Hikmet Kıvılcımlı

Hikmet Ali Kıvılcımlı (1902, Pristina, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire – 1971, Belgrade) was a Turkish communist leader, theoretician, writer, publicist, and translator. He was a founder of the Vatan Partisi (VP).

Career

He studied medicine at the military medical college in Istanbul. He was a member of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) in the early 1920s. He published in Aydınlık in 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 (DP) in the 1950s. He was founder of the Vatan Partisi (VP) in 1954, and founder and director of the Tarihsel Maddecilik Yayınları publishing house in 1965, which published many of his works. He founded the İşsizlik ve Pahalılıkla Savaş Derneği (İPSD) in 1967.

Publications

Among his publications are Türkiye İşçi Sınıfının Sosyal Varlığı (The Social Existence of the Turkish Working Class), 1935; Tarih, Devrim, Sosyalizm (History, Revolution, Socialism), 1965; his magnum opus, Tarih Tezi (The Thesis of History), 1974; and Yol: TKP'nin Eleştirel Tarihi (The Way: Critical History of the Communist Party of Turkey), consisting of a series of texts, written for the Central Committee of the TKP in 1932, published in 1979–1982. He contributed a great 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.

External links

• Archive of Hikmet Kıvılcımlı Papers at the International Institute of Social History