On Vartan İhmalyan’s political autobiography, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story) (8)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: İsmail Bilen (2)

In his political autobiography Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story), Vartan İhmalyan recounts striking examples of the utter irresponsibility, egregious errors, and the consequent frequent wavering shown by İsmail Bilen in his political assessments and judgements.

The 6-7 September Pogrom as a “people’s movement”

A group of participants in the 6-7 September 1955 Pogrom

One of these examples concerns the 6-7 September Pogrom. In 1959, shortly before his departure to China on an assignment from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), while İhmalyan was preparing for this long journey in Moscow, Bilen paid him a visit. During this meeting, Bilen also gave him a pamphlet:

At one point, he gave me a pamphlet he had had published about the events of 6-7 September, signed by “Turkish patriots.” (…) When I took the pamphlet back to my hotel and read it, I was astonished. (…) In the section of the pamphlet titled “The Nation Has Voiced Its Discontent!” it said: “What drives the nation into the streets like this, what sets the country ablaze from end to end, is hunger, is unemployment!” But it wasn’t the nation that poured into the streets; it was a mob of looters. Bilen was, in fact, attributing a kind of progressive quality to this action. In reality, the looting of minority-owned shops had been organised by the reactionary Menderes government, and Menderes had claimed that this action had been carried out by communists and had many communists arrested. (…) “If the people who took to the streets (though it wasn’t the people; it was looters incited and condoned by Menderes’s police) stormed the bakeries, butcher’s shops, grocers, confectioners, and chocolate factories, it is not their fault! The fault lies with those who left the people without sugar.” Yet, as is well known, the looters primarily pillaged minority-owned drapery shops, throwing rolls of fabric into the streets and tearing them to shreds. The same section of the pamphlet stated: “The torrent of people passing through Beyoğlu and Karaköy has voiced its discontent against foreign capital, which has bankrupted our national economy, shut down our domestic factories, and ruined a great many of our artisans and merchants.” This was utter nonsense. What does looting the shops of minority artisans and merchants have to do with “voicing discontent against foreign capital”? If the looting had been directed not specifically against minorities but, for example, against the Avundukzades, the Dilberzades, the Antalya warehouse, or partners like Vehbi Koç, then one could speak of “discontent against foreign capital.” However, İ. Bilen’s abysmal ignorance, his penchant for bluster and empty rhetoric, prevented him from grasping many truths. (pp. 175–176)

Türkeş as a “progressive and revolutionary”

İhmalyan recounts in his book that, following the 27 May Coup, Bilen for quite some time attributed progressivism and even revolutionary qualities to Türkeş. He explains that this profoundly mistaken stance of Bilen’s was also reflected in a book on the 1960 coup published by the Moscow-based Institute of the Peoples of Asia:

At one point, Bilal Şen, a member of the TKP Central Committee, got hold of a book published by the Institute of the Peoples of Asia in Moscow about the events of 27 May 1960. In this book, Türkeş was portrayed as progressive and revolutionary. After reading it, Bilal collected press clippings from Turkish newspapers about Türkeş’s fascism and Turanism, went to Moscow, and went straight to the head of the CPSU Central Committee’s Turkish Affairs Department. He told him that what was written about Türkeş in the book was wrong and showed him what the Turkish newspapers had said about Türkeş. The head of the Turkish Affairs Department was dumbstruck after having the newspaper articles translated and read. Before the Institute of the Peoples of Asia publishes a book about a country, it must obtain the consent of the CPSU Central Committee’s department responsible for that country’s affairs. This meant that, after preparing the book, the Institute had submitted it to the Central Committee’s Turkish Affairs Department; its head, not being fully aware of all the details, had consulted İ. Bilen -and İ. Bilen, just as he had inflated Türkeş’s image in the “Our Radio” [Bizim Radyo] broadcasts at the time, had confirmed that Türkeş was progressive and revolutionary. And so the book was published. When the head of the Turkish Affairs Department learnt the truth from the newspapers, fearing that Bilal might escalate the matter further up, he immediately told him to return. And Bilal hurried back. (pp. 235–236)

From İhmalyan’s account, we learn not only that İsmail Bilen was gravely mistaken about Türkeş, but also that the “head of the Turkish Affairs Department” dealt with the matter in a manner befitting a Stalinist bureaucrat -by simply covering it up. Interestingly, in his book, İhmalyan makes no criticism of this conduct.

Unaware of the Sino-Soviet tension

İsmail Bilen (second from right) during his visit to China (1956)

Vartan İhmalyan, who began working at the Turkish service of Radio Peking in 1959 alongside his brother Jak, sent a letter to İsmail Bilen in 1961. Written at a time when Sino-Soviet relations were rapidly deteriorating, the letter informed him that, on behalf of the TKP’s Peking party group, their continued presence there was no longer tenable:

In the letter, after describing the general situation, we wrote, in essence: “If our party does not consent to broadcasts that indirectly accuse the Soviets of revisionism, then for how much longer will we be the instruments of this? For how much longer will we bear this responsibility?” (p. 199)

Bilen’s response reached them approximately two weeks later. Based on Bilen’s previous attitude and what he wrote in his reply, İhmalyan draws the following conclusion:

It was clear that, upon receiving our letter, İ. Bilen had immediately gone to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. By stating that he could not allow us to be used as instruments of China’s anti-Soviet policy, he had sought to ingratiate himself and had requested visas for us to go to Moscow. Indeed, our visas arrived within two weeks, and we began preparing for the journey. In truth, İ. Bilen had no knowledge whatsoever of what was going on in China against the Soviet Union. It was only through our warning that he became aware, and, as if he had struck gold, he seized the opportunity to prove to the CPSU Central Committee just how pro-Soviet and anti-China he was. (p. 200)

To be continued

Also see:

Who was Vartan İhmalyan?

The period in which İhmalyan wrote his political autobiography

Vartan İhmalyan’s superficial impressionism

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (1)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (2)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: Aram Pehlivanyan (3)

From Vartan İhmalyan’s pen: İsmail Bilen (1)