Republican People's Party Research Articles

Recent Developments in Turkey

T tHE key fact in the modern history of Turkey is that in May I950 a really free and fair election was held which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Opposition. After twenty-seven years of uninterrupted rule by the Ciimhuriyet Halk Partisi (C.H.P.), the Republican People's Party, founded by Kemal Atatiirk-most of the time without any opposition party to challenge it-the C.H.P. Government presided over a free and peaceful election which resulted in its own defeat and replacement by the Democrat Party founded in I946. This momentous event bears remarkable testimony to the constructive work of Kemalism and to the political maturing of the Turkish people under its aegis. At the risk of a paradox I would say that the electoral defeat of the C.H.P. was its greatest achievement. How did it happen? Turkey under Atatuirk was a dictatorship-but it must be borne in mind that it was very different from the regimes to which the same term is applied in recent and contemporary Europe. It was a dictatorship without the uneasy over-the-shoulder glance, the terror of the door-bell, the menace of the concentration camp. Force and repression were no doubt used to establish it, but once it was established, it offered no great danger to life or personal liberty except, perhaps, in a few specific instances. Political activity against the regime was banned, but talk and even books-though not newspapers-were comparatively free. Critics of the regime and its policies, with few exceptions, were punished with remote official jobs in eastern Anatolia or with diplomatic appointments in distant and unimportant capitals. Violence was rare, and was usually in answer to violent opposition. After the death of Atatuirk there was some deterioration. In the hands of lesser men than himself, his authoritarian and paternalist mode of government degenerated into something nearer to dictatorship as the word is commonly understood. The disappearance of *Atatiirk's own dominating personality and the rise of a new generation influenced by Western constitutional ideas undermined the popular acceptance of authoritarian government that had its roots deep in the Islamic past, and forced the regime to rely more and more on simple repression. The strains and stresses of the war years, the burden of mobilization, the universal threat of foreign espionage and infiltration, all reinforced the need for strong government, and lent some colour of justification to the repressive measures adopted. Martial law was imposed, the press and publications were more strictly controlled than ever, police surveillance became