Mustafa Veisovich Selimov (, ; 21 March 1910 – 14 October 1985) was a Crimean Tatar communist leader, partisan, and civil rights activist. Having been the First Secretary of the Yalta Communist Party before the war, he served as the commissar of a partisan formation during the war before being exiled the Uzbek SSR as a Crimean Tatar, where he went on to hold leadership positions in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Uzbek SSR and become one of the original organizers of the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement, for which he received reprimand from party organs.
Early life
Selimov was born on 21 March 1910 in Kökköz (since renamed Sokolinoye), where he initially attended school. Having been orphaned at the age of eleven, he went on to join the Komsomol when he was fifteen. In Bakhchisarai he headed a regional library before completing school and becoming a member of the Communist Party in 1931. He then returned to his native village, where he became secretary of the village council and deputy chairman of a collective farm. However, he was soon made manager of the Bakhchisarai District Party Committee, where he remained until 1935 before attending additional training and moving on to be a political instructor there in 1936. From 1937 to May 1939 he served as secretary of the Komsomol committee, from then to September he headed the district land department before being drafted into the Red Army later that month. He briefly attended training to be a political instructor, likely in preparation for the Soviet-Finnish War, before returning to Crimea. Having been posted to the personnel department of the Bakhchisarai Regional Party Committee upon his return, he soon became the 1st Secretary of the Yalta District Party Committee in February 1940.
World War II
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Selimov volunteered to enlist in the Red Army for the front, but was ordered to stay in the rear with the Crimean Regional Committee and was initially appointed commissar of the 4th partisan region. However, he was soon evacuated to Sevastopol and later the Caucasus with other senior party members. There, he worked in the political department of the Transcaucasian railway before returning to Crimea in January 1942 to take part in the Kerch-Feodosia landing and the subsequent liberation of Kerch.
In May 1942 he was stationed in Krasnodar with troops set to retreat to Sochi, and in June 1943 he was airdropped into the Crimean forest with other personnel from the mainland to provide reinforcements to the Crimean partisans. There, he served as the commissar of the 1st partisan detachment under the command of Mikhail Makedonsky. There, Selimov helped establish contact with other communists, conducted counter-propaganda efforts, and organized partisan cells in various Crimean villages. In his notes, he remembered various Crimean Tatars such as Memet Appazov, Asan Mamutov, Vaap Dzhemilev, and Seitamet Islyamov were accomplished partisans.
He briefly served from November 1943 to January 1943 as commissar of the 4th Partisan Brigade, which contained six detachments and over 500 fellow Crimean Tatar partisans, including his sister Fatime. On 29 January 1944 the partisan movement in Crimea was reorganized, with 4th, 6th, and 7th Partisan Brigades being united into the Southern Formation of Crimean partisans, with Makedonsky appointed as commander and Selimov as commissar; the formation was based in the forested area of southern Crimea near Chatyr-Dag.
On 14 April 1944 the 6th Brigade of the formation began an offensive to retake the Bakhchysarai railway station, while other detachments blocked other stations and advanced north towards Simferopol. Detachments of the 7th Brigade went after retreating enemy forces in the Belbek valley area, and then participated in the liberation of Yalta.