Voice of Revolution - Issue No: 8 (February 98)
At the beginning of 1997, a political operation
with many-sided aims began under the leadership of the military
General Staff, the most effective and powerful instrument of the
dictatorship. Although, in order to get the support of the public
opinion, this was reflected as a dilemma between Sharia and
secularism, it was actually a struggle between two reactionary
camps.
On the one side there was the so-called "secularist
camp" consisting of the army and the generals; the
organisations of capital such as TÜSIAD (Association of Turkish
Industrialists and Businessmen) and Odalar Birligi; D‹SK and
Türk-Is, two of the workers' unions confederations; the
bourgeois-liberal Kemalist (Atatürk) circles; and the great
majority of bourgeois system parties.
On the other side, there was the so-called "Sharia
camp" under the leadership of the Refah (Welfare) Party
(RP); other capitalist organisations under the influence of new
but fast-growing monopolist capitalist groups such as MÜSIAD
(Association of Muslim Industrialists and Businessmen); Hak-Is,
the other workers' union confederation under the influence of
Refah Party; and finally the islamist currents. The Refah Party
manipulated the popular reaction caused by the supposedly secular
attitude of the regime, pretended to "advocate" the
immediate demands of the people such as the resolving of the
Kurdish question, the recognition of freedom of religion and
conscience, and the improvement of living and working conditions,
and managed to expand its mass basis and its organisations thanks
to its pseudo anti-imperialist and anti-system propaganda and
slogans.
As a result of this operation, which was a kind of open coup
d'état, the Refah-Yol coalition government (Refah Party and True
Path Party -DYP- led by the Tansu Çiller clique) was forced to
resign. In July, the so-called "broad based" Mesut
Yilmaz coalition government was brought to power. As time proved,
the formation of the new government was undoubtedly not the final
but the first step of this operation.
The Military General Council received the support of the
secular-Kemalist circles. They have bourgeois-liberal and
anti-imperialist democratic tendencies. They object to an open
intervention of the army in active political life, and advocate
the re-establishment of the role of the army in the political
life of the country within the framework of a bourgeois
democratic regime. Having secured this support, what the General
Staff aimed at was this: To put an end to the diversions in home
and foreign policy; to prevent the dictatorship from losing its
basis within the masses and from becoming completly isolated; to
control and discipline the disintegration (mainly in parliament)
spreading to all the establishments of the superstructure of the
dictatorship, to contro the conflicts in the reactionary camp,
and the groups not considering short-term interests; to unite all
reactionary forces around a single centre; to consolidate the
political apparatus of the system and their inter-relation by
re-establishing them; and to extend the possibility of a
co-ordinated offensive.
We must point out that this process, which was launched with the
direct intervention of the army led by the General Staff in the
political life, is still going on. Nevertheless, up to a few
months ago the dictatorship managed to gain some position even
though risking more sharpening of the contradictions at a later
stage. The direct intervention and the role of the General Staff
in the political life of the country has increased, become
legitimate and acknowledged to a certain extent. Parliament and
the government have not been dispersed, nor was the army's taking
over power declared. However, the General Staff and the generals
have openly undertaken the ruling of the country, from home
policy to foreign policy.
With the help of all the instruments and possibilities controlled
by capital, mainly big media monopolies and the state, the Yilmaz
government was presented as an indicator of a process of reforms
in the economic, political and social fields. This government was
also supported, even though passively and temporarily, by some
sections of traditional social democrat electorates of the urban
petit bourgeoisie, especially those who are worried about the
development of islamist reactionary forces and the consequences
of a Refah Party-General Staff conflict, and who demand justice
against the scandals, gangs and mafia, and all illegal practices.
Expectations will not be realised
First of all it must be highlighted that the
formation of the Yilmaz government has not eradicated the split
and contradictions within the reactionary forces in general, and
in particular, the grounds for the division of these forces into
two main camps and for the contradictions between them. Nor has
it led to the softening of these contradictions, even
temporarily, or to the weakening of either of the camps to the
extent that would force one to submit to the other. On the
contrary, the change of government has sharpened the
contradictions between these two camps.
The hegemony of the Tansu Çiller clique within the DYP, in spite
of the fact that she was worn out and weakened, has continued,
and the alliance and solidarity between DYP and the RP, old
coalition partners, has not broken. Among the bourgeois system
parties the RP has the largest and strongest organisation and the
most militant mass support, despite the erosion it suffered when
in power and various large scale measures taken in the last year.
