What is this Kadro Movement? How have its reflections been today?

After the establishment of the Republic, important developments took place in our press life between 1933-1936. Look who were among the 5 great writers who started the Kadro movement. Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Vedat Nedim Tör, Burhan Asaf Belge and İsmail Hüsrev Tökin. The most prominent characteristic of these intellectuals who gathered around the ideals of the Republic was their high level of love and loyalty to the republic founded by Atatürk and its founder. Undoubtedly, the foreign ideological movements rising or rising outside the country in those years had deeply affected each of them. However, they were able to come together for great ideals, saying that if it was about the homeland, the rest was nothing more.

What Did the Kadro Movement Want?

What the Kadroists really wanted was to create a classless, privilege-free and integrated society. When this ultimate goal was taken into consideration, the Kadro thought completely overlapped with the goals of the current Kemalist government. According to the Kadroists, who moved from Turanism to Marxism and then to Kemalism, the only way to achieve this goal was statism.

The words Kadro and Kadroists should be analysed separately. Kadro is the name of an intellectual journal that was published monthly from January 1932 until December 1934. As for the Kadroists, I have already mentioned five prominent names above: Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Vedat Nedim Tör, İsmail Hüsrev Tökin, Burhan Asaf Belge. Although these five writers constitute the basic skeleton of Kadro magazine, we also encounter various writers who contributed to the magazine with their articles in various issues. In order to understand the connection between the word Kadro and the self-identification as Kadroist by the authors who formed the basis of the journal, I believe that it would be useful to first examine the factors that brought the leading figures of the journal together, together with the past political and intellectual experiences of the aforementioned authors.

Which Writers Were in the Kadro Movement?

Born in 1887 in Edirne, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir participated in the First World War and adopted Turanist ideas during this period. In line with these ideals, his appointment as a teacher in Azerbaijan after the war provided Aydemir with a field of experimentation where he could continue his intellectual development on the Turanist ideal. Afterwards, Aydemir became acquainted with new ideas due to the Red Army occupation of Azerbaijan and the influence of Bolshevism, and we can say that he was associated with Marxism for a long period of his intellectual life! Aydemir, who studied economics at Moscow Eastern Labourers University, joined the Communist Party of Turkey in 1923 after his return to Turkey and started to write articles in the party's magazine "Aydınlık". Arrested in 1925, Aydemir was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was freed with an amnesty in 1926. The following period marked the beginning of Aydemir's break with the TKP. Aydemir's interpretations and different expansions of Marxism drove a wedge between him and the Party. During the period between 1927 and 1932, when Aydemir worked as a civil servant, we observe that he became increasingly closer to Ankara. Aydemir's book "İnkılap ve Kadro" (Revolution and Cadre), published in 1932, made him the main ideologue of the Kadro magazine and the Kadroist movement.

Another author of the magazine and the movement, Vedat Nedim Tör, was introduced to Marxism while he was a student in Germany and was one of the founders of the Workers' and Farmers' Party of Turkey.

On the other hand, İsmail Hüsrev Tökin was introduced to Marxism during his last years at Saint George Austrian High School and studied economics at the Eastern Workers Communist University in Moscow, where he went after high school.

Burhan Asaf Belge, who was introduced to Marxism while studying architecture in Germany, was another cadreist intellectual.

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, another cadreist, is the only writer in the group who is not of Marxist origin. Yakup Kadri had a great influence on the publishing world of Kadro magazine. Thanks to his close relations with Atatürk and İsmet İnönü, it was Yakup Kadri himself who obtained permission to publish the magazine. He always felt honoured to be in close relations with Atatürk, and he did not hesitate to mention this when appropriate.

Yakup Kadri's narrative is enlightening on two points. Firstly, the primary purpose behind the desire to articulate the revolution through Kadro magazine was to make the road map of the revolution clear in the minds of individuals within the state elite. The Kadro Journal, which set out to create the ideology of the Turkish revolution, primarily aimed to reach the state elite, not the public. Secondly, Recep Peker's view that the state elite should have the primary authority in the act of creating the ideology of the revolution points to the disunity and distrust between the Kemalist elite and the intellectuals of the period.

Was the Kadro Movement a Marxist Movement?

I will try to explain a point that should be known about the Marxist origins of the cadre of writers other than Yakup Kadri. The first of the factors that are important in the formation of the Kadro movement is directly related to the birth years of the writers. Except Yakup Kadri, the other cadres were members of the same generation. We can say that this period was influential in shaping the intellectual foundations of the writers who were just emerging from their youth after the Balkan Wars and the First World War. So much so that, as the 1920s approached, the currents of ideas such as Islamism, Ottomanism and Turanism, which had been present in the political arena from time to time, could not make their influence felt as much as they had in the past. On the other hand, the Socialist Revolution that took place in Tsarist Russia in 1917 was the ideal alternative path for Kadroist writers. When we analyse their life stories, we see that the Kadroists were influenced by Marxist ideas during their education in Moscow and Germany. Except Yakup Kadri, the cadre writers published their writings in the magazine Aydınlık in the first years of their return to Turkey. Let us not confuse this cadre movement with today's intellectuals.

