Letters

79 years

The Communist Party of Turkey was formed on September 10 1920, reflecting the ethnic mixture of the working class. Since its founding days it contained workers from all Balkan and Caucasian nationalities, Arab and Kurdish workers, alongside Turkish workers. The CPT learned from its own experience the necessity of organising on the basis of proletarian internationalism.

In the past 10 years, which we call the New Era, we have witnessed extraordinary changes and shifts in the balance of forces throughout the world. We have lived through almost bloodless counterrevolutions culminating in the re-establishment of capitalism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Thus world imperialism and more specifically the USA rid itself of the force it regarded as a threat to its existence for 70 years. Furthermore the world acquired a monocentric structure and imperialism entered a phase of unbounded aggression. The US started dictating its political and economic intents onto the peoples of the world. International laws and agreements were never trampled upon as they have been for the past 10 years.

As Fidel Castro pointed out, this situation, bar one or two countries with specific circumstances, has prohibited armed propaganda as the primary strategy of struggle throughout the world. Under these circumstances, a communist party which has gained the active, and even armed, support of the masses has to calculate how to resist imperialism’s armed intervention in order to make political revolution. Imperialism will invariably take its place alongside the bourgeoisie of the country reflecting its interests. The strangulation of revolutions is not a new feature as such. What is new today is the fact that it has become the rule regardless.

Given the present state of affairs, a communist party which has as its mission the opening of a path to the classless society through achieving revolution in its own country has to develop its strategy according to the demands of the new situation, and struggle for the strengthening of the international communist movement. To struggle against imperialism solely within our own borders can only mean defeat from the word go.

Turkey is also affected by the new conditions as well as the internal dynamics of the country. A serious economic crisis (recession) took hold in 1993. The crisis culminated in the worst economic decline for 50 years. Per capita income fell from $3,004 in 1993 to $2,193 in 1994. This in turn resulted in a severe political crisis. The unity of purpose of the bourgeoisie fell to pieces. The bourgeoisie lost its ability to govern. The people openly confronted the government, took to the streets. Turkey lived through a most successful May Day rally and the Gazi uprising (a working class district of Istanbul). There was a revolutionary situation.

A new economic revival started from the second quarter of 1995. The economy expanded at an average pace of seven percent through the three years 1995-1997. The economy continued to grow at a pace of 4.5% through 1998, despite world economic recession and reduced demand from Russia.

The prevailing circumstances removed all three prerequisites of the revolutionary situation. On the other hand, the existing economic and political circumstances in the country put Turkey on a knife edge. The balance could easily shift and rapidly give rise to a political crisis.

We are witnessing important developments in the Kurdish question, which is a topic carefully followed by all fraternal parties and revolutionaries in the world. The death sentence passed on Abdullah Ocalan is an attempt to continue the Turkish bourgeoisie’s 70-year-long policy of denial. Unfortunately, Ocalan’s stand in the court helped them enormously.

During the trial, Ocalan continuously attacked the European countries, but he never criticised the USA, even though it was the USA which delivered him to the Turkish oligarchy. Maybe this was because the Kurdish question is developing according to a US ‘solution’, and the trial and testimony of Ocalan helped create public support for this. The aim is to destroy the revolutionary dynamic and to restore stability.

The ‘leader country of the region’ idea, which is put forward by Ocalan and the presidential council of the PKK, is part of this ‘solution’. They are offering Turkey the possibility of opening out into the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans. The PKK’s talk about “reaching out” is, in fact, an appeal to the USA. The PKK knows very well that Turkey is the subcontractor of the USA in the regions listed.

Ocalan is trying to present his proposals under the title of ‘The manifesto of the 21st century’, which he formulated as a “democratic republic”. This proposal would not scare the Turkish state, because it legitimises it. This is the ‘solution to the Turkish question’ proposed by imperialism.

This trial will take its place in Kurdish history as a sorry episode. It opens the door unilaterally to the worst sort of ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’. The Turkish state used the trial of Ocalan to condemn the Kurdish nation. It is the Turkish state that denies the existence of the Kurdish nation, that robs them of their national rights. In the last 15 years, over 20,000 Kurdish people have been murdered and almost five million of them have been forced to evacuate their homes at gunpoint.

If there is to be an honourable peace for the Kurdish people, it can only be based on an unconditional recognition of the rights of the Kurdish nation. The real emancipation of the Kurdish people can only be achieved through a struggle in unity with the Turkish working class and people against Turkish imperialism.

In the face of this new state of affairs, which has become clearly evident in the last few years, our party has already taken the steps necessary to adjust its organisational work to the new circumstances. Our 10th Congress, assembled a couple of months ago, following its conclusions about the existing nature of things, decided that the present-day concept of organisation should fall within the framework of the following guidelines.

Our party, which adheres to the principle of democratic centralism, will further promote the democratic aspect in this period. In accordance with this, the party organs will elect their own secretariats. Freedom of speech for different views will be enhanced in the party organs. Party organisations have been given the right to publish local publications.

Open democratic work will be carried out in all available platforms and new bodies will be established in areas deemed necessary. While doing this, however, it is vitally important not to fall into the trap of legalism.

The new period will be the era where new ideas and new theoretical solutions will come to the forefront. It is vitally important to carry out organisational work around the books and publications we are going to publish on this basis.

Communist Party of Turkey

Sikorski victim

Further to the article by Simon Harvey (Weekly Worker August 28), I was one of those voided from SLP membership by Pat Sikorski, so I cannot grieve deeply about his fate in the RMT. As someone who hoped that the foundation of the SLP was an attempt to unite the left, I had subscribed before the constitution was written, writing to the SLP telling them that I was an anarchist. I was voided for not having signed the (unwritten) constitution.

Laurens Otter
Shropshire

Unhinged

In December of last year, I wrote a short letter on the relative number of visitors to websites of the CPGB and Workers Power (Weekly Worker December 10 1998). While both had been up for comparable periods of time, the CPGB’s 13,000 hits dwarfed the measly 400 on the WP site.

This alone effectively popped WP’s pretensions of size and influence. Clearly, someone in WP thought so too and resolved that something had to be done about it.

So, in the 10 months since I wrote my original letter, the counter prominently displayed on the CPGB site tells us our score has gone up to 26,000. I suspect WP’s counter might have told us a rather more modest story, but now we will never know.

It has simply been removed. Clearly, even being open about the number of people visiting (or rather not visiting) their site was too much for this self-obsessed sect. Maintaining the fiction of its importance is clearly a strain, especially when your website screams something very different at you every time you open it. Rather than confront its true face, WP prefers to live in a world without mirrors. It is in the process of becoming slightly unhinged, if you ask me.

Paul Williams
Sheffield