The role of academics in Turkey’s politics: the Mülkiye Junta andthe transformation of the Republican People’s Party

Yunus Emre*

Department of International Relations, Istanbul Kültür University, Istanbul, Turkey

(Received 10 April 2013; accepted 18 October 2013)

Between 1971 and 1973, Bülent Ecevit, an exceptional Third World leader whoespoused a social democratic creed, struggled against the military rule bypeaceful means. His main supporters in intellectual and ideological terms werea group of professors and politicians known as the Mülkiye Junta. Themembers of the group were scholars from the Ankara University Faculty ofPolitical Science (previously known as the Mülkiye) and advisors to Ecevit.They supported parliamentary politics, criticized the role of the military inpolitical life and recommended a new direction for the Republican People’sParty (RPP). In May 1972, they took over the party administration under theparty chairmanship of Bülent Ecevit. After this, the RPP won the highest votesin the 1973 elections. The Mülkiye Junta had central role in the leadership andideological change in the RPP. This article examines the political thinking ofthis group and their struggles within the RPP.

Keywords: the Republican People’s Party; Mülkiye Junta; social democracy;global periphery; Bülent Ecevit

On 12 March 1971, four top-level generals of the Turkish Armed Forced delivereda memorandum threatening the government with a coup d’état. Premier SüleymanDemirel resigned the same day. Within a week, the army had appointed a newprime minister, Nihat Erim, a former law professor and an MP from the RepublicanPeople’s Party (RPP) (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi). In response to Erim’sappointment, the Secretary General of the RPP, Bülent Ecevit, resigned from hispost. During that period, Ecevit struggled against both the new military rule andthe faction in his party that supported the new regime and the government.

In this struggle, the main supporters of Ecevit in intellectual and ideologicalterms were a group of scholars and politicians who came to known as the ‘MülkiyeJunta’ (Mülkiye Cuntası) in Turkish politics. Mülkiye had been the previous nameof the Ankara University Faculty of Political Science. The members of the group,who were scholars in this faculty, became advisors to Bülent Ecevit. Theysupported parliamentary politics, criticized the role of the military in political lifeand suggested a new direction for the RPP. This new direction was meant tofunction as a transition from a national modernizer cadre party to a socialdemocratic mass party.

*Email: y.emre@iku.edu.tr

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2014Vol. 14, No. 1, 109–128, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2014.882079

According to the members of the Mülkiye Junta, under the conditionsdetermined by rapid urbanization and industrialization, this new strategy had agreater chance for success in the elections. Their new approach became influentialin the RPP and in May 1972, they took over the party administration with thechairmanship of Ecevit. After this, the RPP won the 1973 elections.

The Mülkiye Junta had central role in the leadership and ideological change inthe RPP. This article aims to portray this role and examines the political thought ofthis group and their struggle within the party. The analysis presented in this paperis based on the writings of the Mülkiye Junta members or personal interviewsconducted by the author. This article basically addresses what the role of theMülkiye Junta was in the transformation of the RPP, and what the convergencesand divergences were between the Mülkiye Junta’s transformation project andpost-war West European social democracy.

In order to answer these questions, the article is organized in two main parts.First, the making of the Mülkiye Junta and its role in inner-party struggle will bescrutinized. Second, the political thought of the Mülkiye Junta will be assessed inthe context of post-war West European social democracy.

The making of the Mülkiye Junta

The readers of this article might suppose that this paper focuses on a ‘highlyspecific topic’ in Turkish politics. It is the role of a group of intellectuals andpoliticians (the Mülkiye Junta) in the transformation of the RPP. However, theanalysis of this ‘highly specific topic’ gives instructive insights for a betterunderstanding of twentieth century Turkish politics.

Despite having played one of the most important roles in Turkish politicalhistory, playing a central role in the Turkish modernization project, the place of theparty in Turkish politics has not been analysed in depth. The limited literature onthe transformation of the party is of a descriptive character. In addition, noscholarly or popular work has been done on the Mülkiye Junta. Thus, the main aimof this article is to contribute to this limited literature on the RPP.

The RPP is the oldest political party in Republican Turkey. It was establishedjust before the proclamation of the Republic in 1923. The founder of party wasMustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was also the founder of the Republican regime.Under Atatürk’s leadership, the RPP governed the country as a single party. Atatürkdied in 1938, but the single-party rule continued until 1945. The party implementedan intense reform programme aimed at the rapid development and secularization ofthe country. The reforms, specifically those on secularism, created populardiscontent. However, under the oppressive regime, this discontent was not trans-formed into an opposition movement. The deteriorating economic conditions of theSecond World War era deepened the discontent. In 1950, in the first free and fairelections, the victory of the opposition Democrat Party put an end to the RPP rule.After their defeat, the RPP oscillated between revisionism and traditionalism. In thelate 1960s and early 1970s, the Mülkiye Junta took to the stage in what was to bethe most critical for the party.

The RPP was a national, modernizer cadre party that had been hostile to the leftthroughout its history. However, in the midst of 1960s, the RPP declared itself tobe a centre-left party. This centre-left definition was changed to democratic-left inthe 1970s. The RPP became a member of the Socialist International in 1978. The

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transformation of the RPP was an important outcome not only for the party, butalso for modern Turkish history. During the democratic era, the party competedwith the populist market liberalism of the right-wing parties. At the same time, twotendencies struggled within the party, the traditionalists, who defended the statistpast of the party and stood for the continuation of the cadre character of the RPP,and the revisionists, who stood for a reform programme for the party. Theyproposed the transformation of the party from a national modernizer cadre partyinto a social democratic mass party.

The members of the Mülkiye Junta played a key role in this transformationprocess. They were active politicians and also the advisers to Secretary General ofthe party, Bülent Ecevit (party chairman between 1972 and 1980). Without theirsupport and ideological guidance, the transformation of the party would not havebeen possible.

The transformation of the RPP was a major shift in Turkish politics. After thistransformation, parliamentary politics started to be aligned on the left and rightaxis. In addition, the vocabulary of political life rapidly changed and politiciansadopted a new language similar to that of their West European counterparts. Theanalysis of this transformation, more precisely, the analysis of the most importantactor in this transformation the Mülkiye Junta, is of great importance.

As pointed out above, the RPP underwent a transition in the 1950s and 1960s.In the single-party period, it had been a national modernizer party led by a smallcadre who had had civilian and military-bureaucratic origins. The ruling party ofthe 1950s, the Democrat Party, followed a populist policy by which it was able togarner the votes of the majority. During this decade, the RPP was unable toestablish an alternative populism against that of the DP (Sunar 1990). Thus, in the1950s and the 1960s, the main question for the RPP was how to adapt itself to thenew rules of the game.

