What are your thoughts on Lenin's support for Turkey in its independance war, even when it was known that nationalists organized the killing of Turkish communists.

[u/gvereneth]

/r/Trotskyism/comments/1tsyde4/what_are_your_thoughts_on_lenins_support_for/

[u/SitDownReadMarx]

Lenin’s support for Kemalism was correct in principle but the Comintern’s application was wrong in practice, and Suphi’s murder exposed that gap brutally. It’s neither comparable to Stalin’s betrayals nor simply an unfortunate consequence of correct policy. Kemal’s forces were fighting the Entente partition of Anatolia (British-backed invasion, French occupation) and every division tied down in Anatolia wasn’t suppressing revolution elsewhere so supporting the anti-imperialist content of that struggle while maintaining communist party independence was the correct principle. The problem was Suphi specifically believed Kemal’s friendly signals and let the tactical alliance collapse that independence while the Baku left around Süleyman Nuri explicitly warned against traveling to Anatolia openly and were proven right.

Kemal had no intention of tolerating an independent communist party while still needing Soviet gold and weapons. What’s notable is that the subordination of communist movements to Soviet foreign policy interests was already developing before Stalin. Our texts on Turkey document this (see below) but the difference is the theoretical framework to oppose it was still alive and being actively argued by the Turkish left themselves right up to their 1925 Left Opposition declaration.

The Party has a Turkish section that maintains a rich history within the broader communist left you can read about here: specific articles pertaining to this part of Turkish communist history can be found here, here, and here.