26.01.2012

Postscript to demise

Esen Uslu recounts the sad story of the Communist Party of Turkey

The English version of the liberal-cum-conservative-Islamist daily Zaman (Times), Today’s Zaman, recently published an article about a new Communist Party of Turkey (TKP).^[1] I read it with some amusement, but when my comrades from the Weekly Worker enquired as to my opinion, I felt obliged to return to a subject on which I have refrained from writing for so long.

Let me give a brief history of the TKP. Despite all its pretence of a long and glorious history, the party as we knew it in the 70s and 80s was a quite recent phenomenon. It was formed in the early 70s in a move known as the ‘leap forward’, after the name of the monthly newspaper Atilim, which appeared in the autumn of 1974. The effort was led by the remnants of the former external bureau of the central committee, which had been defunct for years.

Invented tradition

The article in Today’s Zaman referred to the “TKP tradition” by using the name of the website, From Suphi to Bilen the tradition is alive,^[2] which campaigns for the creation of a new TKP. Mustafa Suphi was a founding leader of the TKP, while ?smail Bilen became secretary general in 1974. However, such a tradition has never existed - it is just an invention.

Suphi was one of those who took part in the Baku Congress of Peoples of the East in 1920. Shortly after, in September 1920, the TKP held its founding congress and Suphi was elected president of the party. However, he and his 15 comrades were murdered on their way from Russia to Turkey by the covert forces of the nationalist government. The brutal killings have stood as a constant reminder of the nature of the Turkish regime to generations of communists.

At this time the imperialist occupation of Istanbul and other industrial centres was continuing, and as a result the TKP in seaboard Turkey and the TKP in central Anatolia were practically two different organisations. Bringing them together in a single, united party was the order of day after the independence and unification of Turkey. But this was the beginning of the period which saw the compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the repression of Armenians and Jews, the uprising in Kurdistan, and the ongoing terror of the nationalist government directed against the party. The TKP never had a chance to set up a stable organisation, let alone forge a tradition.

And, of course, the TKP blindly followed the twists and turns of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To cut a long story short, in 1937 the Communist International adapted a resolution to decentralise the TKP, which practically put party activity on hold till the end of World War II.

The party emerged again as an organisation in the late 40s at a time when Turkey was experimenting with multi-party democracy. But soon after the newly formed legal parties were crushed in a new wave of arrests and trials, and the TKP’s attempt to reorganise illegally was wrecked in 1951, when a large number of party comrades, including leading members of the central committee, were arrested. After a show trial they were sentenced to imprisonment, followed by internal exile.

Some members escaped and joined the external bureau, which was given a new lease of life following the meeting of communist and workers’ parties in 1958. However, until the late 60s TKP activity was more or less restricted to daily radio broadcasts from East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. Although a new wave of working class activity was building up in Turkey, the external bureau was completely cut off from it.

The tension produced by this situation led to splits. While a handful of leading members were at the forefront of the new left movement in the 60s, by the early 70s, almost all members of the central committee who remained in Turkey were dead. In view of this the external bureau assumed the title of central committee, while its secretary was now referred to as general secretary of the party, which had not had a congress since the 30s.

‘Leap forward’

So, when orders were passed down from Moscow to organise once more in Turkey, the remnants of the external bureau took charge of the effort known as the ‘leap forward’.

The broad plan was to work among Turkish migrant workers across Europe, using the organisations created as a kind of bridgehead to make inroads into mainland Turkey. The migrant workers’ associations had been divided into rival bodies taking their lead from various political parties. But some quite influential organisations were swayed by the TKP - it was, after all, the representative of the political line of the CPSU.

Apart from the comrades from the migrant communities, a group of former members of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (T?P), which was banned following the March 12 1971 military intervention, took part in the effort. Among them were former members of the Socialist Youth Organisation (SGO), which was associated with the T?P, mainly in the Ankara region. One of the most well known names from that organisation was Riza Yürüko?lu, who moved to London during the post-March 12 terror days and formed the nucleus of a TKP branch there.

Another grouping that took part in the new organising effort was also from the T?P, but mainly from the Istanbul region. It had its origins in the students’ organisation, the Federation of Opinion Associations (FKF), in the late 60s. The FKF was transformed into Dev Genç, the Federation of Revolutionary Youth of Turkey, just before the March 12 coup.

To their credit these comrades helped organise working class struggle during the years of terror, helping to bring together leading workers in the trade union movement, especially in Disk, the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey. They were known as the Partisan group, since they published a short-lived newspaper of that name while they were in charge of the T?P branch in one of the central districts of Istanbul. One of the most celebrated names within that grouping was Haydar Kutlu, who was to become the TKP secretary general in 1983.

We must take a brief detour to mention the new leadership of Dev Genç. It organised two armed guerrilla organisations: namely, the Popular Liberation Army of Turkey (THKO) and the Popular Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C). Those short-lived organisations took part in armed actions and its partisans were gunned down or hanged in the terror days. When a general amnesty was declared in 1974, the remnants of THKO gradually came closer to the Maoist movement, while THKP-C supporters split into many groups.