In this adaptation process, the party sought a new direction that required a neworganizational structure and ideological position. Under those circumstances, in1965, the ‘left of center’ emerged as a new discourse for redefining the party’sstance. In October 1966, during the party’s 18th congress, ‘left of center’ becamethe official party policy and the representative of this new discourse, Ecevit, waselected the Secretary General of the party. The congress resolution described thenew position of the RPP as follows: ‘The 18th Congress of the RPP has confirmedthat our party is on the left of center among the political movements by its ideas,ideals, and practices and general character that have been pursued since the RPP’sfoundation’ (CHP 1966).

The adaptation of the new political line by the RPP resulted in discontent withinthe party. A group of prominent politicians and intellectuals broke away in April1967 and established the Reliance Party (RP), with Turhan Feyzioğlu at its head.1

Historically, university professors and intellectuals had supported the RPP. Theleaders of the new party were from this stratum for the most part.

In the 1965 elections, the RPP had won 28.7% of the total votes while its mainrival, the Justice Party, had won more than 50%. It was the first time the RPP hadfallen under the 30% mark. This electoral defeat was followed by a division withinthe party, and this division in 1967 triggered the idea that the RPP was beingdissolved.

One of the most important politicians and observers of the era, Besim Üstünel,explained that he had joined the RPP to counter this perception (2012). He was a

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professor of economics, an expert in development planning and internationaleconomics. He had also served in the State Planning Organization as the DeputyUndersecretary of the Economic Planning Department.

Between 1960 and 1980, Turkey implemented an import substitutedindustrialization policy.2 In this era, development planning was given a central role.Within this framework, parliamentary sessions on development plans and budgetswere the main battlefield for the parties. However, many of the representatives ofthe RPP who had participated in those sessions left the party and joined the RP.The parliamentary sessions on the Second Five-Year Development Plan started, andthe main opposition, the RPP, was unprepared. Under those circumstances, Ecevitasked Üstünel to form a new group of experts and to assist the RPP. Üstüneldescribed this era as follows:

Ecevit asked me to join the party in the 1960s three times. But I refused all of thoseinvitations. Then I had to accept in 1968. The Second Five-Year Development Plancame to the parliament. All of the party representatives, all good speakers of the RPP,had left the party. In Anatolian cities, the RPP local organizations started to turn intolocal branches of the RP. The party was being dissolved. Bülent Bey said that youare responsible for the preparation of the party for the development plan discussions.You will manage the process. In one week, I formed a group of experts. The numberof advisors was around twenty. All of them were from Ankara. They have differentfields of expertise such as statistics, political sociology, development economics, agri-culture, and urban studies. Then we started to inform the party administration day byday. (Üstünel 2012)

The Mülkiye Junta emerged as the nucleus of this new group of experts andadvisors. These scholars were influential mainly on the Secretary General of theRPP, Bülent Ecevit.

The Mülkiye Junta actually only had five members. The most important of themwas Turan Güneş, a professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law who hadexperience as a politician. He had served as an MP from the Democrat Party in the1950s, but had resigned because of the party’s rising anti-democratic tendencies,and had taken part in the foundation of the Freedom Party (FP). In the beginning,he had supported the DP, like many liberals of the period had. In the early 1950s,from liberal intellectuals’ point of view, the DP had represented the common managainst statism and bureaucratic tendencies of the RPP.

During the 1950s, the parties in Turkish parliamentary politics had not alignedalong the axis of left and right. After a disappointing election performance, the FPhad dissolved itself and joined the RPP. Güneş had joined the RPP in this way.Throughout his political career, he had advocated a radical change in the RPP’spolitical stance. He thought the RPP needed to give up being the party ofbureaucratic elites and notables and instead should be a mass political movementrepresenting the common man.3 Before the 12 March military intervention, he hadbeen the Deputy Secretary General of the RPP and had been responsible for theparty organization. He played a key role in the transformation of the RPP duringthe 1960s and 1970s both as a politician and an intellectual. He acted as one of thetwo deputies of the Secretary General of the RPP, Bülent Ecevit.

Deniz Baykal and Ahmet Naki Yücekök were political sociologists who workedin the Department of Political Behaviour of the Faculty of Political Science. Theywere involved in determining the new political and ideological direction of the

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party. In 1969, they became members of the High Advisory Board of the party.Last, Haluk Ülman was a professor of diplomatic and political history whose maincontribution was on foreign policy issues. He became a member of the HighAdvisory Board of the party in 1969.

The political environment at the Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciencewas very influential on the making of the Mülkiye Junta. The members of thegroup were not the only pro-RPP professors there (Fedayi 2003, 101); many of theother scholars on the faculty supported the RPP’s political line. They were,however, the only group that proposed a social democratic route for the RPP.

After the 1968 global uprisings, left movements were on the rise and Marxismbecame popular at the Faculty of Political Science. The political position of themembers of the Mülkiye Junta was different from that of the Marxist wing of thefaculty. Yücekök described his group’s position and its relationship with theMarxists as follows:

The overwhelming majority in the Political Science Faculty was leftist. There was norightist among us. In the immense leftism of the political science faculty, we werefour or five social democrats. Our friendship was strong. There was no antagonismbetween us and our friends on the further left. They joked with us. They said, ‘youare supporters of the RPP and you are pathetic losers’. (Yücekök 2012)

As pointed out above, many of those who opposed the new direction of theRPP had left the party in 1967. This did not put an end to the internal divisions ofthe RPP. On the opposite side of the left of centre group stood a centrist factionthat opposed Ecevit’s general secretariat, and the quest of his experts and advisorsfor a new direction for the party.4 They did not accept that this group that was soinfluential in determining the direction of the party, had no place in the officialparty organization and was not responsible to any part of the party body(Altuğ 1979, 60).

In reaction to those criticisms, Ecevit did not dissolve the new group, butformed an organizational body for these advisors in order to end the criticisms(Sağlamer 1974, 296). During the 19th Congress of the RPP in 1968, the statute ofthe party was changed.5 According to the new statute, a High Advisory Board ofthe RPP would be established, the members of which would be determined by theParty Assembly. They would attend the Party Assembly sessions and join thediscussion and decision making, but they would not have the right to vote. Thus,the experts and advisors of the RPP attained an institutional capacity.

