General Situation in the World, Our Duties, and the Situation in Turkey: TKP-ML
GENERAL SITUATION IN THE WORLD OUR DUTIES
AND
THE SITUATION IN TURKEY
[Explanation: This document is the short decisions of the TKP-ML 2nd Congress ‘Situation in the World and in Turkey’ agenda. The document was published under the title ‘General Situation in the World and Our Tasks’ in the Communist 78th issue, the party organ of the TKP-ML, as ‘Decision: 19’ and again “Situation in Turkey” with the title “Decision: 20” was published as. We publish the document as a brochure. Ed.]
Contents
GENERAL SITUATION IN THE WORLD AND OUR DUTIES
Contradictions between imperialists deepen
General Picture Among Imperialists
Africa in the Fight for the Redistribution of Markets
Ukraine: Unceasing Conflict and Destruction
New searches in the sharing dispute
Bandits at Work in the US ‘Backyard’
Middle East and Caucasus: ‘Divide and Rule!’
Palestinian Resistance Continues
EU’s Competitiveness Weakens
The Danger of War and the EU
The State of the Revolutionary and Communist Movement
Conclusion
SITUATION IN TURKEY
General Situation of the Working Class
The Working Class: Fighting Tendency under Attack
The State of the Revolutionary and Communist Movement
The Situation of the Kurdish National Freedom Movement
The General Situation In The World And Our Tasks
Developments in the world are becoming increasingly complex and conflictual, and the contradictions between the oppressors and the oppressed are deepening. It does not seem possible to prevent this situation from turning into conflicts based on class antagonism. The military, political, economic and social policies implemented by the imperialists and their collaborators to suppress the just and legitimate struggles of the peoples of the world and oppressed nations cannot produce the desired results in the short and long term. Because the periodically deepening crises of imperialist capitalism create an objective ground for class-based conflicts.
Today, a handful of rich people, numbering in the hundreds, hold a significant portion of the world’s wealth. And every time there is a crisis, this parasitic minority adds to their wealth. On the other hand, the purchasing power of workers and laborers is decreasing day by day.
In a world where the gap between the exploiters and the exploited is so deepening, it is inevitable that the slogan “no bread, no peace” will become a current phenomenon. Regional conflicts and spontaneous mass movements in different continents of our globe are the result of this objective picture.
At the First Congress of our Party, the following assessment of the situation in the world was made: “Our world is under the yoke of the imperialist-capitalist system. The imperialists direct the world both through the countries they dominate and through their collaborators in dependent countries. This system as a whole is solely responsible for all internal and regional wars in the world. Likewise, the imperialist system is also responsible for migration in the world, the mass deaths caused by it and all the suffering. Just as it is the only one responsible for hunger, poverty and unemployment. On the other hand, for the sake of profit, the imperialists are rapidly dragging the world towards an ecological disaster. In a rapidly desertifying world, water reserves are being depleted, agricultural land is disappearing, forests are being depleted, marine species are dwindling, bird and animal species are disappearing. In short, the world can only be saved by the radical overthrow of the imperialist system”.
In the intervening period, the politics of aggression has continued along with the deepening crisis of the capitalist-imperialist system. The exploitative-destructive policies in the economic sphere have led to an avalanche of unemployment and deepened poverty.
In order to grasp more accurately the destructive-crushing nature of this exploitative system, let us recall the following historical analysis: “Capitalism has become a universal system of colonial oppression, a system in which a handful of ‘advanced’ countries financially strangle the vast majority of the world’s population. And this ‘booty’ is divided between two or three of the most powerful monsters (America, Britain, Japan), armed to the teeth, dragging the whole world into their wars in order to share their own booty.” (Lenin, Imperialism, Preface, p. 11)
Every moment of the more than a hundred years that have passed confirms these scientific determinations about the nature of the capitalist-imperialist system. Everything is developing and changing. The exploitative system is also changing in itself. But this change is never about its exploitative, destructive essence. During this time, there have been many sold-out pens trying to dress the imperialist monsters in angel shirts. But all these efforts only found a place in the dustbin of history in the face of reality. Of course, in the ongoing rivalry between the imperialist monsters, in the war of redistribution of the “spoils”, there have been those who have fallen back and even lost. But they were replaced by new imperialist monsters.
At the present stage, the world is divided into two main imperialist camps. The US-UK and European imperialists on the one hand, and the Chinese and Russian imperialists on the other. The only thing that has changed is the position of the imperialist monsters. Because the imperialist monsters continue to shed blood in every part of our globe, especially in Asia and Africa, for the redistribution of markets, and to deepen the picture of poverty and misery for the oppressed.
Imperialism and world reaction are responsible for the unjust wars and poverty. The imperialist bandits and the reactionary-fascist states that fight for their interests are the creators of the unjust wars that continue today in different parts of the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. For example, we cannot consider the internal conflicts in Syria and Ukraine independently of the regional interests of the imperialists of the USA, Britain, Europe, China and Russia. Therefore, all those who are in favor of democracy and freedom in the real sense of the word, have to fight against imperialist aggression and their reactionary, fascist and collaborationist governments. Because the freedom of the peoples of the world and the oppressed nations passes through the anti-imperialist anti-fascist struggle.
In the first quarter of the 21st century, the imperialists, who still talk about “peace” and “democracy”, are the creators of two major world wars as well as many regional wars in the 20th century. While these wars waged by the imperialists cost the lives of millions of people, the masses of the people have realized the necessity to struggle against the imperialist policy of aggression and war. Undoubtedly, the imperialists and their ideological extensions within the “left” have struggled to weaken this rising anti-imperialist consciousness through modern revisionists who betrayed the cause of revolution and socialism. At every opportunity, the modern revisionists tried to cover up the policy of imperialist aggression with false “peace” rhetoric. But they did not/cannot succeed in this. Just like in the 20th century, the danger of a new imperialist war continues in the 21st century. No matter how much the imperialists talk about world “peace”, they cannot cover up the fact that they are arsonists of unjust wars.
Today, the communist parties in the capitalist-imperialist centers face the historical duty and responsibility to raise the consciousness of the workers and laborers against all the regional conflicts and occupations that the imperialists create and provoke in different parts of our globe. The mass dimension of the struggle in these centers against this policy of aggression can prevent the policies of occupation and conflict of the imperialists from being limited to regional levels and gaining a more general dimension. In this sense, the establishment of anti-imperialist unions against imperialist aggression at both the general and regional levels is a task that cannot be postponed.
Contradictions between Imperialists Deepen
The crisis of the capitalist-imperialist system continues. The effects of this structural crisis, which continues as a result of overproduction, are deeply felt not only in dependent countries but also in imperialist centers. Mass unemployment, budget deficits, increasing debts, regional invasions and conflicts arising from market competition, etc. In short, the system, which has difficulty in reproducing itself, is looking for a way out by means of force.
First of all, the competition between imperialists and the existing contradictions are based on the fact of dominating the markets. Therefore, in the relations between imperialists, the state of contradiction and conflict is constant. Of course, compromises are also made between some imperialist powers on the basis of blocs. In the 20th century, some of the economic and military alliances formed by the US, UK and EU imperialists against the Soviet Union or the socialist camp in general are still continuing. Despite the disintegration of the socialist camp after the betrayal of the modern revisionists, the IMF and the World Bank economically and NATO militarily still exist. US imperialism, together with Britain, is the main actor of these imperialist powers, although its former hegemonic power has weakened somewhat. It is forming new military and economic alliances on different continents against the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by the imperialists of Russia and China. The US is resorting to all kinds of measures to narrow the sphere of action of China, which is expanding especially in the Asia Pacific. The “Trilateral Partnership” with Japan and South Korea is a product of this approach. All efforts to expand NATO, a war organization, are also based on this axis.
General Picture Among Imperialists
The US wants to encircle China with a wide arc from India to Japan. However, it has not been able to get India to accept this. Therefore, it is now trying to build a military front stretching from Australia to Japan-South Korea. For this purpose, it wants to expand the AUKUS (Australia, the US and the UK) with New Zealand, to make Japan and South Korea allies, and to establish partnerships that will allow it to build bases in the Pacific Islands as a link between these two clusters.
On the other side, there is India, which “refuses” to be integrated into the US strategy; the US’s refusal to form a trilateral alliance with Japan and South Korea, and instead settling for a trilateral partnership; New Zealand’s refusal to accept the ICCPR; and the opposition of the majority of the Pacific Islands to the transformation of the region into a geo-political force field.
In sum, the US has been making moves in the Asia-Pacific in order to maintain its “colonial order whose rules are written by the US”, but has not been able to achieve the desired results due to its weakening hegemony. However, the US is trying to create new blocs against China, North Korea and Russia at every opportunity. Because it cannot maintain its old hegemonic power in many areas, especially in the Middle East, and wants to encircle China with new alliance forces, especially by putting barriers against China’s economic expansionism. However, the fact that India is not yet part of this US project and the alliance between China and Russia weakens the US moves in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. All these developments indicate that the rivalry between imperialists and regional conflicts will continue.
In parallel with these developments, expenditures on armament continues to increase. US imperialism leads this race. Undoubtedly, other imperialist powers such as China, Japan, Britain, France etc. are also in the race.
The efforts of the US and its accomplices to gain new members to NATO, a war organization, and to increase its intervention capacity in the military field provide concrete data about the general course. As is well known, NATO is an international militarist organization created by the US, Britain and their allies against the Soviet Union and the socialist camp in a broad sense. This militarist focus, which is claimed to have been established against threats, has continued to commit crimes for the interests of imperialist monopolies since the day it was founded and continues to exist by expanding.
Other prominent imperialist powers in today’s world are Chinese social imperialism and Russia. In the struggle for the redistribution of the world, in addition to China and Russia, the USA, Britain, Germany, France and Japan also stand out as imperialist powers coveting new markets.
China’s influence on Africa and Russia’s increasing influence through BRICS constitute the basis of contradictions. That is why the US, Britain and other imperialist countries see China and Russia as the biggest obstacle in their way. Russia’s declaration of war on Ukraine, which sees Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO as a threat to its sovereignty, the US’s desire to encircle China through Taiwan, etc. all developments are a sign that a possible war will take place between these powers.
Today, two blocs stand out in the inter-imperialist alignments: The first bloc consists of the US, Britain and the EU (though not all of them) and the military alliance organization NATO. The US, which is the main power of this bloc, is backing Canada, Australia and New Zealand along with Britain, and on the other hand, it continues to support some South Asian countries, especially Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. On the other hand, it also continues to draw Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to its side, to develop relations with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, to draw Pakistan, which it lost to China, and to pull India out of BRICS and bring it into the war against China.
The main power of the second bloc is China and Russia. Although each of them is trying to draw countries close to them or keep them around, they have aligned themselves as BRICS countries under the leadership of Russia.
However, it should be noted that with the sharpening of the contradictions of the imperialist blocs, these blocs are unions that will show fragility. Under the leadership of Russia and China against the Western imperialists, Korea, Iran and some of the countries they influence may also act together. (Such as Belarus, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen.) Another fact is that as the contradictions between the imperialists sharpen, there is a possibility of differentiation in the ranks of the imperialist blocs.
The world is rapidly drifting towards war. Governments are making arrangements within themselves accordingly, foreign, “defence”, interior and justice ministers and spokespersons are formed from the most reactionary, racist, fascist and aggressive ones. The democratic rights and freedoms of workers and laborers are usurped, and reactionary fascist laws are passed. At the same time, thousands of tanks, armored vehicles and ammunition continue to be stored in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland for the last two years under the umbrella of NATO, especially the USA. There are more joint exercises within NATO.
In the economic sphere, too, arrangements are being made according to the war, and war ministries are being created. Nationalism, racism, immigrant and xenophobia are on the rise; practices and access to services for immigrants are becoming more and more difficult, and some are even threatened with deportation or being sent to a third country (Africa). In addition, the pressure on progressive, revolutionary, socialist and communist movements continues to increase. Some pennants, some photos, some slogans, some democratic institutions are banned.
Arms factories are working at full capacity; the capacity of war planes, missiles, drones, tanks, cannons, artillery, bullets, and explosives factories are being increased and new ones are being built.
As a result, the leapfrogging and unbalanced development of the imperialist economies, overproduction and concentration of capital, the moves to control new markets, energy and raw material resources and routes and to neutralize their rivals are increasing contradictions and dragging the world towards a new war of division.
Africa in the Fight for Market Redistribution
The struggle for the redistribution of markets between the US-UK and EU imperialist bloc and the social imperialist blocs of Russia and China continues on many continents with different alliance forces. The first bloc, through NATO, wanted to neighbor Russia in Ukraine. Of course this was a strategy of encirclement. It was also a move to drag Russian imperialism into a de facto conflict with its neighbors. As a matter of fact, Russia did not consent to this neighborliness and invaded Ukraine. On the surface, the conflict is between Ukraine and Russia. In essence, it is a struggle for dominance between the two imperialist blocs in different areas of the Middle East. Therefore, the countries and regions where conflicts take place may change, but the aims and objectives of the imperialist powers do not change.
The civil unrest and coups in Africa – and there are usually different imperialist powers behind military coups in dependent countries– create the ground for imperialist invasions. For example, with the coup in Niger, the long-standing struggle for dominance in the continent has evolved into a conflictual process. As a matter of fact, after the military coup in Niger, an African summit was held in Russia. After this summit, the reactions against the Western imperialists in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, which are ruled by military coups and supported by Russia, have become even harsher. Undoubtedly, this anger is mostly directed against the French imperialists who plundered the rich resources of countries like Niger. But the interest of not only the French imperialists but also the US imperialism in this geography is increasing.
As it can be understood from the final declaration of the African summit held in Russia, the Russian imperialists make the best use of this growing anger against the West from Africa for their own interests. In addition to Russia’s moves towards the African continent, China, its alliance partner, is also continuing its activities towards permanence in the region.
This competition between imperialists in the African continent has the potential to lead to new imperialist interventions and military coups. The oil, gas, uranium, gold and diamond deposits in the continent whet the appetite of imperialist monopolies. In this sense, it is not surprising that the US and western imperialist powers confronted the Russian and Chinese imperialists as a result of the military coup in Niger.
