Memet Qubayev

Memet İsmail Qubayev (; 1885 – after 1937) was a Soviet Crimean Tatar politician who served as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 1928 to 1931. During Qubayev's tenure, thousands of Crimean Tatars lost their land and were deported to the Urals as part of collectivisation and dekulakization campaigns.

Biography Memet İsmail Qubayev was born in 1885 in the village of Körbekül (now known as ), in the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire. By trade, Qubayev was a shoemaker, and he was illiterate. He first began to align with communism in 1918, as part of a general shift by Crimean Tatars from Milliy Firqa to the Russian Communist Party. During the Russian Civil War, he was a member of a partisan detachment. He was also involved in spreading propaganda opposing the White movement in South Russia, for which he was imprisoned.

After Crimean Tatar communist leader Veli İbraimov was removed from his position as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean ASSR, Qubayev was selected as his replacement, becoming chairman on 28 January 1928. During İbraimov's subsequent murder trial, Qubayev served as a public prosecutor alongside fellow Crimean Tatar communists İlyas Tarhan, , and Abdulkadyr Gralov. 4,325 families from the Crimean ASSR were sent into exile between 1930 and 1931, with 2,772 being sent to the Ural Mountains and 1,553 to the Northern Krai. By 1 May 1931, had been collectivised, primarily from Crimean Tatars. Qubayev protested these measures at a local party conference in Dzhankoi Raion, accusing the Soviet government of practicing Great Russian chauvinism in a matter that was destructive to Crimea's peoples, primarily the Crimean Tatars.