Socialism and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey 1850437874, 9781850437871

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: Socialism, Nationalism and Historiography
1. Some Thoughts on the Role of Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Genesis and Development of the Socialist Movement in Turkey (1876-1923)
2. The National Question and the Genesis and Development of Socialism in the Ottoman Empire: the Case of Macedonia
3. A Jewish, Socialist and Ottoman Organization: the Workers’ Federation of Salonica
4. The Role of the Greek Community in the Genesis and Development of the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire: 1876-1923
5. The Bulgarian Community and the Development of the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire during the Period 1876-1923
6. The Role of the Armenian Community in the Foundation and Development of the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: 1876-1923
In Lieu of a Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography

Citation preview

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1876-1923

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1876-1923 Edited by

METE TUNÇAY

and ERIK JAN ZÜRCHER

BRITISH ACADEMIC PRESS A n Im print ofl.B .T a u ris Publishers

LONDON . NEW YORK in association with

THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY AMSTERDAM

Published in 1994 by British Academic Press 45 Bloomsbury Square London WC1A 2HY An imprint of LB.Tauris & Co Ltd In the United States of America and Canada distributed by St Martins’s Press 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010 Copyright ® 1994 by Erik J. Zürcher All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Catalog card number: 93-61265 A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 1-85043-787-4

Typeset by Edward Gerrits Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Ltd, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan

Contents

Introduction: Socialism, Nationalism and Historiography Erik Jan Zürcher..................................................................................... 7 1 Some Thoughts on the Role o f Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Genesis and Development of die Socialist Movement in Turkey: 1876-1923 Feroz Ahmad...................................................................................... 13 2 The National Question and the Genesis and Development of Socialism in the Ottoman Empire: the Case o f Macedonia Fikret Adanır.......................................................................................27 3 A Jewish, Socialist and Ottoman Organisation: the Workers’ Federation o f Thessaloniki Paul Dumont.......................................................................................49 4 The Role o f the Greek Community in the Genesis and Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire: 1876-1923 Panagiotis Noutsos............................................................................ 77 5 The Bulgarian Community and the Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire during the Period 1876-1923 Ibrahim Yalimov................................................................................. 89

6 The Role o f the Armenian Community in the Foundation and Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: 1876-1923 Anahide Ter Minassian.................................................................... 109 In Lieu o f a Conclusion Mete Tunçay.......................................................................................... 157 Notes.......................................................................................................169 Bibliography..........................................................................................209

1. Introduction: Socialism, Nationalism and Historiography Erik Jan Zürcher

When the International Institute o f Social History (IISH) embarked on a programme o f research in the field of Ottoman and Turkish history in 1989, it was faced with the question of how to spend its limited funds. One way would be to support individual research through grants or scholarships. Although everyone recognizes that there is a great need for more travel grants and research scholarships, especially for younger scholars, in the event the IISH decided not to follow this course, worried as it was that it would be quite some time before results from this investments became apparent. Instead, it decided to strive to bring together existing know-how. Within the framework o f the Institute’s research priorities (in which comparative research figures prominently), it would select a topic from the social history o f Turkey and the Ottoman Empire and then approach a leading specialist in the field with a view to forming o f a research team o f between six and ten people, who would be brought together for two seminars on the chosen topic. The first o f these two-day meetings was intended to set the agenda for the collective project, while the second was reserved for discussion o f the resultant papers. It was felt that the Institute’s limited means would thus be used most effectively by tapping existing know-how of individual specialists and - hopefully - creating a certain amount o f synergy between them. The first research project organized according to this format was started in 1990. Dr Mete Tunçay o f Istanbul, the leading expert on Turkey’s ’old left’, was invited to chair a two-year project on the role of the ethnic and religious communities o f the Ottoman Empire in the genesis and development o f the socialist movement between 1876 and 1923; that is to say, in the period between the promulgation o f the Ottoman constitution and the establishment o f the Turkish Republic. A team consisting o f Professor Feroz Ahmad o f Boston, Dr Ibrahim 7

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Yalimov o f Sofia, Professor Fikret Adanïr o f Bochum, Dr Anahide Ter Minassian o f Paris, Prof. Paul Dumont of Strasbourg and Professor Panagiotis Noutsos o f Yannina was brought together. Professor Rifa‘at al-Said also took part, as a specialist on the Egyptian socialist and communist movements. While his contributions to die discussion were certainly valuable, his article on the Egyptian socialists has not been included in this volume because it was strictly beyond the scope o f a study o f Ottoman history. Attempts to attract a specialist on the ’outside Turks’, and specifically the Azeris, were thwarted by the chaos in the wake o f the disintegration o f the Soviet Union. At the group’s first meeting, in May 1991, the goals of the project were defined more clearly and, in order to avoid producing the kind o f conference volume whose cohesion consists only of the titles o f the articles, a checklist was drawn up of those points which the authors were asked to consider in detail in their contributions. I feel it would be useful for readers to know what these points were, and to keep them at the back o f their minds when using this volume. With the exception o f Professor Ahmad, the main aim o f whose paper was to pose a number o f pertinent questions and set the agenda, each author was asked to devote his attention to one specific community: Adanïr was to cover the Macedonians, Yalimov the Bulgarians, Noutsos the Greeks, Dumont the Jews o f Thessaloniki (Salonica/ and Ter Minassian the Armenians. Tunçay would try not only to draw conclusions but also to link the developments within the different non-Muslim communities to those in the Ottoman Muslim ones. The authors were asked to give a survey o f the history of the socialist and communist movements in their respective communities for the whole half-century between 1876 and 1923. The articles were intended both as a survey o f existing knowledge, a ’state o f the art’ o f the field, and as a guide to the sources (archival and printed) and publications, including references to the location of the materials in question. The authors were specifically asked to deal with the relationships of the socialist groups o f the said communities with their social and political environment: with the Young Turk movement (both in opposition and in power), Masonic organizations, their own ethnic/religious community in general, revolutionary or radical groups and organizations established or operating abroad (specifically in the new nation states o f the Balkans) and with international socialist or radical currents, movements and organizations. Readers will be able to judge for themselves to what extent these guidelines have been followed.

INTRODUCTION

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The project was undertaken originally in order to trace the earliest development of socialism in the Levant. A concentration on the non-Muslim communities was unavoidable in this context, given the much slower development o f an industrial working class among the Muslims. In the papers, and even more in the discussions o f the papers during our second meeting in May 1992, one theme came to dominate all others. This was the relationship between nationalism and socialism in the Ottoman communities. While socialism was still a relatively marginal phenomenon in the Levant in the period under discussion, nationalism was at the very top o f the political agenda. It had been a living force among the Greek and Serb communities since the beginning o f the 19th century, among the Bulgarians since the mid-century and among the Armenians since the 1880s. The emergence o f real political Turkish nationalism (as distinct from Ottoman patriotism) can perhaps be dated to the turn o f the 20th century, and that of Arab nationalism slightly later. Every socialist movement o f this period had therefore to define its attitude towards this all-pervasive nationalism. Thus, in each of the studies of a specific community, the same questions concerning the primacy o f class struggle and the existence o f a national entity as a prerequisite for the development of socialism come to the fore. Discussions about the ’nationality question’ of course figured prominently in socialist circles in this period - one only has to think of people like Renner, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Bauer and, first and foremost, Kautsky, who was very influential in the Levant- but for the socialists from the Balkans and Asia Minor the question was o f more than theoretical interest; even more than for the Central Europeans, it was also one of great political urgency. For almost a century, until the resurgence of politicized Islam as an alternative model, two imported European ideologies - socialism and nationalism - competed for the souls of the intelligentsia in the Near East. This survey charts the early phase of that competition. But there is another way in which, to my mind, the project proved important. As work progressed, it gradually dawned on us that, quite apart from our subject matter, the exercise was unique in that our research team in a sense revived the ethnic/religious diversity of the late Ottoman Empire itself. At first sight this may appear a frivolous or, at best, irrelevant remark, until one realizes that all too often late Ottoman history is treated not as the history o f the last phase of a multinational empire, but as the prehistory o f the nation-states which grew up on its ruins.

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Turkey is a case in point. Kemalist historiography o f the first 30 years of the republic emphasized the novelty o f the Turkish republican experience and the discontinuity between it and the preceding era. Guided by people like Hikmet Bayur, Tarik Zafer Tunaya and Niyazi Berkes, since the 1960s Turkish historians have ’rediscovered’ the Young Turk era, but they nearly always treat it from a modem, and therefore anachronistic, perspective. In other words, they see the Young Turk era as the ’laboratory’ in which people experimented with the developments (secularism, nationalism, positivism, modernization) which would come to full fruition during the republic after 1923. In the other states which have inherited part of the Ottoman legacy, such as Greece, Bulgaria or the Arab countries, this tendency to see the nation-state as the apogee o f a natural development, and the Ottoman past as the prehistoric phase o f national history, is even stronger. During our research project on the origins of socialism in the Ottoman Empire we not only discovered the extent to which the experiences o f the different communities resembled each other, but also became aware of the fact that, though individual authors were studying Ottoman history from a narrowly national point of view, as a phase in any one national history, taken together the articles added up to a broader, multicultural survey. To give just one example: the juxtaposition of different viewpoints in the treatment by Adanïr, Dumont and Yalimov of the role of the Bulgarian socialists in the socialist and nationalist agitation in the Balkans adds to our understanding of the interaction of the different communities in the empire. This in itself was a valuable and timely lesson. There can be no doubt that the collapse o f communism, with the attendant resurfacing of extreme forms o f nationalism in the Balkans, in which murderous ’ethnic cleansing’ goes hand in hand with the reinvention o f historical myths, and the continuing nationalist rivalry between Turks and Kurds in Turkey, make it imperative that the common Ottoman past should be studied by groups o f researchers transcending the borders o f the nation-states. Finally, it remains for me to thank those who have made possible the production o f this volume: apart from the authors o f the papers, these consist o f the research and publications departments o f the IISH for financially supporting both the project and the production of the text; Lester Crook o f I.B. Tauris/British Academic Press for his willingness to publish our work; Fikret Adanïr, Kees Versteegh and Bernard

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Bichakjian for their help in editing the Bulgarian, Greek and Armenian material; Helen Simpson and Alison Mansbridge-Vaspe for their usual meticulous reading and editing; Miriam Meekels for her conscientious work on the word-processor and, finally Edward Gerrits for the typesetting. Needless to say, the editors remain responsible for the text as it stands. Amsterdam/Nijmegen, June 1993.

1. Some Thoughts on the Role o f Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Genesis and Development o f the Socialist Movement in Turkey (1876-1923) Feroz Ahmad At first glance, it seems axiomatic to emphasize the role o f the ethnic and religious minorities when we examine the genesis and development o f the socialist movement in the late Ottoman Empire. They were the communities - the Greek, the Bulgarian, the Armenian and the Jewish community o f Thessaloniki - which are said to have produced a bourgeoisie and an intelligentsia capable of thinking in a modem idiom. (I have singled out Thessaloniki’s Jewish community because I find little evidence of such a bourgeoisie and intelligentsia among Jews in other parts o f the empire.) The minorities had closer ties with Europe, whence new ideas such as nationalism and socialism penetrated the empire. Studies which broke new ground in this e ra -1 am thinking of works by A. Cerrahoğlu, Mete Tunçay, Paul Dumont and George Harris1 - show conclusively that the minorities played a crucial role in introducing socialism at this period. But each o f these authors is aware o f the problem o f defining ’socialism’ in this context. This is an issue of fundamental significance and deserves our fullest attention. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines socialism as a ’theory or policy o f socialist organisation which advocates the ownership and control o f the means o f production, capital, land, property etc. by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interest o f all’. I have no doubt that dictionaries of the other major European languages would give similar defmitions. When the terms ’socialism’ and ’socialist’ came into use in the early 1830s, they were used in contrast to ’individualism’ and ’individualist’, a trait which was and is considered to be the essence of liberalism, one o f the principal ideologies o f the day.

13

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But socialism was viewed by some as a continuation of liberalism, as reform, including radical reform o f the social order. In his 1888 preface to the Communist Manifesto, Engels observed: ’We would not have called it a Socialist Manifesto. In 1847, socialism was a middle class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the continent at least, respectable; communism was the very opposite.’ 12 It was used side by side with other terms such as ’collectivism’ and ’co-operatism’ until socialism became the dominant word in the late 19th century. Politically, too, socialism came to have a variety of senses in Europe after the First International (1864-76), leading to ’bitter internal disputes o f the period 1880-1914’.3 Apart from the Marxists, James Joli notes that ’most of the leaders o f European socialism had accepted the necessity o f political action inside existing bourgeois society ...’ But he continues: ’no socialist party could escape the difficulties presented by its own existence as a mass party, forced for the moment at least, to function within a political system which at the same time it was seeking to destroy’.4 That would also be a dilemma for minority groups in the Ottoman Empire (except for the Jews, as I have argued elsewere5) when they began to function in the constitutional framework after the 1908 revolution. People like Jean Jaurès in France and Filipo Turati in Italy were convinced that socialists needed to collaborate with liberals in order to maintain a parliamentary system in which they were influential and making gains. In Britain, with its large and developed working class, the Fabians saw socialism as necessary to complete liberalism, rather than as an alternative and opposed theory o f society. To Bernard Shaw and other Fabians socialism was merely ’the economic side o f the democratic ideal’.6 Before 1914 there were many interpretations o f socialism which are familiar to us all and do not bear elaborating here. In the Ottoman context, the problems o f definition and interpretation were even more complex; one might well ask whether Ottoman society had the objective conditions necessary to receive socialism. Among these conditions one might list: 1 the existence o f a working class and trade unions; 2 a class society with class struggle; 3 universal suffrage; 4 internationalism; and 5 sympathie intellectuals.

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O f these factors, the Ottomans were well endowed with the fifth. There was as yet no significant working class - either numerically large or militantly conscious - capable of providing the basis for a dynamic and vibrant trade-union movement. There were relatively few workers and they tended to be in crafts and likely to identify with their craft rather than their class. Thus the strikes and boycotts which followed the restoration of the constitution in July 1908 were more syndicalist than socialist in nature. The emphasis was on action rather than theory, as one would expect in a society with a weak trade-union tradition but a strong artisan base organized around guilds, so that initiative came from the rank and file. The ethnic division o f labour was also a major obstacle in the way o f developing class-consciousness, a point Paul Dumont makes forcefully in his discussion of the socialist Workers’ Federation of Salonica (WFS).7 If there was no working class, its counterpart, a modem bourgeoisie, did not exist either. Such classes, it is true, may have come into existence among such minority communities as the Greeks and Armenians, but these communities had no organic link with the Ottoman state and had agendas of their own, which were often in conflict with each other. Given such a state of affairs, and even though it is perfectly legitimate to talk of Ottoman socialists, how valid is it to talk about a socialist movement in the Ottoman Empire? During the period under discussion, nationalism became the ideology o f the day and smaller, submerged nationalities in the various multi-ethnic empires began to put forward their claims to nation-states o f their own. Socialism, which was in theory internationalist and therefore opposed to nationalism, was placed in an ambivalent position as the ally o f subject peoples under autocratic rule, as in Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.8 The International Socialist Conference o f 1896, which was held in London ’affirmed the right o f all nations to self-determination. Thus the way was left open to Poles and other like-situated peoples to push their demands for independence or not to push them, as the occasion might demand, the democratic right of self-determination was unconditionally endorsed.’9 In the same year, Rosa Luxemburg discussed the question of the national struggle in the Ottoman Empire and proposed the position social democrats should take. She concluded that the ’dead weight o f Turkish rule was even incapable of generating capitalism - and thus, ultimately socialism; the sooner it was destroyed and split up into constituent national parts the better - and then this backward area might catch up with the normal process o f historical dialectic’.10 Those socialists from the minority

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communities who were familiar with Luxemburg’s position must have found it appealing, providing legitimacy for their own thinking. Until die restoration of the Constitution in July 1908 the opposition o f the various groups in the empire could coalesce around hostility to the Hamidian regime. A certain amount o f mutual respect had been created between the different revolutionary groups during their long struggle against the sultan’s despotism. They often collaborated on die understanding that such collaboration was vital if the regime were to be destroyed. According to the British consul, Dickson, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak) organization of Van had come around to this view. Instead of sending Russian ’fedai ’ (volunteers) over into Turkey (he wrote in March 1908): they are devoting themselves almost entirely to propaganda, collecting depots o f arms and ammunition, and trying to win over the Kurds and Young Turks. Their present policy is to lie quiet and do everything in their power to gain co-operation o f the Muslims. This is shown by the numerous pamphlets which they are publishing at present, nearly all o f which are addressed to the Muslims. They realize that without Muslim co-operation and support their cause is hopeless.11 With his report to the embassy in Istanbul, Dickson enclosed one o f the pamphlets. With its unabashed Ottomanism, its call for a common struggle against Hamidian tyranny and exploitation and for liberty, civilization and the fundamental rights o f man, it was dseigned to appeal to the Young Turks, and it reflected much of their own thinking, though they may have been put off by the masked rhetoric o f class struggle. But it bears quoting extensively as an example o f Dashnak propaganda. It reads: It is time, we believe, that we understand who we are and who are our adversaries and enemies. When we say ’we’, that should not be understood to mean the ’Dashnak’ or other Armenian revolutionary parties, but all Ottomans, that is to say all Turks, Armenians, Albanians, Arabs, Greeks, Assyrians, all those who live in the Ottoman Empire and are the object of pillage, ruin and persecution by the despotic government. Those who, deprived o f liberty, civilization and the fundamental rights o f man, are roasted over the flames of suffering and immense and insufferable agony,

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but who, comprehending their bitter lot, revolt against their despotism and the existing regime, and at the price o f their blood aspire to win for liberty, equality and humanity. We count among our enemies and adversaries those who want to assure the continued existence o f despotic government, to preserve their office and positions in order to profit the venal, the usurers, and those who rob unlawfully and by force. Those who are party to the actual government, and all those who profit by the anarchy in the country, rob the poor; those who are against liberty and equality, be they Armenians, Turks, Arabs, Assyrians, Albanians or Greeks, are and will remain our enemies and adversaries. The ones who line themselves under our flag are those who, without distinction of race or religion, aspire to liberty and equality, and those who, with loathing for the despotic government, aspire to save all peoples from servitude, pillage and brigandage. We are liberty, knowledge, equality and law. And our adversaries are despotism, ignorance, servitude, pillage and injustice. We are the workers, we are the wretched o f our country, we are the ones who fan the flames, we are the innovators o f our country. And our enemies are the idle and the venal, those who sell the country to foreigners, massacre us and subject us to famine. We are the people who work but don’t have bread; our adversaries are the idle, but they are always full, wealthy and extravagant.12 How socialist were revolutionary bodies like the International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Dashnak? G.D.H. Cole describes the IMRO as an organization whose slogan was ’Macedonia for the Macedonians’ and whose aim was to liberate Macedonia, the prize sought by Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, from Turkish rule and open it to all peoples, freeing it from the domination of rival churches and states. He concludes that it was not in itself a socialist organization but that its leaders were socialist and most socialists in Macedonia supported it.13 About the Armenian revolutionary movement, Professor Ter Minassian is quite unequivocal. She writes that ’From 1887 to 1921, when the Treaty o f Moscow put an end to the project for an Armenian national home in Asia Minor, socialism was inseparable from nationalism in the movement for Armenian

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emancipation. Caucasian Armenians introduced socialism - in the broad sense o f the term - into the evolution of the national movement’.14 Perhaps the key to our discussion of socialism in the Ottoman Empire lies in Ter Minassian’s suggestion that it ought to be discussed in its ’broad sense’, or possibly in its broadest sense. Thus groups such as the IMRO, the Dashnak and the Henchak may be seen as as much anarchist as socialist, in that they proposed opposing the Hamidian regime by violent and militant means. They also espoused statist tendencies common to the socialist movement, though they stressed mutuality and co-operation as the fundamental principles of the reorganization and restructuring o f society.15 The social radicalism o f the non-Muslim socialists appealed to the Young Turks, liberal and unionist alike. They shared the ideas and the ideals o f the French Revolution as the inspiration for their movements. Thus they celebrated the restoration o f the constitution with banners proclaiming ’Liberty, Equality, Justice’ in their own languages. They could also identify with the socialism o f Jean Jaurès, for it was patriotic and was held up as the legitimate heir and fulfilment o f the revolution of 1789. Once the newly-elected Assembly began meeting in December, the Young Turks counted on the support o f such deputies for some o f their jown radical programme. Given die social composition of the 1908-12 Assembly, the Young Turks were the ideological captives of the deputies from the minority communities, who were better educated and socially more progressive. A rough estimate of the 1908 Assembly suggests that o f the approximately 220 Muslim deputies, 35 per cent were members o f the ulema class, another 30 per cent came from the land, 20 per cent were state officials, 10 per cent were from the liberal professions, and 5 per cent may be described as ’others’. That is why the occasional non-Muslim deputy, only a few of whom may be described as socialist, acquired a significance beyond their numbers in the eyes of the Turkish radicals.16 The socialist group in the assembly was composed o f four Dashnaks - Garo Pasteimajian and Vareks Serengulian (Erzurum), Kevam Ter Gerabedian (Muş) and Vahan Papazian (Van). Two deputies - Dr Nazaret Dagavaryan (Sivas) and Boyajian (Kozan) - belonged to the Henchak Party. Last but not least there was the Bulgarian deputy Dimitar Vlahov from Thessaloniki, one o f the few socialists who

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impressed Parvus sufficiently to earn a mention in the latter’s correspondence with Kautsky.1 Apart from the socialism o f these men (which may or may not have carried much weight with the Young Turks), they and other minority deputies were held in high esteem for their professional and technocratic qualifications. Pastermajian was an engineering graduate o f the Ecole des Mines in Nancy; Dr Dagavarian had studied agriculture in Paris. Such men were expected to provide the technical expertise to create the infrastructure for a modem economy. Not surprisingly, many o f the proposals for reform were initiated by such men. Some were offered posts in the cabinet, which they turned down for reasons unknown. In the Ottoman Empire, unlike the other empires in Europe, no single ethnic group had established a cultural hegemony permitting it to control the socialist movement. In Germany, for example, despite the existence o f Poles and Czechs, the Germans exercised such a hegemony. One German social democrat stated categorically in 1897: ’We recognize only one German social democracy in our organization ... in which our Polish brothers are comrades with equal rights ... German will remain a language o f culture and communication whether we like it or not and regardless o f the likes and dislikes o f our Czech friends.’18 In the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Slavic peoples were thought to have no national future because they were ’destined to be absorbed by the more highly developed Germans and Magyars’. Karl Kautsky, who was himself half Czech, predicted that ’economic unification would consolidate the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and continue to do so long after the nationalist movements in the Slavic provinces o f the Dual Monarchy had reached the point of no return’.19 The Austrian model was hardly applicable to the Ottoman situation, where the minorities were more highly developed, while the ’dominant nationality’ (that is, the Turkish one) was in the process of becoming conscious o f itself as a nationality and was in no position to lead a socialist movement. It was unlikely that a minority community organization like the ’Turkish Socialist Centre’ (’Centre Socialiste de Turquie’) founded by the Greeks o f Istanbul, would be acceptable as the leader o f Ottoman socialism. Even though the purpose of this body was to create an international socialist party, ’because in Turkey no other kind o f socialism is possible’, the goal was to retain the leadership in Greek hands, ’since they are the largest group in the population of Constantinople. The Greeks produce Ergatis [The Worker] and control it through its editorial board.’20 One must also, as Panagiotis Noutsos

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suggests, consider the rivalry between Greeks and Armenians for the leadership: while this Greek body invited ’any Turk, Bulgarian or Jew ... [to] join us, as long as he is a socialist’, the same offer was not made to Armenians.21 The failure to produce a single socialist theorist is also worth noting. There was no Ottoman Max Adler, Rudolf Hilferding, Otto Bauer or Karl Renner to grapple with the various problems confronting Ottoman society. It is difficult to imagine an Ottoman socialist, especially one belonging to one o f the minority communities, reaching Otto Bauer’s conclusion about the national question: For me, history no longer reflects the struggle o f nations; instead the nation itself appears as the reflection o f historical struggles. For the nation is only manifested in the national character, in the nationality o f the individual; and the nationality o f the individual is only one aspect o f his determination by the history of society, by the development o f the conditions and techniques o f labour.2 On the other hand, Karl Renner’s proposal to transform the Habsburg Empire, ’under socialist rule, into a “ state o f nationalities” which might eventually provide a model for the socialist organization o f a future world community’23 might, if the works o f Renner had been known to Ottoman socialists, have found an echo in Ottoman lands. Such a solution might have appealed to the minority communities in the capital, who saw the significance of maintaining the empire even from the perspectives o f their communal interests. However, Ottoman society had not reached the stage o f development to produce such ideas, and not even Alexander Israel Helphand, or Parvus, a creative Marxist who spent four years in Istanbul, was able to produce any socialist theory, though he thought and wrote extensively about Ottoman society. During more or less the same period, India produced M. N. Roy and Central Asia Sultan Galiev. What does this tell us about the Ottoman Empire? Terminology There is another question which must be asked, namely: how did the vocabulary of socialism translate into the various languages of the empire? I cannot speak for Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian or Ladino, but let me address my thoughts to the problems o f those who communicated in Ottoman Turkish. Let us begin with the words socialism and socialist. For members o f the intelligentsia who were literate in French it was easy

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enough to transliterate these terms into Turkish and utilize them in that manner; thus the Ottoman Socialist Party could be called ’Osmanlï Sosyalist Fïikasï’. But what about the vast majority who knew only the vernacular? What did ’sosyalist' mean to them? For those for whom the term was translated into Turkish, as 'îstirakiyet/iştirakiyun', socialism must have meant little more than a process o f social and political participation. However, that meaning fitted in well with the strong traditional sense o f community and collectivism in all the religious/ethnic communities. Why did not the Ottomans coin a word from terms such as ’içtimaa’ and ’cemaat’? I have no answer. Yet before the notion o f socialism was introduced into the empire, some new notions related to a changing society were being introduced. Thus T. X. Bianchi’s Dictionnaire français-turc (Paris, 1846) has to define rather than give equivalents for terms like ’société civile' ('ictim a-i ehl-i beled ’) and ’social' ('cem aat-i nişe mahsus'). But if terms related to socialism were difficult to translate into Turkish, liberals had the more formidable task of communicating ideas such as ’individual’ and ’individualism’ to Ottoman society. Curiously, the people who decided to call their organization ’sosyalist’ preferred to use the term 'firka' and not 'parti'. Party may be defined as a ’number o f persons united in maintaining a cause, policy, opinion, etc. in opposition to others who maintain a different one’; or the ’system of taking sides on public questions’. 'Firka' implies one group among others which are all agreed on policy but differ on methods for achieving it. Çapanoğlu observes that in Turkey the term 'firka' was used by all the parties at the time o f their founding until Nuri Demirğ founded the Milli Kalkînma Partisi in 1945.24 The vocabulary related to socialism - the notions o f class and class struggle - was equally problematic. In a society long divided along the lines o f faith which cut across class lines, the very concept o f class was absent. The term for ’class’ in Turkish ('sin if ' ) is related to 'e s n a f', which means craftsman or artisan, and even sin if was not widely used during the early period o f the republic. Thus 'zümre' was used in 1920 by those conscious o f political terminology in ’the Political Programme o f the People’s (or Popular) Class’ (Halk Zümresi Siyasî Programı).25 A term like ’tabaka' (layer or stratum) was often used as a synonym for class. Thus asağî tabaka ox yüksek tabaka described rank or standing in society as lower- and upper-class respectively. Even the idea o f the worker (as someone who has nothing to sell but his or her labour) had not emerged unchallenged, possibly because labour had not as yet

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become a commodity. 'İşçi', which came to assume this meaning, was used alongside 'am ele', 'emekçi' and 'rençber' whose connotations were those o f unskilled labourers or toilers. Later ’emekçi' became virtually synonymous with 'işçi' and we find ’emekçi' used as proletarian and ’emekçi sïn ïff as working class or proletariat. The two words 'işçi' and 'emekçi' are sometimes used side by side, as in 'işçi/emekçi kitleleri', meaning ’the working/toiling masses’, while amele and rençber continue to connote unskilled labour. The leaders o f Turkey’s workers at the Izmir Economic Congress o f 1923 were aware o f the problem of terminology; their first proposal in ’Economic Fundamentals o f the Workers’ Group’ was that ’male and female workers who were designated as “amele” should be hereafter designated as “işçi”'.26 Socialists like Şefik Hüsnü and Ethem Nejat also recognized the need to deal with this issue in order to accelerate the development o f class-consciousness among Turkey’s workers. Ethem Nejat tackled the problem in the very first issue oîKurtuluş (Liberation) after its transfer from Berlin to Istanbul by posing the question, ’Who are the Proletariat?’27 After providing the reader with the classical Marxist interpretation o f the transition of society from feudalism to capitalism, Ethem Nejat notes that the Ottoman ruling class o f the 19th century had adopted the bourgeois system with the Tanzimat reforms. Realizing that it would be difficult to explain new ideas like ’capital’ to workers who might read his article, he uses the Turkish ’sermaye’ as a synonym, though aware that ’sermaye' had many other meanings including that o f a prostitute in a brothel. But finally he askes his reader to accept the ’international term kapital' and ’kapitalist' for 'sermayedar' so that there will be no confusion. Nejat explaines that a capitalist society is a two-class society: those who own everything and who make others work for them, and those who work. The first are the 'kapitalist' and the second the 'proletarya'. In an asterisked footnote he emphasizes that: there is no Turkish equivalent to this term. Some people translate it as 'halk' (the people), 'avam' (the common people), 'ahad-i nas' (a synonym for 'avam ') or 'fakirler sïn ïfi' (the class o f poor) but not one o f these is an equivalent. Just as the entire world is using words like 'telefon', 'te le g ra f, and 'sosyalist', proletariat has also been accepted as an international word. We are also obliged to accept 'proletarya'?*

SOME THOUGHTS

23

Nejat then askes, who are the proletariat? His answer is that the proletariat are the class who spend their life woiking but who do not earn in proportion to their labour and who have difficulty subsisting: The proletariat are not only factory workers; in a more general definition they are the classes who constituted the labouring peoples o f the 19th century. The proletariat, instead o f making others work in theirplace, earn their own livelihood with their own labour. In today’s capitalist world there are only two options: to rob or to be robbed ... O f the two, all those who are robbed are the proletariat ... ’Proletariat’ may best be understood as those who are forced to live according to the old Turkish saying ’a new day, new food’ ['y evmiin cedid, rizkün cedid \ or ’living day to day’]. The definition of proletariat is so broad that 95 per cent of the population may be described as proletarian. He concludes on a pessimistic but realistic note: ’What a pity that the proletariat [in Turkey] which is growing each day under conditions of exploitation, pressure and poverty, and is being pushed further and further down, does not recognize itself in so many places.’29 If Ethem Nejat attempted to clarify the term proletariat, in another issue o f Kurtuluş Doktor Şefik Hüsnü analysed the problem o f ’Today’s Proletariat and the Understanding o f Class’. He observed that among the Turkish people who were broadly defined as the proletariat ’there is no feeling o f class, no understanding o f class, and no class friendship’. This was because society had been incorrectly classified as ’those who live by private profit and earnings and those, big and small, who work for the state and live off the budget [a reference to the bureaucrats]; they are also seen as a privileged stratum or tabaka’. These working people in the broadest sense saw themselves as members o f another class (especially if they had any contact with the state) and failed to understand their true interests. As a result they remained aloof from the workers’ movement. On the other hand: the core o f the proletariat, the woikers, have totally understood the gravity o f the situation and realized that safeguarding their interests depends on the socialist parties. In recent days we have proved this with an experiment. The workers responded very quickly to our initiatives and from the encouragement they

24

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

received from us they took courage and immediately began to organize, (n. 14) Patriotism and anti-imperialism Apart from the problem o f socialist discourse in the vernaculars o f the empire, there were other issues such as imperialism and nationalism which obstructed the contribution the minorities could make to the development o f socialism. A perusal o f the Assembly debates for the period after 1908 shows that on both these issues the Young Turk deputies, especially the Uionists, were at odds with most of the deputies representing the minority communities, including the socialists, as well as conservative Muslims. For the Turks, one o f the principal concerns of the constitutional regime was to remove the yoke of unequal treaties, better known as the Capitulations, which the Great Powers o f Europe had imposed upon the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century. It did not require any great insight to see how the European hold over the empire’s finances through its loans was strangling the economy and making revival virtually impossible. Parvus understood this very well and his major work on Turkey, Türkiye'nin Can Damarı: Devleti Osmaniye'nin borclarï ve islâhi (’Turkey’s vital artery: the Ottoman state’s debts and reforms’), was a serious analysis o f the problem as well as containing proposals for solutions. But the deputies from the minority communities seem not to have shown the same concern as Parvus. Thus when the question o f how to modernize and industrialize the economy was discussed, there was a paradox in the position o f the socialists and the pro-capitalist Young Turks. The socialists argued that increased foreign investment in the empire would be most beneficial for economic development. Dimitar Vlahov pointed out that ’in all countries, industry has been created by foreign capital. In England industry was set up by Dutch capital, in America by English capital, in Germany and Austria by French capital. In Russia industries had been prepared by foreign capital...’ 30 Vlahov was arguing for an open door policy to encourage foreign capital and to attract more of it into the empire. The Unionists countered that, thanks to the Capitulations, the door was already wide open and one o f their goals was to shut it, so as to regain fiscal autonomy and political sovereignty. They failed to understand the arguments o f the non-Muslim and liberal deputies and concluded that such people were not sufficiently ’Ottoman’ or patriotic.

SOME THOUGHTS

25

The Unionists did not have a monopoly on patriotism, and sometimes liberal deputies like Lûtfi Fikri (deputy for Dersim) challenged the government’s right to make concessions to foreign companies without consulting the Assembly. Thus there was an uproar when the assembly learned that the Hilmi Pasha cabinet, without consulting the deputies, had given the Lynch Company the concession to amalgamate with the Ottoman company on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Lûtfi Fikri took a very firm position over Assembly rights, referring to the Assembly as M eclis-i M illî and pointing out that: ’Since there is national sovereignty, everthing must unconditionally pass through the assembly which rules the country and is the symbolic personification o f the nation ...,31 The language question also divided the deputies o f the various communities; in Macedonia, virtually every community asserted its right to use its own language, especially for worship. Nationalism, according to Rïza Tevfik (deputy for Edime), was destroying the bonds of religious unity, though not among the Muslims. During the debate on the churches in Macedonia, he noted: ’These people say that “we are Christians, we are Orthodox, but we will worship in Bulgarian”...’ He continued: Consequently for Slavs, for Wallachians or whosoever they may be, religion is one thing, patriotism another and nationalism is something else. In our Islam there are Arabs, Albanians, Bosnians and other different elements but they definitely do not preserve their nationality. They say ’I am Arab, I am Bosnian, but I am a Muslim...’32 To another deputy, Tevfik explained, ’The purpose o f speaking Turkish in the Assembly is that it is neither a church nor a university. It is the National Assembly [millet meclisi]. The nation [millet] is Ottoman; in conformity with the Constitution, Turkish is spoken here.’ 33 On issues such as these, which were o f primary concern after 1908, the socialists had little to offer - or at least, that is what a partial reading o f the debates suggests. The socialist deputies are conspicuous by their absence in most o f the important debates o f the day. They could not match the nationalism of the nationalists, nor the anti-imperialism o f the Unionists, and while such issues remained unresolved it was too early for them to offer a convincing socialist critique o f society or socialist solutions.

2. The National Question and the Genesis and Development o f Socialism in the Ottoman Empire: the Case o f M acedonia Fikret Adanïr The history o f the national liberation movements in the Ottoman Balkans is well nown. The general outlines of the histoiy o f the working-class movement in that region, too, have become clearer during the last decades. What needs further elaboration is the extent to which nationalism influenced the strategy and tactics o f the socialist movement. The available literature on the subject offers a rather definitive picture. It has become customary to hold that social democrats o f the Balkan countries, especially the leftwing Marxist socialists such as the ’Narrows’ in the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (BWSDP), were internationalists and therefore opponents o f bourgeois nationalism. After all, instead od spending their energies strengthening the existing nation-states which devided and weakened the working-class movement they compaigned for the creation o f a Balkan federative republic, the main support o f which was to be the proletariat. It was from this seemingly unassailable position the ’Narrow’ socialists, under the leadership o f Dimitar Blagoev in Bulgaria, attacked those social democrats who were prepared to co-operate with bourgeois democratic groups. The orthodox Marxist Narrows extended this critical attitude to those socialists who became involved in the Macedonian national liberation movement and who, after the Young Turk revolution o f 1908, even went so far as to support the policies o f the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Can we accept this picture of the role the orthodox Marxists played in respect to nationalism in the Balkans? To me, it is rather suspect, not least because it is chiefly derived from the self-portrait o f the Party. Two problems regarding the stand o f various socialist factions in the 27

28

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Macedonian question deserve special attention: the specific concept o f nation that formed the basis o f the socialists’ own proposals; and their particular assessment o f the perspectives opened by die Young Turk revolution. Accordingly, I shall focus first on some o f die characteristics o f socio-economic and political development in Ottoman Macedonia. Secondly, I shall provide examples o f socialist involvement in the nationalist struggle in Macedonia and try to ascertain the implications o f such involvement. Finally, I shall discuss the crucial question of relations between the Young Turks, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Balkan socialists in the period after 1908. Social and economic conditions in O ttom an Macedonia The ancient geographic concept of Macedonia experienced a revival in the era o f modem nationalism. Historically, it denoted a territory, the extent o f which varied through the ages. For example, the eponymous province o f the 9th century was located in the eastern part o f the Balkans and had therefore little in common with present-day Macedonia. For the medieval Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms the term was practically meaningless. Neither did it have a place in the administrative vocabulary o f the Ottoman Empire. But by the beginning of the 20th century Macedonia had conquered the headlines o f the European press. It was now understood to correspond roughly to the three Ottoman vilâyets of Thessaloniki, Bitola (Turkish: Monastir) and Kosovo. In geographic, economic or demographic terms this region constituted even less o f a unity than it does today. Mountains divided it into isolated basins with different ecological conditions and different historical patterns o f settlement. The population was characterized by an extraordinary mixture o f peoples of Thracian, Illyrian, Greek, Roman, Slavic, Turkic or Judaic descent, who had little contact with one other. As is well known, ethnic origin was practically disregarded in the multi national Ottoman Empire, the official statistics registering the subjects primarily according to their religious affiliation. Such an approach delivered a clear Muslim plurality in the three Macedonian vilâyets (see Table 1). The Christians were divided mainly into the adherents o f the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and those o f the Bulgarian Exarchate.

29

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

Table 1: Population o f Macedonia 1906-7 Vilftyet Selânik Monastir* K osovo* • Total

Greek 263,881 203,976 8,604 476,461

Muslim 419,604 204,587 113,603 737,794

Bulgar 155,710 185,566 144.545 485,821

VI ach 20,486 2,356 22,842

Jewish 52,395 4,583 1,198 58,176

Others 9,283 U 15 778 11,376

Total 921,359 602383 268.728 1,792,470

* Only the data pertaining to the prefecture of OskUb (Skopje) have been considered. ** Exclusive of the districts of Görice (Korçe) and Elbasan, which are situated in Albania. (Source: Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population, 1830-1914. Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison, WI, 198S, pp. 166-9)

It was not only the protagonists o f Balkan national movements who insisted that language, not religion, was the decisive criterion in determining national affiliation, but also European ethnographers, inspired by German romanticism. In their view, the Ottoman registration system was a relic of medieval times, totally unsuited to modem conditions which made religion practically superfluous in society. Because they spoke a Slavic dialect, both adherents o f the Greek Patriarchate and Muslims o f Slav descent were to be counted, irrespective o f their own personal preference, as Bulgarians or Serbs. On this basis, new statistics were produced which indicated that Bulgarians had a majority o f just over 50 per cent in Macedonia (see Table 2). Table 2: Ethnic and confessional composition o f the population of Macedonia at the beginning of the twentieth century. E th n ic G ro u p B u lg a ria n s T u rk s G re e k s A lb a n ia n s V la ch s Je w s

C h ristia n s

M u slim s

Jew s

T otal

in %

1,032,533

148,803

-

1,181,336

52.31

4 ,2 4 0

49 4 ,9 6 4

-

4 9 9 ,2 0 4

22.11

2 1 4 ,3 2 9

-

22 8 ,7 0 2

10.13

9 ,5 1 0

14,373 119,201

-

128,711

5.70

7 7,267

3,500

-

8 0,767

3.58

6 7 ,8 4 0

3.0 0

-

-

6 7 ,8 4 0

G y p sie s

19,500

35,057

-

54,557

2.42

O th e rs

13,570

3,337

-

16,907

0.75

1,3 7 0 ,9 49

8 19,235

2 ,2 5 8 ,0 2 4

100.00

T o tal

6 7 ,8 4 0

(Source: V. Kttntov (1900) Makedonija: etnografya i statistika (Sofia, 1900), reprinted in his Iz brani proizvedenija (Sofia, 1970), vol. ii, p. 590)

30

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The population o f the region in the first decade of the 20th century was something over 2 million, about 30 per cent o f which lived in towns with municipal status.1 Thessaloniki, with more than 120,000 inhabitants, was the largest city on the Balkan peninsula. Since ancient times an important port on the Aegean, it was connected by railway to Skopje in 1874 and from there - via Belgrade - to Central Europe in 1888. From the 1890s new lines were constructed connecting Thessaloniki with Bitola and Istanbul.2 The population structure o f leading commercial centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavâlla was a hindrance to the development of a Bulgarian or Macedono-Slav national consciousness. The import-export business was dominated by the Jewish and Greek merchants o f the coastal towns and through them European capital eventually gained control over the credit system in the interior as well. Industrialization on a very modest scale could be observed only in relatively developed centres such as Thessaloniki, Kavâlla, Gevgeli or Vodena. Most o f the factories - some modem flour mills, breweries, textile manufacturers, ship repair yards - were owned by Jewish entrepreneurs, whereas tobacco processing plants, which have a special place in the history of the working-class movement in this part of the Balkans, were controlled by foreign capital.3 The majority o f the population lived in the countryside. Under what conditions remains a controversial issue in Balkan historiography. Obviously, our knowledge of the social history o f European Turkey is not comprehensive enough to allow clear-cut answers to some questions, even though such answers are preconditions for sound conclusions regarding the character of the national developments within that society. The literature abounds with sweeping generalizations, for example, concerning the dominance o f large-scale commercial agriculture o f the çiftlik type. Since I have dealt with this topic elsewhere, I will merely point out here that at the beginning o f the 20th century only about 10 per cent o f the peasant households in Macedonia were engaged as sharecroppers on çiftlik estates, the independent smallholders making up the overwhelming majority.4 The commercialization of agriculture, which resulted in this part o f the empire from the cultivation o f some labour-intensive cash crops such as tobacco and poppy, was a major factor favouring small peasant holdings. Land was abundant, whereas wages soared, sustaining a distinct upward trend in real terms. As Boratav, ökçlln and Pamuk have found out, ’the absolute difference between the wages of the most industrialized country in the capitalist

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

31

world-system and the peripheral Ottoman economy turns out to be significantly less than comparable wage levels in present world-economy’.5 Around 1908, the earnings o f an agricultural labourer over two months would buy a hectare o f land even in the rather expensive cotton cultivation areas o f Aydln or Adana.6 However, the remarkably high rate o f labour migration Çpetalbarstvo') seems to contradict the above analysis. Every year, thousands o f migrant workers, especially from the mountainous regions o f western Macedonia, left for Istanbul, western Anatolia, Egypt and the neighbouring Balkan countries, Bulgaria and Romania, to return to their villages at the end o f the season in late autumn. Emigration for much longer periods, primarily to North America, was not negligible either. Agencies o f foreign steamship companies were operating in every large town and migrant workers were sought as early as 1895, even for Japan.7 According to European consular reports from Macedonia, about 25,000 persons emigrated overseas between 1902 and 1906? How are we to account for such a high rate o f labour mobility? Conventional explanations such as heavy exploitation o f the peasantry or lack o f domestic employment are not of much use, since at the same time we are confronted with the phenomenon o f immigrant labour into Macedonia. For example, in the 1890s when the railways of Thessaloniki-Bitola and Thessaloniki-Dedeağaç-Istanbul were under construction, up to 30 per cent of the working force had to be imported from Italy, Belgium, Austria or Germany, whereas in this same period about 30,000 persons left Macedonia each year for seasonal work elsewhere. The wages offered in railway construction were by no means unattractive. In fact, they were ’substantial enough even for the high standards o f the coastal regions and extremely appealing for the unskilled labour force residing in the hinterland’.9 The situation did not change much after the Young Turk revolution. An Ottoman archival source indicates that a gang o f several hundred Muslim workers crossed the border to Greece illegally (without passports) on 11 June 1909. They intended te return after having worked in Thessaly for only 20 days. Another document shows that in the same year a large Kurdish gang, employed in road construction in the north o f Macedonia, had a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the provincial government. The authorities complained that these Kurds were impertinent enough to make exorbitant demands, for example, asking for equal pay for every member o f their gang, from children aged only six up to the over-sixties.11 What were the motives o f those Muslims who crossed the

32

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

border of Greece, instead o f taking up a job in the public works department of the vilâyet o f Thessaloniki? The current state o f research on the social history o f European Turkey is inadequate to tell us. Socialists and the M acedonian liberation movement The first Macedonian socialists came from migrant workers living in Bulgaria. To understand how they came to be involved in the national liberation struggle, we must look to the events leading to the emergence o f the Macedonian question. The emergence o f Macedonia as a national entity is intricately connected with the emergence o f the Bulgarian Church during the Ottoman reform period known as Tanzimat (1839-1973). The formation o f Macedonian Slav school communities resulting from the reorganization o f the millet system prepared the ground for a specific Macedonian Slav consciousness to develop, as instruction was increasingly given in a Slavic language, mostly Bulgarian, rather than Greek, the traditional medium o f education in the schools of Christian communities. This development led to a schism and to the establishment o f an independent Bulgarian Church, the Exarchate, in 1870.12 But the Macedonian dioceses were left outside the jurisdiction o f the Exarchate, their incorporation depending on at least two-thirds of believers declaring themselves in a plebiscite for separation from the Greek Patriarchate. Hence Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian agents began to agitate in the countryside for or against such a majority vote. This schism in the Church took on a new importance following the Russian-Turkish War o f 1877-8. The Russian victory and the Preliminary Treaty o f San Stefano promised all o f Macedonia to the future Bulgarian state. And although the Congress o f Berlin (1878) saw a considerable territorial reduction o f the prospective Bulgarian state and Macedonia remained under Ottoman sovereignty, the Slav population nonetheless believed that the annexation o f Macedonia by Bulgaria was only a matter o f time. When Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, in complete disregard o f the Treaty o f Berlin, declared their union under the Bulgarian crown in 1885, the prospects of the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia seemed brighter than ever. Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) What was to become the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was founded in Thessaloniki at the end o f 1893, as the Bulgarian Macedonian-Edime Revolutionary Committees. Its founders

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

33

- four teachers, a physican and a bookseller - considered themselves as belonging to the avant-garde o f the Bulgarian national movement. Their aim was to prepare the ground for the union of the unredeemed territories with the Bulgarian fatherland.13 However the founders observed a certain discretion with regard to their true objective.14 According to the earliest statutes of the organization, dating from 1896, ’the goal o f the BMARC [BMERC] [was] the attainment o f full political autonomy for Macedonia and the province o f Adrianople [Edime]’ (Article 1). It is noteworthy, however, that this document refers under Article 2 only to the ’Bulgarian population’, which was to be prepared for a general uprising, and that in Article 3 it is stated clearly that only a Bulgarian could become a member o f the organization.15 The attempted uprising of 1895 and the socialists The Bulgarian nationalists attempted to provoke a general uprising in Macedonia as early as the summer o f 1895. Some bands under the command o f army officers crossed the border in the vicinity o f Melnik. But the operation ended in disarray because of the indifference o f the population. It is interesting to see how the Bulgarian socialists interpreted this nationalist adventure. Dimitar Blagoev, the founder o f the BWSDP in 1891, had already, in 1885, propounded his thesis that the liberation of Macedonia was possible only in the framework o f a Balkan federation.16 Moreover, after the 2nd Congress o f the BWSDP in 1892, he tried to bring the socialists to stick to a line o f ’no coalition with bourgeois or petit-bourgeois groups’.17 Yet Blagoev was at the same time an active member of the ’Supreme Macedonian Committee’ (Vilrhoven Makedonski Komitet) o f Sofia in the 1890s.18 In an article published in 1895, he applauded the provocative action o f the nationalists near Melnik by a reference to the ruthless oppression o f the Macedonian people ’by a wild and fanatical Asiatic race’. In his opinion, this fact alone sufficed to support any insurrectionary movement in European Turkey.19 O f similar interest in this context are the views o f Vasil Glavinov, a pioneer o f the socialist movement in Macedonia. A carpenter from Macedonian Veles (Turkish: Köprülü), Glavinov had become an adherent o f Blagoev since about 1893. In 1894 he had gone back for a short period to his home town in order to organize there the first Macedonian socialist club.20 In 1895 Glavinov published in Sofia a weekly under the name o f Revoljucija. Ten issues o f this paper were to

34

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

appear, the first (28 July 1895) and the last (30 August 1895) practically coinciding with the beginning and the end of the Melnik operation. A programmatic article published in the fust issue declared that Macedonia - a hapless country oppressed for five centuries by a ruthless Asian rule - was being sucked dry by ’Albanians, Circassians and Kurds’. This ’cradle o f European civilization’ had been occupied by sheer brutality, but the Macedonian had now raised his head. A rifle on his shoulder, a sword in his hand, he was defending himself valiantly against the Albanian oppressor and the wild Circassian. The Macedonian was a hero, his name would never be forgotten. Glavinov was happy that his paper’s first issue coincided with the revolutionary event. He appealed to the people to take to arms, because the heroes in the mountains fighting the Turkish army needed their support. Towards the end o f the article, he invokes socialism: the youth inspired by socialist principles would introduce new elements into the liberation struggle and would eventually achieve the establishment o f a Macedonian republic.21 Socialist polemic about participation in the Macedonian movement By the turn o f the century the Bulgarian party had significantly altered its stand on the national question. This reflected developments within the Socilaist International. Following the line of Karl Kautsky, Blagoev began to see nation and nationality as ephemeral bourgeois concepts which were bound to disappear as the capitalist system expanded. The working class was to abstain from nationalist politics. In 1901, the central committee of the BWSDP forbade its members to join Macedonian organisations. An article by Gavril Georgiev, a close collaborator o f Blagoev, entitled ’The Macedonian movement and the party o f the proletariat’, occasioned a heated polemic between the orthodox Marxist and revisionist wings o f socialism?2 Georgiev accused party members who were engaged in such petit-bourgeois affairs as the Macedonian struggle of having neglected their obligations to the proletariat. This criticism was challenged most vehemently by Dimo Hadii Dimov, a Bulgarian socialist with close ties to the Macedonian revolutionary movement. Hadfci Dimov maintained that, precisely because there were some chauvinistic elements within the Macedonian revolutionary organization, it was a duty o f the socialists to join it. Indeed, socialists should always show a deep concern for the movements o f liberation.23

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

35

As is well known, the issue o f alliance with bourgeois political groups ended at the 10th Congress of the BWSDP, in 1903, with a split. The Macedonian question stood in the centre o f the dispute. After 1903, ’Broad’ socialists led by Yanko Sakazov partook freely in the work o f IMRO. But the ’Narrow’ socialists, the harsh resolutions o f their party notwithstanding, did not stand aloof either. The Macedonian socialist group The Macedonian revolutionary socialists around Vasil Glavinov remained affiliated with the Narrows o f Dimitar Blagoev. Yet this affiliation did not hinder Glavinov and his comrades from actively participating in the liberation movement in Macedonia. From February 1898 onwards the group had a new organ, Politiieska svoboda [Political Liberty] - subtitled ’Organ na makedonskite socijalisti revoljucioneri/Organ des socialistes révolutionnaires macédoniens’ printed in Sofia. The new programme o f the group, published in the first issue o f the journal, conceived ’the political freedom o f a people’ [’narod’], as ’the precondition o f its future development’. Macedonians belonged to those hapless peoples in the Balkan peninsula and in Asia Minor who suffered under the yoke o f Turkish caliphs. ’Guided by most human and progressive ideas, Macedonian revolutionary socialists aimed at the complete political and economic liberation o f the peoples of Macedonia and the region Adrianople [Edime].’ To reach this goal, the programme insisted, there could be no more radical and suitable a method than revolution. That was why the socialists concentrated their efforts on inculcating moral and intellectual consciousness into the whole working class, on educating it towards the ideals o f independence and civilization. In order to accomplish this task - i.e. the liberation of the people in Macedonia and the region o f Edime - the socialists were ready to enter into an alliance with all nationalities within the Ottoman Empire, provided that these nationalities aspired to the same goal of liberation. The socialists believed that Macedonians should be given the opportunity to determine their own nationality by their own free will; in other words, they should not be forced to affiliate with this or that nationality on account o f some dubious historical tradition or ultra-patriotic victory. Furthermore, the socialists always kept in mind that die attainment of liberty should be followed by a struggle for a social revolution in the country. That is, political autonomy was understood as only a first step to the further economic and social development of Macedonia.24

36

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Certainly, this programme was more democratic than the one the Macedonian socialists had prepared in 1895. Yet a few points in this connection need careful consideration. The first aim of the socialists was the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, to be accomplished by revolution. It was hoped that the result would be an autonomous Macedonian state. But this was a goal that was understood and supported by all Bulgarian nationalists. Bulgarian nationalists, too, demanded only autonomy. As for the willingness o f the socialists to reach alliances with other political factors in the empire, one needs to identify these factors. In Macedonia, they were the Bulgarian nationalists, the Greeks, the Serbs or the Vlahs. But the Muslim groups were not really conceived o f as possible coalition partners. In short, whereas any Bulgarian could support the socialist programme and still remain a nationalist, a Muslim had to be a socialist in the first place in order to do so. Influenced by the socialists, the IMRO also gave itself a new programme. The difference between the new document and the statute o f 1896 is striking. First, the qualifier ’Bulgarian’ was deleted from the new name o f the organization. Secondly, the new text formulated the organization’s goal as: ’to unite in a whole all the dissatisfied elements in Macedonia and the province of Edime, irrespective o f nationality, in order to acquire through revolution full political autonomy.’ (Article 1) Furthermore, in order to realize this objective, it was declared indispensable that the organization should struggle ’to eliminate the chauvinistic propaganda and national discordance which divide and weaken’ the population. Lastly, any Macedonian and any inhabitant o f the province o f Edime now could become a member o f the organization.25 Despite such democratic overtures to other national groups, the IMRO remained basically the political organization o f the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia. Its strategy and tactics were geared towards effecting a Great Power intervention in European Turkey. Its activists assumed that Europe would not tolerate the bloody suppression o f a Christian popular revolt in Macedonia and that a European intervention on behalf o f the Christians would pave the way, if not for Macedonian statehood, then at least for the union o f the country with Bulgaria. The IMRO’s task now was to prepare the population politically and militarily for a general uprising.

