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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor Cemil Boyraz for his continuous support and guidance. It was one his lectures, when I first met with the concept of Uneven and Combined Development. After that moment, I gained a new perspective that allowed me to see the world, read the news and approach subjects. If it not for him it would be not possible to finish this thesis during these hard times.
I would also like to thank my family for supporting me both financially and economically while I spend three and a half years away from my home without a job in the middle of an economic crisis.
Finally, I would like to thank the love of my life Günce Kamacı for her unending support. Whenever I felt like giving up, she always lift me up and put me back on the track. Without her help, I would never be able to shake off the mental burden of all of the things that happened in past three and a half year.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................... vi
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. vii
ÖZET .......................................................................................................................... viii
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................... 7
UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT AND PASSIVE REVOLUTION 7
1.1. Uneven and Combined Development ........................................................... 7
1.2. Passive Revolution ..................................................................................... 21 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 23
CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................. 25
OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE 19th CENTURY ..................................................... 25
2.1. A Brief View of Ottoman Transition to Capitalism ....................................... 25
2.2. Reasons for the Reforms in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire ..................... 26
2.3. Treaty of Baltalimanı and Trade ..................................................................... 29
2.4. Land Code and Agriculture ............................................................................ 32
2.5. Industry and Manufacturing ........................................................................... 41
2.6. Foreign Capital and Debt in the Ottoman Empire .......................................... 45
2.7. The Two Bourgeoisie: Bureaucratic and Commercial Bourgeoisie .............. 50
Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 60
CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................. 62
YOUNG TURKS AND KEMALIST REGIME ....................................................... 62
3.1. Overview of the End Years of The Empire and Birth of the Republic .......... 62
3.2. Young Turks and the 1908 Revolution ........................................................... 63
3.3. The Geopolitics and the Eastern Question ..................................................... 70
3.4. Towards the Republic of Turkey .................................................................... 73
3.5. Transition and Etatism .................................................................................... 76
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Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 78
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 80
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 86
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ABSTRACT
Ottoman Empire’s transition to capitalism and modernization process in the 19th century has been a popular and important topic for scholars for many years. While it was covered many times throughout these years, it is seen that there are not that many works that analyze and interpret both internal and external factors and the link between them. This thesis aims to examine and analyze the Ottoman transition to capitalism and modernization process in the 19th from the Uneven and Combined development perspective. By applying this method of analysis, the thesis aims to combine internal and external factors in this process and how this process fits into Gramsci’s concept of passive revolution. Finally, it will be possible to comprehend the developments in this era and how it affected the last years of the Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
Keywords: Uneven and combined development, Passive Revolution, Transition to capitalism, the Ottoman Empire, Republic of Turkey
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ÖZET
19. yüzyılda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun kapitalizme geçişi ve modernleşme süreci, uzun yıllardır araştırmacılar için popüler ve önemli bir konu olmuştur. Bu yıllar boyunca pek çok kez işlenmekle birlikte, hem iç hem de dış etkenleri ve aralarındaki bağı analiz eden ve yorumlayan çalışmaların çok fazla olmadığı görülmektedir. Bu tez, 19. Yüzyılda Osmanlı'nın kapitalizme geçiş ve modernleşme sürecini Eşitsiz ve Bileşik Gelişme perspektifinden incelemeyi ve analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu analiz yöntemini uygulayarak, bu süreçteki yerel ve uluslararası faktörleri ve bu sürecin Gramsci'nin pasif devrim kavramına nasıl uyduğunu birleştirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Son olarak bu dönemdeki gelişmelerin, İmparatorluğun son yıllarını ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin kuruluşunu nasıl etkilediğini anlamak mümkün olacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Eşitsiz ve Bileşik Gelişme, Pasif Devrim, Kapitalizme geçiş, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
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INTRODUCTION
This year marks the 99th birthday of the Republic of Turkey. As one of the first nations that fought against imperialist powers and gained independence in the 20th century, the debates regarding developmental issues remained the same since its foundation. Democracy, Freedom, Secularism are just some of the subjects of these debates. It is possible to gather all those subjects under the topic of development. Then one can ask “why”. Many answers have been provided by politicians and scholars over the years. “It is because of imperialism” is one of the most frequent of them. On the other hand, the success stories are completely owned. “We have won the Independence War because of the heroic nature of our people”. Obviously these answers are generally produced by politicians and media. Thankfully, both the local and international academic studies allowed people to dive into historical facts and analysis. Normally, there is no common ground for explaining such a vast and complicated topic. Some emphasize that the roots of the problem lie in the Single Party Era, while some others focus on the Ottoman Empire in its longue duree to locate the roots. I find myself closer to the latter since the so-called modernization, in other words, westernization started at the very end of the 18th century in the Ottoman Empire. The republic of Turkey can be interpreted as a project which aimed for establishing a westernized, modern and capitalist society. The three main characteristics that desired to be achieved at this point were already tried to be adopted by the Ottoman Empire. What went wrong? Or more accurately what has been going wrong? Many scholars tried to find the answer to this question. “The sick man of Europe” died and a new one was born still suffering from some of the aspects of the same sickness. Scholars analyzed the death of the sick man from several different perspectives. One of them was the Ottoman decline paradigm which was introduced by Bernard Lewis (1958). He suggested that it was because of the incompetence of the sultans that ascended to throne after the Suleiman the Magnificent. Eugene Rogan (2017) argued that it was because of the efforts of external forces such as other nations
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deliberately weakening the Empire. However, some of the most known scholars in this scope suggested that it was because of the Empire’s failure to adopt capitalism. In my opinion, this argument steers us to the most fertile grounds to examine the developmental problems the Ottoman Empire faced, which is the 19th century when the Ottoman economy started integrating to the World economy. In other words, the process of transition to capitalism. Therefore, in this thesis I have focused on this period to examine and analyze problems and how they are linked to the issues the Republic has been facing.
Ottoman Empire’s transition to capitalism in the 19th century is far from an uncovered topic in academia. The most famous and erudite scholars from Turkey wrote many books and articles on this subject, such as Çağlar Keyder and Şevket Pamuk. It would be fair to say that this integration also intertwined with the process of transition to capitalism in the Ottoman Empire. This statement however, can be true only when spoken generally, as some actors in the Empire were against this transition, such as the sultans and palace (Findlay, 2018). Still, the debate on transition is being made starting from the integration period. Many scholars analyzed this period through well-known IR theories such as the World Systems Theory. The arguments produced over the years became the backbone of the studies of the Ottoman 19th century, yet the field can still be enriched with Uneven and Combined Development Theory. Thanks to UCD, it is possible to analyze the subjects from a different angle. Especially the topics, such as Asiatic Mode of Production and “weak merchant class” in the Ottoman Empire, that become myths. One of the arguments is the role and the effect of Islamic Law on inheritance and organizational stability. Kuran claims that the Islamic Law prevented the developments regarding property rights, political and economic liberties. Moreover, the lack of capitalist mentality created difficulties for the emergence of strong business enterprises (Kuran, 2004, p. 71-72). Another argument was made on the Ottoman Empire’s policies. The great divergence between Europe and the Ottoman Empire was because of the policies implemented by the Ottomans. Genç stated that the fiscalist and
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provisionist policies conflicted with the mercantilist policies of Europe and this caused the transition to fail (Genç, 2009, p. 53).
Another mostly covered subject of this period was the merchant capital and its struggle with the central bureaucracy. The development of the merchant capital was blocked due to their weakness against the bureaucracy. (Heper, 1985, p. 41; Mardin, 2006, p. 32). This subject is also shown as the reason for the Ottoman Empire’s peripheral status in the World economy (Keyder, 2014). Most Marxists that studied the Ottoman Empire interpreted the state ownership of the land, “free” peasants and weakness of merchant capital as the result of having Asiatic Mode of production (Divitçioğlu, 2010; İslamoğlu-İnan & Keyder, 1977). Wickham on the other hand, adds that the Ottoman Empire was the least flexible state in allowing private ownership or privatization of the land. According to him, this shows the dominance of tributary over the feudal mode of production (Wickham, 1985, p. 182).
Above, a selection of arguments are presented very briefly to create a general understanding of what scholars think on why transition to capitalism failed in the Ottoman Empire. Even from the glimpse of these arguments, it is possible to see the echoes of eurocentrism and stagism. In order to address these echoes and even analyze them in detail the following chapter of the thesis focuses on the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century and the process of transition to capitalism with UCD perspective. Uneven and Combined Development is not a famous theory in academia and only limited availability of studies examined the Ottoman case from the UCD’s perspective. Therefore, applying UCD theory to the Ottoman 19th century allows us to draw different conclusions from time to time, which may enrich the discussions and academic progress in this field.
As it is mentioned before, because of the rich potential, this period is examined by many scholars from different fields and analyzed with different perspectives. However, the lack of a social theory that analyzes and interprets both internal and external factors and the link between them resulted in incomplete assumptions and hypotheses. “The
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problematique of the international” stressed by Justin Rosenberg, is present not just in this topic but also in every analysis regarding historical sociology and IR (Rosenberg, 2016). The problematique presents the question that asks: The problematique presents the question of internally relating the modern state system and geopolitical competition without reducing either one of the topics to the other one. It also creates another question about the possibility of creating a theory that would explain the causative effectuality between societies within the constitution of social orders, In other words, a theory that would combine sociological and external factors homogeneously in one theory (Allinson & Anievas, 2010, p.48).
Moreover, Keen van der Pijl (2007, VIII) stated: “Marxist legacy as it exists has largely failed to develop its own method in the area of foreign relations”. To present a solution to this problematique, Justin Rosenberg reintroduced Trotsky’s uneven and combined development theory (UCD). Trotsky’s attempts to analyze the peculiarities of the Russian Revolution led to his invention of UCD, yet it proved that this theory not only allowed us to understand the Russian Revolution and development but also other countries. Terms introduced by UC & D such as “whip of external necessities” and “privilege of being backward” presented different angles to examine the topics and provide more precise analyses. According to Trotsky, unevenness is the most general rule of historic process and it derives from the ecological background that societies possess. (Allinson & Anievas, 2010, p. 50) Since all societies co-exist, the interaction between them leads to combinations. (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 24). The emergence of capitalism brought an even more deep unevenness between societies. Furthermore, capitalism was expansive by nature, therefore, others had to adapt in order to survive. This produced “the external whip of necessities and privilege of being backward” (Trotsky, 2008, p. 5).
Through the theory of UC &D and its tools, it is possible to analyze the Ottoman 19th century and the transformation process it went through more precisely. Questions
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regarding the transformation, collapse or backwardness of the Ottoman Empire mainly focus on “what went wrong?” and “was it because of internal or external reasons?” However the question that should be asked is why did the Empire collapse when it did? In other words, “Why did it endure for nearly three hundred years before its collapse?” which brings the question “what went on?” parallel to what went wrong. On the other hand, what republic inherited from the Ottoman Empire provides more accurate answers with the UCD analysis of the topic. Answers to these questions lie in the process that the Ottoman Empire went through between the mid-18th and its collapse. Therefore, this thesis aims to analyze the Ottoman Empire’s transition to capitalism and the effects of this transformation on socio-economic and cultural life in the Ottoman Empire by using the theory of UCD to point out the chronic developmental problems that remained even after the collapse of the Empire.
The first chapter of the thesis focuses on the uneven and combined development theory and why it is suitable to explain Ottoman backwardness and collapse. One of the focuses of this part is “The problematique of the international” and how UCD provides a solution for this problem. Apart from that, the discussions on stagism and eurocentrism are made within the framework of transition debate. The last part of this chapter focuses on the concept of passive revolution. This was theorized by Antonio Gramsci and incorporated to UCD by scholars such as Morton and Anievas. Passive revolution plays an important part in completing the discussions on stagism and it plays a key role in understanding the Ottoman bureaucracy, kalemiye (scribal), in the process of reforms. In the second chapter, background information about the Ottoman Empire is provided. The third chapter of the thesis focuses on the Ottoman Empire’s socio-economic developments and bureaucracy. This part focuses mainly on the important events that occurred during the transformation period and how other scholars analyzed and interpreted these events. Doing this will allow us to see the problems in different theories and perspectives. First, the emergence of capitalism in the Western Europe and how it is related to the Ottoman Empire’s backwardness is discussed. Then, it moves on
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to the effects of the 1838 Anglo-Ottoman Treaty. Following this, analysis of Tanzimat reforms as a whip of external necessity and the strategy of turning a foe into tutor is examined. After that, the introduction of land code, foreign investments, Crimean war and foreign debts of the Ottoman Empire is examined through UCD. The last part in this chapter focuses on the central bureaucracy. Its role in the reforms and transition and how it is related to Gramsci's passive revolution is discussed. The fourth chapter of the thesis briefly focuses on the 1908 Revolution, Ittihat ve Terraki and the First World War and eventually the collapse of the Empire. This part allows us to see how all the changes and struggles that happened before affected the new Republic’s socio-economic and political life. After the third chapter, Conclusion is presented where I focus on the similarities and differences between UCD and other theories in analyzing the Ottoman 19th century. This part allows us to point to different sorts of problems that other theories overlook or ignore.
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CHAPTER 1
UNEVEN AND COMBINED DEVELOPMENT AND PASSIVE REVOLUTION
1.1. Uneven and Combined Development
This chapter of the thesis focuses on the two main theories that the rest of the thesis is constructed on, which are Uneven and Combined Development and Passive Revolution. Although Gramsci never linked the concept of Passive Revolution to Uneven and Combined Development theory, many scholars such as Morton, Anievas and Allinson showed that these two concepts are highly relevant to each other. While UCD provides a new perspective to analyze Ottoman transition to capitalism, passive revolution provides a greater insight on the modernization processes of the Empire. Moreover, concepts within UCD such as substitutionism go hand in hand with the concept. In this chapter of the thesis, I will focus on these two concepts and how they are relevant to each other as well as the case of Ottoman transition to capitalism. The first part of the chapter focuses on the theory of Uneven and Combined Development. In the second part, I will explain what the Passive revolution is. Lastly, I will show why these two concepts should be used together to examine the Ottoman Case.
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1.1.1. A Gap in the International Relations
Marxism in International Relations has been in a controversial spot since the establishment of the IR discipline. Anievas noted, “Marxism and IR had a troubled relationship, a case of mutual neglect and sometimes open hostility” (Anievas, 2009, p. 7). Although Marx pressed the issues of “international'' before the IR discipline was founded (Teschke, 2008, p. 163) and other historical materialists wrote about global events during their time, it was merely an attempt to analyze and evaluate conditions for a revolutionary action (Davenport, 2011, p. 27). The discipline of IR revealed the problem in the Marxist IR theory. Davenport explains this by stating “The contradiction between national and international was empirically registered but not penetrated theoretically” (Davenport, 2011, p. 28). He further notes that Marxism in IR could not comprehend geopolitics and international without falling victim to “Realist essentializing” (Davenport, 2011, p. 26). The problematique of the international as it will be seen in this thesis many times, is a major gap in the Marxist IR theory. Callinicos states that the international, especially in the form of state system, cannot be interpreted from Marx's concept of capital. It needs to be added so that a more comprehensive version of Classical Marxist of Theory can be built (Callinicos & Rosenberg, 2008, p. 77).
This issue was raised by Stanley Hoffman (1959) approximately fifty years ago Rosenberg says. Hoffman said that the IR should be re-founded on a methodological basis of historical sociology. This was necessary to prevent the reduction of international theory to either sociology or history (Rosenberg, 2006, p. 307). Then Skocpol pressed that an intersocietal perspective is needed (Skocpol, 1973). As it can be seen, many authors indicated the gap in the theory but why this gap was so important that it must be filled. Rosenberg remarks that the challenges faced by Marxism in International relations are generic to the legacy of classical social theory as a whole. They fail to incorporate the multilinear and interactive dimensions of sociohistorical
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development into their conception of society. Marxist theories of Imperialism only analyse the relations between countries, such as domination. It does not question the reason for their existence. International theory on the other hand questions this. No classical social theorist included this into their theoretical conceptions systemically. This was mostly taken for granted (Rosenberg, 2006, p. 308). The previously asked question is deepened in this case. “Why the international dimension of social reality exists in the first place?” (Callinicos & Rosenberg, 2008, p. 77-80).
As it is seen above the problematique of the international is a big issue for complaint, but what is this “international”? The answer is in the question asked by Rosenberg before. It is the dimension of social reality that emerges specifically from the existence of multiple societies at the same time in the world. Rosenberg states that in the classical sociological tradition it is possible to find theories that explain internal changes over periods of time and comparative theories that focus on external differences across different cultures. However, it was not possible to find a theory that brings two of these in one united theory (Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 308- 312).
The problem comes before us in a more concrete and practical way while examining the histories of especially non-western societies. Iran, Russia, China and the Ottoman Empire are some of the examples. The first socialist revolution will emerge in the most advanced capitalist country, said Marx. This is maybe the most famous cliché in the Marxist literature. Yet the socialist revolution happened first in Russia then China, two backward and underdeveloped countries. Apart from this miscalculated vision. Matin notes that there is lacunae in social theory that prevents examining Medieval Iran in terms of economic and social development (Matin, 2007, p. 421). The same applies to the Ottoman case, as it is discussed in this thesis.
How do we overcome this problem of international is the ultimate question in that regard. Justin Rosenberg provided the solution when he revived Trotsky’s Uneven and Combined Development. UCD is a “theory capable of capturing the multilinear and interactive dimensions of socio-historical development in its basic conceptions” stated
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Anievas (2009, p. 7). Therefore, UCD is used to analyze the Ottoman transition to capitalism in this thesis.
Ottoman Empire’s integration to World Economy in the 19th century is far from an uncovered topic in both Turkish and International academia. The most famous and erudite scholars from Turkey wrote many books and articles on this subject, such as Çağlar Keyder and Şevket Pamuk. However, Uneven and Combined Development is not a famous theory in academia and only limited availability of studies examined the Ottoman case from the UCD’s perspective. Therefore, applying UCD theory to the Ottoman 19th century allows us to draw different conclusions from time to time, which may enrich the discussions and academic progress in this field.
