‘Salvation is Not in the Ballot Box But in the Street’ Solution is in Revolution!

‘The streets and squares were filled with tens of thousands of young people, workers, students, lawyers, unemployed people and women in a short time and the masses showed their anger and reaction against the living conditions, injustices, fascist aggressions and injustices imposed on them’

The attack on the detention and arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), and his close circle has intensified the power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques.

The cancellation of the 35-year university diploma of IBB Mayor E.İmamoğlu, who is expected to be the Presidential candidate of the bourgeois main opposition party fascist CHP, and then his detention and arrest on the allegations of ‘corruption’ and ‘aiding terrorism’ was the last move of the power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques.

Although the arrest of E.İmamoğlu within the scope of the ‘corruption’ investigation against him and the judicial control decision issued against him in the ‘terrorism’ investigation are interpreted as the prevention of the appointment of a trustee to IBB, in reality, what happened should be read as a ‘bargain’ to calm the anger and reaction of the masses on the streets. The authority to appoint trustees to IBB is entirely in the hands of the Ministry of Interior and the fascist power has the authority to appoint trustees whenever it sees fit.

What is concrete is that R.T.Erdoğan wanted to liquidate his ‘biggest rival’ E.İmamoğlu, whom he defeated four times in the elections, first by cancelling his diploma and then by having him arrested on charges of ‘corruption’. Whether R.T.Erdoğan will succeed in this move will be shaped depending on the negotiations between the ruling class cliques and of course the struggle of the masses. Because the arrest of E.İmamoğlu means that the fight between the ruling class cliques has evolved into a new process.

It will be recalled that a year ago, in the local elections of 31 March 2024, the bourgeois main opposition party CHP increased its votes across Turkey to over 37 per cent and won by a landslide in 14 metropolitan cities, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, where a significant part of Turkey’s population lives.

The AKP, which had been in power for years, had become the second party with 35 per cent. It was clear that for the AKP-MHP fascist power, especially R.T.Erdoğan, the bourgeois power opportunities were seen as an important threat to the interests of the clique he represented. As a matter of fact, it is known that R.T.Erdogan himself said ‘If we lose Istanbul, we will lose Turkey’.

Therefore, it was a very clear political target that after the 31 March local elections, the entire target of the AKP-MHP fascist power would be directed towards the CHP, the representative of the rival bourgeois ruling class clique, and the prominent figure of this opposition, IBB President E.İmamoğlu. As a matter of fact, after the local elections, it was known that the AKP-MHP government, in the words of President R.T.Erdoğan, was preparing for E.İmamoğlu by using all the means of state power, especially the judiciary.

It is known that the law in Turkey has no equivalent even in the bourgeois sense and that the ‘thing’ called ‘independent judiciary’ is actually used as an instrument of oppression and terror by the ruling classes on the working class and labouring people. In Turkey, the ‘independent judiciary’ has been used not only on the working class and the people but also as a useful instrument in the struggle for power between the ruling class cliques. As a matter of fact, there is a historical reality in which prime ministers were executed in periods when the power struggle between the ruling class cliques intensified.

In this sense, fascism in the conditions of Turkey is not only a form of government but also a form of government that dominates the entire state apparatus from the top to the bottom. The Turkish state has not become fascist under the AKP and R.T.Erdoğan, as some claim. It is a fascist dictatorship from the day it was founded.

For this very reason, it is clear that the fascist dictatorship has directed and will direct the useful apparatus called the judiciary not only against the working class and labouring people, the opposition outside the order, but also against the opposition within the order and even against the rival bourgeois clique, which are their class brothers. The fact that the contradictions between the ruling classes are reconcilable does not exclude such methods in the quarrel between them.

A court battle between bourgeois cliques!

The contradictions between the ruling class cliques are in the last analysis reconcilable contradictions. Even when the two ruling class cliques are in fierce competition with each other, they may well be in common in attacks against the people. There are countless examples of this in the social practice of Turkey. And again, in the social practice of Turkey, it is more than evident that the ruling class clique, which is the apostle of ‘democracy’ while in opposition, is the most notorious enemy of the people after seizing power. It is known that in the struggle of the opposition clique to seize state power, the reactions of the masses to the existing order and their demands for democracy have been used as a tool for their own clique’s struggle.