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37

Anarchists in the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement The Ottoman government became aware o f the existence o f the IMRO in 1897. This forced the revolutionary organization to commence prematurely with a kind o f guerilla warfare that was more in the tradition o f Balkan hayduks and klephts. Each district committee set up its own combat unit Çôeîa'). It was hoped that by carrying out appropriate actions against rival national organizations as well as against the institutions of the Ottoman state, the morale and discipline within the IMRO would be improved, but also that this kind o f warfare would render the propagation o f its ideas and goals among the rural population more effective.2 By 1903 two strong tendencies had crystallized within the Macedonian movement. The Bulgarian nationalist majority was convinced that if the IMRO would unleash a general uprising simultaneously in Macedonia and in the vilâyet Edime, Ottoman power would collapse. The left-wing revolutionaries led by Goce Delfiev, on the other hand, warned against the risks o f such an insurrectionary course. A failure would jeopardize the whole organization. DelCev championed instead the intensification o f terrorism against selected targets - sabotaging railways, kidnapping foreigners, assassinating prominent members o f society. The genesis o f this anarchism goes back to a group o f Bulgarian and Macedonian students in Switzerland who moved in Russian émigré circles and came into contact with Bakunin’s ideas. In 1898 they founded the Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee and began to publish a periodical with the title Otmüştenie (Revenge). The group demanded full political autonomy, but rejected the idea of a peasant uprising. All peoples in Macedonia should join the struggle for freedom. In other words, the passive Muslim population should be integrated into the liberation movement, which was directed against the regime o f the sultan and not against the Muslim population. The anarchists virtually declared war on Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian nationalism in Macedonia.27 In early 1903 the anarchists became active, and events took a different turn. A small group o f young men, known as the 'gemidkiV, had established contacts with Deltev, the leader o f the left-wing within the IMRO. But in April 1903, when they perpetrated a series o f bombing attacks in Thessaloniki, they were acting on their own. A French passenger liner was sunk, and the Banque Ottomane Impériale was blown up. 9 Just like the IMRO the anarchists, too, hoped by such

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terrorism to induce the Powers to intervene directly in Macedonia. This, however, was not to be the case. In fact, European public opinion turned briefly against the Macedonian cause. The Times wrote on 4 May 1903: The calculation o f the Committees is as stupid as it is nefarious. Their object, as they have all along acknowledged, is to compel Europe to intervene and liberate Macedonia from the Turks. They first sought to attain it by exasperating the Turks into wholesale massacres o f the fellow Christians whom it is their professed purpose to deliver. They have hitherto failed, in spite of the many murders and other crimes they have instigated against the Muslims, in provoking retaliation upon a scale which would lend colour to an effective ’atrocity campaign’ in the European Press. They have therefore fallen back ... upon a second method of appealing to Europe, which they are now pursuing simultaneously with their original plan. They have determined to attack European life and property, and the dynamite outrages in Salonica inaugurate their efforts. The importance o f the Salonica bombings in the history o f the Macedonian liberation movement must be seen rather in the fact that the IMRO was forced to react, advancing the date for the general uprising to St Elias Day (ilinden), 2 August 1903, eventhough the preparations were still incomplete. Socialists in the ilinden uprising There is no doubt that the uprising of 1903 marks a climax and a turning point in the history o f the Macedonian liberation movement. What was the role o f the Macedonian socialists in that revolutionary event? The Macedonian Narrow socialists around Vasil Glavinov played a prominent part. In 1900, by agreement with Glavinov and on a mission (to rob a well-to-do Christian in Veles) given to him by Goce Deltev, Nikola Petrov Rusinski had gone to Macedonia. In june of that year Rusinski came together with two socialist comrades from Sofia, Vele Markov and PetruS Karev, in the district of KruSevo, in a meeting which has been inflated in historiography as the first socialist conference in Macedonia. The group decided to enter the IMRO, and by January 1901 Rusinski was at the head of the ’inspection àeta' o f the revolutionary region o f Ohrid, propagating the ideas o f the organization among the

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peasantry; Vele Markov and Nikola Karev were appointed leaders o f the KruSevo revolutionary district.30 At the IMRO’s Smilevo congress in 1903, where the final decision was taken to unleash the revolution, the socialist Nikola Karev supposedly argued for a postponement because of unfavourable general conditions, as well as the unpreparedness of the country for a successful uprising.31 Notwithstanding this, the congress appointed Karev to lead the uprising in the mountainous section of the country and he was to become ’president’ o f the only liberated district, the ’Republic of KruSevo’.32 In this function Karev addressed a manifesto to the Muslim population in the surrounding area, declaring that the uprising was not against peaceful neighbours but against the feudal regime. The text ended with a strong appeal: ’Muslim brothers, join us! Shoulder to shoulder let us go against your and our enemies. Come under the banner o f autonomous Macedonia!’33 This document is considered proof of the democratic liberal character o f the Macedonian movement; it supposedly demonstrates that the insurgents did not differentiate between creeds and ethnic affiliations. Yet one should also consider under what circumstances the quoted manifesto had been issued. The uprising had begun with insurgents, or ’6etniks\ setting several Muslim villages on fire. In these actions the öetniks saw themselves clearly as apostles o f the Bulgarian national cause. Consequently, not only did the Muslim Turks and Albanians resist them, but the adherents o f the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in south-western Macedonia openly supported Ottoman troops. The Muslim civilian population had begun to arm itself and some irregular columns had actually started to march upon KruSevo. The insurgents’ appeal to the solidarity o f their Muslim neighbours was therefore not before time, and very opportune.34 The ilinden uprising o f 1903 did not achieve one essential goal: the unity o f the popular masses against Ottoman rule. Even more important, the expected intervention by the Great Powers - or at least by the Principality o f Bulgaria - failed to take place. Towards the end of August 1903 the uprising had been virtually suppressed. Many Slav villages were destroyed in the process, and several thousand people sought refuge in Bulgaria. Federalism, socialism and the IMRO The failure o f the Hinden uprising prompted long controversies within the IMRO. All the leftist groups could, with some justification, claim

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that they had warned against the consequences o f a general uprising. The Narrow socialists, - who, with some exceptions (Anton Antonov, Aleksandar Bujnov, Cudomir KantardÜev), had demonstrated indifference to the bloody events in Macedonia - were especially straightforward in their criticism. An article published in September 1903 in the party organ Rabotniàeski vestnik (Workers’ newspaper) stated that the uprising had not been prepared properly, and that next time the working class would assume the leadership, since the liberation o f Macedonia could be accomplished only through a proletarian revolution.35 Consequently, the Narrows ordered their followers to leave the IMRO and to organize themselves in a ’Social Democratic Organization o f Macedonia and Edime’ in 1905. The Broader socialists had always shown more interest in the Macedonian cause, and after 1903 their influence mounted. This had to do in the first place with the miserable situation in the interior caused by incessant fighting between the Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian bands. Everywhere, the IMRO was being pushed on to the defensive, and many activists, seeing the way things were going, began to doubt the wisdom o f the Bulgarian nationalist course of the organization. This vague feeling o f uneasiness was given expression when the so-called Seres group, a leftist faction under the leadership o f Yana Sandanski, began openlyto challenge the decisions o f the central committee o f the IMRO . Politically, Sandanski was close to the Broad socialists o f Yanko Sakasov, and in Macedonian politics he let himself be guided especially by Dimo Hadii Dimov, the chief opponent of the Narrows in the Macedonian debate of 1903. With the support o f Sandanski - and to the dismay o f the established leadership - the IMRO congress o f 1905 commissioned HadÜ Dimov with the editorship o f its official organ, the Revolutionen list. Along with Dimitar Stefanov, Dimov was entrusted also with the formulation o f the strategy paper on the future policy of the organization- for the nationalist leader Christo Matov this virtually constituted a socialist coup.36 Dimov’s ’principles guiding the future activities o f the organization’ aimed at a relative democratization o f the internal structures o f the IMRO. For example, district leaders were henceforth to be elected, instead of being appointed by the central committee; some attempts at decentralization were to be made; and on the local level special attention was to be paid to relations with other national communities. The long-term goal was the creation o f a Balkan

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federation, because only a federation could create the necessary conditions for a reconciliation o f conflicting national interests?7 The idea of federation propounded by Dimov was in form and content different from the one so dear to Balkan socialists since the days o f Svetozar Markovi. In his famous pamphlet o f 1872, Markovi had assigned ’Serbia in the East’ the mission o f preparing a revolution in European Turkey - a revolution which would unify the liberated peoples in a federation o f free and equal workers?8 Stavrianos has rightly pointed out that the socialists’ ’agitation contributed to [Prince] Milan’s decision to declare war on Turkey in 1876’?9 Similarly, as we shall see, the Narrows’ idea of a Balkan federation presupposed the destruction of the Ottoman state. Dimo Had2i Dimov, on the other hand, came to realize that demanding political autonomy for Macedonia would mean asking for the partition o f the province among the neighbouring states. For that reason, he considered the idea of a Balkan federation an abstract and illusory goal, not fit to solve the real problems in Macedonia. Instead, he tried to restructure the IMRO on federalist principles: in other words, the Macedoniahe envisaged was not an autonomous Macedonia forming part of a socialist Balkan federation, but a Macedonia o f federated peoples enjoying autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman state. The Young Turks, the IM RO and the socialists It is generally recognized that the Young Turk movement was intricately connected with the development of the Macedonian question. Yet the relations between the Ottoman Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP) on the one hand and Macedonian revolutionary organizations on the other have not been sufficiently elucidated.41 The essential question is whether the Young Turks sincerely tried to reach a modus vivendi with the IMRO on a federative basis, or, as more and more historians maintain, supported from the start a rigorous Turkification. Obviously, clarification o f this question is o f paramount importance for ascertaining the degree to which Balkan nationalism influenced the working-class movement. Bulgaro-Macedonian Narrow socialists as well as BulgaroMacedonian nationalists developed quite early a distinct dislike for, and negative image of, the Young Turk movement. Glavinov’s criticism of the Young Turks on account o f their views regarding the Cretan question in 1897 is typical o f the socialist state o f mind in that period. An article in the Young Turk organ Osmanli o f Geneva had reprimanded

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Greek nationalists for the expulsion o f the Muslim Cretans from the island. The developments in Crete since the Berlin Congress of 1878 had a special significance for the Macedonian question. For that reason, the issue deserves some elaboration here. According to European sources, in 1881 there were about 205,000 Christians and 75,000 Muslims living on the island o f Crete. Before 1867, the percentage o f Muslims had been even higher. In August 1896 the island was granted a sort of autonomy. A Christian governor-general was appointed and a National Assembly convened. The military forces were supposed to be ethnically mixed: two-thirds o f the officers were to be Christians, a third Muslim. Despite this regulation, however, the Greeks took the offensive in January 1897 and they began to expel Muslim Cretans from the island. These Muslims were mostly ethnic Greeks and did not speak any Turkish. Behind the whole affair stood a nationalist organization which aimed not only at the enosis o f Crete with the Greek mainland, but also the annexation of Macedonia. Indeed, Greek troops landed on the island practically at the same moment as they crossed the border into Macedonia in February 1897. The result was the Greek-Turkish War of 1897.42 While fully aware of these developments, the Macedonian socialists reprimanded the Young Turks for being enemies o f the principle of self-determination of peoples and for being intent on preserving their empire. But who was being oppressed in Crete, the Muslims or the Christians^3 The nationalist wing of the IMRO, too, always cold-shouldered the overtures o f the Young Turks. Christo Matov, who was invited by both Ahmed Rïza and the Armenian Dashnak Party to attend the Young Turk congress in Paris in December 1907, not only turned down this invitation, but also refused to allow anybody else to undertake the trip in the name o f the IMRO. He justified his attitude, claiming: ’We want autonomy for Macedonia. We have no interest in joining those who wish to rejuvenate Turkey. Our presence in Paris could weaken the tendency to extend the European reform action to its logical end.’ Neither was he going to listen to Armenian arguments on this issue: ’With Armenians and even with Young Turks we could come to an understanding only in the field o f subversion: both they and we should undertake actions with a view to undermining the authority of Turkish state.’44 One can imagine what a shock the success of the Young Turk revolution o f July 1908 must have been, both for nationalists and for Narrow socialists. Christo Matov tried his best to hinder the descent of the Bulgarian bands into the cities, lest they fraternize with other

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political groups. With hindsight, he congratulated himself on having kept at least the right wing o f the IMRO outside federative schemes. No wonder he fiercely attacked Sandanski andĞemopeev for having rushed to reach an understanding with the Young Turks in 1908.45 What was the reaction o f the BWSDP? Blagoev managed to produce, just a week after the revolution, a pamphlet explaining the stand o f the party in the face o f the Young Turk movement. He began by stressing that it was a major task o f social democracy to protect the proletariat from bourgeois and petit-bourgeois influences. This task was more crucial than ever, since some Bulgarian social democrats, o f both the Broad and the Narrow type, had hurried to Macedonia to serve as instruments o f the feudal class o f Turkey against the revolution. He demanded that these new ’Ottomans, who wore socialists’ masks should be stopped before they could do to much harm to the workers’ cause. However, Blagoev, aware that it would not be expedient for the party to remain aloof and leave the field in European Turkey open to bourgeois elements, asked his comrades to participate in the strike movement. Moreover, he handed them a catalogue o f political demands which he hoped they would raise without hesitation at any occasion. These demands were: 1

the right o f self-determination for nationalities in the Ottoman Empire; 2 general, direct, equal and secret ballot; 3 die abolishment o f the Senate; 4 full autonomy for communes and districts; 5 full rights o f coalition for workers; 6 full liberty o f conscience and belief; 7 a legislation closer to the interests o f the working class; 8 secular education in schools and instruction in respective national languages; 9 a people’s militia instead o f a standing army; 10 abolition o f all taxes in kind and introduction o f a progressive income tax.47 In other words, the socialists should raise demands which no government at that time was - nor any socialist country ever since has been - in a position to grant. The demand for the right to national self-determination, raised in a country which had just overcome a civil war, was pure provocation.

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In early 1909 Blagoev came back to his theme of nation. This time he focused on the problem o f national unification.48 National unification was a question, he claimed, to which the working class could not be indifferent. Marx had said that the proletariat had to become a national class. But in order for the proletariat to become a national class, the nation itself had to be unified. It was not possible for the proletariat o f a divided nation in which its members lived under different conditions, to constitute itself as a class. Especially when the larger part o f the nation had attained independence, whereas smaller parts o f it remained under foreign domination, the question of national unification acquired a special importance for the proletariat. The Treaty o f Berlin divided Bulgaria in several units. Two of them, the principality o f Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, had accomplished unification. O f the remaining parts, one was still under Turkish rule and the other belonged to Serbia and Romania. Such a dismemberment of the nation, according to Blagoev, made the question o f national unification unavoidable. The last three decades o f Bulgarian history had been filled with struggles to overcome this dismemberment. Only in the case o f Eastern Rumelia had this struggle been crowned with success.49 But to unite the Bulgarians o f Turkey with the motherland in the same way as Eastern Rumelia would require, under the conditions after 1908, that Bulgaria ’walk over the dead body o f Turkey’ ('Bulgarija da mine prez trupa na Turcija’), and this, he realized, was impossible. In respect o f Turkey, there were stronger pretenders than Bulgaria. England and Russia, on the one hand, and Austria, Germany and Italy on the other, all considered Turkey as their own sphere of influence. They were waiting for the right moment to divide the spoils. It was obvious that in order to attain their goals these powers would easily walk over the dead bodies both o f the small Balkan states and o f Turkey. Therefore the only manner in which a further unification o f the Bulgarian nation could be achieved was through the establishment o f a Balkan federation o f nations.50 After having established in this fashion the necessity for a Balkan federation, Blagoev goes on to argue that the Bulgarian bourgeoisie was not capable of accomplishing such a grand task. The Bulgarian bourgeoisie had shown so far a chronic tendency to sacrifice the national interests to its own concerns. The true representative o f the national interests o f Bulgaria was social democracy, the party o f the organized class-conscious proletariat.51

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The true dimensions o f this approach can be understood better when we consider yet another article o f Blagoev, this time directly related to the Balkan federation.52 Here, he focuses on the question whether it was theoretically sound to demand the creation o f a large internal market in the Balkans, as Karl Kautsky had suggested, as a precondition of a Balkan federation, or whether such a market could be formed after the federation had been established. But was it really necessary to wait until the proletariat had come to power in each Balkan country before one could suggest international co-operation in the Balkans? Were the dynasties really such great obstacles in the way o f creating some sort of Balkan solidarity? Some critics had pointed to the fact that the German Zollunion which had prepared the ground for German unification had not necessitated the extinction o f dynasties. Blagoev answered these questions as any Balkan nationalist would, at any time. The German small states were all German states, related to each other linguistically, culturally and nationally.53 For that reason dynastic differences did not play such a negative role. In the Balkans, the situation was completely different. What was different in the Balkans? A large part o f the peninsula was being ruled by the Ottoman Empire. This was an old state in which a nation dominated which was radically different in creed, language, literature and social structure both from the subject nations and from the neighbouring Balkan nations that had liberated themselves earlier from its rule. Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro were no doubt closer to each other, but Greece and Romania again were very different, nationally and culturally from the rest o f the Balkan nations. These differences would make unification o f the Balkan nations very difficult, even without the intevention o f the extremely nationalistic Balkan bourgeoisie, always ready to incite national feeling. How could one bring such diverse elements into a customs union? Such a union could not exist without the Ottoman Empire as a member. But the Ottoman Empire was not interested in a Balkan federation. The Ottoman-Turkish ruling class, bent on creating an ’Ottoman’ nation, sought to rejuvenate the empire as a new Great Power. Even if the other Great Powers allowed Turkey to join a Balkan federation, the Turkish ruling class would never be interested in so doing.54 After this overview of the ideas o f Blagoev regarding the prospects of a Balkan federation, I have come to the conclusion that the Narrow socialists considered the Ottoman state to be the chief hindrance to

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Balkan unity. But were the Young Turks o f 1908 really so bad? A brief focus on their programme will help us grasp the true situation. The Young Turk programme of 1908 The Young Turks are notorious for having initiated a Turkish nationalist programme and thereby having dug the grave of the empire. No doubt this historiographic image is to a large extent true for the period after the Balkan war of 1912. But before that date, and especially for the developments of 1908 and 1909, we should continue to apply different criteria. The Young Turks had already made clear their stand on the national question in August 1908: the constitution should be based on the sovereignty o f the people; the provinces would be granted a large measure o f autonomy; elementary instruction in schools was to be given in the mother tongue o f the children; military service would be made universal, irrespective o f religious affiliation; even agrarian reform was envisaged.55 It was from this platform that the Young Turks, in the first days o f the constitutional regime in July 1908, initiated a series of negotiations with various political parties in Macedonia. With the Broad socialists of Seres it was quite easy to reach an understanding, because both the CUP and the men around Sandanski aspired to a federalist solution for the Macedonian question, a solution which excluded the possibility o f a partition o f the country. Sandanski andCemopeev were delighted, on their part, when they discovered that the Young Turks were ready to accept the IMRO in its existing form as a legal political organization, not even requiring it to dissolve its armed units.56 Such liberality perplexed the Greek consul in Seres, Adonis Sathuris, who wanted to know the real motives behind the Young Turks’ policy. This liberal atmosphere attracted many a Bulgarian socialist to Thessaloniki. Dimo Had2i Dimov had come already in July. In contrast to Dimitar Blagoev he was of the opinion that the new regime in Turkey deserved socialist support.58 Several journals in Bulgarian began to appear, turning Thessaloniki into a veritable multicultural centre. These journals, published in the Seres and Strumitsa districts, supported the Young Turks unreservedly. The Edinstvo (Unity) of Angel Tomov advocated an outright political merger with the CUP. From the end of July 1908 Sandanski’s group publishedSvoAocfo (Freedom) which from 8 August was replaced by Konstitucionna zarja (Constitutional dawn) which self-styled as the ’Organ of the Macedonian-Edime Revolutionary Organization’. From the beginning o f 1909 both papers

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were discontinued and in their place appeared Narodja volja (The will o f the people) as the organ o f the ’Bulgarian Section’ o f the People’s Federative Party. At the beginning o f 1909 the Macedonian-Edime Social Democratic Group (M-ESDG), an affiliation o f the BWSDP, began to publish Rabotnibeski vestnik, founded by an ’anarcho-liberal’ group around Angel Tomov and the Jewish Workers’ Club led by Abraham Benaroya. O f course, the pro-Bulgarian right-wing IMRO, too, brought out its proper organ, in February 1909, when Otedestvo (The fatherland) appeared; T. Karajovov, M. Gerov, V. Rumenov, and especially Christo Matov were the leading supporters.59 From the standpoint o f the Young Turks, the attainment o f a modus vivendi with the pro-Bulgarian party in Macedonia was o f prime importance. Bulgaria seemed to hold the key to success or failure o f the Young Turk movement. Throughout the summer o f 1908 it was rumoured in Macedonia that the sultan had asked Prince Ferdinand to concentrate Bulgarian troops on the Turkish border so that Ottoman conservatives would be justified in declaring a state of national emergency and thus putting an end to the chaos produced by the Young Turks. The Bulgarian government was anyway not friendly to the new regime. The bourgeois newspapers of Sofia commented on events in Macedonia in a hostile tone from the start. For example, the Vreme, the organ o f the ruling Democratic Party, warned its readers on 26 July 1908 ’to keep their gunpowder dry and their eyes fixed on Constantinople’. The Young Turks were aiming at denationalization of the Bulgarian element.60 Already by 7 August 1908, the minister of war, General Paprikov, expressed the view that a normal development o f affairs in European Turkey would upset Bulgarian national plans. Consolidation o f the constitutional regime did not suit the interests o f the country.61 Some Bulgarian politicians regretted the fact that the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire had become free citizens. No Bulgarians in prison, and a Europe which sympathized with the Young Turks - that was simply too much!62 Under these conditions the negotiations o f the Young Turk leaders with the IMRO chief Christo Matov in August 1908 could hardly succeed. Christo Matov himself in his memoirs ridicules the Young Turks’ eagerness to accomplish a reconciliation, or even a political merger with the IMRO.63 Panto Dorev, a well-known Bulgarian nationalist politician from Bitola who acted as Matov’s interpreter during these negotiations, criticized this arrogant attitude. In his opinion,

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the Young Turkish party was sincerely looking for a solution to the national problem.64 The political situation in the Balkans in the aftermath o f the Young Turk revolution was decisive also for the development o f a working-class movement. The strike movement of the railway workers in September 1908 was utilized by the Bulgarian government to create a political crisis in the Ottoman Empire. By occupying the railway lines in Eastern Rumelia by military force under the pretext o f securing law and order, the government in Sofia forced the Ottoman government to introduce the notorious ’preliminary bill on stoppage o f work’ on 8 October 1908.65 An idea o f true dimensions o f Bulgarian destructiveness towards the new regime in Turkey can be gained from Sofia’s attitude towards Bulgarian independence. The grand vezir Kâmil Pasha wanted to be present in Sofia on the occasion o f the declaration o f independence, because the Young Turks wanted to demonstrate they were not against Bulgarian independence and strongly wished friendly relations with that country. But the Bulgarian government preferred to act with Austria-Hungary and to use the question of independence as a weapon against the new regime in Turkey.66 On 5, 6 and 7 October 1908 there occurred the declaration of Bulgarian independence, the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina by Austria and Hungary and the enosis of Crete with Greece. O f course the socialists were against war. Bulgarian Narrow socialists demonstrated against the Balkan war. O f course the Young Turks made grave mistakes in their policy towards national movements. But the focus o f this article is on the interrelationship o f the national question and the socialist movement in Ottoman Macedonia. Approaching the question from this angle, we can establish a close parallelism between the policies o f the Bulgarian nationalist bourgeoisie on the one hand and the Narrow social democrats on the other. They willingly accepted the risk o f a Balkan war which would lead to the partition of Macedonia. Here, it is not the end o f European Turkey that is regretted, but the attitude o f the socialists, one which has failed to help towards a solution o f any national conflict in the Balkans ever since.

3. A Jewish, Socialist and Ottoman Organization: the W orkers’ Federation o f Salonica Paul Dumont Being a Jew was not too bad. The Ottoman Empire o f the early 1900s, with a long practice o f cohabitation between ethnic and religious groups behind it, accepted Judaism well enough. But to be a Jew as well as an Ottoman, while laying claim to socialism, was something else. In the early 20th century, die Jews of the Ottoman Empire did not often venture on the public stage to proclaim their opinions. They considered their place was at home, in their shops, in the surgery, in the office. Not many abandoned this neutrality to express social or political ideas. Unlike other Ottoman communities, Jews did not challenge the established order, probably because they knew that they were too l ’vulnerable’, too ’minoritarian’. Given these circumstances, the Workers’ Federation o f Salonica (WFS) certainly represents a very remarkable phenomenon. Most o f its ' militants were Jews. One o f their favourite themes was the need to defend the integrity o f the Ottoman Empire, but at the same time they j constantly fought the ’bourgeois’ power o f the Young Turks in the name o f their socialist principles. Was the WFS simply a small group uniting a few eccentrics? It seems not: most surprisingly, shortly after its foundation, it could claim several thousands o f supporters. This, at a time when most other socialist formations o f the empire had but a handful o f sympathizers, makes one wonder. The background To understand how the Federation could emerge and develop, it is necessary to observe in the first place the environment in which it was rooted. At the time o f the Young Turk revolution, Thessaloniki, with a population of about 150,000 persons, was one o f the most important 49

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cities o f the Ottoman Empire. It was the junction o f a network of railways linking it not only to Istanbul but, through Serbian and Bosnian railways, to the main European lines. The port, the last development of which dated from 1902, was responsible for nearly a seventh o f the foreign trade o f the Ottoman Empire. It exported cereals, mining products, tobacco, cotton, opium, hides and silkworm cocoons, while imports consisted o f manufactured goods, textiles, colonial products and certain agricultural items.1 This important commercial activity stimulated in Thessaloniki and its suburbs a number of industries to replace the ruined crafts. According to Risal, there existed at the beginning o f the 20th century, in this city, two spinning mills, one model mill, one brick factory, two breweries, about ten soap factories, silkworm-breeding establishments, carpet and shoe-making factories and, especially, important plants for the processing o f tobacco. These industries supported nearly 20,000 workers who, together with some 5000 transport employees, formed a substantial proletariat, the essential characteristic o f which was its ethnic heterogeneity. Side by side with Jews who represented nearly half the j population, there were among this proletariat large numbers o f Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, Serbs and Albanians, and also o f Dönmes (Jews converted to Islam), who are rather difficult to identify. It was this multiplicity that would be stressed by the militants who in 1909 established themselves under the distinctive sign of federalism. According to the socialist press, this great mass o f workers was cruelly exploited. In Thessaloniki, as well as in other industrial centres o f the empire, the working day consisted o f 14-16 hours, whereas wages and salaries were maintained at a few piastres, the purchasing power of which was constantly falling within the inflationist context o f the early 1900s. Consequently, from the very beginning of the century, social unrest was clearly perceptible. Thessaloniki’s workers, far from being a passive mass, presented an exemplary pugnacity. The groups they formed took on the characteristics o f trade unions, very different from the mutual help associations organized on the initiative of employers. Sporadic strikes flared up: in 1904, for example, there was a strike o f textile workers and in 1906 a strike o f ceramics workers o f the Allatini factory. During these strikes, we note the development of political consciousness which would soon serve the purpose o f the Federation. This awakening o f consciousness was probably rooted partly in the impressive educational infrastructure which the various Thessaloniki communities had gradually put in place. The Jews maintained about 50

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schools in which some 9000 pupils received their basic education. In particular, they had at their disposal the seven establishments o f the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which offered valuable education in French. The Muslim community possessed 32 primary schools and several establishments of secondary education. Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Romanians also have their own institutions. Furthermore, the French secular mission has founded in 1905 a French lycée, a secondary school for young girls and a commercial school. We also find several German schools, the first o f which had been created in 1887 and lived off subsidies o f the Company o f Eastern Railways. In 1907 the city would even be endowed with a law school and proposals for a project of a medical faculty would be discussed.4 The Macedonian metropolis, rich in schools, could also be proud of its press. Since 1895 it possessed permanently two or three newspapers in French, five or six in Judeo-Spanish, three or four in Greek, three or four in Turkish, at least two in Bulgarian and one in Romanian. At the time o f the Young Turk revolution, the^slr (Century) was probably the most widely read o f Turkish provincial newspapers in the empire. There were also, besides theatres and cinemas, a quantity o f meeting places-clubs, several Masonic lodges,5 about ten large bar-restaurants etc. Here, from the' beginning o f the century onwards, .meetings and conferences proliferated. According to Risal, a real ’epidemic’ struck the city, signalling great upheavals and reaching its zenith immediately after the revolutionary events o f July 1908.6 Naturally, the national revendications of the various communities that were struggling with each other for Macedonia took pride o f place in these debates. Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and militants o f the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) did not stop agitating in the city, introducing into it a climate o f insecurity that was noted by all observers. Thessaloniki, the crossroad o f nationalist fervours, was nevertheless mainly a Jewish city. The 60,000 Sephardic Jews and some 20,000 Dönmes that made up the Jewish population made their mark not only on the economic life o f the city but also on its cultural, social and political aspects. The Israelite community dominated the commercial sector and most o f the industries. Jews also constituted an important portion o f the proletariat, notably in factories processing tobacco, in transport, in small industry (carpentry, textiles, tailoring etc.) and among typographers. Judeo-Spanish was the language most often spoken and die literature and press in this language were quite important. The

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community owned numerous schools, 30 synagogues, a large hospital, a health centre, a mental hospital and an orphanage. In the affairs o f the municipality, Jews (and particularly Dönmes) were invested with real power. But their influence was especially felt through the Masonic-lodges and clubs. In this manner they enjoyed an invisible and diffuse authority that enabled them to occupy a preponderant place in the city. Faced with the growing troubles in Macedonia, this community remained faithful to the status quo in the Balkans. In case o f a Greek advance towards Thessaloniki, the Jewish community had no intention o f giving up the Macedonian hinterland upon which its commerce and its industries depended. Neither was it the intention o f the Jews to be cut off from the important commercial axis o f the Near East, as would be the case in the event o f the constitution o f a greater Bulgaria. What they wanted was the maintenance o f the Ottoman Empire with the integrity of its frontiers. Besides these economic considerations, there was also the factor of ’security’. On the whole, the Jews o f Thessaloniki were satisfied with the relative peace they enjoyed under the Ottoman ’yoke’; they were afraid o f various difficulties, even of pogroms that might occur, should there be a change of master. Under the circumstances, they remained absolutely impervious to the arguments o f various national movements. They even distrusted Zionism. In spite o f active propaganda, this movement had as a result only a few hundred departures to Palestine between 1905 and 1912. On the contrary, the Sephardic Jews turned in large part to Ottomanism, subscribing to the idea o f immutability o f boundaries and the promise that ethnic and religious minorities would enjoy the same civic rights as Muslims.7 This unconditional attachment to the empire would be expressed after the Young Turk revolution by a massive adherence of Thessaloninki’s Jewish element to the Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP). Under the circumstances prevailing at the time, the committee appeared to be the only political force able to introduce order in Ottoman affairs. Faced with the intervention o f Western states and with the danger of a break-down o f the Balkan equilibrium, the Jews’ only option was to rally massively to the CUP in an attempt to defend their own habitat. An appreciation o f this loyalist attitude of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community is fundamental to any understanding o f the political options o f the WFS. Naturally, we cannot reduce the Federation to its Jewish component only. It was a socialist organization addressing the

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Thessaloniki proletariat as a whole - Not Jews alone, but also the Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks who were present in great numbers among the city’s workers. Some o f its main leaders-A ngel Tomov and Dimitar Vlahov for instance - were not Jews. But it was Jewish in majority and obviously had to reflect the fears and aspirations of its base. It could not ignore the dangers that threatened Macedonia. It could not avoid fearing the collapse o f the Balkan edifice. Under the then prevailing circumstances, when most o f Thessaloniki’s Jews adopted the Ottoman doctrine, the Federation was also Ottomanist. But this doctrine was viewed in the socialist light and the Federation would seek its support only the better to reinforce the struggle for unification of the proletarian forces o f the empire. The Ottomanist convictions o f the Federation would result essentially in the founding o f a Thessaloniki-based organization according to the federalist formula. This option took into consideration the partition of the Thessaloniki proletariat into numerous national groups, between which subsisted important ethnic, cultural and religious barriers. The promoters of the Federation being realists, they would not endeavour to abolish these divisions, but would opt instead for an organization in which all the nationalities might join.8 The Sources In many ways, the WFS was a unique organization. It was unique in its almost exclusively Jewish recruitment in a context in which Jews were generally noted for their reluctance to intervene in political matters. It was also singular by its doctrinal orientation, favouring the established power at a time when socialists o f all countries were more or less at war with the establishment. Another singularity which should be stressed is the abundance and quality o f the material at the disposal o f researchers who endeavour to recount its history. The WFS created in May-June 1909 by a group o f militant Sephardic Jews (Abraham Benaroya, A.J. Arditti, David Recanati, Joseph Hazan) together with a certain number o f Bulgarians and Macedonians (Angel Tomov and Dimitar Vlahov in particular) demanded in June 1909 its affiliation to the Socialist International.9 It was to constitute, with the Bulgarian socialist group o f Thessaloniki, the Workers’ Party o f Turkey, the Ottoman section o f the International. The request was examined at a meeting of the Bureau o f the Socialist International (ISB) on 7 November,10 during which meeting Camille Huysmans, the secretary of the ISB, reminded the meeting o f the fact that the International in 1907

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had admitted the ’subsection o f Turkish Armenia’. It had been decided that an ’Ottoman section’ would be affiliated only if it comprised all the nationalities living in Turkey. As proposed by Vaillant, it was resolved that the WFS would be admitted not as the ’Ottoman section’, but as a ’subsection of workers of Salonica’, to be represented with one vote on the ISB.11 Subsequent to this affiliation, an intensive correspondence developed between the WFS and the secretariat o f the ISB o f which we have presently at our disposal about a 100 letters dating from 1909 to 1914. These letters were discovered by Georges Haupt in the archives o f the ISB and they allow us to follow the activity o f the Federation practically from day to day. They also give us precious indications as to how the Thessaloniki socialists succeeded to conquer the obstacles put in their path by the Young Turk government. Most o f the letters addressed by the Federation to Huysmans were signed either by Joseph Hazan or by Saul Nahum. Hazan was one of the secretaries o f the Federation and directed the organization from 1911, when Benaroya, its secretary-general, had been exiled to Serbia by the 19 Ottoman government. Nahum was the representative o f the Federation at the ISB. An active militant o f the International, he endeavoured to contact Huysmans and certain leading French socialists and to keep them informed o f the political situation in the empire. Among other WFS authors we find the names o f Benaroya, Abraham Hasson and David Recanati. The last named, one o f the founders o f the Federation, published articles in the Judeo-Spanish press o f Thessaloniki under the pseudonym ’Rod’. As to Hasson, he had transferred from the Narrow trend o f the BWSDP. Profoundly influenced by the theories o f Plekhanov, he seems to represent one o f the most radical elements o f the Federation.13 Most o f the ISB’s letters were signed by Camille Huysmans, but unfortunately we have found only ten o f them. Some are most interesting, for they give precise information on various actions undertaken or promoted by the International in order to oppose the destruction of Ottoman socialism by the Young Turks. A detailed analysis o f the registers in which Huysmans summarized the letters sent to his correspondents might show up a number o f supplementary texts. Correspondence between the Federation and the ISB is certainly a source o f utmost importance as regards the internal history o f the Thessaloniki organization. But it has grave deficiencies. In particular, it gives practically no information on workers’ lives in the region, and it is

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silent on the subject o f ’theoretical’ options o f the Federation. Luckily, we can complete what is missing with the aid o f another fundamental source: periodicals published by Thessaloniki socialists during the years 1909-14. We have not found all the periodicals o f the time. Thus, for instance, Dimitar Vlahov quotes in his memoirs a number o f organs:14 the Socialisti&eska federacia which appeared in early summer 1909, the Mücadele, (Struggle) published in Turkish on the occasion of the 1912 elections and the Rabotniteska solidarnost, in Bulgarian, which we have had no possibility to examine. On the other hand, we have found other publications o f the Federation15 which suffice to give us some information as to the preoccupations and theoretical options of Thessaloniki socialist militants. The first organ of the Federation at our disposal pertains to the period 15 August-16 October 1909. This was a weekly ’Workers’ Newspaper’ published in four languages: the Amele gazetesi in Turkish, the Ephimeris tou ergatou in Greek, the Rabotniteski vestnik in Bulgarian and the Jornal do laborador in Judeo-Spanish. Each o f these editions had its own peculiarities, with considerable textual differences between different editions. Publications in Greek and in Turkish were much shorter than those in Bulgarian and in Judeo-Spanish. The Rabotniteski vestnik was the most profuse and the most ’theoretical’ o f the four weeklies. Because o f a lack o f readers, the Amele gazetesi and the Ephimeris tou ergatou stopped after four issues. Only the Jornal do laborador and the Rabotniteski vestnik succeeded in holding out until the ninth number, o f 16 October 1909. According to correspondence o f the Federation and Huysmans. publication o f these two organs was stopped for financial reasons.16 There is reason to believe, however, that other factors also played a part. As a matter of fact, it is to be noted that the suspension of the weekly coincided with an important crisis within the Federation that resulted in the departure of most o f the Bulgarian militants.17 It would appear that this weekly was replaced by another - the Solidaridad o b ra d era -only at the beginning o f 1911. Possibly this new publication was accompanied, at least for some time, by an edition in Bulgarian.18 The first number o f the Solidaridad obradera bears the date 17 February 1911; the last one, 16 February 1912. At that time, in the course o f the election campaign, the Solidaridad obradera was probably replaced by another organ in Turkish: the Mücadele, which unfortunately we have not been able to trace.19

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After Thessaloniki had been incorporated into Greece, the Federation launched a new paper, the Avanti, which appeared until mid-1914, according to the data at our disposal. The publication o f this organ under very difficult circumstances proves the spirit of perseverance that animated the militants o f the Federation during the years 1909-14. A brief analysis of the contents o f WFS periodicals shows above all the pride o f place given to workers’ information: strikes, congresses, news emanating from trade unions etc. In spite o f their tame appearance, these items represent a real education in workers’ struggle. By means of a number o f concrete examples, the Thessaloniki workers were constantly incited to form organizations and to train themselves in class solidarity. Side by side with those articles pertaining to local workers’ lives, we also find in the Rabotnibeski vestnik, as well as in the Solidaridad obradera, editorials devoted to important contemporary problems. There is no doubt that the objective o f these editorials was to educate the political conscience o f the Federation audience. As far as we know, the organs o f the WFS were the only periodicals published in the Ottoman Empire to examine the circumstances o f the time from a socialist perspective without the slightest restraint. Some o f the items published in the newspapers of the Federation had a clearly ’theoretical’ aspect. In particular, Angel Tomov and Abraham Benaroya did not hesitate to take up in their articles - especially at the time o f the Rabotnibeski vestnik - the major problems o f Balkan socialism. The national problem was at the very centre o f their concern. How to prevent the exploitation o f proletarian masses by the bourgeoisie acting in the name o f die ’national banner’? How to overcome the ethnic and religious divisions that obstructed the class conscience o f workers? For Thessaloniki, placed as it was at the very eye o f the Balkan storm, this was a question o f primary importance. Like many other socialist leaders o f the time, Benaroya and Tomov were certain that socialism would conquer national antagonisms. They were convinced that they had at their disposal an irresistible weapon: the federative principle. It was by means of a federation o f trade unions and political organizations that they intended to put an end to the dissensions between the various national groups that together constituted the Ottoman proletariat. Besides the socialist press o f Thessaloniki, we must also quote among important sources o f the Federation’s history the main socialist organs o f Europe. Even a superficial look at newspapers such as the Humanité (Paris), Le peuple (Brussels) and the Vorwärts (Berlin) is

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enough to show that they were, on the whole, and thanks to the carefully chosen informants, acquainted well enough with events in the Ottoman Empire. We know, for instance, that the Humanité for a large part o f its data was indebted to Armenian socialist militants. Among the great providers o f ’bulletins’ concerning Turkey and the Balkans we must also mention Saul Nahum, the WFS representative in Paris, and Dr Refik Nevzad, animator o f the Paris section o f the Ottoman Socialist Party (OSP). One o f the numerous periodical organs o f socialist movement that deserves special attention is the Bulletin périodique du BSL Edited from 1909 by the executive committee o f the International, in Brussels, it consists mainly o f a collection o f documents (accounts o f conferences, resolutions, circulars etc.) reflecting the evolution o f the socialist movement in various countries represented within the International. Documents pertaining to the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans are especially numerous in the collection. This is not surprising: at the time, the ’Eastern question’ constituted one o f the great pivots of international political life. Finally, we must mention among the main sources, the memoirs of the two principal protagonists o f Thessaloniki socialism: Abraham Benaroya and Dimitar Vlahov. The memoirs of Benaroya, published in Greek in 1975,20 relate the history o f the Federation from its origin to the time when it became one o f the components o f the Greek Communist Party. In spite o f some inaccuracies, this account by the founder of the Federation tallies well enough with information gathered elsewhere, thanks to documents found in the ISB archives. On certain points, however, Benaroya’s account provides new elements. In particular, we must underline the interest o f the pages he devotes to issues that, from 1909 on, brought the socialists of Thessaloniki into conflict with the CUP and other ’bourgeois’ groups of the city, in particular with the ’Club des Intimes’. Benaroya analyses with great lucidity the means made use of by the ’bosses’ in order to gain control over the newly founded workers’ organizations and describes with precision the various stages o f the socialist action. His narrative also allows us to visualize with a certain precision the relations between the Federation and other socialist organizations o f the empire, in particular the Istanbul Group o f Social Studies. These memoirs possess a quality which is rather rare in this kind of work: objectivity. This quality displays itself in particular in pages

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devoted to differences o f opinion between the Federation and the BWSDP. With the passing of time, the leader o f the Federation seems to acknowledge that the ’Narrow’ Bulgarians were not totally mistaken and that their positions conformed to Marxist teaching. The memoirs o f Dimitar Vlahov, which appeared in Skopje in 1970,21 cover the history o f Balkan socialism since the end o f the 19th century but stress in particular the events which followed the Young Turk revolution. In 1908, Vlahov (1874-1954) was 34 years old. O f Macedonian origin, he had agitated until then within the IMRO. After the Young Turk revolution, he gradually withdrew from this organization and became one o f the founders o f the National Federative Party which had originated in the left wing of the IMRO. When this party was dissolved by the Union and Progress government, he joined the Federation with some o f his comrades. In 1908 he was elected deputy of Thessaloniki on the list o f the CUP. He remained a member o f the Istanbul Parliament until January 1912. There he gave important political speeches and presented numerous bills. Throughout this period he acted as an intermediary between the Federation and the Unionists. It was only from 1912 onwards that he openly adopted a position hostile to the CUP His memoirs inform us in particular about the creation, in 1909, of the National Federative Party in Thessaloniki. They also give information about the social and political ideas promoted by socialists immediately after the Young Turk revolution. In particular they contain a long account o f the Ottoman elections o f 1912, which were marked by acts o f violence that have left a rather bad memory in Turkish political history. In this short survey of sources we have mentioned only the material that seems essential, but o f course research workers also have other texts at their disposal: reports of French consuls stationed in Thessaloniki and preserved in the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris or in Nantes, consular reports in the Foreign Office (London) and in the Haus-Hof und Staatsarchiv (Vienna), the regional press, accounts in various periodicals etc. A large part o f this material was gathered together and published in 1989 by the Centre o f Marxist Research o f Thessaloniki. Thus, it can be seen that, all in all, the available documentation is extensive. Thanks to this material the history of the WFS can be studied in detail. We shall see, however, that there remain quite a few dark patches. In spite o f the many works that have already been devoted to

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the organization o f Abraham Benaroya, the exhaustive monograph on the subject has yet to be written. The emergence of the WFS We can see the existence o f a latent socialism in Thessaloniki as early as the last years of the 19th century.23 However, we have to wait for the Young Turk revolution o f July 1908 -which seems to have been bom in the Macedonian capital - and for the intense workers’ agitation which followed it to see socialists organizing themselves, adopting as their main support Jewish and Bulgarian workers. Officially, the WFS - the main socialist organization o f the city was bom, as we have already noted, only towards the end o f spring 1909. Nevertheless, the process wich resulted in its creation was set in motion as early as the summer of the preceding year, with a strike, in August, o f longshoremen which totally paralysed the port for some days. Then everybody joined in the movement: telegraphists, workers in the tobacco processing-factories, carpenters, tailors, bakers, cobblers, tramway employees, bricklayers, tilers of the Allatini factory, the 120 employees o f the Olympos brewery, soap-factory workers, confectioners, shop assistants of the department store Orosdi-Back, ironmongers o f Benforado factory ... Within a few weeks, Thessaloniki newspapers note some 20 cases o f strikes. Their intensity varies. Only 22 workers go on strike at Benforado’s, in the hope of obtaining an increase in wages; on the other hand, there are thousands o f strikers on the Thessaloniki-Alexandroupolis (Dedeağaç) railway and in the Allatini enterprises. But the most spectacular movement is probably that o f café and restaurant waiters. When they go on strike, on 10 September 1908, it seems as if the heart o f the city has stopped 24 If Thessaloniki is on strike, it is because strikes appear to pay. To win their case, workers do not merely stop work and organize marches through the city with music and banners at their head; they also contact members o f the CUP and bargain persistently, making use alternately of threats and concessions. Exulted by the spirit o f the revolution, the contestants exhibit exceptional pugnacity. This is the climate in which socialism was gradually to implant itself in Thessaloniki. It was unavoidable that the supporters of this ideology, constantly growing in number in the Balkans, should try to take advantage o f the situation. As early as the end o f August 1908, workers o f tobacco factories created a trade union, which the Rabotnibeski vestnik o f Sofia hastened to present as an organization devoted to the

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propagation o f revolutionary ideas.25 A few days later, militants o f the BWSDP took the initiative of founding a ’mixed union’ which incorporated a kind o f think-tank. Members of this group- among them Nikola Rusev, Emerich Fiala, Dimitar Tochev, Ivan Pockov and Nikola Kasabov - were almost without exception practitioners o f the fast growing profession o f typographer. As soon as it was organized, this group embarked on an ambitious programme of public lectures. At the same time, its militants devoted themselves to the launching o f socialist literature. Their best-seller was the Calendrier rouge du peuple (Red Calendar of the People), printed in Sofia. Hundreds of copies o f this calendar were sold within a few months in Macedonia.26 However, at that time, in the Balkans, a socialist organization could hardly be created without there appearing immediately a rival faction. In Sofia, two important factions - the Broad and the Narrow, besides other small groups - were competing for the proletarian votes. Thessaloniki would not act differently. Nikola Rusev and his comrades were the spokesmen in the capital o f Narrow socialism, o f a Marxist tendency. Almost simultaneously, another group was formed: it originated, for its 77 part, from anarcho-liberalism. Bulgarians were in a majority within this group, as witnessed by the list of its leaders, which includes the names o f Nikola Harlakov, Pavel Delidarev and Angel Tomov, among others. But the new organization also counted some Jews, united in a group called the Sephardic Circle o f Socialist Studies. This circle was directed by a young typographer and former schoolmaster, originating from Vidin: Abraham Benaroya. He came to Thessaloniki soon after the Young Turk revolution and within a few weeks gathered around him a first core o f supporters. Curiously, the ’anarcho-liberals’ and the Narrows at first banked on mutual agreement and created a united group with Nikola Rusev acting as secretary.28 However, very rapidly, the Bulgarian socialist press was able to forecast a storm: Dark clouds appear on the horizon and announce a violent tempest. The behaviour o f Pavel Delidarev, of Abraham Benaroya and company has become unbearable. Our comrades know perfectly well that the ground o f the union becomes more and more slippery.29 Towards mid-March the disagreement became public. The chronicle o f Balkan socialism was enriched by one more split.

