It was published on May 28 2025
The PKK convened its 12th congress between May 5 and 7, declaring its dissolution and the end of armed struggle. Thus, the call made by Devlet Bahçeli, the second-in-command of the regime bloc, to Abdullah Öcalan –and Öcalan’s subsequent appeal to the PKK on February 27 to “lay down arms and dissolve itself”– culminated in this decision. Yet it remains entirely unclear how and when this decision will actually be carried out. There is no roadmap for concrete steps toward resolving the Kurdish question, which has persisted for a century and long since assumed an international dimension. For a conflict that has raged for nearly half a century to be brought to a peaceful end, profound democratic transformations are indispensable. Peace and democracy are inseparably bound together in the Kurdish question. But can a regime that crushes every freedom, seeks to silence all opposition, and even dismantles the electoral mechanism, truly take serious democratic steps to resolve it? The very nature of the problem stands in stark contrast to the existence of such a regime. What preoccupies all forces seeking a solution –above all the Kurdish movement– is how to break through this impasse and untie the knot.
That the regime labels its talks with the Kurdish movement as a “Turkey without terrorism,” instead of naming the Kurdish question for what it is and taking the necessary steps, reveals its true stance. It must be stressed that what compelled the regime to negotiate with the Kurdish movement was not domestic dynamics, but the new stage of the Middle East war-one in which Turkey is indirectly involved.
The Middle East War and the Kurdish question that imposes itself
With the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Middle East became the epicenter of the third imperialist world war –the most complex war of the modern era– waged far from imperialist soil and assuming its own distinct forms. Thus, the Kurdish question, left unresolved a century ago, transcended the borders of the four states where Kurds live and emerged as one of the central issues of the region. More importantly, unlike a century ago, the Kurds have risen to a force in the Middle East that can no longer be ignored. For this reason, as the region was being reshaped and political balances reconfigured, all imperialist and capitalist powers were compelled to reckon with the Kurds according to their own interests. The changing conditions and conjuncture opened the way for the Kurds to forge new alliances and win historic gains. The rulers of Turkey, persisting in their traditional policy of denial and assimilation, nevertheless failed– despite all their interventions– to block the creation of a Kurdish federal region in Iraq or the subsequent emergence of Rojava as a de facto autonomous region in Syria.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack against Zionist Israel handed the US-UK-Israel bloc a strategic upper hand in the long-stalled Middle East war. Yet this superiority was won through the systematic massacre of a people and the reduction of entire living spaces to rubble. Backed by the open support of the US and Western imperialism, Israel is carrying out an unprecedented genocide in Gaza before the eyes of the world. Israel’s heavy blow against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria caused Iran –whose struggle for influence in the Middle East relied on these forces– to lose ground, retreat, and alter the political balance. Russia, preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, abandoned the Assad regime as part of its bargain with the US–undoubtedly one of the key factors shaping this outcome. In short, the US-UK-Israel bloc has created the conditions to reshape the political balance of the Middle East in its own favor. Whether this new balance proves lasting will, of course, depend on the outcome of the crisis of imperialist hegemony!
The aim is a Middle East where all Arab countries officially recognize Israel through the Abraham Accords, where Israel’s existence and untouchability are beyond dispute, and where Iran is caged within strict limits in its struggle for influence. In this new order, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are projected to become the decisive powers under US hegemony. Yet for Washington to establish a relatively stable and lasting balance in the Middle East, it must impose order on a Syria that has been torn apart and, above all, solve (confine) the Kurdish question within certain limits. After the fall of the Assad regime, Israel destroyed Syria’s entire military infrastructure, leaving the country fragmented and stripped of its de facto statehood. The US and the Western bloc are now attempting to reshape Syria through HTS leader Jolani (Ahmed al-Shara), whom they themselves helped bring to power. What is taking shape is a Syria that recognizes Israel and prioritizes its security, moves along the axis of the West and the Gulf States, and in which the Kurds occupy a decisive position of power.
