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Stalinism (Russian: Сталинизм; Georgian: სტალინიზმი) refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy.^[1] Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included: rapid industrialization, socialism in one country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, and subordination of interests of other communist parties to those of the Soviet party - deemed to be the most forefront vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.^[1]

Stalinist rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union was officially designed to accelerate the Marxian development towards communism, stressing that such rapid industrialization was needed because the country was previously economically backward in comparison with other countries; and that it was needed in order to challenge internal and external enemies of communism.^[2] Rapid industrialization was accompanied with mass collectivization of agriculture and rapid urbanization.^[3] Rapid urbanization converted many small villages into industrial cities.^[4]

Stalinism took an aggressive stance on class conflict, utilizing state violence to forcibly purge society of the bourgeosie such as the Kulaks and other "class enemies", as well as claiming that class conflict existed within communist parties.^[5]

Stalinism is commonly used in a negative or pejorative manner due to the known extremely repressive political actions undertaken by Stalin. The reasons for Stalin's repressive actions have been debated.^[6] One perspective claims that Stalin's repressive actions were calculated and that he was mentally sane in his execution of repressive measures.^[7] Another perspective claims that Stalin's repressive political actions were the result of him having mental illness.^[8] This claim states that Stalin likely had the mental disorder of psychopathy and that its traits such as paranoia and manipulative behaviour influenced his political decisions.^[9][10][11] A third perspective claims that Stalinism's repressive actions were a continuation of the prevailing authoritarian and repressive political culture that originated in Tsarist Russia.^[12]

Etymology[link]

The term came into prominence during the mid-1930s, when Lazar Kaganovich, a Soviet politician and associate of Stalin, reportedly declared, "Let's replace Long Live Leninism with Long Live Stalinism!"^[13] Stalin initially met this usage with hesitancy, dismissing it as excessively praiseful and contributing to a cult of personality.^[13]

Stalinist policies[link]

Soviet Union

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of the Soviet Union

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Members of the Communist Party of China celebrating Stalin's birthday, in 1949.

Communists in a parade in London carrying a poster of Stalin.

Stalinism usually denotes a style of a government rather than an ideology. The ideology was Marxism-Leninism; this reflected the fact that Stalin himself was not a Communist theoretician, in contrast to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and that he prided himself on maintaining the legacy of Lenin as a founding father for the Soviet Union and the future Communist world.

Stalinism is an interpretation of the ideas of Marx and Lenin, and a certain political regime claiming to apply those ideas in ways fitting the changing needs of society, as with the transition from "socialism at a snail's pace" in the mid-1920s to the rapid industrialization of the Five-Year Plans. Sometimes, although rarely, the compound terms "Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism" (used by the Brazilian MR-8), or teachings of Marx/Engels/Lenin/Stalin, are used to show the alleged heritage and succession.

Poster "Study the great path of the Lenin-Stalin Party"

Simultaneously, however, many people who profess Marxism or Leninism view Stalinism as a perversion of their ideas; Trotskyists, in particular, are virulently anti-Stalinist, considering Stalinism a counter-revolutionary style of governance that used vaguely Marxist-sounding rhetoric to achieve power.

From 1917 to 1924, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin often appeared united, but their ideological differences never disappeared. In his dispute with Leon Trotsky, Stalin de-emphasized the role of workers in advanced capitalist countries (for example, he considered the U.S. working class as bourgeoisified labour aristocracy). Also, Stalin polemicized against Trotsky on the role of peasants, as in China, whereas Trotsky's position was in favor of urban insurrection over peasant-based guerrilla warfare.

The main contributions of Stalin to communist theory were:

• The groundwork for the Soviet policy concerning nationalities, laid in Stalin's 1913 work Marxism and the National Question,^[14] praised by Lenin.
• 'Socialism in One Country'
• The theory of aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism, a theoretical base supporting the repression of political opponents as necessary.

Stalin argued that the state must become stronger before it can "wither away" in favor of creating a classless Communist society. In Stalin's view, the state must be powerful enough to defeat counterrevolutionary elements. For this reason, Communist regimes influenced by Stalin have been widely described as totalitarian.

Soviet puppet Sheng Shicai extended Stalinist rule in Xinjiang province in the 1930s. Stalin opposed the Chinese Communist Party, and Sheng conducted a purge similar to Stalin's Great Purge in 1937.^[15]

Stalinist economic policy[link]

At the start of the 1930s Stalin launched a wave of radical economic policies, which completely overhauled the industrial and agricultural face of the Soviet Union. This came to be known as the 'Great Turn' as Russia turned away from the near-capitalist New Economic Policy. The NEP had been implemented by Lenin in order to ensure the survival of the Communist state following seven years of war (1914–1921, World War I from 1914 to 1917, and the subsequent Civil War) and had rebuilt Soviet production to its 1913 levels. However, Russia still lagged far behind the West, and the NEP was felt by Stalin and the majority of the Communist party, not only to be compromising Communist ideals, but also not delivering sufficient economic performance, as well as not creating the envisaged Socialist society. It was therefore felt necessary to increase the pace of industrialisation in order to catch up with the West.

