This text is the sixth article in the series "Socialism and the Workers'
Movement in the Ottoman Empire", which consists of 6 articles preparedby the International Communist Movement. ---- On September 29, 1911, the
Italian-Turkish war broke out, which would continue until October 1912,
when the Italian State invaded the Libyan lands under Ottoman rule. In
fact, Italy had been preparing for this war since the summer months.
Italy was one of the countries that lagged behind in the sharing race of
the past centuries, and in this conjuncture, where the places shared by
the great powers of the world were rapidly running out, the hesitations
of the Italian bourgeoisie quickly melted away. The Ottoman State, under
the rule of the Unionists, would not delay in rolling up its sleeves for
this war, which it was not very keen on due to its weak position at
first. The Italian-Turkish war, known today as the Tripoli War in
Turkey, shares the characteristic of being a precursor to World War I
with other wars that took place around the world during this period. A
major conflict had broken out within the Italian Socialist Party over
the war; the party's right wing declared its open support for the
government, while the uncompromising left wing waged a fierce struggle
against the war.[1]For Ottoman socialism, the lines were not as clear as
they were for Italian socialism. Revolutionary socialists would
unsurprisingly oppose the war, while right wing elements collaborating
with the Unionists would unsurprisingly support the government. On the
other hand, the Italian-Turkish war was of greater importance for the
evolution of these two wings. The Socialist Workers' Federation of
Thessaloniki, while condemning the war, saw the Italians as the main
culprit and did not condemn the Unionists as much as it condemned them.
However, the division within the Italian Socialist Party would result in
the federation of Ottoman organizations in the Second International
taking a stance on the left wing of the international socialist movement
for the first time. This war had changed the direction of the
federation. The attitude of the Student Union, affiliated with the
Social Democrat Hinchak Party, was similar to that of the Socialist
Workers Federation in that it did not attribute responsibility to the
Unionists, but it went a step further by inferring that the war was
generally a result of the order:
" The Italian-Turkish war is still going on. Its only reason is the
aggressive policy of Italian capitalism (...) We, socialist students,
believe that this war, which is extremely harmful to the development and
progress of humanity, is a result of the capitalist order of today's
society and will not disappear unless this order is abolished and
socialism is realized (...) Our aim is to express our deep anger against
the war and the Italian aggression and to shout together: Down with the
war! Down with Italy's capitalist aggression! Long live socialism! "[2]
While the war was ongoing, the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies elections
took place in February 1912. These elections provide us with the
opportunity to draw many conclusions about the nature of parliamentarism
at the dawn of the collapse of capitalism. The 1912 elections went down
in Ottoman history as "elections with sticks." The state party that won
state elections with the state's stick, the state's victory... The
elections with sticks were a mirror of the future of all elections,
parliamentarism, democracies and assemblies of the new century and
beyond. The Committee of Union and Progress, with its members waiting
with sticks in their hands at the ballot boxes, was drawing a bitter
caricature of bourgeois democracy that would be implemented openly or
covertly throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. On the other hand,
while some names of Ottoman socialism, such as Dimitar Vlahov, who had
parliamentary ambitions, bitterly accepted defeat, the bourgeois wing of
the Freedom and Entente Party, which had raised the banner of opposition
to the Unionists, had no intention of surrendering. In May 1912, the
supporters of the Freedom and Entente Party within the Ottoman army
organized under the name of Halaskar Zabitan (Savior Officers). The
Freedom and Entente Party took to the mountains of Macedonia in June of
the same year, similar to July 1908; the government fell, and the
Freedom and Entente Party came to power. The centrist tendency of
Ottoman socialism considered this moment as a moment of victory, like
July 1908. Indeed, after the increasing Unionist pressures of the recent
period, the Freedom and Entente Party, which had just come to power and
had not yet consolidated its position, initially provided easier
conditions for political organizations. But it would soon become clear
that the left wing was right again. For the working class, new bosses
were starting to be as good as the old ones. Strikes, workers' struggles
and socialists were being suppressed again; like the Union and Progress
Party, the Hürriyet and Itilaf had no intention of giving the socialists
the freedom to do what they wanted.[3]
In October 1912, before the Italian-Turkish War had even ended, a new
war began in the Balkans. If the Italian-Turkish War was a precursor to
the coming World War I, this war, which would go down in history as the
First Balkan War, was a rehearsal for the great war. 340,000 Ottoman