These measures were designed to liquidate the RP cadres in top
bureaucracy and in the army; to introduce 8-year compulsory
education in order to limit the influence of religious schools;
and to limit the power of the "islamist capital", a new
but developing monopolist group, and to force this group to
integrate with the main groups of the collaborator monopolist
capital in order to keep it under control. As well as
manipulating religious sentiments of the people, the RP is now
trying to use its expulsion from government and the
implementations of the Yilmaz government to consolidate its mass
support. It is not submitting quietly to the practices of the
General Staff and of government which are designed to weaken it.
Moreover, it is trying to repulse these attacks by using the
religious sentiments and prejudices of the people, and their
growing discontent and anger.
Different from the previous government, the Yilmaz government is
the government of the reactionary camp, the one it united by
taking the support of the army and the financial and economic
support of the main body of the ruling classes.
The programme of this government is clear: To hasten
privatisation; to cut public spending and the subsidies for
agriculture and for small and medium-size business enterprises;
to keep the wages at the lowest level while inflation is souring
to three-figure rates; to implement the adjustment programme
imposed by the IMF; and, by smoothing the sharpest aspects of the
dictatorship that cause reaction nationally and internationally,
to take measures that will stop the disintegration in the
superstructure which is spreading to the fundamental institutions
of the state. However, the policy of the reactionary camp led by
the General Staff and its government is designed to keep fresh
the expectations of the masses, to maintain the support of those
circles they had in tow, and to calm down the masses' potential
anger, discontent and desire for struggle that will be activated
as a result of the new economic attacks some of which have
already taken place in the form of price rises and insistence on
privatisation and on the shock package imposed by the IMF.
However, the time passed since the formation of the Yilmaz
government shows that the expectations and demands of the people
will not be realised even in a limited form. Furthermore, it
seems that these expectations have begun to crack.
What the IMF-centred government policy brings to the working
people is more unemployment, lower wages, poverty, new price
increases and taxes. On the other hand, reaction against these
attacks is growing. The workers' and popular movement, which had
retreated to the factories for a while, shows signs of a new
escalation. In addition to local workers' struggles, the
municipal workers, leather workers, energy workers and public
sector employees have been organising demonstrations and going on
strike to protest against the government policies. The government
which warned the working people by saying "this is going to
be a harsh winter", is trying to implement its
pro-imperialist and anti-popular policies which degrade national
interests despite popular anger. In brief, the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat are continuing to gather strength against each
other.
It is obvious that the direction of the struggle against the
tyranny of the collaborationist reactionary forces will depend
greatly on the progress of the workers' movement as a united
movement and on the political activities of the advanced workers
and all the forces of our party with the above aim in mind.
THE PETIT BOURGEOIS GROUPS IN TURKEY AND THE ROLE THEY PLAY
In Turkey, the workers' and working people's
movement has advanced despite the hindering practices of
bourgeois - petit bourgeois "socialist" currents. Petit
bourgeois "leftism" has a liquidationist position in
terms of the mass movement because of their activities and
tactics which create results in favour of the bourgeoisie, and
which let the revolution and the revolutionaries fall out of
favour. The action line of traditional "left" groups
and of trade union bureaucracy, which draws the working masses
towards hopelessness, and the terrorism of the anarchic
"socialist" currents because of the complete decay they
are going through have played a liquidationist role which breaks
the mass movement into pieces, which destroys the ties between
the advanced sections and relatively backward ones, and which
provokes the political environment and the masses.
It is a form of liquidationism to insist on a policy which does
not take into consideration the orientation of the mass movement
and the real political requirements of the workers and labourers,
and which keeps away from using legal possibilities and from
developing them within the mass movement. Therefore, the practice
of petit bourgeois groups must be considered as
liquidationist as they manipulate the gains of mass movement in
an irresponsible way, play a debilitating role in this movement,
give priority to their narrow group interests instead of the
general interests of the movement, consider the revolution as the
work of a group of revolutionaries outside the masses, and
subsequently take the workers and the working people away from
the idea of revolution.
Because of this liquidationist role they play against the working
class movement, the struggle against petit bourgeois
"leftism" acquires great importance. That is why the
revolutionary communist party of the proletariat criticises these
groups so much.
Bourgeois-petit bourgeois "socialist" parties and
groups can be placed in four groups in terms of their
political positions and platforms:
1. The group of liberal "socialism" is led by the
Freedom and Solidarity Party which defines itself as "the
party of love and revolution" and which was formed a few
years ago with the unification of approximately a dozen groups,
from Krushchevites and Trotskyists to 'independent"
socialists and those who advocate "civilian society".
