1927 THE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN SOVIET UNION AND TURKEY: A MILESTONE IN ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP?

This paper addresses the question of whether or not the trade agreement signed by Soviet Union and Turkey on March 11, 1927 was a milestone for fostering the foreign trade relations among the two countries. At that time Soviet laws included, the foreign trade administration must be monopolized by the state. However, in reality, it is difficult to push state monopolization on international trade especially when the commercial activities take place on foreign soil. Every independent state desires to protect the interests of its entrepreneurs and traders. However, when there is a structure like the Soviet Union that protects its foreign trade with state institutions that constitute a monopoly against entrepreneurs and traders, this requires a strong will to achieve. Another option is to ignore, avoid establishing trade relations, and deranging the settled system with the Soviet Union as the western countries did for a long time. In this context, the developing foreign trade relations among Turkey and the Soviet Union prospered due to goodwill and overpassing small problems by the bureaucrats of the two states until the second half of the 1920s. On the other hand, the struggles of the two countries to piece their economies up, brought new pursuits together. The Soviet Union started to give up running its foreign trade with joint-stock incorporations. Hence, abiding with the foreign trade monopoly, companies like Arkos and Russoturk will turn into Soviet Trade Agency. In the emerging conditions of the mid-1920s Turkey called on countries that had not yet signed a trade agreement with herself in order to initiate agreement negotiations. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was willing to impose its trade institutions on other countries as the NEP was coming to end.