The beginning of the war in Ukraine should perhaps be taken as 2014, but in this article [1] we will focus on the period starting with the Russian intervention into Ukrainian territory in February 2022. The war in Ukraine did not take place between two nation states, Ukraine was put forward as a proxy of NATO, in other words of imperialist Euro-Atlantic bloc, so the war took place between NATO and Russia. But more generally, Ukraine was a front in the war of imperialist division, which is a product of the imperialist rivalry that has now taken over the world, a war that has not yet become total.
In this article we will try to unravel the reasons for this peculiarity. Why has the Turkish capitalist class been so pragmatic in this process? Why did Turkey have so many contradictions with the US even though it is a NATO member state? Why did Russia tolerate and develop relations with a country that is an ally and arms supplier to Ukraine?
Before going into the details of the issue, we need to address two fundamental processes so that we can arrive at a conceptual framework. The first is the crisis of imperialist hegemony, without which we cannot understand international relations today, and the other is the efforts of a series of countries, including Turkey, to rise in the imperialist pyramid based on their capital accumulation in the last 30 years.
What is the Imperialist Hegemony Crisis?
In order not to derail the topic, we should define it briefly. After the Second World War, in terms of its contribution to global production and its power to influence the world militarily, financially, politically and ideologically, the US was unquestionably the top country of the imperialist world.
Under its leadership, a struggle was waged against the politics of the working class in the world, especially against the Soviet Union, and world capitalism was steered.
After the process of counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and in the socialist world, the US maintained its leadership of the imperialist world. Now that there were no socialist governments and the working class had retreated, the world had to be restructured, the gains of labor had to be rolled back, and no national obstacles had to be left before the capital. With the leadership of the US, the capitalist class acted with a freedom it has never enjoyed after the October Revolution. In Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia, imperialist restructuring went through corrective military interventions by the US, NATO and the EU.
This process of capital's great triumph and self-confidence was accompanied by the structural crisis of capitalism and a huge export of capital from the West to the East, where labor exploitation was high, movements of capital were encouraged and environmental problems were ignored. By the 2000s, it was realized that the Chinese state was managing the accumulation of capital based on this capital export with a worldwide strategy. In the 2000s, China was going to surpass the US in terms of contribution to global production, create its own alliance system and mobilize a huge amount of financial capital. It would develop a worldwide hegemony project such as the New Silk Road, and start pushing the US and Euro-Atlantic bloc out of African, Asian and even European markets through capital exports. China would become increasingly militarized under the umbrella of security provided by Russia and would begin to threaten US supremacy in the Pacific region.
The 2008 financial collapse in the US marked a turning point in imperialist rivalry. In 2011, when the US announced to the world that it would build up its military arsenal in order to maintain its hegemony in the Pacific region, the war of imperialist division actually began, in a veiled way.
The conspiracies of the US and its allies in Libya and Syria and Russia's intervention in Syria in 2015 can be considered within the scope of the imperialist war of division. Ukraine itself is the subject of direct division, with its wealth that stimulates imperialism's appetite, its huge agricultural production and industry, which are the inheritance of the Soviet Union. However, one of the reasons for the war that started with NATO's eastward expansion, arming Ukraine, turning it into a NATO apparatus politically and provoking Russia militarily was to wear Russia down militarily and make it unable to fight alongside China in the Pacific. However, this should not blind us to the fact that Russia is also a capitalist country pursuing expansionist aims and trying to gain a new foothold in the crisis of imperialist hegemony.
Turkey's Place in the Imperialist Hegemony Crisis
By 1990, Turkey was a country that the US could steer through military coups, a country where the US had built a solid hegemony in the military, state, politics, media and economy. It had become commonplace for those who would govern Turkey to seek the US's blessing, and this was also the case for Erdoğan in 2001.
However, especially after 2002, during the long AKP rule in Turkey, different capital accumulation processes took place. The first of these was a property transfer in which almost all public property was plundered by capital. In this process, all the country's major industrial enterprises were taken over by capital. Secondly, the attack on the organization of the working class created an unregulated labor regime in Turkey with a very high rate of exploitation. Thirdly, after the legal changes that facilitated capital operations, there was a massive flow of capital from abroad into Turkey.
All these processes enabled the Turkish capital to flourish and turn its eyes abroad. New markets, new areas of capital investment, new hegemony, even new areas of annexation...