This bloc represents Gorbachovist, Trotskyist and other kinds of
liberal revisionism.
2. The Workers' Party circle: A defender of the status-quo and
the regime. A Dengist party which has a platform of an open
unification with bankrupt social democracy and a policy of
"national unity" within the framework of the military
National Security Council.
3. The group that represents the semi-anarchist and terrorist
orientation of "socialism". Consists of
"underground" groups, such as DHKP (Revolutionary Party
of Popular Liberation, with its previous name "Revolutionary
Left) and MLKP (Marxist-Leninist Communist Party), which have
gradually come to the point of terrorism.
4. The reformist circle of Kurdish "socialism":
Consists of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), other Kurdish
groups and the Western wing of the Kurdish bourgeoisie, that
mention "socialism" only when they need. It is a group
based on the demand for the renewal of the consensus between the
Turkish and the Kurdish bourgeoisie. They have forgotten the idea
of representing the peasants and the working people, and their
current programme is interested only in the opportunities and
possibilities that an alliance of the bourgeoisies of the two
nationalities -based on the norm of the international system- can
present to Turkey. Their "peace programme" is not much
different from the "stability, social consensus and
peace" plan of the bourgeoisie (Association of Turkish
Industrialists and Businessmen, Confederation of Employer's
Unions, Association of Chambers and Stock Market) and of the
revisionist currents in the first and second groups. The
"work" of the nationalist current, which is based on
Turkish-Kurdish enmity, and which has been reshaped since 1991
within the framework of the inter-imperialist struggle, has left
the Turkish working people open to the provocative activities of
capital, and has been a factor for the transformation of the
growing discontent among the Kurdish population into
hopelessness.
These parties and organisations representing the main non -
working class "socialist" tendencies have tried to
unite and form blocs and will continue to do so in order to use
the workers' and labourers' movement the progress of which they
know is inevitable and to reverse the process of retreat and
losing strength that they are experiencing. However, because of
their platforms and action lines, these kinds of groups which
have no links with the working class and its movement, and the
"unity" and "alliances" they form do not have
a unifying and progressive character for the movement but a
liquidationist one.
The main characteristics of petit
bourgeois groups and their actions
The difference of opinion between the Marxists
and petit bourgeois "socialists" is not only a
"tactical" one relating to single events, but also a
fundamental one regarding the fundamental questions of revolution
and the class struggle. These currents do not believe that
revolution will be made by organised masses. Nor do they
understand that transformation and re-establishment will be
realised only by the action of the working class with the support
of popular masses.
All the petit bourgeois groups define themselves as
Marxist-Leninist and try to show what amazingly good
revolutionaries they are by being "on the mountains" or
"under the ground", or by "throwing molotov
cocktails" in bakeries, workplaces, car parks and bus stops.
They also use distorted Marxist-Leninist rhetoric in their papers
(which they publish in order to satisfy the youth under their
influence, and the circulation of which vary from 500 to 1,500)
to supposedly confirm the correctness of their anti-Marxist
ideological-political lines.
One of the main characteristics of petit bourgeois groups is
their doubt in the ability of the working class and popular
masses to make revolution. Of course, they do not express their
doubt and disbelief openly as they call themselves Marxist
revolutionaries. However, the position they take regarding the
mass movement and the practical political line they follow reveal
everything. What they are most concerned about is to prove their
existence as a group.
In a competition with each other for "superiority", all
these "noisy groups", from Revolutionary Left to the
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), try to make their names
known with sabotages, to maintain themselves at the top with
"molotov cocktailing" actions, and to show what
"warriors" they are. Gradually they all look more like
each other, their nuances disappear, and their liquidationist
role in the face of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat
becomes more evident. Moreover, they are driven to a similar role
even within the lower strata of the urban petit bourgeoisie that
they address. Some of these groups like MLKP cannot even get
firmly established in these sections, and with anger, they
initiate actions that sabotage the solidarity between the urban
poor and the working class.
