On 25 September 1943—during the most authoritarian years of the single-party period in Turkey, under İsmet İnönü's presidency—Şevket Torgut, deputy of Kırşehir, a central Anatolian province, and party inspector of Zonguldak, a western Black Sea province, reported on his in-depth investigations into peasant grievances regarding the livestock theft plaguing Zonguldak, especially in the subdistrict of Çaycuma. He wrote that the peasants had accused the subdistrict director (nahiye müdürü) of ignoring the problem and even of collaborating with the thieves. Torgut strongly recommended that the secretary general of the Republican Peoples’ Party (RPP) dismiss the subdistrict director immediately. This part of the report circulated among the secretary general, several RPP bureaus, and the minister of internal affairs and was evaluated thoroughly by all of them. Finally, the government, finding the peasants’ complaints well grounded, dismissed the subdistrict director. The secretary general, Nafi Atıf Kansu, also kindly requested that the minister of internal affairs remove the gendarme commander of the region in order to further alleviate the public's grievance.Footnote ¹

Reports containing detailed information about society, public opinion, local governments, and RPP organizations inundated the Kemalist leadership during the early republican era. Circulated among cabinet ministers, RPP bureaus, and the RPP secretary general, the reports brought the voices of society into the decision-making process of the government. The example given previously is just one of many that illustrate this bottom-up decision-making practice.

In spite of this complicated mechanism linking the government to the society, the Turkish single-party state is usually assumed to have been a coercive, callous, and bureaucratic polity, a continuation of the so-called Asiatic-despotic and transcendental Ottoman state tradition. Frequently compared to contemporary authoritarian regimes, it is believed to have been isolated from society, governed by the rigid command of a few high authorities closed to social inputs. Notwithstanding the diversity of scholarly positions, both nationalist and critical approaches have often focused on the ruling elites and on legal and institutional politics dominated by the RPP and have portrayed the state as a strong and independent structure, be it “good” or “bad.”Footnote ² The hegemony of the elite-centered political-history approach has gone hand in hand with a belief in the scarcity of sources on state–society interactions.Footnote ³ Therefore, a shift of focus—which is under way in recent studies—toward exploring a more nuanced and complex history of state–society interactions in daily life requires not only a methodological and paradigmatic shift but also the exploration of new sources that depict the junctions between the state and society.Footnote ⁴

Reports written by RPP deputies about their election and inspection districts during the early republican period—which are stored in the Republican Archives and have recently been made available to researchers—call into question widely accepted arguments about the single-party state. Written annually or biennially by the deputies after investigating their districts, then circulated among and evaluated by both the top party leaders and government bureaucrats, these previously unexamined records represent important points of contact between the state and society and include extensive information on social, economic, cultural, and political life in various localities. An in-depth examination of both the reports and the inspection mechanism that generated them is thus of great importance for understanding the early republican regime and Kemalism. The main question this paper seeks to address is what role the reports played in the functioning of the government during the early republican regime. It explores the social dynamics and underlying aims that motivated the state to set up the report mechanism. My conclusion is that the inspection and reporting system was a response of the state to social pressures and needs rather than part of a social-engineering project. A close look at the motives behind the construction of the system shows that, contrary to what is commonly believed, the early republican state did not disregard the society and public opinion.

The article also examines how the inspection and reporting mechanism functioned in the decision-making process of government and party administrations. I propose that the reports played a crucial role as a communication channel joining the political elites to local communities rather than functioning as a unidirectional mechanism of control. A variety of information on public opinion, the population, and administrative processes gathered in the reports ultimately influenced the state's decisions. The reports enabled the society to communicate with political power-holders, even if indirectly, and thus constituted a bridge—albeit not an ideal, seamless, or flawless one—between the state and society that made authorities more sensitive to the populace and more adaptable to public opinion. In examining this practice, the article complicates conventional accounts that replicate an image—created by the Kemalist elite—of the state as a detached, independent, and powerful entity. The Kemalist elite's motives for establishing the report mechanism, and its systematic treatment of the reports that were generated, illustrate how the early republican state was neither isolated from social inputs nor maintained a rigid structure in the face of popular sentiment.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE REPORTS

