Ataturk

Mustafa Kemal was born into a lower middle class Turkish family in Salonica in the

Ottoman Empire in 1881. He gravitated toward a military career, in which he

distinguished himself. He excelled at mathematics in military secondary school and

received from his teacher the sobriquet Kemal, meaning perfection. The Young Turks,

who ruled the Ottoman Empire, brought it into W.W.I on the side of Germany and

Austria-Hungary. Kemal played a key role in the defense of the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915

against the mainly Franco-British effort to occupy it, force the Straits, and knock the

Ottoman Empire out of W.W.I. In spite of his heroics, the Entente Powers defeated the

Central Powers and proceeded to strip the Ottoman Empire of its provinces and to divide

Turkey itself into spheres of influence. Nationalistically-minded and emerging as Turkey's

best general, Kemal would not accept the dismemberment of Turkey, so he raised the

standard of revolt in 1919. He was able to frustrate the powers through a combination of

astute diplomacy and military action, the latter especially directed against the Greeks, who

had aspirations of a revived Byzantine Empire that included part of Turkey. Consequently,

he had emerged by 1921 as the undisputed leader of an independent Turkey.

As the longtime president of Turkey until his death in 1938, Mustafa Kemal then

embarked on a program of modernization, which he equated with Westernization. He was

influenced in this respect by the tradition of Westernizing reforms in the Ottoman Empire

such as those of Sultan Mahmud II and of the Tanzimat in the 19th century. The Young

Ottomanism of Namik Kemal also affected him with the stress on patriotism and liberty. 1

Mustafa Kemal abolished the sultanate and established the Turkish Republic. He

disestablished Islam as part of his secularizing policy. Women were encouraged to give up

the veil and gained the right to vote by 1934. Cultural reforms included the adoption of

the Latin alphabet for the Turkish language and of family names. Kemal was voted the

name Ataturk (Father Turk) by the Grand National Assembly.

Ataturk's legacy has continued to influence modern Turkey greatly. His Westernizing

reforms kept Turkey on a course of orienting towards Europe that continued after his

death such as in joining NATO and seeking membership in the European Union. On the

other hand, the rapid pace of his reforms meant that many in the rural areas particularly

were left behind. 2 This has been reflected in the electoral support for Islamist parties.

Although elected as president, Ataturk functioned as a benevolent dictator. This dictatorial

tendency has been continued in the form of military interventions when the army has felt

the Islamist political parties have threatened Kemalism. Ataturk followed a pacific foreign

policy that eschewed pan-Turanism (unity of Turks) and similar imperialistic ambitions.

Internally, however, his stress on the Turkish racial component of nationalism has led to

Kurdish disaffection. The following selection is from the platform of the Republican

People's Party, the party of Ataturk, and illustrates the six principles or arrows of

Kemalism.

1 Jacob M. Landau, Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1984), p.

27. 2 Lord Kinross, Ataturk (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1978), pp. 569-70.

Program of the People's Party of the Republic-Adopted by the Fourth Grand Congress of

the Party, May 1935 3

The fundamental ideas that constitute the basis of the Program of the Republican Party of

the People are evident in the acts and realizations which have taken place from the

beginning of our Revolution until today.

On the other hand, the main ideas have been formulated in the general principles of the

Statutes of the Party, adopted also by the Grand Congress of the Party in 1927, as well as

in the Declaration published on the occasion of the elections to the Grand National

Assembly in 1931.

The main lines of our intentions, not only for a few years, but for the future as well, are

here put together in a compact form. All of these principles which are the fundamentals of

the Party constitute Kamalism [sic].

PART 1

Principles

1The Fatherland

2The Nation

3The Constitution of the State

4The Public Rights

1THE FATHERLAND. The Fatherland is the sacred country within our present

political boundaries, where the Turkish Nation lives with its ancient and illustrious history,

with its past glories still living in the depths of its soil.

The Fatherland is a Unity which does not accept separation under any circumstance.

2THE NATION. The Nation is the political Unit composed of citizens bound together

with the bonds of language, culture and ideal.

3CONSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE. Turkey is a nationalist,

populist, etatist, secular [laique], and revolutionary Republic.

The form of administration of the Turkish nation is based on the principle of the unity of

power. There is only one Sovereignty, and it belongs to the nation without restriction or

condition.

The Grand National Assembly exercises the right of sovereignty in the name of the nation.