Ukraine: Unceasing Conflict and Destruction
The problems between Russia and Ukraine have their roots in a certain historical process. When we look at this and similar wars that have been going on in recent years, we see the imperialist banditry to redistribute markets.
As a matter of fact, the US-led NATO expansion policy has reached the borders of Russia, in other words, NATO’s attempt to make Ukraine a part of NATO has made the Russian imperialists’ invasion plan even easier.
The US and some other imperialist powers foresaw that Ukraine’s NATO membership would limit Russia’s sphere of influence in the region. In addition, they aimed to weaken Russia militarily and economically by creating de facto conflicts with their siege plans. Indeed, all this has happened and continues to happen in Ukraine. First of all, the invasion plan did not turn out the way the Russian ruling classes wanted. And the war is still going on. Moreover, the hesitations of some NATO member countries about the existence of this war organization have disappeared due to these conflicts arising from the rivalry between the imperialist blocs. Some imperialist states, especially in Western Europe, have even increased their economic aid to strengthen NATO. And they became a part of this unjust war due to their class character. While all this is happening, Ukraine is still not a member of NATO. But the Ukrainian ruling classes have reached the level of servitude to imperialism in every respect. There is a complete destruction in the country. The response of their imperialist masters to Zelenski’s statement that “Ukraine deserves respect” was “take the weapons and continue the war”. Undoubtedly, every servant deserves respect as much as his servitude. A pawn like Zelenski seems to have realized this fact only with the destruction of Ukraine(!) Ukraine’s membership in NATO means that the US and its accomplices are de facto involved in the war. But they do not prefer this path now. They favor the continuation of the war with arms aid and sales, diplomatic support. Because keeping the Russian ruling classes in this conflict means keeping them away from the moves for the redistribution of markets in other areas. Behind all the interventions of the imperialists lies the reality of getting out of the crisis they have fallen into by expanding their markets and spheres of influence. In the simplest definition, war means more armament. The occupations and conflicts created in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, etc. have led not only to the armament of these countries but also to the armament of the countries of the region as a whole. In other words, it has led/is leading to great destructions, migrations, intellectual-moral-cultural degeneration and decay in a multifaceted and comprehensive manner, especially in the economy.
New Searches in the Struggle for Sharing
Of course, the main thing in the relations between imperialist countries in every historical period is competition. The interests of monopolies. In this competition, there are countries that decline and lose their hegemony, as well as imperialist countries that come to the fore economically and militarily. Today, our globe is witnessing such a process. Despite all the efforts of US imperialism and some of its allies, the influence of Chinese imperialism in the world markets is gradually increasing.
Comrade Lenin defines the power struggle between the imperialists as follows: “To answer this question in the negative, it is enough to put the question clearly. For under capitalism, as the basis for the division of interests, spheres of influence, colonies, etc., no other basis can be conceived than the power of the participants in this division, their general economic, financial, military, etc. power, and the power of the participants in the division does not vary equally. For under capitalism the equal development of individual enterprises, trusts, branches of industry and countries is impossible. Compared with the capitalist power of England at that time, Germany half a century ago was a miserable nothing; the position of Japan vis-à-vis Russia is no different. Can it be ‘conceivable’ that the balance of forces between the imperialist powers will remain unchanged after ten or twenty years? Absolutely unthinkable.” (Lenin, Imperialism, Sol Yayınları, p. 133)
Again, from the perspective of the redivision of the world, Comrade Lenin points to the following facts: “…For the first time the world has been completely divided. So much so that from now on there is only a question of redivision, that is, not of the seizure of unclaimed lands, but of the transfer of lands from one “owner” to another. “ (age, p. 87)
Despite all the developments and quantitative changes, our age is still the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. Today, the invasions and conflicts, the different blocs formed in different continents of our globe due to the competition between imperialists are the natural result of the moves for the redistribution of markets, just as Comrade Lenin pointed out.
Bandits at Work in the US’s “Backyard”
Latin America is defined as the “backyard” of US imperialism and US imperialism sees it as its “right” to intervene in this “backyard” at every opportunity. It organizes military coups in these countries or, as in Venezuela in 2018, it follows a policy in line with imperialist thuggery by not recognizing the elected head of state (Maduro) and instead recognizing Juan Guaido, who has declared himself president.
Likewise, in our age, the imperialists and their accomplices use the same arguments, almost by rote, to justify their policies of aggression and occupation. While their justification in Venezuela is “anti-democratic elections”, in Iraq it is “chemical weapons” and so on. However, the truth is that whether it is Venezuela or Iraq, the main aim of the US is to hand over the underground and above-ground rich resources of these countries to the imperialist monopolies.
Imperialist contradictions and plunder continue in the “backyard” of the USA. The Russian and Chinese imperialists are offering the same support to Madura as they did to Chavez. Of course, this support is not for the benefit of the Venezuelan people but for the benefit of the Russian and Chinese monopolies. It is to weaken the hegemony of US imperialism in Latin America.
The maximum profit policies of the imperialist monopolies have caused/are causing deep unemployment and poverty in this continent. These consequences have also led to the accumulation of anti-US anger in the continent. While this anger has sometimes turned into massive protests in the streets, in other periods it has led to the rise to power and the formation of governments by personalities such as Chavez, Lula, Madura, etc., who define themselves in the “left”. Undoubtedly, the social opposition in Latin America does not consist of this “left” within the establishment. There are also communist-revolutionary forces that emerge from time to time and create great revolutionary values.
The recent election results in Guatemala, the developments in Ecuador, etc. show that the weakening hegemony of US imperialism will continue, and the economic and political influence of imperialist China and Russia, with which it is in competition, will gradually increase in the region.
In Ecuador, President Guillermo Lasso, supported by US imperialism, has caused a major economic and political crisis in this country with his servility to imperialism and his anti-people policies. The decay of the system has not only led to deep poverty. The increasing drug and human trafficking and gangsterism brought with it internal conflicts, political assassinations, migration, etc.
Middle East and Caucasus: “Divide and Rule!”
The Middle East is a geography where the imperialists’ policies of “divide and rule”, conflict and weaken have been going on for centuries and they want to continue to do so in the future. The strategic location of the region and the abundance of energy resources have made the Middle East the focus of inter-imperialist competitive struggle. The region, which was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for decades, has been the center of conflict since the British and French imperialists settled in the region after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Britain occupied Palestine, Iraq and Jordan; France occupied Lebanon and Syria. In the Gulf region and Egypt, it was again the British imperialists who dominated. The imperialists first divided the population into small states. Then they aimed to protect their interests through their henchmen with the title of “dictator” specific to the region such as “King”, “Sheikh”, “Emir”, “Prince” etc. All these counter-revolutionary policies were implemented through the politics of “divide and rule”. These governments, shaped on ethnic, religious, sectarian and even tribal basis, were made ready to strangle each other at every opportunity. As a result of these policies, first of all, other non-Arab peoples were oppressed. And again, Kurdistan was divided into four parts by the imperialists. This huge bunch of problems created by the imperialists and regional reactionaries at the beginning of the previous century has become more complicated in the new century.
It is the profit greed, fascist and racist mentality of the imperialist-capitalist system that has displaced the Palestinian people, divided the geography of Kurdistan into four parts, turned Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya into a bloodbath with occupations and internal conflicts, and forced hundreds of thousands of people to migrate. In this historical process of more than a century, the policies of exploitation and oppression implemented by the imperialists and their servant governments have led to deep poverty, destruction and wars. Wherever there is poverty, destruction, denialism and genocide, there is not only suffering. At the same time, the noble resistance of oppressed peoples and nations takes its place in the pages of history. The struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli Zionism and the struggle of the Kurdish nation against the fascist and reactionary states under their domination has created hope for the struggles of other peoples of the region and oppressed sects and faith groups.
As we have underlined above, the Middle East has been one of the most conflicted regions of our globe throughout its history. Undoubtedly, internal contradictions and conflicts in the region have always facilitated foreign interventions. Religious and sectarian conflicts in particular have both curbed social developments on a modern basis and made the region vulnerable to foreign attacks. On this objective basis, social decay, collaborative relations and the culture of obedience have been transformed into a way of life. Religion plays a major role here. Religious bigotry has hindered all kinds of progressive developments.
Therefore, in order for revolutionaries and socialists to build the united struggle of oppressed peoples and the class-based brotherhood of oppressed peoples on a healthy basis in this region where national, religious-sectarian contradictions exist intensely, they must first take a clear stance against unrealistic ideas such as “brotherhood of religions”, “Islam is a religion of peace”, etc., which have no equivalent in social life. The same applies to other religions and belief groups.
In the current context, we can say that the influence of US imperialism in the region has weakened to a certain extent compared to the past. The US withdrew from Iraq, leaving behind long years of destruction. As of now, it has positioned its military forces in Southern Kurdistan. Again, the reactionary Arab states in the region, especially Qatar, have military bases and forces.
The US and EU imperialists’ organization of the civil war to overthrow the reactionary Assad regime in Syria by using the revolt of the peoples of the region defined as the “Arab Spring” and supporting reactionary jihadist Salafist gang organizations under the name of regime opponents has brought Syria to the brink of destruction. In the face of the US and EU imperialists’ plan to overthrow the Assad regime by using the reactionary Islamist gang organizations in Syria, the Russian imperialists supported the Assad regime. The support offered by the Russian ruling classes to the Assad regime ensured Assad’s survival. Of course, the Iranian regime also plays an important role in Assad’s survival. This is because the Iranian regime realized that with the overthrow of Assad, they would be next in line. Undoubtedly, the situation in Syria will get worse and worse as Russia, which has kept Assad alive until today, has not achieved the quick victory it had hoped for in Ukraine and has been embroiled in this war, while Iran is unable to even take a defensive position in the face of Zionist Israeli attacks on its territory and Iranian-affiliated forces in the countries it calls the “Axis of Resistance”.
And again, we must underline that at the root of these conflicts lies the fact that the US imperialists and their western imperialist allies are weakening the influence of the Russian imperialists in the region. Therefore, it is understandable that the Iranian regime, whose interests periodically coincide with the Russian imperialists, takes an active position on the side of the Assad regime in Syria. As we mentioned above, all these developments disrupt the plan of the US, Britain and their allies and cause US imperialism to improve its relations with various representatives of the Kurdish national movement. In other words, the US imperialism, which offers support to the Kurdish movement in Rojava against jihadist groups such as ISIS etc., which the imperialists created for their periodic interests, has also given a “legitimacy” to its stay in the field by acting in this way. Undoubtedly, this support has led to a partial deterioration of its relations with the fascist Turkish state. While the US is doing this, its closest ally Britain is underhandedly feeding jihadist organizations such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
It should be known that the support offered by US imperialism to the Kurdish national movement and struggle is a support limited to its periodic interests.
In the Middle East, the Palestinian and Kurdish question continues to exist today as it did yesterday. The Zionist state of Israel is not generally accepted by the peoples of the region. However, Israel’s most useful ally in the region is the Turkish state. As it will be remembered, in the attacks against the Armenian people in Artsakh, the Turkish Republic was arm-in-arm with the fascist government of Azerbaijan and Zionist Israel. It is the state of Israel that sells billion-dollar weapons to Azerbaijan and trains its militarist forces. The Turkish ruling classes, on the one hand, claim that they support the Palestinian cause, on the other hand, they continue to commit murders against the Armenian people, arm in arm with Zionism.
The US servitude of the Turkish Republic and its complicity with Israel are not deeply wounded as some claim. Moreover, the Putin-Erdogan “friendship” is not built on opposition to the US. This friendship is a relationship of interest that involves mutual concessions and condemnation, and the place where the Turkish Republic will stand “when the time comes” is clear, next to its master US imperialism.
The multifaceted and comprehensive economic embargoes and attacks imposed on Russia by the US, UK and EU imperialist powers have a heavy cost. The Russian ruling classes are trying to frustrate this siege policy imposed on them, albeit partially, through Azerbaijan and the Turkish Republic. For this reason, the Russian rulers can digest the support offered by the fascist Turkish state indirectly to the Zelenski administration in Ukraine and openly to the jihadist gang groups in Syria.
Likewise, the Putin administration, which got stuck in the mud, so to speak, in Ukraine, has mainly concentrated on the Ukrainian front by withdrawing its forces in Syria, albeit partially. This situation also provides certain advantages to the US allies in the region. This is exactly what the US, Britain and their EU imperialist allies wanted. That is, to render the Russian imperialists “ineffective” in the politics of the region by confronting and weakening them with their henchmen and the jihadist gang groups they support.
Of course, Russia, China and even Iran are not idle. While China is gradually increasing its economic influence in the region, the Shiite militia groups supported by Iran and organized under different names are active parties in the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc. under the name of the “Axis of Resistance”. Likewise, compared to the past, the relations between the Gulf countries and the Iranian and Syrian regimes have taken a softer course. All these developments may open the door to new conflicts as well as new periodic alliances. This is the first one.
Secondly, the Artsakh issue will also remain on the agenda to a certain extent. Because the new target of the Turkish and Azerbaijani ruling classes is the Zengezur Corridor. The opening of this corridor is the common desire of the Turkish and Azerbaijani ruling classes. But this move also disturbs the Iranian state. If this move of the Turkish and Azerbaijani rulers becomes a reality, then the land connection between Armenia and the Iranian state will be cut.
In conclusion, the green light given to the occupation of Artsakh by the Russian rulers, partly due to the objective conditions we have tried to underline above, has led to the displacement of the Armenian people, which is a continuation of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
Again, these attacks have the possibility of further straining the relations between Armenia and the Russian rulers. US imperialism is also trying to turn this situation into an opportunity.
The feeble voice of the Western imperialists against the occupation of Artsakh, that is, against the displacement of the Armenian people, has no meaning. The truth is that their priority is not the Armenian people but Azerbaijani oil and gas. Therefore, adding a new bloody ring to the crimes they have committed against the peoples in history in exchange for getting rid of Russian dependence is quite in line with the moral-conscience of these bandits. It is therefore not surprising that the spokespersons of the western imperialist states shake the bloody hands of Aliyev and Erdogan.