1.1.2. What is Uneven and Combined Development?
The theory of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD) was originally created by the famous Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky to explain the peculiarities of the Russian Revolution. Justin Rosenberg, who revived the theory of UCD, brought a whole new perspective for social sciences to fill the gaps and correct the problems in mainstream International Relations theories. These problems can be briefly explained by the two intersecting problems of the “problematique of international” and Eurocentrism (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 17). These problems are discussed in the following parts of UCD discussion. This part is reserved for understanding what UCD is and how it was created and later revived.
Rosenberg introduces three claims to explain the world’s dynamics. The first claim, as stated by Trotsky, is that “the unevenness is the most general law of historic process.” (Trotsky, 2008, p. 4) There are different kinds of societies present in the world at any period of time, which are in different levels and stages in terms of development. Furthermore, some of them are stronger and influential, some of them are weaker and
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less influential. In other words, Unevenness is both the reason and result of different levels of development (Anievas & Nişancıoğlu, 2015, p. 63). The natural basis of unevenness can be found in the ecological conditions that societies’ live in. (Allinson & Anievas, 2009, p. 50). Secondly, these societies are not isolated entities that can be analyzed or examined separately. They co-exist and therefore, interact continuously. Because of that their existence in the historic process is combined. Finally, the interaction between the societies is the main factor in the societies’ development and transformation. Due to the importance of interaction, it is not possible to understand development without considering the process of interaction (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 17).
As it was mentioned before, UCD was created by Trotsky to clarify and explain the peculiarities of the Russian Revolution. It was the first socialist revolution and it shook the world to its very core. Moreover, it had a desire to change the world, releasing the proletariat from the leash of bourgeoisie, yet it lacked the international dimension. Marx and Engels when they wrote the Communist Manifesto, provided a roadmap to socialism that explains the stages of development and changes while reaching socialism. England was shown as an example and the importance of the industrial revolution in changing society’s structures was stressed (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 21). The roadmap indicates a bourgeoisie revolution that would wipe the feudal mode of production and feudal characteristics in society. This process would create a working class (proletariat) in a new capitalist mode of production. As capitalism progresses so would the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. It was stated the high levels of exploitation would cause the proletariat to overthrow bourgeoisie with a socialist revolution and establish socialism. By looking at this roadmap, Russian Marxists such as Trotsky thought that socialist revolution was bound to happen in the Western countries at any moment (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 21). Yet, it never came even until to this day.
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On the other hand, Russia before the revolution did not look like Western countries at all. According to Trotsky, slow tempo of development, economic backwardness, possessing primitive social forms and because of that low level of culture were the most fundamental features of Russia's history (Trotsky, 2008, p. 2). Russia’s position between East and West was not just geographical but social as well. “The East gave her the Tartar yoke, '' said Trotsky. This played an important part in the formation of the Russian state. However, it was not possible to settle the Eastern way due to continuous pressures from the West. It was a threatening enemy but also a teacher. Constant developments in military and economics in the West pushed Russia to adapt to them as quickly as possible. Moreover, Trotsky claims that the fundamental elements of Russian and European feudalism were the same, yet Russian feudalism was not complete, formless and culturally poor (Trotsky, 2008, pp. 2-3). Another important feature of Russia was the insignificance of its cities. Weak cities eliminated the possibility of a reformation and allowed characteristics of Asiatic state to shape the Russian state (Trotsky, 2008, p. 5). Lack of a Third Estate, as it was the driving force in the French Revolution, prevented uprisings and revolts to turn into revolutions. Lack of industrialization and reformation made it impossible for peasants and workers to unite under a revolutionary cause (Trotsky, 2008, p.6). The Europeanization of Russia started during the rule of Peter the Great. This process became due to the rising demand of the ruling class which was the nobility. According to Trotsky, this progressive nobility filled the gap of a Third Estate. However, they combined their liberal agenda with their own feudal domination, fearing uprisings from peasants (Trotsky, 2008, p. 6).
Within these considerations, it can be understood that Russia was a backward country that did not fit the stages in the roadmap drawn by Marx and Engels. Bourgeoisie was too weak to topple the semi-feudal state and establish capitalism. Interestingly, it was the mentioned state who was promoting the industrialization process. The working class was insignificant in number and unorganized and they were employed by repressive states rather than bourgeoisie. According to Rosenberg (2016), this made them more
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revolutionary than the English working class. On the other hand, the industry had to establish such a long way to even catch the English industry, yet it was technologically more modern than the English industry. However, this technologically advanced industry was established in a society full of peasants. This complex nature of Russian society paralyzed the Marxists in the country (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 22). After facing such a problem, it is clear that not only Russia but many countries, especially countries that were integrated into the world economy in the 19th century such as the Ottoman Empire and developing countries in the 20th century faced similar problems. Obvious result of these problems was the problem of development. Different theories from different schools of thoughts tried to solve this problem like Modernization theory. However, the solution was already found by Trotsky. He added international to social theory. Argued that the contrasting and different social structures in societies were the production of interaction between societies. By this way, Trotsky formulated a theory of both society and international (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 22).
1.1.3. Why Uneven and Combined Development?
Since its emergence, the discipline of International Relations suffered from a serious drawback. That is “international”. Kenneth Waltz’s advice to IR students sums up the problem perfectly. “Students of international politics will do well to concentrate on separate theories of internal and external politics until someone figures out a way to unite them” (Waltz, 1986, p. 340). To further stress the issue Rosenberg explained that even though important scholars such as Marx, Weber and Durkheim produced many great works in the field of sociology, none of them stressed the importance of co-existence and the interaction between societies and included this in their works. Even Marx who wrote extensively on international politics (Rosenberg, 2016, p, 19).
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This missing theory that combines international and social created many problems in analyzing events in history or even today. Analysis on Ottoman Empire’s transition to capitalism and collapse suffers from such problems. They are either focused on internal reasons or external reasons, not both of them. Therefore, it is possible to see an article that claims Tanzimat reforms were the product of imperialist powers, while another one presents completely the opposite argument. Yet, like Tanzimat Reforms, Meiji Restoration and German unification are also the products of both internal and external pressures (Allinson & Anievas, 2009). Uneven and Combined Development allows us to interpret and analyze the factors of both internal and external causes of a historic event without ignoring the causal relations between them. Trotsky argues that without this it would be impossible to understand the historical processes of countries that are not advanced countries (Heller, 2017, p. 215).
When the West adopted industrial capitalism in the 18th century, the developmental gap between them and the other parts of the world deepened dramatically. In other words, the unevenness reached a level that was never possible before. This level of unevenness caused backward countries to take immediate action and catch the capitalist west in order to survive, since they all coexist at the same time. As was the case in the history of Russia, continuous advancements in Europe’s economic and military developments produced a whip of external necessity for the Russian elite to catch Western powers (Trotsky, 2008, p. 5). However, the developments in the West did not happen overnight. Some of them took even a hundred years to be established, yet did Russia have that much time to repeat the same steps? Obviously, it did not but that was not necessary either. Because of the high levels of unevenness produced by the emergence of capitalism, another side effect emerged, which was the “privilege of historic backwardness”. Since latecomers to capitalism coexist with more advanced countries, they did not have to wait for the same amount of time and go through the same processes as advanced countries did. They could simply import the developments directly and apply them to their own society without a need for reinvention. Because of the privilege
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of historic backwardness, latecomers are able to accelerate their developmental process by skipping most of the stages (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 23). As a result of these effects of unevenness, latecomers could act and try to catch advanced countries. However, this process produces different results for each society as they are in different stages of internal development. For example, the Russian Empire’s adoption of capitalism was not due to its desire to turn into a European country, it was for survival. Therefore, while industrializing the country, it kept its repressive, semi-feudal form. This produced a new kind of society. Therefore, the mentioned effects of unevenness produced combined development in the end.
The example of Russia’s adoption of capitalism brings another important point in combined development. That is “substitutionism”. Substitutionism can be briefly explained as the “Class solving another class’ problem”. It is important to note that this phenomenon is unique to backward countries. When a class does not exist or is very weak, underdeveloped in a society, another class assumes its role and carries on with the process that needs to be completed. To further elaborate this concept, one can focus on the semi-feudal Russian state’s attempts to modernize agriculture. As the capitalist class was barely influential in Russian Society, the state assumed the role of the capitalist class and attempted to pave the way for capitalist modernization. In this regard, this process turns foe into a tutor. Substitutionism produces combined, dual and amalgamated structures that are prone to tensions (Anievas & Nişancıoğlu, 2015, p. 68). These structures are called “contradictions of sociological amalgamation”. Nişancoğlu and Aniveas explain these as the inorganic fusions of local and foreign agencies, institutions, practices, ideologies and socio-economic systems. This combination brings time-compressed and accelerated transformations in development that bring forceful and drastic changes to the former formations (Anievas & Nişancıoğlu, 2015, p. 68).
Therefore, combined development tells us that there is no pure or normal development. Development is always shaped by interactions with other societies (Anievas & Nişancıoğlu, 2015, p. 73). From this, it can also be understood that the Uneven and
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Combined Development rejects “stagism”. The concept of stagism has been a hot topic of discussion in the social sciences for many years. Whether Marxist or Liberal, there are many scholars and politicians that claim society needs to pass through specific stages to reach a certain level of development. This deterministic approach led to many divisions even among socialists and leftists in Russia on the verge of the Revolution. Stagist perspective claims that history moves on its own, in other words, it is highly deterministic. It proposes that mode of production has to pass through several phases. To further clarify, it is claimed that in order to end the feudal mode of production a bourgeois revolution is necessary. Then the socialist revolution can follow and overthrow the bourgeoisie (Van der Pijl, 2015, p. 57). Only a small number of countries went through a systematic development and transformation that Marx predicted (Trotsky, 1978). However, because of this stagist perspective, many revolutionary movements neglected to accomplish a socialist revolution. Most famous example of this was obviously the Mensheviks before the Russian Revolution. In Turkey, a similar example can be seen with Milli Demokratik Devrim (National Democratic Revolution). Supporters of this movement emphasized the importance of a bourgeois revolution, in other words, completion of the Kemalist Revolution to move towards socialist revolution (Seddon & Margulies, 1984, p. 28). This is highly ironic since most of the defenders of this idea were Maoists and Mao’s CCP suffered from the very idea of stagism. Stalin pushed Mao to form an alliance with Chiang Kai-Shek’s KMT for a bourgeois-democratic revolution in China yet this alliance resulted in Shanghai Massacre where many of the Communist Party members were massacred by their so-called allies (Van der Pijl, 2015, p. 57). Moreover, the Chinese revolution emerged as a socialist revolution led by CCP in the end, not a bourgeois democratic revolution. Trotsky wrote on that subject as well to show the error in stagism. The tasks such as national economy building, establishing administration, parliamentary democracy and bourgeoisie freedom were all thought to be accomplished by a bourgeois revolution. However, these actions cannot be performed by bourgeoisie anymore since they tied
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themselves with the imperialist fronts and foreign capital that they have transformed themselves into a hostile social force to their own society (Van der Pijl, 2015, p. 57).
According to Rosenberg, this combined development has three meanings. The first meaning implies that the transfer of advanced technologies of capitalist countries to pre-industrial societies created a combination of different stages of development. Secondly, this transfer also combined different social structures. In other words, different kinds of societies merged with this type of interaction. Finally, this type of transfer integrates the borrowing society to an “interconnected structure of capitalist world development”. However, this integration does not only affect the borrowing country. The structure that was mentioned also becomes modified with the inclusion of a new member (Rosenberg, 2016, p. 24).
Emergence of industrial capitalism plays a key role in the combination process of societies. Industrial capitalism’s introduction to the world created a huge gap, in other words a great divergence between capitalist societies and others. Before that, societies could influence each other mutually, even though one of them was more developed than the other. (Davidson, 2016, p. 36) For example, Francis Bacon refers to the invention of gunpowder, printing press and compass were the major inventions that saved Europe from the darkness of the Middle Ages (Bacon, 1960). However, these inventions originated in China. Therefore, Europe's rise to world dominance became possible through interaction with China (Hobson, 2004, p. 123). However, it should be noted that Europe was not as advanced in terms of development than China. Therefore, looking at the Mongolian invasion in the 13th century would be an example of the influence of the weak. This example also proves that social development is multilinear, multi-cored and a co-founded process (Nişancıoğlu& Anievas, 2015, p. 64). The emergence of industrial capitalism was different from the previous mode of production. Davidson states that the structural dynamism of industrial capitalism made combination inescapable (Davidson, 2016, p. 36). Rosenberg solidifies this argument by stating that Imperial China developmentally was the leading power for several centuries, yet it did not have the
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power of influence as capitalist countries had. On the contrary, China had to import industrial capitalism’s advancements Moreover, by nature capitalism had to expand both economically and geographically. This meant the integration of new territories to the world economic system, whether by force or consent (Rosenberg, 2007, pp. 44-45).
1.1.4. Eurocentrism
Another important use of the UCD is tackling Eurocentrism. It is already a big issue of a debate in social sciences independent from UCD. On the other hand, the problem of Eurocentrism and all the theories and ideas related to it can be overcome thanks to UCD. Before understanding how UCD approaches the matter of Eurocentrism, one must understand what Eurocentrism is and how it is affecting the subjects. This would especially help clearing the ambiguities in the topic of Ottoman Empire’s integration to the world economy in the 19th century.
The main idea behind Eurocentrism is that modernity is an accumulation of various integrated developments that are endogenous to Europe (Matin, 2007). The rise of capitalism as a European phenomenon plays a key role as one of these crucial developments. Mann further explains this claim by stressing the effect of Roman-Christian legacy. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the central authority weakened which resulted in ineffective taxation. Reinforced by Christianity’s social norms, this development paved the way for a stronger position for bourgeoisie in the political sphere. He also states that the fragmented sovereign units in Europe created a geopolitical pressure that resulted in strengthening of property rights. (Mann, 1986, pp. 377–378). A similar point of view can be seen in Weber’s Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism. Weber stated that the Reformation in Northern Germany played a key role in the development of capitalism as Protestant and Calvinist ethics are very much in line with the characteristics of capitalist nature. These common characteristics were the
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accumulation of wealth and encouragements towards investing what you gained rather than spending for luxury (McKinnon, 2010).
As Heller indicates, Eurocentrism is first emerged as a xenophobia, then followed by the installment of middle class white males as heroes of the enlightenment. However, this effort was not enough without colonization and the Industrial Revolution. (Heller, 2017, p. 309). Blaut’s claims reinforces this argument as he states the West would achieve its great leap without the extra-economic advantages. (Blaut, 1993, pp. 180-182). He further states that, there was no difference in terms of economic developments between Asia, Africa and Europe prior to 1492. The same potential for the emergence of capitalism was present in different parts of the world. (Blaut, 1993, pp. 160-165). Hobson also indicates that the emergence of capitalism in England cannot be explained alone without the influence and imitation of the Chinese agricultural revolution that took place nearly a thousand years ago ( Hobson, 2016, pp. 163-165). However, Eurocentrism ignores such thoughts and the process was followed by the idea of European racial and cultural superiority starting to affect European science with Eurocentrism. This has affected history writing since the 19th century (Heller, 2017, pp. 308- 309). Dirlik explains that as the universalization of history with the symbols of victory of the capitalist modernity of the West (Dirlik, 2000, p. 27).
Eurocentrism grew hand in hand with the expansion of markets and reached its peak especially in the 19th and 20th century. However, it was severely injured by the Great Depression and two world wars. After claiming the title of global hegemon, the U.S restored Eurocentrism and reinforced its cultural hegemony by American ideologies of consumption and society. Moreover, started to export it to developing countries in 1949 with the Point Four Program (Heller, 2017, p. 310).
For developing countries, Eurocentrism plays a key role while addressing developmental problems. Many theories in social sciences try to present a solution for these developmental problems. The main problem is the establishment of capitalism. Yet this is not isolated to capitalist development only. Establishment of a socialist
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system is also affected by this debate. To further clarify this issue, the Modernization theory can be examined. According to this theory, developing countries must follow the footsteps of the already developed countries to reach the level of development desired and complete transition to capitalism (Knöbl, 2003, p. 96).
Nişancıoğlu (2013) notes that the emergence of capitalism and modernity and their political, ideological, cultural and political aspects are considered a development unique to Europe. He further states that there are two aspects of Eurocentrism that makes it so problematic. The first one is the historical priority. This assumes that any kind of development emerged in Europe has its roots in Europe as well. For example, the birth of Renaissance or rise of absolutism are endogenously European. Furthermore, emergence of capitalism is accepted as a phenomenon unique to Western Europe and the rest of the world are included only as passive and periphery societies. From all of this, it can be understood that historical priority builds its case on European superiority over other non- European societies (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, pp. 3-4). The second problem defined by Nişancıoğlu is an internalist methodology. This reveals itself as either comparative approach or methodological nationalism. Because of this “multiple and interactive character of social development is ignored by Eurocentrism. Nişancoğlu further argues that Ottomans are considered as an ideological other to Europe or a case study for comparison to prove the uniqueness of Europe. This turned Ottomans and the rest of the East as a threat and an enemy to Western civilization (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 5).
The problem of Eurocentrism in this case causes false analysis and faulty solutions to the explanations of a country's transition to capitalism and modernity. As it was the topic of the thesis, Ottoman Empire’s integration to the world market suffers from the same problematic assumptions. UCD offers a solution to tackle Eurocentric approach in this sense
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1.2. Passive Revolution
The French Revolution is considered a monumental event in world history, when revolutionaries overthrew the “ancien regime” and established a capitalist state in France. France was not the first country that adopted capitalism, yet it was the first one to establish capitalism with a popular revolution. Combined forces of bourgeoisie, workers and peasants managed to topple the aristocratic rule and establish a new order within the country. Whether it was a bourgeoisie revolution or not is debated among scholars, yet it is not the issue that is planned to discuss in this part (Heller, 2017). The revolution became a worldwide phenomenon that spread quickly. Other countries tried to follow the French example to modernize and establish a new order in their country; especially with the Napoleonic Wars, it is possible to see military officers and bureaucrats as well as lower classes who idolized the French revolutionaries from Austria to Russia. However, the right circumstances and social environment for a revolution of that magnitude is not commonly seen in world history. Especially for the latecomers to capitalist mode of production, the transition did happen without a popular revolution that overthrew the current rulers, instead the change comes from dominant classes and state, processed gradually. To understand this one must understand Gramsci's concept of “passive revolution”.
