With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, efforts to modernise the country started. The new government analyzed the institutions and constitutions of Western states such as France, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland and adapted them to the needs and characteristics of the Turkish nation. Highlighting the public's lack of knowledge regarding Mustafa Kemal's intentions, the public cheered: "We are returning to the days of the
first caliphs." Mustafa Kemal placed
Fevzi Çakmak,
Kâzım Özalp, and
İsmet İnönü in political positions where they could institute his
reforms. He capitalized on his reputation as an efficient military leader and spent the following years, up until his death in 1938, instituting political, economic, and social reforms. In doing so, he transformed Turkish society from perceiving itself as a Muslim part of a vast Empire into a modern, democratic, and secular nation-state. This had a positive influence on
human capital because from then on, what mattered at school was science and education; Islam was concentrated in mosques and religious places.
Domestic policies -
Çarşamba railroad (1928) Mustafa Kemal's driving goal was the complete independence of the country. He clarified his position: He led wide-ranging reforms in social, cultural, and economic aspects, establishing the new Republic's backbone of legislative, judicial, and economic structures. Though he was later idealized by some as an originator of sweeping reforms, many of his reformist ideas were already common in Ottoman intellectual circles at the turn of the 20th century and were expressed more openly after the
Young Turk Revolution. Mustafa Kemal created a
banner to mark the changes between the old Ottoman and the new republican rule. Each change was symbolized as an arrow in this banner. This defining ideology of the Republic of Turkey is referred to as the "Six Arrows", or
Kemalism. Kemalism is based on Mustafa Kemal's conception of
realism and
pragmatism. The fundamentals of nationalism, populism, and
statism were all defined under the Six Arrows. These fundamentals were not new in world politics or, indeed, among the elite of Turkey. What made them unique was that these interrelated fundamentals were explicitly formulated for Turkey's needs. A good example is the definition and application of secularism; the Kemalist secular state significantly differed from predominantly Christian states.
Emergence of the state, 1923–1924 , before its institutional expression became illegal and their
dervish lodge was changed into the
Mevlana Museum. The Mevlevi Order managed to transform itself into a non-political organization which still exists. Mustafa Kemal's private journal entries dated before the establishment of the republic in 1923 show that he believed in the importance of the sovereignty of the people. In forging the new republic, the Turkish revolutionaries turned their back on the perceived corruption and decadence of cosmopolitan Constantinople and its Ottoman heritage. For instance, they made
Ankara (as Angora has been known in English since 1930), the country's new capital and reformed the
Turkish postal service. Once a provincial town deep in Anatolia, the city was thus turned into the center of the independence movement. Mustafa Kemal wanted a "direct government by the Assembly" and visualized a
representative democracy,
parliamentary sovereignty, where the National Parliament would be the ultimate source of power. He prevented the spread into Turkey of the
totalitarian party rule which held sway in the Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy. Some perceived his opposition and silencing of these ideologies as a means of eliminating competition; others believed it was necessary to protect the young Turkish state from succumbing to the instability of new ideologies and competing factions. Under Mustafa Kemal, the arrest process known as the
1927 Detentions (
1927 Tevkifatı) was launched, and a widespread arrest policy was put in place against the
Communist Party of Turkey members. Communist political figures such as
Hikmet Kıvılcımlı,
Nâzım Hikmet, and Şefik Hüsnü were tried and sentenced to prison terms. Then, in 1937, a delegation headed by Mustafa Kemal decided to censor the writings of Kıvılcımlı as harmful communist propaganda. The heart of the new republic was the GNA, established during the Turkish War of Independence by Mustafa Kemal. The elections were free and used an egalitarian electoral system that was based on a general ballot. Abolishing the sultanate was easier because the survival of the caliphate at the time satisfied the partisans of the sultanate. This produced a split system with the new republic on one side and an Islamic form of government with the Caliph on the other side, and Mustafa Kemal and İnönü worried that "it nourished the expectations that the sovereign would return under the guise of Caliph." Caliph
Abdülmecid II was elected after the abolition of the sultanate (1922). The caliph had his own personal treasury and also had a personal service that included military personnel; Mustafa Kemal said that there was no "religious" or "political" justification for this. He believed that Caliph Abdülmecid II was following in the steps of the sultans in domestic and foreign affairs: accepting of and responding to foreign representatives and reserve officers, and participating in official ceremonies and celebrations. He wanted to integrate the powers of the caliphate into the powers of the GNA. His initial activities began on 1 January 1924, when A "Caliphate Conference" was held in
Cairo in May 1926 and a resolution was passed declaring the caliphate "a necessity in Islam", but failed to implement this decision. On 8 April 1924,
sharia courts were abolished with the law "Mehakim-i Şer'iyenin İlgasına ve Mehakim Teşkilatına Ait Ahkamı Muaddil Kanun".
