INTRODUCTION
by William Pomeroy
To understand a political situation clearly and in depth, and to know precisely what to do about it — these are two fundamental requirements of revolutionary leadership. They are qualities that spring from a Marxist-Leninist theory of society and of social forces, qualities that distinguish the responsible revolutionary strategist and tactician from the irresponsible sloganiser.
This book by R. Yurukoglu, fully illustrates the truth of this assertion. It is a profound analysis of present-day Turkish society, seen both in its broad international setting and in its inner, national circumstances. It sets forth in precise terms steps to be taken to meet the revolutionary crisis that has been developing in Turkey.
Although it is addressed mainly to the Turkish working people and to those who have stepped forward to help mobilise and to lead them in the struggle for social emancipation and for socialism, this is also a book to be studied with profit by all who have similar aims in other countries. To an increasing extent, more so than in past epochs, the revolutionary struggles of peoples in all parts of the world are indivisible, not merely impinging on the lives of peoples everywhere but calling forth active support and sympathy on an international scale. The experiences of struggle in each country, and how a movement goes about its tasks in connection with it, are a valued reservoir of theoretical and practical knowledge for all peoples.
This international significance of a revolutionary situation that 6 Introduction by William Pomeroy occurs within the borders of one country has become greatly accentuated by two major factors in the contemporary world.
One of these is the broad division of the world, since the Russian October Revolution, into two main social systems: socialism and capitalism. Some time ago this process reached a point where each national revolution or social transformation, in whatever corner of the world, became part of a decisive shift of forces in favour of the rising system of socialism, simultaneously subtracting from the capitalist system. This great historical trend causes the attention of people everywhere to focus with increasing interest on a coup in Afghanistan, a national liberation movement in Namibia, a massive demonstration in Teheran, a general strike in Istanbul. Each can lead to an important further tipping in the balance of forces between the two world systems.
The other major factor is more intensified organisation of the imperialist features within the capitalist system, tending to accelerate as the capitalist part of the world has shrunk. In all respects — in the activities of multinational corporations, the operations of banks and other financial agencies, the creation of military and political blocs -the major imperialist powers have sought to knit together under their control the remaining non-socialist countries. This has occurred in a more thorough fashion in the contemporary era of neo-colonialism than it ever did occur in the era of outright colonialism, and has been intended not only to enable a more intensive exploitation to take place but to serve as a barrier to revolutionary change.
In recent decades imperialism — in particular United States and British imperialism — has had a near-fanatical obsession with the weaving of chains or cordons to keep revolution from its preserves. This reached a peak in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with the linking together of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). Such military blocs, directed at socialist countries and national liberation movements alike, have been great strategic failures in the military sense. As blocs for exploitation they have had even more disastrous consequences, leading literally to an intensified development of weak links in the imperialist system. SEATO disintegrated and finally fell apart with the victory of the Vietnamese-Laotian-Cambodian revolution that it was set up in part to prevent. NATO has been riven by internal dissension and is felt increasingly as a burden by the people of its member countries. CENTO began to come apart when it was breached by the revolution in Iraq.
Perhaps the most resounding snapping of a link in the imperialist chain, both in the military bloc and economic exploitation senses, has been the anti-Shah, anti-imperialist revolution in Iran. This has simultaneously removed an imperialist “policeman” from the Middle East, and has caused enormous losses in trade, investment and loan capital to the imperialist powers.
Iran, rich in oil revenues, with a powerful imperialist-supplied army, had seemed a strong imperialist ally, but a revolutionary situation grew and matured with remarkable rapidity, featured by tremendous mass action. The reason for this lay in the heavy exploitation and oppression of the Iranian people that were embodied in Iran's alliance with imperialism.
This book was written prior to the revolutionary victory of the Iranian people over the Shah and his imperialist alliance, a victory in which the underground Communist Tudeh Party and the workers it influences played a major part. Certain aspects of that revolution reinforce the arguments put forward by Comrade Yurukoglu, a central theme of which is that countries of medium development such as Turkey and Iran, have become “weak links” in the imperialist chain.
