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 Yay Nlar publishing house in 1965, which published many of his works. He founded the Işsizlik ve Pahalilikla Savaş Dernegi (IPSD) in 1967.

Publications

Among his publications are Türkiye Işçi Sinifinin Sosyal Varliği (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 elestirel 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 Aydinlik, Sosyalist, Türk Solu, and Ant between 1965 and 1971. After his death Fuat Fegan became custodian of Kivilcimli's papers and political inheritance.