These groups which undertake a liquidationist role in the face of
the revolutionary action of the working class, popular movement
and of the revolutionary party of the working class do not even
hesitate to accuse the Marxists of liquidationism. Petit
bourgeois opportunism uses sharp "left" slogans as a
cover for their reformist rightist theses. The left and
right opportunist wings of the petit bourgeoisie stand on
the same platform in essence. The sharpest "tactics"
are determined as class and power relations are evaluated in the
most exaggerated way. In these analyses, two different aspects,
where the power of the masses is not taken into account and where
their level of consciousness and organisation is exaggerated, go
together. For example, the resistance of the working people in a
neighbourhood against police attack is considered as an
"uprising", or they bow in front of a spontaneous
economic movement. However, on the other side of this bowing
there is disbelief and denial.
Among the "actions" of these groups, which they praise
in their papers, are molotov cocktailing the banks, the streets
and the shops which are believed to be owned by fascists;
occupying the rostrums in workers' meetings; burning down the
buses in shanty towns in order to support the hunger strike of
political prisoners; killing or beating up those who are
sympathisers of reactionary fascist parties, etc.
Their behaviour at the May Day demonstration in 1996 was also one
of their typical actions. Petit bourgeois groups, from the
beginning of the demonstration, showed an attitude which was open
to provocation. Covering up their faces, leaving aside the
demands of the working class and holding up banners praising
their own groups, cordoning themselves off from the masses,
wearing uniforms and marching in parade order, etc. All these
made the attacks of the police legitimate in the eyes of ordinary
working people.
Their position gives us a clue about the way they think as well
as about how isolated they are from the mass movement. It is for
this reason that with the flurry of not finding a place for
themselves within the mass actions of the working classes, they
orientate towards sensational actions, sabotage the
demonstrations of the working people, and look at everything from
above. Therefore their position in the face of the mass movement
is a liquidationist one.
On the question of forms of struggle
Forms of struggle, tactics and actions depend
on the trend of class struggle, the objective state of the
workers' movement, and social, economic and political conditions,
and they cannot be determined at will. Therefore, no form of
struggle can either be completely rejected nor made absolute
apriori. For this reason, the petit bourgeois groups which
consider "vanguard fight" as a fundamental form of
struggle or as a" strategic stage" have an
anti-Marxist, line not only regarding their ideas on the other
fundamental questions of the revolution, but also regarding their
approach to the question of forms of struggle.
An organisation or a party which believes that revolution will be
made by the masses considers it fundamental to base all its line
of struggle and action on the actions of the masses, to educate
and organise them by taking part in the spontaneous mass
movement. A revolutionary party tries to unify under the
leadership of the proletariat all the classes and strata which
are on the side of the revolution around a revolutionary
programme, and to link the forms of struggle that come out of the
mass movement to the perspective of seizure of political power.
Whereas petit bourgeois revolutionarism, by replacing the
actions of classes and their historical role with the actions and
role of the "vanguard", narrows the class struggle,
ignores its lively varieties, and expects the masses to consider
the actions revolutionary that it finds
"revolutionary".
Lenin and all other Marxists talked of the practice of the
masses, the uprising of the masses and a guerrilla struggle which
was linked to this uprising. Those who reduce guerrilla war to
the war of their small groups with the state, and who declare
this as "the main form of struggle" of the whole
strategic stage of revolution without taking into consideration
social and economic conditions (and the changes in these
conditions) do not have anything to do with Leninism.
According to those who claim to wage "vanguard war" or
"guerrilla war", there is a permanent revolutionary
situation in Turkey. There is a permanent "state of
equilibrium", they argue, between the people and the
state they name as "oligarchy", "bosses' and
landlords' state" and "colonialist fascism"! And
with their sabotages, attacks and molotov cocktails the
"people's warriors" will upset this artificial
equilibrium and enable the people "to be on the side of the
revolution"!
The Russian Narodniks’ theory of "power transfer"
which was condemned by Lenin 90 years ago is being put forward
again. From the DHKP to MLKP and PKK , petit bourgeois
groups try to adjust social and historical conditions to
themselves and to shape them in accordance with their will. For
them, the conditions of the country, the mood of the masses,
their level of consciousness and organisation do not have any
importance. With demagogic propaganda about armed struggle, the
chiefs of petit bourgeois groups try to manipulate the enthusiasm
and dynamism of awakening young revolutionaries. Without
considering whether armed action exists as an element in the
workers' and popular movement, they try to insert it in the mass
movement by force from outside. Instead of educating the masses
about the necessity of arms in defeating counter revolutionary
force and eliminating bourgeois political power, they consider
their own use of arms sufficient.
