Abstract:

There are two geographically spread ideologies in the world history, one is capitalism and the other is socialism. Capitalism, which envisages a liberal system based on private property and colonialism, led to the French Revolution in 1789, and socialism that emphasizes collective ownership and economic equality, and society gave rise to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Capitalism pushed Europe to the First World War in 1914, the war of sharing the world. Due to the fact that the most important geographical regions that the countries starting the World War I wanted to share were within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, the first part of the 20th century in Turkish history is regarded as difficult years. The rulers and subjects of the state became the focus of the developing political-economic events. The Treaty of Sevr in 1920, which aggravated the situation and affected all ideas, movements and ideologies, was signed at this time. In the Ottoman bureaucracy, one of the open-minded people to new ideologies was Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Due to similar internal and external factors, the National Struggle initiated by Mustafa Kemal was influenced by both ideologies of this period; however, it was essentially different from them. So far, analysis about the Kemalist movement has been based on European sources. However, it is undeniable that the Russian archives are significant sources on this subject. In these archives, there are correspondences of Mustafa Kemal that have not been published until now as well as the Soviet Russia’s many intelligence texts on the National Struggle. In this study, the documents related to Mustafa Kemal and Turkey in various correspondences of Soviet Russia between 1918 and 1922 were examined. The period’s leaders Lenin and Mustafa Kemal were compared, and also Mustafa Kemal’s view to the Soviets and Lenin's view to the National Struggle were discussed. Lenin's ways of obtaining information and the features of his intelligence have been questioned. As a result, it was revealed that Soviet Russia had in-depth knowledge about the newly established Turkey, and that the leaders of the two countries had implemented strategies in line with national and common interests in the field of foreign policy.