Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

418 • MASS SOCIETY THEORYin Paris in 1973 by leftist Turkish students and the widow of MahirÇayan, a Turkish leftist and founder of the Turkish People’s LiberationFront (TPLF) killed by Turkish security forces in 1972, andwas one of three splinter groups that emerged from the TPLF. Thegroup was one of several left-wing death squads and terrorist groupsvying with right-wing extremist counterparts in the period of escalatinginternal political terrorism in Turkey in the late 1970s and early1980s. The MLAPU was also considered to be the most virulentlyanti-American of Turkish leftist groups.In 1979 the MLAPU killed seven U.S. citizens. On 2 January1980 it machine-gunned the manager of the El Al Airlines office inIstanbul as he was driving home. On 16 April 1980 three MLAPUgunmen killed a U.S. Navy noncommissioned officer and his taxidriver. The three gunmen were pursued by police; one was killed inpursuit and the other two were captured. On 15 November 1980 twoU.S. Air Force noncommissioned officers were shot at by MLAPUgunmen, one of whom was killed while the other escaped injury. Thetwo gunmen were apprehended and later executed in 1985.With the military coup of September 1980 and imposition of martiallaw, the MLAPU and other similar groups were ruthlessly suppressedby the military. Many of those leftists already imprisoned, includingthe gunmen arrested for the incidents mentioned above, wereexecuted under the military regime. The outlawed group continues topublish an underground magazine, Sosyalist Barikat.MASS SOCIETY THEORY. Theory that explains political violenceas resulting from the mobilization of large numbers of people whohave been dislocated from traditional social organization by industrialization,urbanization, and rapid democratization into politicalmilitancy. The theory shares the pessimistic view articulated by JoséOrtega y Gasset that the growing working classes and lower middleclass would be easily swayed by irrational passions and fall prey toideological demagogues, whether of the left or the right, and wouldbe easily led into political extremism and violence.The theory was articulated more coherently by William Kornhauserin his 1958 Politics of Mass Society, which held that peoplewho had recently entered the industrial workforce in the large citieswould be cut off from the traditional socialization of family life, villagelife, and church and would lack a commitment to the institutions