This paper examines the politicization and ethnicization of the modern Kurdish identity in Turkey. It will engage into a debate with the existing literature on this subject. First, with regard to the 1960s and the affiliation between the left and the new Kurdish elite and intellectuals, it will contest the contemporary explanations. First of all, the paper will argue against the interchangeability of the "Eastern question," "Kurdish issue" and "Kurdish nationalism". Second, the existing literature on the Kurdish movement about the 1960s in general and its affiliation with the Turkish socialist and leftist movement in particular does not do justice to the complexity of that era. To regard Kurdish nationalism as starting in the early nineteenth century and defeated by the Turkish nation-state by the late 1930s, going through a revival in the 1960s due to the relatively more liberal political atmosphere, does not give a plausible explanation why politics in general and in the region in particular changed its direction during and after the 1960s. What we observe during the 1960s and the early 1970s diverges from the historicist narratives on the rise of Kurdish nationalism. During the 1960s, what prevailed was Doguculuk (Eastism) and it was only following the failure of Doguculuk that Kurdish activism opted for a nationalist solution to the Kurdish issue. In order to understand the importance of the 1960s for the future development of Kurdish activism the intra-generation conflicts need to be taken into account and the affiliation between Turkish socialist and Kurdish groups. This will allow insight into how this affiliation was constructed and how it changed the politics in Turkish Kurdistan. Thereto election results at the regional level, and interviews with the most prominent figures of the Kurdish nationalist movement, as well as journals and dailies published by Kurds during the 1960s and 1970s and mainstream Turkish newspapers and periodicals will serve as primary sources. Additionally memoirs will provide interesting perspectives on the era, combined with a literature survey of secondary sources related to the Kurds and the Turkish Left in Kurdish, Turkish and English language sources.