21st International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

18 το 20 October 2019 Izmir, Turkey

Contributions of the Communists and Workers Parties
Host Parties

Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Greece

PADS, Algeria
Party of Labour of Austria
Communist Party of Azerbaijan
Communist Party of Bangladesh
Workers Party of Belgium
Communist Party of Britain
Socialist Workers Party of Croatia
AKEL, Cyprus
Communist Party in Denmark
Communist Party of Denmark
Communist Party of El Salvador
Communist Party of Finland
Hungarian Workers Party
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India [Marxist]
Tudeh Party of Iran
Iraqi Communist Party
Workers Party of Ireland
Italian Communist Party
Lebanese Communist Party
Communist Party of Luxembourg
Communist Party of Mexico
Nepal Communist Party
New Communist Party of the Netherlands
Communist Party of Macedonia
Communist Party of Norway
Paraguayan Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
Communists of Catalonia
Syrian Communist Party [Unified]
Communist Party of Ukraine
Communist Party of Uruguay
Communist Party USA
Communist Party of Venezuela

“21st International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties: The opening speeches by Dimitris Koutsoumbas and Kemal Okuyan”

SPEECH OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CC OF THE KKE DIMITRIS KOUTSOUMBAS

Dear Comrades,

Dear Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties,

We would like to warmly welcome you to this year’s meeting, which, based on the decision of the Working Group, is co-organized by the CP of Turkey and the CP of Greece, here on the Asia Minor coast, on the Aegean coast, which should be a sea of peace and cooperation and not of aggression and provocation, of disputing of sovereign rights in the framework of the antagonisms of the bourgeois classes in the region.

The working class, our people, even more so the neighbouring peoples, the Greek and the Turkish people have the same interests. We all share the concerns and the will for peace, friendship, progress and socialism.

The KKE opposes the agreement of continuation and expansion of the US-NATO bases in Greece. We struggle against the country’s involvement in imperialist plans against other peoples. We struggle for the disentanglement of the country from the imperialist unions of NATO and the EU.

The KKE denounces the latest invasion of Turkish troops in Syria and expresses its solidarity with the Syrian people, who experience the harsh consequences of the long imperialist war.

It should be emphasized that this year’s meeting in particular is taking place at a critical juncture, with the sharpening of imperialist antagonisms and contradictions, the continuation of local and regional imperialist wars and conflicts, the intensification of the exploitation of the working class and the popular strata, the capitalist economic crises, the intensifying concern about a new danger of an international and perhaps a deeper and synchronized crisis in the coming years, the sharpening of the environmental issues and climate change, of refugees and immigration, the restriction of people’s rights and freedoms, the rise of anti-communism, racism, nationalism, etc.

But this is also a highly symbolic year for our internationalist struggle and solidarity, because this year marks the 100 years since the foundation of the Communist International.

The CC of the KKE commemorates the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist International (CI) (2 – 6 March 1919).

Our Party has developed serious activity in the international movement. Besides, this expresses an urgent necessity today, after the counter-revolutionary overthrows of 1991 and also because of the economic crisis of capitalism, which imposes even greater coordination and organization of joint action, in order for the ICM to take quicker steps in the direction of formulating a single strategy against imperialist aggression and imperialist war, for peoples’ peace, for socialism.

The CC of the KKE commemorates the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist International (CI) (2 – 6 March 1919).

Our Party has developed serious activity in the international movement. Besides, this expresses an urgent necessity today, after the counter-revolutionary overthrows of 1991 and also because of the economic crisis of capitalism, which imposes even greater coordination and organization of joint action, in order for the ICM to take quicker steps in the direction of formulating a single strategy against imperialist aggression and imperialist war, for peoples’ peace, for socialism.

The labour movement since its birth, with the very emergence and spread of Marxist worldview and the foundation of the first political parties of the working class, embraced internationalism. has a common interest in overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

The Leninist analysis of imperialism, the position on uneven development and the weakest “link” in a country or group of countries and the tasks that derive from this position for each CP, the historical experience of the whole past century, unambiguously lead to the conclusion that the national field of struggle remains the dominant one, but this should not ultimately be interpreted as a resignation from the need to coordinate and elaborate a joint strategy and activity of the communists in every corner of the world. A need that is becoming even more important today, since capitalist internationalization has taken on higher forms, not only in the field of economics but also in politics, together with the establishment of international and regional transnational unions, such as NATO, the EU, the IMF etc.

Since its foundation, our Party has been committed to the principles of Proletarian Internationalism. For 100 years it has consistently struggled and did not back down from its principles. As a section of the Communist International (CI), it received a lot of support to be established as a Party of a New Type. At the same time, it suffered the negative consequences of the issues of theoretical immaturity or even opportunism that emerged in the ICM, but never rejected the need for a joint strategy of the communist movement against imperialism, for socialism.

It did not “theorize” any negative experience in a wrong direction. Even if international choices and decisions affected us negatively, too, we have never fallen into the mistake of justifying our own mistakes or failures, by blaming someone else apart from ourselves.

In particular, some issues related to aspects of the strategy of the ICM in the past decades provide valuable lessons for today and must be discussed within the communist movement, because wrong views and ideological constructs, which have often failed in practice and led to the defeat and retreat of the revolutionary movement, reaching inevitably their extreme counter-revolutionary expression, are repeatedly expressed by various sides.

I would like to approach this issue a little more specifically, in a codified way but non-hierarchical way.

A FIRST issue that also exists as a fundamental conclusion in the elaborations of the KKE and which deserves further analysis is the inability of the ICM to form a single revolutionary strategy, especially during and immediately after the end of World War II and the decades that followed. Even though they were proclaiming the necessity of socialism, some communist parties, especially those of the strong capitalist countries, while forming their political line, set goals that, regardless of intentions, did not serve a strategy of concentrating and organizing forces aiming to prepare for the conflict and total rupture with the bourgeoisie. Thus, the political line of that time did not function as a component of the strategy for socialism. It is a fact that there was an inability to elaborate a revolutionary strategy during and immediately after World War II, since the CI as a whole and most of the Communist Parties in the capitalist West were unable to form a strategy of turning the imperialist war or the liberation war against the foreign occupation and fascism into the struggle for the seizure of workers’ power, in conditions of intense sharpening of the social-class contradictions within the country in which they acted. At the same time, the ruling class timely showed the ability to form alliances to defend its power, but also to realign its international and domestic alliances….