Palestinian Resistance Continues
The Zionist state of Israel, established as the “outpost” of imperialist monopoly capital in the Middle East geography, continues to be a threat to the peoples of the region, especially the Palestinian people. The state of Israel, which was established as an artificial state on Palestinian lands, is increasingly pursuing a policy of occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands as the representative of the Zionist reaction, which defends the interests of imperialism in the Middle East geography. The Zionist state of Israel, in addition to the territories it occupied in wars with reactionary Arab regimes, declares the lands where Palestinians live as “settlement areas” and forces Palestinians to migrate through the terror of massacres, oppression and arrests.
The Zionist state is now building “Jewish settlements” in the Palestinian-dominated West Bank and annexing it step by step. It controls 2.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in conditions resembling an open-air prison, imposes an embargo and organizes terrorist attacks from time to time.
The Palestinian national resistance responded to these attacks by Zionist Israel on October 7, 2023, with an attack it called the “Aqsa Flood”. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers, including civilians called “Jewish settlers”, were killed or captured in the attack on Israeli-occupied territories from Gaza by 12 parties and organizations, including revolutionary organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), in which Hamas was the main force. This operation of the Palestinian resistance shocked the technologically superior and omnipotent Israeli state and the western imperialist capitalist states that support it. Following this shock, tens of thousands of people were killed, tens of thousands were wounded and hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly displaced from their homes after Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza from the air and land.
While the imperialist capitalist states and reactionary states, especially the Arab regimes in the region, openly or implicitly supported Israel by maintaining all kinds of relations, especially trade, with Israel, the peoples of the world stood by the Palestinian people in the face of the genocidal attacks of Israel, which was unconditionally and unconditionally supported by the western imperialists, especially the US, British and German imperialism, against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The peoples of the world, especially in the imperialist capitalist centers, took to the streets and condemned Israel’s massacre attacks.
Although Israel and its imperialist supporters’ denigration of the resistance based on lies cooked in the Zionist kitchen, such as the Muslim Brotherhood connection in the process of the establishment of Hamas and the “targeting of civilians” for the October 7 attack had a certain effect, it failed to deceive the peoples of the world this time.
The ideological positioning of organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and moreover the extent of their relations with the reactionary states of the region, cannot cast a shadow on the justness and legitimacy of the Palestinian national resistance. Undoubtedly, the Palestinian nation’s revolt, rebellion and resistance to oppression as an oppressed nation is legitimate.
The victory of the Palestinian national resistance depends on the fact that it is based on its own strength and that the policy of exploiting the contradictions between the imperialists and the reactionaries of the region does not become a tool of the policy of the imperialists and the reactionary states of the region to use it for their own interests. In the current situation, there is a danger that the Palestinian national resistance, under the leadership of Hamas, will turn into a Gaza-centered “religious referential” content and, moreover, into a tool of the Iranian reactionary mullah regime’s policy called the “axis of resistance”, which is essentially the product of the strategy of meeting its reactionary policy of preserving its own reactionary power on the “front lines”.
And essentially Iran’s attitude towards the Palestinian national resistance is purely pragmatist. Iran supports the Palestinian national resistance against US imperialism and the Zionist Israeli regime. The reactionary mullah regime of Iran is aware that it is one of the strategic targets of US imperialism. For this reason, it has organized the “axis of resistance” in order to meet any threat to itself outside its borders.
It is no secret that the main target of US imperialism in the region is Iran. The reason why US imperialism is not directly attacking Iran at the moment is because Iran is a “big bite”. Just like in Syria, the US and “western imperialism” will attack Iran when the conditions are created or when they find the opportunity. The reactionary Iranian mullah regime is aware of this reality, which is why it is taking various steps, especially to acquire nuclear weapons. These steps include organizing an “axis of resistance” in the region with an anti-US mission, while deepening its economic and military relations with Russia and China, rivals of US imperialism. Iran’s regional cooperation with Russia as well as its agreements with Chinese social imperialism should be evaluated in this context.
The agreement between Iran and China is a product of the increasing influence of Chinese social imperialism against US imperialism in the Middle East in recent years in the competition between imperialist monopolies. China’s influence has been increasing in the region in recent years. On August 22, 2023, at the BRICS meeting held in South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia were accepted as new members and at least 40 countries lined up to become members, which was important in terms of showing the influence of Chinese imperialism in the region.
In the coming years, the Caucasus and the Middle East will continue to be the regions where new wars and conflicts will take place in the competition between imperialist monopolies. The steps taken as a result of the competition between the imperialist monopolies point to this fact.
EU’s Competitiveness Weakens
The European Union (EU) is one of the world’s most important geographies with a population of 450 million. Its economic capacity and market union stand in an important place. However, it is also a fact that not all member states within the 27-member EU have the same level of capitalist development. The motor power of the EU is Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy. The rest of the member states are dependent on the EU, are semi-colonial countries or their economies are not sufficiently developed.
The world economic crisis has engulfed the EU. The real estate crisis that erupted in the US in 2008 affected the whole world in waves, and the EU was no exception. Although the EU has entered a period of partial recovery after the economic crisis that increased with the pandemic, the economic crisis continues to move at a rapid pace as of 2022. The figures show that the EU’s economic growth trend is steadily declining, weakening its competitiveness with other imperialist powers.
On the one hand, the EU is trying to minimize the impact of the world economic crisis on the continent, on the other hand, it is trying to overcome its internal economic problems in a struggle with its rivals.
One of the biggest structural problems of the EU is the gradual decline in investment. Stagnation in the domestic market, high inflation and the decline in purchasing power are among the reasons for the decline in the growth rate. The deteriorating economic situation in countries such as Germany and France, the engine of the EU, naturally has a negative impact on other EU countries, which in turn exacerbates the crisis. While this summarizes the overall situation in the EU, the economic crisis continues to grow in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy, which represent the engine of the union.
For example, the German economy continues to shrink. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced that the German economy will shrink by 0.2 percent by the end of 2024. The European Center for Economic Research (ZEW) announced in its report that “The Current Situation Index in Germany fell by 7.2 points in September compared to the previous month and became minus 84.5. Theindex fell to its lowest level since May 2020“in September. Moreover, studies show that economic development in the Eurozone has declined by 8.6 percentage points.
The budget deficit of the French state is increasing every year. In 2023, it is emphasized that the budget deficit is 5.5%, and it is predicted that this deficit will increase further in 2024.
The UK, which is not a member of the EU but is located on the European continent, is also the subject of a separate evaluation. The UK economy is also experiencing the worst period of the last 14 years. In the OECD report on the UK economy, it is emphasized that the country’s economy grew by only 1.1% in 2023 and this will not change in 2024.
The Danger of War and the EU
Britain is one of the main instigators of a third imperialist war. The British monopoly bourgeoisie, acting together with the USA, is among the main instigators of the war. Britain is one of the forces that plays the most active role in the anti-Russia bloc formed against Russia in the creation of regional wars.
Within the EU, German imperialism does not consider itself ready for war for the time being. Germany, whose weapons and army are not ready for war, has declared through its Chief of General Staff that it will be ready for war only in five years. Of course, this does not mean that German imperialism is “peaceful”. As a country that directly caused the First and Second Imperialist Wars, Germany will not hold back in its efforts to take its share in the redivision of the world.
All European countries allocate huge budgets for armaments. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany allocated 100 billion dollars for armament in a single move. Other countries followed suit.
The rapid rise of internal fascism in the European Union countries also shows with which forces the imperialists will secure their own backyards in the event of a war. In Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Greece and Spain, fascist parties directly became governments. In Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark and Poland, racist fascist parties are increasing their votes in every election. In addition, democratic rights are being scaled back at every opportunity. Police laws are being expanded, marches and demonstrations are being restricted, while repression against revolutionaries and progressives is expanding.
The class struggle against the developing crisis, the impoverishment of the masses, repression, bans and increasing internal fascistization is in a backward position. The absence of class-led parties across Europe, and the very limited influence of those that exist, must be seen as the reason for the backwardness of the social struggle.
The State of the Revolutionary and Communist Movement
In the late 20th century, after the reversals of socialism and the modern revisionists threw off the socialist mask and openly switched to capitalism, the imperialist capitalist system propagandized that the “class struggle” was over and claimed that the “end of history” had arrived. US imperialism, as the spokesperson of the imperialist monopolies, was declared the “sole ruler of the world”.
Along with this process, a purge attack against the revolutionary and communist movement was launched internationally. Ideologically, this process, which was continued with the propaganda that “ideologies are dead”, was also continued as a complete counter-revolutionary attack in every field such as cultural, military, etc.
However, what was called “the victory of capitalism” was not possible due to the inner workings of capitalism itself. The “peace” of the imperialist monopolies and the “unipolar world” proclaimed under the leadership of the USA, with the emergence of imperialist states such as China and Russia, imperialist monopolies and their spokesmen, ended with the emergence of imperialist states such as China and Russia. The late 20th century “unipolar world” was replaced by a “multipolar world” based on the imperialist capitalist system. This determined the movement of the imperialist capitalist system in the international arena. Imperialist camps took shape under the leadership of various imperialist states. These camps, formed by states that were the spokespersons of the imperialist monopolies, struggled against each other.
The imperialist monopolies reorganized the international division of labour in this process in which they declared relative victory. The capitalist states took steps to change step by step the policies they implemented in the face of the existence of the socialist system and the struggle of the working class, which they called the “social state”, and to usurp the gains of the working class and the working people. Under the name of “neo-liberal” policies, they wanted to solve the capitalist crises produced by the nature of capitalism itself and the decline in profit rates by shifting production processes to countries dependent on imperialism. In this way, in countries dependent on imperialism, it was aimed to get rid of a series of costs that caused loss of profit for itself, especially the intensive exploitation of surplus-value.
With the “neo-liberal” policies of imperialism, the semi-colonial, semi-colonial semi-feudal countries dependent on imperialism were subjected to the complete plunder of imperialist capital. The underground and above-ground resources of these countries have been plundered more and more in order for imperialist capital to gain more profit. This situation led to the further impoverishment of the peoples of the countries dependent on imperialism.
With this “new” orientation of the imperialist monopolies in the imperialist capitalist centers, the step-by-step change of “social state” policies, the usurpation of the gains of the working class and the working people for the sake of the interests of the bourgeoisie, led to the emergence of various “anti-capitalist” movements called “anti-globalization” in the imperialist capitalist centers. In reality, these movements objected not to the capitalist system itself but to its consequences. The weakness and disorganization of the communist parties in the imperialist capitalist centers prevented these movements from being organized on the right basis within the class struggle.
Meanwhile, in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal semi-colonial countries dependent on imperialism, the changes and transformations in these countries, parallel to imperialism’s reorganization of the international division of labour, led to the struggles of representatives of various classes. It should be noted that in addition to the struggle of petty bourgeois revolutionary organizations in some countries, struggles were also waged under the leadership of the communist parties of the international working class organized in every country.
At the same time, the oppressed nations continued their struggles in various forms and contents. From the Zapatistas in Mexico to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and from the Palestinian National Movement to the Kurdish National Movement in the Middle East, a series of anarchist, reformist and revolutionary organizations continued their struggles.
For MLM movements, although this process was answered by the People’s War raised by the Communist Party of Peru, it was interrupted by the imprisonment of the leader of the SEP, President Gonzalo, and the subsequent defeat of the Peruvian revolution. The Nepalese revolution, which followed the Peruvian revolution, shifted to a class collaborationist line with the betrayal of its leadership at the stage of taking power, which was recorded as a failure of the communist movement. Despite these negativities, the communist movement continued its struggle for power through people’s war in semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries dependent on imperialism. In India, the communist movement united in the early 21st century and consolidated its organization among the masses, especially in rural areas. In the Philippines, the communist movement continued its struggle steadily.
After the defeat of the Nepalese revolution, the communist movement there is in the process of reorganization. Most recently, the communist movement in Nepal announced its unification as the Nepal Revolutionary Communist Party (NDKP). The Communist Party of India (Maoist), in its struggle to lead the class struggle and raise the People’s War in India, has successfully responded to the counter-revolutionary attacks of the Indian state under the guise of various campaigns, even though it has suffered significant losses, and has maintained its positions.
In line with the Indian reaction’s policy of confining the communist movement to the countryside, counter-revolutionary attacks on the urban activities of the HKP (Maoist) were increased and many arrests were made.
In the Philippines, there are increasing counter-revolutionary attacks by the Philippine state against the Communist Party of the Philippines. Parallel to the growing contradiction between the US and Chinese imperialists, the geo-strategic importance of the Philippines in the US imperialism’s policy of containment of China has led to the establishment of US military bases in the Philippines and, moreover, to the further subordination of the Philippine reaction to the US imperialists. The increasing influence of the US on the Philippines has further increased the attacks of the Philippine state on the communist movement. The Communist Party of the Philippines has suffered losses in these attacks.
It is also worth mentioning the organization that has recently declared itself as the “Communist International Union” (ECU) and claims to be the international organization of Marxist Leninist Maoist parties. This organization was declared in an internet newspaper called “Communist International” as the result of the “United Maoist International Conference”. It should be noted that the vast majority of the parties and organizations that declared this organization are disconnected from the masses and moreover, their understanding of MLM is problematic. The “International Union” formed by these organizations and groups with “left” rhetoric, which comprehend MLM with a dogmatic ideological stance, looks like a bad copy of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (DEH). It deserves to be analyzed in a broader framework, especially with its advocacy of strict centralism in its organizational structure, its ideological line that “adventurously” defends the People’s War strategy, which is valid in semi-colonial semi-feudal countries, in imperialist capitalist centers, etc.
Conclusion
All these facts and developments show that the workers and laborers in the imperialist capitalist centers and in the countries dependent on imperialism are facing difficult conditions, but the tendency to struggle to change the conditions is gaining strength. While in the imperialist capitalist centers the workers and laborers generally organize strikes and demonstrations to protect their “living standards” and living and working conditions, in the countries dependent on imperialism the working class and laborers take to the streets, strike and demonstrate to improve their living and working conditions for a number of reasons ranging from rising food and energy prices, deepening hunger and poverty to government corruption.
