17013

THE PRINCIPLES OF KEMALISM*

Turkish and Foreign Intellectual Impact on MustafaKemal, Works by Atatrk, the Six Principles and theKadro's Attempt to Systematize the Kemalist Revo-lutian.

Prof. Dr. Trkkaya ATAV

Mustafa Kemal Atatrk (1881- 1938) is not generally-known as a "builder" of theories. it was his deliberatechoice not to leave behind an "inflexible doctrine". Hewanted his teachings to be dynamic views suiting the needto become contemporary in every way. Ideologies, no doubt.play a role in all regimes. Many states even seek to solvetheir problems with the impact of a parti cu lar doctrine.it is only natural that a mavement like the Kemalist Revo-lutian should have its own set of values.

This paper aims, first, to summarize Turkish andforeign intellectual impact on Mustafa Kemal, to be follo-wed by a short bibliographical display of his own writings,with a conseqent definition of the Six Principles (Alt Ok)that he authored, with a further discussion of attempts,principally by a group of thinkers and writers around themonthly Kadro (The Cadre) to systematize Kemalist prin-ciples. it may not be wrong to say that the paper will mainlydwell on the Kadro Movement, the rest serving as prelude.

i

Atatrk had died a comparatively young man. He wasless than thirty-five when the whole world first heard his

* A shortened version of this paper was read by the author as abasis for discussions during the "Atatrk and Nehru Week" in NewDe!hi Tndia (981).

20 THE TURKISH YEARBOOK [VOL. XX

singular aehievements, and he was not yet forty whenhe started to play his historie role of emaneipating thepeople he belonged to. Even in this young age, he seemedeqmipped with the intellectual aeeumulation that his timerequired.

Mustafa Kemal eertainly studied and weighed Turkishpolitieal thinking, whieh was arefleetion of historic events.it is true that history generally develops as a eonsequeneeof aetions and reaetions of sU:eeessive smges. This prevail-ing rule should also be applying to Turkey as welL. ButTurkish history of the Nineteenth and the early TwentiethCenturies has witnessed a remarkable rapidity; eventsadvaneed by leaps and bounds. Sueeessive efforts to re-form the politieal system eould be observed in the firsthalf of the last century. Sultan Mahmud the Reformer(1808-1839), who sueeeeded Selim the Martyr (1761-1808),was inclined towards regeneration. Besides annihila.tingthe irregular troops of the Janissaries, he helped to bringabout the Hatt erif of Glhane (1839), whieh was aproclamation of reform. Nevertheless, the latter did notdeal with the root eauses of the increasing politieal andeeonomie dependenee of the Ottoman Empire on the greatpowers. A group of edueated men, influeneed by eontem-porary ideas, sueeeeded, after overthrowing Sultan Abdul-aziz, in obtaining a grant of a new Constitution in 1876.Sultan .Abdulhamid the Second, who under the presure ofthe prevailing eonditions, had granted a new Constitution,withdrew it, sending Mithat Paa (1825-1884), one of itsarehiteets, to exile and lowering upon Turkey a dark cloudof reaetion. He suppressed independent thinking with everymeans available, including a system of espionage hithertounknown. Banishments and secret exeeutions were theorder of his day. This suppression eould not, however, pre-vent, in the 1890's, the emergenee in Saloniea, the birth-plaee of Mustafa Kemal, of the Committee of Union andProgress. it is well-known that in 1908 an open rebellionbroke against the tyranny of Abdulhamid, who granted thedesired Constitution, only to repeal it less than a year later.But the Maeedonian troops, with whieh marehed Mustafa

1980-19811 .KEMJ '.ISM 21

Kema.l, appeared before Istanbul and defeated the Sultan'sgarrison. But the new government's task was not lessproblematica!. During the rule of the Committee of Unionand Progress, which lasted less than a decade, Bosnia andHerzegovina were annexed by Austria-Hungary, Bulgarianindependence led to further wars in the Balkans and Italyembarked on Libyan shores. The Turanian ideal, dreamingof a union of all Turks of Asia and Pan-Islamism, daimingthe unity of all Mohammedans, were the thoughts of thisperiod, characterized by threats from without.

it was again during these years that Mustafa Kemalwas entertaining a new conception - the conception of theTurkish ideal, which would survive the storm. MustafaKemal was widely read in Ottoman history and the worksof the Turkish intellectuals. No doubt, he analyzed thewriters of the Tanzimat period (1839). inasi (1826-1871lwas the first one who touched upon popular sovereignty.He published in 1859 the first volume of translation s fromvarious French poets, and more importantly in the follo-wing year, the first national non-official journal in Turkey.In about two years, he was joined by Namk Kemal 0840-1888), one of the most brilliant writers of attornan Turkey,who could with grace, force and precision express manycomplexities of modern thought. Ziya Paa 0825-1880)joined forces with inasi and Namk Kemal, and in 1867,his quarrel with Ali Paa, the all-powerful Vezir ofAbdlaziz, led to his flight from his natiye country. NamkKemal brought out several papers in stanbul and London,as the mouthpiece of the "Young Ottoman Society". Hisrevolutionary plays and poetry revealed a passian forliberty and love for his people. Mustafa. Kemal, in laterspeeches, qucted Namk Kemal's verse, making optimisticchanges in the couplets. The poet tried to build up theconcept of popular sovereignty on the basis of accumalationof individual sovereignty over one's own affairs, but he haddifficulty in coping with the Islamic interpretation thatsovereignty belongs to God. He urged the Caliph, in accor-dance with Islamic law, to consult with members of hiscommunity, a relationship which mayaso be defined as a

22 THE TURKISH YEARBOOK iVOL. XX

"contract". The need to consult could very well be a justi-fication for constitutional government. Namk Kemal wastrying to reconcile republican ideas with Islamic theocracy.That Islam could not be reformed to embrace contemporaryRepublican institutions was, nevertheless, the opinion ofseveral Young Turks. Among them, Abullah Cevdet (1869-1932) envisaged a "Westernized" future Turkey, but evenhe could not suggest the abolition of the Sultanate and theCaliphate. Ziya Gkalp (1875-1924) was perhaps most inf-luential on the intellectuals of Republican Turkey. MustafaKemal and Gkalp had met, for the first time, in 1909 in acongress of the Union and Progress. lt is true that Gkalp'stheories of socialorganization, based on Emile Durkheim'sconcepts of sociology, had a hold up on the train of thoughtof the Turkish Revolution. However, Kemal had an impor-tant disagreement with Gkalp on the racist concept ofTuranism. Mustafa Kemal was not only the leader, butalsa the ideologue of the Turkish Revolution.