A THIRD IMPORTANT ISSUE, in our view, is that historical experience has shown how utopian was and still is the perception of the transition to socialism through the so-called gradual “expansion of bourgeois democracy”. . Thus, the preconditions for the class-oriented emancipation of the workers’-peoples’ movements were not formed. This is a process that matures and broadens the revolutionary initiative and the ties with the popular masses until the emergence of new conditions, when the prolonged economic and political crises would objectively fuel mass popular revolutionary action. In Western Europe, mainly under the influence of Eurocommunism in the 1960s – 1970s and 1980s, the tactics of forming coalition governments with social democracy, that is, with bourgeois parties, and the participation of CPs in governments which essentially managed capitalist development, in the logic of stages, with the first stage being resolving the bourgeois-democratic and anti-monopoly demands and the issue of dependency, led almost all Western European countries only to a further strengthening of the capital’s power, in support of new mechanisms of repression and manipulation…

All constituents of the bourgeois political spectrum in the European Parliament including liberals, social democrats, “neo-leftists”, ecologists, greens, the far-right, nationalists and centre-left voted in favour of the recent EU decision. They reverse the historical truth, proceed to witch-hunting, equating fascism with communism, Hitlerism with Stalinism. Similar things happen on other continents as well.

Our Party believes that the international meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties are useful and must certainly continue, in the framework of the exchange of views and experiences within the Communist and anti-imperialist movement, of the effort for coordination. But, for a meaningful reconstruction or a far more successful counter-attack by the ICM, something more is needed. We need a joint effort of the CPs whose ideological and political views are based on Marxism-Leninism, which recognize the historical attempt of socialist construction in the 20th century and its contribution, regardless of the fact that it ended, as well as the necessity of the struggle for socialism.

The KKE is now more mature than ever to contribute in this direction…

The slogan of the “Communist Manifesto”, “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” remains timely.

SPEECH OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CC OF THE TKP KEMAL OKUYAN.

Communist representatives of fraternal parties, comrades, I welcome you.

We were planning to host you next year, for the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of Turkey. However due to reasons you are all aware of, we undertook the obligation to organize our 21st Meeting, in co-responsibility with the Communist Party of Greece. In either case, it is a source of great honor for us to meet with you, to welcome you in İzmir. We believe this meeting will serve our common struggle.

Another point I need to raise at the start is related to the big gathering we had planned for Saturday evening. Due to the military operation launched by Turkey against Syria, we had to cancel a political and cultural activity that would have brought together over five thousand participants and to which we would have invited all of you as well. Our party’s statements related to these latest developments have been sent to you, in addition to this, we prepared a briefing on the issue to share our detailed assessments and analysis. You are all invited to this meeting.

As I begin my speech, I would like to thank all the comrades of the Communist Party of Greece who contributed to the preparation of this meeting, to everyone from General Secretary Dimitris to young KKE militants who came for technical support, and of course to my TKP comrades. Thank you; I am confident that we will transform this region into a paradise where people live in friendship and in an egalitarian social order.

Dear comrades,

21st International Communist and Workers Parties meeting is convening at the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Communist International, an organization whose historical significance for the communist movement is indisputable.

Communist International was founded in an era when Bolsheviks thought that the process that commenced with the 1917 October Revolution would have continued in other countries and that the working class would have come to power in at least part of Europe. In that respect, the Communist International is not an organization of solidarity or recommendations. The Communist International was founded to establish the common will, a revolutionary center, which the proletariat needed to strike the lethal blow to capitalism. In this respect, there is no mistake in calling the Third International as a World Party.

Comrades, the power that the Communist International had attained in a short time may confuse us. However, while starting out in March 1919, let us not forget that the Communist International was founded with extremely scarce resources, that the delegations coming from different countries to the founding congress did not have much representation power, and that most of the member parties did not have much weight in their own countries. If we leave aside the Bolsheviks who took power in Russia just a year and a half ago, the Communist International was founded by highly ineffective parties or groups.

However, they acted with a great assertion, excitement, determination and optimism. The deep crisis into which capitalism was falling and the mobilization of millions of proletarians in the face of that crisis was sufficient for the communists. They focused on their historic mission and responsibility as opposed to their weaknesses and they were convinced that the bourgeoisie could and will be defeated. This way, not only did the communist parties which were founded with the help of Bolsheviks became a major force in a short time and struggled to carry the working class to power, in certain cases, they also achieved it, even if for a short time. Today, no one should accuse the revolutionary attempts in Hungary, Slovakia, Germany and other countries with adventurism. Those who fought for revolutionary power remained loyal to the founding philosophy of the Communist International and they failed for various reasons.

Dear comrades,

There is a reason for me to talk about all this. It is critically important to determine the balance of forces between classes and to stay away from an administrative political line. Revolutions do not happen only by the decisions we make. Our task is not to make revolution but to lead the revolution because a revolution is not something that can be made. However, it is also true that there is a dialectical relationship between the crises of capitalism and the increase of revolutionary opportunities and even the rise of the revolution. In this sense, it is very misleading to evaluate the balance of powers statically, especially in times of crisis.

In 1919, the communist parties were extremely weak, in both the quantitative and qualitative senses. When we look at the world today, we are understandably complaining about the weakness of the communist movement but in 1919 when the Communist International was established, it didn’t have any greater power either.

So what was the difference? The mobility and organization of the toiling masses first come to mind. Even if the working class was under the umbrella of social democratic parties, it was widely engaged in the political struggle, in some countries the unions had serious potentials.

Another phenomenon that can be mentioned as a difference is the reaction to the destruction and poverty generated by the imperialist war and the fact that the war had not put an end to the deep economic crisis and even added new dimensions to it.

However, no one can claim that international capital today is stronger or more durable than 100 years ago. Imperialism is failing in every sense, it has nothing left to say to humanity economically, ideologically and politically. Nowhere.

Comrades, I am not trying to say that we are living in the same conditions as 100 years ago. This is not true. What we need to do is to analyze today’s concrete conditions and based on this, to struggle with the right tools and methods.

However, it is impossible to determine today’s tasks in a healthy way without pointing to a very, very important difference between 100 years ago and today.

Comrades, 100 years ago, starting from the working class 100 years ago, for large masses of people, hundreds of millions of people, socialism or an egalitarian order was a tangible, current demand. From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, every working class struggle was permeated with the desire to overthrow capitalism, although primitive. I am not talking about political strategies and programs here. The desire to change order was a social reality. This desire did not emerge with the October Revolution of 1917. The October Revolution brought a new sense of energy and reality to this desire and spread it to a wider geography.

