Introduction

It is important to present the theoretical thesis of the THKP-C, the Turkish People’s Liberation Party-Front to the international public.

The armed struggle of 1971, called a turning-point in the class struggle in Turkey, made an end to fifty years of pacifist, reformist “leftist” tradition. And the armed struggle was put into praxis by the THKP-C.

The ideological-political line of the THKP-C has not lost any of its importance, despite its physical destruction by the fascist junta of March 12, 1971.

Nowadays, after the fascist junta of September 12, 1980, we experience a developing revolutionary process in which after the coup of 1980 it was the political movement DEVRIMCI SOL (Revolutionary Left) which was based on the thesis of the THKP-C and defended these in the progressing class struggle in Turkey. In 1994 Devrimci Sol, transited into the DHKP/C (Revolutionary people’s Liberation Party-Front) The book “Uninterrupted Revolution” by MAHIR CAYAN consists of three main parts.

The translated third part deals with the qualities of the 3rd period of crisis of imperialism and the application of the leninist theory of uninterrupted revolution in the neo-colonial countries.

In part one and two, MAHIR CAYAN deals with the theories of evolution and revolution of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.

When MAHIR CAYAN established the strategy of the revolution in Turkey in the third part of the book, he followed a line which goes from the concrete conditions and activities in Turkey to the abstract.

One has to keep in mind the economic situation in Turkey and the international developments round about 1971 when one reads about the 3. period of crisis of imperialism. The differences in some tactical questions in the present-day conditions must be considered. Strategic and tactical assessments must not be mixed up.

PREFACE

The Left in our country goes through a theoretical chaos. Several opportunistic factions, who start from the same revisionist thesis which they bring to the market in different packages, and who rely on the other forces in stead of their own, reproach each other in all harshness of being opportunists, revisionists, traitors, etc. Because of differences in the analysis or notions, which do not even have a meaning for their own tactical differences, they create a fuss.
Between the insolent deformations, the petit-bourgeois bawlers and the very clever, who always say “We are from the old times, we know everything”, for years a blind war is going on about so-called ideological controversies, which are no more than clouds of dust.
The ideological level of the Left is not very high, because there is no strong proletarian movement in our country. That’s why it is impossible to distinguish between right and wrong in this kind of situation, everything is mixed-up.
And in this situation, where the substance of the marxist-leninist theory of revolution has gone lost, the original “theories of revolution” of several kinds of opportunism are brought to the market in the name of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. And so one kind of opportunism, referring to the writings of Lenin, is denouncing the other side as traitors, the other side, referring to the writings of Lin Piao and Mao, blames the others for being revisionists.
“Marxism is a very profound and very complicated doctrine”. Marxism is a doctrine, continually deepening according to the facts of life, getting richer and anticipating itself. In Marxism, not the exact words are important, the content is. The only thing which does not change in Marxism, according to Lenin’s words, is it living spirit, the dialectical method. When one does not pay attention to the two elementary factors of dialectics, time and place, it is possible to denounce several people as revisionists: Lenin after Marx and Engels, Mao Tse Tung after Lenin and Stalin, and the victorious proletarian revolutionaries of the 3rd period of crisis of imperialism after Mao.
Opportunism always uses two methods two deform scientific socialism:
They do not pay attention to the notions of time and place, and they hang on to thesis which were ment by the masters of Marxism for other historical conditions and which are antiquated in the present days. It is a attempt to use these thesis as a support for their deviation. Or they claim the universal valid thesis of Marxism/Leninism are obsolete by saying: “Time and place have changed, so they are not valid anymore”. In this way they revise Marxism.
As in other countries in the world, every form of revisionism tries to confuse the revolutionary militants by using these methods and by deforming Marxism/Leninism.
When we wrote this brochure, we paid special attention to this fact.
We have tried to present our idea of revolution, and accordingly our idea of organisation and way of working, by pointing to the way which is taken by the marxist theory of revolution and its enrichment in time.
In analyzing scientific socialism one usually does not go from the abstract to the concrete, but from the concrete analysis to abstractions. But the left in our country constitutes an exception. As we have mentioned above, one has lost the substance of the doctrine out of the eye because of the theoretical chaos within the left. Therefore we decided to tackle the problem, from the beginning, by starting from the abstract, to get a deeper grip on the problem, to reach the concrete.
So we will present once more the marxist theory of revolution which has lost its substance in a blind struggle, and secondly we will prevent that any form of opportunism mixes up our militant friends by their so-called ideological controversies. (Of course, it is impossible to prevent the distortions of opportunism totally. However, it is possible to present the problem very clearly and open and this will for a large part prevent the distortion of opportunism).
Precisely because of these reasons we followed, in our analysis, the method which goes from the abstract to the concrete.
(…) The third chapter contains the characteristic qualities of the 3. period of crisis of imperialism; the enrichment en deepening of Leninism under the new conditions; the strategy of the revolution in the semi-colonial states; the revolutionary and revisionist comments on the revolution in Cuba and the road to the revolution in Turkey. (…)

KURTULUS
1971

[Kurtulus was the political paper where the political articles of Mahir Çayan, resp. the THKP-C were published]
THE 1ST PERIOD OF CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM

The American imperialism came out of the second war of partition as the country with the least symptoms of erosion and the biggest profits. With the export and transfer of capital, incomparable with those of the last period due to amount, it won hegemony over the other imperialist/capitalist states. In name of the imperialist block that assumed the role of gendarme against the people’s war and the socialist block. So it is correct to assert that the capitalist block changed into a US-imperium (2/5 of the capitalist production in the world is due to the USA).
In the 3rd period of crisis of imperialism the inner-imperialist relations and contrast changed formally on two fronts:
1. the possibility does not longer exist that the competition (antagonist contradictions) between the imperialists lead to a new war of partition between them.
2. the form of imperialist occupation has changed.

Strictly speaking there are hardly any typical colonialists left. The hidden occupation has taken the place of the open.
According to the bourgeois scientists the world went into the age of the “Second Industrial Revolution” after the 2nd war of partition; according to the marxist scientist the age of the “Scientific and Technical Revolution” has begun.
“Nobody will doubt nowadays that humankind has entered the age of the technical revolution with the use of atomic energy, the conquest of space and the automation of production.”
Imperialism, most of all the Yankee-imperialism is capable, by the use of science, technic and inventions, which enable the production of nuclear weapons systems – the socialist block has them as well – to exterminate the whole world by its great progress. (1)
(According to the formal logic of the bourgeois economists this “scientific-technical revolution” has become a cure against the crisis of capitalism. However, the contrary is the case. The “scientific-technical revolution” has lifted the inner-imperialistic contrasts to a level which was hitherto unknown and sprang the framework of capitalist relations. The growing condensation of production, the concentration of capital, the fusion of private and state monopolies and the abnormal failing of demand have created a frightening chaos).
On the one hand capital accumulated to frightful heights, on the other hand 1/3 of the world withdrew itself from the capitalist exploitation. The result: the markets for capitalism have been limited to the metropoles.
That’s the reason why the crisis of capitalism has developed to the outer limit. This development deepened the inner-imperialistic contrast in a terrifying manner.
“The rhythm of development of the capitalist economy is determined by the situation of the capitalist market.”
The level which is reached by the nuclear hitting power and the existence of the socialist block, prevent that the irreconcilable contrasts of the imperialists, risen to the upper limit, jump from the economic to the military level. While the contrasts deepen on the one hand, the road to integration is taken on the other.

