"The Choice for the Working Class Will Certainly Be Created"
Statement from the Communist Party of Turkey
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=535156133212880&set=a.534353943293099.1073741826.534322923296201&type=1
1. For days now Turkey is witnessing a genuine popular movement. The actions and protests, which have started in Istanbul and spread all over Turkey have a massive, legitimate and historic character. The most important of all is the striking change in the mood of people. The fear and apathy has been overcome and people gained self-confidence.
2. The Communist Party of Turkey has been part of the popular movement beginning from the first day and mobilized all its forces, tried to embolden the proletarian and revolutionary character of the movement, endeavored to pervade a mature attitude of discipline, organized numerous actions and demonstrations. In this process, the police forces carried out a heavy assault on our party headquarters in Ankara. All over Turkey, several party members have been injured and arrested. There have been some attempts of abduction of our party cadres. But the attempts of provocations against our party defeated.
3. Our emphasis on the role of the TKP does not aim to underestimate the spontaneous nature of the movement or contribution of the other political actors. On the contrary, the TKP stressed that this movement has an aspect that is beyond the impact of any political actor or any kind of political opportunism.
4. The call of the masses for the government to resign is an absolute truth of this movement. Although it is obvious that a leftist alternative cannot be built ‘right now’, this demand should be expressed loudly. This option for the working people can be generated only through benefitting from the energy that came out at this historical moment. The TKP will focus on this and expose the real meaning of alternatives like “the formation of a national government”, which will most likely be put forward to deceive the working masses into thinking that the crisis can be overcome that way.
5. Without a doubt, the holders of political power will try to calm the people down, institute control and even attempt to use the situation to their advantage. They can have temporary achievements. Even in that case the popular movement would not be wasted. The TKP is ready for a period of stubborn but intense struggle.
6. In order to act in concert, different branches of the socialist movement sharing similar goals and concerns need to evaluate the rise of this popular movement immediately. The TKP, without interrupting its daily missions and activities, is going to act responsibly regarding this issue and endeavor for the creation of a common ground in line with the urgent demands below.
7. In order to nullify the plans of the government to classify and divide the popular movement as legitimate and illegitimate, all forces need to avoid the steps that might cause damage to the legitimacy of the movement. It is the political power that attacks. The people should defend themselves as well as their rightful action but never fall into the provocation trap of the government.
8. While the masses are chanting the slogan “government, resign”, the negotiations limited to the future of the Taksim-Gezi Park are meaningless. The government pretends not to understand the fact that the old balances has been upset fundamentally and cannot be restored. Everybody knows that the popular movement is not the product of susceptibility towards the trees in the Gezi Park. The anger of the people is over the urban transformation projects, the terror of the market, open direct interventions in different lifestyles, the Americanism and the subordination to the US, the reactionary policies, the enmity towards the Syrian people. The AKP cannot deceive the people with a discourse of “we will plant more trees than the ones that we will chop down.”
9. While rolling up our sleeves in order to create an alternative of the working people, the movement needs to lean on certain concrete demands. These demands are valid in the in the case of the resignation of the government or of Erdogan:
a) The government must announce that the projects that involve the demolishment of the Gezi Park and of the Ataturk Cultural Center are terminated.
b) Those who were taken in custody during the resistance must be released and all charges against them must be dropped immediately.
c) All officials whose crimes against the people are proven by the reports of the commissions that are formed by the Union of Bar Associations and local bar associations must be relieved of their duties.
d) The attempts that hinder the right of the people to get true news on the developments must be stopped.
e) All prohibitions regarding meetings, demonstrations and marches must be repealed.
f) All de facto or de jure obstacles that lock the political participation of the people, including the 10 per cent election threshold and the anti-democratic articles of the ‘law on political parties’, must be abolished.
g) All initiatives that attempt to impose a monotype life style to all people must be stopped.
10. These urgent demands will in no case affect our right and duty to continue the opposition against the political power. The People's reaction to the government must be reinforced, and efforts must be concentrated to bring about a real alternative in the political scene.
11. The star and the crescent Turkish flag that was intended to be used to provide a shield for reactionary and chauvinist attacks against laborers, leftists, Kurdish people after the fascist military coup of September 12, 1980, has now been grasped by the People from the hands of fascism, and given to the honorable hands of Deniz Gezmiş and his comrades, as a flag in the hands of patriotic people.
12. The People's movement, ever since the beginning, has persistently let down the sinister strategy to play one community against another in Turkey. This attitude must carefully be maintained, leaving no room for chauvinism or vulgar nationalism.
