23 Şubat 2025

Mihri Belli and the Greek Civil War: Stalinism, Internationalism, and Social-Patriotism

Mihri Belli, one of the most prominent figures of Stalinism in Turkey, describes in his memoirs the circumstances and psychological state under which he voluntarily participated in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) as follows: 

At that time, I was reading the memoirs of guerrilla leaders from the Second World War, one after another. Vershigora, Kovpak… what extraordinary men they were! In that atmosphere, I decided to volunteer for Greece. I expressed my desire to both Bulgarian and Greek comrades. Coincidentally, the Greeks were planning to publish a newspaper in the mountains for the Turkish minority in Thrace, and they were looking for a Turk with sufficient theoretical training. My application coincided with their need. That’s how I found myself on the path to the mountains of Greece. (…) I was the only foreigner to have fought in the ranks of the Democratic Army during the 1946-49 Greek Civil War. A Turk. There was never an international brigade in this war. Against the royalist fascist army, sustained by the British military occupation and the control and administration of the US, the Greek patriots fought drawing strength from their own people. (İnsanlar Tanıdım: Mihri Belli’nin Anıları, vol: I, Doğan Kitap, Istanbul, 1990, pp. 276-277).

We must give credit where credit is due. In those years, Turkish Stalinists did not even consider participating in the Greek Civil War—let alone rising to a command position, getting wounded, or returning to the battlefield after undergoing arduous surgeries without fully recovering. They did not even contemplate observing this war unfolding right next to them. Although a penchant for adventure played a decisive role, the mere fact that he single-handedly participated in this war is enough to place Mihri Belli in a somewhat unique category within Turkish Stalinism, without a doubt.

However, decades after participating in the Greek Civil War, when writing his memoirs, Mihri Belli fails to ask himself the following questions: 

Why was there never an international brigade in the Greek Civil War? Or why did the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP)—as did the so-called socialist countries, primarily the Soviet Union, and all other Stalinist parties and organisations worldwide—show no interest in a civil war taking place in a neighbouring country?

As a Stalinist, Belli could not have posed these questions and attempted to answer them honestly, for doing so would have meant he could no longer remain a Stalinist. 

Instead of engaging in such questioning, Belli proudly emphasises that the Greek “patriots” fought an indigenous and national war against the royalist fascist army supported by imperialist powers. Having remained loyal to Stalinism until his last breath, Belli implies that this was, in fact, a more ideal and desirable situation. As he did throughout his political life, even while writing his memoirs, he holds aloft the banner of social-patriotism in opposition to internationalism.

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