From Bonapartism to Fascism
August 2004
In this book, Elif Çağlı, by taking into consideration a wide range of experiences ranging from Louise Bonaparte's experience of 18 Brumaire during the Marx era in France to the Bismarck era in Germany, from Italian and German fascism to Spain and Portugal, from Greece to Latin America, reveals the forms and evolutions of the extraordinary regimes of the bourgeoisie, how these regimes should be evaluated and on which theoretical-political foundations this evaluation should be based. Undoubtedly, the Turkish experience constitutes an important page here. Çağlı presents a Marxist perspective on the history of modern Turkey by discussing the establishment process and the subsequent evolution of the bourgeois regime in Turkey, the coups and the question of the character of the regimes they gave rise to.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART ONE
Bonaparte's 18 Brumaire
1848: Parliamentary Republic in France
The Bourgeoisie Sacrifices the Parliamentary Regime When Necessary
The Process that Created Bonapartism
The Slippery Attitude of the Petty-Bourgeois Left
Whose Rule is Bonapartism?
Bourgeoisie's Self-Expropriation in Politics
In Extraordinary Regimes the Executive Power Turns Absolute
Extraordinary Regimes are the Product of Extraordinary Conditions
Why Cannot There Be "Proletarian Bonopartism"?
PART TWO
Fascism: Bloody Dictatorship of Finance Capital
The Question of Fascism in the Comintern under Lenin
Distinction between State Type and State Form
Distinction between Bonapartism and Fascism
The Bonapartism-Fascism Relationship cannot be Simplified to Templates
Can Fascism Take the Form of a Military Dictatorship?
Fascism Rising to Power and Fascism in Power
The Establishment of Fascist Power
Organization of Fascist Power
Degree of Fascist Repression
Ideology of Fascism
Demise of Fascism (Collapse or Dissolution)
Poulantzas' Theory of Fascism
Correct Attitude in the Struggle against Fascism
The Danger of Fascism Today
PART THREE
Bismarckism: The Establishment of Bourgeois Order from Above
The Qualitative Difference Between Bourgeois Revolution and Proletarian Revolution
From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic: Bourgeois Revolution from the Top
A Brief Overview of the Military Coups in Turkey
May 27, 1960
March 12, 1971
September 12, 1980
Conclusion
APPENDIX I - Examples of the Establishment and Demise of Fascist Powers
Italy and Germany
Some Examples from the Balkans and Eastern European Countries
Portugal
Greece
Brazil
Uruguay
Argentina
Chile
APPENDIX II
Spain Lessons
Preface
It is clear that the analysis of the bourgeois state and its different forms is of central importance in Marxist theory. Based on the problems in this field, Marxist circles have over the years conducted debates and took different approaches. The differences in analyses on the extraordinary forms of rule of the bourgeois order create the need for a renewed focus on problems of Bonapartism and fascism, which are of great importance for the struggle of the working class today. The Bonapartist formation of the bourgeois state is not only a historical phenomenon that belongs to the past. Bonapartism is an important reality and a subject of discussion that is an extension of our recent history. In the same way, fascism, as the cruel attack of the capitalist order that once drenched the world in blood and inflicted so much suffering on the working class and toiling masses, is not buried in the pages of history books. Fascism is the counter-revolutionary form that the bourgeois state takes when it faces the threat of revolution in the age of imperialism. As long as the rule of capital continues, the threat of fascism will persist. When fascism becomes a necessity for the bourgeoisie and when it can afford it, it will again confront the working class and the poor masses, the revolutionaries, with all its mischief. There is no need to go far. The wounds inflicted by the September 12 regime on the workers’ movement and the revolutionary struggle in Turkey have still not healed. The traces of the damage done by fascism to the organized forces of the working class are still around. The working class and revolutionary struggle in Turkey continue to writhe in need of a breakthrough that will allow it to shake off the psychology of defeat and regain its self-confidence on more proper and stronger foundations. In such periods, it becomes imperative to study the lessons of the past and recent history again and more meticulously, to steel the determination to struggle with the power of Marxist theory. And this should be much more important for revolutionaries living and fighting in a country whose very foundation was marked by a kind of Bonapartism, where for a long period of time military coups were considered “normal” and parliamentary functioning was considered “extraordinary”. From this point of view, in this study, while I have tried to analyse the problem of Bonapartism and fascism in general, I have also dealt with the realization of extraordinary forms of government in Turkey and other salient points of discussion within this framework, in light of Marxism. France, which stands out as the most important example in the history of bourgeois revolutions, has gifted many concepts to the political literature. The concept of Bonapartism, which is the subject of many debates among Marxists, is one of them. We can briefly define Bonapartism as one of the extraordinary forms of the bourgeois state as it is expressed in the political literature. However, the concept of Bonapartism will only find its true expression in concrete forms it takes on in the