Abstract:

Turkey followed a determined neutral policiy in the Second World War and maintained its non-war position despite all the pressures. At the end of the war, Turkey, faced with the Soviet Union’s demand for a base in the Straits and some land in the Eastern Anatolia, found itself in diplomatic isolation. While the demands of the Soviets caused a strong public reaction, on the other hand, they prepared the ground for the spread of a violent social hysteria in Turkey. This hysteria further strengthened the anti-communist tendencies that existed in Turkey before. The anti-communist public opinion, which shaped in this conditions, began to be used as an effective weapon in the debates of the multi-party political life that began in the post-war years. In the ideological atmosphere of the period, internal political debates were associated the ‘Soviet threat’, and all kinds of oppositional thoughts were suppressed with the accusation of ‘speaking with the mouth of Moscow’. These attacks were especially directed at the intellectuals who were opposed to the Americanism trend, which was the dominant foreign policy trend of the period. As a matter of fact, these intellectuals were fond guilty with the logic of “if you are not pro-American, then you are pro-Soviet” within the perception of a bipolar World.

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