Report to the Sixth Comintern Congress from the Party in Turkey where the Kemalists were steering the country toward capitalist development while conditions for the working class remained impoverished.
‘Report of the Turkish Communist Party’ from The Communist International Between the Fifth and the Sixth Congresses, 1924-28.
THE ECONOMIC SITUATION.
AMONG the countries of the Near East, Turkey has undoubtedly experienced during the last few years the greatest industrial development. The young Turkish bourgeoisie has been greatly supported by the government in its industrial development. Of the existing 1,900 factories, about 400 are subsidised by the government. Many others have been directly established by the government. Simultaneously, the Kemal government is engaged in intensive railway construction, having laid down about 800 kilometres of railways.
The country, however, has not itself sufficient resources to carry out its scheme of industrialisation. The government has, therefore, during the last few years, endeavoured to secure foreign capital through the following measures: (1) drawing in of foreign concessionaires, (2) granting some concessions to the non-Turkish bourgeoisie of Constantinople.
Capitalist development of Turkey proceeds, as everywhere else, at the expense of the toiling masses. Although the Kemalist revolution was successful (owing only to the support given by the peasantry to the bourgeoisie), the situation of the former has not improved. In the Eastern districts political and economic power is still, as formerly, in the hands of the feudalists, the beys and the sheiks. Even the well-known counter-revolutionary rebellion of Turkestan (1925) could not induce the Kemalist government to liquidate feudal landownership in those districts, and it limited itself, as in the rest of Turkey, to punishing some of the feudal elements opposed to the Kemal government.
In the less backward central districts and in South Anatolia the Kemalist agrarian reform (the most important of which is the abolition of the “Ashar,” i.e., the tithes, and its substitution by money-taxes), accelerates differentiation among the peasants, creating on the one hand a class of rich farmers, and on the other impoverishing and pauperising the broad masses of the peasantry. The urban bourgeoisie purchases land from the poor peasants and organises “rational” capitalist farms. Thus, for instance, Mustapha Kemal received from the “grateful” parliament a present of several thousand hectares of land and organised a “model farm.”
The following figures will give an idea of the nature of differentiation now going on in Turkey: 837,000 peasants, possessing less than 5 hectares of land each, have a total of 1,715,000 hectares, viz., only 7.32 per cent. of the total arable soil, whereas 230,000 rich farmers have 7,350,000 hectares or 30.62 per cent. and 33,000 big landowners have 8,650,000 hectares or 36 per cent. and the church possesses 6,285,000 hectares or 26.12 per cent. of the arable land. The landless peasants comprise a vast army of agrarian labourers numbering at least 450,000 families.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
The economic policy of the Kemalists, who aim at the establishment of a strong bourgeois State, is in line with their general home and foreign policy. The ‘People’s Party’ has unlimited power in the country. All other opposition parties, both Right and Left, are broken up or illegal. In the last parliamentary elections of 1927 only candidates of the People’s Party were elected. The population largely abstained at the elections. With regard to the separation of the church from the State, as well as the struggle against religious prejudices, much has been done.
Nevertheless, the secularisation of the church still remains incomplete. The emancipation of women finds expression in several reforms (the removal of the chadra, prohibition of polygamy, etc.), but the women do not yet enjoy full political equality. As far as the national minorities (Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Arabians) are concerned, a chauvinist policy is pursued. Their political rights are limited and they are being forcibly Turkified. The same is true of the Kurds who inhabit the Eastern territories.
State support of industry, the creation of a strong army and a large State apparatus, the extensive public works (construction of railways, building up of a new residential district in Angora), the payments of the old Ottoman debts, lead to ever higher taxes on the peasants, the workers and the petty bourgeoisie. In this connection it is of interest to note the State budget. In 1928 the State budget amounted to £260,000,000 of which £80,000,000 was spent upon the army, the navy, the gendarmerie and the police, constituting 34 per cent. of the budget. For public works £33,000,000 were spent, payments of interest amounted to £18,000,000, while on education only £6,500,000, and on agriculture only £4,000,000 was spent. Most characteristic is also the distribution of the sources of State revenue. Indirect taxes amounted to £71,500,000, direct taxes to £47,800,000, State monopoly (tobacco, salt, liquor, sugar, petroleum, benzin, matches, post, radio, etc.) gave £52,000,000, railways, State land and various industrial enterprises gave £6,000,000.
The foreign policy of Kemalist Turkey is that of manoeuvring between friendship with Soviet Russia and a Western orientation which is recently becoming the more generally accepted policy. As far as the Eastern countries are concerned, it has an agreement with Afghanistan and with Persia which, however, has not prevented border conflicts with Persia in 1927, which were largely fomented by Great Britain. The relations with Greece and Iraq were also tense.
THE POSITION OF THE WORKING CLASS.