For more than a decade, Turkey’s rulers have sought to wipe out the Kurdish presence in Rojava and the gains it has secured. Yet despite all their interventions, the Kurds –now far stronger than they were ten years ago– have become one of the decisive actors in Syria. The US-UK-Israel bloc has for some time been pressuring Turkey to accept the Kurds’ autonomous status in Syria and to force the PKK to lay down its arms. In fact, the present conjuncture exerts intense pressure on both sides. The Kurdish question, unresolved for more than a century, confronts Turkey’s rulers today in a far more aggravated form. They are well aware that if they persist in their traditional policies, the war will escalate to far more destructive dimensions. Hence, a bargain is underway, based on recognizing the status of Rojava, disarming the PKK, and meeting the basic demands of the Kurdish people within Turkey. Yet it remains an open question how far the bourgeois state mentality will allow genuine democratic steps to be taken. This new situation also explains the reemergence in a new role of Bahçeli, the spokesman of the chauvinist statist bloc that has spent decades obstructing even the slightest move toward solving the Kurdish question.
Capitalism is a system of exploitation in which the capitalist class engages in ruthless competition driven by conflicting interests. The bourgeoisie’s internal rivalry, its divisions and clashes within the ruling class, inevitably reverberate throughout the political sphere and the state. Today, there is a fascist bloc in power, encompassing the AKP and the MHP. This regime rests on three pillars: Safeguarding the interests of the Erdoğanist fraction of capital, suppressing the democratic demands of the Kurdish people at home and abroad, and pursuing an imperialist policy in the Middle East and beyond. Yet rivalry and strife within the regime have never ceased. Even today, in the context of the Kurdish question, it is no secret that different approaches and contradictions exist within the regime. A problem shaped by so many internal and external factors could hardly be free of contradictions.
Capitalism, constrained by its historical limits, generates inextricable crises across every sphere of life and throughout the world–above all, the crisis of hegemony. Thus, depending on a country’s place within the world economy, the scale of its social problems, and its relation to the imperialist struggle for hegemony, political crises within the ruling class are deepening in almost every country. Owing to capitalism’s systemic crisis, it is becoming increasingly difficult for capital to reproduce itself through profitable channels. This, in turn, fuels sharper rivalries among competing capital groups: Struggles over the allocation of state resources and profitable investment fields now produce crises far more acute than in ordinary times. When assessing political developments and the totalitarian regime in Turkey, this global phenomenon must always be taken into account.
A large section of the ruling class recognizes that certain steps on the Kurdish question are unavoidable. Yet each segment approaches the process according to its own class and political interests. Erdoğan seeks to shape both domestic and foreign political developments in this direction in order to secure his own power and the interests of the fraction of capital he represents. In this context, he aims to weaken the Kurdish presence in Rojava by mobilizing jihadist forces such as HTS, to expand his influence in the Middle East by persuading the US –Trump in particular– of his plans, and to exploit all this in domestic politics. Although it is hard to claim that he has made progress in these goals, it cannot be said that he has abandoned this course. These strategic calculations lie behind the AKP’s maneuvers in the negotiations with the Kurdish movement that drive the process into a dead end.
The March 19 operation and the regime’s calculations
As an extension of the same political goal, the March 19 operation was launched at a time when negotiations with Öcalan and the Kurdish movement were ongoing and it was known that the DEM Party would avoid direct confrontation with the regime. The sole purpose of this operation was not simply to sideline Ekrem İmamoğlu, the strongest presidential candidate against Erdoğan. It was also aimed at paving the way for the appointment of trustees to many municipalities –including the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and the CHP itself– at crushing social opposition, and at eliminating elections altogether. The regime forces anticipated that the CHP leadership would passively accept these developments and that, while some protests might occur, no broad social resistance would emerge. Under such conditions, Erdoğan would not only be able to liquidate his strongest rival but would also wield the mechanisms of repression far more brutally to impose his political plans on the Kurdish movement. Yet the calculation at home did not match the reality in the streets.