Fredric Jameson has said that "Stalinism was [...] a success and fulfilled its historic mission, socially as well as economically" given that it "modernised the Soviet Union, transforming a peasant society into an industrial state with a literate population and a remarkable scientific superstructure."^[16] Robert Conquest disputed such a conclusion and noted that "Russia had already been fourth to fifth among industrial economies before World War I" and that Russian industrial advances could have been achieved without collectivisation, famine or terror. The industrial successes were far less than claimed, and the Soviet-style industrialisation was "an anti-innovative dead-end", according to him.^[17]

According to several Western historians^{[citation needed]}, Stalinist agricultural policies were a key factor in causing the Soviet famine of 1932–1933, which the Ukrainian government now calls the Holodomor, recognizing it as an act of genocide. However, there is still considerable debate in other countries as to whether or not the famine can be recognized as genocide.

Legacy[link]

After Stalin's death in 1953, his successor Nikita Khrushchev repudiated his policies, condemned Stalin's cult of personality in his Secret Speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, and instituted destalinisation and relative liberalisation (within the same political framework). Consequently, most of the world's Communist parties, who previously adhered to Stalinism, abandoned it and, to a greater or lesser degree, adopted the positions of Khrushchev.

A few of the notable exceptions were North Korea under Kim Il-sung, the People's Republic of China, under Mao Zedong, the Albanian Party of Labour under Enver Hoxha, the Communist Party of Indonesia, certain sections of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the Communist Party of New Zealand. In countries where the local Communist Party sided with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) under the leadership of Khrushchev, various groupings of dissident party members left to begin pre-party formations based on their specific interpretations of Marxism-Leninism. This process accelerated as the 1960s progressed into the 1970s, eventually leading to what was called the New Communist Movement in various countries.

For example, in the United States the New Communist Movement led to a plethora of formations, among them the Progressive Labour Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the October League, amongst others. Kim simply purged the North Korean Communist party of de-Stalinisation advocates, either executing them or forcing them into exile or labour camps.^[18] Under Mao, the People's Republic grew antagonistic towards what they saw as the new Soviet leadership's "revisionism", resulting in the Sino-Soviet Split in 1960. Subsequently, China independently pursued the ideology of Maoism, which still largely supported the legacy of Stalin and his policies.

The Socialist People's Republic of Albania took the Chinese party's side in the Sino-Soviet Split and remained committed, at least theoretically, to Hoxhaism, its brand of Stalinism, for decades thereafter, under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. Despite their initial cooperation against "revisionism," Hoxha denounced Mao as a revisionist, along with almost every other self-identified Communist organization in the world. This had the effect of isolating Albania from the rest of the world, as Hoxha was hostile to both the pro-USA and pro-Soviet spheres of influence, as well as the Non-Aligned Movement under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, whom Hoxha had also denounced.

The ousting of Khrushchev in 1964 by his former party-state allies has been described as a Stalinist restoration by some, epitomised by the Brezhnev Doctrine and the apparatchik/nomenklatura "stability of cadres," lasting until the period of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Some historians and writers (like German Dietrich Schwanitz^[19]) draw parallels between Stalinism and the economic policy of Tsar Peter the Great, although Schwanitz in particular views Stalin as "a monstrous reincarnation" of him. Both men wanted Russia to leave the western European states far behind in terms of development. Both largely succeeded, turning Russia into Europe's leading power. Others compare Stalin with Ivan the Terrible because of his policies of oprichnina and restriction of the liberties of common people.

Some analysts like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Mortal Danger: Misconceptions about Soviet Russia and the Threat to America consider the use of the term "Stalinism" is an excuse to hide the inevitable effects of communism as a whole on human liberties. He writes that the concept of Stalinism was developed after 1956 by western intellectuals so as to be able to keep alive the communist ideal. The term "Stalinism" however was in use as early as 1937 when Leon Trotsky wrote his pamphlet "Stalinism and Bolshevism".^[20]

Trotskyism[link]

Trotskyists argue that the "Stalinist USSR" was not socialist (and not communist), but a bureaucratised degenerated workers' state — that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, although not owning the means of production and not constituting a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class. Some in the Third Camp use bureaucratic collectivism as a theory to critique Stalinist forms of government. In foreign affairs the distinction between Trotskyism and Stalinism was even sharper. Trotsky believed that the Russian revolution needed to be spread all over the globe's working class, the proletarians for world revolution; Stalin insisted on consolidating Bolshevism in Russia and industrialization, "socialism in one country." The dispute did not end until Trotsky's assassination in his Mexican villa by the communist assassin, Ramon Mercader in 1940.^[21]

Council Communism[link]

Although worker's councils were politically significant in the earliest stages of the Soviet Union, they soon lost their power and significance as political power was concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The operation of the Soviet Union under Stalinism was almost entirely undemocratic, vesting absolute power into unelected bureaucrats. This was abhorent to council communists, who believe that workers' councils, or communes, embody the fundamental principles of socialism, such as workers' control over production and distribution. Indeed, some have described council communism as "socialism from below," which they counterpose against what they see as the "socialism from above" that was endorsed by Stalinism. According to this view, socialism from above is carried out by a centralized state run by an elite bureaucratic apparatus, whereas socialism from below represents the self-administration and self-rule of the working class.