soldiers were killed, wounded or captured by gunfire or disease. 145,000
soldiers from Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, who were opposing
the Ottomans, were also killed or wounded. The war would end with the
defeat of the Ottoman Empire and would also bring an end to the newly
established Hürriyet and Itilaf government. Under the influence of the
successive defeats, a leading group of Unionists stormed the Bab-i Ali,
the government building, on January 23, 1913. This coup would mark the
beginning of the rule of three pashas whose names and crimes are still
remembered today: Ismail Enver, Mehmet Talat and Ahmet Cemal. The First
Balkan War ended on May 30, 1913 with the Treaty of London. The toll was
heavy for the Ottoman Empire: Almost all lands in Europe, including
Edirne, had been lost. It was clear that Thessaloniki, which had been
effectively lost in October 1912, was no longer part of the empire. The
Unionists, who had developed an extremely nationalist rhetoric against
the failure of the Freedom and Entente in the war, could not save the
situation either. Only two weeks after the end of the first Balkan war,
the second one broke out. This time, the Christian Balkan states were at
each other's throats. Bulgaria, which had taken the lead in the first
war, was opposed by Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and also Romania, which
thought it had been deprived of enough entertainment. The Unionist
government had no intention of staying out either. The Ottomans, who had
entered the war alongside other states against Bulgaria, would manage to
recapture Edirne at the end of the war. The Second Balkan War lasted
much shorter than the first. The war ended with the Treaty of Bucharest
on July 18, approximately one month after it began. Peace was now
reigning in the Balkans. On the other hand, this peace was soon to
emerge, pregnant with a great war, the likes of which humanity had never
seen before.
The Balkan Wars had upset all the balances of Ottoman socialism. The
Socialist Workers' Federation, which had seen itself as an Ottoman
organization from the beginning and was accepted as the Salonika
sub-branch of the Second International, was the most affected. After
1913, when Salonika ceased to be an Ottoman city, the Salonika Socialist
Workers' Federation inevitably ceased to be an Ottoman organization. It
belonged to Greece, just like the city it represented. The federation,
which had developed an attitude against the disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire in general, was not very happy with the situation but
eventually joined the Greek workers' and socialist movement. On the
other hand, the Balkan Wars had pulled the Salonika organization's
attitude even further to the left than it had been during the
Italian-Turkish War. During the Balkan Wars, the federation organized
mass demonstrations in Salonika against the war and openly condemned
differences of religion and nationality.[4]All these experiences would
cause the Salonika Socialist Workers' Federation to adopt an
internationalist attitude in the approaching World War I and to
participate in the communist organizations that would later be formed in
Greece.[5]
On the other hand, the effect of the Balkan Wars on the socialist
movement was not limited to the Salonika Workers' Federation. The
organizations of the left wing would also be greatly affected by the
fact that Salonika and the Salonika Workers' Federation remained outside
the Ottoman Empire. Although the left wing had previously criticized the
Salonika Workers' Federation for its opportunism and collaboration with
various bourgeois forces, the two organizations had a history and a law,
and unlike the Social Democratic Hinchak Party, the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation and the Ottoman Socialist Party, both
organizations had an international character. With Salonika remaining
outside the Ottoman borders, the revolutionary socialists were left
alone. However, the Ottoman revolutionary socialists, led by the
Istanbul Socialist Center, took the name of the Turkish Socialist Party
together with the trade union organizations around their line before the
Italian-Turkish War even began, and protested the Italian-Turkish War in
a defiant manner.[6] The Balkan Wars also effectively separated the
revolutionary socialist organizations in the Ottoman Empire from the
narrow Bulgarian socialism. A political reflection of this was evident
in the elections. After 1912, Ottoman revolutionary socialists, unlike
the narrow socialists who entered the elections, adopted an
anti-parliamentary stance against the collaborationist attitude of the
socialists in the Chamber of Deputies.[7] The left wing of Ottoman
socialism had become a separate tendency, not a reflection of another
tendency within the international socialist movement. The attitude of
the revolutionary socialists towards the war was also quite radical
compared to other socialist organizations in the empire. This attitude
was clearly seen in a declaration written by the Istanbul organization
to the international proletariat in 1914, shortly before the beginning
of World War I:
" On this historic day when the protest cries of all the exploited
people of the world unite once again, we too protest together with you
the capitalist society, the exploitation of labor, the oppression of
workers, and the great social injustice.
