Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen Heft 33
Özgür Gökmen: The State of Labour in Turkey, 1919-1938
The dissimilarity between the labour movements in Turkey and Western Europe is admitted
to a great extent. The Turkish case is frequently interpreted as a divergence from the classical
pattern resulting in assessments diminishing the role of these movements. Nonetheless, new
insights by historians working on various cases in the semi-periphery help us to re-appraise
this often non-disputed fact. This paper does not set as an aim to re-evaluate the history in the
light of these new insights, but only attempts to provide a review of these insights and an outline
of the state of labour in Turkey at the beginning of the last century.