In the 1920s, Turkey was hard-pressed with difficulties on both the international and the domestic levels. The fledgling republic was isolated in international affairs, other than its friendship with the Soviet Union (Gürün 1991, pp. 103-32), and its borders were still far from being consolidated (Psomiades 1962, pp. 112-35; Newman 1927, pp. 81-83, 173-77). The Kurdish rebellions in the east, the top-down modernization efforts of the nationalists, and the ongoing settlement problems of many Turkish-Muslim immigrants who came from Greece through a population exchange, created uncertainty and instability within the country (Zürcher 1993, pp. 173-82).