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".

Chaliand Gerard