Atatürk's personal property
During the period in which the economy was based on private enterprises, the generals and other candidates of the war of independence became company managers, bankers and importers. Together with some other important candidates, Mustafa Kemal himself founded the Turkish Bank of Commerce, with a personal deposit of 250,000 Turkish liras (equal to six million francs at that time). This was not the only business activity of Kemal*. Following the footsteps of their leader, the prerogatives and all the political and military bureaucrats who had risen to surface during the war of independence, threw themselves into the frantic search for wealth.
* In the work Τurkiyede
Gerikalımışlığın oluşumu (Istanbul, 1973), Ismail Cem mentions Atatürk's
personal property:
15,472 hectares of cultivated land
a brewery
two dairies with a daily milk
production of 30,000 liters
two yogurt factories
A winery (80,000 liters of wine
annually)
restaurants
casino
nightclubs
about fifty buildings
etc.
All this sheds some light on the
slogan mentioned by Mustafa Kemal and which since then has been constantly
proclaimed by the Turkish ruling class: "We are a people without classes
or privileges".