The fact that Istanbul University students broke through the police barricade brought the discontent that had accumulated in society into the open. The eruption of social struggle partially disrupted the plans of those who sought to shape the political field at will. With the rising reaction from its social base, the CHP inclined toward a more resistant political line against the regime. Apart from the arrest of İmamoğlu, Erdoğan failed to achieve his broader objectives. Moreover, contradictions and frictions within the regime deepened. In this situation, Erdoğan increasingly felt the need to keep the Kurdish movement in a neutral position. The meeting between Erdoğan and the DEM Party’s İmralı Delegation –delayed and clearly postponed in order to exert more pressure on the other side– took place in this political atmosphere.
The regime is moving on all fronts to divide and fragment the opposition by instrumentalizing its meetings with the Kurdish movement. Yet so far it has failed to drive the desired wedge between the DEM Party and the CHP. The regime is displeased that the CHP leadership and Ekrem İmamoğlu support the talks with the Kurdish movement and affirm that the problem can be resolved by democratic means. There is no doubt that the CHP leadership, which is calculating its path to power, cannot ignore the Kurdish question or the Kurdish people. Setting aside fascist currents such as the İYİP and the Victory Party, or the narrow-minded nationalists represented by the newspaper Sözcü, a significant section of the Turkish ruling class –especially under the impact of shifting balances in the Middle East– recognizes that it can no longer advance through denial of the Kurdish question and policies of violence.
Many circles –above all fascist and nationalist-Kemalist ones– reduce the regime’s talks with the Kurdish movement to nothing more than paving the way for Erdoğan’s re-election by drawing the DEM Party to his side. There is no doubt that Erdoğan wants to exploit these talks on the Kurdish question to his own advantage, clearing away the obstacles to his re-election with the support of the Kurdish movement. Yet it is sheer manipulation to detach these talks from international developments and squeeze them into a narrow framework, to explain the process solely by Erdoğan’s political calculations, and to proclaim that “the Kurdish movement will sell out the opposition.” Those who explain the process with such one-sided arguments are, in reality, opposed to solving the Kurdish question and to the Kurdish people winning their democratic rights. What is unfolding cannot be explained by the crude formula of “give Öcalan the right of hope, take Erdoğan’s re-election.” To imagine that a people who have yearned for peace for decades would be content with this is plainly to underestimate them. Of course, the process is complex and full of dilemmas. Pointing this out must go hand in hand with a political stance that defends a democratic solution to the Kurdish question.
The question of the new constitution
As we have emphasized, the solution of the Kurdish question –which by its very nature requires democratization– stands in direct contradiction to the existence of the current regime. Since this regime has no aim of democratization, thousands of Kurdish prisoners, including Selahattin Demirtaş, as well as socialists and figures such as Can Atalay and Osman Kavala, are still held hostage in prison. Every step toward democratization means the weakening of this regime. It is clear that a political scenario in which Kurdish prisoners, including Öcalan and Demirtaş, are freed while İmamoğlu remains behind bars; in which democratic steps are taken on the Kurdish question while the regime continues its existence by suppressing society–such a situation is inconceivable and unsustainable! The reality is that Turkey’s ruling class is in crisis, and it remains unclear how this crisis will be resolved and how the knot will be untied.
At this point, it is also necessary to touch on the debate over a new constitution. Both Erdoğan and the Kurdish movement declare that a new constitution must be drafted. Yet the content of such a constitution, raised from two opposing fronts, is naturally filled in very different ways. Each time Erdoğan finds himself politically cornered, he brings the discourse of a new constitution back onto the agenda in an attempt to carve out space for himself. But to expect a regime and its leader –who trample the existing constitution underfoot– to deliver a more democratic one would be sheer political stupidity. Although Erdoğan institutionalized his regime through the 2017 constitutional amendment, he remains hemmed in by the current constitution’s limitations. His sole aim is to break through these constraints and further consolidate the regime.
Those who push the constitutional debate try to legitimize it with the claim that “the people need a new social contract.” Taken in isolation, this phrase may create the impression that a contract representing the interests of all social groups will be established. But society is not an abstraction; it is a dynamic reality shaped by classes and by class struggle. In a society divided into classes, there can be no constitution that stands above the bourgeoisie and the working class, independent of them, encompassing all social groups and expressing their interests.
