05.06.2025

Defeat or victory?

Erdoğan is not interested in democracy or Kurdish national rights. Arguably, the PKK’s guerrilla war served his interests. Esen Uslu puts the case for class politics and exploiting legal opportunities. However, if you talk of ‘defeat’, must you support the resumption of armed struggle?

The conclusion of Yassamine Mather’s article, ‘Kurdish entanglements’, featured in last week’s edition of Weekly Worker, asserts the following:

The dissolution of the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] and the [Syrian Democratic Forces’] agreement with the Syrian government are hailed by some optimists as a ‘victory’. I strongly disagree with that assessment. In reality, the repeated strategic missteps of both organisations have once again resulted in a defeat - not only for the Kurdish people, but also for the broader left in the region.¹

This line of thinking is quite widespread among the Turkish left - mainly among the organisations standing aloof from the Kurdish freedom movement. However, it is also evident in some organisations that collaborate closely with the PKK.

For example, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), which has its roots in Maoism and Enverism from the 1970s and 1980s, formed a joint front with the PKK in 2016, called the Peoples United Revolutionary Movement (HBDH), together with 10 other organisations. The MLKP has also sent militants to fight in defence of Rojava in Syria as part of the International Freedom Battalion.

The Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) was allegedly formed as a spinoff of the MLKP to engage in legal Turkish politics. In 2014, the ESP joined the People’s Democratic Party (HDP). One of its prominent founding members, Figen Yüksekdağ, served as co-chair of the HDP alongside Selahattin Demirtaş from 2014 to 2017. Yüksekdağ was elected as an MP and served until parliament revoked her immunity, after which she was sentenced to 30 years in prison (and Selahattin Demirtaş was given a 42-year sentence). Two ESP members who were elected on the Peoples Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) ticket are still serving as MPs.

After the PKK held its congress and disbanded the organisation, the central committee of the MLKP issued a declaration that set out some of the main objections to the line of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan adopted at the congress. The declaration contains nine points of rejection and concludes with a call to resume armed struggle. I am unable to find an official translation, but the following excerpts from the Turkish document cover the main points:

An end to armed struggle and free organisation with an unwritten agreement that does not include basic national democratic rights - such as education in a mother tongue, national autonomy, the unconditional release of prisoners of war, the return of all guerrilla forces and political exiles to Northern Kurdistan without precondition, the formal handing over of weapons to this or that interlocutor - is the acceptance of an unjust and undemocratic peace …

The resolution opens the scope for the fascist-colonialist enemy’s policy of imposing the mentality and practice of surrender …

The new strategic line is liquidationist and reformist …

Theses such as the “influence of real socialism”, the “denial [of the existence of Kurds] have been crumbled since the Özal era”, “organisational-ideological meaninglessness and repetitiveness” are the expressions of the theorisation of the reformist new strategy and line …

It has a reformist character based on the denial and rejection of the achievement of the Union of Soviet Republics on the basis of full equality of rights of nations, which was the accomplishment of the October revolution …

Revolution is impossible as long as the oppressed are condemned to fight with their bare fists against guns, tanks and cannons …

We call on the working class, toilers, women, youth, the poor, the oppressed in Kurdistan and Turkey to shoulder the struggle carried out by all means and forms - legal and illegal, peaceful and mass violence, armed and unarmed; to unite, organise and fight in this orientation.²

As you can see, they are not criticising the PKK resolution by talking about Syria and the SDF’s shortcomings, as Yassamine Mather’s article did. They went straight for the jugular of the resolution or ‘Öcalan’s line’. They claim that ending the armed struggle is defeatist and the end of revolutionary activity. In their view, the reasoning behind this change of heart is a denial of the accomplishments of the USSR, a renunciation of national rights and the disarming of working people in the face of an enemy with superior firepower.

Missing point

Duran Kalkan, one of the PKK leaders based in the Qandil Mountains, was the first to respond to the said declaration. He said:

Some people are trying to tell the PKK about war, to give war lectures. They want to give us lessons on guerrillas; they talk about how important and meaningful it is to fight. This organisation, the PKK, has waged armed struggle for 48 years, and has been waging uninterrupted guerrilla warfare for 41 years. Everyone should look at their own reality before uttering such words.

When the PKK wants to end this armed resistance, they say that the PKK has moved away from revolutionary politics. The level of violence does not determine whether a method of struggle is revolutionary or not. Those who say, ‘The method that includes armed violence is revolutionary; the method which does not include armed violence is reformism’ are wrong.

However, the issue runs much deeper than that. The transition to a struggle using legal and lawful political means, plus new forms of organisation and tactics, is much more difficult and requires great sacrifices. This struggle must be waged in front of the enemy, seizing every opportunity and using the rules set by the state against them.

Resolution

What is not understood - or perhaps not wanted - is that the end of the armed struggle does not equate to the recognition of Kurdish status or rights, nor does it constitute a step towards resolving the Kurdish question. The struggle continues and will continue. It will just take different legal and political forms. The state will resort to all kinds of tricks again. We should not be under any illusions.

Nevertheless, it is crucial to adopt tactics and forms of struggle and organisation that exploit legal avenues. Only such a change can break the vicious circle, remove large sections of the population from the state’s control, and pave the way for empowerment and the creation of new opportunities.

The legal Kurdish political movement had abandoned the idea of winning over and organising the wider Turkish population. It was focused on the state and the government. This approach has now been abandoned, and the idea of organising the Turkish population based on their specific issues and encouraging them to participate in the struggle can be adopted. Breaking the vicious circle could produce strong results in the shortest possible time.