From 1925 onwards, Şevket Süreyya and Vedat Nedim were among the prominent names among the cadres who took part in the TKP. However, under the leadership of the group that would later be known as cadres, the TKP underwent a change in the way it was organised. In this period, instead of appearing as an underground party in accordance with the Bolshevik model, the party chose a looser form of organisation called "punctuation system" among the workers' communities. Şevket Süreyya and Vedat Nedim definitively broke away from the TKP in this period after their opposition to the directives coming from Moscow.

When we take a look at Kadro magazine, we see that in each issue an article under the title "Kadro" is published as an introduction. These texts show us that the journal was actually a movement with a road map and a common set of ideas. The magazine published articles dealing mainly with political, economic, cultural and artistic issues, and all of these articles were written in relation to the Turkish Revolution. When we say that the 4 Kadroists, who came from a Marxist background, interpreted Marxism in a different way in the 1930s, we can perceive their interpretation as a drastic deviation from Marxism.

According to Aydemir, who was the leading ideologue of the Kadroists, the human being of historical materialism in 1990 was an element of society in social relations, and it was a method of taking the human being that Darwin had brought to the doorstep of social life and explaining his social existence that made him different from the animal. Emphasising the importance of the historical materialist aspect of Marxist thought, Aydemir also points out the points where Marxism falls short. In 1990, Aydemir stated that Marxist thought did not take into account the National Liberation struggles between the colonies and semi-colonies and the metropolises with the importance they deserved, but rather conducted its struggle on the basis of an intense class struggle. Looking at the developments of the period, Süreyya argued the inadequacy of Marxist theory in solving the problems, while on the other hand he drew attention to the necessity of national liberation movements, an idea that brought him closer to Atatürk. According to Süreyya, a more rational distribution of the means of production in the world was necessary, and this distribution could only be realised through national wars of independence waged by the non-industrialised countries against the industrialised and colonial countries. Aydemir's intellectual deviation in his interpretation of Marxism is more clearly seen when we compare it with Lenin's ideas. According to Lenin, first of all, the proletarians and labouring masses of all nations had to unite for a common revolutionary struggle aimed at overthrowing the landlords and the bourgeoisie. Without this international unity, it was impossible to put an end to the national yoke and to eliminate inequality between nations.

In this respect, Aydemir's ideas are closer to the national leftist interpretation of Marxism of Mirsaid Sultangaliyev, one of the Tatar Bolsheviks, than to Lenin's interpretation of Marxism. One point on which cadres, especially Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, were in agreement was anti-capitalism. They interpreted the world economic depression of 1929 as a blow to capitalism and the process of its collapse. The 1929 world economic crisis was very influential in the cadre's search for a third way for Turkey.

The title of Burhan Asaf's article on the 1929 crisis is remarkable: "The Collapsing World Order". According to him, "the current depression is not a rhythmic and periodic pause in the course of the capitalist structure's unique development, that is to say, an ordinary and temporary depression, but a reactionary phase for it, but a progressive and revolutionary phase of organisation transformation for us, which takes strength from the dissolution of the capitalist structure. Burhan Asaf Belge's characterisation of the 1929 crisis as an opportunity for Turkey, which had not yet been capitalised but had been heavily affected by the crisis in terms of exports and imports, is interesting. While the Kadro Movement's ideas heralding the collapse of capitalism did not come true, they were of the opinion that neither capitalism nor socialism based on class differentiation was a suitable system for Turkey.

How did the Kadro Movement view Kemalism?

According to Vedat Nedim, who was in search of a third way, the new Turkish state was obliged to make the most perfect in the shortest time possible and they cared about not falling into the mistakes of other states. What they feared most was the disruption of the integrity and unity of the nation. They feared that the nation would be divided into classes. They feared that class conflicts would erode the existence of the nation. While rejecting capitalism and socialism, Kadroists put forward the statist approach as a third and unique way. Their social model for Turkey had traces of national socialism, which had begun to make itself felt in Europe in the 1920s. We can say that Aydemir criticised fascism's outward-looking expansions rather than its inward-looking political and social approaches. According to him, fascism was also an imperialism and triggered colonialism. More precisely, fascism was neither a revolution nor a national movement; it was only a tyranny.