As a result of this situation in the class struggle in Turkey; ‘The failure to create an independent and strong popular movement under the leadership of the proletariat has led to the use of the opposition of the working class, the labouring people and democratic elements as a lever to bring to power sometimes one and sometimes the other of the comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord cliques.’ (İbrahim Kaypakkaya, Nisan Yayımcılık)

Since the establishment of the Turkish state, the Turkish ruling classes have been divided into two main camps. These two camps have seen the use of the apparatus of power for the interests of their own supporters as the main priority and have considered every means and method, including the collapse of the capital of the rival clique, as permissible for themselves. Those who were champions of democracy when they were in the opposition, gave incentives to their own supporters when they came to power, and awarded tenders on an ad hoc basis. It is known that during the AKP-MHP rule, the ‘cronies’, known as the ‘gang of five’, who are actually more numerous, have flourished.

On the other hand, these two camps are not a frozen and monolithic whole. Some information revealed in the arrest operation against E.İmamoğlu points to this fact. Between the two bourgeois camps, a complete looting and plundering order has been established with the ‘rent of Istanbul’ at the centre, and tenders worth billions of liras have been given to each other. In this sense, it should not be overlooked that the issue for the AKP-MHP power is the liquidation of E.İmamoğlu on one side and the sharing of the ‘rent of Istanbul’ on the other side.

Therefore, the Turkish state has not become a fascist dictatorship under the rule of AKP and R.T.Erdogan, or even a new authoritarianism, as some liberals like to call it! What has happened is that in the twenty years that AKP has been in power, it has gradually seized state power, substituted Kemalist fascism with Islamist fascism, and has been able to favour its own supporters. At the current stage, the emergence of E.İmamoğlu as a ‘formidable opponent’ for the first time against the clique represented by the AKP has made it necessary for the AKP-MHP power to take measures for the continuation of its clique interests.

Today, the arrest of E.İmamoğlu in the power struggle between the ruling class cliques is not surprising. What is surprising is that the CHP, which became the first party after the 31 March local elections, under the leadership of Özgür Özel, carried out a process under the name of ‘normalisation’ with the AKP-MHP fascist government, moreover, it carried out a political campaign such as ‘showing a red card’ to the government, which is extremely funny in terms of Turkey’s reality.

Although there are ‘understandable’ reasons for the CHP such actions such as representing the opposition clique of the ruling classes and moreover, being the founding party of the order, it is done with the motivation of representing the interests of the established order; Given the sharpness of the contradictions between the ruling class cliques in today’s conditions in Turkey and moreover the situation in which the AKP-MHP government is in, this opposition of the CHP has not made any sense beyond the ‘opposition of his majesty’. It is also experienced in practice that it does not.

As a matter of fact, the CHP, in the line it followed until the latest detention and arrest attack and moreover the possibility of appointing trustees to the CHP, gave the bourgeois opposition its due and did not develop a fundamental objection to the attacks of the AKP-MHP government on the working class and labouring people.

The bourgeois opposition said ‘it is unconstitutional but we will say yes’ to the abolition of parliamentary immunity, which exists in their own constitution, and in co-operation with the AKP-MHP government, it paved the way for the arrest of the then HDP co-chairs and MPs. Moreover, the CHP has made maximum efforts to keep the anger and reactions of the masses of the people against the AKP-MHP government within the order. It has considered it as its main duty to refer the reaction and anger of the masses directed outside the order to the ballot box and elections every time.

The demands of the masses are real and revolutionary!

However, at the current stage, the developments in the international arena and the severe poverty, unemployment, low wages under the name of minimum wage imposed on the working class and the people in the country; the policy of denial and assimilation of oppressed nationalities, especially the Kurdish nation, the policy of denial and assimilation on oppressed beliefs, especially Alevis, the futurelessness of the youth, the murder of women and patriarchal oppression, hate crimes, anti-democratic practices and fascist oppression policies, such as the recent dismissal of the Istanbul 1. Anti-democratic practices and fascist oppression policies, such as the dismissal of the administration of the Istanbul 1st Bar Association, etc. have accumulated anger in the masses. The spear no longer fits in the sack, so to speak.

