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User:StinkyGremlin/Communist Party of Turkey (historical)

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The TKP was active from 1920 until its dissolution in 1988, and it was banned in Turkey in 1925 in order to ensure the country's security after the Sheikh Said Rebellion in Eastern Turkey.[1][2] The party was legalized again after the Second World War, albeit with very limited power and it was heavily monitored by the Turkish government.[2] However after 1947 it was banned yet again and many of its leading figures were arrested and detained by the authorities.[3] Initially adopting non-violent methods of introducing reform, the party began to adopt revolutionary viewpoints in the 1960s until its dissolution.[4]

Early History

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The party was formed by individuals who believed that the Ottoman Empire could no longer support its people, especially after the First World War.[3] Its founding members were united in ending social injustice and economic inequality amongst the empire's citizens, and driving out the Western powers carving up Anatolia among themselves.[3] Other notable members who played important roles in the TKP include Fuat Sabit and Şefik Hüsnü.[3] Meanwhile Nâzım Hikmet, the Turkish poet and intellectual, was active in the Communist world and the TKP, meeting and working with individuals such as Vâlâ Nureddin, Ahmet Cevat, and Şevket Süreyya Aydemir.[5] Most of the party's members were learned individuals, and they did not belong to the military wing of the Ottoman Empire.[3] Even at the lowest levels of the party, the members were Turkish nationalists who, after the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire, became heavily tied to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).[3] Hüsnü was inspired by the events of the 1905 Russian Revolution, and he adopted leftist ideology and viewpoints as a result.[3]

Following the 1925 Sheikh Said Rebellion, the TKP was banned in the country.[1] Ismet İnönü, then the Prime Minister of Turkey, lead preparations for the government's response to the rebellion.[6] He took the Sheikh Said Rebellion as an opportunity to crack down on all opposition that he deemed to be a threat against the new Turkish government, with the passing of the Law for the Maintenance of Order (Ottoman Turkish: Takrir-i Sükûn Kanunu).[7] Turkey thus became a one-party state and the TKP was forced to go underground after they were banned.[7]

After the banning of the TKP by Atatürk's orders, along with other socialist and communist parties in Turkey, the party's influence began to decline and wane throughout the 1920s.[2] Nevertheless the party continued to work underground, with Soviet support.[6]

After the murder of Suphi, the optimism of Turkish Communists began to diminish, especially for the creation of a legal communist party in Turkey.[7]

Collapse & Resurgence

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In 1951, the TKP effectively collapsed after many of its leaders were arrested by the authorities.[6] Thereafter, in order to keep a low profile in Turkey, the party established a foreign bureau that had connections to Moscow.[6] Mihri Belli, a Turkish revolutionary, claimed that he was assigned this task to establish this foreign bureau.[6] This order would make him the de facto leader of the party, a title he refused to adopt because he believed that Turkish Communists should act independently from Moscow's influence and decisions.[6]

After the 1960 coup d'état, the government adopted a new constitution that allowed more political freedoms than ever before, or since the country's founding.[7] Despite this, open communists were still restricted in legally organizing, and this heavily applied to the TKP.[6] The TKP believed that change could be implemented through democratic reforms, but after 1960 the party adopted a more revolutionary approach, even if it was not as politically active when compared to the 1920s.[4]

Dissolution & Merger into TBKP

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As a result of the 1980 military coup, left-wing and communist parties were forced to go underground.[7] Both of the leaders the TKP and TİP, Haydar Kutlu and Nihat Sargın respectively, returned from their political exile in on 16 November 1987 to establish the new TKBP, but they were immediately arrested and held in custody until April 1990.[7] The political atmosphere in Turkey was more restrictive than in previous years, so much so that the European Parliament stated that "recognizing that a political democracy cannot yet be considered to exist in Turkey while major political parties remain unrepresented in the country’s parliament, while leading political figures were excluded from active political life, while the Turkish Communist Party remains under a total ban."[7]

References

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  1. ^ a b Lipovsky, Igor (1991). "The legal socialist parties of Turkey, 1960–80". Middle Eastern Studies. 27 (1): 94–111. doi:10.1080/00263209108700849. ISSN 0026-3206.
  2. ^ a b c Gökay, Bülent (2018-02-01). "Communist Party of Turkey and Soviet Foreign Policy". Journal of Global Faultlines. 4 (2). doi:10.13169/jglobfaul.4.2.0138.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Yasacan, Mustafa (2018-02-01). "The Impact of the Russian Revolution 1917 on the Turkish Left through the Experiences of Three Leading Communists". Journal of Global Faultlines. 4 (2). doi:10.13169/jglobfaul.4.2.0150.
  4. ^ a b Durgun, Şenol (2015-01-01). "Left-Wing Politics in Turkey: Its Development and Problems". Arab Studies Quarterly. 37 (1). doi:10.13169/arabstudquar.37.1.0009.
  5. ^ James H. Meyer (2018). "Children of Trans-Empire: Nâzım Hikmet and the First Generation of Turkish Students at Moscow's Communist University of the East". Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. 5 (2): 195. doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.5.2.12. ISSN 2376-0699.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Ulus, Özgür Mutlu (2011). The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey : Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-484-0.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Gökay, Bülent (2006-11-22). Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey, 1920-1991. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-27549-6.
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