At the beginning, the High Advisory Board took on an amalgamated character.6

Many of Ecevit’s opponents and opponents of Western European social democracysat on this board. For example, Doğan Avcıoğlu, an influential radical intellectualof the period, was on this board.7 However, in 1969, the issue of political amnestyfor former Democrat Party members generated a dispute in the party, and many ofthe opponents, such as Avcıoğlu, left the board (Milliyet, 14 May 1969). Thisturned the High Advisory Board into a more homogenous body. From thereafter,the Mülkiye Junta was able to exert more influence on the political direction of theparty. This event marked its emergence as a political actor. It was at this point thatthe opposition began to refer to the group as the ‘Mülkiye Junta’. It was felt theyhad undue influence on the party, despite the fact that they were neither in the partybody nor had any political affiliation. They viewed the authority of the group of

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advisors from the Political Science Faculty as illegitimate. So, in an age of juntas,their opponents instilled the name with a negative connotation.

The public opinion came to know the name ‘Mülkiye Junta’ from a serieswritten by Kurtul Altuğ in the daily Akşam regarding the political parties’ innerstructures and struggles. In this series, the Mülkiye Junta and its influence onEcevit’s party administration were examined (Altuğ 1970). The main theme of theseries was that Ecevit was a lonely man in the party administration, and many ofhis allies and friends in the party had left him because of his way of doing politics.This way of doing politics was described by Altuğ as governing the party with thisgroup of experts and intellectuals that were from the outside of the party.

Üstünel described the emergence of the name of Mülkiye Junta as follows:

Nihat Erim had a part in the emergence of the Mülkiye Junta name. A journalist,Kurtul Altuğ, wrote a series in one of the dailies of that era. Before politicians usedthe term Mülkiye Junta, the public opinion knew the Mülkiye Junta name from thisseries. Kurtul Altuğ was Erim’s man. We considered him to be a supporter of Erim.The theme of the series was that this group had no responsibility in the party. Theywere the Mülkiye. They aimed at governing the party and the country from theiroffices in the university. We considered that this series was written under the influenceof Nihat Erim. That was our estimation. (Üstünel 2012)

The Mülkiye Junta’s new approach influenced the RPP. In May 1972, the grouptook over the party administration with Bülent Ecevit’s election to the post of partychairmanship. Then, the RPP won the 1973 elections, and Ecevit established acoalition government with Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party in 1974.However, after the 1973 elections and the formation of the new cabinet, politicalconditions rapidly changed for the Mülkiye Junta.

The contribution of the Mülkiye Junta to the transformation of the RPP in the12 March era was crucial. Some members of the Mülkiye Junta took part inEcevit’s 1974 government.8 The establishment of this cabinet resulted in thedisappearance of the Mülkiye Junta as an advisory group. Following the 1974Cyprus intervention, Ecevit’s social democracy changed into a developmentalistnational populism around a personality cult and therefore the impact of the WestEuropean social democracy on the RPP became marginal.9 Ecevit no longer neededthe members of the Mülkiye Junta as his advisors.

The social backgrounds of the members of the Mülkiye Junta were anotherfactor in this development. They were intellectuals who had never taken part in realpolitics before. Only Güneş had an electoral base. He was a member of a wealthyfamily that engendered notable politicians and dominated the economic life of thesmall Anatolian town of Kandıra. He had strong electoral support in this town.During the 1970s, he insisted on the project for the social democratization of theRPP. His death in 1982 deprived the group of this perspective.

The political thought of the Mülkiye Junta and the post-war social democracyof Western Europe

The Mülkiye Junta proposed a radical change in the RPP’s long-establishedideological direction and leadership. This proposal was differed from those of therising popular left movements of the 1960s. The members of the Mülkiye Juntawere directly influenced by the post-war social democracy of Western Europe.

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Their reform proposal aimed at transforming the traditional RPP ideology, whichwas highly statist and bureaucratic, into social democracy. This transformationrequired a new understanding for the RPP of party–state and party–societyrelations. On the other hand, despite the inspiration given by post-war WestEuropean social democracy, the discourse of the Mülkiye Junta had a number ofminor divergences from it. Below, the main characteristics of the group’s politicalthought will be evaluated in the context of post-war social democracy of WesternEurope in order to conceptualize its transformation proposal.

In the post-war period, the most important document that reflected the newsocial democratic perspective of the era was the 1951 Frankfurt Declaration of theSocial International. In this declaration, the social democratic parties stated theirmain aims and principles. Under Cold War conditions, this document identified thenew Keynesian macroeconomic policies, social welfare measures and political liber-alism of the social democratic parties. The Frankfurt Declaration was an importantcornerstone in the transformation of democratic socialist parties from class partiesinto left-wing people’s parties. This new socialism conception influenced the socialdemocratic parties of Europe.

Politician and intellectual Anthony Crosland wrote about the new socialism inThe Future of Socialism (first published in 1956). He discussed the main tenets ofthe Frankfurt Declaration and strongly underlined Keynesianism as a new set ofeconomic policies for social democratic parties. In continental Europe, the newsocialism was projected into the programmes of social democratic parties. The mostimportant example among them was the renewed programme of the German socialdemocratic party. The official party programme of the SPD was changed during the1959 Bad-Godesberg Congress. In adopting the new programme, the SPDabandoned its old class party character and Marxist ideas. It attempted to expand itselectoral base by attracting white-collar workers and members of the middle classes.

In order to demonstrate the influence of post-war social democracy on themembers of the Mülkiye Junta, I needed sources that could represent post-warsocial democracy. I determined the three sources, cited above. Another way mightbe to compare the Mülkiye Junta to a group of particular post-war social democratintellectuals. However, it is an important fact that the intellectual life of Europeansocial democracy was not fertile in the post-war era. The debate between revision-ists (Eduard Bernstein), radicals (Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht) andCentrists (Karl Kautsky) had shaped the agenda of social democrats prior to WorldWar One. Then, in the interwar period, Austro-Marxists or Scandinavian socialdemocrats had led significant ideological changes. In the post-war era, however,political institutions (more precisely, political parties) – not intellectuals – becamethe primary actors in ideological transformations. Only Crosland made an importantdifference in the social democratic intellectual history of that period. For thisreason, the three sources stated above that represent post-war Western Europeansocial democracy (the 1951 Frankfurt Declaration, the Bad-Godesberg Program andCrosland’s The Future of Socialism) are used in this part. Those sources and thepolitical thinking of the members of the Mülkiye Junta will be evaluated toconceptualize the influence of that group on the transformation of the RPP in termsof their belief in democracy and freedom, their economic theories and theirperspectives on religion and secularism.

