Turkey-Soviet Friendship

(Regarding the articles of Vali Nuraldin Bek)

In two issues of the Istanbul newspaper “Khabar” (published on December 14 and 15), articles by Vali Nuraldin Bek were published. Two of them are titled “Turks of the World… Get to know each other!” and one is called “50 Million Turkic Masses are Under Threat.”

The contents of the articles are clearly evident from their titles. They are a continuation of two articles by Nuraldin Bek that were previously reprinted in “Yash Turkistan” (in issue 48). Vali Nuraldin Bek is the first, and currently the only, Turkish author who has raised the issue of Turkism in the Turkish press at an appropriate level…

The issue of keeping informed about the conditions of Turks living outside Turkey and maintaining normal relations with them is not a hostile act directed against anyone or against the political ties that Turkey has established with any country. To consider it as such would be indifference towards Turkey’s short-term, transient interests, and especially towards its ideological foundations that look toward a distant future. Vali Nuraldin Bek is well aware of this, as he attempts to reconcile the tragedy experienced by the Turkic autonomies within the Soviet Union with the friendship and cooperation between the Soviet structure and Turkey.

“Friendship between the Soviet structure and the Republic of Turkey”… In this article, we prefer to speak only briefly about this. Vali Nuraldin Bek takes issue with Mirzabala Bek, who argued in the newspaper “Tavelsizdik” (Issue 47) that “no friendship is possible between the Soviet structure and the Republic of Turkey,” and states: “We are friends with our neighbour (the Soviet Union)… This friendship is beneficial to both sides. We always believe in it…”

It is true that Turkey-Soviet friendship is the reality of today. It is wrong to deny it. It would have been better if Nuraldin Bek had not addressed the Turkey-Soviet relationship at all. When Mirzabala Bek wrote, “No friendship is possible between Turkey and the Soviet Union,” he was based on the issue of Turkism that forms the core of Nuraldin Bek’s article. From this perspective, it is very difficult to fault Mirzabala Bek. The Soviet structure and Turkism are two completely different concepts that are entirely incompatible.

Let me provide a few examples. In the last days of May 1919, the “Communist organizations” of the Turks of Turkestan held their first congress in Tashkent. These organizations were established by the Soviet government, and responsible positions in them were filled by people genuinely devoted to Soviet ideology. We, the authors of these lines, and several other Turkestanis, had been declared illegal for rallying the Turkestan national forces under the banner of national autonomy and were forced to leave our state before this congress. The communist Turks, Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Turkmen representatives who came from all over to the congress decided to abandon their ethnic names, unite under the name of the unified Turkic Communist Party, and declare Turkestan as the Turkic Soviet Socialist Republic within the framework of Soviet Russia. Perhaps you do not know how the Soviet government, which was calling on all oppressed nations in the world to determine their own destiny, reacted to this resolution!

Among the many pieces of evidence, I will focus on just one, which most clearly demonstrates the attitude of the Russian Bolsheviks toward the Turks. I will use as an example the article “On the History of Revolutionary Movements in Central Asia” by a certain Murayevsky (Lopukhov). This pamphlet was published in Tashkent in 1926 by the State Publishing House of Uzbekistan. It was approved as a textbook for Soviet party schools and commercial colleges. On page 26 of this book, we read the following: “The organization of the local (i.e., Turkestan) populace took a very dangerous path that could potentially incite our disputes around the national question and lead to severe consequences, in accordance with the Soviet government’s policy of national autonomy. This ‘national movement’ quickly aimed at Pan-Turkism, uniting the oppressed Turks of the East and forming a unified Turkic nation.”

We will not analyze the Bolsheviks’ reasoning here. This example clearly shows that the Soviet regime did not want to allow the unification of the Turks as a nation, even if such unification were to be implemented under the rule of Soviet Russia. The results of this refusal are visible to the Turkestanis today. The Turkestanis have been fragmented. They were separated from the unified Turkic nation, and five different “national republics” were created with “Chinese walls” built between them.

The second example: a few years ago, a Turkestani Turk wrote an article about Turkey. The author of this article, who depicted the Ankara landscape with great affection and cited the Turkish Grand National Assembly with high regard as a political structure that truly represented the will of the people, was accused of Pan-Turkism and Kemalism and subjected to persecution.

The third piece of evidence is related to a recent event. The Soviet friends of the Republic of Turkey did not allow the Turks of Turkestan, that is, their blood brothers, to send even a word of warm congratulations on the national holiday of Turkey (See previous issues of “Yash Turkistan” regarding this).

There is one more thing to add. In Turkestan, the use of geographical terms and names used in “Turkey Turkish” is strictly forbidden. And “Kemalism” is understood there in the sense of a “kulak” (wealthy peasant). We believe that Nuraldin Bek is well aware of the political meaning of this.

The meaning of Soviet-Turkey friendship should be clearly understood from the above. In short, it means consenting to the weakening of the natural ties between the Turks of Turkey and the Turks outside it, agreeing to the “Chinese wall” being built between the Turks under Soviet rule and the Turks of Anatolia, consenting to the separation of “Kemalism” from “Turkism,” expressing satisfaction with the creation of 17 different languages in tiny Azerbaijan and 5 separate “National Republics” in a Turkestan that has one origin, and passing over the issue of unified Turkic unity in silence.

Today, the transient interests of politics demand such “moves.” They even compel them. In our opinion, the fact that no opinion was expressed in the Turkish press regarding Vali Nuraldin Bek’s article must be related to these reasons.

Nuraldin Bek, expressing his expectation of an answer from his “Russian friends” regarding his previous two articles (Issue 48 of “Yash Turkistan”), writes in the December 15 issue of the “Khabar” newspaper: “…Whether I spoke, made a statement, or wrote articles, I waited a lot for a response from our Russian friends… But there was not a single word of response…”

Vali Nuraldin Bek asks, “Why was there no response?”

Will the “Russian friends” respond to Nuraldin Bek’s articles in their press? Doubtful. Even if they respond, it is again unlikely that the answer will be what the “friends” expected. One cannot help but be surprised that Vali Nuraldin Bek and his like-minded people are unaware and do not realize that the “Bolshevik Russian friends” do not want to see the national and cultural unity of the Turks, that they will never break the “Chinese wall” they are building in the Turkic world, and that, on the contrary, they are truly interested in extending and thickening this wall…

We sincerely thank Vali Nuraldin Bek for openly presenting his thoughts and opinions, regardless of the consequences. His appearance in this way is beneficial from two sides. Firstly, the people in the Republic of Turkey should realize that their “Russian friends” are the implacable enemies of Turkism—Turkey’s national and cultural ideology. Secondly, we – the representatives of the Turks in exile who are oppressed by Turkey’s Russian friends – have the opportunity to clearly see that the voice of Turkism has not yet been extinguished in our homeland.

There is a saying, “One swallow does not make a spring.” However, the swallow does not come unless the breath of spring is felt…

1934, No. 50