On Vartan İhmalyan’s political autobiography, Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story) (5)

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

Aram Pehlivanyan’s careerism

In his political autobiography titled Bir Yaşam Öyküsü (A Life Story), Vartan İhmalyan states that although he could have had Aram Pehlivanyan expelled from the party for calling Hitler a “genius”, he did not do so, as in those years there were very few members in the ranks of the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey), and the party was “in need of people”. He goes on to explain that in later years, Pehlivanyan acted entirely out of careerist motivations:

I too had counted him as a “proper man”… However, years later, after he was elected to the TKP Central Committee and its Politburo by arse-licking Laz İsmail (İ. Bilen), he played every treacherous trick imaginable on us, his old party comrades. (p. 71)

In 1959, the TKP sent the brothers Vartan and Jak İhmalyan to China to work for the Turkish service of Peking Radio. In 1961, due to the rapidly escalating Sino-Soviet dispute, the İhmalyan brothers moved to Moscow and settled there. While they were in China during this period, İsmail Bilen and Aram Pehlivanyan came to Peking together and met the İhmalyan brothers several times. Vartan İhmalyan recounts one of these meetings, from which Pehlivanyan was absent, as follows:

At one point, İ. Bilen and Aram Pehlivanyan came to Peking on some business -probably just to wander around. One day, when Aram wasn’t there, İ. Bilen lavished praise on him, saying: “Aram is a very talented person who understands all the intricacies of politics.” Upon hearing this, my brother and I looked at each other. If the person saying this had actually understood politics himself, we might almost have believed him. However, both my brother and I knew full well what a fool Aram was. It became clear that Aram had won İ. Bilen over through his mastery of sycophancy. Until he met Aram, İ. Bilen hadn’t had a single sycophant. Moreover, later on, Aram (after Zeki Baştırmar, aka Yakup Demir, came to the Soviet Union and became the Party’s First Secretary) would fawn on either Yakup Demir or İ. Bilen, depending on which way the wind was blowing. This was presumably what İ. Bilen meant by “political intricacy”, for although he couldn’t quite match Aram in sycophancy towards the right people, İ. Bilen was no novice himself. And it was such people who monopolised the leadership of the TKP. (pp. 194–195)

Şefik Hüsnü Deymer

İhmalyan also regards the criticisms that Pehlivanyan directed at Şefik Hüsnü Deymer, one of the former leaders of the TKP, as stemming from his careerist stance:

(…) In Aram Pehlivanyan’s articles published in Yeni Çağ (New Era), they never stopped attacking Şefik Hüsnü Deymer -who had once led the TKP, rendered great service to the party, and held an important post in the Comintern- even though he was long deceased, branding him an opportunist and a liquidator, and hurling every possible slur at the man. Yet when Şefik Hüsnü founded the Socialist Labourers’ and Peasants’ Party of Turkey, Aram was constantly at Şefik Hüsnü’s arse. (pp. 195–196) [*]

According to İhmalyan, over the years Pehlivanyan’s careerism dulled his sense of loyalty; in pursuit of personal gain, he drained comradeship of all meaning, reducing it to a lifeless shell:

(…) [after his release from prison] it was Hayk Açıkgöz and my late brother who had arranged Aram’s escape from the country. Yet once Aram came to power, he sidelined, or even expelled from the party, Hayk Açıkgöz, my brother, me, and many comrades who had worked alongside him. (p. 235)

Anjel Açıkgöz (Merih), Sabiha Sertel, Zekeriya Sertel, and Aram Pehlivanyan in front of the Bizim Radyo building in Leipzig 

Another example he gives on this matter relates to the appointments made by the TKP leadership at Bizim Radyo (Our Radio), which began broadcasting in Leipzig in 1958:

(…) let us go back to 1961. Was it that year or the summer of 1962? I cannot quite recall. Zekeriya Sertel had come from Leipzig. (…) In passing, he mentioned that they had wanted to call us from China to work at “Bizim Radyo” in Leipzig, but that Aram Pehlivanyan had opposed it and had said of me, “It’s either him or me.” When asked why, he allegedly said that I was an extremely quarrelsome person and that, while working for the JAF in France, I had set everyone against one another, and so on. However, I still keep to this day a certificate of merit that I received for my productive and valuable work with the JAF. Although Sabiha and Zekeriya Sertel told Aram that they knew me very well, that they had never seen any quarrelsome behaviour from me when we worked together at Budapest Radio, and that, on the contrary, I was a mild-mannered person, Aram stood his ground. Thus, despite the pressing need for staff at “Bizim Radyo” at the time, they did not call us from China to Leipzig. İ. Bilen did not care much either, because he did not want to upset his only sycophant, Aram Pehlivanyan. Later, Aram did not hold back against the Sertels either; he forced them to relocate from Leipzig to the Soviet Union, thereby depriving “Bizim Radyo” of a valuable figure like Sabiha Sertel. İ. Bilen turned a blind eye to this as well, since he was displeased with the Sertels’ fair and justified criticisms directed at both him and A. Saydan. (p. 207)

Furthermore, İhmalyan also believed that Pehlivanyan was not only capable of committing every injustice and wrong against his comrades in pursuit of his political career, but that his careerism was laced with megalomania as well:

This was during the 1944 arrests. My late brother Jak told me about it on his return to Istanbul after finishing his sentence in Ankara Prison. One day, while Reşat Fuat and Aram Pehlivanyan were talking, Reşat said that he disliked lawyers and that most of them were charlatans. Aram, being a lawyer himself, replied, “But Lenin was a lawyer too.” Just look at his megalomania -see whom he dares to compare himself with! (p. 211)

[*] I find it very disturbing that, in a political autobiography written by someone who claims to be a Marxist, expressions such as “arse-licking”, “never leaving someone’s arse”, or “swindling” are used -crude phrases devoid of any political substance.

To be continued

See also:

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 (3)

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