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What was the cause o f the conflict? The explanations given by the Rabotniàeska iskra (Workers’ spark) - a newspaper published in Sofia by an adherent to the Narrow party, Vasil Glavinov - are very hazy: according to him, the group was disrupted by individuals who wanted ’to make use o f workers for the benefit o f their personal interests’.30 More concretely, it would seem that the storm was the creation o f a ’club o f workers’ with a practically exclusively Jewish membership. Abraham Benaroya would say later on in his memoirs that this club was situated over an Albanian restaurant on the Egnatia Street and that it at the beginning comprised about 30 members: some typographers, five or six workers o f tobacco-processing plants, shop assistants, and half a dozen tailors who followed someone o f their own trade: Abraham Hasson. Despite its modest size, the new organization already had a symbol proudly embossed on all the documents o f the group: a worker’s hand holding a hammer. Thessaloniki’s population would learn to recognize this hand and this hammer from 1 May 1909, when they would be stupefied by the sight of the first workers’ mass demonstration in the history o f the city.3r The manifestation was all the more spectacular as the socialists on this occasion succeeded in suspending their quarrels and in mobilizing the militants o f all the ideological groups. The crowd was made up of Bulgarians, Greeks, Turks and, especially, many Jews. It is clear that Benaroya and his people were constantly gaining ground. However, though the feast was successful, it was but a general rehearsal. One and a half months later, on 19 June more than 6000 people marched through the city in response to the call o f the Workers’ Association o f Salonica (the name temporarily given to Benaroya’s group) and o f various other organizations. After having decked out the piers and the Egnatia Street from one end to the other with colourful banners, the columns o f demonstrators assembled on the Selimiye Avenue, in front o f the port’s large buildings. Their objective was to protest against a bill proposed by the Ottoman government intended to limit the right to strike and trade unions’ liberties. According to the Journal de Salonique o f 20 June, the meeting had assembled the workers o f the cigarette-paper factory and soap factories, shop assistants, typographers, carpenters, cobblers, longshoremen, tobacco-processing workers, employees of Eastern Railways, those o f the tramway company, o f the gas works, tailors - that is to say, a large proportion of the Thessaloniki proletariat. The succès o f the demonstration would lead Benaroya and his deputy, Abraham Hasson, the day after to advise the

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ISB, established in Brussels, in glowing terms that an unprecedented event had taken place in Thessaloniki and that the Workers’ Association o f the city desired to become, in association with the Bulgarian socialist group, the Ottoman section of the International.32 Now, Benaroya and his comrades had the wind in their sails. As early as mid August the Workers’ Association took on a new label, that o f the Workers’ Socialist Federation. At about the same time, a ’great international workers’ fair’ organized in the gardens of Beşçînar yielded 100 golden Turkish liras as a result of the sale of 6000 entrance tickets.33 This money would allow the publication o f a ’Workers’ Newspaper’ in Judeo-Spanish, Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian. The term o f ’Federation’, applied from then on to the organization, had not been chosen at random. What the leaders o f the movement had in mind was to enable distinct groups, generally organized on a ’national’ basis, to collaborate in a kind of league, with the ultimate objective of creating a unified party. That is what Benaroya explained to the ISB in a long report of July 1910: ... The Ottoman nation is composed o f numerous nationalities living on the same territory and having each a different language, culture, literature, customs and characteristics. For the ethnic and philological [sic!] reasons, we have considered that it is desirable to form an organization to which all the nationalities might adhere without abandoning their own language and culture. Better still: every one of them will be able to develop independently its culture and its individuality while working for the same ideal: the socialist ideal ...34 The idea seemed sound, and the Federation soon profited from it. A small Muslim core adhered in August 1909 to the Jewish element, which formed the large majority of the organization and to the Bulgarian, less numerous but very active. This core was directed by the chief editor of Amele gazetesi, Rasim Hikmet and a small Greek group, one o f the promoters o f which, I. Gazis, published the Ephimeris tou ergatou. The world o f the left in Thessaloniki was to be joined by the left wing o f the National Federative Party. This had originated in the IMRO and was represented in the Ottoman Parliament by Dimitar Vlahov, one of the most noted spokesmen of Balkan socialism. On the other hand, Benaroya’s Federation progressively built up a network of correspondents and maintained friendly relations with the Serb socialist

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party, the Greek socialist centre of Istanbul, the Paole-Sion of Palestine and the two main Armenian revolutionary movements existing in Ottoman territory: the Dashnak and the Henchak parties?5 However, though the base o f Benaroya’s organization was constantly becoming broader, its leaders were forced to face at regular intervals the prevailing disease o f Balkan socialism: factionalism and splits. The most serious crisis in this respect would result in November 1909 in a mass departure o f Bulgarian militants. A first disagreement had taken place in the autumn o f the previous year, when the Federation had not yet been established. Now, however, a real divorce occurred. Once more, the origin o f the conflict seems difficult to define. It was again Vasil Glavinov who launched the offensive in Rabotnibeska iskra: In agreement with certain careerist Bulgarian socialists, the local Jewish committee engages in an anti-worker and lower-bourgeoisie policy, propelling our organization towards our bourgeois enemies ... The Federation neglects the socialist education and transforms its quarters into a tavern in which the already declining workers’ conscience is submerged compfetely ...36 A few months later, die same Glavinov, in a report addressed to the ISB, will go still further, stating that the Federation is a creation o f Young Turks: ... You admit into the International not some kind o f socialist party or a simple workers’ organization but, on the contrary, under the name o f a Socialist Federation which does not exist in reality, a branch o f the governmental party o f Young Turks, or at least, its most devoted men such as Vlahov and tutti quanti ...37 What must we think o f these accusations? In his memoirs, Benaroya says that the split occurred as a consequence o f a great public demonstration organized in commemoration o f the Catalan revolutionary Francisco Ferrer, whom a Spanish court had condemned to death and who was executed in October 1909. It would seem that Bulgarian social democrats could not bear to see the Jewish workers’ unions mark this occasion by marching in the streets o f Thessaloniki side by side with the ’representatives o f the bourgeoisie’, in particular with Freemasons.38

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More specifically, it would seem that the split had been produced by the attitude o f the Federation to the national question. In the opinion of Narrow Bulgarians - who declared that they were supporters of a revolutionary class organization and wanted to avoid the dispersal of proletarian forces - Benaroya’s venture betrayed the interests of the proletarian class. The greatest error o f the Federation was to have introduced into its organization the federative principle which ’keeps alive nationalist prejudice among the workers . To this criticism theoretically ju stified -th e Workers’ Federation of Salonica opposed for its part a pragmatic approach to Ottoman realities, an approach near enough to that of Austro-Hungarian Marxists, which seems to have inspired the Thessalonicans.40 For the Federation, the essential point was to maintain the multinational structure of the empire. It did not consider it necessary to relegate class antagonism to the background, but thought that it was enough simply to formulate conditions of the social struggle while taking into consideration the ethnic and religious diversity o f the Ottoman territory, a fact that could not be neglected, especially in Macedonia. For Glavinov and the Narrows, the federalist strategy o f the Federation was an anti-proletarian deviation. Confronted with these attacks, Benaroya’s organization stressed its claim to socialism. This was a common debate within the Balkan context at the beginning o f the century, when there was constant rivalry between the moderate and the radical social democrats. As a matter o f fact, in spite of the accusations formulated against it, the Federation was neither a lower-bourgeoisie party, nor an instrument o f the CUP, but an organization that fully deserved to be part o f the Sosialist International. Its socialism, which displays the influence of Jaurès and o f the French socialists, but also through Bulgarian translations - that o f Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian socialists (of Marx and Engels to be sure, but also of Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Plekhanov, Lenin etc.), was of a very genuine standard for its time. Contrary to what was claimed by the Narrows o f Glavinov, Benaroya and his supporters refused to compromise with the Thessalonican class o f employers. It seems that they were stubbornly fighting the ’mutual unions’ created by the latter?1 As to the alleged complicity o f the Federation with the party in power, this accusation does not bear serious scruting. It is true that during the few months o f ’freedom’ that followed the revolution o f July 1908 - a period that some people have called the ’honeymoon’ o f Young Turk power - the workers’ organization o f Thessaloniki

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displayed its sympathy for the CUP. Here are some instances: it was on a list made up o f Young Turks that Dimitar Vlahov was elected to the Ottoman parliament;42 Benaroya participated with enthusiasm in the Young Turk expedition which left Thessaloniki to oppose the clerical counter-revolution o f April 1909 in Istanbul;43 on the occasion o f the first anniversary o f the revolution, the workers of Thessaloniki, marching with a brass band behind red banners, showed their massive support for the Unionists.44 But, in the context o f Thessaloniki, these expressions o f support for Young Turks were in no way suspect. By their actions, the militants o f the Federation merely expressed their recognition o f the progressive character o f a movement which, since its arrival to power, had always proclaimed its intention to follow a policy based on social justice and the fraternal cohabitation o f peoples. Furthermore, the goodwill o f Benaroya’s organization towards the Young Turks does not express an unconditional support. Although the Federation approved o f the positive achievements o f the revolution, it still preserved its critical sense. After the first moment o f exultation, it appreciated the real character of the Young Turk authority and kept aloof from it. The struggle against the CUP Deserted in autumn 1909 by the Bulgarian militants, the Federation henceforth presented a very clear picture. It was 100 per cent Jewish, even though it had Greek and Turkish supporters, and even though the National Federative Party o f Dimitar Vlahov had injected into it a little Slav blood. The experience o f a press in four languages lasted only a few months. From then on, Benaroya published his newspapers and booklets only in Judeo-Spanish. All his assistants - Alberto Arditti, Abraham Hasson, David Recanati, Joseph Hazan, Saul Nahum belonged to the Jewish community. Finally, it was only on Jewish unions (in particular the union of tobacco workers) that the organization depended for its strength. While underlining his attachment to the federal ideal, Benaroya recognized in his letters to the ISB that the Jewish proletariat of Thessaloniki constituted its main breeding ground. In spite of the departure of the Bulgarians, the Federation had five or six thousand supporters. On paper it seemed an impressive score, and the Macedonian metropolis was acclaimed in the ISB bulletin as the capital o f Ottoman socialism. But the truth is that, since the end o f 1909, Thessaloniki’s militants were no longer in a very good position. The Young Turk government, deeply disturbed in April by the attempted

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clerical counter-revolution, gradually organized a repressive apparatus that left the workers’ organizations no room for manoeuvre. The CUP did not forgive the workers for the strikes which flared up throughout the country during the last months o f 1908. Neither did it appreciate the frankness of certain newspapers. It had been frightened also by the proliferation of political parties. Consequently, on its initiative, several repressive laws were voted from June to August 1909: the ’law on political meetings’, which controled strictly the organization o f popular demonstrations; the ’law on press and publishing’, which instituted a kind of censorship; the ’law on associations’, forbidding the constitution o f political organizations on an ethnic or national basis; the ’law on strikes’ which repeated the essence of the provisional law promulgated on 15 October 1908 by the Council of Ministers in order to oppose the wave o f strikes that followed the July revolution and forbade strikes o f workers in enterprises with a public character. It was no longer allowed to express freely popular discontent. The primary objective was to stop the disorder and to ensure a safe development of business. At the same time, faced with numerous crises abroad (the proclamation o f Bulgarian independence, the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina by Austria, the seizure o f Crete by the Greeks) and in the interior (the slaughter of Armenians in Anatolia, a renewal of hostilities in Macedonia), the Young Turks began to turn to nationalism. In Thessaloniki, men close to the inner circles of the Committee - Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfeddin, Ali Canip and some others - violently criticized the prevailing cosmopolitanism and preached ’Turkism’. From the beginning o f 1909 onwards, nationalist publications spread widely the new doctrine. In 1910, at the Congress of Union and Progress, the ’Turkists’ succeeded in having part of their programme adopted: the government was to encourage the Turkification o f the state apparatus, implant Turkish immigrants in regions with a Christian population and promote a new cultural policy in order to extend the use o f Turkish language. Henceforth, Ottomanism was but a window dressing intended to put at ease the Western powers. Obviously the rise of Turkism and the anti-worker measures o f 1909 constituted a grave threat to Ottoman socialism. Under the circumstances, the Federation could only keep aloof from the CUP. The break occurred probably in the last months o f 1909. In its report o f July to the ISB, the Thessaloniki organization vehemently denounced the autocratic, nationalist and anti-worker policies of the authorities.45 For its part, the government increased its harassments and on the basis o f the

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state o f siege promulgated after the suppression o f the April 1909 counter-revolution, it took severe action. The first o f May 1910 was a sad occasion. The Narrow Bulgarians, more and more hostile to the ’Jewish committee’, celebrated the day behind closed doors in their office. The Federation published an entire newspaper in red ink but its call for a general strike went unanswered. There was just one consolation that day: the famous Christian Rakovski, one o f the great intellectual masters o f Balkan socialism, accepted an invitation to come to Thessaloniki. First on the Place de la Liberté, then in the Café Cristal, he delivered in French and in Bulgarian a moving lecture on the Balkan confederation and the working class. According to Benaroya, this event caused a considerable stir, polishing the Federation’s blazon, which sorely needed it.46 Towards the end of 1910, even more alarming news from Thessaloniki reached the ISB. ’The Young Turk movement proceeds to hypocritical and crafty persecutions,’ wrote Saul Nahum, the representative o f the Federation in Paris: AH

The syndicate o f tobacco workers has been banned. The premises o f Salonica organization are closed by decision o f the administration. Benaroya is once more imprisoned,48 the militants are subjected to various pressures. In Istanbul, things are no better. The Ottoman socialist party created some months before by a group o f publicists has been forced to cease its activities and its paper, the İştirak [Socialism] no longer appears.49 Curiously enough, it was during this extremely difficult period that the BWSDP and the leaders o f the Federation, reconciled for the occasion, took the initiative to convene a ’Conference o f the Socialist Organizations o f Turkey’ in order to create a unified party.50 In the first days o f January 1911, 29 representatives met in order to discuss the future o f Ottoman socialism. Most o f the delegates were Thessalonicans or militants who came from the Macedonian hinterland. There were however two outsiders among them: S. Papadopoulos, representative of the Greek socialist circle o f Istanbul, and A. Pavlovich, who attended in the name o f the Serbian Social Democrat Party. The Solidaridad obradera provides us with the agenda of this conference. We are informed that the militants who met in Thessaloniki discussed the country’s political situation and endeavoured to lay the foundations o f a federative organization uniting all socialist groups of

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the empire. We also leam that the debates mentioned relations between the unions and the socialist movement, as well as the organization o f the militant press in Turkey. The resolutions published in extenso shed light on the vitality as well as on the weakness o f Ottoman socialism. By way o f introduction, the militants participating in the congress issued a moving appeal to the Socialist International, asking for support ’in the struggle o f the Ottoman proletariat against the reaction’. At the closure o f the congress, the authors o f various final motions would also find adequate words to denounce ’the colonial policy of conquest pursued by European capitalists’ and to call the working class to union under the aegis o f the International. It would seem, however, that, with the exception o f these moments o f unanimity, the congress did not go too well: the two rival organizations o f Thessaloniki did not fail once more to display their divergences. What were the results? Practically none, or, in any case, sufficiently few to make the responsible members of the Federation decide not to refer to the matter in their correspondence with the ISB. The unified socialist party o f Turkey would not be created. The Ottoman government would not be intimidated by the appeals o f Thessalonican trouble-makers to international solidarity. Ideological quarrels would be taken up again. In spite o f all this, and of the successive failures registered by the new-bom Ottoman socialism, the Federation would organize on 1 May 1911a mass demonstration such as the city had never yet seen. ’Over 14 trade unions had responded to the appeal o f our Federation,’ says the enthusiastic report addressed to Camille Huysmans a few days later: A great number of workers who were not members o f the union have also taken part in the movement. Because o f the work stoppage o f all the odd-job men - carters, boatmen, longshoremen and stevedores - all movement has been suspended in our city. This forced most o f our employers to close their shops and to take part in the festivities, be it only as onlookers. In the morning we organized a meeting in a large café in our city ... In the afternoon there was a great demonstration. About a thousand workers, seven to eighty years old with music at the front, led the march o f an immense column comprising all the workers who were members o f unions and a great number of those who were not. Various nationalities which compose our population were represented, something which made a great impression. The procession passed

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through the main streets o f our town stopping at the most crowded places ... Our comrade, the deputy Vlahov, gave a remarkable speech on the Place de la Liberté in front o f an audience o f 20,000 people.51 Twenty thousand demonstrators on the Place de la Liberté! Three times more than during the great marches o f 1909! The Federation was all the more entitled to express its satisfaction - even though the figures given to the ISB were somewhat exaggerated - when after a few months, it published a new paper, the Solidaridad obradera, which appeared in 3000 copies. Was that not sufficient proof o f the acceptance o f socialist ideals by the population o f Thessaloniki? However, if the leaders o f the Federation again and again send messages fiili o f optimism, they also do not stop giving bad news. In June 1911 we learn that Benaroya, who had recently been released, has again been arrested and exiled to Serbia without trial52 A little later, four other militants will be treated alike.53 Progressively, a real climate o f witch-hunting is being introduced in the empire. Desirous to avoid a test o f strength that could result only in a defeat for the Ottoman socialism, the ISB already at the beginning o f 1911 advised the leaders of Thessaloniki to negotiate with the authorities through different personalities and through Free-masonry54 The advice was followed. The Federation appealed not only to Jaurès but also to De Pressencé, president o f the League o f the Rights o f Man, to M. Baxton, president o f the Balkan Committee o f London, and to Marcel Sembat, who agreed to transmit a memoir to the Masonic movement55 For his part, Huysmans appealed to an Ottoman personality with a good name in Europe, Ahmed Rïza, the president o f the Istanbul Parliament.56 This went to prove that the character o f Unionists was not well known. Indifferent to the pressures exerted upon them, they continued to harass socialists, multiplying measures o f intimidation. And the Thessalonicans were not the only ones targeted. The Muslim socialists o f the capital were also attacked: Ismail Faik, former director o f the İnsaniyet (l’Humanité), was exiled to Ankara; Hüseyin Hilmi, the founder o f the party and Ziya Şevki, former director o f Jeune Turc, were sent to Kastamonu.5 It does not seem however that the persecutions - be it simple harassments or arrests of leaders - had intimidated the Federation. According to letters exchanged between Thessaloniki and the ISB, Hazan, who was entrusted with the leadership in the absence of

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Benaroya, was able to sustain the organization’s activities. The Solidaridad obradera continued to appear; Vlahov was still a member o f Parliament; In August, tobacco workers, in the majority in the Federation, organized in Kavâlla, in the presence o f Vlahov, a congress o f 4000 persons, during which a decision was taken to create a ’central committee o f Ottoman tobacco-workers’ unions’.59 In spite of his absence, Benaroya’s organization was alive and well. On the occasion o f the Tripoli crisis, it even succeeded in organizing two great demonstrations. The first, which took place on 10 October 1911, was attended by 6000 persons; the second, on 4 November, by 10,000?° During these demonstrations the leaders blamed the imperialist policy of Western Powers and stressed their Ottomanist ideal. In the resolution published at the conclusion o f the meeting o f 4 November, they proclaimed, at the instigation o f Rakovski, who had come from Sofia for this purpose, the need to work for the constitution of a Balkan confederation, in order to maintain peace in the region?1 Naturally, the meetings o f Thessaloniki did not in any way constitute support for the policies o f the CUP, even though the latter inspired the WFS to protest against Italian aggression in Tripoli. Henceforth, the Federation turned towards the ’Entente Libérale’, the coalition of the discontented. The OSP o f Hüseyin Hilmi and the Armenians o f the Henchak chose the same way.62 Clearly, it was not with any pleasure that these various organizations agreed to co-operate with the class enemy - and all the less so as certain elements of the Entente Libérale seemed even more reactionary than those in power. But the matter was urgent. Confronted with a disintegration o f their majority in Parliament, the Unionists decided on 17 January 1912 to resort to holding early elections in order to gain control o f the Assembly. The Federation wanted to block their way and to ensure the victory of the opposition. This consideration was o f the first importance. The material at our disposal, in particular the correspondence o f the Federation with the ISB, the Solidaridad obradera and Vlahov’s memoirs provides us with a detailed account of this period in the history o f Thessaloniki’s organization. The Federation joined the battle o f the elections in the last days of January. In order to vanquish the CUP, it came to an agreement not only with the Entente Libérale but also with Greek and Bulgarian national groups.63 During the campaign it organized great popular demonstrations and published in Turkish an election newspaper, the Mücadele, distributed in several thousand copies. Vlahov, the candidate

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appointed by the opposition bloc, went on a tour o f Macedonia which, according to him, was a triumphal march.64 But the Unionists had no intention o f losing the elections and resorted to the use of force. Benaroya, who had returned from Serbia, was again arrested on 22 February. In March, most of the militants of the Federation were treated in the same way. Vlahov, for his part, was forced to give up his electoral meetings.65 In the circumstances, the defeat was, o f course, unavoidable. Vlahov was not re-elected; the new Assembly inaugurated on 18 April contained but a handful o f members o f the opposition. The Federation was at the mercy of the authorities. Henceforth, the iron fist of the Unionists took over from the velvet glove. True, the Federation militants were liberated immediately after the elections, but on the other hand the Committee did not hesitate to make use o f the repression apparatus at its disposal. The authorities dispersed demonstrations, banned the socialist press and forced Unionist administrators upon trade unions.66 It was out and out war. In April 1912 Cavid Bey, the finance minister, gave a speech in Thessaloniki at the laying o f the foundation stone o f the new central railway station. He hinted in this speech that decisive measures would be taken against socialists, declaring that the newly bom Turkish bourgeoisie could not tolerate the existence o f workers’ organizations. It was necessary, in the first place, to protect the interests o f capitalists, who were ’the true protectors o f the workers’ class’. Later on it would be possible to think o f syndicates and parties, but for the time being Turkish industry must have a free hand. He promised that those who disturb public order and threatened the economic life o f the country would be punished and announced that the Committee would submit to Parliament a bill in 67 order to put an end to socialist subversion. The Unionists would have no time, however, to put their threats into practice. As early as July, they lost power because o f the forceful intervention o f a group of officers, a kind o f operetta military putsch. Authority passed to die Entente Libérale. For the Federation, after months o f persecution, it was a moment of triumph. The new government handed back the archives confiscated by the Unionists and it would seem that its intention was to leave the group in peace. Other organizations o f the empire (in particular the OSP o f Hüseyin Hilmi) were treated with the same benevolence. But this revival, which corresponded to a period o f crisis and weakening o f the central government’s power, was superficial. As a matter o f fact, it marked no change whatsoever in the relations between

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the ruling class and the workers. The few strikes that occurred in the summer o f 1912 resulted, almost without exception, in disaster for workers. Clearly, the Liberal Entente had no intention of letting the socialists do what they wanted. The Federation and the Balkan wars If the new government displayed a relative benevolence towards socialists, the latter were now faced with a much more threatening situation, that of a general cataclysm in the Balkans. From the summer o f 1912 onwards, the correspondence between the WFS and the ISB deals mainly with this war,- first probable, then unavoidable. The Bulletin périodique du BSI and the other socialist periodical papers of Europe overflow with proclamations, demonstrations and circulars ... Balkan socialists were unanimous in their condemnation o f war, even if 68 they did not always agree on means to avoid it. Among the most significant documents o f this period we must mention the ’Manifeste des socialistes de Turquie et des Balkans’, addressed to the workers o f the Balkan peninsula and of Asia Minor, which appeared immediately before the war. This manifesto was written by Christian Rakovski in early September 1912. The Romanian socialist leader was in Istanbul at that time and had come to an agreement with Ottoman organizations, mainly with the Armenian socialist parties and the Federation, for the publication o f a common proclamation which later on would receive the support o f all the countries of the region.69 Like other ’manifestoes’ published at about the same time in the Balkans, this text (one o f the most consistent analyses o f the Balkan problem at our disposal) recognized the right o f nationalities to an autonomous life as a ’direct consequence of political and social equality and o f the suppression o f privileges o f caste, race or religion, required by the Workers’ International’. On the other hand, the text condemned categorically the economic and territorial expansionism o f Turkey’s neighbours. It stressed that a change o f the political map o f the Balkans because of the ethnic dispersion in this part of the world would only ’change the name o f the masters and the degrees o f oppression’. Consequently, the authors o f the manifesto opted for the maintenance o f the territorial status quo in the Ottoman Empire but - possibly inspired by the doctrine o f ’administrative decentralisation’ recommended by Prince Sabahattin - they demanded complete autonomy for the nationalities in the cultural domain - schools, churches etc. - and local

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self-government by region, canton and commune, with proportional representation o f ethnic elements and parties.71 But while this manifesto o f ’Ottomanist’ character was supported by all the socialists o f the Balkans, in reality such ’unity’ was a sham. Most o f the Balkan movements no longer believed in maintenance o f the status quo. In particular, the Unified Social-Democrat Party o f Yanko Sakasov in Sofia, in a report o f 14 September 1912- before the war had even started - pleaded for an autonomous Macedonia, with Thessaloniki as capital.72 It would seem that Benaroya and his comrades were the only ones to continue believing, even after the fighting had begun, that the map o f the Balkans would remain unchanged and that peace could be re-established by means of a policy of mutual confidence endeavouring to form a confederation o f Balkan peoples. It was only progressively, after some delay, that the Federation accepted the new situation in the peninsula and in particular the annexation o f Thessaloniki by the kingdom of Greece.73 In March 1913, when the war was in full swing and Thessaloniki had no longer been part o f the Ottoman Empire for several months, Joseph Hazan, one o f the most faithful assistants o f Benaroya, made an ’Appeal to the socialists of all countries’ representing his organization as the vanguard o f the workers’ movement o f Turkey. 4 Hoping that Turkish forces would regain control, the federation proclaimed in its correspondence with the ISB its attachment to the maintenance o f the status quo until the end o f the first Balkan war. This relentless defence of a lost cause can be explained largely by the fact that the Federation was a mainly Jewish organization and that, unlike other Balkan parties, it had no national demands to make. The main objective, as far as it was concerned, was that Thessaloniki, a rich and active city, should preserve its prosperity. Its militants, like other Thessalonican Jews, had two main reasons to desire a return to the pre-war situation. First, an economic reason: they thought that the trade and industry of the city were too dependent on the Macedonian hinterland and on the Ottoman market to be able to adapt to the new circumstances in the Balkans. The second reason was that, being Jews, they feared being placed under the power o f an intolerant ’Christian’ authority. The ’Turkish yoke’ their community had been subjected to for centuries had not been a particularly light one. But the relative peace which they had enjoyed until then was a precious gift which might easily be lost if their masters changed.

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It was only after the spring o f 1913 that the Federation, under the pressure o f circumstances, decided to change its course. It appears from its correspondence with the ISB that at the time it came round to the idea o f autonomy for Macedonia, an autonomy inserted within the framework o f a hypothetical Balkan confederation.75 This formula, which had been recommended by numerous publicists as early as the end o f the 19th century, is in the Federation’s opinion a last resort. It would allow Thessaloniki to preserve an economic position very like that it would have enjoyed in the event of a return to the status quo. At the same time, it had the advantage o f sparing Macedonia the ethnic and religious conflicts that the political partition imposed by the Balkan powers would provoke. Towards the end of 1913 it would seem that the Federation had begun to orientate itself towards a final adjustment o f its position. It was becoming less and less likely that Macedonia might one day achieve unity, in whatever form. Thessalonican militants were therefore forced to face the facts as they stood and to adapt themselves to Greek rule. On the eve o f the First World War, the Federation still, if we can believe the accusations of Greek authorities, looked to the Balkans. But this did not prevent it from becoming increasingly interested in events in Athens, and numerous links already brought it closer to various Hellenic socialist groups that had been formed on Greek territory.76 The ’Hellenization’ o f the Federation represented another chapter of its history, which we are not going to explore here. Founded in 1909, at the dawn o f the revolution that seemed to bring in its wake the regeneration o f the empire, the Federation experienced with the Balkan collapse of 1912-13 a kind o f first death. After many years o f constant efforts to promote solidarity among peoples, the Federation was forced to admit the reality: all those efforts could not prevent the eruption of different nationalisms. Its struggle for stability and mutual understanding in the Balkans constituted only a symbolic gesture in the face o f this grave crisis. Manifestations, conferences, great meetings in Thessaloniki did not influence the course of events at all. Must we therefore see in the evolution of the Federation between 1909 and 1913 only a story o f failure? This would be most unfair. During the four years that separated the Young Turk revolution from the occupation o f Thessaloniki by the Greeks, Benaroya’s organization had registered quite a few successes. It had contributed to the creation o f several unions; presided over important strikes; spread wide the socialist message thanks to its publications and to its meetings. To it must be

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credited the organization in Thessaloniki in January 1911 o f a Unitarian conference that assembled most o f the socialist formations of the empire. It would seem that it had actively worked in 1912 for the formation o f a ’General Union’ of Ottoman workers’ associations. Its main error was to bet on the survival of the empire. Had it been more clear-sighted on this point, it would have avoided false hopes and saved itself many useless speeches.

4. The Role o f the Greek Community in the Genesis and Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire: 1876-1925 Panagiotis Noutsos The Greeks o f the Ottoman Empire The bourgeois class o f Greek descent made a decisive contribution to die penetration into the Ottoman peripheiy o f the Eastern Mediterranean o f the functions o f Western capitalism. After the Tanzimat, and particularly after the Hatti-Humayun o f 1856, the institutions o f personal security and civil rights were established regardless o f the religious beliefs and ethnic descent of the Ottoman subjects. As a result, the commercial communities o f the minorities became the levers which were essential for the mechanism o f trade with Europe to develop. The Greek population of Asia Minor grew very rapidly during the 19th century, reaching 23 per cent o f the total population by 1900. Within the Greek community, social and economic functions were being carried out (from ’the organization o f communal “ social security” and die building up o f an excellent school system to the introduction o f a mechanism for justice by arbitration and the forming o f craftsmen’s unions’) and conditions were secured for the construction o f a ’public space without state power’ which would guarantee ’the ideological reproduction o f the ethnic entity’.1 The first cracks in this structure began to appear when socialist groups, some o f whose members were Greeks, were formed in the Ottoman Empire. Socialist views on socialism and nationalism The views o f the Greek socialists concerning the relationship between social and national questions - in conjunction with the Eastern question - became known throughout the Ottoman Levant. Naturally enough, those views were discussed in the Greek communities that flourished in the area. The representatives o f early Greek socialist thought usually 77

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propounded a prerequisite relationship, judging that any solution to the national question was predicated upon the elimination o f the social question. This line o f thought was formulated as part o f their overall view of the new society - a society they expected would eradicate the circumstances in which class power was formed and reproduced itself. The short-lived Democratic Popular League o f Patras had already given priority to the social question with the provocative claim that ’the Turks are to be found not only in Epirus and Thessaly, but here, inside our own houses. And if we thought about it properly we would begin to solve the Eastern question from this end, and not from where they tell us to begin.’2 ’They’ refers to those who handled the Eastem.question and who belonged to the political parties which alternated in pow er- parties which used the Eastern question as carrot or stick, depending on circumstances. This text also criticizes the despotism o f Russia, where the liberation o f millions of ’slaves' would have to precede any guarantee by that country the freedom o f other peoples; it concludes that the reversal o f priorities proposed by the League would lead to a solution o f the national question ’to the people’s benefit’. These views, which according to A. Costa marked die beginning ’of the struggle between socialism and the ruling class in Greece’,3 were translated into French and published in Le travailleur o f Geneva and the Bulletin de la fédération jurassiènne .4 The League corresponded regularly with the Bulletin, where there had been criticism o f articles carried by Vorwärts, which had been ’led into error by its hatred o f Russia’ and was failing to encourage the struggles o f the Balkan peoples against the Ottoman Empire. In October 1876 Costa was delegated to represent the League at the 8th Congress o f the Association Internationale des Travailleurs, in Berne, were the resolution on the Eastern question proposed by Perron, Jukowsky and Guillaume was adopted.6 Another document to be discussed, from a different point o f view, was the manifesto o f the Democratic Eastern Federation. This manifesto had already come to the attention of the congress held by the International League for Peace and Liberty and the Comité des Orientalistes,7 and it was at the heart o f the ideological ferment which led to the formation o f the League for the Balkan Confederations of 1894, chaired by Paul Argyriadès. Under the third article o f its charter, the peoples o f which it would be composed were Greece with Crete, Serbia with Bosnia and Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania (forming a free federal state), Thrace with Istanbul (where the representatives o f the Balkan federation would be

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based), Armenia, and Asia Minor with the islands along its coastline.8 O f course, Argyriadès soon realized that the prospects for realizing such a plan were poor: the expediency which lay behind the intervention of the European Great Powers in the Cretan uprising o f 1897 became obvious once more, and the strategic priorities given by the socialists in those countries to a the settling of the Eastern question created further uncertainty. Although for the leaders o f the International implementation of the ’principle of nationality’ (adopted by the London congress of 1896) was ’in all circumstances’ subservient to the needs of the international revolutionary movement,9 Bernstein raised the Eastern question in a different manner in the context o f German social democracy, supporting the struggles of the Cretans and refusing to accept the established belief that the Ottoman Empire would act as a brake on Russian expansionism.10 Rosa Luxemburg, too, moved in this direction, recognizing - despite her insistence on giving the social question priority over the national question - that the Ottoman Empire was breathing its last and that its fragmentation into nation-states was thus ’necessary for historical progress’.11 If we also take into account the wholehearted support o f the Italian socialists for such a solution to the Eastern question (support which was very far from being confined to Amilcare Cipriani, who served as a volunteer in the war o f 1897 and recorded his views on it in the Almanach de la question sociale,12 it will be seen that Argyriadès was not alone in refusing to consent to a maintenance o f the status quo as the inevitable price o f containing Russian expansionism. Argyriadès’ position was not simply the result of his Greek descent: ’the two despots o f the East have allied themselves; European democracy must unite and fight them shoulder-to-shoulder’!3 Relations between the socialists of Greece and the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire Almost all the early socialist groups in Greece sought support among the ’unredeemed’ Greeks, with subscribers and correspondents keeping the national centre informed of actions in their areas. The Democratic Popular League of Patras was already in touch with the first socialist and syndicalist cells in Istanbul, where the impact made by Italian refugees was noted,14 and the European publications carried reports from both Greece and the Ottoman Empire. These reports were brief and sometimes involved the raising of the Eastern question.15 Istanbul had subscribers to Ardin (1885-7), published by P. Drakoulis, which promoted a loose set of socialist concepts giving priority to L.

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Gronlund’s analysis o f the ’co-operative commonwealth’ as embraced by the Fabian Society and, in particular, by Annie Besant16 and in which a discreet preference for the ’autonomous’ socialism o f Kropotkin could be distinguished. Drakoulis translated an extract from Gronlund’s book which noted that nations ’evolved gradually from the tribes o f antiquity, which regarded everything apart from themselves as hostile’. When socialism had eliminated competition, both between peoples and between individuals, the formation o f ’free federated communities or municipalities’ would have been achieved, and the word ’nation’ would become a mere geographical expression, ’o f interest primarily to students o f outdated history'.17 In the publication’s ’Lettercard’, Drakoulis reminded his readers that when the Italian ’Great Idea’ was put into practice, ’all the gains were reserved for the cunning, and the poor never received their share’.18 In the same spirit, he posed the question: ’Which of the two is better: for Crete to be annexed to Greece or for Greece to be annexed to Crete?’.19 From the time o f its foundation, O Sosialistis represented itself as ’the only socialist publication in the East’ to have agents in Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Izmir and Crete.20 In this ’organ o f the socialists in Greece and Turkey’ Drakoulis renewed his attack on ’the lies of would-be politicians and patriots concerning national redemption and suchlike matters’; if, tomorrow, Greece were to become a great empire with Istanbul as its capital, the Greek workers ’would be no better off than British workers, whose country is a great empire’.21 Stavros Kallergis from Houmeri in Crete, editor of Sosialistis, preferred for his native island, not union with Greece, where freedom was ’a sham’, but the establishment o f a ’democratic administration’ o f an interim nature which would hold power until ’the worldwide signal is given among the peoples for the real liberty, equality and fraternity o f all o f us’?2 However, Kallergis was prepared from then on to make detailed plans for the terms on which the ’socialist state’ could be implemented in Crete.23 He himself subsequently took part in the national liberation struggle o f Crete, together with the European socialists, who insisted that the people o f Crete should have an autonomous system o f government like that o f Switzerland until they could envisage ’a day for the general well-being o f mankind and contribute to realizing it’.24 Among Kallergis’ fellow-combatants in Crete was D. Photopoulos, who corresponded with the newspaper Aeon fo s (New light) o f Pyrgos, reporting that the Cretans were becoming ’slaves to the protagonists in their fight for freedom’ and to Greek ’bureaucracy’: the time had come,

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after the ’patriotic question’, to turn the attention of all to the social question.25 This newspaper corresponded with Temps nouveaux in Paris, and the group which was responsible for its ideological guidance was connected with the anarchist International. In its columns, the newspaper frequently dealt with the Eastern question from the point o f view of the negation o f authority and the prospect o f ’autonomy and federalism’,26 as evidenced by ’recent socialism in its anarchist form’,27 envisaging the fraternity o f the peoples o f the world beyond the narrow horizon of the state and private property: ’So down with frontiers, down with nationalities, down with the religious dogmas which divide us, down with “yours” and “mine” , and, last o f all, down with anything which justifies the existence o f authority’ and which harms ’world brotherhood and happiness’.28 Social criticism and analysis The majority of these views - which now, set against the Greek-Turkish war, were being more intensively popularized - had already been formulated in the Patras newspaper Epi ta proso, which, from the point o f view o f ’free socialists’, envisaged a new society which would transcend the world o f private property and native lands.29 The patterns for exercizing social criticism (using the evidence provided by socialism) dealt with the phenomenon o f the nationhood without comprehensively working it through, and recognized the true value o f prioritizing a solution to the social question, setting up the brotherhood o f peoples, in federal form, as a prerequisite. In the more particular form o f the Eastern question, the differing stages in the processes and the disparity o f importance between the national question (even in favourable international circumstances) and the social question - which did not permit the former to be used as a means o f accelerating the latter - were confirmed in the eyes of Greek socialists. With power and private property as their analytical categories, we can see, in the articulation o f their overall proposal for a new society (a proposal which would preclude a return to the conditions in which the class division of that society had taken place), a uniform prospect for the nation and the state and a capacity for the reproduction, within broader geographical bounds, o f the structure of a classless society. According to Neon fa s of Pyrgos, the period o f the ’great national idea’ had passed, and the age of the rehabilitation o f the human race had arrived: on it would be set the seal o on f solidarity in the face o f the ’dreadful and craven tyranny o f the state’. For that reason, attempts to identify the ’Greeks’ - ’our kith and

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kin in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere’ - were o f negligible importance, and full attention should instead be devoted to denouncing those Turkish and Jewish compatriots whose predatory and oppressive activities were inhibiting the establishment o f social orderliness. The messianic tone and holistic sense with which these groups of social intellectuals often imbued their views turned out to be inversely proportional to the effectiveness of their social critique and the growth o f support for them. Although they themselves did not, o f course, number the Greeks among the ’geschichtslosen Völker’, it is clear that their comments about the common destiny o f nation and state depended on an understanding of the manner in which the nation was incorporated into the structures of the state, and, at the same time, on identification o f the forms in which the nation was defined within the mechanisms o f the state. However, such an interpretive approach went far beyond the ideological horizons o f early socialist thought in Greece, which failed to take the necessary steps to wean itself from ’democratic ideals’ (Panas) or to present its case with vigour (the Democratic Popular League). As the new century began, Argyriadès’ death put an end to his discreet influence on developments in Greece, Drakoulis planned to publish the periodical Erevna in order to combat the plagues which threatened the ’cause o f national evolution’, the anarchist movement in the Peloponnese withered away, and Kallergis soon retired to Crete, never to return. Marinos Antypas, who had fought in Crete in 1896, and in the following year, was among the leaders o f the rallies held in Athens to protest against those responsible for the defeat o f 1897, was almost alone in proposing that the socialist vision ought to be balanced against the protection o f ’the just causes o f the Greek people’.31 G reek socialism in the era of the Young T urks and the Balkan wars After the Goudi revolution and during the Balkan wars, the search for the relationship between the national question and the social question was conducted on a fresh basis, particularly on the part o f those socialists who were still capable of discharging a specific function in Greek political affairs. Skliros had already connected the ’domestic war’ o f the social classes with improvements in the country’s military organization, precisely so that it could discharge its national mission, which was ’the sincere desire and ideal not only o f all of us but even o f 32 our ruling class’. G. Konstantinidis (pseudonym G. Skliros) was bom in Trabzon. His youthful work To koinoniko mas zitima (Our social problem) and the

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related discussion in Noumas were studied by the Greek intellectuals of the Ottoman Empire, and he himself was to deal with the history and prospects o f the Eastern question, taking the Young Turk revolution as his starting point. This revolution, which in his view was for the Greeks ’only a surprise, not a lesson’, was treated as a welcome, and at the same time historically inevitable, constitutional change, heralding the ’political renaissance and strengthening’ of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, Skliros foresaw the rise of ’bourgeois patriotism’ in the Ottoman Empire from which the country would emerge as a ’vigorous’ factor in the East: in order to contain this, there was an urgent need for the formation o f a ’political coalition’ o f the non-Turkish elements in the Ottoman Empire and, at the same time, for the establishment o f a ’defensive alliance’ among the Balkan countries.33 Dimitris Glenos was a member o f the Skliros circle in Jena, and was working as a teacher at the Hellenic-German Lyceum in Izmir (1906-8) when he came under the influence o f Skliros’ ideas. Glenos examined the consequences o f the ’change in the Turkish political system’: this ’last o f the bourgeois revolutions in Europe’, the work o f the ’bourgeois class’ of the Ottoman Empire, involved two roads towards the consolidation o f constitutional freedoms. The first of these would lead to the recognition o f the non-Turkish peoples, who already had ’a highly developed national consciousness’, as a prerequisite for ’domestic peace’ along the lines of the Austrian Empire; the second, adopted by the Young Turks as ’inexperienced nouveaux-bourgeois’, with the ’Ottoman nation’ as their emblem, would not, in the end, succeed in fulfilling their aim o f transforming ’the multi-coloured map o f the Turkish state into one single colour’. In order to eliminate the risk of Turkification o f the nationalities, it was necessary that they should be ’systematically organized into political entities’, a process which would proceed in parallel with the formation o f the alliance of ’Christian states’ of the Balkans.34 The same observations were made by Platon Drakoulis, who attributed a ’national’ nature to the ’Turkish movement’ and described ’the appearance o f the forms o f democracy’ as ’of negligible importance’, while Alexandras Papanastasiou foresaw that if the road o f ’national unity and solidarity’ in a ’harmonious state’ were not chosen, thus allowing only ’competition among cultures’, the Ottoman Empire would be dismembered and the Turkish presence in Europe would remain ’as the memory o f a dark dream for those who are to come’.36