course of historical development. Marx reconstructs Bonapartism as a political concept with a rich content in his unique work 18 Brumaire, in which he analyses the characteristics of the extraordinary form of government established in France by the coup d’état of uncle and nephew Bonaparte. Marx’s analysis of Bonapartism was so profound that it illuminates not only the Bonapartism in France, but all forms of extraordinary rule of the bourgeoisie. Even if the extraordinary political regimes that have taken shape in different episodes of capitalist history, under different conditions, do not resemble each other exactly, they have very important common features for the continuation of the bourgeois order in general. It is clear that in order to conduct a healthy discussion on the extraordinary political formations of the bourgeois order, it is indispensable to proceed from Marx’s analysis of Bonapartism. Part One of this study is devoted to this starting point. Although Marx’s analyses reflect the concrete conditions of that period, a careful examination of them reveals that they also provide incredibly rich insights for understanding the extraordinary forms of capitalist rule that emerged later on. Without taking an intellectual journey from these insights to the present day, it is not possible to properly comprehend fascism, a new extraordinary form that emerged out of capitalism when it reached the stage of imperialism. For this reason, in the section where I examine the problem of Bonapartism, I have tried to set forth some important conclusions without limiting them specifically to the Bonapartist regime, but rather to give some common features of extraordinary regimes, including fascism, in an inclusive manner. In the course of the progress of capitalist society, the reality that is meant to be described by the concept of Bonapartism will also exhibit some new features. Therefore, it will be necessary to try to grasp Bonapartism with the new identities it would assume in its historical course. As I mentioned in Chapter Three, the bourgeois revolutions from above and ensuingBismarckian Bonapartism, which shed light on the case of Turkey, are concrete examples of this. However, the examination of the question of Bonapartism cannot end at this historical turning point. For in the years to come, the Bonapartist state formation would appear again, this time with characteristics specific to the period of imperialism. However, now the political concept to express the extraordinary formations of the bourgeois state has diversified, and the reality of fascism as well as Bonapartism has taken its place on the stage of history. And from now on, it has become necessary both to make a Marxist analysis of the fascist formation of the bourgeois state and to analyse and comprehend these two extraordinary forms of the state in their similarities and differences. In Chapter Two I have dealt with the question of both fascism and Bonapartism from this point of necessity and from the point of view of elucidating the characteristics of the extraordinary political regimes that threaten the revolutionary struggle of the working class in the period of imperialism. Volumes have been written on the historical phenomenon that took its name from the counter-revolutionary movement in Italy under the leadership of Mussolini and, with the example of Germany that followed, became known in the literature as classical fascism. However, the majority of these are bourgeois interpretations that try to explain fascism in terms of the diseased mental makeup of people like Mussolini or Hitler, thus distancing the problem from the foundations of capitalism and reducing it to isolated historical events. However, fascism can be comprehended neither on the basis of the psychological analysis of fascist leaders like Hitler nor on the basis of the psychological analysis of the petty-bourgeois masses they dragged along with their demagoguery. Because the real factor that pushes maniacs like Hitler to the stage of history or mobilizes the petty-bourgeois and lumpen masses into a hostile psychology against the working class is the extraordinary crisis conditions that the capitalist system has fallen into. Fascism is the counter-revolutionary attempt of the bourgeois order when it is on the offensive against the organizations and revolutionary struggle of the working class in revolutionary situations which usually occur under such extraordinary crisis conditions. Starting from this basic point, it is necessary to see that fascism is not limited to classical examples such as Italy and Germany. In the examples of fascism that emerged after the Second World War, although there was not such a deep system crisis as the one between the two imperialist wars, the fascist attacks of capital are nevertheless related to the crises that deeply shook the bourgeois order in those countries. When it comes to the examples of fascism such as Chile and Turkey, one must not forget the fact that such countries, with a medium level of development, constitute the weak links of the imperialist system. It is clear that fascism does not have a “uniform” line of progress, i.e. organizing the anger and despair of the petty-bourgeois masses in a fascist party, in a sense carrying out a bottom-up counter-revolution and coming to power via a civil fascist party. Since the Second World War, fascism has taken the form of military dictatorships in various countries, for example in Greece, Chile and Turkey. In order to take the right attitude regarding these examples and to realize that a fascist government could very well take place in the form of a military