Educational reform The removal of the caliphate was followed by an extensive effort to establish the separation of governmental and religious affairs. Education was the cornerstone in this effort. In 1923, there were three main educational groups of institutions. The most common institutions were
medreses based on Arabic, the Qur'an, and memorization. The second type of institution was idadî and sultanî, the reformist schools of the
Tanzimat era. The last group included colleges and minority schools in foreign languages that used the latest teaching models in educating pupils. The old medrese education was modernized. His
public education reforms aimed to prepare citizens for roles in public life through increasing public literacy. He wanted to institute compulsory primary education for both girls and boys; since then this effort has been an ongoing task for the republic. He pointed out that one of the main targets of
education in Turkey had to be raising a generation nourished with what he called the "public culture". The state schools established a common curriculum which became known as the "unification of education". Unification of education was put into force on 3 March 1924 by the Law on Unification of Education (No. 430). With the new law, education became inclusive, organized on a model of the civil community. In this new design, all schools submitted their curriculum to the "
Ministry of National Education", a government agency modeled after other countries' ministries of education. Concurrently, the republic abolished the two ministries and made clergy subordinate to the
department of religious affairs, one of the foundations of
secularism in Turkey. The unification of education under one curriculum ended "clerics or clergy of the Ottoman Empire", but was not the end of religious schools in Turkey; they were moved to higher education until later governments restored them to their former position in secondary after Mustafa Kemal's death.
Western attire just after
the Kastamonu speech in 1925 Beginning in the fall of 1925, Mustafa Kemal encouraged the Turks to wear
modern European attire. He was determined to force the abandonment of the sartorial traditions of the Middle East and finalize a series of dress reforms, which were originally started by
Mahmud II.
Religious insignia On 30 August 1925, Mustafa Kemal's view on religious insignia used outside places of worship was introduced in his
Kastamonu speech. This speech also had another position. He said: On 2 September 1925, the government issued a decree closing down all
Sufi orders, the
tekkes and other religious ideological lodges. Mustafa Kemal ordered the
dervish lodges to be converted to museums, such as
Mevlana Museum in Konya. The institutional expression of religious ideologies became illegal in Turkey; a politically neutral form of any religious ideology, functioning as social associations, was permitted to exist.
Opposition to Mustafa Kemal in 1924–1927 (14 July 1927) In 1924, while the "
Issue of Mosul" was on the table,
Sheikh Said began to organize the
Sheikh Said Rebellion. Sheikh Said was a wealthy Kurdish
tribal chief of a local
Naqshbandi order in
Diyarbakır. He emphasized the issue of religion; he not only opposed the abolition of the caliphate, but also the adoption of civil codes based on Western models, the closure of religious orders, the ban on polygamy, and the new obligatory civil marriage. Sheikh stirred up his followers against the policies of the government, which he considered anti-Islamic. In an effort to restore Islamic law, Sheik's forces moved through the countryside, seized government offices and marched on the important cities of
Elazığ and
Diyarbakır. Members of the government saw the Sheikh Said Rebellion as an attempt at a counter-revolution. They urged immediate military action to prevent its spread. With the support of Mustafa Kemal, the acting prime minister
Ali Fethi (Okyar) was replaced with
İsmet Pasha (İnönü), who on 3 March 1925 ordered the invocation of the "Law for the Maintenance of Order" in order to deal with the rebellion. It gave the government exceptional powers and included the authority to shut down subversive groups. The law was repealed in March 1927. There were also parliamentarians in the GNA who were not happy with these changes. So many members were denounced as opposition sympathizers at a private meeting of the
Republican People's Party (CHP) that Mustafa Kemal expressed his fear of being among the minority in his own party. He decided not to purge this group. The PRP was not against Mustafa Kemal's main positions as declared in its program; they supported establishing secularism in the country and the civil law, or as stated, "the needs of the age" (article 3) and the uniform system of education (article 49). These principles were set by the leaders at the onset. The only legal opposition became a home for all kinds of differing views. During 1926, a
plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal was uncovered in Smyrna (İzmir). It originated with a former deputy who had opposed the
abolition of the
caliphate. What originally was an inquiry into the planners shifted to a sweeping investigation. Ostensibly, its aims were to uncover subversive activities, but in truth, the investigation was used to undermine those disagreeing with Mustafa Kemal's cultural reforms. The investigation brought a number of political activists before the tribunal, including Karabekir, the leader of the PRP. A number of surviving leaders of the
Committee of Union and Progress, including
Mehmet Cavid, Ahmed Şükrü, and İsmail Canbulat, were found guilty of treason and hanged. Because the investigation found a link between the members of the PRP and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, the PRP was dissolved following the outcomes of the trial. The pattern of organized opposition was broken; this action was to be the only broad political purge during Mustafa Kemal's presidency. His statement – "My mortal body will turn into dust, but the Republic of Turkey will last forever" – was regarded as a will after the assassination attempt.
