Unlike Japant Turkey did not take part in the Second World War but did not totally escape from economic devastations of the war. The Republican Peoplets Party (Cumhuriyet Balk Partisi-CHP) government which then ruled the country under a one party systemt pursued a policy of "activen neutrality during the wart by remaining formally neutral but seeking to enhance its interests by bargaining with both sides of the war.1 This was an important achievement on its ownt especially for a country that just emerged out of the ashes of the First World War. On the contraryt the war had a huge impact on the Turkish economy due to the war mobilization (seferberlik) campaign that was commonly associated with the CHP and President tnonii.2 The outcome was economic depression. In additiont due to the war Turkey lost its most important export market. Turkeyts trade with Germany immediately before the war equaled its trade with ail the other countries combined.3 The hardship that Turkey faced because of war mobilization coupled by excessive secularization policies, the notorious Village Institutest designed to spread the Kemalist Revolution in the countryside 4 damaged the reputation of the CHP among conservative masses of Turkey.s Following the wart Turkey found itself in the midst of a superpower competition between the United States and Soviet Union. This time Turkey did not have . an option to stay neutral. Its choice was to side with the United States and become integrated into the capitalist world economy. For American Cold War strategies, Turkey was an indispensable fortress; for Turkey, alliance with the United States was vital due to perceptions of Soviet expansionist desires as deeply rooted in the Turkish security thinking during the long years of wars between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. Turkey was a significant part of the U.S. security strategies in Europe and the Middle East. Due to its strategic location critical for Russian interests, Turkey had to be protected from the Soviets and be ensured that it remained allied to the United States. In 1947, the Truman Doctrine promised economic aid to Greece and Turkey. The Truman administration asserted that if Greece and Turkey did not receive financial support from the United States, they would inevitably fall to communism with the result being a further communist expansion into Europe and the Middle East. However, as the Turkish critics assert, economically the role that the United States saw as fitting Turkey was to produce agricultural produce and raw material needed for the economic development of West Europe.6The Cold War strategic context did not allow Turkey to seek a multioriented foreign policy. Turkish foreign policy during the Cold War years was largely shaped by structural impediments as a result of the perceived threat from the Soviet Union as well as by the pro-Western orientation of the republic that required close alliance with the United States and Western Europe. It was also not in the mindset of the policymakers to look for alternatives to the secular and pro-Western orientation of the country. There was only one area in which Turkey was willing to protect its interests even at the expense of .its relations with the West: the question of Cyprus. Neither the Kemalist nor the center right parties pursued an independent foreign policy on the Middle East as they continued to see Arabs in the light of the historical memory, which was a residue of the First World War. The image of "Arabs stabbing in the back" continued to present psychological obstacles for an independent Turkish foreign policy vis-a-vis the Arab and Muslim world and contributed to the constraints of the bipolar system, which effectively separated
Turkey and the Arab world.
The main players in Turkish domestic politics during the Cold War were the Kemalist CHP led by tsmet fuontl and subsequently by BUlent Ecevit, the military who staged three coups during this period, and the liberal center-right conservative line represented by various parties and leaders, namely, the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti-DP) led by Adnan Menderes (1950-1960), the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi-AP) and the True Path Party (Dogru Yol Partisi-DYP) led by Stileyman Demirel (1963-1980 and 1983-1993 respectively), and fmally the Motherland Party (Anavatan PartisiANAP) led by Turgut Ozal (1983-1989). on the right wing of the political spectrum,important political actors also included the political Islamic Milli Gori movement led by Necmettin Erbakan and the Nationalist Action Party «Milliyet9i Hareket Partisi--MHP) led by Alparslan Turke. Both movements were influential as coalition parties in various governments and as opposition forces.The one-party system ended in 1946. The challenger, the Democrat Party, established by a group of discontented CHP members, lost Turkey's first but hardly free and fair elections in 1946, conducted on an "open ballot-secret tally" principle. However, the DP finally emerged victorious in the general elections held in May 14, 1950. This way the CHP regime in Turkey came to an end in a bloodless democratic coup, that is sometimes called Turkey's "White Revolution."7 In the elections, the Turkish voters strongly expressed their desire to put an end to CHP's top-down authoritarian statism and radical secularism. Since its collapse in 1950, the CHP would never be able to form a single-party government as a result of an electoral victory. As the new electoral laws imposed by the CHP immediately before the elections in order to crush the DP backfired, the DP with its 52.7% of the votes captured 408 seats as opposed to 39.4% of the votes and 69 parliamentary seats of the CHP. Elections results basically did not change in the next two elections held in 1954 and 1957. In 1954 elections, the DP's political hegemony became only stronger as the party increased its votes to 57.5% and its parliamentary control close to 93% of the total seats. In the 1957 elections, the DP saw its votes declining to 47.91 % of the votes but this was still sufficient to forin its third consecutive single-party government before it was f'tnally toppled by the military coup in 1960.In domestic politics, the new DP government initiated a number of symbolic gestures designed to please its conservative popular base. Menderes understood that the reason why his party was voted the most was a public desire to get rid of authoritarian implementation of extreme secularism. Among signif'tcant policies of the DP was granting of freedom for the call to prayer (ezan) to be conducted in a language of choice. In a symbolic move that aimed to purify the Turkish public sphere from the influence of Islamic culture, a state-imposed decree had made it compulsory for Turkish mosques to have ezan called in Turkish. Despite the fact that this unpopular practice continued for the duration of eighteen years between 1932 and 1950, and also that mosques now could choose any language; all mosques in Turkey returned to ezan in its original Arabic form in one single day.8 In 1951, the DP closed down the controversial People's Houses (Halk Evleri) that propagated extreme secularism in rural areas and thus came to clash with conservative population. In the same year religious education was made compulsory in primary schools. In 1954, the Village Institutes (Kay Enstitilleri) that aimed-toconvert village girls and boys into secularist educators were closed down. Indeed, the DP rule was a breakthrough in the Turkish domestic political landscape as it revealed deep cleavages existing between the state establishment and the people. As Erik Zurcher argues, the change of government in 1950 represented a more radical divide in the Turkish political history than the shift trom Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic in 1923. While Turkey's sociopolitical power structure remained the same as it had been during the Young Turk period, the 1950 elections brought new social forces to power.9
