Most of the officers in the Turkish army come from lower and lower-middle classes. These officers, whose families are workers and civil servants, are then transformed into anti-worker people. They take - side with the capital class in any strike or labor-capital conflict, and blame the workers. In my opinion, this is because the officers have moved up the social ladder under favour of OYAK (Armed Forces Trust and Pension Fund).
Idris Küçükömer is one of the writers who touched upon the military inclusion within the capitalist class through OYAK, and the drawbacks relating to it, says in 1968 that;
“After 1960, we see that the officer section of the bureaucrat group was being pushed into a historical development by changing its quality as a mass Officers in mass are forced to take possession of means of production. In other words, they are allowed to enter the capitalist class. (…) All officers were being transformed or transferred into capitalist classes through the OYAK. (…) Trying to link officers in this way within the system will gradually lead them into a dead end. (…) If this is continued, some of the officers might confront the masses of people. To sum up, this is an attempt to make all the officers become capitalist.”[i]
35 years after Idris Küçükömer, Taha Parla also forges a link between OYAK and the army's tendency to interference in politics; “In Turkish politics, OYAK is a new dynamic that it will inevitably increase the military's tendency to interfere in the country's political development.”[ii]
The only serious criticism to this formation from within TBMM (The Grand National Assembly of Turkey) seemed to come from a former member of the MBK (National Union Committee), Cemal Madanoğlu, who was then a member of the Republican Senate in 1968. Madanoğlu in his speech made in senate said that; “(…) We do not understand the destructiveness in the practices that exceeding the bounds in the evaluation of labor, breaking down the officer from the enlightened circles and decreasing the army to the money-grubber in the eyes of the nation.”[iii]
In his book "Establishment of Turkey", Doğan Avcıoğlu also drew attention to the drawbacks of managing OYAK by senior officers in Turkish Army;
“Undoubtedly, it is a good idea to establish a social security organization with the money deducted from the pensions of the members of the Army, to open up the commissaries and to deposit some of the funds collected into the Turkish industry. However, it is difficult to say that the establishment form of the Institution was in line with the traditions of the Atatürk Army. Because the Institution is de facto governed by high-ranking officers in a very different way from the Social Security and Retirement Fund. In order to get loans from the Institution, to establish commercial partnerships, the addressee of domestic and foreign investors is actually commanders and high-ranking officers.”[iv]
Until the 1960s, members of the army in Turkey have formed coterie of officier in the Weberian sense. However, with the establishment of OYAK and having the means of production, this coterie has started to act like a capitalist class. In addition, new relations have been established between the upper management of Turkish Army and large capital through the employment of retired generals in private companies and the OYAK.
The lower rank officers are more connected to the capitalist system with the interest they receive from the profits of OYAK at the end of the year. For example, in an OYAK-owned automobile manufacturing company, a possible strike could reduce the interest of that year, so some officers can bear enmity towards workers who go on strike. In recent days, it was reflected in the press that a gendarmerie colonel had a strong reaction to workers who wanted to make a press statement because they were dismissed in Urfa city in the southeast of the country.[v]
The officers who think continually about the interest show an interest in the stock market by following the purchase and sale of the companies but they cannot understand why workers claim their rights through the unions. Officers were alienated from the masses, as Idris Küçükömer had predicted 60 years ago.
[i] İdris Küçükömer, Düzenin Yabancılaşması, İstanbul, Bağlam Yayınları, 2002, s. 115-117.
[ii] Taha Parla, “Türkiye’de Merkantilist Militarizm (1960-1998)”, der. Ahmet İnsel ve Ali Bayramoğlu, Bir Zümre, Bir Parti, Türkiye’de Ordu, Birikim’den Seçmeler:2, İstanbul, Birikim Yayınları, 2004. s. 207.
[iii] “Cemal Madanoğlu’nun Cumhuriyet Senatosu’nda yaptığı konuşma”, Cumhuriyet Senatosu Tutanak Dergisi, Cilt 47, 51. Birleşim: 13 Haziran 1968.
[iv] Doğan Avcıoğlu, Türkiye’nin Düzeni, İkinci Kitap, 11.bs., İstanbul, Tekin Yayınevi, 1978, s. 952.
[v] https://tr.sputniknews.com/turkiye/201811191036222290-sanliurfa-nakliyat-is-sendika-eylem/