Council communists described the Soviet Union as a capitalist state, believing that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia became a "bourgeois revolution" when a party bureaucracy replaced the old feudal aristocracy. Although most council communists felt the Russian Revolution was working class in character, they believed that the Soviet Union was a state capitalist country, with the state replacing the individual capitalists (an additional argument in favour of that was the continued existence of capitalist relations, as manifested e.g. in the New Economic Policy).

The core principle of council communism is that the government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose the idea of an authoritarian "State socialist"/"State capitalist" planned economy such as in the Soviet Union. They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a worker's democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils.

Supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Italy, one carrying a flag portraying Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

Raised fist, stenciled protest symbol of Autonome, a left-wing anti-Stalinist movement influenced by anarchism, left communism, and the Situationist International.

Left communists like C. L. R. James and the Italian autonomists, as well as unorthodox Trotskyists like Tony Cliff, described Stalinism as "state capitalism" – i.e., a form of capitalism where the state takes over the role of capital. Milovan Đilas argues that a New Class arose under Stalinism, a theory also put forward by various liberal theorists.

[edit] Socialisme ou Barbarie

Socialisme ou Barbarie, led by philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, was a radical Marxist and libertarian socialist group based in France that significantly developed the council communist tradition as well as laying the foundation for autonomism. Socialisme ou Barbarie harshly criticised the communist regime in the USSR, which it considered a form of "bureaucratic capitalism" and not at all the socialism it claimed to be. Philosopher Jean-François Lyotard was also part of this movement.

Situationist International[link]

The Situationist International was a group of strongly anti-authoritarian Marxist theorists, influenced by the early 20th century avant-garde art movements in Europe, chiefly led by Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. The Situationists were ruthlessly critical of Stalin and the Soviet Union, which they regarded as an oppressive undemocratic bureaucracy that was just as freedom-deprived as capitalist society, if not more so. The Situationists believed that Stalinist practices amounted to a complete rejection of Marxism, and that the hierarchy of power was identical in practice to capitalist society, arguing that a class of high-ranking bureaucrats and party officials had replaced the bourgeoisie. In contrast to Stalin's sprawling authoritarian and totalitarian state, the Situationists favored democratic workers' councils and workers' self-management intended to empower every individual equally and prevent anyone from centralizing power.

Anarchism[link]

Anarchists like Emma Goldman were initially enthusiastic about the Bolsheviks, particularly after dissemination of Lenin's pamphlet State and Revolution, which painted Bolshevism in a very libertarian light. However, the relations between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks soured in Soviet Russia (e.g., in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion and the Makhnovist movement). Anarchists and Stalinist Communists were also in armed conflict during the Spanish civil war. Anarchists are critical of the statist, totalitarian nature of Stalinism, as well as its cult of personality around Stalin (and subsequent leaders seen by anarchists as Stalinists, such as Mao).

Social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid.".^[22] Social anarchists argue that this goal can be achieved through the decentralization of political and economic power, distributing power equally among all individuals, and finally abolishing authoritarian institutions which control certain means of production.^[23] Social anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality.^[24] Social Anarchism political philosophies almost always share strong characteristics of anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalism and anti-statism. As the Soviet Union under Stalin manifested itself as a strong centralized authoritarian state, Stalinism and libertarian socialism are almost directly opposed.

Democratic socialism[link]

Peter Hain defines democratic socialism as a form of anti-authoritarian "socialism from below", in contrast to Stalinism and Social democracy, which are variants of authoritarian state socialism. A significant current of the democratic socialist movement has defined itself in opposition to Stalinism. This includes George Orwell and the Independent Labour Party in Britain (particularly after World War II), the group around Marceau Pivert in France and, in America, the New York Intellectuals around the Partisan Review. These democratic socialists saw Stalinism as a form of totalitarianism in some ways mirroring fascism.

