Magomed-Ali Dakhadaev

(also Makhach Dakhadaev). Born 1882, in the village of Untsukul’, Dagestan; died Sept. 9 (22), 1918, in Verkhnii Dzhengutai. Active participant in the struggle for Soviet power in Dagestan. Born into the family of a blacksmith. Began to study at the St. Petersburg Institute of Transportation and Communications Engineers in 1900; took part in the student movement of 1901–02.

In 1905, Dakhadaev returned to Dagestan and was one of the leaders of the Temir-Khan-Shura organization of the RSDLP. He was arrested twice and was exiled from Dagestan in November 1906. In 1910 he graduated from the institute and until 1916 worked as an engineer on the Maikop Railroad. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was one of the organizers of the Dagestan Socialist Group and headed its left wing; he was a member of the Dagestan Oblast Soviet in Temir-Khan-Shura (now Buinaksk). In early 1918 he organized Red Guard detachments against counterrevolutionary bands of Muslim clergy and mountain feudal lords. In May 1918 he became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee (the oblast Military Revolutionary Council). Later he was a commissar of the oblast military commissariat.

Together with U. Buinakskii, Dakhadaev formed the Dagestan Red Army and commanded it in military actions against the German and Turkish interventionists and the White Guard bands of Colonel L. F. Bicherakhov. He was elected to the first Soviet Dagestan Oblast Executive Committee and was a member of the Extraordinary Military Council of Dagestan. He was taken prisoner by the White Guards and shot. In 1922 the city of Petrovsk-Port was renamed Makhachkala in memory of Dakhadaev.