Because the irreconcilable contrasts between the imperialists have reached the upper limit, but for the time being can not be solved by a new war of partition and the way of integration was forced upon them, capitalism goes through its most deadly phase.
Yankee-imperialism is in a deep crisis today. However, after the 2nd war of partition, Yankee-Imperialism controlled the European and Japanese allies economically and dictated its economical and political interest to them and in this way it could maintain its economical “stability” for a lang time. All currencies in the capitalist world were measured by the US-dollar.
However, the law of uneven development of capitalism is still valid in this age and the European and Japanese imperialists were able to endanger US-hegemony. The US-economy got in a ever-increasing crisis – due to the applying laws of capitalism – and this crisis became so immense in the last years that the unassailability of the legendary US-dollar had to be lifted – with a delay of two years.
When deflation of the US-dollar became necessary in 1969, the Yanks tried to pressure the allies for two years which, however, did not have many success, apart from some concessions, and the US-dollar was deflated in 1971.
When the characteristics of the 3rd period of crisis – which we have put forward – would not have existed, the Yankees would not have been contented with the concessions of the allies and they would have choosen the armed way to solve the market problems (and they would have killed two birds with the same stone, because war is also a general cure against the illness: inadequate demand in capitalism). However. the existence of the socialist block and the highly developed technologies recall that such a policy would mean the own end (the prestige which socialism had in this period in the eyes of the workers in the metropoles and colonies must be kept in mind – a very important factor).
Because the interior and exterior markets of imperialism were very limited in this period, and the problem could not be solved with a war of partition, imperialism in general, and Yankee-imperialism especially, choose two methods: in interior politics the economy was militarized, and in foreign politics the old colonialism was replaced by the neo-colonialism.
As is known, the interior market can only be raising the consumption of goods by the individual consumer. However, the interior market can only be expanded when the real income of the working population is raised. But this is contrary to the nature of capitalism. Pursuing rising profits, that’s the substantial nature of the monopolies. The accumulation of capital results in a drop in real income of the workers and working classes in capitalist society. Since 1952 the real wages of the US-proletariat have continuously dropped.
Against the narrowing of the interior market, against the inadequate demand, the Yankees found the formula of militarizing the economy even more. (2) (That this formula can not save capitalism anymore, is proven by the present-day live).
The extra-ordinary condensation and centralisation of capital has fully advanced monopoly capitalism into monopolistic state capitalism. (3) This means the fusion of the power of the monopolies and that of the state as well as their change into machinery. (The phase of monopolistic state capitalism is characterized by Lenin as the phase where the material conditions have matured for the transition to socialism. The antagonistic contrasts of capitalism have thus reached their outermost limit.)
Yankee-imperialism, which militarized its economy to a extraordinary extend, increased its frenzy and fury to attack worldwide as a natural result of its situation. The Pentagon, which on one side overshadowed the pseudo- democratic colonial and semi-colonial states together with the CIA, resp. its intrigue, and led the establishment of military regimes, mobilized on the other side all its strength to transform the countries with wars of national liberation into a gruesome hell.
That imperialism collapses on the strategic level, and strengthens its force and attacks on the tactical level, is inherent to the logic of capital. In the age of “scientific and technical revolution” where the markets were narrowed for international capital, the old foreign policy methods were changed to handle the crisis, for the time being, which had taken alarming proportion. (That is not to say that the old methods were not used anymore. Both methods were used simultaneously, however, the emphasis is on the new ones).
We want to go into this theme, which concerns our praxis primarily.
During the 1ST and I1ST general periods of crisis, international capital was not is fenced in as it is the case in the 3rd period of crisis. As we have said before, technic, centralisation and condensation of capital were not yet in this phase. For these reasons international capitalism could deal with the market problem with the exporting and transferring of goods and cash money. The world (the narrowing of the markets) and the lack of demand were not as big as today. From this side, imperialism had not yet the problem to expand the markets in the colonies.
In alliance with feudalism, whereby the existing structures were maintained, -from these a compradoren-bourgeoisie was formed partly- imperialism could comfortably carry out its exploitation. When the repression regime of the compradoren-bourgeois could no longer prevent the struggle against the feudality of the proletarian revolutionaries who organized the spontaneous rebellions, imperialist occupation took an open form, as has happened frequently. These imperialist states had stationed there military in these states on strategic point anyway, in harbours and main centres of intelligence, to protect their trade and to prevent other imperialist states of taking over their market. (Imperialism was therefore present in all strategic places).
However, in the 3rd period of crisis the relations between the imperialists have changed.
Imperialism was forced to change its methods of exploitation because the accumulation of capital had come to its limits and because of the national and anti-imperialist movements since the 2nd war of partition. These changes, meant to hide the ugly face of imperialism and to expand the markets in the colonies, are the methods of neo-colonialism.
The nature of the methods of neo-colonialism, corresponding to the avaricious exploitation policy of imperialism, was that the market for goods expanded in the colonial countries, capitalism “from top to bottom” became the dominating form of production, and a centralist and strong authority was to rule. The “democratic revolution from top to bottom” was realized to a certain extend. While in general the feudal relations remained intact in the superstructure (the feudalist exploitation of labour remained and the feudalist ideology was kept…), capitalism became the ruling force in the substructure. (Production for the market).
This means a light and middle-heavy industry is created and a resident monopolistic bourgeoisie (the beneficiary of imperialism as its ally) arises and develops.
However, the developing native bourgeois did not develop with a dynamics of its own. From the beginning it was determined by imperialism, from the beginning. With that, imperialism, which had been an external presence during the 1ST and I1ST periods of crisis for these countries, became in the same time a internal fact (4) (Characteristic of hidden occupation).
We want to summarize the neo-colonialist method which we have mentioned above.
The neo-colonialist method was especially developed after 1946 by Yankee- imperialism. This policy was brought on stage by the Truman-Marshall doctrine, by bilateral treaties, and by military pacts.
The substance of this policy leans even more to the method of creating more market possibilities, without causing a national war and it satisfies the problems of imperialism which have risen to an even higher level. The most important basic method lies in the change of the composition of the export and transfer of capital. A new relation was created between 5-6 elements of capital. Before the war the export of cash capital had a bigger share, compared to the other elements; patent and names rights, spare parts, technical know how, personnel etc.. After the war, and especially after 1960, this relation changed and the elements of capital, which we summarized above, except the export of cash capital, have become more importance.
Nowadays the share of foreign cash capital in the countries left behind is much lower compared to the own capital but there are many industrial companies (f.e. the automobile industry) which are totally dependent on the outside. Some basic industries are set up which are 100% dependent and some light and middle industries are pulled up which depend on them. (5) These industries are based on elements of foreign capital, except cash capital.
This method of neo-colonialism, shortly summarized here, brought with it that while on the one hand imperialism established itself in a country (and it became more than just a outside phenomenon, but a internal fact), on the other hand the production of society, to the old colonial periode where feudalism had been deciding, rose to a certain extent, parallel ton the extension of the market, and the relative prosperity grew.
Therefore the contrasts in the backward country seemingly became qualitative weaker, compared to the feudal period, and a artificial balance was reached between the reaction of the people’s masses against the order and the oligarchy. Because the imperialist occupation was hidden, – but imperialism became a internal fact in the same time – the national reactions of the masses, the allergy against the unbelievable alien, were neutralized. The centralist organs of the state became stronger, compared to the past, and the state of the oligarchy was militarized by projects with the allies, bilateral treaties and military pacts, in view of the revolutionary civil war. (The imperialist aid consists for 3/4 of military aid).
Parallel to the development of the internal market of the countries, the urbanisation, transport, and communication highly developed and covered the country like a net. In stead of the weak control in the old times, – imperialism was not present everywhere, mainly just in the central places of trade and communication -, there came a essentially stronger authority, the authority of the oligarchic state. The army, police and several different means of discouragement and propaganda came to most remote parts of the country.
Furthermore, there are the means of propaganda which reached a frightening level, incomparable to those of the 1ST and 2nd period of crisis, the development of methods of discouragement, and the experiences made with imperialism and the oligarchy in the earlier wars of liberation.
Now the apparatus of the oligarchic state in the backward countries has reached the level where it can maintain the existing relations of production, and because capitalism did not develop with dynamics of its own, it is even right to say: the imperialist relations of production, for a longer period and they succeeded to establish a artificial balance between the reactions of the masses and the oligarchy by pacifying the reactions of the people’s masses. (This situation constitutes the basis of pacifism and revisionism in this country…)

THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE OLIGARCHY

In the imperialist-capitalist countries, which have gone through the Industrial Revolution, the rule is the rule of oligarchy, like in the countries which have been left behind. However, in the imperialist-capitalist countries, capitalism did not develop in a reactionary way, not “from top to bottom”, it developed in a revolutionary sense with dynamics of its own. So the bourgeois-democratic relations became deciding, not just in the substructure but in the superstructure as well, after the feudal relations were abolished. But in the monopolist period capitalism has put aside the principles of free competition, nationalism and democratic rule and replaced it by monopoly, cosmopolitism and the dictation by the oligarchy.
However, the proletarians and the working masses won democratic rights and freedoms in earlier periods by a lengthy and bloody struggle. The working classes are qualitative strong. For these reasons the oligarchies could curtail the classic bourgeois democracy and its freedoms to a certain degree, but never its substance. The oligarchies in these countries are the oligarchies of finance.
In countries like ours, the dictatoriat of the oligarchy does not only bear the mark of finance capital. Because capitalism didn’t develop on its own dynamics, but “from top to bottom”. So the native bourgeois developed from the beginning, when it was still in its infancy, melted with imperialism. (Because imperialism became a internal given fact, it is part of the oligarchy). But this developing monopoly-bourgeois did not have the strength to maintain the imperialist relations of production, although it keeps the pact with imperialism. So they were forced to share their rule with the bourgeois landlords, bound to internal and foreign monopolies, and the feudal remnants.
Although the cooperating monopolist bourgeois basically leads the oligarchy, it is not the only native class which preserves the imperialist relations of production.
The leadership of the oligarchy can easily control the country with a fully grown dictatorship in countries like ours where there are no democratic rights and freedoms for the workers and the working masses. We can call this fascism of the colonial type. This rule is exercised with a “phoney-democracy”, which has nothing to do with classic bourgeois democracy at all, (hidden fascism), or it is exercised openly, even without the ballot box-democracy. However, the open form is not a lasting one. In general it is applied when the reigns threaten to slacken.