Mustafa Kemal had also studied all great movementsof history abroad. While a young man in Macedonia, hewas introduced to the French classics, especially the worksof Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu, through his dosefriend Fethi Okyar, whom he later encouraged to forman opposition party. While a young cadet in the WarAcademy, he studied the French Revolution thoroughly.Later, he made frquent references to episodes in thisgreat event of history. According to him, it was the greatestof all revolutions, but it failed in providing the greatesthappiness for the French. He studied the movement ofindependence and republicanism of the American Coloniesas well as the development of British democraey. He analy-zed Russian Historyand the Russian Revolution. He wasinterested in both the successes and the failures of Peterthe Great. He said that his principles did not rest onBolshevism. On the other hand, in numerous statements,he based the rights of man on his labour and produce. Hestudied, apparently, all great movements, but chose tofollow a road that he thought emanated from the parti-cular conditions of his country. Above all, he believed that

1980-1981 KEMALISM 23

Turkey was the first country in the world of colonies andsemi-colonies to bring to a successful end an anti-imperia-list struggle taking place in the Twentieth Century.

LI

Granted that such was Mustafa Kemal's training andself-education, quite a number of foreign scholars and wri-ters ask their Turkish colleagues as to which works were ori-ginally written by him. The Institute of the History of theTurkish Revolution, founded on April 15, 1941, and attachedto the Languages and History-Ceography Faculty of An-kara University, has shouldered the responsibility ofcollecting and publishing all what he has authored. Alt-hough most of his works have been published by suchoffical establishments, quite a few private publishing housesand several individuals have brought out various volumesof interviews, talks and memoirs. A near-to-comp1ete(Turkish and foreign) bibliography on Atatrk, includinghis own works, has been collected by Muzaffer Gkm an ,the form er Director of the Bayazd Library in IstanbuL. Thisis a three-volume compendium of about 3,000 pages, thefirst volum e of which has so far been published. it isprinted by the Turkish Ministry of Education under thetitle of Bibliography of Atatrk and History of His Revo-lution (Atatrk ve Devrimleri Tarihi BibliyografyasJ. Thenxt two volumes are expected to follow. A new, annotatedbibliography, in two volumes, was published in 1981 byTrker Acarolu, who treats the best five-hundred Tur-kish and foreign books.

As to the original works by Atatrk, one may classifythem as follows: (a) the great Speech; (b) talks, statements,declarations, telegrams and announcements; (c) memoirs;(d) treatises (and translations) on military science; (e)reports on the Gallipoli campaigns; (f) private 1etters; (g)hand-written and dictated notes; (h) unsigned articles.This categorisation reveals a diversified form of writing,which was perhaps inevitable in view of the fact thatAtatrk was a superb orator, an able analyst of history, anarrator of important factual details and a formulator of


political testaments. He even has an unsigned book ongeometry, and is alsa believed to have written poetry.

Foremost among his works is probably the six-daySpeech (NutukJ, deliyered to a captive audience of delega-tes to the Second National Congress, that took place onOctober 15-20,1927. This was amarathan feat of oratory.The Iength and the character of the Speech is unconven-tional, and its subject is a comprehensive aceount of oneof the most remarkable events in the many centuries ofTurkish history. it reveals the activity of the speaker fromthe time when he felt himsef called upon to Iead thenatian from threatened ruin to freedam and power.

After eight years of uninterrupted battles on threeeontinents, Turkey laid down arms when its ally Germanycollapsed. The victorious powers reserved to themselvesthe right to occupy every strategic point in Turkey whiIethe Turkish troops were still fighting in far away pIacessuch as the Hedjas or Tripali. Allied men-of-war eastanchor before the Empire's capital. The stipulations of theTreaty of Sevres (1920),which Mustafa Kemal Paa analysesin his Speech, prove that the powers which pretended tofight for freedam were planning a peace of annihilationfor Turkey. They were after outright annexations, man-dates, spheres of influenee and new vassal states. TheGreek troops, whieh Ianded at zmir (Smyrna) on May15, 1919,to ereet Greater Greece, treated the Turks of theeity as subjugated people. But Mustafa KemUreached theshores of Asia Minor in the north, exactly four days Iater.He described the cireumstances then in the followingwords, which were alsa the opening paragraphs of his greatSpeech:

"I landed at Samsun on the 19th of May, 1919. The situationat the time was as follows: The group of powers whichincluded the Ottoman Government had been defeated inthe Gree.t War. The Ottoman Army had been crushed onevery front. An armistice had been signed und er severeconditions, The prolongation of the Great War had left thepeople exhausted and impoverished. Those who had driventhe people and the country into the general connret hadfIed and now cared for nothing but their own safety. Val.

1980-1981 KEMALISM 25

rleddin, the degenerate occupant of the throne and theCaliphate, was seeking for same despicable way to savahis person and his throne, the only objects of his anxiety.The Cabinet, of which Damad Ferid Pasha was the head,was weak and lacked dignity and courage., lt was subser-vient to the will of the Sutan alone and agreed to everyproposal that could protect its members and their sovereign.The Army had been deprived of their arms and ammunition,and this state of affairs continued. The Entente Powers didnot consider it necessary to respect the terms of the armis-tice. On various pretexts, their men-at-war and troops re.mained in Constantinople. The Vilayet of Adana was occu-pied by the French; Urfa, Mara, Antep, by the British. InAntalya and Konya were the !talians, whilst at Merzifonand Samsun were English troops ... The Greek Army, withthe consent of the Entente Powers, had landed at zmir .....