" Conscious of our class interests and the duty that falls upon each of
us, we fraternally reiterate our commitment and contribution to the
realization of the great social revolution, which is the only thing that
can put an end to the exploitation of man by man and the system of
misery. (...)
" Unfortunately, the so-called Balkan War, which we could not prevent,
has had consequences that the working class of the East will not be able
to overcome for a long time and that will delay the new awakening of the
people and the proletarians.
" This war has left thousands of urban and rural worker families
orphaned and at the mercy of this cruel society, who are now suffering
from hunger.
" This war destroyed cities and villages and brought with it misery and
hunger that devastated the entire population.
" This war revived hatred and bigotry among the Eastern nations and
strengthened the nationalist mentality for the benefit of the rulers and
capitalists.
" This war has left the state treasury completely empty; now they are
making us, their slaves, pay for that money.
" This war has brought about unprecedented political tyranny.
" The streets of our cities are filled with homeless, hungry elderly
people, women and children. The immigrants whose property and assets
were seized by the invaders of Rumelia during the war are taking refuge
with us in groups and settling in Thrace and Anatolia. This time, new
incidents are breaking out in Anatolia, fueled by bigotry and hatred due
to religious differences, and the local population is forced to migrate
in the opposite direction.
" The government has placed on the backs of the ruined people, of course
under the label of permanent constitutionality, a disgraceful
repression: permanent martial law, measures of violence against
organizations, meetings and the press...
" We could not march on May 1, 1914, we protest this arbitrary
government and together with you we shout once more: 'Down with the
bourgeoisie! Long live freedom! Long live the social revolution! '"[8]
Ottoman socialism, especially the revolutionary wing of Ottoman
socialism, openly condemned and cursed the Italian-Turkish war and the
two Balkan wars, and managed to continue its existence thanks to the
support of the working class. Socialism, especially the left wing of
socialism, defended the best possible future for both the lands within
the Ottoman borders and for the entire world. The internationalist
organizations of workers of all ethnic origins, such as Greeks,
Armenians, Bulgarians, Jews, Turks and others, believed completely in
the realization of a social revolution in which all workers within the
Ottoman borders would create a socialist world together. Their struggle
was as pure as the future they hoped to see, and the mistakes that
occasionally occurred during the development of the struggle were
honorable mistakes. On the other hand, a great disaster was on the way
for international socialism and the world working class. The disaster
that was waiting on the way for Ottoman socialism and the working class
was much more serious.
On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot
the Austrian crown prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the world
changed. The cause of the war undoubtedly went much deeper than the
killing of an archduke by a young Serbian; the assassination was merely
a pretext. By early August, the big four of Europe, England, Germany,
France and Russia, had entered the war. As is known, when the war began,
the Ottoman Empire was under the rule of three pashas. Under the de
facto dictatorship of the trio of Minister of War Enver, Minister of the
Interior Talat and Minister of the Navy Cemal, all the rulers of the
country considered it certain that the Ottoman state would enter the
war. While the group led by Cemal sought alliances with powers such as
England and France, Enver and Talat thought that the war should be
fought together with Germany. The failure of Cemal and his friends'
efforts to act together with the Allied forces led to a development in
line with what Enver and Talat wanted. A secret alliance agreement was
signed with Germany on August 2. On October 30, following the clashes
with Russian ships in the Black Sea a few days earlier, the Ottoman
Empire and Russia declared war on each other. The Ottoman Empire thus
joined World War I.
