Gün Benderli’s Trotskyists (1)

The first Trotskyist she met: Bert

PART 1 |

Nâzım Hikmet and Gün Benderli-Togay.

On this blog, we have previously referred on various occasions to Gün Benderli [*], who was active for many years as a member and leading figure of the Stalinist Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), and who currently lives in Hungary. [**]

Before moving on to Budapest from Paris, where she and her husband Necil Togay had gone in 1950, Benderli travelled to Switzerland in the summer of 1951 and lived for a time in Geneva. In her memoir Su Başında Durmuşuz (We Have Stood by the Water), she recalls a young American she met there: Bert. A US citizen and university student, Bert was, in Benderli’s own words, the first Trotskyist she had met in her life.

In her book, under the subheading “The first Trotskyist I met: Bert” [***], Benderli says that she remembers this young American “very well for three reasons.” The first was that she learnt from Bert what “hygiene meant in everyday life.” The second was that he introduced her to cigarettes. As for the third, it is best given in Benderli’s own words:

As for the third reason, Bert was a Trotskyist. He would often come to our room and argue that the Soviet revolution had gone off course and become a degenerated, failed (raté) revolution. He would say that Stalin had had Trotsky killed, which made us extremely angry. At the time, all we knew about Trotsky came from the History of the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union, which was the only book we had read on the subject. For years this book was treated as something of a bible; all Marxist education began with committing this party history to memory. Anyone who read it, learnt it thoroughly, and especially if they had also read Marx’s Manifesto, was regarded as a great authority. For some of our Marxists who knew no language other than Turkish, the only sources of knowledge were these books, whose Turkish translations were extremely poor. Naturally, it was not easy to argue with Bert, who had read a great many books in English and could back up his arguments. True, we had acquired enough French to read books in that language, but at the time we preferred to read the books taught at the Workers’ University in Paris - perhaps because their language was easier. These were limited to works such as Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy, books which I would later realise were rather simplistic, even primitive. In short, arguing with Bert was not easy. Yet whatever he said, however much evidence he produced, we stuck to what we thought we knew, refused to believe any of it, and said that it was all fabrications by class enemies. And of course, since these were fabrications by class enemies, not only did we refuse to believe them; we did not even want to hear what Trotskyism was, who Trotsky was, or what he stood for. Bert was one of the few genuinely cultivated Americans I have ever met. He was also pleasant and well-mannered. Whatever we said, he never lost his temper. Bert was the first person I ever met who said he was a Trotskyist. I was very fond of Bert. (pp. 148-149)

What makes this passage interesting and valuable is not merely that Benderli recounts a colourful anecdote from her Geneva years. Its real significance lies in the candour with which it reveals how Stalinist political culture operated in the mind of a young TKP militant. Whether Bert’s assertions were true or not was, at that moment, not even a matter for discussion for Benderli, her husband, or their circle. For what they knew about Trotsky and Trotskyism consisted solely of a handful of Stalinist sources based on distortions of history and Marxism. Moreover, they did not merely believe these sources; they categorically refused even to hear any alternative explanation.

In Benderli’s memoir, Bert appears not only as “the first Trotskyist she met”, but also as a figure who exposed the intellectual limits of a generation shaped by Stalinist training - someone in whose presence they felt intellectually outmatched. Moreover, there is no hostile tone towards Bert in Benderli’s account. On the contrary, she remembers him as a “genuinely cultivated”, “pleasant” and “well-mannered” young man. This is precisely what makes the passage all the more intriguing: Bert, whose political arguments were utterly rejected - indeed, whose statements were dismissed as “fabrications by class enemies” - is nevertheless remembered with affection on a personal level.

One further point needs to be made about this brief anecdote. Benderli writes: “Bert was the first person I ever met who said he was a Trotskyist.” Of course, this sentence does not mean that she had previously met Trotskyists who, for one reason or another, had refrained from identifying themselves as such. There can be no doubt that, when writing these lines, Benderli had in mind Stalinists whom she had earlier seen accused of being Trotskyists, but who in reality had nothing whatsoever to do with Trotskyism. [****]

[*] Gün Benderli (b. 1930, Istanbul): In the late 1940s, Benderli supported the Communist Party of Turkey and the efforts to secure Nâzım Hikmet’s release from prison. Under political pressure, she went to Paris in 1950 and later to Budapest. She left her law studies at the Sorbonne unfinished and began working as a Turkish-language broadcaster at Budapest Radio. She continued in this role, with some interruptions, until the Turkish-language broadcasts were closed down after the change of regime in Hungary. Benderli produced important translations that brought leading figures of Hungarian literature to Turkish readers. She has also published four memoirs: Su Başında Durmuşuz (2003), Sofralar ve Anılar (2012), Giderayak - Anılarımdaki Nâzım Hikmet (2020), and Yazı Kalır - Anılarımdaki Budapeşte Radyosu (2024). She was also a member of the four-person team that compiled a Turkish-Hungarian dictionary.

[**] See: The Kremlin bureaucracy’s “Potemkin” vehicles and Shortages of consumer goods in Stalinist regimes: The testimony of Gün Benderli

[***] Gün Benderli, Su Başında Durmuşuz, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınevi, 2022, pp. 147-149.

[****] See: An anecdote from Hasdal Military Prison: “Trotskyist” as a political term of abuse

To be continued