" Long live Vladmir Iliych Lenin! Long live Gazi Mustafa Kemal !"

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), May 26, 2007 at 18:15

Dear Pat ,

I agree with your conclusions but I am forced to see one important detail in a different ligjht.

> They simply feared domination by the Soviets after the Russian Revoluion of 1917 and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. They sat on prime real estate in the eastern Mediterranean and so were coveted by both Europeans and Russians. It's all about location, location, location.

You'e not right , I am afraid. As Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed in Smapsunt in May 1919 and started organizing his rebel army , he was politically isolated , had no allies, no money , almost no machine guns , no ammunition , no cannons. Do you know where he got all those things - including brilliant military advisors - from ? From Lenin's Soviet Russia which was the first country to maintain mutual diplomatic relations with new Turkey centred around Kemal . Mikhail Frunze was a leading general in Kemal's army . The Greeks were smashed (against all probability ) in the battle on the Sangarios (some 80 km east of Ancara) because the Kemalists had received Soviet rifles , cannons and machine guns and gold over Batumi . The story of Soviet-Tukrish military , economic and diplomatic collaboration began early in 1920 with an exchange of kind letters between Lenin and Kemal Pasha. In 1925 the Soviet Union renewed the treaty of friendship and alliance with Turkey . Frunze is a honorary citizen of Turkey. The slogan I included in the title comes from those early years of true friendship between the two dictators.

The situation changed later under Stalin , but I don't think because the Soviets were so aggressive towards their former protege. Turkey preferred to abandon her former saviour and approached the West. It still had her Pan-Turkish dreams which were revived after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Having said that I agree with the rest of your conclusions, especially the last one (even though I'd rather move the date a few years ahead ) :

> The one question is how long it will take for American elites to get the message and stop living in 1924.

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