The Union of Socialist Forces and Labour and Freedom Alliance founded successively. Two different juxtapositions mean that there are unresolved problems between them. They undoubtedly exist, but they must be resolved for two main reasons.
Mustafa Yalçıner
Today in Turkey, there are two alliances of order, one in power and the other in opposition and declaring that they are candidates for power. Both represent the interests of the imperialists and their collaborator domestic monopolies. Both defend the existing capitalist order, either under one-man rule or through restoration.
And out of these, two unions were announced: The Union of Socialist Forces was recently established. On Sunday, the formation of the "Labour and Freedom Alliance" was announced. Two different juxtapositions mean that there are unresolved problems between them. They undoubtedly exist, but they must be resolved for two main reasons.
One: It is impossible to avoid unity against a power that is forcing the country into darkness and against imperialism and monopolies. And again, unity is necessary in order not to leave the country in the hands of the bourgeois opposition, which differs from the government not in fighting with the imperialists and the domestic monopoly bourgeoisie, but in defending parliamentarism, which it regards as the basic necessity for maintaining the capitalist order based on dependence, exploitation and coercion. Otherwise, the need for unity for the liberation of the working and labouring people from being the object of exploitation, plunder and tyranny of domestic and foreign monopolies will be ignored. A people whose organisations are not united with their advanced elements will undoubtedly find it difficult to unite.
And two: Individuals and organisations calling themselves socialists cannot avoid creating a solution to the people's need for unity, nor can they accept the continuation of their own division. Moreover, since it becomes easier, if not fateful, to develop points of separation rather than unity the longer one walks on separate paths, one cannot remain a spectator to standing apart.
The declaration of the Labour and Freedom Alliance has once again shown that the principles or platform of the two juxtapositions are very similar. Opposition to imperialism is defended by both unions; so is secularism, equality, freedom and nationalisation. Are there differences? There are, and the democratic solution of the Kurdish question is one of them. Perhaps one of them is the approach to elections. Those who come together in the Union of Socialist Forces criticise some or all of those who come together in the Labour and Freedom Alliance for being election-oriented and bargaining for MPs.
Other nuances can be found and deduced. It cannot be argued that they are completely unimportant. However, there are other important approaches, views and attitudes. And these are even more important. For example, within both "unions" there are those who define their ultimate aim as "abolishing classes" and "classless society". There are also those who defend this outside the two unions. For this, the organisation of the working class as the ruling class and the defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat are decisive. "People's power" is an urgent task, and the scope of "the people" is and will be objectively and conceptually differentiated over time.
But is it acceptable for those who agree on these fundamental issues to stand apart? Or how far will they stand apart?
We are certainly not delusional. These views are still on paper and are predictions, assertions. Just as the declarations of the two separate juxtapositions are still on paper and are only assertions. They will have to be fleshed out and the measure of the reality of the claims is the practical struggle.
Moreover, the unity of socialists can be a party unity, and this is difficult. Of course, preliminary steps can be taken to unite within a party and temporary unions can be formed for this purpose. However, democratic grounds of unity such as anti-imperialism and defence of secularism are insufficient for both. The grounds for a socialist unity can only be of a socialist nature. Like classless society and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
We are not dreamers, it is difficult. 1) The defenders of socialism have been shaped in different historical processes. 2) Modern revisionism, Trotskyism, Maoism and other anti-socialist currents, not to mention their predecessors, have had a negative impact on this process, causing serious divisions, the effects of which have not yet been eliminated. 3) The left movement in Turkey did not develop as a unity of the Marxist movement and the labour movement; this unity was achieved later. The groups claiming socialism that formed outside the labour movement in the '60s left a considerable area of influence for groupism, and the existence of parties claiming socialism, in which there are still those who claim to be socialists outside themselves, is our reality today.
The present appearance of confusion is likely to continue, especially when the conditions of the struggle against capital and fascism are made more difficult by the fact that walking in separate lanes has the effect of perpetuating these lanes. However, the confusion must end. The need is for a twofold unity: Socialist and democratic. Those who claim socialism should be based on the Marxist doctrine and be the motor force of a broad anti-imperialist democratic unity of the working class and labourers and oppressed peoples, men and women, young and old, believers and non-believers, socialists and democrats together.
Hediye Levent
Yusuf Karadaş