I need to repeat that capitalism today is not more durable and stable than 100 years ago. Maybe hundreds of millions are not in a struggle, but billions of people have given up on the current social order. This also has a role in the rise of racism and right-wing populist movements around the world. Although it is not the only reason why millions of people go after people they don’t know, and at least support the new leader-centered formations in the elections, it is related to the people’s search for a way out.

Yes, comrades, we have to admit that one of the most important differences from 100 years ago is that the idea that capitalism can be destroyed and that an egalitarian order can be established is largely out of the minds of humanity.

This cannot be explained by objective conditions alone. Keeping this idea alive and making it concrete in the minds and hearts of large masses of people, starting from the working class is the main task of the communists. This idea cannot be pushed back by referring to the balance of powers. On the contrary, it is the spread of this idea that will change the balance of forces.

Comrades, when we look at the last 100 years, we have to admit that we communists are also guilty of humanity’s failure to state in a loud fashion that a more egalitarian order is possible and that capitalism must be destroyed.

And now I am moving on to Turkey and our region, I would like to show you, when facing the current developments, how one can lose direction and move without a compass that would point the right way, if one forgets the actuality of socialism.

Our meeting coincided with Turkey’s new military offensive launched in Syrian territory. This is not the first time. The presence of the Turkish army in the territory of other countries started with Korea. It was part of an unjust war waged to protect the interests of US imperialism. In the following years, soldiers of Turkey participated in many operations of the international monopoly terrorist organization NATO. In Cyprus, the sovereignty, independence and integrity of the island has been violated for 45 years. There are countless cross-border operations in Iraq, as well as numerous bases, outposts and observation points belonging to the Turkish army, just as in Syria.

Dear comrades,

How do we evaluate this picture?

One point of view is to see Turkey as an obstacle to democracy and freedom.

Can any communist who struggles in Turkey object to this?

One can’t object to this but comrades this expression, this formulation is wrong. It is wrong because the rule of capital is the enemy of democracy and freedoms everywhere in the world. This formulation means to empty the class content of the problems in Turkey and to link it to people or the army and that will lead one to mistakes.

A revolutionary political position is impossible without understanding that there is a strong capitalist class acting with ever increasing self-confidence and that in general Turkey’s domestic and international policies are shaped in line with the interests of this class.

When one doesn’t understand this, the following happens: One ends up siding with, becoming allies with powerful imperialist countries or Turkey’s capitalist class for freedoms and democracy in Turkey or a larger region. What I am saying is not an exaggeration. This has happened in Turkey and many revolutionaries have unfortunately turned into actual collaborators with imperialism throughout this process.

Comrades, I have to remind you that Erdoğan, who in the news all over the world today and who is ascribed various adjectives, was supported by the so-called democratic and pro-freedom circles from the first periods of his rise to power till 2010. It wasn’t only from European Union to the United States but from many different tendencies in the left to the Kurdish nationalist movement in Turkey that this support was provided by. On the other hand, those of us, TKP, who struggled against AKP’s rule right from the beginning, were even labelled as fascists because we confronted Erdoğan…

Furthermore, they argue that the most important thing is to gain the ability to act independently of the US, by making an incomplete interpretation of imperialism and even by narrowing imperialism to the US. And they say that all kinds of oppression, bullying, reactionism, and war can be allowedfaced for this cause.

In almost every country in this geography, there is pressure on the communists to accept one of the two paradigms. Either you will cooperate with the imperialists-capitalists for the sake of democracy and freedom, or you will remain silent to all kinds of oppression and cruelty with other imperialists or capitalist groups for the sake of independence.

Can freedom, independence, sovereignty be worthless for communists? No, never. However, the random use of these concepts causes us great harm, as you can see. There’s only one way out of this weird situation. It is to placeput the demand for an alternative social ordersocial order in the agenda of the working people, with the excitement coming from the foundation of Comintern 100 years ago. Isn’t it a pity that the poor in my country is going after Erdoğan and bourgeoisie’s greed for profit because of their rage against the US? Isn’t it a pity that the working people, no matter they are Turks, Kurds or Arabs, expect freedom and democracy from the European imperialists or from one or the other fractions within the USA?

These are the results of our weaknesses, the gaps that we have left. Let’s not take the disadvantageous circumstances or balances of powers as excuses. As I said at the beginning, when the Comintern first set off 100 years ago, there were fewer people than we have now in this room.

I believe that, in a short time and together, we will regain our claims and enthusiasm we had 100 years ago.

Comrades,

The Communist Party of Turkey is organizing its struggle with this perspective. It is not true that the goal of socialism, defending the contemporariness and timeliness of socialism, will inevitably lead to isolation. There is no rule that a revolutionary attitude will result in sloganism or sectarianism. On the contrary, today in the world, the goal of communism requires a high level of creativity and intellect. When this is coupled with courage and determination, defending the socialist revolution as an actual goal echoes in the working class. The opposite could not be possible in this era of crisis, when it is proved every day that capitalism has nothing left to give to humanity.

The Communist Party of Turkey said no to any alliance with the bourgeoisie or bourgeoisie’s political representatives. Despite the heavy pressure, the party persistently defended the thesis saying “this social order must change”. Within the working class, we have developed our organization patiently; we have succeeded in doing what trade unions fail to do in many instances with a unique model called “We Breathe Down the Bosses’ Neck”. We succeeded in making those laid off to return to their jobs and we gained wage increases. While doing so, we said that the focus should be on the establishment of an egalitarian order, not on this or that bourgeois solution.

We said no to bourgeois alliances but we made the communists win the mayoral election in a city for the first time in the history of Turkey by making a revolutionary alliance. Our votes, for the first time, rose above 1 percent in some settlements in Turkey’s largest cities.

The number of party members increased by more than 30 percent in one year. We are at the beginning of our task in a very big and challenging country. More important than quantities are qualitative characteristics. Doing our utmost, we are trying to make the Communist Party of Turkey the urban, modern, intellectual and revolutionary vanguard of the working class. We have a long way to go, but knowing that life can leave us with historical responsibilities at any moment, we persistently follow the path of revolution, the path of Lenin who marked an era 100 years ago. The important thing is what our comrades say, not what anti-communists overtly or covertly say.