As Marx pointed out, the constitution and the legal system in capitalist society are nothing but a reflection of the given relations of production–that is, of the capitalist mode of production and the class rule of the bourgeoisie. The constitution is the institutionalized form of this domination and serves to regulate the state, society, and class relations on the basis of bourgeois interests. Power struggles within the ruling class, periodic political needs, and the interests of the bourgeoisie directly shape the content of the constitutional text. How democratic a bourgeois constitution will be, and how the framework of political rights and freedoms will be drawn, depends on countless factors. What is decisive above all is the organization of the working class, the level of class consciousness, the influence of the socialist movement in the political sphere, and the struggle of oppressed peoples. For this reason, it is of great importance to approach the issue from a class perspective. For the first approach pushes the working masses toward pacifism, while the second reminds us that the democratic limits of the constitution are determined by power relations and calls the working masses to struggle on this basis.
In summary: On the one hand stand Erdoğan’s efforts to lower the presidential election threshold, to run again for office, and to amend the constitution in order to further entrench the current regime; on the other stand the legitimate and democratic demands of the Kurdish people. In this situation, our slogan must be clear: No to the attempts to preserve the fascist regime embodied in Erdoğan! Yes to the recognition of the Kurdish people’s democratic rights and to securing those rights with legal and constitutional guarantees!
Lausanne, the 1924 Constitution and the debate on the republic
Fascist and nationalist circles that deny the existence of the Kurdish question and oppose the democratic rights of the Kurdish people are seizing on the PKK’s dissolution statement, with its references to the Treaty of Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution, in ways that stoke nationalism and hostility. Broad sections of the socialist movement have also voiced opinions on this issue. According to the TKP and its derivative left-Kemalists, “It is very dangerous to open the references to Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution to discussion.”[1] For all those circles that take a position and raise objections here, Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution are Turkey’s founding texts and are untouchable! Fascist centers and nationalists may indeed regard these texts as sacred and inviolable; but it is shameful for those who call themselves communists to ascribe immunity to the founding documents of a bourgeois state. From the standpoint of socialists and communists, the founding documents of no bourgeois state are sacred or inviolable. It is indisputable that the Treaty of Lausanne is among the basic founding texts of the Republic of Turkey. Yet at the same time, both the denial of the Kurds –who were partners in Turkey’s struggle for independence– and the foundations of the Kurdish question, which has persisted for more than a century, are rooted in the Treaty of Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution.
Nationalist circles are pumping fear into society with the claim that “the Treaty of Lausanne is being questioned, and they want to return to the Treaty of Sèvres and divide Turkey.” Historical reality is being deliberately distorted. The truth is that the Treaty of Sèvres did not explicitly recognize the rights of the Kurdish people, instead referring the issue to the League of Nations in vague terms. Moreover, with the new international balances that emerged after the October Revolution of 1917, Sèvres quickly lost its validity. The Kemalist leadership of the National Struggle promised autonomy to the Kurds in order to strengthen its hand against the imperialist powers, to win over the Kurdish people, and to avoid losing Mosul and Kirkuk, which were within the borders of the National Pact.[2] Indeed, İsmet İnönü, representing Turkey at Lausanne, declared that Mosul and Kirkuk should be left to Turkey and that they represented the Kurds: “The Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey is the government of the Kurds as well as the Turks. For the true and legitimate representatives of the Kurds have entered the National Assembly. They participate in the government and administration of the country to the same extent as the representatives of the Turks. The Kurdish people and their legitimate representatives do not consent to the separation of their brothers and sisters living in the Mosul Province from the homeland.”[3] Yet as a result of the negotiations with Britain, Mosul and Kirkuk were left outside Turkey’s borders, and the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in this form. Thus the lands inhabited by the Kurds were divided.
