Kemalism
Atatürk was not in a position to play a major role in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, which reinstated the constitution, though he was a key player in the deposition of Abdul Hamid during the 31 March Incident.
During the Second Constitutional Era personal rivalries with İsmail Enver and Ahmed Cemal meant that he was kept at arms-length from power: the Central Committee of the CUP.
In Atatürk's 15 years as president, many sweeping reforms were introduced that advanced a secular, republican, and unitary agenda for the Republic of Turkey.
[9] Republicanism (Turkish: cumhuriyetçilik) in the Kemalist framework replaced the monarchy of the Ottoman dynasty with the rule of law, popular sovereignty and civic virtue, including an emphasis on liberty practiced by citizens.
In defending the change from the Ottoman State, Kemalism asserts that all laws of the Republic of Turkey should be inspired by actual needs here on Earth as a basic tenet of national life.
Kemalist populism intends not only to establish popular sovereignty but also the transfer of the social-economic transformation[clarification needed] to realize a true populist state.
Kemal believed that during the Ottoman period, the ulema had come to exploit the power of their office and manipulate religious practices to their own benefit.
Laicism (Turkish: laiklik) in Kemalist ideology aims to banish religious interference in government affairs, and vice versa.
Other religious practices were done away with, resulting in the dissolution of Sufi orders and the penalization of wearing a fez, which was viewed by Atatürk as a tie to the Ottoman past.
Kemalism strove to control religion and transform it into a private affair rather than an institution interfering with politics, as well as scientific and social progress.
Atatürk has been described as working as if he were Leo the Isaurian, Martin Luther, the Baron d'Holbach, Ludwig Büchner, Émile Combes, and Jules Ferry rolled into one in creating Kemalist secularism.
According to the Kemalist perception, the Turkish state is to stand at an equal distance from every religion, neither promoting nor condemning any set of religious beliefs.
While Atatürk considered women's religious coverings as antithetical to progress and equality, he also recognized that headscarves were not such a danger to the separation of church and state to warrant an outright ban.
[23] Joost Lagendijk, a member of the European Parliament and chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Turkey, has publicly criticized these clothing restrictions for Muslim women,[24] whereas the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in numerous cases that such restrictions in public buildings and educational institutions do not constitute a violation of human rights.
[29] Similar to its CUP predecessors, it can be said that Kemalism endorsed social Darwinism in some way by desiring the Turkish youth to be healthy and physically strong.
[36][37] Atatürk stated in 1930: Within the political and social unity of today's Turkish nation, there are citizens and co-nationals who have been incited to think of themselves as Kurds, Circassians, Laz or Bosnians.
But these erroneous appellations - the product of past periods of tyranny - have brought nothing but sorrow to individual members of the nation, with the exception of a few brainless reactionaries, who became the enemy's instruments.
[40] Further more, Atatürk opposed Pan-Turkism in his speech (Nutuk) as following: Gathering various nations under a common and general title and establishing a strong state by keeping these various groups of elements under the same law and conditions is a bright and attractive political view; but it is deceptive.
[46] Later, in 1931, Turkish Hearts were closed by Atatürk after they lost their non-political stance, because of their Pan-Turkist views and movements; and with all of its premises, it merged to the ruling party CHP.
Kemalist researchers, such as Ahmet Ağaoğlu (who was an advisor to Atatürk and a politician who played an important role on creating Turkey's constitution of 1924), believed in that the nation has to portray Hittites as a world-domineering Turkish race with firm roots in Anatolia.
[49] Statism (Turkish: devletçilik): Atatürk made clear in his statements and policies that Turkey's complete modernization was very much dependent on economic and technological development.
The war left Turkey in ruins, as the Ottoman Empire was focused on raw materials and was an open market in the international capitalist system.
[50] The Republican People's Party (CHP) was established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on September 9, 1923, not long before the declaration of the Republic of Turkey on October 29.
Later, in the 1970s, due to a wider rejection and abandonment of Kemalism, in Turkish society, the CHP made more fundamental and left-leaning changes to its party platform, including programs that were labeled "democratic left".
By the early 21st century, most Kemalists (within or outside the CHP) still believed in the original six principles, whilst others criticized and explicitly sought to reduce the statist tendencies of Kemalism.
[52] Use of "Kemalism" as a descriptive term of political discourse is often attributed to Bozkurt, Ahmet Cevat Emre and politician Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Turkey's domestic transformations and the evolution of the Kemalist system of ideological and political principles were closely observed in Germany, France, Britain, the US, and beyond, including several nations farther East.
Some scholars have focused on the interwar period in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Egypt to reveal how, as a practical tool, Kemalism was relocated as a global movement, whose influence is still felt today.
[55] Some scholars have examined the impact of Atatürk's reforms and his image on the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine before the establishment of Israel,[56] some went farther East—to Persia, Afghanistan, China, India,[57] and other parts of the Muslim world—to assess the influence wielded by Mustafa Kemal and his modernization project.
The Bolsheviks regarded Kemalists as an ally against the Western imperialism led by British Empire but feared that the Greeks could establish a "Great Armenian-Byzantine state" in Anatolia, which would border Russia.
