Turkey/Kurtulus Number 90 July 18, 1998

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

Kurtulus Number 90 July 18, 1998

The victory in the Death Fast of 1996 was achieved with the politics
of the DHKP-C and the martyrs. Final victory will also be achieved by
following this path.

Two years have passed since the Death Fast of 1996. The victory gained
two years ago with 12 martyrs continues to show the way to drive the
struggles forward on various fronts. This victory has historic
significance, with its preliminary phase and the phase that came
afterwards it plays a decisive role in determining what victory and
defeat is and what separation and unity mean. 

Bourgeois ideology suffered a defeat. Victory was gained by
revolutionary politics which rejected surrender, continued the
struggle under all conditions, was not afraid that the struggle would
result in victims and created traditions of forming and maintaining
ties to the people and the revolution and the culture of readiness for
self-sacrifice. Every kind of reformist and opportunist conception was
removed from Marxist-Leninist culture. While the separation of
reformism was experienced during the Death Fast itself, the splitting
off of opportunism was essentially completed in the subsequent
period. The results and influences of the Death Fast are too
wide-ranging to be expressed by saying that some rights could be won
or restricted in such and such a time and place. The victory has
defined the two years since from different viewpoints. Victories
extending into the future require broader shoulders capable of bearing
them. Through negative or positive developments, the influence of the
Death Fast has shown who and what unity achieved victory, how the
subsequent phase is to be evaluated and who has the strength to go
further with what has been achieved and who does not.

The Death Fast is a political and ideological victory more than
anything else.

In the political sense it brought all the enemy's political
calculations to nought and halted his policy of aggression. In the
ideological sense it unmasked the egoistic culture of the bourgeoisie,
its anti-popular policy and its fascist face and opened the way for
the people to take their place in the ranks of the revolution. 

The meaning of the remark "in their brains a quake was unleashed and
the world was turned upside down" lies in this ideological victory. An
ideological victory which destroyed the lack of conviction of those
who said "it is not worthwhile to die for an ideology", the revolution
was made concrete before the eyes of the people, a personality was
displayed and the people's hate for the system was deepened, and a
political left which could never go forward from abstract unity
achieved at a negotiating table, united in an action which grew in
significance because of the deaths.

This remark was made right after the victory: "Besides having the
function of a barricade against the attacks of the bourgeoisie,
besides achieving rights for prisoners, besides unmasking the fascist
face of the Refah Party, its real function was to deliver a heavy blow
to the lack of conviction and pessimism that the bourgeoisie
encourages. The real gain from this resistance is the victory in
ideological struggle with the bourgeois ideology, the moral
superiority. The superiority of the Marxist-Leninist ideology over
bourgeois ideology was proved yet again." (M. Ali Baran, Kurtulus,
August 3, 1996)

The world and the country was shaken to its foundations, and everyone
was shocked. This struggle with death showed everyone their place,
whether positive or negative. Once more it was proved that the
revolutionaries and the people cannot be defeated. 

The Death Fast was a struggle of two ideologies, two wills which gave
ideology its direction:

The bourgeoisie had said there is no longer an ideology worth dying
for. The revolutionaries declared and proved that there are values and
ideologies for which one dies. 

The bourgeoisie raised egoism and self-interest to the level of a
principle. The revolutionaries strengthened sharing, collectivism,
offered a major example of readiness for self-sacrifice and showed the
people the growing power of their values.

The bourgeoisie divides the people and stirs them up against each
other. On the other hand, the fighters of the Death Fast, of Kurdish,
Turkish, Arab, Cherkess and Georgian origin amongst others, united the
people, organised them and showed the fraternity and solidarity of the
peoples.

The bourgeoisie treats dishonour, greed for money, and every kind of
swindling as though these are virtues. The Death Fast and its
fighters, in contrast, strengthen honour and dignity and treat people
with respect. In the period of the Death Fast the politics were
clearly shown through which the revolution can be achieved and through
which the revolutionary cadres who have the leadership in the
liberation struggle can hold on to it. Leadership, as politics and as
cadres, crystallised in such a way that they can be seen by very broad
masses. Broad masses of people were given the possibility of comparing
parties, leaders and politics.

At the same time, the scale of the victory placed a heavy load of
responsibility on those who won the victory. 

The actual significance of the victory, the ideological and moral
superiority should be concretised in the struggle and the unity of the
people. If the political results created in the Death Fast are not
transformed into political practice afterwards, the attacks by
fascism, which is again trying to win ideological and moral
superiority, cannot be opposed. Then the victory is restricted to one
of having simply beaten off the attacks that went on back then and the
historic mission of the Death Fast cannot be fulfilled. War permits no
pause for breath. Nor does it permit one to squander an
inheritance. It is impossible to develop and organise oneself by
basing oneself on a victory one has not achieved for oneself. These
are the rules, these are the realities of war. If we look at the Death
Fast of 1996 and the subsequent struggle from this viewpoint, we can
clearly recognise that the Death Fast united people but the victory
separated them. While the opportunist left together with the victory
went into a stage of erosion and collapse, the Party-Front was
legitimised in the eyes of the people and its mass power grew and it
travelled an important distance along the road to taking power. 

Because opportunism restricted the victory to beating off the attacks
of 1996 and the phase after it, and was preoccupied with thinking,
"How can I put myself in the foreground?", because they only made
propaganda from the victory and the martyrs, they overturned the line
that had actually achieved the victory.

Instead of an analysis of what kind of period had been lived through
in the prisons up to victory, all they did was engage in sterile
agitation. Instead of a joint struggle, instead of decisiveness,
instead of going over to the attack, instead of forcing the legitimacy
of the revolution on the bourgeoisie and the necessity of serving the
masses, they preferred to put their own narrow group interests to the
fore. The victory was not used to organise the people but rather to
advertise their own groups. This went so far that the left did not
fear destroying the unity of the left and the people. 