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However, in the initial phase o f the ’change of system o f government’ there was euphoria over the brotherhood o f peoples and the demolition o f the walls that divided diem, with ’rejoicing and the beating o f drums’37 and ’moving scenes o f fraternization between members o f different races’ 38 These impressions were shared by the international socialist press, which hailed the Young Turk revolution with enthusiasm; the intervention o f Christian Rakovski transcended the initial dilemma (’are we witnessing a real revolution or a conspiracy which will leave few traces?’) in order to fight for the ’new regime’ in the Ottoman Empire.39 This was the period during which the socialists o f the empire (with the exception of the movement headed by Vasil Glavinov) gave their unreserved support to the Young Turk Committee which had released the political detainees, abolished censorship and allowed the socialists o f the national minorities to take part in the 1908 elections. Within less than a year, the new regime had undergone the final confrontation with the counter-revolution of Sultan Abdttlhamid and was implementing ’an autocratic and nationalist policy which deprives the new constitution o f its Ottoman character’.40 As a result, persecution o f the socialist groups became more frequent. The new circumstances made it essential that these groups should co-ordinate and overcome their contradictions - contradictions which had national as well as ideological causes. It was in this climate that the ’Socialist Centre o f the Ottoman Empire’ was conceived. As Parvus pointed out in an address delivered to the Socialist Centre o f Istanbul in November 1910, although ’today the workers o f the Ottoman Empire are divided by religion, patriotic ideals and ethnic hate’, as soon as they obtained education and discovered that ’the capitalists o f the world are united, without discrimination in terms o f native land or religion, in order to stifle the workers o f the Ottoman Empire’, then Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Jewish workers would unite to fight ’their great common enemy’, world capitalism!11 The newspaper Ergatis (Worker) moved in the same direction, though acknowledging that the initiative for the formation o f the Turkish Socialist Centre had belonged to the Greeks o f Istanbul: The newspaper is published so as to bring together the socialists of the Ottoman Empire and form an international socialist party here and become its mouthpiece; an ’international’ party, because in the Ottoman Empire no other kind o f socialism is possible. As a result, we will not exclude from our band any Turk, Bulgarian or

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Jew who comes to join us, as long as he is a socialist. But, as is only natural, Greeks will make up two-thirds o f our band, since they are the largest group in the population o f Istanbul. The Greeks produce Ergatis and control it through its editorial board.42 This group, which came under the influence o f the Narrow socialists of the Bulgarian Workers Social Democratic Party (BWSDP), was formed in 1909 by Stefanos Papadopoulos (who had received his education as a socialist in Bulgaria), Zacharias Vezestenis, V. Kontouris (who edited Ergatis) and Nikos Yannios, who, as he told K. Hadzopoulos in Germany, was a member o f ’an international organization o f workers in Istanbul and had managed to persuade two or three other Greeks, with the help o f the foreigners, to bring out in demotic a newspaper they had been planning to publish in the formal language’. This testimony does in fact reflect an actual dispute that took place during the planning stage of Ergatis, and it was thanks to the perseverance o f Yannios that the newspaper was written in the living language, thus attracting to the aims of the group a large number o f advocates of demotic who had previously rallied around the Fraternity o f the National Language, whose mouthpiece was the Laos (People). Yannios was appointed editor of Laos when he settled in Istanbul after studying in Paris. The presence of the group surrounding Ergatis did not prevent the group from extending its activities into the working classes, as can be seen from the wealth of news it contained concerning the founding o f occupational organizations ’without discrimination on the basis o f religion and nationality’, in the spirit ’o f the socialist idea which will be our salvation’.43 In December 1910 the newspaper was forced to close when it published an article criticizing the Turkish government for delaying the permit recognizing the Centre, and Yannios was deported to Greece.44 On the recommendation o f Parvus, Vezestenis renamed the Socialist Centre the Socialist Studies Group which was to be active to a limited extent ’in the field o f theory’45 and to act as a guide for the unions of clerical and manual workers and printers. After 1912, Vezestenis himself served as the secretary o f the printers’ union, at a time when the Social Studies Group corresponded with the ISB.46 Despite constant harassment from the authorities, Vezestenis continued to play a leading part in the formation o f the trade-union movement and in the socialist debate among the Greeks o f Istanbul (he frequently sent correspondents’ reports on events to Bataille syndicaliste and Temps nouveaux in Paris),

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now within the framework o f the Panergatiki (all-workers union, 1920). The Panergatiki controlled the international unions o f building workers, dockers and carpenters (the majority o f whose members were G reek/7 and it co-ordinated its activities with the circle around the periodical Aydınlık (a Turkish translation o f Clarté).48 Not long afterwards, that circle was to undertake the political instruction o f the Communist Party o f Turkey. The union o f commercial employees o f Istanbul, which was formed in 1912 without regard for the ’race, language, principles or convictions’ o f its members, published its charter in Greek, among other languages. This noted the existence o f ’a ceaseless struggle’ between capital and labour, and chose ’the international principle o f labour’ - that ’emancipation o f the workers can be achieved only by the workers themselves’ - for the founding o f the occupational organization which would allow them to defend their ’common interests’ against the ’common enemy: the capitalist exploiters’. The more specific objects o f the union were the raising o f the ’moral and material’ position o f commercial employees, salary increases and reductions in working hours, the setting up o f a labour exchange, and support for a unified workers’ centre in Istanbul capable o f ’facing up to capitalist explotation’ and of introducing ’freedom o f labour by means o f the socialization o f the means o f production for the exclusive benefit of workers-producers’.49 Ten years later, the ’fundamental principles’ o f the union o f commercial employees were reiterated in the charter o f the international industrial union of construction workers o f Istanbul, which was also set up ’without regard to the race, language, principles or convictions’ o f its members. The Greek version o f the charter (which in this case was also published in Turkish, French and Armenian) contained a statement o f intent to set up an international federation o f labour and, more specifically, a general industrial union o f construction workers o f Turkey, with which ’we shall extend a hand to all the struggling workers o f the world’. The union, in its turn, banned political discussion during its meetings, did not participate in any political parties and removed from its objects the ’communist principle’ of ’from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’?0 The presence o f socialists o f Greek descent in the other urban centres o f the Ottoman Empire, such as Trabzon or Izmir, was on a smaller scale. In Izmir, there was considerable union activity after the Young Turk revolution (in 1909 the People’s Centre was set up, and most o f the existing unions joined it).51 The newspaper Ergatis was published,

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edited by Leandros Kokkinidis, Dimitris Kotzamanis and Mehmet Mejdet (and after their prosecution by the committed demoticist Yeorgios Anastasiadis). The newspaper ’for the working people’ closed for good in April 1909. The Narrow socialists had described it as suffering from a lack o f socialist orientation32 after mobilizing the demoticists o f Izmir in favour o f the implementation o f the principles of equality and fraternity. This, of course, was not the case with the periodical Nioti (Youth, 1912), which confined itself to disseminating the ’idea o f the language’. After World War One After the First World War and the Greek involvement in Asia Minor, a number of intellectuals who felt themselves in agreement with Rosa Luxemburg53 or who dealt in a systematic manner with the various socialist ’schools’ appeared in Izmir. They included the jurist Evdokimos Dourmousis, a former associate professor at the University o f Geneva. Indeed, it was the soldiers at the Asia Minor front who produced the first cells to popularize the anti-war manifesto o f the Socialist Workers’ Party o f Greece (SWPG) and to circulate its publications, which included both Rizospastis and the magazines written during their ’hours of boredom’,54 such asFunta and Arambas. In the dying Ottoman Empire, the Greek community- which was the most prosperous - fulfilled a number o f social and economic functions which ensured the ideological reproduction o f the national entity. Between 1876 and 1922 groups o f Greek subjects o f the Ottoman Empire had opportunities to circumvent this process or to relegate it to a secondary position by putting forward the vision o f a socialist society which would transcend national and religious divisions. These groups were in constant communication with similar movements in the national centre, which usually expressed the view that the national question was subsidiary to the social question. Such a line of thinking complied principally with the analysis which had been worked out by the representatives o f ’autonomous socialism’ in Western Europe, although, o f course, proposals for resolving the Eastern question within the framework o f the ’Democratic Federation o f the East’ were not. overlooked. These little groupings, which were dominated by male intellectuals, attempted to establish themselves in their home area, to develop links with similar Greek groups that had become active outside Greece itself (in Bulgaria, Russia, Cyprus and Egypt, for example) and also to build connections with socialists o f other nationalities, such as

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the Armenians and the Jews.55 These comments also apply to the phase which followed the ’change in the system of government’ imposed by the Young Turks 56 O f course, the following differences emerged: there was a clear strengthening in the ’economic organization’ o f the working class o f the Ottoman urban centres, and its unions (which were initially under the influence o f French ’syndicalism’ and later o f the ’Industrial Workers of the World’) often took precedence over political representation; there was more distinct co-operation among the national groups, including the Turkish groups; relations with other countries expanded (after 1920 Western European and American influence declined and was replaced by that o f the Soviet Union - this, o f course, was the period during which the socialist movements moved in the same orbit as the Communist International), and a number o f women participated (most o f them teachers, such as Athina Gaitanou and Eva Theodoridi). After 1922, when the Asia Minor catastrophe took place, the Greek community in Turkey broke up and the Greek state included the vast majority o f the Greeks within its - almost definitive - frontiers. At this time, the Greek socialist groups in Turkey disappeared.

5. The Bulgarian Community and the Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire During the Period 1876-1923 Ibrahim Yalimov The period treated in this paper is marked by the complete collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment o f new nation-states on its ruins. War and revolutions played an important role in this process. Only a few years after the 1877-8 Turco-Russian war, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Algiers, Tunisia and Egypt severed their ties with the Ottoman Empire and became either independent states or colonies of European states. The empire lost its African and European territories following the Tripolitanian (1911-12) and Balkan (1912-13) wars. Its sovereignty over Albania, Macedonia and some Aegean islands came to an end. Finally, in the aftermath of the First World War, the empire became a thing o f the past. Socio-economic change at the end of the 19th century The mode o f production peculiar to the Ottoman Empire had changed considerably during the last quarter o f the 19th century and the first quarter o f the 20th. Industrial production was initiated under the impact o f the foreign capital that was being invested in the country. Foreign companies wishing to exploit te natural resources in Turkey, started with the construction o f railways. Thus, several regions o f the empire were linked and the foundations o f a nation-wide market were laid. Foreign companies made investments in mining and manufacturing sectors. Nevertheless, the national industry developed very slowly. Most business was characterized by artisan handicraft. In 1902, out o f 1587 enterprises, only 60 were factories and these were owned by foreigners or members o f local minority groups. Furthermore, the majority o f their workers were non-Turks. 89

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As a result o f the integration o f the Ottoman Empire into the world economy at the end of the 19th century, money-commodity relations spread not only in urban areas but also in the agricultural countryside. As the extension o f the railway network encouraged farmers to produce for the market, the previous closed-circuit production methods began to fall apart and modem land cultivation by the peasantry gained a certain momentum. But new modes o f agricultural production developed rather slowly. Transition from the traditional to modem modes o f production was only at its initial stage at the turn o f the century, held back by the (external) imperialistic capital and the (internal) theocratic regime. The sharpening o f the contradictions between the necessity o f objective social progress, and feudal and semi-colonial relations led to the Young Turk revolution o f 1908. But this revolution did not completely fulfil its historical mission, confining itself to the proclamation o f a constitution; it did not abolish semi-colonial and feudal relations. Indeed, the Unionists, allying themselves with feudal landlords, were integrated into the establishment. They created a new dictatorship of their own and did not look for radical or enduring solutions to social and national questions. These conditions provoked negative reactions among progressive circles and especially among Bulgarian socialists. Yet the description o f the 1908 revolution by the Bulgarian Narrow socialists as a military revolt, does not reflect the truth.1 It would be more correct to regard it as the beginning o f a new era, the revolution of national liberation, rather than the culminating point o f an historical epoch. In fact, the 1908 revolution created the conditions for the Kemalist revolution, which was to take place under quite different local and international conditions. Thus the revolution o f national liberation not only repelled foreign invasion, it also forged more suitable circumstances for the regeneration o f productive forces.2 An objective approach to historical events shows that capitalist production gained a certain momentum under the Unionist power. Measures like the Act for the Encouragement o f National Industry and the eased sales o f public land and land o f pious foundations, contributed to the enrichment o f businessmen o f Turkish extraction. Native capital accumulated during the First World War began to be invested in commercial and even industrial enterprises. Some industrial branches related directly to the needs of the army developed earlier. Following the

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Kemalist revolution, new steps were taken towards further industrialization. With die development o f the capitalist mode of production, new classes came into being in Turkish society. The members o f the capitalist class were mainly recruited from ex-feudal large landlords, money-lenders, high-ranking officers and bureaucrats. Certain members o f the petit-bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia also doubtless joined the capitalist class. The compradorial bourgeoisie played an important role at the onset. The majority o f them were not of Turkish origin, but after the 1908 revolution more and more ethnically Turkish businessmen entered domestic and foreign trade, and gradually they directed their attention towards industry as well. Many Turks, trained in the large-scale state enterprises which began to be established at the end of the 19th century, oriented themselves more and more towards the private sector. Such factors contributed to the formation o f an industrial , 3 bourgeoisie. The other new class was the proletariat. This class, although conspicuous in major industrial centres such as Istanbul, Izmir, Thessaloniki, Kavâlla and Beirut, could not become numerically strong, because o f industrial underdevelopment. The sum total of the working force in the whole empire before the First World War was around 100,000. This figure was largely made up of tobacco and transport workers, miners, or those involved in manufacturing. Non-Turks were quite numerous, especially in Istanbul, Edime and Thessaloniki, those Turks who joined the working class being recently dispossessed peasants. As a result, workers-cum-farmers, with a peasant mentality, were typical. The Unionists (members o f the Union and Progress Party, then in power) did not introduce reforms in the working and living conditions of the labour force, even though these were long overdue. The work-day was 12-14 hours, as it had been before the revolution; sometimes it even lasted for 16 hours. According to the Bulgarian socialist Vlahov, bakery workers worked 18 hours a day, to the tobacco workers, 9-9.5 hours. Their pay did not exceed 8-16 piastres. Women and child workers received even less, despite the relatively high proportion of womer among Greek, Jewish and Armenian workers. The very difficult conditions under which labourers tried to survive gave rise to reactions and resistance.

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Worker resistance and trade unions The reaction o f the workers at the beginning of this century .also had its cause in the national question. Macedonia, Yemen and some other regions remained under Ottoman rule until the Balkan and First World War. The People o f these regions - Bulgarians, Armenians and Arabs struggled for their independence. Guerilla (cheta) warfare was quite common in Macedonia. The Unionists had allied themselves with the revolutionaries of other peoples during both the reinstatement o f the Constitution and the suppression o f the revolt o f 31 March, in which Yana Sandanski’s band supported Niyazi Bey. But when the Unionists took power, they attempted to do away with the liberation movements of national minorities.4 The ’Ottoman’ identity was elevated to an official ideology. All subjects were called ’Ottomans’ and declared equal. But ’Ottomanism’ only concealed the rights and existence o f national minorities, and it soon became evident that such a policy could not resolve the national question. Bulgarian socialists proclaimed that the Unionists would never give up their discriminatory policy and recognise the right o f self-determination of the national groups; therefore the working class would be obliged to deal with these important tasks in the struggle for social liberation. The 15th General Congress o f the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (BWSDP), which was convened on 2-5 August 1908 in order to determine the place o f the workers in the national and democratic struggle, stated that: The Congress ... wishes the proletariat o f Turkey to continue with the struggle against the absolutist regime to the end. The Turkish proletariat can attain full victory only through its class organization, fighting shoulder to shoulder with international social democratic forces under the banner o f socialism.5 Questions o f national liberation still occupied the agenda, because the Ottoman Empire was still a multinational state, despite certain developments. Some o f her nations aspired to autonomy within the borders of the empire, while others wanted to establish independent states. This question interested the emerging working class too. As a result, the workers’ movement in the Ottoman Empire coincided with the liberation movement o f the national minorities. The workers engaged in unorganized and spontaneous resistance. They had sensed intuitively that strikes were the major instruments for bettering their living conditions and raising their wages. The collective

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experience o f their fellow Europeans proved it sufficiently. The earliest large-scale strikes occurred in the European section of the empire, neighbouring on Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, but it was mostly the workers o f Istanbul who resorted to strike action. Several important strikes took place in the capital in 1902 and 1903, followed by a wave o f industrial action in the Balkans in 1904, when tobacco workers in Kavâlla and Thessaloniki followed the example o f 800 leather workers on strike in Istanbul. These actions continued in 1906, when 450 workers in the Allatini ceramics factory in Thessaloniki and 150 shoe makers in Veles stopped work.6 After the 1908 revolution, when the contradictions between labour and capital sharpened as a result o f social and economic development, class struggle became more organized and massive. Again strikes were mostly concentrated in the European section o f the empire, where the new methods o f production dominated. In addition, strikes in neighbouring countries influenced the workers in Turkey. As reported in the newspaper İkdam (Effort) on 16 September 1908, ’the strikes virtually unknown until two months ago ... spread like an epidemic’. Transport workers, typographers, tailors and other labourers went on strike in Istanbul. But the most important strike was organized by the railway workers. Action started on the Rumelia line at Thessaloniki and quickly spread to Skopje and to the DemirkapY-Metrovica, Istanbul-Edime lines. Later, the railway workers of Anatolia joined in. Their demands included economic points like the shortening o f the daily working hours to eight, and wage increases, as well as official recognition o f the trade unions by the railway company. Nearly 30 strikes occurred within a few months following the 1908 revolution, most o f them still in the European section o f the empire. The Unionists forbade strikes after 1908, but action continued to be taken in later years. For instance, 59 Bulgarians and three Turks went on strike in 1909 in Ksanti (formerly Yenice). Their main demand was for shorter working hours.7 In late June 1910 shoe makers went on strike in a firm owned by two Bulgarians and their Turkish partner Recep Aslan. Meanwhile, a major strike took place in Thessaloniki: 40 Bulgarians, 13 Turks and six Armenians stopped work in protest against the lowering of piece-work pay by their bosses. In this instance workers o f various nationalities showed an exemplary solidarity. The shoe makers’ union issued a declaration in three languages (Turkish, Greek and Bulgarian), explaining the aims o f the workers’ action. Régie (tobacco) workers in Istanbul and in Thessaloniki went on strike simultaneously early in

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1911. The strike o f the Thessaloniki workers lasted 30 days and that of the Istanbul workers 40. They demanded a 30 per cent wage increase and an eight-hour working day, but they were unsuccessful.8 The main features o f the strikes which followed the 1908 revolution, were their size and their continuity. The demands made were initially economic and social, but gradually the workers’ movement became politicized. The workers of the Ottoman Empire began to celebrate 1 May as the foremost symbol o f international proletarian solidarity. Some sources relate that 1 May 1910 was celebrated in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Veles and other towns. On that day, workers of Bulgarian and Greek origin gathered in the ’Kil Bunin’ locality o f Istanbul. The following year, workers o f Edime joined the workers o f the above mentioned cities in the 1 May celebrations. The reporter o f the (Bulgarian) Rabotniteska iskra [Workers’ spark] said that in Thessaloniki 500 manufacturers and 148 typographers celebrated 1 May. The workers’ movement in the Ottoman Empire became organized between 1876 and 1925. The section of the workers who were class-conscious realized the importance o f freedom. Modem unions began to be formed in the first years o f the 20th century. One o f the early unions that included workers o f mixed ethnic backgrounds was the railway-workers’ union, established on 30 October 1907. Its central office was in Istanbul, with branches in Edime, Thessaloniki and Plovdiv, among other places. Its Bulgarian branch had established relations with the Bulgarian railwaymen’s union, which was under the influence o f the Broad socialists. It was this union which was not interested in developing class consciousness and political progress, that directed the railway strike. One of the earliest union organizations which gained momentum after the 1908 revolution was the tobacco-processing workers’ union o f Thessaloniki, which developed from the association o f Régie workers. O f its 3200 members, around 200 were Bulgarians, 400 Turks, 2000 Jews and 500 Greeks. There was no national discrimination among them; the union defended the interests o f all workers.9 Trade unions were organized in the same period in other cities of Macedonia as well. Some members o f the BWSDP, such as Nikola Rusev, I. Pastarmacayev and K. Chavdarov, formed a general union dedicated to socialist principles. Twenty delegates were invited by the union to a meeting on 30 September 1908. Rusev lectured the audience on the ’Tasks o f the Unions’. Glavinov and Rusenski laid the foundations o f working-class organizations in Bitola (Turkish:

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Monastir) during the same months. During the second half of 1908, another union was created in Ksanti by Turkish and Bulgarian workers.10 No doubt trade unions were mostly concentrated in Istanbul. Some of them brought together woikers o f different nationalities. For example, the typographers’ union had five sections - for Bulgarian, Tuikish, Greek, Armenian and French workers; solidarity was strongest among the Bulgarians and the Armenians. But usually workers o f each nationality had their separate unions. The Bulgarian typographers formed a union in the city and attempted to have contracts with members o f other unions, but because of widespread chauvinism these attempts did not bear fruit.11 Early Bulgarian socialist organizations Towards the end o f the last century, socialist principles took root in Balkan countries and political parties were established along those lines. The BWSDP was formed in 1891, the Romanian Social Democratic Party in 1893 and the Serbian Social Democratic Party in 1903. In Greece, the Socialist Alliance was founded later, in 1909-11. These socialist actions had an impact upon Ottoman workers and many local Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews etc. engaged in socialistic activities in large industrial centres like Istanbul, Izmir and Thessaloniki. Bulgarian socialists were also active in Macedonia and in the vicinity o f Edime. The peculiarities o f the socialist movement in Bulgaria were also reflected here. Throughout the period under discussion, the main characteristic of this movement was the wide spectrum o f opinions. Immediately after it was founded, Bulgarian socialists clashed on questions o f party formation and dialectical relations between socialism and democracy, among other topics. Fikret Adanïr has described how, on its 10th Congress (1903) the BWSDP was divided into Narrow and Broad socialists, and how the founder o f the party, Dimitar Blagoev, and his followers called the Broad socialists reformists and opportunists. In fact, The Broads proposed that the party should depend upon all the working population, not just upon the working class. Perceiving that the transition to socialism would not be quick, they stressed the need for democratic struggle. Together with the Broad socialists, there appeared in the party in 1905 an anarcho-liberal group, which opposed centralism in the party and stood for the independence o f the unions. Similar views

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were reflected in the organizations in the Ottoman Empire wherever the Bulgarian socialists were influential. Bulgarian socialists woiked mostly within the revolutionary movement in Macedonia-Edime. After the revolution o f 1908, both wings o f the Macedonia-Edime Revolutionary Organization continued their activities by legalizing their existence in the Union o f the Clubs of the Bulgarian Constitution and the Popular Federative Party. Narrow socialists, i.e. the BWSDP, operated in the European section o f the empire through the social democratic groups of Macedonia-Edime, which were formed in 190512 in order to propagate socialistic views, but were dispersed after a few months. The BWSDP was reorganized in the months following the 1908 revolution. Its centre was in Sofia and under Narrow socialist control. These groups sent delegates to the party congress, to which they were accountable, but they functioned autonomously in the Macedonia-Edime region.13 The main task was to arouse class consciousness in the workers by way o f socialist propaganda. In Thessaloniki, Bitola and elsewhere they distributed party literature such as the workers’ newspaper Rabotnibeski vestnik and the journal Novo vreme (New times) which were being published in Sofia. The Macedonian-Edime Social Democratic Group (M-ESDP) started a special newspaper, Rabotnibeski iskra under the direct editorship o f Vasil Glavinov who was bom in Veles in 1869, moved to Sofia in 1887 and started working as a carpenter. Before coming to Sofia he had adopted the ideal o f national liberation, and once there he absorbed socialistic ideas and joined the BWSDP. He was a member of the close circle around Dimitar Blagoev and in 1894 the party sent him to Macedonia to establish socialist groups. He soon became a major leader o f the workers’ movement in the Macedonia and Edime region, making important contributions to their establishment through his journalistic and organizational activities. He published the newspaperRevolutsiya in 1895 and Politiâeska svoboda (Political liberty) in 1898-9. His Rabotnibeska iskra functioned as a contact network between socialist groups in the Macedonia and Edime regions, and he organized the first socialist group in his native Veles. During the second half of 1895 Macedonian revolutionary socialist groups were bom with his help and that o f his friends. These socialist groups began to organize social democratic circles and trade unions in Macedonia-Edime. The aim was the creation o f an Ottoman workers’ socialist party through the merger o f such organizations.

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The M-ESDG conducted its propaganda mainly among indigenous Bulgarians. Yet their ideas, as well as those o f the general Bulgarian workers’ movement, penetrated to some extent the Turkish working class. Upon receipt of a letter from the M-ESDG the 15th General Congress o f the BWSDP issued a special declaration stating that the Unionists had not effected any radical changes in the country: the despotic regime was not wholly uprooted, exploitation was still at large and ’the working class had to take an active part in the struggle for political rights and liberties’. The congress suggested to the M-ESDG that personnel be trained in the workers’ movement o f the Ottoman Empire by participating in large socialist actions.14 According to the Narrow socialists, the progressive elements in Turkey were obliged to fight for the general, equal and secret vote, freedom of press, speech and organization, labour legislation, the right of national self-determination and other democratic demands.15 No doubt the Bulgarian socialists attached special importance to the national question. Dimitar Blagoev, the leader of their party, in an article published in 1910 under the title ’Turkey and Bulgaria*, said he had written already two years ago that the July 1908 revolution ’would not change anything radically’, because of the obsession o f the CUP with the ideal o f Turan. According to Blagoev, ’the most sensitive region in Turkey is Macedonia, where there is a concentration o f Bulgarian nationals who constitute the majority o f Christians. The Young Turks do not recognize their right to national self-determination, but continue Abdttlhamid’s policy under the disguise o f “ Ottoman union and progress”.*16 The Narrow socialists in their approach to the nationality problem took into account the existence of a multinational society in the European section o f the empire; but under the influence of the Marxist views, which dominated until recently, they attempted to subordinate the national question to the class struggle and class interests o f the proletariat. Blagoev claimed that Balkan peoples could win national independence only through the class struggle o f the proletariat. Yet the Bulgarian socialists also perceived that this class struggle would push the bourgeoisie to a Balkan union which might bring about the independence o f the nations in the region. They considered a federation o f Balkan republics the sole viable way, regarding as impossible, because o f the ethnic complexity o f the Balkans, the establishment o f a big independent national state; from 1885 onwards, therefore, the Bulgarian socialists defended the idea o f a federative order. They

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participated actively in the 1st Balkan Conference, which convened in Belgrade at 7-9 January 1910, openly opposing the chauvinism and pro-war policy o f the bourgeoisie, whether o f Bulgarian or other nationalities. The 19th General Congress o f the BWSDP which met on 28-30 August 1912, repeated its conviction that Balkan peoples could not attain their national unity by means o f war. The congress adopted a resolution which declared that ’the congress invites the working class to promulgate the Balkan Federative Republic, through a class struggle under the banner of social democracy. This republic will assure the independence of Balkan peoples by uniting them and opening before them the way of social progress’.17 According to Blagoev, the states constituting the Balkan federation would achieve their independence. They would have a common financial and military organization and would pursue a common foreign policy under a common constitution.18 The national strategy o f the Broad socialists, led by Y. Zabunov was quite different from the policy o f the Narrows. The former stood for the principle o f autonomy, as did the group around the journal Proletariat. They even defended the thesis o f Ottoman unity.19 These differences of opinion were reflected among the Bulgarian socialists active inside the Ottoman borders. The most conspicuous example can be observed in the Thessaloniki groups. The Bulgarian socialists and the WFS: socialism o r Ottomanism ? The workers’ union movement became active following the 1908 revolution in Thessaloniki, which was still an Ottoman city and an important industrial centre. The first socialist organization was formed there. A workers’ club was established in the spring of 1909 and other clubs followed its example. After a while, all these organizations joined together in the Workers’ Federation o f Salonica (WFS). The initial membership o f 50 soon increased to 100. The Federation had liaisons with the workers o f several industries in the city and had a potential 6000 or more workers to call upon when needed. Abraham Benaroya headed the Federation. His political formation took place in the Bulgarian socialist movement, in which, after being purged from the party by the Narrow socialists, he began collaborating with the Broads. This influenced the work o f the WFS to a certain extent. At the beginning, the Federation was united with the Bulgarian social democrats under Vasil Glavinov. But at the end o f September 1909, they parted company after differences of opinion. Stefan Velikov, the

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Bulgarian historian, notes that after this event the WFS became a reformist organization.20 Paul Dumont opposes that interpretation and says that ’die Federation was not a reformist, but a socialist workers’ organization. Yet its socialism was that of Jean Jaurès and by no means related to Russian socialism’.21 There was a very crucial difference o f opinion between the two groups concerning the national question. The WFS stood for a kind of federalism that resembled Ottomanism, proposing that separate nations should form special units of the Ottoman state, preserving their own national languages and cultures. But this principle would be realized in a socialist manner. It was from this angle, that the Federation attempted to unify the working classes of several nations. It is difficult to estimate how far it succeeded in this. The Federation’s press organ, the ’Workers’ Newspaper’ was initially published in the four languages - Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek and Jewish (Ladino) - o f the workers it attempted to unite. But Velikov explains that, despite the Federation’s intention, the Greeks and Turks did not join and hence the journal continued publication only in Bulgarian and Jewish.22 It would be unjust to qualify the Federation solely as a Jewish organization. Though the Narrow socialists worked separately as a social democratic organization after the split, with 32 members at the beginning of 1910 (23 Bulgarians, one Greek and one Kutso-Wallachian among them), the Broad socialists continued to participate in the Federation’s work. Their leaders such as Dimitar Vlahov and Angel Tomov were among its top officials. Many researchers testify that Turkish and Greek workers participated side by side with the Bulgarians. However, different views among the Bulgarian socialists about territorial, socialist and national liberation also influenced the Federation. The conflict between the Bulgarian Narrows and the WFS was debated at the Socialist International, at which a report sent by Benaroya, Tomov and others to the Copenhagen Congress o f 1910 accused the (Narrow) BWSDP o f fragmenting the socialists of Thessaloniki and asked the Bureau to prevent it. Glavinov in his report replied by denying the accusation and pointing out that the WFS had nothing to do with socialism, but was rather a branch of the Unionist Party. The delegate for the BWSDP at the Copenhagen Congress supported Glavinov’s views. According to Blagoev, the draft resolution submitted to the Congress by the Federation contained concessions to the CUP and

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excluded the principle o f a federation o f Balkan republics.24 Therefore, the Narrow socialists proposed a new draft resolution which was backed by the Broad socialist leader Yanko Sakasov. Both Bulgarian and Serbian delegates stressed that the Young Turks were neither progressive nor revolutionary, but persisted with the chauvinism and despotism o f Abdülhamid. Notwithstanding such opposition, the WSF resorted to various actions between 1908 and 1912. It tried to direct the strikes through contacts with trade unions, which represented about 15,000 workers. At the first anniversary o f the 1908 revolution, Thessaloniki labourers demonstrated with red banners their massive support for revolutionary transformation. In the report they sent to the Socialist International in 1910, they criticized the authoritarian, chauvinistic and anti-labour policy o f the government. They organized two public demonstrations upon the outbreak o f the Tripolitanian war. During the Balkan war, socialist action became impossible and in November 1912 the WFS was banned by the Greek government which had annexed Thessaloniki. Parallel to the Federation, national minorities had formed separate or joint socialist groups in Istanbul, Edime, Izmir and other industrial cities. Glavinov declared that the Bulgarian Social Democratic Group (BSDG) had 11 members in Istanbul, 33 in Salonica and 15 in Skopje (Turkish: Üsküp). Their paper, Rabotnibeska iskra, had a circulation of 800. Several books and pamphlets were also being published, for instance the brochure ’A catechism o f socialism’, which was printed in Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek and Spanish. The Social Sciences Study Association (SSSA) The Social Sciences Study Association, based in Istanbul, had an important place among these socialist groups. Most o f its members were Bulgarian socialists and the Association resembled socialist educational centres o f Bulgaria and Russia. Its main activity was the propagation o f socialist thought. The SSSA helped the trade union movement as well as the new journals produced by the socialist press, which in this period was increasingly active. In Istanbul there appeared a workers’ newspaper in Turkish, a Journal des ouvriers (French) and Laos (Greek) and in Izmir O ergatis (Greek) and Irgat (Turkish). Under the auspices o f the SSSA, a general congress o f Ottoman socialists convened in Thessaloniki in 1911. Many socialist groups and eight ’proletarian unions’ participated. In an effort to bring together scattered socialist groups in the country, this congress proclaimed the

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SSSA to be the political and administrative centre. With the Association’s assistance a confederation of 16 trade unions representing nearly 2500 workers was established. Thus, it contributed significantly to the development o f the workers’ movement in Turkey. The Association published the newspaper Amele gazetesi (Workers’ newspaper) in Turkish, Greek, Jewish and Slavonic. When publication was stopped after its 12th issue, the paper was transferred to Thessaloniki where it appeared in French as Le solidarité. The Association competed in the 1912 parliament elections with the backing of the trade unions.23 Apart from the above-mentioned organizations, some sources indicate the existence o f certain semi-legal groups. For example, Nikolo Traychev, son o f the SDP founder in Plovdiv, Hristo Traychev, formed a socialist group in Istanbul in 1910.26 The core o f the group was composed o f Bulgarian and Greek refugees. It played an important role in disseminating socialist ideas among the Turkish, Greek and Armenian workers and helped the Russian political refugees to smuggle socialist literature and arms to Russia. When some Bolsheviks like Kamo were arrested, it intervened with the Ottoman authorities for their release. Traychev’s group collected information during the First World War about the operations o f the aggressors and utilized an underground printing press to distribute declarations, appeals and caricatures among enemy soldiers. It trained a number o f elements for the Turkish socialist movement. Nikola Traychev became an active figure in the Turkish Communist Party (TCP) and was a member o f the delegation which represented the party at the 3rd Comintern Congress. The Ottoman Socialist Party (OSP) No doubt, the appearance o f the Ottoman Socialist Party on the political scene was the most important event in the workers’ movement in the period following the 1908 revolution. There is not enough information on the role o f non-Turkish elements in the formation and activities of this party. According to a news item in Sabah o f 14 September 1910 (after its foundation), the Greek socialist Papadopoulos, the Caucasian Nurettin Agayev, Celal Korkmazov o f Dagestan and Abbas Şirinli from the Crimea joined the party. Especially the Paris branch o f the OSP under Dr Refik Nevzad had relations with socialist deputies in the Ottoman Assembly. The most prominent o f the five members o f the Socialist Parliamentary Group, as to both his theoretical background and his political activism, was Dimitar Vlahov, o f Bulgarian extraction. He

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had collaborated with the Young Turks during the revolution and was elected to the Ottoman Parliament in August 1908 from the list o f the Federative People’s Party, together with Sandanski, Panitsa and Dimitrov. He had relations with the Socialist International. But he was not successful in the 1912 elections and was banished from Greece in 1913. He had criticized the anti-labour policies o f the Unionists from the Ottoman Assembly’s rostrum. When the Thessaloniki workers’ organizations were prohibited, he sent a telegram to the Ministry o f the Interior demanding the ban be annuled. He warned that ’otherwise, socialists will start a protest campaign against the government among the workers o f all the cities’.27 The Socialist Group had proposed to Parliament a draft law for the protection o f labour which demanded the shortening o f the working day to 10 hours for men, 8 hours for children and adolescents, the prohibition o f work for under-14s and over-70s, the establishment of minimum wages, insurance in case o f accidents on the job, the recognition o f the right to strike etc.28 This draft received widespread support from the workers, and Vlahov was sent thousands o f letters wishing him success, including one signed by 2000 workers. In spite o f the martial law proclaimed in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Kavâlla and elsewhere, the labourers organized demonstrations supporting the proposed law, with 1000 people participating in the Istanbul meeting and 7000 in Thessaloniki.29 W orkers' organizations after W orld W ar One The ruling Union and Progress Party led the Ottoman Empire into the Balkan wars and to the First World War, causing the bloodshed o f many workers and intensified exploitation. To some extent, it can be said to have suppressed the workers’ movement. The First World War ended with the defeat o f Germany and its allies, upon which imperialist powers invaded Turkey and the Turkish people began their National Liberation war. The workers’ movement became active again during the armistice period. Some socialist parties had already begun to appear towards the end o f the war, and the TCP was established on 10 September 1920. A wave o f strikes organized by trade unions spread. In Istanbul the International Union o f Labour (IUL) came into existence, recruiting Greek, Armenian and other workers on the basis o f labour branches. Its aim was to bring together all the unions in the country and to be affiliated to the Red Profintem. In a short time it had enjoyed

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considerable success, especially among the workers o f minorities. Naval labourers, carpenters and construction workers formed unions as sections o f the International Union of Labour. According to the records o f the Profintem, it had around 8000 (mostly Greek) members. It published a newspaper in Greek, called the Neos antropos (New Man). Yet the direction o f the IUL refused the offer of the Istanbul Communist Party to unite all unions, on the pretext that the Turkish proletariat was not mature enough for this. Thus, the IUL betrayed its essential goal and failed to unite all trade unions. Bulgarian influences on Turkish communism There are some data concerning the roles o f Russian, Azerbaijan and other elements in the development o f the communist movement in Turkey. Names such as Nerimanov and Pavlovich are frequently mentioned, but none o f Bulgarian descent. The Bulgarian workers’ movement has influenced the Turkish workers’ movement indirectly during the period under discussion. For instance, the strike o f the transport workers in 1919 and the anti-fascist revolt o f September 1923 found some echoes in Turkey. Historical data show that there has been some exchange o f socialist literature between the workers’ movements o f the two countries. For example, a group o f Istanbul communists were charged in court with ’distributing among the people many books and newspapers which they brought from Bulgaria and Russia’.3 The 1 May 1923 declaration was said to have been printed in Sofia and smuggled into Turkey.31 Such claims are not far from the truth. There was a sizeable Turkish minority in Bulgaria, and some intellectuals and workers from among them joined the workers’ movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Their leaders played a role in the political life o f the country. Hüsnü Fuad was elected both to the municipal council and to Parliament. The influence o f the journal Ziya The journal Aydïnlïk (Enlightment), published by the Turkish Workers’s and Peasants’ Socialist Party, was distributed and read in Bulgaria during this period, while Ziya (Light), the Turkish-language organ o f the Bulgarian Communist Party, was being read by socialists in Turkey. A letter sent from Istanbul in 1922 commented that ’your paper, illuminating the dark horizons in Sofia, is the first banner hoisted at the head o f the Turksih proletariat’.32

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O f course, Ziya cannot be considered to be the first Turkish-language socialist newspaper. Yet it contributed to the strengthening of the socialist ideal in Bulgaria and to some extent in Turkey. Ziya gave a good deal o f space to the situation in Turkey, following the successes of the National Liberation Movement. It printed many articles and news items concerning the workers and socialist movement. One can observe, with Mete Tunçay, that ’towards the end o f the Ziya collection, such writings proliferated and the paper began to look like a left-wing periodical published in Turkey’. 3 Ziya was bom at a time when the war for liberation was progressing with success in Anatolia. Therefore its early issues expressed the interests and expectations created by the Kemalist movement in Turkey and abroad, praising the Turkish army and the Ankara government. Ziya wrote that ’the revolutionary activities’ of the Turkish army served all the enslaved nations of the East, or even all humanity. Its writers, sensing that the Turkish war of liberation was directed not only against the invading forces, but also against the sultan and the palace, claimed that the Ankara government was acting in conformity with the new currents, wholeheartedly supported it. Elaborating, in the light o f the Comintern strategy for Eastern countries, the thesis that national liberation movements must be deepened and take on a socialist character, Ziya criticized Mustafa Kemal’s assertion that communism was not suitable for Turkey as well as his subsequent persecution of communists. Ziya devoted much space to reporting events relating to the socialist and workers’ movement in Turkey. It tried to propagate the socialist ideal among workers and intellectuals. Declarations and appeals by the Comintern Youth Federation frequently appeared in its pages. It also printed the text o f the International anthem and the programme o f the TCP. It did not neglect the publication o f news about socialist works printed in Turkish. Ziya reacted against the influence on the workers’ movement in Turkey o f socialist views which did not follow the Comintern line, and hence branded it as ’nationalistic’ and ’reformist’. Propagating the conviction that the so-called ’false’ socialists prevented a general world revolution, in spite of the suitable conditions in the aftermath of the First World War, it stressed that the Turkish Socialist Party had nothing to do with scientific socialism, while its leader Hüseyin Hilmi was a tool of the English occupation forces. It maintained that such party leaders purposely led strikes to failure. Thus, Ziya joined the communist

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international current which aimed at the Bolshevization of the world socialist movement. The special importance Ziya attached to criticizing chauvinism and to spreading the spirit o f internationalism among the working masses is evident in the various declarations, messages and speeches o f workers’ leaders it printed. Dr Şefik Hüsnü stated in his speech at the 4th General Congress o f the BCP that, ’even in Eastern countries where the causes of nationality and religion assume their ugliest and pitiless forms, today the enemy nations o f yesterday stretch hands of brotherhood to one another’. The objective pursued by this and similar writings was to unite the workers o f all countries on the foundation o f internationalism. Ziya often called for the unity o f workers and young people. It protested against the ruling circles’ activities aimed at the creation o f national and religious enmities, and against the dismissal by employers o f workers on the grounds of ethnic origin. They wanted workers ’never to be exposed to religious and nationalistic animosity anywhere’. Many articles can be found in Ziya on the situation o f workers in Turkey - on their demands, resistance, and especially their struggles during strikes. The damage caused by the movement’s dispersal was illustrated by pointing to the existence o f three separate socialist parties in Turkey and o f nearly 20 different workers’ organizations operating in Istanbul alone. It appealed to workers to awaken, to unite and to get organized. It also opposed the prohibition o f their organization by political authorities. It is difficult to estimate to what extent Ziya affected the workers’ movement in Turkey. But, clearly, it did: this reflected the tendencies o f the time. Ziya' s contributors interpreted workers’ problems from the vantage points o f the principles o f the world communist movement which began to crystallize at the time o f the First World War, and o f the experience o f the BCP which tried to apply them. Besides Ziya, other factors point to certain relations between the TCP and the BCP. Leaders o f the TCP seem to have followed closely the events in the Bulgarian workers’ movement. This is illustrated by the fact that the speech o f Şefik Hüsnü at the 4th General Congress o f the BCP was also printed in Ziya. He said: the experience o f the BCP is extremely valuable to us, because its great success proves that the methods it used are suitable to the needs. The geographical and economic conditions of Turkey, as well as its people’s nature, resemble Bulgaria. For a long time our

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organization was contemplating using these experiences, which offer us many lessons. The Balkan conferences In the 1920s the workers’ movement in Turkey was influenced by the socialist movements in neighbouring countries such as Soviet Russia, Bulgaria and other Balkan states, rather than by its own national minorities. The main forum for these influences was provided by the conferences and conventions o f the communist parties of the Balkans. Already, before the First World War and during the war years, a few such meetings could be held. The 2nd Balkan Conference (1915) decided to form a federation o f Balkan social democratic parties, which decision was realized with the formation o f the Third Socialist International. The Balkan Federation o f Communist Parties began functioning as an affiliate to the Comintern. Although the TKP was never a full member o f the Federation, it followed its activities closely. As a representative o f the Istanbul Communist Group, Şefik Hüsnü (under the pseudonym Mashar) participated in its 4th Conference, which convened in 1922. He also took part in the All Balkan meeting held in Sofia on 18 may 1923. The 7th Conference o f the Balkan Federation o f Communist Parties (1924) deliberated the membership o f the newly fouded Albanian Communist Party and the TCP. The result was that the TCP was accepted as an affiliate with a consultative voice only. On it was bestowed die right to send two delegates to conferences and to have a representative on the executive committee. The reason underlying this decision must have been Turkey’s geographic position, which ruled out the possibility o f its being regarded fully as a Balkan country. G. Dimitrov in his speech, after discussing the Albanian Communist Party, explained: ’Then comes the TCP. It has some relation with the Balkan Federation from the viewpoint o f European questions, yet it is not partaking in the Federation, because there is also an Asiatic Turkey.’ The TCP participated in this conference with a consultant delegate and the Federation made some serious proposals to the Turkish party. At the 1st Conference it had already resolved to help found communist parties in Albania and Turkey, although later records give the impression that only the movement in Albania was given such aid. The annual conferences of the Balkan Federation deliberated the problems o f the communist movement in the Balkans, notably the questions o f revolution, war, peasantry and nationality, the national

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minorities in Greece, Yugoslavia and Romania. But at some sessions the situation o f the National Liberation Movement in Anatolia was also discussed. The declaration and manifesto issued by the 6th Conference (1923) stated that, ’the Balkan Communists were supporting the Turkish people in its struggle for independence and liberation from the invasion o f great capitalist powers’. The defeat o f the Greek forces was hailed as the failure o f the whole Balkan bourgeoisie. The Federation admonished the aggressive plans o f the Bulgarian and Greek bourgeoisies towards Turkey and underlined their opposition to sovereignty and autonomy for the peoples inhabiting Turkey. The executive committee, which met in Moscow in April 1924, discussed the characteristics o f the national question in Turkey and Albania. The resolutions adopted by the executive committee supported the strengthening of the Federation in both countries. Conclusion The historical background given above illustrates that a genuine workers’ movement in the Ottoman Empire started after the 1908 revolution and intensified during the War o f National Liberation. The movement developed under rather special and unfavourable conditions. Workers during this period were still numerically few and lacking qualitatively in class attributes. In my opinion, the working class o f the Ottoman Empire was divided on lines o f nationality. The early unions, associations and other organizations were generally dependent on ethnic and religious allegiances, and the few mixed unions and socialist organizations that were established could not cover all o f the Ottoman Empire. Their inactivity or weakness was a result o f divergence of opinions, and these in turn were due to differing interpretations of socialist principles. Nationalistic feelings and views were widespread in the period under examination. The empire was not yet completely dismembered and the process o f nation-state formation was not completed. There were deep contradictions between the nations and national minorities living in the borderlands of the Empire. The people in power and the national bourgeoisie, who instrumentalized these contradictions, created a chauvinistic and nationalistic psychology. Moreover, they caused massive slaughter by trying to solve the national question by force. The Armenian massacre and the mutual killing of Bulgarians, Turks and Greeks during the First World War culminated in extreme nationalism.

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These nationalistic sentiments, rubbed off on the workers and prevented them from adopting the principles o f internationalism and from exercizing solidarity. Nationalism was the major barrier for the nascent TCP. That is why a pamhlet published in 1922 and entitled 'M asks Down’ urged that nationalistic feelings and views be overcome. Similar endeavours and shared social concerns led to a closer relationship between workers and minority groups. Some common unions and associations were formed, as mentioned above. Workers o f mixed national origin engaged in joint strikes to defend their social and economic rights, mostly in the European part of the empire, where industry was more developed and there was a sizeable industrial labour force, notably in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Skopje and Edime. Moreover, the workers in those regions were able to obtain better information about the workers’ movement in Europe and especially in the neighbouring Balkan countries. Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek socialists had formed parties and started the organized struggle for workers’ rights. Such actions resulted in widespread repercussions in the Ottoman Empire, especially among workers o f Bulgarian and Greek origin. They established the earliest trade unions. In their hands strikes became an instrument o f social struggle. Workers from the minority groups and their leaders played an important role in the dissemination o f the principles o f national liberation and socialism.