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Belief in democracy and freedom

At the outset of the 1970s, Turkish democracy was faced by a crisis. In 1971,Turkey saw the pinnacle of this crisis with the 12 March military intervention, bywhich democracy and basic rights were suspended. Prior to the military interven-tion, anti-democratic discourse had been widespread throughout the political elites.Among the groupings of the Turkish left, those who supported the struggle fordemocracy were neither prestigious. The radical wings of the Turkish leftconsidered democracy and human rights to be bourgeoisie tricks. They referred todemocracy as ‘pretty democracy’ (cici demokrasi) and ‘Philippine type of democ-racy’. Those labels were used to belittle democracy. Finally, the army’s role inpolitical life was an important question directly related to the future of democracy.

Under those circumstances, the members of the Mülkiye Junta insisted ondemocracy, freedom and democratic struggle and opposed anti-democratic actions.Their passionate belief in liberty and democracy was inspired by the post-warsocial democracy of Western Europe, in which these principles were distinctivefeatures of the social democratic and communist parties. The social democratic par-ties approached democracy and freedom as a moral ground on which to constructsocialism. In the Frankfurt Declaration, the member parties of the SocialistInternational thus stated that there could be no socialism without freedom and thatsocialism was only possible through democracy (Socialist International 1951). Thedeclaration defined democracy in a very traditional way as government of thepeople, by the people and for the people. Political liberties, representation throughfree elections, majority government and respect for minority rights should besecured. On the other hand, a democratic system should also provide equalitybefore the law, right to cultural autonomy, an independent judiciary system and theright of private life.

The Socialist International’s perspective on democracy and freedom was sharedby all of the social democratic parties of the period. As an example, in theBad-Godesberg Program of the SPD, the party stated that it fought for democracy(FES 2009), which was based on respect for the dignity of man, and for thisreason, it should be the universal form of state organization. Similarly, the partydeclared that ‘Socialism can be realized only through democracy and democracycan only be fulfilled through Socialism’. The SPD also pointed out that it resistedall types of dictatorships including communism. According to the party, suchadministrations violated human dignity and destroyed man’s freedom and the ruleof law. In the programme, the party also underlined the importance of freedom ofthought. This principle was defined as basis for the existence of the party.

In a similar vein, Crosland classified political liberalism as one of the five tenetsof socialism (1956). However, in the Future of Socialism, he focused on economicand social aspirations of socialism. He asserted that the belief in liberty anddemocracy was one the main features of socialism. His book is about socialism inBritain, where the belief in liberty and democracy was shared by both right- andleft-wing political actors; therefore, Crosland made no further reference to thisbelief, because it was not unique to socialism.

In Turkey, the belief of post-war social democracy in democracy and freedomwas taken up by the members of the Mülkiye Junta. Ahmet Naki Yücekökexamined the criticisms of democracy in an article titled ‘The Reply of theDemocrat’. This article was a manifesto against the authoritarianism of the 12

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March era (Yücekök 1972, 19–23). He said that the criticism of democracy wasnot a new phenomenon; it was as old as democracy itself. Although criticisms indeveloped and underdeveloped countries on democracy were different, as a matterof fact, they were very similar in essence. The opponents of democracy advocatedthe administration of a group of well-trained aristocrats. The people had no say inthe administration, and the philosopher kings claimed that they governed for theirbenefit. He wrote that the main claim in developed countries was that the socialcomplexity of those societies required administration by a group of well-trainedaristocrats and that the main claim in underdeveloped countries was that rapid andeasy development required such an administration.

Yücekök opposed both of those perspectives. First, for a democrat, usingexperts was not a bad or unwelcomed outcome. In a democracy, experts shouldtake part in the administration. However, a democrat objected to the absolute andunrestrained authority of the experts in state administration. The so-called ‘virtuousexperts’ would never have the required or desired features and characteristics.There was no contribution of and control by the people in such a regime. Thus, itwas crucial to convert those so-called virtuous experts into persons who soughttheir own private interests. At last, this administration of experts would degenerateand would be against the interests of society.

Yücekök claimed that the democrat’s conception of society and order did notaccept the transference of the authority and future of society to a virtuous minoritybecause the democrat believed that people had the freedom to make their ownmistakes.

In an article published in Özgür İnsan,10 Deniz Baykal said he objected to thereformism claim of authoritarianism (Baykal 1972). Long-lasting politicalmovements that stood on strong social bases were the only bodies capable ofimplementing reforms. Baykal used the Gordian knot metaphor at this point,recalling how Alexander the Great had cut the knot instead of disentangling it. Helikened the behaviour of both the revolutionary actions and authoritariangovernments as trying to cut the knot. He asserted that cutting the knot was thewrong way. It should be disentangled with patience, ingenuity and care. By usingthis metaphor, Baykal aimed at pointing out two differences that between thepolitical attitudes of reformist social democracy and revolutionary activism and thatthe orientation of the Mülkiye Junta and the RPP’s statist and authoritarian past. Hesought to express that the group gave preference to reformism rather thanrevolutionary activism, and this attitude matched their reference to socialdemocracy and belief in democracy and freedom.

The constitutional amendments put into effect during this era were some of themost important anti-democratic initiations of the 12 March period. The aim of thosechanges was the depoliticization of the lower and middle classes. As a member ofthe Mülkiye Junta, Güneş directly objected to those changes (1972b). From theirpoint of view, freedoms in Turkey were being used maliciously, and national unitywas under the threat of regional conflicts and class conflict. To prevent this situa-tion, new laws were necessary. However, the constitution blocked the enactment ofthose laws. Güneş objected to all of the above-mentioned views of the supportersof the constitutional change. He asserted that those changes were unnecessary, andthe views on the changes were uninformed. The courts were able to prevent anar-chy with older laws. The rule of law was the result of the development of mankindand law simultaneously. Turkey could not be part of modern civilization unless

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those rights were guaranteed. On the other hand, one of the most important aspectsof authoritarianism of the 12 March era was the formation of the State SecurityCourts by changes to the constitution. According to Güneş, the initiation toestablish such courts was primitive. He wrote that state imposed sanctions on theopponent thought, and it was also primitive.

