Isn't it time to wake up from the 'intellectual slumber'?

It has been 41 years since the death of Doğan Avcıoğlu.

He had said that Turkey's future depended on the 'vigorous forces' waking up from their 'centuries-old intellectual slumber'...

Let us not forget this amidst the rhetoric of today's populist 'intellectuals'!..

Avcıoğlu holds a unique and special place in our political history and intellectual life. 

"History of the National Struggle" (4 volumes), "History of the Turks" (5 volumes), and "Foreign Finger in March 31" are his source works. He is also a leading figure in the theoretical effort to unite Kemalism with socialism.

The "Yön" and "Devrim" magazines, which began publication under his leadership, served as the organs for this effort.

The magazine Yön, which said "hello" to its publishing life on December 20, 1961, was influential and left its mark on the era. But it was not just a magazine; it was also the name of a movement!

'Yön' formed its basic theses by reinterpreting Kemalist principles around a development strategy, utilizing Marxism to complete Kemalism.

Efforts were made to determine how socialism could be implemented in accordance with the conditions of Ataturk's Turkey.

Starting as a weekly publication, Yön published a total of 222 issues. It was shut down by the Martial Law Command for 14 months, starting from its 77th issue dated June 5, 1963.

Its final issue was published on June 30, 1967.

The pioneer, editor-in-chief, ideologue—in short, everything—of the magazine was Doğan Avcıoğlu.

"Turkey Cannot Develop Through the Capitalist Path"

Yön, one of the most influential intellectual magazines in our Republican history, announced the "Common Declaration of Intellectuals" (Yön Declaration), which was initially signed by 156 intellectuals, in its first issue published on December 20, 1961, with the cover "The Way Out of the Deadlock." 

Among the first signatories were; Muammer Aksoy, Mete Akyol, Erdoğan Alkin, Çetin Altan, Melih Cevdet Anday, Sadun Aren, Özdemir Asaf, Türkkaya Ataöv, Doğan Avcıoğlu, Hamdi Avcıoğlu, Rona Aybay, Kahraman Bapçum, Deniz Baykal, Fakir Baykurt, Korkut Boratav, Alev Coşkun, Necati Cumalı, Cevat Çapan, Sencer Divitçioğlu, Orhan Duru, Süleyman Ege, Mustafa Ekmekçi, Oktay Ekşi, Tarhan Erdem, Muzaffer Erdost, Sabahattin Eyüboğlu, Ali Gevgilili, Sefa Giray, Turan Güneş, Nail Güreli, Rıza Güven, Abdi İpekçi, Tarık Dursun K., Arslan Başer Kafaoğlu, Ceyhun Atıf Kansu, Suphi Karaman, Coşkun Kırca, Mehmet Ali Kışlalı, Hasan Hüseyin Korkmazgil, Alp Kuran, İdris Küçükömer, Mahmut Makal, Fethi Naci, Mustafa Özyürek, İlhan Selçuk, Turhan Selçuk, İlhami Soysal, Mümtaz Soysal, Kemal Tahir, Esin Talû, Server Tanilli, Erdoğan Teziç, Taner Timur, Cavit Orhan Tütengil, and Tahsin Yücel.

“In these days when the Turkish people, amidst very difficult economic, political, and social problems, are looking for a direction that will lead them to all their aspirations, we, who have served in various segments of social life, have found it appropriate to declare our common beliefs with this declaration we have signed.

We believe that such a declaration will lead to positive discussions that could be useful in solving our problems.

1- Westernization, which is the goal of the Ataturk revolutions, can be realized in its broadest sense to the extent that we approach the production level of the West. As the level of production (istihsal) rises in Turkey, the social structure of the country will change, the city-village duality will disappear, opportunities will expand, and rational thought, which is the foundation of Western civilization, will spread to the masses…”

New Statism…

The main idea of the declaration was that Turkey could not develop through the capitalist path.

It was emphasized that the first step required to solve Turkey's fundamental problems was for the civilian-military intellectual group, which was stated to provide direction to society, to unite around a philosophy of economic development.

The capitalist path had not been a salvation. The principle of statism (new statism) was presented as an opportunity for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

While the "Yön" supporters persistently sought an answer to the question "How can Turkey develop," they also emphasized that a true nationalist must answer the following questions:

“How will we feed the growing population, how will we provide jobs for this population, how will we stop unemployment, how will we educate our children, how will we end the transformation of major cities into lands of shanty towns, how will we stop the exploitation of the peasant, how will we save the nation from poverty?”

All of Turkey's fundamental problems are discussed in the pages of Yön.

The Declaration Causes a Great Stir

The number of those who signed the declaration reached 1,042 after a while. Among the signatories were people from various segments of society: ministers, senators, deputies, members of the Constituent Assembly, officers, unionists, journalists, bureaucrats, teachers, workers, clergy, peasants, businessmen, students, football players, and housewives…

Avcıoğlu had said in his first editorial, "In the second half of the twentieth century, the only way out for underdeveloped countries is socialism.” 

The century they were in was a century of social and national revolutions, and the struggle against imperialism had to be carried out as a nation with a national liberation front...

National economy, national foreign policy, populism, and the national front were all subject to this strategy.

With this orientation, Yön walked in a different lane from the TİP (Workers' Party of Turkey), the largest left-socialist political force of the period.

According to Yalçın Küçük, Yön had shone in a world where Gamal Abdel Nasser was a star.

Let us make a note: The most comprehensive and harsh criticism of the Yön movement came from Dr. Hikmet Kıvılcımlı. In his book titled "Class Critique of May 27 and the Yön Movement," he characterized Yön as "petty-bourgeois" thought.

In addition to all this, one of Yön's contributions to Turkey was that it published for the first time the poems of Nazım Hikmet, which were considered banned for years.

It ended its publishing life on June 30, 1967, and left its place to the Devrim magazine, which was initially designed as a daily newspaper and would publish 79 issues...

I commemorate Avcıoğlu by also mentioning the Yön magazine, which was a discussion platform for the search for a path to socialism by Kemalist intellectuals who were influenced by and benefited from Marxism.

With respect to his struggle, his memory, and his works...