THE REVOLUTIONARY LINE AND REVISIONISM

We have described, in a few words, the characteristics of the 3rd period of general crisis and the differences with the other general periods of crisis of imperialism.
In this period revisionism and opportunism within the left have shown themselves in two forms.
Because of the characteristic qualities of this period the former claimed that the universal theses of Leninism had lost their validity which will exist until the collapse of imperialism as a system. And so they dish up the theory of a peaceful and pacifist revolution.
However, the substance of imperialism has not changed. What changed are the forms of inner-imperialist relations and exploitation. Therefore the universal theses of Leninism, the Marxism of the imperialist area, remain valid until the collapse of imperialism as a system.
The second type, the social-reformist line, which does not reckon with the changing forms of relations and exploitation of imperialism, does not use the theory as a lead for action, but as a invariable dogma.
In their opinion the form of armed propaganda can not be the main method of struggle because such a form of propaganda does not appear in Leninism, they claim. Armed propaganda is supposedly not a organizing one. Holding to armed propaganda would mean seeing everything through the barrel of a gun… etc…
We want to go into this theme a little deeper.
As is known, Marx and Engels in the second part of the 19th century said: for the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeois to reach a further phase, and to make the first proletarian revolution in the world a possibility, a world war between the imperialists will probably be necessary.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks carried out the first proletarian revolution in the world in the imperialist age, by making this analysis of genius their own.
Lenin said already around 1900 (much earlier, before he wrote his book “Imperialism”), that the law of the uneven and jolting development of capitalism will compulsory lead to a war between the imperialists which will open the way to revolution for the weakest link in the chain of capitalism, Russia. According to the leninist model of revolution, the contrasts between the imperialists will undoubtedly jump to the military platform.
As we know, the world proletariat movement made a giant leap forward during the first inner-imperialist world war, during the turn over phase from top to bottom, and 1/6 of the world became socialist. During the turn over phase from top to bottom which was caused by the second inner-imperialist world war, already 1/3 of the world became socialist and socialism won prestige worldwide.
After the second world war capitalism slided into a new period of crisis. It is not possible that the inner-imperialist contrasts will inflame a war in this period. (For the reasons we already mentioned).
The Cuban Revolution with its form of struggle, with the route they followed, is therefore a result of the particularities of this historical period, in other words, the result of applying Marxism-Leninism in practice in this historical period. (Apart from the proletarian Revolution in Cuba, all other revolutions were realised by the from-top-to-bottom turnovers of the two world wars.
From the application of the universal marxist-leninist theses in the praxis of this concrete historical situation follows that armed propaganda is the basic form of struggle and the war of the avant-garde of the people constitutes the bolshevist line of the proletarian revolutionaries of all countries which are under the hegemony of imperialism.
Both the pacifists in our country, as well as those in other countries call the struggle of the revolutionary organisations which take armed propaganda as the basic form of struggle, who wage the avant-garde war, as a “duel of a handful of people with the ruling class”, as “the line of anarchism and Narodnisism”, and they say that “such a form of struggle does not exist with Lenin. This conception means to look at everything through the barrel of a gun…etc…” These claims, which are nothing more than a ideological veil to cover the capitulation, have a side which has to be taken seriously. We will only say this: In this period a revolution has taken place. And those who achieved this revolution, furthermore by taking armed propaganda as basis form of struggle, started with the avant-garde war. The revolutionary movements who take the leninist working-method as basis for this historical situation, write the epic of liberation of these people in the rural parts of this world. However, the pacifists, a group of a handful, conduct a duel of words as prolonged left arm of imperialism and oligarchy in the world against those who write the epic of liberation with blood and fire.
Lenin gives the best answer to those pacifists who claim this form of struggle does not exist with Lenin:
So lets give him the word: “Marxism requires a strict historical examination of the question of forms of struggle. To keep this question separated from the concrete historical situation would show that the principles of the dialectic materialism are not fully understood. In the different stages of the economic evolution, bound to the changing, political-national-cultural living circumstances, different forms of struggle arise, these mainly become forms of fighting; in relation to these, also the supplementary forms of struggle change, in the second grade”.
Those who do not regard the changes in the political, cultural and national conditions of the economical evolution (imperialism), who are disconnected from the lived concrete historical situation, (the 3rd period of crisis of imperialism) and practice, and those who are fixed on a mechanical working-method on the works from Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, can be good Marxologists, but they can never be proletarian revolutionaries.
The principle difference between all kinds of opportunism and the revolutionary line is shown in the choice of the basic form of struggle. As we know, the proletarian-revolutionary struggle, waged against the ruling classes, is versatile. This versatility is gathered under two headings in literature:
a) Peaceful methods of struggle (does not mean reconciliation)
b) Armed methods of action
How should the struggle against imperialism and the oligarchy be led in the countries under occupation of imperialism? With what form of struggle as basis should the artificial balance between the oligarchy and the discontent, the reaction, of the people be destroyed? Which method of struggle, as a basis, should be choosen to pull the people to the revolutionary ranks? Which form of struggle should be the basis for a campaign which reveals the political facts?
It is exactly this which divides the revolutionary line from the opportunistic line, the revolutionary theory from the “orthodox” ideological drivel.
The international revisionists and pacifists who divide the stages of evolution and revolution of the revolutionary struggle in the present period with a sharp line, answer the above-mentioned questions (whatever the differences between them may be, from those who take the city as a basis to those who take the country as their basis) as follows:
“Go to the masses, satisfy the most basic needs of the masses, politicise them, organise them on the basis of economic rights and the needs of the workers, directing them to the political goal”.
In all countries which are left behind, where the democratic rights and freedoms are not applied, are put aside, or better said, where the oligarchy does “not allow” the application, and a complete policy of submission is practised against the working masses with the help of the army, the police and other forces, these organisations who want to transform the economical and democratic struggle to a political struggle with classical “mass work”, will become weaker and weaker seeing the military superior forces and repression of the enemy and they will slide further to the right.
This way “will let survive the artificial balance, built between the dictatorship of the oligarchy and the pressure of the people, in stead of destroying it”. (Che)
Yes, it will survive when we go this way. Of course, there will seem to be progress. But those who defend this way will, although they might have had militant qualities in the beginning, loose this quality, they will get spoiled and become bureaucrats, more and more. What will be lost will be the revolutionary substance, and therefore also some workers who were driven to pacifism. This is always the result. One will come to this conclusion when one interprets this view superficially.(6)
They take the view that the phase of evolution will be long and the phase of revolution will be short, as it was the case during the revolution in the Soviet Union where the urban proletariat played the key role.
Those organisations which take this basic form of struggle will get more and more under the wings of the revolutionary nationalists while they think they will achieve the democratic rights and freedoms in the country under their leadership and through that they will be able to organise the masses in the field of the economic and democratic struggle and create consciousness.
For example, the group X comes together in the environs of a newspaper which reveals the political facts and it tries to get a foothold in factories and other places, it goes into economical-democratic mass organisations. While, starting from this point, they try to pull the masses to the side of the revolution, so while they take this form of struggle as their basis, they planned on the other hand one or two robberies to provide money for the organisation, and they may have undertaken one or two acts of sabotage and some attempted attacks. (But these achieved armed actions are not the same as armed propaganda).
And this group which has taken this working-method has placed all its hopes on a revolutionary-nationalist junta. Because this junta would practically realise the constitution of May 27, 1961 (a democratic-liberal constitution, tr.), the articles 141-142 (comparable to 129a in Germany) would be abolished and a order would be created according to the choosen method of struggle.
Revolutionary viewpoint:
Armed propaganda is the principle method of struggle to destroy the artificial balance between the oligarchy and the unconscious reaction and discontent of the people and for the mobilisation of the masses on the side of the revolution.
In the countries where the economical and democratic struggle of the working masses is put down by the dictatorship of the oligarchy – albeit in its parliamentary institution -, where the central authority looks like a “giant” with its army, police etc., where the hidden occupation exists, in those countries armed propaganda is the principle method of struggle which establishes a contact with the masses and wins them to the ranks of the revolution by a broad campaign which spreads the political facts.
Armed propaganda is not a military struggle, it is a political one. It’s not a form of struggle for individuals, it’s a form of struggle for the masses. So, armed propaganda is in any case no terrorism (in spite of the allegations by the pacifists), it differs from individual terrorism in its aim and means. Armed propaganda takes the view of a certain revolutionary strategy which is recognizable for the masses in the material and concrete actions, and from this it develops its theory. In the area of material events it reveals the political facts, brings consciousness to the masses and shows them the political goal. Armed propaganda agitates the discontent of the people against the order, liberates them in time from the effects of the imperialist brainwash. First it shakes the masses, and step by step it makes them conscious, shows them that the central authority is not as strong as it seems, that the force is in the first instance based on cries, intimidation and demagogy.
Armed propaganda at first leads particularly the view of the masses, who are taken by the imperialist media, who go under in the daily problems of subsistence, who put their hopes on one “party” of the order or the other, to the revolutionary movement and its creates a turmoil in the benumbed and pacified masses.
At first the constraint and indecisiveness of the masses, caused by the dense rightwing propaganda (this also includes the opportunistic media), change more and more towards sympathy for the revolutionary movement. Towards the oligarchy however, which takes of its “mask of justice” towards the armed action and raises its terror against the people in a hitherto unknown measure, constraint and indecisiveness change to antipathy whereby the masses recognize the ugly face of the oligarchy.
The organisation which takes armed propaganda as a basis, becomes the only source of hope. While on the one side unemployment and inflation rise, and the discontent of the people borders on the unbearable, the oligarchy on the other side looses all its prestige, in the first place in the eyes of the intellectuals, and thus in the eyes of the people. Because of the armed propaganda they raise repression and terror immensely and all democratic rights of the people disappear into the cupboard.
The party, which wages the guerrilla war successfully, will clear the left of the parasites more and more, in the first place by rallying round the awakened parts of the people who came under the influence of the opportunistic factions of the left. The parts of the population who were confused by the pacifists, – workers, peasants, students – gather around the armed propaganda. So, the armed propaganda will in the first place gather the left and the sincere elements which were at first under the influence of different tendencies, will rally round one single strategy.
The armed propaganda includes the rural and urban guerrilla warfare, as well as the psychological warfare and the war of attrition.
Maintaining the basic form of struggle in this way does not mean that other forms of struggle are neglected. The organisation which takes armed propaganda as its basis will also take the other forms of struggle, compared to the possibilities, in its hands. However, the other forms of struggle are secondary. Armed propaganda is the basic form of struggle. This doesn’t mean that one remains inactive towards the economical and democratic mass movements. The organisation will try, in relation with its strength, to organize the masses in the area of their economical-democratic rights and desires. The organisation will try to lead all kinds of reactions against the oligarchy. However, in the beginning it will be impossible to run everywhere, the organisation will not take part in mass movements which exceed its strength and who are not secured with arms. Proportionately, according to its possibilities, the organisation will be engaged in political education, propaganda and organizing to achieve consciousness, outside the armed propaganda.
The classical-political mass struggle and the armed propaganda take turns, stipulate each other, depend on each other, and influence each other.
The other political, economical, democratic forms of struggle, outside the armed propaganda, are subjected to the armed propaganda and form according to it. (The subjected forms of struggle take form according to the basic form of struggle. So, they take form according to the methods of armed propaganda).
The revolutionary strategy which takes armed propaganda as its basis and the other economical, democratic forms of struggle as subjected to it, is called Politicized Strategy of Military Struggle. (PASS) For the organisation of this strategy the ideological struggle is not a polemic means, it leads to the political education of it cadres.
These are, in short, the views of the revolutionary and the revisionist line which exist in those countries under occupation of imperialism in the 3rd period of crisis.
Summarized: In these countries two deviations exist under the name of “proletarian revolutionaries”:
1) The revisionist, classical “orthodox” line:
(The qualities)
To look at the military side and the political side as opposed to each other, underestimates the military side. The political function of the urban proletariat in the light of the Soviet model, where the urban proletariat played a key role, is excessively valued.
After the gain of prestige by the armed propaganda, these organisations lost prestige and they then opened a “branch” to build the guerrilla. Of course, this guerrilla remained idle drivel.
The revisionists take the peaceful form of struggle as its basis, divide the phases of evolution and revolution with a sharp line, and reject the avant-garde war – although the country is in a national crisis -. This creates spontaneity.
2) As a result of a wrong analysis of the Cuban Revolution and as a reaction to the above-mentioned view, the militant left line arose; the Focus-view: in this view the relations between city and country, the armed propaganda and the other forms of struggle are not seen as a dialectical unity; it only uses totally the armed propaganda in the country, looks at the subjected role of the cities and the other forms of struggle as unimportant. At the basis of this view lies the thought that the peasants will take up the arms immediately through the struggle of the avant-garde and the war will transform to a people’s war in a very short time.
In this aspect also this line represents a “left” “spontanity”.
However, the defenders of this view have given up this view, recognizing the confrontation with the facts of live, where they have been far from reality. Nowadays, worldwide there are almost no more armed propaganda organisations with this focus-view.

THE CENTRAL FEUDAL STATE OF THE OTTOMANS

We have to approach the Ottoman-state in two phases:
a) The military-centralist-feudal Ottoman empire.
b) The feudal compradors-state of the Ottoman.

Although the Osman society did not possess a classical feudal structure, it was a feudal state. When we look at it more precisely, the society (especially in the 16th century) was: militaristic – centralistic – feudal. The production of the feudal state was tied to the land. The central state appropriated the surplus production through secondary feudal lords. The fact that the strategic commercial roads were in the hands of the Ottoman feudality, as well as the external plunder brought about that the internal plunder – the internal exploitation – was not very sharp.
This situation, and the fact that the feudal building was not of a classical type, softened – more or less – the internal contradictions. (That is to say, the contrasts between the forces of production and the relations of production were not pronounced to such an extent that they would have led into the boundless in a short time). When capitalism slowly began to sprout and the contrasts entered a phase of sharpening, the European capitalism prevented the native capitalism to develop. (7)
That it was to become a field of exploitation by European capitalism was stipulated by the weak auto-dynamics which played, without any doubt, a mayor role.
At the end of the 18th century the Ottoman society became a open market for European capitalism. (This was made official with the Treaty of Baltaliman in 1838). These are the years in which the central authority weakened and the feudal regional lands became more powerful.
Since the 18th century the Ottoman society intensified entered a phase of colonialisation, the state soon became a compradors state, native capitalism – still in the phase of delicate infancy, was not able to resist the competition of European capitalism, and the economy got a feudalist comprador structure.
One of the major particularities of this feudalist -comprador-economy was the lack of a revolutionary bourgeoisie which moved on the development of the nation, which could have moved the masses of the people who were fell asleep under the influence of social-psychological and cultural development, caused by half-feudal character of society, tradition, morals and customs, and which would have been able to spread progressive and democratic thoughts. This task was, necessarily, put on the shoulders of the small bourgeoisie. (8) Put in other words, the weak auto-dynamics – caused by the lack of a classical feudal structure in Ottoman society – resulted in the fact that the privileged broad bureaucracy, as a product of a strong centralism of the military feudal state, was able to act, to a certain degree, as a class.
In the 18th century the centralist feudal state lost, bit by bit, its influence in the interior, the regional powers became stronger. The centralist feudal state was unable to make a stand because of the foreign interventions, and therefore it allied with the foreign forces and developed into a comprador state. As a result, two tendencies arose in the privileged group of footman. This privileged top layer of footman, which received their share from European capitalism, became, together with the sultans’ family, compradors very quickly.
The Galata-bankers, the compradorised palace and the top layer of the footman (the feudal-compradors-state), which received considerable shares from the Western exploitation, formed a coalition of privileged reactionaries.
The gang of lackeys who quickly lost their old privileges by the foray of Western European capitalism and who therefore yearned for the old “glorious” times which privileged them, were not very pleased with this new development in the state. (The growing power of the regional forces also played a role in this). With this yearning for the old privileged days they, took a stand contrary to the feudal-comprador-tendency, at first under the flag of “Ottomanism”, and later, influenced by the nationalist tendencies in Europe, under the flag of “Turkism”. However, the goals of this group are always, according to their character, indistinct and their actions did not have a immediate result. European capitalism, which found its agents in this group, canalized them mostly to pseudo-revolutionary goals – f.1st Turanism – by extending its benefits. And from time to time they could even use them as a threat against the reactions of the feudalists.
The results:
1) The stage of development in which the Ottoman state could have gone over to capitalism by taken advantage of the geographic and technical discoveries in Europe was overslept because of the weak auto-dynamics. So it entered the phase of colonialisation.
2) Because of the characteristics of Ottoman feudalism (in a classical sense the relations of feudalism with the serfs were not open and sharp and internal exploitation was veiled and not very extreme), rebellion never became tradition for the workers. Because the centralist feudal state mainly practised the foreign foray and internal exploitation was relatively hidden at the same time, and acted more softly, it could appear to the Anatolian people as a elevated father, a Saviour.
3) The enormous power of the central-feudal authority (the regional powers were rather weak) brought a thought, a “idee fixe”, to the masses that the state authority was “invincible” and resistance against it seemed “impossible” to them.
Summarized: In this time, before the compradorisation of the feudal state, the state appeared to the people as “father of the people”, as a “merciful state”. In the time of the comprador-feudal state the state became a tyrant again, but the idea of “invincibility” and “resistance is useless” remained.
However, during the first national liberation war the successful actions of the Kuvay-i Milliye (Nation Liberation) against the feudal state, which openly choose sides with the occupators, destroyed and washed away this appearances of “invincible”, “resistance is useless”, and “a God-given power” of the tyrannical Ottoman state.
4) Influenced by the internal and external dynamics a revolutionary bourgeoisie did not develop from the womb feudalism. Their task was, necessarily, taken up by petit-bourgeois intellectuals.

