turkish officers and led by Lieutenant Colonel Afandiyev of the Republican Army. The rebels seized machine guns and five-barreled rifles.

On September 3, 1920, at 7 am, the rebels attacked the Davachi-Khachmaz region, clashing with the seventh cavalry detachment. After a fierce battle, Soviet-Bolshevik fighters held their positions, but four were killed and four Lewis machine guns were seized. An armored train was placed near Khachmaz, but the rebels occupied positions unreachable by its artillery. Intelligence reported that locals opposing the regime formed an armed group at Charkhi station.

One of the strongest groups in Guba was led by Hamdulla Afandi Afandizadeh, a former member of the Parliament of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Other leaders included Sattar Afandiyev, national army officer Shukur Bey, Turkish officer Ismail Ali Afandi, and Shamsaddin Afandi, brother of Hamdulla Afandi Afandizadeh. The uprising was discussed at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan on September 9, 1920, which decided to send Aliheydar Garayev and Levan Gogoberidze to quell it, and to appoint Gazanfar Musabayov as emergency commissioner of the Guba district.