In 1938, being considered foreigners due to their Iranian citizenship, her family was forced to leave the Soviet Union and moved to Ardabil, the hometown of Gulgun's father. Upon graduation Madina Gulgun worked as a knitter at a local factory and a reporter for the Azeri-language newspapers Azerbaijan and Vatan Yolunda.
In the 1940s, she settled in Tabriz becoming a member of the Azerbaijani Democratic Party and got involved in the Soviet-backed Communist movement in Iranian Azerbaijan, which led to the establishment of the short-lived Azerbaijan People's Government. She was awarded "21 Azer" medal by the national government.