Modernization efforts, 1926–1930 In the years following 1926, Mustafa Kemal introduced a radical departure from previous reformations established by the Ottoman Empire. He stated: in Ankara, on 16 July 1929 On 1 March 1926, the Turkish
penal code, modelled after the Italian penal code, was passed. On 4 October 1926,
Islamic courts were closed. Establishing the civic law needed time, so Mustafa Kemal delayed the inclusion of the principle of
laïcité (the constitutional principle of secularism in France) until 5 February 1937. in 1930 In keeping with the Islamic practice of
sex segregation, Ottoman practice discouraged social interaction between men and women. Mustafa Kemal began developing social reforms to address this issue very early, as was evident in his personal journal. He and his staff discussed issues such as abolishing the
veiling of women and integrating women into the outside world. His plans to surmount the task were written in his journal in November 1915: Mustafa Kemal needed a new civil code to establish his second major step of giving freedom to women. The first part was the education of girls, a feat established with the unification of education. On 4 October 1926, the new
Turkish civil code, modelled after the
Swiss Civil Code, was passed. Under the new code, women gained equality with men in such matters as inheritance and divorce, since Mustafa Kemal did not consider gender a factor in social organization. According to his view, society marched towards its goal with men and women united. He believed that it was scientifically impossible for Turkey to achieve progress and become civilized if Ottoman gender separation persisted. During a meeting he declaimed: Additionally, the Kemalist
one-party period of Turkey's labor participation rate was as high as 70%. The participation rate continued to decline after the democratization of Turkey due to the backlash of conservative norms in Turkish society. In 1927, the
State Art and Sculpture Museum (
Ankara Resim ve Heykel Müzesi) opened its doors. The museum highlighted
sculpture, which was rarely practised in Turkey due to the Islamic tradition of avoiding idolatry. Mustafa Kemal believed that "culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic", and described modern Turkey's ideological thrust as "a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty humanist ideal". He included both his own nation's creative legacy and what he saw as the admirable values of global civilization. The pre-Islamic
culture of the Turks became the subject of extensive research, and particular emphasis was placed on the widespread Turkish culture before the
Seljuk and
Ottoman civilizations. He instigated study of
Anatolian civilizations –
Phrygians,
Lydians,
Sumerians, and
Hittites. To attract public attention to past cultures, he personally named the banks "
Sümerbank" (1932) after the Sumerians and "
Etibank" (1935) after the Hittites. He also stressed the folk arts of the countryside as a wellspring of Turkish creativity. At the time, the republic used the
Ottoman Turkish language written in the
Arabic script with Arabic and
Persian loan vocabulary. When Mustafa Kemal asked the language experts how long it would take to implement the new alphabet into the Turkish language, most of the professors and linguists said between three and five years. Mustafa Kemal was said to have scoffed and openly stated: "We shall do it in three to five months". to the people of
Kayseri on 20 September 1928 Over the next several months, Mustafa Kemal pressed for the introduction of the new Turkish alphabet and made public announcements of the upcoming overhaul. The creation of the alphabet was undertaken by the Language Commission (
Dil Encümeni) with the initiative of Mustafa Kemal. To supplement the literacy reform, a number of congresses were organized on scientific issues, education, history, economics, arts and language. Libraries were systematically developed, and mobile libraries and book transport systems were set up to serve remote districts. Literacy reform was also supported by strengthening the private publishing sector with a new law on copyrights. Mustafa Kemal promoted modern
teaching methods at the primary education level, and Dewey proved integral to the effort. Mustafa Kemal's reforms on education made it significantly more accessible: between 1923 and 1938, the number of students attending primary schools increased by 224% (from 342,000 to 765,000), the number of students attending middle schools increased by 12.5 times (from around 6,000 to 74,000), and the number of students attending high schools increased by almost 17 times (from 1,200 to 21,000). after the 7th-year celebration meeting Mustafa Kemal generated media attention to propagate modern education during this period. He instigated official education meetings called "Science Boards" and "Education Summits" to discuss the quality of education, training issues, and certain basic educational principles. He said, "our [schools' curriculum] should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve." He was personally engaged with the development of two textbooks. The first one,
Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler (Civic knowledge for the citizens, 1930), introduced the science of comparative government and explained the means of administering public trust by explaining the rules of governance as applied to the new state institutions. The second,
Geometri (Geometry, 1937), was a text for high schools and introduced many of the terms currently used in Turkey to describe
geometry.