Although the Turkish economy is still heavily dependent on Euro-Atlantic bloc, the imperialist competition led by the US limited the expansionism of Turkish capital. For example, the wars in Syria and Libya initially damaged the investments and position of Turkish capital. With Russia, on the other hand, geographical proximity created a natural economic basin, Turkey benefited from Russian natural gas, saw Russia as a market and capital investment area, and Russian tourists were the main customers of the tourism sector.
After the turning point in 2008, Turkey changed its direction from being a country under the hegemony of imperialism to a country that aspired to be imperialist for its own sake. The coup attempt in 2016, launched by the Gülen sect, a component of the AKP and directly led by the US, was an important milestone in this process. It was the first time that the US had failed in a military coup in Turkey and a significant erosion of its hegemony was taking place. In the course of the struggle within the state and possibly between the different orientations of the bourgeoisie, the team led by Erdoğan did not hesitate to seek support from Russia.
Turkey started to have troops abroad not only in NATO or the UN, but also in line with the interests of the Turkish capitalist class. A major military industrial complex has emerged in Turkey that is able to direct the imperialist tendencies of capital. Previously, the US would never have allowed this. Moreover, this rise was realized despite the restrictions imposed by the US on the supply of weapons and intermediate products necessary for weapons production.
Turkey's share in world arms exports increased from 0.69% between 2013-2017 to 1.1% between 2018-2022, and Turkey ranked 12th among the world's arms suppliers [2]. It is said that there are about 2000 small or medium-sized companies in Turkey that produce unmanned aerial vehicles from screws to lasers [3]. As a result of Baykar's cooperation with the state, Turkey has started to intervene in regional wars. Countries that once ordered UCAVs (unmanned combat aerial vehicle) have become dependent on Turkey for technical specifications, flight training and ammunition to be used in UCAVs.
Turkish capital has declared the 21st century as the "Century of Turkey", even if a significant part of that is ideological propaganda, just as states like China, Brazil and India did for themselves in the crisis of imperialist hegemony.
At the same time, Turkey tried to pave the way with diplomatic moves and to be part of various imperialist peace processes.
We will touch on the fragility of Turkish capitalism at the end, but without understanding the transformation of Turkish capitalism in the last 30 years, it will not be possible to understand this peculiar situation in the Ukraine-Russia war.
Ukraine-Turkey Relations During the War
Despite the fall of colonialism after the Second World War, imperialism has continued with various derivatives of capital exports in a much more complex manner. Today, one of these derivatives manifests itself in the form of farming by renting/purchasing agricultural land in a foreign country.
The US, China and the major countries of the EU are primarily farming land in various countries, mostly in Africa. Turkish capital has also joined this trend due to its new expansionist position.
Under the Soviet Union, Ukraine became the world's largest agricultural research laboratory and experienced a revolution in agricultural productivity. Today, the size of arable land in Ukraine is estimated at around 100 million hectares. Before the war, 10% of the world's wheat, 13% of barley, 15% of corn and nearly 50% of sunflower exports came from Ukraine. We will need this information when we talk about the "grain corridor". Countries like China and Saudi Arabia have leased large tracts of agricultural land from Ukraine. As for Turkey, just before the war, some 40 companies were operating on 25-30 thousand hectares.
Moreover, the most important export of capital from Turkey was in the construction sector, and Ukraine had become a major hub for Turkish construction companies.
However, the most important sector related to Turkey's role in the war was the military and arms trade. The tense situation between Ukraine and Russia did not start in 2022, but long before. The military relations that had developed between Turkey and Ukraine before 2022 continued with the war.
First of all, in the low-intensity war in Donbass and Luhansk, the UCAVs and small arms supplied by Turkey were instrumental and Ukraine became a market for Turkish arms monopolies. But there was another reason why Turkey oriented towards Ukraine.
Before the Second World War, Turkey had a planned and nationalist economy and was rapidly developing on the path of industrial development. However, after the war, when it came under US hegemony, the direction and pace of industrialization was disrupted. Due to this imperialist intervention, Turkey was unable to produce engines until recently. On the other hand, the military industry, which has developed rapidly in the last 15 years, needed engines for tanks, warships and UCAVs. They wanted to transfer technology, not just to import engines. For this reason, Turkish capital turned its eyes to Ukraine with its engine factories left over from the Soviet Union. Ukraine, on the other hand, was eager for mutual technology transfer and thus a military alliance was born.
During the visit of Zelensky, who was elected as the President of Ukraine as a functionary of Euro- Atlantic bloc, to Turkey in October 2020, a military cooperation agreement was signed between the two countries. The use of Turkish UCAVs during the Karabakh war had led to a covert embargo against Turkey by Euro-Atlantic bloc. Thus, Turkey turned to Ukraine for intermediate products in arms production.