The concept of passive revolution is used with the idea of hegemony, also established by Gramsci. It is usually used to explain the steps taken by dominant classes to re-establish hegemony over society. The most known examples are Fordism-Taylorism for understanding the liberal side and the formation of Fascist Italy to understand fascist side. Yet, the concept of passive revolution was created by Gramsci to explain the unification of Italian States. Therefore, it provides great insight to latecomers to capitalism especially in Europe in reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars (Allinson & Anievas, 2010, p. 474). However, it is possible to explain and analyze
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the reformation processes in countries like Japan and the Ottoman Empire with passive revolution.
Capitalism and its uneven development is seen as a historical phenomenon worldwide by Gramsci states Morton. Due to uneven development, it is not possible for countries to be at the same level of economic development simultaneously (Morton, 2007, p. 602) Morton argues that “Gramsci understood issues of uneven and combined development across 18th- and 19th-century European history as a series of passive revolutions” (Morton, 2007, p. 602). Passive revolution here means that “restoration becomes the first policy whereby social struggles find sufficiently elastic frameworks to allow the bourgeoisie to gain power without dramatic upheaval” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 115). Before the unification of Italian States, Partito d’Azione led by Garibaldi and Mazzini was the Italian Jacobins that desired to unite Italy as a single modern state. The failure of this movement was indicated by Gramsci as the weakness of the Italian bourgeoisie internationally. He further argues that the struggle in Italy was because of “struggle of old treaties and existing international order” and the threat of Austria, which occupied part of the Italian peninsula and had significant influence on the rest (Gramsci, 1971 pp. 80-82). It can be understood that these two factors acted as an external whip of necessity used to unite Italy. Gramsci interprets this as an attempt to patch up structural weaknesses caused by the uneven development (Gramsci, 1985, p. 245). This however, could not be used by Partito d’Azione, but “Moderates” under the leadership of Count Camillo Benso Cavour. He managed to link big landowners from north and south, and also assimilated the opposition in parliament (Morton, 2007, p. 64). Therefore, this process shows a revolution with state intervention, or adding new members to hegemonic projects. (Sassoon, 1987, p. 210). Morton also argued that the concept of passive revolution is not a case that is unique to Italy. The countries that modernized themselves through reforms and national wars without a radical political revolution can also be analyzed with the concept of passive revolution (Morton, 2007, p. 603). Anievas and Allinson explain the Meiji restoration in Japan by referring to uneven and combined
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development and passive revolution. It is stated that passive revolution is immanent to UCD (Allinson &Anievas, 2010, p. 471). In the light of all of the information provided about the concept of Passive revolution, one can argue that Passive Revolution and UCD are naturally linked with each other and they should be used together for several reasons. The main reason for that is the case of substitutionism. In both of these concepts, the argument about stagism is countered by the concept of substitutionism. Both of these concepts explain how one class assumes another one’s role to modernize the country. Thus, it allows us to read the modernization processes of nations without the limits of stagist approaches.
Conclusion
In this chapter, the concepts of Passive Revolution and Uneven and Combined development are explained to provide a solid foundation for the rest of the thesis. Both of these concepts are crucial to understand the Ottoman Empire’s integration process to the world economy and later the Republic of Turkey attempted to modernize the nation. First of all, the Ottoman 19th century was the century that was full of reforms. Integration to the world economy came along with the wave of reforms that were aimed to modernize the Empire. While some of these reforms were demanded by European powers, some of them were desired by the state. The state resisted some of the reforms that were pushed by European powers, such as the capitalization of agriculture. In some cases the state had to give into the demands of reform by Europeans to receive financial and military aid. As a result of the resistance, it is possible to see the cases of combined development in the Ottoman Empire. The clearest example of this is the Public Debt Administration, which was an institution that was capitalist and imperialist in nature and established in a nation that’s main income was based on taxes that were gathered from subsistence farming. Without UCD, it is harder to analyze such dual formations
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and contradictions of sociological amalgamations. On the other hand, the attempts to reform the country or “save the country” is clearest when analyzed with the concept of Passive Revolution. The Committee of Union and Progress’ (CUP) attempts to transform the economy to a capitalist one is one of the most important examples in this regard. CUP assumed the role of bourgeoisie and became the driving force of capitalist transformation that tried to reform the country through a series of reforms. The Kemalist regime also followed a similar path and attempted to modernize through a series of reforms by assuming the role of bourgeoisie and using the privilege of being backward. As it can be seen from the brief examples within the subject of the thesis, the concepts of Passive revolution and UCD are crucial to the foundation of this thesis.
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CHAPTER 2
OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE 19th CENTURY
2.1. A Brief View of Ottoman Transition to Capitalism
The 19th century is the century that the Ottoman Empire felt the need to reform very clearly. End of the 18th century proved that the Ottoman Empire had to do something, in order to survive the next century. Territorial losses from the 17th and 18th century were diminishing the empire’s both economic and political power. Technologically, it was obvious that Ottoman’s were lagging behind the Europeans especially in military technology. The fast developing European powers were widening the gap between them and the Ottoman Empire. The Empire started to feel the domination of European Powers in every aspect. Because of this, we see major reforms and attempts to modernize the empire in this century. The famous Tanzimat reforms can be considered the most important developments along with the entrance of foreign capital to the Ottoman Empire. Many vital problems of the Empire were recognized by the ruling class. The need for European aid, a qualified diplomatic staff that would preserve strong relations with European Powers, and new westernized institutions were among some of these critical detections. However, there was a more critical decision made by the ruling class, which was the preservation of the Ottoman mode of production that relied on surplus extraction from small peasants. Apart from that, in this century the Ottoman Empire was opened itself to the world economically. The opening of the Ottoman Economy was realized mainly by foreign debts, trade and foreign direct investments (Keyder, 1984, p. 64). These two processes were amalgamated and cannot be examined and analyzed separately. Because of the state’s decision to preserve the old mode of production and entrance of the foreign capital to the empire along with foreign, a structure that is a
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combination of tributary and capitalist form of production emerged. Thus, it presented us an example of combined development in the Ottoman history. Before I start with the key parts, I will briefly mention the reasons that show the necessities for reforms. Then as the first part of this chapter, I will examine the treaty of Baltalimanı and how it changed the trade. Second, I will focus on the land code and agriculture as one of the major Tanzimat reforms and how it is a part of combined development of tributary and capitalist forms of production. In the third part, I will examine the manufactures and industry in the Ottoman Empire, how this sector was affected by the interaction with European countries, as well as the treaties and reforms. In the fourth part, the case of foreign debts and foreign direct investments are discussed. Then I will focus on the changes in the bureaucratic class and the emergence of both bureaucratic and commercial bourgeois in consecutive parts. In the last part, I will gather all the analysis and interpretations to explain the case of combined development as a whole.
2.2. Reasons for the Reforms in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire
As it was mentioned in the part above, the gap between the Ottoman Empire and Europe was widening in terms of development, military and technology. Closing the gap in this case was tried by patching up the problematic areas such as increasing the numbers of janissaries. Once they were only devshirmes, Christian children that were converted to Islam and trained to be the members of administration, but now they were conscripted from all types of people. Already a strong actor in Ottoman politics, janissaries were now out of the control of the central authority completely, committing regicides when they deemed necessary. It should be noted that they were the ultimate obstacle in reforming the military or any other institutions of the empire. Yet something must be done to raise the empire back to its feet. III. Selim was one of the important sultans of the empire after its glorious times. His reign mainly covers the last decade of the 18th century and the first eight years of the 19th century, yet his effect is important on the
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events of the 19th century. He initiated a series of important reforms that aimed to modernize administration, fiscal departments, education and even the military. He brought foreign officers for military training and established a new army called Nizam-ı Cedid (New Order Troops). All of these reforms had to be managed while fighting with Russians and Austrians; therefore, it would not be wrong to say that reforms were not done under full capacity. On the other hand, reforming the empire’s institutions would not mean anything unless the biggest obstacle was removed, which were the janissaries. Selim’s plans toward abolishing janissaries did not come to life, as he was overthrown by them and later killed. Then came the next sultan, this one was even more important and famous than its predecessor. Sultan II. Mahmud ascended to the throne in 1808 and he was called by Rogan (2002) as the Peter the Great of the Ottoman Empire. His reign covered many important events such as the abolition of Janissaries, treaty of Baltalimanı and Tanzimat Reforms. His success in abolition of Janissaries (Vakay-i Hayriye) paved the way for future reforms. Apart from these, Greek Independence happened in his reign. Thus the story of the Ottoman 19th century began with Selim and Mahmud’s dream of modernization. In the following parts, I will discuss how these dreams came to life or under what circumstances, if they came at all. This period of history is full of important events both internal and external. Therefore, examining each of the under separate parts without isolating them will prove most useful. I will begin this century with the Rebellion of Mehmed Ali Pasha and the treaty of Baltalimanı.
After repelling Napoleon's attack on Egypt in 1798-99, Mehmed Ali Pasha gained considerable influence in Egypt. In 1803, Civil war broke out in Egypt led by Mehmet Ali Pasha and it lasted for four years. At the end of it, Mehmet Ali Pasha emerged victorious and Sultan Mahmut II granted him the title of governor of Egypt, legitimizing his rule. Although Mehmet Ali Pasha preferred to act rather autonomously as a governor, he was loyal to the Ottoman Empire at first. During his rule, Egypt witnessed a series of important reforms and developments. Cotton industry boomed due to Pasha’s
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economic and industrial reforms (Tezel, 2015). He also presented crucial solutions to the infrastructural problems of Egypt. Construction of the Mahmoudiya Canal was one of them. This canal provided access to the port of Alexandria from the Nile River. It should be noted that all of these developments and progresses were made possible by following protectionist policies and use of monopolies (Tezel, 2015). Apart from that, as it was mentioned before Mehmet Ali Pasha was loyal to the Ottoman Empire at first. He prepared an invasion against the Saudis and helped the Ottoman army to suppress Greek revolts (Geyikdağı, 2011, p.22). Because of his contributions in suppressing the revolts, he was promised the lands of Syria and Morea. However, these promises were never fulfilled. Moreover, Sultan Mahmud II’s attempts to centralize power and authority caused Mehmet Ali Pasha to be unsettled and provoked him to revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He quickly invaded Lebanon and Syria. Then he moved his armies towards Konya (Hanioglu, 2008). The advancement of Mehmet Ali Pasha caused Sultan Mahmud II to seek help from Russia, Ottoman’s one of the biggest enemies at that time.
The presence of the Russian army in Ottoman lands alarmed France and Great Britain. Therefore, they started to put pressure on the Sultan to end the conflict quickly. Both of the countries guaranteed to stop another possible attack by Mehmet Ali Pasha. Moreover, both of the countries also sent their fleets to Dardanelles to coerce Sultan into submission (Griswold, 1978). As a result of this, Mahmud II and Mehmet Ali Pasha Signed the Convention of Kütahya in 1833, which granted Pasha the control of Syria, Tripoli, Crete and Adana. After this convention, another treaty was signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire which worried France and Great Britain and it was the Treaty of Hünkar İskelesi.
The Treaty of Hünkar İskelesi was signed to make a defensive alliance between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. The duration of the treaty was eight years and it proposed that in matters of security each side would consult each other (Aksan, 2007). Apart from that, it is stated that this treaty also included a clause that states rather than sending
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military aid during wartime, Ottomans would not allow enemy warships that are fighting against Russia, to pass the Dardanelles. Apart from that, in 1829, Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Edirne which presented Russian merchants certain privileges (Tezel, 2015). The combined effect of both of these treaties alarmed Great Britain, since Russian influence on Turkish straits and Mediterranean was on the rise (Issawi, 1980).
On the other hand, the developments led by Mehmet Ali Pasha continued in Egypt. During the 1830’s more than 12 million sterling were invested in industries and more than 30 thousand workers were working in factories (Tezel, 2015). The possibilities of the rise of Egypt as an independent and industrialized country or the possibility of Russian influenced Egypt were concerning Great Britain (Tezel, 2015). In order to secure its overseas interests, Great Britain desired a British influenced Ottoman Empire and introduced the Treaty of Balta Limani in 1838.
2.3. Treaty of Baltalimanı and Trade
There are many discussions and reviews of the 1838 Anglo-Ottoman Treaty and its effects on the Ottoman economy and society. Tezel (2015) states that before the treaty, feudal landlords and pashas in the Ottoman Empire acted autonomously and took advantage of increasing trade volume by introducing arbitrary taxes on merchants and encouraging bribing in their own territory. Moreover, banning of merchants and interventions to trade deals in their region were also seen. This situation was seen as a problem by British authorities (Tezel 2015, p. 73). Furthermore, British observers stated that if safety and security is guaranteed for life and property, the Ottoman market had the potential to be the biggest market for British industrial goods (Urquhart, 1833, p. 141). From the Ottomans’ perspective, this deal had to be signed to preserve the borders of the Empire. Threat of the governor Mehmet Ali Pasha of Egypt pushed the Ottomans
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to help the support of Great Britain (Pamuk, 2017, p. 32). However, Tezel stated that rather than a necessity Ottoman bureaucracy was full of compradors that served western interests. According to Tezel, even in the 17th and 18th century, these compradors were seen in the bureaucracy. It is mentioned that in times of conflict between local artisans and foreign merchants, the bureaucracy usually favored foreign merchants (Tezel, 2015, p. 71). Mücek also states that reforms following the Baltalimani treaty were done to please the British rather than developing the Empire (Mücek, 2019, p. 38). On the other hand, Pamuk claims that the Ottoman Empire had a strong central bureaucracy that was reluctant to allow imperial powers to enter Ottoman markets (Pamuk, 2017, p. 59). According to Pamuk, this treaty and following reforms in the Ottoman Empire were done by negotiations and compromises between imperial powers and the central bureaucracy. The Ottoman Bureaucracy always tried to maneuver using the imperial rivalry in the world to ensure its existence (Pamuk, 2017, pp. 59-60). Furthermore, the central bureaucracy never desired to empower landowners and merchants and tried to keep the Ottoman Empire centralized as possible. Allinson interprets the following reforms and changes in the Ottoman Empire as a whip of external necessity. This was because of the unevenness between the Ottoman Empire and Western powers. Therefore the Ottoman Empire had to employ a strategy which is called turn foe into tutor (Allinson, 2016, pp. 99-100).
The short-term effects of the treaty are usually based on facts and statistics therefore, there are less discussions and arguments on this subject. As it was mentioned before, this treaty turned the Ottoman Empire into a free market for first British and later other European industrial powers. (Mücek, 2019). With the clauses that fixed tariffs, customs and clauses that abolished monopolies, Ottomans’ income from trade severely reduced. According to Allinson, after that moment Ottomans had to be satisfied with the agricultural tributes only (Allinson, 2016, pp. 100-101). The most obvious effect of the treaty was the dramatic increase in import volumes of the Ottoman Empire. According to Pamuk, Foreign trade volumes increased 15 times in the 19th century and import of
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Cotton textile products increased a hundred times between 1820 and 1914 (Pamuk, 2017, pp. 33). Another important statistic that shows the increasing trade volume is presented by Tezel. It is stated that in 1783, the total trade volume of the Ottoman Empire with Europe was 4.4 million sterling. In 1850’s, it increased to 18 million sterling then in 1911 it rose to 70 million sterling. It should be noted that the Ottoman Empire nearly lost half of its lands between these years, yet the volume increased dramatically nonetheless (Tezel, 2015, pp. 77). Ottoman exports also increased during this period, especially after the abolition of Corn Laws in Great Britain in 1846. In 1860, Ottoman cereal exports to Great Britain rose to 3 million sterling. Before that it was too little to be of any importance (Eldem, 1970, pp. 182-183). However, import volumes increased far more than exports and this led to a current account deficit in the Ottoman Economy. Ottoman exports were not even enough to compensate for imported consumer goods. This imbalance in payments was handled by gold and silver exports until 1850’s but after that Ottomans had to take loans. However, most of the loans were spent for the luxuries of bureaucracy and the palace (Eldem, 1970, p.220).
As it can be seen from the arguments of Mücek and Tezel, some of the scholars interpret the Baltalimanı Treaty as an imperialist project to open up the Ottoman Market to the world. While it would be wrong to deny or argue this argument, they also assumed that the Ottoman Empire signed this treaty because bureaucracy was full of compradors. I do not think that was the case as this was a necessary attempt to secure the Empire’s survival. When the conditions were considered at that time the Empire’s existence was under threat by Mehmet Ali Pasha’s invasion of Anatolia. With the Baltaliman treaty, the state gave privileges to European powers but secured its survival and by using the rivalry between Western powers, the state maneuvered during negotiations to leave agricultural taxation untouched to a certain point, which was the main source of income. This maneuver paved the way for the first steps of an emerging dichotomy in Ottoman Economics, which was a clear example of combined development. After the treaty of Baltalimanı, Ottoman economy started to opened up more and more to the Western
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influence and. Moreover, the ruling class attempt to preserve the current surplus extraction and these two conflicting situations planted the roots of a dual economic model that has both tributary and capitalistic features. As it will be seen in the following parts of this thesis, the state continuously required the Western financial and military aid. This aid was provided by giving further privileges. In the end, all of these were done to secure the survival of the Empire. The state even tried to steer European demands to reform the Empire to modernize itself to a certain point.