The Kemalist leadership abandoned its insistence on Mosul and Kirkuk while securing Turkey’s present borders in negotiations with Britain. Under conditions in which these provinces were left outside Turkey and Kurdish lands were divided, the new rulers assumed that the Kurdish people could be easily suppressed and assimilated. The international conditions of the time also paved the way for this policy. In a world where the Soviet Union was on the stage, no one would raise their voice against Turkey, a part of the capitalist system. Indeed, the autonomy promised to the Kurds was never implemented, and the provisions granting autonomy to local governments in the 1921 Constitution were abolished.[4] A nation-building process based on Turkish identity was set in motion, and a new political regime was established on the foundation of the denial and assimilation of the Kurds. The 1924 Constitution was a manifestation of the Turkist nation-state conception inherited from the Committee of Union and Progress.
In Lausanne, the Kurds were not defined as a minority, yet the articles of the treaty also included the right of the Kurds to use their language and to develop and sustain their culture. However, the Bonapartist one-party dictatorship that was established abolished rights and freedoms, placed society under absolute control, created a labor regime in which the working class was exploited to the bone, and implemented systematic assimilation policies against the Kurdish people. How can a democratic solution to the Kurdish question be developed without acknowledging these historical realities? Moreover, pointing out the historical foundations of these problems does not invalidate the Treaty of Lausanne, which records Turkey’s establishment in the international arena.
Those who ascribe immunity to Lausanne and the 1924 Constitution do so in the name of secularism and the republic. Yet the principle of secularism was only added to the Constitution in 1937.[5] Therefore, neither Lausanne nor the 1924 Constitution can be equated with secularism or the republic. Socialists, of course, oppose the decisive role of religion in political and social life and defend secularism–that is, the separation of religion and state and the equal distance of the state from all faiths. At the same time, they fight for the broadest realization of democratic rights and freedoms, for the opening of the way to scientific education and education in the mother tongue. They uphold the principle of the republic against the reactionary classes that exclude the people from political processes and base the source of authority on god, king, or sultan. But in all these areas they take their stance on the axis of the independent class politics of the working class, with the aim of advancing the struggle against the bourgeoisie. Just as there is no self-made, supra-class constitution and legal system, neither is there a supra-class republic. It is the struggle of the working masses that determines how democratic and libertarian a republic will be. It must not be forgotten that the fascist mullah regime in Iran is also formally a republic. For the working class, the oppressed, women, youth, socialists, Turks and Kurds, the real guarantee lies not in a bourgeois republic but in a soviet-style republic based on direct democracy, born of the overthrow of capitalism.[6]
The National Question and Imperialism
While nationalists continue to deny the Kurdish question, left-Kemalist circles –despite presenting themselves with a socialist identity– reduce this issue to nothing more than a question of poverty. Yet the national question is not a problem of poverty, but in essence a bourgeois-democratic problem.[7] Poverty can never be solved so long as one remains within the capitalist system. The national question, however, can in one form or another be resolved within the bourgeois order on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination. As Lenin stated, the right of nations to self-determination includes the right to political independence and the exercise of democratic rights, including the right of an oppressed nation to freely separate from the oppressor nation. The historical aim of national liberation movements has been the establishment of a nation-state on the basis of political independence. Indeed, many national questions were resolved in this way throughout the twentieth century. An oppressed people can determine their fate either by establishing their own nation-state or by remaining within an autonomous, federal, or similar constitutional framework in which democratic rights are recognized. The crucial point is that the people must be able to make this decision freely. Of course, general theoretical principles and concrete historical conditions do not always coincide exactly–and in fact they rarely do. For this reason, history offers few examples of national solutions that perfectly fit the general theoretical and principled framework. Yet as in the case of Finland after the October Revolution of 1917, workers’ power granted the oppressed nations the right to secede freely.
