The 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état (Turkish: 12 Eylül Darbesi), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 "Coup by Memorandum". The 1970s in Turkey were marked by right-wing/left-wing armed conflicts, often at the scale of proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. To create a pretext for a decisive intervention, the Turkish military allowed these conflicts in Turkey to escalate; some say they actively adopted a strategy of tension. The violence abruptly stopped afterwards, and the coup was welcomed by some for restoring order. In total, 50 people were executed, 500,000 were arrested and hundreds died in prison.