The first attempt to establish an inspection and report mechanism in the new republican era was made in 1925, when the country was divided into fourteen inspectorate regions and an inspector deputy appointed to each region. The RPP Regulations of 1927 obliged a limited number of prominent deputies in the RPP General Executive Committee (Umumî İdare Heyeti) to carry out annual inspections in their inspection regions. After the Third Congress of the RPP in 1931, according to Article 42 of the RPP Regulations drawn up in that congress, party deputies were expected to tour their election districts or other regions to which they were appointed as inspectors, write up their observations and investigations, and submit these reports biennially to the secretary general of the party.Footnote ⁵

There are two such kinds of reports in the archives. The first type comprises election district reports by party deputies on the regions they represented; these reports were required of all party deputies. The second type, classified as inspection district reports, were submitted by party deputies charged specifically by the secretary general with inspecting local party branches and state–society relations in a particular inspection district, made up of three or four provinces, which were different from their election districts.Footnote ⁶ For example, Bekir Kaleli, who was the deputy of Gaziantep, a province located in Southeastern Anatolia, was at the same time the inspector of the Aydın district, which included four western provinces neighboring each other, Aydın, Muğla, Burdur, and Isparta.Footnote ⁷ The main logic behind the dual-system inspection mechanism was probably the reciprocal control of the deputies in order to minimize the likelihood of incorrect or exaggerated information.Footnote ⁸

As for the content, no considerable differences exist between election district reports and inspection district reports, though inspector deputies showed a bit more concern for party organizations. Both types of reports focus on the work of state and party functionaries; the wrongdoings of the local bureaucracy; social and economic conditions; the people's needs, demands, and complaints; and public opinion. Fortunately, there are myriad reports from the beginning of the single-party period to 1950, when the Democratic Party came to power in free elections and the RPP, as the opposition party, discontinued its comprehensive inspection and reporting mechanism.Footnote ⁹ Each report, whether of an election district or an inspection district, is preserved in a file with many related documents, including thematic report summaries submitted to the ministries, answers from the ministers to the issues raised in the summaries, special reports on measures taken by the ministries in response to these issues, and notes from the secretary general to the ministers on urgent matters identified by the report authors. These documents indicate that such reports did not sit unread on the dusty shelves of bureaucratic agencies but played an active role in the governing of the country.

REPORTS FROM THE EMPIRE TO THE REPUBLIC: A SHORT HISTORY

Inspection systems and the practice of writing reports on local bureaucracies, socioeconomic conditions, and popular opinions were not, to be sure, peculiar to early republican Turkey. With the development of the modern state in the 19th and especially the 20th century, many European governments developed surveillance, social control, and self-monitoring mechanisms as indispensable components of a centralized administration that could adjust to economic, social, and political trends.Footnote ¹⁰ The emergence of a public sphere mediating between the state and society, and the increasing influence of society on politics, prompted modern governments to monitor public opinion. The reporting system in early republican Turkey thus cannot be interpreted as an exceptional characteristic of a rigid, bureaucratic, and centralist state tradition nor as a peculiarity of the Turkish single-party regime.Footnote ¹¹ Compared to a multi-party regime, the single-party state undoubtedly had more need of such inspection and report mechanisms to compensate for the weaknesses of other communication channels linking the state with society. Nevertheless, the origins of these mechanisms in Turkey can be traced back to the liberalization and modernization reforms initiated by the Ottoman state.

Early intelligence efforts of the Ottoman government to employ hafiyes (spies) emerged during the social upheavals of the 17th and 18th centuries.Footnote ¹² Regular inspection and report-writing systems, however, only gained a foothold in the mid-19th century in the context of integration into the world economy, the gradual liberalization of the political system, and the emergence of an educated middle class and of nationalist movements, all of which motivated Ottoman rulers to take the “social domain” more seriously.Footnote ¹³ The Tanzimat era was marked by a new kind of governmentality based on maintaining social control and legitimacy through systematic information gathering, which replaced an older method of rule characterized by the repression of divergent political opinions and behaviors.Footnote ¹⁴ Tanzimat reforms—including changes to the tax system, equality between Muslim and non-Muslim subjects, and the establishment of a modern administrative structure and centralized bureaucracy—encountered deep social resistance and dissent within local communities. The reforms’ adverse effects on vested interests, the wrongdoings of state employees who were posted to the provinces to carry them out, and general discontent with the new taxes and rules compelled Ottoman rulers to institute more developed inspection systems.Footnote ¹⁵

