Abstract
“LEFT” PERCEPTION OF TURKISH GOVERNMENTS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF TURKISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS (1923-1960)
Turkish-Soviet friendship, which started during the Turkish War of Salvation and strengthened with the friendship agreement signed in 1925, had kept alive trouble-free until mid-1930s. However, since the beginning of 1930s, the priorities of the two countries differed in parallel to changing world conditions. As a result of the process starting with the Montreux Convention signed in 1936 and continuing with the World War II, there had been almost a return to the conventional Turkish-Russian politics between two countries. Soviet notes requesting changes in Montreux Convention and ownership of the bases along the Bosporus, led to a stalemate in the relations between parties in the post-war period. As a result, Soviet or communism fear had become one of the central tenets shaping Turkish foreign policy till 1960s, as well asit has some reflectionson the Turkish internal politics.This fear even led to the perception of the word “left” as a source of threat and some bans were applied on the publications, mainly on the press, supporting this ideology. Many decisions were taken regarding the pulling of the books, calendars and various forms of published documents from the shelves on the basis of the claims about communist propaganda during 1940s and 1950s. This article, which has been prepared by benefitting from the Republican Archive of Prime Ministry, The Archive of Turkish Grand National Assembly, press and research studies, aims to put forth the threat perception related to “communism” and its results in parallel to Turkish-USSR relation. <
Keywords
Communism, policy, threat, puplication, forbidden