With the belief that the repression of the popular masses will
increase their anger and resistance, in other words with a
conspiratory logic, they cling to methods that will lead to the
increase of this repression. With their bombings and sabotages
they supposedly help the masses to "see the real face of
fascism"! However, indiscriminate terror leads to the
increase of reactionary-fascist repression of the bourgeoisie. It
does not help the progress of popular opposition but serves the
consolidation of counter-revolutionary attacks and becomes an
ingredient of black propaganda. The only way of eradicating
repression is the development of mass struggle.
Petit bourgeois revolutionarism, mainly in the name of TIKKO,
Revolutionary Left and for a while in PKK (TIKB and MLKP are also
trying to gain a position), has been using arms for over 20 years
"on behalf of the people". These groups consider that
"revolutionary violence" has a "politicising role
on the people". They organise actions against the
"oppressors" in order to prove that they are the
"protectors" of the people whom they consider as
"helpless and unprotected"! Nevertheless, the actions
of these "noisy groups" have not resulted in the
"unexpectedly rapid participation of the people in the
struggle", but in the loss of credibility of
revolutionaries. With their practice these groups have served to
nourish hopelessness and distrust. The working class and the
masses can gain revolutionary socialist consciousness only
through an uninterrupted work of socialist agitation and
propaganda as well as from the experience of their own struggle.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that it is because of their
distorted understanding of socialism that this petit bourgeois
socialist current, whose relation with scientific socialism is
limited to the repetition of the most general formulations,
considers some forms of struggle absolute and bases itself on the
actions of a vanguard stratum who acts on behalf of the people.
However, the fact that they have such a degenerated line of
action cannot be expressed only through their understanding of
socialism. It is inevitable for these groups to break away from
mass movement as they have become distanced from revolutionary
organisational life because of their internal conflicts and the
processes of splits and unifications that they have gone through.
Their line and practice and introvert organisational life have
isolated them from the masses. With the peevishness of being
isolated they have a reactionary position in the face of the mass
movement. What has degenerated these groups so much is the fact
that they are distanced from the workers' and mass movement and
thus do not consider themselves responsible for the advance or
regression of this movement. This proves that the "more
free" from being concerned about mass movement is petit
bourgeois leftism, the more irresponsible it becomes.
For this reason, it is a revolutionary task today to remove the
hindering effect of petit bourgeois leftist understanding of
action on mass movement and to condemn this harmful practice.
THE PARTY OF LABOUR
In this edition of our bulletin we want to
introduce the Party of Labour, which was officially founded on 25
November 1996 and held its first congress in the capital city
last September with the participation of thousands of
workers and labourers all over Turkey.
The Party of Labour was founded as a workers'-mass party
consisting of the advanced workers who have come out of and led
the workers' and popular movement of recent years, the
progressive intellectuals who have tied their destiny to the
future of the working class; the honest and fighting trade union
leaders, the leaders of youth, and the sound revolutionaries who
have gathered the experience of long years. In the documents of
its First General Congress the Party defines itself as follows:
"Our Party has come out as a product of the need for the
politicisation and unification of the working class movement
which has been rising since the end of the 1980s and which,
despite its occasional ebbs, has marked the struggle as the most
serious social movement. Although our Party is a newly founded
party and has gathered its First General Congress in a short
time, it was not born as a party limited to the efforts and
experiences of a year of its present members. On the contrary, it
was born as a party which has taken as its theoretical basis all
the positive collective experience of humanity which is in the
present time embodied in the working class; a party which aims to
realise humanity's five-thousand-year-old aspiration of a world
free from class divisions, exploitation and wars;which,
consequently, lays claim to all the positive inheritance created
in history and which has internalised it in its programme.
Our Party was founded to be the party of the working class and
labouring people of Turkey, of the intellectuals and the people
of culture and science who have devoted their lives to the
struggle for democracy and for the emancipation of the working
class and labouring people, of youth, of women, of the struggle
for independence and democracy, and of the realisation of the
ideals of socialism. Our Party considers as its legitimate basis
all the collective experience of the struggle that had been
carried out so far, and aims to master and use this experience in
the struggle.
The parties and governments of the ruling classes have, for many
years, been using Turkey as a base of US and Western imperialism
in the Middle East. With the efforts of the imperialists and
their collaborators, Turkey has become a country which has
hostile relations with all of its neighbours and friendly
relations with Israel. While it has implemented the policies of
imperialism abroad, inside it stands out as a country which
oppresses the working class and the people. Even the most basic
human rights have been violated. In order to maintain its
existence, the decaying system has clung onto the gangs where
counter-guerrillas, mafia, fascist murderers and state officials
take part in the same organisations. The economy has been
shaped in accordance with the interests of international
monopolies, the IMF and the World Bank. The national economy has
been destroyed. What have become the main bases of the economy
are imaginary exports, mafia methods, black money trade, etc.
