WI/AHC - Enver Hoxha had been leader of Turkey

[Masked Grizzly]

In OTL Enver Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër, today an area of Albania that is considered by Greeks to be part of the historical region of Northern Epirus.

What if ATL circumstances by way of an Ottoman/Turkey-screw from WW1 to the Greco-Turkish War, successful Greek annexation of Northern Epirus and the Greeks successfully having Cham (and other) Muslim Albanians within its territory included in its population exchanges with Turkey led to a situation where a young Enver Hoxha found himself in a rump Turkey?

Depending on whether he still embraces Communism as in OTL (via the Communist Party of Turkey - albeit with the instability of ATL Turkey allowing the party to avoid being persecuted / banned / etc.) or some ATL Hoxhaist-flavored variation of Kemalism, what if Enver Hoxha eventually found himself becoming leader of Turkey in the post-war period as Enver Hoca* where his regime rules Turkey in ATL during Cold War for about as long as it did in OTL Albania?

*- Hoca being the Turkish form of his surname Hoxha with both being derived from the Persian word Khawaja.

 

[History Learner]

Everyone gets a bunker and foreign visitors get a complementary shower/disinfection upon entry.

 

[overoceans]

Midnight Express is a way more interesting movie.

 

[David T]

"Someone growing up in a different country under different circumstances will have the same politics he developed in OTL and will be just as politically successful as in OTL" is . . . questionable.

 

[Alexniko]

"Someone growing up in a different country under different circumstances will have the same politics he dieveloped in OTL and will be just as politically successful as in OTL" is . . . questionable.

Exactly this.

He might still study in Paris, he might still open up a tobaco store. He even might still become a communist, joining the Communist Party of Turkey. But it's higly doubtable that he is elected to the parties Central Commitee, not even to speak about becoming head of state of a socialist Turkey.

History is not made by a few "great men". History is made by the various classes of a nation, under the specific historical circumstances.

Most likely, Enver is a completely different man, growing up in a different country. It's very likely that the only things he has in common with the OTL Enver Hoxha are his genes, his name and possibly his family members.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

Concede it was also possible Hoxha and family simply move from their ATL Greek annexed hometown further into Albanian territory (or via Turkey), otherwise a Turkish President Enver Hoca TL seems more plausible in comparison to the Joseph Stahl - German Stalin Collab TL (from which have partially drawn inspiration from).

 

[Edwin Moore]

If Greece wins the Greco-Turkish war and takes coastal Turkish lands, then it's possible that Turkey would join the axis when Italy goes after Greece.
Then after Barbarossa, Turkey is invaded by the Soviets from the north, and possibly also by the Allies from the south/west. If Hoxha makes a convincing case to the Soviets they could pick him to lead their new Warsaw Pact member state.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

If Greece wins the Greco-Turkish war and takes coastal Turkish lands, then it's possible that Turkey would join the axis when Italy goes after Greece.
Then after Barbarossa, Turkey is invaded by the Soviets from the north, and possibly also by the Allies from the south/west. If Hoxha makes a convincing case to the Soviets they could pick him to lead their new Warsaw Pact member state.

It depends on both the political situation in the country after a Turkish defeat in the Greco-Turkish war and whether İsmet İnönü still manages to become president in this scenario, as ATL revanchist sentiment aside like in OTL he would probably still be determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could on the basis the young Turkish Republic (in both OTL and even more so in ATL) was still re-building, recovering from the losses due to earlier wars, and lacked any modern weapons and the infrastructure to enter a war to be fought along and possibly within its borders*. İnönü in OTL based his neutrality policy during the Second World War on the premise that Western Allies and the Soviet Union would sooner or later have a falling out after the war.

Germany apparently hoped for a benevolent Turkish neutrality when the German-Soviet war began in OTL though they might be able to persuade the Turks to attack the Soviets in an ATL Battle of the Caucasus under some revanchist leader (that leads to a Soviet/ Allied invasion and occupation with Enver Hoxha/Hoca being installed as post-war leader), whereas ATL Turkish relations with Italy depends on what the latter does under its zone of influence in Turkey in a largely successful Treaty of Sèvres and whether Italian colonial authorities get their wish for the zone to become an Italian colony under the name of Lycia.