One of those splinter groups was organised around the Genç Öncü (Young Pioneer) newspaper and a youth organisation called the GSB, the Association of Young Socialists. They participated in the efforts to organise the TKP in Turkey later than the above-mentioned organisations, but they brought a new spate of experienced comrades with good connections with the youth movement into the fold.

Those were the main participants of the TKP reorganisation on Turkish soil. Some comrades who joined the party in various European countries returned to Turkey, and assumed leading roles in illegal organisations. The bulk of cadres were from the Partisan group and Genç Öncü, especially in the youth movement.

What bound these groups together was the general political line and support provided by the CPSU. During the initial days of the ‘leap forward’ a document called the third programme was drawn up. However, given the experiences of Turkey’s left during the heightened political struggles of the late 60s and early 70s, it was already out of date.

Despite a few weak protests, the third programme formed the basis of a coming together of those groups, but in reality it was not used as a basis for party activities. The various sections tended to follow their own programmes in a pragmatic manner. The third programme was not a sufficient basis upon which to amalgamate such a wide range of groupings.

This lack of theoretical and programmatic clarity started to show itself manifestly when the organisation began to grow quite rapidly. On May Day 1976, the first open demonstration against the regime, there were less than 50 members of the TKP within Turkey. However, a year later numbers had greatly increased. But the centre was not capable of handling such growth either organisationally or ideologically.

What the centre did manage to achieve was the organisation of the 1977 Konya conference - named after the central Anatolian town, although it was actually held in Moscow. The confusion among leading party bodies, and the discord between the TKP and CPSU, became apparent after the conference. The secretary general’s speech to the conference contained references to barricades, etc, which fitted the mood of the comrades who had come from Turkey, but many comrades in leading positions were followers of the Soviet line and got extremely irritated.

In order to rectify the lack of theory and absence of any kind of useful programme comrade Yürüko?lu was brought onto the party’s ideological bureau, but this quickly led to a split just before the September 12 fascist coup.

After September 12

The dismal performance of the party during the terror years partly resulted from the bringing together of various groups without paying adequate attention to ideological unity. Branch organisations simply collapsed, and prominent cadres were withdrawn from Turkey. The idea of a new, ‘decentralised’ party grew, an idea that represented organisational paralysis.

?smail Bilen died in 1983, and a struggle over the leadership resulted in further splits. It was in this situation that the idea of uniting all the workers’ parties was proposed, and in late 1987 the TKP and Workers’ Party of Turkey simultaneously dissolved themselves, forming the United Communist Party of Turkey in early 1988 with a view to organising legally within the country. The two new leaders of the UCPT returned to Turkey in a bid to force the hand of the government and remove the ban on communist parties, but they ended up in jail.

Eventually they were released and a legal UCPT was formed in June 1990. However, the constitutional court banned the party in 1991 before it had had the chance to develop any kind of organisational life. But it had held its first legal congress in Turkey, where it was resolved that the UCPT should itself be dissolved in order to participate in the formation of the Socialist Unity Party (SBP), along with remnants of the Socialist Workers Party of Turkey (TS?P) and a group split from the Maoist Socialist Party.

The SBP limped into life, winning a derisory vote in local elections, but in 1995 it too fell foul of the constitutional court. The remnants of the organisation took part in formation of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), which was formed as a broad church of various political organisations maintaining their own independent organisational structure. However, gradually one of the groups started to dominate the rest, and more splits followed - one of the recurring features of this whole sad story.

Another aspect of that sad story was the demise of I?çinin Sesi (Workers’ Voice). After the split in 1979, the London organisation of the TKP formed a temporary coordination committee, and started organising as an alternative party. It was among the groups that bore the brunt of the post-September 12 terror.

I?çinin Sesi took part in various attempts to organise in Turkey during the upsurge of working class struggle in the late 80s, and later in the rejuvenated movement of the Alevi religious and cultural community. However, in the days of reaction ushered in by the collapse of the Soviet Union it slowly disintegrated, especially after the untimely death of its leader.

Legality

Meanwhile, a group that had split from the T?P in 1978 had gathered around a monthly journal called Sosyalist ?ktidar (Socialist Power). It had published 11 issues by September 12.

Following the fascist years it reappeared under the name of Gelenek (Tradition), which was a major force behind the formation of the Socialist Party of Turkey (STP). Like so many others before it the STP was banned by the constitutional court in 1993. The same year the party was re-formed under the name of Socialist Power Party (S?P) - a reference to its 1970s name.

In 2001 the S?P renamed itself the TKP, tapping into the widespread desire to see a legal communist party. After many vacillations it ended up as a nationalist-socialist organisation seeking recognition among the remnants of ‘official communism’ in Europe.

Despite all these aberrations, many small groupings still survive with the declared aim of reorganising the TKP in its imaginary and idealised former glory. Many of them publish irregular newspapers or journals, together with occasional declarations or statements on traditionally important dates, such as the anniversary of the foundation of the TKP, or of the assassination of its original leaders in 1920.