The exclusion of the army from politics was central for the Mülkiye Junta.When the 12 March memorandum was issued, the Mülkiye Junta directly opposedthis attempt. Two days after the memorandum, Haluk Ülman wrote in the editorialcolumn of the daily of the RPP, Ulus, that the military had passed the limits of thedemocratic regime and the questions should have been solved in the democraticorder (1971a, 1971b, 1971c). The title of the article was ‘It Should Not HaveHappened’. According to Ülman, the common responsibility was to make the inter-vention of the military limited attempt. He called for the holding of a free electionand the transfer of the political power to the elected government. He wrote anothereditorial the next day declaring that democratic order was indispensible. The mem-orandum was neither lawful nor righteous. Some groups were trying to make themilitary intervention a permanent military administration. However, leftist politicalthought and the demands on the transformation of the economic and socialstructure were only possible under a democratic regime. He reminded his readersthat the establishment of the new government was the responsibility of the parlia-ment. The determination of the prime minister by actors other than parliament wasnot democratic. The constitution should not be changed to limit basic rights andfreedoms. After the determination of Nihat Erim as the new prime minister, Ülmanwrote another column asking for a clarification of what kind of democracy thiswas. These articles, written immediately after the military intervention, are crucialfor understanding of the Mülkiye Junta’s opposition against the military’s takingplace in the political life.

Yücekök approached the question of army’s presence in political life from anhistorical perspective. He put forth a historical dichotomy between the struggle ofmilitary-bureaucrats and populist democrats in Turkish political history (Yücekök1973). After the transition to multi-party politics, the main representative of themilitary-bureaucratic strata had been the RPP. In the 1950s, the military-bureau-cratic strata and the RPP had been in opposition. He identified this opposition blocas bureaucratic revolutionary. The RPP and military considered that the DP hadbeen reactionary. However, the DP had not drawn its greatest support from theunderdeveloped regions of the country. The most educated, most developed andmost complex regions of the country had voted for the DP. He asserted that nobodybelieved this reactionarist claims except the RPP and the military-bureaucraticstrata.

According to Yücekök, while Turkish society was still not complex, themilitary-bureaucratic strata had been considered progressive because of their wes-tern orientation and literacy. However, when Turkish society had developed andbecome more complex, it had become a social group that advocated the old valuesand resisted the changing conditions. Thus, they had become conservative. It wasclear that in a society in transition from dominantly poor and agrarian through anindustrialized one, the role and functions of political actors were changing rapidly.

Yücekök asserted that the bureaucratic revolutionaries did not believe indemocracy and that they considered the election results to be the success ofreactionaries. This group had made the military intervene into politics, and the 12

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March military intervention had been the result of their political efforts anddiscourse. Within this framework, he claimed that this period had been brought toan end by the presidential elections, in which the RPP had objected to the mili-tary-bureaucratic strata’s presidential candidate. He described this event as markingthe end of the coalition between the RPP and the military-bureaucratic strata.

The presidential elections of 1973 were an important turning point for thepolitical regime in Turkey and for the RPP. The commander-in-chief of this period,Faruk Gürler, became a candidate for presidency. However, the new chairman ofthe RPP, Ecevit, objected to his presidency. In a civilian and parliamentary leftposition, Ecevit opposed the military’s participation in political life. The maintheorists of this new policy were members of the Mülkiye Junta. However, theSecretary General of the RPP, Kamil Kırıkoğlu, did not share this perspective. Hesupported Gürler’s presidency and he participated in the presidential voting in theparliament with a group of deputies and voted for Gürler while Ecevit and hisgroup did not join those sessions. This event caused an important conflict in theRPP. Kırıkoğlu later was eliminated in the RPP with the efforts of the MJ.

The political operation against Kırıkoğlu started with an article that was writtenby Ülman but was signed anonymously that accused Kırıkoğlu outright (Özgürİnsan 1973). This article was published in the journal of Özgür İnsan, which wasknown as the journal of Ecevit. In the article, Ülman noted that there were twogroups in the RPP. The first group, led by Ecevit, had a loyalty to democracy. Thesecond group was the coalition made up of bureaucratic reformists and cowards.According to Ülman, Kırıkoğlu was in this group, and the members of the secondgroup were not loyal to democracy. This article, which appeared in the journal ofEcevit, was a direct challenge to Kırıkoğlu and led to his resignation.

Yücekök described the process that had led to Kırıkoğlu’s elimination:

Kamil Kırıkoğlu was one of the strong men of the Ecevit movement in the party.However, during the executions of Deniz Gezmiş and friends, conflict betweenKırıkoğlu and Ecevit started. There was a deputy of Kırıkoğlu, Cevat Sayın, and thisgroup aimed at making the party the follower of the student riots. There was a viewthat after the elimination of İnönü there would be a new struggle between Ecevit andKırıkoğlu. (Yücekök 2012)

Turan Güneş had a central role in Kırıkoğlu’s elimination. Hurşit Güneşdescribed his father’s role in this action:

In those days, my father was responsible for the party organization. He designed andcontrolled the party organization as the deputy Secretary General. He was also themost influential in the intellectual field. The main characters in the Özgür İnsanjournal were Bülent Bey, my father, and members of the MJ. They directed thejournal. Özgür İnsan is a left journal, but anti-militarist left. Kırıkoğlu and his groupdid not share this approach. In the presidential elections process, this event happened.There was a crucial division at this point. My father’s group was supporting ananti-militarist and parliamentarian left. The others were not. It is true that Kırıkoğluwas eliminated from politics. Turan Güneş did this on the directive of Bülent Ecevit.(Güneş 2012)

A belief in democracy and freedom was a key dimension of the politicalthought of the Mülkiye Junta. This belief was a distinctive characteristic ofpost-war European social democracy. It differentiated between the communist and

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social democratic movements of the period. In a similar vein, this strong emphasison democracy and freedom became one of the main differences of the groupmembers within the ranks of Turkish left. On the other hand, it is noteworthy thatthis perspective of the group was also harmonious with and instrumental for itsinner-party struggle with other factions. The opponents of Ecevit’s socialdemocratic wing in the RPP were the allies of the military-bureaucratic strata ingeneral. Reference to democracy provided ethical supremacy for Ecevit and themembers of the Mülkiye Junta against their rivals in the party.

Economy in the Mülkiye Junta’s social democracy thought

Turkey’s historical and structural conditions were different than the WesternEuropean countries. Turkey had an agrarian economy. Labuorers working inmanufacturing industry composed only of a small portion of the labour force. Theorganized working class and the left historically had been suppressed by the state.For those reasons, Turkey was not one of the most ideal breeding grounds forsocial democracy. In addition, during that period, there was no successful socialdemocratic experiment in the global periphery.

