Hamid Sultanov was born on 26 May 1889 in the village of Shynykh-Ayrum, Kazakh Uyezd (present-day Gadabay Rayon, Azerbaijan). In autumn 1906, Sultanov moved to Baku where he was hired as a plumber's assistant on Balakhany oilfields. In 1907, he joined the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Party. In 1913, he graduated from a polytechnicum in Leipzig, after which he returned to Baku. He participated in the general labour strike in Baku in 1914. In 1917, Sultanov joined Hummet and later that year became an executive member of the Baku Council. Beginning in 1918, he fulfilled various duties with the Bolshevik administration of Baku. After the Battle of Baku, resulting in the Bolshevik's temporary loss of control of the city, Sultanov relocated to Astrakhan, Russia, where he headed the Muslim bureau of the Astrakhan regional committee of the Communist Party.