The legacy of the Young Turks and the Republic

Attempting to explain and understand Turkey's development process using a Western template often leaves those who do so bewildered by the actual developments. Analyzing the reasons for the collapse of a multinational empire that did not experience the Industrial Revolution, fell into a semi-colonial state while collapsing, and had a prominent theocratic aspect—even if not governed entirely by religious rules—without considering its economic, political, military, social, cultural, and geographical dimensions leads to very erroneous conclusions. Those who approach both the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey from a Western, Westernist, and almost orientalist perspective are severely mistaken. It is particularly thought-provoking that among those who make this mistake are the writers, illustrators, scientists, and journalists of these lands. This is because this flawed understanding also entails a failure to correctly grasp the liberation and foundation process of the Republic, which was established under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha by the military-civilian bureaucratic cadre that had struggled to save and sustain the empire in its final period. Consequently, a type of intellectual(!) emerges who tries to understand Turkey's political, economic, military, social, and cultural structure within the West's development scheme, and who is surprised and angered by why concepts such as industrialization, bourgeoisie, national market, nation-state, democracy, urbanization, working class, human rights, and the rule of law did not emerge or materialize as they did in the West. This type of intellectual/pseudo-intellectual also drifts into an anachronistic error, taking the easy path of judging and condemning the past with current values and presenting this as a flaw of the Republic, while numbering the Republic in their own minds.

When thinking about what the Republic inherited from the Ottoman Empire and what it rejected, it is necessary to evaluate both structures by considering their own unique conditions, the circumstances of that day, and the power balances of that time. For example, the Ottoman State was born and developed as a Balkan empire. Until the 16th century, the majority of its people were not Muslim, but the state's ideology was accepted as Islam, and wars were fought in the name of Islam. In the Balkans, Bosniaks and Albanians became Muslims in the second half of the 15th century thanks to the Ottomans. The language of the administration and the army was Turkish. Despite the devshirme Janissaries, the army managed to preserve the Turkish language and identity. There were many Greeks and Armenians among the bureaucrats, and their numbers would increase even further in the 19th century.   

Considering the extraordinarily vast geography over which the empire spread, and the subjects of different religions, languages, sects, and ethnic origins, makes it easier to understand the state's management philosophy. After the conquest of Istanbul, it was not in vain that the Roman-Byzantine heritage was embraced and their institutions were incorporated into the empire and internalized. For the Ottoman Empire was a state that could survive by expanding, and it had to expand in every field from politics to finance, from military affairs to agriculture. When this process stopped with the Siege of Vienna, stagnation also began. The Ottoman ruling class's exclusion of the Turkish identity in an ethnic sense, let alone highlighting it, should be seen as the sultan's effort to be the sultan and padishah of all subjects regardless of religion, sect, or race. The fact that three of Suleiman the Magnificent's viziers—Ibrahim Pasha, who was Greek; Rustem Pasha, who was Bulgarian; and Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, who was of Slavic origin—were converts from Christianity, shows the management approach of the successful sultans during the empire's brilliant periods. It is known that Sokollu Mehmed Pasha maintained his relations with his brother, a Christian priest in Bosnia, even after becoming a vizier, and Mimar Sinan, who was also a convert, went down in history as the architect of Suleiman the Magnificent. It is essential to evaluate the empire's strong and respected periods together with the power balance, state structure, management approach, and ruling cadre of that day. 

The reasons for the stagnation, decline, and collapse of the Ottoman Empire cannot be explained solely by internal dynamics. The reasons for the collapse cannot be correctly identified without considering the results of external dynamics, regional and global developments, geographical discoveries, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, struggles for colonies and markets, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, technological breakthroughs, and developments in military affairs. For example, the political consequences of the Balta Liman Treaty signed between the Ottoman Empire and England in 1838 can be seen in both the 1839 Edict of Gülhane (Tanzimat) and the 1856 Edict of Reform (Islahat). Just as the political and economic consequences of the first foreign debt taken in 1854 due to the Crimean War can be seen in the Decree of Muharrem dated 1881 and the Public Debt Administration (Duyun-u Umumiye) established accordingly. Just two years after the First Constitutional Era was declared in 1876, Sultan Abdulhamid dissolved the Chamber of Deputies in 1878, and the period of despotism began. With the Public Debt Administration, the control of foreign states over the economy reached its peak; the Ottoman Empire left the management of its economic activities to the control of foreign countries to pay off its debts, and the state's economic independence disappeared. It is impossible to understand history without seeing these facts. Reading Turkish history as if reading American, British, or French history makes it difficult to understand the past, interpret the present, construct the future, and prepare for it. It is necessary to evaluate the Tanzimatists, the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks, and the Unionists within their own conditions. 

