ABSTRACT

Might the history of socialism in Turkey be read as the history of “ostracism” and “proscription” of the socialists from the political system? On the other hand, might the socialists in Turkey be considered as a (one of the) outsider(s) or political (one of the) enemy/enemies? This article wants to answer these questions and focus on the problem of how Turkish socialists affect the political system, while they are in mainly the outside of the system. The main argument of this article is that the socialists can be considered as an outsider/public enemy of Turkish political system by the bureaucratic elite, but social relations occurred in the non-political institutions of Turkish society have given opportunities to the socialists for affecting the political system. In other words, nonpolitical social institutions and daily social relations occurred in these institutions have been the only space for the socialists to be politically active and to illegally and informally affect the inside (formal institutions) of the political system. This is also one of the main reason for the endemic informality and/or illegality tradition in the Turkish left. The main aim of this study is to explore the relationship, interactions, and dilemmas regarding conformity versus illegality in line with the contradictive evolvement of relations between the socialists and bureaucratic elite in the Turkish political life.