On the other hand, war was not the only disaster facing the Ottoman
working class: the Ottoman State planned more for its influence than
simply sending people to die by handing them weapons or to massacre
their class brothers. After the Bab-i Ali raid in 1913, the Ottoman
state bourgeoisie had temporarily resolved the internal hostilities with
a certain wing establishing its largely absolute power. The Union and
Progress was victorious, the Freedom and Entente were defeated. The
Union and Progress was so victorious that the Freedom and Entente did
not have the power to do even a simple resemblance to the Unionists'
actions against them during their time in power. The state bourgeoisie
had put its own house in order; the Unionists had become the sole
masters of the household. On the other hand, although the Unionists'
power was absolute, their victory was not absolute. They could not
become the masters of the working class; Because, even though it had
been defeated, the class movement was still alive, and there were still
strikes. The memory of the 1908 strikes was still fresh. The most
advanced, most militant, and most dangerous elements of the Ottoman
working class for the bourgeoisie had emerged from the non-Muslim
segment. On the other hand, there was another force that the Unionists
could not master: the non-Muslim bourgeoisie. It also maintained its
dominance over industrial, commercial and financial capital, and also
its existence as an independent power. The Dashnaks, who were now the
most serious political representatives of non-Muslim capital, accepted
the Unionists' demand that they defend the homeland in the upcoming war,
but they rejected the imposition that their organizations in Russia
should act in favor of the Ottomans and against Russia.
It was such a point in history that what changed was not only the
balance of forces within the system, but also the nature, form and
functioning of the system itself. In any period of the 19th century, the
bourgeoisie, despite its ethnic and religious differences, could solve
any problem within itself without much bloodshed, unlike the standards
of the 20th century. However, it is difficult to think of a state
bourgeoisie that had become such an important actor under the conditions
of 19th century capitalism. Spreading across the world as a mode of
production had made capitalism a healthy structure in the 19th century
and before. With the spread of the capitalist mode of production
throughout the world, that healthy, robust young man turned into an old
and sick man. The Ottoman Empire, known as the sick man of Europe,
reflected this transformation to a great extent. The magnitude of the
function played by the state bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state in the
Ottoman Empire in these years would become more or less valid for all
states in the new century. The Ottoman state bourgeoisie wanted to
control everything and everyone. Without doing this, it could not feel
comfortable and secure. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the
state needed a new ideology to feel secure and found this ideology in
Turkish nationalism. If there was to be a private capital, an
industrial, commercial and financial bourgeoisie outside the state, the
Ottoman State had to be sure that this bourgeoisie would show absolute
loyalty to it in every respect and on every subject. Otherwise, it would
be incapable of sleeping comfortably. The solution could only be the
Turkification of capital with blood and death.
The Ottoman State was afraid of non-Muslims, and it was even mortally
afraid of them. It was afraid of non-Muslim workers because they led the
entire Ottoman working class. It was afraid of the non-Muslim
bourgeoisie, which held the main veins of the Ottoman economy, because
it was a power independent of the state, and it felt weak against them.
The Ottoman State also had the weakness of being a state that sat at the
table with states that were all bigger and more powerful than itself. If
there was a weakest link among the European states, it was the Ottomans.