Perhaps attempts to establish a "Lycia" colony end up focusing the attention of the Italians to prevent them from attacking Ethiopia or ATL Turkey's relations with the Italian Empire ends up sharing some parallel's with OTL Albania during the times it made Albania a protectorate, if not seek to prop up and help modernize the ATL Turkish Republic to further its own interests in the region. There is also the question of Italy itself remaining neutral should WW2 still happen in ATL, which would probably benefit an unstable Turkish Republic.

*- That was with an OTL Turkish Republic that did not suffer the catastrophic ATL territorial losses, where in the case of the latter it potentially shares borders with an expanded ATL Greece (plus Cyprus), French mandate of Syria (plus Hatay and Cilicia) as well as Russian / Soviet United Armenia and Kurdistan.

 

[David T]

You know, it's not even clear that the Enver Hoxha of OTL was a Communist as late as the late 1930's! Some people who knew him at the time denied it, according to Blendi Fevziu (Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania), p. 33:

https://books.google.com/books?id=lbeKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA33

OK, maybe these friends simply were not aware of his ties with Korca Marxists. Even so, as Fevzius says, he was certainly not "a staunch communist militant" at the time, and the idea that he would become leader of a newly formed Albanian Communist Party by the early 1940's and ruler of Albania a few years later would have seemed incredible in the late 1930's and indeed was only made possible by very unusual historical circumstances which were extremely unlikely to be duplicated in Turkey, even a Turkey with a larger Communist party than in OTL. (One difference is that unlike Albania, Turkey already had a well-established, though weak and persecuted, Communist Party, whose leaders would be unlikely to yield power to a young Albanian, even assuming a Hoxha growing up under different cirrcumstances than in OTL, would be interested in Turkish Communism..)

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

If Greece wins the Greco-Turkish war and takes coastal Turkish lands, then it's possible that Turkey would join the axis when Italy goes after Greece.
Then after Barbarossa, Turkey is invaded by the Soviets from the north, and possibly also by the Allies from the south/west. If Hoxha makes a convincing case to the Soviets they could pick him to lead their new Warsaw Pact member state.

And why, with a POD in the early 1920s,should WWII still unfold in the same way?

 

[Edwin Moore]

Germany apparently hoped for a benevolent Turkish neutrality when the German-Soviet war began in OTL though they might be able to persuade the Turks to attack the Soviets in an ATL Battle of the Caucasus under some revanchist leader (that leads to a Soviet/ Allied invasion and occupation with Enver Hoxha/Hoca being installed as post-war leader), whereas ATL Turkish relations with Italy depends on what the latter does under its zone of influence in Turkey in a largely successful Treaty of Sèvres and whether Italian colonial authorities get their wish for the zone to become an Italian colony under the name of Lycia.

Perhaps attempts to establish a "Lycia" colony end up focusing the attention of the Italians to prevent them from attacking Ethiopia or ATL Turkey's relations with the Italian Empire ends up sharing some parallel's with OTL Albania during the times it made Albania a protectorate, if not seek to prop up and help modernize the ATL Turkish Republic to further its own interests in the region. There is also the question of Italy itself remaining neutral should WW2 still happen in ATL, which would probably benefit an unstable Turkish Republic.

*- That was with an OTL Turkish Republic that did not suffer the catastrophic ATL territorial losses, where in the case of the latter it potentially shares borders with an expanded ATL Greece (plus Cyprus), French mandate of Syria (plus Hatay and Cilicia) as well as Russian / Soviet United Armenia and Kurdistan.

If Italy gets a really good outcome like that in the Treaty of Versailles, do they even become Fascist?

 

[Masked Grizzly]

If Italy gets a really good outcome like that in the Treaty of Versailles, do they even become Fascist?

Cannot cannot see it preventing Italy from going fascist even in this TL. However in OTL the Treaty of Sèvres ended up never being ratified and was annulled in the course of the Turkish War of Independence. which would not be the case in an ATL where the Turks are unable to fully create new facts on the ground that eventually led to the OTL Treaty of Lausanne.