Within this context, the social democratic orientation of the members of theMülkiye Junta is very noticeable. It is noteworthy that the members of the groupinsisted on social democratic claims, and this insistence became one of the mainreasons for the fall of the so-called 12 March regime. However, their conception ofdemocracy, which remarkably shared the political liberalism aspiration of WestEuropean social democracy, had an important difference in its social and economicaspirations. In Western European, economic and social aspirations of socialdemocracy were defined by redistributive problems. Full employment, socialpolicies and welfare state measures were the main characteristics of this social dem-ocratic ideology. However, the Mülkiye Junta focused on economic and socialquestions in the context of a model for rapid development. Their economic andsocial views aimed at a progressive path to modernity. Questions pertaining to classrelations and redistribution had secondary importance to them. Their ultimate aimwas the economic development of the country within a democratic framework. Inthe part that follows, I will examine the grounds for this difference.

Like the first example, in the Frankfurt Declaration, the main aims ofdemocratic socialist economic policy were stated as full employment, higherproduction, a rising standard of life, social security and a fair distribution ofincomes and property (Socialist International 1951). To fulfil those aims, thedeclaration proposed a new understanding of economic planning that was differentfrom both capitalist and totalitarian (fascist or communist) planning. Thedeclaration stated that those planning perspectives excluded public control ofproduction and a fair distribution of its results, but socialist planning did not. In thedeclaration, public ownership was identified not as an end but as a means ofsocialist economic policies. Its function should be controlling industries on whichthe economic life and welfare of the country depend, preventing cartelization andrationalization of inefficient industries.

A similar perspective was reflected to the Bad-Godesberg Program of the SPD,where the goal of social democratic economic policy was identified as the constantgrowth of prosperity and a just share for all in the national product (FES 2009).Economic planning and full employment were also stated as main principles of this

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policy. On the other hand, free choice of consumer goods and services, free choiceof working place, freedom for employers to exercise their initiative and freecompetition were identified as requirements for social democratic economic policy.According to the programme, the main question in modern economy was not theownership, but the containment of the economic power. Both public and privatecontrol of the economic life and cartelization were obstacles to constructing asound economy. However, to the programme, public ownership and private owner-ship, both forms were appropriate and necessary.

On the other hand, Crosland, in the Future of Socialism, portrayed the successof Keynesianism in post-war economic development. He asserted the post-warreformation of capitalism to have rendered it all but unrecognizable (1956). Fullemployment and at least a tolerable degree of stability had been provided despiteoccasional minor recessions. Under those conditions, social democratic parties nowcould divert their energies to the basic aspirations of socialism. Crosland identifiedthose aspirations as social welfare and social equality. However, for the fulfilmentof those aspirations, he differentiated between the ends and means for socialist poli-tics as other revisionist thinkers did. As a classic example, the common ownershipof production, distribution and exchange (Clause 4 of the Labour Partyconstitution) was neither an end nor a basic aspiration of socialism. It has beenconsidered as a means for maintaining basic aspirations of socialism. Thus, underpost-war economic conditions, Crosland emphasized the growing irrelevance of theownership of the means of production. According to Crosland, despite inequalitiesexisted, the inequalities pertaining to the economic class relations were vanishing.In this framework, Crosland described Sydney Webb’s definition of socialism as‘the economic side of the democratic ideal’. In those conditions, the mainresponsibility for socialists was to institutionalize and consolidate democracy bystrengthening its social aspect.

As seen in the three examples, West European social democracy abandoned thequestion of public or private ownership or the nationalization of means ofproduction in the post-war era. However, it put particular emphasis on theimportance of belief in equality. Therefore, the policies concerning full employmentand social welfare state were at the top of the agenda, and redistributive measureswere the main instruments for those policies.

In the Turkish case, the members of the Mülkiye Junta approached thosequestions from a different perspective. Among the group, Üstünel, as a professor ofeconomics, was the most authoritative figure on the economic questions. Üstünelkept himself abreast of economic developments in Europe and the making ofpost-war social democracy. He identified four common principles for the left ofcentre (Üstünel 1966). Those principles were to increase social welfare, to providesocial security, to prevent all kinds of exploitation and to repair defective aspectsof capitalist system’s price mechanism. However, he thought that because Turkeywas a peripheral country, the programme of a left of centre movement should be abit different. He stated basic measures of a left of centre programme in Turkey asland reform, rapid industrialization, village development, social equity in thedistribution of income, a tax reform to finance the rapid development, public own-ership in the commanding heights of the economy, to provide social security, longterm development planning and institutionalization of democracy. On the otherhand, while identifying the left of centre ideology of the RPP, Üstünel criticizedthe accumulation of economic power in the landlords or big capitalists (Öymen

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1969). He also criticized the accumulation of economic power in the state.According to him, such a government was not a government of the people, and itbecame a power above the people. In this context, the Mülkiye Junta’s economicmodel was different from market capitalism and communism. However, it was alsodifferent from post-war social democratic model. Its main aim was rapiddevelopment and economic aspirations of post-war social democracy had secondaryimportance in this conception.

From the group’s perspective, the modernization and economic developmentdiscourses were not contrary to the project of social democratization of the RPP.As pointed out above, the RPP had not been successful in the elections aftercoming to the left of centre position. The opponents of the social democratizationof the party emphasized that the new direction of the party had caused the decreasein the votes. According to this perspective, there was no social base for socialdemocracy. Thus, the party’s votes would continue to decrease whether the partycontinued the left of centre discourse. Under those circumstances, the RPP mightbe dissolved. Therefore, the party should abandon this new position. Thisperspective was very widespread throughout the conservative wing of the RPP. Themain opposition to this view came from the Mülkiye Junta.

The Mülkiye Junta’s objection to those views was based on studies on theelectoral performance of the RPP that had been conducted by Deniz Baykal. In hisanalysis, Baykal used the statistics of the 1965 national elections and the StateInstitute of Statistics’ classification of the agricultural regions that divided thecountry into nine agricultural regions.11 He selected one of the most and leastdeveloped provinces in every region for his analysis (totally eighteen provincesfrom nine agricultural regions). He also used the socio-economic developmentstatistics for the same areas. He analysed those statistics in the context of the 1965national elections results. The conclusions he reached were noteworthy for thechange the RPP had undergone in terms of its electoral base.

In this analysis, the RPP enjoyed its greatest support in the cities, towns andvillages of mid-level developed provinces. The second largest support rate for theRPP was in the cities and towns of least developed provinces. The cities and townsof the more developed provinces had lower rates of supports for the RPP. In thevillages, the mid-developed provinces had higher rates than the highly developedprovinces. In the villages, the lowest rates of support were in the least developedprovinces. The conclusion of those statistics, according to Baykal, was that theRPP was supported more in provinces with by mid-level development, and thus,the party had an urban character.

