ECCI MANIFESTO ON TURKEY

25 September 1922 Inprekorr, ii, 189, p. 1251, 27 September 1922

[Early in 1920 Kemal and his supporters established a centre in Ankara, independent of Constantinople, with a programme of fighting for national independence. Small British forces occupied Constantinople in March. In April 1920 Kemal established a rival government and made friendly overtures to Russia. The Allied peace terms for Turkey, published in May 1920, drew the Kemalists and Bolsheviks closer together. 

In the summer of 1921 Greek forces, supported by the British, advanced against the Turks in Anatolia. Kemal's counter-attack, launched in May 1922, ended with the complete defeat of the Greeks, but the British garrison remained in Constantinople. 

In their war with Greece the Turks received material and moral support from Russia; the danger of further hostilities was avoided by agreement to negotiate a new peace treaty to replace the Sevres treaty and a new regime for the Straits. These were concluded at the Lausanne conference in 1923. On 24 September 1922, that is, the day before this manifesto, the Soviet Commissariat for Foreign Affairs had addressed a Note to a number of countries, including Britain and France, interpreting British policy as a threat to Turkey and Russia, and warning them 'against repeating the mistakes which arise from ignoring the vital interests of the States concerned' in deciding the future of the Straits. 'No decision taken without Russia will be final and enduring.'

 In an article published early in October 1922 Radek explained that Russia supported Turkey, firstly, because 'everything that strengthens the Eastern peoples, oppressed and exploited by international imperialism, also strengthens Soviet Russia, which is threatened by the same danger', and secondly, because Russia was 'deeply interested in ensuring that the ships carrying grain to Russia (sic) and oil from Russia should not be held up by orders from the British Ad-miralty.']

PEACE TO THE TURKISH PEOPLE WAR ON EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM 

Men and women workers! 

Events of the greatest historical import are developing in the Near East. The capitalists of the victorious Entente have condemned the Turkish people to death. They have torn Turkey in pieces and surrounded it with a ring of States which, too weak to exist in their own right, are condemned to be perpetually incited against the Turkish people, hounds acting for the Entente. Constantinople, the Turkish capital, became an Allied war camp. English and French warships trained their guns on it. Turkey was to be for ever at the mercy of Allied arms. But, inspired by the sight of the fighting and triumphant Red Army, the Turkish people, although exhausted by a series of wars, took to the battle and have for three years defended themselves. They put the Greek army, equipped by England, to flight. With the exception of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, Asia Minor has been freed from foreign armies. The victory of the Turkish army demonstrates again that the power of tyrants is not unbounded, and that the chains of slavery forged at Versailles break like glass when nations rise for their freedom. 

But the defeat of England's vassal Greece does not mean the final defeat of Entente imperialism. Constantinople and the Dardanelles are still in the hands of the Allies. That means that the Allies can still not only threaten Turkey but use the Dardanelles to send their warships into the Black Sea against Soviet Russia. 

English imperialism has the impudence to threaten a new war in the name of the freedom of the seas if Turkey should dare to occupy its capital and the shores of its own country. It is not many years since the blood of English and Australian workers was shed in Gallipoli in order that English imperialism might rule Russia and Turkey. But English imperialism again dares to threaten the world with a new war. If it succeeds in carrying out its threats it will be the blood not only of English and Turkish soldiers but other people's too that will flow. In the last few years France has helped Turkey because as a competitor it wanted to weaken England's position in the East and use this to bargain for freedom to exploit the German people. But if it should come to a showdown, if Turkey were to stretch out its hands to the shores of the Straits, France would be on England's side, because French imperialism fears to lose England's help in the exploitation of Germany. It can demonstrate against England but it cannot break with English imperialism. Thus the French workers too would have to fight again for the joint rule of the Entente. But the war would not be restricted to these peoples. The Entente would drag in Serbia and Rumania, Italy and Greece, and the fire once started in the Balkans would spread further and again make Europe into one vast battlefield. If that were to be avoided by Turkish surrender it would only mean that the war in the Near East would be postponed. Turkey cannot exist with the knife of the Entente in its back, and Russia is not secure so long as its grain and coal areas are within the operational scope of the English navy. 

The Turkish Government is not a government of workers and peasants; it is a government of the officer class, a government of intellectuals, a government which certainly does not correspond to our ideals. There is therefore no doubt that as Turkey develops economically the Turkish working class will have to fight against the government. But the Turkish workers understand that, whatever their attitude to this government, Turkey's fight is the fight of a poor peasant people against enslavement by international capital, and the international proletariat must in its own interest and regardless of its attitude to the Turkish government, do everything it can to prevent Entente imperialism from taking up arms again against Turkey and from shedding the blood of the European proletariat once more in the interests of English world domination. 

Men and women workers, and, above all, workers of England, France, Italy, Serbia, and Rumania. It is your duty to fight with all your strength against any attempt at military action against Turkey. It is your duty to use all your forces to prevent the Entente from forcing Turkey to abandon the Straits to the Allies which would be the prelude to new wars. The questions now being decided in the Near East are questions of life and death, not only for the people living on the Black Sea but also for the European proletariat. 

Down with English imperialism! Freedom and peace to the Turkish people! Down with new imperialist wars! Down with the diplomatic hucksters!