The first move of the government, in 1840, was to post inspectors to the provinces in order to oversee the implementations of the Tanzimat reforms and to detect obstacles blocking the proper functioning of local administrations.Footnote ¹⁶ The main motive of the inspection system for the Ottoman government was to ascertain the wrongdoings of state employees tasked with putting the reforms into effect, and thus to control local bureaucracies. Reports written by inspectors were employed by the central government to take measures against cruel and corrupt state employees whose actions spurred public opposition.Footnote ¹⁷ After these first inspection attempts failed to prevent or even minimize the mismanagement of reforms, abuses by local authorities, and the growth of social discontent, the Sublime Porte decided in 1845 to invite two local notables from each province to Istanbul as representatives to report on problems in their region.Footnote ¹⁸ With the arrival of these representatives in the Ottoman capital the same year, the government established Public Improvement Councils (Mecalis-i İ’mariyye) in all provinces. The members of these councils toured their provinces and reported to the High Council (Meclis-i Vala) about defects in local administrations and the needs and grievances of the people. These reports received close attention from the High Council.Footnote ¹⁹

In 1851, the government, still lacking adequate information about popular opinions and the conduct of state affairs in remote parts of the empire, decided to appoint new inspectors to the provinces. The High Council detailed the inspection methods and procedures in an instruction book (teftiş talimatnamesi), according to which all governors and other administrators were to be investigated and assessed regularly. A main duty of the inspectors was to report on the faults and achievements of local officials. Other tasks were to prevent the bribery of state officials and other activities contrary to the spirit of the Tanzimat reforms and to make the collection of taxes more efficient and fair. The inspectors drew up reports on their observations and sent them to Istanbul periodically.Footnote ²⁰

From the mid-19th century on, the growing political influence of the new educated middle class—especially the constitutionalist and reformist intellectuals known as the Young Ottomans—and of the social and nationalist movements emerging across the empire intensified the need for special and highly qualified inspectors. The government's focus shifted even further from the political and administrative spheres to the social domain. Besides the 1845 establishment of a designated police institution,Footnote ²¹ in 1864 the state appointed special inspectors similar to highly authorized civil police officers to gather information on every subject in which the government was interested, ranging from political and economic trends to the activities of suspicious people. These inspectors had the right to take legal action when necessary by prosecuting those who violated the law and the public order.Footnote ²²

During the second half of the 19th century, the government resorted more frequently to employing hafiyes to report on people's opinions of the sultan and of state policies. The hafiyes kept their fingers on the pulse of public opinion by attentively listening to and talking with people in mosques, coffeehouses, bathhouses, markets, and other public places. They related their conversations and other word-of-mouth information to scribes (katips) who wrote them down. The type of report in which these observations were recorded came to be called a jurnal by the government, and the word in its meaning of “report” or “intelligence” thereby entered Ottoman Turkish.Footnote ²³ The Ottoman hafiyes were important elements of a process in which the form of state rule underwent a transformation from a despotic and arbitrary kind of governmentality to a modern one; increasingly, social control aimed not to punish and repress but rather to take public opinion into account in order to govern society properly, maintain the consent of the governed, and prevent the emergence of opposition forces and social upheavals.Footnote ²⁴

By the fourth quarter of the century, the Hamidian regime used these reports extensively as an information-gathering technique that came to be called jurnalizm. Contrary to widely held assumptions, Abdülhamit II (r. 1876–1909) did not invent Ottoman inspection and reporting practices, but he did make them part and parcel of state rule.Footnote ²⁵ Starting in the first years of his rule he also obliged local governors to send general situation reports (layiha) on their regions to the central government. Finally, through the establishment of Inspection Commissions (Heyet-i Teftişiyeler) in 1879, which were devised to monitor and control the organization of provincial government institutions and the mood of the people, Abdülhamit II reinforced the surveillance mechanism.Footnote ²⁶ In the Second Constitutional Era, the Committee of Union and Progress set up its own inspection system, which had similar aims.Footnote ²⁷ The republican regime modernized and extended this legacy through a wider and more systematic application of the reporting system.