The DP government initiated a massive process of modernization in Turkey, which led to eventual mobilization of its grassroots in later stages. Hence, even though the DP leadership had not emerged trom among the conservative masses, the 1950 elections marked the beginning of a long power conflict between the conservative belt of Turkish society and the secularist and intellectual center. With the 1960 military coup that ended DP's challenge, a long tradition of military interventions was established. In foreign policy, however, the DP government brought little modification in Turkey's pro-Western orientation except that Ankara started to follow a more active policy to procure Western support against what was regarded as a belligerent Soviet Union. The DP government took the controversial decision to send 5000 strong Turkish combat troops to Korea in July 1950 in order to secure approval for Turkey's NATO membership. Turkey's willingness to support Western powers went to extreme degrees in cases like the Suez crisis in 1956, the use of U.S. military personnel in Lebanon in 1958, and the policy of supporting the French side during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).It can be argued that leadership of the DP did not differ much ftom that of the CHP in its basic perceptions as regards the Middle East. The DP only appeared keener in its pro- Western orientation. Turkish foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East emerged as a function of its close alliance with the United States, and Turkey became part of anticommunist regional. institutions such as the Baghdad Pact (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Britain) in 1956 and CENTO (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan) only to the extent that such a policy was required by the United States. Another case indicating Turkey's prioritizing its relations with the West over those with the Muslim world, in general, and the Arab world, in particular, was the issue of Israel. While geographically a Middle Eastern power, Israel represented a significant angle of Turkey's Western-oriented and de-Islamized foreign policy. The Turkish attitude toward Israel was always friendly on the official level, as Turkey became one of the first countries recognizing Israel in 1949 in a decision taken by the tnontl government. The DP government maintained this friendly approach. In the context of the strong support given to Israel by the United States and in response to the Baghdad Pact, both Syria and Egypt developed political, economic, and military ties with the Soviet Union, which contributed to Turkey's reluctance to forge close relations with them at the expense of relations with Israel and consequently the United States.10 Furthermore, close relations of Egypt and Syria with Greece and Greek Cypriots strengthened Ankara's suspicions about the intentions of the Arab world.11 The Israeli-French-British invasion of Suez in October 1956 and the proclamation of the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957 further widened the geostrategic and cultural split between the West, which Turkey was strategically allied with, and the Arab Middle East. In July 1958, Iraq joined these Arab revolutionary regimes through a coup that overthew Iraqi monarchy and dropped out of the Baghdad Pact.12 Hence Turkey faced an extremely unstable environment in the Arab world, a factor that further contributed to its ambivalence. The Periphery Pact and the Trident Agreement with Israel and Iran after the fall of the monarchy in Iraq provided the strategic framework for Turkish-Israeli cooperation. In June 1957, the Menderes government mobilized troops on the border with Syria with the encouragement of the United States. The Soviet Union reacted to this by massing their troops on its border with Turkey. In the wake of the Iraqi revolution in 1958, Turkey threatened to intervene and allowed the United States to utilize the Incirlik airbase to land 16,000 marines in Beirut in that crisis.I3
Regional strategic considerations alone could not explain Turkey's treatment of the Middle East, and one has to situate these structural constraints within the larger context of ideational factors. If there was not such a strong sense of anti-Arabism widely diffused in Turkish public consciousness and shared by various identity groups including the conservative elements of Turkish society, the government could not maintain contradictions with its conservative domestic politics and its foreign policy. The image of "the Arab treason" has persistently played in the mindset of Turkish foreign policy to this day. Furthermore, the DP leadership was hardly interested in any Islamization of foreign policy, and the conservative masses were just happy and thankful to the DP for the freedoms from radical CHP secularism. Conservative masses were educationally and economically underprepared to carry any influence to the foreign policy area. Turkey's position in the Middle East became similar to that of Japan in the early years of the Cold War in that it reflected a lack of eagerness to engage in independent relations with the region.14 The DP government clearly wanted Turkey to become engaged in close relations with the West, most specifically the United States. This desire reflected the dominant Western and anti-Russian orientation of the general Turkish foreign policy in the last century of Turkish history and internal power calculations. The calculation also reflected domestic political considerations. Despite its popularity DP was a weak political actor at the center of Turkish politics. Close relations with the United States were seen as necessary to boost its economic recovery program and to be politically strong inside Turkey. Foreign policy strategies of conservative parties in Turkey always reflected their dilemma of being in power and in opposition simultaneously.15
1960 Coup and the Return of the CHP to Power
The NATO membership of Turkey had a significant impact on the psychology of the Turkish military. In the atmosphere of criticism of the DP foreign policy voiced through the leftist/Kemalist publications that the military officers closely followed, NATO membership and the associated programs of military cooperation had an effect of insulting the pride of Turkish officers. First of all, they had a chance to compare their own standards of living to that of the officers of other NATO members. Menderes did not prioritize improving the quality of life of military officers amidst other projects of infrastructure. Second, while the democratization of Turkish politics unseated the military from its previously powerful position, they now had a chance to playa significant international role through NATO. This alleviated their pride in contrast to their new low position in domestic Turkish politics. Furthermore, they closely observed the coups in Egypt (1952), Syria (1954), and Iraq (1958), coups that were praised as antiimperialist by the leftist publications. 16 Although Ottoman and Turkish history was rich with many examples of military interventions, the 1960 coup Turkey experienced was the first military intervention in its republican history. A secret military coup overthrew the Menderes government and imposed military rule. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin RU~tU Zorlu, and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan were sentenced to death and executed. Menderes was charged with violating the constitution; yet. staging a military takeover was itself illegal in democratic politics. Hence the move to overthrow and execute a democratically elected prime minister and two of his cabinet members did not have any source" of legitimacy other than the naked power of the military. Yet interestingly Turkey has failed to open any investigation against the organizers of the 1960 and subsequent coups so far, a fact that supports the contention that it is democracy rather than military control in politics that is an irregularity in Turkish politics.17
