Turkey was a one-party state when it was established in 1923. The Republican People's Party (CHP) was the only party until 1945, when the National Development Party was established. After winning the first multiparty elections in 1946 by a landslide, the Republican People's Party lost the majority to the Democratic Party in the 1950 elections. During the one-party period, President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk repeatedly requested that opposition parties be established to stand against the Republican People's Party in order to transition into multi-party democracy. Kâzım Karabekir established the Progressive Republican Party in 1924 but it was banned after its members' involvement in the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion. In 1930 the Liberal Republican Party was established but then dissolved again by its founder. Despite Atatürk's efforts to establish a self-propagating multi-party system, this was only established after his 1938 death.
1923–1938: Presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, efforts to modernise the country began. The institutions and constitutions of Western states such as France, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland were analysed and adapted according to the needs and characteristics of the Turkish nation. Highlighting the public's lack of knowledge regarding the intentions of President Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), the public cheered: "We are returning to the days of the first caliphs".Mango, Atatürk, 394
Atatürk's regime initiated a wide range of political, legal, religious, cultural, social, linguistic, and economic policy changes that were designed to transform the new Republic of Turkey into a secular and modern nation-state.
After the foundation of the Liberal Republican Party by Ali Fethi Okyar, religious groups joined the liberals and consequently, widespread bloody disorders took place, especially in the eastern territories. The Liberal Republican Party was dissolved on 17 November 1930 and no further attempt at a multiparty democracy was made until 1945.
Opposition, 1924–1927 In 1924, while the "Issue of Mosul" was on the table, Sheikh Said began to organise the Sheikh Said Rebellion. Sheikh Said was a wealthy Kurdish hereditary chieftain (Tribal chief) of a local Naqshbandi order. Piran emphasised the issue of religion; he not only opposed the abolition of the Caliphate, but also the adoption of civil codes based on Western models, the closure of religious orders, the ban on polygamy and the new obligatory civil marriage. Piran stirred up his followers against the policies of the government, which he considered to be against Islam. In an effort to restore Islamic law, Piran's forces moved through the countryside, seized government offices and marched on the important cities of Elazığ and Diyarbakır. Members of the government saw the Sheikh Said Rebellion as an attempt at a counter-revolution. They urged immediate military action to prevent its spread. The "Law for the Maintenance of Public Order" was passed to deal with the rebellion on 4 March 1925. It gave the government exceptional powers and included the authority to shut down subversive groups (The law was eventually repealed on 4 March 1929).
There were also parliamentarians in the GNA who were not happy with these changes. There were so many members who were denounced as opposition sympathisers at a private meeting of the Republican People's Party (CHP) that Mustafa Kemal expressed his fear of being among the minority in his own party.Mango, Ataturk, 418 He decided not to purge this group. After a censure motion gave the chance to a breakaway group, Kâzım Karabekir, along with his friends, established such a group on 17 October 1924. The censure became a confidence vote at the CHP for Mustafa Kemal. On 8 November the motion was rejected by 148 votes to 18, and 41 votes were absent. The CHP held all but one seat in the parliament. After the majority of the CHP chose him Mustafa Kemal said, "the Turkish nation is firmly determined to advance fearlessly on the path of the republic, civilisation and progress".
On 17 November 1924, the breakaway group officially established the Progressive Republican Party (PRP) with 29 deputies and the first multi-party system began. The PRP's economic program suggested liberalism, in contrast to the statism of CHP, and its social program was based on conservatism in contrast to the modernism of CHP. Leaders of the party strongly supported the Kemalist revolution in principle, but had different opinions on the cultural revolution and the principle of secularism.Weiker, "Book Review of Zürcher's Political Opposition in the Early Turkish Republic: The Progressive Republican Party, 1924–1925", 297–298 The RPR was not against Mustafa Kemal's main positions as declared in its program. The program supported the main mechanisms for establishing secularism in the country and the civic law, or as stated, "the needs of the age" (article 3) and the uniform system of education (article 49).Mango, Ataturk, 419 These principles were set by the leaders at the onset. The only legal opposition became a home for all kinds of differing views.