TKP will make mistakes, will sometimes take steps back; these are in the nature of the struggle. But, dear comrades, what TKP will not do is to betray the revolutionary ideals, the goal of communism, the working people and their friends.

Glory to the common struggle of the communist parties…

Long live Marxism Leninism!

And until victory, always!

Quotes were taken from http://www.idcommunism.com/2019/10/21st-international-meeting-of-communist-and-workers-parties-opening-speeches-by-koutsoumbas-okuyan.html

Yesterday,

21st International Communist and Labor Parties Meeting was completed.
According to decision taken, The next meeting will be held in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 2020. In other words Red flag was sent to Pyongyang from Izmir.;)

GS of Communist Party of Turkey comments on Turkey’s elections

This interview was taken from SoL.news. These comments of Kemal Okuyan are providing to more understand especially the situations of the Turkey’s pro-system opponent parties and they help to explain the leanings of the electors of Turkey.

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

soL news interviewed Kemal Okuyan, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), on the results of June 24 election results. Okuyan reminded that the political power had organised electoral manipulations quite before the elections and that the TKP pointed this out strongly in those days. He highlights that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “success” should be evaluated starting right from this point. Okuyan also noted that the coalition of the opposition was designed as a “project of the capitalists”, and that the “pro-establishment left” quit adhering to leftist values since anti-establishment left moved away from these values.

Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) had unlawfully prevented TKP from entering June 24 elections and TKP undid this inhibition by running independent communist candidates in parliamentary elections through This Social Order Must Change Platform. The platform was established following the call of TKP. The platform ran a total of 17 independent candidates in different provinces of Turkey.

Erdoğan portrayed quite an incapacitated and disqualified image before June 24 elections. However, Erdoğan won the elections in the first round. What do you think had happened?

We have to talk about the electoral system first of all. Electoral manipulations are being set before the elections, not on the day of the elections, as we always say. We warned about electoral inks, unsealed envelopes and ballots, ballot box relocations and such before when we said: “no to elections under these circumstances”. The [parliamentary main opposition party, CHP] Republican People’s Party and others just let people put up with all that, saying “they cannot do anything”. And yet, the problem is not only related to the electoral system. The strategy of defeating the [ruling party] AKP  by resembling the AKP itself also failed.

We will come back to this point again but I would like to resolve the issue of electoral frauds. What could have they done, really?

Apart from the things they did on the day of the election, the real issue rests on voter lists. The electoral turnout is quite high. I personally do not believe that the ratio of turnout is real. We know that people voted instead of the dead and the ones in abroad. Also multiple votes… We witnessed countless times that civil servants voted more than once with their officer IDs. More importantly, the system in Turkey makes it impossible to track down “virtual citizens”. They are in control of the ID system. The ballot boxes are a complete mess and no one can inspect; people living in the same apartment are registered in different ballot boxes. When you gather all that together, it makes something huge.

Doesn’t the opposition parties know about that?

Let’s call them pro-system opposition. They are responsible from the continuation of this damned system as much as the parties in power, and they act accordingly! They acted accordingly during the Gezi Park resistance, after the local elections in 2014, and the referendum [in 2017], and during the period when they devised Yenikapı spirit [AKP’s meeting at Yenikapı in İstanbul after the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.] They never want the people to question the legitimacy of the system. It is absurd to have elections under such an electoral system and yet they made people accept it by saying “we are in charge of everything.” Erdoğan should thank such an opposition.

Then, what about the TKP? Why did it enter the elections, even by means of independent candidates?

Apart from the regulations in the electoral system that favour the political power, obstacles that hinder the toiling masses to get involved with politics are present all along. There is the 10 percent electoral threshold, treasury grants, obstacles before getting organised and making propaganda… TKP is not a party for elections and yet responsible for spreading its voice in the elections, getting organised and point at a real alternative. We could not, and did not, have abstained from such duties when a large section of the society had high hopes from the elections. You cannot call for a boycott whenever you are right. We are always right against the dictatorship of the capital.

Elections have been the only option of the people of Turkey until yesterday. We shared our warnings regarding that and it was not a waste of time for us. We are used to discourses like “let’s talk about after the elections”. The elections are over now and the number of people who find us right is increasing. People always look for a solution, a way to survive. Elections and pro-establishment politics were “solutions”, and yet they blew up. Organised struggle and the demand for social order change are the only solutions at the moment and they never miss the target. In that sense, the TKP whispered in the people’s ear “you know it best, but this is not the solution” during the whole electoral period.

A CERTAIN SECTION OF THE SOCIETY THAT HAS ENMITY TOWARDS ERDOĞAN DO NOT SEEK SOCIAL ORDER CHANGE

What about the reactions of the people you contacted?

A certain section of the society who have enmity towards the political power is not interested with the demand of social order change, and even more, do not have such a demand. They cling on the system, and some of them even have interests in the maintenance of the system. These people do not even want to hear us. They gave up defending secularism except for their sensitivity for “way of life”. They remember the “sovereignty of Turkey” when Erdoğan gets closer to the West, and the “Western civilisation” when Erdoğan rows with the West. These people used to close their ears when they saw us; now some of them will hide in their nests, while some others easily adapt to the conditions, and a small number of them will leave the country. In other words, we and these people reciprocally avoided each other. Our common ground “anti-Erdoğan stance” is not enough to breach the gap between us, it cannot…

Do we need to consider these people as belonging to the middle class?

Some of them are the privileged segments of the working class with higher wages. Some other have small enterprises, or entrepreneurs, as usually called…There is a segment who are executives…Some are rentiers… They are also influenced by economic developments and yet they manage in some way.

You noted that you were not able to contact them during the electoral period…

We preferred not to. However, there are intersections between the classes in Turkey and in social life. When we try to contact them, it becomes obvious that we are not talking the same language. There are of course exceptions. The sections within this social segment who strive for social change and willing to act on it with their intellect, consciousness and life practice, but they are of the minority.

We are essentially interested in the ones who are harmed by this social order, and are conscious of that, and who have nothing to hold on to against economic hardship. These people do outnumber. Some of them cling to the political power when poverty strains them, search for stability with fear of security and there are some who are deaf to any kind of voice. However, we realised that some people among them listened to us, approved of what we said and even supported us. There is also a certain toiling mass who had long disapproved the political power and increasingly turns it towards social system criticism. That segment was the one we especially strengthened our contact.