In a different analysis, Baykal united the results of 1965 elections with those ofthe 1968 senate elections (1968). The RPP was traditionally strong in the easternprovinces, which were less developed. However, the party was losing ground inthose provinces, according to the 1968 results. On the other hand, the coastlineprovinces in Western Turkey, which traditionally supported the Democrat Party andthen the Justice Party, the votes of the RPP had a dramatic increase. According toBaykal, this was the result of the success of RPP’s new direction. He asserted thatthe voter profile of the party had been changed by the left of centre discourse.From his point of view, the RPP had broken the hold of its traditional voter baseand now the party was open to development. On the other hand, Baykal describedthe rise of the RPP’s votes in the western provinces that had been JP supporters inthe past as a sign of new direction’s success, because the economic and social

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policies of the Justice Party had caused economic crisis and discontent. Thus,Baykal wrote that this new situation created a convenient political environment forthe RPP’s left of centre policy. Consequently, the votes of the party in the moredeveloped regions were in rise. Thus, in Turkey, as a developing country, thevoting share of the RPP would increase thanks to the development of the country.In this way, the RPP would only be able to regain its political power by socialdemocratization. So, the Mülkiye Junta maintained that modernization, urbanizationand capitalist development made social democratization of the RPP indispensable.

Its emphasis on economic development was not contrary to the welfare statemeasures. They were underlining the economic and structural differences betweencore and periphery. Its members were very aware of the significance of welfarestate policies for post-war social democracy. They integrated the ‘democratic state’concept with the ‘welfare state’ principle. Within this framework, Güneş assertedthat the state of the twentieth century was a welfare state and the era of LaissezFaire, Laissez Passer had ended (1972a, 7–9). Then, everyone demandedsomething from the state and the concepts and institutions such as state, economyand social measures were embedded in each other. He emphasized that thisdevelopment had emerged in the post-war era and the placement of those rights inthe constitution was related to this development.

Consequently, in the fields of economic and social policies, the Mülkiye Juntagave special importance to the economic development. They argued that the socialdemocratization of the RPP was a phase of modernization. Although in WestEuropean social democracy the organized working class was the primary actor, theMülkiye Junta did not make any reference to organized labour. They made nostatements pertaining to class or to issues concerning redistribution. However, inclassic social democratic cases, the social democratic movements emerged as thepolitical organization of the working class, and then, they established cross-classalliances and created class compromise for a social democratic regime. Thiscompromise guaranteed full employment and high wages for the working peopleon the one hand and political and social stability for the capitalists on the other.

Perspective on religion and secularism

During the single-party era (1925–1946), the RPP implemented secularizingreforms and banned the organization of the religious orders. The ultimate aim ofthose reforms was the exclusion of Islam from the political sphere. The modernnation-state conception of the founders of the Republic anticipated breaking off theties between Turkish society and its Ottoman and Islamic history. However, religionwas a significant constituent of the hegemonic cultural structure and identity inTurkey. Under those circumstances, popular discontent emerged against thesecularizing reforms of the single-party regime. From the common man’s point ofview, the RPP was in charge of those policies and the religious circles of Turkishsociety did not support the RPP. During the early multi-party era, the religion andsecularism perspective of the RPP was one of the main obstacles to the partybecoming a mass party. The members of the Mülkiye Junta suggested a new per-spective about religion and its place in state–society relations for the RPP. Withinthis framework, their proposal was extremely significant for the RPP’stransformation.

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Change in the perspective on organized religion was also a part of westEuropean social democratic parties’ post-war transformation. Both in Turkish andwest European cases, the vital aim were to get the support of voters with firmreligious beliefs. Therefore, the parties changed their policies towards organizedreligion. Moreover, social democratic parties stated religion as a source ofdemocratic socialism in official party documents.

In the Frankfurt Declaration, the Socialist International maintained thatsocialism does not demand a rigid uniformity of approach, and socialists might beinspired by religious or humanitarian principles (Socialist International 1951).According to the declaration all sources of socialism strive for the same goal that isa system of social justice, a better living, freedom and world peace. Moreover, inthe Bad-Godesberg Program, the SPD cited Christian ethics with humanism andclassical philosophy as the roots of European democratic socialism. The approachof the SPD towards organized religion was identified in the programme as follows:

Socialism is no substitute for religion. The Social Democratic Party respects churchesand religious societies. It affirms their public and legal status, their special missionand their autonomy. It is always ready to co-operate with the churches on the basis ofa free partnership. It welcomes the fact that men are moved by their religious faith toacknowledge their social obligation and their responsibilities towards society. (FES2009, 22)12

In the Turkish case, Yücekök’s doctoral dissertation, which was on the social-economic bases of organized religion in Turkey, had a central place in this revision.In his dissertation, Yücekök asserted that it was crucial to understand religiousparticipation instead of getting angry about it (1971). The Ottoman social structurehad not been feudal, and it had important differences from the social structures ofthe west.

Yücekök portrayed a social structure for the Ottoman society that fit the 1960s’Asiatic mode of production conception. No secondary groups in the OttomanEmpire had protected the individual against the state; so, the state had been theprinciple power. He cited Şerif Mardin’s analysis on the place of religion andIslamic orders in Turkish society. Because of the absence of secondary groups forprotecting individual, the only protective shelter for the individual had been theumma and the Islamic order under the new circumstances of modernization. Fromhis point of view, in the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire had been openedto western imperialism, and after imperialism, the only ideology of opposition hadbecome religion. Thus, under the westernization conditions, religion had becomethe counter ideology of the masses against the westernizers.

The main finding of Yücekök’s work was that the religious associations weregaining strength in the more developed regions.13 In the regions in which classconflict was more developed, religious associations were more influential. Thepeople who had been called reactionary were in fact the people who had performedtheir social protests, their repression and their unrest against the dominant power inreligious ways. In this framework, Yücekök argued that the religion was not areactionary belief system. If some elements of society were taking refuge inreligion against economic problems, the RPP’s conception of reactionary should bechanged. The RPP should be very respectful of the religious tendencies of thepeople. Secularism was one of the six principles of the RPP, and the party wasgenerally criticized by right-wing parties as being hostile to religion and religious

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groups. So, Yücekök’s perspective was crucial for RPP’s overcoming those criticsand establishing new linkages with the society.

Conclusion

This article examined the emergence and the development of the Mülkiye Junta,and the main characteristics of its political thought. This group of intellectuals andpoliticians had a central role in the transformation of the RPP, the oldest and oneof the most important political parties in Republican Turkey. They meant to directthe party on the route of post-war Western European social democracy. The degreeof success in this project is open to question. However, the difference between theRPP of the single-party period and the RPP of the 1970s, when it became amember of Socialist International, is significant.