During 1926, a plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal was uncovered in İzmir. It originated with a former deputy who had opposed the abolition of the Caliphate and had a personal grudge. The trail turned from an inquiry of the planners of this attempt to an investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities and actually used to undermine those with differing views regarding Kemal's cultural revolution. The sweeping investigation brought before the tribunal a large number of political opponents, including Karabekir, the leader of PRP. A number of surviving leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress, who were at best second-rank in the Turkish movement, including Cavid, Ahmed Şükrü, and Ismail Canbulat were found guilty of treason and hanged.Touraj Atabaki, Erik Jan Zürcher, 2004, Men of Order: authoritarian modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah, I.B.Tauris, , page 207 During these investigations there was a link that was uncovered among the members of the PRP to the Sheikh Said Rebellion. The PRP was dissolved following the outcomes of the trial. The pattern of organized opposition, however, was broken. This action was the only broad political purge during Atatürk's presidency. Mustafa Kemal's saying, "My mortal body will turn into dust, but the Republic of Turkey will last forever," was regarded as a will after the assassination attempt. TSK Anitkabir sayfa 24
Reforms
The country saw a steady process of secular Westernization which included the unification of education; the discontinuation of religious and other titles; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code modeled after Switzerland's and a penal code modeled after the Italian Penal Code; recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934; the language reform initiated by the newly founded Turkish Language Association; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet; the dress law (the wearing of a fez was outlawed); the law on family names; and many other reforms.
Development policies Infrastructure In 1927, Atatürk ordered the integration of road construction goals into development plans. Prior to this, the road network had consisted of 13,885 km of ruined surface roads, 4,450 km of stabilized roads, and 94 bridges. In 1935, a new entity was established under the government called Şose ve Köprüler Reisliği (Headship of Roads and Bridges) which would drive the development of new roads after World War II.
1927 census The first census of the republic was on 1927. The census gathered data about literacy, economic and social values.
Opposition, 1930–1931
On August 11, 1930, Mustafa Kemal decided to try a multiparty movement once again and asked Ali Fethi Okyar to establish a new party. He insisted on the protection of secular reforms. The brand-new Liberal Republican Party succeeded all around the country. Without the establishment of a real political spectrum, once again, the party became the center to opposition of Atatürk's reforms, particularly in regard to the role of religion in public life.
On December 23, 1930, a chain of violent incidents occurred, starting with the rebellion of Islamic fundamentalists in Menemen, a small town in the Aegean region. This so-called Menemen Incident was considered a serious threat against secular reforms.
In November 1930, Ali Fethi Okyar dissolved his own party after seeing the rising fundamentalist threat. Mustafa Kemal never succeeded in establishing a long lasting multi-party parliamentary system during his presidency. A more lasting multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey began in 1945. In 1950, the Republican People's Party released the majority position to the Democratic Party after losing the 1950 elections. There are arguments that Kemal did not promote direct democracy by dominating the country with his one-party rule. The reason behind the failed experiments with pluralism during this period was that not all groups in the country had agreed to a minimal consensus regarding shared values (mainly secularism) and shared rules for conflict resolution. In response to such criticisms, Mustafa Kemal's biographer Andrew Mango said: "between the two wars, democracy could not be sustained in many relatively richer and better-educated societies. Atatürk's enlightened authoritarianism left a reasonable space for free private lives. More could not have been expected in his lifetime."Mango, Atatürk, 536 Even though, at times, he did not appear to be a democrat in his actions, he always supported the idea of eventually building a civil society; a system of totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of the state. In one of his many speeches about the importance of democracy, Mustafa Kemal said in the year 1933: Republic means the democratic administration of the state. We founded the Republic, reaching its tenth year. It should enforce all the requirements of democracy as the time comes.
Kurdish rebellions There were several Kurdish rebellions in the 1920s and 1930s: Koçkiri Rebellion, Sheikh Said Rebellion, Dersim Rebellion, Ararat rebellion. They all were suppressed by the Turkish Army. In particular, due to Dersim Rebellion in 1937–38 thousands of Alevi Kurds were killed by the Turkish Army and thousands more were taken into exile, depopulating the province. A key component of the Turkification process was the policy of massive population resettlement, a result of the 1934 Law on Resettlement, a policy targeting the region of Dersim as one of its first test cases with disastrous consequences for the local population.
Massacres
The Zilan MassacreChristopher Houston, Islam, Kurds and the Turkish nation state, Berg Publishers, 2001, , p. 102. Interview with Mehmet Pamak, who was the founder and president of Conservative Party (Muhafazakâr Parti) that was founded in place of Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçilik Hareket Partisi) banned by junta regime of 1980 Turkish coup d'état. Pamak is Kurdish origin and his family was exiled from Erciş to Çanakkale. Freedom of the Press, Freedom of the Press 2010 Draft Report, p. 2. refers to the massacreAltan Tan, Kürt sorunu, Timaş Yayınları, 2009, , p. 275. of thousands of Kurdish residents in the Zilan Valley of Turkey by 12/13 July 1930, during the Ararat rebellion, in which 800–1500 armed men participated.