THE GREAT JACOBINS OF OUR HISTORY: THE UNIONISTS 

In his important three-volume work "Enver Pasha," Şevket Süreyya Aydemir writes that when the Second Constitutional Era was declared, Enver Pasha, who gave a speech to the public in Tikveş on July 23, 1908, said, "I have cured the patient." But Enver Pasha was mistaken. Because it was no longer possible to save the patient. The European capitals that supported the Young Turks against the sultan also withdrew their support to both prevent the Ottoman Empire from pulling itself together and to prevent the movement from being effective in their own colonies; moreover, they began various smear campaigns against the Young Turks and the Unionists. 

However, just as the death of 400,000 French soldiers in Napoleon's failed Moscow campaign does not cast a shadow over Napoleon's greatness, Enver Pasha's mistakes and delusions do not eliminate his claims, patriotism, greatness, and heroism. Enver Pasha can be justifiably criticized for the timing and manner of our entry into the First World War, for the necessity and timing of opening a front in Sarikamish and the defeat experienced there, for handing over the command of the army to the Germans in Gallipoli, and for involving the already highly politicized army even more in politics. Enver Pasha, who did not take the necessary steps while it was obvious that the prolongation of the war in Gallipoli, and thus the increase in the losses of England and France, benefited Germany but increased the burden on the Ottomans, should certainly be questioned. While the Sublime Porte (Bab-ı Âli) conscripted 2.8 million people in the First World War, it must never be forgotten that Mustafa Kemal Pasha led the National Struggle to victory with 120,000 people, and the structure and understanding of the Committee of Union and Progress, which was influenced by Balkan committee members, must be discussed. However, in a period when very intense criticism, and even insults and attacks beyond criticism, are directed at Unionist leaders, especially Enver Pasha, it is necessary to evaluate the Unionist leadership by taking into account the environment in which it grew up, the situation of the country and the world, and the objective conditions of the period.

For Enver Pasha, adjectives such as "contradictory, inconsistent, adventurous, reckless, idealistic, romantic" can be used due to his political line, which extended from German partisanship to Turkism, from the revolutionism he participated in as a representative of oppressed nations at the Congress of the Peoples of the East to organizing the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, where the Islamist aspect was dominant, and attempting a coup. However, this same Enver Pasha contributed to the rejuvenation of the army and the increase of its technological power. Although Ottoman lands were called "Enverland" by the Germans at that time due to his closeness to them, Enver Pasha is a commander whose honesty and love for his country were never doubted. It should not be forgotten that what was more decisive than the lack of preparation and inexperience of Enver Pasha and other Unionist leaders were the external factors of that day. The objective conditions of the period, the strengthening and spreading influence of the nationalism movement, the great powers sharing the empire among themselves, and the fact that sides were determined before the inevitable First World War made the Unionists' job difficult. Because the biggest war booty on the table was the Ottoman Empire. 

One should not ignore the continuity of history. The modernization efforts of Sultan Selim III, who sought remedies against the bad course of events, and the education-based reform movements of his nephew Sultan Mahmud II, although interrupted, prepared a certain infrastructure. The fact that those who opposed the despotic regime were mainly raised in schools opened during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II is evaluated as the effect of the education initiative. On the other hand, Sultan Abdulhamid, whose name is associated with despotism, also tried to extend the life of the state by trying to use the contradictions, conflicts of interest, and power balances of the period between Western centers. However, these efforts only delayed the inevitable end; they could not prevent it. 

The Unionists also had a difficult job. Conditions were tough. The process was working against the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire was weak, the influence of England and France over the empire increased. England was trying to obtain concessions regarding the route, France was trying to prevent England, and Russia was trying to enter this region. Capitalism had reached the stage of imperialism. The conflicts of interest between imperialist centers and their inability to decide who would keep Istanbul and what its future would be extended the life of the state for a while. However, collapse and fragmentation were inevitable. 

It should not be forgotten that in the process leading to the Second Constitutional Era, great fights, important moves and counter-moves, intense searches, and serious upheavals were experienced. The Committee of Union and Progress was an important opposition to the situation the empire had fallen into, the humiliation of those who ruled the state, the submission to foreign powers, and the influence and power of European states over the Sublime Porte. It was a serious reaction, a way of saying "no." It was a rising up. In those hopeless conditions, it was a search for a remedy, somewhat desperately. The step-by-step breaking away of Macedonia undoubtedly gave momentum to this movement. The organization, founded in 1889, the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, by five Military Medical School students, later met with the students of the Harbiye (Military Academy) and Mülkiye (School of Political Science), the other two locomotive schools and schools of thought of the Turkish Revolution and enlightenment, and hosted and pioneered very important discussions, searches, and actions. The Committee of Union and Progress, which was the movement of the school-educated, was very successful in organization. The society, which was organized like a completely secret organization at the beginning and made a great leap in this regard with Talat Pasha taking over the leadership of the organization, spread and strengthened rapidly. Talat Pasha, who was patriotic enough to say "I want to eat the soil of the homeland," had great power in the organization and a great contribution to the Young Turk Revolution. 