The declared purpose of the coup was "extricating the parties " from the irreconcilable situation into which they have fallen," and the junta (National Unity Committee) promised that 'just and free elections [will be held] as soon as possible under the supervision and arbitration of an above-party administration.“18 Although the large masses of Turkish people, who were supporters of the Democrat Party, were shocked and disillusioned by the coup, there were no large-scale protests. Probably not to provoke DP supporters, who were arguably the overwhelming majority of Turkish population, the coup did not reverse Menderes government's relaxation of rigid secularism, particularly on the ezan issue. Meanwhile, the main opposition party, the CHP, remained silent.19
However, there was a mood of joyfulness on the part of the secularist intellectual establishment. This mood was clearly indicated by the support granted to the coup by the secularist Turkish media.20 This basic leftist/Kemalist position on the 1960 coup has not changed, as they embrace the 1960 coup in contrast to the 1980 coup. One reason for this support was Menderes governmenfs authoritarian practices, and the coup led to what was arguably Turkey's most democratic constitution even in modem standards. As Feroz Ahmad believes, "under the 1961 constitution, Turkey enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than ever before. People had more civil rights, the universities greater autonomy, and students the freedom to organize their own associations.,,21 However, a "democratic coup" is an oxymoron, and the legacy of the 1960 intervention on subsequent consolidation of Turkish democracy has been deeply negative. The coup has opened a long chapter of military takeovers in Turkish politics, solidifying the strong tradition of militarized political culture. Although parliamentary democracy returned back later, politics had to be conducted under the shadow of a military coup. The brutal way in which three civilian politicians were executed has left a psychological impact on the mindset of civilian politicians, caricaturized in the image of Suleyman Demirel always escaping with his hat whenever he faced a coup. Furthermore, the subsequent coups were "legalized" by the Turkish armed forces Internal Service Act that was accepted in January 1961. According to article 35 of this act, the n;1ilitary assumed the duty "to. protect the Turkish homeland and the Turkish Republic as determined by its Constitution." By interpretation of this law, it came to be seen as the legal right of the military to intervene in Turkish politics with the condition that the coup decision would be taken by the highest authority in the hierarchy of the military. Accordingly, two military attempts by Talat Aydemir were foiled and subsequently Aydemir was executed in 1964. However, as stated by the ClIP leader Deniz Baykal,. what made coups legal were not their constitutionality but rather their success:
military coups never obtained their power from the Constitution. There is no problem in this regard in the Constitution. If a coup becomes successful, then it does not need a legal backing. If coup attempts are aborted, just like in the case of Talat Aydemir, then they don't have legal base. [In such cases] coup attempters get their punishment. What makes coups justified is not their constitutionality but rather social and economic reasOns.22
The key question then is why some attempts become successful and some other do not and the answer to this question is foreign relations. The 1960 coup was no exception. The coup took place in the context of worsening relations between Menderes and the United States. Despite Menderes government's decisively pro- Western foreign policy, being responsible for securing a membership in NATO and sending troops to Korea, remarkably, the coup itself did not face any outcry in the West and the United States. He was severely criticized by his leftist opponents for his pro-American foreign policy orientation, by the same circles that supported the coup. However, during and after the coup, the United States and the West abandoned him. Although the 27 May coup did not fall into the category of proven U.S.-sponsored coups in the Third World such as Iran (1953), Guatamela (1954), or Chile (1973), a tacit U.S. and European support was evident. As William Hale reports, "Menderes does not appear to have enjoyed a substantial body of suppotrt abroad, and there was little public outcry in Western Europe to the effect that the 27 May coup had violated democratic principles.“23 It was widely speculated that the CIA learned about the preparations for a coup in Ankara but did not inform Prime Minister Menderes about it. One reason for this was an agreement that the government signed with the United States on May 5,1959, stipulating that in the event of "internal aggression" the United States would "take such appropriate action, including the use ofanned force...in order to assist the Government of Turkey at its request.24 If CIA informed the Turkish government about the coup preparation and if the Turkish government asked for help, the United States would find itself in an undesirable situation to intervene. Yet the coup coincided with the cancellation of credits that were earlier promised by the United States to Turkey. In response, Prime Minister Menderes sought to develop close relations with the Soviet Union.25 He was in preparation for a visit Moscow on July 15, but the 27 May coup did not allow materialization of this visit. According to Mahmut Dikerdem, who was the Turkish ambassador to Tehran at the time of the coup, even the Iranian regime knew about the coup beforehand:
I suspect that the Shah of Iran was relieved to see the overthrow of [Prime Minister] Menderes and [Foreign Minister] Zorlu by a military coup following their moves to forge close relations with Moscow. If the rumors were true, then the Iranian secret service knew about coup preparations within the Turkish army. Iranians possibly obtained this intelligence through CIA as following the conspiracy against Mosadeq in 1953 CIA and Iranian intelligence service was in close cooperative relationship. Possibly the Shah understood that Americans left the DP government to its own fate after the decision to visit Moscow was taken without consultation with the United States.26
When the 1960 military coup took place, the United States quickly indicated its willingness to work with the new regime. What was sufficient for the United States was to obtain a declaration by the junta that they would continue to maintain Turkey's commitments to NATO and CENTO. Interestingly on February 25, 1960, in the last meeting of the Turkish parliament to discuss foreign pplicy issues before the coup, the opposition leader ismet inanU made a historic address. Completely reversing his earlier sharp criticism of the DP pro-Western foreign policy, inanii condemned the nonaligned movement and asserted that Turkey's place was in the West. He stated that NATO and CENTO were absolutely necessary and no concessions should be given to Russians. He finished his words by stating that "this will be the essence of our politics today in opposition and tomorrow in power.“27
The radio announcement on the morning of 27 May, 1960, read by Alparslan Turkey, was clearly designed to address American worries: "We are loyal to all our alliances and undertakings. We believe in NATO and CENTO and we are faithful to them.“28 In response, the United States released economic aid to Turkey.