2.4. Land Code and Agriculture
The Ottoman Land code of 1858 was one of the most important unfolding events in the 19th century. It can be said that the preparation of this code was caused by the Treaty of Baltalimanı and the increasing interaction between the Ottoman Empire and European Power. The importance of this code comes from its mixed structure. Nişancıoğlu saw land code as the highest point of Tanzimat reforms and one of the key points in combined development in the Ottoman case. (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 189). A land code is thought to introduce the capitalist relations to agriculture and transform the feudal or tributary relations. As it is discussed in the following parts, the land code allowed individuals to own land and introduced the inheritance of land and so on. However, this code was never designed to change the tributary form of relations in the Empire. Therefore, in this section of the chapter I will discuss the promulgation of Land code, its effects on agriculture and how it was a case of combined development.
The centralization attempts that started with II. Mahmud paved the way for this land code. This was the first modern land law that Ottomans enacted (Aytekin, 2009, p. 935). What was tried to achieve by this land law is to further curbing the power of ayans (provincial notables) and other intermediary forces that are present in the surplus extraction. Although the empire was in a process of transition to capitalist mode of
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production due to the increased interaction with European Powers, the main type of accumulation was still done by taxing the small peasants. In other words, big capitalist farming, industrial capitalism or using wage laborers were not that common in the Empire unlike Europe. Therefore, eliminating the other actors in the surplus extraction was always considered as the most important source of increasing the revenues for the empire. II. Mahmud’s centralization initiative successfully removed the big ayans in the empire. It was stated that Ottomans were never that centralized since it was established. However, this does not mean that the initiative wiped all ayans and other actors in the surplus extraction chain. Mültezims (Tax collector) and bourgeoisie were still present powerfully, moreover, other kinds of actors such as tribes etc. were present in the far corners of the empire like in Transjordan. Apart from that, as it was mentioned before, integration to the world market changed the orientation of agricultural production in the empire. Before agricultural production was done for subsistence but at that time it was started to be done for the markets. Moreover, nearly all of the exports were agricultural goods. The regulations introduced with this code provide fertile ground to understand the transition that the Ottoman Empire is going through. Most of the research and publications done about the Land Code of 1858 are state-centric (Aytekin, 2009). Therefore, its effects on social change are omitted. Even the most influential scholars on Ottoman economic history such as Keyder and Pamuk are indecisive about the effects of the Land Code (Pamuk, 2017; Keyder, 1984). Because of that in this part, I will try to analyze the Land Code’s nature and effects in detail and provide insights about the transition that the empire is going through.
Aytekin states that the code included the characteristics of a bourgeoisie law. The code only dealt with lands that belong to the state, which is called miri. These lands were previously given to small peasants for farming but with the introduction of the code, individuals became able to purchase the lands that belonged to the state. As they bought it, they were given tapu, which was the title deed for the land. This commodified the miri lands. After that moment, the state had the opportunity to collect taxes from
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individuals rather than communities. Allinson states that the code’s aim was to create the process of mimetic primitive accumulation. (Allinson, 2016, p. 102). By this way the state was trying to maximize the tax revenues by distributing the lands to individual (Issawi, 1988, p. 286).
Since this part does not aim to analyze the code from a legal or historic perspective, all of the articles on the code are not discussed. The main focus is on several articles that provide important hints about the empire and one of them is the inheritance. As it was mentioned in the previous parts, lands of the Ottoman Empire belong to the sultan and it was given to small peasants for farming. Sipahis and Mültezims were tasked to collect taxes from the peasants that were working on the land of the sultan. These lands could not be inherited; it was forbidden by the Ottoman traditional laws, yet the transfer of the land after the death of the peasant to a family member is seen frequently in order not to halt production. To be more precise the peasants did not have any legal rights to inherit the land. As it was mentioned, this was specifically desired by the bureaucracy and to manage that Ottoman’s based their land legal system on Byzantine and Seljuk land codes. Islamic law which allowed and encouraged private property was ignored. With the introduction of the Land Code of 1858, it was seen that the right to inherit land was given to the members of the family. Whether this was influenced by Islamic law or not is another topic of debate, yet it is a fact that this inheritance also included female members of the family as nearly equals to male members, which is not seen in Islamic law. It can be said that this was a European influence on the code. With the right to inherit, continuation of the production was ensured and half of the population of the empire was integrated into the agricultural production legally. Apart from the inheritance, the code prohibited an individual to own an entire village. This was surely done to prevent powerful landlords from emerging legally. On the other hand, ownership of a village cannot be given to its inhabitants. Lands should be bought separately and individually. Moreover, owners of the land could not leave the land unattended for more than three years.
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Another important part of the code was its aims to deal with tribal intermediary forces in the far corners of the empire. To further elaborate this issue, Allinson’s research on Transjordan provides great insight. In this region, tribes were taking the tribute called khuwwa from the cultivators and travelers that came to their zone of control, which was called dirah. To eliminate the local actors here, the state prepared a plan. Firstly, the Ottoman military under the leadership of the governor of Damascus, engaged the tribes and broke their coercive power. Then, started implementing the land code. Separated and distributed communal lands to individuals and settled Circassian and Christian migrants to the region. (Quatert, 1994, p. 849). However, the state could not abolish the practice of khuwwa completely mostly because of the geographical reasons. On the other hand, it is seen that the practice of khuwwa was evolving. As newly settled migrants did not pay khuwwa to tribes, some of the tribes registered their dirah within the framework of the land code and established plantations, collecting khuwwa from the plantations. On the other hand, new settlers paid their taxes directly to the state. As it can be seen, implementation of the land code in Transjordan created a new combination of different surplus extraction methods. (Allinson, 2016, p. 109)
In the light of the information presented above, one can interpret the transition of the Ottoman Empire. With the introduction of the new and modern land code state tried to achieve its goals for modernizing the empire, yet the state kept the small peasants as their main source of accumulation, it did not try to establish new and big capitalist farms. Here it is seen that the introduction of the new land code formed a combination with the old system of accumulation, in other words combined development. Other than that, the land code caused other existing types of surplus extraction like khuwwa to be transformed by the combination with the new law. Moreover, granting the right to inherit and including both genders in this process, created a new social combination. The last important thing here to note is the indirect effects. The policy of settling the migrants to regions such as Transjordan allowed technological advancements to be transferred. Christian and Circassian settlers brought wheeled transports and new road
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construction methods, which had a huge impact on social and economic life in the region. This resulted in another combined development. (Allinson, 2016) As it can be understood from this part, the Ottoman Land code of 1858 resulted in different kinds of combinations in more than one aspect of life in the Empire.
After examining the land code, one can delve deeper into the agriculture of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. As in the previous centuries, agricultural production remained as the driving force of the Ottoman economy in the 19th century. It was not just because of economic reasons but also political. State’s authority was almost completely based on the surplus extraction from agricultural production. What was different from the previous centuries in this case was the integration of the world economy. Therefore, reforms made in the 19th century were heavily affected by the importance of agriculture in the Empire and vice versa. In other words, one of the biggest priorities of Ottoman reforms, centralization is highly connected to agriculture and in this section, this relation as well as the changes in agriculture are examined and explained.
It needs to be reminded that weakening of central authority in rural areas before 19th century, led tımar (fief) to be ineffective and ayans to rise. This crippled to state’s revenues but also created a new opponent to state’s authority. It was mentioned that ayans never reorganized the relations of production in the lands they hold, they became a chain in the surplus extraction. Therefore, tackling their power would not bring a transition in their regions. II. Mahmud’s centralization attempts were done directly to curb ayans economic power. As a result of these attempts, most of the big ayans were removed, their lands were confiscated and distributed to small peasants re-establishing the state authority. Apart from ayans, the system of iltizam (Tax farming) was also tried to be abolished with Tanzimat reforms, yet it was seen that state was not powerful enough to collect taxes via its own officials, therefore, after three years iltizam system was reestablished.
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After briefly examining the political background of agriculture in the 19th century, one must understand the conditions of the rural areas in the Empire. Small peasants were still the main producers, on the other hand, middle and big landowners were also seen in the agricultural production. Like ayans, big landowners also did not reorganize the production in their own lands. This brings the question of capitalist farming. Why is the main productive force in agriculture small peasants? Why wasn't there a transition to capitalist farming and use of wage labor? The first and obvious answer is the policies of the central state on protecting and maintaining the small peasants. But there were also natural conditions that prevented this especially in big farms. The first reason was the scarcity of labor. Although there were migrations to Anatolia from the lost territories of the Empire, labor was always scarce in comparison to arable lands. This brings the second important reason which was the abundance of arable lands. This made it nearly impossible to keep the peasants in particular land when they were not content, since they could easily move to another arable land and start farming there. Another important reason was the lack of technological complexity required for agricultural production. Small peasants could easily obtain basic tools and an ox to cultivate their own lands. All of these reasons increased the power of small peasants when negotiating with big landlords and prevented them from becoming wage laborers. In this situation, big landowners used sharecropping to cultivate their land rather than wage labor.
Although most of the things remained the same, the nature of production changed in the 19th century. Before that it was done for subsistence, but with transition to capitalism, it started to become market oriented (Kılınçoğlu, 2015, p. 18). However, this did not mean the goods produced were changed. Pamuk states that as agricultural production becomes market oriented, it tends to produce cash crops, yet this was not the case in the Ottoman Empire. Grain and cereal remained the main produced agricultural goods (Pamuk, 2017). On the other hand, it would be wrong to state that each region of the empire was evenly affected by process of transition and increasing economic interactions with European Powers. There was considerable unevenness between
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regions in both their development and their level of interaction with outside world. To briefly say that rural areas and cities acted like separate independent units during the process of transition to capitalism as they had separate links and relations with foreign countries (Tezel, 2015). This was mainly because of the problems of infrastructure. For example, cities like Istanbul depended on imports of grains for its supply, since transporting them from abroad was cheaper than transporting them from Anatolia. Construction of railroads is another issue regarding this topic, but it is not focused on this topic in detail, yet it is discussed in another section. Because of these reasons, the following part focuses on the different regions of the empire separately.
It was mentioned in the previous parts that Izmir became an important port for European trade. Thessaloniki was also another important port for foreign trade. Because of having important ports and having geographical advantages (closer to Europe), these regions were more market oriented and more developed than the other regions of the empire. Especially after the treaty of Baltalimani, exports rose dramatically. Due to its geographical advantages and high development, European interest was high especially in İzmir. In 1866, after the construction of the railroads costs were reduced and with the regulation to land code in 1868, which allowed foreigners to purchase private property, British capitalists bought one third of arable lands in İzmir for capitalist farming (Pamuk, 1984). For these advanced tools, high quality seeds and even farmers were transferred from Great Britain but all efforts were in vain as this attempt failed. There were many reasons for this failure. All of the reasons said before about the obstacles that prevented capitalist farming apply in this case too. On the other hand, this time there are other things that should be noted. The first one is the relative sovereignty of the central state. Ottoman Empire was not a colony and in colonies, the British usually used state's coercive power to dispossess the peasants and turn them into wage laborers. This did not work as central state protected small peasants. In Thessaloniki and Manastır, the main producers were big land owners and in Macedonia strong feudal relations were
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seen. Still sharecropping was used by big land owners, as wage labor could not compete with sharecropping revenues.
In Eastern Black Sea shore, Trabzon presents itself as an important port that connects the trade routes to Persia. In this region, no big land owners are not seen as lands owned by peasants are no more than 4 hectares. In Samsun production of tobacco is seen and in the far eastern parts of the shore is used for hazelnut production. Other than these two, agricultural production was not commercialized as crops that grew in the region required intensive labor. Another region with limited commercialization was the Eastern and Southeast Anatolia, it was the least affected region from the integration to the capitalist world economy. These regions were under the control of autonomous Kurdish tribes. Therefore, they were left untouched most of the time as long as they paid their taxes to the central state.
Central Anatolia is another important region for agricultural production for the Empire. Yet this importance is only realized after the construction of Anatolia-Baghdad Railroad. Due to its geographical and environmental advantages, this region was full of potential for grain and cereal production. However, due to lack of infrastructure it was only possible to transport goods by caravans. Because of this only opium and mohair was transported for long distance trade until the construction of railroads by the German capital. As German capital flowed to the region in the late 1800s, necessary infrastructure investments were started to be seen such as irrigation, technologically advanced farming tools and high quality seeds. Thanks to these developments in the region, agricultural production started to be distributed to domestic markets. In the first ten years after the construction of railroads 400,000 tons of grain and cereal were transported to Istanbul securing some of the supply needed by the capital.
The last region that is covered in this section is Southern Anatolia but especially Adana region. As it was mentioned before this was the most commercialized region in the Empire where capitalist relations of production were visible. This region was heavily affected by the war with Mehmed Ali Pasha in the 1830s. As Mehmed Ali pasha’s son
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invaded the region, irrigation systems were built and modern farming methods were adopted in the area. However, as they left all of this, infrastructure deteriorated. After taking control of the region, both central state and local powers tried to assert their influence in the region. According to Pamuk, the evolution of relations of production in this region consisted of a combination of scarcity of laborers and settling lands that stayed empty for too long. In other words, both of the actors in the region encouraged migrations to the region. In the late 1800s, it is seen that German influence increased in the region with the construction of Anatolia-Baghdad railroad. Like in Central Anatolia, German capital also invested in agriculture by providing high quality seeds, mechanization of farming, constructing irrigation systems and railroads. Apart from that, it should be noted that Çukurova is one of the most fertile and important regions for cotton production. In 1897, after the loss of Crete, migrants were settled to Antalya which was another important part of this region. Moreover, before the First World War, it is seen that the Italian capital was also trying to influence agricultural production in the region, steering the production towards the textile sector. As it can be seen, due to a combination of several external and internal factors, Adana region became the most commercialized and capitalist region in the empire.
In the light of all the information presented in this section, one can see the two important factors that affected the agriculture and mode of production in the Ottoman Empire. First, it can be seen that the promulgation of land code allowed capitalist forces, foreign mostly, to only gain a foothold in the preserved tributary relations (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 192). Thus, it can be said that the Land code was a project to maintain the current system without implementing a major land reform (Aytekin, 2009). Furthermore, the effects of the Land code remain insignificant when the expectations are concerned. Big capitalist farm projects of Europeans failed and the agriculture was still based on small peasantry. However, it would be wrong to state that nothing has changed. As the foreign capital entered Ottoman borders, infrastructure investments were done in the rural areas. This further enabled the penetration of commercial bourgeoisie and Europeans to
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change some of the social relations in the rural parts of the Ottoman Empire. Subsistence farming started to be replaced by farming for markets which also affected the manufacturing sector. As it is examined region by region, it is clear that every region had different sort of relations with other countries while maintaining both tributary and capitalist characteristics. Therefore, while examining the agriculture of the Ottoman Empire, we see a combination of tributary and capitalist relations that are integrated to the world as separate units. All of these factors show us that this is a case of combined development.
2.5. Industry and Manufacturing
Effects of the Industrial revolution were heavily felt in the Ottoman Empire’s manufacturing sectors. It is known from the previous parts that manufacturing was under the regulation of loncas (guilds) in the Empire. It is also known that the production of such enterprises was primitive, handled in hand looms. Another important thing to be reminded here is the relation between janissaries and guilds. It was mentioned that most of the members of guilds were also janissaries or in cooperation with them. Therefore, this added another dimension to the presence of guilds in the empire during the integration period. It was seen that janissaries used coercion to subdue local governors, grand viziers or even overthrow sultans to protect their interests. Because of that, abolition of janissaries played an important role in the diminishing power of the guilds. Apart from that, the Treaty of Baltalimanı and imperialist countries’ search for markets are the important factors in the decline in Ottoman manufacturing. As it can be understood, the changes in the manufacturing sector are caused by several external and internal factors. Therefore, while examining the Ottoman manufacture and industry in the 19th century, I will try to explain each factor's importance for the non-agricultural production in the empire. Analyzing this will also provide an understanding for the newly establishing Ottoman Industry.
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The establishment of relations between janissaries and guilds starts with the collapse of devshirme system. Changes in the recruitment of janissaries, allowed Turkish-Muslims to be recruited into janissaries and also allowed janissaries to become handicraftsman. Others who did not participated in guilds, cooperated with the guildsmen as their protectors. This diminished the professionalism of the janissaries and caused them to work towards their own interest rather than central state. In other words, guilds were under the protection of janissaries, which were uncontrollable by the central state. On the other hand, the effectiveness of the guilds were highly related to the central authority of the state. Therefore, they were more effective in the capital and surrounding provinces while they were merely symbolic in rural areas. So it can be assumed that guilds were relatively weak in the 19th century. The abolition of Janissaries in 1826 also impacted on guilds and after that moment powerless guilds were only kept by the state in order to prevent major social changes and upheavals. Therefore, following parts in this section are covered without emphasizing the guilds effect on manufactures.
To understand the decline in the Ottoman manufacturing sector, Pamuk’s detailed analysis on the cotton textile manufacturing in the empire provides great explanation. Since cotton textile was considered as the backbone of the Ottoman manufacturing sector. At the end of the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire was an exporter of raw cotton. Imported cottoned products from Europe only corresponded to 3 percent of the total. The production was aimed at domestic markets. In the 19th century as well, Ottoman cotton textile was not competitive in international markets (Keyder, 2014). An important method of production for domestic markets was based on an ordering system. Pamuk states that there is little information about this method, yet it is known that women in rural areas were employed by merchants for cotton spinning (Keyder, 2014, pp. 45-47). There was also a different type of production which was designed for direct consumption. Most of the people in rural areas were producing their own cotton and wool fabrics. The resources for this production were either grown by locals or brought by neighboring provinces. Moreover, Urquhart notes that rural households that were
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living off agriculture, spend one third of the time of agriculture for textile production (Urquhart, 1833, pp. 149-150). In other words, most of the textile production was done in rural areas (Keyder, 2014, pp. 45.47). On the other hand, demand from the cities was supplied by manufacturers in cities, therefore, they were the ones that first got affected by the competition of European industrial production and declined. These were the cities such as Istanbul, İzmir and Macedonia which had strong trade links with Europe. Then this decline spread to other important cities with manufactures such as Bursa and Aleppo. Other parts of the empire were not affected due to lack of infrastructure in transportation. Rural textile production was affected as well, yet not directly from European competition. As it was discussed in the Agriculture part, agricultural production’s commercialization changed rural life. Specialization in agricultural production for markets, disabled rural households to participate in extra lines of work such as cotton spinning. This also prevented households from producing textiles for direct consumption (Pamuk, 2018, p. 125). Thus, Ottoman cotton textile manufactures and non-agricultural production started to collapse. How this collapse affected the Ottoman economy is further reinforced by statistics provided by Pamuk. It is noted that between 1820 and 1914, fabric and cotton yarn imports increased hundred times. Cotton textile imports per capita increased fifty times and lastly, in 1910’s it is seen that 80 percent of the cotton textile consumption was imported (Pamuk, 2018, pp. 118-120).