Internationally, in addition to such actions in individual countries, there are also actions with direct political demands, such as the Israeli massacre attacks on Gaza and the Palestinians. While the working class has stopped work with this demand and refused to load the ships shipping to Israel, the vast majority of the peoples of the world have taken to the streets to protest against Israel and to oppose the policies of “their” governments. After October 7, despite all the media campaigns of Israeli Zionism and imperialism, protests and demonstrations condemning Israel and supporting the Palestinian people took place in more than 80 countries.
What the actions of the people of Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and most recently the working class of Bangladesh have shown us is this. The working class and the oppressed peoples of the world are revolting and continuing their struggle. While the class struggle continues in various forms and contents around the world, the working class strikes and mass demonstrations rising in the imperialist capitalist centers turn into popular revolts in the countries dependent on imperialism, as in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, and the strikes and actions of the working class lasting for days, as in Bangladesh, continue despite the armed intervention and massacres of the state forces.
The popular uprisings, especially in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, point to the lack of a genuine communist party to lead these uprisings. Since the revolt of the Kazakh people lacked the leadership of a communist party, it soon ended with the reinforcement of military forces from outside the country and the liquidation of the ruling class cliques. A similar situation occurred in Sri Lanka. The people revolted, seized important centers of state power, especially the presidential palace, and directly targeted the representatives of the ruling classes. Some of those in power resigned and fled abroad. The people’s revolt in Sri Lanka also failed to result in the power of the working class and the people, as it did not develop under the leadership of a communist party.
One of the main lessons of the revolts of the people of Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka for the oppressed peoples of the world is the possibility of revolution through armed popular uprising in semi-colonial countries oppressed by imperialism. The fact that a revolution has not taken place in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka does not invalidate this lesson. On the contrary, it proves once again that the fundamental issue is the organization of the vanguard. Communists must therefore play their historic role.
In addition to the actions of the working class and the peoples of the world in individual countries, this course of the class struggle at the international level imposes on the advanced workers and laborers, the vanguard of the working class, the communists in each country the task of playing their historical role.
Especially at a time when the danger of an imperialist war of division is on the agenda, it is important to prepare the communist parties and organizations in the imperialist capitalist centers for a war of division. “As for the question of war, the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries oppose imperialist wars waged by their own countries. If such wars break out, the policy of these Parties is to ensure the defeat of the reactionary governments in their own countries. The only war the Communist Parties want to fight is the civil war for which they are preparing.” (Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol: II, First Edition: February 1975, Aydınlık Publications)
We are in a process in which the increasing competition of the imperialist monopolies has led to new alliance relations and camps among the spokesperson states of the imperialist monopolies, and the contradiction between the imperialist camps has sharpened. The contradiction between the imperialist monopolies sometimes evolves into military conflicts, as in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The sharpening of the contradiction between the imperialist monopolies also includes the preparation for a new imperialist war of division. Although the balance of power and the extent of competition between the imperialist monopolies prevent the need for a new war of division, the persistence of the economic crisis of capitalism, moreover, the decline in capitalist profit rates and competition mainly for the market, have the potential to trigger a war of division for the market (World War III) between the imperialist monopolies.
As a result, it is possible to define the main contradictions sharpening at the international level as follows:
1- The contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and oppressed peoples
2- The contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in imperialist countries
3- Inter-imperialist contradiction
4- The main contradiction worldwide is the contradiction between labor and capital. The main contradiction worldwide arising from this contradiction is the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations and peoples, while in capitalist and imperialist countries the main contradiction is the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
In this context, our 2nd Congress briefly makes the following evaluations:
1- The wave of economic crisis in the world is gradually expanding. Although the crisis that started in 2008 was tried to be managed for a short time, the imperialist system has not been able to overcome the crisis. The struggle for the redistribution of markets is deepening. The competition between the capitalist imperialist countries, the struggle for dominance and superiority continues without losing any momentum.
2- At the present stage, the inter-imperialist blocs and alignments have become even more pronounced. The USA, Britain and the European Union constitute one bloc; Chinese social imperialism and Russian imperialism constitute another bloc.
3- The imperialist countries, unable to solve their protracted crisis, have accelerated their steps towards solving their processes with war. The danger of an imperialist war of division is increasing. The imperialist powers are arming themselves militarily and preparing for war with more emphasis every year. The coming to power of fascist parties, the gradual escalation of racism, the increase in xenophobia and hostility towards foreigners and immigrants, limitations in democratic and social rights, and the successive enactment of anti-democratic laws should be read as preparations for war.
4- Developments in the world and in the Middle East have clearly shown that the main instigator of the war is the US and British imperialism.
5- The establishment of anti-imperialist fronts against the imperialist war worldwide and on continents has become one of the important agendas of communist, revolutionary and all anti-war forces.
SITUATION IN TURKEY
Assessing the situation in Turkey is an important part of determining our tactical policies in line with our new strategy.
The AKP has ruled the country for twenty-two years without interruption. The AKP, which is a ruling party rather than a government, has never lost an election except for the local elections of June 7, 2014, and March 2024. With an average of 35% of the votes across Turkey, it has come back to power single-handedly in every election.
On August 14, 2001, Abdullah Gül, R.T. Erdoğan and his team announced that they had “taken off the shirt of the National Vision” and founded the AKP. The economic crisis that broke out in 1999 opened the door to the establishment of the present order, closing a new era in Turkey. Since the coalition government of the time could not overcome the economic crisis, it lost its ability to govern to some extent. When the MHP, the partner of the coalition government, demanded early elections, the AKP won 34.28% of the votes in the early general elections held on November 3, 2022, and came into government alone.
It soon became clear that the AKP was a “project” of US imperialism. R.T. Erdoğan, who was summoned to the US before the AKP was founded, accepted all the conditions in the bargain with the US and paved the way for him. The US said that it would “bring the AKP into the government” and in return, Turkey would act as the guardian of the US in the Middle East and, most importantly, take part in the US’s Greater Middle East Project. Erdoğan and his team fully accepted all the tasks put before them in exchange for becoming the government. The appointment of R.T. Erdoğan as the head of the BOP after the AKP became the government alone in the first election was another step in the process. With the curtain opened after the AKP came to power, the task assigned to Turkey became more visible.
Although the AKP’s promise to fight against the “3Y” (Poverty, Prohibition and Corruption) has a certain impact on the AKP’s victory in all elections from November 3, 2022 to 2024, it would be incomplete to explain that the AKP came to power only by using the economic crisis without taking into account the effects of the continuation of the movement, whose roots go back to 1969, until today.
The representatives of the second wing of the Turkish ruling classes, which İbrahim Kaypakkaya, in his evaluation of the Kemalist Movement, described as being divided into two main camps, “On the other hand, the other part of the comprador bourgeoisie, which has not yet been completely liquidated, another part of the aghas and big landlords, the clergy, the old ulema class, which are the ideological pillars of feudalism and sultanate” , were first represented in the CHP and then in the Democrat Party. This line defined itself as the “Movement of Independents” or “National Vision” founded by N. Erbakan in 1969. It continued with the National Nizam Party and its successors, the National Salvation Party, the Welfare Party and the Virtue Party. These parties, whose names changed but whose views and ideology remained unchanged, governed the state and some municipalities as partners in government from 1974 to 1997, gained significant experience, and the base of this formation sided with the AKP, which announced that it had “changed its shirt” after 2001.
When the AKP was founded, it had an important cadre. These cadres, who came from the National Vision tradition, brought their experience to the newly established AKP. The AKP also appealed to the National Vision base. It persuaded a significant part of this base to rally around it. In the 1999 general elections, the FP received 15.41% of the vote and a significant portion of its votes shifted to the AKP in the early general elections of November 3, 2002. AKP also received significant votes from other right-wing parties.
When AKP came to power, unemployment rates declined slightly. The economy temporarily recovered. There were two reasons for this: Firstly, there was a certain inflow of foreign capital, and secondly, the construction sector was boosted by the privatizations, which gave the economy a boost.
Since 1986, the total amount of privatizations is 71 billion. The AKP has obtained a total of 63 billion dollars from these privatizations. A significant part of this income obtained by the AKP from these privatizations was given to the debt and interest received from the IMF. Behind R.T. Erdogan’s statement that “we had no debt to the IMF during our period” is the attempt to pay off the debts with the income obtained from privatizations.
In 2008, the world economic crisis hit Turkey as well. Although the AKP said that “the crisis passed us by a tangent”, the economic crisis, which has been felt since 2009, led to a 4.7% shrinkage in the Turkish economy. Since the economies of semi-colonial countries like Turkey are dependent on imperialist capital, economic crises are more frequent in these countries than in other developed countries. The economic crises in Turkey since 1989, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2018, 2022 should be read in this way.
Although each of these crises has arisen for different reasons, the common denominator of these crises is that capital does not feel secure, the domestic currency has depreciated significantly, there is a shortage of cash in banks, domestic demand has contracted, capital has fled the country, unemployment has increased, and purchasing power has decreased.
Leaving aside previous crises, the economic crisis that started in the US in 2008 has affected the whole world. The main reason why the AKP says “it passed us by a tangent” is that after the 2008 crisis, the imperialist monopolies turned to countries with higher incomes and capital inflows flowed to Turkey at a certain level and all these reduced the effects of the crisis.
In 2018, the AKP reached the end of this period that it boasted about and has not been able to escape from the current economic crisis. The 2018 crisis is not independent from the world economic crisis. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic, which started worldwide, was added, the crisis continued with even more dimensions. Although the AKP government tried to overcome the crisis with hikes, by pulling the Turkish lira down against the dollar, by not giving raises to workers and laborers, etc., the economy is no longer holding together. Corruption, bribery, collapse of property, etc. in the country has reached such a state that even the slightest intervention in this situation is not possible because it would lead to the collapse of the chain system. Even if the AKP goes door to door begging for money to replace the fleeing capital, it is not possible to fix the economy. The AKP-MHP government is trying to save many crony companies that are sinking after the economic crisis by giving them huge financial support. Most of the small tradesmen are either going bankrupt or trying to survive on the brink of bankruptcy.
The AKP’s economic policy has brought the peasantry to the brink of bankruptcy. Farmers are unable to sell what they produce, and their crops are rotting in the fields. Production costs are so high that a significant number of peasants have gradually given up production and started to produce only for their own consumption. Since the AKP has cut agricultural subsidies to farmers while transferring huge sums of money to its crony monopolies, production has fallen to the lowest level; this prevents people from accessing food. In addition to the economic crisis, Turkey is at risk of facing an agricultural crisis in the coming years.
During the AKP’s 22 years in power, the policy of carrot and stick has always gone hand in hand. The AKP, which has been an apostle of democracy at every turn, has not hesitated to return to its roots and implement its repressive and prohibitive policies after achieving its goals.
After winning the 2002 elections, AKP won the support of the “West” by claiming that it was eager to become a member of the European Union (EU). It did not adopt the “democratization” steps put before Turkey in the progress reports of the EU imperialists. Because democracy is a question of revolution, and it is obvious that the “democracy” that the EU will bring to our country will not be a real democracy. While the EU’s repressive and forbidding practices in their own countries are obvious, it is known what the democracy they promise is.
With Islamist discourse and practices, the AKP has been able to provide the mass support that the Turkish comprador bourgeoisie needs. By objecting to some aspects of Kemalist fascism’s oppression and violence against the masses of the people, it has been able to back up the aspirations and demands of the masses for democracy behind its own interests. The September 12 Military Fascist Junta’s “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis” has made “Sunni Islam”, the dominant faith, permeate every cell of society. The Diyanet has a budget larger than the budgets of the ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Energy and Natural Resources, Culture and Tourism, Industry and Technology and Trade.
It is not a subjective assessment to say that in its 22 years in power, the AKP has come to terms with the clique that constitutes another front of the counter-revolution and has represented the Kemalist ideology since its foundation. They have been in a constant reckoning with the participation of religious officials in the “War of Independence”, claiming that they provided material and humanitarian participation in the war, and that after the war ended and the Republic was proclaimed, dervish lodges and lodges were closed and the sultanate was ended, claiming that the Kemalists broke their promises. This underlies the Kemalist bourgeois opposition’s occasional discourse that “the founding principles of the Republic must be returned to”.
Although the AKP claims to be uncomfortable with secularism, Turkey has never been a truly secular country since its foundation. Religion has always been an argument used by the ruling classes. The opening of mosques in every village of the country before schools, the appointment of imams, the payment of imams’ salaries by the state, the ban on all religions and beliefs other than Sunni Islam, all these and more prove that the Turkish state is not a secular state.
Keeping nationalism alive in the society and appearing so-called “anti-imperialist” is the direct result of the hypocritical policy implemented by the AKP since its foundation. The AKP was founded and brought to power as a direct US project. In line with US interests, R.T. Erdoğan was appointed co-chair of the Great Middle East Project (BOP).
Turkey is a semi-colony of the US and the EU. Politically and economically Turkey is dependent on both the US and the EU. Turkey’s relationship with Russian imperialism after the Syrian civil war does not mean that Turkey has given up on the US and the EU, that Turkey has broken its economic and political ties with these imperialist powers. The purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia is nothing more than a bluff against the US.
The AKP’s foreign policy is based on a strategy of false threats, blackmail and hypocrisy. We see this most typically in its political attitude towards Israel’s attacks on Palestine since October 7, 2023. Nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been massacred and a million people have been displaced, while the AKP government is the fiercest enemy of Israel on the one hand and continues to trade with Israel on the other. With its “Prayers for Palestine, Ships for Israel” policy, AKP sells jet fuel to the Israeli army, which massacres Palestinians, while crying for the slaughtered Palestinians.
Step by step, the AKP has turned the country into an open prison. Bans have never fallen off the agenda as indispensable practices of the AKP government. Although the AKP signaled a softening before each election and gave the message that the bans would be lifted, immediately after winning the election, it brought new repressions and bans to the agenda that made the previous practices look like the previous ones. Although it promised to abolish the anti-democratic articles of the September 12 constitution with a constitutional amendment in 2010, after passing the “reform” laws it wanted, new legal regulations were introduced that included more repressive practices.
