We track back to the glorious year, 1923, but for a good reason, last time we spoke about the reforms that Ataturk pursued and there were a lot of them. There was also a lot of politics and dare we say, a lot of interesting power dynamics for a one man regime centred on the power of one man (at least if you believe what people said). We go over the foundation of Turkey's first parliamentary opposition party, the Progressive Republican Party, the circumstances around its foundation, how its politics forced the Republican People's Party to begin to take the form of a political party rather than a national liberation movement. We investigate the Sheikh Said rebellion, which marked the first major uprising against the modern Turkish state by Kurds, with independence as an explicit goal. We also discuss the Izmir Plot, an assassination plot used to justify purges of the opposition to Mustafa Kemal, which may have been based on an entirely fake letter (stop us if you've heard this before in the 20s) and while people may dispute whether it was real or not, we'll let you decide after our chat about it.
If you want to support us and get access to the bonus episodes including the upcoming bonus episode involving an exceptional bit of pre-online shitposting and absolute commitment to a bit as a political party, then check out our Patreon.
Our intro music is by our good friend Jordan who is a fellow member of ALE, which you should all check out!
Our Cast:
Sinan - @TheSinanKose
Jamie - @AnxietyCowboy
Ben - @Patricipacion
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