This did not mean that the Ottoman’s road to industrial capitalism was blocked. Mentioned manufactures cannot be seen as the predecessors of industrial factories. These manufactures were part of the lonca system. Although the loncas were very weak, their characteristics were still present in the production. This meant that there was no accumulation of capital that would lead to further investment which would trigger capitalist development (Keyder, 1984, p. 46). The industrialization attempts of the empire started with the establishment of state factories. First of these attempts were seen in 1840’s, when the state established several factories in Istanbul to fulfill the needs of the palace, army and the bureaucracy. It is noted that this initiation’s main influence
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was Mehmed Ali Pasha’s rapid development and military power it showed several years ago. What Mehmed Ali Pasha accomplished in just a few years pushed the central state to do the same. (Pamuk, 2017). The produced goods of these factories were bought by the state directly, therefore they did not compete with imported products in the domestic market, yet all of them collapsed before 1850’s were over (Pamuk, 2018).
Second wave of industrialization started at the end of the century. This time it was driven by the private sector. Like in the first attempt, tariffs were low so it was a very disadvantageous field for investment. This brings the question of how they emerged. Local production of cotton and low wages combined with high transportation cost, which was a huge competitive factor for imported products, the private sector found an opportunity to build factories. The first one was built in Thessaloniki in 1879, then in Macedonia one year after. They were both cotton yarn factories. Factory in Macedonia was so successful locally that it dominated the local markets. Then cotton yarn factories were started to be built in important cities such as İzmir, Adana and İstanbul. However, their effect remained insignificant as the total production of cotton fabric before the First World War was only 1.000 tons which corresponds to one fiftieth of imports and 1.5 percent of domestic consumption (Pamuk, 2018).
When the case of industry and manufacturing is considered with the developments brought by land code and integration to the world economy, the problems that this sector faced does not look surprising. State’s desire to preserve tributary relations directly and indirectly brought the collapse of the already weak manufacturing sector. As it is discussed in the Land Code and Agriculture section and here, small peasants’ farming for markets disabled them to work in manufacturing as an extra job. Apart from that, the State's reluctance to abolish the lonca system and weak attempts to industrialize the empire caused European products to dominate the market. An important thing to note here is that keeping small peasants as the basis of the production prevented capitalist farming and developments that came with it such as wage labor or migrations from rural provinces to cities to create a work force. As it can be seen the combined development
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of tributary and capitalist mode of productions created a dead end in the development of manufacturing and industry sector, As a result, the contradictions of sociological amalgamations in the Ottoman structure did not allow modern industry to be established and caused the collapse of an important sector, which is manufacturing.
2.6. Foreign Capital and Debt in the Ottoman Empire
One of the most important features of the Ottoman 19th century was the entrance of foreign capital to the empire. The first influx of foreign capitals started with the external borrowing and followed by foreign investments. The effects of the foreign capital were so severe that even in the history of the Republic of Turkey, it plays an important part. Two of the main driving forces of Ottoman- European economic relations were the foreign direct investment and debt. The long period of taking loans from Europeans as well as the commercial bourgeoisie introduced key events and institutions, such as the Public Debt Administration (PDA) to Ottoman history that was known by not only researchers but also the public. Thus, the process of foreign direct investment and loans resulted in dichotomies in the institutions of the Ottoman Empire. In this section, I will focus on how this process emerged, continued and the outcomes.
From what is explained in previous parts, it is known that the Ottoman economy faced different kinds of difficulties in the 19th century and before. Problems of tax collection from agricultural and non-agricultural sources, such as trade, combined with the economic devastation of wars and reforms processes created a huge current account deficit in the economy. To overcome this problem, the state tried to increase its control over tax collection by implementing reforms, internal borrowing and debasement (Pamuk, 2017, pp. 117-118). As the centralization attempts and internal borrowing reached their limits, debasing the currency provided the state considerable amounts of income. However, frequent debasements had both economic and political
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consequences. European investors desired a stable and consistent currency to invest in the empire, therefore, the state was pressurized by European powers to stop debasements (Pamuk, 2018, p.56-57). In 1844, the state obliged and stopped debasements and this pushed them to find another resource. The only solution for the empire at that time was external borrowing. Again in 1840’s, first external borrowing started via Galata Bankers. With the Crimean War in 1854, the Ottoman Empire officially took loans from Great Britain (Geyikdağı, 2011). Following this, the empire continued to take loans frequently in huge amounts and high interest rates. They were mainly spent for the construction of palaces, managing current account deficit, paying bureaucracy’s wages and the construction of a huge navy. Only little was invested for infrastructure and revitalization of the economy (Pamuk, 2017, pp. 119-120). This strategy caused taking even more debts and then the yearly payments of the debts were covered by newly borrowed debts (Tezel, 2015, p. 95). This period of external borrowing continued until the global financial crisis of 1873. After the crisis, it was nearly impossible for the Ottoman Empire to find new sources to take loans. Shortly after, in 1876, the empire declared bankruptcy. Until that time, the Ottoman Empire borrowed 200 million sterling. The yearly payment for both capital and interests was 11 million sterling. Considering the yearly income of the Ottoman Empire, which was approximately 18 million sterling, more than half of the income had to be spent to pay debts (Pamuk, 2017, p. 120).
Declaring bankruptcy and stopping the payments of loans had severe consequences for the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the negotiations with creditors such as France, Britain and Germany, Duyun-u Umumiye (Public Debt Administration) was established in 1881. Public Debt Administration (PDA) is a notorious institution in Ottoman history and this bad fame was given to it for many reasons. The reason for establishing such an institution was to ensure the payments of creditors. The board of directors of the PDA consisted of members from creditor countries, in other words, this institution was the representative of European interest in the empire. The loans taken prior to establishment
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of PDA was structured, even decreased. Payment conditions were regulated (Pamuk, 2017, p. 121). In return, the state has given the control of the collection of taxes on alcoholic beverages, fishing, and stamp duties, monopolies on salt and tobacco to PDA. In 1883, Tütün Rejisi (Tobacco Regie) was founded by foreign capital. Production of tobacco, sale and purchase of cigarettes were monitored by Tütün Rejisi. This company was allowed to act as a monopoly in the tobacco sector and a portion of the profits made by this company was transferred to PDA. After the establishment of PDA and Tütün Rejisi, European capital started to make investments in the sectors that fell under the jurisdiction of these two bodies. PDA focused on increasing the production and efficiency of export-oriented products like silk and tobacco, encouraging export oriented production (Pamuk, 2017). The guarantee provided by PDA allowed the Ottoman Empire to find more loans with lower interest rates in the European Market. PDA even provided kilometer guarantees for railroad companies to attract infrastructure investment; it backed the Ottoman Empire in negotiations regarding the construction of infrastructure agreements. It was far more influential than the government and Tezel states that it was the most important tool of European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, it was a state within a state with more than 8.000 employees in the 1910s (Tezel, 2015, p. 94-96). Thanks to PDA, creditors were able to collect their debts as they were due and because of the investments they made, they managed to extract twice the amount of the debt. Pamuk notes that between 1882 – 1914 Ottoman Empire borrowed 1.8 million sterling yet PDA collected 3.8 million sterling as the payment for these debts (Pamuk, 2018, p. 63).
Another form of foreign capital influx came to the Ottoman Empire by way of direct investment. Especially after the establishment of PDA, foreign capital found it safe to invest in the Ottoman Empire. This type of investment was mainly done to build the necessary infrastructure in the Ottoman lands to expand the reach of trade and create markets. According to Pamuk’s findings between 1888 and 1896, 30 million sterling were invested; this was labeled as the biggest wave of foreign capital investment by
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him. Moreover, between 1905 and 1913, 17 million sterling was invested. The biggest portion of these investments was directed to railroad constructions. Other than railroads, investments were made in construction of ports, banking and insurance sectors to develop the trade in different parts of the empire (Pamuk, 2018, p. 65). Railroads share in these investments also shows the importance of the presence of railroads. First of all, it was the main indicator that drew the borders of imperialist powers’ sphere of influence. Secondly, railways were profitable by themselves because of the kilometer guarantees given by the state. On the other hand, the main reasons for constructing the railroads were the reduction of costs of products and creating markets inlands (Pamuk, 2018, p. 70). Creating markets and providing easy access for European goods to reach even the far corners of the empire, collapsed most of the local artisans and craftsmanship since they could not compete with European mass production. Also railroads that were constructed with foreign capital gave the investor’s countries monopoly on transportation hence preventing other European goods from entering the region. Therefore, imperialist rivalry in the late 19th century sped up the process of railroad construction. For example, German investments in Central Anatolia caused France to increase investment efforts in Syria to match German efforts (Pamuk, 2018, pp. 71-72). After railroads construction, foreign capital was invested in municipal services such as water, electricity, gas and expanding ports. This would allow European capital to be invested in industrial or agricultural production. British efforts to establish capitalist farming in Western Anatolia, which was mentioned in the Agriculture part, is a great example for this case. Keyder argued that municipalities created the physical conditions for commercial bourgeoisie, shaping the lifestyle in cities in accordance with metropoles, which created demand for luxury consumption. In other words, cities such as Istanbul, İzmir and Thessaloniki were Europeanized (Keyder, 1984, p. 61).
Apart from that, there were also internal reasons that welcomed foreign capital investments, especially railroad construction. Previous experiences regarding external borrowing showed that it would only delay the financial problems, therefore to solve it
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the state wanted to increase centralization by building railroad networks. By centralizing the authority further, the state hoped that it could diminish the power of local actors that benefited from surplus extraction, increasing tax revenues. Also empty arable lands could be used due to reduction in costs, this would bring even more taxes and more production for exports (Akarlı, 1976). Reducing the cost of exported products, especially wheat, was also very important for the state, because the Ottoman Empire could not compete with Russian and North American wheat in both global and local markets (Quataert, 1977). Although the tax revenues increased by construction of railroads, kilometer guarantees given to companies took more than that. Pamuk’s research shows that, between 1893-1909 more than 3 million sterling were paid to Anatolia-Baghdad railway, which was more than the collected taxes in the Ankara region (Quatert, 1977).
This section allows us to see the factors that led us to interpret the developments in the 19th century Ottoman Empire as an example of combined development. The series of events that started with the Crimean War, led to the establishment of the Public Debt Administration along with the foreign direct investment to the Empire's land by European Powers. The Public Debt Administration created a dichotomy in the Empire when it was established. A capitalist agent that was also an official institution of the Ottoman Empire. The purpose of this institution was to reinforce the incorporation of the Ottoman Empire to the capitalist world. On the other hand, it was completely conflicting with the other institutions of the Empire that were reformed to preserve to tributary relations. Apart from that, PDA was the main source of legitimacy of the Ottoman Empire in the eyes of Europe. Through PDA, the conflicting institutions were able to secure loans and investments to prolong the survival of the Empire. Moreover, the bureaucracy desired foreign investments in form of infrastructure to increase the amount of arable land in the country and collect more taxes. Therefore, at this point the ruling class was dependent on a capitalist institution’s existence to strengthen the surplus collected from tributary mode of production. It can be said that this is one of the
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most ironic situation in the Ottoman history and a clear case of contradiction of sociological amalgamation created by combined development. Finally, the imperialist rivalry caused Ottoman regions to become separate exclaves rather than a unified economic zone during the transition process. Along with the dichotomous structure of Ottoman institutions not only brought the collapse of the Empire but also different developmental problems that the New Turkish Republic faced in the 20th century.
2.7. The Two Bourgeoisie: Bureaucratic and Commercial Bourgeoisie
The new bureaucracy class in the 19th century played a key role in Ottoman Empire’s social, political and economic life. It is a common observation that the military was always the powerful actor in both Ottoman and Turkish history. In this era, it is seen that the military was also bureaucratized and lost power against rising bureaucracy class. There are different approaches and perspectives in the works done in this field. Each has its different interpretation on the structure of the bureaucratic class and different reasons for their successes and failures. Before examining the different arguments, one must know that the bureaucratic class in the 19th century and before are completely different classes with different backgrounds. Since its establishment, the governing body of the Empire has been the military class (Askeri). Even the title that was given to them was pasha. This was not a big problem since the military could manage governing the country even on horseback as the country they were dealing with insignificant problems of a much smaller country than the Ottoman Empire. The bureaucrats at that time were only tasked with scribing and accounting (Findlay, 2018). On the other hand, they were part of Sultan’s household and resided in the palace with Sultan until 1654, when sadrazam (Grand Vizier) moved to another residence within the city, establishing his own household. This was followed by other administrative offices like defterdar (chief of finance) in the same century (Tabakoğlu, 1985, pp. 40-44). The bureaucrats before 18th century time can be separated into two groups. They were Ulema and
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personnel educated in sultan's household (Göcek, 1996, p. 32). In the 19th century, the most important actors in Ottoman Reforms and bureaucracy were kalemiye, later known as mülkiye.
The arguments that are presented in this part regarding the bureaucratic class of the Ottoman Empire focuses on kalemiye. The main difference between them is the identification of bureaucracy as a class. Keyder and Pamuk identify bureaucrats as a class similar to bourgeois as they extracted the surplus from peasants (Keyder, 2014; Pamuk, 2018). Similarly, Göcek called them bureaucratic bourgeois as they isolated the other classes from the tributary relations and extracted surplus for themselves (Göcek, 1996). On the other hand, Mardin and Findlay classify them as a sort of Aristocratic class (Mardin, 1962; Findlay, 2018). Apart from that, there are important arguments in the bureaucracy's role in Ottoman modernization and transition to capitalism. Keyder and Pamuk claim that the transformation of the Ottoman Empire failed because the bureaucracy did not want to lose its income. As a result, bureaucracy prevented commercial bourgeois to develop which ended up in Ottoman Empire’s integration to world economy as a periphery (Keyder, 1984, pp. 31-47; Pamuk, 2004, p. 235). On the other hand, Weiker states that the bureaucracy could not commit itself to the modernization process although they understood the necessity for it. That is why they did nothing but reform. The reason behind this is explained by Weiker as the indoctrination of Ottoman values and loyalty to the Ottoman system, preventing bureaucracy to modernize the Empire (Weiker, 1968, p. 452).
The seeds of the reformist bureaucracy started to be planted in the 18th century, after the Empire started declining. Military defeats, economic collapse and internal power struggle caused the Ottoman Empire to feel European domination as days passed. The solution was thought to be found in modernizing the military and government of the Empire. As it was mentioned before, III. Selim was the first sultan to try this with the Nizam-ı Cedid (New Order) reforms, yet he was overthrown by the janissaries. II. Mahmut accomplished what he wanted and abolished the janissaries. However,
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reforming the military was not enough. The main and chronic problem of the declining Empire was its decentralizing structure. The main goal of the reforms was the restore the Empire by centralizing all the authority back in the sultan’s household. The separation of administrative officials’ residences from the Sultan's household also separated the governmental transactions from the palace. As well as ayans, sadrazams and other administrative officials were establishing households and creating a challenge to the Sultan's authority. Moreover, candidates raised and trained in these households were appointed in the high offices of the Empire (Göcek, 1996, p. 52). The office-households were large and they were getting bigger and bigger as well as their requirements. As they started to find additional resources for themselves, the sultan's resources started depleting. This led the sultan to confiscate these households’ fiefs and transform them into iltizam. Office-Households continued to find new resources and this attempt was retaliated by Sultan by creating competition between households. The Sultan required the head of households to be in the capital, therefore, these households sent their trained personnel to other parts of the country to conduct their business, which eventually decentralized Sultan's authority more. It was clear that the Sultan required new staff who are better trained and loyal. Combined with the economic and military collapse of the Empire, Sultan established new Westernized schools (Göcek, 1996, pp. 52-61). This was followed by the abolition of the office of sadrazam and establishment of ministries in European style. These ministries were tied directly to the sultan and the palace (Findlay, 2018, pp. 240-241).
The Empire needed qualified officials that had an understanding of European culture and were educated in naval engineering, medicine and military engineering etc. On the other hand, the survival of the Empire was not possible without establishing diplomatic links and connections to European Great Powers (Findlay, 2018, p. 119). This notion became clear with Mehmed Ali Pasha’s revolt and Edirne Agreement in 1829 (Heyd, 1961, p. 92). The desired personnel were to handle European powers diplomatically and oversee the reforms within the Empire. Ulema could not supply the personnel since
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they were not able to comprehend the difficulties the Empire facing. Ahmed Cevdet Pasha who as an Islamic scholar (alim) explains that the ulema of all religious bureaucrats like kadı (judges) were corrupted and make a habit of taking bribes (Findlay, 2018 pp. 82-83). He also shows the inadequate standards by narrating a council meeting between Sadrazam and alims, kadıs. When Sadrazam asked for the opinions and advice of the alims and kadıs. They were unable to advise and tell anything but they obey the sultan. They just demanded to hear what the sultan said and stated that they would obey what the sultan said. It should be noted that this was just an advisory council for sadrazam so the purpose of these alims were to advise sadrazam. (Findlay, 2018, p. 121). Military had no one to fill this need either, yet kalemiye had the personnel to fulfill the needs of the empire in a short time (Findlay, 2018, p. 120). The transfer of Hüsrev Pasha’s authority to Mustafa Reşid Pasha is a clear example of Askeriye’s lack of power and quality for the government of the Empire (İnalcık, 1964, p. 614). As it can be seen, the unevenness caused the Ottoman Empire to make changes in the bureaucracy, combined with the decentralizing authority. In other words, the Empire felt the whip of external necessity. This forced the sultan to adopt the western style military, education and political institutions.