Opposition to Mustafa Kemal in 1930–1931 On 11 August 1930, Mustafa Kemal decided to try a multiparty movement once again and asked
Fethi Okyar to establish a new party. Mustafa Kemal insisted on the protection of secular reforms. The brand-new
Liberal Republican Party succeeded all around the country. However, without the establishment of a real political spectrum, the party became the center to opposition of Mustafa Kemal's reforms, particularly in regard to the role of religion in public life. On 23 December 1930, a chain of violent incidents occurred, instigated by the rebellion of Islamic fundamentalists in
Menemen, a small town in the
Aegean Region. The
Menemen Incident came to be considered a serious threat against secular reforms. leader
Fethi Okyar and his daughter in
Yalova, on 13 August 1930 In November 1930, Ali Fethi Okyar dissolved his own party. A more lasting
multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey began in 1945. In 1950, the CHP ceded the majority position to the
Democratic Party. This came amidst arguments that Mustafa Kemal's single-party rule did not promote
direct democracy. The reason experiments with
pluralism failed during this period was that not all groups in the country had agreed to a minimal consensus regarding shared values (mainly secularism) and shared rules for conflict resolution. In response to such criticisms, Mustafa Kemal's biographer
Andrew Mango writes: "between the two wars, democracy could not be sustained in many relatively richer and better-educated societies. Mustafa Kemal's enlightened authoritarianism left a reasonable space for free private lives. More could not have been expected in his lifetime." Even though, at times, he did not appear to be a democrat in his actions, Mustafa Kemal always supported the idea of building a
civil society: a system of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions as opposed to the force-backed structures of the state. In one of his many speeches about the importance of democracy, Mustafa Kemal said in 1933:
Modernization efforts, 1931–1938 . Atatürk is standing with
Afet İnan (on his left) and
Yusuf Akçura (first from the left). In 1931, Atatürk established the
Turkish Language Association (
Türk Dil Kurumu) for conducting research works in the
Turkish language. The
Turkish Historical Society (
Türk Tarih Kurumu) was established in 1931, and began maintaining archives in 1932 for conducting research works on the
history of Turkey. On 1 January 1928, he established the
Turkish Education Association, on 3 May 1935 Atatürk dealt with the translation of scientific
terminology into Turkish. He wanted the Turkish language reform to be methodologically based. Any attempt to "cleanse" the Turkish language of foreign influence without modelling the integral structure of the language was inherently wrong to him. He personally oversaw the development of the
Sun Language Theory (
Güneş Dil Teorisi), which was a
linguistic theory which proposed that all human languages were descendants of one
Central Asian primal language. His ideas could be traced to the work by the French scientist
Hilaire de Barenton titled ''L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples'', which postulates that all languages originated from
hieroglyphs and
cuneiform used by Sumerians, and the paper by Austrian linguist
Hermann F. Kvergić of
Vienna titled "" ('The Psychology of Some Elements of the
Turkic Languages'). Atatürk formally introduced the Sun Language Theory into Turkish political and educational circles in 1935, although he did later correct the more extremist practices. Beginning in 1932, several hundred "
People's Houses" () and "
People's Rooms" () across the country allowed greater access to a wide variety of artistic activities, sports, and other cultural events. Atatürk supported and encouraged the visual and the
plastic arts, which had been suppressed by Ottoman leaders, who regarded depiction of the human form as
idolatry. Many museums opened, architecture began to follow modern trends, and
classical Western music, opera, ballet, and theatre took greater hold in the country. Book and magazine publications increased as well, and the film industry began to grow. Almost all Qur'ans in Turkey before the 1930s were printed in Old Arabic. However, in 1924, three Turkish translations of the Qur'an were published in Istanbul, and several renderings of the
Qur'an in the Turkish language were read in front of the public, creating significant controversy. These Turkish Qur'ans were fiercely opposed by members of the religious community, and the incident impelled many leading Muslim modernists to call upon the Turkish Parliament to sponsor a Qur'an translation of suitable quality. With the support of Atatürk, the Parliament approved the project and the Directorate of Religious Affairs appointed Mehmet Akif (Ersoy) to compose a
Qur'an translation, and the Islamic scholar
Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır to author a Turkish language Qur'anic commentary (
tafsir) titled ''
Hak Dini Kur'an Dili'' (The Qur'an: the Tongue of the Religion of Truth). However, it was only in 1935 that the version of Yazır's work read in public found its way to print. In 1932, Atatürk justified the translation of the Qur'an by stating how he wanted to "teach religion in Turkish to Turkish people who had been practising Islam without understanding it for centuries." Atatürk believed that the understanding of religion and its texts was too important to be left to a small group of people. Thus, his objective was to make the Qur'an accessible to a broader demographic by translating it into modern languages. In 1934, Atatürk commissioned the first Turkish operatic work,
Özsoy. The opera, staged at the People's House in Ankara, was composed by
Adnan Saygun and performed by soprano
Semiha Berksoy. On 5 December 1934, Turkey moved to grant full political rights to women. The equal rights of women in marriage had already been established in the earlier Turkish civil code. The role of women in Atatürk's cultural reforms was expressed in the civic book prepared under his supervision. In it, he stated: The
1935 general elections yielded 18 female MPs out of a total of 395 representatives, compared to nine out of 615 members in the
British House of Commons and six out of 435 in the
US House of Representatives inaugurated that year.
Unification and nationalisation efforts When the modern
Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, nationalism and secularism were two of the founding principles. Atatürk aimed to create a nation state (
ulus devlet) from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Kemalism defines the "Turkish People" as "those who protect and promote the moral, spiritual, cultural and humanistic values of the Turkish Nation." One of the goals of the establishment of the new Turkish state was to ensure "the domination of Turkish national identity in every aspect of social life from the language that people speak in the streets to the language to be taught at schools, from the education to the industrial life, from the trade to the cadres of state officials, from the civil law to the settlement of citizens to particular regions." The process of unification through
Turkification continued and was fostered under Atatürk's government with such policies as
Citizen speak Turkish! (
Vatandaş Türkçe konuş!), an initiative created in the 1930s by law students but sponsored by the government. This campaign aimed to put pressure on non-Turkish speakers to speak Turkish in public. However, the campaign went beyond the measures of a mere policy of speaking Turkish to an outright prevention of any other language. Another example of nationalisation was the
Surname Law, which obligated the Turkish people to adopt fixed, hereditary surnames and forbade names that contained connotations of foreign cultures, nations, tribes, and religions. As a result, many ethnic Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds changed their surnames. Furthermore, the
geographical name changes initiative by the Turkish government replaced non-Turkish geographical and topographic names within the
Turkish Republic with
Turkish names. The main proponent of the initiative had been a Turkish homogenization social-engineering campaign which aimed to assimilate geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Turkish unity. The names that were considered foreign were usually of Armenian, Greek,
Laz, Bulgarian, Kurdish, Assyrian, or Arabic origin. The
1934 Resettlement Law was a policy adopted by the Turkish government which set forth the basic principles of immigration. The law, however, is regarded by some as a policy of assimilation of non-Turkish minorities through a forced and collective resettlement.