DECLARATION OF FREEDOM

The Committee of Union and Progress, with its virtues and sins, carried out the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, and even if the revolution did not fully achieve its goal, it left a great accumulation and experience for its successors. The first examples of national economic policy were voiced. Populism was brought to the agenda as a policy. It cannot be called anti-non-Muslim for those efforts, but the aim was to involve the Muslim Turkish subjects, who were the primary and founding element, more in the process, to participate in production, and to mobilize them. The abolition of the capitulations was brought to the agenda and they were abolished on September 9, 1914. The establishment of national companies, the control of domestic and foreign trade, cooperatives, and industrialization were brought to the fore. Undoubtedly, the Kemalist Revolution rose on this breakthrough and this infrastructure. The intellectual foundations of the Republic were laid with the Second Constitutional Era, its founding cadres were raised in that period, and they drew the necessary lessons from that period. Among the organized structures in the final period of the empire, the most intense, strongest, and most willing support and participation in the National Struggle came from the Unionist cadres. Although he was not in the leadership cadre, Mustafa Kemal was also a member of the Committee of Union and Progress. Despite all the contradictions between Mustafa Kemal and the leaders of the organization, especially Enver Pasha's efforts against Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and some hurtful and humiliating words and letters, not a single word against the Committee of Union and Progress ever came out of Atatürk's mouth. 

Seeing the Young Turk movement and the Committee of Union and Progress as a top-down, elitist, Jacobin, and disconnected movement from the people is a too reductionist and distorted approach. The Young Turk Revolution, which is known to be inspired by the 1789 French Revolution, also has closeness, similarity, and kinship with the 1905 Russian Revolution, the 1905 Iranian Revolution experienced in the geography of oppressed nations, the 1910 Mexican Revolution, and the 1911 Chinese Revolution. It should not be forgotten that in addition to the demands for freedom before 1908, a serious reaction had accumulated in Anatolia due to the deteriorating economy and the collapsing social order, and tax riots broke out in places. These also played an important role in the formation of the popular base of the Second Constitutional Era and created a serious mass support behind it. As a matter of fact, the fact that the Unionists, who took action in May 1908, created a significant public opinion in a short time, and the great interest shown by the people when Resneli Niyazi Bey went to the mountains with his 400 men, is proof of this. The enthusiasm in the streets while the constitutional monarchy was being declared in Manastir and Rumelia on July 23 is important. In addition to the action of the Unionists, the support given by the people to the actions forced Sultan Abdulhamid to declare the constitutional monarchy in the imperial lands on the night connecting July 23 to July 24. This determination of Halide Edip Adıvar, who wrote that "no crime was committed in the Ottoman country on July 24," is an important indicator of the magnitude of the enthusiasm and optimistic expectations for the future among the people. The explosion of excitement on July 25 was followed by a "press explosion" with the lifting of censorship in the press. While there were 120 periodicals at the beginning of 1908, this number reached 750 in the first 7 months, and circulations also multiplied. 

In addition to the press, great momentum was seen in art, literature, women's rights (there were 40 female members in the Rumelia organization of the Committee of Union and Progress), organization, and labor movements, both in terms of quality and quantity. The expectations of the peasants regarding land reform should not be forgotten. It is no coincidence that the names Niyazi and Enver were given to newborn children. The names of Enver Hoxha in Albania and Anwar Sadat in Egypt come from Enver Pasha, and the name of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt comes from Cemal Pasha. The names of our famous sociologist Niyazi Berkes and his brother Enver Berkes are among the first examples that come to mind. This influence continues even today in Ohrid, Manastir, and Resne. For example, the name of Turkey's former Honorary Consul in Manastir is Mithat Enver Cemal. 

THE REPUBLIC AND THE LEGACY IT INHERITED

The historical legacy inherited during the foundation process of the Republic, the cultural accumulation, and the lessons learned are all based on the final period of the Ottoman Empire, especially the Young Turk Revolution. It is not easy to understand the Republic without understanding what the modernization and Westernization movements in the Ottoman Empire, the efforts to pull together, the Tanzimatists, the Young Ottomans, the Young Turks, and the Unionists aimed for, what they did and how they did it, and what they could not do and why. The Second Constitutional Era, which Tarık Zafer Tunaya defined as "a political laboratory" for the Republic, deeply influenced and left its mark on the Republic in every aspect with its preparatory period, intellectual claims, and cadres. To grasp what was transferred to the Republic, which is characterized as both a radical break and a continuity in history, and what was inherited, it is essential to know that process very well, to know those cadres very well, and to learn that period very well to know what the cadre that founded the Republic inherited and what it rejected. 