The danger from ab road now averted, Mustafa Kemalwas moved to show his people how the new Turkey cameabout and on which foundations it was standing. TheSpeech was a grant account of his political and militaryperformance. Several hundred pages that follow the above-quoted opening paragraphs put emphasis on the earlyyears of the new state. Being the single major source ofhis leadership, it sets a high standard of factual detail.

The Speech ends with the following political testamentaddressed to the future youth of Turkey, instructing thecoming generations on resistance to defeat, occupation andcollaboration with the enemy;

"O, Turkish Youth! Your primary duty is forever to pre.serve and defend Turkish Independence and the TurkishRepublic. This is the very foundation of your existenceand your future. This foundation is your most precioustreasure. In the future, too, there may be ili-w ili , at homeand abroad, wishing to deprive you of this treasure .. If,same day, you are compelled to defend your existence andthe Republic, you must not tarry to weigh the possibilitiesand eireumstances of the situation before taking up yourduty. These possibilities and cireumstanees may turn outto be extremely unfavourable. The enemies conspiringagainst your independenee and your Republic may havebehind them a victory unprecedented in the annals of theworld. It may be that, by foree and fraud, all the fortressesand the arsenals of your beloved Fatherland may be cap


tured, all its shipyards oeeupied, all its armies dispersedand every part of the eountry invaded. And sadder andgraver, those who hold power within the eountry may bein error, misguided and may even be traitors. Furthermore,they may identify their personal interests with the po-!itical designs of the invaders. The eountry may be im-poverished, ruined and exllausted. Youth of Turkey's fu-ture, even under such eireumstanees, it is your duty to sav cTurkish Independenee and the Repub!ie. The strength thatyou ne ed is mighty in the noble blood that eourses in yourveins."

The Speech ends with these words. it was first publishedin book form, in 1927, in a two-volume edition printed inthe old Arabic script. it appeared in the Latin alphabet in1934 in three volumes. Immediately after completing thisunique tour-de-force, Atatrk proceeded to change drasti-cally the language he so ably used throughout his leader-ship. The Turkish Language Society has published in 1962 apurified but unabridged version of the same (Sylev) forthe younger generations. The Speech has been translatedinto a number of languages, including English, French,German and Russian. Prof. Dr. zdemir Nutku of AnkaraUniversity has created a Documentary Play based on it(1973), Nazm zgneyand Orhan Asena (1970) haveseparately put the Speech into verse.

The Institute of the History of Turkish Revolution haspublished selected speeches and statements of Atatrk infive volumes 0945, 1952, 1954, 1964 and 1972). Severalindividuals (such as Prof. Dr. Herbert Melzig, Nafi Demir-kaya and Behet Kemal alar) before and after the Insti~tute's compilations, have published their own selections.it appears that the series, initiated by the Institute, willcontinue. Separate publications, such as The Minutes of theSvas Congress (Svas Kongresi Tutanaklar by Ulu de-mir, 1969) or Decisions of the Representative Council (He-yet-i Temsiliye Kararlar by Prof. Dr. Bekir Stk Baykal,1974) include hitherto unpublished speeches by Atatrk.Several of his talks have been printed by different govern-ment and party organs as well as by private publishers orindividuals. Directives on Educatio;n (Atatrk'n Maarife

1980-19811 KEMALISM 27

Ait Direktifleri, 1939) by the Ministry of Education, Prof.Dr. Enver Ziya Karal's selection of Thoughts from Atatrk(Atatrk'ten Dnceler, 1956), Mustafa Baydar's AtatrkSavs (Atatrk Diyor ki, 1951J, Dr. Utkan Kocatrk's Ata-trk's Thoughts and ldeas (Atatrk'n Dnceleri ve Fi-kirleri, 1969), etin Altan's Atatrk's Social Views (Ata-trk'n Sosyal Grleri, 1965) and Fethi Naci's Atatrk'sPrincipal Views in One-Hundred Questions (100 SorudaAtatrk'n Temel Grleri, 1968) are cases in point. Hisselected speeches also appeared in Russian, Arabic andBulgarian.

Atatrk's memoirs and diaries have been published inseveral places. His diaries, kept


him for the daily Vakt (January 22-27, 1937). Atatrk isalso the author of a book on geometry, printed in 1937 bythe State Publishing House and recommended to the teac-hers of mathematics.

III

Although Mustafa Kemal Atatrk did not want to"freeze" the philosophy of the new state within the confinesof a parti cu lar doctrine, he nevertheless named six princip-les in the 1930's, showing a general direction with roots inreaIism. They were : RepubIicanism, Nationalism, PopuIism,Reformism, Secularism and Statism.

Republicanism was understandably the first of theseprinciples. Mustafa Kemal entertained the ideas of a repub-lican regime when he was a young cadet in the War Colle-ge. The repubIican element was present not only in thelegacy of the French Revolution, but also some Iimitationon the autocratic power of the Sultan was put within theOttoman institutions. This occurred most notably in thefirst 1876 Constitution, which nevertheless left the Sutanwith the right to initiate legislation and cast a veto. Notuntil the Young Turk Revolution was the Sultan requiredto swear fideIity to the people. But it was the Ankara Go-vemment which in 1921 gave the sovereignty of the peopleconstitutional recognition.

Mustafa Kemal, as a young officer first in Macedoniaand then in Syria, could see that the Ottoman Empire wasdisintegrating. Only a national Turkish state could replaceit. it was him who drew the map of the new RepubIic. Theterritories would compose of the are as predominantly Tur-kish, and the whole of Anatolia would constitute the ma-jority of the country. The Hittites, the Frigians, the Greeks,the Romans and the Seljuk Turks had been, throughouthistory, sovereign on various different portions of AsiaMinor and hen ce their eventual disintegration. Even whileselecting Ankara as the new capital, he knew that he wasacting in proper evaIuation of historical facts.

