Komintern - TKP Collection

Period (1914-) 1918-1939
Total size  56 microfilms
Consultation Not restricted

History

The TKP was founded on 10 September 1920 in Baku, Azerbaijan; participated in the Turkish national liberation struggle of 1918-1922; its chairman Mustafa Suphi, general secretary Ethem Nejat and 13 of their comrades were murdered by the nationalists on the Black Sea on 28-29 January 1921; forced into illegality during most of its history and faced a large number of mass-detentions; attracted many Turkish intellectuals, among them the poet Nazim Hikmet; weakened by factional disputes over the policy of the COMINTERN and the position of the party towards the Kemalist Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP; Republican People's Party); in the 1950s its activities were mainly limited to those conducted from abroad; started Bizim Radyo (Our Radio) broadcasting from Budapest in 1958; revived in the early 1970s, adopting a new programme; started the radio station TKP'nin Sesi (Voice of the TKP) broadcasting from Leipzig; published the central committee organ Atilim from 1974; hundreds of its members were arrested after the military coup of 12 September 1980; held its 5th congress in October 1983 in Moscow; merged with the Türkiye Işçi Partisi (TIP; Workers Party of Turkey), under the name of Türkiye Birleşik Komünist Partisi, (TBKP; United Communist Party of Turkey) in 1987; upon their return to Turkey the general secretaries of both parties were immediately arrested and detained until 1990; in 1990 a group of founders of the TBKP applied for legal status of the party, but a decision of the Anayasa Mahkemesi (Constitutional Court) prohibited the TBKP in 1991.

Content

Records from the COMINTERN archives relating to the TKP. Correspondence with the TKP, with communist groups in Istanbul and with forerunners, including letters and reports by B. Ferdi, General Secretary of the TKP and its representative with the COMINTERN Executive Committee; minutes of the founding congress of the TKP in 1920 and of meetings of its central committee; speeches and articles by Mustafa Suphi; statutes and programs; financial and administrative documents; correspondence by the Central Committee of the TKP, its foreign office and its organization office with branches, local committees and with members of the TKP; with Turkish prisoners of war; with communist parties and organizations in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Persia and the Soviet Union; with Soviet authorities; with the Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi (Turkish Great National Assembly) and other Turkish authorities and with Turkish political parties on the military situation in Turkey and the Caucasus, on the national liberation movement in Anatolia, on Turkish volonteers for the red army, on the Congress of Peoples of the East, on internal conflicts within the TKP, on the situation of imprisoned comrades and on other subjects; letters from and manuscripts of poems and stories by Nazim Hikmet; pamphlets, leaflets and copies of periodicals. Correspondence by the Communist Youth International with the Türkiye Komünist Gençler Birliği (TKGB, Turkish Communist Youth Organization) and by the International Red Help with its Turkish section; some correspondence by the PROFINTERN (Red International of Labour Unions) and the KRESTINTERN (Peasants' International).

Secondary creator

Location of originals

Originals at the RCChIDNI in Moscow, fund 495, 533-535, 539.