In the 22 years of AKP rule, human rights, workers’ rights and women’s rights have been completely abolished. During the AKP period, every demand was suppressed with repression and violence. Trade unions were rendered dysfunctional. Workers’ rights were shelved. Even its own supporter unions had to publicize what was done from time to time. During its 22 years in power, it left workers alone with hunger. Workers were almost banned from striking. 22 workers’ strikes were banned by the AKP government and thousands of workers were dismissed. The AKP-MHP government has continuously made legal changes in line with the wishes of the bosses by dismissing or threatening to dismiss workers for joining a union. The fact that only 2 million workers out of 16 million workers in Turkey are union members sufficiently explains the AKP policies. The AKP government did not attach importance to workers’ work safety so that it would not bring additional burden to the bosses. At least 30 thousand workers have lost their lives in occupational homicides during the AKP rule. Nearly one hundred of these are child workers.
Throughout its 22 years in power, the AKP has imposed continuous bans on freedom of the press and freedom of opinion. Nearly 150 journalists have been arrested, tried and sentenced to hundreds of years in prison just for reporting news. Nearly 3,000 people have been prosecuted, dozens have been arrested and sentenced to imprisonment just for criticizing R.T. Erdoğan on social media. The AKP has shown its hostility towards the Kurdish people also in the field of the press. Many Kurdish journalists were detained, tortured and arrested by breaking down the doors of their houses and raiding their offices.
AKP developed special policies against revolutionaries, communists and Kurdish people. With the amendments made under the name of “fight against terrorism”, heavy penalties were introduced. It is clear that in a country where there is no justice, the courts will also walk at the helm of power. This is what happened and thousands of revolutionaries and patriots who were put on trial were sentenced to the heaviest penalties. Turkey is one of the countries with the highest number of prisons. In Turkey, where there are 403 prisons in total, the AKP boasts of building new prisons. Prisons in Turkey are torture centers. Thousands of revolutionary and patriotic prisoners and convicts are struggling for life under the most severe conditions. Revolutionaries in solitary isolation cells face arbitrary practices and punishments for not complying with sanctions. The most typical punishments are the ban on family and lawyer visits, the ban on books and “execution burning”, which is becoming increasingly common today. In prisons where health conditions are very bad, more than six hundred revolutionary and patriotic prisoners are neither treated nor released even though they are on the verge of death. Over four thousand people have lost their lives in prisons during the AKP’s 22-year rule. This figure is the official figures announced by the Ministry of Justice itself. Dozens of revolutionary and patriotic prisoners are kept in prison on the grounds that they do not show “good behavior” even though their sentences are over.
One of the biggest hostilities shown during the AKP-MHP rule was against women and LGBTI+ people. A total of 7,600 women were murdered by men during the AKP-MHP rule.
It is necessary to open a parenthesis here and mention the Istanbul Convention. Turkey signed the Istanbul Convention in 2011. The AKP-MHP government was a signatory to the convention and had to take some steps. Although the government signed the Istanbul Convention, 128 women were murdered in 2012 when the law was ratified. Subsequently, the government announced its withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on March 20, 2021. After this date, the murders of women increased even more. Since the date of withdrawal, 600 women have been murdered. During the AKP-MHP rule, 125 LGBTI+ individuals were killed within the scope of hate crimes, and the fascist government almost blessed these murders.
Against all these developments, the bourgeois opposition remained almost silent in the face of what the AKP did. The society, especially the CHP, was constantly shown the ballot box as salvation. It prevented the masses from taking to the streets, demanding their rights on the streets and holding the AKP to account on the streets. This attitude of the bourgeois opposition benefited the AKP. During the last 22 years of AKP rule, it has become clear that the bourgeois opposition does not have much to give to society. The CHP, which has more power in the bourgeois opposition than the other bourgeois parties, has not only not shown any success during this period, but like the other bourgeois parties, it has always sided with the AKP when it came to the so-called “survival” of the country. The CHP and other bourgeois parties have always given their approval to the AKP in the approval of cross-border operations and the lifting of immunities.
The bourgeois opposition continues to maintain their silence in the face of the AKP, which openly says that they do not recognize their own constitution, when there is so much poverty, when unemployment has increased so much, when human rights violations are rampant. Even though the AKP was defeated in the March 2024 local elections, the fact that the first thing the CHP leader did under the name of “détente” was to run to the palace alone shows the quality of the bourgeois opposition.
No bourgeois opposition party can make the people prosper in this order. This fascist state is the common denominator of all bourgeois parties. There are only nuances between them. It is the essence of bourgeois parties that every bourgeois party reflects democracy when it is in opposition, and a dictatorship when it comes to power. One hundred years of Turkish history has always witnessed this.
One side of these developments is the revolutionary situation. In general, it can be said that the revolutionary situation in our country is at its highest level in the last twenty years. The government is in a crisis of inability to govern. It cannot take any step without using force. The smallest demand for rights and action is violently suppressed. Since 2022, the economic crisis, which has deepened more and more, has led to a great accumulation of anger in society.
There are widespread worker resistances and protests, but they follow a spontaneous course. The conciliatory attitude of the trade unions is backward and passive in taking the class to the streets for their rights and taking their rights by striking. The revolutionary and communist movement’s organization within the class is very weak. This situation negatively affects the class struggle.
In terms of the period ahead, one of the issues that communists should focus on the most is organizing within the working class. It is not possible for the social struggle to advance without organizing the working class.
General Situation of the Working Class
The Gezi Uprising of May-June 2013 and the Serhildan of October 6-8, 2014, increased the contradictions and conflicts within the ruling clique of fascism, and this process left the AKP unable to form a government on its own in the June 7, 2015, General Elections. This process also sharpened the struggle for power between two cliques within the ruling class clique.
In the November 3, 2003, general elections, the AKP formed a government on its own, and then the struggle between the AKP and the Gülen sect, who had aligned their interests in the process of liquidating Kemalist cadres within the state apparatus, which became visible with the “December 17-25 Corruption and Bribery Operation” in 2013, gradually hardened and led to the coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
Although some aspects of the coup attempt are still in the dark, the AKP evaluated the coup attempt as “a blessing from God” and concretely used it as a justification to increase its fascist aggression against the revolutionary and progressive opposition, especially the popular movement. On the grounds of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, a State of Emergency was declared between 2016-2018 and the fascist dictatorship regime with a parliamentary mask was transformed into a one-party dictatorship and the way was paved for the so-called “presidential regime”.
The July 15, 2016 coup attempt did not only operate as a struggle for power within the ruling class cliques and then only as a process of liquidation. At the same time, capital transfer was also realized within the ruling class cliques. The clique holding the state power realized a significant capital transfer under the name of “FETÖ Exchange”.
The State of Emergency process was mainly used as the realization of a series of comprehensive attacks, especially the disorganization attack against the popular opposition in general and the working class in particular. First of all, a purge was carried out within the state organization. About half a million civil servants were dismissed by Decree Laws (KHK).
But mainly an attack was launched against the revolutionary democratic opposition, especially the Kurdish national movement. All opposition dynamics against fascism were attacked with a heavy fascist terror. Although official figures state that 79,301 people were detained, it is known that the actual number of people subjected to detention is over 160,000. From July 16, 2016, to March 20, 2018, the number of people who were put in prisons with arrest warrants during the State of Emergency is at least 228,137 people.
With the State of Emergency declared after the coup attempt, fascism not only launched arrest attacks on the grounds of “fighting against FETÖ” as a product of its internal struggle for power, but also closed down various institutions and confiscated various commercial enterprises as part of the seizure of capital. The important point here is not only that fascism has entered into a power struggle with the Fetullah Gülen sect as a result of the struggle for power within itself. The power struggle of the two Islamist discursive cliques of the Turkish ruling classes that hold the power of power has been transformed into an attack on the people, the progressive, revolutionary and communist movement. Fascism has also launched an all-out attack on the legal institutions of the revolutionary democratic opposition. In this process, revolutionary democratic publications, associations, foundations and trade unions, most of which were associated with the Fethullah Gülen sect, were also closed down, and various institutions and enterprises were collapsed.
Parallel to imperialism’s reorganization of the international division of labor, the reshaping of the superstructure institutions on the basis of the needs of the semi-colonial economy dependent on imperialist capitalism in the Turkish market, which is a part of the capitalist system, and the reorganization of the state organization according to this need were implemented mainly through attacks against the working class and the working people.
At the same time, this process was shaped as a process in which the struggle for power between the ruling class cliques continued and periodically intensified. After the Islamist discursive clique within the Turkish ruling classes, which expressed itself in the AKP, first purged the Kemalist cadres within the state organization and significantly regressed them, the power struggle of the two cliques in power continued, first implicitly and then with the coup attempt. The AKP, under the leadership of R.T. Erdoğan, emerged from this struggle for power by collaborating with some of the Kemalist cadres it had purged in the past, and by suffering considerable attrition. This process also led to the establishment of the “presidential regime” in the state organization of the Turkish ruling classes, which they have been talking about for years.
The presidential regime has been shaped as a superstructure institution in line with the demands and needs of the semi-colonial economic structure reorganized in line with the regional interests of imperialism. The state organization as the fulfillment of the rules of law, especially the constitution, which existed on paper for the exploitation, plunder and plunder of the imperialist bourgeoisie and comprador capitalism in the Turkish market, according to the needs of the moment (“the state managed like a company”) was reorganized as a “presidential regime” on the basis of the republic.
The important point here is that during the reorganization of the regime, the power struggles within the ruling and opposition cliques of the Turkish ruling classes and moreover within the ruling class clique that holds the power are secondary; as a whole, the attack on the people by the fascist state organization, which the Turkish ruling class cliques use as a power apparatus, is essential. Even while the Turkish ruling classes were struggling for power among themselves, they continued their aggression against the people in the same lane. The target of this aggression has been the Kurdish national movement, the people’s movements independent of the politics of the ruling classes, progressive, revolutionary and communist movements.
While the state organization, which is the power apparatus of the Turkish ruling classes, was mainly reorganized according to the conditions required by the period for the class interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie and comprador capitalism, and the “Presidential Government System” emerged as the product of this change; All the tools of the “strategy of suppressing rebellion” against the people, revolutionary and communist movement continued to be used. While on the one side of this strategy was the dismantling of the organizations of the working class and the people and the backing of the ruling clique; a process was organized in which even the bourgeois opposition that did not back the ruling clique was declared “terrorist”. In such a process, the spontaneous actions of the working class and the people with economic and democratic demands were suppressed with fascist aggression. The dosage of fascist aggression was increased in a line ranging from the Turkish state not obeying even the laws that exist on paper, arresting MPs with immunity and detaining the masses against the possibility of demonstrations.
The Working Class: Tendency to Struggle Under Attack
In the first quarter of the 21st century, the reorganization of the Turkish economy on the basis of imperialism’s international division of labor and the deepening of semi-colonial conditions led to an increase in exploitation for the working class and an increase in attacks on the most basic democratic rights, especially trade union organization. The bourgeoisie’s worldwide abandonment of “welfare state” policies had a deeper impact on semi-colonial markets. The working class became the target of the policies of the imperialist monopolies, called Multinational Corporations, to continue their exploitation and increase their profits in the Turkish market directly or through their comprador companies.
At the current stage, according to official data, it is stated that the number of wage (salaried) workers in Turkey at the beginning of 2024 was 15 million 22 thousand 900 people. 8 million 331 thousand wage earners work in the trade and services sector, 4 million 989 thousand in the industrial sector and 1 million 701 thousand in the construction sector. According to the January 2024 statistics of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (ÇSGB), the number of workers in all sectors is 16 million 395 thousand 275. On the other hand, according to research conducted by DISK-AR from various sources, the total number of workers in Turkey is 18 million 789 thousand 456 as of October 2023.
These different figures in the number of workers in Turkey also apply to the organization of the working class. This is clearly seen when we examine the unions, one of the main organizing tools of the Turkish working class, and the unionization rates. For example, according to the January 2024 statistics of the ÇSGB, the number of unionized workers is 2 million 495 thousand 423 out of 16 million 395 thousand 275 total workers. While the official unionization rate based on insured workers is 15.22 percent, the actual unionization rate declines to 13 percent when all registered and unregistered workers are considered. Non-unionized workers account for 87 percent of total workers. As can be seen from the figures announced, officially and de facto, the working class in Turkey is largely unorganized in terms of union organization. Especially in terms of the registered segment of the working class, the vast majority remain outside union organization. When unregistered workers (local and migrant) are included, the extent of disorganization grows even more.
Only 2 million 422 thousand out of 18 million 568 thousand workers in Turkey are unionized. 16 million 146 thousand workers are not union members. The overwhelming majority of the working class in Turkey is deprived of union organization, which is one of the most basic means of organization. Undoubtedly, the main reason for this is the policies implemented against the union organization of the working class. Legally and de facto, the working class is prevented from organizing in trade unions. The fact that the demands for unionization are at the forefront of the actions of the working class confirms this fact. However, despite this, according to official unionization data, there has been a certain increase in both the number of trade unions and the organization of the working class in trade unions. As a matter of fact, while there were 92 trade unions in January 2013, this number was 227 in July 2023.
In January 2013, 68 of the 92 unions were members of the three major labor confederations. The number of independent unions and unions affiliated to other confederations is 24. In July 2023, 74 out of 227 unions are members of the three major labor confederations, while 153 are members of independent or other confederations. However, there is a notable increase in the number of unions that are members of independent and newly established confederations between 2013 and 2023 (from 24 to 153). However, despite this increase, the number of members of unions outside the independent and big three confederations have remained extremely limited. While there has been an increase in the number of labor unions, there has been a slight increase in the number of unions that have passed the work branch threshold.
In January 2013, 44 out of 92 unions passed the threshold, whereas in July 2023, 59 out of 229 unions passed the threshold. This means that the rate of unions passing the threshold has decreased from 48 percent to 26 percent.