In 2022, just 3 weeks before the war, Erdoğan visited Ukraine, a cooperation agreement on high technology, aviation and space was signed and it was decided that Baykar was to build a drone factory in Ukraine. [4]
When the war started, the Ukrainian army was already utilizing a lot of equipment of Turkish origin. Which equipment was sold to Ukraine was generally kept secret from the Turkish public, and we only learned as much as was reported in the Ukrainian or Russian press. One example is the use of radios produced by Aselsan, a Turkish technology company, by Ukrainian infantry and armored units. There has also been some mention of Turkish-Ukrainian co-production of anti-tank missile launch systems. In the maritime sector, naval ships have also started to be produced by Turkey for Ukraine. In 2021, a corvette was launched at the Istanbul Shipyard Command. [5] It was also reported that composite helmets and ballistic vests imported from Turkey for Ukrainian army soldiers provided a psychological advantage over the Russian army at the beginning of the war. [6]
However, the most important item in the arms trade was UCAVs. It is not possible to know the exact number as it is kept secret, but according to the press, around 50 UCAVs were supplied by Turkey. UCAVs played an important role in the beginning of the war. Just before the war, when the Ukrainian army was provocatively attacking Luhansk and Donbass, Russia was offended by the sharing of an image of a Turkish UCAV destroying a Russian cannon. [7] The Turkish side responded to Russia's complaints by saying that the company selling the UCAVs was private and that they could not interfere. In reality, the state and arms monopolies were intertwined and it was not clear who was managing the process.
The sinking of the Moscow, the flagship of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, was also claimed to be the result of UCAVs supplied from Turkey. While these UCAVs were occupying the radars of the battleship Moscow, they are said to have been shot down with Neptune missiles. [8]
On the other hand, while Euro-Atlantic bloc is sending young people to the front to die, it has also poured so many weapons into Ukraine that Turkey's arms exports to Ukraine have been overshadowed. It is not easy to estimate the current level of arms supplies from Turkey due to the greater secrecy of information under wartime conditions.
As for the supply of engines from Ukraine, the engine factories used in the production of UCAVs, ammunition and combat helicopters were repeatedly bombed by Russia during the war. Therefore, the import of Ukrainian engines for Turkey's arms industry may have been interrupted.
Turkey-Russia Relations During the War
Since 2008, the relationship between Turkey and Russia has gone through ups and downs rich enough to divert the focus of this article. At times the Russian ambassador was assassinated, at times a Russian fighter jet was shot down by Turkish jets in Syria. In general, however, it was observed that the unprincipled stance and the pragmatism of the Turkish capitalist class was swallowed by the Russian capitalist class.
Under the Russian monopoly capital, which was formed by plundering the means of production belonging to Soviet society, and its political representative Putin, Russia did not become an industrial giant like China, contributing to global production to a large extent. There were neither hundreds of millions of peasants to drive to free exploitation zones like China, nor a working class to work completely without rules. For this reason, there has not been a huge inflow of capital from abroad. On the other hand, Russia, with the military mechanism it inherited from the Soviet Union, took over the security of the emerging Chinese hegemony areas from the Pacific to Central Asia, from the Middle East to the Mediterranean. Therefore, it has become a target that NATO wants to eliminate before China. For this reason, the disturbance created by Turkey within NATO played into Russia's hands, and they tried to enlarge and support this disturbance. Despite all the contradictions, the two capitalist classes trying to gain a new place in the imperialist pyramid approached each other in the name of security and areas of profit.
Despite Turkey's insistence that Ukraine's territorial integrity, including Crimea, must be restored after February 2022, Turkey-Russia relations continued to develop. The construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant on the Mediterranean coast by a Russian company has not slowed down. But most importantly, despite the oil and natural gas embargo imposed on Russia by Euro-Atlantic bloc, Turkey continued to buy natural gas from Russia and even became Russia's main gas hub in Europe.
Russian natural gas first entered Turkey through the Bulgarian border in 1987 during the Soviet Union. This was followed by the Blue Stream pipeline across the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey, which was agreed in 1997 and started pumping gas in the early 2000s. Its inauguration in 2003 was attended by Erdogan and Putin.