[edit] Hillel Ticktin / Critique

In the journal Critique (Journal of Socialist Theory), Hillel H. Ticktin argues that the new Soviet rulers found themselves unable to use the market to control and exploit the peasantry and workers. So, instead, they used vast coercion, in the form of forced collectivisation, enabling them to both control the peasantry and to create an influx of new labour for rapid industrial expansion.^[25] Unprecedented levels of repression prevented any collective resistance. But, with little fear of unemployment and little monetary incentive to work harder, individual workers were still able to resist management interference. Workers also indulged in less-productive working, absenteeism and alcoholism.^[26]

This Stalinist system was neither socialist nor capitalist. Neither workers nor managers really controlled the work process and this created enormous inefficiencies and waste.^[27] As long as industry kept expanding by using new labour from the countryside, these inefficiencies could be covered up. But - Ticktin says - once this labour source "dried up, as it did in the mid-1970s, the regime was doomed".^[28] Ticktin also argues that the problems of post-Soviet Russia - which are exacerbated by the continuing decline of capitalism - show that Russia is still, essentially, a "disintegrating Stalinism".^[29]

Relationship to Leninism[link]

The historiography of Stalin is diverse, with many different aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the regimes of Stalin and Lenin proposed. Totalitarian historians such as Richard Pipes tend to see Stalinism as the natural consequence of Leninism, that Stalin "faithfully implemented Lenin's domestic and foreign policy programmes".^[30] More nuanced versions of this general view are to be found in the works of other Western historians, such as Robert Service, who notes that "institutionally and ideologically, Lenin laid the foundations for a Stalin... but the passage from Leninism to the worse terrors of Stalinism was not smooth and inevitable."^[31] Likewise, historian Edvard Radzinsky believes that Stalin was a real follower of Lenin, exactly as he claimed himself.^[32]

Proponents of continuity cite a variety of contributory factors: it is argued that it was Lenin, rather than Stalin, whose civil war measures introduced the Red Terror with its hostage taking and internment camps, that it was Lenin who developed the infamous Article 58, and who established the autocratic system within the Communist Party.^[33] They also note that Lenin put a ban on factions within the Russian Communist Party and introduced the one-party state in 1921 - a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death, and cite Felix Dzerzhinsky, who, during the Bolshevik struggle against opponents in the Russian Civil War, exclaimed "We stand for organised terror – this should be frankly stated".^[34]

Opponents of this view include revisionist historians and a number of post–Cold War and otherwise dissident Soviet historians including Roy Medvedev, who argues that although "one could list the various measures carried out by Stalin that were actually a continuation of anti-democratic trends and measures implemented under Lenin... in so many ways, Stalin acted, not in line with Lenin's clear instructions, but in defiance of them".^{[citation needed]} In doing so, some historians have tried to distance Stalinism from Leninism in order to undermine the Totalitarian view that the negative facets of Stalin (terror, etc.) were inherent in Communism from the start.^{[citation needed]} Critics of this kind include anti-Stalinist communists such as Leon Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the CPSU to remove Stalin from his post as its General Secretary. Lenin's Testament, the document which contained this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. British historian Isaac Deutscher, in his biography of Trotsky, says that on being faced with the evidence "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism".^[35] A similar analysis is present in more recent works, such as those of Graeme Gill, who argues that "[Stalinism was] not a natural flow-on of earlier developments; [it formed a] sharp break resulting from conscious decisions by leading political actors."^[36]

Claims of Stalinism being "Red fascism"[link]

Stalinism has been considered by some reviewers as a "Red fascism". The New York Times dubbed Stalinism "red fascism".^[37] Though fascist regimes were ideologically opposed to the Soviet Union, some of them positively regarded Stalinism as evolving Bolshevism into a form of fascism. Benito Mussolini positively reviewed Stalinism as having transformed Soviet Bolshevism into a Slavic fascism.^[38] Despite ideological differences and holding territorial claims on the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler admired Stalin and his politics and believed that Stalin was in effect transforming Soviet Bolshevism into a form of Nazism.^[39]

See also[link]

• Anti-Revisionism
• Anti-Stalinist left
• Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
• Cult of personality
• Joseph Stalin
• Maoism
• Neo-Stalinism
• Stalin Society
• Stalinist architecture
• Totalitarianism

Further reading[link]

• Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, written in 1951
• Vincent Barnett, "Understanding Stalinism: The 'Orwellian Discrepancy' and the 'Rational Choice Dictator'," Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, no. 3, May 2006 (online abstract).
• Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Goldmann
• Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography, Dietz, 1990
• Philip Ingram, Russia and the USSR 1905–1991, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997
• Lankov, Andrei N., Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press (2004)
• Boris Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, Alliance Book, 1939
• Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography, Belknap Press, 2002 ISBN 0-330-49139-3
• Robert Service. Stalin: A Biography, Belknap Press, 2005 ISBN 0-674-01697-1
• Vladimir Tismăneanu (2003). Stalinism for all seasons: a political history of Romanian Communism. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23747-1. 
• Allan Todd, The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003
• John Traynor, Challenging History: Europe 1890–1990, Nelson Thornes Ltd, Cheltenham, 2002
• C.L.R. James. State Capitalism and World Revolution. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., 1950.