KEMALISM

Kemalism is a flag of national liberation of the revolutionary-nationalists in a country under the yoke of imperialism. Characteristic of Kemalism is taking a stand against imperialism. In any case, it is wrong to label Kemalism as a bourgeois or petit-bourgeois ideology, or even as a ideology of the civilian-military-intellectual forces.
Kemalism is a anti-imperialist position on the level of nationalism from the far left, the most radical part of the petit-bourgeois. Therefore Kemalism is left: a kind of national liberation. Kemalism is radical-political position of the revolutionary nationalists against imperialism. (9)
In a time when there was no revolutionary national-radical class movement against nationalism, when there was no socialist block in the world which supported the wars of national liberation, the radical nationalists were original invention of our country whose roots stem from the progressive lower bureaucracy of the Ottomans.
We can call the Kemalists the Jacobins of the civilian-military-intellectual forces in our country.

THE REVOLUTION FROM 1923 AND THE PERIODS BETWEEN 1923-1940 AND 1942-1950

The revolution from 1923 is a national revolution which reflects the characteristics of the ruling class. The imperialist occupation was broken, the comprador-bourgeois was made powerless; and although certain privileges were given to foreign capital, imperialist exploitation was basically removed and the ideological and political power of feudalism was broken.
In its purport this was a bourgeois revolution. (The Anatolian movement from 1919-1923 was called a revolution, both by Stalin and Mao. Mao also uses the term National Democratic Revolution for the Algerian revolution which basically hardly differs from the Anatolian revolution in 1923). Conditioned by the characteristics of the ruling class this revolution could not be lasting however, and it was subjected to obdurations and even repellions. In the end the country came in the phase of colonialisation again.
One can not claim that the big bourgeoisie was the ruling class in the first war of liberation and the Anatolian revolution from 1923, (10) because in the whole world the bourgeois lost their revolutionary, nationalist and democratic characteristics in the imperialist area. Their ideology is no longer nationalism, now it is cosmopolitism. The flag of the nation is thrown overboard. Nowadays the proletarian revolutionaries and radical petit-bourgeois forces keep up this flag. The former on the level of internationalism and patriotism, the latter on the level of nationalism.
In the national-layist-Republic of Turkey from 1923 the leadership, where the Kemalists are in the upper layers of the hierarchic level, is a joint leadership of the petit-bourgeois with all factions of the bourgeoisie.
The feudal power is taken away. But its economical strength could not be removed, although its political and ideological power was broken.
In short: the feudalist comprador-state mechanism was beaten, and in stead the rule of a petit-bourgeois dictatorship, led by a single party, was put to power.
Lenin describes the characteristics of a rule where the petit-bourgeois holds the highest place in the hierarchy, as follows: “…the employing of authority and state power, through which this class remains at the top of the economical, social and political hierarchy and in stead of the feudality and dictatorship of capital, allied with imperialism, there come a dictatorship of the petit-bourgeois and thus the employment of the repressive state mechanism and the ideology of this class”.
This is exactly the political and ideological quality of the leadership of the Turkish republic from 1923.
And here is the summary of how the country was managed on the economical level:
A national economy was created, weak in substance, which took private property and profit as its basis (otherwise it would have been against the nature of matter), and leaning on small production.
About this type of economy, Lenin says: “…the foundation of creation of a consumption economy in the cities and in the rural areas (a economy based on the principle of “what’s produced, will be consumed”, a economy which primarily serves the petit-bourgeois needs; because the petit-bourgeois possesses the larger part of the surplus value, which he gains from the strength of the proletariat and the poor farmers, it has a relatively large purchasing-power).”
In the first time after 1923 the Kemalists, who were in the higher ranks of the leadership, were still distanced from imperialism in their economical relations. While the prolonged arm of imperialism, the comprador-bourgeoisie, was removed, and many strategic enterprises (connected with foreign monopolies) were being nationalised by acquisition, and borrowing was done with the utmost caution also, they on the other hand took their position in the capitalist world and granted certain concessions to foreign capital. The economical strength of feudalism, whose ideological and political power was rather broken anyway, was not particularly affected. So: conditioned by its class characteristics the petit-bourgeois leadership does not fully remove all bridges with imperialism and feudalism.
“…the broadened organisation of the petit-bourgeois, in simultaneous building of a bridge for preserving the class and political relations with feudality”. (Lenin)
Fully conscious that the road to total freedom for Turkey goes through independence on all levels, the leader of the rulers, Gazi Mustafa Kemal, behaved very sensitive with regard to the theme of national economy. Concerning the custom-union, the nationalisation, the forced consumption of native products and comparable items, the leadership of the republic which tried to establish a national class of capitalists to expand national capitalism, exhausted all possibilities of the state. However, the continuous growing petit-bourgeois organisation of the political and economical fields created a bureaucratic bourgeoisie which cooperated more and more with the merchant-bourgeoisie and used the possibilities of the state in this sense.
For example, the founders of the I_-Bankasi, established with the goal to grant loans and support the national private institutions, were politicians, merchants, and honoraries from the republican time who participated in the national war of liberation.
“The foundation of the I_-Bankasi as a sort of bank of politicians, was the beginning of the Aferism-disease for the republican times”. (F.R. Atay, see Dogan Avcioglu – The Regime in Turkey) The steady development of a part of the republican leaders into a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the investments of this part in cooperation with the merchant-bourgeoisie and the honoraries, resulted in the fact that the political power over the state, which was against foreign capital aid and against cooperation and against private cartel and trust building, slowly became stronger. With regard to this theme, concessioned laws were passed in parliament, “cooperation” with foreign capital developed and as a result from the cooperation between the reformist and bureaucratic bourgeois in the economy, the road to monopolisation was taken.
“That the I_-Bankasi group, which controlled industry, poked its nose in large investments and created a monopoly for itself and furthermore created a company which acted behind the curtains and which brought imported manufacture goods to the market against highly put manufacture prices, resulted in the fact that a wing of the reformist bourgeoisie inside the I_-Bankasi put itself at the top and monopolised it. The I_-Bankasi group was the most influential group in Turkey during the developing phase of the monopoly-bourgeois.” (11)
This time can be summarized in 3 different phases:
1) The time between 1923-1932: The country is independent, the economy is a national consumption economy. The birth-time of the bureaucrat-bourgeois. This is the phase in which the Kemalists were leading.
2) The time between 1932 and 1942: The phase where the merchant-bourgeois of the bureaucrat-bourgeoisie unite with foreign monopolies and gradually transforms into monopoly-bourgeoisie. This clique was able to use the commotions and tremors, caused by the world crisis of 1932, largely for its own purpose.
3) The time between 1942-1950: In the years of the war, especially in the Saraçoglu-area, the release of the prices by the Saraçoglu-leadership, caused a inflation in all parts of the country; under the veil of the Marshall-plan and the Truman-aid, American imperialism fully penetrated and far-reaching concessions were granted to foreign capital. (The beginning of the completion of the colonization of the country).

THE TIME BETWEEN 1950-1971

These are the years in which American imperialism put it stamp upon the country, from politics to culture, and it took its place in the oligarchy. (Imperialism became a internal quantity). In these years the imperialists relations of production became decisive even in the most remote parts of the country.
In short: the national economy of the petit-bourgeois changed in favour of the imperialist exploitation, it changed into the pseudo-national economy of the oligarchy, controlled by the imperialist relations of production. The petit-bourgeois dictatorship made room for the dictatorship of the oligarchy, the national ideology and politics of the petit-bourgeois likewise for the pseudo-national ideology and politics of the oligarchy.
The development and expansion of the monopoly-bourgeois, from the beginning melted with the imperialist monopolies, took place in this time. Especially after 1960, the native monopoly-bourgeois became the basic pilar for imperialism within the oligarchy, simultaneous to the deepening and expansion of the imperialist relations of production.
However, in spite of this all, a relative balance existed during this time between the oligarchy and the petit-bourgeois. The oligarchy did not fully control the state during this time. For this reason the revolutionary-nationalists were able, to a certain extend, to exercise their power within the bureaucracy and the army. But especially after 1963, when the native and foreign capital in our country centralized and condensed, and the production of goods reached even the last village, the oligarchy, step by step, expanded its power and when they finally won the right and centre wings of the petit-bourgeois to their side in 1971, they were able to deliver a severe blow to the Kemalists in the army and bureaucracy.