In 2014, Putin proposed the Turkish Stream gas deal to connect Russia and Thrace across the Black Sea, which was officially inaugurated in 2020. The most important development during the Ukraine war was Russia's proposal to build a large gas export station in Turkey, which would allow Russia to export gas to Europe without passing through Ukrainian territory. Thrace was chosen for the project, which will be completed this year upon agreement between the two sides. [9]
During the war years (2022-2023), Russia's trade volume with Turkey nearly tripled compared to previous years, reaching nearly 70 billion dollars. This volume was based on imports from Russia amounting to around 58 billion dollars. [10]
This increase in trade was not only due to an increase in natural gas imports, but the Turkish side also made a covert effort to circumvent the trade embargo against Russia. In addition, many Russian companies were established in Turkey to circumvent the embargo. Among the companies sanctioned by the US for violating the embargo were four Turkish companies. For example, a company called Azu was said to buy chips from around the world and send them to Russia. [11] The MIR payment system of the Russian banks was also accepted in the Turkish banking system until it was discontinued as a result of pressure from Euro-Atlantic bloc. Even so, a delegation from the EU Commission had to make a visit to Turkey in October 2022 to warn the country about the sanctions.
Gaining a place in the higher ranks of imperialist hierarchy is not only about intervening in regional wars and pursuing an aggressive foreign policy; playing a role in regional peace will also increase the hegemony of a state in a certain region. This was what Turkey did, as a state with relations with both sides, it wanted to play a diplomatic role.
Delegations from Ukraine and Russia met in Istanbul on March 29, 2022, just over a month after the start of the war, mediated by Erdogan. If a peace agreement had materialized, Turkey would probably have been one of the guarantor states. But the issue was neither Ukraine's territorial losses nor Ukraine's possible NATO membership, Euro-Atlantic bloc had put Ukraine forward and provoked the war with the intention of weakening Russia’s position in the ongoing conflict within the imperialist system and reducing its military capability alongside with this main intention. That is why there was no peace agreement then and for the next 2 years the workers of the two countries continued to kill each other at the front.
Another diplomatic attempt by Turkey was on the Black Sea Grain Initiative. We have already mentioned the importance of Ukrainian and Russian agricultural products for the world market and world food security. Let us add that fertilizers produced in Russia are important for world markets. The world was already recovering from a pandemic and the rise in food prices had put a heavy burden on the working classes. Added to this was the unavailability of Ukrainian ports due to the war. Russia was unable to transport its agricultural products to world ports due to the trade embargo imposed on it. It was neither possible to transfer money through banks, nor to insure ships and goods to dock in ports.
With Turkey's initiative and the support of the UN, the Grain Corridor Agreement was signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022, when delegations from Russia and Ukraine came together. Thus, Turkey achieved a diplomatic success on a world scale, and by May 2023, more than 30 million tons of agricultural products would be shipped to countries around the world.
However, the agreement would not be extended any further and would be terminated by Russia. First of all, it was understood that the exported agricultural products were stored in the top countries of imperialism and only about 10% of them were delivered to the poor countries whose people were starving. [12]
Although it was promoted, the agreement did not end because grain was stolen from the poor countries. Euro-Atlantic bloc was abusing the treaty in this ship traffic in the Black Sea, attacking Russia's security with unmanned naval vessels. Moreover, there was no relaxation of the embargo on agricultural products, which Russia had demanded and which were included in the agreement.
The Montreux Treaty and the Structural Problems of Turkish Capitalism
Turkey's most important role in the war in Ukraine was undoubtedly the implementation of the Montreux Treaty. In the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the Dardanelles and Istanbul Straits, which connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, were not given to the sovereignty of the newly established Turkish Republic. It was only under the conditions of the impending imperialist war of partition and with the support of the Soviet Union that this right of sovereignty would be achieved in the Montreux Treaty signed in 1936.
According to the agreement, if the Black Sea littoral states wished to bring their warships into the Black Sea, they could enter the Black Sea with a tonnage restriction and with a three-week notice, and they would leave the Black Sea after two weeks. Thus, the treaty prohibited the entry of submarines, aircraft carriers and cruisers into the Black Sea in peacetime. If a war broke out in the Black Sea, the Black Sea littoral states could not enter the Black Sea under any circumstances.
The Turkish state started to implement this agreement as soon as the the war in Ukraine war broke out. It did not even allow the return of Russian warships in the Black Sea fleet. Russia did not object to this, because the implementation of the Montreux decisions practically kept the NATO fleet out of the Black Sea.
This situation resulted in the Turkish capitalist class and state being under pressure from Euro-Atlantic bloc since the beginning of the war. It has pressured through unofficial channels to break the NATO Treaty, to establish a NATO naval base on the Black Sea coast. We also do not know if there was pressure kept secret in official meetings.