Social policy reforms and economic progress Atatürk was also credited for his transformational change in Turkish agriculture and ecological development. The Kemalist government planted four million trees, modernized the Turkish agricultural mechanism, implemented flood controls, opened schools in rural areas with rural institutions such as agricultural banks, and implemented land reform that removed heavy taxes on peasants of the Ottoman era. He was described as the "Father of Turkish Agriculture". Atatürk also massively boomed the Turkish economy with heavy industrial production increased by 150% and GDP per capita rose from 800 USD to around 2000 USD by late 1930s, on par with Japan. Atatürk's regime also passed the 1936 Labor Law, which gave substantial wage increases and improved the working conditions of workers in Turkish enterprises.
Foreign policies Amānullāh Khān of
Afghanistan in
Ankara, 1928. King Amānullāh attempted to emulate many of Atatürk's reforms in Afghanistan, but was overthrown. Atatürk's foreign policy followed his motto "
Peace at home, peace in the world", The outcomes of Atatürk's policies depended on the power of the parliamentary sovereignty established by the Republic. The Turkish War of Independence was the last time Atatürk used his military might in dealing with other countries. Foreign issues were resolved by peaceful methods during his presidency.
Issue of Mosul The Issue of Mosul, a dispute with the United Kingdom over control of
Mosul Vilayet, was one of the first foreign affairs-related controversies of the new Republic. During the
Mesopotamian campaign,
Lieutenant General William Marshall followed the British War Office's instruction that "every effort was to be made to score as heavily as possible on the Tigris before the whistle blew", capturing Mosul three days after the signature of the
Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918). In 1920, the
Misak-ı Milli, which consolidated the "Turkish lands", declared that Mosul Vilayet was a part of the historic Turkish heartland. The British were in a precarious situation with the Issue of Mosul and were adopting almost equally desperate measures to protect their interests. For example, the
Iraqi revolt against the British was suppressed by the
RAF Iraq Command during the summer of 1920. From the British perspective, if Atatürk stabilized Turkey, he would then turn his attention to Mosul and penetrate Mesopotamia, where the native population would likely join his cause. Such an event would result in an insurgent and hostile Muslim nation in close proximity to British territory in India. In 1923, Atatürk tried to persuade the GNA that accepting the arbitration of the
League of Nations at the
Treaty of Lausanne did not signify relinquishing Mosul, but rather waiting for a time when Turkey might be stronger. Nevertheless, the artificially drawn border had an unsettling effect on the population on both sides. Later, it was claimed that Turkey began where the oil ends, as the border was drawn by the British geophysicists based on locations of oil reserves. Atatürk did not want this separation. To address Atatürk's concerns, the
British Foreign Secretary George Curzon attempted to disclaim the existence of oil in the Mosul area. On 23 January 1923, Curzon argued that the existence of oil was no more than hypothetical. In 1925, the League of Nations formed a three-member committee to study the case while the Sheikh Said Rebellion was on the rise. Partly because of the continuing uncertainties along the northern frontier (present-day northern Iraq), the committee recommended that the region should be connected to Iraq with the condition that the UK would hold the
British Mandate of Mesopotamia. By the end of March 1925, the necessary troop movements were completed, and the whole area of the Sheikh Said rebellion was encircled. As a result of these manoeuvres, the revolt was put down. Britain, Iraq, and Atatürk made a treaty on 5 June 1926, which mostly followed the decisions of the League Council. The agreement left a large section of the Kurdish population and the
Iraqi Turkmen on the non-Turkish side of the border.