MARCH 12th. AND THE CHANGES IN CLASS RELATIONS

The military coup d’etat of March 12, resulted in a complete change of the class composition. The relative balance between the revolutionaries and the oligarchy was destroyed and the oligarchy had become the ruler in all institutions of the state.
The petit-bourgeois, revolutionary tradition of the Turkish army, with its roots in the Ottoman state and the petit-bourgeois leadership of the republic of ’25, had thus come to an end. The army has become a direct tool for the colonial policy of the oligarchy and imperialism. (This is not to be understood in such a way that there are absolutely no more revolutionary-nationalists inside the Turkish army. The results of social events do not show immediately. The revolutionary-nationalists will keep their place inside the army for a certain time. However, they lost all their power and they soon will be liquidated).
The March 12 military coup in our country is no coincidence. It was the result of the reflection, in general of the II1ST period of crisis of imperialism, and especially of the terrifying crisis since 1967 in the American economy. The growing number of attacks and the militarization of the regime in our country are the reflection of the enforced militarization of the economy of American imperialism, and its enforcement of terror, at home an abroad, in “Little-America”.
The sharpening crisis of the American imperialism, the growing exploitation by the unsaturable monopolies in the country, caused the full taking root of the imperialist relations of production. And this deepened the social, economical and political crisis in our country. Our money was deflated. Prices reach unknown heights. Distress and poverty of the working people rose to the immense.
America gave two recommendations to the Süleyman Demirel-government: the implementing of a series of “rationalisation” measures, to enable the expansion of exploitation in the country (directly in favour of the cooperating monopoly-bourgeoisie), and the participation of the army in the leadership to put down the developing democratic struggle.
Because of the fact that one leg of the Süleyman Demirel-government leaned on the not yet monopolized usury-bourgeois and the remnants of feudality, it did not realize these measures sufficiently and therefore it was unable to restore “order” for the monopolies.
Thereupon it were brought down and a military dictatorship was established. By means of a series of “reforms” the unsaturable monopolies were to be increased even more on the one hand, the exploitation at the disadvantage of other ruling classes and groups, was to be disciplined and on the other hand the revolutionary-nationalists in the army and the bourgeoisie were to be rooted out as much as possible, and the reaction of the people, caused by the terrifying growth of poverty and distress, was to be oppressed with terror, and the “peace” was to be guaranteed for the exploitation by the unsaturable monopolies.
The results and the stages of development of the March 12-military coup can be summarized as follows:
I-) The military dictatorship in our country is the last reached form of occupation in our country of American imperialism. This means the putting aside of the pseudo-democracy, the putting down of the role of the parties of the order to a minimum. The Turkish army has thus become a tool of the policy of oppression of the oligarchy, practised against the people. (12)
But the employment of officers in the lower ranks is decided by nationalism. Most persons come from military grammar-schools, stem from the petit-bourgeois environment. Imperialism has destroyed, in decennia long systematic work, the petit-bourgeois revolutionary tradition. In the Turkish army, which does not show a structure tailored for civil war like in Latin-America, one can still recognize the traces of a revolutionary tradition for a while. But the oligarchy will quickly reform the army into a army for civil war with hitting-power by means of liquidations and rearrangements.
II-) Because the oligarchy reckoned with the strength of the petit-bourgeois they carried out the military coup of March 12. with slogans like “Atatürkist” and “Reformist”. The 1. Erim-government took especial care to look like a reformist government.
This is their method to destroy the coalition between the radical wing of the military-civilian-intellectual group with the right wing, to isolate them, to at least neutralize them with these slogans and to pull the right wing and neutral wing in the bureaucracy and army to their side. Because of the relative balance in the country, the oligarchy was forced to use this method, because the Turkish army, as a result of the historical development of the country, was not yet the hitting-power of the oligarchy, like the Latin-American armies, and it was not organized in this way. To be able to use this mechanism as a direct tool for its policy, they were forced to approach the matter with slogans like this.
Furthermore, American imperialism needed the support from the petit-bourgeois intellectuals inside the army and bureaucracy to expand exploitation (to the benefit as well of the cooperating monopoly-bourgeois, of course), thus to discipline exploitation.
By making a discipline of exploitation, it highly disturbed the other classes and groups (the merchant- and agrarian bourgeois and the remnants of feudality), who, although they lost their old influence in the oligarchy, still represented a certain power, which had, especially, a significant majority in parliament. For this reason they took these yellow “reforms” at first with considerable reactions. The Milliyet-paper, where the theory for imperialism and the cooperating monopoly-bourgeois is worked out, summarized this as follows: “…the group which forms the avant-gardist core of the big-bourgeois, possesses according to many parts of the private sector, a progressive view as well. The demands considerably disturb primarily the traditional merchant and agrarian capital (because their strength which is in pre-capitalist phase will be influenced). However, the capitalist form of production in Turkey demands, resulting from the existing conditions, more rational measures. The OECD recommended, yet in the beginning of 1970, a series of rationalisation measures for Turkey in this direction>.” (Ali Gevgili, Turkish Capitalism and the New Demands).
The 1ST Erim-government, representing a clear rule of imperialism and the native monopoly-bourgeois, appearing as “progressive, Atatürkist, Reformist”, tried to break the resistance from the side of the pre-capitalist classes and groups against the “reforms” for the disciplination of exploitation, by using the support from the petit-bourgeois intellectual environs as means of pressure.
In the beginning it could even win the support from the most radical wing of the petit-bourgeois.
III-) However, armed propaganda has shown the true face and the intentions of the 1ST Erim-government, namely that they are the most reactionary, most wild and most terrorist leadership of the oligarchy.
Thus armed propaganda has mixed up the efforts of American imperialism and the native cooperating bourgeoisie, pulled down its mask and destroyed their plan of steps. Armed propaganda has forced open fascism, appearing in the light of “progress, Atatürkist, Reformist”, to a premature birth and it so opened the eyes of the public, including the petit-bourgeois intellectuals.
Nowadays more or less all petit-bourgeois revolutionary-intellectuals have fully recognized the identity of the 1ST Erim-government.
IV-) The duo, imperialism – cooperating monopoly-bourgeois, which lost the support from the petit-bourgeois intellectual public, was forced to go the other reactionary classes and groups, with whom they share similarities, and some concessions were made regarding the measures which concern those classes (concessions regarding the yellow reforms).
Nowadays there is a real festive mood within the oligarchy. And the 2. Erim-government is the government of this agreement and of the inner-reactionary peace.
This means, simple put, that our country has changed into a country which can hardly be distinguished from the Latin-American countries.
The period of limited democracy from 1961-1970 now belongs to the past, the relative balance is gone. Turkey has become a country where the imperialist occupation and exploitation are exercised by means of the Turkish army, where all kind of motions with a democratic economic target are finished off by terror.
Because all democratic ways are blocked, because the policy of oppression against the working masses is executed in the most gruesome manner, the armed propaganda is from now on the basic form of struggle to pick up the dialogue with the masses, to win them over the ranks of the revolution.
The specific basic differences between our country and the Latin-American countries (besides these basic factors many subordinate factors could be listed) are the following:
1) The geo-political position of our country:
Because this is a military and tactical problem, we can only say that the geo-political position of our country is a important advantage for the revolutionaries.
The disadvantage, however, is that the anti-communist propaganda leans on historical “Moscow-animosity”.
2) The particularity which was created by the historical and social development:
As a result from the characteristic qualities of the Osman feudal structure (the consequent centralism, the powerful state apparatus and the weak auto-dynamics) the notion of the state is poured into the heads of the people in Anatolia is a state which does not tolerate resistance, which is indestructible. Also the broad mechanism of bureaucracy of the petit-bourgeois dictatorship , which had the leadership in its hands till 1950, the petit-bourgeois rule of violence, the petit-bourgeois hierarchy of the one-party notion, has cemented the thought, poured in throughout the centuries, that this state authority is a force which does “not tolerate resistance”, and is “invincible and indestructible “. Furthermore, the Anatolian human, numbed and tormented under the pressure of the centralist state authority, detained in the rigid conventions of doom-thinking, “it has always like this and will always be like this”, is politically tutelaged. (The artificial balance between the oligarchy and the reactions of the masses of the people, created in the II1ST period of crisis of imperialism, is, as a result of the historical-social qualities of our country, pronounced rather strongly). Because they have been cheated and betrayed for years, they are not able anymore to believe in some smooth words. For this reason they do not believe in what is said before it is put into practice by the speaker, before they can see it with their own eyes.
After the I1ST war of partition , especially after 1960, the economical. social and political crisis, caused by the hidden American occupation, has raised the polarisation between the classes and the discontent of the masses into the unmeasurable.
The wakened parts of the people in many places in Anatolia have nowadays given up their hopes regarding all parties of the order and they have reached the awareness that revolution is the only way to get out of this misery. The awakened parts of the people are aware that they are exploited to the bone by the Agas, the chiefs and the bosses who are under one blanket with the American “pagan”. The animosity against the riches is immense under the masses. The only thing which they have not understood is that the state apparatus of the oligarchy, puffed up in their eyes as a invincible force, is in reality hollow, frail and fragile. (To cement this thinking, this idee fixe, “one may not resist the state”, in the consciousness of the masses, the oligarchy works this theme continuously with cries, intimidation and demonstrations of power).
For this reason the five or six revolutionary military actions caused astonishment and sympathy with the masses (although their propaganda was not established). Including the Latin-American countries, in no other country which was left behind, has the guerrilla (still in its early phase) been so influencing and accompanied with so much prestige.
The reasons are obvious.
In the first place there is no other country which was left behind where this false thought of “no resistance against the state, because it is invincible” has been so developed as in the heads of the people in Anatolia.
Secondly: the hate of the working masses in our country against parliament, against the parties of the order and its politicians, the allergy against the propaganda, only existing from empty talk and drivel, is on a level which is incomparable to other countries which are left behind.
Thirdly: the awakened parts of our people have had enough of this “left”, stuck in their pacifist working-method, and they recognized they have nothing to expect from them. For years, this part yearns for a militant organisation which really approaches the question of the revolution earnestly, a organization which they can bind their hopes to. (This is the source for the present prestige of the THKP-C – the Peoples’ Liberation Party-Front of Turkey -)
For the revolutionary propaganda to work, for the masses to be pulled to the ranks of the revolution, armed propaganda is more necessary than ever, more than in other countries which are left behind, including the Latin-American ones.
For the discontent and the tremor in the masses to transform into actions against the order, we have to be credible. We have to show our words with our actions. On the one hand the revolutionaries have to show the masses with their actions that the oppression organisation of the ruling classes is not as they have imagined for centuries, on the contrary: it is rotten and hollow, their power consists of cries, demonstrations of power and demagogy. On the other hand we must make propaganda, based on military actions, to bring the masses in a situation which is more accessible to revolutionary propaganda and to bring them revolutionary consciousness in this way, so they can be pulled to the ranks of the revolution.
Although it is a repetition, we want to summarize the reviewed.
As a result of the economical, social, and historical development, in other words, because of the qualities of the state in the past, there was a artificial balance all the same between the reactions of the people and the state. The performed changes in the methods of exploitation during the II1ST period of crisis of imperialism was aimed at the creation of such a artificial balance. Therefore American imperialism met with a very good base in our country.
Therefore a peaceful form of struggle can not be the basic form of struggle to destroy this artificial balance which is substantially stronger in our country, compared to all other countries which were left behind, including the Latin-American countries. This has to be armed propaganda. The pacifist and revisionist forms of struggle are only good for keeping this artificial balance alive.
And for all these reasons the discontent of the wakened parts of the people against the order has transformed, as a result of the urban guerrilla actions in February-March, into revolutionary sympathy (13) All new things are looked at with reluctance at first. In time people get used to it and accept it. Although the anti-propaganda, conducted nation-wide by the oligarchy, worked to a certain degree in the beginning, now it has lost its strength. The hatred of the people against the order is now on such a level that the 5-6 military actions against the oligarchy have caused a prestige in favour of the revolutionaries which may not be underestimated.
While the concrete step in the direction of the armed revolutionary front took place, and the struggle was in a phase of a qualitative leap, the armed propaganda, still in its very early stage, suffered a setback.
Now it is our duty to create trust in the masses who believe in the necessity of changing the order, that such a change is also possible. We can create this trust in the non-organized masses who, from a perspective of idealistic thought, look at the state power of the oligarchy as a strong “giant”, invincible, by showing them the concrete revolutionary practice, showing them that the central authority is in reality not as strong as it appears, that it is hollow, that all its strength is based on cries and the demonstration of power.
Exactly, we have to show the masses that the armed revolutionary front, waging the war against the oligarchy, is capable to hit; we have to demonstrate in a certain sense the power to beat the enemy to jelly, undermining its morale. The only way to do this is by a series of successes of the avant-garde. This is the only way, so the achieved potential will not get lost, so it will become broader and broader. The revolutionary central organ can only be on the agenda after a series off military actions. (This must not be understood as if the revolutionary publication is on holidays in this phase. Of course, in this phase the revolutionary publication will be brought to the masses which builds on the military actions. However, this will not be the case periodically in this phase. And further there will be brochures which will explain our practice, for the education of our cadres). Wether the agitation and propaganda will be done by publications or by armed propaganda, they must be built upon a existing reality. Nowadays some so-called revolutionary publications appear. From time to time several “left” factions spread pamphlets which call upon the masses to take up the arms. What kind of effect do they have? None. Because they are propaganda for something abstract. The masses want to see those who call upon them with cocky phrases to revolt, to take up arms, they want to see them in the fight themselves. Especially the people in Turkey do not believe the abstract propaganda like “we will, we want”. The masses got used to this kind of papers and pamphlets after 1961. The masses want to see their avant-garde in the fight in person. To believe your sincerity, they first have to see you. And this is not sufficient also. They will have to recognize first that you are a important force, before they turn to you, before trust develops from sympathy, before support develops from trust.
The pacifists in our country say this primarily: “The performed actions create sympathy, but that’s all…”
That’s correct. Although the masses show sympathy towards us, they do not support as yet and they do not participate in the struggle. This is only natural. What does one expect? That the masses, as a result of 5-6 military actions, go over to the uprising and make the revolution in the country?
This is the proof that the pacifists see the revolutionary struggle as a short phase and that they do not have a clue about the social developments.
Until today we have said this, and we still say it: the road of the revolution is rough, winding, steep and a struggle of decades. In a phase, still in its process of fermentation, this sympathy of the masses is a great gain for the armed revolutionary front. Because the way of support goes through sympathy and trust. The masses will at first feel sympathy for the armed revolutionary front. But because they have blown up the central state authority in their own eyes out of proportion, they will follow the revolutionary front with their eyes, thinking that it can be finished off, and they will watch the actions, doubtful and interested. Because of the success of the waged guerrilla warfare they will recognize that the armed revolutionary front is a important force; indestructible and irreconcilable. Then their sympathy will grow into trust. That’s the second phase. This transformation to trust does not mean that the support from the majority has been won. But when the durability and stability of the guerrilla warfare are secured, this trust will gradually turn to trust.
All depends on our resoluteness, our belief in the cause and our continuity in the struggle. We may never resign. Setbacks and losses may not throw us into resignation, on the contrary, they must stir up our revolutionary beliefs and anger. They must serve so we will fight with more continuity and less mistakes.
3) The particularities which resulted from the economical structure of our country and the political an economical organisation of the petit-bourgeois as well:
The economical and political organization of the petit-bourgeois in our country is stronger than in other countries which are occupied by imperialism. Therefor the oligarchy has until now gone about its business in such a way that it was not forced to confront this clique. Although they even raised their attacks and terror after March 12, they do not reject rights and democracy completely – like the reactionaries in Pakistan, Greece or Brasil; they still grant some small concessions for appearances.
Secondly, our country possesses a strong middle and light industry compared to other countries which are occupied by imperialism and left behind, although this industry depends for 100 percent on the outside.
The second fundamental particularity is that, besides the mentioned historical, social, political and psychological influences, that these two points played a fundamental role in pacifying the spontaneous uprising of the masses.
And this is a second pretext for the revisionists and pacifists in the “left” for their peaceful so-called struggle which aims at reconciliation. The pacifists try to justify their reconciliatory and capitulationist attitude by saying: “…our country is not like the countries in the Far East or Latin America, in those countries exists a rebellious tradition within the masses; but in our country that’s different, there is no such tradition; for this reason we have to create a consciousness in the masses with the remaining forms of struggle, outside the armed actions; so we have to create a minimum (!) of organization for the armed struggle and then we can start with the armed struggle…” (14) And this causes, although it is not important at all, to a certain extend confusion within the left. Because this revisionist and pacifist analysis is logical, according to formal logic, it creates confusion in the heads of those who can not approach the topics in the sense of dialectical materialism.
That the economical and political situation, as in our country, constitutes the basis for the institutional organization of revisionism and pacifism is explained by Ernesto Che Guevara as follows: “In countries where a strong urbanization and a more ore less developed light and middle class industry exist, also when there is not a real industrialization, the formation of guerrilla groups is far more difficult. The ideological influence of the cities puts a brake on the guerrilla warfare by creating the hope for a organized mass war with peaceful methods. And this causes a kind of “organisationism” or “institutionalism” also (revisionist organization). Both these can be argued with the fact that in times which can be called more or less “normal”, the living conditions of the people are not that hard, compared to other conditions”.
4) The particularity, created by the movement of 1919-1923:
In the people of Turkey, which experienced the open imperialist occupation and which fought a successful anti-imperialist liberation struggle, the anti-imperialist feelings, the allergies against strangers are higher than in the Latin American countries.
These feelings pose a very important potential for the revolutionaries. A organization, which recognizes the purpose of hidden occupation, takes armed propaganda as its basis, can put this potential, caused by this feeling and this allergy, on a basis of class struggle. (When this potential is not used well, it could be used by the oligarchy as a anti-communist tool against the revolutionaries. And the oligarchy tries to work especially this topic nowadays. Furthermore the oligarchy uses this topic as a means of exploitation, also to set up the Turkish and the Kurdish people against each other.
It are the common basic particularities with those of the other countries which are left behind, who are under the hidden occupation of imperialism, and the distinguishing special particularities of our country which enlighten our revolutionary praxis.