Prominent among them are Ürün Sosyalist Dergi (Harvest Socialist Journal). Other groups that had shown signs of life in the early 2000s seem to have gradually weakened and disappeared. The Ürün group was noticeable at last year’s May Day demonstration in Istanbul. It is this group that recently established the website referred to above, From Suphi to Bilen the tradition is alive. In its initial declaration the group described itself as “those who worked under the slogan of ‘Freedom to the TKP’” and “those who believe in forming a legal TKP”.

Ürün organised an event commemorating the formation of the TKP on September 8 last year. It issued a bulletin in November and held a preparatory conference in Istanbul, where it adopted a draft programme and rules. Since then the group has declared that it would hold nine local meetings in various cities (as I write, six have taken place).

Zaman article

Let me now return to the article I mentioned at the beginning. The Zaman newspaper is not exactly familiar with leftwing jargon, and its knowledge of Turkey’s communist movement is more meagre still.

However, timing is everything. Neither Zaman nor its English sidekick, Today’s Zaman, had previously published anything about the communist movement in Turkey. So why did this article appear? Especially one dealing with the thorny legal issue of two political parties with the same name? I believe it was related to the efforts of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to change the political balance in its favour following its success in amending the constitution.

Previous attempts to reorganise the political scene have ended in failure. The strategy of making overtures to the Kurds - which the soft-Islamist AKP hoped would lead to the disarming of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in return for the granting of some constitutional rights - has collapsed, and armed conflict has flared up again. All goodwill was lost following the arrest and trial of many elected members of municipalities, and moves against the Kurdish-based Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which now stands accused of being a legal front for the PKK. The BDP had 35 of its members elected to the national assembly as independents in the 2011 elections.^[3]

But the AKP is aware that, as things stand, it cannot win an election in Kurdistan. It is hoping to see the creation of a new political force to stand as a rival to the BDP. And preparations to bring such a party into existence have become apparent in recent months. A prominent leftwing Kurd, Kemal Burkay, who had been in exile in Sweden, has now returned to Turkey amid a positive press campaign. In the 70s he was a close ally of the TKP and his organisation, the Kurdistan Socialist Party of Turkey (TKSP), has had good relations with the party.

The AKP government’s other strategic aim had been to draw sections of the Alevi people into the fold of Islamist-conservative politics. The overtures had started with a series of joint ‘workshops’, where prominent Alevi leaders and organisations stated their basic demands. However, when the government announced its intention to bring Alevi clergy under the control of the department of religious affairs, that really set the cat among the pigeons and the initiative collapsed.

However, this has resulted in the further politicisation of the Alevi movement, and for the first time in many years Alevi community organisations and leaders have started to work with Kurdish organisations and leaders. The changing attitude of Alevis has in turn helped produce a mood swing amongst the central Anatolian left in favour of cooperation with the Kurds. This has led to the formation of the Democratic Congress of Peoples (HDK), which has stated its aim of becoming a political party.

Amid deteriorating relations with the European Union over Cyprus, the AKP believes that it needs to improve its support among the liberal left of Turkey. Interestingly, the liberal daily Taraf has recently featured a discussion on the viability of Marxist socialism. Four of the regular participants have been Halil Berktay, a former Maoist leader and historian; Murat Belge, a professor and former ideologist of the new left in Turkey; Roni Margulies, a poet and prominent member of the Socialist Workers Party in Turkey; and Nabi Ya?ci, a former TKP general secretary. The leftwing novelist, Oya Baydar, has also been among those joining the discussion.

The tacit support given by Turkey’s left to the AKP, when it appeared under threat from the would-be junta within the armed forces, helped bring the AKP victory in the 2010 referendum on changing the constitution. However, since then the expectations of a peaceful settlement with the Kurds has been replaced by a new dirty war against Kurdistan. The Alevis are staunchly opposed to the AKP, whose oppressive nature has become apparent in the recent period. That is why the AKP has sought to make inroads into the main body of liberal and leftwing opinion. As the liberal left starts to show new signs of life, the AKP is trying to incorporate the left and former left, and if necessary play various sections off one against the other.

I tend to think the article in Today’s Zaman is one aspect of this policy. It can also be seen as giving the green light to moves to create more confusion within the communist movement through the formation of two legal parties with the same.

However, I do not give much credence to the AKP’s efforts. Nor do I see any chance of an ‘official communist’ revival. The Zaman article is in a sense a postscript to the sad story of the demise of the TKP l

Notes

1.Today’s Zaman January 10: www.todayszaman.com/news-268211-as-tkp-shifts-to-neo-nationalist-line-traditional-socialists-open-new-party-with-same-name.html.

2. See www.suphibilen.org.

3. The BDP is the successor to the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which in 2009 was itself disbanded following a constitutional court ruling. Twenty-four DTP members were elected to the national assembly as independents in the 2007 general election.