Getting the working class organised is our main priority. This electoral period showed us that there is a considerable increase in the anger, rage and search of the toiling masses.

Then why didn’t it transform into votes for the independent candidates?

We didn’t make all these just to get votes. We were aware of the pressure on the people. We did all we could to save them from the trap and yet it was also obvious that quite a few of the ones we convinced were to vote for us. We were not blind to the feeling that “First Erdoğan has to go, and then we can discuss”. Some people who were close to our party even said they were going to become a member of our party on the 25th of June. They thought “I would have to vote for the independent candidates if I become a member of the party.” We also get in contact with a considerable number of new people with whom we settled to meet on the 25th of June, and now we discuss with them. We cannot get crossed with them only because they did not vote for us. After all, they are in fact cross with themselves!

‘WHY WOULD A COALITION SAYING NOTHING NEW APART FROM POSITIONING AGAINST ERDOĞAN ATTRACT THE PEOPLE?’

I would like to go back to my first question. Why did Erdoğan win? You talked about the electoral system but also noted: “this is not the main reason”.

Winning and losing are relative concepts. I will answer with this caution. The bourgeois opposition did establish the widest possible coalition against Erdoğan. However, it was not clear why these actors were against Erdoğan. One man rule, authoritarianism? These are abstract concepts. This widest coalition put secularism aside, propagated pro-NATO politics, and reassured TÜSİAD (Turkish Industry and Business Association). Then, what was their problem with Erdoğan? When differences get blurred, the voters naturally prefer a single person, the one man. For one thing, there is a floating segment apart from the fixed party supporters. There is the youth who vote for the first time in each election, who don’t even have any party affiliation. Why would a coalition say nothing new apart from positioning against Erdoğan attract the people?

Did Erdoğan say anything new?

By saying new, I mean an alternative. If you rival with Erdoğan in İslamism and right-wing politics, and if you say “There are politicians within the AKP who are well-trained there and useful for the country”, where would you end up? It became obvious that creating an opposing camp within the society through Erdoğan has come to its limits, it is of no use, or it is of use for Erdoğan himself. You should also add discussions regarding [the pro-Kurdish] HDP party to this. HDP’s all electoral propaganda rested on the argument “If you don’t vote for me, AKP wins.” HDP did not have to undertake any electoral work since [parliamentary main opposition party] CHP had done it instead of HDP. HDP is being continuously either drawn towards the system or pushed away from it. The people who orchestrate this believe that their social engineering will reverberate exactly within the society. The unexpected conservation of [the pro-Turkish] MHP party’s votes definitely rests on concerns regarding discussions on HDP.

In terms of Erdoğan…In some senses, Erdoğan says something new every day, and repeats the same things in other sense. Turkish society has an interesting adaptation capacity in the face of economic, cultural and social complications. This contradicts the definition of conservatism in some senses. The political definition of this is opportunism. Erdoğan is capable of manipulating this. He will secure a certain support until such political behaviour does not answer the security need of the people.

Are other politicians not capable of doing this?

It is odd to expect principled and consistent behaviour in bourgeois politics. Erdoğan’s sharp turns exceed this. The rivalry of the bourgeois opposition rests partly on right-wing propaganda and partly on imitating Erdoğan’s opportunism. It seems that they will keep this track at full speed following the June 24 elections.

THERE IS A CERTAIN ‘LEFT-WING’ TENDENCY AT EASE WITH ADOPTING SHEIK SAID TEACHINGS AND FLIRTING WITH THE TÜSİAD

Isn’t it logical to address to the right-wing voters to increase votes?

The success criteria of the bourgeois politics and ours are quite different. Votes obtained in an election do neither legitimate you nor are they the only criteria of success. This is how we perceive it. Everything rests on the elections in bourgeois politics. There is also the rooted perception that “the left cannot get votes more than a certain amount.”

Isn’t that perception true?

This perception rests on a distorted perception of the “left” and “right”. But let’s accept that the pro-establishment left assumes the role of blocking the real left and keeping the masses within the limits of the social order. The left has some values. These are laicism, anti-imperialism and being on the side of the toiling masses in Turkey. The pro-establishment left gave up adhering to these.

Why?

Because a considerable segment of the anti-establishment left moved away from these values. Therefore the social order does not necessitate a firm leftist stance of the pro-establishment left. Then what are we discussing! There was a “progressive left” who championed that the AKP “accomplished a democratic revolution.” And now, they are easy with adopting Sheik Said teachings [Sheik Said Nursi was a reactionary Kurdish theologian who was of service to the anti-communist initiatives of Turkey’s right-wing governments] and flirting with the TÜSİAD. Then CHP can slide to the right even more, until the psychological barrier in front of the strong organisation of the communists within the society. It is soon…

But a second Ekmeleddin case did not happen. There was a strong objection to Abdullah Gül’s candidacy…

(Migarium note-Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was the common candidate of CHP and MHP at the presidental election in 2014. The influence of the name of this candidate on the CHP electors was a big disappointment.)

Abdullah Gül(former AKP deputy also was president of Turkey in 2007-2014) is among the foundational core of the AKP; there is no need to tell who he is. Discussions on his nomination as a candidate and it’s renouncement only through Akşener’s [the leader of the ultra-far Good “İyi” Party] opposition to it is a total scandal. They said Muharrem İnce [CHP candidate, Erdoğan’s main rival in presidential election] is a good speaker, honest and sympathetic… These don’t explain the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is that Muharrem İnce has been called a right-wing politician even by the administrators of CHP. Let’s leave the names aside; CHP tried to seem sympathetic to the right-wing voters, while the Good Party and the Felicity Party [an Islamist party that took part in the alliance with CHP and the Good Party in the elections] to the voters of CHP. Such an alliance!

THE ‘COALITION OF THE OPPOSITION’ WAS DESIGNED AS A PROJECT OF THE CAPITALISTS, IT PROVED UNSUCCESSFUL IN THE ELECTIONS BUT WAS SUCCESSFUL IN ANOTHER SENSE

TKP insistently highlighted that this coalition was a project of the capitalists. Erdoğan won the elections. Does TKP still argue that?