6. The Role o f the Armenian Community in the Foundation and Development o f the Socialist Movement in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, 1876-1923 Anahide Ter Minassian To establish the role played by the Armenian community in the foundation and development o f the socialist movement in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey during the period 1876-1925, one first has to examine how socialism became a major influence in the Armenian community itself. The years mentioned represent important events: 1876 was the year in which the Ottoman constitution was drawn up with the participation o f Krikor Odian, and 1925 was the year in which the great Kurdish insurrection led by Sheik Said took place and the Kemalist regime in Turkey fortified its position. The period spanned by these years was not only dominated by a great many socio-cultural events, but was also the most dramatic in the existence o f the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian people had almost completely disappeared from Turkey in the period between the internationalization o f the Armenian question at the Congress o f Berlin (1 8 7 8 )- prelude to the rise o f the Armenian nationalist movement - and the Treaty o f Lausanne (July 1923) which led to the creation o f modem Turkey within the boundaries as they exist today. The only mention o f the Armenian people comes in the special provisions made by the treaty for the protection of minorities.1 The brutal eradication o f the Armenian community from Anatolian soil put an end to the question discussed here. Furthermore, one needs to examine what possibilities there were for the spread o f socialism (in terms of influence and law) by a Christian minority (’minority’ in the statutory, demographical and political sense) in a Muslim empire such as the Ottoman Empire. The spread o f socialism - the most recent universalist ideology from Western Europe - clashed with the basic structures o f the Ottoman 109

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society, which consisted o f Muslims on the one hand and communities adhering to other faiths on the other. The latter were divided among themselves by the cultural barriers o f the millet system, which encouraged nationalistic sentiments. All in all, the socialist ideal was a reaction to the inequity o f the political and social order at that time, as reflected in the capitalism and large-scale industries o f Western Europe. In the early part o f the 20th century the Ottoman Empire was mainly agricultural. More than 85 per cent o f the population lived in rural areas. The demographic growth, the appropriation o f land, the influx o f muhajirs (immigrants) from the Russian Empire and the Balkans emphasized, if it did not create, the serious agricultural problems in Anatolia. Because of old-fashioned agricultural techniques and heavy taxation, the farmers were unable to reverse their miserable fete: they were heavily in debt, illiterate and often victims o f famine and epidemics. The social question was therefore synonymous with the agricultural question. Up to the First World War, industry played only a minor role in the economy of the Ottoman Empire. Trade was far more important than factories and ’modem industries’, even though the empire had regularly to compete with products manufactured in Europe. Trade was centred on Europe (Macedonia), Istanbul, western Anatolia and some o f the ports, and it was limited to only a few market sectors: textiles (cotton, silk), tobacco and minerals. Foreign capital for the modernization o f the infrastructure in the Ottoman Empire (railways, ports, lighthouses and postal services) created a semi-colonial dependence. Social reforms were slow and concerned only a few isolated urban centres like Istanbul, Thessaloniki (Salonica), Izmir (Smyrna), Bursa and Adana. Here one could find a proletariat - hamals (bearers), factory workers o f both sexes, railwaymen - and a middle class made up o f employees, civil servants and entrepreneurs. It should be noted that the social stratification was more pronounced among the minorities than it was among the Muslims. The Arm enians of the Ottom an Empire We do not have any factories, nor do we have a bourgeoisie ... but we share your view on the socialistic destiny of man.2 In the Armenian emancipation movement, socialism became inextricably linked with nationalism in the period between 1887, the

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year o f the foundation o f the Henchakian party, and 1921, the year o f the sovietization o f the Armenian republic in which the treaties o f Moscow and Kars were signed, putting an end to the territorial claims o f the Armenians in Asia Minor. At the end of the 19th century there were an estimated 3 to 3.5 million Armenians. Invasions, wars, treaties and migrations led to their dispersal over the Ottoman Empire (where 2-3 million of them lived), the Russian Empire (1,240,000 according to the 1897 census), the Persian Empire (fewer than 100,000) and some 20 colonies all over the world. Apart from their language, religion and script, they shared also a certain social structure, a largely agricultural background, a rather well-developed middle class consisting o f craftsmen, traders, members from the liberal professions and a clergy which, in the absence o f an aristocracy, played the role o f the leading class.3 In Cilicia, eastern Anatolia (Russian Armenia), Aderbadakan (Iranian Azerbaydjan) and in the region of Isfahan, the Armenian farmers (80-85 per cent o f the Armenians) were scattered over large and small communities where they lived among Kurds, Tuiks, Lazes, Cherkess, Azeris, Georgians, Persians, Arabs, Assyrochaldeans and so on. All Armenians had one thing in common: they no longer had a country to call their own. The civilian populations had been dispersed from Tabriz to Tiflis, from Van to Istanbul. The great majority of the Armenian bourgeoisie settled at the crossroads of international trade outside Armenia: in Isfahan, Tiflis, Madras, Istanbul, Izmir, Cairo, Marseille, Antwerp, Amsterdam. The establishment o f an industrial bourgeoisie in Tiflis (cotton, leather and tobacco), Baku and Batum (petroleum) was fairly recent and it was here, in these Transcaucasian industrial centres, far away from rural Armenia - or even further away in the United States o f Americathat one could witness the rise o f the Armenian working class. Driven away by misery from Karabagh, from Zangezur, from Zan, from Muş, Armenian craftsmen and farmers were first ’temporary migrants’ before merging with the multinational working class. The violent fragmentation of Armenian society - the physical gap between the rural world rooted in the Yerkir (the Country, the old name for Ottoman Armenia) and the bourgeoisie dispersed all over the w orldemphasized the division imposed by the political frontiers and determined the original motivation for the Armenian movement: a

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populist crusade o f Caucasian revolutionaries towards the Yerkir and its ’People’. A long preparatory phase characterized - as was the case in the Balkans - by a cultural renaissance, preceded the patriotic reform movement, which was supported by the high clergy and the liberal bourgeoisie. They first tried to emancipate the Armenians o f the Ottoman Empire by education and to gain reforms by diplomacy. It was only with the disappointment following the internationali­ zation o f the Armenian question at Berlin in 1878 that there came a first call on the people to revolt. The Armenakan Party, founded in Van in 1885, the social democratic Henchakian Party,4 founded in Geneva in 1887, and the Dashnaktzutiun,5 or Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), founded in Tiflis in 1890, were the first political parties in Armenia and were set up by the intelligentsia. Their objectives were to ensure that the reforms in the vilâyets (provinces) in eastern Anatolia would take place as promised at Berlin, and to school the Armenians o f the Ottoman Empire in the revolutionary way. The Armenakan Party was democratic and liberal; its recruitment and influence were mainly Ottoman, limited to the Van region. The other two were founded by the Armenian intelligentsia of the Caucasus and supported socialism. Educated at Russian and European universities, the Armenian intelligentsia - like the Russian - had a messianic and revolutionary vision. They wanted to pull the Armenian people out of the ’Asiatic darkness’, to fight economic backwardness and political subjection and also to lead the people to a kind o f civilization which would be more ’Western’. The Henchaks, friends o f Plekhanov, said they were marxists, but nevertheless remained populists in culture and mentality. The ARF, whose socialism was not very pronounced at first, hesitated between the revolutionary socialism o f Russia and the socialism o f Jaurès. It survived the Russian revolutionary crisis o f 1905 which demanded that Armenian socialists should choose between the class war in the Russian Empire and the national struggle in the Ottoman Empire. It was admitted to the (Second) Socialist International in 1907. These three parties considered it their task to undertake the political education of the Armenian farmers in the Ottoman Empire and to organize their ’self-defence’, not only against the brigands, pillage and violence o f the Kurdish tribes, but also against the greed o f the Armenian profiteers and the brutality of the civil servants o f the

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Ottoman Empire. The groups o f armedfedâî (Arabic for ’the dedicated’) were instructed not to launch any offensive unless necessary, to help the villages in difficulties and to educate the Christian subjects and encourage their resistance against any form o f oppression. Marxism penetrated Georgian society quite rapidly in the early part o f the 20th century, but its spread among the Caucasian Armenians met with far more difficulties. Nevertheless, it triumphed as the official ideology after the sovietization o f Armenia. The Armenian revolutionaries regarded socialism as an alternative ideology that could supply the answer to the economic and social questions (modernization, justice) and, even more important, to the question o f nationality in the Orient, where ethnic diversity and cultural chasms were the rule. Intellectual socialism and the growing socialism o f a transnational people could help solve the Armenian question, but not without an underlying internationalism (in doctrine and tactics). This explains also why the Armenian socialists - the Henchaks, Dashnaks and other social democrats - were involved in the developing cycle o f revolutions in the Orient: from Transcaucasia (revolution o f 1905), through Persia (constitutional movement, 1906-12), to the Ottoman Empire (revolution o f the Young Turks, 1908). The First World War in Europe was a catastrophe for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire. After the deportations and massacres o f 1915, 40-50 per cent o f the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had disappeared; the survivors lost their land. In the period between 1919 and 1923, when there was a brief artistic and intellectual renaissance among the Armenians in Istanbul, the emblematic figures o f Armenian socialism had vanished, the Second International was fading and the Labour and Socialist International slowly began to emerge from its ruins. In modem Turkey the small community o f Armenians supported Kemalism. But in Moscow, in the spring o f 1919, an Armenian from Turkey named Kurken Haikuni joined Lenin to form the Communist International. Together with some former Specifists and Bolsheviks, he had founded an ephemeral Armenian Communist Party (1918-20) in order to organize the Armenian refugees and to take action in Turkish Armenia. In a violent speech, he had expressed the bitterness o f the Armenians and the high hopes they had had of the world revolution. After 1920, Henchaks and Dashnaks in the states o f the Near East, where deportees and refugees were gathered, rebuilt their parties and

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argued about control o f the new communities. The Dashnaks renewed their acquaintance with the Socialist International and criticized the Soviet regime, whereas the Henchaks supported it. The first Armenian communists came from their ranks. They played a historic role in the founding o f the communist parties in Iran, Syria-Lebanon and Egypt.6 Freemasonry The history o f the Armenian Freemasons is not well-known, although the ties between Armenians and Masons go back a long time. It is attested that they already existed in the 18th centuiy in the Ottoman Empire, Persia and India; the Edinburgh Cannongate Lodge held the patronage of a lodge called ’AH Armenia in the East Indies’ (1762-1805), Armenian merchants and travellers were seen in the English lodges in Malacca and Madras.7 In the 19th century Armenian Masons could be found in Manchester (where an Armenian colony existed until 1830), London, Paris, Venice and Padua. In the Ottoman Empire they could be found in the English lodges (Bulwer, Oriental), in the lodge Italia, but most o f all in several o f the independent lodges o f the Grand Orient Lodge of France (Etoile du Bosphore, Union d’Orient, Proodos, Renaissance/ which were frequented by high dignitaries o f the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian press in the Ottoman Empire observed several attempts to create Armenian lodges under the patronage o f Hodfellow’s Brothers. Thus, Haik gam Orion (Haik9 or Orion) was founded in 1862 by Serovbe Aznavur in Istanbul. In the Tigrane Lodg^° in Izmir, English was spoken; the Ararat Lodge in Cairo was under Italian patronage. In 1920 the Grand Orient Lodge o f France authorized the founding o f the Hayastan (Armenia) Lodge in Istanbul and the France-Arménie Lodge in Paris. In the early part o f the 19th centuiy the efforts o f Catholic and Protestant missionaries,11 supported by French and English diplomats, led to the establishment o f a Catholic millet (1831) and a Protestant millet (1850). Thus, the Armenian Catholics and Protestants were no longer subject to the Patriarchate of Constantinople (and its persecution). It might be interesting to see whether Freemasonry also attracted these new converts, as its members normally belonged to the urban elite. Generally speaking, there are still a number o f questions that need to be answered. How great was the power of the Masons to influence the

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millets from within? What about the relations of the millets with Muslim society? The Ser (Love) Lodge (1866-94) was only one of the many lodges under French patronage in Istanbul. However, it differed from the rest in that it was exclusively a lodge for Armenians, where Armenian was spoken. Its rituals were translated into the Armenian language in 1876. Its founder, Serovbe Aznavur, was an Armenian architect, well-educated and Catholic, who played an important role in English and French Masonry at Istanbul. Initiated in England in the Jordan lodge, he became the Venerable o f the Union d’Orient (1864). He was ousted from this position by the Frenchman Louis Amiable, who was against the founding of an Armenian lodge and any national exclusivism. At fust, Serovbe Aznavur preferred to associate himself with an English branch, but he later changed his mind under the influence of Mikael Alishan and Paul Camalik (also a Catholic), who were devotees of the French branch and the intellectual heritage of Rousseau, Voltaire and the revolutions of 1789 and 1848. Also responsible for his change o f mind were the diplomatic interventions of Napoleon III, himself a Mason, favouring the Christians of Lebanon,12 and the rebellious Armenians o f Zeytun (1862). The Ser Lodge was solemnly inaugurated on 7 May 1866, at Kule Kapï in the presence o f the secretaries of the French and British embassies. Linked with the Grand Orient Lodge o f France, it had Scottish ceremonies and its motto, ’Union, Love, Enlightenment, Toil and Freedom’, showed that Masons wanted liberty, equality and fraternity throughout the country. A survey of members13 reveals that its heyday was the decade between 1866 and 1876, a crucial period in the history o f the Ottoman reforms. At first its members were mainly prominent Armenians from Istanbul (bankers, wholesalers, high officials, doctors and writers), but gradually access was also granted to the middle class. The lodge ceased its activities in the autumn o f 1894 when the Henchak demonstrations and the revolt of the Armenians in Sasun were repressed by Sultan Abdttlhamid. It was ’put to sleep’ in July 1895. Reform in the Armenian community: the National Constitution The founding of the Ser Lodge was part of thtZartonk (Revival) o f the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the half-century that lay between the Treaty of Adrianople and the Treaty o f Berlin in 1878. This revival was itself part of the Tanzimat and a polycentric Armenian

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’renaissance’ leading to the reformation o f the Armenian millet institutions. The ’Statute o f the Armenian Nation’, drawn up in 1860 and revized and acknowledged by the Ottoman government in 1863, became die national constitution for the Armenians.14 Based on the Revised Charter o f 1830,15 it was the work of liberal Armenians (doctors, architects, agronomes, journalists) educated in Paris, who had taken part in the revolution of 1848 and had some Masons in their midst (Krikor Odian, Garabed Utujian, Nahabed Russinian, Servishen, Nikoghos Balian). An introduction defined the rights and duties o f the individual and the nation. It made o f the Patriarch a sort o f constitutional monarch elected by a national council o f 140 representatives (clerical and secular). A separation of powers was established, givimg responsibility to the executive branch and creating a number o f special councils (religious, civil, educational, economical, judicial); the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were guaranteed real cultural and religious autonomy, which had an important effect on the development of general education. However, the Statute did lead to misunderstandings, because the inappropriate use o f the term ’constitution’ made people think o f civil and political rights, whereas it had a bearing only on religious and cultural rights. The national constitution, like the Hatti-Humayun (1856) that authorized it, mainly benefited the Armenians in Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa and Edime. There was no appreciable improvement in the fate o f the Armenian peasants in the Anatolian provinces. This inability to change the situation in Anatolia, where the basic rights and existing morals (protection o f people and possessions, family honour) were ridiculed, was viewed with disappointment. Certain Armenian intellectuals and artists are known to have been Masons. They were journalists, writers, doctors, lawyers and actors who took part in the actions between 1855 and 1878: Mekertich Beshiktashlian, Serapion Hekimian, Matteos Mamurian, Stepanos Papazian, Hamtiun Sevajian, Serovbe Tagvorian, Krikor Chilinkarian, Garabed Utujian, Stepan Voskian, the Noradungian family. They belonged to the lussavorial (’adepts o f the Lights’), the largest group o f liberal Armenians and secular intelligentsia, as opposed to the clergy and conservatives who belonged to the ’Party o f Darkness’. Passionately in love with liberty, they wished to free the Armenian nation from the tutelage o f the Armenian clergy, amiras (urban tycoons) and aghas (large landowners). They wished also to eliminate its ignorance and

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misery. Their criticism and field o f action was limited to the Armenian millet. Did the Armenian Masons support the collaboration between the Armenian and Ottoman reformers during the period 1866-76? It seems very likely. The era o f the Tanzimat was marked by an atmosphere of mutual trust between the Young Ottomans and the Armenian elites. Reşid Pasha, Ali Pasha, Fuad Pasha, Midhat Pasha: they all had Armenian counsellors and employed competent Armenian secretaries and interpreters whose loyalty was beyond all doubt. There were Armenians in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the management of the Mint (the Bezjian family). The Balians were leading architects, the Dadians directors o f the Ottoman gunpowder factories, from father to son. Among these influential Armenians who actively contributed to the welfare o f their millet were several Masons who used their talents to further the cultural and economic development of the Ottoman Empire. It is not possible to give a complete list, but a few examples may suffice. Serapion Hekimian was one o f the founders of the Ottoman theatre and Gullu Agop worked closely with Namlk Kemal, the Young Ottoman writer and thinker. Krikor Aghaton (1825-68) was director o f the School for Agricultural Science, Serovbe Vitshenian (1815-97), professor at the Medical College, was one o f the founders o f the Ottoman Medical Society (1856) and published in French the first medical magazine in Istanbul. Russinian (1819-1901), a scientist and diplomat, became director o f the military hospitals of the second Ottoman army. The most remarkable career was that o f Krikor Odian (1834-87). Well-educated and held in high esteem, he became the favourite o f Midhat Pasha, who made use o f his diplomatic talents during his second vizirate. Krikor Odian, who was one o f the authors o f the Armenian national constitution, participated also in the formulation o f the Ottoman constitution in 1876. The suspension o f the Ottoman constitution in 1878 and the removal and exile o f the Ottoman reformers put an end to this period of collaboration, which had fostered the hope for a liberalization o f the Ottoman state. The year 1878 was marked by a real ’revolution’ in the attitudes o f the Armenian dignitaries (Patriarch, high clergy and leading figures): henceforth they looked to Russia and Europe to obtain reforms for the Armenian people in the eastern provinces of die empire.16

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The social democratic Henchakian party The history o f the social democratic Henchakian party has yet to be written. It is true that Louisa Nalbandian’s The Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Berkeley, CA, 1967) describes the first period o f the party’s history, up to 1896, but the sudden death o f the author put an end to an even more ambitious project. The two volumes o f the Badmutiun SD Henchakian kussaktzutiun 1887-1962 (History o f the SD Henchakian party 1887-1962), published by Arsen Kitur in Beirut in 1962, does not give the full story. The void is somewhat filled by Caucasian historian Léo, in Turkahai Heghapokhutian Gaghaparabanutiun' (The ideology o f the Armenian revolution in Turkey), two volumes of criticism published in Paris (1934-5), which are typical o f the Stalinist period. About ten books were published during the diaspora by several Armenian associations in Turkey. They contain a great many details, stories and accounts, but none gives the full picture. Neither does there exist a complete registeronly a general list - o f the numerous publications o f the Henchak press; even less is there an analysis o f their contents. The Henchakian party archives seem to have been scattered over the Lebanon and the USA. The party still has members in the Near East, France, America and Armenia, but the conflicts that shattered its unity from time to time (these conflicts were always about socialism) give a clear indication why there was less care taken to write down its history than was shown by its rival, the Dashnak party. Important data in the history o f the Henchak party: Foundation o f the Henchakian Revolutionary party August 1887 in Geneva by six students.17 Conference in London: split of the party into a January 1896 socialist Central Committee and the Verakazmial (Rebuilder), which abandoned socialism. 1st Conference o f Henchak Central Committee in September 1896 London. 2nd Conference of the Verakazmials in Alexandria. January 1898 Section Banvor (Worker) in Baku; conference of October 1898 Caucasian sections in Rostov. 3rd Conference in London: - Henchakian party September 1901reunified with one centre. March 1902 4th Conference o f the SDH party in London: September 1903 struggles between factions; terrorism within party.

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3th Conference o f the SDH party in Paris: refusal to merge with the SDWPR 8 or to abandon the question o f Turkish Armenia. attempts at reconciliation between Henchaks, Verakazmials and Dashnaks are to no avail. 6th Conference of the SDH party in Istanbul. 7th Conference o f the SDH party in Constanca (Romania).

Conferences o f the Turkish sections o f the SDH party: -1st Conference in Istanbul, 1910; -2nd Conference in Istanbul, September 1912; -3rd Conference in Istanbul, 24 July 1914. Important data concerning the Dashnak (ARF) party. General conferences o f the Armenian Revolutionary Federation: Summer 1890 foundation o f the ARF in Tbilisi (Tiflis). 1st Conference in Tbilisi (Tiflis). At this Summer 1892 conference the party, now officially called the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, set up their programme and structured their organization. Summer 1898 2nd Conference in Tbilisi (Tiflis). At this conference it was decided to strengthen the organization o f the ARF in the Yerkir and to intensify the propaganda in Europe with respect to the Armenian question. 3rd Conference in Sofia. The executive powers of February-March the party were consolidated. The party 1904 acknowledged once again that priority should be given to actions in the Ottoman Empire (to take up residence in Cilicia, to kill Sultan Abdülhamid), but nevertheless decided to take on the defence of the Caucasian Armenians against the tsarist oppression. 4th Conference in Vienna, one of the most February-Apr il important in the history o f the ARF. The party 1907 accepted a socialist programme, but still stressed the urgency and specificity o f the national problem. Confirming that the ARF was fighting on two fronts, the party accepted a twofold

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September 1909

AugustSeptember 1911

August 1913

July-August 1914

SeptemberNovember 1919

programme: one for Ottoman Armenia, the other for Russian Armenia. It was decided to support the Iranian revolutionary movement and to establish ties with the other opposition parties in the Ottoman Empire. Some months later the ARF was admitted to the Socialist International at the conference in Stuttgart as a Caucasian party (and from 1909 as a subsection of a socialist section in the Ottoman Empire which had yet to be created). 5th Conference in Varna. At this conference, following the revolution o f the Young Turks (July 1908), the new political course of the ARF was established as the Ottoman Empire had become a constitutional state. 6th Conference in Istanbul. The discussions and decisions were almost entirely focused on the political, national and cultural problems o f the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. 7th Conference in Erzurum (Karin). This was the first time that a conference o f the ARF could be held in the ’motherland’. That such an event had great symbolic value is of course obvious. The conference particularly focused on the various aspects o f the ’national question’ and the Ottoman state. 8th Conference in Erzurum (Karin). The opening o f the conference coincided with the beginning o f the First World War. The conference split up before completing its programme, which dealt with the reform problems in Armenia and the war that had broken out in Europe. To the delegation of Young Turks that proposed an insurrection of the Caucasian Armenians in case o f war with Russia, the conference replied that the Armenians would have to do their duty as inhabitants of their respective countries. 9th Conference in Erevan. A historic conference in every sense. The ARF held seats in the government of the independent republic o f Armenia. At the conference where the committees o f Van, Muş,

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Hïnïs (Khnus), Alashkert, Erzurum and Cilicia were represented, they tried to establish responsibility for the 1915 catastrophe and to define relations between the Armenians and the Muslims. It was confirmed that the independence o f the ’reunited Armenia’19 was the main goal of Armenian foreign policy. The party structure was reorganized and the programme reformed. With regard to socialism, die conference was divided into three factions. On the left, there were the internationalist Dashnaks from Georgia, who remained faithful to the 1907 programme. In the centre, there were the majority o f the Caucasians, who supported gradual social reform. On the right, there were the Turkish delegates, who did not care about socialism, but claimed the Armenian provinces o f Turkey. Operation Nemesis was launched against the Young Turks who were responsible for the massacres o f 1915 (Talât, Enver, Cemal and others). 10th Conference in Paris. This conference was held to renovate the ARF, which had suffered some serious setbacks: the Treaty of Alexandropol (Gttmrü) on 2 December 1920, the sovietization of Armenia (2 December 1920), the defeat o f the Armenian anti-communist insurrection o f 1921 and the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The ARF was structurally reorganized in view o f the diaspora already taking place. The programme contained the claim to a ’free, independent and reunited Armenia’. Relations with the Socialist 20 International were renewed.

The Armenian socialist press The press played an exceptional role in the history o f the Armenian nationalist movement.21 For a people divided and already on its way towards a ’diasporization’, the press had a specific function apart from its normal functions, namely to bind and organize the different Armenian communities.

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Confronted by censorship in the Russian, Ottoman and Persian empires, the revolutionary parties tried to set up a press abroad (Europe, USA and the Balkans) to publish their revolutionary and socialist propaganda. The number o f editions and the means o f distribution in the Ottoman Empire are not known. Among other things, the Armenian revolutionaries regularly translated and published pamphlets by the theorists o f European socialism and took charge o f their distribution among the Armenian people in the Caucasus, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. The Henchak press The Henchak press tried to link socialism with the Armenian question. Henchak (The bell) was a monthly paper, published by the Henchak central committee and printed more or less regularly in an edition o f eight pages (sometimes only four or five) in Montpellier (1887-91), Paris (1891-92), Athens (1892-94), London (1894) and again very irregularly in Paris (1894-1914). All these moves of the editorial staff reflect the internal conflicts and material difficulties of the Henchakian party. M ard (Revolt), published in London from 1897 to 1901, was the medium o f the Verakazmials. Gaghapar (Idea) was published in Athens in 1894. This theoretical journal saw only two editions. It was the first to publish a translation o f the Manifesto o f the Communist Party by Karl Marx. Abdak (Slap), published by Lerentz (A. Nazarbekian) in Athens (1894-96), was an excellent example o f political satire, especially because o f the quality o f its drawings. Yeridassart Hayastan (Young Armenia) was first published in 1903 and printed in Boston, New York, Providence, Chicago, and other American cities. It disappeared in the 1970s. Its first editor-in-chief was an Armenian from Turkey, Sabah Gulian. Periodicals apart, the Henchaks published a large number o f pamphlets, some o f which have not survived and are known only by bibliographical

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reference. There are three main periods and the places o f publication differ in each: 1 2 3

to 1896 ’Henchak’ period (Geneva, Athens, London);22 1903-1904 ’Veradznutiun’ period (Renaissance) (Ruschuk, Bulgaria).23 After 1905 ’Yeridassart Hayastan’ period (Young Armenia) (Boston).24

A few publications connected to the Henchakian party fall outside these three categories.25 Most titles are available at the Bibliothèque Nubarian in Paris and the Mekhitharist Library in Vienna.26 Extractfrom the Henchak programme Editors ' note: This is by no means the final version o f the programme; it can still be modified and completed should this be necessary. We, the editors, are always ready to do so in keeping with the principles and basic ideas of the programme. The maximum programme (long-term objective) The present social system is based on injustice, suppression and slavery. Based on economic slavery, this system will flourish among those who believe only in the truth of their fists, the powerful bullies who plunder the working class and thus create inequality and injustice in human relations. This inequality appears in all spheres o f life: in the economic, political, social as well as the material sphere. A small minority o f mankind have seized power, fortified their position and gained social and political prerogatives at the expense o f the labour force who pay with their sweat and blood. Private property is based on the multiform slavery o f the whole of humanity. This is the chief principle, the main characteristic of this minority ruling the world today. Only the socialist system can provide a cure for this painful and unfair situation by the establishment and protection o f the direct power o f the people, giving each person a real possibility to participate in the organization o f social affairs. The socialist system truly protects the natural and undeniable rights o f man; it supports the complete and multiform development o f all powers, o f all capacities and possibilities o f each individual person; it

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transforms all the means o f production and all the goods into collective property, it organizes peacefully all the social and economic relations and becomes the truthful expression of the will o f the people. On the basis o f their fundamental convictions, the Henchak is a socialist group. Its ideal and long-term objective is to realize a socialist system for the benefit of the Armenian people and their country. The minimum programme (short-term objective) The actual situation o f the Armenian people in Turkish Armenia is that o f a community chained to a political and economic servility. Economically, the people are suppressed by various direct and indirect taxes that double and triple with one financial crisis following the other under a bankrupt government; the soil o f the people is constantly being raped by the government, the fruits of their labour fall prey to governmental and individual pillaging. Trapped in these conditions, the imprisoned and chained people work and produce only to sustain the government and the greedy classes. They are totally deprived of political rights, forced to slave silently and obey passively; they are not allowed to give evidence in court; they are guilty when they defend their lives, culprits when they plead and cry because o f their miserable fate. Persecuted because of their religion, their lives and properties are at risk, and last but not least, they suffer from violent attacks by wild tribes. This explains why they are in a state o f physical and political decline, and in miserable material circumstances. In order to lift the people out o f their misery, to put them on the right track and to enable them to realize the socialist system - i.e. the long-term objective - it is first o f all necessary to create in Turkish Armenia a broad-based democracy, political freedom and national independence. These are and shall be the short-term objectives. The ARF Press (1890-1925) From 1890 until 1925, the Dashnak press published 145 titles, o f which 45 were periodicals published in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Even if certain periodicals dodged censorship by reappearing under other titles, the list remains quite impressive. With some exceptions, these publications have never been fully analysed. The Mekhitarist Library o f

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Vienna is the only library that possesses almost complete series of published works in the Ottoman Empire (including handwritten and stencilled publications published in the Anatolian provinces between 1908 and 1910). The Mekhitarist Library of Venice has a collection which is much smaller and certainly not as well classified. Certain series o f journals can still be found in Paris, Erevan and probably also Istanbul. When referring to the Dashnak press in the Ottoman Empire, one should also mention Harach (Forwards), Azadamart (Fight for Freedom) and Ashkhadank (Labour). Harach (Erzurum) This publication (its name is the Armenian translation o f Vorwärts) was founded at Erzurum by Yeghishe Topjian (who had been involved in the publication of the Russian Harach - see below - before 1909) on 31 May 1909.27 It started off as a bi-weekly, then became a daily and finally it appeared thrice-weekly until 1914. In 1911 Shavarsh Missakian became its editor-in-chief.28 The editorial of no. 1 explained the Harach programme. Erzurum is the largest city in Anatolia and the major Armenian city o f the Yerkir. During the crisis of March-April, the army in Erzurum revolted against the Young Tuiks and the Armenians feared a repetition o f the events of Adana. Harach tried to popularize the spirit o f the constitution in Erzurum, to help establish peace and brotherhood among the peoples of the fatherland (vatan) by publishing supplements in Turkish and Kurdish. ’Guided by the high ideal o f socialism’, Harach not only wanted to defend the exploited workers - the illiterate farmers, poor craftsmen, farm and building workers who formed the suppressed majority o f the population - but also to emancipate Armenian women who were kept ignorant and subjected to the authority o f the men of their families, and to contribute to the cultural development o f the region. Harach remains a unique source for those who are interested in the social and cultural life, the inter-ethnic relations and the school system (Turkish and Armenian) in the vilâyet o f Erzurum. Harach looked with an increasingly critical eye at the political development o f the Young Turks and focused its attention on the agricultural problems, the rural exodus and western imperialism. It regularly featured articles on socialism. On 1 December 1909, ’Socialism and Turkey’ was published for the first time. This extensive study appeared as a serial in nos 53-7. The Young Turks introduced the achievements o f the French revolution in Turkey: equal rights, civil liberties, sovereignty o f the people. Civil

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liberties fostered the emergence o f ’a new religion’ called socialism and the distribution o f the ’working man’s Bible’. However, the ’new rising sun o f the constitution could not fill the hungry bellies’. The ’small socialist army’ o f Turkey (the Jews in Thessaloniki, Muslim splinter parties in Istanbul, Thessaloniki and Izmir, Henchaks and Dashnaks) was rather disappointed. After the naive apology o f the Second International and the ARF, an ’army of Darkness’ was evoked, opponents o f socialism (the Muslim and non-Muslim clergy, the large landowners, the capitalists) and their arguments were quoted: socialism tried to achieve the impossible. Turkey was not yet ready for the European doctrine o f socialism which could prove fatal to the empire. The class struggle might stir up the national struggles and the European capital necessary for the development of Turkey would no longer be available. From 1910 onwards, articles were published on the Conference of the Second International, brief translations o f extracts from l ’Humanité, allusions to Karl Kautsky etc. Azadamart (Fight for freedom) was founded in June 1909 in Istanbul. It was a newspaper with a circulation of 10-15,000, which functioned as the party organ o f the ARF in the Ottoman Empire. Its director, Ruben Zartarian (1874-1915), bom near Harput, was a young populist writer. It was an excellent journal in every sense. The study o f the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire between 1908 and 1914, the relations between the ARF and the Young Turks, the spread of democratic, liberal and socialist ideas, but also the French and German influence, all require a thorough analysis of the Azadamart issues published during the period, a work which has yet to be done. The influence o f the Azadamart was greatest among the Armenians. Its columns introduced to them a multitude o f writers, historians and sociologists during that brief period o f cultural bloom. Azadamart did not escape from the severity o f Ottoman censorship. It had many different titles and editors-in-chief: Bakin (1911), Butania (1912), Harachmart (1913 \A z ta k (1913), Mayghu (1913) andShant (1913-14). Forbidden in October 1914, it reappeared after the armistice of 1918 as Artaramart and then after some modifications it was named Jagadamart, under which title it was published up to 1925. In this period of transition between the decline o f the Ottoman Empire and the founding of Turkey, Jagadamart stimulated the emergence o f a new generation of Armenian intellectuals before the great diaspora.

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Ashkhatank (Labour) was printed in Van from 1910 to 1914. Publication was resumed during the ’self-defence’ o f the Armenians in Van (April-May 1915). It was an excellent periodical with a free style bordering on impertinence. Apart from general issues such as the Armenian question, the elections o f parliament and the Turkish nationalism, it also discussed local issues which are equally important to historians: the budget o f the province o f Van, the heavy taxation, the insufficient Armenian and Turkish school systems, the demographic statistics, the agricultural problems, the Kurdish question; the epidemics o f measles, cholera, typhoid and plague; trade and the co-operative movement. The references to European socialism are numerous and the necrology o f its leaders was scrupulously reported (e.g. Francis de Pressensé, Jean Jaurès). For instance, it gave a minute description of the commemoration o f ’August Bebel and his Work’ publicly held in Van on 1 January 1914. The programme consisted o f speeches by Armenian orators on ’Karl Marx and his W oik’, ’The bourgeoisie in the age of socialism’, ’August Bebel’, ’Social criticism’, and the musical touch was provided by scenes from Othello and works by Chopin, Wagner, Bizet, Mozart and Mendelsohn, performed by an ensemble consisting o f flute, IQ piano and violin. Pro Armenia. The founding o f the journal Pro Armenia, aimed at European public opinion, was in line with the collaboration between the Dashnaks, who financed the periodical, and French democratic and socialist leaders such as G. Clémenceau, A. France, J. Jaurès, F. de Pressensé, E. de Roberty, J. Longuet and P. Quillard.30 The Droshak Library Droshak (Flag) was the monthly propaganda organ o f the Bureau o f the ARF. It was printed in Geneva from 1891 to 1914 and later in Paris from 1925 to 1933. As from 1894 it published translations and original works in the form o f pamphlets and books. Its objective was twofold: to promote the European and socialist doctrines among the Armenians and to bring the Armenian question to the attention o f the Europeans. Several o f its issues were soon out o f print and are no longer available. These are now known only by titles listed in bibliographies without date or place o f publication. Unless stated otherwise, they were edited at Geneva and were written in the Armenian language.31

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Harach (Tbilisi). The Russian Revolution o f 1905 forced the tsar to grant the people basic civil liberties and to institute a legislative House o f Representatives, the so-called Duma. Another result was that the revolutionary press in the Russian Empire was no longer illegal. Hence the first publication of the daily newspaper o f the Dashnaks, called Harach (Forwards - like its namesake published in Erzurum from 1909 it took its name from Vorwärts, the paper o f the German social democrats)) at Tbilisi (Tiflis) in January 1906. It was the party organ of the Oriental Bureau o f the ARF, one o f the two governing bodies o f the party. Its name proves that the socialist options o f the ARF had become more accentuated by this time. This had already become evident in the ’Project for action in the Caucasus’. The very elite of the Armenian intelligentsia in the Caucasus contributed to Harach. Apart from its editor-in-chief, Avram Sahakian (’Father Abraham’), and the members o f the editorial staff, such as 32 Avedis Aharonian, Hovnan Davtian, Yeghishe Topjian, Karekin Khajak, Libarid Nazarian, Hovannes Ussufian and Mikael Varandian, there was also a large group o f writers, journalists and historians who were militants or supporters of the Dashnaks. Among them were Simon Zavarian, E. Aknuni, Hovannes Tumanian, Leo, Avedis Issahakian, Levon Atabekian, S. Tigranian, H. Kachaznuni, Nicol Aghbalian, H. Shahrikian, T. Hovhannissian, T. Rashmajian, H. Der Mirakian, Stepan Lissitzian, A - Do, M. Harutunian, Yeghishe Frankian, Constantin Khadissian and Avedis Shahkhatunian. Some years later, the war, the revolution o f 1917, the independence and then the sovietization o f Armenia were to change the destiny of all these people. Under the semi-constitutional regime which governed the Russian Empire from 1906, censorship was relaxed, but did not disappear altogether, as the successive bans on Harach make clear: between 1906 and 1909 it was published under 15 different titles! Harach also published an extensive series o f separate publications, kown as the Harach Library in Tbilisi from 1906 onwards. Most of these publications are translations into Armenian o f texts written by Russian populists or social revolutionaries and socialists from Western Europe?3 The ARF was also responsible for a series o f publications printed in Istanbul after the Young Turk revolution in 1908. Collectively, these were known as the ’Library o f Liberty’.34

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The Armenian Students ’ Union in Europe The students who lived and studied abroad played an important role in the creation of intellectual and revolutionary elites in Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th.35 This was particularly the case with the Caucasian Armenians. A recent study measures the extent o f this phenomenon?6 Among the 13,526 students from the Russian Empire who were registered at German universities between 1900 and 1914, 398 were Caucasian and o f these 332 were Armenian, 59 Georgian and only seven were Muslim. It should also be noted that there were only very few female students: 17 of these were Armenian and two were Georgian. Their stay abroad often gave them the opportunity to take a more lively interest in socialism. Those students who were studying in Germany when the SPD, the first socialist party in Europe, was founded, were often converted to Marxism. Aknuni, editor of Droshak - the party organ of the Bureau o f the ARF - founded the Armenian Students’ Union in 1902. It became a real organization after its first conference (Geneva, 1908) which was soon followed by a second (Leipzig, 1909) and a third (Geneva, 1911). In theory apolitical, the Union was controlled by the Dashnaks, who tried to strengthen the national consciousness of the young people who were separated by the frontiers o f the empire. The Union also encouraged philosophical and political reflection on questions such as socialism, the nation and the state. From 1909 onwards, the Armenian Students’ Union in Europe published a periodical in the Armenian language called Ussanogh (Student). It appeared somewhat irregularly and did not always have the same number o f pages. The first two issues were published in Paris in 1909. Numbers 3 (1909), 4 (1910), 5 (1910) and 6 (1911) were published in Geneva; and from 1912 to 1914 Ussanogh was published in Istanbul. The journal is available at the Noubarian Library in Paris and the Mekhitarist Library in Vienna. The Armenian Students’ Union in Europe published a series of books on the Armenian question in at least four different languages?7 Anarchism Anarchism never had many followers among the Armenians, although the Dashnak tradition claims that Christapor Mikaelian, one of the three founding fathers o f the ARF, used to be a Bakuninist and remained a partisan with a firm belief in direct action and decentralization all his

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life. The only Armenian anarchist to have a memorable career was Alexandre Atabekian - o f whom the IISH in Amsterdam preserves some data classified under his real name. Like the Georgian anarchists K. Orgeiani and Varlam Cherkezov, A. Atabekian was probably bom in the Caucasus. He spoke European languages, Russian and Armenian. In 1891 he was in Geneva, where he was frequently seen in the company of Kropotkin, for whom he cherished a profound admiration all his life. As a young doctor of medicine he was at the head of a circle of Russian students putting out anarchistic propaganda under the name of Anarchistic Library (in Russian),38 including several pamphlets on Bakunin, Kropotkin, Enrico Malatesta and others. The correspondence o f Atabekian shows that he played an active part in the European anarchist movement in the 1890s. He knew Max Nettlau, Elisée Reclus, Jean Grave and Paraskev-Stoyanoff and maintained contacts with anarchists and socialists of Russian, French, Italian and Bulgarian origin. His activities were focused on the propaganda of anarchistic ideas by publication and distribution of fundamental texts. In 1921 he sat at the head o f the bed in which Kropotkin lay dying and was a member of the committee that supervised the latter’s grand funeral in Moscow that February. It was to be the last public manifestation o f the anarchists that the communists allowed. In 1929 he disappeared during the very last action against the anarchists in the USSR.39 Alexandre Atabekian had also tried to promote anarchistic ideas among his Armenian compatriots. The publication o f Hamayank (Commonwealth) in Resht (in Persia) was attributed to him. The title of this journal is most revealing with respect to the anarchistic views o f its editor. The date - 1880 - is remarkably early. He was undoubtedly also responsible for the publication o f another Hamayank, printed in Paris in 1894 but edited in London.40 The ideology of the journal - of which five issues were published - was indisputably anarchistic, paying special attention to the Armenian question and the Ottoman Empire, although the journal was also very interested in the international revolutionary movement in Russia, Italy, Spain, Poland and France. Hamayank was of the opinion that the Armenian people had entered a revolutionary phase. Subjected, in the Ottoman Empire, to ferocious economic exploitation and the inhumanity o f a despotic system, the Armenian farmers, reduced to proletarians, left Armenia in great numbers to ’sell their labour in Baku, Batum, Bolis, Greece, Romania

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and as far as America’.41 Hamayank acknowledged the necessity o f a revolutionary struggle for the ’communalization’ of the land and self-rule as the means to create freedom and well-being for Armenian farmers.42 Nevertheless it was wary of European interventions in the Armenian question, condemned die ’centralism’ o f the Armenian revolutionary movement43 and denounced the oppressive nature o f all government.44 In parallel with this, the publication, from 1893, o f anarchistic works in the Armenian language - mainly translations preceded by short introductions - was carried out in the same way as that o f the Anarchistic Library in Geneva. Several allusions in his correspondence seem to indicate that Atabekian had tried to distribute pamphlets in Istanbul and Izmir, but his attempts to form an anarchist movement in the Ottoman Empire were in vain. However, a pamphlet written in French on the occasion o f the Socialist Conference in London shows that there still were a number of Armenian ’libertarians’ in 1896. Denouncing the complicity o f the European powers in the Hamidian massacres, it announced the ’dawn of the Social Revolution’ in the Orient. The Armenian Bolshevik press (1902-14) From 1902 onwards, a number of publications adhering to the Bolshevik wing o f the Social Democrat Workers Party o f Russia (SDWPR), started to appear. However, the list of these publications45 shows clearly how difficult it was for the Bolsheviks to gain influence among Caucasian Armenians before 1914. Completely rejecting the strategies and tactics o f the revolutionary parties, the Bolsheviks, hostile to the creation o f an independent Armenian state, began their ascent after the October Revolution and, in particular, after 1920. The Speciflsts The members o f the Armenian Social Democratic Workers’ Organization, which was founded in October 1903 in Baku, were called the Specifists. They wanted to organize the Armenian workers under the flag o f socialism, but like the Bund, with a view to a realistic internationalism and given the specific aspects o f the Armenian question, they opted for a national system of organization46 Although it might be difficult to evaluate the actions of the Specifists and the actual reach o f their influence on the Armenian working class and intelligentsia, their intellectual activities during the ten years

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preceding the First World War were exceptionally fertile. Just as much as Bolshevism, Specifism was an instrument for Marxism to penetrate Armenian society (one cannot speak o f the ’spread’ o f Marxism, because the opposing forces were too great). This activity was focused on three domains: the economic and social vocabulary, historical sociology; and the press. In order to translate and explain the new Marxist concepts, the Specifists proved themselves to be fastidious Armenists. Scrupulously searching for Armenian equivalents o f German, Russian or French terms, they invented neologisms using the richness and plasticity o f the Armenian language. The demands of agitation and propaganda undoubtedly motivated their studies. Compared to' the linguistic indifference o f the Armenian Bolsheviks whose vocabulary, larded with foreign words, showed the characteristics o f the Soviet period, their purism was evidence o f a great sensibility concerning the national issue. They were the first to use the Marxist method o f analysis in works devoted to the Armenian problems (history, society, literature and international relations). A considerable number o f these works were journalistic essays in periodicals. The monumental study o f David Anamın, Russahayeri hassarakakan zarkatsume (The social development of the Armenians in Russia), published in three volumes between 1915 and 1926, remains an important historical source concerning Armenia at the beginning of the 20th century. O f the trilingual oeuvre (Armenian, German, Russian) of B. Ishkhanian, a few titles need mentioning, such as: Tajkahay Khntire yev mijazkayin diplomatla (The question o f Turkish Armenia and international diplomacy), published in 1907; Turkayi abakan (The future o f Turkey), published in 1908; Dendessakart zarkatzman fazere (The phases o f economic development), published in 1906; Azkayin progresse yev dassakarkayin shahere (National progress and the interests of the classes), published in 1908; The foreign elements in the Russian national economy, published in Russian 1913, and National structure, occupational groups and social stratification o f the Caucasian peoples, published in German in Berlin in 1914. The latter is one o f his best works and adaptations were published in Armenian, Russian and other languages. Taking into consideration that the Specifists represented a political minority within a national minority, their publications, in terms o f the number o f titles, were relatively important. Sotzialist (The socialist) was first published in Baku in 1904 and then in Geneva in 1905-6; Kiank

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(Life) and later Tzayn (Voice) were published in Tiflis in 1906-7; Banvor (Worker) was published in Baku in 1907 and again in 1917; Kortz (Work) in Tiflis in 1908; Nor kiank (New Life) in Baku in 1911-12; Mer Ughin (Our Way) in Baku in 1912; Karun (Spring) was published in Moscow in 1910,1911 and 1912. An integral part o f Armenian publishing and one o f the essential propaganda activities of the Transcaucasian revolutionaries was the translation, publication and distribution o f socialist works o f a Western or Russian origin. The Speciflsts also participated in this work. In June 1906, the editors o f Kiank announced the publication o f 13 works together called the ’Library of Kiank’. Five were already available: - The universal suffering in the West (translation o f a work by Vodovozov); - The crisis in Austria (language and nation) (translation o f a work by Kautsky); - B. Ishkanian, The phases o f economic development', - The normal working day (translation of a work by E. Zeidel); - The Marxist theory o f surplus value (translation o f a work by I. Stem). Four others were being printed: - The Communist Manifesto (translation of the work by Marx and Engels); - The trade unions (translation o f a work by Voznesenskij); - Two worlds (translation o f a work by W. Leibknecht); - Christianism and socialism (translation of a work by A. Bebel). Three others were being translated: - The programme o f Erfurt (translation o f a work by Kautsky); - Collectivism (translation of a work by J. Guesde); - The interests o f the classes (translation of a work by Kautsky). This list can be extended with another one published by Kortz, consisting of: - Triumphant May ', Lumpenproletariat and Revolution (translation o f a work by K. Eisner); - Power and Despotism (translation of a work by G. Plehanov); - B. Ishkhanian, The question o f Turkish Armenia and international diplomacy,

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- B. Ishkhanian, The fiiture o f Turkish Armenia; - Speech addressed to Karl Marx (translation of a work by Kautsky) and - Songs. These 20 titles are too small a number to be o f use as a statistic, but nevertheless reveal a certain eclecticism in the choice o f the works published. This is first o f all seen in the distribution o f original texts (or texts already translated into Russian) which were ’classics o f socialism’ and, like ’The programme of Erfurt’, circulated from the Balkans to Transcaucasia. This points to a particular interest among the Specifists for the national question and trade unions. It illustrates the prestige of the German social democracy and the triad Bebel-Liebknecht-Kautsky, particularly Kautsky, because his thoughts were very influential among the Georgian and Armenian socialists of different schools - from Dashnaks to Bolsheviks - who tried to tear themselves away from his patronage. The publications are available in Paris, Vienna and Erevan. Socialist publications translated into Armenian Finally, we have to mention those works whose publication cannot be linked to the organizations described above. This list - probably incomplete - complements the lists o f the Dashnaks, Henchaks and Specifists. The translators are either independent or belong to other socialist movements (Social Revolutionary, Bolshevik or Menshevik). Karl Kautsky is the dominant figure; he is represented by 17 publications, reflecting different viewpoints. Whereas the name of Lenin is absent.47 İO

A case study: Tigran Zaven and Yerkri tzayn Tigran Zaven was bom in Sivas. He was a graduate of the Ketronagan (Central) School in Istanbul (1895) and continued his studies in Geneva and Paris. The years he spent in Europe determined his political awareness. He became a socialist following his close association with the emigrated Young Turks (he worked for the Osmanlï (Ottoman) of Ishak Sükuti and Abdullah Cevdet in Geneva). During the Revolution of 1905 he stayed in the Caucasus, and from 8 October 1906 to 18 July 1908 he published in Tbilisi an Armenian weekly called Yerkri tzayn (The voice o f the people). Totally devoted to the problems o f the Ottoman Empire, Yerkri tzayn criticized not only the Hamidian regime, announcing its imminent

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downfall, but also the Armenian revolutionary parties, denouncing their tactics and illusions based on the hope of an intervention by European powers in favour o f the Armenians. The hypocrisy o f these powers, which found in the treaties a means o f interfering with the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire was denounced with the same vigour. Under various pseudonyms, Tigran Zaven was the main editor of Yerkri Tzayn, spreading the message o f a living socialism. In it one finds also the names o f several Specifists such as Yessalem, Ghazar Der Ghazarian and Bakhshi Ishkhanian,49 who tried to solve the problems of the Ottoman Empire by Marxist analysis. It had contacts in Istanbul, Van and especially Erzurum, and its digests o f the Armenian, Turkish and Western press were well informed. Yerkri Tzayn tried to promote the Young Turks and their programmes among the Armenians, as becomes clear from its publication o f biographies not only o f Ahmed Rïza, Prince Sabahattin, Abdullah Cevdet, Kemal Bey, but also of Midhat Pasha.50 Opposed to all separatism, Tigran Zaven was a partisan with a firm belief in Ottomanism. He thought that the Armenian question, as well as the Macedonian and Arab questions, could be solved by a united front of all the oppressed peoples in the empire. Fervent defender o f a co-operation between Armenians and Turks, he wrote: What does separate our two peoples? We are crushed under the feet of the same despot. We mourn over the same misfortune. Look around you. In Turkey, Persia and Russia, the Turkish people with their rigid prejudices, their immense ignorance and misery without end, are in the claws o f the exploiters; these poor creatures covered with blood suffer just as much as the Armenian people. Turkish Armenians should not separate the cause o f their emancipation from that of the others who bear the same yoke ... There is only one outcome possible in Turkey: the Great Revolution ... This regime which enslaves the Armenians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, Yezidis, Druze, Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Albanians, and Macedonians, must be overthrown by the united forces o f these peoples and races.51 He constantly warned the Armenians about the dangers of an isolated Armenian national movement: The Turkish people are not dominated, but dominant ... Our revolution is national, theirs is social. Our national revolution may

