The ambassadorship of Ali Fuat (Cebesoy) Pasha to Moscow (21 November 1920 - 10 May 1922)

In the period of National Struggle, one of the most important and urgent foreign policy objectives of the Government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly was to develop a balanced and close cooperation with Soviet-Russia. Because of common enemy perception, it was regarded as possible and important to make an alliance with the Bolsheviks, who brought a new political regime to Russia after seizing the revolution and power in November 1917. The Ankara Government's expectation from such an alliance was to provide warfare material and cash aid, especially for the needs of the Western Front. However, the relations between the two sides did not easily get into the desired path and negotiations in the summer of 1920 failed. The factors in the arising of this result were the domestic situation of Russia at that time and the foreign policy which was accordingly followed by the Bolsheviks. Having been helpless in the face of mass misery, Soviet Russia, beside others, sought to communicate also with capitalist Western countries, especially Britain and United States and as of the winter of 1921 significant changes were seen in its foreign policy. Worried about this situation, the Ankara Government felt the need to send an ambassador to Moscow, both to revive the relations and to correspond to the ambassador sent by Soviet Russia to Ankara. In accordance with this purpose, in November 1920, Ali Fuat (Cebesoy) Pasha, Commander of the Western Front and one of the leaders of the National Struggle, was appointed as an ambassador to Moscow, the capital of Soviet-Russia and thus, took a critical responsibility. In this study, the activities of Ali Fuat (Cebesoy) Pasha and the mission he assumed in Moscow are examined by criticizing the information obtained from the documents of different archives and the memories.