Mahmut Celâlettin "Celâl" Bayar (16 May 1883 – 22 August 1986) was a Turkish economist and politician who was the president of Turkey from 1950 to 1960. He previously served as the prime minister of Turkey from 1937 to 1939.
Bayar was an ally of Talât's in the Committee of Union and Progress, establishing its İzmir and Bursa branches. He organized the 1914 Greek deportations. Following the declaration of the Republic, he founded much of Turkey's early financial institutions, including the country's first bank, İş Bankası. An advocate of liberal economic policies, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk appointed Bayar prime minister in 1937 to liberalize the economy, until he resigned in 1939 under Atatürk's successor -and his political rival- İsmet İnönü.
Until 1945, he was a member of Republican People's Party (CHP) which was the sole legal party. In 1946, he founded the center-right Democrat Party along with Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü and Refik Koraltan. This began Turkey's multiparty period, which still goes on to this day. A peaceful transfer of power from the CHP to DP happened in the 1950 elections, after which Bayar was elected president. He was re-elected in 1954 and 1957, serving for 10 years as president. In that period, Menderes was his prime minister. Close relations were established with the Western Bloc, and in 1952 Turkey joined NATO. He was criticized for supporting the DP's illegal actions as head of state.
Bayar was overthrown in the 1960 coup d'etat. He was prosecuted for treason in the Yassıada trials for encouraging authoritarianism and corruption as president. He was sentenced the death penalty, but due to his advanced age his sentence was commuted to life-imprisonment. He was released in 1966 after a general amnesty to former DP members. He advocating for the restoration of rights of former politicians associated with the Democrat Party following his release.
He is considered to be the longest-lived former head of state and was the longest-lived state leader until 8 December 2008 (when he was surpassed by Chau Sen Cocsal Chhum). Celâl Bayar died on 22 August 1986 at the age of 103 after a brief illness.
Early years
Mahmud Celâleddin (Bayar after 1934) was born on 16 May 1883 at Umurbey, a village of Gemlik, Bursa, the third son of Abdullah Fehmi Efendi, religious leader and teacher who migrated from Lom, Ottoman Bulgaria as a muhacir, after the Bulgarians ethnically cleansed the Muslim population there during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish war. His older brothers were Behzat and Asım. He first worked at the Gemlik Régie Company and in the court clerk’s office, and later at the Ziraat Bank in Bursa. Following this, he took up a position at Deutsche Orientbank. During his years in Bursa, he attended courses at the Collège Français de l'Assomption, managed by French priests, as well as silk production training at Dârütta‘lîm-i Harîr.
In the CUP
In 1907, Bayar joined an unofficial branch of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in Bursa. After the Second Constitutional Era was proclaimed following the Young Turk Revolution, he served as the secretary-general of a newly founded local branch of the organization, with instructions to organize Unionist infrastructure in Anatolia. Bayar formed a Unionist militia in Bursa with the intention to join up with Mahmud Şevket Pasha's Action Army during the 31 March Incident. He got as far as Mudanya but by then the revolt was crushed. He founded the İzmir branch of Union and Progress in 1911. Bayar established an organization and CUP mouthpiece known as Halkın Doğru (True to the People), where he wrote pro-CUP articles under the pseudonym Turgut Alp. He was a participant of the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état, and witnessed the murder of the Minister of War Nâzım Pasha.
Well connected with financial circles, Bayar played an important role in Unionist Millî İktisat (National Economy) policies. He was a member of the Special Organization and worked alongside Eşref Sencer Kuşçubaşı to organize the 1914 Greek deportations in order to reduce the Ottoman Greek population on the Aegean coast. He initiated the opening of İzmir Girls' High School, the Şimendifer Vocational School in Basmahane, and a library in İzmir. Bayar also played an important role in the creation of the İzmir based sports club Altay S.K.
War of Independence
Following the Armistice of Mudros, which ended World War I for Turkey, he was tried and acquitted as a war criminal at the İzmir Martial Law Court. However, when the allied powers continued advancing into Ottoman territory despite the armistice, various nationalist organizations known as Defence of National Rights Associations were founded. Bayar established the Association for the Cancellation of İzmir's Annexation (İzmir Redd-i İlhak Cemiyeti) and the Association for the Defence of Ottoman İzmir (İzmir Müdâfaa-i Hukuku Osmaniye Cemiyeti). Bayar fled into the mountains after hearing rumors of an impending allied occupation of İzmir and finding out his name was on an arrest list from İstanbul. Once İzmir was occupied, he cooperated with the national resistance fighters in the Söke region. On the side of the resistance, he participated in the Battle of Aydın against the Greeks. With the decision of the Balıkesir Congress, he was appointed to the command of the Akhisar front regiment.
Bayar was elected to the Ottoman Parliament as deputy of Saruhan (today Manisa) in the 1919 election, where he gave speeches denouncing the palace's indifference to allied occupation. Following the occupation of Constantinople, he fled to Ankara to join Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) Pasha and the Turkish Independence Movement. While on the road the Anzavur rebellion threatened Bursa, so Mustafa Kemal asked Bayar to stay in Bursa to fend the rebels off. He was briefly a member of the Green Army Organization and the Turkish Communist Party, a foax communist party set up by Mustafa Kemal to counter the influence of the Communist Party of Turkey.