dictatorship, it is necessary to settle accounts with the false views on this subject that have been put forward in the name of Marxism for years. In the chapter on the question of fascism, I have tried to present a general approach to this and similar controversial issues. The Comintern congresses of the Lenin era, convened in the midst of the deep economic and social crises into which the capitalist system was plunged, made important analyses on fascism. A great effort was made to equip the revolutionary working class and its revolutionary vanguard with a correct understanding of struggle and the right tactics against the raging fascist onslaught of capital. But unfortunately, after Lenin’s death, with the domination of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, both Marxism and the revolutionary roots of the world communist movement were dealt heavy blows. For this reason, on the question of fascism, as on many other important questions, the nightmare of Stalinist domination overtook the tradition of struggle adopted by the Comintern leadership of the Lenin era. There is no continuity between the official communist movement shaped under this domination and the revolutionary Comintern tradition of the Lenin-era, but on the contrary a decisive rupture based on the denial of the latter. The existence and practices of Stalinism, which had nothing to do with Marxism and socialism, provided opportunities for open attacks on Marxism from the bourgeois front for many years. In addition, academics, who are very keen on directing so-called criticisms of Marxist theory seasoned with Marxist oil, used Stalinist falsifications as an excuse for themselves. Thus, for a long historical period, during which Marxism has been pushed to withering away, the theoretical front of the workers’ struggle was either “fed” with the falsifications of the official communist movement, or the vacuum created by its lack of sophistication was filled with the “glossy” looking studies of bourgeois writers and the “contributions” of pseudo-Marxist academics. The literature of this nature, which has been created in the name of analysing the question of fascism or, more generally, the question of the state, is a very concrete example of this situation. The meaning of this reality before us is that the revolutionary workers’ movement is muddied with non-Marxist approaches and views that are tried to be injected from different sides. Since each and every one of such mudslinging by “Marxist” academics with a reputation in the study of Bonapartism or fascism cannot be dealt with and exposed separately here, only Poulantzas’ theses on this subject will be discussed as a prominent example. I think that in order for the discussions on the extraordinary forms of the bourgeois state, including the concrete examples that have taken place in Turkey, to be conducted properly, it is imperative that the problems be illuminated starting from the basics, that is, from our Marxist roots. Regarding the problem of Bonapartism and fascism, much wider analyses can surely be made and many more concrete examples be presented. Nevertheless, as I remain open to criticism, I must state that my main aim in framing my work and determining its limits is to fulfil the obligation mentioned above. For the revolutionary forces of the working class, the need for an accurate and enlightening analysis of the extraordinary forms of rule of the bourgeois state does not stem from academic curiosity. This need is an expression of the necessity to know the enemy better and to wage a more accurate and stronger struggle against it. As in the case of fascism, what can be achieved in the struggle against the raging attacks of the capitalist order depends on which class will establish hegemony. As with the supreme law applicable to all fronts of the struggle against the ruling class order, the flags must never be mixed in the struggle against fascism. In the name of creating broader fronts, all policies (the examples of the Stalinist popular front and similar watered-down alliances) that have led the working class to collaborate with the bourgeoisie and thus handed the leadership of the struggle for democracy to the bourgeoisie on a golden plate have inflicted many bitter defeats on the working class throughout history. This historical reality must never be forgotten. The debates and decisions on the question of fascism in the Third and Fourth World Congresses of the Comintern, which were convened under Lenin, are still an important point of departure for the revolutionary workers’ movement today. However, due to the era of Stalinist domination that intervened between then and now, this Marxist root of our tradition has been left to withering away. We have to revive these roots and carry them into the future. After Lenin’s death, the political existence of the Bolshevik leaders who tried to keep the revolutionary tradition of the Comintern alive, was tried to be swept away with them into the dark abyss of history. Trotsky’s analyses on fascism, which shed light on the present day, and the line of struggle he tried to build were the target of fierce attacks by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Today, without reflecting on these realities, without reflecting with revolutionary sincerity and honesty on what is right and what is wrong, it is not possible to take a path worthy of the revolutionary struggle of the working class on any issue. Another issue which, although not a problem of the same gravity, nevertheless requires clarification in terms of strengthening the revolutionary stance, is the weaknesses of Trotskyism. It is necessary