The State of Labour in Turkey, 1919-1938

Abstract

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.