In this study, rural development policies implemented in a country with a large proportion of its population living in rural areas are evaluated with their ideological justifications and practices. The period considered is from the end of the Empire to the post-World War II period, which can be considered the first phase of the nation-state, when industrialization efforts were still quite weak and economic expectations were focused on rural production. In order not to reduce the early republican period to a narrative of top-down policies, the following three elements were considered in the background: capitalism, progressivism, and the international conjuncture. In this context, this study first examines the ideology of statism, which can be considered as the ideology of the period, and then its manifestation in the countryside, peasantism. For this purpose, both the organic intellectuals and the leaders of the period were consulted, and the rural activities of the Halkevleri (People’s Houses) were analyzed. The implementation of this discourse is discussed through the Model Villages, a kind of visual modernization project, and the Village Institutes, which aimed to radically transform the countryside through education. It is concluded that rural development policies played an important role and were decisive in the nation-building process.