EKS leaflet on the situation in Turkey

Stop, Read, Think

Once again, the upsetting news of more workers' children being sacrifices for the brutal war in the South East came. The bourgeoisie and their media started screaming for more blood and chaos as always. As a result, people are now looking for "terrorists" in the street. But why did this happen?

Because the bourgeois state is in a state of crisis which hasn't been openly apparent for a long time. The economic reason at the bottom if this is the fact that the workers in Turkey have no more blood for the bourgeoisie to suck and if that isn't enough, as in the Turkish Airlines yesterday and more strongly in Türk Telekom and Novamed strikes today, they are beginning to resist. Increasing international debts and capital which is becoming more and more fictitious is getting more fragile on the "money market" as it is loaded on workers' backs. The bourgeoisie is pumping racism to continue this situation, thus Kurdish workers are exploited for a cheaper price and Turkish workers are left to miserably degenerate in the streets. The political consequence of this situation is the battle cries we always hear which aren't a solution to anything. The ideological walls of the bourgeois state are cracking every day. The more the outrage workers live in becomes questionable, the more capital will push society into degeneration, decay and decomposition and loses it's social validity which gave it it's meaning in the first place. The response of the bourgeois politicians to the latest massacre is the following.

For the nationalist wing of the bourgeoisie, the issue is, as always, the "conspiracy" organized by the United States. According to them, if the Turkish Armed Forces invade Iraq, "terror will be eradicated". In reality, only three years has passed since the United States itself wanted working class boys from Turkey to go fight other workers in Iraq, however the Turkish bourgeoisie was unable to do this because of their inability to convince workers to go to war and because of their incapability and weakness. The truth is that the Turkish bourgeoisie has always aligned itself with the United States and the Turkish Armed Forces are standing ready to kill workers in Lebanon and Afghanistan if necessary. Thus, contrary to the lie the nationalist wing of the bourgeoisie is trying to make workers believe, there is no conflicting interests between them and American imperialism, quite the contrary there is common interests and the Turkish Armed forces are armed executioners of this alliance. What is more is that not only will any massacre to be done in Northern Iraq will cause more soldiers to die and more "civilians" to be forced into concentration camps and massacred in battlefields, but also it will be countered with more bombs exploding in major cities.

The Islamic and liberal wing of the bourgeoisie is unreliably approving the war with as always. Of course the fact that they have doubts about how the "operation" will take place is only an expression of them trying to get the permission they are trying to get from the United States. For this, they have no other choice but to wait "patiently" to have a compromise with Barzani and Talabani and to massacre the workers in the living sites they'll point to.

As for the left wing of the bourgeoisie, they aren't doing anything other than whining from their high rostrums. Of course they are not interested in hunger, misery, poverty and death of workers. They are bending their rhetoric more and more in front of their masters to protect their position. In short, they prove the pointlessness of the parliaments to us again.

As a result, workers in Turkey too are pulled in the dead end of the the cycle of more war, destruction, terror and chaos that is awaiting the Middle East by the bourgeoisie who neither cares about their lives nor their deaths. Because capitalism can only postpone the execution of it's unsolvable crisis by dragging humanity into more destruction.

The response of the proletariat keeps enlightening the way forward as we saw in the Telekom strike. A single strike which has been going on for only several days was enough to make the bourgeoisie tremble. Only if workers enter into solidarity with their class to spread those struggles and if workers say no to war internationally can the capitalist massacre be stopped. The way to stop the war and the massacres is not to deepen and widen them but to build class solidarity across borders which reaches every military battlefront. The enemy is not class brothers and sisters in other countries but the capitalists right here, sitting in their warm houses!

Forum: 

EKS Leaflet

Cleishbotham

IBRP

It is good to see that the EKS are fighting agianst the tide of nationalism and chauvinism that has been unleashed by the Turkish. Devrim's ealier comments about the flagwaving (the bourgeoise always find ways of making it obvious if you are not for them - Goebbels used to demand over the radio that all loyal households in Nazi Germany should put out a flag to demonstrate ther loyalty. And those that didn't... And if flag waving is a sign of the domination of reaction the USA is probably ahead of Turkey. The episode also reminded me (as this is the ninetieth anniversay of the Russian October) that when Lenin returned to Russia and made speeches against the war there were those amongst the peasant-soldiers who wanted to put a bullet in his head - but Lenin stuck to the policy because it was the only proletarian one possible and the course of the imperialist war demonstrated the validity of his position so that a few months later the same soldiers were in the ranks of those supporting the Bolshevik Party.

