On October 29, 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic by becoming its
first president. This marked the beginning of a wave of reforms for the modernization and
democratization of the new country. Kemalism was also marked by its rational, scientific, and
pragmatic actions to promote the "6ix arrows" : Republicanism, Nationalism, Populism, Secularism,
Statism and "Revolutionism-Reformism" (İsmet Giritli, 1984). The ultimate goal was to create a
democracy against the dogmatic and totalitarian doctrines (İsmet Giritli, 1984) despite the fact that
Atatürk’s regime was authoritarian and single-party. That’s why Duverger highlighted this paradox by
classifying it as a “potential democracy” (1959) or a “tutelary democracy” according to Tarık Zafer
Tunaya (1966).
However, while the Kemalist objectives considered Turkey as a unified whole, what about its
geographical disparities? How was the project of huge transformation of the country perceived by the
peasants? Indeed, although they represented the majority of the Turkish citizens, they received less
consideration than urban citizens. Therefore, it is interesting to highlight the significant role they
played in Turkish history, particularly during the liminal phase between the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire and the establishment of the Turkish Republic as a nation-state.
We will analyze the Kemalist revolution through the lens of the peasants to examine their
points of view, which were neglected by the Kemalist elites at this time. The objective is to move
beyond the uniform interpretation of the revolution promoted by the Kemalist regime. So, we will
explore how reform projects were implemented in the Turkish villages and how the peasants reacted
to them. We will begin by analyzing the place of villages and peasants in Kemalist ambitions after
briefly setting the context. Then we will examine the consequences of this revolutionary project in
light of the reactions and mobilizations of the peasants.
After the Turkish War of Independence, the political power was characterized by a strong
elitism. Turkey was therefore led by a Kemalist core composed of former military officers,
intellectuals, and technocrats who had become high-ranking senior officials. The latter relied at the
local scale on notables integrated into political and administrative institutions in exchange for their
loyalty to the Kemalist regime. Among these notables were many wealthy landowners who held seats
in parliament. Their power was even compared by Murat Metinsoy as the one of feudal lords. (2021)
Consequently, this partly explains the limited social consideration given to peasants in the reforms,
which increased their precarious situation and led to their mobilization. Conversely, Kemalist reforms
favored rich landowners by increasing inequalities through the promotion of private propriety in the
Civil Code of 1926. And sometimes techniques were deliberately used to drive peasants away from
their land by damaging dams to create floods.This interrogates Atatürk's goal of large-scale
modernization and unification of Turkey.
The Kemalist leaders were aware of the importance of the peasantry for Turkey, who financed
the Kemalist urban reforms through their taxation.Thus, after the independent war, Turkey was still
mainly a rural country where the peasants represented more than 80% of the population. Typically, in
1927, 81% of the Turkish people worked in agriculture, and this sector contributed to 49% of the GDP
in 1926. (Murat Metinsoy, 2021)
Consequently, the government used a populist rhetoric to legitimize their power and unify the
nation by creating an illusion of closeness with the peasants, for example with the abolition of the
tithe. The leaders presented them as essential people to the nation such as in Atatürk’s speech for the
opening of Parliament in 1922 when he said “The real owner and master of Turkey is the peasant, the
real producer. Therefore, it is the peasant
who deserves and is worthy of prosperity, happiness, and wealth more than anyone else.” (Nadir
Yurtoğlu, 2017).
, Then, the ruling elite developed several reforms aimed at peasants to civilise and integrate
them into the nation. The “Village Law” in 1924 had the objective of transforming the villages into
communities of peace and productivity. It symbolized Atatürk’s idealistic projects but were never
actually implemented due to a lack of executive strategy, resource, and infrastructure. Atatürk hoped
for a spontaneous spread from the projects and lifestyle reforms implemented in the city to the
villages by the peasants themselves. However, the improvements projects were not considered
important enough for the paysans to dedicate time for these.
In parallel, the Kemalist leaders created in the 1930s the “peasantist movement” to transform
villages considered as “bastions of social and political stability” (Mustafa Tuna, 2018) thanks to their
agricultural self-sufficiency which avoided socioeconomic fluctuations, by developing industry
through small local businesses. Nevertheless, the lack of resources caused once again the failure of
this development plan.
Furthermore, the Kemalist elites used education to civilize and integrate villages, considering
them not ready for democracy and in need of education (Selami Mete Akbaba, 2024). They even used
the example of the “American missionaries” and “colonists who brought civilization to Africa” as an
inspiration. (Sibel Bozdoğan, 2020). That’s why they established schools reserved for peasant’s
children called “village institutes” in 1940 to overcome the lack of schools and qualified teachers.