With the estabIishment of the Grand National Assembly

1980-1981 ) KEMALISM

, ,~, '.~

29

in Ankara on April" 23 1920, the Republicwas aIready ns-talled as a legal system and working organizations. Sincethe empire was no more, its religious and political figure-head was deprived of its importance and function. Hence,P.epublicanism was intervowen with Nationalism. For Ata-trk, the Republic also meant a democratic state. He belie-ved that popular sovereignty ought to be protected by newlaws, a new cadre of legalists and a two-party system (whichhe tried twice). The principle of the supremacy of Parlia-ment was so well established that the suggestion of allowngthe President (no other than Atatrk himselO was rejected.(Later, the principle that the representation of the will ofthe people.in the Parliament could not be denied was utili-zed by the Democrat Party governments [1950-1960] to jus-tify their hold on power. And when the suggestion of giyngthe Prime Minister the power to dissolve the Parliament wasconsidered during the discussions on the 1961 Constitution,it had to be immediately put aside on account of the convic-tion that the assembly was supremeJ

Nationalism was another pnnciple-new for the Turkeyof the 1920's. The policy which he considered to be clear andenforceable was nationalist policy. He said that the re couldbe no greater mistake than to be a Utopian. By "nationalistpolicy", he meant: "...Within our national frontiers, towork for the real happiness and development of our nationand our country, relying above all ou'our own strength forthe preservation of our existence, to refrain from inducingour people to pursue deleterious aims and to expect fromthe civilised world human treatment and frendship basedon reciprocity." He descrbed the Turkish motherland as"abandoned", looking like a "graveyard-without life anddevelopment". But he saw treasures beneath it, on whichlived a gallant people. He said that the Turks had gonethrough a long and arduous struggle for the sake of theintegrity of their country. His objective was the reinforce-ment and preservati0n of this integrity. For him, it was anunrealisable aim to unite eve n all the Turks n the worldwithn the boundaries of a single state. This was a truththat bitter and bloody conflicts had clearly demonstrated.

30 THE TURKISH YEARBOOK IVOL. XX

He saw nothing in history to show that Pan-Turanism orPan-Islamism could have succeeded and how these conceptscould find abasis for their realisation. First of all, lust ofconquest was out of the question. Our people had substitu-ted the bond of Turkish nationalism for the religious andsectarian bonds. He said: "Ours is nationalist government.it is out-and-out materialistic, with a penchant for realism.it is a government which refrains from committing suchcrimes as following illusory ideals, not to attain them, butfancying that they will be attained, to lead the nationagainst rocks or to sink it in swamps and at last to sacri-fice its existence." Just as Turkish nationalism was notracist and irredentist, it was based on "full and completeindependence", by which Atatrk meant "unfettered inde-pandence in the political, economic, juridical, cultura1, infact, in every sphere. Lack of independence in any one ofthese spheres," he said, was "a negation of independencewithin the fullest meaning of the terrn." Our nationalismopposed all particularisms, respected the patriotism of ot-hers and favoured movements of national liberation. De-cades had to pass before the United Nations would declarethat nations had sovereignty over their own natural re-sources, but Atatrk's Turkey had proclaimed this a wor-king principle, giving the state responsibility for productionas well as protection. The Turkish Historical Society, (whichinterpreted history anew), the Turkish Language Society(which led the drive to purify the language) and the People'sHouses (created in every province and district to becomecenters of culture and artistic/literary activities) were thenatural results of the same principle of sober nationalism.

Populism was, in part, the result of Mustafa Kema,l'searly reading in history, philosophy and government. Headded a populist dimension to the democratic concepts ofthe French R9volution. He fully believed that the peoplewere the real fontain-head of every secret of success andof every kind of power and authority. Arter the First Cong-ress of History was over, a delegate said to Atatrk: "Antalian writer Count Sforza has described you as a dictator."1, a dictator!" ejaculated Atatrk. He continued: " ...Before

1980-1981 1 KEMALISM 31

carrying out anyidea, i convene the people's congresses,where i discuss them, and i give effect to them only af terobtaining their sanction. There is the Erzurum Congress,the Svas Congress-and the living proof, the Grand NationalAssembly ... Let them say; we will march on!" Early in 1920he stated that all power, sovereignty and governance restdirectly with the people, whom he desenbed a year later, inthe following words: .....We are poor labourers, a poorpeople, striving to save our existence and independence.Let us know our character. We are a toiling people, forcedto toil for our salvation and existence. Every one of us has,therefore, a right or a title, which we can earn only byvirtue of work. ldlers and those who wish to live withoutwork have no place in our society." He was the first to utterradical statements portraying the condition of the Turkishpeasant in 1922: "Who is the owner and master of Turkey?The peasant, that is, the real producer! Therefore, he hasthe right and title to greater comfort, happiness andaffluence than everyone else." He believed that the econo-mic policy of the Government of the Grand NationalAssembly was directed towards the achievement of thisobjective. He went on: .....Let us gather together, withshame and reverence, before this exalted master, whoseblood we have spilt for seven centuries in different regionsof the globe, whose bones we have left behind in thoselands, the fruits of whose toi! we have expropriated andsquandered, whom we have requited with scom and con-tempt and whose kindness and sacrifices we have repaidwith ingratitude, insulence, oppression aand the desire todegrade him into a bondsman." Mustafa Kemal did not usethe word "people" for or on behaIf of any social class. TheWar of National Liberation was fought with the cooperationof all classes.

