The Young Turk Period, 1908-1918 - PSI424

354 The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975
Party (Turk Halk Istirakiyun Firkasi), which had some connection with the Green
Army. 56 This organization enabled the Communists to emerge to public view in
Turkey for the first time. In addition, on October 18, 1920, Kemal allowed the formation
of a separate Turkish Communist Party (Turk Komiinist Firkasi), but it
was operated mainly by some of his close associates in the Assembly. 57 Far less
active or radical than the first-named group, it was a government tool to divide
and confuse the Communists and their supporters. Soon the former was active
enough to cause its suppression. The last straw came when it issued a joint declaration
with the Green Army and Cerkes Ethem that they had "approved the
Bolshevik party program passed by the Third International . . . and joined to
unite all the social revolutionary movements in the country," and adopted the name
Turkish People's Collectivist Bolshevik Party. 58 Communist agents became active
around Ankara and Eski§ehir and cooperated with Unionist groups in Erzurum
and Trabzon, which were centers of Enver's supporters throughout the War for
Independence. 59 This stimulated Kemal to criticize the Communists for working
outside the organ of the people, the Grand National Assembly. After £erkes Ethem
was crushed and the Green Army broken up, he suppressed the Communists and
brought their leaders to trial, though the final judgments were suspended until
after the Treaty with Moscow was signed in March 1921, and the sentences were
relatively light compared to some. The only violent action against the Turkish
Communists came when Mustafa Suphi and a few friends entered Anatolia via
Kars on December 28, 1920. Though they met with Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Kazim
Karabekir at Kars early in January 1921, they were arrested soon after. As they
were being sent by boat to Erzurum for trial, they were assassinated by a group
of pro-Enver supporters from Trabzon, apparently because of their fear that Suphi
might bring discredit to Enver's efforts. 60
What, indeed, had happened to Enver and his supporters? Enver, Cemal, Talat,
and a few friends had fled from Istanbul the night of November 2, 1918, on a
German freighter going to Odessa. From there they had gone on to Berlin, where
they lived under assumed names, since the Entente victors were demanding their
extradition for the "crimes" of their regime. Soon they were invited by Karl Radek
to continue their work in Moscow, with full Bolshevik support for the "Turkish
national struggle." Talat remained in Germany, where he was killed by an Armenian
assassin on March 15, 1921. Cemal and Enver went to Moscow, and later
to Central Asia, where they undertook a series of political activities with the ultimate
intention of using the Bolsheviks to regain power in Turkey once the nationalists
were defeated. With Bolshevik encouragement Enver proclaimed the
organization of the Union of Islamic Revolutionary Societies (Islam Ihtildl
Cemiyetleri Ittihadi) and an affiliated Party of People's Councils (Halk §uralar
Ftrkast)t the former as the international Muslim revolutionary organization, the
latter as its Turkish branch. On September 1-9, 1920, he attended the Congress of
the Peoples of the East at Baku, meeting a Kemalist delegate who was present.
But while Kemal generally encouraged Enver's work in the hope of using him
to get Bolshevik aid, he never actually committed himself to anything. Enver had
a small group of supporters in Anatolia, mainly at Trabzon, and about 40 secret
Unionists in the Grand National Assembly were working to install Enver in place
of Kemal at the right time. Enver moved from Moscow to Batum in the summer
of 1921 just as the Greek offensive began, so that he could enter Anatolia quickly
if Kemal was defeated. But following Kemal's victory over the Greeks at the
Sakarya (September 1921), Enver abandoned his plans for Turkey and went into