Within the context of further Ottoman territorial losses from WW1 followed by a Turkish defeat in the Greco-Turkish war, it is possible some revised version of the Treaty of Sèvres still ends up being applicable in such a scenario albeit with some modifications due to potential Greek gains in the Greco-Turkish war as well as other territorial losses in the east / etc being permanent (West Armenia, Kurdish regions as well as a Lebanon-like French Cilicia out of the regions of Alexandretta, Osmaniye plus possibly parts of Adana and Gaziantep, along with possibly Italian Lycia).

Envision an ATL rump Turkish Republic still having access to both the Black Sea from Zonguldak to Giresun as well as the Mediterranean via Mersin and possibly if not most of Antalya - the latter depends on the whim of the Italians and whether they opt to return Lycia in order to counter growing Soviet influence in a more politically unstable Turkish Republic (or retreat from their occupation zone like they did in OTL only for the Turks to lose Lycia as a result of potential Greek gains).

Especially given both the Italians and Soviets (along apparently with the French) did provide material support to the Turks in the OTL Greco-Turkish war, it also depends on whether the Soviets in ATL would be in a position to aid the Turks if they take power much later compared to OTL or decide to capitalize on the successful Sazonov part of the Sykes-Picot agreement (including United Armenia and Kurdistan up to Mosul) in order to further their own interests in establishing new SSRs in the area due to ATL Turkish weakness in its war of independence.

 

[Lascaris]

It depends on both the political situation in the country after a Turkish defeat in the Greco-Turkish war and whether İsmet İnönü still manages to become president in this scenario, as ATL revanchist sentiment aside like in OTL he would probably still be determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could on the basis the young Turkish Republic (in both OTL and even more so in ATL) was still re-building, recovering from the losses due to earlier wars, and lacked any modern weapons and the infrastructure to enter a war to be fought along and possibly within its borders*. İnönü in OTL based his neutrality policy during the Second World War on the premise that Western Allies and the Soviet Union would sooner or later have a falling out after the war.

Ismet was commanding the army fighting the Greeks. In the event of Greek victory he's the man responsible for the defeats against the Greeks... or at least so his opponents will be claiming when the knifes are out. Hence I find it less than likely that he comes to power.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

Ismet was commanding the army fighting the Greeks. In the event of Greek victory he's the man responsible for the defeats against the Greeks... or at least so his opponents will be claiming when the knifes are out. Hence I find it less than likely that he comes to power.

Apart form possibly Rauf Orbay which other individuals would likely come to power in place of Ismet İnönü? Both in terms of candidates who would pragmatically adopt a similar neutral position to the latter as well as those of a potentially more pro-axis bent further fuelled by any ATL revanchist sentiment, ranging from seeking to achieve territories roughly according to the Misak-ı Millî at minimum (if not more grandiose early Neo-Ottoman ambitions)?

 

[Lascaris]

Apart form possibly Rauf Orbay which other individuals would likely come to power in place of Ismet İnönü? Both in terms of candidates who would pragmatically adopt a similar neutral position to the latter as well as those of a potentially more pro-axis bent further fuelled by any ATL revanchist sentiment, ranging from seeking to achieve territories roughly according to the Misak-ı Millî at minimum (if not more grandiose early Neo-Ottoman ambitions)?

Kazim Karabekir is one possibility but both him and Rauf Orby were out of the close circle of Kemalists since they created an opposition party in the mid 1920s. I'm partial to Recep Peker as a plausible candidate on the authoritarian side of things. Then Celal Bayar and Abdulhalik Renda are also possible candidates as they were prime minister and speaker of the grand national assembly.

And of course these all suppose Kemal remains mostly in control to his death despite the defeat. Otherwise you have other possibilities... say an Enver pasha that was back in ATL Turkey in 1921-22...

 

[David T]

If Greece wins the Greco-Turkish war and takes coastal Turkish lands, then it's possible that Turkey would join the axis when Italy goes after Greece.
Then after Barbarossa, Turkey is invaded by the Soviets from the north, and possibly also by the Allies from the south/west. If Hoxha makes a convincing case to the Soviets they could pick him to lead their new Warsaw Pact member state.

