Points well made. I see that you are deeper read and better informed on Turkish historiography than I had suspected. I know about Ataturk's ruthless dealings with his former peers, and his concentration of power, which by itself allows for his exaggerated praise to be viewed with scepticism. Fair enough, their official hagiography will be taken with a pinch of salt. Having said that, his true achievement was not merely military, although that, beyond the propaganda, is material and not to be deprecated, his true achievement was more in the sphere of modernising and reforms.
The process that you describe is, of course, a familiar one in each and every revolution, without exception: the English, the French, (not the American), the south American (in all its distinctive sections), the Russian, as you have now mentioned, the Turkish, the Chinese, the Egyptian - remarkably consistent in how the initial narrow elite narrowed down even further to the one. Without exception. I had known that Ataturk rose to power after disabling or imprisoning his peers. However, his military achievements are attested by independent sources, and there is little reason to doubt his achievements either at Gallipoli or later, against the Greeks, in a more remote capacity.
Your point about the Republic initially having functioned as a dictatorship is well made, again, and is an ironic undertone to Jinnah's admiration of Ataturk and his achievements, in that it preshadowed, in a way that the great man never could have imagined, the future of Pakistan herself.
I must be more careful about your posts.