THE LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL BASE OF REPORTING IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC

In conjunction with the political consolidation and state-building efforts of the republican regime in the 1920s and 1930s, the Kemalist elite established a procedural, legal, and institutional base for interrelated systems of inspection, information gathering, and reporting. The Nine Principles (Dokuz Umde) of 1923, which delineated the main aims and principles of the new government; the Regulations of the RPP (CHF Nizamnamesi), especially those of 1927 and 1931; and the instruction books for inspection (teftiş talimatnameleri) that were systematically published by the party all introduced specific principles, procedures, and methods for self-control of the state and party organizations and for the assessment of public opinion. These documents reveal the importance attached by the government to events in the social realm and to administrative performance in its effort to maintain its own legitimacy.

One of the Nine Principles stated that the people's affinity for the party was dependent upon the employment of capable and fair state employees; all state organizations would need to be inspected regularly if the regime was to attract popular support.Footnote ²⁸ Accordingly, the new RPP regulations of 1927 and especially those of 1931 established a regular and comprehensive inspection system that would be implemented by party deputies in their election districts. According to Article 111 of the 1931 regulations, the deputies, who would be appointed by the RPP General Executive Committee, were to make thorough visits of their election districts twice during each electoral term.Footnote ²⁹

The General Executive Committee published instruction manuals delineating how such inspections were to be carried out and how reports were to be prepared and submitted to the secretary general of the party. Since these manuals determined the subjects to be covered during the inspection, they roughly shaped the content of the reports. For this reason, an examination of party instructional materials enables a better understanding of reporting practices. In 1935, Secretary General Recep Peker sent an inspection plan and instruction manual to RPP deputies who had been appointed as party inspectors. These documents outlined the districts to be inspected and the tasks and responsibilities of the deputies. According to the plan, the inspectors were to visit all of the counties and villages in their region within one year in order to examine the work conducted by party branches, determine the economic needs and problems of district residents, and investigate popular opinion. They were also expected to disseminate party principles wherever they went.Footnote ³⁰

In 1943, the RPP issued a new instruction book that was much more inclusive than earlier versions. It consisted of two chapters, “The Tasks of the Inspectors” and “Reports.” According to the first chapter, the primary responsibility of the inspectors was to disseminate party principles; the second was to ascertain the general needs and demands of the people. Inspectors were tasked with investigating the local party administrations and their relationships to provincial government agencies, identifying potential obstacles to the implementation of laws and reforms, and monitoring the functioning of the People's Houses (Halkevleri), the most important ideological apparatus of the RPP.Footnote ³¹ Inspectors were to inform the secretary general immediately if they encountered any abuses of state authority by party members, and they were responsible for identifying any covert or open oppositional elements, subversive attacks on the party, political tendencies among ethnic and religious minorities, or feelings of popular dissatisfaction. Finally, inspectors were strongly encouraged to submit proposals on how to remedy these problems.Footnote ³² Article 4 of the chapter regulated the methods used by inspectors to carry out their tasks. Inspectors were advised to have sincere talks with (samimî görüşmeler yaparak) party members and administrators; be familiar with the region's public and private institutions and places of work; and talk to members of various professions and to young people, whether one by one or in groups. The instructions in this chapter stated that the inspectors should visit public places where district residents routinely gathered, listen to everybody calmly (soğukkanlılıkla), and show respect and love for each citizen who did not have a subversive agenda.Footnote ³³

The second chapter of the instruction book detailed how the actual inspection reports were to be prepared. Article 12 listed the main questions that the inspectors were to answer in their reports. They were to evaluate the degree to which local party branches had succeeded in disseminating party principles; defects and loopholes in existing laws and local bureaucracies; any conflicts between the laws and local customs or traditions; how the administrative boards of party branches in the provinces, districts, and subdistricts performed their duties; whether local bureaucracies worked in accordance with the programs and regulations of the RPP; and whether party directors abused their authority. They were also to identify people who expressed oppositional political beliefs as well as the causes of their opposition and to assess the economic conditions, living standards, and opinions of workers, traders, artisans, farmers, and ethnic minorities. Finally, inspectors were expected to note the presence of poor people, observe whether local party organizations were sufficiently interested in social welfare work, and recommend types of social aid the government could provide in order to reduce poverty.Footnote ³⁴

