Agriculture, the state and class formation in Turkey's First Republic (1923–60)

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which social change in Turkey's First Republic (1923–60) conforms to, or deviates from, patterns of European development outlined by the sociologist Michael Mann. Of primary interest is the role that the state played in the changes which emerged from the industrialisation process. The particular focus here is on the political and economic responses by the different Turkish regimes to issues arising from labour organisation and class formation.

Notes

1 Owen Lattimore estimates that animals used to transport food would have to eat the contents of their load every one hundred miles [Lattimore, 1962: 476–85].

2 The Ottoman notion of the millet was, although later to denote a specifically non-Muslim community, mainly used to refer to one of the great number of distinguishable ‘peoples’ within the empire [Karpat, 1973: 38]. While differences between the social organisation of the various ethnic, cultural and religious groups ruled by the Ottomans have often been over-emphasised, it is clear that the state did take an active hand in maintaining and organising this diversity. Members of the different millets were, for example, discouraged from wearing clothes characteristic of another millet. The result was that they remained relatively atomised [Findley, 1980; Mardin, 1967: 129–30].

3 Kemal's war of independence was, in many respects, couched in the traditional terms of jihad. Within the countryside, this remained the only salient mobilising force (some would say it still does). To Mustafa Kemal, already experienced in tribal diplomacy from his war-time appointment in Aleppo, the ideological relationship between Muslim peasant and Islamic state, traditionally conceived, was to be the basis for co-opting tribal leaders into the resistance movement and in mobilising peripheral loyalty [Kirişci and Winrow, 1997: 84–5]. From its inaugural conference in Erzerum in July 1919, Kemal's Society for the Defence of the Rights of Eastern Anatolia argued that ‘all Islamic elements (i.e. ethnic communities) living in this area are true brothers … of the same religion and race as ourselves whom it is impossible to divide’ [cited in Mango, 1999: 8]. The importance of Islamic legitimisation within the independence movement can be seen in the background of the delegates to the conference – 21 out of 56 were connected to the ulema [Toprak, 1981: 64]. Similarly, with the establishment of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara during April 1920, more than one-fifth of the deputies were clerics [Rustow, 1957: 73].

4 For instance, Article 1 of the January 1921 Law on Fundamental Organisation declared that ‘sovereignty, without any preconditions', belongs to the nation and Article Three stated that the national executive would be ‘the governing body of the state of Turkey’ [Kirişci and Winrow, 1997: 93]. This represents a significant departure from the multi-national ideology of the Ottoman empire. Moreover, Kemal increasingly emphasised the 1,500-year-old history of the Turks, as opposed to the 700-year-old Ottoman empire, and in November 1922 he announced the removal of the Sultanate and the creation of the Turkish Republic. Having solidified the borders and status of the new Turkish state at Lausanne in July 1923, Kemal abolished the Caliphate. This was followed by the de-legitimisation of religious instruction in favour of a centralised and secular Ministry of Education and the replacement of the Arabic script with öztürkçe. In what, for Metin Heper, ‘was to resemble the Protestant tradition that placed emphasis on the absolute privacy of individual conscience … all public displays of religious observation were discouraged’ and the clergy was incorporated into the civil bureaucracy [Heper, 1981: 351].

5 The effect of an improved transportation system was, generally speaking, twofold. First, to integrate the rural and the urban economy within given nation states, and second, to reduce the time and cost of trade between countries themselves.

6 The exact make-up of the agrarian sector during the 1920s and 1930s is not known in any significant detail [Karaömerlioğlu, 2000: 122].

7 It should be noted that writers such as Muzzaffer Erdost, who strongly opposed Boratav's characterisation of Turkish agrarian sector as dominated by merchant capital, continue to emphasise the importance of feudal relations in the countryside. For a wide-ranging analysis of this debate, see Seddon and Margulies 1984.

8 In the UK, for instance, prices decreased by 20 per cent and salaries grew by 20 per cent between 1870 and 1890 [Feinstein, 1976.

9 Migration has also played an important part in the emergence of more extreme forms of nationalism in Turkey and western Europe. Although, as Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack 1973: 40; see also Paine, 1974 point out, Turkey is known as a major supplier of labour-power (having concluded a recruitment treaty with Germany as early as 1961), the internal movement of Kurds from the south-east to the western Anatolia conurbation has been a major source of chauvinist sentiment [Jacoby, 2005. Both these factors resulted largely from the rapid rate of agricultural development. A rise in financial credits for mechanised inputs from 3 million lira for the period 1945–50 to 9.7 million for 1950–56 helped to increase the number of tractors in use (from 1,756 in 1948 to 31,415 in 1952) and the number of combine harvesters (from 268 to 3,222 over the same period) [Aresvik, 1975: 19; Aktan, 1957: 276]. This exerted a strong influence over the entire agrarian economy, with the south-east being the area of greatest labour displacement [Danielson and Keles, 1980: 285].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Jacoby

I am grateful to Robert Jacoby for his proof reading efforts, and to Tom Brass for his extensive comments on an earlier draft of this article.