Extremist Activities of the Turkish Far-Right Nationalist Organization Grey Wolves in the Second Half of the 1970s

Abstract

The 1970s is an extremely important, yet relatively unstudied period in Turkish history, characterized by political violence, economic crisis and social instability. The key place in the country's political agenda was determined by the confrontation between the radical right and left circles. The purpose of this article is to systematize the existing information about the extremist activities of the Grey Wolves in Turkey in the 1970s. Methodologically, the current study is based on the principles of historicism, determinism and objectivity. Historiographical, chronological, retrospective and typological methods are used. The history of the creation of the Grey Wolves organization is revealed in connection with the political context. Three lines of the Grey Wolves extremist activities in 1970s can be singled out: fight against left-wing activists, pogroms against representatives of national and religious minorities (in particular, the Alevis), and attacks on members of the intelligentsia who posed a threat to the spread of far-right ideology. The author comes to the conclusion that the far-right political forces of Turkey played a key role in inciting mass political violence in the late 1970s, which led the republic to the military coup in 1980. The fight against the “enemies of Turkey” became an integral part of the Grey Wolves’ ideology and a defining element of its strategy to usurp power.