THKO (People's Liberation Army of Turkey)

The THKO (People's Liberation Army of Turkey), our predecessor organisation, and the path that led to the party

In the period that witnessed the 1968 movement and opened the way to youth movements all over the world, a fresh mass youth movement sprang up in our country too. This movement differed from the youth movement in Europe which, insofar as it put forward the abstract "ideal of freedom" could be described as semi-anarchist. This is because the movement in Turkey had a tendency towards socialism and a desire to unite with the working masses, and coincided with the historical period when the general awakening of people was accelerating. The 1968 movement was an intellectual movement of youth as well as a mass movement. Although influenced by various political ideologies internationally, nevertheless one of the reasons why the 68 movement resulted in the emergence of political groups with their own features lay here. (By the year 1970, the movement had moved backward and many political organisations had emerged in line with this backwardness. Although these organisations claimed to stand for the proletariat and "socialism", they were not socialists.)

If we leave aside internal and external ideological-class reasons, the most important weakness of these new groups was that they did not unite with the working class movement which was on the rise. Despite this, the movement, being an intellectual one and having produced a large vanguard of young people, created many organisations claiming to be "socialist". The THKO, the predecessor organisation of our party, was one of those organisations, founded by Deniz Gezmis, Huseyin Inan, Yusuf Aslan, Sinan Cemgil and their friends. Deniz Gezmis had a personality which made him the symbol of the 68 movement. His friends were the most influential youth leaders. As a result of this, although the THKO was not born in the period of unification with the working class, nevertheless it appeared at the head of other organisations, and became one of the most well-known and influential organisations of that period.

The THKO's belief was that a small armed group could lead the revolution by pulling the whole people along with it. It was honest and genuine in its belief. Therefore, its militants who were really mass leaders resorted to arms. Armed struggle, first launched by the THKO, spread quickly with the foundation of other organisations which also started armed struggle. The armed struggle initially marked the end of the 68 movement in Turkey. The mass movement began to decrease towards the end of 1970. The youth movement turned into an armed struggle of vanguard fighters against the reactionary forces. The retreating mass movement and the spreading armed struggle were finally smashed by capital, by means of the US-backed military fascist coup and the semi-military fascist regime which followed. This was how the 1968 movement and the organisations of armed struggle, inspired by this movement, developed and this has since been called the "1971 left movement".

There have been many comments on the 1971 military fascist coup and the semi-military fascist regime. The younger generations can obtain the information regarding that period from various documents of our party and other materials. With the 12 March 1971 coup, martial law was declared all over the country. The mass movement was smashed. Workers' and youth organisations were banned. Thousands of youth and hundreds of intellectuals were imprisoned. Parliament was put under military control and a "witch hunt" began. Some of the founders and leaders of organisations such as the THKO, THKP-C (People's Liberation Party of Turkey-Front) and TKP-ML (Communist Party of Turkey-ML) which represented the 1971 movement were killed in the streets, in torture chambers and on the mountains. Many others were tortured, arrested and imprisoned for long periods. The founders of the THKO, Deniz Gezmis , Yusuf Aslan and Huseyin Inan, who were arrested at the beginning of 1971 were executed on 6 May 1972. This was the declaration of the defeat of the movement.

The 1971 left movement was of a democratic character, and the THKO, which played a significant role in this movement, was a revolutionary organisation. Nevertheless, they represented a petit-bourgeois adventurist line. This movement and this organisation did not represent the view, perspective or path of proletarian socialism or the working class; thus it had to face inevitable defeat. Nevertheless, the THKO was founded as a reaction against the 50-year-old revisionist line which had dominated the "left" movement in Turkey in the name of socialism. Unfortunately, it could not take the path of uniting with the working class, mostly because of international reasons and the destruction caused by this 50-year-old revisionist line which it could not overcome ideologically.

Despite this, the 1971 movement in general and the THKO in particular, sprang from the people of Turkey; they were represented by the most advanced youth who had the strongest links with the people. And no one could prevent the emergence out of this movement of a proletarian socialist (Marxist-Leninist) current based on the working class.

As a matter of fact, along with Deniz Gezmis and his friends'loyalty to the people and revolution, the slogans they chanted on the gallows, indicated their beliefs in Marxism-Leninism. The 12 March 1971 coup meant defeat and liquidation but it could not succeed in wiping out the movement. This period ended with the organisations recovering themselves. Some of these underwent a process of self-criticism on a reformist basis, which caused divisions. In terms of the THKO, our predecessor organisation, this period was one of self-criticism which, however, resulted in the embrace of Marxism-Leninism, and an orientation towards unity with the working class. This process of evaluation and self-criticism launched by the remaining militants of the THKO paralleled the loyalty to the working class and Marxism-Leninism that Deniz Gezmis and his friends had previously declared on the gallows. This is because this process aimed for unity with the working class and keeping the line of constructing the revolutionary communist party as an independent class party. The self-criticism, which matured in 1973 and 1974 and developed further in the following years, marked permanently the route of the later development of our party and showed the road leading to unification with the working class. 

The process of self-criticism which began after the 1971 defeat developed with the recovery in 1973-74 and passed the first crucial stage in 1975. This also encouraged some of the sections of the TKP-ML and THKP-C, the elements of the "1971 movement", themselves to move towards the trend of self-criticism, in line with our party. Our party advanced along the path opened up by its pamphlets called "The Self-criticism of the Past" and "The Problem of the Marxist-Leninist Party". The Provisional Central Committee was founded in 1975 and afterwards the illegal central theoretical publication Yoldas(Comrade) was first published. Yoldas's publication was a vital step for our party in basing itself on the working class, in its ideological war against every kind of reformist, revisionist, modern revisionist and adventurous currents, and in establishing the organisational and ideological bases of the party. Yoldas , which is still carrying out its function, has not only been one of the most important elements for the victory of Leninism in our organisation, for the reconstruction of the organisation, and for the self-criticism period; it has also been an organ for accelerating the self-criticism process in other groups forming their own organisations and in pulling them towards the aim of unity among revolutionaries and the founding of a united class party. 

This first issue of Yoldas included articles on "criticism of the adventurism of the petit bourgeoisie" and on "the defence of the understanding that the revolution is the work of the masses'. The main theme was to understand the social and historical role and the function of the working class. In an article in the same issue, it was emphasised that the THKO must base itself on the working class and organise within the class; and it declared the organisation, as its main task, must establish an independent revolutionary party of the working class. This was because without the practical leadership of the working class, it was impossible to make the change towards revolution and socialism. The working class could only reach victory through its revolutionary party. In spite of its shortcomings and mistakes, which would be corrected and tackled later, the ideas declared in the first issue of Yoldas set out the fundamental line of our organisation. The organisation took the path which enabled it to start transforming itself into a Marxist-Leninist organisation: "The reconstruction of the THKO with its central body, the formation of the Provisional Central Committee (PCC), and the publication of Yoldas have constituted a crucial turning point in the development of the THKO".(Materials of the 1980 TDKP Congress)