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (December 2008)

External links[link]

• Stalin, Joseph V. Stalin Reference Archive at Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved May 11, 2005.
• Joseph Stalin on Spartacus Schoolnet
• Joseph Stalin by the BBC
• Basic Economic Precepts of Stalinist Socialism by Pedro Campos, Havana Times, June 21, 2010

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Adnan Oktar
Born	Adnan Oktar 1956 (age 55–56) Ankara, Turkey
Residence	Turkey
Other names	Harun Yahya, Adnan Hoca
Occupation	Author
Known for	Islamic creationism, Anti-Zionism, Anti-Masonry
Religion	Sunni Muslim
Website
www.harunyahya.com

Adnan Oktar (born 1956), also known as Harun Yahya,^[1] is an author and Islamic creationist.^[2] In 2007, he sent thousands of unsolicited copies of his book, Atlas of Creation^[3], which advocates Islamic creationism, to American scientists, members of Congress, and science museums.^[4] Oktar runs two organizations of which he is also the Honorary President: Bilim Araştırma Vakfı ("Science Research Foundation", BAV, established 1990), which promotes creationism and Milli Değerleri Koruma Vakfı ("Foundation to Protect National Values", established 1995) which claimed to promote Turkish nationalism.^[5] In the last two decades, Oktar has been involved in a number of legal cases, both as defendant and plaintiff.

Biography[link]

Adnan Oktar was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1956. He grew up in Ankara, and lived there through his high school years where he studied the works of Islamic scholars like Said Nursi,^[6][7] a Muslim Kurdish scholar who wrote Risale-i Nur, an extensive Qur'anic commentary which includes a comprehensive political and religious ideology.^[8]

In 1979, Adnan Oktar came to Istanbul and entered Mimar Sinan University.^[9] These years were marked with violence and repression which led to the installation of a military junta following the coup of September 1980. The environment in Turkey was one of political and cultural instability, threatened by Cold War politics, and a clash between Kemalist secular modernisers and a rising tide of Islamic militancy.^[7] In this environment he regularly went to the Molla Mosque in Fındıklı locality, close to the academy of fine arts where he studied interior architecture,^[10][11] to pray regardless of threats.^[9] Edip Yuksel, who knew him during those years, described him as a "Sunni zealot."^[6]

In the early 1980s, he gathered young students around him to share his views of Islam. These students belonged to socially-active and prosperous families of Istanbul.^[6] From 1982 to 1984, a group of 20 to 30 was formed. They were joined by private high school students who were from socially active and well-known families with a high economic status who had become newly religious.^[9] Edip Yüksel said he presented his teachings "gently and in a modern fashion to the children of the privileged class, without intimidating them... a refined and urbanized version of Said Nursi."^[6]

In his religious teachings, he argued against Marxism, communism and materialistic philosophy. He attached special importance to refuting the Theory of Evolution and Darwinism^[12] because he felt that it had been turned into an ideology used to promote materialism and atheism, and numerous derivative ideologies. He personally funded a pamphlet entitled the Theory of Evolution^[9] which combined "mysticism with scientific rhetoric."^[6][7]

In 1986 he enrolled in the Philosophy Department of Istanbul University. Adnan Oktar appeared as the cover story of Nokta (The Point) magazine, reporting how he gathered with his friends and held lectures in a mosque. Many university students, mostly from Bosphorus University, one of the most prestigious universities of Turkey, started to participate. Adnan Oktar's name began to appear regularly in the press, sometimes in the headlines. Later that year he published a book titled Judaism and Freemasonry based on conspiracy theories that state offices, universities, political groups and media were influenced by a "hidden group".^[9] Adnan Oktar later qualified those remarks. (see "Conspiracy Theories" below)

Oktar was arrested, charged with promoting a theocratic revolution for which he served 19 months, though he was never formally charged.^[6][7] In 1986, Oktar spent 10 months in a mental hospital, but he complains that he was not mentally ill but a political "prisoner" who was punished because of the publication of his book, Freemasonry and Judaism.^[11][13]

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Oktar built up his community. His followers were especially active recruiting in the summer resorts along the shore of the Sea of Marmara. The social organization within the group become more hierarchical and took on a Messianic nature.^[7] Oktar says that due to the anarchy and terror in those years, he was unable to continue his studies. He had already begun working on his books, so when he left school he devoted his energy to his books.^[14]

In 1990, he founded the Science Research Foundation (SRF, or, in Turkish, Bilim Araştırma Vakfı, or BAV). Oktar founded the Science Research Foundation to hold conferences and seminars for scientific activities "that target mass awareness concerning what the real underlying causes of social and political conflicts are",^[15] which he describes to be materialism and Darwinism, though some media describe the BAV as "a secretive Islamic sect"^[16] and "cult-like organization, that jealously guards the secrets of its considerable wealth".^[17] Members of the BAV are sometimes referred to as Adnan Hocacılar ("Adherents of Adnan the Hodja") by the public^[18]

In 1994 the Islamist Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), the predecessor of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), won control of the municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara. The new mayors (in Istanbul this was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now Turkey’s Prime Minister) sought broader support. The journalist and editor Fatih Altayli claimed that Oktar made business agreements with municipalities under the control of the Welfare party. This claim was denied by Oktar, and resulted in libel suits against Fatih Altayli with various results.^[7]

In 1995, Adnan Oktar founded Foundation for Protection of National Values (FPNV or in Turkish Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı), through which he networks with other conservative Turkish nationalist organizations and individuals based on the ideology of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.^[7]

In 1997, after another military intervention, the “bloodless coup” of 1997, the government of Erbakan stepped down and the Welfare Party disbanded. According to the New Humanist, the current AKP government avoids political connections with Oktar and his organization.^[7]

In September 1999 Adnan Oktar was arrested and charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime (see "Legal issues" below).^[19] After a court case lasting two years the charges were dismissed.