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mean nothing to our Ottoman neighbours. Who can rouse them to reform the six vilayets?52 He used a pure class discourse to resolve the ideological incompatibilities between the Young Tuiles and the Armenian socialists: We do not want to speak in the name o f the Armenian nation, because for us it is not the races nor the languages that separate people, but the classes, the social, economical and political categories. There are no Armenians and Turks, only oppressors and oppressed, exploiters and exploited ... What will be our attitude vis-à-vis the Young Turks? Because they show themselves as a liberal class nowadays, we cannot have any organic connections with them ... The basis o f a true entente can be maintained by the Turkish people ... if they form a political party which ... will not just be the party of the ’Muslim nation’, but of all oppressed ... It is only then that the Armenians and Turks can create a class party together.53 Yerkri Tzayn had some influence in those political circles in Europe that were preoccupied with the Armenian and Macedonian questions and in time it helped to modify the strategy o f the Dashnak party54 Conversely, it is not unlikely that Tigran Zaven, who was the correspondent for l ’Humanité in Istanbul was influenced by Jean Jaurès, who developed his ideas without ever renouncing his fust Armenophile orientation. After 1904, his political philosophy shifted from the ’Concert of Powers’ to ’accomplish the elementary duty o f humanity’ towards an internal democratization o f Turkey, because o f the rise o f the Young Turks.55 The Armenians and the Young Turks It is well-known that the manifestations organized by the Henchaks in Istanbul in May 1895 - the so-called Bab-Y Ali demonstrations - made quite an impression on Ahmed RYza. This former French student, positivist and member o f the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) was given a flight by the audacity o f the Armenian revolutionaries, the first Christians to dare to defy the sultan in the capital since the fall o f Byzantium. As an exile he went to Paris in 1895, where he began to publish Meşveret (Consultation) and from where he proposed reform projects to the sultan, meant to save the empire which was about to

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collapse. The occupation of the Ottoman Bank on 26 August 1896 by a Dashnak commando56 and the posting of pamphlets in Turkish by the Dashnaks in the streets o f Istanbul reinforced his fears. Foreseeing the union o f progressive Ottoman elements against the Hamidian tyranny, he asked the Armenians to allow him to join their cause. The Conference of Liberal Ottomans o f 1902 brought together Turkish, Kurdish, Arab, Albanian, Armenian Henchak and Dashnak delegates. However, the question of what tactics should be used provoked the first schism in the movement of the Young Turks. Prince Sabahattin, nephew of the sultan who had fled to the West in 1899, supported the sociological theories of Le Play and recommended ’private initiative’, ’decentralization’, the development of local powers and even regional autonomy. In favour of Armenian theses on the necessity o f European intervention, he made the conference vote for an appeal to the Powers, whose duty it was to see that the clauses o f the treaties signed by the Porte were actually carried out. Thus he provoked Ahmed Rïza and his centralist friends to leave, because they were hostile to any foreign intervention in the interior affairs of the empire. After 1903 the movement o f the Young Turks became more and more influential. Groups were formed in Geneva and Cairo, but also in Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Damascus and particularly in army circles. Chastized by the criticism o f the Caucasian social democrats especially during the Armeno-Tartar [i.e. Azeri] war (1905-6) - the Dashnaks revised their strategy and tactics in the Ottoman Empire. They had learned the lessons o f the Russian Revolution o f 1905 and realized that the Armenian question was no nearer to a solution. For several years they had witnessed with concern the decline o f the Armenian population, particularly in the eastern vilayets where wars, massacres, famines, a rural exodus and the installation of the muhajirs (immigrants) favoured regional Islamization. They also kept a watchful eye on the revival of the Muslim populations in Anatolia, where the Russian Revolution of 1905 a n d -to a lesser degree - the first appearances, in Tabriz, of the Iranian constitutional movement in 1906, were met with approval. The disturbances of the markets in Van, Erzurum and Kastamonu (1906) were a direct cause o f many of the troubles for the urban Muslim classes, but in some places they gained the support of Ottoman officers. Hamidian politics transferred officers who were too liberal or belonged to the Young Turks to Anatolia. As a result these came into contact with a multitude of political refugees: Tartars from the Crimea, Kazan and the

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Caucasus, Georgians and Armenians who, since 1906, had been coming in from the Russian Empire and who had brought with them revolutionary pamphlets and literature and made the province o f Erzurum one o f the leading centres o f the Young Turks. The existence of an ’Ottoman movement’ made it nevertheless possible to envisage a general Ottoman revolution. It was Aknuni, member o f the Western Bureau of the ARF, who took the initiative to organize the Conference of the Opposition Parties in the Ottoman Empire, which took place in Paris on 24-27 December 1907?7 This conference united the representatives o f the major Ottoman opposition newspapers abroad (Turks, Armenians, Arabs and Jews). The conference demanded the abdication o f the sultan and the foundation o f a representative government. For this they planned the union of all the revolutionary forces in the empire, a propaganda campaign in the army and a general uprising. On the side of the over-represented Dashnaks one could find the editors o f the Armenia?* the Henchaks were absent, because they were already distancing themselves from the Young Turks. But it was the officers from Thessaloniki, Niyazi and Enver who took the initiative in the revolution o f July 1908. Abdülhamid restored the Constitution o f 1876. The almost bloodless revolution of the Young Turks had ’Ottomanism’ as password and ’Liberty, Equality, Justice’ as motto. Their objectives were the rescue and modernization o f the Ottoman Empire. Within a few months Istanbul was to be ’the freest city in the world’. Photographs captured for eternity the enthusiasm and fraternization o f the various communities. Thousands o f outlaws living abroad came rushing back, from Europe, Russia, Egypt and Iran. The Ottoman press flourished as never before and the Armenian press also benefited from this. Between 1908 and 1914 there appeared 239 new periodicals in the Ottoman Empire. It is true that many of them existed for a very short time, but statistically the numbers remain impressive and show how the Anatolian press flourished: 144 periodicals in Istanbul, 17 in Van, 13 in Izmir, 9 in Trabzon, 6 in Sivas, 5 in Erzurum ... For the first time in history the Dashnak and Henchak press was legal. Quite legitimately, they may be considered to have represented the socialist press. They made a substantial contribution to the archives of the Armenian ’socialist movement’ in the Ottoman Empire. After the Young Turk revolution, the Dashnaks presented themselves as the allies o f the CUP, particularly in the eastern provinces o f the

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empire. The Memoirs o f an Armenian partisan by Ruben, concerning the period 1904-8, represents only a fraction o f a remarkable work in 7 volumes.59 This is a unique account o f the Armenian fed â î movement, but also of the Kurds and the Ottoman administration in east Anatolia. It gives a vivid description o f how the Young Turk revolution was experienced in Muş, Bitlis and in Sassun, where the ARF ordered the fedâîs to lay down their arms and to become followers o f Ottomanism (summer 1908). However, the ARF would not give up its Armenian specificity to become an Ottoman revolutionary federation.60 The Armenian representatives in the Ottoman Parliament during the first parliamentary sessions (December 1908-September 1909) 61 In Im husherits (My Memoirs), published in Beirut in 1952, Vahan Papazian reproduced almost the entire contents of a series o f his articles published in Azadamart in Istanbul since 13/26 August 1909 (no. 55 et seq.). This Armenian representative from Van was an intelligent and keen observer of the first developments o f parliamentary life in the Ottoman Empire, paying special attention to its ethnic, religious and social composition. O f the 266 representatives, 220 were Muslim, and of these 125 were Turkish, 70 Arab and 25 Albanian. Because o f their political experience and the quality of their orators, the Turks were the dominant nationality in Parliament. The group o f 45 non-Muslim representatives consisted of 23 Greeks, 10 Armenians, 4 Bulgarians, 4 Jews, 3 Serbs and 1 Vlah. The social composition accentuated the division between the Muslims and non-Muslims. The religious dignitaries, ulema, were 60 in number, while 100 members of the group o f large landowners were all Muslim with the exception o f a few Greeks. The same goes for the group o f army officers and civil servants, 60 in total. By contrast, the 25 representatives o f the liberal professions were mainly non-Muslim. The other 20 non-Muslims had various backgrounds. The cultural gap reinforced in turn the ethnic and religious differences. Certain representatives did not even know the official language spoken in Parliament, Osmanh’ Turkish, whereas 80 per cent of the large landowners were illiterate. Furthermore, the political ideas of the representatives were unclear. Up to February 1909, about 160 representatives comprized a heterogeneous group belonging to the Ittihad ve Terraki (CUP), 20-25 belonged to the Ahrar (Liberal) party, 4 to the ARF, 1 to the Henchakian party; 2 were Bulgarian ’clubists’, 1 was a Bulgarian social democrat and between 70 and 80 did not belong

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to any party at all. After the crisis of March/April 1909, the Ahrar party had disappeared and the ranks of the CUP were thinned out in favour of the ’neutrals’. The Armenian representatives in Parliament, 10 in number, constituted a small minority which was unable to form a parliamentary bloc. Krikor Zohrab and Halajian were the elected from Istanbul, Hagop Babikian and Spartal from Izmir, Murad Boyajian from Kozan (Cilicia), ’Garo’ Pastermajian and Vartkes Serengulian from Erzurum, Keram Der Garabedian from Muş, Daghavartian from Sivas and Vahan Papazi an from Van. Halajian and Babikian were Unionists, Vartkes Serengulian, Garo Pastermadjian, Keram Der Garabedian and Vahan Papazian were Dashnaks. Murad Boyajian was a Henchak and SpartaL was neutral. Krikor Zohrab was ’liberal’ and, at fust, voted for the Ahrar party, but after the turning point of March/April he drew nearer to the Dashnaks without ever identifying himself with them. In order to realize administrative, economic and social reforms and to develop a climate of security in Anatolia, the Dashnak representatives tried to make up a union of Anatolian representatives, but they were blocked by the Turkish and Kurdish large landowners. Their attempts to create a union o f Christian representatives failed because o f the ill will of the Greeks, and finally the four Dashnak and the three Bulgarian representatives formed a sort o f ’workers’ bloc’ to defend the interests o f the workers and to promote socialism in the Ottoman Parliament by means of their spokesman, K. Zohrab.62 During the first sessions, Armenian representatives - such as K. Zohrab, Vartkes Serengulian and A. ’Garo’ Pastermajian - stressed the necessity to defend the Fatherland (V atan) and the importance o f Ottomanism. But they also demanded reforms and an administrative decentralization. From the beginning o f the parliamentary sessions, the ARF published its ten-point ’Platform’ (December 1908). The sovereignty and territorial integrity o f the Ottoman Empire are confirmed by, but also subordinate to, the preservation of the constitutional system. Turkish Armenia is an inalienable part of the empire, reorganized in accordance with the principle of decentralization. With regard to this, the Constitution of 1876 has to be revized and the Senate abolished. Education must be free. The mother-tongue must be taught in the national schools (i.e. those o f the communities) which will be subsidized in proportion to the importance o f the nationality. The Armenian language must

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be used, besides Turkish, in the courts of law and the administrative bodies in the Armenian provinces. Military service for all. Abolition o f certain archaic taxes that weigh heavy on the farmers and workers. The politics o f the Dashnaks did not foster unity in the Armenian community. They collided with those of the clergy and the conservatives who led the institutions o f the community and who prudently kept their distance and prevented the transformation o f the churches into ’revolutionary clubs’.63 They also collided with the Armenian liberal bourgeoisie (at Istanbul, Izmir, Van, Kayseri, Cairo etc.) who founded the democratic Ramgavar party, with a membership made up o f staunch supporters of the market economy. For control over the Armenian population, they had to compete with the Henchaks who were far better at promoting their socialist cause and the Catholic and Protestant missionaries who warned the people against revolutionaries and socialists. The Adana massacres in May-April 1909, in which many Armenians - perhaps 30,000 - were killed, created an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Turks and Armenians. Up until the massacre, the Dashnaks had been criticized because of their alliance with the CUP. Henceforth, their adversaries blamed them openly. But despite all this, and for tactical reasons, they renewed that alliance at the end o f every election;64 the Henchaks therefore signed an agreement with the opposition İtilâf ve Hürriyet (Entente Liberale) on 7 February 1912 and made clear their hostility to the Unionists. But it was particularly from 1912 onwards that they denounced the abandonment o f Ottomanism for the politics o f Turkification, the lack o f agricultural reforms and administrative decentralization, and the abuse of military service in general. In 1912 they thought that they constituted a constructive ’opposition’ in the new Ottoman House of Representatives, according to the British model.65 But, disappointed and restless, in the autumn o f 1912 they supported the reopening o f the Armenian question by Russian diplomacy, which was quite effectively supported by the Armenian traditionalist forces (clergy, notables, bourgeoisie) in Tbilisi, Istanbul and Paris. It was a return, in the heat o f the Balkan war, to the politics o f intervention that the Armenian socialists had condemned earlier.66 A few samples from the Armenian press in 1910 - one o f the few years without a major crisis in the Ottoman Empire - show that socialism was the main subject o f debate in the Armenian community.

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In a brilliant speech held in Üsküdar on 12/25 September 1910,67 Krikor Zohrab refuted the fierce criticism which the Armenian representatives in Parliament had to endure. Few in number, they were in a double minority in a Parliament in which the majority were Muslims, and yet the Armenian representatives had helped to establish peace ’in the Armenian provinces, in Van, Karin (Erzurum), Bag's, Harput and Mus’, where the government engaged the newly appointed Valis to implement the ’Ottoman pact’; the same government that sent an agricultural commission to the Yerkir, prepared government bills and ’honestly seeks to resolve the agricultural problems in Armenia’. Zohrab also stressed the ’courage o f the constitutional government’ that sent the Muslims responsible for the Adana massacre to the gallows or sentenced them to many years of hard labour, but he admitted that ’Adana is the great sorrow of our nation and, so I believe, also o f the entire Ottoman Empire’. It was also, he reminded his listeners, Armenian representatives who had stubbornly worked to establish a military service for Christians, a feat to which only narrow-minded people would object. Finally, the Armenian representatives succeeded in getting themselves booed away by defending the ’rights o f the workers’ in Parliament: Socialism? Can you blame the Armenian for turning his back on socialism? In the very beginning there was no socialist question in this country, but then the sole fact that the Armenians were socialists kept foreign capitalists and entrepreneurs from employing Armenian workers and it is only the Armenians who fell victim to the consequences of this doctrine. This made Zohrab - liberal representative - expose his socialist beliefs in the form o f a speech on socialism, surplus value and the exploitation o f the workers: Allow me to say this to you as I said it to the Ottoman House of Representatives: I am a socialist, I am a confirmed socialist. A socialist is neither a brigand nor a terrorist... ... Can constitutional Turkey refuse to acknowledge the lawful rights o f the workers? The Armenians, because o f their advanced culture, have the duty to defend them. If employers dismiss Armenian workers with the pretext that they are socialists, they will be up against us and the entire Ottoman governm ent... Only

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the ignorant may pretend that there is no labour problem in Turkey today. It is true that there is no large industry, but nevertheless there is a working class consisting of 2 million people, farmworkers included. Can you ignore a working class o f 2 million workers? Look at the Jews in Salonica, look at the number of their workers’ organizations. They should be admired and not ignored because of their immense effort. Zohrab also discussed publicly the question o f the collaboration of the Armenian representatives with the CUP, again a rather controversial subject: The constitutional Ottoman Revolution was not perfect. The Muslims could not renounce, in only a few days, centuries of domination. True liberals, like us, are very rare among them and almost all of them belong to that party and need our support. No one has denounced the flaws of that party more than I did. But is there a more liberal party with which we can collaborate? Eventually, Zohrab became a realist. The CUP was ’the party of the government’ and politics imposed this rapprochement on the Armenians, together with the recognition that it was the party which gave Turkey its constitution. The naivety that we find in the speeches o f Zohrab and the confusion between liberalism and socialism are totally absent in the extensive study on the politics of the ARF and the Ottoman Empire published by Ruben Tarpinian some weeks later.68 A refugee in Istanbul after the Stolypinian reaction, Ruben Tarpinian was a typical example o f the Dashnak intelligentsia in the Caucasus. He used his analysis o f the difficulties that the ARF encountered in the Ottoman Empire to lecture and educate the Armenian reader - as was often done in the Ottoman press - and to introduce political and European socialistic concepts such as ’alliance’, ’bloc’, ’tactics’, ’class struggle’, ’class conscience’, ’minimum programme’, ’maximum programme’, ’platform’, ’realism’, ’opportunism’, ’utopia’ etc. Up to the restoration o f the constitution, the ARF operated surreptitiously, worked as a military organization and had a limited influence. Its goals were simple: self-defence of the Armenian people and the conquest of political freedom. After 1908 the ARF had to show its true colours, became a political party and adapted itself to the

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conditions o f the new regime: freedom of the press, o f thought, of assembly, political integration o f the masses, parliamentary life etc. It faced great problems of adaptation, partly because the ideological unification o f the splinter groups had not been necessary during the years o f struggle against Hamidian despotism, when it was sufficient to agree on immediate goals. On the other hand, the ARF pursued a dualistic policy in the Russian and Ottoman empires where ’despite its socialist party programme, the ARF pursued the policy of a democratic party’. It should therefore be noted that the policy o f the ARF in Turkey - to participate in parliamentary life, to vote on the budget, to team up with the bourgeois-liberal parties, to demand legislation concerning military service, to demand ministerial responsibility - was essentially liberal: Not only the ideas o f the ARF are socialist, the press has a socialist tendency, the thoughts of its leaders, its programme and its literature are socialist. Well, then, is the ARF a liberal party or a socialist party? In the capitalist countries, the struggle between liberalism and socialism reflected a social stratification. In Turkey where society was still an amorphous mass, liberalism and socialism were in development and the border between the two was not yet clear. The distinction between the two movements kept pace with the economic development. If in the capitalist countries socialism emerges from liberalism in order to distance itself from it, 'in the underdeveloped countries ... , then, generally speaking, socialismfiinctions as the ideological driving force' . Political thought in Armenia is closely linked with socialism. But in the Ottoman Empire, the ARF, having become the first political party in Armenia, suffered from growing pains (cf. the developments in the Caucasus). It had a socialist viewpoint, but at the same time it played the part o f a liberal party that recruited representatives from the liberal bourgeoisie in Armenia. Thus, the problem which manifested itself was how to reconcile socialism and a policy o f liberal reform. It should therefore be noted that ’the socialist actions o f the ARF were still in a preparatory phase’. Henceforth, it had to concentrate its efforts on the intelligentsia, the fanners and the working class. To Tarpinian, the intelligentsia in Turkey whose task it was to teach the people and to solve the problems of social life, were not a critical community outside the classes,69 independent of Church and state. They

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preserved psychological traits inherited from the Hamidian period. If an Armenian intellectual in Turkey showed himself to be a great spirit and to possess true talents in the arts and sciences, then, from the moment he engaged himself in political and social questions, he became ’puerile’, ’afraid to think’ and something was ’lacking in his critical faculties’: Socialism is a European theory which is one or two centuries ahead of the underdeveloped reality in Turkey. The use of cut-and-dried formulas by immature intellectuals in the underdeveloped countries has two dangers: vulgarization and utopia. Russia, because of the high level of its intelligentsia, fell for utopia. Turkey, in contrast, showed a tendency towards vulgarization. On the other hand, Tarpinian noticed in the Ottoman Empiré0 the existence o f a violent anti-socialist reaction which could not just be imputed to ’free love’, ’atheism’ or a ’rejection of all nationalism’, but to the vulgarization o f socialism by young intellectuals. He warned people against the growing ideological intolerance which was stifling critical thought: The role that the ARF has to play, is not to stuff the heads of young intellectuals with sociological theories, but to arouse and develop their interest in social questions ... Nothing is so harmful as a party that presents its ideas on social development as mathematical laws, thus creating a new set of fetishes ... For if there is anything in this world that we should distrust, it is the general theories that try to explain the life and history o f man ... Lucid and even premonitory in his functional analyses o f the socialist parties in the underdeveloped countries, Tarpinian is less at ease when reviewing the ARF as a socialist party vis-à-vis the world of agriculture and labour. Here also, the European model had a significant influence. In Europe, the rural world was a world o f small landowners and it was among die workers in the large industries that the socialist society o f the future was forged. In Russia, the intelligentsia had studied the agrarian commune and its socialistic potentialities for many years. In the Ottoman Empire nothing of the kind happened. As Azadamart noted, not one study was made of agricultural reports72 and there was a lack of statistics and elementary knowledge concerning the methods of

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appropriation and cultivation of the soil. A study over many decades was necessary to understand the agricultural problems in the Ottoman Empire, a prerequisite for any agricultural reform. For want o f a ’comunalization’ of land, a claim typical of the Russian socialists and those who believed in state legislation, they could immediately introduce agrarian co-operatives even though ’the Anatolian villages will not be freed from the feudal bonds that hold them back’. In the Ottoman Empire where the class struggle was mainly between the agrarian class and the feudal lords, they first needed the ’wholesome shock o f a bourgeois democracy’. Industry in Turkey was still young and could not be compared with modem industries,73 but it might have realized high profits by a more ferocious exploitation of the abundant workforce. In a country where paternalism and tradition are strong, the working class is not organized and does not yet have a clear understanding o f its interests. For a long time the strike still remained the ’weapon o f the working class’, but ’when the working class is exploited too much, it will not be able to strike’. It was therefore necessary to encourage the creation o f trade unions. These would be the best schools for the political and cultural education and the economic struggle of the workers: but one o f the most delicate and sad aspects of the trade union movement, is the atmosphere o f mutual distrust that exists between the workers of different nationalities and faiths ... Religious and nationalistic prejudices and fanaticism are still so strong that they here have ample opportunity to express themselves in provocations and it is only normal that the capitalists seek to break the power o f the working class by using these prejudices... Also, the workers were not yet ready to struggle only for economic reasons, independent of political parties and outside any religious or national framework. Finally, Tarpinian wondered about the position of the ARF among the institutions o f the Armenian community.74 The ARF was not a real political party in the European sense. A political party has numerous functions and tries to consolidate its position in the social sphere: The sphere o f action o f a party cannot be limited exclusively to questions o f the revolution, socialism or the state...

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The ARF participated actively in the work of the Ottoman Parliament concerning the whole nation. It played its part as a liberal party while being cast by historic circumstances in die role of opposition. By contrast, the role o f the ARF in the Azkayin Joghov (National Council), created on the basis o f the National Constitution o f 1863,75 was practically negligible. The constitution, founded on religion and not on the nation, assigned a special place to the clergy, who after SO years were still the most cultivated class o f Armenia. The Azkayin Joghov, on the other hand, was not a real representative assembly, but more a sort of ’Congress o f the Gregorian Armenians of Istanbul’76 where the provincials were under-represented and the conservatives formed the majority. In the name of the silenced Armenian the ARF demanded a total revision o f the Armenian Constitution. This class struggle within the Armenian community began at the moment when the millet system was again put in doubt by Ottomanism and the Young Turks. To Adorn,77 it was unacceptable that the ARF socialist party should carry out the tasks o f a liberal party in Turkey, as advocated by Tarpinian.78 This led the ARF to adopt the attitude of the Young Turks, who governed the Ottoman State and ’had the tendency to regard the existence o f other parties as a great misfortune’. The social basis of the ARF, the ’non-Marxist socialist party’, were the workers and if it is true that it pursued a policy o f reform, it did not renounce anything as far as its programme and its socialist ideas were concerned. This goes for all the socialist parties in countries where they were legalized. Political reforms were the necessary steps for the establishment o f socialism, which, at that moment, was not yet realized in any European country. The ARF could not refuse to work with the liberals, but neither could it accept them in their ranks. The Macedonian movement and the Henchak and Dashnak parties Relations between the Macedonian movement and the Henchak and Dashnak parties were episodic but manifold. The long interview granted to Azadamart (1909, 15/28 August, nos 57, 59 and 61) by Dimitar Vlahov, Bulgarian representative of Thessaloniki, on the activities and evolution o f the Bulgarian political parties in Macedonia before and after the Constitution, demonstrated that the ARF and Vlahov had similar views. First of all, it was stressed that Vlahov was a socialist, whereas his party, the Sandanski party, ’the Federal Democratic Party of Bulgaria’, was democratic. Vlahov, fierce critic of the centrifugal politics of the Bulgarian ’clubbists’, o f Greek chauvinism and o f the

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idea o f a ’dominant nation’ of certain Turks, was also supporting the idea o f founding an ’Ottoman democratic party’ with national subdivisions. His confession that he was a ’social democrat’ made him confirm that: ... as all people, the Turks can be divided into two main classes. Those who have everything and live by exploiting others, Turks and non-Turks, and those who cannot live except by selling their work capacity to the Turks and other nationalities. Half-starving and ’half-naked’ they are exploited and oppressed by the rich. The circumstances in which the Turkish farmer, small landowner and esn a f has to live are not any better than those o f his Armenian, Bulgarian or Greek counterpart. This is an analysis that is often found in Dashnak and Henchak literature. The statement about the Young Turks was meant to reassure, but revealed the first fractures in the ranks of the Ottomanists: First of all, the Young Turks do not form a homogeneous party in which all the members think and judge in the same way, but a heterogeneous party in which people live together as in a family: there are imperial son-in-laws, esnafs and even workers ... the interests o f their classes are all different and even opposed to each other. In this party there are those who struggled against the Old Regime, but also those who were its instruments. It is clear now that certain individuals who called themselves Young Turks have played a vile part in the Adana tragedy, but there are also people in this same party who ... sincerely grieved over this tragedy and deplored it. These are true constitutionalists who seek to abolish the national privileges and work towards the fraternization o f the Ottoman nations.79 In his memoirs, published 50 years later, Vlahov confirmed the role that the reactionary elements inside and outside the Ottoman Parliament had played in the pogroms in Adana, just as he confirmed that the ’power of the Young Turks largely depended on the Armenian elements in Asia Minor to preserve the constitutional regime’.80 After the elections in 1912 following the dissolution o f Parliament, the Dashnak party, in turn, supported the CUP from which it expected

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assistance for the eastern vilâyets in their battles against the local feudal lords and the Kurds.81 The labour question From 1909 to 1911, a great many articles in the Dashnak and Henchak press were dedicated to the labour question. After 1912, when the situation became increasingly dangerous, their number decreased. They can be classified into three types: descriptions o f the Ottoman working class, labour movement and labour legislation. Socialism was constantly presented as the only remedy for the misery and the exploitation o f the workers and farmers. One series of articles gave concrete information about the working conditions in the spinning mills of AdapazaiT, Bursa and Arapkir and the mines o f Zonguldak etc. Mentioning the problem of definition (distinction between worker and employee), these articles proposed a quantitative estimation (600,000 workers in 190982) and drew the conclusion that, although there were workers, as yet there was no working class. The first developments of the labour movement can easily be followed: the struggles and strikes for a better wage and shorter working hours of the workers in Arapkir and Yenişehir, the strike of the workers in the clothing business in İzmit, the desertion of the miners in Zonguldak who went to work on the railroad, the strike of the hamal (bearers) in Istanbul, the strike o f the employees in the umbrella shops etc. These were all justifiable. The creation o f trade unions based on the ’Western’ model was encouraged with vigour, but collided with the national prejudices that were dividing the working class84 Furthermore, the press echoed the debates in Parliament on labour legislation, the right to strike and the lock-out; debates in which the Armenians, together with Vlahov, were the defenders o f the workers. The examples in the Armenian press may give the impression that the first Ottoman labour movement had developed on a ’national’ basis instead o f an ’international’ one and that it predominantly supported the workers o f the non-Muslim communities (Jews, Armenians, Bulgarians and Greeks). Only a comparative study o f the different communities will show whether this was actually the case or whether, on the contrary, the Armenian socialists were content to defend the Armenian workers and more or less resigned to the religious and linguistic barriers that divided the communities, o f which the separation between the Muslim and non-Muslim workers was the most unbridgeable.

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Under the title ’The first proletarian organization in Turkey’ Azadamart (1910, no. 241, 24 March/6 April) published a eulogy supporting the Workers’ Federation of Salonica (WFS). After stating that many periodicals and organizations appeared in 1908, only to disappear again later on, the article mentions the WFS as an example. It was Abraham Benaroya, a Jewish Macedonian schoolteacher turned typographer, who founded the Federation during the summer o f 1909 by merging a group o f 30 Bulgarian workers with an organization of 50 Jewish workers. Benaroya regarded himself as a ’pragmatic Marxist’ for whom the interpretations of the Marxist theorists went beyond being mere political credos. After some months the Bulgarians withdrew, because they were confirmed Marxists and could not accept the more realistic attitude o f the Jewish organization. Despite all this, the WFS was a fact: it had 120 members, among them also gentiles. It also had much power because o f its links with the trade unions. There were about 30,000 workers in Thessaloniki; 20,000 of them were women and children who were brutally exploited. There were 20 trade unions in this town representing the 10,000 male workers. The WFS had a programme based on that o f the French socialist party and published the Workers ' newspaper in four languages, but as Macedonia was a multinational region, the Federation intended to adopt the Brunn programme o f the Austro-Hungarian social democrats. This article confirmed the existence o f ties between the WFS and the ARF, its sponsor vis-à-vis the 2nd International. It confirms also the detestable relations with the Bulgarian Narrows who did not hesitate to denounce the Federation to the ISB as non-socialist or even bourgeois.86 Two examples may illustrate the fact that, if the Armenian socialists had listened to the theorists, they would have recognized and denounced the regime o f concessions and the effects of Western imperialism in Turkey and Persia. ’Armen Garo’ Pastermajian presented and defended the ’Chester Project’,87 a construction project for railroads in Ottoman Armenia by which the Ottoman state would profit and which at the same time meant an escape from the tutelage o f Russia and Germany. One series o f articles in Azadamart demanded the suppression o f the Western monopoly o f the state tobacco companies which blocked the development o f the national enterprises. Finally, a questionnaire was published by the editors ofAzadamart concerning the problems o f labour. Stressing the necessity o f labour legislation, the journal asked its correspondents to answer the following questions:

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A

How many employees are there in the region (name and area of the region)? Definition of the term ’employees’. Employees are: firstly, the factory workers, men and women; secondly, the dockworkers o f the ports, the porters o f the bazaars, railway stations, boutiques and post offices, and thirdly, the employees: all who sell their working capacity, apprentices, craftsmen, office employees, shop assistants, domestic servants and farm workers.

B

Determine how many there are in each category.

C

Describe the nature o f the enterprises in each region, the number and category o f their employees (first, second or third).

D Determine the sex, age (child labour?), nationality o f the employees. Are they natives or migrants? If so, where do they come from? Number o f working hours, breaks per day? Are the wages paid per day, week or month? Behaviour o f the bosses and managers? Various facilities or difficulties? Is there a day of rest? Number of days unemployed? Do they get extra payment for working on night shift? Is there any medical aid in case of illness? Piecework or not? General working conditions.88 Some months later, Abaka (Future), a Henchak weekly of a social democratic nature, first published in Istanbul in May 1910, asked its ’comrades and sympathizers’ to fill in and quickly return the following questionnaire. 1

How many factories are there in your town or region?

2

To which branch o f industry do they belong?

3

For how many years have they been in operation?

4

Which improvements were made, restoration of the Constitution?

5

What is the nationality o f the owners?

6

How much is the capital involved?

particularly

after

the

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7

Are the owners individuals or shareholding societies?

8

Is there any foreign capital involved? Or is it local capital? To which extent?

9

Are there any enterprises working with foreign capital, but set up by local intermediaries? What is their influence on local industry?

10 What is approximately the annual turnover of a factory? How is the production marketed? Locally? Nationally? Internationally? 11 Which machines are used when and for how long? Are there steam engines or electric machines? 12 How many workers are there in each factory? How many factory workers are there in the whole region? 13 Does the factory provide continuous work? Or seasonal? What do the workers do in periods o f closure? 14 What nationality do the workers have? 15 How many women, girls, men and boys are working? 16 Which percentage o f the workers is indigenous and which is foreign? 17 How many hours do they work? Are there any differences in the working hours between the men and the women, adults and children? Or do they have the same working hours? 18 What are the working conditions? Are the workers paid a piece, per day, week or month? 19 On average, how much salary do the men, women and children get? 20 When are the wages paid?

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21 Is the salary paid in cash or in kind? 22 How many breaks are there per day? For how long? 23 How many days of rest are there? When? On which holidays are the factories closed? Do the workers get these holidays paid? 24 Is there a night shift? If so, how many hours are there per shift? How much do the workers earn? 25 Do the workers get penalized? In which cases? 26 How are the sanitary facilities? 27 Which illnesses occur in the local factories? What causes these illnesses? 28 Which industrial accidents occur (injuries to the hands? feet? caught by a machine? disabled? bums? etc.)? Under which conditions? 29 Do the owners pay indemnities to the workers that are wounded or incapacitated? 30 When have the workers gone on strike? How? What are the consequences? 31 Are there any trade unions or facilities for workers (saving banks, relief fund, schools, sports and recreation facilities, etc.)? 32 What was the reaction o f the government in case o f strike? How is the relation between government and the trade unions? 33 Please give, in addition to the number of factory workers, also some information about the employees o f the tramways, railways, navy, state and public buildings. If possible, collect some information concerning the farmers working on construction sites, porters, domestic servants, employees in restaurants, hotels, coffee houses, etc.89

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Nor hossank (New course) Only seven issues o f this weekly, which ran to eight pages, were published between 28 March and 27 June 1909. But the total o f 56 pages o f Nor hossank deserve to be mentioned here. With its motto ’Proletarians o f all countries, unite’, it was the first Armenian Marxist journal in the Ottoman Empire. It was not a party organ, but ajournai of a small group o f Armenian socialists who called themselves social democrats. It was founded by Karekin Kozikian and Hrand Ardzvik, a young left-wing poet bom in Istanbul. The following people were contributors: Shushanik Kurkinian, a ’proletarian poetess’ from the Caucasus; Ruben Sevak, an Ottoman, regarded by the literary critics of Soviet Armenia as a progressive poet; S. Shahpazian, who later was to become a member o f the communist party in Bulgaria, and finally, Kevork Kharajian (pseudonym Arkonied), one o f the seven Caucasian founders o f the Henchakian party and one o f the three translators who were the first to translate the Manifesto o f the Communist Party into the Armenian language. But it was Karekin Kozikian (or Yessalem) (1878-1915) who gave the journal its impetus. Bom in Palu, in Ottoman Armenia, he emigrated to die Caucasus in 1896 during the massacres. As a worker, he first became a Henchak and later a social democrat. After being arrested and released, he left for Geneva where he, together with the student Y. Balian, founded the journal Banvor (Worker)91 in 1904. He then returned to Tiflis in 1905, became an active member o f the Armenian Social Democratic Workers’ Organization, and worked for the Specifist press and for Tigran Zaven’s Yerkri tzayn from 1906 to 1908. After the Young Turk revolution, he lived in Istanbul, where he founded the Union of Ottoman Typographers, a union which represented 400 Turkish and Armenian workers. After the failure o f Nor hossank, this excellent journalist became for some time the editor of the Henchak paper Abaka (Future) in Istanbul. He disappeared during the massacres o f 1915.92 93 In his first editorial, Yessalem lyrically portrayed ’the immense struggle’ o f the bourgeoisie and the proletariat ’in the entire civilized world’ which would end in a victory for socialism: Although the economic development of Turkey is very slow and although the mechanized industry is just beginning in your country ... Turkey is already on its way to become a capitalist country. The class struggle has already begun.

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The strikes that had broken out since civil liberties were obtained proved this eloquently. But the working class was still not well equipped: Tens o f thousands o f workers are working in the factories, the workshops and on the railroads in our country, and are undoubtedly even more exploited than usual. Are they to remain silent and suppress all protest while they wait for Turkey to reach the European level?... These are the problems discussed by Nor hossank - revolution or counter-revolution in Turkey, the massacres in Armenia, labour organizations, Macedonian movements, the awakening o f Asia and the Persian revolution, the European socialist movement, the future of Esperanto - all the analyses were based on the class struggle. Armenian socialism through other eyes: the satires ofYervant OdiarP The tremendous success o f Arakilutiunme i Tzablvar - enkervaragan namakani enker B. Panjuni (A mission to Tzablvar - Socialist correspondence of comrade B. Panjuni)95 a ferocious and absolutely unique satire on the socialism o f the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, cannot be explained except to those who are sufficiently familiar with socialist theories. In 1912, this epistolary novel was first published as a serial, boosting the circulation o f Buzantion, the major newspaper o f the Armenian conservatives in Istanbul, before it was published as a separate edition in 1913. Dedicated to the memory o f the writer Arpiar Arpiarian, victim of a Henchak attack in 1908, it ridiculed the Armenian revolutionary parties and their socialist ideology. The author, Yervant Odian, used a vocabulary, concepts and references - translations or transcripts into Armenian - taken from different European socialist movements. He lets his hero Panjuni be bom in Trabzon in 1875 and this is by no means coincidental, because Trabzon was a sally-port open to Caucasian influences. After spending a few years in Istanbul, where he ’penetrates the laws o f capitalism’ and discovers social injustice, he leaves for Geneva to be registered as a ’free listener’ in the Faculty o f Social Sciences, the Mecca of Russian revolutionaries. Having become an activist himself, he does the obligatory Grand Tour o f the Armenian revolutionaries - Bulgaria, Greece, Persia and the Caucasus. The réintroduction of the constitution and the amnesty law allow him to return to Istanbul, where he witnesses the intoxication of the Armenian

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community and leaves again to take up residence in Tzablvar, a town near Arapkir, in Anatolia. Tzablvar is a fairly prosperous Armenian village o f ’20 hearths’. From time to time, however, it is pillaged by Kurds from a neighbouring village. Hie letters to a mysterious ’Centre’ or to some ’dear comrades’ are written between 15 September 1908 and 27 February 1909, in between the great expectations of the summer of 1908 and the coup of March-April 1909. The reality and simplicity of an Anatolian village, contrasting with Panjuni’s attempts to put socialist theories into practice, creates a comical effect which is enhanced by the use o f a great many Russian terms (’expropriatsia’, ’missia’, ’provokatsia’, ’evolutsia’ etc), Western concepts (propaganda, capitalism, proletariat, working class, class struggle, strike, anti-clericalism, club, manifestation etc.) and constant quotes from Engels, Kautsky, Marx, Shishko, Brambolini, Chernov etc. The fraternization attempts intended to forge an alliance between the Armenians, Kurds, Yezidis, Kizilbash and Lazes, end in catastrophe. Encouraged by his great success, Odian published a sequel in Buzantion in February 1914. It was entitled Enker Panjuni vaspurakani mech (Comrade Panjuni in Vaspurakan96). Using the same procedures, Odian tackled the problem which had shaken the Armenians in Van: the emancipation o f women. In the final analysis the ’Manifesto’ ascribed to a militant Dashnak97 addressing the ’women o f Armenia’ is, however, more pathetic than comical: Armenian women o f the Vaspurakan. Wake up from your secular sleep and rise! Break the chains of slavery that suppress and exhaust you! Look up and behold your sisters in America, England and France ... See how they demand the recognition o f their rights. They are not content with mere words, but resort to action, to force. Why do you keep yourselves aloof? Do you want to wear your chains as the German, Spanish and Austrian women do, like jewellery around your neck and wrists? The Armenian revolutionary who made Turkey, Russia and Persia shake; the Armenian revolutionary who, with a rifle on his shoulder, went to fight for the emancipation of his Russian and Persian sisters, will not accept that the Armenian women are suppressed and exploited by their husbands, brothers, fathers or grandparents!

In Lieu o f a Conclusion Mete Tunçay 1

Many years ago I corresponded with a prominent historian o f the working class o f Greece, who confided to me in a letter that the activities of the Ottoman Greek socialists were a terra incognita for himself and his colleagues. The situation was even worse for Turkish students of history. Orderly collections o f periodicals and other printed material produced by non-Turkish communities like the Greeks simply do not exist in Turkish libraries; even if they had existed, they could scarcely be utilized by our scholars, as we lack even a reading knowledge of Ottoman anas'ir (communities) languages such as Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Ladino and Arabic. This pluralistic research project, on the other hand, realized through the support of the HSH, constitutes a pioneering step towards overcoming the narrow approaches that have hitherto prevailed. In the period between the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter o f the 20th the Ottoman state, in spite o f its adoption o f a constitutional monarchy, failed to survive very long before being broken up as a result o f military defeats. A new national state was established on part o f the territory remaining to it, with the proclamation o f a republican regime following the succesfiil challenge to the Greek invasion. A process starting with the Kurdish rebellion o f 1925 made it impossible to realize the republic in its democratic sense and the term was used only in its formal meaning, to the effect that the head o f state was not hereditarily determined. So the state was transformed into a single-party autocracy. Another 20 years would pass before the republican regime would take a relatively liberal turn.

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The different elements making up the Ottoman population In Islamic terminology, the Ottoman state was an oriental sultanate. It was neither a ’beylik' or 'em aret', nor a 'metildik' ('memleket'); it comprised many ’memalik ’. There are a number of difficulties concerning the translation of these terms into the jargon of Western languages, such as ’empire’, ’principality’ and ’kingdom’. Keeping in mind this reservation, we can accept that the nearest Western concept to the Ottoman system is ’empire’. This structure, which reached its zenith in the 16th century, though utilizing an Islamic ideology, cannot, be considered a theocracy. In spite o f the fact that the importance of religion was stressed from time to time, a theocratic empire could never have lasted for six centuries. Nor was it a Turkish empire. Admittedly, the ruling house and many subjects were ethnic Turks; yet when mention was made of a ’dominant nation’, not the Turks were meant, but the Muslim subjects as a whole. One has to speak o f anasır, i.e. ’constituent elements’ or ’components’ o f the population under the Ottoman system, not of ’minorities’. They were classified in accordance to their religious affiliation and not to their ethnicity. For instance, the Orthodox Christian Arabs who spoke hardly any Greek were ’Rum’ (Roman, as Ottoman Greeks called themselves). Armenians were mostly monophysite Gregorian Christians; but there were two further recognized Armenian nations: one composed o f Catholics converted by French missionaries, the other o f Protestants converted by Anglo-American missionaries. Lately, the Turkish government has been trying to propagate the view that non-Turkish and non-Muslim communities enjoyed peacefully safe and happy lives under the Ottoman rule. This is not the historical truth. Although they were not subjected to pogrom-like brutalities in the flourishing days o f the empire, still they were despised and considered secondclass citizens, at best tolerated. This did not reflect magnanimity on the part o f the Turks, but resulted from a symbiotic relation. The skills o f various peoples of the empire were utilized in a kind of division o f labour. The term 'reaya' (literally, ’flocks’), before it was generalized to the whole o f the Third Estate without regard to religion, was used to describe non-Muslims, who until the Tanzimat were exempted from military service in return for payment of a poll tax. Each religio-ethnic group, within a legal framework consisting of the Islamic shari ’a and the Turkish customary law, lived in separate localities (villages or districts) and functioned in almost exclusive spheres, without

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intermingling with Muslims, and in conformity to their own private community rules. The fact that they had co-religionists in the West resulted in their being influenced earlier and more fully by Western civilization than were the Muslims. Muslim Ottomans were generally exposed to Western influence indirectly, through their partly Westernized non-Muslim compatriots (and ’L e v a n tin e ’Ottomanized’ subjects of European states residing in the empire), and in accordance with their interpretation o f the West. Hence, there is nothing special in the introduction of socialist ideas through their media in die last quarter of the 19th century. The non-Muslim components o f the Ottoman population, due to the 19th century reforms, had achieved a greater impact on and more chances o f participation in the administration than before. But the spread o f sentiments and ideas o f nationalism in the period following die French Revolution had already alienated them from the Ottoman system and pushed them into supporting developing national liberation movements at the very time when they had become more influential. Indeed, the reforms o f Tanzimat (after 1839) and Islahat (after 1856) were not unrelated to external pressures exerted on the Ottoman rule as a reflection o f these nationalisms at the international level. For instance, the treaty o f Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 had given to Tsarist Russia the right o f protection over a Russian Orthodox Church organization established in Istanbul. But this right was gradually interpreted as covering all Orthodox Ottoman subjects. Eventually it came to include Gregorian Armenians and Armenian Catholics as well. Slav separatist movements followed the Greek independence struggle in the Balkans during the 19th century. First, a small Greece was carved out o f the imperial domains. But the majority o f the Greeks (who continued to call themselves ’Rom aikf ) were still living together with other ethnic groups in Ottoman territories (in Thessaly, Epiros, Macedonia, Crete, Aegean islands, Cyprus, Thrace, Istanbul, western, north-eastern and central Anatolia). After Wallachia united with Moldavia to form an autonomous Romania, Slavist agitation on the part o f Tsarist Russia helped the independence movements of many Balkan peoples such as the Serbians, Montenegrans, Macedonians, Bosnians and Bulgarians. Even the non-Slav Albanians (the majority o f whom were Muslim, with some Orthodox Christians and an influential Catholic minority) were inclined to free themselves from Ottoman rule. The Paris Treaty o f 1856, which

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guaranteed the integrity o f the Ottoman territory was annulled with the Russian war o f 1877-8. The resultant Berlin Treaty, besides enlarging Serbia and Montenegro, created a nominally vassal principality of Bulgaria and a privileged province o f Eastern Rumelia. The same treaty also obliged the Ottoman state to carry out a number o f reforms in the eastern Anatolian provinces where the Armenians lived, as well as in Crete and Thrace. (The obligation of the Ottomans to improve the situation o f their own Christian subjects was undertaken only towards victorious Russia in the San Stefano peace treaty forced on them before the conference in Berlin; in the latter treaty, however, the same obligation was accepted towards all signatories.) When these promises were not fulfilled, Armenian nationalists resorted to rebellion in Muş and to terrorist activities in the capital, Istanbul. Greece’s defeat in the Ottoman-Greek war of 1897 could not stop Greek expansion. The island of Crete acquired autonomy and de fa cto became part o f Greece. Unrest continued at the end o f the century in the Balkans and especially in Macedonia. The Khedivate o f Egypt, since long autonomous under Ottoman rule, was invaded by the British after the opening o f the Suez Canal. In 1878 the British also took over Cyprus. The whole of the Maghrib (western Arab lands) gradually came under French domination. Finally, Tripolitania (modem Libya) was occupied by the Italians in 1911. Whereas in the Mashriq (eastern Arab lands) no open revolt was seen until the Second Constitutional period, the eastern Arabs were already complaining of Tatrik (Turkification), exactly as the Greeks blamed Turkish supremacy (!Tourkokratia) for their underdevelopment. The Jews were exceptional among these ’other nationalities’ (milel-i saire), as is shown by Paul Dumont in his brilliant study. Ottoman Jews, though they benefited from the ’enlightenmentalist’ Alliance Israelite Universelle enterprise o f Western Jewry, did not warmly receive the Zionist movement emanating likewise from Europe. In the beginning o f our period o f study, the idea o f an independent Jewish home was simply too utopian. If non-Muslims, especially the Christian Ottoman communities, were ’suspect’ in the eyes o f the central state, this had to do with their being exploited by foreign powers in external politics with a view to weakening and breaking up the Ottoman entity. In 1876, at the onset of our period, the Balkan peninsula- that is, the area to the south o f a line running from Trieste to the Danubian delta in

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the Black Sea - had a total population o f around 18.5 million. Their distribution, according to nationality, religion and mother-tongue, was as follows: Nationality:

9 million Ottoman (including Bulgaria) 5.4 million Romanian 2 million Serbian 2 million Greek 0.235 million Montenegran

Faith:

3.2 million Muslim 14 million Orthodox Christian 1 million Catholic Christian 0.1 million Gregorian Christian 0.05 million Protestant Christian 0.2 million Jewish

Language:

1.5 million Turkish speaking 3.5 million Bulgarian speaking 5 million Romanian speaking 3.5 million Serbian/Bosnian speaking 2.7 million Greek speaking 2 million Albanian speaking 0.2 million Ladino speaking 0.15 million Roman (Gypsy) speaking 0.1 million Armenian speaking

According to the results o f the Ottoman census o f 1895-6, the grand total population o f the whole country (Balkans, Anatolia and Arabia) was 19 million, out o f which 14 million - i.e. 73.5 per cent - were Muslim. (Following the Russian war o f 1877-8, Muslim refugees numbering more than a million came from the Balkans and Caucasia.) Greeks, with 2.5 million, represented 13 per cent o f the total, Armenians, at a little over a million, 5.5 per cent, and the 215,000 Jews 1.3 per cent.2 According to the Ottoman census carried out at the beginning o f the First World War (in 1914-15), the total population (excluding Arabia) was 18.5 million. The provinces lost in the Balkan wars o f 1912-13 had diminished the Greek element disproportionately. Hence, 15 million Muslims now represented 81 per cent, 1.7 million Orthodox Greeks 9

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per cent (plus 62,500 Catholic Greeks) and 1.16 million Gregorian Armenians 6.2 per cent (plus 68,000 Catholic Armenians and most o f the 66,000 Protestants, who were in all likelihood also Armenians). The Jews were now down to 187,000 or 1 per cent. The confessional distribution for 18 vilayets (provinces) and 18 independent sancaks (subprovinces) o f Anatolia, excluding the areas that form part o f modem Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, shows a non-Muslim majority only in the province o f die Aegean islands (not yet subject to Italy). In lower administrative units such as subprovinces and kazas (districts), it was rare for either Greeks or Armenians to have a majority over Muslims. But such places did exist. For example, Greeks were more numerous than Muslims in the subprovinces o f Çatalca (independent) and Gelibolu (attached to Edime) and the districts o f Ayvalık (attached to Karesi) and Yalova (attached to İzmit) in the west and Maçka (attached to Trabzon) in the north-east. Armenians outnumbered Muslims in the Orhangazi district o f Bursa in the west and the central district o f Muş in the east. Greeks constituted more than a fifth in the province o f Aydin, which encompassed the city o f Izmir.3 Noutsos’ statement to the effect that the Greeks made up nearly a quarter o f the Ottoman population in Asia Minor at the turn o f this century must be attributed either to his definition o f Asia Minor, or else to figures exaggerated for political purposes at the time they were produced. For instance, G. Soteriades’ book published in London in 1918, An Ethnological Map Illustrating Hellenism in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, calculates the general population to be 11.2 million, excluding not only Arabic lands, but also the whole o f the eastern, southern and south-eastern provinces from Adana to Erzurum. Thus it was possible for him to claim that the Greeks surpassed 20 per cent o f the population and that the Turks represented less than 70 per cent. The disastrous 1915 deportation o f the Armenians and the compulsory exchange o f population carried out between the Greek Orthodox Christians o f Turkey and the Muslims o f Greece following the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, according to the first census o f the republic taken in the year 1927, resulted in a grand total o f 13.650 million people. Speakers o f mothertongue Turkish, numbered 11.780 millions (863 per 1000), Greek speakers 120,000 (1.1 per cent) and Armenian speakers 65,000 (less than 0.5 per cent). (The most numerous non-Turkish Muslim ethnic groups were Kurdish, Arabic and Circassian speakers.)