The struggle of public sector employees who have been following
the path opened by the working class since the 1990s; the
dimension of the struggle of the Kurdish working people for
freedom; the struggle in the field of human rights which has a
broad and sometimes massive character, the struggle of the small
and medium size productive peasants for their demands; the
struggle of the youth for their academic and democratic rights;
the growing tendency among all the sections of the working people
of disillusionment with the system parties... All these made it
urgent to form a mass workers' party which will be based on
the working class, which will unite the open mass struggles of
the working classes, and which will link the movement to the
struggle for democracy and freedom.
Our party has brought to the fore the demand for "an
independent and democratic Turkey" in its programme.
This is because without having a democratic and independent
Turkey, there is no possibility of progressing and taking steps
to establish a world without any classes. It is only in a united
Turkey which is not an instrument of the plans of im.perialism
for the Middle East that the aspirations of the workers and the
working people can come true.
Different from the parties under different names which define
themselves as being on the side of the working classes, our party
has defined itself as being a workers' mass party whose aim is to
unite the workers, the awakening sections of the working people,
and those who have no trust in the system parties. Including the
preparatory period before its foundation, our party directed all
its attention to the movement, mainly of the working class
and of the working people. It has called and still is calling the
workers and working people who have come out of the struggle to
its ranks, independently of their previous thoughts, their
beliefs, nationality, race and gender.
Our party has never been a party which determined its tactics and
slogans in offices. Our party has set out its demands by taking
into consideration the rhythm and the spirit of the working class
movement. It has put forth its line of organisation and struggle
according to this understanding. It has refused to sit and wait
in the office for membersto come and join the party, nor to adopt
a style based on media demonstrations to influence the masses.
It has always tried to be a party of the
struggle which, by directly taking part in the class struggle,
continually renews itself, and which aims to assist the
transformation of the working masses. It has also shown its
determination to go forward on this line. Our party has been
founded with the aim of being not only an instrument of the
struggle of the working class for political power, but also a
school where the workers and the working people learn politics
and where they transform themselves.
The Party of Labour has set out the education of the working
masses as its fundamental activity. It is this understanding that
guides our propaganda and agitation work. It is for this reason
that our agitation is one which is based on concrete facts and on
the explanation of general calls and what is happening in Turkey.
It also explains what is happening in every unit. Our unit based
organisations constitute the basis for the realisation of this
agitation.
Our party is based on unit work in its organisations. Units are
defined as the main elements of realising the participation in
party life and inner-party democracy, embodying the party
politics, realising the intervention in the movement, and forming
the link between the party and the working class and the
relatively backward sections of the working people. The influence
of the units has been witnessed everywhere where our work has
advanced.
The Congresses of our party organisations have been the places
where our shortcoming and weaknesses have been discussed, and
where our plans for the future have been set. Our central task
now is to start work to go forward tightly clinging to our
foundation aims and principles, to gather millions of workers and
working people under the roof of our party, and to form party
unit organisations everywhere where the conditions are more or
less there for the struggle. Our party is a party which also
reorganises itself while drawing the working people into struggle
and helping their struggle for their demands. Therefore, the main
call of our First Congress upon the party members is this:
‘Let's do the daily work in accordance with the party
principles so that the masses can identify themselves with our
party programme. (...)’
When our party held its First Congress on 14 September 1997, it
was already organised in 47 administrative provinces, 140
districts, 134 smaller districts, and in thousands of units. It
was also a party which met all the conditions for taking part in
elections. Its work to broaden its organisation is rapidly going
on today.
The First Congress of the party where over 10 thousand people
were present was also an action where international solidarity
was expressed. As well as communist parties from Germany, France,
Spain, Tunisia and Benin, there were many trade unionists,
workers' representatives and representatives of a number of
democratic organisations from Europe.
RESOLUTIONS OF THE CONGRESS
All the 12 draft resolutions presented to the
Congress were approved. Following is the summary of these
resolutions.