After 11 September 2001 and the WTC attacks, Oktar published a book called Islam Denounces Terrorism. Oktar spoke more of interfaith dialogue, attempting to unify believers of all stripes. Muslims, Christians and Jews should unite against the corrupting influence of Darwinism, which he held responsible for fascism, anti-Semitism and the holocaust.^[7]

Between that time and present, BAV has organized hundreds of conferences on creationism in Turkey^[20][21] and worldwide.^[22][23] He built a large publishing enterprise^[24] with publications sold though Islamic bookstore worldwide.^[25] He is considered "one of the most widely distributed authors in the Muslim world".^[25] His television show is viewed by many in the Arab world.^[26] Adnan Oktar has been preaching about the “Turkish-Islamic Union”, which would bring peace to the entire Muslim world under the leadership of Turkey.^[7]

In 2007 he sent out thousands of unsolicited copies of his Atlas of Creation advocating Islam and creationism to schools and colleges in several European countries and the USA.^[4]

The next year the 1999 case was reopened by another court (see "Legal issues" below). Adnan Oktar was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.^[19] But the verdict was appealed and in May 2010 it was overturned. During these years he engaged in numerous libel suits with various results (See "Legal Issues" below). In some cases he was successful in blocking high-profile websites in Turkey for slander (See "Blocking Internet Sites" below), including that of Richard Dawkins, as well as the complete Wordpress-site.

In 2010, Adnan Oktar was selected as one of the top fifty of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan for his dissemination of creationism in an Islamic context, and other extensively distributed publications on Islamic topics.^[27]

Writings[link]

Oktar has written numerous books under the pen name Harun Yahya. "Harun" refers to the biblical Aaron and "Yahya" refers to the New Testament John the Baptist.

Oktar's books on faith-related topics attempt to communicate the existence and oneness of God (Allah in the Qur'an) according to the Islamic faith, and are written with the main purpose of introducing Islam to those who are strangers to religion. Each of his books on science-related topics stresses his views on the might, sublimity, and majesty of God. These books attempt to display for non-Muslims what Oktar claims to be signs of the existence of God, and the excellence of his creation. A sub-group within this series are the series of "Books Demolishing the Lie of Evolution", a critique of the ideas of materialism, evolution, Darwinism, and atheism.

These publications argue against evolution. They assert that evolution denies the existence of God, abolishes moral values, and promotes materialism and communism.^[28] Oktar argues that Darwinism, by stressing the "survival of the fittest", has inspired racism, Nazism, communism and terrorism. A claim not unexpected in Turkey when during the political turmoil before a 1980 military coup, communist bookshops touted Darwin's works as a complement to Karl Marx.^[29]

Truman State University physicist Taner Edis, who was born in Turkey, says the secret to BAV's success is the huge popularity of the Harun Yahya books. "They're fairly lavishly produced, on good-quality paper with full-color illustrations all over the place," he says. "They're trying to compete with any sort of science publication you can find in the Western world. And in a place like Turkey, Yahya books look considerably better-published than most scientific publications.".^[30] Many of Oktar's books have been made into high-resolution videos which are freely downloadable on the Internet.^[31]

Creationism[link]

The spread of organized Christian creationism to Islam began in the 1980s, when the Muslim minister of education in Turkey turned to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a Christian institution then located near San Diego, California, for help in developing twofold curriculum that would teach evolution and creation side by side.

In 1990, the Science Research Foundation (BAV in Turkish) was formed in Istanbul, headed by Oktar.^[32]

Oktar for many years drew on the writings of young earth Christian creationists to develop his case against evolution. However, Islam does not require belief in Young Earth creationism, and making use of the fact that earth may have existed for billions of years, Oktar later produced material which was more similar to Intelligent Design. So similar in fact, that Harun Yahya's website was listed as an 'Islamic intelligent design' website by the Discovery Institute.^[32] However Oktar does not embrace use of the term 'Intelligent Design' due to its lack of specific mention of God, calling it 'another of Satan's snares'.^{[32] [33]}

In early 1998, the BAV launched its first campaign against evolution and Darwinism.^[7] Thousands of free copies of Adnan Oktar's book, The Evolution Deceit, and the booklets based on this book were distributed throughout Turkey.^[34] They regularly ran full-page ads against evolution in daily Turkish newspapers and even ran an ad in the U.S. magazine TIME.^[5] The funding of the campaigns is unknown.^[11] BAV spearheaded an effort to confront Turkish academics who taught evolutionary biology^[35] A number of faculty members were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers, leading to legal action against BAV (see "Legal Issues" below).