OUR STRATEGIC GOAL: THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST AND ANTI-OLIGARCHIC REVOLUTION

In the left in Turkey the strategy has always been understood wrong until today: the strategic aim and the strategic plan are mixed with strategy itself.
As we know, the strategic aim is the ideological, political, social and economical solution for the principal contradictions between the forces of production and the relations of production.
Because monopoly-capitalism in our country did not develop with a inner- dynamics of its own and the native monopoly-bourgeois was fused from the beginning with imperialism also, our strategic aim is the anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic revolution. (The notion of the anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic revolution differs hardly, as a notion, from the National Democratic Revolution. However, it determines a deeper content and a other quality. Because this notion shows the imperialist form of occupation of the II1ST period of crisis of imperialism, it is more suitable. The notion of the National Democratic Revolution characterizes in general the period in which the old methods of exploitation of imperialism were distinguishing).
Before the I1ST war of partition feudalism was, as a result from the imperialist methods of exploitation, as the native ruling class in the countries which were left behind, the coalition partner of imperialism. (The comprador-bourgeoisie is nothing else but the prolonged arm of imperialism). As we have shown in the second part, the control and the practical presence of imperialism were in general situated in the coastal regions, the harbours, in strategic places and in the main centres of communication. The central authority was rather weak. 3/4 of the country and the people were controlled by feudal-regional towns which had their differences as well. The urbanization, transport and communication were at a low level because capitalism was not omnipotent. To the country imperialism was a alien entity and the social process was feudalistic. For this reason the main contradiction existed between the weak feudal regions, who controlled 3/4 of the country and the inhabitants, and the peasants who were in a situation of semi-serfdom. In a phase in which the spontaneous struggles and uprisings of the peasants were organized by the proletarian party (democratic struggle), in which the proletarian-revolutionary consciousness was brought to the peasants, in which a peasants army (founded under the leadership of the proletarian party) began to break the power of the weak regional feudal authority, liberated areas were established and the country was gradually brought under its control; in this phase imperialism occupied the country completely to protect its booty. In those days the main contradiction in the country existed between imperialism and the entire nation, except for a few traitors. While the war the civil war (national struggle) is waged under the banner an on the level of the class struggle, it is waged with the national slogan and on the national level during the revolutionary national war.
However, in the II1ST period of crisis of imperialism, the social process is not feudalistic in countries like ours. And imperialism is not just a alien appearance. The imperialist relations in production reached to the most remote parts of the country, and in the same time imperialism became a internal fact. The weak regional authorities made room for the state of the oligarchy in which imperialism takes its place as well. Even to the extend that the oligarchy in these countries conducts all kinds of arrangements and interventions, whenever deemed necessary, by means of the CIA, FBI and others, from changes in government within the different factions of oligarchy till the steering of the policy of oppression by the oligarchy against the people. Therefore, in this epoch of nuclear power the imperialist control over these countries is not merely economical, it is political and military as well. For example, through the NATO military organization, where Turkey belongs to, American imperialism has created a actual hegemony, from the steering of the oligarchy dictatorship to the economy of the country. (The mentality of hidden occupation).
Therefore it is practically impossible to make a clear separation between the native ruling classes in our country and American imperialism.
The main contradiction in our country exists between the oligarchy and our people. (15) Because imperialism takes it place directly within the oligarchy, the revolutionary war will not be waged on the class level alone. The war will be waged on national level and on the class level. Without doubt the classic side will preponderate until the military power of the state apparatus is no longer sufficient and the American armies will openly take their place in the war.
The revisionists and pacifists in our country, who lost sight of the changes in the methods of exploitation, executed by imperialism after the I1ST war of partition, in other words: the economical-political-ideological and military mentality of hidden occupation, and who see imperialism as a alien factor, like the revolutionaries in the countries which were left behind in the period when the old method of exploitation by imperialism preponderated, separate imperialism from the ruling classes in clear lines. Whether it are the opportunists who define the main contradiction between feudality and the peasants, or the opportunists who define it between the native monopoly- bourgeoisie and the working masses, they all pour water on the mills of American imperialism. Even the American occupiers personally, use all their strength, use all possible kinds of fine-spun and subtle methods to keep their occupation hidden. This totally different definition (with regard to the real main contradiction, transl.) is nothing else as a support from the “left” for the efforts of American imperialism in this direction.
The problem can not be solved by defining the strategic targets. The strategic target is a definition of the direction of the main thrust of the revolution. So, just a part of the strategic plan. For this reason the problem is not solved by a correct definition of the strategic target: the main avant-garde and reserves must be defined correctly.
Our revolution will be victorious through a people’s war. However, the people’s war will go through the phase of the avant-garde war, caused by the historical situation and the particularities of our country.
With the help of the Politicized Strategy of Military Struggle (PASS), the revolutionary route will follow this line:
1. stage: creation of the urban guerrilla
2. stage: spreading of the urban guerrilla
creation of the rural guerrilla and demonstration of strength. During these two stages the psychological side of attrition will preponderate in the war.
3. stage: spreading of the urban guerrilla
development of the rural guerrilla
4. stage: spreading of the rural guerrilla
Why was the guerrilla war started with the urban guerrilla? The reason is twofolded:

A) The objective reasons:

a) The circumstances were more favourable in the cities to inform the masses about the existence of a militant organisation because the cities were in an advantage in view of the possibilities of propaganda and publicity.
b) Albeit from a petit-bourgeois conception, the revolutionary violent movements in the cities, led by Dev-Genç, and the mass actions as well, prepared the ground for the acceptance of harder armed actions of a higher level.

B) The subjective reasons:

Because we approached the armed propaganda in a wrong way in the preparation time, and also because we took up arms to late, we lacked material and immaterial preconditions like equipment, experience and war-material.
Because of these objective and subjective conditions, our party started the guerrilla war with the urban guerrilla.
From now on our party will follow this previously defined route. (After a long period of idleness).
According to the Politicized Military Strategy of Struggle we can name the leading forces, main forces and the reserves of the revolution as follows:

The leading force: the proletariat

At the question of the leading force our party, which determined that the revolution will be successful by means of the people’s war, has taken the ideological leadership of the proletariat as basis. (The originality: the main region is the land). In the phase of the avant-garde war our party does not make a difference whether or not somebody stems from the working class. Important is the fact that the fighters are professional revolutionaries. The more the war expands, we will take care that the workers prevail.

