This work addresses the issue of underground Turkish Communism in the 1920s and 1930s. Harris explains the relationship between the Kemalists and Communists, including the break-away Kadro group, during this period.
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-61719-114-5
Publication Status: In Print
Publication Date: Aug 11,2010
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 239
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1-61719-114-5
George Harris’s history of the Turkish Communist Party and the Kadro movement is one of the first scholarly works on Turkish communism during the 1920s and 1930s. The Turkish Communist Party had operated legally until 1925, when it was banned by Atatürk’s nationalist government. Harris focuses on the post-1926 period, when communism went underground. The political decisions made during the 1930s had a decisive influence on the manner in which Turkey would evolve, and Harris’s work contributes to an understanding of how Communist thought influenced thinking in those years. The group of defectors from the Communist Party, known for their journal Kadro, plays a central role in Harris’s work since they have been misunderstood in much of the previous scholarship. Additionally, he tackles issues such as the role of Nâzim Hikmet, the Turkish Communists’ perceptions of Kemalism and their relationship with the Comintern.