In 2005, Professor Ümit Sayın summed up the effect of the BAV's campaign when he said to The Pitch:^[30]

In 1998, I was able to motivate six members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences to speak out against the creationist movement. Today, it's impossible to motivate anyone. They're afraid they'll be attacked by the radical Islamists and the BAV.

In September 2008 Oktar issued a challenge offering "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution". He has claimed, "Not one [fossil] belongs to strange-looking creatures in the course of development of the kind supposed by evolutionists." Dr Kevin Padian at the University of California has criticized the notion that such fossils do not exist, stating that Oktar "does not have any sense of what we know about how things change through time. If he sees a fossil crab, he says, 'It looks just like a regular crab, there's no evolution.'"^[36]

However, the reaction of scientific community is negative and dismissive.

Taner Edis has said "there is nothing new in the Yahya material: scientifically negligible arguments and outright distortions often copied from Christian anti-evolution literature, presented with a conservative Muslim emphasis" concluding it "has no scholarly standing whatsoever".^[37] According to Richard Dawkins, Oktar "doesn't know anything about zoology, doesn't know anything about biology. He knows nothing about what he is attempting to refute".^[11]

In France, scientists spoke out against the book, and American scientists are unimpressed.^[38]

The Atlas of Creation[link]

Cover of the English edition of volume 1 of The Atlas of Creation (Global Publishing, Istanbul, 2006)

Oktar published volume 1 of his Yaratılış Atlası (The Atlas of Creation), with Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006.^[39] Volumes 2 and 3 followed in 2007. A dedicated website (yaratilisatlasi.com, English atlasofcreation.com) registered to Global Yayıncılık (Global Publishing), Istanbul, went online also in 2007.

At 11 x 17 inches and 12 pounds, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, “Atlas of Creation” is according the New York Times "probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Mr. Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran".^[4] Tens of thousands of copies of the book have been delivered, on an unsolicited basis, to schools, prominent researchers and research institutes throughout Europe and the United States.^[4][40]

Biologist Kevin Padian from University of California, Berkeley, said that people who had received copies were “just astounded at its size and production values and equally astonished at what a load of crap it is." adding that "[Oktar] does not really have any sense of what we know about how things change through time.”^[4]

Gerdien de Jong, one of five biologists at Utrecht University who received a copy of the book, has described its reasoning as "absurdly ridiculous".^[41]

Biologist PZ Myers wrote: "The general pattern of the book is repetitious and predictable: the book shows a picture of a fossil and a photo of a living animal, and declares that they haven't changed a bit, therefore evolution is false. Over and over. It gets old fast, and it's usually wrong (they have changed!) and the photography, while lovely, is entirely stolen."^[42]

The Committee on Culture, Science and Education of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe wrote in a report that "None of the arguments in this work are based on any scientific evidence, and the book appears more like a primitive theological treatise than the scientific refutation of the theory of evolution."^[43]

Conspiracy theories[link]

Oktar propagates a number of conspiracy theories, beginning with his 1986 Yahudilik ve Masonluk (Judaism and Freemasonry). The book suggests that the principal mission of Jews and Freemasons in Turkey was to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and, thus, make them like animals, as stated in what Oktar refers to as their use of "Distorted Torah."^[9][44] Oktar asserts that "the materialist standpoint, evolution theory, anti-religious and immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole" by Jews and Freemasons.^[9]

Oktar's theory of a global conspiracy of Freemasonry is expounded in his book Global Masonluk (English Global Freemasonry) and on his websites Masonluk^[45] and Global Freemasonry.^[46] According to Oktar, Freemasonry is "the main architect of the world system based on materialist philosophy, but which keeps that true identity concealed."^[46] Oktar claims that the theory of evolution is a Masonic conspiracy initiated by the Rosicrucians.

Oktar's recent publications declare Darwinism and Materialism to be conspiracies responsible for anti-semitism and terrorism.^[7][47] In recent publications and interviews (since 2004^[48]), Oktar qualifies his condemnations of Zionism and Freemasonry by adding the word atheist before them, as in atheist Zionists^[49] and atheist Freemasons.^[50]

Holocaust Denial and Affirmation[link]

In 1996, BAV distributed its first book, originally published the previous year, entitled Soykırım Yalanı (The Holocaust Lie).^[51][52] The publication of Soykırım Yalanı sparked much public debate.^[53] This book claims that "what is presented as Holocaust is the death of some Jews due to the typhus plague during the war and the famine towards the end of the war caused by the defeat of the Germans."^[54]