The transformation of the Middle East into one of the main centers of the imperialist war of division –through the direct or indirect participation of the major imperialist powers, including the United States and Russia, as well as regional states such as Israel, Turkey, and Iran– has rendered the Palestinian and Kurdish national questions extremely complex. In Turkey, a wide spectrum ranging from political Islamists to fascists, from nationalists to left-Kemalist socialists, oppose the democratic rights of the Kurdish people, legitimizing this stance by pointing to the Kurdish movement’s reconciliations with imperialist powers. The fact is that in the imperialist stage of capitalism, the rivalry among imperialist powers permeates every sphere, and the liberation movements of oppressed nations –just like the bourgeoisies of countries that have built their nation-states– cannot remain outside the web of imperialist relations. The exception to this was during the period when the Soviet Union was on the stage of history. Countries such as Cuba and Vietnam were able to break free of the imperialist system with the support of the USSR and China. Likewise, in that same era, emerging national liberation movements sought the backing of these forces–and this was the main reason why they defined themselves as socialist. Yet that period came to an end with the collapse of the USSR and China’s integration into the capitalist world system, transforming it into an imperialist power. Today, especially in the Middle East –which has become the center of the Third World War– it is unrealistic to expect national liberation movements to act in absolute independence without making any compromises with imperialist and regional capitalist powers.
Whether it materializes or not, it is unacceptable to expect a national liberation movement –whose ultimate aim is to establish a nation-state– to act on the basis of the principles adopted by the revolutionary parties and organizations of the working class that target capitalism, and to accuse it of “betrayal” when it does not. Even before establishing a nation-state, every national liberation movement, by its very nature, operates according to the logic of a nation-state. With this same rationality, it enters into explicit or implicit relations with imperialist or capitalist states and reaches compromises. It is striking that those who criticize the Kurdish movement on this point remain silent about the relations and compromises entered into by the Palestinian liberation movements. It is perfectly clear that when a nation-state –say, Turkey or Iran– enters into relations and compromises with imperialist powers, this is deemed legitimate, yet when a national liberation movement seeks to do the same it is condemned. Such a perspective amounts to nothing more than indirectly telling the oppressed nation: “continue to live under the yoke of the oppressor nation.” Lenin’s words on the relation of national liberation movements to imperialist and capitalist states are extremely instructive: “Just as the use of republican slogans by the bourgeoisie for the purpose of deceiving the people and committing financial robbery –as is the case in Latin countries, for example– cannot be a reason for Social-Democrats to renounce their republicanism; in the same way, the fact that the national liberation struggle against an imperialist state is, in some cases, utilized by another ‘great’ state for its equally imperialist purposes cannot lead Social-Democrats to deny the right of nations to self-determination.”[8]
To deny the right of nations to self-determination on the grounds that national movements make compromises with capitalist states on certain issues, or to claim that there can be no democratization under capitalism that has reached its historical limits, is to turn one’s back on concrete political problems. This approach is nothing but a repetition of the outlook Lenin fought against for years: “Under capitalism the national question cannot be solved; under socialism it becomes unnecessary anyway.” Those who defend this view are, in practice, advising the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples to sit and wait instead of fighting. To tell the workers of oppressed nations, “Do not concern yourselves too much with national oppression; the real problem is class exploitation,” is to refuse to empathize with these peoples and to destroy the basis of solidarity with them. Yet without recognizing the legitimacy of an oppressed people and building genuine empathy with them, no real and lasting unity of struggle can be forged between the working classes of the oppressor and the oppressed nations.
Let Us Strengthen the Unity of Struggle of Turkish and Kurdish Workers
Another point that must be strongly emphasized is this: The fact that communists recognize the right of nations to self-determination on the level of principle does not –and cannot– mean that they support every movement that appears on the scene as a national question. In the national question, as in all others, communists act with the aim of advancing the struggle of the working class against capitalism. Likewise, communists are in principle opposed to the fragmentation of the working class by the borders of the nation-state and its division along these lines. We defend the united struggle of workers; Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Persians and other peoples alike. We oppose the separation of Turkish and Kurdish workers from one another, the destruction of their common grounds of struggle, the weakening of the working class in this geography, and the fragmentation of the workers’ movement. But the way to strengthen the united struggle of Turkish and Kurdish workers is not to abandon the principle of the right to self-determination, to ignore the Kurdish question, or to disregard the democratic rights of the Kurdish people. On the contrary, such nationalist approaches blunt the level of consciousness of the Turkish worker and trap the Kurdish worker in a struggle confined to national identity.
