Kemalizm, Batılılaşma ve Türk Solu

Authors : Erkan DOĞAN

Pages : 1514-1522

Doi:10.32709/akusosbil.1005113

View : 17 | Download : 8

Publication Date : 2021-12-29

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article analyzes the question of how a left-Kemalist current in Turkey in the 1960s understood early Kemalist reform period, in particular, and Ottoman-Turkish modernization, in general. Leading figures of this current of thought advocated a Third Worldist, national developmentalist outlook; and Kemalism was an important key element of their understanding of socialism. They glorified the reform attempts of the early Republican era as a progressive, revolutionary transformation. They argued that Kemalist telos of reaching the level of contemporary Western civilization was in parallel with their understanding of national developmentalism. The common belief of the Turkish left in the 1960s was that an underdeveloped country could only develop by breaking all ties with the Western imperialism and adopting a development strategy composed of state ownership, heavy industrialization and central, compulsory and state-led planning. This strategy was thought to be in harmony with Kemalist vision of elevating Turkish nation to the level of Western civilization, and was seen as the only way that could elevate Turkey to a higher level of civilization. In short, in this article, a left-Kemalist account of the modernization history of the late Ottoman and the early Republican periods will be analyzed specifically by reference to the writings of Doğan Avcıoğlu and Niyazi Berkes.
Keywords : Left Kemalism, Kemalism, westernization, developmentalism