Fantastic Crisis

"It would be nice if Turkey were a republic"--thus wistfully thinks President Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

Does anyone doubt this? Curious goings on at Angora last week proved it again up to the Turkish scimitar's hilt. At no end of trouble and no small risk to himself Dictator Kemal, the apostle of "Europeanization" who made Turks take off the fez and put on the hat, provided his beloved country last week with what every real European republic has: a multi-party system, and its result, a crisis.

There has been no "crisis," no ousting of the Prime Minister by hostile Turkish Parliamentary votes, for many a year; because there has been only one Parliamentary party -- Kemal's. Leading citizens who might have opposed the Dictator were cleaned out in one big batch four years ago (TIME, Sept. 6, 1926). hung from peculiar Turkish tripod-gibbets by the neck until dead. This was done on the theory that the executed were "Enemies of the Revolution"-- much as batches of counter-revolutionaries are being shot today in Russia (see p. 20). In Turkey as in Russia the one-party system seems to have worked well (from the standpoint of stability of the regime) but abruptly two months ago Dictator Kemal, a man of lightning-flash ideas which terrify his friends, decided that Turkey must have at least two parties, resolved to create an Opposition to himself.

Who should lead the new Opposition party? His Excellency Ali Fethi Bey. appointed by Kemal Turkish Ambassador at Paris, was recalled. With dazzling celerity a by-election was arranged last week at Smyrna to elect Fethi to Parliament. By order of Prime Minister Ismet Pasha, who was going to be ousted by the coming "crisis." Smyrna police used whips on the rabble to make them turn out at the polls. They could vote, the police told them, either for an obscure and locally unpopular candidate offered by Dictator Kemal's own "Peoples' Republican Party" or for the eminent and honored Fethi Bey, founder-candidate of the new "Liberal Republican Party." When some of the rabble began to howl "Bread, bread!", protesting that in their misery they did not want to vote, police lashes curled, cracked. His Excellency Fethi Bey was triumphally elected. Next day 15 Kemalist Deputies deserted the President's party as ostentatiously as possible, announced that after communing with their consciences they had become ''Liberal Republicans" instead of "Peoples' Republicans."

At this point, with the Opposition created, all seemed ripe for the crisis, but canny Fethi Bey decided to play super-safe. Not wishing to wake up some morning on a gibbet by mistake, the Leader of the Opposition harangued Parliament, proposed that the Deputies elect Mustafa Kemal Pasha--"our Glorious Ghazi, our Victorious One"--to be president of Turkey for life. (His second four-year term expires in 1931).

Replied the Victorious One, mystic, wistful: "The proposal to make me President of the Turkish Republic for life runs utterly counter to my ideal. The precedent of a lifetime presidency must never be established! The complete sovereignty of the people is inherent and must always prevail in republican regimes."

Immediately Opposition Leader Fethi Bey opened fiery attack on Prime Minister Ismet Pasha who, though of course retaining a majority in Parliament, at once resigned. There was talk that Fethi would be made Prime Minister--but the Victorious One did not rush to this extreme. Having heard that in real republics, during a real crisis the President "sends for and consults the leaders of the Opposition," Kemal sent for and consulted Fethi. Next day short, hard-eyed General Ismet, who must have spent a nervous night wondering whether the Glorious Ghazi intended to doublecross him, was summoned to the Presidential Palace.

Was there an exchange of winks? Probably not, but possibly. Kemal and Ismet are co-heroes of the Turkish Revolution, might be called their country's Lenin and Trotsky. Gravely the newsorgans of Angora announced that the President of the Republic, having taken advice and counsel, found that His Excellency Ismet Pasha is alone competent to guide the nation through these difficult times, and asked him to form a Cabinet. It was learned "on the very highest authority" that General Ismet, in conference with "leading politicans." was finding it quite possible to form a Government.

Oddly enough one of Turkey's greatest statesmen thought so little of Kemal's fantastic crisis last week that he chose to be traveling in Russia. Undoubtedly the knowing men of Moscow winked at small, squint-eyed Foreign Minister Tewfik Rushdi Bey; and probably behind his incredibly thick glasses he winked back.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.