Could a state go mad? Having to negotiate with states that could defeat
the Ottomans on their own abroad, and having to live with powers that it
was mortally afraid of internally, perhaps made the Ottoman State the
first state in the world to go mad. The fear that the Ottoman State felt
towards the working class was a legitimate one. All the states of the
world felt the same fear towards the working class within their own
borders. The extent to which the world bourgeoisie's fear of the working
class was justified would soon become apparent with the October
Revolution that triumphed in 1917 and the proletarian revolutionary wave
that swept the world in the following years. On the other hand, the
Ottoman State's fear of the non-Muslim bourgeoisie was completely
irrational; the non-Muslim bourgeoisie was as finished as the Ottoman
State was. The Ottoman State was irrationally afraid of the non-Muslim
bourgeoisie, and the non-Muslim bourgeoisie irrationally trusted the
Ottoman State. The largest Armenian party, the Dashnak Party, would
continue to support the Ottoman State, which was feverishly planning the
massacre of all Armenians, with great loyalty until the deportations of
leading Armenian politicians began in Istanbul in 1915. It is said that
Krikor Zohrab, one of the most prominent Armenian MPs known for his
closeness to the Dashnaks, was playing backgammon with Talat Pasha, one
of the greatest architects of the Armenian genocide, at the Unionists'
Club in Beyoglu during the day and night of April 24, the night he was
arrested and sent away from Istanbul. Even if this rumor is not true, it
shows the approach of prominent Armenian politicians.
However, shortly after the declaration of the Constitutional Monarchy,
activities against non-Muslims, especially Armenians, began in the
Ottoman Empire. In 1909, a large group of people who rebelled against
the Constitutional Monarchy in Adana attacked Armenians on the grounds
that they wanted the Constitutional Monarchy, and many Unionists openly
supported this attack, and it is possible that some of them were
involved in the events. In 1914, Greek men began to be recruited to form
Labor Battalions. These battalions were made to work eighteen hours a
day. The Labor Battalions were a precursor to the labor camps that the
Ottoman Empire and many other major states, especially in the first half
of the 20th century, would establish shortly thereafter. The purpose of
the Labor Battalions was to work the targeted ethnic population to death
and to kill them by working them. On the other hand, attacks on
non-Muslims would take on a new dimension in 1915. In February 1915,
Armenians also began to be recruited into the Labor Battalions. On April
20, 1915, when the Armenians refused to obey the order of the Van
governor Cevdet Bey to take 4,000 men under arms to cleanse the city of
non-Muslim males, clashes broke out between the Armenians and the
Ottoman army in Van. By early May, 55,000 Armenians had been massacred
in the Van region. On the night of April 24, known as Bloody Sunday,
prominent Armenians began to be deported from Istanbul. From May
onwards, Armenians were subjected to mass deportations, forced into
death marches, massacred, and subjected to mortal torture in
concentration camps throughout the country. It was not only the
Armenians who were under attack; in November 1916, the Black Sea Greeks
were also subjected to similar attacks. All Greeks living in the region
from Tirebolu to Samsun, men, women, children, young and old, were
forced on a death march without being allowed to take anything with
them. As a result of this death march, 350,000 Greeks lost their lives.
By the end of the war, the number of Armenians who had lost their lives
had reached 1,500,000. The 20th century would be a century of genocide
for the capitalist order. The Ottoman Empire was destined to carry out
the first genocide of the century.[9]The Turkish Republic, the successor
of the Ottoman Empire, and the Kemalist movement, the continuation of
the Unionists, would continue to pursue the same policies, due to the
same fears and with the same goals. On the other hand, no matter how
much blood they had shed and how much death they had spread, the Turkish
state bourgeoisie would never be able to regain the peaceful sleep that
their madness had deprived them of.
Ottoman socialism, especially the revolutionary socialists, had managed
to pass the tests of the Italian-Turkish War and the Balkan Wars, but
the war that began in 1914 and the genocides that followed broke the
back of Ottoman socialism. The workers' movement was strong enough to
enable the socialist movement to continue its existence in the wars
before 1914. However, just as the Ottoman State was the weakest link
among European states, the Ottoman working class was the youngest and
most inexperienced working class in Europe, and Ottoman socialism was
naturally one of the newest and most scattered socialist currents of
international socialism. Moreover, the genocides directly targeted the
non-Muslim segment, who constituted the majority of socialist militants
in the Ottoman Empire. Although a tradition of solidarity with
non-Muslim workers had begun to develop among Muslim workers during
class struggles, these workers were not conscious enough to make a
serious difference with the victims against such a large-scale and
organized practice of genocide, that is, to show solidarity in a mass
manner. Non-Muslim workers were not active enough to inspire such
solidarity either. Only the revolutionary minority of socialists had the
will, clarity and determination to adhere to the principles of
internationalism to the end and no matter what, and they did not even
have the power to preserve the actual existence of their organization.