On the importance of placing the daily workers' press at
the centre of our party work:
The organisational activity carried out by our party is based on
propaganda-agitation and revelation. The aim of this work is to
enable the workers to understand what is happening in the world
and to comprehend that the capitalist exploitation system must be
eradicated. The most effective way of doing this is to intervene
in the agenda through a daily paper. Our Congress states that the
reason why the daily workers; press has not spread enough is
because our party has not yet gained a position where it carries
out daily activities and political agitation, and sets the
following tasks for all party organisations:
- All our organisations must give priority to writing news for
the paper and distributing it. All their activities will be
based on this.
- Subscriptions will be spread on the basis of units.
- The paper will be considered as an element of disciplining the
daily work of the party.
- The daily workers' press will be used by our organisations as a
main instrument in the education of our party groups.
On the trade union struggle:
The progress of the trade union movement in a healthy and
consistent way and its having correct bases is based on our
party's work within the working class and on what serious steps
our party organisations can take in the education of the class
through an uninterrupted agitation. Our party must support the
union branch platforms and help the progress of newly emerged
forms of organisations. It must show flexibility and initiative
to use every opportunity and alliance to gain new positions in
the working class and in unions. In the face of the fact that the
attacks of capital on the working class have an international
character, we must pay attention to the necessity of
international solidarity of the working class.
On the Kurdish question:
In order to pave the way for a permanent peace based on the equal
and free unity of the peoples, it is an immediate question to
normalise life in the region and to eradicate the oppression and
terror stemming from the war in the region. For this reason, the
war must immediately end; the special governership of emergency
situation in the region must be abolished; the Special Team,
JITEM (Gendarme Intelligence Service) and the village guards
system must be dissolved; and those who are responsible for the
murders by "unknown perpetrators" and for political
murders must be found and taken to court. The villages which have
been depopulated by force must be reopened to residency;
villagers must be helped to return to their villages by
compensating their losses; they must be given grants and their
debts to banks must be abolished. Education and health
institutions which are closed must be reopened and Kurdish
children must have the right to education in their own language.
New jobs must be created, and a land reform must be implemented
in order for the peasants without any land to have lands. All the
bans on the right to join a trade union and to strike must be
lifted, all the working people must have social security and an
8-hour working day must be put into practice. Our party will
speed up its educating activities among the poor Kurdish
peasants.
On the work among women:
Women constitute half of the population and one third of the
active population in Turkey. 71 per cent of the women
contributing to the economy are in the agricultural sector and
have the position of unpaid family worker. Women are far from
working life and deprived of education. Equality and freedom can
be realised by drawing the working masses of women into the
struggle.
On the work among youth:
Youth is of a vital importance for the activities of our party.
The youth section of our party will carry out
political-organisational work among young workers with the
demand "the right to unionisation, social security and an
8-hour working day", and among university students with the
demand "Free, scientific and democratic university"
against the restructuring implementations of capital. Our party
will carry out many-sided activities in order to consolidate the
work of the Council of Students' Represen-tatives, to enable the
student youth movement to act closely with the young workers'
movement and vice versa.
On privatisation:
Privatisation is not only an attack designed to destroy the
workers' rights, but it is also used as an instrument of
colonisation. In no part of the world has privatisation created
results in favour of the working people. In the period before us
the governments will have substantial advantages. However, in the
meantime, it will present great possibilities for the working
class and the people. What will determine the outcome is the
confrontation of these powers. The workers in those places which
are intended for privatisation have entered a confrontation,
including the occupation of their workplace. The struggle will
rise on this experience. Our party is the only party which can
unite all those forces who are against privatisation.
On the anti-imperialist struggle:
Our party considers the question of democracy as a question of
the elimination of imperialism and puts forward the demand for an
"Independent and Democratic Turkey" as the primary
slogan of the stage we are in. On the other hand, our party
states that the anti-imperialist consciousness of our time has
atrophied compared to the 1960s and 70s, and subsequently, the
dimensions of the struggle against imperialism have declined to
more rear positions. Our Congress puts forward for all party
organisations the task of organising a propaganda and agitation
activity aimed at improving the anti-imperialist consciousness
within the working masses.
On agriculture and the question of peasantry:
Agriculture, which has been one of the largest sectors where
millions of families live on, is now on the verge of collapse due
to the deliberate policies of the state. These policies are
imposed by international capital, the IMF and the World Bank. For
this reason, the question of agriculture in Turkey is openly tied
to the struggle against imperialism. Our party believes that the
main link to cling to is the unification of the solution of the
peasant-land question with the struggle against imperialism.
