TURKISH PEOPLE COMBATING AMERICAN SLAVERY
D. Bilen
The so-called Democratic Party in Turkey came to power in May 1950. The defeat of the Popular Republican Party and the advent to power of the Democratic Party corresponded to the wishes of both the Turkish reactionaries and their transatlantic masters—the U.S. imperialists. The ex-President of the Turkish landlord-bourgeois republic and Chairman of the Popular Republican Party, Ismet Inonu, frankly admitted that in the matter of suppressing the discontent of the people “the Democratic Party had done more than the state of siege”, so frequently imposed by the Republican Party. This is understandable. Djelal Bayar, the newly elected President of the Turkish Republic, and head of the Democratic Party is a banker and millionaire. For many years he was Minister of Economy.
Bayar always shielded the fascist pan-Turks and was notorious for his hatred of the working class and the Communist Party. He was the author of the anti-working class “Labour Code” and one of the inspirers of the policy of Turkisation of the national minorities. While Prime Minister, Bayar launched military operations against the Kurds who rose in struggle for their rights and during the bloody crusade in 1937-1938 annihilated 170,000 Kurds in the area of Dersima.
In the sphere of foreign policy Bayar first orientated himself on Hitler Germany and British colonisers and later on the American imperialists.
Turkey’s present Prime Minister Menderes—one of the 6,500 big landlords—is a fanatical adherent of the insane plan for a “Great Turkey”.
Koprulu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is the leader of the pan-Turks, and, like Menderes, raves about a “Great Turkey” the borders of which would at least extend to the Danube and the Volga.
The Democratic Party, the party of the big comprador bourgeoisie and landlords of Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul, is closely linked economically and politically with the foreign imperialists and has always sided with the most aggressive forces of international reaction, to the detriment of the national interests of the country. In the period of its activity as an opposition democratic party it supported and effected all the reactionary measures of the Popular Republican Party, directed against the workers, peasants and progressive elements in the country. The Democratic Party always stood for the complete conversion of Turkey into an appendage of American imperialism.
The anti-people’s policy of the ruling Democratic Party, its servility before its Washington and London masters became manifest immediately after the defeat of the Popular Republican Party at the elections. Addressing not the Turkish people, which the ruling clique regards as its enemy, but the U.S. and British representatives in Ankara, Bayar declared: “We shall spare no effort to make the results of our policy satisfy our American and British friends.”
The “satisfaction” of the warmongers and plunderers of foreign wealth found expression in the application of the “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan”. In return for the “aid” in keeping with the “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan”, the Turkish Government, complying with the demand of the American senator Caine, finally agreed—without even seeking the consent of the Mejlis, to support the illegal decision of the Security Council and to send 4,500 Turkish soldiers to assist the American robbers in Korea. Thus, the Turkish rulers have openly aligned themselves with the aggressive war of the American imperialists in Korea.
Evaluating the military operations against the freedom-loving Korean people as the beginning of the bloody crusade of American imperialism against the forces of democracy and Socialism, the Turkish Government has with slavish servility, volunteered to become a partner in this international crime. Turkey’s representative in UNO, Sarpar, stated at a press conference that Turkey would be able to place two million men at the disposal of the participants of the Atlantic Pact. Moreover, the Turkish Government has replaced the Turkish Generals who did not suit the Americans; it decided, on orders from Washington, to accelerate the modernisation (i.e. Americanisation) of the Army; it held military manoeuvres and advocates in every possible way a crusade against the Soviet Union, the People’s Democracies and the national liberation movement of the peoples oppressed by imperialism.
The Turkish Government has deprived Turkey of independence, by placing the Army, the economy and finances, of the country, in keeping with the “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan”, at the disposal of the American expansionists.
Under the flag of “aid” the American military mission has actually laid its hands on Turkey’s armed forces and, through the medium of the “Marshall Plan”, the American economic mission directs and controls in the interests of finance capital and above all in the interests of the U.S. Army staff, construction of roads, aerodromes, ports and Turkey’s entire economy. American corporations such as the “International Bank for Reconstruction and Development”, “Chase National Bank”, “Dillon Read Co.”, “Socony Vacuum Oil Co.”, “General Electric” and others are seizing Turkish copper, chrome, tin, coal, oil, cement and the steel industry.
The “Bank for Industrial Development”, fifty per cent of the capital of which is in the hands of American monopolies, was established in order more effectively to exploit and subordinate Turkish economy.
American businessmen succeeded, with the hands of the Turkish Government, in abolishing the tariffs which, to a certain extent, protected the development of the national industry. The Turkish market is flooded with American goods that cannot find a sale in the U.S.A. The Turkish lira has been subordinated to the dollar.
This betrayal of the national interests and the imperialist domination have led to inflation and to the closing down of many enterprises. In the towns of Marash, Burdur and Anteb alone, 16,000 cottage weavers have been ruined. Unable to compete the American goods, Turkish silk and cotton production is in a state of collapse.
The peasants are also being ruined. Tobacco growers were unable to sell a hundred thousand tons of tobacco because the U.S. saw to it that Turkish tobacco was not allowed to compete with American tobacco on the foreign market. Two hundred and ninety three thousand families engaged in tobacco growing are on the verge of ruin. Starvation is rife in the Turkish countryside.
Meanwhile military expenditure in Turkey is growing. In the period from 1947 to 1950 that is, the period of the operation of American “aid” in accordance with the “Truman doctrine” the Turkish Government, on orders from Washington, spent two billion three hundred million lira on the militarisation of the country—two and a half times the American “aid” received.
The increased military expenditure is accompanied by increases in the already unbearable tax burden shouldered by the working people. In 1951 a total of two billion two hundred million lira will be exacted from the population for the State and local budgets.