Kadroists were anti-feudal as much as they were anti-capitalist. Some of the capitulations had been abolished by the Treaties of Lausanne, but some privileges were still in force. By 1930, customs privileges had been completely abolished. The 1929 crisis, on the other hand, brought the economic policies of all countries of the world to the agenda. In this period, it is possible to say that the cadres' ideas on economy were influenced in this direction.

By 1932, the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası) had been experienced and steps towards statism had been taken. In the historical materialist line they developed, the cadres, Aydemir in particular, were critical of and rejected all forms of economic and political governance in force, and under the leadership of Atatürk, whom they regarded as the "national chief", they drew a general picture of the reforms he had carried out, while drawing a road map for the revolutions they advocated. In general terms, they aimed to reveal the ideology of the Turkish Revolution. While distancing themselves from the Communist Party of Turkey, the Kadroist writers, who gradually became closer to the Kemalist state officials, continued their work on the Turkish Revolution, which they argued had a different identity from all the revolutions that had taken place in the history of modern Europe, with the publication of the Kadro magazine, on the one hand, while putting forward infrastructural theories, on the other hand, they continued to work on road maps in the social, political and cultural fields that they thought the revolution should follow in the future.

According to the Kadroists, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who came to the forefront in the military and political field after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, and who became the military and political leader of the new period that began with the new state established afterwards, was the main theoretician and leader of the chain of reforms in the early Republican period after 1923, which can be defined as the Turkish Revolution.

Atatürk: "The French Revolution introduced the idea of freedom to the whole world and this idea still has its origin and source. But since then, humanity has progressed. Turkish democracy has followed the path opened by the French Revolution, but has developed with its own characteristics. For every nation makes its revolutions according to its state and situation, which is subject to the needs of its social environment and the time of this revolution and revolutions." He had revealed the relationship between the Turkish Revolution and the French Revolution. As can be seen, Mustafa Kemal emphasised the influence of the teachings of the French Revolution on the Turkish revolution, while at the same time, without disregarding the internal dynamics of the country, he was based on blending these teachings and pointed to a unique, national model of revolution. At this point, it should be emphasised that according to Mustafa Kemal, the Turkish Revolution was rooted in the French Revolution. On the other hand, unlike Atatürk, when analysing the main characteristics of the Turkish Revolution, the Kadroists first of all rejected the "Western influence".

In an article published in the Kadro periodical, Asaf says the following against the discourse that Turkey was "Westernised": "... And if such a claim had been made on behalf of any of the Balkan states, perhaps it would have been justified; for the desire that has determined the decisions of those nations has been to resemble the West for three-quarters of a century. But the Turkish revolutionaries have never considered the work of making a nation into a nation and a country into a country as a simple task, like embroidering cross-stitch on a model."

At this point, the Kadroists state that the Turkish intellectuals, like the intellectuals of other underdeveloped countries, were not concerned with becoming like the West and that they were working on a model that was not similar to any other development model. From this point of view, it can be said that the cadres preferred to ignore the "autocratic" moves that started with Sultan Selim III and accelerated with Mahmut II, which transformed the society in the Ottoman Empire in a "western-like" way, first in dress and attire. On the other hand, in a similar vein, while Mustafa Kemal's Hat Law can be characterised as a western imitation, Asaf's view on the originality of the Turkish revolutionaries points to a wish rather than a reality.

Yakup Kadri, on the other hand, while putting forward his ideas on the concepts whose effects were felt as a result of the French Revolution, states that the nations, who had passed through the severe tests of the years 1914-1918, had lost their belief in the words of "humour, freedom and justice". He supported his thesis with the example that Fascist Italy was no longer a state that existed on the basis of the principles of 1793. According to the Kadroists, the French Revolution and the set of innovative concepts it brought with it were no longer valid and the existing political atmosphere was shaped around an authoritarian and statist understanding of domination that excluded the need for individual freedom.

Aydemir underlines the "death" of the revolution by stating that the most intellectually productive period of the French Revolution took place between 1789 and 1793, and that in the following period, the egalitarian and libertarian ideas that had made their impact felt in the four years were moved away from, and by the 1900s, none of the values in question were in force. In an article published in Kadro, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir criticises the European-centred understanding of history. In addition, Aydemir states that the outlining of Turkish history cannot be realised with a European-centred understanding of history. While Aydemir criticises Europe-centred historiography, we also observe that he criticises orientalism. At this point, it should be noted that the work of the Turkish Historical Society and the Turkish History Thesis, which were carried out under the leadership of Atatürk, were supported by the Kadroists. Like the Kadroists, the Kemalist elite and Atatürk also refrain from a Eurocentric view of Turkish history. Their stance is to read the European-centred historiography in the opposite way rather than rejecting it in order to revise world history objectively.