Mustafa Kemal, who saw the Second Constitutional Era not as a revolution but as a coup that needed to be completed with a revolution, on one hand, "kept the Republic like a national secret in his conscience," as he put it, and on the other hand, made the intellectual preparations for the War of Independence he would start. One year before 1908, in 1907, he said that the end of the empire had come and that any effort to keep it alive would be a waste of resources, time, and people. He saw the truth and the future. Contrary to the idealism, romanticism, and adventurousness of the Unionist leaders, Gazi was a realistic, rational, and determined revolutionary who did not let go of calculations. Of course, he was pragmatic. He analyzed the balances of the country, the region, and the world very well and established the balance of force, time, and space, which are the basic elements of strategy, very correctly. He was aware of the importance of the harmony between political, economic, military, and socio-cultural powers, which are the elements of power. He was different from other leading intellectuals of the period and the cadres who would be with him in the war. He saw not only the horizon but also beyond the horizon. While Namık Kemal, Yahya Kemal, and Fuat Köprülü, important names of the Young Turks, were in favor of the Arabic alphabet provided it was reformed, Mustafa Kemal already had the Latin alphabet in his mind at that time. While a significant portion of the intellectuals could not even imagine the abolition of the sultanate and the caliphate, Mustafa Kemal was a Republican.  

For example, while the state in the Ottoman Empire bore the name of a dynasty rather than the name of a country, a homeland, or a nation, Mustafa Kemal analyzed the Young Turk Revolution and its aftermath, where the Turkish element was brought to the fore, very well. In a geography where the House of Osman did not look very sympathetically at the Turkish element, did not mention it with words of praise, and even despised it as "Etrak-ı bi idrak" (the ignorant Turks), he always brought the Turkish element to the fore and emphasized it. After starting the War of Independence, his glorification of the Turks, his highlighting of the peasant who paid taxes, served in the military, and fed the empire but was never cared about with the words "The peasant is the master of the nation," and his attention to state-building and citizenship ties with the words "How happy is the one who says I am a Turk" and "The people of Turkey who founded the Republic of Turkey are called the Turkish nation" are important. 

Democracy and the rule of law in Turkey did not emerge as a result of the struggle of two contemporary, urban, rational, and productive classes that emerged with the Industrial Revolution, namely the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It did not happen in the ordinary course of history, in its natural flow. The struggle for rights and law, the struggle for sovereignty did not give birth to the Republic. On the contrary, the Republic gave birth to national sovereignty, democracy, and law. The main principles of the state were not determined and institutionalized as a result of a power struggle within the country, but rather through a war (also a civil war) waged against Western imperialism and its collaborators within, and a revolution implemented at the same time. In short, democracy in our country is the child of the Republic, and two keywords are needed to understand the Republic: War and Revolution. The war is an anti-imperialist war that also has a civil war dimension. The revolution is a revolution of sovereignty. It is the changing of the definition, root, source, and function of sovereignty. It is taking it from the sky and bringing it to the ground, removing it from being divine, spiritual, and religious, making it worldly and secular, and taking it from the individual and giving it to the nation. 

If it is taken into account that the concept of "Turk" was used more by Western administrators and writers during the imperial period, it is understood how meaningful not only the essence but also the name and language of the Turkish state are. It is clear that both the Unionists and Mustafa Kemal were more sensitive and respectful to those who made this geography a homeland, considered it a homeland, and knew it as a homeland. Moreover, Mustafa Kemal, while founding the Republic, led a revolution by stripping away racial origins and transforming subjects into a nation and servants into citizens. The process began with the rebellion of a people who became a nation while becoming a state, and a state while becoming a nation. While a collection of people consisting of the sultan's servants turned into a society and a nation with the Republican Revolution, unlike the Young Turks, who consisted of a coalition of different reform groups, Mustafa Kemal implemented a consistent and holistic program within itself. This is one of the reasons why Gazi Mustafa Kemal aroused great admiration from India to Algeria, from China to the Balkans. As Cavit Orhan Tütengil put it, evaluating the interest of the "oppressed nations, which is the middle name of the third world," in the Young Turk Revolution and their admiration for Mustafa Kemal correctly is important not only for understanding the past but also for drawing the necessary lessons for today.    

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Orhan Koloğlu, 1908 Press Explosion, Istanbul, Bas- Haş, 2005. 

Orhan Koloğlu, Numbered Republicans, Istanbul, Pozitif Yayınları, 2007. 

Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Enver Pasha, Istanbul, Remzi Kitabevi, 1970. 

This article was included in the book titled Orhan Koloğlu Gift, (Ed: Orhan M. Çolak, İSAR Foundation Publications, Istanbul, 2009).