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(en) Turkey, Yeryuzu Postasi: Wars and Genocides: Ottoman Socialism's Trial by Fire (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Date Wed, 9 Oct 2024 09:07:33 +0300


This text is the sixth article in the series "Socialism and the Workers' Movement in the Ottoman Empire", which consists of 6 articles prepared by 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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