By 1914, there were only two organizations left within the borders of
the Ottoman Empire that could be considered socialist. The first of
these was the Social Democrat Hinçak Party, and the other was a
revolutionary socialist organization with a narrow socialist tradition.
After years of cooperation with the Unionists, the Dashnaks had nothing
to do with socialism, and the party had spent the last years before 1914
trying to achieve democratic reforms in the Meclis-i Mebusan. Hüseyin
Hilmi's Ottoman Socialist Party was easily neutralized with exile
sentences as soon as the Unionists began their policies of oppression
against the opposition in 1913. Another socialist tendency emerging from
the Muslim community, another circle around Dr. Hasan Riza, who had
established contact with the Second International, had not even managed
to form a party. In 1914, there were only two socialist organizations
left in the country that had the most socialist organizations in Europe.
Armenians among the revolutionary socialists who had formed a common
organization of militants from all ethnic backgrounds were also active
in the Social Democrat Hinçak Party. When the war broke out in 1914,
both the revolutionary socialists and the Social Democratic Hinchak
Party took a stance against the war. The Hinchak congress, which
convened on July 24, 1914, would make the following decision:
" We are going through an unprecedented, very important and serious
phase in world history. For some time now, the entire world of
civilization has been struggling under the suffocating pressures of the
World War. Today's events are nothing but a terrible and frightening
blow to the flawed movements and ideas of the past (...) Despite all
this pessimistic and inappropriate situation, we happily declare that
these new events that have occurred during the universal revolutionary
period are the results of reactionism and will not survive the new
period, and humanity will embrace our social liberation with a feverish
move, freed from destructive and reactionary influences. "[10]
The Social Democrat Hinchak Party had been advocating the view that it
was necessary to engage in illegal activities against the Ottoman State
since 1913. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war, the Social Democrat
Hinchak Party accelerated its activities against the rulers. In
contrast, the party's activities at this point were independent of the
Volunteer Units in Russia, which had established volunteer units under
the Russian armed forces and were mostly composed of Caucasian Dashnaks.
On June 14, 1915, 20 Social Democrat Hinchak Party militants were
rounded up from their homes for their anti-state and anti-war activities
and the following day, on June 15, 1915, these twenty militants were
hanged in Beyazit Square. One of the socialist militants who was hanged,
Mateos Sarkissian, nicknamed Paramaz, would shout the following words on
the scaffold:
" You can only eliminate our body, never our ideals. These ideals of
ours will come true in the near future and the whole world will see it.
Our ideals are socialism. "[11]
The 20 revolutionary militants who were massacred on June 15th would be
the first martyrs of Ottoman socialism. Today, these militants, whose
struggle is ignored by the nationalist Turkish left and known and
embraced only by the existing Armenian nationalist structures around the
world, had shouted out their hope for a socialist future with their last
breaths. Therefore, their memory still belongs to the international
proletariat and will always remain so. On the other hand, the recurrence
of genocidal activities, especially against Armenians, in 1915 and the
murder of 20 militants by the Ottoman State would also change the
balances within the Hinchak Party. The Social Democrat Hinchak Party,
which had wavered from side to side throughout its history around the
contradiction of the ideal of socialism contained in its program and the
idea of Armenian national liberation and had ultimately become a
centrist structure because of this, imposed a moment of decision on it.
In 1914, there was no situation that would require great hostility
between those who were generally against the war within the party and
those whose main concern was the Ottoman State. However, the increasing
massacres of Armenians increasingly sharpened the divide between them.
Those whose main concern was with the Ottoman State began to advocate
joining the pro-Russian Armenian Volunteer Units, such as the Dashnaks.