TKP shared its initial electoral evaluation on 25th June. We said there too that the opposition coalition was a capitalist project. We also know more or less who and which circles played a special role in the formation of this project. However, Erdoğan himself is also a capitalist project. The ‘opposition coalition’ was unsuccessful in the June 24 elections and yet the project proved successful in certain senses. The ones who provided opportunities to this opposition coalition didn’t specifically aim to push to the political power. I the total formation of the political sphere in a country, the design of the opposition is as much important as the formation of the political power. A design of certain circles does not aim for total success; in addition to this, each and every design does not need to reach its target. Social dynamics and politics have a most problematic relation with calculations. The ‘opposition coalition’ was unsuccessful in the June 24 elections and yet it proved successful in certain senses.

But June 24 elections witnessed the highest mathematical calculations.

The result is obvious! What happened to the argument that the political power would lose parliamentary majority when HDP breached the electoral threshold? Mathematics is not to be blamed.

Do you think that Erdoğan got more powerful with June 24?

Let’s see that Erdoğan is not that powerful in terms of the political calculations, if mathematics matters that much. He is powerful neither in terms of social dynamics nor in any other sense. This may mean a more easily managed Erdoğan for the capitalist class and the imperialist centres. Arguments that Erdoğan got very powerful and that Turkey is in a total collapse are complete nonsense. The tasks before Erdoğan were challenging and they become even more so every day. The cunning people who propagated these feelings before June 24 are going to prepare the people for the upcoming local elections by saying “this is the last chance”, and they have already started to talk about that.

The final exit before the bridge?

I don’t know, maybe they will feel ashamed to say so and call it “final U-turn”.

‘TKP WAS ABLE TO RESIST THE TIDE’

What will TKP do? It couldn’t get energy from yet another electoral period…

TKP is a party that knows how to resist the tide. It knows how to contract without turning inward when the tide accelerates. An alternative to this is stepping aside. We didn’t step aside  June 24, resisted the tide and contacted countless people drifting away in the opposite direction. Everyone makes mathematical calculations during the elections, but we calculate our move after the elections. Yes, we were unsuccessful in terms of vote rates and yet TKP will quickly claim space in the post-electoral period when the speed of tide decreases and even dies out. We have no concerns regarding this. We had new members just before the elections, and it increases now.

The people who follow what TKP says knew that TKP may become isolated on the election day and considered this not that important. The crowd of people TKP gathered on May Day is more than the number of people who voted for it in the elections. This is, of course, something problematic and yet I will say without hesitation that the important thing is the ability of acting together with the people. The number of the people TKP is able to mobilise and act together will quickly increase from now on. This will reflect on the electoral results in a certain period, you may be sure of that. In terms of the energy you mentioned…I said it before, this electoral period has opened very valuable channels for TKP, and we had an important experience. This is the energy. Positive reactions towards the statement of TKP on elections create a great energy. Now we will mobilise this energy in line with our political and organisational targets.

“This social order must change”

In 24th June, there will be an election in Turkey. There will be two ballot boxes in front of the voters. For one of them, the voters will use their votes for president candidates, the other one will be used for the members of parliament, so to the deputies. The president candidates were determined. There are six president cantidates in election race. Some political parties were not allowed to present candidates. Communist Party of Turkey(TKP) is one of them. TKP cannot present a president candidate, but it can present independence deputy candidates to the second ballot box for parliament at 24th June. This post tells how TKP follows a path and the supports that are given for TKP.

TKP WILL NOMINATE INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES for the PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

Based on additional conditions that are not written in the law, the Supreme Electoral Council concluded that the Communist Party of Turkey, which has already satisfied all conditions that political parties are required to fulfill in order to participate in elections, will not be allowed to take part in the general elections to be held on June 24, 2018.

This is not the first instance when the ruling party and the bureaucracy under its command attack the Communist Party of Turkey’s will to get organized and do politics in order to overthrow this rotten social order. Taking a stand against such attacks and fetters, the TKP has been and will always be carrying the struggle of toiling masses for emancipation forward under any circumstances.

In contradistinction to other parties, our party does not perceive elections as the only channel of doing politics or of the struggle for political objectives. As it stands, it is utterly futile to expect elections that are “fixed” through arrangements entirely in favor of establishment parties to bring emancipation to toiling masses.

However, elections also provide significant opportunities for promoting socialism, i.e. the only future for humanity, and the alternative of socialist power, i.e. the only way out for our country, before broad masses; for appealing the oppressed to organized political struggle, and for creating conditions for the communist deputies to be the voice of the fight for socialism both within the parliament and local governments.

Under no circumstances will we renounce the right to make use of these opportunities on behalf of the working people.

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES IN GENERAL ELECTIONS

The TKP will participate in June 24 general elections with independent candidates in various provinces under the slogan “This Social Order Must Change”.

In the coming days, Popular Committees will hold meetings in their constituencies in which they will nominate their candidates. The voice of the toiling masses, the voice of socialism will be louder than ever in these elections.

The outlines of the election manifesto of those who say “This Social Order Must Change” will also be drawn up in these meetings.

SPOILT VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Regarding the presidential elections to be held on the same day with general elections, the TKP calls for the people to turn their back on not only to the candidates, but also to this election and the political regime it represents.

The presidential system is nothing but a one-man rule. Our people should reject both doing politics on this ground and submitting their will to a single person.

Besides, the rules and the calendar set for the presidential election do not allow nominating a people’s representative who would question, protest and challenge this system.

The names that have come up so far for nomination in the course of the unscrupulous quest of establishment parties for alliances provide sufficient proof on the rottenness that presidential election, which has already been fixed with an unlawful and rigged poll, will bring about. Our people should take a stand against this rottenness. Just as this presidential system is “spoilt”, our vote should be “spoilt” as well.

Turkey does not need a President with unlimited authority; she needs the millions to get organized and take the bit in their teeth.

THE TKP IN LOCAL ELECTIONS

In local elections to be held in March 2019, we will take a stand against all establishment parties as a party. We will achieve this end by satisfying all additional rules imposed by the Supreme Electoral Council arbitrarily far and above.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY

Central Committee

Communist parties invite Turkish people to vote independent candidates

As the communist and workers’ parties listed below, we condemn the Turkish government’s fait accompli in the strongest way possible, which prevented the Communist Party of Turkey from running for the elections on June 24th as one of the candidate parties.

We call on the people of Turkey for refusing to choose between one or another actor of the capitalist order. We invite you all to vote for the independent candidates of “This Social Order Must Change” Platform and to raise the flag of socialism in and after the elections. Do not let the bourgeoisie to hold your future in their hands!

We express our comradely support and solidarity to all independent candidates running for the upcoming elections under the “This Social Order Must Change” Platform, that have taken the responsibility to serve as the source of hope and voice for the working class of Turkey.