Relations with the Russian SFSR/Soviet Union Embassy in Ankara, on 7 November 1927 , a vision of Atatürk's which was never achieved In his 26 April 1920 message to
Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader and head of the
Russian SFSR's government, Atatürk promised to coordinate his military operations with the Bolsheviks' "fight against
imperialist governments" and requested 5 million
lira in gold as well as armaments "as first aid" to his forces. In 1920 alone, the Lenin government supplied the Kemalists with 6,000
rifles, over 5 million
rifle cartridges, 17,600 projectiles as well as 200.6 kg of gold
bullion. In the subsequent two years, the amount of aid increased. In March 1921, the GNA representatives in Moscow signed the
Treaty of Moscow ("Friendship and Brotherhood" Treaty) with Soviet Russia, which was a major diplomatic breakthrough for the Kemalists. The Treaty of Moscow, followed by the identical
Treaty of Kars in October the same year, gave Turkey a favourable settlement of its north-eastern frontier at the expense of the
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, then nominally an independent state. Relations between the two countries were friendly but were based on the fact that they were against a common enemy: Britain and the West. Moreover, Atatürk declared, "Communism is a social issue. Social conditions, religion, and national traditions of our country confirm the opinion that Russian Communism is not applicable in Turkey." And in a speech on 1 November 1924, he said, "Our amicable relations with our old friend the Soviet Russian Republic are developing and progressing every day. As in past our Republican Government regards genuine and extensive good relations with Soviet Russia as the keystone of our foreign policy." by concluding a
non-aggression pact with the USSR on 17 December. In 1935, the pact was prolonged for another 10 years. In 1933, the
Soviet Defence Minister Kliment Voroshilov visited Turkey and attended the tenth year celebrations of the Republic. Atatürk explained his position regarding the realization of his plan for a
Balkan Federation economically uniting Turkey, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Turkish-Greek alliance The post-war leader of Greece,
Eleftherios Venizelos, was also determined to establish normal relations between his country and Turkey. The war had devastated
Western Anatolia, and the financial burden of
Ottoman Muslim refugees from Greece blocked rapprochement. Venizelos moved forward with an agreement with Turkey, despite accusations of conceding too much on the issues of naval armaments and the properties of Ottoman Greeks from Turkey. In spite of Turkish animosity against the Greeks, Atatürk resisted the pressures of historic enmities and was sensitive towards past tensions; at one point, he ordered the removal of a painting showing a Turkish soldier plunging his bayonet into a Greek soldier by stating, "What a revolting scene!" Greece renounced all its claims over Turkish territory, and the two sides concluded an agreement on 30 April 1930. On 25 October, Venizelos visited Turkey and signed a treaty of friendship. Venizelos even forwarded Atatürk's name for the 1934
Nobel Peace Prize. Even after Venizelos' fall from power, Greco-Turkish relations remained cordial. Indeed, Venizelos' successor
Panagis Tsaldaris came to visit Atatürk in September 1933 and signed a more comprehensive agreement called the
Entente Cordiale between Greece and Turkey, which was a stepping stone for the
Balkan Pact. Greek Premier
Ioannis Metaxas once stated, with regard to Atatürk, that "...Greece, which has the highest estimation of the renowned leader, heroic soldier, and enlightened creator of Turkey. We will never forget that President Atatürk was the true founder of the Turkish-Greek alliance based on a framework of common ideals and peaceful cooperation. He developed ties of friendship between the two nations which it would be unthinkable to dissolve. Greece will guard its fervent memories of this great man, who determined an unalterable future path for the noble Turkish nation."
Neighbours to the east Pahlavi (left) of
Iran, during the
Shah's visit to Turkey From 1919, Afghanistan was in the midst of a
reformation period under
Amanullah Khan. Afghan Foreign Minister
Mahmud Tarzi was a follower of Atatürk's domestic policy. Tarzi encouraged Amanullah Khan in social and political reform but urged that reforms should built on a strong government. During the late 1920s, Anglo-Afghan relations soured over British fears of an Afghan-Soviet friendship. On 20 May 1928, Anglo-Afghan politics gained a positive perspective, when Amanullah Khan and his wife, Queen
Soraya Tarzi, were received by Atatürk in Istanbul. This meeting was followed by a Turkey-Afghanistan Friendship and Cooperation pact on 22 May 1928. Atatürk supported Afghanistan's integration into international organizations. In 1934, Afghanistan's relations with the international community improved significantly when it joined the League of Nations. Mahmud Tarzi received Atatürk's personal support until he died on 22 November 1933 in Istanbul. Atatürk and
Reza Shah, leader of Iran, had a common approach regarding
British imperialism and its influence in their countries, resulting in a slow but continuous rapprochement between Ankara and Tehran. Both governments sent diplomatic missions and messages of friendship to each other during the Turkish War of Independence. The policy of the Ankara government in this period was to give moral support in order to reassure Iranian independence and territorial integrity. The relations between the two countries were strained after the abolishment of the
caliphate. Iran's
Shi'a clergy did not accept Atatürk's stance, and Iranian religious power centres perceived the real motive behind Atatürk's reforms was to undermine the power of the clergy. As Russia and Great Britain strengthened their holds in the Middle East, Atatürk feared the occupation and dismemberment of Iran as a multi-ethnic society by these European powers.
Turkish Straits On 24 July 1923, the
Treaty of Lausanne included the Lausanne Straits Agreement. The Lausanne Straits Agreement stated that the
Dardanelles should remain open to all commercial vessels: seizure of foreign military vessels was subject to certain limitations during peacetime, and, even as a neutral state, Turkey could not limit any military passage during wartime. The Lausanne Straits Agreement stated that the waterway was to be demilitarised and its management left to the Straits Commission. The demilitarised zone heavily restricted Turkey's domination and sovereignty over the Straits, and the defence of
Istanbul was impossible without sovereignty over the water that passed through it. In March 1936, Hitler's
reoccupation of the Rhineland gave Atatürk the opportunity to resume full control over the Straits. "The situation in Europe", Atatürk declared "is highly appropriate for such a move. We shall certainly achieve it".