THE MOTIVES BEHIND THE REPORTING SYSTEM

THE INFLUENCE OF THE REPORTS ON DECISION MAKING

As Peter Holquist points out in the context of the Soviet Union during the interwar period, the process of gathering information through reports was not unidirectional; rather, it was an interactive process in which the government acted on the information collected.Footnote ⁷⁴ The government sought to use this information to respond to public demands and needs, correct the misconduct of its officials, and thereby consolidate its legitimacy. In Nazi Germany as well, as Unger writes, “what the people thought and their worries and needs were clearly of some importance to the regime, because this information could assist the regime in adapting its propaganda and its social policies accordingly.”Footnote ⁷⁵ While this mechanism has been very important to single-party regimes, it is not particular to them. The common purpose of such reports in all modern administrations, whether liberal or authoritarian, is to provide decision makers with information on public opinion and administrative performance. In other words, “reporting was, in fact, a species of consultation prior to taking action.”Footnote ⁷⁶ However, for an authoritarian single-party regime in which most other channels of communication to the authorities are blocked, the information collected in this manner is more vital than for other regimes.

The reports thus played a key role in the decision-making process of the Turkish single-party government. The government's interest in compiling comprehensive information on society and local administrations was not only to monitor them but also to put the information to use so as to consolidate its own legitimacy by redressing the people's grievances, rectifying wrongdoings, modifying state policies, and promoting social welfare. The Kemalist leadership governed the country not only through arbitrary decrees and repressive measures but also by assessing local conditions, needs, and complaints. From the notes written in the margins of the reports by both central party and state officials who read them, and the use to which they were later put, it is evident that the reports indirectly but extensively affected government policymaking.

Writing a report was the first step in social and administrative monitoring. Typically, the reports were then meticulously evaluated and investigated before being transformed into government action. In the evaluation stage, the reports were read closely and then their important points were summarized and sent to the most relevant of the thirteen RPP bureaus that had been established by the party in 1931 to deal with matters ranging from administration, economy, labor, and social policies to sports, culture, the press, associations, and propaganda. Each bureau was directed by a prominent politician and reported to the General Secretariat.Footnote ⁷⁷

In the first stage of the evaluation process, reports were sent to the Fourth Bureau, which was in charge of inspections. Officials in this bureau examined and summarized the reports, then categorized the issues they raised and forwarded them to other relevant party bureaus, which often operated as a conduit for the reports between the government ministers and the secretary general. Based on notes in the margins of the reports and documents attached to them, the Fourth Bureau frequently referred matters in the reports to the secretary general and government ministers directly. Before returning their evaluations to the bureaus and the secretary general, the ministries studied the reports in detail and frequently investigated their claims before taking any action. They then often either put the matter on the agenda of a parliamentary session or ordered local administrators to take measures addressing the problems raised in the report. In the last stage of the process, the ministers informed the secretary general, the Fourth Bureau, or the other bureaus of the results of their investigation and of the measures that had been or would be taken, or the reasons that no measures would be taken. The examples that follow illustrate this evaluation process and its role in government decision making.Footnote ⁷⁸

In 1942, the deputies of Hatay investigated and reported on the main problems and needs of their election district. Recounting specific complaints of city residents, the deputies strongly recommended that an effective institution be established in the region to fight malaria and that physicians be appointed to the province. After the report was evaluated and measures implemented in response to it, the minister of health and social assistance concluded that the demands of the report had been partially met: “Upon investigation of the region, since it is understood that malaria ruled in the region, the ministry established a strong organization for the fight against malaria and assigned a physician there.”Footnote ⁷⁹ Another report from the same province noted that the people had demanded that the large bogs that were causing malaria be drained as soon as possible.Footnote ⁸⁰ This part of the report was forwarded to the Ministry of Public Works. A few months later, the minister, in his memo to the secretary general, stated that the ministry had drained all of the large bogs that the municipality had not been able to drain.Footnote ⁸¹