PARTIES THAT SUPPORTED THE APPEAL TILL NOW

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS)

Communist Party of Brazil

Communist Party of Britain

Communist Party in Denmark

Communist Party of Greece

Hungarian Workers’ Party

Communist Party of India

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

TUDEH Party of Iran

Workers Party of Ireland

Communist Party (Italy)

Jordanian Communist Party

Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan

Lebanese Communist Party

Communist Party of Luxembourg

Communist Party of Mexico

New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Communist Party of Norway

Communist Party of Pakistan

Palestinian Communist Party

Palestinian Peoples Party

Philippine Communist Party [PKP-1930]

Russian Communist Workers Party

Communist Party of Russian Federation

South African Communist Party

Communist Party of Spain

Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain

Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain

Communist Party of Sweden

Syrian Communist Party

Communist Party of Ukraine

Communist Party of Venezuela

Message of support from Communist Party of Greece, KKE to Turkey’s communist candidates: This social order must change!

Sunday, 10 June, KKE sent a solidarity message to Turkey’s ‘This Social Order Must Change Platform’ and its communist candidates for the June 24 elections

 

 

 

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on Sunday expresses its support for Turkey’s ‘This Social Order Must Change Platform’ and the platform’s communist candidates. The message comes in the run-up to legislative elections on June 24.

The KKE Secretary-General, Dimitris Kutsumbas have read the support letter to 17 candidates of This Social Order Must Change Platform.

“The Greek workers are on the Turkish working people, with the struggles of our peoples we can create a region without monopolies, without exploitation, without racism and wars,” Kutsumbas said in a video message.

“The Communist Party of Greece expresses its international solidarity with the Communist Party of Turkey, supports its electoral campaign This Social Order Must Change and its independent candidates. The exploitation of labour from capital, the attack on labour-popular rights, poverty, unemployment, refugees, wars show that there is no ‘good’ capitalism, this is confirmed by our experience in Greece and the anti-popular SYRIZA government,” Kutsumbas says in the video message.  

My voting district, the city of Izmir, there are two parliamentary candidates of TKP. One of them, Kemal Okuyan from the second voting district of Izmir, Karsiyaka. The second one is psychiatrist Dr. Deniz Arik Binbay from the first voting district. As far as I have seen until today, both them are really hard working for elections. They are trying to reach almost every corner of the city. They are preparing for the election day, despite of financial shortcomings, as a party that does not receive any monetary aid, especially according to the election law with both these two candidates and the TKP members’ self-sacrificing activities. I am sure the other 15 candidates of TKP at the other cities are working at the same conditions and with same effort.

My earthling friends, more or less know Kemal Okuyan due to my previous posts.  I want to mention a little the other candidate Dr. D. Arik Binbay. She is both warm and rational, and also an energetic and enjoyful person, according to my impressions.

The people can see her one day while she is cycling,

Or on another day, when she is chatting with an elderly man in public bazaar,

Or when she is singing Bella Ciao in a concert,

 

Yapıcılar konserinde bir sürpriz…

İzmir'de güzel ve kızıl çiçekler açtırabilmek için buradayız, bir aradayız. İzmir'den, ülkemize ve dünyaya umudu yükselteceğiz ve bu düzeni önünde sonunda değiştireceğiz. Nâzım'ın da dediği gibi umut insanda!!

Çav Bella! #BuDüzenDeğişmeli pic.twitter.com/IdXc6SkQFo

— Deniz Arık Binbay (@denizarikbinbay) May 26, 2018

Her performance is not so bad. 😉 But I have liked the most, her speaking in an interview:

Translation in English:

“As a psychiatrist, as a physician, as a mother, as a woman in this society I have always been someone who struggling and heal people. But I always saw that to heal people by one by was not enough. You can not heal people who are oppressed in order, by giving them a medicine. Profession of a doctor is the same way again; that is, we can not be enough individually, even if we do all the things we best while the problems of public health continue and people are pulling to the bottom. This is a ridiculous system. Someone has to fix this… We decided to start from somewhere to change this order.”

(She continues to speak with refering to the parties which are opposed to the ruling party after this point. In other words, it is an example speech for the billions of people in the world who feel obliged to vote for political parties that do opposition inside system, and voting for them is not an exit from system but a cycle. My opinion, this is the most important part of her words.)

“It is said that there is a being trapped, and let’s just get rid of them. Of course we understand that on the one hand. But we do not think it is possible to relax without changing this order. Some people come to us, some of our patients say that my sleep is out of order, I feel very tired myself, I feel very unhappy. We can not look at the real reasons for this. We can say that it is a temporary relief. “Here you take this pills,” we can say you can relax. But if this person is going to work the next day, if he(or she) is working 12-14 hours, when he goes home in the evening, if he does not have enough energy and time to spare his children, if he can not produce enough, if his produce is exploited, if he does not get the right he deserves, he will be tired. So people who work for this country, people who make money with labor, continue to be exploited, but this order would change just a little. Is that it? I do not think it is.”

 

GS of Communist Party of Turkey: Shut down the NATO bases, withdraw from the alliance

“What hinders Turkey from challenging NATO is the big monopolies, which are ruling and looting Turkey today. In the final analysis, the bourgeois politics, including Islamists, nationalists, social democrats and liberals, can do nothing in defiance of the big monopolies”

Friday, 24 November 2017 , SoL international

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), soL columnist, Kemal Okuyan wrote an article on November 22 regarding the recent Turkey-NATO/U.S. row sparked with the appearance of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s name in a list of enemies on a poster at a NATO drill. 

“Your anti-NATO stance has not lasted even two days,” yelled [Turkish journalist] Nihat Genç in his column on Odatv. He meant the nationalists who began to say “We are being entrapped, we are deviating from the West to Eurasia,” just after they bullied the U.S. and NATO.

Several times we have responded to the question, “What is nationalism?”, but let us put it here again so that what we are going to say can be more apparent:

Nationalism means not seeing your nation’s faults. In other words, showing tolerance towards the thieves, exploiters and tyrants of your own nation…

It differs from patriotism. Patriotism is the will of freeing your country from the thieves, unjust people, exploiters and tyrants.

For this very reason, our nationalists get difficulty in challenging the U.S. and NATO or fall into hesitation whilst scolding the “Western imperialism”.

What is NATO?