The legislative authority and the executive power are embodied in the Grand National

3 Donald Everett Webster, The Turkey of Ataturk: Social Progress in the Turkish Reformation

(Philadelphia: The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1939), pp. 307-18.

Assembly. The Assembly exercises its legislative power itself. It leaves its executive

authority to the President of the Republic, elected from among its members, and to the

Council of Ministers appointed by him. The courts in Turkey are independent.

The Party is convinced that this is the most suitable of all State organizations.

4PUBLIC RIGHTS.

(a) It is one of the important principles of our Party to safeguard the individual and social

rights of liberty, equality, of inviolability, and of property. These rights are within the

bounds of the State's authority. The activity of the individuals and of legal persons shall

not be in contradiction with the interests of the public. Laws are made in accordance with

this principle.

(b) The Party does not make any distinction between men and women in giving rights and

duties to citizens.

(c) The Law on the election of deputies shall be renewed. We find it more suitable to the

real requirements of democracy to leave the citizens free to elect electors whom he knows

well and trusts, in accordance with the general conditions of our country. The election of

the deputies shall take place in this manner.

PART II

THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE

PEOPLE

5The Republican Party of the People is (a) Republican (b) Nationalist (c) Populist (d)

Etatist (e) Secular (f) Revolutionary.

(a) The Party is convinced that the Republic is the form of government which represents

and realizes most safely the ideal of national sovereignty. With this unshakable conviction,

the Party defends, with all its means, the Republic against all danger.

(b) The Party considers it essential to preserve the special character and the entirely

independent identity of the Turkish social community in the sense explained in Art. 2. The

Party follows, in the meantime, a way parallel to and in harmony with all the modern

nations in the way of progress and development, and in international contacts and

relations.

(c) The source of Will and Sovereignty is the Nation. The Party considers it an important

principle that this Will and Sovereignty be used to regulate the proper fulfillment of the

mutual duties of the citizen to the State and of the State to the citizen.

We consider the individuals who accept an absolute equality before the Law, and who

recognize no privileges for any individual, family, class, or community, to be of the people

and for the people (populist).

It is one of our main principles to consider the people of the Turkish Republic, not as

composed of different classes, but as a community divided into various professions

according to the requirements of the division of labor for the individual and social life of

the Turkish people.

The farmers, handicraftsmen, laborers and workmen, people exercising free professions,

industrialists, merchants, and public servants are the main groups of work constituting the

Turkish community. The functioning of these groups is essential to the life and happiness

of the others and of the community.

The aims of our Party, with this principle, are to secure social order and solidarity instead

of class conflict, and to establish harmony of interests. The benefits are to be

proportionate to the aptitude to the amount of work.

(d) Although considering private work and activity a basic idea, it is one of our main

principles to interest the State actively in matters where the general and vital interests of

the nation are in question, especially in the economic field, in order to lead the nation and

the country to prosperity in as short a time as possible.

The interest of the State in economic matters is to be an actual builder, as well as to

encourage private enterprises, and also to regulate and control the work that is being

done.

The determination of the economic matters to be undertaken by the State depends upon

the requirements of the greatest public interest of the nation. If the enterprise, which the

State itself decides to undertake actively as a result of this necessity, is in the hands of

private entrepreneurs, its appropriation shall, each time, depend upon the enactment of a

law, which will indicate the way in which the State shall indemnify the loss sustained by

the private enterprise as a result of this appropriation. In the estimation of this loss the

possibility of future earnings shall not be taken into consideration.

(e) The Party considers it a principle to have the laws, regulations, and methods in the

administration of the State prepared and applied in conformity with the needs of the world

and on the basis of the fundamentals and methods provided for modern civilization by

Science and Technique.

As the conception of religion is a matter of conscience, the Party considers it to be one of

the chief factors of the success of our nation in contemporary progress, to separate ideas

of religion from politics, and from the affairs of the world and of the State.

(f) The Party does not consider itself bound by progressive and evolutionary principles in

finding measures in the State administration. The Party holds it essential to remain faithful

to the principles born of revolutions which our nation has made with great sacrifices, and

to defend these principles which have since been elaborated.

Questions:

1. What form of government is Kemalism committed to? How does it seem to compare

with the American system of government?

2. The Kemalist economic policy is described as etatist. What roles in it are assigned to the

state and to private enterprise?

3. What is suggested as the Kemalist attitude toward the rights of women and toward the

role of religion in society?