to distinguish between Trotsky and Trotskyism. Trotsky is undoubtedly a great revolutionary and part of our revolutionary Marxist tradition. Trotskyism, on the other hand, split into dozens of fragments after Trotsky’s death, became open to non-Marxist influences due to the vacuum of revolutionary authority and most of the fragments degenerated over time. That is why today, whichever important question concerning the struggle of the working class we address, between us and the real Trotsky, who tried to be a follower of Lenin, and his ideas, are many distortions created over the years by the popes of Trotskyism. Trotsky may have erroneous positions and misjudgements that we can criticize. But no revolutionary Marxist is exempt from this kind of criticism. Beyond this, the real problem is dividing Marxism into separate parts such as Leninism and Trotskyism. The crisis of the revolutionary leadership of the world working class can only be resolved by entrenching Marxism, not by creating fragmented isms. All revolutionary leaders who have made significant contributions to the revolutionary struggle of the working class to one degree or another must be embraced as a common source that enriches Marxism. The problem is not to glorify or denigrate this or that person, but to appraise the struggle and ideas of those who have left their mark on the history of the working class on Marxist grounds and come to a conclusion. First, we can recall Stalin as an example from the reverse. Here, too, the problem is not a question of a “person”. It is the question of Stalinism as a social phenomenon and a political current that has caused great damage to the revolutionary struggle of the world working class and has dynamited the revolutionary foundations laid by Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary leaders. We can also remember the positive examples that illuminated the path of the revolutionary struggle. Revolutionary leaders such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa, Trotsky are our roots, which we need to pour into the same revolutionary pot taking their valid elements, not to create a unique political current from each of them, but to revive the common tradition of revolutionary Marxism. Especially in today’s world, where overcoming the crisis of the revolutionary leadership of the working class is a vital problem that will determine the future of humanity, the effort to rebuild and entrench our Marxist revolutionary tradition in all its richness must be above all else. In order to take the right position on crucial problems such as fascism or imperialist wars, which directly concern the conditions of life and struggle of the world working class, it is necessary to draw a thick line of demarcation between our Marxist tradition and the Stalinist tradition which openly violates it. On the other hand, as in the case of Trotskyism, a determined struggle against the distortions that prevent the strengthening of the Marxist tradition of the revolutionary proletariat cannot be neglected. A striking example of the bourgeois influence that seeps through the gaps in the revolutionary workers’ movement and seeks to paralyze it is the debate on the current danger of fascism. There can be no attitude more wrong, dangerous and harmful for the struggle than to think that the scourge of fascism of the past century cannot be revived because it has already exposed the madness of capitalism. It was the incredible economic and social crisis that hit Europe between the two imperialist wars of division that gave life to German Nazism. Such crises go beyond the usual cyclical crises of capitalism, they are deep and shake the system to its very foundations. As long as the capitalist order exists, there will continue to be imperialist wars, the revolutionary struggle of the working class and therefore fascism. Whatever adjectives those who look at the escalating tensions between the imperialist powers today, at the wars of redivision that are bloodying their spheres of influence and still claim that there will never be a third imperialist war of division deserve, the situation is the same with fascism. As long as the fire does not reach their own homes, the arm-chair intellectuals in Europe and the so-called socialists who follow their lead can deceive themselves by chanting the refrain “never again” as they watch the world from their comfortable chairs. But while they are thus distracted, could it be said that in today’s world, which the imperialist powers have turned into a boiling witches’ cauldron, the danger will not gradually approach their own homes? Although fascist parties are on the rise to some extent in some European countries, it is true that fascism has not yet reached the level of an actual threat in these countries. But who knows what will happen tomorrow? In today’s world, which is reeling from economic crises and wars of redivision, where xenophobia and racism are on the rise, one can never underestimate the fact that the capitalist system, when it is in dire straits, can again unleash the scourge of fascism. It should also not be forgotten that the world is not limited to Europe. Whether it is Turkey or various Latin American countries, the effects of the great damage given to the revolutionary workers’ movement by fascism in these weak links of the imperialist system stand before us as a living history. Moreover, fascism today is preparing to open new paths for itself under the new label of “clash of civilizations” disseminated by the ruling imperialist powers, with plans to divide the working people on the Muslim-Christian axis and make them slaughter each other.