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The Spread of socialism and communism Before the Constitutional period o f 1876, the ideas o f socialism and communism were regarded negatively in the Turkish-language press on the grounds o f irreligiosity and immorality. Interestingly, the term most often used, Collectivism (tştirakiyet ), dien evoked the old Iranian Zoroastrian religion and was represented as partaking in the sexual promiscuity attributed to it. The sole exception to this generally hostile approach was the defence by Namlk Kemal and his friends o f the Paris Commune, which they had witnessed at first hand. In the aftermath o f 1876, some Ottoman thinkers such asŞemseddin Sami Bey (o f Albanian origin) and Sava Pasha (o f Greek extraction) distinguished socialism from communism and claimed that the former could be reconciled with Islam. Although, as Feroz Ahmad underlines, socialism theoretically was an internationalist current o f thought opposed to nationalism, the organization o f the Socialist International endorsed the right o f imprisoned nationalities under the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires to struggle for self-determination (independence). Rosa Luxemburg even championed the shattering o f the Ottoman Empire for the sake o f seeing historical dialectics function. (Marx himself, on the other hand, like British conservatives used to support the Ottomans as a bulwark against Tsarist Russia, which he considered to be the greatest danger for Europe.) An interesting observation can be made on the reciprocal animosity between Ottoman ethnic communities, every one o f which opposed separately the central government. The Ottoman state doubtless profited from the mutual opposition o f Greek, Armenian, Jewish, Bulgarian etc. communities. Their cultural contradictions gained a material basis once separation and independence took their place on the agenda. A typical case was that o f the (mostly still continuing) claims o f Serbs, Greeks, Bosnians, Albanians, Jews and Turks/Muslims to Macedonia. Such specific nationalisms emasculated to a large extent the socialist principle which hailed human fraternity without any discrimination o f creed or race. In consequence, again as noted by Ahmad, socialists from each nationality engaged in separate activities instead o f working in a single Ottoman socialist movement. Only in the clandestine Turkish Communist Party (TCP) which flourished during the 1920s in Istanbul can one observe a pluralism befitting socialist internationalism.4 In the earlier phase o f its founding congress in Baku, the TCP too was under the spell o f nationalism.

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Fikret Adanïr sees a dissymmetry between the attitudes o f non-Muslim and Muslim socialists. The non-Muslims while opposing chauvinism generally and paying lip service to internationalism in their programmatic documents, tried in fact to enlarge their social basis by agreement with nationalists and opened up their programmes to non-socialists o f their own ethnic community. But Muslim Turks willing to join their ranks were required to be socialists. The IMRO in the Bulgarian context was in fact the political organization o f citizens affiliated to the Bulgarian Exarchate. Even the Macedonian anarchists, who vehemently opposed all nationalism, be it Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian, and who invited Muslims to join them, proved in their terrorist practice to be Bulgarian nationalist bands, and thus aroused die reaction o f both Muslims and Greeks. The Balkan legacy of Turkey’s Left Turkey incorporates many Muslim immigrants from the Ottoman lands gradually lost in the Balkans during the last years o f the 19th century and the beginning o f the 20th. These refugees who had a sharper nationalist consciousness than the indigenous people, played prominent roles in social, economic and political spheres. The best known case is that o f Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president o f the republic, who was bom in Thessaloniki and went to military school in Bitola (Turkish: Monastir). One can observe that many leaders o f the socialist movement in Turkey were also o f Balkan origin. This reflects more than the general share o f activism o f the immigrants; in all likelihood it is also related to the fact that they were raised in more developed areas and were influenced by non-Turkish Balkan radical leftists. Not only Rasim Haşmet,5 whom Paul Dumont mentions as the Turkish-language editor o f the Workers’ Federation o f Salonica newspaper, was connected with this city, but also many prominent people in the histoiy o f the Left in Turkey. Dr Şefik Hüsnü (Değmer), long time leader o f the clandestine TCP, was bom and raised there; m oreover he came from a Dönme (pseudo Muslim converted Jewish) family. Mrs Sabiha Sertel, who was to be a very influential journalist in the 1930s and 1950s, and who was a member o f the Nazim Hikmet group o f the underground TCP, had the same religio-ethnic roots. (Incidentally, Nazim Hikmet, too, was bom in Thessaloniki.) Reşat Fuat (Baraner), at the end o f our period still a radical engineering student in Germany, was later to occupy the post o f general

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secretary o f the TCP. He came from a Thessaloniki family distantly related to Atatürk’s. A rif Oruç, a sui generis left-wing journalist, Ali Cevdet, a leading figure in the TCP, and his nephew Hasan Ali (Ediz), Şevket Süreyya (Aydemir) and Dr Hikmet (Kïvïlcïmlï), also important personalities in the same current, were all from Ottoman Macedonia. Kerim Sadi (alias Nevzat Cerrahlar), the Marxist historian, came from an immigrant family from the Peloponneses settled in Izmir. Ahmet Cevat (Emre), who taught at the Moscow Communist University o f Eastern Toilers in its early years, was from Crete. Hüseyin Ragïp (Baydur), who participated in the activities o f the Istanbul communist group, later joined the official TCP in Ankara and ended up as Turkish ambassador to Moscow and London, was from the island o f Rhodes. It is no secret that the communist movement in Turkey before 1925 adopted a particular concept o f patriotism, partly under the influence o f Soviet support for aid to the Kemalist nationalists. Nevertheless, the TCP was criticized for collaboration with the bourgeoisie in some early Comintern congresses. Hopes o f infiltrating the republican government so as to direct it on to a path o f non-capitalistic development were discarded only in 1925. Yet the modernizing reforms effected in the country flattered the national pride o f the TCP leadership. The continuing friendship with the Soviet Union which formed the basis o f the government’s foreign policy earned them a much softer attitude on the part o f the TCP than that shown by communists to nationalist governments in other countries. The application to Turkey o f the last (8th) Comintern Congress decisions about creating anti-fascist popular fronts everywhere led to the exclusion o f the TCP from the international communist movement. The underground party was resuscitated in the second half o f the 1940s, but when there was a real awakening o f the Left in the late 1960s it was significant that the main theme was anti-imperialism, a principle on which a compromise could be reached with the nationalists. Briefly, then the TCP was not immune to the nationalism so often observed in the offsprings o f the former Ottoman communities, and the roots o f this tendency were already there on the eve o f the republican period. Inter-communal relations Although the collaboration o f Muslim and non-Muslim Ottomans in trade unions and socialist parties was not confined exclusively to the case o f the WFS, it was rather rare and exceptional.

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The restoration o f the Ottoman Constitution in July 1908, dubbed ’Eternal Freedom’ in Turkish, seems to have created genuine hopes o f fraternity among all communities, in spite o f opposition from their more suspicious socialist leaders. Perhaps they were more realistic in discerning the nationalist potentialities o f the Young Turk movement. İştirak, the organ o f the Ottoman Socialist Party in 1910, carried several articles by Bohor İsrail, a Jewish intellectual with philosophical leanings who was director o f one o f the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools, in addition to occasional contributions from a few Armenians and Greeks. A Greek called Yorgi Zaferaki was the general secretary o f the tiny Social Democrat Party in the Istanbul o f 1918. Arhangelos Gavril, a Greek physican led the organization o f l’Association fraternelle du Personel de Chemin de fer d’Anatolie, one o f the earliest trade unions o f the Second Constitutional period. But in all probability non-Muslims were more numerous than Muslims among railway employees. Besides, relatively free trade unionist activity was restricted to a few"years after 1908. Even during the Armistice in Istanbul (1918-23), in spite o f more conducive conditions, the Union Internationale du Travaille o f the Greeks and İşçi Demeği (W orkers’ Society) o f the Turks, the two workers’ organisations which were part o f the communist movement and affiliated to Profintem, could not be united, despite all efforts to bring them together. No doubt this was because o f the reciprocal animosity o f their communities. We must add that the Ankara government, after liberating Istanbul, effectively hindered any such unification by inciting Turkish workers against non-Muslim (especially Greek) workers, who were accused o f being collaborators o f the occupation forces. The fact that some o f the non-Muslim communities had national states created by their own kin abroad influenced the attitudes o f their left-wingers still living in the empire. After the establishment o f independent Greek, Serbian, Romanian and Bulgarian states, only the first o f these peoples was left with a sizable portion inside the Ottoman borders. The ambiguous position taken up in the national question by the Ottoman Greek socialists can thus be explained. (In the other new national states, where the Turks and Muslims were living as an unwanted and rather conservative minority, a few o f them joined in the local leftist struggles. One can read about some examples o f these in the collection o f the multi-language La Fédération Balkanique (Organe des minorités nationales et des peuples balkaniques opprimés) journal

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published by Dimitar Vlahov, an ex MP in the Ottoman assembly, in Vienna and Frankfurt am Main between 1924 and 1932. Another case o f socialist internationalism outweighing national chauvinism has been witnessed among the Greeks. During the invasion o f western Anatolia by the Greek army in 1919, there were some extreme leftist Greeks who violently opposed it and even incited their soldiers to revolt in support o f the Turkish side. Dumont has shown that the Jews, a community which did not have abroad a national state o f their own, supported the Ottoman status quo. Armenians, the other stateless community, could not achieve independence in the Caucasus before the end o f the First World War. When a Dashnak republic (destined to a short life) was established, the 1915 deportation had already occurred and very few Armenians were left inside the frontiers o f present day Turkey. The information related to us by Ter Minassian about the previous era shows that the Armenian Left, although it occasionally tried to overcome nationalist inclinations, could not help acting chauvinistically as representatives o f an oppressed people. I m yself learned many things from the contributions in this volume. Nevertheless, I am afraid some o f the points which I had hoped would be unearthed still remain unclear. For instance, I expected that some evidence concerning relations between the socialists o f diverse Ottoman communities and their Freemason organizations would be produced in these papers. They are hardly mentioned. Yet among left-wing Turkish links with Freemasonry were highly significant. Mustafa Suphi, the first president o f the TCP, was formerly a Freemason (while objecting to its internationalist creed), and so was Nâzîm Bey, the president o f the Anatolian Türkiye Halk İştirakiyim Fïrkasï (People’s Communist Party o f Turkey). We do know that Freemasonry was widespread among prominent members o f the Union and Progress Party (as it was indeed in the Latin American liberation movements), so, as many a Turkish socialist came from the Unionist ranks, it is only to be expected that one should find vestiges o f Masonry among them, too. Or was Freemasonry too bourgeois for non-Turkish/Muslim Ottoman socialists? Were they all in possession o f a proletarian consciousness from the onset? Another point on which I was disappointed was the lack o f any reference to the Balkan gypsies. In the illegal TCP activities from the 1920s to the 1950s, immigrant gypsies from northern Greece and Bulgaria, mainly engaged in tobacco processing industries, were

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prominent. They were already experienced in trade union work before coming to Turkey, so it would have been reasonable to expect references to them in some o f our articles. A confession I wish to finish this essay with a confession. Many years ago, when I presented my study on the history o f the Left, my anti-nationalist scruples led me to take special care to name it the ’Left in Turkey’, instead o f ’Turkish Left’. Yet in fact my work was limited to the leftist movements o f the Turks, because I had used mainly Turkish language material. Only now, through the articles in this volume from the angles o f other communities, does my initially unfulfilled ideal seem to have been achieved. The gist o f all these contributions can perhaps be summarized in the statement that, during the late years o f the Ottoman Empire, socialism and communism were used as instruments o f clashing nationalisms by members o f diverse groups. Yet as a person who believes in human equality and fraternity, it saddens me to observe that the idea o f nationalism, which I regard as a primitive remnant o f tribalism, at the end o f this century is at least as strong as it was in its beginning, despite immense efforts spent throughout the century to overcome it and the pains suffered at its results in two world wars and innumerable local ones. My sincere desire is that ethnic plurality will in a not-so-distant future be transformed into a cultural richness, through solving the fundamental conflicts o f interest which feed this sad development, in accordance with principles o f justice. I am o f the opinion that researchers who can look at the record o f the past objectively and who have the courage to oppose the misuse o f history for nationalist purposes can have some share in achieving this aim. I hope that such a vision is not futile phantasy.

Notes

Introduction 1. Throughout this volume, the present day names of places in the former Ottoman Empire have been used (e.g. Thessaloniki instead of Salonica or Selânik; Istanbul instead of Constantinople), followed by the old Ottoman name where necessary (e.g. Alexandroupolis [Dedeağaç]). The above does not, of course, apply to placenames in quotes or booktitles.

1. Some Thoughts on the Role of Ethnic and Religious Minorities. 1. A. Cerrahoğlu, Türkiye’de sosyalizmin tarihine katki, (Istanbul, 1975 and other edns); Mete Tunçay, Türkiye'de sol Akimlar 1908-1925 (Ankara, 1967); Georges Haupt and Paul Dumont, (ed.), OsmanlI imparatorluğunda sosyalist hareketler (Istanbul, 1977); and George Harris, The Origins o f Communism in Turkey (Stanford, 1967). Right-wing writers like Fethi Tevetoğlu, Türkiye’de sosyalist ve komünist faaliyetler (1910-1960) (Ankara, 1967) have emphasized the role of the minorities in order to suggest that socialist ideology is somehow alien to Muslim/Turkish society and has been imported by ’undesirable’ elements. Thus, socialism/communism continues virtually to this day to be described by the right in Turkey as a foreign ideology. 2. Quoted by Raymond Williams in Keywords: a vocabulary o f culture and society (London, 1976), p. 240. 3. Ibid. 4. James Joli, The Second International 1889-1914 (London 1974, rev. edn), pp. 76-7. 5. Feroz Ahmad, ’Unionist relations with the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914’, in Benjamin Braude and 169

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Bernard Lewis, ed., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire (New York, 1982), vol. i, pp. 401-34. 6. Williams, Keywords, p. 241. 7. Haupt and Dumont, Osmanlï, pp. 36-7. 8. G.D.H. Cole, A History o f Socialist Thought: the Second International 1889-1914 (London, 1963), vol. iii, part 2, p. 956; and Joli, International, pp. 68-9. 9. Horace Davis, Nationalism and Socialism: Marxist and Labor Theories o f Nationalism to 1917 (New York, 1967), p. 139; my emphasis. 10. J.P. Netti, Rosa Luxemburg (London, 1966), vol. i, p. 100, quoting from Luxemburg’s article ’Die nationalen Kämpfe in der Türkei und die Sozialdemokratie’, Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung, 8,9 and 10 October 1896. 11. Dickson to O’Conor, Van, 2 March, 1908, in FO 371/533. For the twists and turns in the politics of the Armenian revolutionary movement, see Anaide Ter Minassian, Nationalism and Socialism in the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Cambridge, Ma, 1984). 12. Ibid. 13. Cole, A History o f Socialist Thought pp. 605-7; and L.S. Stavtianos, The Balkans since 1453 (New York, 1966), pp. 519-63. 14. Ter Minassian, Nationalism and Socialism, p. xii; my emphasis. 15. On anarchism, see George Woodcock, Anarchism (London, 1963). 16. These estimates are based on Feroz Ahmad and Dankwart Rustow, ’İkinci Meşrutiyet döneminde Meclister 1908-1918’, in Güney-Dofeu Avrupa Arast'irmalarî Dergisi (Istanbul, 1976), nos 4-5, pp. 245-84. 17. Z.A.B. Zeman and W.B. Scharlau, The Merchant o f Revolution: the life o f Alexander Israel Helphand (Parvus) 1868-1924 (London, 1965), p. 127. Apart from Vlahof, Parvus seems to have had little to say about socialists and socialism in Turkey, if Chapter 6 is any guide. Yet it may be worth persuing Helphand’s correspondence to see if there is more on this subject. 18. Joli, The Second International PP- 117,121. 19. Davis, Nationalism and Socialism, p. 140,142. 20. Panagiotis Noutsos, article in this volume on the Greek Minority,

NOTES

171

21. Ibid. 22. ’Die Nationalitätenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie’, quoted by Tom Bottomore, in ’Austro-Marxism’, A Dictionary o f Marxist Thought, Tom Bottomore, ed. (Cambridge, MA, 1983), p. 37. For more details see Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode, ed. and trans., Austro-Marxism (Oxford, 1978). 23. According to Ter Minassian, - Nationalism and Socialism, p. 30 - this point was taken up by Armenian socialists in the Caucasus but not, it seems, in Anatolia. 24. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, various eds; Münir Süleyman Çapanoğlu, Türkiye 'de Sosyalizm Hareketleri ve Sosyalist Hilmi (İstanbul, 1964), p. 38, n. 3. 25. Mete Tunçay ed., Mesai Halk Şuralar Fikasî Programı (Ankara, 1972). 26. Gündüz ökçün ed., Türkiye İktisat Kongresi-Izmir (Ankara, 1968), p. 430. 27. ’Proletarya Kimlerdir?’ Kurtuluş (İstanbul, 1975), pp. 75-83. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. Here the definition of the proletariat almost resembles that of the Third Estate, convening everyone except for the small ruling class and its hangers-on at the top. 30. Cerrahoğlu, Türkiye 'de Sosyalizm, p. 73. 31. Debate of 16-29 November 1909 in Meclisi Mebusan Zabit Ceridesi (Ankara, 1985), vol. i, p. 142. The Turkish reads: ’Ve mademki hakimiyeti milliye vardlr, her şeyin mutlaka memlekette hakim olan milletin timsali mucessime olan Meclisten geçmesi lâzim gelir...’ 32. Ibid., vol. iii, p. 131. RIza Tevfık was indulging in wishful thinking regarding the lack of national consciousness among Muslims in the empire, though it was certainly not as developed as among the Christians. 33. Ibid.

2. The National Question 1. Makedoniya kako prirodna ( 1978), pp. 283 ff.

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

2. T.A. Robeff (1926) Die Verkehr- und Handelsbedeutung von Saloniki, Lucka; A.P. Vacalopoulos (1963) History o f Thessaloniki, V. Demetriades (1983) Topografia tes Thessalonikes. 3. Desa Miljovska, ’Ekonomski osnovi druSvene stmk skih gradova u drugoj polovini XIX veka’. 4. D. Boyanovski (1954), ’Öliökite odnosi vo Makedoniya okolu 1903 godina’ [The çiftlik relations in Macedonia around the year 1903], Godishnik na Pravno-ekonomskiot fakultet vo Skopje, i, p. 481. See also F. Adanlr, ’Zum Verhältnis von Agrarstruktur und nationaler Bewegung in Makedonien 1878-1908’, in R. Melville and H.J. Schröder, cd., Der Berliner Kongress von 1878 (Wiesbaden, 1982), pp. 445-61. 5. Korkut Boratav, A. Gündüz ökçün and Şevket Pamuk, ’Ottoman wages and the world-economy, 1839-1913’, in Review, viii (1986-87), pp. 379-406; quote from p. 393. 6. Calculated on the basis of data in Charles Issawi, The Economic History o f Turkey, 1800-1914 (Chicago, 1980), p. 207. 7. Başbakanlık Osmanlî Arşivi (BOA), Irade-Husûsi L. 1312-48,8 April 1895. 8. Dr Ranzi, Monastir, 11 July 1906, no. 33, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Vienna, Politisches Archiv (PA) XXXVIII/395. See also Basil C. Gounaris, ’Emigration from Macedonia in the early twentieth century’, Journal o f Modern Greek Studies, vii (1989), pp. 133-53. 9. Basil C. Gounaris, ’Railway construction and labour availability in Macedonia in the late 19th century’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, xiii (1989), pp. 139-58, quote from pp. 148 and 151. Wages offered by the Italian company in Eastern Macedonia fluctuated from lOd to Is 6d per day. See ibid., p. 151. 10. BOATFR-l-UM 191/19015,(11 June 1909). 11. BOA, Rumeli Müfettişliği Tasnifi, Umum Evrak! (TFR-l-UM), 28/2766,19 March sene 1325/1 April 1909. 12. T.A. Meininger, Ignatiev and the Establishment o f the Bulgarian Exarchate 1864-1872 (Madison, 1970), pp. 129-134,180-90. 13. That is why the name of the organization included a reference to Edime, a region considered by the nationalists in Sofia to be Bulgarian in ethnic composition, but which otherwise had nothing in common with Macedonia. 14. See Prviyat centralen komitet na VMRO. Spomeni na Dr Hristo Tatarâev [The First Central Committee of the IMRO. Memoirs of Dr Hristo Tatarev]

NOTES

173

(Sofia, 1928), p. 102. Tatariev was head of the Thessaloniki committee of 1893-4. 15. K. Pandev, ’Ustavi i pravilnitsi na VMORO predi Ilindensko-Preobrazhenskoto vüstanie’ [Statutes and regulations of the IMRO before the ilinden uprising], Izvestiya na instituta za istoriya, xxi, (1970), p. 249. 16. Dimitar Blagoev, ’Balkanskata federacija i Makedonija’, Makedonskij glas, (Sofia), 20 April 1885, printed in BlagoevSüiinenija, [Works] vol. i, (Sofia, 1957), pp. 46-54,61-70. 17. The Bulgarian Social Democratic Party (ßülgarska Sozialdemokrat**eska Partija ) was founded. The 2nd Congress took place in 1892, in Plovdiv. In 1894 the ’Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party’ ( Bülgarskata Rabotniâeska Socialdemokratiâeska partija ) was formed. The 4th Congress, in 1897, decided the publication oiRabotnibeski vestnik, ed. Georgi Kirkov. Since January 1897 Blagoev himself edited the Novo vreme. The 5th Congress, in 1898, decided the centralization of the party newspapers, which decision prompted Yanko Sakasov in 1900 to publish his own journal Obito delo. The 10th Congress, of 1893, in Ruse, ended with a split of the party. Adherents to the idea of coalitions with the bourgeoisie were excluded from the party and became known as the (Obedinena=united) BWSDP, whereas the adherents of Blagoev were known as the Narrow socialists: (Tesni Socialisti) BWSDP. 18. See Orde Ivanoski, Balkanskite socijalisti i makedonskoto praSanje [The Balkan socialists and the Macedonian question] (Skopje, 1970), pp. 171-2. 19. Dimitar Blagoev, ’Vüstaniéeskiot dviienie v Makedonija’ (The Insurrectionary movement in Macedonia], printed in his Works, vol iii, (Sofia, 1957), pp. 429-33. 20. For information on Glavinov, see G.T. Madolev, ’Vasil Glavinov, pioner na socialistideskoto dviienie v Makedonija i Odrinsko’ [Vasil Glavinov, a pioneer of the socialist movement in Macedonia and the region of Adrianople], Istoriieski pregled, (Sofia, 2/1968), pp. 66-81; and Dando Zografski, ’Vasil Glavinov i makedonskoto socijalistidko i rabotnifiko dviienje’ [Vasil Glavinov and the Macedonian socialist and working-class movement] Rabotnibkoto dväenje na Makedonija do 1929 god. (Skopje, 1971), pp. 19-38. 21. ’NaSata programa’ [Our programme], Revoljucija, no. 1, 28 July 1895, pp. 1-2, printed in Odbrani statü za rabotnibkoto i socijalistibkoto dväenje vo Makedonija (1895-1914) (Skopje, 1962), pp. 15-18. 22. Gavril Georgiev, ’Makedonskoto dviienie i rabotnideskata partija’, Rabotnibeski vestnik, (1901), br. 45-7.

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23. Dimo Hadii Dimov, ’Da uöastvame li v makedonskoto dvSenie’ [Should we join the Macedonian movement?], ObSto delo, br. 19, (1901), pp. 302-3, as discussed in Orde Ivanoski, ’Polemikata na Dimo Hadä Dimov so Gavril Georgiev okolu ufestvoto na socijalistite vo makedonskoto osloboditelno dviienje’ [The polemic of Dimo Hadä Dimov with Gavril Georgiev about socialists’ involvement in the Macedonian liberation movement], pp. 53-62. 24. ’Programa na makedonskite revoljucioneri-socijalisti’ [Programme of the Macedonian revolutionary socialists], Politiieska svoboda, no. 1,6 February 1989, pp. 2-3. 25. Pandev, ’Ustavi i pravilnici’, p. 257. 26. Pandev, ’Ğetnideskijat institut na VMORO’ [The Guerilla Institute of the IMRO], Problemi na politiieskata istorija na Bülgarija 1878-1944 (Sofia, 1979), pp. 72-94. 27. See the programme of Makedonskijat taen revoljucionen komitet, printed in Zbornik na dokumenti za sazdavanje an makedonskata driavnost (1893-1944) (Skopje, 1970), pp. 23-4. See also Stefan Troebst, 'Anarchisten

aus Bulgarien in der makedonischen national-revolutionären Bewegung (1896-1912)’, in W. Gesemann et al. ed., 1300 Jahre Bulgarien, vol. ii, part 1, (Neuried, 1981), pp. 95-114. 28. Krste Bitoski, ’Gemidiiite i nivnite odnosi so Goce i co makedonskata revolucionema organizacija’ [The Gemidtii and their relations with Goce and with the Macedonian national revolutionary movement], Goce D eliev i makedonskoto nacionalno revolucionemo dviienje (Skopje, 1973), pp. 113-23. 29. P. Satev, V Makedonija pod robstvo. Solunskoto süzakljatie (1903 g.) Podgotovka i izpùlnenie [In Macedonia in bondage. The conspiracy of Thessaloniki in 1903. Its preparation and execution] (Sofia, 1968). The author was a member of the anarchist group of 1903. 30. Ljuben Lape, ’Nikola Petrov Rusinski kako izvor za raniot period od Sirenjeto na socijalistifikite idei vo Makedonija’ [Nikola Petrov Rusinski as a source for the earlier period of the spreading of socialist ideas in Macedonia] (Skopje, 1971), pp. 38-52. 31. ’Nikola Karev’, Ğerven naroden /calendar za prostata 1906 godina (Sofia), pp. 91-4, quoted in Orde Ivanoski, ’Juzno-slovenskite socijalisti i Ilindenskoto vostanie’ [The Yugoslav socialists and the ilinden uprising], ilinden 1903 (Skopje, 1970), pp. 303-19; quote from p. 307. 32. Orde Ivanoski, ’Nikola Karev. Besmmiot “Pretsedatel na KruSevskata republika’” [Nikola Karev. The immortal ’President of the Republic of KruSevo’]), Kniga a ilinden (Skopje, 1969), pp. 153-64.

NOTES

175

33. See Danéo Zografski, Za rabotniikoto dviienje vo Makedonija do Balkanskata vojna [On the working class movement in Macedonia until the Balkan war] (Skopje, 1950), p. 170. The complete text isprinted in Ljuben Lape, ’Novi dokumenti za Lindenskoto vostanie’ [New documents on the ilinden uprising], Ilindenski zbornik 1903-1953 (Skopje, 1953), pp. 3-151; quote from pp 18-20. 34. On developments in and around KruSevo in 1903, which form a central theme in modem Macedonian historiography, see the proceedings of the symposia organized under the title ’Ten Days of the Republic of KruSevo’ in 1976, 1977 and 1978, published in Prilozi za ilinden [Contributions regarding ilinden] (KruSevo, 1978-9), 2 vols. 35. RabotniiesH vestnik, br. 4, 17 September 1903. Quoted in Ivanoski, The Yugoslav socialists and Oneİlinden uprising, p. 312. 36. Christo Matov za svojata revoljucionna dejnost [Christo Matov on his revolutionary activity] (Sofia, 1928), p. 68. 37. Avicenus (Dimo Hadü Dimov), ’Dve teèenija’ [Two currents], Revolucionen list, (1905), br. 9, quoted in Ivan Katardiiev, Sersfdot okrug od Kresnenskoto vostanie do Mladoturskata Nacionalno-politiéki borbi (Skopje, 1968), pp. 304-9.

revolucija.

38. Svetozar Markovic, ’Srbija na Istoku’ [Serbia in the East], in his, Odobrani spisi (Zagreb, 1950), pp. 1-116; quote from pp. 115-16. 39. L.S. Stavrianos, Balkan Federation: History o f the Movement toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times (Northampton Ma, 1944), pp. 115-16. 40. Georgi Purvanov, ’Dimo ChadHdimov i nacionalnoosvoboditelnoto dviienie (kraja na XIX V.-1912 g.)’ [Dimo Hadü Dimov and the National Liberation Movement (from the end of the 19th century until 1912], in Istoriieski pregled (Sofia, 1991/2), pp. 55-70; quote from p. 57. Purvanov holds, however, that Dimov’s federalist concept for the IMRO was not justified because Bulgarians were the ethnically dominant element in Macedonia. ’Predlaganata ot Chadüdimov federativna struktura na VûtreSnata organizacija ne e opravdana poradi fakto, £e na territorijata na VMOR dominiraStijat nacionalen element e bulgarskijat’, p. 63. 41. The following contribution, which I have seen only in manuscript form, represents a major step forward in this regard: Leslie Collins, ’Yane Sandanski and the Young Turks’, in F.A.K. Yasamee, ed., ’Union and Progress Studies on the Young Turk Revolution o f1988.

42. The

information on Crete is taken from Meyers Grosses Konversations-Lexikon, 6. Aufl., (Leipzig and Vienna, 6/1905), vol. xi, pp. 638-41.

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43. ’Mladoturcite i revoljucijata’ [The Young Turks and the revolution], Politibeska svoboda, no. 2,19 February 1898, pp. 63-4. 44. Christo Malov on his revolutionary activity, p. 53. 45. Ibid., p. 15. The Young Turks themselves were aware of this unwillingness of the Macedonian nationalists to co-operate in a peaceful development and were sincerely upset about that Ottoman archival documents corroborate this thesis. 46. Dimitar Blagoev, Revoljucijata v Turcija i socialdemokracijata [The revolution in Turkey and the social democracy) (Sofia, August 1908), printed in his Süâinenija [Works], vol xiii, (Sofia, 1960), pp. 50-82; quote from p. 51. 47. Ibid., pp. 61 f. 48. Dimitar Blagoev, ’Nacionalnoto obedinenie i rabotnideskata klasa’ [The national unification and the working class] Rabotnibeski vestnik, 18 April 1909, printed in his Works, vol xiii, pp. 284-8. 49. It is remarkable that Blagoev demonstrates here almost a biological concept of nation. He apparently believed that the Bulgarian nation had already, in 1878, completed its formation. But at least in the case of Macedonia this was not the case. At any rate, Blagoev was a stout champion of the ideal of San Stefano Bulgaria, itself a creation of Great Power politics. Holding such a position, Blagoev would have been welcome in any nationalist circle in the tsardom of Bulgaria. 50. Ibid., p. 286. It is important to note that Blagoev does not question the inherent wisdom of a policy of Bulgarian unification. Furthermore, he would not have been against the annexation of Macedonia and Thrace by Bulgaria by way of war. The interventionist policies of the Powers seemed to him the only hindrance to the realization of Bulgarian national ideals. 51. Ibid., p. 287. This stand of Blagoev necessitated a total refusal of any pragmatic peace-saving efforts in the Balkans. 52. Dimitar Blagoev, ’Balkanskijat vûpros’ [The Balkan question], Novo vreme, 8-9 (August-September 1909), printed in his Works, vol. xiii, pp. 384-95. 53. One could say that all South Slavs were related to each other in a similar way, yet they did constitute a union. Of course, not all linguistically and culturally ’German’ groups joined the German union. 54. Ibid., pp. 388-9.

NOTES

177

55. Pâra, Thessaloniki, 17 August 1908, no. 179, HHStA, PA XXXVIII/409; Pàra, Thessaloniki, 20 August 1908, no. 181, HHStA, PA XXXVIII/409. I have not seen any information on this programme published in Turkish literature. For the Pandevski quotes (Manol Pandevski, Politiiite partit i organizacii vo Makedonya (1908-1912) [The political parties and organizations in Macedonia] (skopje, 1956), p. 59), see Vesti, (Carigrad), br. 87, 22 August 1908, pp. 1-2, ( Vesti utilized the Levant Herald) and Nov iiv o t (Carigrad), br. 8, 29 August 1908, pp. 1-2. This must be the text reported by Péra on 20 August 1908. 56. Pandevski, [The political parties and organizations in Macedonia (1908-1912)] pp. 98 f. 57. Collins, ’Yane Sandanski’. 58. Pûrvanov, Dimo hadri Dimov, pp. 55-70; quote from pp. 66 f. 59. Pûrvanov, ’Bulgarskijat periodilen peöat v Makedonija i Odrinsko (1908-1912 g.)’ [The Bulgarian periodical press in Macedonia and the Edime region (1908-1912)], in Istoriieski Pregled (1984/3), pp. 67-79. 60. TuSe Vlachov, Kriza v bälgaro-turskite otnoSenija 1895-1908 [The crisis in Bulgaro-Turkish relations 1895-1908] (Sofia, 1977), pp. 156 f. 61. Ibid., p. 161. 62. Ibid., pp. 161 f. 63. Christo Matov , pp. 56-8. Three Young Turks led by Rahmi Bey met with the three IMRO leaders Matov, Penfcev and Apostol Dimitrov. At the first meeting the CUP expressed a desire for union with the IMRO: ’Pürva. “Bir olalùm”, - edno da stanem, te. edna organizacija’ (p. 56); ’Olmaz, ne moîe, kazvame nie; Vie-vie, nie-nie, - moiem da obrzuvame, ako Stete, obSta federativna komisija s delegati’ (p. 57). Matov was sought after also by Şükrü Bey, secretary of state in the ministry of the interior, and Abdulkerim Bey, minister of education. The two gentlemen came to his house several times, but Matov was not present, or perhaps, did not want to receive them, (pp. 57 f.) 64. Panto Dorev, ViInina politika i priiini na naSite katastrofi [Foreign policy and causes of our catastrophes] (Sofia, 1924), pp. 14, 16, 18-19, quoted in Collins, ’Yane Sandanski’. 65. A. Gündüz ökçün, Ta ’til-i esgal kanunu, 1909. Begeler - Yorumlar [The law on stoppage of work, 1909. Documents - commentaries] (Ankara, 1982). It is wrong to see a connection between the coup of 13 April 1909, and the passing of the law in the summer of the same year, since the bill had reached Parliament by 23 January and the prime minister Hüseyin Hilmi had

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asked for debates to open on 6 April. On 7 April 1909, the prime minister's memorandum was read in the Parliament and the president decided that the bill should be sent to the respective parliamentary commission. (See ibid., p. 15.) 66. R. Popov and E. Statelova, ed., Spomeni za objavjavane na nezavisimostta na Bülgarija 1908 [Reminiscences on the declaration of independence of Bulgaria in 1908) (Sofia, 1984), pp. 24-32. (The notebook of Konstantin Hadii Kaldov, 1836-1941. The document is preserved in the National Library, Sofia)

3. A Jewish, Socialist and Ottoman Organization. 1. A brief description of Thessaloniki’s economy at the beginning of the 20th century can be found in P. Risal, La ville convoitée Salonique (Paris, 1917). Cf. A. Theodossi Robeff, Die Verkehrs und Handelsbedeutung von Saloniki (Leipzig, 1926) and Kostis Moskof, Thessaloniki, tomi tis metapratikis polis (Thessaloniki, 1978). 2. Risal, La ville convoitée Salonique, pp. 277 ff. Cf the report of the British consul at Thessaloniki (archives of die Foreign Office: FO 371/341, pp. 386-91), which mentions in April-May 1908 a rise of fifty per cent in the cost of living as compared to 1903. 3. Cf. the report of V. Glavinov to the ISB published by George Haupt in ’Le début du mouvement socialiste en Turquie’, Le mouvement social no. 43 (October-December 1963), pp. 121-37: p. 125. 4. Information on educational institutions in Thessaloniki will be found in the Journal de Salonique, 6-20 July 1908. Cf. Risal, La ville convoitée Salonique, pp. 348 ff. As regards German schools, cf. the report of the French Consul in Thessaloniki of 24 April 1911 (AMAE) Turquie, NS 61, ff. 38-9).

5. On the activities of the Masonic lodges, cf. Paul Dumont, ’La Franc-Maçonnerie d’obédience française à Salonique’, Turcica, xvi, pp. 65-94. 6. For a general picture of social life in Thessaloniki at the turn of the century, cf. G. Veinstein, ed., Salonique 1850-1918. La ville des Juifs et le réveil des Balkans (Paris, 1992). 7. We find numerous articles giving the arguments of the Jewish community in newspapers and journals of the time. For a different point of view, favourable to an annexation of Thessaloniki by Bulgaria, cf. A. Guéron, Salonique et son avenir (Sofia, 1913).

NOTES

179

8. That, in any case, is what was stated, in the annual report of 1910 addressed to the ISB (Haupt, ’The beginning of the socialist movement’, p. 132). 9. Archives of the ISB, letter from the Association of Workers of Salonica, signed by Benaroya (President) and Hasson (secretary), dated 20 June 1909. This text together with much other correspondence between the WFS and the ISB is reproduced in Turkish in Georges Haupt and Paul Dumont, OsmanlI imparatorlusunda sosyalist hareketler [Socialist Movements in the Ottoman Empire] (Istanbul, 1977). 10. According to the Bulletin périodique du BSI, no. 1,1909, p. 13. 11. Ibid., no. 2 (1909), p.43. 12. Bom in 1887, in Vedin according to certain sources, in Thessaloniki, acoording to others, A. Benaroya adhered to socialism when still a teenager. In 1905 he was active in Bulgaria, in the ranks of the ’anarcho-liberals’ of Nikola Harlakov. In Thessaloniki, where he went at the beginning of the Young Turk revolution, he was die main inspiration of a Jewish socialist circle that was to be at the origin of the WFS. He remained secretary of the Federation until 1924 when he left the Greek communist party to which his organization had adhered. 13. On the subject of these various personalities, cf. Kostis

Moskof, La Fédération ouvrière de Salonique: naissance d ’un mouvement socialiste, thesis for a diploma of EPHE, VIth section, Paris (typewritten text).

14. D. Vlahov, Memoari [Memoirs] (Skopje, 1970), pp. 161-72. 15. These are largely preserved in the library of the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem. 16. Archives of the ISB, letter from Benaroya of 18 May 1910. 17. In the two last numbers of RabotnUeski vestnik, A. Tomov endeavours to defend himself against the accusations of the Narrow Bulgarian socialists who accuse him of collaborating with bourgeois organizations and in particular with writing in the Narodnaja volja, organ of the popular federative party of Macedonia Tomov was finally disowned by his Bulgarian comrades, most of whom left the Federation. There is an allusion to this quarrel in Benaroya’s report addressed to the ISB on the occasion of the Congress of Copenhagen. Cf. Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’, p. 132. 18. According to the indications given by Vlahov, Memoirs, p. 170. However, it is possible that Vlahov was betrayed by his memory. 19. The Mücadele is mentioned by its editor, Vlahov (Memoirs, pp. 148-9). We do not know die date at which the Solidaridad obradera ceased to appear,

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but the last number we have been able to consult is dated of 16 February 1912. 20. They had appeared before as a ’feature’ in 1931 in the newspaper Thadidromos of Thessaloniki under the title T prod stadiodromi tou ellinikou proletariatou’ [The fust stages of the Hellenic proletariat]. 21. Vlahov, Memoirs. 22. Akis Apostolidis et al., I sosialistiki organosi 'Federasion ’ Thessalonikis 1908-1918 [The Socialist Federation of Salonica 1908-18]. 23. On this subject, cf. Moskof, La Fédération ouvrière, and his Thessaloniki. 24. The documentation for these various strike movements is extremely abundant. The local press (in particular tht Journal de Salonique in French) and consular reports (AMAE Turquie, NS 58, 59) devotes a great deal of space to workers’ agitation. Cf. also the works of Moskof, ibid. 25. According to Stefan Velikov in his ’Sur le mouvement ouvrier et socialiste en Turquie après la revolution jeune-turque de 1908’, Etudes balkaniques, no. 1 (Sofia, 1964), p. 31. 26. Ibid., p. 32. 27. Ibid., p. 35. 28. Ibid. 29. Rabotniteska iskra of 1 April 1909, quoted in Velikov, ’Sur le mouvement’, p. 36. 30. Ibid. 31. The account of this strike is to be found in the Memoirs of A. Benaroya (Turkish translation in Dumont and Haupt, Socialist movements in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 296-301). 32. Archives of the ISB, letter from Benaroya and Hasson, 20 June 1909. 33. Journal de Salonique, 15 August 1909. Cf. ’Rapport annuel de la FOS’ in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement socialiste’, p. 133. 34. Report quoted in ibid. 35. On the relations established by the WFS with other socialist groups of the Empire, cf. in particular Moskof, La Fédération ouvrière.

NOTES

181

36. Rabotniâeska iskra of 18 December 1909, quoted in Velikov, ’Sur le mouvement’, pp. 134-5. 37. Report quoted in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’, p. 128. 38. Dumont and Haupt, Socialist movements in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 293-4. 39. Report of Glavinov to the ISB, quoted in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’. 40. Cf. in this connection Moskof, La Fédération ouvrière. 41. The annual report of the Federation, quoted in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’, pp. 134-5. 42. Vlahov explains the point in his Memoirs, pp. 86-8. 43. Several Bulgarian ’anarcho-liberals’ also participated in this expedition. Cf. ibid., p. 163. 44. AMAE Turquie, NS 60, report of 24 July 1909, ff. 62-3. 45. Cf. text published in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’, p. 130. 46. This account is based on the statement of Benaroya, in Dumont and Haupt, Socialist movements in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 300-1. But it is not absolutely certain that the account of Benaroya refers to 1 May 1910. 47. Archives of the ISB, letter from Benaroya to C. Huysmans, 11 August 1910. 48. Ibid., letters from Nahum to Huysmans, 3 December 1910, 3 and 9 January 1911. 49. About the fate of the Ottoman socialists in Istanbul, cf. in particular Mete Tunçay, Türkiye 'de sol akimlar, 1908-1925 [Leftist currents in Turkey] (Ankara, 2/1967), pp. 25-38. 50. The Archives of the ISB are rather discreet about this conference (telegram of 10 January 1911 and letter of Hazan to C. Huysmans of 13 January 1911). On the other hand, the numbers of Solidaridad obradera for 25 February and 3,10 and 17 March 1911 constitute a useful source. Cf. Benaroya, Memoirs, pp. 304-5. 51. Archives of the ISB, letter from Hazan of 3 May 1911. 52. Ibid., letter from Hazan to Huysmans of 8 June 1911. 53. Ibid., telegram from ISB to WFS, 9 June 1911. Cf. Solidaridad obradera, of 9 June 1911.

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

54. Ibid., letter from Huysmans to Nahum, 27 January 1911. 55. Ibid., letters from Nahum to Huysmans, 3 March and 10 July 1911. 56. Ibid., letter from Huysmans to WFS, 9 June 1911. 57. Ibid., letter from Dr Nevzad, representative of the Ottoman Socialist Party in Paris, to Huysmans, 18 November 1911. Cf. also the report of H. Hilmi to the Congress of Beme, published in Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement’, p. 136. The best study of the history of Muslim socialism as a whole is Tunçay, Leftist currents in Turkey. 58. Joseph Hazan (1890-1944) was die assistant secretary of the Federation. From October 1910 on, he signs letters to the ISB. 59. Solidaridad obradera, 18 August 1911. 60. Archives of the ISB, letter from D. Recanati to Huysmans, 19 October 1911 ; for the second meeting, see letter from Hazan, 5 November 1911. Cf. on the other hand Vlahov, Memoirs, pp. 141-2. 61. Resolution of the meeting organized by the Workers’ Socialist Federation and ’Manifesto of the Federation published as supplement to the Solidaridad obradera ’. These two documents appear in the Archives of the ISB. 62. As regard the behaviour of the Ottoman Socialist Party of Hüseyin Hilmi, cf. Tunçay, Leftist currents in Turkey, p. 38. In connection with the Henchak, see the Archives of the ISB, letter from Hazan to Huysmans, 12 March 1912. 63. Ibid. 64. Vlahov, Memoirs, pp. 146 ff. 65. For the various incidents of the electoral campaign, cf. the Archives of the ISB, letters from Hazan to Huysmans of 12 March, 6 April, and 16 April 1912, telegram of 22 March 1912. See also Vlahov, Memoirs, pp. 148-52. 66. Archives of the ISB, letters of Hazan to Huysmans, 29 April and 3 May 1912. 67. The text of this speech is preserved in ibid., Cf. also Solidaridad obradera, 12 April 1912. 68. The documents concerning the Balkan wars are grouped in nos. 9 and 10 of the Bulletin périodique du BSI. Cf. also Apostolidis et al., The Socialist Federation of Salonica, pp. 114 ff.

NOTES

183

69. According to the report of the Social-Democratic Party of Romania, Bulletin périodique du BSI, no. 10 (1913), p. 77. 70. Prince Sabahattin (1879-1948), leader of the ’decentralizing’ branch of the Young Turk movement was well known to socialists. Jean Longuet had devoted to him an article on the first page of Humanité, 4 September 1908. 71. The text of this proclamation appears in Bulletin périodique du BSI, no. 9 (1912), pp. 5-7. 72. Ibid., pp. 13-16. 73. About the evolution of the WFS after the city was taken by the Greeks, cf. P. Dumont, ’La Fédération Socialiste Ouvrière de Salonique à l’époque des Guerres Balkaniques’, East European Quarterly, vol. xiv/4 (1980), pp. 383-410. 74. Archives of the ISB, manifesto, 1 March 1913. 75. Cf. in particular, a document sent by the WFS to the ISB entitled ’La solution du problème balkanique’, 10 August 1913. See also Archives of the ISB, letters from Hazan to Huysmans, 13 August and 22 October 1913. 76. For relations established between the WFS and the Greek socialists, cf. Dumont, 'La fédération socialiste ouvrière’ and Apostolidis et al., The Socialist Federation of Salonica, pp. 127 ff. In the Archives of the ISB, letter from P. Drakoulis to Huysmans, 12 July 1914 refers to this rapprochement.

4. The Role of the Greek Community 1. Tsoukalas 1979:281,285,346,347. 2. Elliniki Dimokratia, May 1877:2. 3. A. Costa, ’Griechenland und andere Länder des Orients’, Jahrbuch fü r Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, xi (1880), pp. 273-5; qoute from p. 274. 4. Le travailleur, no. 4 (August 1877), pp. 24-6; ’Grèce’, Bulletin de la fédération jurassienne, vi/33-4,26 August 1877, p. 8. 5. Bulletin de la fédération jurassienne, vi/43,28 October 1877, pp. 2-3. 6. 1876:50-52.

184

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

7. P. Noutsos, Socialist thinking in Greece, vol. i 1875-1907 (Athens, 1990), pp. 310,57. 8. Paul Argyriades, ’Ligue pour la confédération balkanique’, La question sociale, no. 5 (1894), pp. 63-4. 9. P. Kondylis, Introduction to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Greece, Turkey and the Eastern Issue (Athens, 1985), p. 35. 10. E. Bernstein, Die Neue Zeit (1896/7): ’Kreta’, xvi, pp. 687-92; and ’Kreta und die Russische Gefahr’, xvii, pp. 10-20. 11. M. Löwy, ’Marxism and the national question’, New Left Review, no. 96 (March-April 1976), pp. 81-100; quote horn p. 85. 12. A. Cipriani, ’Kitzo’, Almanach de la question sociale, no. 7 (1897), pp. 103-17. 13. P. Argyriades, ’La question d’Orient et le socialisme’, ibid., pp. 532-5; quote from p. 535. 14. A. Costa, ’Griechenland’, p. 274. 15. Bulletin de la fédération jurassiènne, 3 July 1873, p. 3; 12 March 1876, p. 3; 20 August 1876, p. 2; 28 October 1877, p. 2-3. Le travalleur (May 1877), pp. 12-14. La révolte, 3 April 1880, pp. 4-12; 26 November 1881, pp. 3-4. 16. Noutsos, Socialist thinking in Greece, p. 61. 17. P. Drakoulis, ’What is a nation?’, Ardin, no. 5 (December 1886), p. 27. 18. P. Drakoulis, ’Notes’, Ardin, no. 4 (November 1886), p. 24. 19. Ibid., no. 11 (June 1877), p. 77. 20. ’Warning’, O Sosialistis, 5 June 1890, p. 8. 21. P. Drakoulis, ’Number and unification’, O Sosialistis, 29 June and 5 July 1890, pp. 1-2. 22. S. Kallergis, ’Notification’, O Sosialistis, 5 June 1890, p. 8. 23. S. Kallergis, A guide fo r all people (Athens, 1892), pp. 25-36. 24. S. Kallergis, A letter to all Greek socialists (Athens, 1898), p. 16. 25. D. Photopoulos, ’Letters from Crete’, Neon fos, no. 20,7 March 1899, p. 4.

