Turkey: TKP/ML statement on its 53rd anniversary

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement published by the TKP/ML.

TKP/ML CC-PB: 24 APRIL 1972 WAS A DAY WHEN THE SEEDS OF HOPE WERE PLANTED UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF İBRAHİM KAYPAKKAYA. WE WILL CROWN HOPE WITH A REVOLUTION!

Our Working People of Turkish, Kurdish and Various Nationalities,

History is not only the echo of the past, but also a call extending to the future. This call was reciprocated in Turkey for the second time on April 24, 1972, when a group of communists led by İbrahim Kaypakkaya raised the glorious flag high once more. TKP/ML was born in the fiery fire of class struggle with the longing for equality and freedom, a world without classes and exploitation. TKP/ML became the name of a powerful emergence that tightly embraced its roots, breaking the 50-year silence that followed the murder of Mustafa Suphi and his comrades in the Communist Movement of Turkey.

April 24 was the turning point of a people’s claim to change their destiny. And that day did not end as it began. Because it was a foundation day, a struggle until victory…

The first steps of this resistance were taken at a time when darkness was deepening. In Turkey, where fascist oppression, torture and denial were shaped with their harshest face, it was raised with the claim of revolution, with faith, with a price, with consciousness and with practice. Every line of İbrahim Kaypakkaya’s ideas, every moment of his practice was the scientific and revolutionary cry of a rebellion against fascism, of the people’s longing for liberation under the leadership of the working class. That cry rose in 1972 and echoed throughout the country step by step. Today, the echo that continues in the mountains, in the dungeons and on the streets is spreading to unite with the destructive power of the millions who are awakening.

That day, a rupture occurred; a line was born that confronted reformism, surrender, and petty bourgeois fantasy disconnected from the people, waving the red flag of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on Turkish soil. The establishment of the TKP/ML was not just an organization, but a declaration that the revolutionary ideological rupture, strategic orientation, and People’s War line were the path to liberation.

This rupture, which was made under the leadership of Comrade İbrahim Kaypakkaya, is an ideological, theoretical, practical and political leap in the Revolutionary Movement of Turkey. This is a line that does not compromise with Kemalism, bases the class struggle on revolution rather than abstract romanticism, defends the ideological leadership of the proletariat and is based on the worker-peasant alliance and fits into the strategy of a protracted War that will extend from the countryside to the cities.

Kaypakkaya is unique in constructing a revolutionary practical rupture with high audacity, shaped by theoretical clarity. He grasped the necessity of the People’s War in Turkish territory, not only as a strategy, but as the dialectic of life. The semi-colonial, semi-feudal character of Turkey revealed the bitter truth of the classes and nations oppressed under the domination of imperialism and its revolutionary solution: the Democratic People’s Revolution.

TKP/ML, kneaded with the legacy of İbrahim Kaypakkaya’s thought, is a culture of resistance. It is an ideological stance that stands tall against the policies of oppression, torture and surrender. Kaypakkaya’s revolutionary theory not only analyzed the contradictions of the system, but also showed the way to overcome these contradictions with a revolutionary break. Even today, his clear stance on issues such as “The Kurdish Nation’s Right to Self-Determination” and “The Class Character of Kemalism” responds to the future with all its actuality.

This will did not only grow in the heart of Turkey, but also sprouted as part of the freedom struggle of the peoples of the world. From the moment it was founded, TKP/ML carried not only a local but also an international mission. Kaypakkaya’s line took a stance not only against class and national contradictions in Turkey, but also against the rotten order of the imperialist system. April 24 is also the birth of the voice of the international proletariat in our geography.

Today, the world is at a more complicated and dangerous threshold. Imperialist powers are fighting for new markets, energy lines and areas of hegemony for their own economic and strategic interests. This fighting is carried out not only through direct military attacks but also through proxy wars, regional conflicts, coups and trade wars.

Every move of the imperialists makes the life of the oppressed peoples even worse. Hunger, poverty, migration, occupation and destruction are becoming the common reality of the world working class and the working people. As the crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system deepens, oppression becomes more organized, lies more obvious and war more destructive. This aggression also sharpens the contradictions between imperialism, the world proletariat and the oppressed peoples. From the Middle East to Africa, from Latin America to Asia, the oppressed peoples are not only the victims of these wars but also the carriers of resistance against imperialism.

Our struggle is not only for the people of Turkey, but also for the liberation of the international proletariat from its chains. TKP/ML is also a front of the world revolution.

In this period we are in, the need for Comrade Kaypakkaya’s scientific line and the revolutionary communist practice he guided has deepened even more. The savage exploitation of the rulers, the subcontracting system that steals the securities of the working class, the collapse of agriculture, the perpetuation of unemployment, the reactionary, patriarchal regime that facilitates the murder of women, the policy of annihilation and denial directed at the Kurdish nation and other oppressed nationalities; all these reveal the rottenness of the system. The youth is drowning in a futureless world, the people in poverty, and nature in the plunder of capital. All these contradictions are raising the anger of the people like magma accumulating in a volcano.