In a similar case, the party inspectors assigned to Kastamonu and Sivas informed the secretary general that very poor health conditions in these cities were causing widespread discontent and that the appointment of more doctors to the region was essential in order to ease people's suffering. In response, the Ministry of Health appointed many health officers and three doctors to the two cities.Footnote ⁸² In another case, reports written by the deputies of Izmir noted that inhabitants were suffering from epidemics and emphasized the people's demands that bogs be drained and a sufficient number of doctors be appointed to the hospitals. These reports also recounted the difficult conditions in which the Muslim refugees from Greece, who had arrived in Turkey following the population exchange, were living and asked that measures be implemented to relieve their suffering. The minister of health and social assistance responded to this report by providing the immigrants with relief in the form of housing, land, agricultural equipment, and wheat seed. Among other items, 719 kilograms of free quinine and other medicines were allocated to the counties of Izmir.Footnote ⁸³

In the early years of the republic, peasants constituted about 80 percent of the population. The reports thus frequently recounted demands for agricultural items such as plows, sickles, sacks, draft animals, and wheat seed. In the early 1930s, report writers noted that the peasants suffered from inadequate agricultural inputs and declining prices caused by the economic crisis of 1929. Transmitting the demands of the peasants to the government, the reports often called for an improvement in agricultural methods and supportive financial measures for producers.Footnote ⁸⁴ In the 1930s, demands for the construction of barns and storage facilities for crops were prominent.Footnote ⁸⁵ The reports also described peasants who had difficulties discharging their debts to the Agricultural Bank and who demanded debt relief and a reduction of the livestock tax, the land tax, and the road tax, all of which weighed heavily on the peasantry.Footnote ⁸⁶ For instance, according to a report by RPP deputy Ali Cenani, who investigated some central, western, and northern Anatolian towns in 1930, farmers throughout these areas complained about the land tax and especially about extremely high tax assessments. In the province of Samsun, for instance, some small farmers complained that government officials had estimated the value of lands worth twenty Turkish lira at eighty Turkish lira.Footnote ⁸⁷ RPP deputies of the three central Anatolian provinces of Yozgat, Çorum, and Kırşehir similarly reported widespread complaints about the high and inaccurate assessments of land taxes.Footnote ⁸⁸

Criticism of the livestock tax was also frequently recorded in reports from Anatolia. In 1930, an RPP deputy noted in his report that livestock owners throughout Anatolia complained of very high rates of livestock tax despite the sharp decline in the value of livestock during the economic crisis.Footnote ⁸⁹ The deputies of Eskişehir also noted widespread discontent with the soaring tax rates on livestock.Footnote ⁹⁰ The deputy of Edirne recorded in his election district reports that the peasants’ frustration with the livestock tax had caused widespread discontent.Footnote ⁹¹ The deputies of southern Anatolia, Mersin, and Cebeliberet (Osmaniye) likewise reported that the high tax rate on livestock was a major source of dissatisfaction.Footnote ⁹²

Most of the deputy reports stated that the road tax was another cause of widespread public criticism. Ali Cenani reported in 1930 that he had heard complaints about the road tax everywhere he visited. Reports written by the deputies of Konya and Aksaray in 1931 also noted that the road tax was causing outcry among peasants, especially because of the compulsory labor requirements imposed on those unable to pay. A 1931 report written by the deputy of Edirne and a 1934 report written by the deputy of Eskişehir similarly highlighted the complaints made against this tax. In 1931, the RPP deputies of Tokat, Çorum, Yozgat, Kastamonu, Kayseri, Kırşehir, and Sivas also reported that the citizens were aggrieved by the road tax. In the same year, deputy Mustafa Kazım reported that in Denizli the people were unhappy with the tax.Footnote ⁹³

In the mid-1930s, partly in response to these complaints and demands, which had few ways of reaching the RPP other than through the reports, the government began to revise some of the policies that were producing discontent. For example, it supported the petty and middle producers through an agricultural assistance program, specifically agricultural purchases at prices above market levels, which were initiated in 1932, despite some infrastructural limitations of the program and of the Agricultural Bank that was entrusted with carrying out the purchases.Footnote ⁹⁴ As a result of the social pressure to build new storage facilities and barns, the government began to construct new granaries. In 1938, the Soil Products Office was established with the mandate to build new storage facilities and to help the Agricultural Bank make purchases devised to prevent a radical decline in prices.Footnote ⁹⁵ In 1935, the government decided to ease the debt burden of the farmers by reducing high interest rates on agricultural loans and postponing debt payments by fifteen years. This was done by allowing peasants to repay their debts to the Agricultural Bank in installments.Footnote ⁹⁶ The government also reduced the livestock tax by considerable amounts in 1931, 1932, and 1936. In 1932, the total tax reduction was between 15 and 32 percent. In January 1936, the government once again cut the tax rate on livestock by an average of 41.5 percent. The road tax rates and related labor obligations were also reduced by 50 to 60 percent in 1931.Footnote ⁹⁷ In addition to these changes, the government forgave half of the accrued agricultural taxes in 1934.Footnote ⁹⁸