Leaving aside all the other problems with this ATL, if the USSR does invade Turkey why on earth is it likely that a young ethnic Albanian is going to be their choice for leader of a Communist Turkey? (This is even assuming that Hoxha becomes a Communist at all in this ATL which is doubtful enough.) In Albania there was no Communist Party to speak of, which helped cleared the way for Hoxha. The Turkish Communist Party was two decades old, and Moscow had plenty of loyal and experienced Turkish cadres to choose their leadership from. Why Hoxha rather than, say Şefik Hüsnü Deymer? https://books.google.com/books?id=P7qKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA435
https://books.google.com/books?id=egPeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT43

Or Resat Fuat Baraner? https://books.google.com/books?id=yHPBYlflhNAC&pg=PA110
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suat_Derviş ("Baraner was the leader of the Turkish Communist Party (TKP), which was banned at the time.")

 

[Masked Grizzly]

Kazim Karabekir is one possibility but both him and Rauf Orby were out of the close circle of Kemalists since they created an opposition party in the mid 1920s. I'm partial to Recep Peker as a plausible candidate on the authoritarian side of things. Then Celal Bayar and Abdulhalik Renda are also possible candidates as they were prime minister and speaker of the grand national assembly.

And of course these all suppose Kemal remains mostly in control to his death despite the defeat. Otherwise you have other possibilities... say an Enver pasha that was back in ATL Turkey in 1921-22...

Essentially see the ATL Kemalists (or Kemalist analogue) efforts at rebuilding the country after the Greco-Turkish war (whilst somehow managing to avoid ended up like the Weimar Republic) being further compounded by having to deal with significant internal discord compared to OTL from any Communist, pan-Turkist and Caliphatist / Islamist elements.

Enver Pasha surviving and living longer (as a Pan-Turkist alternative to Kemalism) or Recep Peker's OTL open admiration for Fascism/Nazism would make things interesting as far as making the ATL Turkish Republic tilt towards the Axis is concerned, though Pro-Axis Turkish neutrality (instead of Turkish ambitions of achieving the Misak-ı Millî up to wild Neo-Ottoman / Pan-Turkish dreams) would probably be in its best interest based on the state of the country and its military capabilities (that would likely be worse compared to OTL and potentially make the OTL WW2 Italian military look competent in comparison).

While the consensus in similar past threads would appear to be the Turkish Republic eventually going all revanchist and pro-Axis against surrounding neighbors in the event of catastrophic losses from WW1 up to the Greco-Turkish War, would have to wonder how the ATL Turkish Republic would be able to recover from its defeats (like Germany) to even be in a position to enter a war along as well as within its borders (if Ismet İnönü's view of OTL Turkey was accurate) let alone have a leader of an unstable regime be suicidal enough to enter WW2 on the side of the Axis. It seems there would be as much a chance of the country entering into another civil war and potential Communist takeover, as it would be in for a Pro-Axis Turkish defeat in WW2 to be replaced by a Pro-Soviet regime.

Do agree that there are other Turkish candidates who could have led a post-WW2 Communist Turkey in place of an ATL Turkified Enver Hoca, the latter would partly stem from a potentially much larger Albanian population in Turkey compared to OTL yet having a non-native outsider becoming leader / dictator of another country would not be the first time such an occurrence has happened in history.

 

[David T]

Leaving aside all the other problems with this ATL, if the USSR does invade Turkey why on earth is it likely that a young ethnic Albanian is going to be their choice for leader of a Communist Turkey? (This is even assuming that Hoxha becomes a Communist at all in this ATL which is doubtful enough.) In Albania there was no Communist Party to speak of, which helped cleared the way for Hoxha. The Turkish Communist Party was two decades old, and Moscow had plenty of loyal and experienced Turkish cadres to choose their leadership from. Why Hoxha rather than, say Şefik Hüsnü Deymer? https://books.google.com/books?id=P7qKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA435
https://books.google.com/books?id=egPeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT43

Or Resat Fuat Baraner? https://books.google.com/books?id=yHPBYlflhNAC&pg=PA110
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suat_Derviş ("Baraner was the leader of the Turkish Communist Party (TKP), which was banned at the time.")

