BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 10. Today marks the birthday of the national leader of the Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.
Heydar Aliyev was born on May 10, 1923, in the city of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. Upon completion of the Nakhchivan Pedagogical College in 1939, Heydar Aliyev was enrolled in the Architecture Department at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (nowadays the State Oil Academy), however, World War Two hampered those studies.
As of 1941, Heydar Aliyev had been employed as the Chief of Division at the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs and the Council of People’s Commissars in the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, and in 1944 he was admitted to the state security agencies. With special higher education and training courses in Moscow and Leningrad (nowadays St. Petersburg), Heydar Aliyev had also graduated from the History Department of Azerbaijan State University in 1957. With 25 years of experience in the state security agencies, he was appointed as the Deputy Chairman of the Committee for the State Security at the Cabinet of Ministers of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan in 1964 and promoted to the position of the CSS Chairman in 1967 with the Major General rank conferred in the same year.
Following elections at the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party in July 1969, Heydar Aliyev was elected the Chairman of the Central Committee, thus becoming the leader of Azerbaijan.
An alternate member to the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (top political elite of the day) since 1976, Heydar Aliyev was elected the Politburo member in December 1982 and appointed to the position of the First Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR. In this capacity, he was actively involved in vital areas of the country’s economic, social and cultural life.
A member to the Supreme Soviet (the highest legislative body) of the USSR and the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan for more than 20 years, Heydar Aliyev had been holding the position of the Deputy Chairman of the USSR Cabinet of Ministers for the five following years.