On the question of cadres and inner-party education:
Our cadre policy is based on the idea of a party and practise
which is organised on the basis of units with initiative and
which bases the essence of its activities on this principle. Our
party must give importance to inner-party education because it is
the school of the working class where they learn to perform
politics. This is a many-sided education based on the practice of
the party. Systematic education has been one of our shortcomings
which will be overcome. Inner-party education will be the basis
for the solution of cadre question.
On international relations:
The international bourgeoisie is united and is in solidarity
which is consolidated against the workers in every country and
internationally. In the face of this, the unity and solidarity of
the working class is also on the rise. Independently of its
international organisation the working class is an international
class. The Congress states that our party must increase its
support to the struggles of the working class for economic and
social rights in all countries, and to the struggles of the
oppressed nations and peoples; it should establish sisterly
relations with the political organisations of the working class
in all countries which struggle for a world without any classes
and exploitation; and it should struggle for the international
unity of the working class.
On human rights:
The governments have turned our country into a hell as far as
human rights are concerned. Our Congress states that all the
party organisations must accelerate their uninterrupted
propaganda and agitation work to educate the working masses
against human rights violations; they must give particular
importance to the revelation of those responsible for the murders
by "unknown perpetrators" and
"disappearances"; all the hearings of the Metin Goktepe
(the murdered journalist)case must be attended in mass numbers
until those who are responsible are punished; and close relations
with human rights organisations must continue.
On the struggle in the field of culture and arts:
The bourgeoisie presents its own style of life and habits to the
working people as "culture". Our party is aware that
the field of culture is the main area where the harshest
confrontations with the bourgeoisie and reactionary forces must
take place. Our party will mobilise all the possibilities it has
for the unity of the struggle of the intellectuals and scientists
against the reactionary bourgeois garbage, and for the increase
of the influence of this struggle. Our party will not neglect to
organise the work in this field within the daily political
struggle of the working people.
THE METIN GOKTEPE CASE AND THE ATTACKS ON THE DAILY WORKERS' PRESS
Last January marked the second anniversary of
the murder of Metin Göktepe, the journalist who was beaten to
death by the Turkish police. He was working for Evrensel, which
was the only paper, before it was closed down, writing about the
workers’ and working people’s struggle all over the
country.
From the first, the authorities wanted to cover up his murder.
However, because of the statements of eye winesses, the autopsy
result, and especially because of the huge public outcry, they
finally had to admit that he had been beaten to death by police.
The case was not brought to court until 10 months after the
event. For so-called "security" reasons the hearings
have been moved from town to town. There have been 13 hearings so
far and all of them were attended by thousands of people from all
over Turkey and by the representatives of different
democratic organisations from Europe. Thanks to this huge public
pressure, the court decided to arrest nine of the policemen who
were involved in the murder, four of whom were realeased later
and the other five have still not been charged.
However, the acting judge who decided on their arrest was exiled
to another town. Also the real judge of the case has recently
declared that he is quitting because of pressures on him. All
this and the fact that before each case the judge has to meet the
local Commander of Gendarme and a representative of the MIT
(National Intelligence Service) show that the judiciary system in
Turkey is not independent as is claimed, which is now a fact
admitted openly even by many of the defenders of the system.
Attacks on press
The fascist dictatorship in Turkey is
suppressing and punishing any organisations, parties, press, or
individuals demanding democracy. As a recent example, the
distribution of Emek, the daily paper on the side of the working
people, and Ülkede Gündem, the paper of the Kurdish
nationalists, has been stopped arbitrarily and the papers were
confiscated in the South-East of Turkey, the area under emergency
rule.
Emek’s Diyarbakir office was raided twice by police and
special team, and all the equipment was destroyed. The Diyarbakir
correspondent was beaten up badly, and the distributor was
arrested. They both were threatened with death. This arbitrary
practice was later supported by the law and the distribution of
Ülkede Gündem in this region has legally been banned.
To protest against the attacks on Emek and Ülkede Gündem, the
Party of Labour organised the distribution of these papers on the
streets of many towns. Representatives of HADEP, the
People’s Democratic Party, also joined in these activities.
Some journalists, trade unionists and representatives of
democratic organisations issued press releases to protest against
the hindrance of distribution of these papers.
International support was also received from some European
journalists and trade unionists. Three German journalists
affiliated to IG Meiden, the German press union, went to the
Diyarbakir office to show solidarity and actually to work there
for a couple of weeks.
Also, last year Emek was the topic of the traditional press
festival (Soli Basar) in Berlin, Germany. It was reported that 44
press organs and 20 thousand people participated in this event.
.jpg)