The events that were taking place and the lack of reaction of the
working class to these events turned the needle in the party towards
this view. In a short time, those who opposed supporting Russia within
the party would begin to be declared traitors. Stepan Sabah-Gulyan, one
of the leading pro-Russian groups, wrote the following:
" Instead of appreciating and expanding our initiatives regarding the
Armenian volunteer organization, preparing the environment for
development and accelerating the work, some parties are now recommending
the closure of this organization and putting an end to it with childish
views that cannot be criticized. No! This is murder. We will not stop
the Armenian volunteer organization, we will not put an end to it, no,
on the contrary, we will intensify and increase it until the end. We
will be at the forefront as the vanguard everywhere. Until the end,
until the enemy is destroyed and annihilated, we will stand by the
Russian Cossacks with our biceps and chests (...) Let the treacherous
tongues criticizing the volunteer issue be silent, let evil hands not
stir things up! (...) Today, our primary enemy is the Turks. Those who
are secretly or openly against the volunteer organization, those who try
to limit this force are considered internal enemies. "[12]
The Social Democratic Hinchak Party would thus become one of the parties
of the Second International that had betrayed the working class and
internationalist principles by supporting the war. The internal enemies
that Sabah-Gulyan mentioned were undoubtedly members of the
revolutionary socialist organization within the party that had led the
anti-war discourse. On the other hand, as the war and genocide
progressed, there would be no Hinchak Party as a political structure
within which opposition could be made. It was not possible to make
opposition within an organization that had chosen to be involved in the
war. The Hinchaks who had not been involved in the war were therefore
deprived of an organization that could engage in illegal political
activity and were condemned to pacifism. Furthermore, there would be no
one left who could lead such opposition. The poet Ruben Sevak, one of
the leading Armenian internationalists, was among those arrested on
April 24, 1915 and would be murdered in August. Kevork Haraçyan, known
by the pseudonym Arkomedes, would return to the Caucasus. On the other
hand, among the Armenian revolutionary socialists, the one whose death
would have the greatest impact on the movement was Karekin Kozikyan,
nicknamed Yesalem. Kozikyan had gone to Trabzon to teach in 1915 and
died by jumping into a stream with his wife to avoid falling into the
hands of murderers. Kozikyan, a militant worker who led the printers'
strikes in Istanbul and a revolutionary socialist who was deeply
committed to internationalism, would have a tragic death that would be a
bitter loss not only for the Armenian socialist movement but also for
the entire Ottoman working class.[13]
The Armenian socialists were not the only ones who suffered from the
conditions. The war also destroyed the revolutionary socialist
organization, which had an international character. The offices of the
revolutionary socialist group and the Union of Trade Unions under its
influence were closed. Many of the non-Muslims who were under the
influence of the revolutionary socialists found a solution by escaping;
those who could not escape and were drafted were condemned to live under
terrible conditions, and many lost their lives. Muslim workers under the
influence of the group were also drafted, and a large number of those
drafted were unable to return to their homes.[14] The disaster of war
and genocide was also a disaster for Ottoman socialism. Despite this,
the revolutionary socialists, although their influence was limited
according to their power, defended internationalist principles to the
end and fought against the imperialist war.[15] When the war ended,
there was neither a workers' organization nor an effective revolutionary
structure in the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, it would soon become
clear once again that nothing can be erased without affecting the course
of history. There was no Ottoman Empire left, no Trade Union Union, no
Istanbul Socialist Center, no Turkish Socialist Party... Kozikyan and
Sivachev were dead, Glavinov was living in Sofia, Harachyan in the
Caucasus, Papadopoulos in Greece, and Vezesthenis had found a solution
in escaping to America. On the other hand, the spark lit by these few
but principled and determined militants had not turned into a fire that
would burn the Istanbul bourgeoisie, but it had spread seriously. A
large portion of the workers who had adopted internationalist socialism
might have died in the war, gone to other countries, or at least broken
away from the struggle, but it would soon become clear that the fire was
still burning. The first communists of Turkey and Istanbul would be
those who came from the tradition of this fire.
