Ruhulla Ali ogly Akhundov was born on January 13, 1897 in the village of Shuvelyan near  Baku, in the family of a teacher.

R. Akhundov began his career at the “Orujev Brothers Printing House” in 1916, working as a proofreader and translator. He began his political activity after the February Revolution of 1917 and became an active member of the “left” group of Socialist Revolutionaries (workers). In 1918, he was the editor of the newspaper “Izvestia of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of the Baku Region.” He took an active part in the work of the Congress of Trade Unions of Transcaucasia, Dagestan and Turkestan. In May 1919 he joined the editorial office of “Hummet”. He was the first editor of the “Kommunist” newspaper (in Azerbaijani), which began publication in August of the same year, and one of the editors of the “Hürriyet” newspaper.

After the occupation of Azerbaijan by Bolshevik Russia in April 1920, he worked as head of the department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan for work in villages, secretary of the Baku Committee of the AK(b)P, editor of the newspapers “Bakinsky Rabochy” and “Communist”, in 1924 -30 years worked as a secretary of the Central Committee of the AK(b)P, commissar of public education Azerbaijan SSR, director of "Azerneshr". In 1930, he was elected as a secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In the last years of his life he worked at the Azerbaijan branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of Party History under the Central Committee of the AC(b)P (Azerbaijan Communist Party), and was head of the Arts Department under the Council of People's Commissars of the Azerbaijan SSR. He was one of the first translators of Lenin's works into Azerbaijani. R. Akhundov actively participated in the creation of political terminology in the Azerbaijani language and the transition to a new alphabet. He was the author of a number of works on history, literature and art, one of the compilers and editor of the two-volume Russian-Turkish dictionary (1928-29).

On December 17, 1937, he was detained early in the morning while going to work, in front of the house where he lived. R. Akhundov was arrested as a member of a “counter-revolutionary nationalist organization”, convicted as a “Trotskyist” and shot in 1938.

Recommended literature:

1. Mədətov, Qaraş Əli oğlu. Ruhulla Axundov : bioqrafik oçerk /Q. Mədətov. - Bakı: Azərnəşr, 1983. – 57 s.
2. Mədətov, Qaraş Əli oğlu. Ruhulla Axundov /Q. Ə. Mədətov; red. M. Qaziyev; Azərb. SSR Siyasi və Elmi Bilikləri Yayan Cəmiyyəti. - Bakı: [s. n.], 1957. - 29 s.
3. Алиева, Ирада Абдул гызы. Водоворот репрессий /И. Алиева ; пер.: Л. Гасилова (Зейналова), И. Фейзиева ; ред.: Б. Садыгов, С. Гаджиев ; дизайнер Т. Мехтиев. - Баку: Təhsil, 2024. - 398 с.