A Turkish painter and intellectual, Bedri Baykam, published a strongly worded critique of the book in the Ankara daily newspaper Siyah-Beyaz ("Black and White"). A legal suit for slander was brought against him. During the trial in September, Baykam exposed the real author of The Holocaust Lie as Adnan Oktar.^[53] The suit was withdrawn in March 1997.^[55][56]

In 2001, the Stephen Roth Institute, of Tel-Aviv University, listed Oktar as a Holocaust denier due to the publication of The Holocaust Lie.^[57]

Three years later the Stephen Roth Institute expressed the opinion that Adnan Oktar had increased his tolerance toward others, asserting that "he now works towards promoting inter-religious dialogue".^[48] calling upon all Muslims to have "a tolerant and friendly attitude toward other religions".^[58]

In 2006, BAV published a book affirming the Holocaust, called The Holocaust Violence. The Holocaust Violence states "The Nazis subjected European Jews to indisputable and unforgivable cruelty during World War II. They humiliated, insulted and degraded millions of Jewish civilians, forcing them from their homes and enslaving them in concentration camps under inhuman conditions... Certainly the Jewish people, of whom 5.5 million died in concentration camps, were the worst victims of the Nazi barbarity."^[59]

In a 2007 interview with The Guardian, Oktar denied writing The Holocaust Lie, a claim that The Guardian stated was "hard to believe."^[60] The next year in an interview with Der Spiegel, Adnan Oktar stated that "The Holocaust Lie," had been written by a member of his organization who had published his own essays using Oktar's pen-name "Harun Yahya", upon his own initiative. Oktar disclaimed the first book, and said the second book reflected his own opinions.^[52]

In 2009, Oktar expressed his views for Jews in his own words, "hatred or anger toward the line of the Prophet Abraham is completely unacceptable. The Prophet Abraham is our ancestor, and the Jews are our brothers. We want the descendants of the Prophet Abraham to live in the easiest, pleasantest and most peaceful manner. We want them to be free to perform their religious obligations, to live as they wish in the lands of their forebears and to frequently remember Allah in comfort and security."^[61] In 2009 and 2010, Oktar published several websites of Jewish interest.^[62][63][64]

Other legal issues[link]

In addition to the slander trial over The Holocaust Lie, Oktar has been involved in other cases. Although most are unrelated to creationism or religion, a BAV spokesperson says Oktar is being persecuted “because of his ideas.” Physicist Taner Edis of Truman State University, who has followed the case closely, says given the political pressures on Turkey’s justice system, that’s “not entirely implausible.”^[65]

In the summer of 1986, Oktar was arrested for his statement "I am from the nation of Abraham and Turkish ethnicity" in a newspaper interview.^[66] According to the New Humanist, Oktar was arrested for promoting a theocratic revolution for which he served 19 months, though he was never formally charged.^[7]

In 1991, Oktar was arrested for possession of cocaine,^[67] which he claimed had been planted in one of the books in his library by the security forces, who, he said, also spiked his food with cocaine.^[68] He was later acquitted.^[67]

A number of faculty members who taught evolution were harassed, threatened and slandered in flyers that labeled them "Maoists". In 1999, six of the professors won a civil court case against the BAV for defamation and were each awarded $4,000.^[30]

In 1999, Oktar was arrested and charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime.^[19] BAV's lawyers claimed there were several human rights violations during this police operation, as well as the use of violence during the arrest and afterwards.^[69] The judicial process lasted over two years, during which most of the complainants retracted their claims. As a result, cases against Oktar and other BAV members were dismissed.^[35]

The 1999 case was reopened by another court in 2008. The indictment from the prosecutor’s office, made public by Cumhuriyet, claimed blackmail and extortion. Among other things, it claimed that BAV used its female members to attract young scholars from rich families with the promise of sexual favors in exchange for attending events. It was claimed that the sexual activities of thousands of people were videotaped with hidden cameras for the purpose of blackmail. Members who wanted to leave the group were threatened that the tapes would be made public.^[7][70] In the face of all these allegations against BAV, the Chairman of the Court announced in the hearing on 29 February 2008, that testimonies obtained through unlawful means may not be considered as evidence based on article 148 of the criminal code.^[71]

Oktar was convicted of creating an illegal organization for personal gain. He and 17 other members of his organisation were sentenced to three years in prison.^{[19][72][73][74]} Oktar appealed the verdict.^[75][76] In May 2010, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and dismissed the charges.^[77]

Blocking of Internet sites[link]

Since 2007 Oktar has successfully had the Turkish government block public access to several websites. In April 2007, Oktar filed a libel lawsuit against the owners of Ekşi Sözlük, a virtual community similar to everything2. The court reviewed the complaint and ordered the service provider to close the site to public access. The site was temporarily suspended so the entry on Oktar could be expunged and locked. Then access to Süper Poligon, a news website, was also restricted following Oktar's complaint.^[78] In August 2007, Oktar got a Turkish court to block WordPress.com in all of Turkey. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material on Oktar and his colleague, which WordPress.com staff was unwilling to remove.^[79]