Hikmet Kıvılcımlı


Hikmet Ali Kıvılcımlı was a Turkish communist leader, theoretician, writer, publicist, and translator. He was a founder of the Vatan Partisi.

Career

He studied medicine at the military medical college in Istanbul. He was a member of the Communist Party of Turkey in the early 1920s and became first President of Young Communists Union at 1925.
Between 1925 and 1950 he was arrested frequently and served several jail terms. He criticized the TKP because of its policy towards the administration of the Democrat Party in the 1950s. He was founder of the Vatan Partisi in 1954. The party was closed down in 1957, and Kıvılcımli was imprisoned with other party leaders. In 1960 he has already spent more than 20 years in prison. Later he was founder and director of the Tarihsel Maddecilik Yayınları publishing house in 1965, which published many of his works. He also was a co-founder of the İşsizlik ve Pahalılıkla Savaş Derneği on 19 May 1968.

Publications

Among his publications are Türkiye İşçi Sınıfının Sosyal Varlığı, 1935; Tarih, Devrim, Sosyalizm, 1965; his masterpiece, Tarih Tezi, 1974; and Yol: TKP'nin Eleştirel Tarihi, consisting of a series of texts, written for the Central Committee of the TKP in 1932, published in 1979–1982. He contributed many articles in Aydınlık, Sosyalist, Türk Solu, and Ant between 1965 and 1971. After his death Fuat Fegan became custodian of Kıvılcımlı's papers and political inheritance.