The Image of the West
Discourse in the 1960s Pro-U.S. foreign policy of the Democrat party was approved by the conservative circles, including traditional Islamic groups such as Nurcus and sufi orders. In the judgment of these circles, the United States was a force against "the godless Bolsheviks" and the radical leftist circles within Turkey were seen as their representatives. The primary concern for many Muslim groups was the dissemination of atheism in society. Said Nursi, founder of the Nurcu movement inspiring many Islamist intellectuals to this day, was particularly alert to the perceived danger of communism. For instance, he wrote:
I have only one aim; it is this: at this time as I approach the grade, I hear the hooting of the Bolshevik owls in this country, which is a Muslim land. The sound is damaging the fundamentals of the belief of the Islamic world...I am struggling against these unbelieving masses. I want to enter the Divine presence with this struggle of mine As for those who prevent me from doing this, I am ftightened that they are communists!29These anti-Soviet views of Nursi influenced his followers. In one of the popular novels most widely read by Islamists, Minyeli Abdullah, first published in 1967,30 the author HekimogIu tsmail depicts the story of an Egyptian civil servant, Abdullah. In the story, Abdullah relentlessly pursues a struggle to disseminate the message of lslam and the belief in God against the communists. He faces prosecution and imprisonment in his own country. Communists are always after him. After. being released ftom the prison, he advocates the idea of establishing a Muslim corporation based on small capital investments: In order to learn more about the operation of companies, he goes to the United States. He is positively surprised to see that morality, religion, and business ethics are in perfect harmony in the United States. He complains how these values are in decline in his own country. On his way to the United States, he ta1ks to a flight attendant who asks him, "do you like Americans?" Abdullah answer, We love Allah. We consider enemies of Communism as our mends.“31 Upon hearing this, an Egyptian passenger sitting near him tells Abdullah that, while communism is a threat, American, British, or French colonialism is even a greater one. Abdullah disagrees: "Imperialism exploits nations only materially. On the other hand, communism destroys them spiritually and eternally enslaves them through evil ideas.“32 Upon his return, Abdullah sees his own son assassinated by the communists. He seeks to become a martyr himself and fulfills this dream in the newly started war between Egypt and Israel. Minyeli Abdullah reveals inner codes of conservative Muslim groups (cemaat) on foreign policy in Turkey in the 1960s before the emergence of a more genuinely political view of Islam. It should be noted that, although the main character of the novel, Minyeli Abdullah, is Egyptian and the story is set in Abdal-Nasser's Egypt, readers are invited to reflect upon the conditions in Turkey. In fact, Abdullah's observation on the United States as a positive force against Communism does not make much sense in the Egyptian intellectual context of the time. A similar well-known experience by Sayyid Qutb in the United States in 1949 led him to think negatively about the United States.33 From a Turkish Islamist identity, however, the Hobbesian Other was never the United States but Russia and positivist secularism with all its anti-Islamic attitudes. The Soviet Union and positivist secularism were seen in this light as twin brothers and the United States as a force that fought against Communism was seen as an ally. However, pro-American identification has its limits, marked by Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Interestingly, Minyeli Abdullah, who keeps praising the United States, eventually dies in the war between Egypt and Israel. It was persistent American support to Israel that negatively changed the image of the United States in Turkish Islamic identity. While today no Turkish individual would be as enthusiastic as Minyeli Abdullah in embracing the United States, it has not rose to an Hobbesian Other status in the thinking of cemaats, most particularly the Nurcu movement. It should be noted that anti-Americanism in Turkish Islamism was not born domestically, but it was imported from the outside through translations particularly during the 1980s. With the rise ofNecmettin Erbakan in the early 1970s, the veteran Islamist politician who served as deputy prime minister in various governments in the 1970s and eventually served as prime minister for eleven months between 1996 and 1997, Turkish Islamism for the first time assumed an independent political identity and decisive anti-Western emphasis.
Former Prime Minister Erbakan's anti-Western discourse clearly demarcated itself clearly from the position employed by the traditional cemaats. Neither Erbakan nor his foreign policy position was supported by larger groups . (cemaats) and sufi orders who continued to shun active politics while supporting large liberal center-right political parties. In exchange of endorsement for their pro- Western orientation, these center-right parties provided them freedom of activities and religious practice. On the other hand, the leftist Kemalism in the 1960s subscribed more distinctly to an anti-Americanist discourse. The American economic system, liberal capitalism, was strongly detested by the leftist intellectuals as early as the 1930s. However, instead of organizing themselves independently of the state and the state ideology ofKemalism, they attempted to infiltrate into Kemalism and transform it into an ideology of socialism and statist economic developmentalism. An early endeavor in this direction was the intellectual movement organized around the journal of Kadro (literally "cadre"). Published between 1932 and 1934 with governmental support, the journal was published by such leading Kemalist intellectuals as Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu and Sevket Sureyya Aydemir. Editors of the journal except Karaosmanoglu were also former members of the Turkish Communist Party who later became alienated as a result of an ideological dispute over the questions of national independence and socialism.34
Aydemir himself studied at the Communist University of Eastern Proletariat in Moscow. In line with their leftist orientation, the Kadro movement believed that the new regime required a new intelligentsia and a class of intellectual vanguards. Their purpose was to develop a theory of economic development alongside the principle of etatism that was adopted as one of the six pillars of Kemalism at the 1931 CHP Congress. According to the Kadro movement, Turkey would not have a capitalist system characterized by an explotation of classes. Etatism would be the solution to prevent class conflicts, because capital would be concentrated in the hands of the state which would represent interests of all social classes.35 This, however, was not what was in the minds of Ataturk who clearly desired to create a class of Turkish capitalists. Ataturk's follower inontl also understood the need for Turkey to become allied within the Western capitalist camp against the Soviet threat. Hence the socialist Kemalism as advised by the Kadro movement did not find much echo in the upper leadership of the CHP. In the 1960s, these ideas of the Kadro movement reemerged in an intellectual movement organized around a weekly newspaper, Yon, published between 1961 and 1967. The founder of the Yon movement included Dogan Avcloglu, MtlmtazSoysal, ilhan Seluk, and ilhami Soysal as major writers and Cemal Eytlboglu as its major financier. However, Avcloglu, who was the chief editor of the weekly, played such a leading role that the movement and his name almost became synonymous. In this regard, any study of the Yon movement would necessarily entail a close examination of Avcloglu's ideas. The foundation of the Yon movement in 1961 coincided with another parallel development, the foundation of the Turkish Labor Party (TiP) in the same year by a group of labor unionists. These two movements, intellectual and political, became important centers of radical left opposition with some important differences. In many regards, Yon movement was a reincarnation of the Young Turk movement with its militarist, revolutionary positivism in the context of 1960s Turkish politics.36 It was primarily interested in the question of national economic development for which they called for statism and strict economic planning. Despite its antifascist discourse, the Yon movement was a synthesis of nationalism and socialism. It praised national socialist leaders such as Nasser in Egypt. AvclOglu stated that socialism and Kemalism were not contradictory: "we consider socialism as a natural conclusion and continuation of Atatturkism which is based on the principles of populism, etatism, revolutionism, secularism, Republicanism and nationalism. We believe that socialism is the way to improve on and move forward the revolutions of Ataturk.