By reformism (or revolutionism), he meant that thenatian could be and was determined to "go ahead on thepath of civilization without rest and without fear". His owninimitable summary of his achievements was expref.'3ed inthe following words: "A ruined country overlooking aprecipice ... bloody engagements ... long years of war ... and


then a new country, a new society, a new State, brought topass by incessant reforms, which have won esteem both athome and abroad. This is a short epitome of the TurkishRevolution, as a whole." This summary is conspicuous bythe absence of any reference to the man who brought aboutthis great change. He said: "Our country will become out-and-out modem, civilized and new ... The masses want tobe prosperous, free and affluent ... The nation has decidedto adopt, thoroughly and in the same form and essence, thelife and the means which contemporaneous civilizationhas assured to all nations. The nation is determined not topermit centuries-old varieties of he and fraud to retard, fora moment, its efforts in the sphere of innovation and re-form ... We cannot liye within an orbit, shut off from therest of the world. For nations, which persist in conservingcertain traditions and beliefs which cannot stand the testof reason, it is not only difficult, but also impossible, to prog-ress." The modern Turkish society, with its new script, natio-nal history, purified language, progressing art, advancedmusic and technical institutions as well as equality of menand women were the products of this understanding. Thesereforms were, at times, criticized for dealing with the above-structure trivia. But in the context of Atatrk's time andplace, they signified a cultural transformation, with pro-found symbolic meaning.

Secularism meant the emancipation from the dungeonof thoughts which Atatrk believed his people were impri-soned. The proper way for such release was free researc-hing and debating of creative minds. Having felt the limitsof non-secular life since childhood, Mustafa Kemal brokewith the hegemony of the mystic and scholastic thought.In his natiye Macedonia, he witnessed how the Turkishcommunity was exploited; he saw the instrumentality oftraditional and repressive framework in this exploitation.Atatrk's later scientific approach and democratic unders-tanding of society are linked with his secular emphasis.Atatrk placed secularism as a fundamental pillar of hisprinciples and equated it with the freedom of thinking, asa method in creating a society and bridging the gap with

1980-1981 KEMALISM 33

the advanced states. He saw in secularism a democraticcontent, an emancipating thought and a new attitude enab-ling one to grasp universal values. Religion could no longerbe decisive in creating social, political, economic, educatio-nal and artistic rules and establishments. Changes wouldbe affected and solutions found on compromise as a resultof the democratic process. No religion could possibly re-gulate such changes, and no progress could be made it leftwithin the confines of beliefs labeled as "sacred". To fightinjustice, repression or poverty or to understand the valueof education, problems of production, constitutional choicesor artistic options, the basis had to be, first and foremost, se-cular. Governing was like a science, just as building a brid-ge or erecting a factory. Secularism was, in short, not onlypossible, but also desirable and inevitabIe in our contempo-rary world. The practical results of this beIief were theabolishing of the Ministy of Shariat, the Mejalla, the ShariatCourts, the madrassahs and some other pious foundationsand the introduction of secular education. In a passionateoutburst, Atatrk had said: "We have got to go on. Andwe are to progress whatever happens. We have no choicenow. Civilization is a blazing fire that burns and destroysall who will not pay allegiance to her!"

Although statism became an officially adopted policyin 1931, the infIuence of the state in economic life was areality since the proclamation of the RepubIic. In the earlyyears of the regime, there was scarcity of capital, know-how and an experience d entrepreneur class. In a long in-terview with the daily Vakit, published on February 18, 1923,Mustafa Kemal put the economic question as the root causeof Turkey's rise and fall. Recalling Attornan history in somedetail, he expounded how a gigantic empire was built, usingthe Turkish element in it for extending both the Westernand the Eastem frontiers. Obliged to adopt a domestic po-licy to suit such a conduct abroad, the rulers, he reiterated,took it upon themselves to protect the different Ianguages,religions and traditions of the multi-national elements theyhad conquered, and to that end, granted them privilegesand exemptions. As against this, the Turks participated in


protracted campaigns while they should be working in amanner to meet their vital needs in their own homes and intheir own state. The crowned potentates carried the Turksfrom one land to the other, and to please the conqueredpeople, they gaye away many of the rights and resourC'3Sof the Turks as favours, benefactions and bounties. Dasterfollowed when these royal favours were treated as acquiredrights, The foreigners were not content with what they gai-ned. The Grand Porte borrawed from them so much and onsuch exorbitant terms that it was impossible even to payinterest. At last, the finances of the Ottoman State was putunder foreign control.

Atatrk drew several conelusions from the Ottomanexperience. Addressing the residents of the emancipatedtown of Bursa, as printed in the daily Vakit of October 21,1922, he said: "The victory in which you rejoice today waswon by the determination and power of our nation and thebayonets of the Army of the Grand National Assembly. Wewill continue our struggle in the field of economy. We willbecome manufacturers ... "

In 1923, he told another Vakit correspondent that thenew Turkish State would be "an economic state". A yearearlier, he had diselosed the principle of nationalization andsovereignty over the country's weatlh: "One of the mostimportant aims of our economic policy is, as far as our fi-nancial and technical means permit, to nationalize econo-mic institutions and enterprises directly concerned withpublic interests ... " This idea of exploitation of the country'swealth for the good of the people was accompanied by eco-nomic planning, which Turkey was the second state afterthe Soviet Union to apply. Atatrk even introduced the ideaof such planning at the international leveL. In a statementto the daily CumJuriyet of August 26, 1935, he said that itwas essential for every country to bring its efforts for Hsown economic development in line with reasonable, well-conceived, over-all international plans. He believed thatinternational potentialities be so combined as to allow everynation to develop in accordance with its own characteristicsand that every nation be conceded the right to apply, within

1980-1981 J KEMALISM 35

its own confines and with due regard for its own peculiarconditions, the generally accepted ideas as to world econo-mic prosperity.