13. Appealing to our Kurdish brothers and sisters, we had already declared that "There can be no peace agreement with AKP". There can be no deal with a political power to which its own People have turned their back, and the true face of which has been revealed. Kurdish politics must give up "cherishing hopes of proceeding further with AKP", and become a strong constituent of a united, patriotic and enlightened laborer People's movement.
14. Our citizens who have lost their lives through the hands of the police force of the political power, have sacrificed their lives in the name of a just and historical struggle. The People are never going to forget their names, and those who are responsible for their death will pay the price before law.
Central Committee
Communist Party of Turkey
4 June 2013
--------------------------------------------------
= new reply since forum marked as read
Although, the Bolshevik reaction started to occur before the Civil War. In my view, they were most concerned with retaining power, for the sake of power itself. There were other Leftist elements who were concerned with the power remaining within the soviets. The Bolsheviks ensured that this would not be the case, and effectively purged any semblance of worker control. In my view, Lenin was the biggest factor in undermining the revolution.
The case of Nestor Makhno's Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine, after the Civil War started, successfully fended off both the White and Red Armies (he even came to Lenin's aid several times when it appeared that the White Army was ready to overtake Petrograd and Moscow). It was only the Bolshevik betrayal of the the alliance with Makhno (when all threats were over) that successfully finished off the Black Army (Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine).
The anarchist contingent (and other Leftist elements) had the disciplinary characteristics that began the revolution in the first place. Lenin even praised the anarchists:
"Very many anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet power, and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies of Marxism only through misunderstanding, or, more correctly, not through misunderstanding but because the official socialism prevailing in the epoch of the Second International (1889-1914) betrayed Marxism, lapsed into opportunism, perverted Marx’s revolutionary teachings in general and his teachings on the lessons of the Paris Commune of 1871 in particular."
The anarchists (and other Leftist revolutionary elements) were the most fervent proponents of the soviets, yet the Bolsheviks gerry-mandered these soviets (and suppressed others) in order to gain sole power (amongts the various factions, the Left SRs, Right SRs, Mensheviks, anarchists, etc.)
The Revolution was initially successful, but it was the Bolsheviks (prior to the Civil War) that undermined this revolution according to all the documents I've read.
We agree on the "bottom up style," comrade, which isn't contradictory to discipline (see the Spanish anarchists in the 1936 revolution), but horizontal power is essential in a revolution.
In my comradely view. 
I would expect that, like all neo-liberal economies, the vast majority of the gains of an economy "...going like gangbusters..." have gone to the tiny minority on top AND that the bottom layers of society have actually lost ground. I'm sure this inequity has played a large part in the current unrest just like it has the world over.
Along with this inequity, I would also think that there is a lot of cronyism involved in the granting of contracts for privatization of services. This type of cronyism is even more endemic in a developing world than it is in the developed economies and it's pretty fucking bad in the developed countries. So you stir in a huge dash of "who you know or who you blow" into an ALREADY unequal system and you have a recipe for unrest up to and including revolution. This basic unfairness is going to cause a backlash, guaranteed. Your Mama might have always told you that life ain't fair, but that don't mean that most people don't have the urge to try and MAKE it fair.
It's like in the "Shock Doctrine", the neo-liberals always like to talk about the number of millionaires neo-liberalism creates, but NEVER talks about the number of people who fall into poverty because of it. I believe in Klein's book, the numbers I saw were something like 1 millionaire created for every 750,000 people who fell from middle class into poverty.
I just honestly don't know much about Turkey. I'm hoping to find more left-wing sources on what's been going on, I always like to know that whats, whys and wherefores. Being right next to Greece, I should have figured there'd be potential for political foment. The've just been kind of quiet up until the present demonstrations.
(The only thing I've followed on them is education reform-related--there's a line of Turkish charter schools in the US, started from a mystical group called Gulen that evidently has a lot of political clout in Turkey and gained a big foothold here.)
about this group. Smart people who know how to research and analyze and bring it back to the SP page.
I had read somewhere that the Gul who is the President (?) of Turkey was a founder of this movement, but since it wasn't something I was actively researching, I just absorbed it as a POSSIBILITY without checking. However, as part of the "good cop, bad cop" scenario, I do think that my analysis of this part of the Turkish power play is accurate. Gul (the President) is playing the "good cop" to Erdogan's "bad cop". Hopefully the people, led by the Turkish working class, will become the "chief cop" and transcend this neo-liberal, capitalist game.