The deepening of the contradiction between the imperialists in the international arena reveals signs of a new war of division and moreover, the direct impact of the hardening of the contradiction between the imperialists on the Middle East and the Caucasus geography, etc. developments are seen as an opportunity to maintain the power of the AKP-MHP alliance, which represents the clique holding the power.

For these reasons, they have implemented a policy under the name of ‘fortification of the internal front’.

In the last process, the orientation carried out with the Kurdish national movement and propagated as ‘Turkish and Kurdish alliance’ is shaped as a product of this policy, and it is noteworthy that the ‘urban reconciliation’ made with the Kurdish democratic movement in the arrest of E.İmamoğlu is criminalised with ‘terror’. In addition, absurd proposals such as the call made by the fascist Devlet Bahçeli for ‘the PKK to convene a congress in Malazgirt on 4 May’ are not a solution with the Kurdish national movement by the Turkish ruling classes; It brings to mind the policy of stalling in the power struggle within the ruling class cliques. Moreover, it is obvious that Turkish fascism has not taken any steps in this regard.

The ‘fortification of the internal front’ policy of the Turkish state and the clique holding the power means fascist aggression against the working class and the people in general and the revolutionary and opposition movement in particular; In the current conditions, where the economic crisis has further impoverished the people, unemployment has increased, youth are imposed with no future, women are murdered, all kinds of anti-democratic practices and fascist oppression are in effect, the reaction of the fascist CHP against the detention and arrest of the possible presidential candidate of the bourgeois opposition has been to restrain the reaction of the masses on the streets and try to keep them in order.

In the face of the fascist aggression of the AKP-MHP government, especially the student youth mobilised with a mass mobilisation that scattered the dead soil of the campuses, wounding the police barricades and clearly expressed what should be done with the slogan ‘salvation is on the street, not in the ballot box’.

The streets and squares were filled with tens of thousands of young people, workers, students, lawyers, unemployed people and women in a short time and the masses showed their anger and reaction against the living conditions, injustices, fascist aggressions and injustices imposed on them. The CHP, on the other hand, took care to keep this anger and reaction of the masses within the limits of the order. It preferred to hold rallies instead of forcing the symbolic areas banned to the masses, especially Taksim Square, and the masses protested against this attitude of the CHP at every opportunity with the slogans ‘We came to action, not to rally’.

Although the process is a power struggle between the ruling class cliques, the masses have turned the detention and arrest of E.İmamoğlu into a struggle against anti-democratic practices, poverty, will usurpation and arbitrariness imposed on them. The bourgeois opposition stepped in wherever and whenever the mass movement showed a tendency to overcome the clash of the ruling classes among themselves, especially in the actions of progressives and revolutionaries, the masses were declared ‘provocateurs’, and the law enforcement forces who attacked and tortured the masses were embraced as ‘our police’.

The attitude of the class-conscious proletariat towards the struggle between the ruling class cliques, which is becoming more and more violent and is understood to continue in the coming period, has been known for a long time: ‘For a communist movement, of course, it is out of the question to prefer one of the two reactionary cliques. The communist movement regards both of them as enemies; it struggles to overthrow both of them; but it does not turn a blind eye to the struggle between them; in order to gain the maximum benefit from this struggle on its own account, it determines their situation in relation to each other well, isolates the most reactionary one, directs its first and most violent attacks against it, while not failing to expose the nature of the other reactionary clique and firmly maintain the line of enmity between it and itself. He knows that this struggle between the ruling classes may at any moment turn into a unification against the people, and that the clique which is the most reactionary today may be replaced by another tomorrow. This depends on the ever-changing balance of power between the reactionaries, on which clique is in power, on the existence of an economic and political depression and similar conditions. ‘ (IK, age)

The masses threw off the dead soil and filled the streets and squares. This is an important experience for the broad masses. At the same time, the masses are experiencing not only the aggression of the fascist government but also the in-order and fascist character of the main opposition party CHP. It is clear that in the coming period, especially during 1 May, mass actions will increase and will be directed towards more concrete targets. It is necessary to prepare for this process.

source: ICOR

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