The reformist bureaucracy can be categorized under two different groups. This categorization is made because of the differences between two groups in terms of the period they held the office. The first group was the one who participated in the initiation of the Reform, like Mustafa Reşid Pasha. These groups were not educated in the newly established westernized schools since they were the ones who worked for the establishment of such schools. They were rather the personnel (effendi) of kalemiye. With the decline of the ulema and askeri, effendis were promoted to higher office and became pashas. They were appointed as governors or even as sadrazams. This was a rare case of social mobility in the Ottoman Empire (Itzkowitz, 1962, p. 86; Findlay, 2018, p. 192). The second group was the graduates of the westernized schools who
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carried on with the reformation process and pushed for the first constitution in Turkish history in 1876.
The new bureaucratic class of the Empire started taking control of the Empire especially after the II. Mahmud’s death. Until the ascension of II. Abdülhamid to the throne in 1876, they were hegemonic power in Ottoman internal and foreign politics. Their hegemony was based on three factors according to Findlay. First factor was the weak sultans. Between II. Mahmud and II. Abdülhamid there were no strong sultans to impose their will on the politics of the Empire. The second was the guaranteed positions of the reformist officials in high offices. Before his death, II. Mahmud abolished the practice of yearly appointment to prevent bribery and corruption. This allowed reformist staff to hold the office without the risk of replacement. The third factor was the increasing political power of the reformist bureaucracy. They were able to reproduce their social resources, which were their qualifications and knowledge, to increase their political power and assert their position as the sole supervisor and executors of reforms. The combination of these three factors allowed new bureaucracy to assert their hegemony in state affairs and rule the country for nearly half a century (Findlay, 2018, p. 256; Göcek, 1996). However, their authority was challenged by the other classes in the Empire such as askeri and ulema. Although these two classes were shadows of their previous statuses, they were still economically powerful enough to prevent the implementation of reforms because of the fiefs and offices they held. The civil bureaucracy isolated these two classes from their economic resources, which resulted in losing of their local authority (İnalcık, 1973, p. 100). In addition, madrasas were replaced by new secular westernized schools and religious education was not prioritized until II. Abdülhamid’s reign. This further accelerated the collapse of the ulema. On the other hand, civil bureaucracy expanded to rural areas of the empire institutionalizing its role in every corner of the Empire (Findlay, 2018, pp. 123-127). Promulgation of new laws and codes such as penal code, land code, civil code, maritime and commercial code are the clear showcases of civil bureaucracy’s attempts to insert institutions as the main organizing
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unit of the Empire, replacing the old office-households. These institutions were to be independent and each had a specific purpose to achieve and maintain. Moreover, they were all managed by trained personnel, unlike old office households (Göcek, 1996, p. 70). The conflict between bureaucracy and other two classes also shaped the attitude and policies of the empire. More religious and militaristic attitude was dominant prior to bureaucracy’s hegemony, yet bureaucracy established a more secular, therefore welcoming attitude towards western powers and capitalist integration and its institutionalization. This nature of the transition was more similar to Russian and Italian transition rather than Chinese or Japanese transition. Keyder suggested that bureaucracy made itself an integral part of the transition process and relations with foreign powers so that it would secure its benefits and resources (Keyder, 1984, p. 41).
Bureaucrats that had western style of education, transformed the empire in the late 19th century. This group had differences from their predecessors. First, their understanding of loyalty was different. Sultan’s aim was to create a loyal staff that was completely under his control when he established the Westernized schools. However, education with western values and European ideas, raised a generation who were loyal to the Empire rather than the sultan. They identified their purpose as serving the Empire by being just, fair and contributing to Ottoman society through labor. The new generation even refused to participate in rituals that are designed to show respect for the sultan. Most of the time they were changing the words of the ritual to humiliate the sultan (Göcek, 1996, p. 75). They were not satisfied with the reforms that were implemented in the Empire at that time and desired a more complete transformation, when their desires were not fulfilled they started forming secret organizations, such as Young Ottomans (Göcek, 1996, p. 45). Later, Young Ottomans played an important part in Ottoman history as they helped II. Abdülhamid ascended to the throne and introduced the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire, Kanun-i Esasi. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, a new group was present in Ottoman politics as the Committee of Union and Progress that overthrew II. Abdülhamid in 1909 and
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established the second constitutional monarchy in the Empire. The political and economic developments of this era are discussed in the third chapter of this thesis.
The emergence of a new bureaucratic class directly affected the Ottoman Empire’s development in every aspect. As it is mentioned briefly in the parts before, this class emerged from the whip of external necessity and later moved past their purpose of establishment. They diminished the roles and power of other classes, as well as sultan to some extent, and centralized the resources through new westernized institutions, which they established. On the other hand, the reforms and infrastructure investments that were made during this period were only capitalist in appearance. The bureaucratic bourgeois class used reforms to remove other classes from the surplus extraction scheme and planted itself in the top of the scheme, yet the reforms were never aimed to transform the mode of production itself. Therefore, a new combined structure emerged, a capitalist, institutionalized structure that preserved the old tributary mode of production. Thus, the case of bureaucracy’s evolution in the 19th century led to a case of combined development in the Ottoman Empire. This dichotomy would later result in a contradiction of sociological amalgamation that can be seen as one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (Nişancıoğlu, 2013). Bureaucracy’s strategy to use the inter-imperialist rivalry to maneuver and secure their main source of income resulted in the Ottoman Empire’s half-westernized status.
Another class emerged with the new civil bureaucracy was the commercial bourgeoisie. The first appearance of the commercial bourgeoisie may be earlier than the new civil bureaucracy, yet their rise was at the same period. As one of the two classes that extracted surplus outside the control of sultan. This ability of the commercial bourgeois came from their ethnic status. Since nearly all of the traders and merchants were Ottoman minorities, they managed to secure the benefits of treaties between Ottoman and European Powers. The commercial bourgeoisie and civil bureaucracy was highly involved in the integration of the Empire to the world economy. Although they both favored the integration of the Empire, each group wanted for different reasons and
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desired different approaches to the process. As it was mentioned above, bureaucracy favored integration to secure its place in the surplus extraction and ensure the survival of the Empire without making radical changes in the structure. On the other hand, the commercial bourgeoisie wanted an integration that would change the system and allow them to take bureaucracy’s share as well (Keyder, 1984, pp. 35-39). There are several key features in this period that makes Ottoman transition to capitalism unique case to itself. One of them is the ethnic status of commercial bourgeoisie and their relations with European powers due to their status. In this part, we will see how commercial bourgeoisie emerged, found its place in the surplus extraction scheme and conflicted with the civil bureaucracy. Also the lack of a Turkish-Muslim commercial bourgeoisie and how the ethnic status of commercial bourgeoisie affected the capitalist transition. Investigating this subject will allow us to interpret the debates on the capitalist transformation of the Empire.
As it was mentioned before the treaties like Baltalimanı, Edirne, Küçük Kaynarca and also the capitulations, allowed foreign merchants to conduct their business within the Ottoman Empire by paying small amounts of taxes and tariffs. Furthermore, this benefits were only available for foreign merchants, thus Muslim merchants were unable to compete with them. The treaties also allowed foreign embassies to oversee the commercial disputes of foreign merchants. Ottoman minorities had the cultural capital such as foreign language to work with foreign merchants. Since they were both Christians, foreign merchants were also eager to work with minorities. Also, minorities were mostly located in the major cities such as Istanbul, Izmir and Edirne. In 1833, half of the tax paying population of Istanbul were minorities (Göcek, 1996, p. 93). Apart from that, the 18th and 19th century provided a fertile ground for Ottoman Merchants to be influential in Mediterranean and Middle East trading. Seven Years Wars, French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars caused European powers to impose embargoes on each other, which weakened their merchants. The Ottoman Empire stayed neutral in these conflicts and the merchants enjoyed this neutrality by trading with all belligerents
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of the conflict. Greek merchants amassed considerable amounts of wealth in the Napoleonic Wars (Göcek, 1996, p. 89). The commercial bourgeoisie also had ties with the provincial notables of the rural areas of the Ottoman Empire. These ties emerged from the iltizam system and the attempt to turn subsistence farming to farming for market. First of all, iltizam or tax-farming was directly linked to Galata Bankers since the money from auctions for these iltizams were transferred to Galata Bankers. Secondly, transforming subsistence farming to farming for markets allowed commercial bourgeois to cooperate with provincial notables and transport the goods from rural to major cities than trade it with European merchants. The latter was highly damaging economically for the sultan, for office-households and later the civil bureaucracy. It also threatened the ottoman mode of production that was based on small independent peasants (Keyder, 1984, pp. 33-49; Pamuk, 2015). The Sultan tried to control the trade and restore his shares in the surplus extraction by putting restrictions on trade. However, cooperation between provincial notables and commercial bourgeois easily avoided restrictions and traded illegally (Keyder, 1984). The European trade links allowed commercial bourgeoisie to become citizens of these countries. Keyder notes that thousands of passports were distributed to the Christian population in the Empire (Keyder, 1984, p. 33). This allowed commercial bourgeoisie to enjoy the same privileges as foreign merchants. Thus, they became the main agent of integration to the world economy. The increasing volume of foreign trade destroyed the traditional bourgeois of the cities such as artisans, changing the social structure of Ottoman major cities. Moreover, the European mission of solving the “Eastern Question” included the newly emerged Christian bourgeoisie of the Empire to its project (Keyder, 1984, pp. 47-48).
Commercial bourgeoisie invested the income on their own communities rather than the Ottoman society as a whole. Whether this was a choice or not is another question by itself since minorities were mostly isolated from the Muslim dominant society of the empire.
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The schools that were established by minorities played a key part in imagined cultural homogenization. For example, in the community of the Ottoman Greeks, every young Greek had been taught to embrace two concepts which were his/her family and nation (ethnos) (Göcek, 1996, p. 109).
Therefore, the commercial bourgeoisie as well as the bureaucratic bourgeoisie did not attempt to bring what bourgeois revolution would bring to Ottoman society. In this case, most scholars focused on the ethnic structure of the commercial bourgeoisie. For example, Akçura saw a national bourgeoisie as the basis of a modern state and indicated that there were not any Turkish Bourgeoisie during the Ottoman reign that would pioneer the establishment of a modern state (Göcek, 1996). This analysis was used by CUP to create a new national bourgeoisie in the 20th century Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, Keyder noted the ethnic structure of the commercial bourgeoisie and masked the class conflict between bureaucratic and commercial bourgeoisie. He stressed that the commercial bourgeoisie cannot be labeled as comprador as they were eager to work with the state in the 20th century when they positioned themselves out of European investments and sought political alliance. However, when the European Powers agreed on dismantling the Ottoman Empire, the commercial bourgeoisie based its strategy on the assumption of the collapse of the Empire and state - commercial bourgeoisie alliance did not develop (Keyder, 1984, p. 64). This would bring us to the debate of capitalist transformation of the Ottoman Empire. As it was mentioned in the parts of before, the integration of the Empire to the world economy as a periphery was caused by the bureaucratic class’s actions to limit commercial bourgeoisie’s influence and power within the empire and bureaucracy’s desire to preserve the mode of production (Pamuk, 2015; Keyder, 1984). From what we examined so far, it can be interpreted that this argument has many accurate points. On the other hand, I think that this argument has elements of stagism, which also suggests that the commercial bourgeoisie could have managed the transformation without the bureaucracy’s blockade. For better analysis of this argument, one can take a look at what Brenner wrote about this subject. He indicated
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that the accumulation in non-capitalist societies is realized through geopolitical and political means. In this case, merchants are not the agents of capitalism. They integrate themselves into the process of geopolitical or political accumulation for more profits since they do not invest in production and cut production costs (Brenner, 1985, p. 214).
Conclusion
In the light of all the information that is gathered, examined and analyzed in this chapter of the thesis, one can draw conclusions about the reason behind the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. This chapter of thesis mainly focused on historical events, facts and their analysis with the Uneven and Combined Development. Also, this chapter included the arguments made by important scholars on different topics. Therefore, it would be best to compare and contrast the arguments made by scholars while gathering all of the analysis and review done so far. To start with, On the matter of Baltalimanı Treaty and the initiation of Ottoman Empire’s integration to World Economy, some of the scholars like Tezel stated that this was done by comprador bureaucracy to serve Europeans’ interest (Tezel, 2015). In addition, Mücek states that the aim of signing this treaty was simply to please Europeans rather than the development of the Empire (Mücek 2019, p. 38). From what we gathered in this essay, it can be interpreted that the bureaucracy was serving its own interest when signing the treaty of Baltalimani and initiating the integration of the world economy. As it is stressed in nearly all the sections of this chapter, the most important thing to bureaucracy while implementing the reforms was the preservation of the tributary relations. As it is mentioned by Keyder, bureaucracy negotiated the integration to maintain and secure its own interests and resources which was coming from the tributary relations of production in the Empire (Keyder, 1984). The attempt to preserve the tributary relations of production and the entrance of foreign capital and debts created a unique structure to the Ottoman Empire. As it is stressed in the previous parts of the thesis, this policy of the State created contradictions of
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sociological amalgamations, dichotomy and evidently the case of combined development in the Ottoman Empire. The westernization and the modernization of military, education and bureaucracy directs the researcher to the thought that the Empire was in the process of transition to capitalism. The implementation of various reforms also indicates the same. However, when the reforms are examined, what remains the same strikes more important than what is changed. It is clear that this modernization and westernization are implemented only as a cover for maintaining the old relations of production. While examining the Land Code and Agriculture it is witnessed that Land code was an arrangement that looked like a reform yet not implemented a land reform to initiate a transformation for agriculture. On the other hand, the influx of foreign capital and debts introduced the institution called Public Debt Administration, which created a dichotomous structure in the Ottoman Empire. Apart from that, we witnessed the two segments of bourgeoisie that neither had any desire to transform or modernize society to capitalism. All of these factors was a product of combined development of tributary and capitalist mode of production which created contradictions of social amalgamation that contributed to the collapse of the Empire.
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CHAPTER 3
YOUNG TURKS AND KEMALIST REGIME
3.1. Overview of the End Years of The Empire and Birth of the Republic
The fourth chapter of the thesis focuses on the developments and events that occurred in the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. Examining this period with the understanding of the 19th century developments in the Ottoman Empire allows one to comprehend the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and founding of the New Turkish Republic. The importance of the 20th century presents itself with three key events that left its mark on both global and national history. These are the 1908 Revolution, First World War and the War of Independence. The 1908 Revolution is considered as the first bourgeois revolution in Turkish history by many authors and plays a pivotal role in the transformation of the state. It is also highly relevant to the Ottoman Empire’s inclusion in the First World War, thus its collapse. The Young Turks, later known as the Committee of Union of Progress (CUP) was the main actor in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, the first part of this chapter focuses on the Young Turk, CUP movements. Since the decisions of this movement were directly shaped by the intensifying geopolitical tensions and the inevitable truth of an upcoming world war, the second chapter focuses on the global events and how they affected the Ottoman Empire. The last part briefly focuses on the founding of the New Republic and the legacy of the Ottoman Modernization Experience.
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3.2. Young Turks and the 1908 Revolution
The mark of Young Turks in Turkish History is massive. Even among the public the word “jön” (Young Turks means Jön Türkler in Turkish) is used to describe charismatic people. However, the popularity of the group is a controversial topic among political groups. For a period of time the Kemalist Left in the country approached to CUP skeptically and critically due to the assassination attempt on Atatürk known as Izmir Plot in 1926. However, during the last thirty years, CUP started to be idolized and branded as national heroes by the continuation of the Kemalist Left, known as ulusalcılar (neo-nationalists) (Savran, 2010). Without going into that discussion, it is safe to say that CUP was the predecessor of the Kemalist Movement. As it is mentioned above, the first bourgeois revolution in Turkish History was seen under the leadership of CUP. 1908 Revolution was the most important and the last attempt to transform the Empire into a capitalist state. Unlike the Tanzimat Reforms in the 19th century, the reforms born out of 1908 did not try to maintain old relations of production. The main goal of the CUP was the creation of a national bourgeoisie and a national modern economy. The transformation process in this period shows resemblances “passive revolution” and substitutionism that was mentioned in the first chapter of the thesis. Therefore, while examining and analyzing the final years of the Ottoman Empire under the rule of CUP, I will be referring to the two concepts along with UCD.
Young officers who are educated in Westernized schools and the intellectuals that were exiled by Abdulhamid II were the backbone of the Young Turks. The main common ground that brought all of these people together was the extreme suppression and tyranny of Abdülhamid II. The members of the movement had very different ideas that conflicted; however, the necessity to end tyranny was seen as a higher cause. The common characteristics of the Young Turks are the anti-absolutist and anti-reactionary view of the members. The main two factions among the movement are the Liberals and Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (Ahmad, 1985, p.13). The liberals were in
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favor of a decentralized form of government that allowed minorities to be more autonomous like federalism. On the other hand, CUP was in favor of centralized state and protectionism. However, it should be noted that the CUP did not have an economic agenda in mind in the 1910s, as their main aim was saving the Empire (Keyder, 2014, p. 71). As it is mentioned before, the most important role of the Young Turks was the 1908 Revolution. Before moving on with the revolution one must understand why it was desired by different kinds of groups in the Empire. This brings the topic to the rule or tyranny of Abdülhamid II.
