To the WORKING MASSES of TURKEY
THE Fourth Congress of the Third International, held contemporaneously with the fifth anniversary of the great Proletarian Revolution, sends its warmest greetings to the workers and peasants of Turkey, wishing them success in their heroic struggle for independence against Western imperialism.
Comrades of Turkey! you have given a live example of a revolutionary movement of independence to the entire East and to all the Colonial countries subjugated by imperialism.
But the latest events show that the bourgeois nationalist government intends to usurp the fruits of this victory won at the price of your tremendous sacrifices.
The nationalist government of Angora is ready to come to terms with the imperialists at the price of some concessions obtained for the benefit of the big bourgeoisie of Turkey. It inauguarated this new policy by dissolving the Communist Party and suppressing all its organisations, by making wholesale arrests and maltreating our imprisoned comrades in barbarous fashion, and finally suppressing the Turkish Labourers' Union at Constantinople.
The Turkish Communist Party has always supported the bourgeois nationalist government in the struggle of the toiling Masses against imperialism. The Turkish Communist Party consented even, in face of the common enemy, to make temporary concessions in-its programme and its ideal.
In view of these facts, the attitude of the government towards the Communist Party demonstrates the desire of the government to banish all the conscious representatives of the working class and the peasantry who will insist on realisation of the democratic reforms which were solemnly pledged in order to obtain your aid, and also in order to make the appearance of a real bourgeois government at the Lausanne Conference.
The bourgeois government of Turkey has the audacity to commit against you and your representatives such crimes that arouse the indignation of the entire world proletariat, led by the Russian proletariat, which grudged no material or moral sacrifice during the most trying period, when all the imperialist and capitalist Powers made common cause for the purpose of strangling the toiling people of Turkey.
The nationalist government, in preparation for an understanding with the imperialists, endeavours to destroy your true representatives and to separate them from their friends abroad.
The Fourth Congress of the Communist International protests vigorously against this barbarous act, and considers, it as its duty to solemnly proclaim its readiness to support any
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