Tevfik Rüştü Aras, Turkey's foreign minister, initiated a move to revise the Straits' regime. Aras claimed that he was directed by Atatürk, rather than the Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü. İnönü was worried about harming relations with Britain, France, and Balkan neighbors over the Straits. However, the signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne agreed to join the conference, since unlimited military passage had become unfavourable to Turkey with the changes in world politics. Atatürk demanded that the members of the Turkish Foreign Office devise a solution that would transfer full control of the waterway to Turkey. On 20 July 1936, the
Montreux Convention was signed by Bulgaria, Great Britain, Australia, France, Japan, Romania, the Soviet Union, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Greece. It became the primary instrument governing the passage of commercial and war vessels through the Dardanelles Strait. The agreement was ratified by the
GNAT on 31 July 1936 and went into effect on 9 November 1936.
Balkan Pact in 1931 Until the early 1930s, Turkey followed a neutral foreign policy with the West by developing joint friendship and neutrality agreements. These bilateral agreements aligned with Atatürk's worldview. By the end of 1925, Turkey had signed fifteen joint agreements with Western states. In the early 1930s, changes and developments in world politics required Turkey to make multilateral agreements to improve its security. Atatürk strongly believed that close cooperation between the Balkan states based on the principle of equality would have an important effect on European politics. These states had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries and had proved to be a powerful force. While the origins of the Balkan agreement may date as far back as 1925, the Balkan Pact came into being in the mid-1930s. Several important developments in Europe helped the original idea materialise, such as improvements in the Turkish-Greek alliance and the rapprochement between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The most important factor in driving Turkish foreign policy from the mid-1930s onwards was the fear of Italy.
Benito Mussolini had frequently proclaimed his intention to place the entire
Mediterranean under Italian control. Both the Turks and the various Balkan states felt threatened by Italian ambitions. The
Balkan Pact was negotiated by Atatürk with Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. This mutual-defence agreement intended to guarantee the signatories' territorial integrity and political independence against attack from another Balkan state such as Bulgaria or Albania. It countered the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of fascist Italy and the effect of a potential Bulgarian alignment with Nazi Germany. Atatürk thought of the Balkan Pact as a medium of balance in Turkey's relations with the European countries. He was particularly anxious to establish a region of security and alliances to the west of Turkey in Europe, which the Balkan Pact helped achieve. The Balkan Pact provided for regular military and diplomatic consultations. The importance of the agreement is best seen in a message Atatürk sent to the Greek Premier
Ioannis Metaxas: The Balkan Pact was signed by the GNA on 28 February. The Greek and Yugoslav Parliaments ratified the agreement a few days later. The unanimously ratified Balkan pact was formally adopted on 18 May 1935 and lasted until 1940. The Balkan Pact turned out to be ineffective for reasons that were beyond Atatürk's control. The pact failed when Bulgaria attempted to raise the
Dobruja issue, only to end with the
Italian invasion of Albania on 7 April 1939. These
conflicts spread rapidly, eventually triggering World War II. The goal of Atatürk to protect southeast Europe failed with the dissolution of the pact. In 1938, the
Turkish Army at peacetime strength consisted of 174,000 soldiers and 20,000
officers forming 11
army corps, 23
divisions, one armoured
brigade, 3
cavalry brigades, and 7 frontier commands.
Issue of Hatay 's flag During the second half of the 1930s, Atatürk tried to form a closer relationship with Britain. The risks of this policy change put the two men at odds. The Hatay issue and the Lyon agreement were two important developments in foreign policy that played a significant role in severing relations between Atatürk and İnönü. In 1936, Atatürk raised the "Issue of Hatay" at the League of Nations.
Hatay was based on the old administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire called the
Sanjak of Alexandretta. On behalf of the League of Nations, the representatives of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Turkey prepared a constitution for Hatay, which established it as an autonomous
sanjak within Syria. Despite some inter-ethnic violence, an election was conducted in 1938 by the local legislative assembly. The cities of
Antakya (Antioch) and
İskenderun (Alexandretta) joined Turkey in 1939.
Economic policies Atatürk instigated economic policies to develop small and large scale businesses, but also to create social strata (i.e. industrial bourgeoisie coexisting with the peasantry of Anatolia) that were virtually non-existent during the Ottoman Empire. The primary problem faced by the politics of his period was the lag in the development of political institutions and social classes which would steer such social and economic changes. Atatürk's vision regarding early Turkish economic policy was apparent during the
İzmir Economic Congress of 1923. The initial choices of Atatürk's economic policies reflected the realities of his time. After World War I, due to the lack of any real potential investors to fund private sector industry, Atatürk established many state-owned factories for agriculture, machinery, and textile industries.
State intervention, 1923–1929 visiting the Sümerbank Nazilli Cotton Factory, which was established as a part of the cotton-related industry Atatürk and
İsmet İnönü's pursuit of state-controlled economic policies was guided by a national vision; their goal was to knit the country together, eliminate foreign control of the economy, and improve communications within Turkey. Resources were channeled away from Istanbul, a trading port with international foreign enterprises, in favor of other, less developed cities in order to achieve a more balanced economic development throughout the country. For Atatürk and his supporters, tobacco remained wedded to his pursuit of economic independence.