Abdülhamid II became Sultan when the Young Ottomans seized the palace in 1876. The deal between Abdülhamid II and Young Turks was the promulgation of the constitution and the establishment of constitutional monarchy in the Ottoman Empire. Abdülhamid II kept his promise and announced the promulgation of Kanun-i Esasi in the same year (Davison, 1963). In 1878, he revoked the constitution and the first experience of the Ottoman constitutional monarchy ended briefly. For thirty years, he ruled the Empire with an iron fist and gained the nickname of the Red Sultan (Devrim, 1964). Despite the notoriety of the sultan as a reactionary and tyrant, his rule witnessed the most active period of reforms. He saw that reforms were necessary to reinforce its rule, on the other hand, he strictly opposed and crushed any liberal or modern ideas among bureaucracy and staff (Ahmad, 1985, p. 11). The rule of Abdülhamid was called “period of autocracy” for the suppressive and tyrannical actions. The aim of the suppression was to prevent possible Young Turks activities (Devrim, 1964). Apart from the tyrannical rule, the Ottoman Empire was completely crippled during his rule. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 ended in a decisive victory for the Russian Empire and the Treaty of San Stefano was signed between belligerents. This treaty nearly wiped Ottomans from the Balkans. Moreover, provinces in Armenia, Georgia and some parts of the Eastern Anatolia were given to the Russian Empire. Only after the Congress of Berlin some alterations were made in favor of the Ottoman Empire and some of the losses were reclaimed. In economics, the Ottoman Empire declared bankruptcy under the rule of
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Abdülhamid II and the notorious Duyun-i Umumiye, the ultimate tool of European Imperialism, was established in 1881. The economic and military developments that happened under his rule may not be the direct consequences of Abdülhamid’s actions, yet the public suffered from the hardships resulting from these factors during this rule (Ahmad, 1985, p.11).
The Young Turk movement emerged from these conditions to provide a solution. Before the 1908 Revolution, the news and the momentum of the 1905 Russian Revolution and Iran Constitutional Revolution influenced the Young Turk Movement. Apart from that they were also influenced by Meiji Restoration in Japan (Ahmad, 1985, p. 10). The movement was supported by the British as the Young Turks were close with the British Government while the Sultan was strongly supporting Germans and had close relations with them (Keyder, 2014, p. 78). There are different sources that show the triggering event of the 1908 revolution. Faulkner states that the spark of the revolution was the Armenian revolts between 1905 and 1907 (Faulkner, 2016, p. 243). On the other hand, Ahmad states that the meeting between the Russian Tsar and British King in Reval in June 1908. This meeting caused great fear since the movement feared that the Empire would lose Macedonia (Ahmad, 1985, p. 10). The declaration of the revolution was made on 3rd of July. On the 23rd of July, CUP leader Enver Pasha declared that Kanun-i Esasi was re-promulgated. Abdülhamid II announced that the elections would be held and the constitutional monarchy would return, before the movement would depose him. In addition, the sultan appointed new ministers that were respected and honest to prevent Young Turks and CUP from entering the cabinet (Ahmad, 1985, p. 11). The tyranny ended yet the tyrant remained, also CUP was not welcomed in both parliament and cabinet (Faulkner, 2014, pp. 242-245). The declaration of the second constitutional monarchy ended the Young Turk movement, as Liberals and CUP became actors that conflicted with each other constantly. This conflict was so flamed that liberals collaborated with sultan to get rid of CUP from the political sphere (Ahmad, 1985, pp. 10-13). In 1909, Sultan backed reactionary-Islamist groups revolted and demanded the
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abolition of constitutional monarchy and return of the sharia. The revolt did specifically target CUP offices and bureaus in Istanbul. The demands of the revolting group were welcomed and accepted by the sultan immediately. This incident left its mark on the history as 31 March Incident. The revolt was suppressed by the army led by CUP members and ended with the dethronement of Abdülhamid II (Ahmad, 1985; Faulkner, 2014, pp. 242- 245). The following years did not witness stability, prosperity or peace of any kind. The Turco-Italian War and Balkan Wars occupied Ottoman Politics until the First World War. During these conflicts CUP and the Ottoman government turned to the British for their support, however, they never achieved the support they wanted from the British. The first reforms after the 1908 Revolution pleased the British government as they were implemented for the benefit of minorities, yet these reforms further fueled the already active separatist movements in the Empire. British and French projects in the Middle East and the lack of support for protection against Russian threat in the East heavily disappointed the leaders of CUP. This disappointment resulted in an alliance with Germany before the First World War (Keyder, 2014, pp. 77-79). CUP leaders made the final move that ended the constitutional monarchy experience in 1913. The triumvirate known as “Three Pashas”, Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha and Cemal Pasha, raided Sublime Porte and overthrew the government dominated by liberal Freedom and Accord Party. After that moment, CUP was in complete control of the Ottoman Empire (Boratav, 2016, p. 22).
It is noted before that most of the authors identified the 1908 Revolution and the following period as the first bourgeoisie revolution in Turkish History. However, they also note that this was an incomplete bourgeoisie revolution. Boratav even identifies the developments in this era as the “reluctant steps towards national capitalism.” (Savran, 2010, p. 64; Boratav, 2016, p. 21). The CUP was different from the 19th century reformist bureaucracy as they understood the external whip of necessity, which was the transition to capitalism. CUP may be the biggest of actors in the first bourgeoisie revolution but it did not represent the bourgeoisie or any other class in the Ottoman
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Empire (Keyder, 2014, p. 73). On the other hand, Savran noted that the CUP was the first bourgeois revolutionary group in Turkish History (Savran, 2010, p. 107). These were not conflicting arguments. Sylvest clarifies this issue by identifying the CUP as the intellectual class of the bourgeois (Sylvest, 2018, p. 50). To better analyze the issue, one should examine the activities of CUP. As they were aware of the need for transition to capitalism, they worked towards this goal. However, there were roadblocks. These were imperialism (the semi-colony status of the empire), lack of a bourgeoisie class and wars (Boratav, 2016, p. 25). From all we know about the previous parts of this thesis, there was a bourgeoisie in Ottoman Empire, yet they were all non-Muslim minorities. Increasing separatist movements caused CUP to search for a more loyal group of the society, which were Turkish Muslims. This as a result created the idea for the National Economy (Milli İktisat) and the project of creation of a national bourgeoisie (Keyder, 2014, p. 81). To do this CUP assumed the role of entrepreneur of bourgeoisie (Sylvest, 2018, p. 47). After they rose to power (Before the 1913 coup), CUP and Young Turks did not want to make changes in the system. The change should be accompanied by the state according to them. This approach was adopted because of pragmatic reasons, unlike 19th century reformers (Ahmad, 1985). In 1909, Strike Act (Tatil-i Eşgal) was promulgated, which banned workers from striking. Since they saw the creation of an industrial bourgeoisie as an integral part to the survival of the Empire, Industrial Stimulation Law (Teşvik-i Sanayi) was promulgated to encourage the capital owners to invest in the industrial sector. On the other hand, to create the Turkish Bourgeoisie class in the Empire, CUP had to provide a source for primitive accumulation. During wartimes profiteering was a common practice and mostly done by non-muslim merchants in the Empire. CUP used its influence to establish links for muslim merchants to operate in black markets while preventing other’s operations. Cereal transfers and sales are the best way for profiteering in the Empire. Transporting cereals from Anatolia to Istanbul was 75 percent more expensive than transporting them from New York. Wartime conditions made the transportation of cereals from Anatolia necessary and CUP allowed its supporters to bring the cereal to Istanbul and sell with speculative
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prices. By this way, CUP provided emerging national bourgeoisie with conditions of primitive accumulation (Boratav, 2016, p. 29). Most vital move made by the CUP bureaucrats was the abolition of capitulations and the suspension of Duyun-i Umumiye after the World War started. This allowed the state to gain considerable income and destroy one of the roadblocks mentioned before. Increasing resources further accelerated the process of the creation of a national bourgeoisie and CUP bureaucrats started to implement Listian economic policies. The state also changed the administrative staff of the railways and monitored foreign banks strictly to pave the way for the emergence of national bourgeoisie (Keyder, 2014, pp. 82-84). Thus, CUP created a weak yet national bourgeoisie in a short period of time (Sylvest, 2018, p. 50).
All of the developments during that period brings us to the subject of passive revolution. Sylvest notes that passive revolution has two meanings: one is the reorganization of the capitalist state and the second is changing and the expansive role of the state, like modernization and creation of civil society. In this case focusing on the latter would help analyze this case better. Passive revolution as state formation is a project of state elites to establish capitalist hegemony through reforms. To do that it compromises and makes deals with the secondary classes (Sylvest, 2018, p.42). In addition, Gramsci explains passive revolution by a similar description to substitutionism. “where a state replaces the local social groups in leading a struggle of renewal” (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 105-106). It is seen that the Young Turk movement established a common ground for all rebellious groups in the Empire and united them under its movement in the 1908 Revolution. Some parts of the rebellious groups, merchants, capital owners and minorities, were appeased by the implementation of capitalist reforms while Young Turks reinforced their rule with the same reforms (Sylvest, 2018, p. 47). In the light of all the information that is presented in this part and before, it is possible to see substitutionism and passive revolution during this period. The state assumed the role of the bourgeoisie class to create a national bourgeoisie and implemented reforms, subsidies, confiscations and even manipulation in this effort. The efforts of CUP laid
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the foundations of the economic policies of the New Turkish republic that was founded a decade later. In the literature, the actions of Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress are explained by the motive of “saving the state” (Savran, 2010; Keyder, 2014). Although the concept of “saving the state” is criticized and debated, it explains the Ottoman backwardness against Western countries. As the unevenness between Ottoman and the West deepened, an external whip of necessity was felt by the Young Turks and CUP. The external whip of necessity produced by the unevenness led to the 1908 Revolution which was a passive revolution. Sylvest states that the unevenness produced by global capitalism leads to passive revolutions in many cases such as this one and Italian Risorgimento; therefore, by nature the concepts of UCD and passive revolution are highly linked with each other (Sylvest, 2018, p. 42).
In the light of all the information presented, it can be said that the politics of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century are shaped by the chaotic nature of both global and local events. The tyranny of Abdülhamid II and the backward status of the Empire resulted in the 1908 Revolution, which triggered a new wave of modernization in the Empire. Unlike the 19th century reforms, this attempt to modernize the Empire was not focused on preserving the old relations of production. As it can be seen, both Young Turks and later CUP felt the whip of external necessity in order to save the country. However, this did not mean the complete change of the system as CUP tried to transform the Empire with the present mechanism of the state because of pragmatic reasons. The biggest difference of this wave was the decision to create a national bourgeoisie class. Before, it was examined that the bureaucracy prevented the developments of the bourgeoisie in the Empire, since it would limit their access to surplus extraction. CUP as Engels states attempted to create its own “grave-diggers” (Marx & Engels, 1992, pp. 15-16). In most of the period, it is possible to see the marks of substitutionism. As CUP rose to power, it can be seen that the party assumed the role of a bourgeoisie class and acted as the agent of capitalism in the Empire. Moreover, CUP managed to create a national bourgeoisie; however, the usefulness of this project is not possible to be decided in this
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context and period, since the Empire joined the First World War in 1914 and collapsed shortly after. Through UCD and Passive revolution concepts, one can analyze that Young Turks and CUP tried to actually modernize the country since they felt the threat of external powers, in other words, external whip of necessity. Reforms in this period can be considered successful to an extent due to the privilege of being backward.
3.3. The Geopolitics and the Eastern Question
The decline of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in terms of territory, technology and economy was clearly seen. A great power that was feared by the European countries, became too weak to even handle rebellions and liberation movements within its borders. In Chapter 2 of the thesis, it is mentioned that this relative backwardness of the Empire was due to the new developments in the West like the emergence of capitalism and industrial revolution. Ottoman Empire’s inability to catch up with the capitalist developments of the West, turned Ottoman to be a rather passive actor in European politics rather than a Great Power. As the gap between Europe and the Ottoman Empire widened, the Empire had to rely on Europeans help in terms of economic and diplomatic support. As it was mentioned, the new bureaucracy in the 19th century wanted bureaucrats that would secure and maintain this diplomatic support. On the other hand, rise of the Russian Empire with Peter the Great and Catherine the Great created a new and serious threat for Ottoman territory in both Balkans and Anatolia. Ensuing defeats against the Russian Empire not only caused territory losses but also loss of authority over its own minorities. The Russian pressure became so intense that European Powers such as Britain and France started to be involved in these matters. Thus emerged the Eastern Question. In this part, the developments in European politics and the Eastern Question are examined.
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The end of the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century created an environment of fear in Europe. The European powers did not want another revolutionary movement that would cause chaos in the continent. In order to prevent this, the Congress of Vienna was held between 1814 and 1815, where all countries agreed to crush any new revolutionary action and keep the balance of power in Europe (Olson, 1991). In this meeting, the Eastern Question was seen as a domestic issue for the Russian Empire (Phillips, 1914). After that moment, Russian influence in both the Balkans and Ottoman Empire increased dramatically, even to the point that Ottomans called for aid to Russians to suppress the rebellion of Mohammad Ali. Of course, Russia rarely presented itself as an ally of the Ottoman Empire. Several wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, resulted in the carving up of Ottoman territories by Russia. Apart from that, Russia supported the independence of Greece and became the protector of the Orthodox minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Especially Nicholas I’s ambitions towards taking Istanbul and Balkans created unrest among Western European countries, particularly the British. A black sea region dominated by Russia was not desired by Western Europeans. The Eastern Question transformed to a point that it would destroy the balance of power designed in Congress of Vienna (Tansel, 2015, pp. 502-503). In 1853, the famous Crimean War started between the alliance of Ottoman, French and British against the Russian Empire. With the help of the British and France, Russia was defeated and its threat towards the Ottomans in Black Sea region was destroyed. At the end of the war the Treaty of Paris was signed, which included Ottomans into the design of Congress of Vienna. European Powers agreed to respect and support the integrity of the Ottoman Empire (Figes, 2010, pp. 432-433). For the British the Eastern Question became the case of their hegemony. Ottoman territory covered an integral part for the route of the British colonies, especially Gulf of Persia and Mesopotamia. By protecting these key locations, the British would keep India secure. This was only possible by keeping Ottoman intact (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 206). Moreover, increasing British influence in Ottoman economics with the treaty of Baltalimanı enabled British merchants to turn the Ottoman Empire to a useful stop for profits (Marx, 2005). Rise of
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Germany shifted the global balance of power, therefore; transformed the Eastern Question. As a late comer Germany had to catch up with the colonial power of the British and French. Ottoman was the perfect pick for Germans since it would allow them to reach Asia and the Middle East (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 205). As it is already discussed, since its unification Ottoman Empire and Germany were on good terms. Especially after the CUP’s disappointment in Great Britain, Germany was seen as the only reliable ally for the Ottoman Empire. Good relations between Germany and Ottoman Empire resulted in increasing German investments in Ottoman Territory, big projects such as Baghdad Railway was built with German capital (See Chapter 2). Increasing German influence was disturbing for Great Britain and caused a shift in its policies towards the Ottoman Empire. Once, Great Britain desired to keep the Ottoman Empire intact to protect its colonies in Asia but after the rise of Germany, history witnessed a series of different strategic moves made by the British. In 1878, the Ottoman Empire granted control of Cyprus to Great Britain in return for British support in the Congress of Berlin, which was held after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 (Solsten, 1991). After that, in 1882, British forces occupied Egypt and established control over the Suez Canal, which was a crucial route to colonies in Asia. Thus, the British no longer needed the Ottoman Empire. Apart from that, increasing German and French influence in Ottoman Markets diminished the role of British merchants and the trade volume between two countries. Germany’s integration to the equation of the Eastern Question also resulted in the alliance between Great Britain and Russia, which was an unlikely thing to happen if it were not for Germany. Before the First World War, Triple Entente was formed between Russia, France and Great Britain. French and especially Russian ambitions towards Ottoman territory can be seen as another reason for British reluctance to keep the Ottoman Empire intact, since it wanted to appease its allies and secure their loyalties in a war to come with Germany (Nişancıoğlu, 2013, p. 206).
Understanding the changes in domestic and foreign policies as well as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is not possible without comprehending the geopolitical context of
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the region in the 19th and 20th century. I suggest that UCD provides great insight to spot the shifts in Ottoman policies since it arms us with the useful concept of whip of external necessity. Germany’s arrival to inter-imperialist rivalry and shift in Ottoman foreign policy towards Germany sealed the fate of the Ottoman Empire. When all the developments in the Ottoman Empire are considered from the 19th century to 20th century. It is easy to see how geopolitical concerns, in other words, the whip of external necessity shaped Ottoman modernization. Training new personnel to secure the interests of the Empire in diplomacy corresponds exactly for this need of the Empire. Unevenness between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers caused the Ottomans to see diplomacy as a matter of survival and the training of new diplomats. This new staff played a key role in both the 1908 Revolution and alliance negotiations with both British and Germans afterwards. Therefore, this part shows that understanding the Ottoman Empire’s collapse cannot be achieved without excluding external factors, as they were influential in the internal politics of the Ottoman Empire. In this case, it is possible to explain the effects of geopolitical tensions on Ottoman state’s both domestic and foreign policies.
3.4. Towards the Republic of Turkey
The First World War ended in 1923 for Turkey, when the Republic was established and its status legitimized by other nations with the Treaty of Lausanne. Although the Sultanate was abolished and the Republic was founded, the new government inherited not only Ottoman debts but also the war-torn economy. Most of the scholars who wrote about this era saw the Kemalist regime as the continuation of CUP when it comes to socio-economic policies. Therefore, it would be wise to consider the developments made in this era with consideration of the developments made in the pre-war era. The Republic of Turkey’s first twenty two years passed under the rule of one party, CHF. This era of the republic is divided under three periods categorized by the economic
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policies implemented. The first period lasted from 1923 to 1929. This period shows its difference as liberal economic policies were more dominant. After that Transition period begins which covers the years between 1929 and 1932. In this period, the state starts to interfere in the economy and mixed economy policies become more visible. The last period is the Etatist period where the state assumes the role of capitalist instigator and drives the industrialization and capitalization project (Boratav, 2016). The characteristics that shaped these periods are both internal and external factors such as the Great Depression. Therefore, while discussing these periods equal importance is given to what was inherited by the Ottoman Empire as well as the Global events.