“37 The movement eulogized.Kemalism as a movement against imperialism and colonialism. In their view, Kemalism responded to the question of independence with nationalism and thus achieved the first step on the way to social developmentalism. Yet they were also critical of the outcome of the Kemalist revolution because of its promotion of bourgeoisie at the expense of an alliance with popular masses.38 However, despite this interest in building a popular base,Avcloglu, like other Kemalists, was self-admittedly a Jacobin in questioning the absolute value of the will of common people expressed through democratic elections:
If those who come to power in a top-down take-over are bourgeoisie then that regime is fascism. [On the other hand] if they are progressive forces, then naturally that regime is not a fascist one... .Menderes government [was] not a people's revolutionftom the perspective of socialism, it [was] rather an antidemocratic and even fascist government. Is the American puppet president of the Dominic [Republic] more populist than top-down [revolutionary] Castro who refuses to conduct elections? As it is seen, a distinction such as ''top-down [revolutionaries] vs. election winners" is meaningless ftom the perspective of socialism.39
Hence this was a contradiction in the leftist Kemalist mentality: their statism and their strong dislike of common people with conservative ideas gradually transformed them into defenders of the status quo. They interpreted the Kemalist principle of revolutionism as going against people's conservative values as they saw them obstacles to developmentalism. In the absence of crucial links with people, they turned to the military as their solution and praised the role of the military as a modernizer. Ironically, despite their anti-imperialist tone, they borrowed the vocabulary of American modernization school and even translated some of their work in Yon.40 The assumed role they attributed to the military, namely, the military as a force of transformation, was also a role that was sanctioned by the United States. The entire modernization discourse in the United States, occasionally developed and defended by right-wing American intellectuals, was based on the idea that for countries such as Turkey to develop, the process had to be top-down in the face of conservative resistance to change. In other words, in the modernization discourse, a discourse shared strongly by the Turkish positivists, it was necessary to emancipate from the tradition in order to modernize.41 Both Yon writers and American modernization scholars agreed but expressed it differently that while the military was a force of change and stability, elections and elected institutions such as the parliament were undesired as they might lead to domination of "backward elements" in societies with visible feudal residues and weakworking classes.42 As Kemallat discusses, this anti-democratic stance of the left was sociologically motivated in the context of upward social mobilization of Anatolian conservative masses: "leftism in Turkey, especially after 1940, became... part of a complex endeavour to preserve the intelligentsia's high status against the rising entrepreneurial middle class.43
This contradictory view of populism and militarism also led to contradictory views on foreign policy. Totally ignoring the role or at least acquiescence of the West in many third world coups, including those in Turkey, they maintained militarism and anti imperialism at the same time. Their anti-imperialist and socialist ideas became popular among the leftists in the 1960s, in the context of the increasing tension between Turkey and the United States on the Cyprus question. Interestingly the Cyprus question became a test issue that demanded a separation of socialist internationalism and nationalism. Many leftists, including the leadership of the Turkish Labour Party (TIP), had clear sympathies with the Greek Cypriot revolt which they saw as a third-world struggle against the British imperialists. Instead they accused the Turkish side of supporting the British imperialist designs, arguing that for Turkey to play an active role in the crisis that was against the parameters of Turkish foreign policy as determined by Misak-l Milit. Yon columnists criticized this view and accused the TiP of misinterpreting the true essence of the crisis. For Yon writers, the Cyprus question was the outcome ofHelleJiic imperialism, and the solution of the problem could be achieved only with a federal system that guarantees the right of its citizens. without the interference of imperialist forces.44 Later TiP corrected its view and moved to. a more nationalist position, in which Turkish intervention was regarded as anti-imperialist. Anti-American and anti-Western feelings reached to a peak level following the Johnson Letter to inOnll in 1964. In the 1965 elections, TiP made foreign policy its main campaign platfonn, utilizing not only the issue of Cyprus but also the reliability of NATO security umbrella for Turkey in the context o.f events such as the Johnson Letter and earlier incident of Jupiter missiles that the United States stationed in Turkey and then removed them without consultations in exchange. for Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba in 1962. In the 1965 elections, fourteen TiP candidates were able to enter the parliament with barely 3 percent of the total votes and thus were able to shape the foreign policy debates at the center of Turkish politics. The same elections brought the liberal conservative movement back to power to fonn a single-party government, under the leadership of Siileyman Demirel, just five years after the coup toppled the
The basic foreign policy position of the radical left was characterized by its strict opposition to NATO membership as well as membership in the European Common Market. Menderes government's foreign policy was criticized for conducting "foreign policy as a means to obtain dollars from the Uncle Sam“4S Radical left based their opposition to Turkey's economic interests to become part of the European Common Market on structural theories of economic development46 and shied away from any discourse on cultural and religious opposition to the European integration, which was employed by political Islamic discourse but later in the 1990s made its way to the leftist discourse as well. In the radical leftist discourse, the EC was part of the global American strategy to establish a capitalist market. Hence they strictly opposed to the Ankara Association Agreement signed in September 1963 by the Inonu government.Even though radical leftist ideas were marginal in the sense that the electoral support of TIP or distribution of Yon was rather limited, these ideas shaped foreign policy discourse ofthe larger Kemalism, including that of the CHP. The future intellectual and political leaders of Kemalism emerged from among the sympathiers of these views. Some of them have changed their political stance and adopted a more internationalist position on relations with the West, particularly the European Union.