23 August 2004
Part 3
From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic: Bourgeois Revolution from Above
...
The form of establishment of the bourgeois order in Turkey has completely different characteristics than the development process of the bourgeois order in the Western European countries, where the classic examples of bourgeois revolutions are seen. In France, for instance, bourgeois development began yet in the feudal society, and the rising bourgeoisie, on the basis of private property, established its order by carrying out its own revolution in the following years. However, the historical development line of the Ottoman Empire, that the Republic of Turkey emerged out of, does not resemble that of France. The Ottoman Empire has an Asiatic-despotic historical background in which there was no private property on land and was therefore dominated by a class, devletlû, that owns the state. Even when it began to dissolve with the external influence of capitalism, the Ottoman Empire did not become a feudal society as in the European countries. Since the process of capitalist development in Turkey is different from the countries in the West, a developed bourgeoisie as the one in France was not existent to come forward and carry out a democratic bourgeois revolution in the process leading up to the Republic of Turkey out of the Ottoman Empire. However, the process under the pressure of capitalist development around the world made it increasingly necessary to transform the socio-economic conditions in a fashion that paved the way for capitalist development. The historical confrontation between the conservative and progressive forces took place within the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire itself due to the conditions of the time. The Westernizing section of the Ottoman ruling class was predominantly of military origin. As can be seen clearly in the example of the modernization of artillery during the reign of Mahmud II, the Westernization campaign was always led by the army. During the quest of opening to the West, this section of the Ottoman state class, seyfiyye, has never abandoned the struggle against the religious ulema, ilmiyya, which favoured the order of the caliphate and had resisted in the past. Among the military and civil bureaucracy and the Ottoman intellectuals, the elements that favoured change and opening to the West, capitalist development in short, started to organise in order to lead the bourgeois transformations. The 1908 Young Turk Revolution, foundation of Union and Progress and the leadership of the National Struggle that resulted in the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, all was formed and shaped on this basis. In other words, Westernization and bourgeois transformation did not begin with the bourgeois revolution that took place under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal but his leadership was the continuation of a change and transformation which had already begun in the last period of the Ottoman Empire. After Vahdettin shut down the Assembly in December 1918, the National Struggle period came along, in which reformist Ottoman officers and intellectuals such as Mustafa Kemal, a member of the Young Turk movement, established their hegemony. Following the National Struggle, which was initiated after the occupation of the Ottoman Empire by the imperialist powers at the end of the First World War, the Republic of Turkey was founded with the bourgeois revolution of 1923. This national struggle, which came under the leadership of M. Kemal after his passage from Istanbul to Anatolia and the organising he conducted, achieved its goal with a republic established on the basis of solely the Turkish national identity. Here we should not overlook an important fact. Although 1923 was the continuation of 1908, a significant change took place between the two events. Behind 1908, there was also the non-Muslim bourgeoisie, as the pioneer of capitalist development in the Ottoman Empire and the most important bourgeois layer of the period. The Young Turk movement was organised not only among young Turkish officers, students and intellectuals, but also among non-Muslim bourgeoisie. 1923 was devoid of this heritage with the Balkan countries’ gaining their national independence. The Republic of Turkey started off with a weak national bourgeoisie that was left over, while the late Ottoman period had a strong non-Muslim bourgeoisie and a local bourgeoisie that consisted of the weak Turkish bourgeois elements that were newly developing. The bourgeois revolution of 1923, which took place under the leadership of M. Kemal, was a top-down revolution that completed the unfinished work of 1908 in a rudimentary manner. To draw an analogy within the context of the Marxist evaluation of bourgeois revolutions, 1908 belongs to the category of 1848 revolutions in Italy, Austria, and Germany, which Marx and Engels named as dwarf revolutions. The characteristic of these revolutions is that they are late bourgeois revolutions, so they tend to compromise with the dominant elements of the previous order and eventually waver in halfway. Previously we have mentioned that the consequences of dwarf revolutions will remain also dwarf in the future. It will be recalled that, in the case of Germany, the unfinished 1848 revolution was followed by a top-down revolution, led by Bismarck towards 1870s, which could not dare to sweep out the extensions and remnants of the old order in a revolutionary manner. Similarly, the Turkish bourgeois revolution of 1923 was a top-down revolution that tried to complete the work left incomplete by the dwarf 1908 in a conciliatory manner. The late bourgeois