[1]International Communist Current. "The Italian Communist Left". 1992.
p. 15
[2] Haupt, George and Paul Dumont. "Socialist Movements in the Ottoman
Empire". Gözlem Publications. Istanbul. 1977 p. 142
[3] Dumont, Paul. "A Jewish, Socialist and Ottoman Organization: The
Salonika Workers Federation". "Socialism and Nationalism in the Ottoman
Empire" Compiled by: Mete Tunçay and Erik Jan Zürcher. Communication.
2004. Istanbul. pp. 106-107
[4]Haupt, George and Paul Dumont. "Socialist Movements in the Ottoman
Empire". Gözlem Publications. Istanbul. 1977 p. 175
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers%27_Federation
[6] Ginzberg, Roland. "International Workers' Union A". "International
Workers' Union (A Workers' Organization Mainly Greek in the Armistice
Istanbul and Its Relations with the Communist Party of Turkey)".
Compiled by: Erden Akbulut and Mete Tunçay. Social History Publications.
2009. Istanbul. p. 46
[7]Ginzberg, Roland. "International Workers' Union A". "International
Workers' Union (A Workers' Organization Mainly Greek in the Armistice
Istanbul and Its Relations with the Communist Party of Turkey)".
Compiled by: Erden Akbulut and Mete Tunçay. Social History Publications.
2009. Istanbul. p. 46
[8]Haupt, George and Paul Dumont. "Socialist Movements in the Ottoman
Empire". Gözlem Publications. Istanbul. 1977 pp. 191-192
[9] Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to go into the details
of the Ottoman state's genocidal policies here. On the other hand, for
our readers who want to obtain detailed information about what was done
to the Armenians and Greeks from Turkish sources, we can recommend Taner
Akçam's "The Armenian Question Has Been Solved: Policies Towards the
Armenians During the War Years According to Ottoman Documents" and
Pervin Erbil's "Anatolia Was Crying Niobe: All Aspects of the Greek
Deportation and Historical Sources of the Deportation".
[10]"The Aspirations of the Armenian Committees and Revolutionary
Movements". Prepared by Mehmet Kaynar. Der Publishing House. Istanbul.
2001. pp. 206-207
[11]Çetinoglu, Sait. "Nationalist Virus in Turkey's 'Left' Movements 2".
https://www.norzartonk.org/?p=3406
[12]"The Aspirations of the Armenian Committees and Revolutionary
Movements". Prepared by Mehmet Kaynar. Der Publishing House. Istanbul.
2001. p. 214
[13]Çetinoglu, Sait. "Nationalist Virus in Turkey's 'Left' Movements 1"
and. "Nationalist Virus in Turkey's 'Left' Movements 2".
https://www.norzartonk.org/?p=3401 and https://www.norzartonk.org/?p=3406
[14]Ginzberg, Roland. "International Workers' Union A". "International
Workers' Union (A Workers' Organization Mainly Greek in the Armistice
Istanbul and Its Relations with the Communist Party of Turkey)".
Compiled by: Erden Akbulut and Mete Tunçay. Social History Publications.
2009. Istanbul. p. 46
[15]Dimitrov, Georgi. "The European War and the Labor Movement in the
Balkans". The Communist International. 1924, No. 5 (New Series),
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1924/x01.htm
Source:
https://tr.internationalism.org/ekaonline-2000s/ekaonline-2011/osmanli-imparatorlugu-nda-sosyalizm-ve-isci-hareketi-6
Articles in the series "Socialism and the Labor Movement in the Ottoman
Empire":
Socialism and the Labor Movement in the Ottoman Empire
Development of the Left Wing of Armenian and Macedonian Socialism
The Rise of the Young Turks and the Attitude of the Socialists
Analysis of the 1908 Rebellion
After the 1908 Rebellion: Mass Strikes and the Socialist Movement
Wars and Genocides: Ottoman Socialism's Trial by Fire
https://www.yeryuzupostasi.org/2024/09/13/savaslar-ve-soykirimlar-osmanli-sosyalizminin-atesle-imtihani/
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