The end of the Independence War was officialized with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. Other than being the document of the Independence of the Republic, two major points in this treaty affected the Republic from various angles. These were the population exchange with Greece and maintaining the levels of tariffs set by the Ottoman Empire until 1929. The population exchange included the exchange of Greeks living in Turkey to Greece and vice versa. The only exception was the Greek people living in Istanbul. The lands that the Republic was founded on had already lost most of its Armenian population in the first twenty years of the 20th century. With the execution of population exchange, the demographics of the newly founded Republic have drastically changed (Pamuk, 2017, p. 166). Demographic change caused many changes in socio-economic and cultural life. As it was mentioned in the parts before, the part of society that was part of the capitalist relations consist mostly of minorities in the Ottoman Empire. In other words, with this demographic change, Turkey lost most of its commercialized, export- oriented farmers, artisans, merchants, and moneylenders. Moreover, these people were the link between Anatolia and Europe for centuries (Pamuk, 2017, p. 166). The land and the wealth taken from the minorities were distributed to the immigrants that flowed to Anatolia. From these migrants, the state wanted to create a new bourgeoisie. These migrants were the Muslim families that were educated in Europe or Russia (Keyder, 2014, pp. 104-105). Maintaining the levels of
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tariffs set by the Ottoman Empire, limited the capabilities of the state to establish the foundation of the economy. Until 1929, the economy was mostly open and like in the times of the Ottoman Empire, it mainly exported basic agricultural products. The efforts to industrialize the nation remained at minimal levels. However, tariffs were not the sole reason for the situation of the economy. The Ottoman Bank was still effective until 1930 and continued printing money, moreover the war caused the destruction of the agriculture workforce by twenty percent (Keyder, 2014,p. 112).
What made this period important for the Republic was the political reforms. Like the other latecomer in the 19th century, Turkey’s modernization ideology was nationalism (Keyder, 2014, pp 112). The main aim of the state was to reach the level of contemporary civilizations (Balkan & Savran 2002, p. 30). To do that, the new regime focused on the modernization of the society by secularization. Abolition of the caliphate, Alphabet reform, the hat act, adoption of Swiss civil code and Italian Penal code were all aimed towards this goal of the new regime. It was also desired that by changing the alphabet and introducing the “Sun Language Theory '' to Turkish academia, the new regime, especially M. Kemal Atatürk, aimed to create a history that was great yet independent from Ottoman heritage. However, these reforms did not penetrate to the rural areas of the nation. Through the establishment of “Village institutions'' the regime tried to work on these reforms to rural parts (Jurcher, 2020, pp. 206-228). As it can be understood, according to the Kemalist regime was the salvation of the nation in westernization. This was necessary to prevent another period of subordination against European Powers. In this case, it is possible to see the “turn foe into tutor” approach, just like in the Tanzimat period. On the other hand, this was not an easy thing to do since this process could easily be led to Western Mandate. To prevent such an issue Kemalist ideology combined nationalism with anti-imperialism and claimed that the Western nation threatens the republic’s national unity and sovereignty (Jurcher, 2020, pp. 206-228).
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3.5. Transition and Etatism
After the semi-involuntary period of liberal economy, the state implemented more protectionist policies. The policies of the period until 1929 remained disappointing in terms of industrialization. On the other hand, what made the change in policies necessary was the Great Depression that dragged the world economy to turmoil (Boratav, 2016, p. 63). Turkey was affected by the Great Depression as it was integrated into the world market and exported cereal. The effects of the crisis were most felt in export oriented agricultural farms rather than small farmers who produce for subsistence. (Mücek, 2019, p. 278). Because of the Great Depression, prices of raw materials decreased more than industrial products. In these circumstances, maintaining a liberal foreign trade policy would decrease the purchasing power of export-oriented sectors while crippling the volume of imports. (Boratav, 2016, p. 63). By implementing protectionist policies, the state aimed to boost exports by implementing import substitution policies and balance the current account (Boratav, 2010, p. 395). The case of the Great Depression can be seen as an external whip of necessity for Turkey. The whip also presented an opportunity for industrialization and diversification of the economy. The first step was to regulate the foreign trade. State did not assume the position of capitalist instigator. On the other hand, bureaucrats did make a clear cut distinction between domestic and foreign economic policies. This created a protectionist system with a free domestic market (Boratav, 2010, p. 359). In 1932, the state adopted etatist policies to boost industrialization. Boratav states that during the same year Turkey also managed to balance its trade deficit for the first time. He sees this as a progress and success of ISI policies (Boratav, 2010, p. 360). However, this balance was achieved because of the Great Depression and did not mean economic development. As it was mentioned before, industrialization levels were disappointing while the economy grew. Turkey needed import to industrialize however, the decreasing level of import after the Great depression caused the industrialization process to slow down. In the
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years of protectionism and etatism it is seen that the foreign capital flows to the economy was limited but not restricted. Nationalization of railroads and other institutions were also seen in this period (Selik, 1961). It was also possible to see European capital entering the Turkish economy by creating partnerships. (Tezel, 1977) The key characteristic of this period was the state’s role as the driving producer and investor. The state made notable and ambitious investments in industry and mining sectors. All kinds of private investments to these two sectors were not restricted yet required special license from the state (Boratav, 2010, p. 363). As a result of these policies GDP grew 9.1 percent between the years of 1933-1939. Industrial growth rate was calculated as 8, 5 percent before 1933 and after 1933 it was 10, 2 percent. It is stated that when the world capitalist economy was suffering its greatest crisis, the Turkish economy managed to close its borders and achieve notable economic growth (Boratav, 2010, p. 368). However, this economic growth stopped with the start of the Second World War. In the light of all the information that is presented in this part, it is safe to say that the reformation and the development processes of the Republic of Turkey was shaped by internal and external factors heavily. With UCD it is possible to analyze this period accurately. The first thing that catches the eye in this period is the rapid industrialization of the country. As industrialization was seen as a key feature to independence for the Kemalist regime, the motivation to industrialize was a whip of external necessity. How this industrialization was managed in a short period of time brings the issue of privilege of being backward. During this period, the Soviet model highly influenced the Turkish state. As two countries had somewhat cordial relations, the Turkish state invited a Russian delegation led by professors and engineers for field research. Reports given by the Russian delegation became one of the most important pillars of Turkish industrialization as this report gave important insights on the industrial potential of Anatolia, which was the least developed part of the country (Savran, 2010). On the other hand, the mimetic aspect of UCD shows itself in the topic of adoption of Swiss civil code and Italian Penal Code. By borrowing from other countries, the Kemalist regime
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managed to westernize and modernize the country, which was a clear case of turning foe into a tutor and eventually combined development. Another important thing to be noted in this period is the issue of substitutionism. As it is seen, in this period the state was the main investor and driving force of capitalist transition both on the political and economic front. The new bourgeoisie that was started to be created during CUP times did not possess necessary influence to be the driving force of transition to capitalism. Even if it had, the new bourgeoisie always preferred the side with the state and enjoyed the privileges that were given. Therefore, in this period the reforms and development that were expected to be done by the bourgeoisie theoretically were achieved by the state, which was a clear example of substitutionism in one party era.
Conclusion
In this chapter I focused on the developments of the early 20th century Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey through the concepts of passive revolution and Uneven and combined development. Thanks to these two concepts, one can thoroughly analyze and understand the reasons behind the dramatic change in Ottoman state’s policies’ and social movements. In this chapter, we saw that the events that started with the overthrow of Abdülhamid II were not caused only by his tyrannical rule but also the concern of external powers. The meeting in Reval acted as a whip of external necessity for the Young Turks and triggered a massive social upheaval that would ascend them to the Ottoman Parliament. On the other hand, continuous economic and military decline also worked as an external whip of necessity and resulted in CUP’s coup d’etat in 1913. The developments under the CUP’s rule showed us that the concept of passive revolution is highly relevant to this case. CUP declared itself as the driving force of capitalism and assumed the role of a national bourgeoisie class that did not exist in the Empire. By using the power of the state, it tried to create a national bourgeoisie and transform the country. It is not possible to see the fruits of this attempt since the Ottoman Empire
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joined World War I and collapsed after the end of the war. However, one can see a similar approach made by the Kemalist Regime after the Republic of Turkey was founded. Concepts of substitutionism and passive revolution were clearly visible during the Kemalist regime since it also assumed the role of the bourgeoisie class and tried to modernize the country through a series of reforms. By using the privilege of being backward, a great leap in modernization efforts were made by this. Also by using the strategy of turning foe into tutor, the Kemalist regime managed to adopt Swiss Civil code and Italian Penal code to westernize the country as well the rapid industrialization of the country thanks to the mimetic aspect of UCD.
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CONCLUSION
After analyzing the Ottoman and Republic’s transition period to capitalism with Uneven and Combined Development Theory, I would like to discuss the benefits of using UCD theory in this study. In this part I would like to briefly mention on mainstream arguments about this topic that are made by scholars who interpreted the topic. As it was mentioned in the parts above, the mainstream theories that are used while examining this subject and era are modernization theory and World Systems theory. Therefore, this part will focus on what these two theories misses while analyzing this subject.
The modernization theory, has a positivist, linear and progressive understanding of history and bourgeois political economy. According to this theory, the main reason for the backwardness is not the capitalist world system, but insufficient modernization. Therefore, modernization theory suggest two roads for the modernization process of Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey. Either destroyed by the already modernized western countries or adopt their ways and become modernized. The Kemalist revolution is interpreted as the second choice in this regard. While explaining the transition period and reforms, the religion of Islam and western ideology plays an important part in the arguments of modernization theory especially in Lewis’s arguments according to Nişancıoğlu. Since Islam is seen as a religion that cannot be reformed and the Ottoman Empire is the embodiment of Islam, reforms cannot be triggered from within and therefore should have come from outside. Moreover, to explain the change in the Ottoman Empire, this arguments claims that the Ottoman intellectuals that were educated in Europe, become the champions the change and bringer of reforms in order to restore the Empire to its former glory. (Nişancıoğlu, 2011, pp. 22 – 24).
On the other hand, World System Theory presents different arguments and analysis in this subject. World System Theory, completely excludes internal social relations and explains the process of modernization through external reasons and incidents.
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According to this theory, the Non-European Societies are static, in other words, there isn’t internal drive that would bring any social change. It claims that, hierarchical order in world system and relations of power and exploitation supports the process of modernization. Therefore, in order to develop, this non-European societies should be integrated to the world system and become part of a capitalist system which would eventually trigger the capitalist transformation of their society. WST explains that the Ottoman Reforms were actually a part of peripheralisation process that was coercive. Thus, Moreover, Reformists of Tanzimat, Young Ottomans, Young Turks and Kemalists are seen as different variants of a same agency (Nişancıoğlu, 2011, p. 37). WST suggests a linear reading for Ottoman process of transition to capitalism.
Uneven and Combined theory allows us to deeply analyze the evolution process of the Ottoman Empire in 19th century. Thanks to UCD, we can understand the failure of Tanzimat Reforms and modernization process more thoroughly. Firstly, from this study we can interpret that Uneven and combined development theory establishes that not every country has to go through the same historical stages. It shows that history progresses not in a linear fashion like a straight line, but in leaps. It shows that advanced and backward economic and political structures develop via combination through interacting with other societies. Therefore, reading the Ottoman case of transition to capitalism and modernization from the perspective of Modernization and World System Theory prevents one to catch the details of economic collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the agents of social change. Along with this part throughout the thesis, I mentioned that some of the scholars saw Baltalimanı Treaty and Ottoman reforms as a practice that was either forced by Western powers or done by compradors in the bureaucracy. Moreover, Baltalimanı is shown as one of the biggest the reasons that prevented Ottoman economic development, since it imposed fixed tariffs and turned Ottoman economy into a free market. By looking at this subject with UCD, it is seen that the signing of Baltalimanı treaty and following reforms were done to secure the Empire’s survival. By signing the treaty, the state ensured the foreign the protection of Western
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Powers and through reforms, it managed to centralize its authority. On the other hand, Baltalimanı treaty and reforms did not prevent the adoption of capitalism. Quite the contrary, it was the trigger that started the transition to capitalism. In the Second Chapter of the thesis, it is seen that failure to adopt capitalism is because of bureaucracy’s reluctance to abolish tributary mode of production. Because of this reluctance, the effects of transition showed differences in the different parts of the Empire and caused different development levels in the country. This reluctance also resulted in the combination of capitalist and tributary mode of production. Until CUP, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie did not allow commercial bourgeoisie that would become the driving force of capitalist transition. Therefore, it can be said that the Ottoman Empire was not coerced into this process. On the other hand, it can interpreted that the agents of modernization between 19th and 20th century were not similar to each other. It only be said that Kemalists continued the processes left by CUP.
To sum up, in this thesis UCD allowed me to focus on both internal and external factors of Ottoman transition to capitalism and modernization without reducing one to each other. Thanks to UCD, it is possible to clarify some of the aspects that other theories overlooked, such as the combined development of tributary and capitalist mode of productions in the Empire, and provide a different perspective about mainstream arguments, such as the reasons behind failure to adopt capitalism and the nature of the agents of social change in 19th and 20th century.
In this thesis I tried to provide a new perspective to the Ottoman Empire’s modernization process and interactions with European countries in the 19th century and how this process affected The Republic of Turkey. To do that I mainly focused on the Empire’s transition to capitalism and the changes that transition brought in Ottoman economic and socio cultural life by analyzing the case with Uneven and Combined Development theory. Unevenness is the main and systematic characteristic of capitalism and imperialism. Therefore the incorporation to the world needed to be analyzed at both local and international level. This not only allowed readers to read the Ottoman case
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from a different angle but also reveal the problematic aspects of the mainstream theories and well known deductions regarding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. These include the stagist and eurocentric point of view that has strong roots in every mainstream theory, even Marxism. After approaching the subject with UCD, it is evident that waiting for proper stages of development to be achieved to reach a certain level of development did not prove useful for most countries. In the Ottoman case, the state saw the decline of the Empire and chose to adopt western ways to ensure its survival. The aim to survive was the whip of external necessity for the empire and through this the state enacted reforms to westernize the empire. The same necessity was present after the founding of the Republic. The Kemalist regime saw industrialization and capitalization of the country as a key to survival. In this case, due the privilege of being backward, Turkey reached a level of industrialization that has never been reached in a short time. The Kemalist regime never waited for the bourgeoisie to mature enough to influence the decision making of the state. Quite the contrary, the state assumed the role of bourgeoisie and became the capitalist instigator. As it was mentioned in the last part, this was a case of substitutionism. It would not be wrong to state that substitutionism emerges as stagism fails.
Apart from that UCD proved much useful to re-evaluate the dominant arguments on why the Ottoman Empire fell or stuck underdeveloped. In the introduction part, I focused on some of these arguments which suggest that Ottoman decline was a result of Asiatic Mode of Production, weak merchant class, Islamic Law, incompetent sultans or comprador bureaucracy. While it would be wrong to claim that these arguments are wrong, through UCD it is possible to see that they only showed only a part of the reason behind the decline of the Empire. Throughout this thesis and my research I witnessed an Ottoman Empire which was resisting and accepting the change at the same time. In other words, it was trying to ensure its survival by adapting to the changes of the century, yet the state wanted to be the one who controlled the change. This autonomy was possible in the Ottoman case unlike the other colonial nations since the Ottoman Empire
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was a sovereign state. Because of this, the integration process went on through negotiations between the Ottoman Empire and Western Powers. The privileges that were given to European Powers like in the Baltalimanı Treaty started the transition and European demands to reform the Empire advanced the process like in the Land Code and Tanzimat Reforms. However, the state resisted at crucial points. The most important point was the tributary mode of production. Neither powerful Sultans like Mahmud II nor the bureaucratic class desired to change the tributary system of the Empire and lose the taxes that were gathered from small peasants, which was considered as the backbone of the Ottoman economy by many scholars. This reluctance to change halted the capitalist transformation of the Empire economically while other reforms prepared the country for capitalist transition. Thus the process resulted in contradictions of sociological amalgamations, dichotomy and evidently the case of combined development in the Ottoman Empire, which paved the way for the collapse of the Empire.
Moreover, in this thesis it is possible to see that UCD also allows us to analyze the attempts and efforts to “save the country”. Concept of Passive Revolution also provides an integral part of this analysis. Throughout this thesis it was mentioned that UCD and passive revolution are complementary to each other. Especially while analyzing the attempts of non-capitalist countries to transition to capitalism. In the case of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, this was visible in Young Turks and Ittihat Terraki’s rule and later in the Kemalist regime. We saw that in all of these cases groups that controlled the state, used the state to assume the roles of other classes, most importantly bourgeoisie, in other words this was a case of substitutionism. This also fits Gramsci's explanation of passive revolution in which he “where a state replaces the local social groups in leading a struggle of renewal” (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 105-106). As it can be seen, the Kemalist regime’s actions to modernize the country through a series of civil reforms between 1923 and 1929. According to stagist theories, these reforms should have been done by
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a bourgeoisie class yet in this case the state was the driving force of the civil reforms. Furthermore, industrialization of the country was also handled by a similar approach.
To conclude, uneven and combined development theory allows to bring a new perspective to the reading of late Ottoman and early Turkish history. Through this theory, one can analyze the events that occured in the 19th and 20th century without falling to the traps of eurocentrism and stagism. UCD always reminds us that unevenness is the most general law of history and countries do not share the same level of development. Due to this unevenness, interactions between societies create combined development that are unique, as it was in the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, every case just like this should be analyzed and evaluated within its own context not by preset rules or assumptions. With UCD one can bring a fresh analysis and provide new arguments to the Ottoman transition to capitalism and founding of the Republic of Turkey.
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