IV

it is true that many of Mustafa Kemal Atatrk's stepsforward were seen in the Westem family of nations, Foristance, the concept of republicanism was bound up withthe Greek and Roman republics. For centuries, the struggleof the city-states for freedom had kept the republican ideaalive. In the age when Latin was the language of the cul-tured people, the Roman example had even greater effect.The Medieval doctrine was, of course, monarchic. But thebr8ak up of Medieval universalism opened the way forrepublicanism. Both the Renaissance and the Reformationwere important for the revival of the republican ideology.Numerous republican strains may be traced from theEnglish Puritan to the American Declaration of the Inde-pendence. And the ideas of 1789 claimed universal validity.It is also true that the ideas of revolution first appeared inthe American colonies and in Europe. Nationalism, asexpressed in Montesquieu's writings and the French En-lightenment or Volhsgeist of the German romanticists be-long to the West. The modem origins of secularism shouldalso be traced to the later Middle Ages of Westem Europe.And the first examples of secular administrations can befound in the early American states. The original home ofpopulist ideas as well as the interventionist welfare stateis also in Europe.

But the Turks considered Westernization as synony-mous with modernization and "becoming civilised". Theaim was to bring the Turkish society to the level of contem-porary civilisation and culture. Atatrk aspired a new folk,with a rational outlook, characteristic of our age. He wasimbued with goals of a series of transformations that inclu-ded full independence, economic development, industrialtake off, the rule of scientific method over thinking, effec-tive and honest government and the amalgamation of de-mocratic education with republicanism.


To become contemporary meant foremost the maturingof the economic structure and the advancement of indust-rial enterprises. But no economic progress serving thenation as a whole was possible without the full independen-ce of the country. Atatrk knew that there would be foreigninterests wishing to intercede once they were concededsome sort of political or economic presence in the life of thenation. The remodeling of a society on such an independentcourse necessitated trust in the principles of science. There-styling of human relations could no longer be based onsuperstition, but the recognition of the right of science,culture and arts to rest on independent thinking. Such wasalsa the philosophy of education during the Atatrk era.

Modernization is, of course. not a geographical term;it is the totality of socio-economic structure. History teac-hes us that civilisation was never und er the monopoly of asingle nation. When Julius Caesar referred to the cannibalsin northern France, China in the Far East and India inSouth Asia were enjoying a magnificent civilisation. WhenEurope was buried in the obscurities of the Dark Ages, Isla-mic civilisation had aIready offered to the cultu;:e of man-kind AviCenna and Averrhoes. Similarly. a group of Wes-tern European states held the torch of enlightenment du-ring a particular stage of histarical development. Wester-nization. if express ed politically, may mean the idea ofdemocraey Cin the sense of parliamentary and party go-vernment) and sovereignty Cin the sense of subordinationof all government organs to a sovereign state); economi-cally, it may indicate the substitution of the factory for thehand loom and home craft.

But the correct evaluation of the West depends, likemany other things, on the acceptance of contradictionswithin it. Such omissions, otherwise, put us in no betterpasition than the blind men who attempt to define anelephant, each touching its trunk, leg or tail. The definitionof anything, as amatter of fact. rests not only on its com-posing factors, but alsa on elements which exert an n-fluence changing its characteristics, personality or identity.Just like a tree has the capacity to turn into coal and earth

1980-1981 KEMALISM 37

as being composed of stems and leaves, the Westem societytoo gathers in itself contradictions in terms of origins aswell as present identity. One sees in the West inquisitionand fascism on the one hand, and rationalism andsocia-lism on the other. Such a conglameration is, doubtless, acomposite of contradictions. But one cannot be content withoversimplifications, either. We have to define the West asa community of states, situated generally along the NorthAtlantic coast, which has destroyed feudalism in the ageof bourgeois democratic revolution and entered the pathof capitalist development in the Eighteenth and NineteenthCenturies. To have entered this path some two-hundredyears ago means that the West has been successful in reali-zing progressive steps required at those histarical moments.The societies that accomplished this forward move certainlyattained economic and political superiority over the rest ofthe world. But this superiority alsa manifested itself ascolonialism and imperialism, against which Mustafa Kemalhad fought and won.

This analysis is, however, no denial of Western contri-butian to humanism. But it certainly takes issue with thepretension that the West is the sole creatar of universalculture. Mustafa Kemal never accepted the assertion thatall the valus which might be termed as humanistic contri-butions had originated from the West and that the non-Westerners were perhaps incapable of making any contri-butian. it was him who gave self-assurance and dignity tothe Turks. He believed in the innate abilities of his nation.He said that the leadership derived its entire ardour, enligh-tenment and strength of conscience from the people. Therewas an attempt to systematize Kemalism as an originalmavement, that could be an example to the other develo-ping nations.

vThe Kadro mavement of 1933 and 1934 was an intellec-

tual drive, introduced by a monthly review bearing the sa-me name, to systematize the principles of Kemalism. it wasbrought out by six Turkish intellectuals, who believed that

i

38 THE TURKISH YEARBOOK IVOL. XX

revolutionary Turkey was based on principles peculiar tcitself, but these theories needed to be elaborated as a systemof thought. Kadro was published to serve this very purpose.This author's evaIuation that follows is based on the ori-ginal issues of the said reviewand alsa on private talkswith two of its leading initiators, namely, evket SreyyaAydemir (1887-1876) and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanolu(1889-1974).

One of the two leading intellectuals of the Kadro move-ment was evket Sreyya Aydemir, whose life looked as ifit was an axis of the great movements of his time. Apartfrom his brilliant autobiography, The Man in Search ofWater (Suyu Arayan Adam), his works on Enver Paa(three vols.l , Mustafa Kemal (The Unique Man, three vols.l,smet nn (The Second Man, three vols.) and AdnanMenderes (The Drama of Menderes) may actually be con-sidered a series connecting the events and problems of thelast one-hundred years, written in a resplendentstyle. Bornin Edirne (Adrianople), a historlc town on the farthest Euro-pean frontier of Turkey, he found himself as a young (bareseventeen) teacher serving in the Caucasus and embroiledin the Pan-Turkic mavement of the early 191O's. He hadgone to the Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan to help unite theTurks on the basis of language and race, but he himselfhad fallen there under the influence of anather movement,namely, the Bolshevik Revolution, which had engulfed theCaucasus in the early 1920's. Consequent1y, he participatedin the First Congress of the Asian Peoples in Baku (Sep-tember 1920) and in the Azerbaijan Soviet. Bocoming amember of the Turkish and the Soviet Communist Parties,he spent same years in Moscow studying economics atthe newly-established Asian Peoples University. Upon re-turning to Turkey, he started writing in the progressiveAydnll?' (Enlightenmentl.