Therefore, the right to collective bargaining of a large number of unions is being usurped due to the barrier of the threshold. This, it must be admitted, is an important obstacle for the struggle of the working class in Turkey. The 1 percent threshold system imposed by law is not the only obstacle to the union organization of the working class. In addition, the collective bargaining system limited to the workplace/enterprise also has a negative impact on the organization of the working class. As a matter of fact, the number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements in Turkey is far below the number of unionized workers. According to ÇSGB data, the number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements as of October 2023 is 1 million 984 thousand. According to the 3rd quarter data of 2023, the total number of workers is 18 million 789 thousand. In other words, only 10.6 percent of workers are covered by CBAs, while 16 million 806 thousand workers are not covered by CBAs. In proportional terms, 89.4 percent of workers are excluded from the scope of the CBA. Again, in the face of the attacks of the bosses against the working class, especially the hostility of the bosses to trade unions, some major reasons such as the long duration of the courts and the deliberate violations of law by the bosses, the postponement or monetization of the sentences of those who are found to be unlawful even in the bourgeois sense, emerge as obstacles to the organization of the working class. Again, one of the biggest obstacles to the union organization of the working class is related to the nature of comprador capitalism. The employment conditions of the working class (the conditions under which they are engaged in production) reveal an objective picture of the union organization of the working class. Considering that the employment of the working class is mainly carried out in enterprises called SMEs (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) and moreover, the main weight within SMEs is the enterprises called micro-enterprises where less than 10 employees are employed, the difficulty of union organization of the working class is better understood.
On the other hand, the recklessness of the bosses, impunity and the government’s backing of the bosses by using the security and justice system, make it a deterrent for workers to join unions. Again, the difference in union understandings within the working class and especially the influence of bureaucratic yellow unionism, the ideological and de facto hegemony established by the government over the unions and the loss of trust between workers and unions are among the other factors of disorganization.
In total, with the usurpation of the right to collective bargaining through the work-sector threshold, it is mainly aimed to direct the working class to the union bureaucracy and organize it, and to prevent and break the tendency to struggle through yellow unionism. As a matter of fact, the overwhelming majority of the unions in the Turkish working class that have passed the threshold are members of the three big confederations. In July 2023, 54 of the 59 unions that exceeded the threshold were members of DİSK (4 unions), Türk-İş (32 unions) and Hak-İş (16 unions). Apart from the three major confederations, only five unions exceeded the threshold.
For the reasons mentioned above, trade unionism in Turkey is centralized through the coercion of the state apparatus. This is done not only through legislation but also through “partisan unionism”. In particular, public sector workers are made members of unions. This is the determining factor in the increase in the membership of unions affiliated to Hak-İş. Due to this centralization, 98 percent of the working class within the union organization has become members of the three major labor confederations.
Türk-İş has 1 million 313 thousand members, Hak-İş has 823 thousand members, DİSK has 236 thousand members, and the number of members of independent unions and other small confederations is 49 thousand. The organization of the working class and the number of members indicate a very unbalanced distribution among confederations. Therefore, out of 2 million 422 thousand unionized workers, 2 million 373 thousand are members of DİSK, Türk-İş or Hak-İş. As of July 2023, Türk-İş remains the largest confederation with a share of 54.2 percent. Hak-İş ranks second with 34 percent, while DİSK is the third confederation with 9.8 percent representation among unionized workers. Undoubtedly, the main reason for this picture is not only the obstacles to the organization of the working class, but also the fact that those who insist on organizing are mainly directed towards yellow and bureaucratic unionism.
However, when we look at the distribution of unionized workers in terms of their parent organizations based on the January 20024 data of the ÇGBS, the share of Türk-İş (1 million 349 thousand 209) in the total is 54.07 percent. This confederation is followed by Hak-İş (845 thousand 512) with 33.88 percent and DİSK (245 thousand 636) with 9.84 percent. The total share of the three confederations of unionized workers reaches 97.80 percent. The remaining unionized workers (2.2 percent) are members of other confederations and independent unions.
An analysis of the recent membership growth of the three confederations shows that the increase in the number of unionized workers in Türk-İş’s member unions has slowed down compared to previous periods. In July 2023, Türk-İş achieved a 43.26 percent increase in the number of unionized workers, while this rate dropped to 36.22 percent in January 2024. A similar situation is observed in Hak-İş, which ranks second in terms of the number of members. While the number of member workers increased by 38.01 percent in the previous period, it decreased to 22.20 percent in January 2024. DİSK, on the other hand, shows a certain progress compared to the other two confederations. While the rate of increase in the number of DİSK members was 5.99 percent in July 2023, it reached 9.15 percent in January 2024. The number of members of other confederations and independent unions also improved compared to the previous period, reaching 5.9 percent.
When we examine the unionization of the working class by sectors, we observe that there is a predominant unionization in the manufacturing industry and in the public sector. As we have pointed out above, some of the public sector-dominated unionization is carried out under the direct guidance of the government. Below is a table on the unionization of the working class by sectors.
Table: Number of Insured and Unionized Workers and Unionization Rates by Line of Business (January 2023)
Source: State of Labor in Turkey Labor Research (2020-2023), DİSK-AR, Page 187
As can be seen from the table, the unionization rates of the working class vary widely across sectors.
Construction, accommodation and entertainment and clerical occupations have the lowest unionization rates, while general works, health and social services and banking, finance and insurance have the highest unionization rates. The three branches with the highest unionization rates of the working class are general works, health and social services and banking, finance and insurance. The unionization rate in health and social services was 39.1 percent in July 2023. The unionization rate in the banking, finance and insurance sector is 34.1 percent. The unionization rate in the general works sector is 57.9 percent.
In the construction industry, which is one of the industries with the highest number of workplace murders, there is a lack of union organization of the working class. While the official unionization rate is 14.8 percent, the unionization rate in the construction sector is only 3.3 percent and the number of unionized workers is only 54,319. The majority of these are in the public sector. While the unionization rate is 4.3 percent in the tourism sector, it is 7.3 percent in the office sector, which is the largest sector with more than 4.2 million workers. Only 306 thousand of the 4.2 million workers in the clerical sector are organized.
According to ÇSGB data, between July 3023 and January 2024, the number of workers in 8 of the 20 branches of labor decreased. The highest decrease compared to the previous period is in Accommodation and Entertainment (- 186 thousand 595), Weaving, Clothing and Leather (- 56 thousand 938), Hunting, Fishing, Agriculture and Forestry (- 20 thousand 574).
The highest increase in employment compared to the previous period is observed in the Trade, Office, Education and Fine Arts (55 thousand 479), Transportation (52 thousand 924) and Food Industry (32 thousand 562).
It is understood that the employment losses in the business sectors also have a negative impact on the number of unionized workers. Therefore, the number of unionized workers decreased in six out of 20 industries. The industries with the highest decrease in the number of unionized workers are Weaving, Clothing and Leather (- 2,929), Banking, Finance and Insurance (- 2,903), Health and Social Services (- 1229) and Accommodation and Entertainment (- 1058).
As mentioned above, the 1 percent threshold affects the membership numbers of the majority of unions. According to the ÇSGB January 2024 data, 103 out of 235 unions lost members in comparison to the previous period. Among the unions that have lost more than a thousand members, the first two unions to lose more than a thousand members are Hak-İş affiliates Öz Sağlık-İş and Öz Finans-İş. These are followed by TEKSİF and Türkiye Haber-İş unions affiliated to Türk-İş. Enerji-Sen is the only union in DİSK to experience this level of membership loss. The most important reason for Enerji-Sen’s loss of members is undoubtedly the attitude of the government and capital. The most obvious applications of this are layoffs and the de facto blocking of collective labor agreements. In terms of membership losses, Öz Sağlık-İş stands out in the statistics. The reason for this is the loss of more than 11 thousand members compared to the previous period. While Türk-İş affiliate Sağlık-İş and DİSK affiliate Dev Sağlık-İş have increased their membership in the same line of work, the fact that Öz Sağlık-İş has lost so many members can be considered as a sign that the union’s understanding and the policies it implements stem from the union’s understanding and policies. Especially DISK member Dev Sağlık-İş attracts attention by increasing its membership by 88 percent compared to the previous period. It is understood that Öz Sağlık-İş’s counterattack with its financial means and government support prevented Dev Sağlık-İş from passing the threshold.
On the other hand, the increase in the number of unions affiliated to independent and newly established confederations between 2013 and 2023 is noteworthy (even though the number of members of these unions is low). The increase in the number of unions in the independent and other categories from 24 to 153 also points to the working class’s search outside the three major trade union confederations and its effort to make a way for itself.
Among the independent unions, it is noteworthy that the Private Sector Teachers’ Union, which continues to grow steadily, continues to increase its membership. According to ÇSGB January 2024 data, the “Teachers’ Union” has reached 8,982 members. It can be said that the union’s campaigns, actions and activities to protect the rights of private sector teachers played an important role in this. Among the independent unions, İnşaat-İş and BİRTEK-SEN have been the center of attention with the actions they organized.
The unorganized state of the Turkish working class in the trade union field has a direct connection with increasing the exploitation of the Turkish market by imperialist monopolies and comprador capitalism and deepening the semi-colonial conditions. The basis of flexible and precarious work, which aims to turn the Turkish market into a haven of cheap labor for the imperialist monopolies and comprador capitalists and thus to increase the exploitation of surplus-value, is the liquidation of the union organization of the working class in the first place, or if not, its organization in collaborationist unions, and thus its consent to the “wage slavery order”.
The reshaping of the Turkish market in line with the interests of imperialist capital and the comprador bourgeoisie, especially the liquidation attack on trade union organization, directly affected the struggle of the working class. For this reason, there has been a serious decline in the tendency of the working class to go on strike. For example, while the average annual number of workers going on strike was 40 thousand 823 in the period 1984-2002, this number decreased to 5 thousand 114 in the period 2003-2021. Similarly, the number of working days spent on strike has also declined. While the average annual number of working days spent on strike was 1 million 208 thousand in the period 1984-2002, this number decreased to 193 thousand 529 between 2003-2021.
Banned by the September 12, 1980, military fascist coup, the right to strike was reintroduced in 1984 and massively exercised in the following years. A total of 863 thousand workers went on strike in Turkey between 1984 and 2021. Of these striking workers, 443 thousand were employed in the public sector and 420 thousand in the private sector. The average annual number of strikers during the period was around 23 thousand. This is not an insignificant number. However, the distribution of the number of striking workers over the period is quite unstable. There were years when the number of strikers dropped below a thousand, and there were also years when this number approached 200 thousand. However, especially in the 2000s, when neo-liberal policies were implemented with determination, there was a marked decline and a prolonged stagnation in the exercise of the right to strike by the working class. The main reason for this is the attack policies against the working class and especially its organized struggle. In the background of the decline and stagnation in the exercise of the right to strike by the working class in these years, it is possible to say that the decline in the number of unionized workers, the number of public workers and the number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements, de-unionization and strike postponements are behind this decline.
Especially during the AKP governments, the right to strike has been banned under the name of “obstruction” for various reasons. It is indisputable that the banning of strikes under the name of postponement, which is widely used as a tool, de facto serves to usurp the most fundamental right of the working class and plays a role in the decrease in the tendency of the working class to strike.
In the last 20 years, there have been a total of 20 strike-postponements, 7 of which took place during the State of Emergency. Most of the strike postponements were made on the grounds of “national security”. Since 2003, the number of workers covered by strike bans has been 194,949. In short, there are de facto strike bans parallel to the disorganization attack against the working class.
The disorganization of the working class and forcing it to live on a minimum wage below the starvation line is one of the most prominent features of this process. The low level of unionization despite the numerical increase in the working class in parallel with the deepening of the semi-colonial conditions of the Turkish economy over the last quarter century is the product of a conscious and planned attack on the working class. Imperialist monopolies and comprador bosses have used every opportunity to attack for this purpose. For example, with the July 15 coup, which emerged as a product of the power struggle of the Turkish ruling classes, a comprehensive attack on the existing organization of the working class was carried out between 2016-2018 on the grounds of the state of emergency conditions. The power struggle between the ruling class cliques was used to dismantle the organizations of the working class and the people. In particular, strikes were banned on the grounds of postponement.
In the mining, metal, chemistry, energy, etc. industries, which have traditionally been at the forefront of the trade union struggle of the Turkish working class, pressures and attacks such as production coercion, unemployment pressure, banning of union actions at all levels, etc. have been increased and precarious working conditions have been deepened. The unions, which had a certain power in these lines of work, have been significantly reduced due to the loss of rights in the workplaces where they are organized, the trivialization of the CBA difference, the union’s inability to become a center of attraction in the line of work, etc., and the union organization has been completely neutralized. On the other hand, the dismissal, retirement and exile of thousands of public employees (civil servants) with decrees in this process constituted the other pillar of this attack on the working class.
In short, with the implementation of neo-liberal policies, the ongoing attacks on trade union organizations, which are the most basic organization of the working class to struggle and obtain rights, have been further increased under the pretext of the State of Emergency and targeted the most organized section of the working class.
After the State of Emergency, the attacks on the organization of the working class continued without interruption. This attack was implemented especially under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic period, while on the one hand it was said that “life fits at home”, on the other hand, the working class was told to “be in the hospital”, “be at the construction site”, “be in the factory”. The working class was forced to work under the threat of hunger and unemployment, saying that “the wheels must turn”.
The exact number of deaths across the country in this process is not known, nor is it known how many forced laborers were killed due to Covid-19. However, the pandemic was mainly effective within the working class, as workers were forced into production. The pandemic not only led to the massacre of workers, but attacks on the most basic rights of the working class continued to be carried out under the name of “pandemic management”. On the other hand, the fact that 90 percent of those killed due to the pandemic were retired workers, the previous generation of workers, has also emerged as an obstacle to the transfer of the experience and knowledge of the working-class struggle to future generations.
In short, under the name of “pandemic management”, the state and the bosses have carried out the biggest massacre of workers in the history of Turkey, leaving the Turkish working class in the dilemma of “virus or unemployment-hunger”. In this process, sectoral weights have been organized, logistics networks have been developed, unregulated day and night work has been implemented in factories and new forms of work (such as working from home) have become widespread in order to take more place in the international division of labor.
The “pandemic management” has been taken directly as a heavy attack on the working and living conditions of the working class. In summary, the traditional trade union movement, which was significantly downgraded during the SoE period, had difficulties in protecting even its members during the pandemic.