The Mülkiye Junta constructed a new political discourse for the RPP that wasdifferent from that of the party’s historical legacy. As pointed out above, the RPPhad been founded as the official party of the state. For years, it had worked as asingle party with little autonomy from the state. Until the 1960s, it had maintainedits historic hostility to the left. The adaptation to the new strategy was an importantquestion for the party.

The Mülkiye Junta emerged as the nucleus of a group of experts andintellectuals who joined the party after 1968. They became primarily influential onthe Secretary General of the party. The first step was Üstünel’s formation of agroup of experts and intellectuals for the party. The Mülkiye Junta was the nucleusof this group. The establishment of the High Advisory Board of the RPP was thesecond. The members of the Mülkiye Junta had great influence on this board asthey became active in party politics. After the 12 March military intervention, theyproposed an alternative political direction against the authoritarianism of the 12March regime.

The authoritarianism of the 12 March was overcome by the social democracyorientation of the Mülkiye Junta. The interim governments failed and Turkeyreturned to parliamentary democracy with the 1973 elections. In this process,Ecevit’s new RPP was significant, and the Mülkiye Junta had played key roles inhis rise to power in the inner-party struggle. In this way, both the RPP’stransformation was achieved and social democracy gained strength.

The article focused on the social democratization of the Mülkiye Junta projectin terms of their belief in democracy and freedom, economic policies andperspective on religion. As a peripheral country, the question of economicdevelopment had precedence over questions pertaining to class and redistribution.In post-war Europe, the social democratic parties adopted Keynesian welfare statepolicies and abandoned their commitment to abolish capitalist system. Commitmentto equality via redistribution was the main instrument of the new welfare statecapitalism. However, the Mülkiye Junta’s project gave primary importance to theeconomic development, and a number of measures that would help the develop-ment of the country such as land reform, rapid industrialization and villagedevelopment. Policies pertaining to class relations and welfare capitalism hadsecondary importance on the agenda of the group.

Belief in democracy and freedom had crucial importance in the Turkish case,because Turkish democracy was in a crisis in the period of 12 March militaryintervention and interim governments. In an era in which democracy and

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democratic ideals did not enjoy great prestige, the members of the MJ group strictlyadhered to democracy and freedoms. They objected both to the militaryinterventions and to the bureaucratic authoritarian administration, which was verysimilar to the Latin America examples of the 1960s and 1970s. The analysis clearlydemonstrated the resemblance between the Mülkiye Junta’s project and post-warsocial democracy in the fields of democracy and freedoms. Furthermore, on thenational level, the belief in democracy and freedom differentiated from both that ofthe Mülkiye Junta and the social democratic movements from the other groupsamong the left.

The last topic scrutinized was the policies towards religion and secularism. Inthe early Republican period, the RPP’s secularizing reforms gave a new shape tothe state society relations in Turkey, and those reforms were one the mostimportant source of popular discontent from the RPP’s single-party regime. On theother hand, in Turkey of this period in which there was no freedom of association,the religious places rapidly became focal points for political opposition. Then, inthe multi-party era, one of the main obstacles for the RPP to expand its electoralbase became the party’s policies towards religion and secularism. Within thisframework, the Mülkiye Junta’s reform proposal had crucial importance for theRPP’s getting support from voters with firm religious beliefs and Western Europeansocial democracy had a very similar transformation in the post-war era.

Consequently, the Mülkiye Junta proposed a new way of politics that took theordinary man into consideration. They objected to the increasing influence of thebureaucracy. In such a country with a small working class employed mostly bythe public sector, social democratic discourse served as progressive path todemocracy.

Currently, the RPP remains an important political party in Turkey. It continuesto oscillate between change and its tradition. Presently, it lacks a group similar tothe Mülkiye Junta to propose a new and consistent way for transformation.

Notes on contributor

Yunus Emre is an assistant professor in the Department of International Relationsat Istanbul Kültür University. He holds a PhD from the Atatürk Institute forModern Turkish History, Bogaziçi University, Turkey. He is the author of TheEmergence of Social Democracy in Turkey: The Left and the Transformation of theRepublican People’s Party (London: IB Tauris, 2014). He published many articleson Turkish politics and social democracy.

Notes1. Forty-eight of the total 182 members of parliament resigned, and 15 of the total 47

RPP senators resigned from the party (Bila 2008, 196).2. After the 1980 crisis, this policy (ISI) was replaced by an export-oriented market

reform program which prioritized encouragement of exports and foreign direct invest-ment.

3. For Güneş’ collected articles on DP’s and RPP’s place in Turkish politics, see (Güneş2009).

4. For the emergence and working of this group of opposition, (see, Kili 1976, 251–8).5. For High Advisory Board’s works, see (CHP 1970, 10).

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6. For the making of the High Advisory Board and the political questions after the issueof amnesty for DP politicians, see Fedayi (2003, 99–102).

7. Avcıoğlu was a well-known intellectual who supported a progressive militaryintervention and the replacement of the elected government by a technocratic one.Avcıoğlu and the journal he published harshly criticized the MJ and Ecevit because oftheir loyalty to democracy. For the political conflict between the Avcıoğlu’s group andMJ, see Fedayi (2003, 101). The report of the RPP Party Assembly for the 20thCongress of the party has several documents of this conflict most precisely after theamnesty issue for the DP politicians. See CHP (1970, 56–70). One of journalist of theera Altan Öymen made interviews with Doğan Avcıoğlu and Besim Üstünel on theirdifferent perspectives, see (Öymen 1969).

8. Turan Güneş was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Deniz Baykal was the Ministerof Finance.

9. For the analysis of populist discourse of Ecevit during the 1970s, see Erdoğan (1998,22–37).

10. Özgür İnsan was the journal of Bülent Ecevit which became influential most preciselyin the period of 12 March regime.

11. For Baykal’s analysis on elections and place of residence, see (1970, 70–84).12. Anthony Crosland’s book The Future of Socialism does not include any reference to

the policy towards organized religion. The reason for this is the peculiar situation ofBritish socialism. Since its birth, the British socialism has been in peace withorganized religion. At the initial stage, Christian socialism with Fabianism andMarxism was one of the sub-traditions represented in the party. For the peculiarity ofBritish socialism in the field of perspective on religion, see (Foote 1986).

13. The religious associations which were analyzed by Yücekök were basicallyassociations for the construction and renovation of mosques.

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