Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's 'Halkçılık and Devletçilik': A Comparison with Sun Yat-sen's Political Thought

Abstract

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Sun Yat-sen are both great men who overturned the old system to open a new era and have ideas and guidelines for governing countries. Among the six principles of Kemalism, Halkçılık and Devletçilik have similar contents to Sun Yat-sen's The Principle of Democracy and The Principle of Livelihood. Kemal Atatürk does not literally mention "civil rights" and "people's livelihood” in six principles, but in Halkçılık asserts "people's rule" rather than autocracy, advocates that power comes from the people, and that the responsibility of the government is to seek welfare for the people. Kemal Atatürk's Devletçilik focuses on the state-led planned economy and protecting the private property of farmers, like in Sun Yat-sen's Thought of Livelihood. This paper consists of three parts. The first part compares Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Sun Yat-sen's main contributions and key thoughts, the second part Halkçılık and Devletçilik of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Sun Yat-sen's corresponding thought, and the third part the historical background and objective conditions of their ideas.