However, history has repeatedly shown that spontaneous outbursts of this accumulated anger do not produce permanent revolutionary results. From the Gezi resistance to the ongoing wave of rebellion, from the women’s movement to student boycotts, all large and small popular movements have either faded away or retreated into internal channels of the establishment due to the lack of a leader. We insistently emphasize this point: the historical role of the communist leader is decisive. The revolutionary duties declared with the foundation of the TKP/ML stand before us today with all their burning intensity as an urgent and concrete need.

The period of crises originating from the imperialist capitalist system has become more frequent. The impoverishment of the people continues like an endless decline. It is neither spontaneous rebellions nor reform movements that will organize the anger caused by the crises in favor of the revolution.

Today, anti-fascist actions, barricade resistances, boycotts continue to grow day by day against the fascist dictatorship, economic crisis, anti-democratic attacks, oppression and arrests. All these developments show that the people no longer have the patience to be governed as before.

Our party sees the political atmosphere created by these actions as the real basis for transforming this justified anger into revolutionary will. Because no popular movement can transcend its own borders without an ideological, political and strategic line to guide it.

True liberation is not possible without transforming anger into revolutionary organization, rebellion into revolutionary war, and rebellion into the perspective of power. The only force that undertakes the task of leading this is a communist party equipped ideologically, politically and organizationally, but a real communist party.

Today, the opposition within the system is trying to direct the struggle for democracy and freedom to the ballot box, to a return to the bourgeois-feudal parliamentary system. However, although different types of government options are offered, this system has nothing to do with democracy. Fascism is the way this state exists. From the perspective of the oppressed, this state’s democracy is surrounded by cemeteries and prisons.

Our party, TKP/ML, considers the struggle for democracy not only as a form but also as a revolutionary transformation in the people’s struggle for power. In this sense, the demand for democracy that the people are raising today can gain meaning when directed into the channels of the revolutionary struggle. It is clear today, as it was yesterday, that reformist and intra-system solutions will not be the answer to the people’s aspirations.

Student actions, workers’ resistance, women’s anger in the streets, the demand for the “recognition of the will” of the Kurdish nation… All of these, when combined with the right leadership and channeled along the lines of the People’s War, can lead to real liberation.

The People’s War, the fundamental strategy of our People’s Democratic Revolution, is not just a form of armed struggle. This strategy means organizing the lives of workers, poor peasants and all laborers, mobilizing the creative energy of the masses for the revolution, and establishing a strategic relationship between the city and the countryside.

This is a long-term, patient but faithful walk. And today, the popular movements, workers’ strikes, the just and legitimate demands of the Kurdish nation, student actions and women’s rebellions that are rising all over Turkey, repeat this call with us: Transform the People’s War line into an organized breakthrough! It is at this point that the historical role of the TKP/ML becomes clear.

We are aware of our reality and our inadequacies. With our 53-year history, the communist movement has been brought to the present day with defeats and victories. During the 53 years that have passed, the TKP/ML has continued on its path, resolutely defending the People’s War strategy without deviating from its line, despite the countless attacks, ideological distortions, sieges and liquidation attempts of fascism. There are not only successes in this 53-year history of struggle. Our party has experienced organizational disorganization and practical blockages in many periods, but has had the will to confront these inadequacies and transform the experiences and lessons it has learned into permanent positions.

For 53 years, our party has gone through countless storms. Our four General Secretaries, members of the Central Committee, hundreds of our fighters and comrades have become immortal. We have experienced repressions, operations, internal sieges, organizational shocks. But after every destruction, we have risen again, after every loss, we have held the red flag tighter. Because we are a revolutionary will that has sprouted in the bosom of the people. Our duty today is to turn the fire burning in the driest place of the prairie from the countryside to the cities into a great conflagration, to grow the People’s War in the lands watered by the blood of our immortal comrades.

On the 53^rd anniversary of the foundation of our party, that great march continues. Those who walk with the burden of the oppressed on their backs and red flags in their hands are here. Because salvation will come with an organized people under the leadership of the proletariat. Because revolution is the most burning need of these lands.

Our duty is to organize the masses, to grow our party among the masses, to develop and strengthen the People’s War, and to carry the struggle for the People’s Democratic Revolution to victory. We are aware of our duty and we will achieve it!

• Long live our party TKP/ML, leading TİKKO and TMLGB!
• The Seeds of Hope Were Planted on April 24, 1972, Our Struggle Until Victory!
• May Our Party TKP/ML Be Glorious in Its 53^rd Year!

• Our Guide in Our Struggle for the Democratic People’s Revolution, TKP/ML, is 53 Years Old!
• Down with the Fascist Dictatorship, Long Live the People’s Democratic Revolution!
• Long live the People’s War!
• Long live Proletarian Internationalism!
• Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!