Pretexts were created to violate Montreux. For example, they wanted to send mine-hunting ships after the release of mines planted by Ukraine around the port of Odessa. This attempt was also rejected by Turkey. As part of the Black Sea Security agreement recently signed between the UK, Norway and Ukraine, two mine-hunting ships were intended to be transferred to the Black Sea. [13]
Perhaps unable to withstand the pressure, Turkey signed a mine safety agreement this month with Bulgaria and Romania, both NATO members in the Black Sea. This agreement does not allow foreign warships, but the fact that all three are NATO countries is disturbing and suggests the possibility that it is part of a plan.
Although Turkish capitalism has developed enough in recent years to provide grounds for the expansionist ambitions of the Turkish capitalist class, it has a fragile structure. With its chronic current account deficit and foreign debts to Western banks that are difficult to roll over, it looks like a country that is prone to economic crises. Moreover, Turkey has not yet been able to produce fighter jets and is cornered by the US embargo. It is waiting in front of the US for the purchase of F-16s and the modernization of its fleet.
All this leads Turkey to act in a more compromising way. For example, Turkey did not put up a long resistance to the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO. However, this expansion of NATO would be important in the encirclement of Russia and in a possible European war.
If the Turkish capitalist class allows the Montreux Treaty to be breached, it could mean that Turkey would de facto enter a war with Russia on the side of NATO. The vanguard political movement of Turkey's working class is closely following this process which means a major political crisis and a threat to the working people, in order to intervene.
[1] This article was first submitted on January 2024. However, in the intervening months, as predicted in the article, it is observed that the pro-US/NATO wings of the Turkish capitalist class and its affiliated ruling and opposition political parties have gained a political ascendancy. Turkey has concluded the F16 deal with the US, has co-operated with NATO on many operational issues, and has started to limit trade with Russia, in compliance with the trade embargo. Its military support to Ukraine seems to have become more dependent on NATO than on its own interests. The Montreux Treaty has not yet been breached, but the stick has been bent to US engagement in an unsettling way.
[2] https://tr.euronews.com/2023/03/13/rapor-kuresel-silah-ihracatinda-turkiyenin-payi-artti-ithalat-orani-azaldi (Accessed: 11.01.2024)
[3] https://www.crisisgroup.org/tr/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkiye/turkiyes-growing-drone-exports (Accessed: 12.01.2024)
[4] https://www.crisisgroup.org/tr/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkiye/turkiyes-growing-drone-exports (Accessed: 12.01.2024)
[5] https://www.indyturk.com/node/482386/siyaset/bayraktar-si%25CC%2587ha-d%25C4%25B1%25C5%259F%25C4%25B1nda-t%25C3%25BCrkiye-ukraynaya-hangi-askeri-malzemeleri-satt%25C4%25B1#:~:text=T%25C3%25BCrkiye'nin%2520son%2520y%25C4%25B1llarda%2520Ukrayna,24%2520adet%2520daha%2520sat%25C4%25B1lmas%25C4%25B1%2520kararla%25C5%259Ft%25C4%25B1r%25C4%25B1lm%25C4%25B1%25C5%259Ft%25C4%25B1 (Accessed:17.01.2024)
[6] https://www.crisisgroup.org/tr/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkiye/turkiyes-growing-drone-exports (Accessed: 12.01.2024)
[7] https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-60258180 (Accessed:17.01.2024)
[8] https://www.crisisgroup.org/tr/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkiye/turkiyes-growing-drone-exports (Accessed: 12.01.2024)
[9] https://www.yirmidort.tv/ekonomi/turkiye-ve-rusya-anlasti-dogalgaz-merkezi-icin-yol-haritasi-tamam-136599 (Accessed: 18.01.2024)
[10] https://ticaret.gov.tr/data/5bcc5d4813b876034cfece26/RF%20%C3%9CLKE%20RAPORU%20%20-%202023.pdf (Accessed: 18.01.2024).
[11] https://tr.euronews.com/2023/04/12/abdden-rusya-ambargosunu-ihlal-ettigi-gerekcesiyle-turkiye-merkezli-sirketlere-yaptirim (Accessed: 18.01.2024)
[12] https://haber.sol.org.tr/yazar/tahil-koridoru-yalan-dehlizi-380957 (Accessed: 18.01.2024)
[13] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/uk-transfer-two-minehunters-ukraine-it-launches-maritime-support-plan-2023-12-11/ (Accessed: 18.01.2024)
* Erhan Nalçacı is a member of the Central Executive Council of TKP
International Communist Review, Issue 13, 2024