This led to the hiring of 15 807 new teachers in villages although more than half of Turkey’s villages
still lacked schools in 1950.
Nonetheless, peasants remained quite marginalized from the rest of the country because they
escaped secularization more than the cities. Murat Metinsoy, highlights the persistence of islamic
institutions, religious instruction by imams and sometimes Sufism beyond the control of the
government. (2021) Typically, despite the alphabet reform in 1928, which prohibited the teaching of
the Arabic alphabet, imams continued to teach illegally in the villages.(Mustafa Tuna, 2018)
Therefore, the only real means that contributed truly to a transformation of villages was the
opening of villages to the city through the strengthening of the railway network. As an example,the
implementation of a train station in the village of Hasanoglan near Ankara in 1941 contributed to
increase its productivity and its economic outcomes.
Thus, although the Kemalist government tried to set up measures which directly targeted
peasants, most did not achieve the expected result. The leaders focused more on the interests of big
landowners who had a huge power due to the importance of export-oriented agriculture and
monoculture. They owned the majority of lands and the poor peasants were neglected. Indeed, around
65% of the land was controlled by only 5% of the landowners.(Ismail Hüsrev, 1934) However, they
did not submit to the authoritarian measures of the Kemalist revolution.
In 1997, Joel Migdal suggested analyzing the “physical and social spaces where” the elites
and “the poor or marginal groups of society” intersected to see the potential impacts of the reforms in
the society. (Joel S. Migdal, 1997) So, some studies focused on these areas in small towns in Turkey,
which concluded that Turkish citizens did not just obey the Kemalist reform and orientations but
negotiated, modified, and sometimes rejected them. (Mustafa Tuna, 2018)
Peasant's main demands concerned land rights in response to Atatürk's unfulfilled promises to
distribute state land to landless peasants. Then, when some lands were given to them, they were even
sometimes immediately confiscated because of the taxes or loan debts : “the government was
expropriating with one hand what it had given with the other.” (Murat Metinsoy, 2021). That’s why
some landless peasants from Ceyhan organised themselves in 1939 by writing to the government to
demand the provision of unused tillable treasury land from Çukurova for cultivation. Furthermore, a
first president. This marked the beginning of a wave of reforms for the modernization and
democratization of the new country. Kemalism was also marked by its rational, scientific, and
pragmatic actions to promote the "6ix arrows" : Republicanism, Nationalism, Populism, Secularism,
Statism and "Revolutionism-Reformism" (İsmet Giritli, 1984). The ultimate goal was to create a
democracy against the dogmatic and totalitarian doctrines (İsmet Giritli, 1984) despite the fact that
Atatürk’s regime was authoritarian and single-party. That’s why Duverger highlighted this paradox by
classifying it as a “potential democracy” (1959) or a “tutelary democracy” according to Tarık Zafer
Tunaya (1966).
However, while the Kemalist objectives considered Turkey as a unified whole, what about its
geographical disparities? How was the project of huge transformation of the country perceived by the
peasants? Indeed, although they represented the majority of the Turkish citizens, they received less
consideration than urban citizens. Therefore, it is interesting to highlight the significant role they
played in Turkish history, particularly during the liminal phase between the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire and the establishment of the Turkish Republic as a nation-state.
We will analyze the Kemalist revolution through the lens of the peasants to examine their
points of view, which were neglected by the Kemalist elites at this time. The objective is to move
beyond the uniform interpretation of the revolution promoted by the Kemalist regime. So, we will
explore how reform projects were implemented in the Turkish villages and how the peasants reacted
to them. We will begin by analyzing the place of villages and peasants in Kemalist ambitions after
briefly setting the context. Then we will examine the consequences of this revolutionary project in
light of the reactions and mobilizations of the peasants.
After the Turkish War of Independence, the political power was characterized by a strong
elitism. Turkey was therefore led by a Kemalist core composed of former military officers,
intellectuals, and technocrats who had become high-ranking senior officials. The latter relied at the
local scale on notables integrated into political and administrative institutions in exchange for their
loyalty to the Kemalist regime. Among these notables were many wealthy landowners who held seats
in parliament. Their power was even compared by Murat Metinsoy as the one of feudal lords. (2021)
Consequently, this partly explains the limited social consideration given to peasants in the reforms,
which increased their precarious situation and led to their mobilization. Conversely, Kemalist reforms
favored rich landowners by increasing inequalities through the promotion of private propriety in the
Civil Code of 1926. And sometimes techniques were deliberately used to drive peasants away from
their land by damaging dams to create floods.This interrogates Atatürk's goal of large-scale
modernization and unification of Turkey.