Another problem addressed in the reports was peasant complaints about the Forestry Organization, which implemented the laws and regulations protecting the forests very strictly and sometimes unjustly, thereby depriving the peasants of forest resources. The government insisted on maintaining its strict forest laws yet bended the rules in practice. On 22 February 1936, for example, Recep Peker forwarded sections of the 1936 election district reports concerning the requests of peasants to the minister of agriculture and asked the minister to assist the peasants in obtaining timber for woodworking and firewood, which the reports had found were needed.Footnote ⁹⁹ Six months later, the minister notified the new secretary general, Şükrü Kaya, of several measures taken by the ministry. Temporarily relaxing the rules that limited public rights to the forests, the ministry had improved peasant access to wood and other forest products. Apart from this, based on election district reports in 1935 and 1936 that described the suffering of peasants from the drought in central Anatolia, the Ministry of Agriculture provided assistance in the form of agricultural equipment, wheat, and seed.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

The reports also called attention to requests made by urban laborers for relief from the high cost of living and poor working conditions. Upon receiving the report of a party inspector that described the arduous and unsanitary conditions under which women and children were working at the carpet looms in Isparta in 1936, Recep Peker urged both the governor of Isparta and the minister of economy, Celal Bayar, to look into the problem and demanded that working conditions be improved as soon as possible.Footnote ¹⁰¹ The secretary general also informed the minister of public works about the dire working and living conditions of railway workers in Sivas, which had been poignantly described in both party and deputy reports; Perker urged the ministry to take an interest in the problem.Footnote ¹⁰²

Working-class demands for a labor code were also noted in the reports. On 20 March 1933, deputies of Balıkesir investigating their election district had long conversations with workers who insistently demanded the enactment of a labor code. One prominent deputy, Hacim Muhiddin (Çarıklı), reported the complaints of the workers—including low wages, grueling work hours, and a lack of workplace safety and of free medical treatment—to the RPP secretary general. The deputy wrote, “The workers’ most urgent request from the party is immediate adoption of a labor code.” He recommended that the government pass a labor code as soon as possible.Footnote ¹⁰³ An analysis of the proposed code and of how far the government responded to all of the worker's demands is beyond the scope of this article. However, it seems clear that the voices of laboring people reached the ruling elite through these reports, albeit indirectly, and that they affected policymakers’ discussions and decisions. The flow of information about working conditions via the reports must have contributed, along with other factors, to bringing labor questions into policymaking circles. In the absence of a significant organized labor movement, accounts of working conditions and the demands of laborers were transmitted through the reports to policymakers and stimulated the efforts of the government to enact protective labor legislation during the first two decades of the republic. These efforts ended with the passage of a labor law in 1936, which was protective of a considerable part of the working class in many respects, in spite of its restrictive provisions such as a ban on strikes and labor unions.Footnote ¹⁰⁴

Another important matter on which the RPP deputies focused was public opinion about prices and the high cost of living. Especially during World War II, which resulted in an economic slump and consequent public misery, party deputies of Istanbul frequently toured the city to talk with citizens in the streets and coffeehouses face to face. Report authors evaluated public opinion about the economy and provided detailed surveys of the conditions of the market and its impact on consumers and merchants. According to these reports, people complained about inflation in the prices of foodstuffs and consumer goods, the rampant black market, and high rents.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Such public discontent, which was related to the authorities through the reports as well as through the press and citizens’ petitions, led the government to fight, or sometimes to pretend to fight, the high cost of living and the widespread profiteering on which it was often blamed by the people.Footnote ¹⁰⁶