The connections between interwar Soviet and Turkish elites created and then fed upon interpersonal intimacies. In another of the documents on this website (the one with records of the 1932 meeting between Ä°smet Ä°nönü and Iosif Stalin), there is evidence of this closeness: among the first lines in Ä°smet’s report is a reference to the warmth with which he was treated in Moscow; Stalin’s vague allusion to Turkey’s possible annihilation appealed to a common understanding of a shared foe. Statist internationalism grew not only from a particular reading of international political economy, it grew equally from shared experiences of international hierarchies.
On the Soviet side, few people got to know Republican Turkey’s elites as well as Iakov Surits. He spent a decade as the Soviet ambassador in Ankara, and his reports to Moscow document an active social life, replete with late nights, alcohol, and card games. The longer of the two documents in the file at the bottom of this page is a letter from Surits on the eve of Ä°smet’s departure for the Soviet Union. In it, Surits reflects on the ways the Soviet Union could benefit from the Turkish visit and the forms of economic cooperation that might be achieved, and he also gives his personal impressions of the Turkish prime minister, the Turkish foreign minister, and many of the other participants. The second document was written roughly a year later, probably in connection with the 1933 Kliment Voroshilov-led delegation’s departure for Turkey. Although Surits’s letter is addressed to Lev Karakhan, these two documents reside back-to-back in a folder in Viacheslav Molotov’s personal collection. Molotov played an active role in the Soviet reception of Ä°smet’s delegation and was initially scheduled to lead the return visit, until other obligations prevented him from traveling to Turkey. These two documents were likely given to Molotov as preparatory material for his Turkish meetings. Although the second document was almost certainly not written by Surits, I have included both together because much of their content overlaps.
Much in Surits’s letter is revealing of the broader course of industrial cooperation. Nearly a decade earlier, when he first arrived in Ankara, he compared the shift in Turkey’s politics during the Lausanne Conference to the Soviet Union’s own transition from War Communism to the New Economic Policy (NEP). Here, as he sensed that the Turkish delegation was interested in agricultural cooperatives, Surits again draws comparisons, advising Karakhan to prepare materials related to the Soviet Union’s agricultural policy between 1923 and 1926. Equally, as Surits outlines possibilities for innovation—Soviet agricultural sold on credit—he reflects on the ways that the improvisation of the 1920s had introduced constraints: a significant reference to the net balance agreement indicates that credit would translate to an obligation to buy Turkish products in the future.
Yet, when taken together with the second document, one of the key takeaways from Surit’s letter is about the Soviet interpretation of divisions within the Kemalist elite (and within Turkish society more broadly). Some of the individuals referred to had studied in the Soviet Union and been interested in Soviet socialism. Yet, if direct connections to the Soviet Union play any role in this analysis, it is negative. Rather, the two documents interpret Turkish political loyalties through individuals’ relations to the West, international capitalism, and foreign trade. As do the other archival documents on this website, these two point to the ways that Soviet socialism and economic nationalism fused together in response to Western, liberal internationalism.
All of the individuals whom the Soviet authors refer to were well-known figures. “Mahmut Celal” is Celal Bayar, Turkish economic minister at the time of writing; “Recep” is Recep Peker, general secretary of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) at the time this was written. I have, however, chosen not to provide biographical information in the footnotes. While some conclusions might be drawn from comparing the public record with what Soviet observers thought about Turkish politicians, I do not believe that is the primary way these documents should be read. The Soviet documents contain factual mistakes, and they should not be read for unknown facts about the Turkish individuals mentioned. They are much more useful in understanding how Soviet elites understood Turkish society and the people who comprised it.
In his letter, Surits is frequently condescending. Proximity did not necessarily mean sympathy. But he displays a clear sense that the individuals he considers radical nationalists are the people who are most important for the Soviet Union.