Many of them continued to subscribe to a blend of Kemalism and nationalism while largely decreasing the ideological emphasis on socialism. What did not change much, however, was their basic acceptance of the military as a defender of Turkishmodernization against the "backward" societal forces.
The Cyprus Question as Turkey's "Red Line" in Foreign Policy
In 1961, the military junta fulfilled its promise of returning back to democratic elections. The legacy of the DP was initially contested by two different parties, Justice Party (AP) and the New Turkey Party (YTP), which was dissolved in 1973. The CHP, benefiting from this cleavage, einerged as the first party, even though the combined vote of these parties exceeded.that of the CHP. Consequently, the junta asked the CHP to fonn a government, with the external support of other parties. When Inonu became Prime Minister, a position that he continued to hold until 1965, the CHP was back in power after ten years of interval caused by the DP's political hegemony before the military coup.
The foreign policy agenda during.this second period of In6nU government was dominated by the Cyprus question, which had been a top item on the Turkish foreign policy agenda since the mid-1950s when the Greek-Cypriot enosis movement that aimed for a union with Greece emerged as a strong challenge to the British rule in the island. As a result of a military campaign by the Enonis movement led by EOKA between 1955 and 1959 and the staging, in response, of large anti-enosis demonstrations in major Turkish cities, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. The Zurich-London Agreements, which consisted of a number of treaties, laid the foundations of the new state on the basis of the recognition of two separate ethnic groups. According to the Basic Structure of the Republic of Cyprus, provided for in the agreements, "The State of Cyprus shall be a Republic with a presidential regime, the President being Greek and the Vice-President being Turkish, elected by Universal suffrage by the Greek and Turkish communities of the island respectively." The Treaty of Guarantee named Britain, Greece, and Turkey as guarantor powers with the right of action, jointly or unilaterally, towards "reestablishing the state of affairs created by the present Treaty" in the event of its breach.47 What was very interesting in the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus was the way "Greek" and "Turkish" communities were defined. sought to improve Turkey's relations with the Middle East. He exchanged visits with several Middle Eastern leaders. Turkey assumed a more active role in the Organization of Islamic Conference. Ozal's sudden death in 1993 left a significant vacuum both in terms of Turkish domestic politics and its international politics. Turkish civilian politicians, including Stileyman Demirel who assumed the presidency following Ozal's death, could not match Ozal in vision and charisma, and the power vacuum was to be filled by an increasingly assertive military. The weak and fragmented nature of Turkish political parties could not produce strong and efficient governments, preparing the ground for the rise of the conservative Islamist RP. The success of the party in 1994 provincial elections gave it municipal control of Istanbul and Ankara, which was among the first signs of troubles within the secularist political establishment.
Conclusion for this part
Following Atattirk's death in 1938, the CHP maintained its rule which lasted until the first democratic elections in 1950. This period was marked by the Second World War and the struggle of the government to remain neutral in this war. However, Turkey did not seek neutrality in the Cold War that started immediately after the end of the Second World War. The primary parameter of Turkish foreign policy during the Cold War was shaped by the classic strategy of balancing the Russian threat with a Western ally. In this regard, there was little difference between the CHP and the DP that came to power in 1950.The DP, which established an electoral hegemony between 1950 and 1960 through its links with the conservative masses, sought a close alliance with the United States. The government sent Turkish troops to Korea to secure membership in NATO. However, the main interest of the United States in Turkey was to make sure that the government did not turn its face elsewhere, specifically to the Soviet Union; Menderes flirted with this idea once, only to find himself overthrown by a military coup in 1960.Unsurprisingly, the radio announcement of the coup effectively sought to renew the oath of alliance.Despite U.S. compliance in the coup against the DP government, the Islamic and conservative circles maintained positive ideas about the United States, which they saw as a force against external and internal "communist" forces. In the 1960s and 1970s the banner of anti-imperialism was raised by the radical left who developed a mixture of socialist, Kemalist, and militarist discourse voiced through key publications such as Yon. While this ideology was not necessarily shared by the CHP, it nevertheless affected its electoral base. In other words, electoral base of the CHP was more receptive to influence of an anti-Western discourse than that of the conservative parties. However, anti-imperialist but militarist discourse was primarily a contradiction because of the role or at least compliance of the United States in many third world coups. Furthermore, the radical left supported what were essentially theses of the American modernization school. It was quite an irony for the Turkish anti-American left that grew in the atmosphere of the Vietnam War to agree with conservative American economists such as Walt Whitman Rostow, who was known for his staunch opposition to socialism and served as the national security advisor to Johnson and who was responsible for developing American policies in that war. They agreed that traditional societal elements were the chief obstacles to economic development, and military control in politics could achieve a fast track to modernization. This Jacobinism guaranteed the radical left to a marginal position,which they nevertheless managed to exploit. The 1960 coup ushered in a new era in Turkish politics marked by periodic military interventions, legalized through the Internal Service Act of the Turkish armed forces. However, the constitution that was prepared by the leftist academics hired by the junta was the most democratic constitution ever enacted in Turkish history. The ensuing environment of :treedom of expression led to a surge in intellectual activities. In this context, Turkish foreign policy came to be discussed with unprecedented heat, particularly in the context of the Cyprus crisis. While demands for a military intervention among the increasingly furious youth knew, the lnonli government faced the famous Johnson letter in 1964, warning the government that in case the Soviets might exploit the Cyprus issue to intervene, the United States and other members ofNA TO would not be obliged by their commitments to defend Turkey. The letter was shocking in both style and content and in the ensuing crisis, inonli government conceded 1965 elections to the rising star of liberal conservative politics, Suleyman Demirel. While S1ileyman Demirel believed in the importance of relations with the United States for economic development of Turkey, he also pursued a multidimensional foreign policy. He considered the improvement of relations with the Soviet Union critical for development and secured highly lucrative Soviet credits to build key industrial facilities.
