Generally speaking, Atatürk was a man of strong feelings and sharp ideas. He often had clear ideas about what he intended to do and disliked it when others hesitated or desired something else. This is what we especially see in the field of cultural reforms. As Geoffrey Lewis shows in his book The Turkish Language Reform, even many of his close allies/friends were against replacing the old Ottoman script with a Latin-based new alphabet within months. He went ahead and Turkey still uses the Latin-based alphabet, since 1928-29.

Interestingly, however, in the field of economics, we do not have many such cases. Interesting in the sense that knowing his personality, Atatürk would be expected to have strong opinions here as elsewhere and challenge others who held different views. This does not seem to be the case, barring from occasional events that I will discuss below. The reason for this is, perhaps, a bit surprising and disappointing but nonetheless accurate: Atatürk was not terribly interested in economics.

From the days of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-23), Atatürk's many remarks alluded to the importance of 'economic independence' and the necessity of backing independence in the realm of politics with that in economy. What exactly did economic independence mean? At times, this was clear and reflected the viewpoint of Atatürk and the Kemalist leadership, as in the nationalisation of foreign-owned ports or ship/train lines operating in Turkey. While, as was stated in their declarations, the new government of Turkey was not categorically opposed to foreign investment, it no longer intended to leave major channels of the Turkish economy to depend on foreign capital. This, to a great extent, was in keeping with the economic policies of the Committee of Union and Progress which also aimed to Islamise/Turkify national economics by encouraging Muslim/Turkish capital to replace non-Muslim/non-Turkish capital. Thus, one constant in Atatürk's and Kemalists economic thinking was the necessity of having rich Turks, as it were.

But how to create rich Turks? The CUP's policies, to a non-negligible extent inadvertently, led to the enrichment of a small group of individuals close to the party during the war, through imaginable methods. When the CUP left the wheel, one could hardly say that the Turkification in the economy was complete. Initially, Kemalists applied methods that might be roughly described as liberal. The main event of this period was, arguably, the İzmir Economics Congress in 1923, during which some liberal points combined with 'solidaristic views' were formulated. With the advent of the Great Depression in 1929, this changed, as in most of the world at the time. With many countries turning inwards, Turkey too felt the need to revise its economic policies. A new formulation emerged in a speech of İsmet İnönü, the Prime Minister, in 1930: mutedil devletçilik, meaning 'moderate étatism'. Within a few years, the term became simpler and was incorporated into the Republican People's Party's programmes and eventually to the Constitution as one of the six principles of Atatürk (the six arrows that you can still see on the RPP's party logo). What exactly did étatism mean, though?

As contemporaries observed, it suffered from meaning too much and excluding too little at the same time. It is fair to say that étatism basically excluded two extremes: laissez-faire and 'liberalism' on the right, which were discredited with the 1929 crisis, and communism of the USSR which was undesirable from the beginning on the left. Some liberal-leaning thinkers-cum-politicians like Ahmet Ağaoğlu interpreted étatism as the state's support of private enterprises. Others like the Kadro movement, very much left-leaning with Leninist backgrounds, believed it to be complete control of the economy by the state and thorough economic planning. In the end, the result was something of a compromise. The state took precedence especially in projects requiring too much capital or deemed too great for private enterprise, with private enterprise still encouraged through other channels. But there was no agreement among the governing figures about where the line was to be drawn. Atatürk's silence and disinterest made it all worse since no party could unequivocally claim to best interpret Kemalism. Yet, there were occasions Atatürk weighed in, such as 'the Yalova incident'.

In the early 1930s, two groups emerged within the RPP. One was the 'İş Bankası' circle associated with Celal Bayar, the director-general of the said bank which was founded by Atatürk and deemed to be a great success by him thanks in no small part to Bayar's smart business. On the other hand, there was an influential group including the Kadro movement and, much more importantly, Prime Minister İnönü that dubbed the İş Bankası circles as 'affairist' in French. According to these, Bayar and his friends used state funding for private ends, enriched themselves in the name of private enterprises and startled Turkey's economic progress. One case brought these two groups fiercely in opposition to one another. People close to the İş Bankası circle desired to open a paper factory but, apparently, a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Economy blocked their path repeatedly. One night in Yalova, Mustafa Şeref Bey, the Minister of Economy and close to İnönü, participated in one of the famous dinners of Atatürk, where 'elites' would sit down and discuss matters ranging from their political/military memories of the past to current cultural and political affairs. Suddenly, the observers tell us, Atatürk began to inquire about the paper factory and why Mustafa Şeref Bey's men blocked it. Soon enough, furiously, Atatürk ordered the paper factory to be allowed, said he saw İş Bankası as a magnificent success and harshly accused Mustafa Şeref Bey's men of halting the economic progress in the country (Politikada 45 Yıl, pp. 132-134). Bayar, İş Bankası circles and the more right-leaning interpretation of étatism won. Mustafa Şeref Bey soon stepped aside as the Minister of Economy, replaced by none other than Bayar himself.

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He mostly had a balanced economic policy, but he was very ambitious in his talks about economic solidarity and independence, concerning that he was very ambitious in his development programs, the integration of the banks, increasing foreign cooperation and investments, funding projects and more. Safely assuming, Mustafa Kemal was moderate as having a laissez-faire minister known as Celal Bayar. Mustafa Kemal, also valued the people too, beginning welfare payments, security, stimulus and more.More on the foreign investments, they were regulated to make sure that no single private company or foreign associations dare interrupt the economic independence as said from the standpoint of the OPDA, which took a huge chunk of turkish finances. The form of statism/etatism which was displayed by the CHP government is that there was still places for Private Enterprises, which were being financed. Mustafa Kemal pursued a doctrine of moderate economic policies, although in the later decades siding with the bayarist viewpoints.
(Add on: Mustafa Kemals interpretation was basically Social Liberalism, in which the state only stepped in when the market forces were considered weak and helped them being regulated until they were good enough, which is why they financed private enterprises and utilise foreign capital. Along with providing aids, goods and more to the civilian sector.

Now, about this discussion, he is probably a moderate social-liberal who only intervened when market forces were considered weak through demand. It is notable to say that in no way of turkish statism was affiliated with direct socialism, not making the people seize the means of production.