But gradually adapting himself to the Turkish envi-ronment, he started to believe that new Turkey would pro-bably follow a line of development peculiar to itself, thatit will not experience a classical capitalism, but will resortmore and more to state Ieadership and intervention. He

1980-1981 1 KEMALISM 39

expressed thse views Cin page 24), as early as 1924, whenhe and Prof. Sadreddin Celal published Lenin and Leninism,on the occas ian of the passing away of the Soviet leader.Such views later led to schism with his own party and theComintern. This did not, however, prevent his arrest andconviction to ten years by a court in front of which he de-fended univrsal socialism. He re-gained his freedam inabout a-year-and-a-half, just enough for him to preparetwo works entitled "Alternatives of Economic Developmentfor Present-Day Turkey" and "Altwnatives of PoliticalDevelopment for Contemporary Turkey". He was arrestedonce more, but acquitted at the and, the four-months impri-sonment in betwen giving him the opportunity to prparea paper on "The Periodical Cycles of the Turkish Currncyand the Need for a Central Bank".

evket Sreyya was aIready systematizing same wor-kable hypothesis for Turkish economic development whenhe was given a pasition in the Ministry of Education. Theelementary train of thought, traceabl in the future issuesof the monthly Kadro, was summarized in a talk by him,on January 15, 1931, delivered at the Turkish Club in An-kara. In his talk, which evket Sreyya entitled as "theTurkish Revalutian and !ts Principles", he underlined thatTurkey was still going through a revalutian, that this wasneither an administrative change, nar mere reform, andthat it had international significance in terms of its origi-nality and influences. He defended the view that it passes-sed all required theories, which was not yet systematized.He suggested that a dynamic cadre of thinkers ought toarrange, organize and classify the principles of our revalu-tian and lead it to further conquests to meet the demandsof the time. This talk is generally regarded as the beginningof the Kadro mavement.

The other creatar of the Kadro was Yakup Kadri, aleading novelist and a prominent man of letters. Same fo-reign critics have told this writer that Yakup Kadri wasamong the greatest writers of our century. Each one of hisnovels was a penetrating study of a different era. In TheRented Mansion (Kiralk Konak), he analyzed the declining


life of the Tanzimat; in The Night of Decision (Hkm Ge-cesi) , he appraised the breakdown of the Union and ProgressMavement of the Parliamentary period; in Sodom and Go-mora, he brought to the open the life of stanbul und eroccupation; in the Alien (Yaba.n), he contrasted the Anato-Uan peasant with the educated towns-people; and in An-kara, he compared the two states of the city during andaf ter the War of Liberation. Yakup Kadri assessed eachdecade, with i15political and social characteristics, coupledwith the perception of an analytical man-of-letters whocould draw superb literary profiles. Yakup Kadri was thelink between Atatrk and the board of writers of themonthly review. it was him who defended the views ofthis group of six intellectuals in front of Mustafa KemaL.Part of Yakup Kadri's memoirs mayalsa be found in theArtificial Diplomat (Zoraki Diplomat). covering his ambas-sadorship to Albania, Iran and Switzerland.

The Kadro mavement recognized Atatrk as the leaderof the Turkish Revalutian. However, the elite had failed toarrange methodically the principles that govemed thedeeds of the leader. The need for systematization, firstmentloued by evket Sreyya in a talk in 1931,was furtherelaborated in his Revalutian and the Cadre (nklap veKadro) and in the issues of the monthly review.

What were the theses elaborated in them? Contempo-rary society in the world) had a signal and dominant cont-radiction. that is, the struggle between capitalism and itsproduct, the proletarian class. According to this view, thecolonies and the semi-colonies were only passive and de-pendent entities. The socialist theory expected them to playa subordinate, an inferior role in support of the workingclass. Kadro differed in this interpretation. it maintainedthat Turkey could pass through a dissimilar route thanone saw in the contemporary industrialized societies of theWest. Kadro maintained that (a) Turkey could avoid theintensive class struggles that Europe had experienced, andthat (b) the colonies and the semi-colonies could play amuch more substantial, significant and self-reliant rolethan envisaged by the dominant socialist thinking of the

1900-1981 KEMALISM 41

time. According to the Kadro movement, then, there weretwo, and not just one, international contradictions or conf-licts. In the second conf1ict, Turkey had aIready taken itsplacej moreover, Turkey was leading a movement. it hadaIready taken a position, in favour of the colonies and thesemi-colonies against the Western metropoles and had sol-ved that conflict (within its own national boundaries) infavour of the former. Kadro maintained that the most dis-tinctive mark of Kemalism was its anti-imperialistic cha-racter. By virtue of what it had accompIished, this countrywas aIready an example, aleader to the group of societiesthat resembled it. Mustafa Kemal had emphasized as earlyas 1923: "The present struggle of Turkey does not belongto Turks only. The cause defended by us is the very causeof aLLoppressed nations of the East." And again he said:"I see the awakening of the Eastem peoples as I now seethe sun rising at daybreak. Imperialism and colonia1smwill be swept of the globe, and n their place will rise anera, inspired by a new understanding of concordance andcollaboration, where there shall be no discrimination ofcolour or race."