Demirel decided to stay away from the Cyprus conflict in order not to risk relations with the United States, but in doing so, he faced mounting criticism from the leftist/nationalist circles. Nevertheless, Demirel's removal from power in 1971 through a military coup by memorandum did not attract much American interest. The military installed interim government implemented a number of key American demands, particularly the ban on opium cultivation. In 1974, a coalition government of CHP led by Ecevit and the Islamic conservative MSP led by Erbakan formed a coalition. Ecevit who toppled inonu in a party congress held in 1974 was very young and fiercely anti-American leftist leader perfectly matched foreign policy vision of Erbakan who developed an anti-Western Islamist identity in contrast to traditional cemaats. It was not surprising that the military intervention into Cyprus took place in their time. Throughout the 1970s three issues marked Turkish politics: political instability as a result of an election system devoid of threshold, a parallel economic crisis which was partly caused by the Cyprus crisis, and the right-left political conflicts which reached to a level of street terrorism. When the 12 September 1980 military coup took place, it enjoyed a high degree of popularity in the context of these troubles. The United States supported both the coup and the economic team led by Turgut Oza1 that implemented key liberalization reforms. Ozal swept the 1983 elections to establish his decade long political supremacy in which he continued to implement economic reforms and also embarked upon a process of political liberalization. In this, Ozal's primary goal was to secure American support in the context of perceived decrease in Turkish geopolitical significance as the Cold War system rapidly crumbled.Hence Ozal saw that Turkey had to redefine its traditional foreign policy to fit the requirements of this change and to seek a new geopolitical role in the post-Soviet era through new initiatives such as the establishment of the Black Sea economic cooperation initiative and the revitalization of Economic Cooperation Organization that linked Turkey to Iran, Pakistan and Central Asian republics. Qzal's political tenure practically ended
1 Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An Active Neutrality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Zebra Onder, Die Turkische Aussenpolitik 1m Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1977).
2 In his sympathetic biography of is met !nanu in English, Metin Heper avoids discussion of the impact of the Second World War on Turkey. Metin Heper, lsmet lnonu: The Making of a Turkish Statesman (Leiden: Brill, 1998).
3 A. C. Edwards, "The Impact of the War on Turkey," International Affairs 22, no. 3 (1946): 391.
4 M. Asim Karaomerlioglu, "The Village Institutes Experience in Turkey," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25, no. 1 (1998).
5 Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An Active Neutrality.
6 Haluk Gerger, Turk D~ Politikasznzn Ekonomi Po/itigi, Soguk Savt1§ 'tan Yeni Diinya Diizeni'ne (Istanbul: BeIge, 1999),58.
7 Davut Dursun, "14 Mayts Bir Beyaz Devrimdir," Yeni $afak, May 17,2005.
8 Although ezan reform was accepted in 1950, the news was not immediately available to local people and the local CHP-appointed village authorities did not allow an immediate transition. The award-winning movie <;izme (1991) depicts the tension between radical secularism and local people in the setting of a mountainous Black Sea village in the early 1950s. tsmail Gfine~, "C;izme." (Turkey: FezaFilm, 1991).
9 Erik Jan ZUrcher, Turkey: A Modem History, 3rd. ed. (London: 1.B. Tauris, 2004).
10 Suha Bolukbasi, "Behind the Turkish-Israeli Alliance: A Turkish View," Journal of Palestine Studies 29, no. 1 (1999): 23.
11 Ibid.
12 For a discussion on the emergence of revolutionary vis-a-vis traditionalist Arab regimes, see Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History.
13 Omer Karasapan, "Turkey and Us Strategy in the Age of Glasnost," Middle East Report (1989): 6.
14 William Hale, "Turkey, the Middle East and the Gulf Crisis," International Affairs 68, no. 4 (1992): 679.
15 Although this might appear as an interest-based rational calculation, it was nevertheless a rationality shaped in the context of identity politics.
16 Erol Miltercimler and Mim Kema10ke, Diller ve Entrikalar: Demokrat Parti Donemi Turk Dz§politikasl (Istanbul: Alfa, 2004), 392; and, Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey, The Making of the Middle East Series (London: Routledge, 1993), 125-6.
17 In 1990, under Turgut Ozal's personal initiative, three executed politicians were reburied in a state ceremony in tstanbul.
18 Radio announcement ofthe coup, quoted by Ahmad, The Making of Modem Turkey, 126.
19 The role played by CHP in this coup is a matter of debate. See William M. Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 1994), 112.
20 In one of the columns celebrating the coup, Milliyet columist Cetin Altan, who still writes for the same newspaper, expressed his sympathetic assessment of the public mood: "Today all Turkish patriots feel joyfulness and enthusiasm of this wonderful and honorable day." Cetin Altan, "Buyiik Goo," (Great Day) Milliyet, May 27, 1960.
21 Ahmad, The Making of Modem Turkey, 136.
22 "Baykal: Getirin Yasayi Degi~tirelim," Hurriyet, 20 April, 2004.
23 Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military, 120.
24 Karasapan, "Turkey and Us Strategy in the Age of Glasnost," 6.
25 BaskIn Gran, "27 MaYls ve Abd," in Turk Dl§ Politikasl, ed. Baskm Gran (Istanbul: 1999),667.
26 Ibid.
27 Miltercimler and Oke, Dieler ve Entrikalar: Demokrat Pam Donemi Turk Dl§politikasl, 367.
28 Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military, 120.
29 Letter to the Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Home Affairs. 30 Ismail Hekimoglu, Minyeli Abdullah (Istanbul: Tima~, 2005; reprint, 77th). 31 Ibid., 161.
32 Ibid., 162.
33 For Qutb's impression of the United States, see Sayyid Qutb, ""The America I Have Seen": In the Scale of Human Values," in America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature: An Anthology, 1895-1995, ed. Kamal Abdel-Malek (New York: St Martin's Press, 2000)
34 Dilek Barlas, Etatism and Diplomacy in Turkey: Economic wzd Foreign Policy Strategies in an Uncertain World, 1929-1939 (Leiden: Brill, 1998),48.