The unity achieved in the prisons showed that a unity of revolutionary
forces on the basis of a correct line can win. But a left which
neither knows how to learn from the struggle nor from history was also
incapable of learning from a struggle achieved with martyrs. With
policies like splitting up unity into different areas, unity was
eroded within two years. In this situation, the left which was
opportunist, obsessed with advertising itself and only serving its own
interests and which got itself into a cul-de-sac of pursuing an
anti-Party-Front policy might as well have carried out the policy of
attacks and marginalisation after the Death Fast themselves. 

This was what was experienced in the Susurluk period. Without
displaying any far-sightedness and influenced by hostility to the
Party-Front, an important phase was not analysed from the viewpoint of
people's unity. Nothing came of the unity.

Without even trying to destroy the politics of the MGK (National
Security Council) which was trying to create a clash between Sharia
(Islamic law) and secularism in an effort to integrate the people in
the system, the MGK left and the reformists united on the basis of
being against the Party-Front. Conforming with the system was
promoted. Those who feared that they would slip into obscurity, who
were afraid they would disappear or erode if they acted together with
the Party-Front found that their fears were justified when they took a
position against the Party-Front. 

This behaviour of the left is not to be wondered at. The history of
the opportunist left before the Death Fast already showed their
attitude of being only interested in their own advantage and seeking
self-advertisement and wanting to compete with others, while being
hostile to the Party-Front and constantly deviating to the left or
right. They were the ones who in 1984 had dismissed the Death Fast of
that year as "suicide" and "political murder". Nor was that all.  When
in the 1990s the fighters of the Party-Front fell while pursuing the
policy of not capitulating, others designated this policy as
"thirsting for confrontation" and preferred to stand apart from the
struggle. Nor was their participation in 1996 the result of a serious
analysis of the period. However, conditions were very different from
the period earlier in 1984. The form of resistance they had formerly
shunned was on everybody's agenda, everything was obvious to the
people, the thick prison walls might just as well have been of
glass. There was no haven the opportunists could seek refuge in.

Nobody could propagate theories of "retreat" any longer. Moreover,
they had seen the outcome of the Death Fast of 1984 which they had
criticised and they realised that they would not profit from opposing
such a major resistance and did not want to be outside it. So on the
one hand their participation was positive: they did not want to be
outsiders. On the other hand they showed ideological formlessness by
by not making an analysis and self-criticism over the past. 

Ultimately, they were responding to the influence and proposals of the
Party-Front and the ideology it created in the action they took. They
gave martyrs. This is undoubted, in the same way that for every
political movement there must be a basis from which strength can be
gained in the fight for power. But they persisted in their errors and
this prevented them from analysing this basis correctly and making use
of it. So after the victory they started to fall behind.

Reformism is afraid of victory because the Death Fast concretised the
revolutionary alternative

The reformists, in other words the current MGK left, were another
circle who split off because of the victory.

While the revolutionaries headed off to death to beat off the attacks
and summon the people to struggle, the reformists, especially the ÖDP
(Freedom and Solidarity Party) and the EP (Labour Party, today EMEP,
Party of Labour ) locked themselves in in their buildings to ward off
the attacks of the MGK. While the people were exposed to attacks,
these groups renewed their preferred game of calling for "fresh
elections". Their minds had surrendered to the system and they could
not believe that such mass heroism was possible. When actions grew
bigger, and they were in danger of losing their mask, they called for
a truce and thus de facto they supported the efforts fascism was
making. Only in the final days did they try to do something, and this
was because they were forced to. 

In spite of everything, the victory astonished them. 

They victory shook their way of life, the system and their status quo
among the people. In a panic about the danger to the status quo, they
attacked the victory. They were aware of its role in separating the
people from the system and drawing them into armed struggle. These
groups went over to the side of the enemy in order to stop growing
participation in the struggle and the armed struggle and to block the
channels leading the people to revolution. Against the development of
the armed struggle and the people's movement they put themselves under
the orders of the MGK. They betrayed the people by obeying the MGK in
the Susurluk period and on May Day in 1997 and 1998. 

Yes, the victory has brought some together and separated others. While
opportunism, which is losing influence as a result of its declining
strength, was uniting, reformism became more and more part of the
system. Moreover, it could be seen how both were united against the
initiatives and mass support of the Party-Front, above all in the
neighbourhoods and workplaces. Both fell well behind the point they
were at before the Death Fast, opportunism because the victory
overwhelmed it, and reformism because it was afraid of it. In this
situation, without an analysis of the past and self-criticism it is
obvious that they will fall even further behind.

The Death Fast victory is continuing to show the way.

Since opportunism and reformism cannot, it continues to show the
people and Party the way to achieve power. The Party-Front will march
along this road. Victory means power. Every victory means a step on
the road to final victory. If there is deviation from the line that
achieved these victories, those that have been gained will be betrayed
and more importantly, the chance for final victory will be lost. 

Every one of our martyrs in the Death Fast is hope for the people, a
source of fear for the enemy and a road sign for the comrades. A
condition for continuing the struggle is to create new cadres every
day and increase their number, for they will lead the revolution to
victory. It is the task of the Party-Front to continue to be fighters
of the Death Fast, to give the people hope and cause fear among the
enemy. 

The DHKP-C means victory. 

The leadership, ideology, cadres and fighters of the DHKP-C are the
guarantee of victory. The DHKP-C continues to show the way to victory,
going forward along the line created by the victories. It continues
its march along the road to final victory.            


-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
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