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Preparing for aggressive war against the countries of democracy and Socialism, the Turkish reactionaries and their masters—the American imperialists—are aging an unbridled campaign against both the progressive forces of the country struggling for national freedom, for peace, against the warmongers and against the countries of people’s democracy and Socialism. However, despite the persecutions and extraordinary measures undertaken by the Turkish Government and Washington, the movement against War enjoys the wholehearted support of the Turkish population.
In connection with the war in Korea unleashed by the American aggressors and the drawing in of Turkey into this unjust, predatory war, a Turkish Peace Society was set up in July, on the initiative of the Turkish intelligentsia. Members of this Society include Behidge Boran, reader in Ankara University and well known progressive personality in Turkey, Adian Djemgil Reshat Selim, Kemal Anil, Kemal Iozmiris and the Istanbul lawyer Vahdeddin Barut.
The Turkish Peace Society addressed a call to the Turkish people in which it stated that the “preservation of peace, viewed from the standpoint of the future of our country is a vital necessity” and that a most urgent matter for the Turkish people is the demand for “outlawing weapons of mass annihilation of the civilian population”
The Peace Society circulated an appeal and forwarded a letter to the Turkish Government protesting against the unlawful dispatch of Turkish troops to Korea.
Exposing the anti-popular policy of the Turkish Government which is heading for war for the sake of the interests of American finance capital, the newspaper “Barysh”—organ of the Turkish Peace Society—wrote “this time, however, the warmongers will not take the nation by surprise”, the “people are aware of the need to struggle for peace and they understand that this struggle must be organised.” “The Turkish people,” the newspaper continued, “want peace. They know that peace is the path which leads to happiness, life and freedom.”
A number of other newspapers also published articles in defence of peace and against the dispatch of Turkish troops to Korea. But Turkey’s ruling circles and above all its Government formed from representatives of the Democratic Party who have sold themselves entirely to the American warmongers, proclaimed the Turkish Peace Society a “dangerous” organisation, arrested its members, banned the newspaper “Barysh” and all other newspapers which defended peace and opposed the dispatch of Turkish soldiers to Korea. The editors of these newspapers were put on trial.
The repressions failed to intimidate the peace partisans, the fighters for the national independence of Turkey: The appeal of the Turkish Peace Society met with a warm response among broad sections of the Turkish people. In Istanbul alone, 25,000 leaflets were circulated calling the people to struggle for peace and tens of thousands of signatures to the Stockholm Appeal were collected in a short space of time. The Appeal was circulated in Ankara, Aydin, Izmir, Balikesir, Erzurum and Kiga. Workers, peasants, merchants, intellectuals and eminent workers in culture and art have signed the Stockholm Appeal.
The Turkish reactionary press has begun to write about a “cold revolt of the people”. The Prime Minister has had to admit that protests against the dispatch of troops to Korea are resounding even in remote villages.
In 25 towns through which the trainloads of Turkish soldiers passed en route to Korea, the population strongly demonstrated against the Korean adventure. On the walls of buildings and on the railway wagons inscriptions appeared: “The sons of the Turkish people will not shed their blood in Korea for the Yankee imperialists!”, “Korea for the Koreans!”, “Hands off Korea!”, “The Turkish people protest against the decision of the Government of the Democratic Party servilely carrying out Washington orders!”.
The struggle of the Turkish people for peace, against the dispatch of troops to Korea, is linked with the struggle for national independence. According to Turkish newspapers, propaganda—oral and written (leaflets, proclamations and calls)—directed against the lawlessness of the imperialists in Turkey—is carried on everywhere, in the schools, youth organisations, higher educational establishments, in office and factory. Thus, the newspapers “Djumhuriet” reported that in the town of Bursa leaflets were circulated among the workers strongly protesting against the “Marshall Plan”. The leaflets emphasised particularly that unemployment in Turkey was the result of the “Marshall Plan”. The newspaper “Zafer” wrote that seven workers in the Sivas locomotive repair shop circulated a proclamation which read: “We, railwaymen will not take our brothers to the slaughter in the interests of the American imperialists and Turkish millionaires.”
There is not a place in Turkey where the people are not beginning to understand how fatal is the anti-national policy pursued by the Turkish Government. According to the reactionary newspaper “Ulus” the “propaganda wave”, i.e. the dissatisfaction of the Turkish people, “is spreading from town to countryside” and is directed against the “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan”.
The people’s movement in Turkey is headed by the Communist Party operating underground. The Communist Party is fighting for the unification of all anti-imperialist forces into a single national front. As is evident from statements in the Turkish press, the Communist Party of Turkey demands in appeals circulated throughout the country: annulment of all enslaving agreements with the American imperialists refusal to support the “Truman Doctrine” and the “Marshall Plan” a purge of the State apparatus and the Army of foreign “experts” and “advisers”; establishment of friendly relations with the People’s Democracies and Turkey’s great neighbour—the Soviet Union; discussion and approval in the Mejlis of the Stockholm Appeal; repudiation of all anti-democratic laws; recognition of the right of the workers lo form legal political organisations.
With the spread of the peace movement and the intensification of the struggle of the Turkish people against the American expansionists, the Turkish reactionaries launched a new attack against all progressive organisations in the country, declaring that the main danger comes from the propaganda of the Turkish Communists, their demand for peace and for democratic liberties for the people.
No fascist methods of repressions, no provocations on the part of the Turkish reactionaries and their transatlantic master can halt the struggle of the Turkish people for peace and national independence!
Source: For a Lasting Peace, For a People’s Democracy,
NO. 41 (101), FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1950
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