NOTES

185

26. 18 April 1891, p. 1. 27. D. Amellos, ’Inclinations and habits’, Neon fos, 22 November 1898, p. 4. 28. Anon., ’The 25th of March’, Neon fos, no. 22,25 March 1899. 29. Epi taproso, 17 and 21 July 1896, p. 4. 30. Neon fos, 18 October 1898, p. 2. 31. M. Antypas, ’Our programme’, 23 April 1905, pp. 1-2. 32. G. Skliros [G. Konstantinidis], To koinoniko mas zitima [1907] [Our social problem], in his Works, ed., L. Axelos (Athens, 1976), pp. 136-7. 33. G. Skliros, ’The issue of the East’ [in Greek] [1909], in ibid., pp. 412-30. 34. D. Glenos, ’The Turkish change of regime and its consequences’ [in Greek] [1909], in his Works, ed., P. Iliou (Athens), pp. 171-188. 35. P. Drakoulis, ’The Turkish uprising’, iv/8 (August 1909), pp. 113-14. 36. A. Papanastasiou, ’The Turkish revolution’, no. 1 (1908), pp. 232-243. 37. Glenos, The Turkish change of regime, p. 172. 38. A. Benaroya, ’The first career of the Greek proletariat’ [in Greek] [1931], ed., A. Elephantis (Athens, 1976). 39. CMS Thessaloniki 1989, p. 30. See G. Haupt Tntroduzione alia storia della Federazione Operaia Socialista di Salonicco’, Movimento operaio e socialista, xviii (1972), pp. 99-112. 40. FSO 1910, p. 129. 41. Parvus, ’Socialism in Turkey’, 14 November 1910, p. 4. 42. N. Giannos, ’Our newspaper’, Ergatis, 8 August 1910, p. 4. 43. A. Vlachakis, ’To the roll sellers’, 14 November 1910, p. 3. 44. Benaroya, The first career of the Greek proletariat, p. 61. See Tagapoulos 1919, p. 430. 45. H. Hilmi, ’L’histoire du Parti Socialiste de Turquie’ [1919]; see G. Haupt, ’Le début du mouvement social en Turquie’, Le mouvement social, no. 45 (October-December 1963), p. 136.

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

46. N. Kastrinos, 'The 1st Teachers' Congress in Constantinople’, (1912), p. 465. 47. Tunçay 1978, pp. 152-6. 48. P. Dumont, 'Aux origines du mouvement communiste turc: le groupe “Clarté” d’Istanbul (1919-1925)’, Communisme, no. 6 (1984), pp. 129-51. 49. 1912, pp. 1,3,4. 50. 1922, pp. 1-2. 51. Anon., 'The labour things of Izmir’, 5 September 1920, p. 1. 52. Centre of Marxist Studies of Thessaloniki (1989), p. 35. 53. S. Karalskakis, ’Worker’, (1920), pp. 465-6. 54. Tagopoulos 1922, p. 176. 55. L. Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Los Angelos, 1963), pp. 104-31,151-78,207-20. 56. F. Ahmad, The Young Turks (Oxford, 1969), pp. 1-13.

5. The Bulgarian Community 1. Resolutions and Declarations of the BCP, vol. i, (Sofia, 1987), p. 408. 2. A. Miller, 50th Anniversary o f the Young Turk Revolution (Moscow, 1958), p. 46 [in Russian]. 3. T. Çavdar, Millî mücadele baslarında sayılarla vaziyet ve manzara-i umumiye. [The situation and general outlook at the beginning of the national struggle]. 4. G. Aliev, Turkey During the Young Turk Rule (Moscow, 1972), p. 167 [in Russian]. 5. Resolutions and Declarations of the BCP, vol. i, p. 409. 6. G. Parvanov and V. Rusanov, ’A report by V. Glavinov on the first period of the socialist movement in European Turkey’, Izvestiya na instituta po istoriya na BKP, li (1984) [in Bulgarian]. 7. Rabotnibeski vestnik no. 22,6 September 1909.

NOTES

187

8. V. Gurko, ’Labour and the Socialist Movement in Turkey’, Krasniy Profintern, nos 2-3 (1925) [in Russian]. 9. Rabotn&eski vestnik no. 16,26 August 1908. 10. Ibid., no. 4,2 September 1909 (Bulgarian edn of the newspaper published by the WFS). 11. Balgarski Peçetar [Bulgarian printer], no. 6,18 April 1909. 12. G. Parvanov, ’Socialist movement and events in Turkey 1908-1910’, Izvestiya na instituta po istoriya na BKP, 1 [in Bulgarian]. 13. Statutes of the M-ESDG, in Revolution and Social Democracy in Turkey (Sofia, 1908), pp. 27-8 [in Bulgarian]. 14. Resolutions and declarations of the BCP, vol. i, pp. 408-9. 15. Rabotn&eski vestnik, no. 9,16 August 1908. 16. D. Blagoev, Süèinenija [Works], vol i (Sofia, 1961), p. 98. 17. Resolutions and declarations of the BCP, vol. i, p. 520. 18. Blagoev, Works, vol. i, p.330. 19. Deliradev, The Macedonian Question and Social Democracy (Sofia, 1907) [in Bulgarian]. 20. S. Velikov, ’Sur le mouvement ouvrier et socialiste en Turquie après la revolution jeune-turque de 1908’, Etudes balkaniques no. 1 (Sofia, 1964), pp. 29-48. 21. P. Dumont, ’Une organisation socialiste ottomane; La Fédération ouvrière de Salonique (1902-12)’, Etudes balkaniques, no. 1 (Sofia, 1975), pp. 76-88. 22. Velikov, ’Sur le mouvement ouvrier’. 23. Parvanov and Rusanov, ’A report of V. Glavinov’. 24. Blagoev, Works, vol. xiv (Sofia, 1960-61), p. 490. 25. Shnurov, The Turkish Proletariat (Moscow, 1929) [in Russian]. 26. Rabotn&esko delo [Workers’ cause], 17 August 1966. 27. Gortsev, ’The Young Turks and the labour question’, Savremennik [Contemporary] (April 1912) [in Bulgarian].

188

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

28. T.Z. Tunaya, Political Parties in Turfy (Istanbul, 1952) [in Turkish]. 29. Gortsev, ’The young Turks’. 30. Shnurov, The Turkish Proletariat 31. M. Tunçay, Eski sol üzerine yeni bilgiler [New information on the old left] (Istanbul, 1982). 32. Shnurov, The Turkish Proletariat 33. Tunçay, New information on the old left

6. The Role of the Armenian Community 1. The 1927 census mentioned 77,433 Armenians, mainly living in Istanbul. 2. ARF report (in French) to the ISB (London, 1896). 3. This was only die high clergy. At the head of the apostolic Armenian Church - to which 90 per cent of Armenians belonged at the time - were two Catholics of Echmiadzin (near Erevan) and Sis (in Cilicia), and two Patriarchs, one of Constantinople and the other of Jerusalem. 4. Also known as the Henchakian party. 5. Commonly known as the Dashnak party. 6. For an analysis of the similarities between socialism and communism in die Armenian revolutionary movement, the author kindly refers to some earlier publications: A. Ter Minassian, La question Arménienne (Paris, 1983) [articles on the relations between socialism and nationalism] . 1918-1920: La république cTArménie (Paris, 1989). ’At the origins of Armenian Marxism: the Specifists’, Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique XIX, (1-2) January-June 1978, pp. 67-117. 7. It was at Madras in 1794 that a small but rich colony of merchants published the first Armenian periodical, csiledAztarar (The Monitor). 8. See Paul Dumont, ’La Franc-Maçonnerie d’odédience française’. 9. Haik is the name of the Armenians’ ancestors. 10. Tigrane and Aram are Armenian first names. The seat of the Armenian Patriarchate was at Kumkapï.

NOTES

189

11. The Protestant missionaries were mostly Americans sent by a board established in Boston. 12. It should be noted that the first governor of Lebanon, after it became autonomous in 1861, was an Armenian Catholic called Garabed Artin Davud Pasha 13. There were 72 members in 1868-1869, 65 in 1877, 38 in 1879, 49 in 1886 and 59 in 1887. Cf. Paul Dumont, ’La Turquie dans les archives du Grand Orient de France. Les loges d’obedience française à Istanbul du milieu du XlXè siècle à la veille de la première guerre mondiale’, Economies et sociétés dans l'Empire Ottomane (fin du XVIIè-début du XXè siècle), pp. 170-201. 14. This term was often used, not only in Armenian, but also in French and English. 15. Acknowledged by King Louis Philippe after the French Revolution of 1830. 16. Sources: Paul Dumont, ’La Turquie dans les archives...’ The archives of the Grand Orient Lodge of France (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris); Ruben Berberian. ’The Ser Lodge’, Hayrenik (Boston, March-June 1937); Articles in the Armenian Ottoman press. 17. The name ’Henchak’(Bell) is reminiscent of the journal called Kolokol (The bell) published by Herzen, the father of Russian socialism. 18. Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Russia, since 1903 split up into two rivalling factions, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. 19. That is, Caucasian and Turkish Armenia. 20. Sources: Hratsh Dasnabedian, Histoire de la Fédération Révolutionaire Arménienne Dachnaktsoutioun 1890-1924 (Milan, 1988). Also available in English; Mikael Varandian, Hai Heghapokhakan Dashnaktsuthian Badmutiun (History o f the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) (Paris, 1932). Part I was written by the ARF delegate to the 2nd International; Loisa Nalbadian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement, (Berkeley, CA 1967) [up to 1896]; Anahide Ter Minassian, Armenian Question; archive of the ARF in Boston (USA). The archives of the ARF cannot be consulted without the authorization of the Bureau of the ARF. The fact that the CPSU and the Soviet Union no longer exist will no doubt facilitate access to the state archives of Erevan, Tiflis and Baku. Part of these archives were published: Divan HHD [Archives of the ARF] (Boston, 1934) Nuter HHD Badmuthian Hamar [Historical material on the ARF], 4 vols (Beirut, n.d.).

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

21. Between 1794 and 192S the Armenian press published 1232 titles, of which more than 600 were distributed only in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey between 1832 and 1923. 22. The Henchakian party or socialist bibliography. 23. Veradznutiun period Publications by the ’Enker’ (Comrade) Section at Ruschuk, printed by Veradznutiun no. 1 Facing Life (translation by Ahriman of a work of Maxim Gorki), Ruschuk, 1904 (?) no. 2 Maxim Gorki (translation by Ahriman), Ruschuk, 1904 (?) no. 3 Holidays and celebrations o f work, (translation by Ahriman of a work by Karl Kautsky), Ruschuk, 1904 (?) no. 4 A feast o f the people: 1 May, Ruschuk, 1904 (?) no. 3 The blacksmith, (translation of a work by Lérentz), Ruschuk, 1904 no. 6 Capital and labour, (translation by Ahriman of a Russian work by ’B.S.’), Ruschuk, 1904 no. 7 Militarism and the working class. Ruschuk, 1904 (Trans. Ahriman) 24. Yeridassart Hayastan period Publications by the Armenian Section of the Henchakian Party. Printed by Yeridassart Hayastan at Boston and Providence no. 1 The working class (translation by Sabah Kulian) of a work by Karl Kautsky) (1905) no. 2 Asso no. 3 Red days,Asset no. 4 Clergy, religion and the Church, Sokrat Khan Kelofiantz no. 5 Man without homeland, Everet Heil (?) no. 6 The bloody way, K. Eghikian no. 7 Close parents,K. Eghikian no. 8 Sabir, K. Eghikian no. 9 The rights o f the new constitution, Sapho no. 10 Special, Yeridassart Hayastan no. 11 The bloody way no. 12 How the facts speak! Sokrat Khan Kelofiantz (Providence, 1915) no. 13 ? no. 14 ? no. 15 ? no. 16 Socialism and Country (Part 2), (translation by Sabah Kulian of a work by Jean Jaur&s) (Providence, 1916) no. 17 ? no. 18 Souvenirs o f Little Armenia, Sabah Kulian (Boston, 1917) 25. Other Henchak publications Sabah Kulian, Herder and his political ideas,( Istanbul, 1904) Asso, The heroine, (Istanbul, 1910)

NOTES

191

Sunik ,Down with the Social Democrats? (Trabzon, 1910) Sabah Kulian, Armenia autonomous, (Cairo, 1915) Sabah Kulian, Those who were responsible, (Heliopolis, 1916 ) [= The search fo r those who were responsible fo r the events o f 1915,

reprinted Beirut, 1974] Other publications Sabah Kulian, Young Turkey Sabah Kulian, Questionnaire (agricultural) 26. Extracts from the programme of the Henchakian party Published in Henchak 11-12 (Montpellier, 1888). 27. Yeghishe Topjian was a militant Caucasian Dashnak. After studying at the Universities of St Petersburg and Berlin, he became a committed socialist; he was assassinated in 1909. 28. Shavarsh Missakian (1884-1957) was bom in a village near Sivas. He was a militant Dashnak and journalist who mainly made his career in Istanbul. He founded a newspaper in Paris in 1925 called Harach, which is still published today. 29. Sources: Hushabadum H.H., Dashnaktzutian 1890-1950. Memorial to the ARF (Boston, 1950), [Index pp. 572-9, set up by Sahak Der Tovmassian]; Karekin Levonian, Haiotz Barberakan Mamule 1794-1934 [The Armenian periodical press (1794-1934)] (Erevan, 1934); A. Kirakossian, Hai Barberakan Mamuli Madenakidutiun 1794-1967 [Bibliography of the Armenian periodical press(1794-1967)] (Erevan, 1970). 30. Sources: Pro Armenia (1900-8) and Pour les peuples d ’Orient (1912-14) [Both of these are available in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris]; Agnès Vahramian, Aspects o f the Aremnophile Movement. Pierre Quillard and Pro Armenia [treatise kept at the Institute of Political Studies at Grenoble, 1988]; Madeleine Rebeyrioux, ’Jaurès and the Armenians’, Bulletin de la Société d ’Etudes Jaurèsiennes, 121 (Paris, May-July 1991). 31. bibliography of the Droshak library: 1. The spirit of revolt (1894) 2. Of the revolutionary life (1894) The secret press (1894) 3. 4. F. Engels, Scientific socialism (Geneva, 1894) [translation of a work by Engels] 5. Programme of the ARF (Geneva, 1895 ?) 6. The expedition of the Gugunian group (Vienna, 1894) 7. Remembering Karin [= Erzurum]

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

8. 9. Vartkes, 10. 11. Gharib, 12. Gharib, 13. Elleni, 14. Gharib, 15.

16. E. Aknuni, 17. M. Varandian, 18. ARF, 19. E. Aknuni, 20. S. Nirvanian, 21. ARF, 22. V. Araratski, 23. A. Arazi, 24.

25. ARF, 26. 27. E. Aknuni, 28. Gharib, 29.

30. Vdaranti, 31. C. Mikaelian, 32. Siamanto, 33. 34. E. Bernstein,

Account of the 2nd Conference of the ARF (Geneva, 1903) Satires. Homo homini lupus (Geneva, 1898) To the young people [translation of a work by Kropotkin] On the road to freedom (A) On the road to freedom (B) The logic of the masses (Geneva, 1899) On the road to freedom (C) Armenia and Macedonia Public manifestation at Paris on 15 February 1903 (Geneva, 1903) [Orators: d’Estoumelles de Constant, Denys Cochin, Francis de Pressensé, Jean Jaur&s, Paul Lerolle and A. Leroy-Beaulieu] The wounds of the Caucasus (Geneva, 1904) The idea of a motherland Statutes of the organization (Decisions taken at the 3rd Conference) (Geneva, 1904) Towards the struggle (Geneva, 1904) Revolutionaries. Project for action in the Caucasus (1905) The exploits of tsarism [in Russian] The massacres in Baku. Geneva, 1905 [in French] The commitment to the revolution. Decisions taken at the international conferences (Geneva, 1905) Account of the third general party conference. Appeal to the Muslims [in Turkish]. The wounds of the Caucasus (Geneva, 1905) [in French] On the road to freedom (D) Against the Great Criminal (Trial held at Constantinople in November 1905) (Geneva, 1906) The falcon of Vitosh Thoughts of a revolutionary (Geneva, 1906) Sons of Armenia (Geneva, 1906) The struggles in Sassun-Muş Europe and the suffering of the Armenians (Geneva, 1906) [Translation into French by S.M. of the German edition of a work by E. Bernstein, published in Berlin, 1902, entitled Die Leiden

NOTES

des armenischen Europas]

35. Andranik, 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Mar, Aratsky, K. Brandes, S.M.,

44. 45. ARF, 46. ARF, 47. 48. 49. E. Aknuni, 50. 51. ARF, 52. V. Araratsky, 53. Duman, 54. 55. V. Araratsky, 56. M. Varandian, 57. ARF, 58. 59.

60.

193 Volkes und die Pflichten

Military instructions (Geneva, 1906) Unite! (Appeal to all Turkish nations) [in Turkish] The Turkish prisons The political parties in Russia (Geneva, 1906) Armenia and Europe (Geneva, 1907) Aghbur Serop [biography] The European views on the Armenian cause Statutes of the ARF (Geneva, 1907) Decisions taken at the fourth general conference of the ARF (Geneva, 1907) [extracts for the party agencies] Programme of the ARF 1907 (Geneva, 1907) Minimum programme (Geneva, 1907) [in French] Report presented at the conference in Stuttgart (Stuttgart, 1907) [in French] Kevork Chavush. Declaration of the conference of opposition parties in the Ottoman Empire (27-29 December 1907) (Geneva, 1907) [in French] The criminal on the throne (Paris, 1908) [in French] Declaration of the conference of opposition parties in the Ottoman Empire (Geneva, 1907) Programme (Geneva, 1908) [in Russian] Socialist letters (Geneva, 1908) Project for the self-defence of the people (SNDL, 1907) The flaws of general education [translation by Adorn of a work by J. Olivier] Guide for comrades (Geneva, 1909) The army of the people (Geneva, 1909) Programme (Geneva, 1909) Decisions taken at the fifth general conference of the ARF Report presented at the conference of the Socialist International in Copenhagen (Geneva, 1910) [in French] Report from the Armenian social-revolutionary party Dashnakzutiun (Turkey-Caucasus-Persia)

194

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

61. M. Varandian,

62. M. Varandian, 63. M. Varandian, 64. M. Varandian, 65. M. Varandian, M. Varandian, Aramals, 66. K. Kuzelian, 67. 68. N. Hankuitz, 69. Chr. Mikaelian, 70. M. Varandian,

to the International Socialist Congress in Copnhagen (Geneva, 1910) [in German] Our role in the reborn fatherland (on die occasion of the 20th anniversary of the ARF) (Geneva, 1910) Movements (Geneva, 1911) Introduction to the history of the Armenian movement, vol. i (Geneva, 1912) Introduction to the history of the Armenian movement, vol. ii (Geneva, 1914) Auguste Babel in memoriam (Geneva, 1913) Protest in modem history (Geneva, 1914) The struggles in Muş-Sassun (Armenia), 1915 (Geneva, 1916) [in French] The development of political thought in Armenia (Paris, 1927) The Socialist International and the peoples oppressed (Paris, 1929) [translation by G. Sassuni of a work by Levinski] Reflections on the ARF (Paris, 1930) Revolutionary thoughts (Athens, 1931) The history of the ARF vol. 1 (Paris, 1932)

32. In 1909 Topjian became the director of a paper also called Harach which was published in Erzurum. 33. Bibliography of Harach: 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. Y. Topjian,

The rich and poor [translation of a work by A. Bach] Bread, light and liberty [translation of a work by Pechekhonov] How they collect and spend the money of the people [translation of a work by A. Feodorovitch] The sermon on the new Mount [translation of a work by Karmeliuk] The farmer and the worker as economic categories [translation by L.N. of a work by V. Chernov] (Tbilisi, 1906) The national question and social democracy [translation of a work by Pemersdorfer] To the farmers [translation of a work by Brambolini] The trade unions

NOTES

9. 10.

U. 12. A. Abeghian, 13.

14. A. Aharonian, 15. 16. A.N., 17. 18. S. Zavarian, 19.

20.

21. A.N., 22. L. Shishko, 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. A.N., 28. Hovhannissian, 29. 30.

195

What is the state of Just Law? [translation of a work by Novodoijski] The agricultural question in New Zealand [translation of a work by N. Kabonov] The property of the bourgeoisie and its expropriation in the future (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation of a work by Jaurès] The democratic electoral system The problem of nationality in Russia (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by I. Khajak of a work by Karl Kautsky] On the road to freedom [Gharib] On the nature of the constitution (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by 1. Babayan of a work by F. Lasalle] How can the agricultural question be solved? What is the State of the People? [translation of a work by V. Gulubev] Statistical information concerning the rural population The democratic legislation in the Swiss Confederation [translation of a work by Alphonse Dunant] Who is living on what? (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by S.D.K. of a work by Dikstein] A debate on the agricultural question The agricultural programme and scientific socialism Cooperation [translation of a work by A. Nicolaev] Hurry and take advantage of your rights! Two programmes (St Petersburg, 1906) [translation by K. Papovian of a work by L. Petrov] The basics of state organization in the western world [translation of a work by A. Vchosek] The agricultural question in France The ARF and its opponents Economic development and socialism (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation of a work by J. Guesde and P. Lafargue] The national question, autonomy and federation [translation of a work by Novordoijski]

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31. 32. Hovhannissian, 33. 34.

35. L. Shishko, 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

A. Shakhatunian, Aramais, Aramais, Hovhannissian,

41. 42. K. Khajak, 43. 44.

45.

46. S. Zak, 47. Vahe, 48. Hovhannissian, 49. 50. 51. Aramais, 52. H. Tadeossian, 53. Kntuni, 54. Kntuni, 55. H. Tadeossian, 56. N. Garivchev, 57. S. Tigranian, 58. 59. L. Babayan,

Instructions for the provinces The Gordian knot: last period of the Armenian Question in Turkey The ruses of the regime About the theory of the class struggle (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation by M. Har of a work by V. Chernov] The minimum programme What government do the people need? [translation of a work by S. Nekrasov] Federalism and democracy (Tbilisi, 1907) Those who are bad Episodes in the Armeno-Tatar struggle (part 1) Tire Caucasian Vendée (the Armeno-Tartar struggle and its cause) How to realise the equality of nations [translation of a work by Ch. Goijeyev] Towards the Federation (1907) The proletariat and the hard-working farmers (1907) [translation by A. Mehrabian of a work by V. Chernov] The farmer and the worker (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation by K. Gharak of a work by Abramova] The condition of the working class in Belgium (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation by A.N. of a work by E. Vandervelde] Land and capitalism The separatists The philosophic sociologist The money of the people [translation into Turkish of a work by Feodorovich] Episodes in the Armeno-Tartar struggle (part 2) The Great French Revolution Memories from the recent past - I Memories from the recent past -II National Heroes Economic discussions The ARF representatives in the Second Duma of the State (Tbilisi, 1907) The rich and poor (part 2) [translation of a work by A. Bach] Hie national question and socialism

NOTES

60. N. Mamikonian, 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

ARF, ARF, ARF, ARF, ARF,

68. 69. 70. A. Abeghian, 71. 72. 73. 74. A.Shakhatunian,

197

Demon The rich and poor (2nd edition) [translation of a work by A. Bach] Programme Programme [in Russian] Minimum programme Programme [in Russian] Programme [in Georgian] Decisions taken at the Conference of the ARF Sections, 6-12 April 1917 Decisions taken at the Conference of the ARF Sections, 6-12 April 1917 [in Russian] What is the State of Just Law? (2nd ed) [translation of a work by Novodoijski] Democratic elections (2nd edition) The national question, autonomy and federation (2nd ed) [translation of a work by Novodoijski] The nature of the Constitution (2nd ed) [translation of a work by F. Lasalle] Constitutional Congress [translation of a work by V. Vodovozov] The administrative division of the Caucasus [in Russian]

34. Library of Liberty: 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Simon Zavarian, A. Aharonian, ARF, Elleni,

The nature of the Constitution (Istanbul, 1908) [translation of a work by F. Lasalle] The European views on the Armenian cause (Istanbul, 1908) Decentralisation (Istanbul, 1908) On the road to freedom (Istanbul, 1908) The minimum programme (Istanbul, 1908) The logic of the masses (Istanbul, 1909)

35. With regard to the Ottoman Empire, it is a well-known fact that the Armenian students who studied in France during the revolution of 1848 played an important role in modernising the institutions of the Armenian millet system. 36. C. Muradian, C. Uijewicz, Claudie Weill, The Caucasian students in Germany 1900-1914 (forthcoming)

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

37. Publications of the Armenian Students' Union in Europe: French

1. E. Bernstein, The suffering o f the Armenian people and the duty o f Europe (Geneva, 1903) 2. A. Vandal, The Armenians and the reform o f Turkey (Geneva, ?) 3. Francis de Pressensé, Armenia and Macedonia (Geneva, ?) 4. G. Brandes, Armenia and Europe (Geneva, ?) 3. Sassun and the Hamidian atrocities (Geneva, 1904) 6. E. Aknuni, Russian censorship in the Caucasus (Geneva, 1903) German

1. E. Bernstein, The suffering o f the Armenian people and the duty o f Europe (Geneva, 1903) 2. Pro Armenia and Macedonia. A Manifesto (Geneva, 1903) [Translation and introduction for German readers by Isle Frapan] 3. Georg Brandes, Armenia and Europe (Geneva) 4. Else Frapan, Armenia and tsarism (Geneva, 1906) Italian

1. Vittorio R. di Obviera, The Armenian Question and the duty o f Italy (Geneva, 1906) 2. Anatolio Latino, The Armenians and Zeytun Armenian

1. 2. 3. 4.

Kamar Katiba, Songs o f freedom (Geneva, 1903) The insurrection ofSassoun (Geneva, ?) Poems o f a patriot (Geneva, ?) To the Armenian women (Geneva, ?)

5. The hero

6. The fighter from the mountain (Geneva, ?) 7. Marc Botzaris, To the Armenian revolutionaries (Geneva, 1904) 38. P. Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Princeton, 1967, p. 38. 39. P. Avrich, Russian Anarchists, p. 244. 40. These precautions illustrate that the anarchists were under continuous surveillance. A certain Minassiantz sent a letter from Ruschuk (Bulgaria) on 18/30 January 1894 in which he wrote to Atabekian that he had received 'his Hamayank' in good order. 41. Hamayank, 1894, no. 1. 42. Hamayank, 1894, no. 3. 43. Ibid. This was a veiled critique against the Henchak centre.

NOTES

199

44. Hamayank, 1894, no. 2. Publication dates of Hamayank (Commonwealth): no. 1 January 1894 no. 2 March 1894 no. 3 May 1894 no. 4 September 1894 no. 5 December 1894 The journal was published in Armenian in Paris by the ’International Printers’. The adress of the editors was given as: W. Voynich (Hamayank) 3 Iffley Road, 3 Hammersmidi, W, London. The publication is available at the Mekhitharist Library in Vienna Tides of the series: Anarchistic Publications [in Armenian] [on the tide page in OsmanU Turkish: ’Authorized by the Ministry of Education’] no. 1 no. 2 no. 3 no. 4

Among the farm ers (Paris, 1893) The speech o f Sofia Bardina (Paris, 1893) Political rights (Paris, 1893) [translation of a work by Kropotkin] The destruction o f States (Paris, 1893) [translation of a work by

Kropotkin] no. 3 Anarchism (Paris, 1893) [translation of a work by Kropotkin] no. 6 To brotherfarm er (Paris, 1893) [translation of a work by Elisée Reclus, a dialogue between the author and a farmer concerning the agricultural ideas of die anarchists] no. 7 The reason why we are revolutionaries (Paris, 1894) [translation of a work by Jean Grave] no. 8 The revolutionary minorities (Paris, 1894) [translation of a work by Kropotkin] no. 9 Vartkes, Satires (Paris, 1894) With the exception of no. 9, these publications are available at the Nubarian Library in Paris. 45. Proletariat (Tbilisi, October 1902), 1 issue Proletariat tertikneritz [Notes from the proletariat] (Tbilisi, 1903), 2 issues Proletariat krive [The struggle of the proletariat] (April 1903-August 1903), 8 issues Proletariat krvi terfike [Notes on the struggle of the proletariat] (November 1903-November 1904), 9 issues Banvori Tzayne [The voice of the worker] (Baku, March-April 1906), 2 issues Kaytz [Spark] (Tbilisi, April-September 1906), 47 issues Nor khosk [New Word] (Tbilisi, August-September 1906), 15 issues Koch-devet [Appeal] (Baku, May-July 1906), 16 issues [published in Armenian and Azeri Turkish]

200

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Orer [Days] (Baku, Februaiy, 1907), 8 issues Nor khosk [New word] (Baku, November 1911-April 1912) 3 double issues Mer khoske [Our word] (January 1914), 1 issue.

Source:Kh. H. Barseghian, Bolshevikian hay barberakän mamuli-bibliografia [Bibliography of the Armenian Bolshevik Press]. Erevan, 1939, p. 277 Available at the Miasnikian Library and Institute of Marxist-Leninism in Erevan. 46. A. Ter Minassian, On the origins o f Armenian Marxism, the Specifists Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique XIX (1-2) (January-June 1978), pp. 67-117. 47. Women and socialism (Tbilisi) [translation of a work by Bebel] Economic science (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation by Ashot Chilinkarian of a work by Bogdanov]. Art and the working class [translation by Khorene Lorentz of a work by Bogdanov; preface by A. Karinian] The old and new art (Moscow, 1920) [translation of a work by Bogdanov] Between man and machine (Tbilisi) [translation by S.D of a work by Bogdanov] Down with the Social Democrats (1906) [translation by Diratsian of a work by V. Brague] Down with the Social Democrats, (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by M.D. Shvod of a work by Brague] The agricultural question in France and Germany (Tbilisi, 1906) [Translation by K. Papovian of a Russian translation of a work by Engels] The property o f the bourgeosie and its future (Tbilisi, 1908) [translation by S. Ch. of a work by Jaurès] Christ as a revolutionary (Istanbul, 1913) [translation by S. Hovhannessian of a work by Kautsky] The crisis o f Austria (language and nation) (Akhaltzkha, 1906) [translation by K. Popoviantz of a work by Kautsky] Farmers and the Revolution in Russia (1906) [translation by S. Banvorian of a work by Kautsky] The contradictions between the interests o f the classes (Baku, 1907) [translation by R. Dashdoyan of a work by Kautsky; = Workers’ Library no. 10] The programme o f Erfurt (1907) [translation by H. Azadian of a work by Kautsky] Contemporary nationality (Tbilisi, 1905) [translation by K. Papovian of a work by Kautsky] The capitalist class (Paris, 1906) [translation by Sabah-Kulian of a work by Kautsky] Colonial politics (Tabriz, 1904) [translation by R. Khanazad of a work by Kautsky]

NOTES

201

Representative government (Tbilisi, 1906-7) [translation by R. Khanazad of

a work by Kautsky] Friedrich Engels: His life and work (Trabzon, 1910) [translation by Sunik of

a work by Kautsky] The Duma o f the State (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation of a work by Kautsky] Nationalism (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation of a work by Kautsky] Who are the social democrats and what do they want? (Tbilisi, 1906)

[translation of a work by A. Kollontay] O f simple socialistic truths (Geneva, 1904) [translation of a work by Paul

Lafargue; publication of the OOASD] The demands o f social democracy (Geneva, 1905) [translation of a work by J. Guesde and P. Lafargue] On the nature o f the Constitution (1908) [translation by K.P. of a work by F. Lasalle] Manifesto o f the Communist Party (Geneva, 1904) [translation by S. Shahumian of the work by Karl Marx] Manifesto o f the Communist Party (1906) [translation by M.M]Paid labour and Capital (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by S. Shahumian] Social revolutionaries and the proletariat (Tbilisi, ?) [translation of a work by L. Martov] Political parties in Russia (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation of a work by L. Martov] Two programmes (St. Petersburg, 1906) [translation by K. Papovian of a work by L. Martov] 1 May (Baku, 1907) [translation of a work by J. Plekhanov] / May (Istanbul, 1912) [translation of a work by Plekhanov] Anon., 1 May (Trabzon, 1909) The monistic conception o f history (Tbilisi) [translation of a work by Beldov [Plekhanov] The sick man. Cultural scenes from Turkey (Tbilisi, 1905) [translation by L. Babayan of a work by B. Stem] The farm er and the worker as economic categories (Tbilisi, 1906) [translation by L.N. of a work by V. Chernov] The fin a l ideal o f socialism and everyday life (1907) [translation by S. Der Ananian of a work by V. Chernov] Idealism in Marxism (Tbilisi, 1907) [translation by S. Der Ananian of a work by E. Vandervelde] Most of these publications are available at the Mekhitharist Library in Vienna. 48. Tigran Zaven (Chukassezian) (1874-1936) at first enjoyed quite good relations with the ARF in Geneva, Paris and Tbilisi. After the restoration of the constitution he stopped the publication of Yerkri tzayn (the last issue appeared on 18 July 1908) and returned to Istanbul, where he became the editor-in-chief of Surhantak, a Henchak or Henchak-like journal. He worked also Tor Jeune Turc and Azadamart. In 1913 he became the correspondent for l ’Humanité in Istanbul, where he reappeared in 1918. He founded a

202

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newspaper called Joghovurt (People) in which he denounced those who were responsible for the ’executions of the Armenian people in Turkey during the war’, but also the Allies ’who behaved as if they were in conquered territory’. The Allied censors banned Joghovurt (1920). He emigrated to Bulgaria together with thousands of his compatriots (1922). Very likely he was compromised during the communist revolt and had to leave Bulgaria in 1924. Together with Dimitar Vlahov, he participated in the foundation of a periodical called Balkanska federatziya (Federation of die Balkans). Like Vlahov, he became convinced that such a federation could not be brought about by the ruling classes, but only by the people and the working class. In 1933 he emigrated to Soviet Armenia where he probablyunder suspicion of espionage - was executed in 1936. See D. Vlahov, Memoari (Skopje, 1970).. 49. It is in Yerkri tzayn that Ishkanian first published as a serial his study on ’The question of Turkish Armenia and international diplomacy’. 50. All of them were criticized in a pamphlet published by Tigran Zaven entitled Turk sahmannatrutiune yev yeridassart turk kussakzutiunnere [The Turkish Constitution and the Young Turk parties] (Tbilisi, 1908). 51. Yerkri tzayn, no. 1 (1906). 52. Ibid., no. 12(1906). 53. T. Zaven, ’The Young Turks and us’, Yerkri tzayn, nos. 2 and 3 (1907). 54. According to Vlahov, the Dashnak party in Van printed in secret thousands of pamphlets in Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish which recaptured the ideas of Yerkri tzayn. 55. M. Rebeyrioux, ’Jaurès et les Arméniens’, Bulletin de la Société d ’Etudes Jauresiennes, no. 121 (May-July 1991). Azadamart, 29 July/11 August 1912, published the translation of an article by Jaurès from l'Humanité of 9 August on the necessity of an alliance between the Armenians and the Young Turks. 56. The leader of the commando was ’Armen Garo’ Pasdermajian who became representative in the Ottoman parliament in 1908. 57. Aknuni (Khashadur Malumian) (1863*1915) was bom and educated in Transcaucasia. This Dashnak and editor of the Droshak in Geneva was a member of the Western Bureau of the ARF. 58. Arménia was founded in Marseille in 1885 by Mekertich Portugalian who inspired the foundation of the first political patty in Armenia, the Armenakan patty, in Van c. 1885.

NOTES

203

59. An Armenian from the Caucasus, Ruben Ter Minassian (1881-1951) was at the head of the Dashnakfedâîs in the Muş region (1906-08) and was one of the founders of the Armenian Republic (1918-20) in which he occupied several ministerial posts. He died in Paris. See Ruben, Hay heghapokhakani me husherits [The memoirs of an Armenian revolutionary]; 7 vols were published in Los Angeles from 1952. 60. Ibid, pp. 251 ff. 61. Theodik, Amenun Daretsoytse [Everybody’s Yearbook], Istanbul, 1909. 62. The existence of this workers’ bloc is confirmed by Vlahov in his Memoirs. 63. This, was known as the batz or kotz (open or closed) quarrel (1908 and first part of 1909). The Henchaks and Dashnaks demanded that the churches be open for public meetings. 64. See Azadamart, 24 August-6 September 1909, or 15/28 February 1912. 65. Azadamart, no. 864 (1912). It should be noted that, unlike the liberal Armenians such as Halajian and Noradungian, they never agreed to participate in an Ottoman government. 66. A. Ter Minassian, Nationalism and Socialism in the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Zoryan Institute, Boston, 1984), p. 56. 67. Published in Azadamart, nos 389 and 390 (16/29 September and 17/30 September 1910) under the title ’The accounts of an Armenian representative’. Krikor Zohrab (1861-1915) was the most famous of the Armenian representatives. Apart from being an Armenian novelist in the style of Guy de Maupassant, a lawyer and a journalist, he was also a remarkable orator in Armenian and Turkish, a language he spoke fluently. 68. ’The ARF and its policy in Turkey’, series of articles published at irregular intervals in Azadamart of which the first appeared in no. 418 (21 October-3 November 1910), the last in no. 468. Tarpinian’s real name was Ardashes Chilinkarian (1883-1968). 69. This is the definition used by the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia 70. By ’Ottoman Empire’ he undoubtedly meant the Armenian community in Turkey. 71. These are all theories in which the Armenian press in Istanbul echoed that of Van. 72. Azadamart, no. 433 (7/20 November 1910).

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

73. Ibid., no. 438 (13/28 November 1910). 74. Ibid., no. 447 (24 November-7 December 1910) and no. 468. 73. This was known to the Ottoman authorities as the ’Organic Act of the Armenian Nation’. It laid out how to reorganize the administration of the Armenian millet, and how to divide the power between the Patriarch and the chosen Councils of both clergy and laity. Its authors were liberals. 76. The Gregorian Armenians belonged to the apostolic Church of the Ermeni millet as opposed to the Catholic and Protestant Armenians grouped in their own millet. 77. Pseudonym of Harutiun Shahrikian (1860-1913). This former student of the Galatasaray high school graduated from the Faculty of Law in Istanbul and became a lawyer in Trabzon. After several years in the Caucasus, he joined the ARF and was one of the most prominent Dashnaks in Istanbul. 78. Azadamart, no. 476 (1911). 79. Vlahov mentions the following members of Parliament: Mustafa Arif, Rïza Tevfik, Şakîr, Cemil and others. 80. Vlahov, Memoirs, p.93. 81. Ibid., p. 145. 82. Azadamart, no. 10 (1909). 83. In Azadamart, no. 2 (11-24 June 1909), V. Papazian concluded that ’90 per cent of the poor working class in the Ottoman Empire did not participate in the constitutional movement ... and do not know their political and economical rights’. 84. K. Zohrab, ’The economic struggle of the workers’, Azadamart, no. 49 (1909) [5 columns on the front page]. 85. The Federation was admitted to the Ottoman section in 1910. 86. P. Dumont and Haupt, Georges, OsmanlI imparatorluğunda sosyalist hareketler (Istanbul, 1977). 87. Azadamart, no. 141, and in later issues in 1910. 88. Ibid., no. 276 (7-20 May 1910). 89. Abaka, no. 11 (10 July 1910).

NOTES

205

90. Yervant Balian (1869-1941) was bom in Theodosia in the Crimea. He received his secondary education at the Nercèssian College in Tbilisi and continued his studies at the Faculty of Social Science in Geneva. At first he was fighting for the Henchakian party and later became more or less a disciple of Plekhanov. He published an excellent socialist paper called Handes (Journal) in Geneva. The five issues published in 1900 expressed a fierce criticism concerning the tactics of the Armenian revolutionary parties in Turkey and demanded the creation of an Armenian socialist party. 91. Banvor (only number issued, January-February 1904) claimed to be the organ of the ’Armenian social democracy’. In die same year, Balian sent a ’Report of the Armenian Social Democratic Group’ and the editing staff of his journal Banvor to the Conference of the Socialist International in Amsterdam. 92. Source: Theodik, Everybody's Yearbook. Nor hossank is available at Vienna. 93. Nor hossank, no. 1 (28 March 1901). 94. Yervant Odian (1869-1926). 95. A French translation by F. Feydit was published by San Lazaro in Venice. 96. The province of Van as it is known to the Armenians. 97. This may be a caricature of Yeghishe Topjian, the founder of Harach in Erzurum.

7. In Lieu of a Conclusion 1. In his concluding essay, Dr Mete Tunçay evaluates the relations between the political left of the Ottoman non-Muslim communities and that of the Muslim Turks. In doing so, he builds not only on the articles in this volume but also on his own extensive work on the Turkish ’old left’. For those readers who are not familiar with the history of socialism and communism in Turkey I felt it would be useful to have a short overview, which itself is largely a synopsis of Tunçay’s earlier work. After the constitutional revolution of July 1908 a small group became active in Istanbul around Sosyalist (Socialist) Hüseyin Hilmi, the editor of the newspaper İştirak (Sharing). In September 1910 they founded the OsmanlI Sosyalist Firkasi (Ottoman Socialist Party), which was in fact more a progressive liberal party than a really socialist one, let alone a Marxist one. From 1911 onwards a branch of the party, led by Dr Refik Nevzad, was active in Paris and published the paper Beşeriyet (Humanity - a direct translation of / 'Humanité). The party suffered continuous repression on the

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

part of the Young Turk government. After the Unionist coup of January 1913 and the murder of Grand Vizier Mahmut Şevket Pasha, Hüseyin Hilmi was exiled to Anatolia During the years of the Unionist dictatorship (1913-18) Alexander Helphand, also known as Parvus, was the main protagonist of radical socialism in the Ottoman Empire, but he considered the emergence of a national bourgeoisie a precondition for socialism and influenced the Young Turk leadership in its efforts to create a ’national economy’. After the armistice of October 1918 Hilmi returned to Istanbul. Early in 1919 he founded the Türkiye Sosyalist Fïrkasï and started publishing the paper İdrak (Insight). During the period 1919-21, Hilmi organized a number of Strikes in Istanbul, but his influence gradually waned. In 1922 he was murdered, possibly by French agents. After the First World War a different group of Turkish leftists, inspired by the Spartakists, had founded the Türkiye İşçi ve Köylü Partisi (Turkish Workers’ and Peasants’ Party) in Berlin. TTiey published the paperKurtuluş (Liberation). After their return to Istanbul, they were joined by Dr Şefik Hüsnü, who became the driving force behind this, the first really Marxist party of Turkey. Kurtuluş was closed down by the censor in 1919 but the party continued its other activities. During the Turkish independence struggle (1919-22) several leftist movements were active. Some of them were authentic, others were founded with a view to attracting Soviet support, which was of crucial importance to the struggle. A number of former Unionist leaders, led by Enver Pasha, the former war minister, founded the Türkiye Komünist FfrkasI in Baku in 1920, but in May 1920 Azerbaidzhan (and Baku) was taken over by the Bolsheviks. At the famous Congress of the Peoples of the Orient organized by the Bolsheviks in Baku in September 1920, Enver participated as representative for North Africa of the İslam İhtilal Cemiyetleri İttihadî (Union of Islamic Revolutionary Societies) which he had founded in Berlin. This purported to be a sort of Islamic Comintern. The Turkish section of this organization, which early in 1921 adopted the name Halk Şuralar Fïrkasï (People’s Soviets Party) produced an interesting programme, which mixed socialist, corporatist and Islamic ideas. At the same time a left wing was also active within the nationalist resistance conducting the independence struggle in Anatolia. In the spring of 1920 the Yeşil Ordu (Green Army) was founded. This was primarily a propagandist instrument aimed at the sultan’s government in Istanbul which branded the resistance movement as rebels and infidels. The Green Army published Yeni dünya (New world). In die national assembly in Ankara, the de-facto Turkish parliament, a group which was closely linked to the Green Army, operated under the name Halk Zümresi (People’s Faction). This also embraced mixed socialist-Islamic-corporatist views which it ventilated through the paper Anadolu 'da yeni gün (A new day in Anatolia). To counter these currents within the nationalist movement, and to prevent Soviet support from being syphoned off by them, the nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) in October 1920 founded his own Türkiye Komünist Fïrkasï (TCP), of which a number of his closest collaborators became members. The

NOTES

207

Green Army was forcibly dissolved, but the Comintern withheld recognition from Kemal’s party. Members of the left wing of the nationalist movement who did not recognize the party then founded die Halklştirakiyun FTrkasï (Party of People’s Socialists) in December 1920. This was banned by Ankara in 1921 (but surfaced again for a short while after the nationalist victory in 1922). The leading members of the last-named party were actually at the same time members of the secret Moscow-oriented TCP. The leading fgure of this party was former journalist, teacher and Unionist Mustafa Suphi. Suphi had fled to Russia in 1914 and had become a communist there. After the October Revolution he published Yeni dünya. He presided over the Turkish section of Stalin’s commissariat for nationalities and was the Turkish representative at the 1st congress of the Third International in 1919. In 1920 he took over the Turkish Communist Party founded by former Unionist leaders in Baku and purged it. This party was officially represented at die 2nd congress of the Comintern in 1920. In the period Januaiy-May 1921 the left in Anatolia was suppressed by Mustafa Kemal’s nationalist leadership. Mustafa Suphi and 14 of his followers tried to get to Anatolia but they were stopped and later murdered by the nationalists in January 1921. In June 1921 Dr Şefik Hüsnü’s group in Istanbul, which by now, like the People’s Socialists in Ankara, really constituted a legal branch of the underground Communist Party of the late Mustafa Suphi, started publishing Aydinlïk (Enlightenment). For a time this was the leading left-wing periodical in Turkey, but its rather intellectual tone and content was criticized at the 5th Komintern congress. This resulted in a more worker-oriented journal, Orak çekiç (Sickle and hammer) being published alongside it. The passing of the Law on the Maintenance of Order by the Ankara government following the Kurdish insurrection of February 1925 resulted in the closing down of all opposition currents, including the leftist ones. From then on the communist party worked underground only. Erik J. Zürcher 2. See Justin McCarthy, The Arab World, Turkey and the Balkans (1878-1914): A Handbook o f Historical Statistics (Boston, Mass: G.K. Hall, 1982). These proportions can be compared to those of Austro-Hungaiy at the same period with a total population of 51 millions. There, die two dominant nationalities, i.e. 12 million Germans (23.5 per cent) and 10 million Hungarians (19.6 per cent) were surpassed by peoples of Slavic origin such as the Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Croats and Slovenians who represented 23.5 million (46 per cent) when taken together. 3. McCarthy, The Arab World.

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SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

4. From an obituary which appeared in the ’Special Pages* of Yeni çağ (New Age, the Turkish version of the Problems o f peace and socialistn), no. 3, (March 1968), pp. 235-6. The TCP lost one of its earliest warriors. Nikos Asimpolous died at the age of 76 on 12 January 1968 [in Moscow]. He was bom to a poor house-painter’s family. He studied at the Zapion gymnasium in Istanbul. He helped to establish in this school an association for aid to poor students. Graduating in 1913-14, he worked as an accountant in a private firm. He became a member of the Istanbul employees’ union. In 1919 he became one of the founders and officials of the Istanbul port-workers’ union. He collaborated with progressive newspapers issued in Greece, France etc. He supported die Turkish War of Independence. He joined the TCP in 1921. He played an important role in the publication of the Greek-language Kokkini neo lea newspaper. He was a correspondent to the leftist Embpos as well. He participated in the organization of the first anti-imperialist May Day demonstration (in 1922). He took part during 1923 in the illegal activities of TCP. He supported the struggle against opportunism which had appeared in the central committee of the TCP and in 1924 became a member of the party’s Istanbul Provincial Committee. In the same year he led the publication of the Greek language newspaper Eloga. Subsequently he was jailed for many months. He was arrested again in 1929 and sentenced to a long imprisonment. Finally, the government forced him to take refuge abroad in 1933 [in the Soviet Union]. He continued in the struggle of the TCP to his last day. Those who know that the Armenian Aram Pehlivanyan (alias A. Saydam) was second in command of the TCP for more than a decade from the 1960s onwards, will testify that this case was not exceptional. 5. He was not called R. Hikmet, though his name was so given by S. Velikov, ’Sur le mouvement ouvrier et socialiste en Turquie après la revolution jeune-turque de 1908’, Études balkaniques (Sofia, 1964), pp. 29-48.

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