35 Ibid.
36 Hikmet Ozdemir, Dogan AVClOglu: Bir Jon TiJrkUn Ardzndan (Ankara: Bilgi Yaymevi, 2000).
37 Dogan A vClOglu, "Sosyalizm AnlaYl~mnz," Yon, no. 36, 1962, 3. This syncretic ideology of socialist Kemalism is currently expressed through the writings of former Yon writers in Cumhuriyet, the primary publication ofnationalistlleftist Kemalism. For instance, Miimtaz Sosyal believes that "It is possible to arrive at a solid national [development] model by combining Kemalist revolutionarism with Marxist development strategies." Mfuntaz Soysal, "Sorunlu Sol," Cumhuriyet, August 25,2004.
38 I~1l <;akan, "TIlrk Siyasal Hayatmda Bir Aydm.Profili: Dogan A vClOglu, It Akdeniz I.I.B.F. Dergisi 4, no. 7 (2004): 37.
39 Dogan AVClOglu, "TiP'ne Dair," Yon, no. 192, 1966,3. I am grateful to Dr. Fahrettin Altun for providing me with the scanned copies of Yon articles.
40 Fahrettin Altun, "Kemalist Bir Modern1e~me YorunlU Olarak Yon Dergisi," TiJrkiye Arl1§tzrmalarz LiteratiJr Dergisi 2, no. 1 (2004): 574.
41 See the classic works of modernization school W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth. a Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: University Press, 1961) and Daniel Lerner and David Riesman, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press ofGlencoe, 1963).
42 Dogan Anioglu, "Cumhuriyet'in 42. Yihnda," Yon, no. 135, 1965. Dogan Anioglu, "Parlamentoculuk," Yon, 158, 1966.
43 Kemal H. Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 341. The key question in the 1960s American modernization school was how to maintain stability in the face of upwardly mobile masses. See Samuel P.
Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). .
44 tlhami Soysal, "Egri Oturup Dogru Kon~ahm," Yon, no. 174, 1966, 10-11. Also Dogan AVClOglu, "Tip'ne Dair," Yon, no. 192, 1966,3.
45 Dogan Anihog1u, "FUze Usleri," Yon, 1962,3.
46 Dogan AvclOglu, Turkiye'nin Diizeni (Diin-Bugiin-Yarzn) (Ankara: Bilgi, 1969),533.
47 See Joseph S. Joseph, Cyprus: Ethnic Conflict and International Politics: From Independence to the Threshold of the European Union. 2nd 00. New York: Macmillan Press, 1997.
48 T. W. Adams, "The First Republic of Cyprus: A Review of an Unworkable Constitution," The Western Political Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1966): 477.
49 For full text of the letter, "President Johnson's Letter to Prime Minister Inonu," Middle East Journal 20, no. 3 (1966).
50 Nasuh Uslu, Turk-Amerikan R~kilerinde KzbrlS (Ankara: 21. Ytizytl, 2000), 98-99.
51 inonu was referred by many as the second man of the Republican era. ~evket Stireyya Aydemir, /kind Adam (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1966).
52 Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey, 225.
53 W. B. Sherwood, "The Rise of the Justice Party in Turkey," World Politics: A Quarterly Journal of International Relations 20, no. 1 (1967): 54.
54 http://www.geocities.comlalmanakturkiye/1967.htm
55 Data quoted in Erica Schoenberger and Stephanie Reich, "Soviet Policy in the Middle Eas!," MERIP Reports, no. 39 (1975).
56 Cengiz Candar, "A Turk in the Palestinian Resistance," Journal of Palestine Studies 30, no. 1 (2000):69.
57 Turhan Seluk, "Ha~h Seferleri," Alqam, December 23, 1969.
58 Nasuh Uslu, Turk-Amerikan ilkileri (Ankara: 21. Ytizytl, 2000),198-99. 59 Ibid., 199.
60 These cities were Adana, Ankara, Eskiehir, Istanbul, Izmir, Kocaeli, Sakarya,
Zonguldak, Diyarba1ar, Hatay and Siirt. Except the last three cities that have
Kurdish! Arabic population, these were Turkey's largest cities with high concentration of students and workers. The selection of these cities indicated that political instability in 1970s was rooted less in ideological conflicts than ethnic. Ethnic political instability became an issue in the late 1980s and especially 1990s.
61 William M. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 154. .
62 Ibid.
63 Haldun Gtilalp, "Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Refah Party,"
Muslim World 89, no. 1 (1999).
64 Necmettin Erbakan, Meclis'te Ortak Pazar, 1971,20-21. This passage was quoted in the decision to close down the MNP. Also see Necmettin Erbakan, Milli Gorii§ (Istanbul: Dergah, 1975).
65 Quoted in Haluk Ozdalga, KotU Yonetilen Turkiye: Ornek Vaka Dsp (Istanbul: Kitap, 2005),219.
66 Ibid., 220.
67 Karasapan, "Turkey and Us Strategy in the Age of Glasnost," 8.
68 Ibid.
69 Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey, 178.
70 Karasapan, "Turkey and Us Strategy in the Age of Glasnost," 8.
71 "Birand'dan Paul Henze'ye 'sesli-gorUntUlii' yalanlama," Zaman, June 14,2003.
72 Ahmed Feroz, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993),214.
73 George E. Gruen, "Turkey's Relations with Israel and Its Arab Neighbors: The Impact of Basic Interests and Changing Circumstances," in The Middle East and North Africa: Essays in Honor of J. C. Hurewitz, ed. Reeva S. Simon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 361.
74 Dankwart A. Rustow, "Turkey's Liberal Revolution," Middle East Review 17, no. 3 (1985).
75 Feroz, The Making of Modern Turkey, 215-16.
76 Gruen, "Turkey's Relations with Israel and Its Arab Neighbors: The Impact of Basic Interests and Changing Circumstances," 363.
77 Mehmet Barlas, Turgut Ozal'm Amlan (Istanbul: Birey, 2000), 121.
78 Ibid., 156.
79 Ibid., 155; Ferhad Ibrahim and Giilistan Giirbey, The Kurdish Conflict in Turkey:
Obstacles and Chancesfor Peace and Democracy (MOnster: LIT, 2000), 67.
80 Ahmet Davutoglu, Stratejik Derinlik (Istanbul: Kiire Yaymlan, 200i), 85.
81 Barlas, Turgut Ozal'm Amlarl, 121.