revolutions such as the ones that took place in Germany in 1848 and subsequently in 1866 entered the stage of history much later in the case of Turkey due to delayed capitalism. It is clear that the bourgeois revolution of 1923, which resulted in the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, was a top-down revolution in which the masses of people did not participate. The characteristic of such top-down revolutions is that, unlike the democratic bourgeois revolutions, they do not include the democratic demands of the working class and do not engage their active support. On the contrary, they try to pave the way for capitalist development by excluding and suppressing the masses, performing some compulsory transformations from above. They do not have the capacity to perform democratic transformations in the interest of the large working masses as in the land reform. As a matter of fact, the Republic of Turkey example completely affirms these designations. The bourgeois transformation, which started in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, was finalized by the transformation of the constitutional monarchy (i.e monarchy with parliament) into a non-democratic republic. The capitulations taken over from the Ottomans (rights and privileges granted to foreign countries and organisations) were abolished with the Treaty of Lausanne signed on the 24th of July 1923. Düyunu Umumiye, an institution that handled the payment of the Ottoman debts, was abolished and the Republic of Turkey undertook to pay its share of the Ottoman debts by instalments till 1954. With the law accepted in March 1924, the caliphate was abolished and the Ottoman dynasty was expelled out of the Republic of Turkey, thereby the Ottoman sultanate order was terminated. İş Bankası, a state-sanctioned private bank, was founded in 1924 to lay the foundation for capitalist development. But nothing has been done in order to solve the land reform issue, which is one of the most fundamental tasks of a bourgeois democratic revolution. As a result of the agreement made with the landlords, the tithe collected on the harvest in the Ottoman Empire was abolished in February 1925. In some approaches that attach a greater meaning to the Kemalist revolution than its reality, it is claimed that this revolution destroyed the previous state apparatus. However, as previously emphasized, only genuine popular revolutions can accomplish this. What has been experienced in Turkey between 1919 and 1923, was not a revolution based on popular uprising. Under the leadership of the Kemalist bureaucracy, the top-down dwarf bourgeois revolution did obviously not destroy the old state apparatus but made it even more competent by dipping it into the Republican sauce. In this type of bourgeois development, we see that the elements coming out of the old state bureaucracy and demanding a reformation in anticipation of the inevitability of capitalist development take on a pioneering role in social transformation in the early stages. But such a transformation is embodied in a specific kind of capitalist development that involves reactionary reconciliations with the major landowners, avoids engaging the masses and accelerating the process, and is in particular under strict control of the state. It is not possible to consider such a line of development as equivalent to the capitalist process in European countries where democratic bourgeois revolutions take place. In the particular case of Turkey, a very important issue that must be addressed correctly is the class character of the state founding bureaucracy. The pro-Western section of the upper state bureaucracy, which formed the dominant class in the Ottoman social structure, wanted to integrate with the modern capitalist world as a result of the exigencies of the now changed world conditions during the collapse of the Empire and took on this mission. To the extent that these bureaucrats undertook the task of establishing a new state on bourgeois foundations, they themselves underwent transformation and became bourgeois. For this reason, they made their mark on the foundation process of the Republic of Turkey as the vanguard section of an emergent class, i.e. the bourgeoisie. It is against reality to consider these constituent elements of the bourgeois state as petty-bourgeois or as a self-styled bureaucratic caste that is cleared of bourgeois character. Such assessments, however, are quite common in the Stalinist ranks. In addition, some Trotskyist circles put forward theses in this direction. However, the simple truth is that the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal’s leadership, was not petty-bourgeois, but was bourgeois. The political structure of the bourgeois Republic of Turkey, which was established in the remaining land of the fallen Ottoman Empire, does not resemble the multiparty political structure in the countries that have experienced the process of bourgeois democratic revolution. Since the first period of the National Assembly was the product of a course of struggle and alliances, it included diverse political elements, left-wing deputies, Laz and Kurdish representatives. However after M. Kemal leadership eliminated its opponents through the so called Independence Courts and liquidated left organisations and politicians by means of the Takrir-i Sükun law (law on the maintenance of order) a form of administration embodied by Kemal’s personal hegemony was established. Thereby, even though the political structure after 1925 in Turkey included a Parliament, this has never been a Western-type bourgeois democracy. From the proclamation of the Republic to 1946, the form of political sovereignty was embodied in the