Түрік Коммунистік Партиясының Тарихы және Тарауы

A dissolved Communist Party of Turkey
the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) formed in 1920 and which is now defunct

The Communist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Komünist Partisi, TKP) was a political party in Turkey. The party was founded by Mustafa Suphi in 1920, and was soon to be banned. It worked as a clandestine opposition party throughout the Cold War era, and was persecuted by the various military regimes. Many intellectuals, like Nâzım Hikmet, joined the party's ranks. In 1988, the party merged into the United Communist Party of Turkey, in an attempt to gain legal status. The TKP was active from 1920 until its dissolution in 1988, and it was banned in Turkey in 1925 in order to ensure the country's security after the Sheikh Said Rebellion in Eastern Turkey. The party was legalized again after the Second World War, albeit with very limited power and it was heavily monitored by the Turkish government. Initially adopting non violent methods of introducing reform, the party began to adopt revolutionary viewpoints in the 1960s until its dissolution.

The party was founded at a congress in Baku on 10 September 1920, The congress elected Mustafa Suphi as the party chairman, and Ethem Nejat as the general secretary. The party was formed by individuals who believed that the Ottoman Empire could no longer support its people, especially after the First World War. Its founding members were united in ending social injustice and economic inequality amongst the empire's citizens, and to drive out the Western powers carving up Anatolia among themselves. Most of the party's members were learned individuals, and they did not belong to the military wing of the Ottoman Empire. Ismet İnönü, then the Prime Minister of Turkey, lead preparations for the government's response to the rebellion. He took the Sheikh Said Rebellion as an opportunity to crack down on all opposition that he deemed to be a threat against the new Turkish government, with the passing of the Law for the Maintenance of Order (Ottoman Turkish: Takrir i Sükûn Kanunu). Turkey thus became a one party state and the TKP was forced to go underground after they were banned. On 28 January 1921, the founders of TKP, Mustafa Suphi and his 14 other comrades, were murdered. It is not known who was behind the assassination. According to the official version, Mustafa Suphi was killed by the order of the Ottoman Sultan because of his support to the liberation of Turkey.

In December 1921 the People's Communist Party was legalized. This provided an opportunity for TKP to work in a more open manner. The People's Communist Party held its congress in August, which the TKP considered as its second congress. The congress elected Salih Hacıoğlu as the party general secretary. The People's Communist Party was banned the next month, and around 200 party cadres were arrested.

The third party congress was held in Istanbul, in January 1925. The congress elected Şefik Hüsnü as the new general secretary. Hüsnü's group in Istanbul had conducted semi legal activities and published Aydınlık. On instructions from the Comintern, the party started to publish Orak Çekiç, which in contrast to Aydınlık was directed towards the working class. The sole delegate from the left of the party was Salih Hacıoğlu, who would later perish in the purges in Russia during the 1930s. The TKP suffered three waves of crackdowns on its cadres, in 1925, 1927 and 1929. But in addition to the external pressure, the party also suffered from internal divisions. The role of the party towards the Comintern and the governing CHP party were issues of disputes. Albeit an illegal party, the TKP issued a series of publications like Kızıl Istanbul (1930–1935), Bolşevik (1927), Komünist (1929) and İnkılap Yolu (published in Berlin 1930–1932). The party organized a party conference in Vienna in 1926, where a new party program was formulated, which was more critical towards Kemalism.

The fourth TKP congress was held in 1932. Hüsnü was reelected as the party general secretary.

In 1951, the TKP effectively collapsed after many of its leaders were arrested by the authorities. Despite this, open communists were still restricted in legally organizing, and this heavily applied to the TKP. This era of progress for TKP and the other left wing organisations in Turkey was ended by the 1980 Turkish coup d'état.

The fifth TKP congress was held in 1983. İsmail Bilen was elected as party chairman and Haydar Kutlu as general secretary. TKP criticized the US intervention in Lebanon, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

As a result of the 1980 military coup, left wing and communist parties were forced to go underground. After the "rebirth meeting" in 1993, the contributors of the meeting restarted the periodicals publication in 1997. Almost after a decade, the group which summoned up around this publication, expanded enough to reestablish the TKP again. In 2012, they officially announced the reestablishment of the TKP. But this initiative resulted as a dichotomy, because of the existence of another party (Former SIP) which started to use the same name in 2001. So the contributors of the rebirth initiative decided to change the official name of the TKP as 1920 TKP.