This reflection led me to the leaflet and wondered why there is no condemnation of the anti-working class policy of the PKK at the same time as the Turkish factions. Perhaps there is something I have missed here.

Keep up the fight

“This reflection led me to

This reflection led me to the leaflet and wondered why there is no condemnation of the anti-working class policy of the PKK at the same time as the Turkish factions. Perhaps there is something I have missed here.

That is a good point really. I think that it is something that got missed in the rush to prepare it. Generally of course we do that.

And if flag waving is a sign of the domination of reaction the USA is probably ahead of Turkey.

I doubt it.

Devrim

“This reflection led me to

This reflection led me to the leaflet and wondered why there is no condemnation of the anti-working class policy of the PKK at the same time as the Turkish factions. Perhaps there is something I have missed here.

indeed the part about left wing burgeoisie is a condemnation of kurdish nationalism. Since kurdish nationalism and leftism are integrated into each other it is directed to both of them. Also the only "left" political group in parliment is legal wing of pkk..

In another aspect the turkish nationalist hysteria was the main issue in this article... and you know for practical reasons it should be only one page...

... for practical reasons it should be only one page…

Cleishbotham

IBRP

Thanks for that. I ddi not know that the only leftists in Turkey were the Kurds. whatever happened to the Turkish Maoists etc?

Point taken about producing a leaflet. It is an art form and we don't always get it right. Often we even disgree about which audience we are trying to address and too many Communist Left leaflets read like a "history of the world " on two sides of A4. Part of the probem is our lack of forces so we tend to go for one that can be used generally and I am not sure that these are the most effective.

The important thing here ws to have a voice of the independent working class (which is how I think of us) inserted into this sorry episode.

Keep up the good work

“ddi not know that the

ddi not know that the only leftists in Turkey were the Kurds. whatever happened to the Turkish Maoists etc?

all the trots, maoists and most anarchist are tailed behind kurdish nationalism. The only left apart from them is... turkish nationalist left ...

Also the only left group represented in the parliment is the legal wing of the pkk...

The important thing here ws to have a voice of the independent working class (which is how I think of us) inserted into this sorry episode.

I totally agree with you...

“Thanks for that. I ddi

Thanks for that. I ddi not know that the only leftists in Turkey were the Kurds. whatever happened to the Turkish Maoists etc?

Since kurdish nationalism and leftism are integrated into each other it is directed to both of them. Also the only “left” political group in parliment is legal wing of pkk..

Mikael said in parliament. Of course there are still many Maoists about.

Devrim

Turkish president hails opening of energy-rich Turkmenistan - from Turkish Daily News:

[[turkishdailynews.com.tr]]

I'm curious to know if this is a debated issue in Turkey (also the deal with Iran), and what comrades of EKS think about it. US have not been soft about the July deal.

hmm

main debate in mass media nowadays is around the so called "operations" to northern irag/southern kurdistan -as leftists like to call... Personaly I can not imagine Turkish burgeoise going against US. However it is obvious that they have their own agenda on the region. One thing that must be recalled about the agreement with Iran is that it was before the Turkey and US governments agreed on the turkish military attack...

Thanks Mikail!

Unfortunately - but quite predictably - the situation is getting worse: [[news.bbc.co.uk]]

There's also a new article on Turkey in Prometeo (web edition): [[ibrp.org | La Turchia alza il tiro sul Pkk, ma le sue mire imperialiste sono molto più ambiziose]]

Only in Italian... sorry. [[google.com | Rough English translation here.]]

Reading the situation from distance is not easy, but I hope you can contribute with direct information and analysis. It's important - and comforting too! - to hear a proletarian voice from the region.

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