Rethinking the Turkish socialist left’s perceptions of the US and USSR after the Second World War: an analysis of leftist publications

Abstract This article challenges conventional opinions that assume ever-presence of anti-Americanism among Turkish socialist leftist groups and that sees the Marxist account of the international as must-be theoretical tool of socialist leftists by investigating how they perceived the US and Soviet Russia during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as well as how they evaluated the pre-Second World War world order and changes in global politics after the war. It finds that leftists considered the existing inter-imperialist rivalry-driven international structure to be the main cause of world wars but expected that the US would replace it with a cooperation-based structure that would lead to lasting peace. They characterized the US as a peacemaker, as an anchor for democratization in Turkey, and saw the USSR as being pro-peace and viewed with suspicion Soviet demands for land from Turkey. Lastly, the article explores socialist leftists’ eclectic theoretical framework, which was a combination of imperialism theory, realism, and liberalism, as a window onto their views of international relations.