Extended Summary

Türkiye undergoes a transition to multi-party system and changes in economic, political, and sociological terms in the aftermath of World War II. Almost a quarter-century-long one-party regime, or “rule without opposition” (Ahmad, 2015:19; Çelik, 2010:81) of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) officially ends. The tense alliance of the military-civilian bureaucracy, the rising bourgeoisie, the notables, and landlords, which was made up during the war of independence and kept on with a fragile compromise in the one-party regime, disintegrates (Ahmad, 2015:24-26). Social relations display new class contradictions and exploitation dynamics based on this far-reaching historical context and prompted by the wartime political-economic trajectory. Markopaşa, a weekly political humor magazine of this time, comes up with a socialist-realist critique of the social relations in the course of the change Türkiye passes through.

This article conducts a content analysis of Markopaşa’s perspective on Türkiye’s social relations of the time, which is out of the box and quite disturbing for the hegemonic agents of those relations. It first elaborates on what makes the vantage point of Markopaşa unique in Türkiye’s late 1940s. In the content analysis, it looks into the way Markopaşa articulates the class-based dynamics within the then-Turkish society.

What makes Markopaşa more than a weekly magazine is its enduring commitment to jar with the hegemonic circles in the country through socialist-realist political humor. It makes a harsh critique of the class-based inequalities and tensions within society by uncovering the internal relations of the structural change the country experiences. It accentuates the social/class formations, strategies, contradictions, and exploitation relations that it observes. It is not impartial. The political power and mighty segments are the targets of its satire. The second aspect of Markopaşa’s uniqueness is the two-dimensional interest in its humor. The circulation it attains -the figures prove that Markopaşa was among the highest sold-outs- points out that the readers embrace Markopaşa’s vantage point, mode of criticism, and ideas. The merciless reaction it faces is about how tolerant the hegemonic bloc is when targeted by the humor of a newly born magazine.

Markopaşa’s critique enables a three-dimensional approach to the social relations. On the political route, during the transition to the multi-party regime, Markopaşa unveils the absence of democracy, freedom, and social justice that deepens social inequalities and class contradictions. It detects the policy-making as the arena of conflicts for sustaining/obtaining the privileges to control exploitative social relations, not for promoting the rights, freedoms, democratic government, and welfare for all. On the capital accumulation route, wealthy classes appear prudent in steering the wave of change to their advantage, since political decision-makers are inclined to embrace and prioritize capital accumulation strategies as a national goal. The social classes on the peripheral route, ordinary people for Markopaşa, in this picture, are concerned about their poverty. The process of change is far from solving the problem of participation and inclusion of these classes. In this three-way course of social relations, as Markopaşa underscores, the political and economic routes are of the upstairs, while the peripheral strata are the residents of the downstairs, bearing the burden of the lifestyle the upstairs residents enjoy.

Türkiye’s change of the late 1940s, in the perspective of Markopaşa, does not denote the elimination, but the remaking of the embedded exploitative social relations. This is because the change is about the reconfiguration of power relations and the (re)distribution of privileged positions among the residents of upstairs. It doesn’t come up with a way out of the peripheral position for the residents of downstairs to attain decent living conditions. Such a change, bringing rights, freedoms, and opportunities for the downstairs equal to those of the upper, in Markopaşa’s view, can only be possible through the socially organized dissent of the downstairs residents themselves. This path Markopaşa draws out for the 1940s’ Türkiye applies to contemporary Türkiye, which has recently preferred to re-test the government mechanisms of the pre-multi-party system.