Mihri Belli (December 1915 – 16 August 2011) was a prominent leader of the socialist movement in Turkey. He fought for the communist side in the Greek Civil War. Belli was repeatedly prosecuted and sentenced to prison for his political views, and was altogether imprisoned for 11 years, and forced into exile for another 18. Belli wrote several influential books on the Turkish left and was, for many years, a source of inspiration for leftist Turkish youths. Early life Belli was born in 1916 in Silivri, then in the Ottoman Empire, to Mahmut Hayrettin Bey, later a prominent leader of the Turkish War of Independence in Urfa. He was educated at Robert College in Istanbul, and in 1936 went on to study economics at the University of Mississippi in the United States. There he was introduced to Marxist thought and revolutionary action. He took part in the activities of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Return to Turkey Belli returned to Turkey in 1940, where he joined the illegal Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). Turkey was at the time under a one-party regime. The government, under the influence of the German advances in the initial years of World War II, had abandoned its policy of friendship with the USSR. The only opposition party in Turkey in these days was the underground TKP. Belli, after returning to Turkey, contacted the illegal party via his elementary-school friend David Nea, who was the party secretary for Istanbul at the time. Belli became a member of the central committee of the TKP in 1942. He served as assistant professor with professor Fritz Neumark at the Faculty of Economics of Istanbul University in the years 1943–1944. There he was among the founders and organizers of the İlerici Gençler Birliği (Progressive Youth Union). In 1944 he was arrested for these activities and sentenced to two years imprisonment and exile. Greek Civil War Belli left Turkey in 1946, and joined the Greek Civil War as a guerrilla fighter on the communist side. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Democratic Army of Greece. He was wounded twice in battle, and was treated in Bulgaria and the USSR. In 1950 he was imprisoned in Turkey for a short while for entry without a passport and illegal possession of a handgun. Shortly after his release, he was imprisoned again in 1951 in a wave of TKP arrests.