He became the deputy of Bursa in the newly established Grand National Assembly of Turkey.Celal Bayar, Kayseri Cezaevi Günlüğü, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 1999. . The same year, he served as deputy minister of the economy and in 1921 he was appointed as the minister of the economy. He led the negotiation commission during Çerkes Ethem's uprising. In 1922, Bayar was a member of the Turkish delegation during the Lausanne Peace Conference as an advisor to İsmet İnönü.
One-party period
Bayar was elected as a member of the Association for the Defence of National Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia in the 1923 election, serving as a deputy of İzmir in the Parliament. The organization soon renamed itself the Republican People's Party (CHP) and continued a one party state started by the CUP in 1913. On 6 March 1924 Celâl Bayar was appointed Minister of Exchange Construction and Settlement (until 7 July 1924).Erhard Franz: "Biographien führender Persönlichkeiten des öffentlichen Lebens. Bayar, Mahmut Celâl", in: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrg.): "Türkei. Südosteuropa-Handbuch. Band IV", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985 , p. 760. Bayar was influential in determining the economic policy of the regime as a result of being in Mustafa Kemal's close circle during this period. A policy of state supported capitalism was pursued. On 26 August 1924, Atatürk commissioned Bayar to found a national bank, which resulted in the foundation of İşbank in Ankara by using as capital the gold bullion sent by the Muslims in India to support the Turkish War of Independence. The Aşar tax was abolished, land was distributed, the Teşvik-i Sanayi Kanunu (Industry Incentive Law) was enacted, railway construction was accelerated, and the Central Bank was established. The effects of the Great Depression caused this more "liberal" policy to be replaced by statism.
During his teneurship as economic minister (between 1932 and 1937), Bayar became one of the leading advocates of statism. Bayar understood statism as an effective tool in the creation of a nationalist and capitalist economy. Bayar's term as economic minister saw an increase in regulatory interventions in the economy by the state, and high levels of industrialization. For this purpose, the First Five-Year Industry Plan was enacted. Institutions such as Sümerbank and Etibank were established to finance industrialization. Nationalizations, protectionist economic policies, and many state monopolies were created. However İsmet İnönü was in favor of an even stricter statism, and could not fully agree with his economic policies.
On 1 November 1937 Atatürk appointed Bayar as Prime Minister of the 9th Government of Turkey after İnönü left the government. During the Bayar government, the Denizbank Law, which continued the statist approach, was enacted and several nationalizations were made. However there was no significant change in the composition of the government nor a significant change in economic policy. He continued to serve as prime minister when Atatürk died and İnönü became president in 1938 (10th government of Turkey). Differences of opinion with İnönü led him to resign from the premiership on 25 January 1939. The rivalry between İnönü and Bayar became one of the most significant rivalries in Turkish history.
Creation of the Democrat Party
During the Second World War, Bayar's political activity was limited; though he was re-elected as a member of parliament, he shunned from the cabinet. After 1943, he took a moderate opposition to the government.
The end of World War II brought about a global wave of democracy, which resumed the power struggle in the one-party regime between the two versions of statism espoused by İnönü and Bayar. Opposition to the CHP administration surfaced during the voting of the 1945 Budget Law; Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü, Refik Koraltan, and Emin Sazak voted against the bill in the voting held for the seven-month budget of the Şükrü Saracoğlu government. The division within the party became more evident on 7 June 1945, when Bayar, Menderes, Koraltan and Köprülü submitted a motion to the chairmanship of the CHP Parliamentary Group asking for "amendments to the Party's statute and some laws", known as the "motion with four signatures". The motion demanded political liberalization in the country and in the party, but was soundly rejected by the members of the CHP Central Council. On 21 September 1945 the CHP Council unanimously expelled Köprülü and Menderes from the party, and after a short time Koraltan. Bayar resigned from his parliamentary position in September 1945 and from the CHP in December 1945. On 7 January 1946 the four founded the Democrat Party (DP) and Bayar was elected as the leader of the party. The party program of the DP featured Bayar style approaches to economic policy, political democratization, decreasing the power of the bureaucracy, and encouraging private initiative while maintaining the principle of statism.
DP achieved relative success against CHP in 1946 election and elected 62 deputies. Bayar was also elected as a deputy from İstanbul. Between 1946 and 1950, as the leader of the opposition, he led a sometimes hardened opposition to his former party. At the first congress of the DP in January 1947, Bayar demanded that the Election Law be amended, so that the same person cannot be both president and party chairman, and that other antidemocratic laws should be abolished. Although the DP was supported by religious circles who were dissatisfied with the effective secularism policy of the one-party period, Bayar's Kemalist background was seen as an assurance of the party's commitment to secularism.Encyclopædia Britannica Fifteenth Edition But he was among the moderates in the DP regarding the opposition to the CHP. The "extremists" later left the party and founded the Nation Party (which would be closed in 1953).
Presidency