Everyone says that NATO is an international organization in the service of the U.S. imperialism’s interests, which is a true description still with a huge deficiency. NATO was established in order to protect the whole capitalist system, the terrible social system dominating almost all the world including Turkey.

That is to say, NATO is an organization of capitalists. It is a giant terror organization which attacks the working class and progressive movements for the interests of capitalists. 

This is the essence of the matter even though the U.S. is attempting to use it so as to protect its interests within the imperialist system.

From Islamists to nationalists, from liberals to conservatives, all the right-wing in Turkey has been pro-NATO from past to present. This is not only because of Americanism; to put it more precisely, the interests of the exploitative system underlie Americanism and pro-NATO stance in Turkey.

Today, the question is: can Turkey’s existing system deviate from NATO to position itself into the axis of Eurasia?

This is possible in some aspects. Because the Eurasian axis is part of the current imperialist system, and is nothing but a loose alliance composed of some countries where the capitalist exploitation is maintained with the same fierceness and unruliness. For instance, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics does not exist anymore in there; quite the contrary, the capitalist Russia exists!

In the case of Turkey, the number of capitalists may be increasing, who think that shifting to the Eurasian axis would provide some opportunities for energy sources, investment areas and new markets; moreover, that it could be easier to cut the workers’ rights as they get rid of the West’s hypocrite blackmailing about “human rights” and “democracy”.

Nevertheless…

Such are fluttering ideas, which are not adequate enough for Erdoğan to carry Turkey in confrontation with the U.S. and Germany from bargaining level to the scale of an axis shift so as to save himself.

In today’s Turkey, there is no required infrastructure and preparation for the existing system to break with NATO, the U.S.-Germany-led system of alliance albeit the deep crisis of the alliance in question.

The nationalists stand bound hand and foot. Some of them are just mouthing off in a rush to strengthen Erdoğan’s hand, and charmed by the irresistible weight of turning themselves from the finest example of Americanism into “Down with the U.S.” in one night. They somehow are accustomed to dancing to another tune. If tomorrow Erdoğan leaves the bargaining table with Turkey’s “great harmonization with NATO and the U.S.”, they may do the gulu gulu dance*.

Let us repeat that what hinders Turkey from challenging NATO is the big monopolies, which are ruling and looting Turkey today. In the final analysis, the bourgeois politics, including Islamists, nationalists, social democrats and liberals, can do nothing in defiance of the big monopolies. Proving that he could do everything to save himself, Nor could Erdoğan do anything. If he does, he will have to bear the consequences.

Without getting rid of the exploitative class, Turkey’s fight with NATO seems like coming out on the pitch with a team all the players of which get involved in match-fixing with the opposing team.

Despite all, what is to be done if the tension with the U.S. and NATO escalates because of Erdoğan or any other reason?

What should be done is simple; the authentic confrontation lies between Turkey’s working class and NATO, between the working class and imperialism. It is necessary to get the issue free from a confrontation between Erdoğan and NATO. It is necessary to reveal today’s dirty bargaining, to show by whom and by which class Americanism became a state politics, and to struggle in order to immediately get rid of whatsoever paving the way for coups or intervention in internal affairs.

If you are in power, you cannot struggle against NATO without withdrawing from it. One cannot challenge NATO as long as the NATO troops exist in this country. It would be futile to say “Turkey is a prestigious member of NATO” while instructing some incompetent spin-doctors to pen articles, “We will wage a war with the U.S.”.

Shut down the bases, withdraw from NATO, inform the people about the entire secret agreements signed with the NATO terror organization and the ongoing covert operations.

Then, we will provide support to the full extent.

In any case, it would be good to see this organization, which has always plotted against humanity, crack or suffer.

It is good because the capitalist system would be weaker, more defenceless and fragile against the working class without the NATO umbrella. It would be difficult to remain injustices, tyranny and inequalities. It would be impossible to discipline awakening people with the “NATO stick”.

This is the matter with the right-wing. This is the matter with the capitalists.

Na to kefali, na to marmaro, “here is the head, here is the marble”, is a Greek phrase, the Turkish interpretation of which fits very well:

NATO kafa, NATO mermer!**

*Okuyan refers to Turkey’s former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, one of the leaders of political Islam and President Erdoğan’s predecessor Welfare Party. Erbakan is known with his renowned description of political protestors at the time: “like children doing the gulu gulu dance”.

**The Greek phrase’s Turkish version, which is literally connoted as “NATO head, NATO marble”, is used to describe the “thickhead” people. As a sort of mumpsimus, many people in Turkey erroneously relate the phrase with the abbreviation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Playing with the words here, Okuyan refers to the negative impact of the word “NATO” in Turkey.

 

For the generations who have free ideas and free conscience…

November 10, is the day of 79th death anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who is founder of Republic Turkey.

Today, Communist Party of Turkey issued a statement for the 79th death anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

“With respect…

If Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became a historical leader, there are historical reasons for that.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for ruining imperialist plans of sharing the Anatolia after the First World War.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for foreseeing the end of the Ottoman Empire.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for taking the risk of abolishing the Sultanate and Caliphate.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for using his personal authority fully to establish a secular Republic.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for establishing a friendly relationship based on mutual interests with the Soviet Union.

Mustafa Kemal is a historical leader for taking progressive steps and speeding up the flow of history.

On the 79th anniversary of his death, those who are holding ceremonies with fake cries and heroic speeches without mentioning these reasons making him a historical leader and without confessing that all these progressive achievements are gone are hypocritical liars. We will denounce them.

On the other hand, those who don’t want to see the fact that independence, secularism, sovereignty and republicanism can’t coexist with an exploitation order will keep getting disappointed. Our call to them is as follows: ‘If you really want a secular, independent and sovereign Republic, you must fight to overthrow this social system dominated by big monopolies.’

Turkey is not in the 1920s. The social structure of the country and the circumstances have deeply changed. The bosses were just growing at the time. Now we live under the domination of an exploiting class that steals, ravages, plunders everything inside the country and endangers not only our people but whole world for their regional ambitions.

Now, this exploiting class will either be overthrown or the darkness will deepen. The material conditions of socialism were very weak in 1923 in comparison to now. Therefore, Mustafa Kemal and his friends made a different choice. As for now, we don’t have any other choice than socialism for the future of our country. Turkey will certainly meet with that choice.

With this consciousness and determination, on November 10, 2017, with respect to Mustafa Kemal…”

Communist Party of Turkey