single-party dictatorship of the CHP, the founding party of the bourgeois state. The political regime implemented the policy of systematic repression over the working masses and the oppressed Kurdish nation. Compared with parliamentary democracy in European countries, the bourgeois regime in Turkey emerged as a more anti-democratic one with a reactionary character and continued its existence on the basis of the past despotic state tradition. In countries where bourgeois transformations are carried out via revolutions involving the masses, we see that the old absolutist regimes are liquidated much more radically. Additionally, by means of agricultural reform, the capitalist transformation of peasantry and the proletarianisation of rural population take place by leaps and bounds, meaning a shorter period time. A revolutionary type of bourgeois development can eliminate the barriers to capitalist rise more comprehensively, in a shorter time and therefore less painfully. However, the Prussian line of development is the opposite. The top-down bourgeois revolutions that accompany this line of development are coward and conservative in fundamental bourgeois democratic transformations, such as the elimination of the old political structure and the agricultural reform. That is why, in Turkey, the process of capitalist development in rural areas has been accompanied by a remarkably agonizing process of dissolution. In the example of Prussia, the phenomenon of statism and the made-up fallacy that the state did not discriminate between the working class and the bourgeoisie and treated both classes equally are of great importance. A similar distortion of consciousness has predominated for many years in Turkey as well. The motto of Kemalism, “we are a classless, privileged, coherent mass”, is similar to Bismarckism and is essentially the expression of fear of the proletariat. This fear is not only dependent on the level of national development but is essentially a historical one. Indeed, the bourgeoisie first saw the light of day with this fear in a period that the working class has not developed yet. If we recall that this bourgeois order was established just beside a workers’ state which was the product of the October Revolution, the extent of the problem can be understood much better. As in all other bourgeois leaderships and national struggles carried out by such leaderships, who defended their political independence against imperialism, Mustafa Kemal, while challenging some imperialist powers in order to keep his plans going, made various agreements with others. In order to establish the bourgeois republic on the basis of the recognition of solely the Turkish nation, the M. Kemal leadership enforced the policy of repression and exclusion against various minorities and the oppressed Kurdish nation. This official policy, which shaped the founding period of the Republic of Turkey, continued after the death of M. Kemal with a one-man [National Chief] dictatorship and Kemalist cadre movement. The non-Muslim bourgeoisie, which was inherited from the Ottoman Empire with a dominant position in private capitalist enterprise in both trade and industry, was brought down by fascist practices (e.g. forced labour camps, Wealth Tax) and the path for the development of the Turkish bourgeoisie was opened. The establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the hegemonic political position of the Kemalist bureaucracy during the single-party rule cannot be considered independent of the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie’s development. The single-party dictatorship that appears as an extraordinary regime on its own or the absolute political power of the bureaucracy when compared to the multiparty parliamentary democracy examples in Western Europe, has been, over a long period, the embodiment form of the bourgeois rule that is particular to the conditions of Turkey. The Kemalist single-party rule, which retracted under the influence of the international conditions between the two world wars and secured an accumulation of capital through internal market exploitation with state capitalism, repressed the working class on the one hand and started to lay the foundations for the transition to industrial capitalism in Turkey on the other. The extant influence of the peculiar elements that marked the National Struggle and the top-down bourgeois revolution process in Turkey is quite important as well. It is therefore useful to summarize certain notable issues. While in France, first the private property owning bourgeoisie developed and correspondingly created its own politicians and bureaucrats, in Turkey it was the opposite. In Turkey, civilian or military, the state founding bourgeoisie, that emerged as the upper bureaucracy, paved the way for the formation of a direct entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, who was engaged in industry and trade by means of state capitalism. Therefore, this second fraction, unlike the examples in Europe, got into the habit of taking shelter under the wings of the first fraction when in trouble, until it was sufficiently fed and battened, and started to feel powerful. When it began to feel powerful and wanted to rise against its own generals and bureaucrats, it did not succeed until recently (apart from the exceptions that ended with gallows or suspicious deaths). After all, it is not easy to bring the soldiers and the civil bureaucracy, who are convinced that they are the state founding and regime-protecting vanguards for many years, around the fact that they are the servants of the bourgeois business world. In countries like Turkey, where a bourgeois class, built upon private