The attacks on the working class have not only continued with de-unionization and strike bans. At the same time, the usurpation of severance pays, one of the vested rights of the working class, and dismissal attacks were also used effectively. Along with the bosses’ de-unionization attack on the working class, there is also the threat of usurping the right to severance pay. Severance pay is the worker’s wage, the payment of which is postponed until later, and is the most important of the protective regulations for the worker. At the current stage, there is a de facto elimination attack against severance pay.
The most effective method of the usurpation of the right to severance pay by the bosses is the practice of dismissal (dismissal for good, resignation and re-employment, etc.). The severance pay of the working class is usurped through the practice of dismissal, which is put into practice with the code application. The system, which is implemented as the bosses reporting the reason for dismissal to the Social Security Institution with various codes, is used to usurp the vested rights of the working class. Because the reason for dismissal or resignation is important in determining whether or not workers can benefit from various rights (such as notice, severance pay and unemployment benefits) due to the termination of the employment contract guaranteed by labor law. It is precisely for this reason that bosses use the code in their dismissal attacks to usurp these rights.
For example, when we look at the distribution of the dismissals reported between 2015 and 2021 according to codes, it is seen that the highest rate is code number 3, “termination of an indefinite-term employment contract by the worker”. Thus, between 2015 and 2021, 46 percent of workers reported resignation as the reason for dismissal (Code-3). The fact that 46 percent of workers are dismissed by resigning in such a way that they do not deserve notice pay, severance pay, and unemployment allowance is in reality a usurpation of these rights of workers. Again, during the Covid-19 pandemic, dismissal codes, known as Code-29, were widely used by the employer to terminate the employment contract of the worker on the grounds of “situations that do not comply with the rules of morality and goodwill and the like” in Article 25-II of the Labor Law, and not only usurped the vested rights of the workers, but also prevented them from working in subsequent jobs.
Another issue that needs to be mentioned in terms of the working class is occupational homicides. There is an increase in occupational homicides because the measures that should be taken by the bosses to gain more profit are not taken. Today, there is literally a “Regime of Work Killings” in Turkey. Between 2002 and 2023, at least 32,478 workers were murdered at work. In addition to daily work murders, hundreds of workers were massacred in mine murders such as Soma and Ermenek as a result of preventable work murders when guaranteed working conditions are created. For the working class in Turkey, the right to secure work has emerged as a right to life.
In the face of the attacks on the working class, it must be stated that the working class is in a certain state of activism. The working class is in a struggle for wages and, in connection with this, for unionization. As a matter of fact, according to the report published by the Labor Studies Society since 2015, the year 2022 was the year with the highest number of worker resistance. Since 2015, 2022 has been the year with the highest number of worker actions and the highest number of workers participating in workplace-based actions.
According to the report based on the data published in the press, 1,556 worker and public laborer actions were identified in 2022. It is stated that approximately 155 thousand workers participated in workplace-based protests. In 2022, especially the first two months of the year were marked by a wave of de facto strikes in which courier workers were at the forefront. The workers’ resort to de facto strikes should also be understood as a message to the union bureaucracy. According to the report, the number of workplace-based actions was 600, the number of general actions in which workers participated was 257 and the number of solidarity actions was 18. These actions were generally of short duration.
It is emphasized that in 2020, after the pandemic period, 26 percent of the protests were of a rights-building nature, while in 2021 this rate increased to 65 percent, and in 2022 it increased even higher to 72 percent. The report states that in 2022, protests were marked by the demand for an increase in wages, which had fallen due to inflation, and says, “While the proportion of low wage-related actions for workplace-based action cases was 14 percent on average between 2015-21, this rate increased to a very high rate of 36 percent in 2022.” According to the report, the working class held press conferences in 44 percent of cases, de facto strikes in 30 percent of cases and permanent resistance in 10 percent of cases. Thirty-six percent of the actions were aimed at raising low wages. Firing played a role in 19 percent, while unionization played a role in 16 percent. Collective bargaining actions accounted for 11 percent of all worker actions.
In 2023, the working class took to the streets to demand their rights in dozens of sectors ranging from energy to textiles, agriculture to metal. Actions took place in more than 400 factories and workplaces in the form of strikes, de facto strikes, resistance and various protest demonstrations demanding wage improvements and improved working conditions. The prominent demand in these actions, which also included demands for unionization, was a wage increase in the face of the decrease in the purchasing power of workers due to the high inflation rates caused by the economic policies implemented by the ruling classes.
In 2023, among the prominent actions of the working class, protests were held, and strike decisions were taken in the metal sector due to the failure to reach an agreement in the collective bargaining process between the labor unions and the boss union MESS. In Urfa, workers organized in BİRTEK-SEN at Özak Tekstil started a strike and were beaten and detained many times by the police. Agrobay workers, who started to resist after being fired for being members of Tarım-Sen, were intervened by the gendarmerie. Pensioners frequently took to the streets with the call of the All-Pensioners’ Union, Pensioners Solidarity Union and DİSK Emekli-Sen. Dersim FEDAŞ workers’ action, Pekintaş resistance, Sputnik strike, workers’ resistance and actions took place.
The actions of the working class continued in 2024. Workers in Agrobay, Trendyol, Antep, Urfa, Seydişehir, Aliağa, Ostim went on strike and continued their protests. The working class, which has difficulty in meeting even the most basic human needs due to high inflation, demands strikes and sometimes actual resistances to demand an increase in wages. Although these strike demands are usually ended with “last minute sales agreements” by the unions, the working class is preparing for new struggles.
It is clear that the working class needs and will need more organized struggle in conditions where the minimum wage has become the average wage for the working class and the minimum wage is even below the hunger limit, where the poverty of those who make a living by selling their labor has increased more than ever, where an increasing number of workers are sacrificed to occupational murders, where the competition between the unregistered and the registered workers intensifies, and where the bosses want to increase their dominance over working conditions by calling for more flexibility.
It is seen that the working class is in a tendency to organize against the attacks against it, albeit slowly, that they force union organizations, especially the struggle for unionization, especially the demand for strikes against the low wages, and that they carry out actual resistances and actions from time to time. The biggest obstacle to these demands and resistances is the bureaucratic yellow unionism. For this reason, the struggle and actual resistance of independent unions come to the fore. Precisely for this reason, despite the scope of the attack on the working class and the negativities experienced, it is necessary to state that the main dynamic of the unions, which are in a certain development, is in their trade union approach and the forms of struggle they wage.
The working class is learning through strikes, resistance and actions and is experiencing in its own practice that there is no other way but to struggle. This experience itself prepares the infrastructure for the struggle of the coming years.
The State of the Revolutionary and Communist Movement
For the reshaping of the Turkish state in line with the interests of imperialist capital and for the chances of success of the policies pursued by the Turkish ruling classes, which naturally received a mediating share of this reshaping, through the AKP years, the most advanced and conscious section of society was targeted first. A “total attack” was launched not only in the economic sphere but also against Turkish society as a whole. In this way, measures were taken against possible “road accidents” in the anti-working class and working people policies of the AKP governments.
F-type prisons, isolation and treatment system were put into operation as a step of a comprehensive liquidation attack against the revolutionary and communist movement, which constitutes the most advanced and conscious sections of the working class and toiling people of Turkey. For this purpose, the Turkish state resorted to massacre attacks against revolutionary and communist prisoners in prisons. Although the revolutionary and communist movement of the period correctly determined that this attack was an “all-out attack” and that its main aim was to liquidate the revolutionary and communist movement and thus to take over the whole society, the picture that has emerged in the intervening quarter century points to an incomplete understanding of the scope of the attack defined as an “all-out attack” and from this point of view, an inadequacy in meeting this attack.
While the revolutionary and communist movement of Turkey is right in its prediction that the Turkish state’s prison-based surrender and liquidation attack is an “all-out attack” and that the main goal is to surrender society, this attack is not only with the policies of the Turkish ruling classes and the aim of realizing the current interests of the imperialists in a way that determines this, The Turkish revolutionary and communist movement has failed to analyze the changes in the role assigned to semi-colonial countries such as Turkey as a result of imperialism’s reorganization of the production process in the international arena and to organize a political-organizational and military orientation accordingly.
This inadequacy has led to the failure of the Turkish revolutionary and communist movement to confront the aggression of the Turkish regime against the working class and working people through the AKP governments and moreover to channel it into the revolutionary struggle for power. Although the actions and resistances of the working class and masses continue in various forms and contents, and moreover the Gezi Rebellion emerged as an important mass action in terms of the centuries-old history of the Turkish regime, it is necessary to point out the inability of the revolutionary communist movement to lead these actions.
Similarly, although the revolutionary communist movement took part in mass actions such as the Kobanê Serhildanı, which took place with the call of the Kurdish national movement against the annihilation attack of the Turkish-backed ISIS gangs against Kobanê, it was insufficient to flow these actions into a channel that would develop its relationship with the masses.
It cannot be said that the revolutionary and communist movement in Turkey, with the exception of the Kurdish national liberation movement, has been successful in responding to the anti-working class and anti-people policies of the Turkish regime through the AKP governments in the first quarter of the 21st century. Although the revolutionary and communist movement responded to the Turkish regime’s prison-centered liquidation attack with the December 19-15, 2000, Prison Resistance and Death Fasts, although important practices of resistance and struggle were put forward in the face of the regime’s attacks in the following years, these practices remained as singular examples. Although there were processes such as the Gezi Rebellion, the Kobanê Serhildan and then the “Metal Storm” of the metal workers, it cannot be said that the revolutionary and communist movement was able to evaluate these processes.
It can be said that despite the mass actions such as the Gezi Rebellion and the Kobanê Serhildan, the revolutionary communist movement’s relationship with the masses continued to lose strength. Undoubtedly, there are various reasons for this. Although the fascist aggression of the Turkish state against the revolutionary communist movement has an impact as an external reason, the determining reason is internal. The reason why the liquidation attack, which is shaped as a product of the threat perception of the Turkish fascism against the revolutionary communist movement, is effective on the revolutionary communist movements is not the aggression of the fascist state. It is mainly the break in the power consciousness of the revolutionary communist movement and, in connection with this, its inability to develop a united revolutionary attitude in confronting the fascist state’s attacks on the working class and working people.
What is decisive in this is the inability of the revolutionary communist movements to correctly analyze the conditions in which the working class and laborers – in the broadest sense, the masses – are living. The most important reason for this is the inability of the revolutionary and communist movements to comprehend the changes and transformations in Turkish society. This situation has gradually caused the revolutionary communist movement to move away from the problems and demands of the masses and to turn inward and to its own agenda. This situation, which caused a break in the revolutionary communist movements’ goal of political power, led to the fact that it was affected by the liquidationist attack.
For example, the putschist liquidationist attack that the communist movement experienced within itself – although it emerged as a product of a counter-revolutionary enemy operation carried out by German imperialism and Turkish fascism in 2015 – cannot be explained only by the enemy operation and liquidationist attack of the counter-revolution in terms of its impact on our ranks. The fact that the putschist liquidationist attack is effective in the ranks of the communist movement and can affect some party power is due to the communist movement’s inability to establish an adequate relationship with the situation and demands of the working class and working people on a revolutionary basis.
Not engaging with the masses on a revolutionary basis with their current demands and aspirations, and moreover not taking part in the actions of the masses in one way or another, has led to the inability of the communist movement to confront the attack of liquidationism and moreover to prevent this attack from developing in its own ranks and taking on a putschist style.
This process experienced by the communist movement within its own ranks also summarizes the situation of the revolutionary and communist movement. The revolutionary and communist movement has experienced problems within itself under the condition that it could not relate to the demands of the working class and working people -for one reason or another- on a revolutionary basis, moreover, it could not relate to the current movement, actions and resistances of the masses and reproduce this movement on a revolutionary basis within itself. These problems caused the limited relations of the revolutionary communist movements with the masses to regress even further.
The only way for the revolutionary and communist movement to respond to the enemy’s liquidation attacks, especially the annihilation attacks, is the implementation of the line from the masses to the masses. Regardless of the conditions, the main point of departure should be to connect with the spontaneous actions of the masses at the moment, to organize the advanced masses in the ranks of the revolutionary and communist movement, to bring the middle masses closer to the ranks of the revolutionary and communist movement, and to at least neutralize the backward masses.
As long as this mass line is not put into practice, the organization of even the masses who are closest to the revolutionary communist movement, who constitute the “natural mass base” of the revolutionary communist movement, in the ranks of the revolutionary communist movements cannot be achieved. For example, in an environment of increasing poverty, it is a fact that the progressive democratic sections and especially the youth, who constitute the base of the revolutionary movement, are drawn into gang and mafia relations. It can be easily said that especially in the neighborhoods where Alevi and Kurdish laborers live densely, drugs, prostitution and criminalized activities supported by the regime are paved the way, and the masses that will constitute the first-hand base of the revolutionary movement are neutralized in this way and backed up to the system. In addition, the pragmatist approach of some revolutionary organizations towards such relations has also provided the ground for the strengthening of such gang and mafia relations.
The fact that even the masses that constitute the “natural mass base” of the revolutionary communist movement cannot be organized with a correct policy, on the contrary, the fact that these masses have become direct and indirect extensions of fascism by taking part in all kinds of criminalized criminal organizations provides an important data on the relationship of the revolutionary communist movement with the masses. Of course, the “special policies” implemented by the fascist state, especially in the neighborhoods where Alevi and Kurdish youth live, have an impact on the emergence of such gangs and criminal groups. However, it is precisely for this reason that we see that revolutionary and communist organizations have not been able to establish themselves as a revolutionary alternative to these policies.
Among the reasons for this is the loss of cadres experienced due to the effect of fascism’s murder and arrest attacks against revolutionary communist movements, as well as the failure of the revolutionary communist movement to create cadres to respond to the process and to renew itself. An ideological counter stance and a cultural focus of resistance could not be created against the intense ideological attack and cultural hegemony of fascism through mass media by using technological developments.
For example, revolutionary and communist organizations could not develop a counter stance against the system’s propaganda that focuses on criminal organizations through TV series, “heroizing” racist, chauvinist, anti-women and LGBTI+ fascist personalities as role models, or sanctifying the individual and glorifying “turning corners” through soap operas, on the contrary, such propaganda even affected the supporters of the revolutionary movement.