Even the poet Nazim Hikmet https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Nazim+Hikmet+Ran who died in Soviet exile as a member of the TKP's "external bureau" would IMO be more likely to become the leader of a Communist Turkey than Hoxha would!

ANGINA PECTORIS
If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
towards the Yellow River.
And every morning, doctor,
every morning at sunrise my heart
is shot in Greece.
And every night, doctor,
when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,
my heart stops at a run-down old house
in Istanbul.
And then after ten years
all I have to offer my poor people
is this apple in my hand, doctor,
one red apple:
my heart.

And that, doctor, that is the reason
for this angina pectoris-
not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.
I look at the night through the bars,
and despite the weight on my chest
my heart still beats with the most distant stars.

https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/angina-pektoris-7536

 

[Lascaris]

Essentially see the ATL Kemalists (or Kemalist analogue) efforts at rebuilding the country after the Greco-Turkish war (whilst somehow managing to avoid ended up like the Weimar Republic) being further compounded by having to deal with significant internal discord compared to OTL from any Communist, pan-Turkist and Caliphatist / Islamist elements.

Enver Pasha surviving and living longer (as a Pan-Turkist alternative to Kemalism) or Recep Peker's OTL open admiration for Fascism/Nazism would make things interesting as far as making the ATL Turkish Republic tilt towards the Axis is concerned, though Pro-Axis Turkish neutrality (instead of Turkish ambitions of achieving the Misak-ı Millî up to wild Neo-Ottoman / Pan-Turkish dreams) would probably be in its best interest based on the state of the country and its military capabilities (that would likely be worse compared to OTL and potentially make the OTL WW2 Italian military look competent in comparison).

While the consensus in similar past threads would appear to be the Turkish Republic eventually going all revanchist and pro-Axis against surrounding neighbors in the event of catastrophic losses from WW1 up to the Greco-Turkish War, would have to wonder how the ATL Turkish Republic would be able to recover from its defeats (like Germany) to even be in a position to enter a war along as well as within its borders (if Ismet İnönü's view of OTL Turkey was accurate) let alone have a leader of an unstable regime be suicidal enough to enter WW2 on the side of the Axis. It seems there would be as much a chance of the country entering into another civil war and potential Communist takeover, as it would be in for a Pro-Axis Turkish defeat in WW2 to be replaced by a Pro-Soviet regime.

Do agree that there are other Turkish candidates who could have led a post-WW2 Communist Turkey in place of an ATL Turkified Enver Hoca, the latter would partly stem from a potentially much larger Albanian population in Turkey compared to OTL yet having a non-native outsider becoming leader / dictator of another country would not be the first time such an occurrence has happened in history.

By my count a Turkey defeated in the Greek-Turkish war would end up with an economy roughly at two thirds of OTL. So at a rough estimation it should be able to mobilize something around 800-900,000 men as opposedto the 1.3 million of OTL. These much like OTL would be severely lacking in modern transport and equipment compared to Germany or even Italy but this did not stop for example the Romanians from fighting in the eastern front. Around March 1941 all other things being equal jumping on the Greeks and British will be rather tempting...

I would question if Kemal does continously hold to power following defeat around 1921. In OTL following the defeats at Afyon-Eski Sehir-Kutahia, Kemal was subject to severe criticism by the assembly, at some point apparently he had to surround it with troops. Outright losing the war would only exacerbate this, while probably some short of accommodation will need to be made with the sultan's government in Constantinople. One possibility I considered was Kemal being forced to resign in 1921-22 only to return to power in the early 30s on the wake of global economic crisis.

 

[David T]

To beat the dead horse one more time: Hoxha in OTL probably became a Marxist in reaction to the ridiculous King Zog, under whom Albania became a satellite of Fascist Italy. It's far from clear he'd have the same reaction to the Turkish government.

And even if he were a Communist (and, much less likely, a successful and ultimately ruling one) his politics might be quite different from those in OTL which were based on his eventual hatred of Tito (who wanted Yugoslavia to swallow up Albania) and Khrushchev (largely for his reconciliation with Tito).