Early History
The party was founded at a congress in Baku on September 10, 1920, gathering together elements from three different left-wing tendencies influenced by the October Revolution in Russia. These founding tendencies were the Istanbul-based Workers and Peasants Socialist Party of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye İşçi ve Çiftçi Sosyalist Fırkası), elements of the Green Army (Turkish: Yeşil Ordu) in Anatolia (which represented the left-wing sectors of the national liberation movement) and a group of Turkish communists in Soviet Russia (largely made up by Turkish prisoners of war, who had been recruited by the Bolsheviks). In total the congress was made up of 74 delegates. The congress elected Mustafa Suphi as the party chairman and Ethem Nejat as the general secretary.
After its foundation, the party was recognized as section of the Communist International. The founding of TKP occurred in the midst of the Independence War, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.
In order to counter the growing influence of Turkish communists, Mustafa Kemal set-up a parallel puppet communist party (Turkish: Türk Komünist Fırkası). This provoked the founding of the People's Communist Party of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Halk İştirakiyyun Fırkası). Although technically a separate party, the TKP cadres were also present in the leadership of the People's Communist Party.
The founders of TKP, Mustafa Suphi and his 14 other comrades, were killed. It is not known who was behind the assassination. Although many people claim that it was Mustafa Kemal or Bolshevik, according to the official version, Mustafa Suphi was killed by the order of Ottoman Emperor because of his support to liberation of Turkey.
Read more about this topic: Communist Party Of Turkey (historical)
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