property, did not prevail, civilian or military upper bureaucracy assumed the mission of the property owning bourgeoisie of the Western European countries. In this regard, the bourgeois order in Turkey, in a sense, took an extraordinary political form from the outset. For the same reason, the upper state bureaucracy gained an extraordinary importance in political setup and this position has survived until today. We can say that it has become a matter of life and death not to lose its superior position for this bureaucracy which appeared as if an independent group within the alliance of ruling classes by means of its ownership of the state. The conflict between the bureaucracy and the bourgeois business world which gained strength as a result of capitalist development, has made its presence felt sometimes softly sometimes harshly. But this has not been a conflict between the elements of different classes. This extant conflict is the power struggle within the bourgeois class, in other words, within the ruling power bloc. In Turkey, the sovereign bureaucracy entered the stage of history as the vanguard elements of the national bourgeoisie, which began to develop under the favour of state capitalism. For a long time, it faced mainly the small peasantry whose process of proletarianisation was very slow due to the slow and painful dissolution of the countryside. Capitalism has evolved over time in Turkey even though the form of establishment and progress of the bourgeois order was different from the examples in the West. The proletariat, though belated, grew and the fundamental conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat matured objectively. But the peculiarity, which has predominated since the establishment of the bourgeois order, that is, the bureaucracy’s weight in political life, has survived until today as a reality that does not vanish easily. This reality has led to incorrect assessments such as that the predominant conflict in Turkey’s political life is “between the bureaucracy and people” or “between the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie”. Left liberalism, which is still highly respected today, detached the political reality from the class basis on which it is based. However, as in all capitalist societies, the principal conflict is between the bourgeoisie and the working class in Turkey as well. The bourgeoisie-proletariat conflict, which emerged much more prominently in the Western European countries where capitalism started to develop within feudalism on the basis of private property, took shape belatedly in Turkey due to different conditions, state ownership and statism phenomenon. Vis-à-vis Kemalism, which meant the National Struggle, the form of establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the official ideology of the bourgeoisie, various political forces took stand according to their class positions. The military and civilian bureaucracy always considered themselves as the true owners of this ideology. In fact, these were the forces that set Kemalism as the official state ideology in order not to lose their privilege in Turkey’s political setup. According to them, M. Kemal was the leader of an unprecedented movement of independence and progress, and Kemalism was the ideology of such a unique historical move. In addition to this, the left movement in Turkey has been plagued by the phenomenon of left Kemalism as well for many years. We can characterize this as a petty-bourgeois left variant of the official ideology of the bourgeoisie. Left Kemalism is a pernicious source that has poisoned, and continues to poison, the socialist movement in Turkey. According to Left Kemalism, the National Struggle is a glorious anti-imperialist struggle led by [so called] vigorous military and civilian forces. The left Kemalists, who refuse to see the bourgeois class character and the repressive side of these forces, attribute a distinct and more revolutionary character to Kemal and Kemalism. In fact, they interpret the bourgeois revolution, which in reality is top-down and not anti-imperialist at all, and his leadership as a kind of petty-bourgeois radicalism, i.e. Jacobinism. This is an issue that has been heated and brought up repetitively on various occasions. The reason that the petty-bourgeois left intellectuals persist on doing this, is their wish to display the National Struggle in Turkey and its leader Mustafa Kemal as a revolutionary thread. The liberal bourgeois attitude, on the other hand, accuses revolutionary attitude in general as top-downism, under the guise of criticizing Jacobinism. In fact, neither Kemal and his peers are Jacobins, nor Jacobinism is top-down revolutionism. Jacobinism, which emerged within the French revolution, describes the kind of bourgeois revolutionism, which tries to bring the bourgeois revolution to its peak and does not exclude the action of the masses unless it goes beyond the limits of the bourgeois order. Jacobinism, therefore, has nothing to do with the top-down bourgeois revolutionism, which despises and suppresses the action of the masses. Jacobinism represents a positive tendency, a revolutionary attitude within the context of bourgeois revolutions. Top-down revolutionism, on the other hand, is Bismarckism, and Kemalism in the case of Turkey. Kemalism, which excludes the masses from the act of revolutionary transformation, does not radically settle with the old regime and undergoes a bourgeoisification process under the auspices of the state bureaucracy, represents a reactionary ideological and political line compared to the bourgeoisie’s revolutionary democratic tendency, Jacobinism.
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August 2004