The end of the armed struggle is not a compromise, in which the state grants certain rights in exchange for others. Rather, it is about the fact that the armed struggle has become an obstacle and a burden to the formation of a democratic movement in Turkey. In other words, one form of struggle is being abandoned in favour of another. It is a transition to a defensive tactic involving retreat and an expansion of the front, as well as taking advantage of the smallest legal and democratic rights. Fighting under the enemy’s terms is avoided: the enemy is forced to fight under our terms.

This is not a ‘peace process’, as understood by some in DEM and other Kurdish organisations, as well as liberal and democratic circles. They continue to describe the cessation of the armed struggle as a solution and a peace process. The PKK foresaw this, as set out in the congress resolution:

We firmly believe that our people will understand the decision to dissolve the PKK and end the method of armed struggle better than anyone and will embrace the responsibilities of the democratic struggle era, based on building a democratic society. It is of vital importance that our people, led by women and youth, build their self-organisations in all areas of life, organise on the basis of self-sufficiency through their language, identity and culture, become self-defensive in the face of attacks, and build a communal democratic society with a spirit of mobilisation.³

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not interested in this strategic turnaround, because he knows that the previous situation served his interests and that an end to the armed struggle could strengthen a democratic opposition movement in Turkey.

His project can essentially be defined as follows: recognise the Kurds culturally, not politically; support them culturally (ie, outside the political sphere); and take them ‘under your protection’. Politically, do not make any concessions, such as recognition, and do not take a step back. However, in the economic and administrative spheres, the aim is to create a class of collaborators by pampering and nourishing the Kurds, seducing them with vacancies and tenders, and transforming them from people who demand equal citizenship and written rights, and who fight for them, into subjects who expect special treatment from the state. This programme has no democratic character whatsoever. In other words, it aims to establish a similar relationship with the Kurds as that between the Turkish state and Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 2005-17.

In a sense, this plan can be viewed as a more à la turque version of the rights and restrictions that the European Union imposes on minorities. It also puts Turkey in a stronger position during negotiations with the EU. However, the Turkish state must stop the armed struggle in order to implement this plan.

The main danger to the Erdoğan regime is the prospect of even the slightest democratisation. It is not ‘partition’ that the Turkish state fears: its greatest fear is democracy, freedom and citizens with full rights. In fact, the regime was aware that Öcalan was pursuing a strategy to end the armed struggle and continue the fight on political and legal grounds. This is precisely why the state blocked all contact with him after 2015 and kept him in isolation. It was only the changed international circumstances that drove them to act in parallel.

Where next?

To conclude, laying down arms does not signify defeat for the movement. In fact, if this decision had not been made, it could have suffered serious defeats.

The first rule of guerrilla warfare is to blend in with the local population. You must live among the villagers. There are no villages left in the region. In Turkey, depopulation means that villages are empty, so obviously guerrillas cannot be stationed there. The guerrillas still had a moral function, but even that was diminishing.

In the past, when the movement began, a significant proportion of the Kurdish population were peasants and nomads. However, due to the setting of forest fires, the construction of dams to block gorge passageways through high mountains, the destruction of villages and overall displacement, they no longer exist.

Today, the majority of Kurds live in the ghettos of Istanbul and other metropolitan cities - the lower sections of the working class are often Kurdish. Therefore, Kurds in metropolitan areas have relatively significant influence. Because of their economic position, they have a class structure that can be much more consistently democratic and revolutionary, protecting the movement from deviations.

How should we organise them? That is the question. The armed struggle provided an obstacle to this. In this respect, therefore, its ending was not a defeat: on the contrary, it was a very clever manoeuvre at the right time. This marks the beginning of a new breakthrough.

A change in tactics in the late 1990s resulted in the establishment of the largest democratic party in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the guerrilla movement continued to exist. Against the backdrop of changing conditions in Syria, the People’s Defence Units (YPG) suddenly emerged in Syria. Thanks to their strategic decision to become a political force in Turkey, they have become a significant player in the Turkish opposition today. While this is a small victory for Öcalan’s political line, the road ahead is long and arduous, full of pitfalls and traps.

Make no mistake: the PKK resolution will not lead to democratisation - there is actually a very fierce class struggle within the Kurdish movement. However, the language of this struggle is different. None of this is easily understood by an outside observer.

In terms of class, the core of the PKK - or the Kurdish freedom movement - is made up of workers, young people and women. They are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Because of this, the Kurdish bourgeoisie has not been able to take control.

‘What does the government do?’ ‘What does parliament do?’ - that is not our problem. Our problem is changing the agenda, which would be a revolution in itself. DEM needs to reorganise itself. It must adopt a new statute and organisational structure, based on individual rights and democratic practices. In other words, it needs to be a party where every organ is elected, where various opinions are discussed and where there are no impositions. Secondly, it needs to transform itself politically. It should not be in the position of a facilitator or mediator. It should ask itself, ‘How can I take the lead and organise the opposition?’

1. ‘Kurdish entanglements’, May 29: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1540/kurdish-entanglements.↩︎

2. For the Turkish version of the declaration, see serbestiyet.com/featured/pkknin-fesih-kararina-muttefiki-mlkpdentepki-kurdistan-ve-turkiye-isci-sinifini-ezilenleri-savasmaya-cagiriyoruz-209285.↩︎

3. For the PKK’s ‘Statement on disbanding’ resolution, see bianet.org/haber/full-text-pkks-statement-on-disbanding-decision-307344.↩︎