The main force: the peasants (except for the feudal remnants and the agrarian bourgeois, all peasant elements)

In order: – the village proletariat
– the village semi-proletariat
– the poor farmers
– the middle farmers
Of course the urban proletariat is part of the main forces of the revolution. Their determination in the revolution lies however in the phase of the boom of the revolution. And they will have the last say. “In time continuously new forces will join the struggle, started by the small nucleus of fighters (the avant-garde); mass movements will begin to take shape; the old order will begin the crumble, it breaks; and this is the phase in which the working class and the urban masses will determine the fate of the war”. (Che Guevara)

The direct reserves:

– the Kemalist intellectual environs
– the socialist block in the world
– the national liberation movements in the colonial countries, especially the Middle East.

The indirect reserves:

– the right wing of the petit-bourgeois
– the democratic Western countries and their public. As well as with the direct, as with the indirect reserves, the ranks change according to the situation.
THE LEFT IN TURKEY AFTER MARCH 12.

As we have mentioned in the introduction part, revisionism and pacifism became the most influential and most leading elements within the “socialist front” because of the objective and historical conditions in our country.
Because the petit-bourgeois is economically and politically strongly and widely organized, and because our country was under the dictatorship of the petit-bourgeois until ’46 and because of a certain influence of the petit-bourgeois in bureaucracy and army, the petit-bourgeois revisionism possessed a broad workfield in our country.
Because of the worldwide prestige of socialism in the third quarter of the 20th. century, the radical petit-bourgeois in the backward countries took their place in the political arena under the name of socialism. The strength and influence of petit-bourgeois radicalism on the state has created, in one form or the other, the hope in the “socialist front” that one could rely on pacifism and petit-bourgeois radicalism.
In this environs the socialist movement could not become independent in our country, it was constant melted with petit-bourgeois radicalism and tried to develop under the umbrella of legality from the petit-bourgeois.
And precisely in this situation the coup of March 12. occurred and the relative balance which existed since 1923 (it first in favour of the revolutionary front, and after 1946 to its disadvantage), was destroyed. The oligarchy in the country now controlled all institutions in the state, destroyed the political strength of the petit-bourgeois and blew up the left with its policy of oppression and violence.
The left, which consisted of seven or eight factions before March 12, is now split into two camps:
– The armed revolutionary front.
– The offshoots of the oligarchy in the left, the pacifist front.
The situation before March 12, when opposition against the armed propaganda, against the guerrilla, equalled treason, when almost everybody talked about going over to armed actions, and the situation after March 12, are two different worlds. Those who presented themselves as the most hard-line, who saw themselves as the perfect revolutionaries, who always talked about armed propaganda, who accused everybody of treason who did not advocate armed propaganda, these many sharp “guerrilla-experts” of legal times, clang, after March 12, with hands and feet to the line of international revisionism which they denounced as pacifism before, and they did so, when there was really no way left but to take up arms, with the pretexts that they had not really well-considered the question of the revolution before March 12, that armed propaganda was not really organizing, that it was wrong, that they had not seen its problems before, that they understood the theories now, after March 12.
This is quite natural. Because every set-back brings right-wing and pacifist tendencies into the open. (The defeat of 1905 gave, for the time being, strength to the Menshivik line).
After March 12, there have been two contradictory developments in the left in Turkey.
Firstly, while the consequent elements from different parts of the people, except the students, in general gathered around armed propaganda, many “hot charming celebrities” enroled voluntary in the front of pacifism by saying they had made a mistake in the past.
This development in the left has also influenced our party and a small group in our party, denouncing the ideological, theoretical and strategic views of our party as the theory and praxis of Narodnism and anarchism, has become the prolonged arm of the pacifist front in our party.
According to these right-wing elements;
– the declaration nr. 1 of the party and the front, explaining the strategical-ideological basis of the THKP-C, and the writings “The position of the classes in the revolution” in the magazine “Kurtulu_”, are the theories of anarchism, foco-ism and Narodnism.
– the guerrilla movements of February – March (1971), thus the armed revolutionary actions, which were ment to bring our party closer to the masses, are the praxis of this Narodniki ideology. The left opportunist ideology is the basis.
– the war of the revolutionary avant-garde of the people, the THKP, is a duel of a handful of people with the oligarchy.
– it is in the present period the task to organize around a central organ, to lead the economical and democratic struggles of the workers.
These are the substantial criticisms brought forward by the right tendency in our party. These are minutely the same criticisms as those of the pacifist Kivilcim an _afak groups (the revisionists and pacifists) against our party. (This writing, which explains the view of our party, is at the same time the criticism against these pacifist views. These small groups, which follow a route, contrary to the ideological-practical principles of our party, were excluded from the party by a majority vote of the members of the general committee of the party. Furthermore, we think it is a useless undertaking to criticize the objections over and over again).
The decision of the general committee of the party is the proletarian revolutionary line, resulting from the praxis of our party line, form the application of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete situation in the world and in our country. And the actions are the reflection of the Leninist, ideological political assessments in praxis.
No matter how far the oligarchy will increase terror and violence, our party will continue the guerrilla war. The way of our party is the way of revolution. The way of revolution is the way of our party.
The struggle will continue from the point were it was after the May set-back.
It are not programmes or stilted writings which make a organization into a organization and brings it closer to the masses; it is the revolutionary action.
Long live the armed liberation struggle of our people!
Long live the THKP-C!
Fight until liberation!
THE WAY OF THE UPRISING

The strategy of revolution of the THKP

TURKEY UNDER THE YOKE OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

Turkey is a country under control of American imperialism, from its treasures of the soil to foreign trade, from the economy to politics, from culture to art.
American imperialism means for a colonial, or semi-colonial, country to be robbed from its treasures, hunger and distress for the people, and the shameless repression of national feelings under the American jackboots.
As a result of the policy of repression by the AP-government (the conservative “Justice Party”, transl.) of the oligarchy against the working people, the economical, social and political crisis deepened, our currency was devaluated, the distress of the working people culminated to a terrifying level, the living conditions have become worse. The Demirel-government of the oligarchy, which came in the position that it could no longer keep the order with its own official laws facing the discontent and rebellion of our people, was deposed by the coup of March 12. of the military wing of the oligarchy. The Erim-cabinet, considered to take better care of the profits for the native and foreign monopolies, was put at the trigger.
What the politicians call a “government crisis” is nothing else but the inadequateness of the parties of the establishment of the pseudo-democracy to facilitate the exploitation by imperialism and the native classes. The vacuum, caused by the shown inadequateness of the parties of the establishment in keeping the order, was filled by the military wing of the oligarchy. This wing of the oligarchy is behind the present government.
This situation is transitory as well. The turning cog-wheels of imperialist exploitation will increase the need of the working people and the hardship of the living conditions even more. The oligarchy will blame the inadequateness of the Erim-cabinet for the discontent of the people, will bring it down and replace it by a new government at the top.
The cog-wheel will keep on turning; the juntas will succeed each other. Some will be recommended as “Atatürkist, secular”, and some will be praised as “reformist”, the patriotic intellectuals will put their hopes on the newcomers again and again, they will recognize that they were mistaken and they will wait for a new “progressive” sweep.
In countries under the occupation of imperialism, the cog-wheel always turns like this. And this will also be the case in our country, until it is destroyed.

THE LIBERATION OF OUR PEOPLE

In a situation where they try to stifle even the smallest tremor with a national liberation and democratic character, where the national liberators are murdered in an abject manner in the open street, before the eyes of the people, where the national liberators are subjected to the most bloody torture in the torture chambers, it is ridiculous to talk about a state of law, about democracy. To talk about civil rights, about the state of law, the constitution, civil codes, and even about the human rights in our country is, when hidden motives are excluded, nothing but sheer naivety. Against the despot of imperialism, against the violence of the contra-revolution, there is no other way than to take up the arms. Our party sees the armed people’s war as the road to liberation. The present form of our liberation war is the guerrilla war.
Our party starts from the point that the enemy will be defeated through the efforts of all patriots, by a long, fatiguing and bloody people’s war and in this phase of the people’s war, it takes the urban guerrilla war as basis.
The present objective and subjective conditions require, compulsively, that the guerrilla war is fought in the cities. The phase we are in now, is the first phase of the people’s liberation war.
The guerrilla war in the big cities:
1 – will show the people’s masses the hollowness and decay of the leadership of traitors.
2 – show the people’s masses, who await the deciding spark like a volcano, shortly before the eruption, that a organisation exists which is capable of punishing the tyrants and of establishing its own revolutionary dictatorship, and which hits so hard that grass will no longer grow.
3 – will strengthen our party which will gain different experiences in the guerrilla war as a true fighting organisation of the people.
The fighting organisation will form on the theatres of war.
In short, the phase we are in now, is the phase in which we have to strengthen the feelings of discontent and rebellion in all masses of the people, especially among our workers, who can be agitated to the armed struggle, and it is the phase in which we have to establish the build up of our party’s organisation.
The second phase of the struggle is the one in which the guerrilla war must be spread all over the country, and the beginning of the rural guerrilla next to the urban guerrilla.
The third and fourth phase is the one in which the guerrilla forces will become orderly armies.
To say something about the time span of these different stages, is impossible. We can not foresee that now. It is our momentary task to fight indefatigable and systematically on this road.
The road to the liberation of all classes of the people, in the first place of our working class, goes through the guerrilla war.
We want to go into this strategic line further, changed into a complete chaos by the opportunists and revisionists. The class struggle of the proletariat is fought at three fronts simultaneous: ideologically, economically and politically. The revolutionary fight of the proletariat is a ideological fight against the bourgeois ideology, against errors. The daily struggle for better living and working conditions of the working class is the economical struggle. The fight which takes the reactionary class rule in sight, is the political fight.

The political struggle is executed in different formes, from political propaganda by means of revolutionary publications, through mass demonstrations with a political character, to political strikes and the guerrilla as well.
The guerrilla war is the highest and most effective form of political struggle.
A “rebellious” party is a militant party which mobilizes the possibilities on each of these three fronts in the best possible form. Our party tries to fight the war against imperialism, against the native ruling classes and their offshoots in the left on these three fronts.
Our party opposes all pacifist and revisionist tendencies and groups who reduce the class struggle to the level of publications of papers and the organizing of legal actions, as well as all “left” tendencies and groups of the focus for whom the guerrilla war is the only form of the class struggle. Both deviations are tendencies which delay and hinder the liberation of the working masses.
The pacifists in our country claim we are in a evolutionary phase and that therefore the objective conditions for the armed struggle do not exist. These claims are totally absurd and false. The only purpose of these analyses is to cover the capitulation. In countries, occupied by imperialism, the phases of evolution and revolution can not be separated so clear-cut, these phases shade off into one another. Furthermore, the occupation by imperialism means that the opponent himself uses pressure, violence and weapons. This, however, means the existence of objective conditions for the armed struggle.
Our party, which momentarily fights for power, is not ready yet to take over power and it is not yet in that stage. One can only speak about taking the power in the stage where the struggle is fought by regular armies in the whole country. And we do not claim we are in that stage today. We only say, the guerrilla war is necessary so the revolutionary struggle of our people will reach that stage.
The phase we are in now is the phase where the people’s liberation war is fought in the form of the guerrilla war. Our party has tied this form of struggle of the political war with certain rules. In the urban guerrilla war the targets are the imperialist forces, the monopoly-bourgeoisie and their dogs.
All movements which fight these targets are supported by the party, but it condemns most strongly those actions which do not aim at them, which have the characteristics of common gangsterism.
The People’s Liberation Party of Turkey consists of partisans who are foremost in the struggle. The People’s Liberation Party of Turkey takes the principle of the political and military leading unit as basis. The long guerrilla war, going through different stations, led by the People’s Liberation Party, will give birth to the real people’s army.
The way of the uprising in Turkey is the way of our party. The way of our party is the way of liberation of our people.