Burhan Asaf Belge, while talking about the European man, uses the following expressions: "Of course, like the half-animal who, in order to protect himself against the beast, would use the axe he had chiselled to protect himself against the beast, to knock on his own brother's head so that he could keep the bigger morsel for himself, he would leave himself and humanity in agony with the marvellous work he increased from 2 horsepower to 300,000 horsepower." We do not come across any attitude of the cadres, who criticise the Eurocentric understanding of history, opposing Kemalism's efforts to incorporate the cultural habits of the West into society. At a time when Turkish society was rapidly turning towards Western culture, the possibility that a cultural reaction would not only be meaningless but would also be useful for counter-revolutionary forces pushed the Kadroists not to defend this idea.

Another distinction between the Kadroists and the Kemalist elite lies in their attitude towards statist policy. By the 1930s, the abolition of capitulations and the world economic crisis made it necessary for the leaders of the state to draw a new and original economic road map. In the period when the need to draw this economic road map was felt, the Free Republican Party was founded in 1930 with the encouragement of Atatürk. Theoretically, the Free Republican Party was envisaged to realise opposition to the Republican People's Party. The main explanation for the establishment of the Free Republican Party and its attracting the attention of anti-regime groups is that the revolutions led by the Republican People's Party did not resonate in the social sphere.

After the end of the multi-party experience, we see that the CHF started to become the state itself in the period until Atatürk's death. Giving up on the experience of democracy, the CHF was closing its doors and moving towards becoming a party-state. On the other hand, we can say that the liberal economic theses defended and developed by the Free Republican Party were effective in the formation of the statist stance of the CHF within the existing opposition. The principle of statism advocated by the CHF had a perception that planned and state-intervention economic policies, which would dominate its influence for a while, were necessary for the liberal economic order. This understanding of statism primarily aimed at encouraging the formation of national industry and capitalists through the state. The state could then, if successful, cease or relax its intervention in the economy.

The statist practice advocated by the Kadroists was quite different from that of Atatürk. According to them, statism had to be enacted as an ideology in its own right. İsmail Hüsrev Tokin explains their views on statism as follows: The state is not under the command of this or that class. The state is constituted by a cadre of organisers who represent the advanced interests of the nation, and a cadre of technicians who organise and manage economic activities on behalf of the advanced interests of the nation". Although the Kadroists and the Kemalist elite seem to agree on the necessity of state intervention and control in the economy, for the Kadroists, the movement in question is defined and aimed as a permanent form of governance rather than a short-term intervention. According to Kadroists, there are two main principles of nationalist statism: Firstly, to protect national independence against external forces, and secondly, to develop the national economy in line with national interests and to increase national income. The most important emphasis in the Kadroists' reading of nationalist statism is on a "classless society" and in this respect Kadroist statism resembles the statist model of fascism.

It is observed that the Kemalist elite also ignored social classes to some extent and even emphasised the "fused" nation in Atatürk's speeches. However, Atatürk's "fused nation" essentially recognised the existence of the peasant and capitalist classes, while ignoring only the "working" class. The Kadroists' perception of a "fused nation", on the other hand, was orientated towards the abolition of all existing social classes. The Kadroists' perspective on statism, as can be seen, only targeted a revolution in the economy, in other words, changes. In the 22nd issue of Kadro magazine, İsmet İnönü published an article on statism. According to İnönü, who explained the Republican People's Party's perspective on statism, "the state endeavours to do things that the individual cannot do, and this theory should be considered with prudence".

Vedat Nedim, in an article commenting on İnönü's article, states that all states, including the USA, which could be considered the most liberal country of the period, made economic interventions when deemed necessary, but underlines the special situation of Turkey. The difference is this: All of the mentioned states already exist on an established order. Turkey, on the other hand, is still in the foundation stage and must build its foundation on its own unique dynamics.

According to the Kadroists, statism is an ideology and Turkish nationalist statism is different and unique from the German and Italian fascist models and the Russian communist model. It is evident that the most fundamental difference of opinion between the Kadroists and the Kemalist elite is the view of statism.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by presenting the background and general character of the Kadro magazine and the Kadroist movement to your attention, I have tried to explain their relations with Marxism and their orientation from Marxist origins to the Kemalist body of thought, as well as the relations of the other Kadroist writers, with the exception of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, with the Kemalist elite in their endeavour to draw an ideological map of the newly established Turkish State, by putting forward their points of agreement and conflict separately. Although the Kadroists seem to have moved away from their Marxist origins and interacted with Kemalism, they positioned themselves somewhere between Marxism and Kemalism due to their denial of the notion of "class" and their dialectical stance against the positivist Kemalism. In general terms, I consider that the ideas of the Kadroists have been inherited to the present day as a Kemalist interpretation that incorporates neo-Marxist expansions.

I say stay with respectful love...

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