Vol. 78/No. 27      July 28, 2014

Below is an excerpt from The Balkan Wars 1912-13 by Leon Trotsky, a leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution. As a leader of the St. Petersburg Soviet during the failed 1905 revolution, Trotsky was arrested and sentenced to exile in Siberia. He escaped to Vienna, where he began publishing the newspaper Pravda (Truth) and wrote for other papers. This book contains articles written from 1908-1913 describing the political ferment sweeping the East, the maneuvering of the Great Powers of Europe, and the political aims of the ruling classes in Serbia, Romania and Turkey in the years preceding World War I. The piece is from articles printed in Pravda in December 1908 and Kievskaya Mysl, the largest circulation daily in Kiev, Ukraine, in January 1909. Copyright © 1980 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY LEON TROTSKY  
The Russian revolution [of 1905] has called forth echoes in places far from the borders of Russia. In Western Europe it has produced a stormy upsurge of the proletarian movement. At the same time it has drawn the peoples of Asia into political life. In Persia, bordering on Caucasia and under the direct influence of the events there, a revolutionary struggle has begun which with varying success has already lasted for over two years. In China, in India, everywhere, the masses are rising against their own tyrants and against the European despoilers (capitalists, missionaries, etc.) who not only exploit the European proletariat but also plunder the peoples of Asia. The most recent echo of the Russian revolution is the revolution that occurred in Turkey this summer.

Turkey is situated in the Balkan Peninsula, in the southeastern corner of Europe. From time immemorial this country has been a byword for stagnation, lifelessness, and despotism. The sultan in Constantinople was in no way inferior to his brother in St. Petersburg, and in many ways surpassed him. Peoples of different race or religion (Slavs, Armenians, Greeks) were subjected to diabolical persecutions. But the sultan’s own people — the Muslim Turks — did not live happily, either. The peasants were enslaved to the officials and the landlords, and were poor, ignorant, and prey to superstition. There were few schools. The setting up of factories was hindered in all sorts of ways by the sultan’s government, owing to its fear of the development of a proletariat. There were spies everywhere. The embezzlement and waste indulged in by the sultan’s bureaucracy (just like the tsar’s) was boundless. All this led to the complete decay of the state. The capitalist governments of the European countries were gathering round like so many hungry dogs, each trying to bite off a bit for itself. And Sultan Abdul Hamid went on incurring debts, the repayment of which was bleeding his subjects white. The people’s discontent had been accumulating for a long time, and under the impact of the events in Russia and Persia it has now broken out into the open.

In Russia it was the proletariat that came forward as the chief fighter for the revolution. In Turkey, however, as I have already mentioned, industry exists only in embryonic form, and so the proletariat is small in numbers and weak. The most highly educated elements of the Turkish intelligentsia, such as teachers, engineers, and so on, being able to find little scope for their talents in schools or factories, have become army officers. Many of them have studied in West European countries and become familiar with the regime that exists there — only, on their return home, to come up against the ignorance and poverty of the Turkish soldier and the debased conditions of the state. This has filled them with bitterness; and so the officer corps has become the focus of discontent and rebelliousness.

When the revolt broke out in July of this year [1908], the sultan found himself at once practically without an army. Corps after corps went over to the revolution. The ignorant soldiers certainly did not understand the aims of the movement, but discontent with their conditions caused them to follow their officers, who called peremptorily for a constitution, threatened that otherwise they would overthrow the sultan. There was nothing left for Abdul Hamid but to resort to concessions: He “granted” a constitution (sultans always make such “grants” when there is a knife at their throat), summoned to power a ministry of liberals, and took steps to hold elections for parliament.

The country at once sprang to life. An endless round of meetings began. Many new newspapers appeared. The young proletariat of Turkey woke up as though at a thunderclap. Strikes broke out. Workers’ organizations arose. In Smyrna the first socialist newspaper began publication.

Now, as I write these lines, the Turkish parliament has already met, with a majority of Young Turk reformers. The near future will show what is to be the fate of this Turkish “Duma.” …

What are we going to witness in Turkey in the immediate future? It is futile to make guesses about this. One thing only is clear — namely, that victory for the revolution will mean a democratic Turkey; a democratic Turkey will provide the basis for a Balkan federation, and a Balkan federation will once for all clear the “hornets’ nest” of the Near East of the capitalist and dynastic intrigues which hang like black thunderclouds not only over the unhappy peninsula but over all Europe.

Restoration of the sultan’s despotism would mean the end of Turkey and a free-for-all to grab pieces of the carcass of the Turkish state. A victory for Turkish democracy, on the other hand, would mean peace.

The drama still lies ahead! And while behind the irreproachably welcoming smile of European diplomacy directed at the Turkish parliament are concealed the predatory jaws of capitalist imperialism, ready to utilize Turkey’s first internal difficulties in order to tear her to pieces, European democracy stands with all the weight of its sympathy and support on the side of the new Turkey — the Turkey that does not yet exist, that is only about to be born.  
 
 
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