[Xmca-l] Re: Communist Party of Turkey: 'There is no legitimacy of political power anymore'

[David Kellogg]

You didn't answer any of my four questions, Ulvi. They had nothing to do
with TKP history, Syriza, George Soros, Abdullah Ocalan or any connection,
real or imaginary, between them. I don't care who owns the restaurants
where Kurdish leaders meet. (When I taught about use value and exchange
value to steelworkers in Algeria, we met in restaurants owned by street
gangs and drug pushers.)

My questions were about the statement which the TKP released which you
circulated on this list. I think it's an important moment, and it's worth
circulating a statement. But I also think that it's worth asking some
questions about it, and getting some answers. So let's stay on topic (YOUR
topic) as best we can.

David Kellogg
Macquarie University

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 2:39 AM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:

> David,
> We founded our first legal party in 1992 with the name Party for Socialist
> Turkey because we believe that seizure of the political power is at the
> center of Marxism and Leninism, a central point I believe today and in the
> last 100 years after October, tens of communist parties could not
> understand due to a very poor understanding of leninism, that "develop
> democracy first, then socialist revolution" nonsense. I look at today's
> communist parties for being able to see who is for a socialist revolution,
> in the October sense, led by urban proletariat supported by rural
> proletariat. I can not see such a leninist party, except our party, greek
> communist party, to a certain extent venezuelan, russian communist workers'
> party but unfortunately none in Latin America, nor in Asia and Africa,
> nowhere in the South.
> Our first party wrote it in its program that autodetermination of Kurdish
> people was an absolute right and it was forbidden in 1993, we foresaw it.
> But we wrote it. Then we founded Party for Socialist Power in 1993. Then we
> took the actual name. In all three programs, it is stated that Kurdish
> people and Turkish people are the equal founder peoples of Socialist
> Turkey.  I draw your attention to this point: equal founder peoples a a
> future socialist Turkey.
>
> David, this programatic stance is well beyond that of the current Kurdish
> social democratic movement. We see ourselves as the communist party of both
> kurdish as well as turkish proletariat, urban and rural.
>
> Kurdish dynamics is immensely valuable. For what? For a socialist
> revolution. We always attached great value to it and we imagined that
> Kurdish people's struggle is very important for such a revolution as long
> as...it is a movement for poor peasants, workers.
> (Now in the midst of an immensely barbaric capitalist exploitation, this
> movement does absolutely nothing for Kurdish workers in cities like
> Istanbul where millions of Kurdish people work).
>
> Then, Kurdish movement especially since 1995 preferred another path, it got
> closer to islamists and exploiting Kurdish bougeoisie  and to imperialist
> European Union and United States.
>
> Currently, Kurdish capital Diyarbakir, is less important to this movement
> than Brussels and Washington.
>
> And why Demirtas now in jail does not make its party's press conferences in
> its own buildings but in businessmen's restaurants related with Mr. Soros,
> without having any shame to say that the votes received by its party
> represent a victory for the toiled masses.
>
> The name of this businessman is osman kavala. He headed Soros' Open Society
> Foundation in Turkey for some years and together with Demirtas they labeled
> June 2013 movement in Turkey as an attempt of coup d'etat to Erdogan.
>
> Kurdish movement, Demirtas and Ocalan stated more than once that they saved
> Erdogan and this is public information.
>
> Everyone knows that any time Erdogan will call them they will approach him
> selling the people's cause. They are nit anti imperialist, they are
> praising islamic figures together with Erdogan, they do nit defend laicism
> and leftist values anymore.
>
> Minutes of meetings between state and Ocalan are published and it is also a
> public information that since long time Ocalan and the state work together
> on a project. A project to liquidate communist
> movement via adherence to this heroic epic Kurdish people's struggle.
>
> In fact, there is no more left in Turkey, except our party. It adhered to
> Kurdish movement who makes negotiations, bargains with AKP and with EU and
> USA.
>
> If, in the name of respecting this epic struggle, we are expected to forget
> our primary task, that of preparing a socialist revolution in Turkey, we
> will not do that. Never. We are not stupid. And we have our own lessons
> from these 100 years, of the capability of inperialism how to manage
> leftist movements, national liberation movements etc as in the case of
> Syriza, Spain and Portugal that I mentioned before even as in USSR.
>
> Kurdish movement can rely on our support as long as they are jailed, as
> soon as they struggle for Kurdish masses.
>
> But if while they are giving their right hand to Graham Fuller from CIA and
> expect us to take their left hand.
>
> No. We are now clever enough after so many hard lessons.
>
> I would be glad to know more revolutionary movements, communist parties,
> their existence if any, which, like us, concentrate their efforts only and
> only, immediately on the seizure of the political power by the proletariat.
> Not for "struggling" for "advanced democracy stupidities.
>
>
>
> 17 Nis 2017 00:36 tarihinde "David Kellogg" <dkellogg60@gmail.com> yazdı:
>
> > Ulvi:
> >
> > I wonder how many parents have been taught to play piano by their
> children.
> > Makes you think that the Suzuki way really is a "Mommy Method"!
> >
> > When I was a kid growing up in France, we learned a parodistic version of
> > the Internationale before we learned the real one, and the last verse
> > always ended with:
> >
> > "L'internationale sera le genre humain (The Internationale will be the
> > human race)."
> >
> > And we would add:
> >
> > "Et le boudin! (And sausage too!)"
> >
> > Since we were not yet in middle school, we thought the last line, which
> we
> > delivered with a kind of pianistic flourish, was really part of the song.
> > As Lang Lang shows--we were right. (Thanks, Helena!)
> >
> > The "huanwei" ending of the Yellow River Concerto (originally a Cantata)
> > was Xian Xinghai's way of trying to convert a nationalist struggle into
> an
> > internationalist one. You can see that the struggle of the Kurds against
> > Erdogan has that potential. You can see that Erdogan's struggle against
> the
> > Kurds does not. From Xian Xinghai's perspective, the TKP position that
> both
> > struggles are somehow equivalent makes no sense at all: it is like saying
> > that the Chinese struggle against Japan is the same as Japan's struggle
> > against China.
> >
> > And by the way....
> >
> > a) In English, if you say that there is no legitimacy any more, that
> means
> > that there was legitimacy before. Was there?
> > b) The TKP admits that the countryside still votes Erdogan, but says
> there
> > is "no chance" that his legitimacy will be accepted in the cities. How
> > about winning over peasants?
> > c) The statement says that AKP has lost its "capability" to rule.
> Whistling
> > in the graveyard!
> > d) Nothing--nothing whatsoever--about Kurdistan.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Macquarie University
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 6:49 AM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > http://news.sol.org.tr/communist-party-turkey-there-
> > > no-legitimacy-political-power-anymore-172017
> > >
> >
>