According to the Kadro, the historical mission of Tur-key was two-fold: (1) to be a successful example, for theentire dependent peoples, in frustrating imperialismj and(2) to eliminate the gigantic contradictions and conflictsthat the typical industrialized Western capitaIist countrieshave 8xperienced. In short, Kadro believed that such greatinternal upheavals could be avoided. In the Western coun-tries, where prlvate enterprise was the center of economicactivity, no miraele had yet been achieved to prevent inter-class conflict, Kadro maintained. One can see a drive tocreate a "elassless society" without going through classstruggles in Atatrk's speeches and attitudes as mu ch asin the objective f10w of the Turkish experience. But thisrequired a systematization and a methodology that shouldbe developed by an active group of cadres of leadership.This strategy necessitated, above all, an interventioniststate that would bring together all significant economicactivity that involved advanced technique and big capital.it meant planned statism encompassing not only economie


life, but alsa education, health, construction and similartopics important for the society at large.

The Kadro defended these views issue after issue, ablyand without falling into contradictions. Its main contribu-tion, namely, the analysis pertaining to the significance ofmovements of national liberation and Turkey's place inthem, may be summarized as follows: (l) The movementsof national liberation are, by virtue of their historical origin,the results of an economic and political conflict betweenthe colonizing countries on the one hand, and the coloniesas well as the semi-colonies on the other. This conflict ema-nates from the very conditions created by the applicationof machinery to industry and the concentration of such in-dustry in the hands of a few foreign centers. (2) The aimof the movements of national liberation is to elimina-te thiscontradiction, namely, the dependence of a group of coun-tries and peoples on a set of others. (3) The removal of thisconflict is possible not by an introverted passivity of thedependent societies, but by the active and armed, nationalstruggle of the same a:gainst the dominant states. (4) Theownership of the means of production lies at the basis ofthe conflict. To avoid falling from one contradiction toanother, (following victory at the end of a national struggle)it is necessary to put advanced technologyand importanteconomic activity under the control of the whole society. Inshort, the purpose of the movements of national liberationare two-fold : externally, to eliminate political and economicdependence of foreign centers; and internally, to do awaywith class domination aand hence with class struggles. (5)Anather histarical mission of the national liberation mo-vements is to bring to an end feudal relations and rem-nan ts of institutions that suit the Middle Ages as much asto prevent the birth of a new class war between capital andlabour. Kadro aimed not at the prevention of the strugglesof the working men, but the dominatian of the privateentreprenseurs. it was their belief that any movement ofnational liberation unable to eradicate these two contra-dictions would, in the final analysis, be termed as deficient,incompetent and reactionary. (6) The Turkish national li-beration movement, likewise, aims at a classless society

1980-1981 i KEMALISM 43

nationally and the removal of the world conflict interna-tionaIly. (7) All the colonial and semi-colonial peoples, irres-pective of race and language, are expected to unite in thisdouble aim. (8) A mavement of national liberation is notonly 80 political, economic or 80 legal matter; it is an act ofre-birth of all nations participating or expected to partici-pate in such a movement. (9) Such movements hold highthe independence and sovereignty of the nation. What isat stake is not only the conquest of such independence andsovereignty, but also their maintenance and development.Such an aim, by virtue of its nature, is against individualis-tic, group or class hegemonies. (10) Turkey is a represen-tative of national liberation, because that country has ta-kGn up arms against colonialism, which is one of the grea-test conflicts of our time, and has als o brought down frompower the forces which represented the very conflict in thedomestic seene.

A detailed ddense of these views were taken up by theKadro. it tried to define, for the first time among the ThirdWorld countries, the place, the importance, the characte-ristics and the probable results of the national liberationmovements and modern Turkey's connection to them. Kadrohas considered itself 80 Kemalist publication. it believeditself to be loyal to the mission of explaining to the Turksand the world at large the system of Mustafa KemaJ.'sthought and actions. it defended the progressive and theconstructive aspects of the Turkish Revolution.

There is no dOll'bt that the most distinctive mark ofKemalism was its anti-imperialistic character. The TurkishRevolution ha,s been a source of inspiration for the elitesand the people of the former colonies in Asia and Africa.Turkey's option for statism in the early 1930's related toideological commitments lying at the basis of the newRepublic. It alsa derived from 80 pragmatic considerationof the country's economic experiences during the first de-cade of Republica,n rule. it was assumed that the stateenterprises would be more "national" than capitalist for-mations and that the state would not encourage the exploi-tation of the worker. Moreover, the Western economy, ba-


sed on free enterprise, was going through a big crisis,which made it easier for the Kadro writers to defend theirprinciple of "transition to independent economy". Premiernn's inaugural speech on the Svas railway line, in whichhe emphasized "moderate statism", indicated a search fora new scheme of economic policies. An artiele written bynn for the Kadro, entitled "The Statist Character of OurParty", reiterated the necessity for the state to lead theprocess of industrialization. Alsa, there was no sizable pri-vate capital, at that time, that could be nationalized. Owingto the effects of world economic crisis, Turkey had sufferedextreme price faIls in agrarian products. FinaIly, Atatrk'sfact-finding tour of the country between October 1930 andMarch 1931 had convinced him of the need of state inter-ventian to Iift the peasant out of his poverty. At its 1931ConvEmtion, the principle of statism was identified as adistinguishing feature of the Republican People's Party,and in 1937, the same beeame a Constitutional artiele. TheStatc Plan, completed in 1932, laid emphasis on state fi-nancing of investments, produetion and marketing intextile, mining, chemicals, paper mill and ceramies. Turkeyavoided the web of internationalloans and seeured a growthrat e of about 9 %.

The Kadro mavement was a signifieant attempt tosecure the systematization of the Turkish Revalutian. it wasprotected by Atatrk and nn, but eritieism and eomp-laints about the Kadro were often made to both. Same Left-wingers described it as adiversion from the Left, and sameRight-wingers considered it outright Marxist. Diseussionover it did not cease even after the Kadro stopped publi-cation in 1934.

Whatever impaet Kemalism might have made in theworld, espeeiaIly in terms of providing a model for anti-imperialistie struggle and of development, the Turkish na-tion had found in Mustafa Kemal Atatrk what it waswaiting for the last two-hundred years. Same nations pro-duce, at eritical periods, just the man to match the chaIlen-ge of time. Such was the fortune of Turkey. With elearvisian, Atatrk refashioned anatian.

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