In the course of the last few years the number of town workers has considerably increased and is now over 300,000 (the number of agricultural labourers is at least 450,000); real wages have decreased with the growing cost of living; in some cases also nominal wages have declined. The working day lasts from 12-15 hours; long hours prevail, particularly in the textile and tobacco industries. There are no trade unions in the true sense of the word. The existing labour organisations are of a mutual aid character. Many of them are organisations to which both workers and employers belong, the leaders of which are almost all members of the Kemalist Party. Lately, workers are being forced to join these organisations. All labour organisations are under strict government control and are subjected to the fiercest persecution at the least attempt to arouse the workers. There is no organisation on a national scale. The “Amele-Tead-Shimi,” a trade union body to which were affiliated the most progressive sections of the working class, under the influence of the Communist Party, has been forced to close down by the government.
Despite these persecutions of the Jabour movement, a stubborn strike movement took place in 1925-27, being strongest among the transport and communication workers (railwaymen, sailors, telegraph workers, loaders, drivers) and the tobacco workers, It is of interest to note that the labour conflicts in the foreign firms, as for instance in the Adana-Nisibia railway, a French company, had the sympathy and support of the petty bourgeoisie, notwithstanding the government persecutions. However, all labour struggles in the native enterprises are being ruthlessly crushed.
THE ACTIVITY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY.
The illegal young Turkish Communist Party is exposed to fierce persecutions. Nevertheless, in 1924 the influence of the Party among the workers was very great, and the leadership of the strikes was in its hands. In connection with the counter-revolutionary plot in 1924, the Kemalists launched an attack also on the Communist Party, and in 1925 they arrested all known officials of the Party and brought them to trial. Eighteen people were sentenced to an aggregate of 177 years imprisonment. The entire legal press was prohibited and the printing establishments closed. The Party then issued a legal theoretical organ entitled “Eidinlyk” (1,500 copies); a labour organ of the same name (3,000 copies); a weekly paper “Orak-Tshekitsh” (3,000 copies); an illegal organ and five legal pamphlets (a total of 15,000 copies), and several illegal pamphlets. The Party, overestimating the value of Kemalist freedom, legalised its entire apparatus in 1924, and was greatly weakened and disintegrated as a result of this trial.
The persecutions and the ruthless terror which continued also after the trial, together with the weakness of the Party, gave rise to certain Menshevik liquidatory deviations among some of the members of the C.C. The spokesmen of this tendency maintained that, instead of rallying the workers for a political struggle, it is Party, at the end of 1927, about 200 comrades were arrested in Constantinople and other towns. After months of maltreatment in the prisons, 57 were brought to trial, of whom 26 have been sentenced from 2 to 18 months’ imprisonment. At this trial, some members of the C.C. advanced the theory that an illegal necessary to limit ourselves to giving them a “Marxian training.” A best they were in favour of the economic struggle. But also in the economic struggle these comrades showed great apathy. In the greatest strikes as, for instance, the strike of the tobacco workers, the Party played no part whatever. In the struggle of the Constantinople Boatmen against the monopolist Kemalist stock company, which resulted in an armed clash with the police, these party leaders adopted the absolutely inadmissible position of support to the Kemalists on the ground that the boatsmen represent the proletarianised petty-bourgeoise and that it is the task of the Communist Party to accelerate their proletarianisation. The C.C. sabotaged the instructions of the Comintern and the decisions of the conference of 1926. It came out still more openly in favour of the opportunist viewpoint and even insisted on independence from the Comintern. The Comintern was, therefore, compelled to take other measures, as a result of which the situation in the party has improved. All sound elements recognised the line of the Comintern as correct and decided to work jointly for the new line. As a result, Party activity has revived since 1927. Illegal literature has been issued, greater trade union activity has been undertaken, the workers are being drawn into the political struggle (parliamentary elections and election campaigns). Further, a campaign has been launched against compulsory contributions for the Kemalist navy, etc. This campaign was quite successful, about 25,000 workers refusing to make their contributions. The police, however, became aware of the growing influence of the Party and began to make new arrests. In connection with the growing activity of the political fighting party is unnecessary in Turkey in view of the fact that Turkey has a national democratic government. The ex-Secretary of the C.C. was chief witness for the State against the illegal activity of the Party.
On the other hand, the attitude of several other comrades greatly increased the influence of the Party among the workers. Several workers’ demonstrations were organised in front of the court-house which were dispersed by the police.
Despite the cruel imprisonments and persecutions, the comrades who remained free immediately organised with their own forces, a new leading organ, issued several leaflets and continued their work in the spirit of the Comintern.
Since the conference of 1926 the Party has been reorganised. Factory, street, section and district committees have been organised. The nuclei are working quite regularly. Their meetings deal with current political questions and perform propaganda work.
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