Mihri Belli

Mihri Belli (* 1916 in Silivri near Istanbul ; † August 16, 2011 there ) was a Turkish communist , politician and writer . The theory of the National Democratic Revolution that he coined ( Turkish Milli Demokratie Devrim , MDD) had a strong influence on the development of the left in Turkey. He had left his mark on the 1968 movement in Turkey.

Career

Mihri Belli was born in 1916 as the son of Mahmut Hayrettin Bey from Urfa , one of the leaders of the resistance in Thrace at the time of the war of liberation . Mihri Belli graduated from Robert College in Istanbul and studied at the Faculty of Economics at Istanbul University .

In 1936, Mihri Belli went to the USA to study economics. He graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1939. In the United States he learned about Marxism and was involved in the actions of young people, workers and people of color. In 1940 he returned to Turkey and joined the illegal Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). Towards the end of 1942 he was appointed to the central committee of the TKP.

1943-1944 he was the assistant to Professor Fritz Neumark at the Faculty of Economics at Istanbul University. He became a co-founder of the Progressive Youth Union ( İleri Gençler Birliği , İGB). In 1944 he was arrested during operations against the İGB and sentenced to two years in prison and exile.

Guerrillas in Greece, theorists in Turkey

In 1946 Mihri Belli went abroad and took part as a guerrilla in the Greek civil war. He was injured twice and treated in Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. In 1950 he was briefly imprisoned for illegal entry and possession of weapons. In 1951 he was arrested during operations against TKP and sentenced to seven years in prison and two years, four months of forced residency.

Mihri Belli was able to publish under his own name for the first time in the 1960s. He helped publish the magazines “Turkish Left” ( Türk Solu ) and “Socialist Enlightenment” ( Aydınlık Sosyalist Dergi ). Because of his articles, he was arrested twice and was detained for several months.

The National Democratic Revolution

During this time Mihri Belli developed the theory of the national-democratic revolution ( Milli Demokratie Devrim , MDD). According to the MDD, Turkey was not a developed capitalist but a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. That is why a socialist revolution cannot be realized immediately. The MDD pleaded for a national democratic revolution as a preliminary stage for the building of socialism and viewed the Kemalists and the Kemalist-oriented officers as their allies. The struggle against US imperialism was a priority for this group, who believed that Turkey was under the control of US imperialism. “The class of intellectuals in the army and civil life” should play an important (leading) role in this revolution. A military government formed from them should take power. First of all, the bourgeois-democratic revolution was to be realized and the independence of the Turkish state achieved through the anti-imperialist struggle.

On the night of May 20-21, 1969, leaders of the Turkish left, including Deniz Gezmiş , Doğu Perinçek and Mahir Çayan , met in Mihri Belli's apartment in Ankara . Mihri Belli was against the establishment of a legal party. The supporters of the Aydınlık (Enlightenment) group decided to found the TİİKP . Deniz Gezmiş and Mahir Çayan went their separate ways.

After the coup of March 12, 1971 , Mihri Belli went abroad and was a guest of the PLO for a while . He then moved to Western Europe via Turkey and helped to publish the magazine “Der Patriot” ( Yurtsever ). After the amnesty of 1974 he co-founded the Labor Party of Turkey ( Türkiye Emekçi Partisi , TEP) in 1975 . The party was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1980.

In 1979 there was an attack on Mihri Belli in which he was seriously injured. Towards the end of 1981 Belli went abroad again. He stayed in the Middle East for a while and was involved in the establishment of the United Front against Fascism ( Faşizme Karşı Birleşik Cephe ). Mihri Belli went to Sweden from the Middle East and returned to Turkey in 1992.

In 1996 he was involved in the establishment of the ÖDP and in 2002 in the establishment of the SDP . He spent 11 years in prison and 18 years in exile.

Mihri Belli died on August 16, 2011 in his apartment in Istanbul from breathing failure.

Works

• An Analysis of the Turkish Left (German)
• Turkey: Structure, National Question ( Türkiye: Yapı, Ulusal Sorun (Turkish-English))
• I knew people ( İnsanlar Tanıdım 1997)
• Notes from abroad ( Gurbetten Notlar 1998)
• What Rigas Said - Memories of a Guerrilla from the Greek Civil War ( Rigas'ın Dediği- Yunan İç Savaşı'ndan Gerilla Anınları 2000)
• The real problem is the cherry trees ( Asıl Mesele O Kıraz Ağaçları 2002)
• The prosecutor has spoken, the defendant has the floor ( Savcı Konuştu, Söz Sanığındır 1962)
• The National Democratic Revolution ( Milli Demokratik Devrim 1968)
• Critique of our Revolutionary Movement ( Devrimci Hareketimizin Eleştirisi 1961–1971 (1977))
• Historical position of the TKP ( TKP'nin Tarihsel Konumu 1978)
• For unity on the left ( Solda Birlik İçi n 1978)

Web links

• Website in the name of Mihri Belli (Turkish) at http://mihribelli.com/
• Turkish Socialist Leader Mihri Belli Passes Away Network Bianet August 17, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} 'Mihri Abi'yle vedalaşırken , Farewell to Brother Mihri, ORAL ÇALIŞLAR in the daily newspaper Radikal from August 18, 2001; Accessed August 18, 2011.
2. ↑ This date is shown on the company's own homepage. Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. called. The Turkish Wikipedia names December 1915 as the date of birth (without citing the source). 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} page from biyografi.net on Mihri Belli (Turkish), accessed on August 18, 2011.
4. ↑ A film was made about this time and was shown at the Istanbul Film Festival in 2008. The writer and author Özlem Köyoğlu has an interview with Mihri Belli in English  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. released.  
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Verfassungsschutz NRW: Foreign extremism: Historical development of the political left movement in Turkey ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 549 kB), August 2006, accessed on August 18, 2011. 
6. ↑ The OpenLibrary lists 11 works by Mihri Belli at http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL315105A/Mihri_Belli .
7. ↑ Unless otherwise noted, the information has been taken from this page.