Racism and chauvinism, along with the phenomenon of religion, were widely used in maintaining fascism’s hegemony over the masses of the people and in obtaining the consent of the masses. The Islamist rhetoric of the ruling party paved the way for a significant part of the advanced masses to be subordinated to the system under the name of “secularism”. This situation led even some progressive and revolutionary organizations to back the opposition clique of the ruling classes.
A similar situation was experienced in the general and local election agendas of the Turkish ruling classes. In the name of regressing the “ruling AKP-MHP fascism” and the “Erdogan regime” and “breathing space”, a part of the revolutionary movement, including the Kurdish national movement’s struggle for legal space, has been backed up behind the bourgeois opposition. This has paved the way for reformist understandings that open the door to solutions within the order against the revolutionary and communist line.
In the physical and ideological liquidation attack of fascism against the revolutionary communist movements, reformism and reformist movements should be especially mentioned. The emergence of reformist understandings in the ranks of the revolutionary communist movement goes hand in hand with the emergence of the revolutionary and communist movement. In this sense, for the revolutionary and communist movement, reformism exists as a phenomenon from the beginning. However, the ’71 armed revolutionary breakthrough of the revolutionary movement in Turkey is also the breakthrough of reckoning with the reformist and in-order line. This fact has led to the “support” of reformist movements in the face of revolutionary and communist movements in Turkey and paved the way for them. Under Turkish conditions, reformism and reformist movements emerge as an obstacle to the development of the class struggle and the massification of revolutionary and communist organizations. The ideological and political struggle against reformism must continue uninterruptedly.
A similar situation was experienced in the racist and fascist attacks of fascism against Syrian refugees and immigrants, especially the Kurdish national question. The ruling and opposition cliques of the ruling classes have widely used chauvinism to support the support of the masses. This situation has found a certain response among the advanced masses, even among the supporters of revolutionary organizations. In the ranks of the revolutionary and communist movements, social chauvinism has been effective against the Syrian refugees, especially against the Kurdish national struggle. In some petty bourgeois revolutionary organizations, political positions have emerged under the name of defending the “homeland”, evaluating and propagandizing the Kurdish national movement as a “nationalist movement” rather than an oppressed nation movement. The struggle against social chauvinism, which strengthens the privileges of the dominant nation, especially against the Kurdish nation, continues to maintain its importance and necessity for the revolutionary and communist movement in Turkey.
Another phenomenon that should be noted for the revolutionary communist movements is the views that the Kurdish national liberation movement defends and propagandizes under the name of “paradigm change”. The views that the Kurdish national revolutionary movement defines as “Ecological, Women’s Liberationist and Democratic Nation Paradigm” and propagates as “Democratic Modernity” have an impact on the revolutionary communist movement.
The Kurdish national movement’s competence in guerrilla warfare and the backwardness of the revolutionary and communist movement in Turkey in the face of mass support leads to the ideological domination of the revolutionary movement in Turkey. The communist movement is not free from this ideological domination. Some utopian and anarchist political views of the Kurdish national movement are accepted as “general truths”. There is a need for ideological and political struggle and vigilance in this regard.
It should be noted that this influence is twofold. For example, while the revolutionary and communist movements are positively influenced by some of the discourses and propaganda of the Kurdish national liberation movement, such as the struggle for women and ecology (which should be discussed separately in its own agenda), they are negatively influenced by anarchist and utopian views such as “democratic nation”. It is necessary to be vigilant against this phenomenon and jealously defend the proletariat’s own flag.
On the other hand, under the name of defending the science of the proletariat, one has to respond to new developments and agendas without falling into dogmatism. It is necessary to try to respond to the needs of the moment, not by revising MLM science, but by acting on the concrete analysis of the concrete conditions of MLM science.
The Situation of the Kurdish National Freedom Movement
It is a reality that the struggle of the Kurdish national movement has gone beyond the borders of Turkish Kurdistan and has emerged as a regional power. Especially during the Syrian civil war, the war against ISIS gangs and the Rojava Revolution process led by the Kurdish national movement is an important development. This process has revealed the PKK as a regional power. This is precisely why the Turkish state perceives the gains of the Kurdish national movement as a primary threat to its existence. This situation causes the Turkish state to carry out the attacks against the Kurdish nation inside the borders as well as outside the borders. The invasion attacks carried out by the Turkish fascism in Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan aim to liquidate the gains of the Kurdish national movement, to defeat the guerrilla struggle and moreover to annex the occupied regions. Therefore, acting together with the Kurdish national movement will serve both as an unconditional defense of the Right of Nations to Separate Freely and as an antidote to social chauvinism in the ranks of the revolutionary and communist movement.
In this reality, we must point out that the Kurdish National Freedom Movement (KUÖH) is the most alive within the revolutionary movement. The armed force led by the Kurdish national movement continues to be the fear of the Turkish state. The KUÖH’s persistent struggle to regain some of the positions it lost after it withdrew its armed forces inside the country during the “peace” process continues. During the period of “peace talks” the Turkish state has reorganized itself. It built new outposts (kalekol) in the areas of Turkish Kurdistan where the struggle was the most advanced, installed watchtowers in all border areas and equipped them with advanced technology, increasing its control, as well as focusing on Unmanned and Armed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which enabled it to successfully use technological superiority in the war.
With the Syrian civil war, the Turkish state turned its attention to Rojava after the revolution in Rojava following the success of the Kurdish national movement in the Kobanê resistance, which observed the course of the war well. The Turkish state, which saw the Kurds gaining an autonomous status as a survival problem, occupied some of the Kurdish lands in Syria. The Turkish state, which settled in the occupied regions, was not satisfied with this and carried out massacres by constantly bombing the settlements in and around Rojava with countless operations. Turkey’s dreams of neo-Ottomanism also began to stir after this date. The claim that Kirkuk and Mosul are Turkish territories was brought to the agenda and it was possible to say that these places could be occupied at every opportunity.
Taking advantage of the weakness of the Syrian central government, the Turkish state does not intend to leave the Kurdish territories it occupies. Although it does not intend to do so, it is clear that this will change in the coming years – evolving into an annexation attempt. It is known that the Turkish state did not take the Assad government as an interlocutor in any way from 2011 until the beginning of 2024, and that it sought various ways and methods to meet Assad in the last six months, despite saying that it would not leave the occupied territories. It is no secret that Russia is behind this negotiation effort. Russia is one of the most influential actors in Syria after the US. The relationship Syria developed with Russia after 2011 and Russia’s deployment on Syrian soil since 2014 have changed the balance in Syria. Russia, which cannot provide enough support to Syria because it is preoccupied with Ukraine, wants the Turkish state to come together with Syria and make a deal. It is clear that a possible Turkey-Syria agreement is in Russia’s favor.
Russia knows that if the talks between Turkey and Syria result in an agreement, it will weaken the US presence in Syria. The status of Rojava may also be on the agenda after a possible Syria-Turkey agreement.
The Syrian state’s response to the Turkish state’s request for talks, “first get out of the occupied territories, then negotiations can be held”, is not welcomed by the Turkish state. The Turkish state wants the Kurds’ status here to be ended and even crushed, no matter what happens first. With the Turkish state sitting at the table with the Syrian state, the “Kurds” can be a subject of bargaining.
After 2011, the Kurdish national liberation movement had to fight on several fronts. One of these fronts is Turkish Kurdistan, one is Rojava, one is Iranian Kurdistan, and one is the Media Defense Areas in Iraq. It has deployed its forces in these areas. The difficulties and disadvantages of fighting on all four fronts are well known. The KUH suffered a significant loss of power during its tremendous resistance against ISIS in Rojava. Despite this, the KUH regrouped its forces in this area in a short time and gained a certain military power. A significant force from Rojava was transferred to the Iraqi Kurdistan front and resisted the attacks of the Turkish state. It is also known to have reactivated its forces in Iran.
Considering all these developments, it can be better understood why the KUÖH is in a relative military decline in Turkish Kurdistan. It would be a more objective assessment to consider the stagnation in the armed struggle on the Turkish Kurdistan front over the last few years in the light of these developments.
Although the KUÖH’s sitting at the table with the state and the developments that followed are a subject of evaluation in themselves, they are full of important lessons in terms of the prominent developments of this period and their consequences.
While the Turkish state did not even think of sitting down with the PKK until 1999, when Abdullah Öcalan was captured, after 1999 it thought that it would liquidate the PKK with some tactical expansions with the captivity of Abdullah Öcalan and Öcalan’s “paradigm change”. Öcalan’s demand for “peace and solution” was taken as an opportunity by the Turkish state. In 2008, the Turkish state sat down with the PKK in Oslo and hid this meeting from the public. In Oslo, he thought he could solve the Kurdish “issue” by giving some crumbs to the Kurds. However, the talks ended on July 14, 2011
The Turkish state saw that the PKK would resume armed struggle after the breakdown of talks. In order to prevent this, albeit temporarily, it put forward its own conditions. With its maneuvers of “peace” and “reconciliation”, the Turkish Republic demanded that the PKK withdraw its armed forces from the country as a first step. The PKK announced that it had withdrawn its armed forces outside the border (to other parts of Kurdistan) as of 2012. The Turkish state took advantage of this situation to impose isolation on Öcalan in order to disable him.
Hunger strikes in prisons for the lifting of the isolation on A.Öcalan yielded results and the isolation and bans on A.Öcalan were lifted. The Turkish state started talks with A.Öcalan in January 2013. As part of these talks, a letter from Öcalan was read at the March 2013 Newroz celebrations. During the peace talks, the “Dolmabahçe Consensus” was reached in a meeting held in Dolmabahçe. R.T.Erdoğan declared that this was done “without his knowledge”, thus frustrating all attempts.
At the longest NSC meeting in 2014, the Turkish state decided to completely destroy the KUH. In 2015, the Turkish state abandoned all negotiations with the PKK and went on the offensive. After the June 7 general elections, the AKP failed to form a government on its own and early general elections were called. Until the early general elections of November 1, 2015, the AKP carried out massacres in the country. On July 20, 2015, 33 revolutionaries were massacred in Suruç and 103 people were massacred at the October 10 Ankara Peace Rally. The AKP gave a clear message that “if you don’t elect us, these massacres will continue”. On November 1, AKP won the early general election by committing massacres and rigging the election. After winning the election, the AKP launched a massive attack across the country.
Another development that should be evaluated within the experiences of the KUH in Turkish Kurdistan is the self-administration resistance that started in July 2015 and continued until March 27, 2016. The resistance started on October 6-7, 2014 during the Kobanê resistance. This resistance first started in Cizre and then expanded with the declaration of “self-administration”.
In 2015, 15 districts such as Sur, the central district of Amed, Derik, Cizre, Nusaybin, Şırnak, Şemdinli, Yüksekova, etc. were bombed from the air and land and destroyed by tank and artillery shelling. Thousands of civilians were killed and injured. The remaining tens of thousands of people were deported to the west and Çukurova. This was a policy of both weakening the mass base of the Kurdish national movement and assimilating it by uprooting it from its roots and scattering it to many regions of Turkey.
This barricade war of the Kurdish national movement lasted 265 days, during which 3,583 resistance fighters were killed. The PKK also declared that it had punished 355 Turkish soldiers and police officers in this war.
In 2015, however, the Turkish state went on the offensive again. Ten thousand people were arrested. Trustees were appointed to all the municipalities that had won. Dozens of villages were bombed in cross-border operations. Guerrilla massacres took place. Bans followed one after another. On November 4, 2016, an arrest attack was carried out against the party of the Kurdish national movement that was working in the legal field. Dozens of deputies and party members, especially the co-chairs, were arrested. In the Kobanê trial, sentences of over 400 years were given.
This process has also shown that the Turkish state’s policy of denial and extermination of the Kurdish national question continues. The KUH made a tactical mistake by resuming the talks that broke down in 2011 and paid a heavy price for it.
The KUH never ended the armed struggle, including when it withdrew its armed forces. It can also be said that it utilized certain aspects of the peace process to recover and prepare for new wars.
Although the democratic struggle of the KUÖH is the subject of a separate evaluation, the following can be summarized. The position created by the KUÖH in the democratic field is very important. In terms of rallying the masses around itself and occasionally taking to the streets, it can be said that this position has been used efficiently from time to time. In terms of democratic legitimate struggle in terms of exposing the state in parliament, voicing the problems and demands of the Kurdish people, making democratic demands, exposing the oppression and torture in prisons, the KUÖH uses this area well.
The fact that the KUÖH relates to reformist movements more than revolutionary movements in the struggle for democratic space is related to its “paradigm” and is not independent of the fact that it is a national movement. On the other hand, the weakness of the revolutionary forces also plays an important role. This attitude of course weakens the struggle of the KUÖH. The fact that it was dragged behind the CHP in the last election, that it acted in a hidden and self-ignoring manner instead of carrying out the alliance as an open and legitimate force, and that it made its legitimacy a matter of debate is another negative.
The fact that the KUÖH’s relationship with the revolutionary movement in the democratic struggle continues as periodic relations rather than a situation based on continuity causes a lack of stability in the relations between the KUÖH and the revolutionary movement in this field. The closest relations have been during election periods. Overcoming this and transforming mutual relations into continuity is of great importance in terms of carrying the struggle forward.
At this point, in 2016, in order to develop a new line of armed struggle in which the communist movement also took part, a new step was taken with a significant part of the TDH’s affiliates, and the United Revolutionary Movement of the Peoples was founded. The United Revolutionary Movement of the Peoples, which the revolutionary and communist movements of Turkey, including the Kurdish national liberation movement, came together on the basis of unity of action, represents the most advanced revolutionary stance in our geography. The United Revolutionary Struggle carried out in various forms and contents by the revolutionary and communist organizations within this organization stands in a decisive place on the course of the class struggle in the coming period.
On the other hand, it should be emphasized that this situation, which is the longest alliance and unity of action in our country, is not progressing at the desired level. Although the revolutionary movement has long emphasized the importance and necessity of this and emphasized its importance, it has still not overcome this disorganized situation. Making the necessary effort for this is very important in terms of carrying the struggle forward.
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