Turkish tobacco was an important industrial crop, but its cultivation and manufacture had been under French monopolies granted by
capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. The tobacco and cigarette trade was controlled by two French companies: the
Regie Company and Narquileh Tobacco. The Ottoman Empire had given the tobacco monopoly to the
Ottoman Bank as a limited company under the
Council of the Public Debt. Regie, as part of the council, had control over tobacco production, storage, and distribution (including export) with unchallenged price control. Consequently, Turkish farmers were dependent on the company for their livelihoods. In 1925, Regie was taken over by the state and named
Tekel. Government control of tobacco was one of the greatest achievements of the Kemalist political machinery's "
nationalization" of the economy for a country that did not produce
oil. Kemalists accompanied this achievement with the development of the country's cotton industry, which peaked during the early 1930s. Cotton was the second most important industrial crop in Turkey at the time. In 1924, with the initiative of Atatürk, the first Turkish bank
İş Bankası was established, with Atatürk as the bank's first member. The bank's creation was a response to the growing need for a truly national establishment and a banking system which was capable of backing up economic activities, managing funds accumulated through policies of savings incentives, and offering resources where necessary to trigger industrial impetus. In 1927,
Turkish State Railways was established. Because Atatürk considered the development of a national
rail network as another important step in industrialisation, railways were given high priority. The Turkish State Railway developed an extensive railway network in a very short time. The Turkish government under Atatürk developed many economic and infrastructure projects within the first decade of the republic. However, the Turkish economy was still largely agrarian, with primitive tools and methods. Roads and transportation facilities were still far from sufficient, and management of the economy was inefficient. The
Great Depression brought many changes to this picture.
Great Depression, 1929–1931 , increasingly after the
Great Depression. The young republic, like the rest of the world, found itself in a deep economic crisis during the
Great Depression. Atatürk reacted to conditions of this period by moving toward integrated economic policies and establishing a central bank to control exchange rates. However, Turkey could not finance essential imports; its currency was shunned, and zealous revenue officials seized the meagre possessions of peasants who could not pay their taxes. The bank's primary purpose was to control the exchange rate and
Ottoman Bank's role during its initial years as a central bank was phased out. Later specialized banks such as the
Sümerbank (1932) and the
Etibank (1935) were founded. From the
political economy perspective, Atatürk faced the problem of political upheaval. The establishment of a new party with a different economic perspective was necessary; he asked Ali Fethi Okyar to meet this end. The
Liberal Republican Party (August 1930) was founded with a liberal program and proposed that state monopolies should be ended, foreign capital should be attracted, and state investment should be curtailed. Nevertheless, Atatürk maintained the view that "it is impossible to attract foreign capital for essential development," and state capitalism became the dominant agenda during the depression era. In 1931, Atatürk proclaimed: "In the economic area ...the programme of the party is statism." However, the effect of free republicans was felt strongly and state intervention became more moderate and more akin to a form of
state capitalism. One of Atatürk's radical left-wing supporters,
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu from the
Kadro ("The Cadre") movement, claimed that Atatürk found a third way between capitalism and socialism.
Liberalization and planned growth, 1931–1939 at Nazilli Cotton Factory (1937) The first (1929–1933) and second five-year economic plans were enacted under the supervision of Atatürk. The first five-year economic plan promoted consumer substitution industries. However, these economic plans changed drastically with the death of Atatürk and the rise of World War II. Subsequent governments took measures that harmed the economic productivity of Turkey in various ways. The achievements of the 1930s were credited to early 1920s implementations of the economic system based on Atatürk's national policies. In 1931, Atatürk watched the development of the first national aircraft, MMV-1. He realised the important role of aviation and stated, "the future lies in the skies". The
Turkish Aeronautical Association was founded on 16 February 1925 by his directive. He also ordered the establishment of the Turkish Aircraft Association Lottery. Instead of the traditional raffle prizes, this new lottery paid money prizes. Most of the lottery income was used to establish a new factory and fund aviation projects. However, Atatürk did not live to see the flight of the first Turkish military aircraft built at that factory. Operational American
Curtiss Hawk fighters were being produced in Turkey soon after his death and before the onset of World War II. In 1932, liberal economist
Celâl Bayar became the Minister of Economy at Atatürk's request and served until 1937. During this period, the country moved toward a mixed economy with its first private initiatives. Textile, sugar, paper, and steel factories (financed by a loan from Britain) were the private sectors of the period. Besides these businesses, government-owned power plants, banks, and insurance companies were established. In this period, Atatürk promoted public-private sector cooperation and the expansion of private businesses with private shareholders firms allowed to purchase shares in state-owned enterprises. In 1935, the first Turkish cotton print factory "Nazilli
Calico print factory" opened. As part of the industrialization process, cotton planting was promoted to furnish raw material for future factory settlements. By 1935,
Nazilli became a major industrial center beginning with the establishment of
cotton mills followed by a calico print factory. built by the
Nuri Demirağ Aircraft Works in Istanbul In 1936, Turkish industrialist
Nuri Demirağ established the first Turkish aircraft factory in the
Beşiktaş district of
Istanbul. The first Turkish airplanes,
Nu D.36 and
Nu D.38, were produced in this factory. Atatürk also supported the establishment of the automobile industry. The
Turkish Automobile Association was founded in 1923, and its motto was: "The Turkish driver is a man of the most exquisite sensitivities." In 1935, Turkey was becoming an industrial society based on the Western European model set by Atatürk. However, the gap between Atatürk's goals and the achievements of the socio-political structure of the country had not yet been closed. ==Personal life==