The Removal of Heydar Aliyev from the Politburo and the Beginning of the Separatist Movement of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh

Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika and glasnost provided Armenian nationalists with favorable conditions for the deployment of the Karabakh movement, the purpose of which was the annexation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. One of the phases of this movement was a campaign by Armenian nationalists to discredit a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Heydar Aliyev, whose goal was to remove him from the highest echelon of power in the USSR. Since Heydar Aliyev was considered a serious barrier to the Karabakh movement. The drip of Armenian nationalists against Heydar Aliyev has failed. However, the process of updating the composition of the CPSU Central Committee and its Politburo, which accelerated after the January (1987) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, also hit Heydar Aliyev. In October 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev forced him to write a letter of resignation. Almost after the removal of Heydar Aliyev from the highest echelon of power in the USSR, Armenian separatists launched the Karabakh movement.