FIGHT UNTIL LIBERATION

PEOPLE’S LIBERATION PARTY OF TURKEY
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
THKP
Notes:

(1): International revisionism, starting from this thesis, claims the substance of imperialism has changed and therefore one of the most universal theses of Leninism: “the revolution is based on violence” is no longer valid. However, it is not the substance but the form that has changed.
(2): The American war mechanism has grown in a extraordinary and excessive manner. In October, 1961, “American Nation” published a study in an extra edition: “Juggernaut, the state turning to war”, by Fred Cook; “The capitalists, getting rich from the Sinai military troops, thus from mercenaries, more and more determine American policy”. The flow of billions of dollars gives the Pentagon a economical strength which spreads across the whole land. The expenditures of the armed forces are three times higher than those from United States Steel, American Telephone and Telegraph, Metropolitan Life Insurance, General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey. The number (…) of those who get their wages and pay from the Defence department is three times higher than the total of workers and employees of these firms.
According to Cook 21 billion dollar from the defence budget from 1960-1961 were used for war material and military equipment. These orders and enterprises guarantee the firm bond of the American economy to the military program.
That was the situation in 1960-1961. During the last decade the militarization of the economy has however reached a terrifying level.
(3): In this phase the banks and institutions who “trade with money” are not sufficient. On the other hand insurance companies etc. get stronger.
(4): According to the so-called “socialist” analysis, which does not reckon with these changes, Turkey is not like other colonial countries.
According to some, the occupation is even relative. While some, stipulated by the wrong evaluation, come up with socialist strategies of revolution, others imagine a model of revolution corresponding with the Soviet model.
(5): The changes by imperialism in the methods of exploitation, executed during the II1ST period of crisis, the neo-colonialisation, were described by one of the victorious proletarian revolutionaries, E.Che Guevara, in 1968, in an article for the magazine “Verde Olive”, “Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution”: “…the tearing down of the still existing old feudal structures and the coalition with the most progressive elements of the national bourgeoisie suits even them (imperialism). To the execution of some finance-technical reforms, the establishment of many changes in the regime of the large landowners, a moderate industrialization, based on consumer products and whose technics and raw materials are imported from the USA, they have no objections”.

So, the cooperation of the national bourgeoisie and the foreign interests is the best formula; together they establish new industries in these countries; for these they procure custom favours and so get rid of competing imperialist countries, and they guarantee that the profits, made in this way, are protected by the flexible exchange regulations in our country.
As a result of this new and substantially more clever system of exploitation, the (nationalist) country assumes personally the role of granting preferable custom tariffs, protecting the profit interests of the USA (of course the Americans bring these profits immediately back to their country). Because competition no longer exists, the monopolies dictate the prices. “All this is reflected in the joint cooperation projects for development. This alliance is nothing but an attempt of imperialism to distribute a small part of the profits among the national exploiting classes in order to stop the development of conditions for revolution. The purpose is to train these classes, against the most exploited classes, as reliable allies of imperialism. In other words: the alliance tries to get rid of the internal contradictions as much as possible”. After Che said all this, he pointed at the fact that it is impossible in the present situation to solve the inner-imperialist contradictions by means of a war. And he said (Che uses the word national in stead of native): “For the present, the decisive element is the fusion into the front of the national bourgeoisie and imperialism”.
(6): The policy of creating consciousness in the masses along this line:
– periodically appearing central publication (a means for the campaign to explain political facts)
– brochures
– the building of a bureaucratic structure of the organization in city neighbourhood units for transport tasks, as a distribution network for the central organ
– and also a minimal organization for so-called military actions (not armed propaganda).
All this the revisionists call strategic organization. They work primarily for this strategic organization.
However, under the repression and oppression policy of the oligarchy, the work of the organization’s leaders and the most active members, still in its development stage and certainly not in the phase of strategical organization, concentrates solely on the publishing and distribution of magazines and brochures.
Under the repressive conditions of the contra-revolution, the organization can not reach the level of taking up the arms. But time goes by.
The conditions for a minimum of organization simply do not develop. The organization sinks more and more into the quicksand of bureaucracy. The members lose their militant spirit (if existing), they degenerate to magazine sellers who wait on the next appearance of the central organ. And so the “Workers and Peasants Regional Committees” have become branches of a paper which number of subscribers is not very high and which distribution is difficult anyway, they have become bureaucratic mechanisms where a few so-called leading pacifists twaddle, have intellectual discussions and who are satisfied with receiving and giving declarations. Exaggerated secretiveness goes hand in hand with indiscretion and lack of discipline. The wheels of illegality turn in the name of pacifism. And when a safe robbery presents itself, the central assigns a few people and organizes the execution. And thus it appears that the many-sided work of the organization is done successfully. With the myth that the strategical organization and the minimum of organization for military actions are achieved, in the appearance of “preparations for great things”, with twaddle, writing and drawing work, weeks and months go by.
That is the working-method of the pacifists in praxis who appear to advocate the armed struggle.
All they do is, protected by the ideological struggle, to criticize and smear the revolutionaries who lead the revolutionary war of the people against imperialism and the oligarchy, and they try to disturb the sympathy which was caused by the armed propaganda, by confusing the minds of the people. This is the mentality of opportunism, the prolonged arm of imperialism within the left.
(7): Despite the factors which hindered the inner dynamics of society, capitalism developed in Osman society in the 18th. century, a progress compared to the feudal form of production.
a) Agriculture, craft and trade separated from each other and a certain amount of capital accumulated in the hands of merchants and usurers.
b) An intention for paying investments developed.
c) A independent workforce developed.
d) A starting point developed for the native bourgeoisie which possessed a certain accumulation of capital and started to look for paying investments.
One can say that the autodynamics of Osman society – although weak – was favourable for the independent development of capitalism and the realization of the industrial revolution.
We can summarize the reasons as follows why Osman society could not go over to the capitalist system and became a field of exploitation for European capitalism:
a) Because of the newly discovered sea routes, Anatolia lost its characteristic of being in the centre of world trade. The sea trade gained importance.
b) Because of the accumulation of capital in Europe, gained by the exploitation of humans and treasures of the soil in Asia, Africa, America and India.
c) Because of the establishing of professional armies in Europe, equipped with fire-arms with great firing-power etc.
While all these reasons in the societal formation of the countries in Western Europe were a jumping board for a leap forward and the rise of modern capitalism, they were outside obstacles for going over to the capitalist system by the Osman society. (For more information, see the “defence” plea of Mahir Çayan and his friends in the THKC-P trial)
(8) The petit-bourgeois, which is no modern social class and which does not have the ability (except during open occupation) to establish a strong revolutionary movement which wakes the working masses and liberates them from feudal inertion. Therefore the attempts from the Osman nationalistic military-civil-intellectual forces for the turbid national and revolutionary goals have always been weak and meagre. They did not have a important effect on the masses of the people. The masses were mostly just the onlookers at such movements.
(9): Such a definition of this question is of extreme importance for the policy of alliance of our party which leads the guerrilla war (in the phase of the avant-garde war we are in now) in the Turkey of 1972. Which are the forces of the circles of the petit-bourgeois and the intellectuals with we have the smallest denominator. The right answer to this question lies in the right meaning. Also this description is of importance for the definition of the mass line. For instance, when we see Kemalism as a ideology of the civilian-military-intellectual forces, the mass line will become different as when we see it as a conduct of national liberation on a national basis from the left wing of the civilian-military-intellectual forces against imperialism. Because of the worldwide prestge of socialism in our epoch, and because the USSR is the main supporter of the radical revolutionary national movements, the revolutionary nationalist present themselves nowadays as socialists. That’s why many Kemalists in our countr call themselves socialists. As we know, the characteristics of the petit-bourgeois in the backward countries are different from those in the capitalist-imperialist countries. The attitude of this class against imperilais and native ruling classes is not homogeneous. This attitude can be divided in 3 groups. One of these groups is part of the reactionary alliance, the other waits for the events in the “control tower”, and the third takes part in the “radical nationalist” class movement, has a anti-imperialist position on the national basis.
So Kemalism is the political national liberation attitude of the left wing of the civilian-military-intellectual forces.
It is this whing within the petit-bourgeois intellectual circles with whom we will be together as an ally in the avant-garde war with the smallest denominator under the motto “as well friends, as struggle”.
When on sees all petit-bourgeois intellectual with evolutionary thoughts as Kemalists and assesses their negative position towards our present actions wrong accordingly and says: “…we are torn loose form the democratic circles, we deviated to the left”, then one did not understood the mentality of Kemalism. Today, especially the right wing of the civilian-military-intellectual forces, and the petit-bourgeois in general, are on the side of oligarchy, the centre hooked on to the left side because it saw a radical change in power before March 12 from its “control tower”. However, now its tends quietly to the right. For the left wing, the coup of March 12 was like a sledgehammer because it dreamt (according to its putschist revolutionary natur) of building an alliance with the right wing of the civilian-military-intellectual forces and take part in the government that way.
To them it had the effect of a blow with a sledgehammer when its ally, the evolutionary wing of the civilian-military-intellectual forces, left it alone to fall in the arms of the oligarchy and to go into the honeymoon after March. Now, during this situation of demoralization, it tries to withdraw to recover.
The allies of the THKP-C in the circles of the petit-bourgeois intellectuals, nowadays in the phase of the avant-garde war, can only be the Kemalists. In our relations with them, we have to explain to them that the right wing is the absolute representative of oligarchy, and that it can betray the revolutionary ranks at any time in a historical moment.
The common front will only arise when this wing understands that a coup is no solution, and when it does not look at the right wing anymore as a friend.
(10):It is contrary to dialectical materialism to derive the avant-garde of the revolution from the social contenty of this revolution.
(11):Parallel to this development imperialism finds supporters in the burocracy. (…)
(12):This means that the strength of the revolutionary nationalists was broken and that was the end of the relative balance.
(13):Not just the armed actions of the THKP-C, but also those from the THKO were effective.
(14):Such a definition of this question by the pacifists in our country, under occupation of imperialism, reads in clear language: “First we organize ourselves and the masses by revisionist work, and then we can begin the armed struggle”. However, a organization which takes peaceful methods of struggle as its basis will never go over to the phase of struggle.
The example of Greece speaks itselve.
(15):In praxis the contradiction exists between the revolutionary avant-garde of the people and the oligarchy.

The road of revolution is rough,
winding, steep…
The flag of liberation is passed from
guerrilla to guerrilla who climb this road,
and it is planted on the citadel of the oligarchy…
All bodies of the guerrillas who fell at this hurdle
cause a storm of revolution…
The fallen will not be left behind,
They live on in the hearts, minds, in the consciousness of the
working people as leading and driving symbols of the revolution…
And they are leaders, the leaders do not sit at the table
in the struggle fr the revolution,
they fight in the frontlines…
The fallen fell for the revolution,
fell fighting on the road to revolution…
They remain in our hearts, minds, and in our consciousness…
They wrote the device “Fight until liberation” with blood
on the road of revolution…
Our road is the road of those who fell
on the road of the revolution…

Mahir Çayan