It is of immense value that the Kurdish movement declares its will not for separation, but for living together on the same land. Kurdish workers make up one of the largest and most combative detachments of the Turkish working class. The silencing of the guns and the democratic resolution of the Kurdish question will strengthen the common ground of struggle of Turkish and Kurdish workers against capital.
It must not be forgotten that Turkish society has for many years been poisoned by nationalism, polarized along artificial lines, and that the fascist regime has built mass support by feeding on nationalism. The state and the capitalist class use the concept of “terror” as a label to undermine the legitimacy of all social struggles–from strikes to environmental resistances. While suppressing rights and freedoms, the regime has turned this into a systematic tool to intimidate and cow society with the threat of terrorism. It does not hesitate for a single moment to brand anyone who opposes it as a “terrorist.” Although the concept is gradually being emptied of real content, it still remains the most functional instrument for discrediting social struggles. Should developments lead to pulling the ground out from beneath the concept of “terror,” there is no doubt this would have a positive impact on social struggles.
Revolutionary Marxists, aiming to free humanity from capitalist exploitation and alienation, approach political and social developments on the basis of the unity of the working class and the equality and fraternity of peoples. At this point, we want to draw particular attention to one issue. Regime spokesmen and some representatives of the Kurdish movement speak of the historical alliance between Turks and Kurds, of a thousand-year-old brotherhood. To place this alliance on a historical and ideological footing, they invoke the Battle of Manzikert and the religion of Islam. It is also claimed that a Turkey which resolves the Kurdish question and forges an alliance with the Kurds will become a great and influential power in the Middle East. It is clear that this is an imperialist and expansionist perspective. Such a perspective, and the dreams of “becoming a regional power,” will, as in the past, prepare the ground for new and deeper crises in the Middle East. Socialists oppose these reactionary goals, but they do not oppose a possible solution to the Kurdish question for this reason. The way to oppose the imperialist, expansionist, and adventurous policies of all states, including Turkey, is through the organized unity and common struggle of the working class. From our standpoint, the true historical alliance of Turkish and Kurdish workers rests on the united struggle of the working class of all peoples living in these lands against capitalism. Workers; Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Persians, Jews, Druze, Armenians and all the peoples of the region can only forge their real historical alliance by overthrowing capitalism and establishing the Federation of Workers’ and Toilers’ Soviets of the Middle East!
The Regime’s Blow for Absolute Power: İmamoğlu Arrested, Mass Opposition Rises!
[1]“Not Lausanne, but the U.S. Should Be Opposed”, TKH (Communist Movement of Turkey), https://tkh.org.tr/lozan-degil-abd-karsiya-alinmalidir/
[2] Utku Kızılok, The Kurdish Question: New Searches in Denialism, https://gelecekbizim.net/kurt-sorunu-inkarcilikta-yeni-arayislar
[3] Seha L. Meray, Lausanne Peace Conference I, Yapı Kredi Publications, p.349
[4] 1921 Constitution of Turkey, Article 11: “Provinces have legal personality and autonomy in local affairs. Except for foreign and domestic policy, religious (sharia), judicial, military affairs, international economic relations, general expenses and interests of the government, and issues concerning more than one province; foundations, madrasahs (educational institutions), education, health, economy, agriculture, public works (infrastructure), and social assistance are under the authority and administration of the provincial councils, in accordance with the laws to be enacted by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.” Source: Constitutional Court of Turkey, https://www.anayasa.gov.tr/tr/mevzuat/onceki-anayasalar/1921-anayasasi/
[5] Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB), “83rd Anniversary of the Inclusion of the Principle of Secularism in Our Constitution – TÜBAKKOM Press Release”, https://www.barobirlik.org.tr/Haberler/laiklik-ilkesinin-anayasamizda-yer-almasinin-83-yil-donumu-tubakkom-basin-aciklamasi-81108
[6] Utku Kızılok, Marx, Republicanism and the Kemalist TKP, https://gelecekbizim.net/marx-cumhuriyetcilik-ve-kemalist-tkp/
[7] Akın Erensoy, Internationalism or Nationalism?, https://gelecekbizim.net/enternasyonalizm-mi-milliyetcilik-mi/
[8] V.I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Left Publications, pp.128–129