The Kemalist leaders were aware of the importance of the peasantry for Turkey, who financed
the Kemalist urban reforms through their taxation.Thus, after the independent war, Turkey was still
mainly a rural country where the peasants represented more than 80% of the population. Typically, in
1927, 81% of the Turkish people worked in agriculture, and this sector contributed to 49% of the GDP
in 1926. (Murat Metinsoy, 2021)
Consequently, the government used a populist rhetoric to legitimize their power and unify the
nation by creating an illusion of closeness with the peasants, for example with the abolition of the
tithe. The leaders presented them as essential people to the nation such as in Atatürk’s speech for the
opening of Parliament in 1922 when he said “The real owner and master of Turkey is the peasant, the
real producer. Therefore, it is the peasant
who deserves and is worthy of prosperity, happiness, and wealth more than anyone else.” (Nadir
Yurtoğlu, 2017).
, Then, the ruling elite developed several reforms aimed at peasants to civilise and integrate
them into the nation. The “Village Law” in 1924 had the objective of transforming the villages into
communities of peace and productivity. It symbolized Atatürk’s idealistic projects but were never
actually implemented due to a lack of executive strategy, resource, and infrastructure. Atatürk hoped
for a spontaneous spread from the projects and lifestyle reforms implemented in the city to the
villages by the peasants themselves. However, the improvements projects were not considered
important enough for the paysans to dedicate time for these.
In parallel, the Kemalist leaders created in the 1930s the “peasantist movement” to transform
villages considered as “bastions of social and political stability” (Mustafa Tuna, 2018) thanks to their
agricultural self-sufficiency which avoided socioeconomic fluctuations, by developing industry
through small local businesses. Nevertheless, the lack of resources caused once again the failure of
this development plan.
Furthermore, the Kemalist elites used education to civilize and integrate villages, considering
them not ready for democracy and in need of education (Selami Mete Akbaba, 2024). They even used
the example of the “American missionaries” and “colonists who brought civilization to Africa” as an
inspiration. (Sibel Bozdoğan, 2020). That’s why they established schools reserved for peasant’s
children called “village institutes” in 1940 to overcome the lack of schools and qualified teachers.
This led to the hiring of 15 807 new teachers in villages although more than half of Turkey’s villages
still lacked schools in 1950.
Nonetheless, peasants remained quite marginalized from the rest of the country because they
escaped secularization more than the cities. Murat Metinsoy, highlights the persistence of islamic
institutions, religious instruction by imams and sometimes Sufism beyond the control of the
government. (2021) Typically, despite the alphabet reform in 1928, which prohibited the teaching of
the Arabic alphabet, imams continued to teach illegally in the villages.(Mustafa Tuna, 2018)
Therefore, the only real means that contributed truly to a transformation of villages was the
opening of villages to the city through the strengthening of the railway network. As an example,the
implementation of a train station in the village of Hasanoglan near Ankara in 1941 contributed to
increase its productivity and its economic outcomes.
Thus, although the Kemalist government tried to set up measures which directly targeted
peasants, most did not achieve the expected result. The leaders focused more on the interests of big
landowners who had a huge power due to the importance of export-oriented agriculture and
monoculture. They owned the majority of lands and the poor peasants were neglected. Indeed, around
65% of the land was controlled by only 5% of the landowners.(Ismail Hüsrev, 1934) However, they
did not submit to the authoritarian measures of the Kemalist revolution.
In 1997, Joel Migdal suggested analyzing the “physical and social spaces where” the elites
and “the poor or marginal groups of society” intersected to see the potential impacts of the reforms in
the society. (Joel S. Migdal, 1997) So, some studies focused on these areas in small towns in Turkey,
which concluded that Turkish citizens did not just obey the Kemalist reform and orientations but
negotiated, modified, and sometimes rejected them. (Mustafa Tuna, 2018)
Peasant's main demands concerned land rights in response to Atatürk's unfulfilled promises to
distribute state land to landless peasants. Then, when some lands were given to them, they were even
sometimes immediately confiscated because of the taxes or loan debts : “the government was
expropriating with one hand what it had given with the other.” (Murat Metinsoy, 2021). That’s why
some landless peasants from Ceyhan organised themselves in 1939 by writing to the government to
demand the provision of unused tillable treasury land from Çukurova for cultivation. Furthermore, a