The case of Iran revealed some significant weaknesses in that chain constructed by imperialism in the region known as the Middle East. As a military bloc, CENTO embodied such strategic considerations as the proximity of the Iran and Turkey to the Soviet Union, which it was presumed would give an offensive advantage to imperialism in an anti-Soviet war, and the understanding that the imperialist powers could make use of the military alliance to intervene to put down national revolutionary movements within bloc members. The Iranian experience demolished the validity of these tenets. Because of its proximity the Soviet Union turned out io be in a position to defend the Iranian revolution, effectively warning imperialist powers against intervening. Despite its military installations and its 40,000 military advisers in Iran, US imperialism was unable to make more than feeble gestures at intervention, restrained not only by Soviet proximity but by fear of generating a massive anti-imperialist reaction throughout the Middle East. In addition, the interventionist desires of imperialism were checked by the remembrance of the great anti-war, anti-imperialist movement that arose in the US itself during the aggressive war in Vietnam.
These considerations add weight to the theory of the “weak link” that is advanced by the author. They are a further encouragement to the Turkish people to break the link with imperialism and to shatter the neo-colonial capitalist system that exploits them.
That this should occur has, however, nothing to do with the false imperialist theory of the “falling dominoes” that contends that a revolution in one country will lead to revolutions one after another in neighbouring countries. Imperialism invented this theory as an excuse for intervening in countries where revolutions take place, arguing that entire regions can be “lost” if a single revolution is not put down as it arises.
Countries are not dominoes and revolutions do not spread in such a fashion. What is true is that in virtually all subordinate countries in the capitalist system the conditions of neo-colonial exploitation and oppression provide the setting for the growth of revolutionary situations.
It must be noted that Comrade Yurukoglu’s book points to the rise of a revolutionary situation in Turkey from as long ago as 1968 onwards. If this development is hastened from now on it will not be because the Iranian people refused to endure their conditions any longer and have overthrown their rulers; it will be because imperialism will now seek to intensify its control and its presence in Turkey and because the collaborating Turkish bourgeoisie will try to use more repressive means to keep the working class in subjugation. As proven in Iran, similar methods by the Shah’s ruthless SAVAK only led to a magnifying of revolutionary sentiment.
A potentiality for revolt exists, indeed, all over the Middle East. In none of the countries of the region will it come from outside, from Iran or the Soviet Union or anywhere else. It will come from the maturing of conditions within each country. If one revolution does succeed another in the region, it will be due to the common reaching of the point of revolt.
Turkey was recruited into both NATO and CENTO, to serve, as the imperialists put it, as the bridge or link between those two military blocs. By its membership in these alliances, Turkey was drawn ever more surely into the same trap of heavy military burdens, loan capital indebtedness, unequal trade relations, and retarded industrial development that have featured all imperialist “partnerships” with underdeveloped and medium developed countries.
It was in consequence of this that, as Comrade Yurukoglu points out, Turkey has become a “weak link” in the imperialist system, driven into crisis through the combined exploitation by foreign capital and by a rapacious native bourgeoisie allied with foreign capital. Turkey shares this situation with numerous countries of under development and medium development — in Asia, Latin America and Africa — making of them no dominoes but an inevitable series of weak links where revolutionary situations are likely to mature. The revolutionary movements in each of these countries will find it useful to study the analysis made by Comrade Yurukoglu.
What is undertaken here is not a generalised theory of revolution, but a careful analysis in depth of the conditions and factors that have produced an organised working class in Turkey, prepared to struggle with a rising level of mass action for anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly objectives. Equally carefully, the analysis includes a study of the Turkish bourgeoisie, its character, its behaviour, its limitations, its tendencies with imperialist approval to turn to fascism as the means of imposing super-exploitation on the workers.
This study of the conditions within Turkey, particularly the relatively rapid growth of industry from 1950, of the industrial working class, and of class organisation, comprises the meat of the present book. It has more than mere analysis: Comrade Yurukoglu has taken the pains to clarify his method as well, to define the terms and to explain the formulations that he applies to the Turkish situation. He has produced both a theoretical and a practical, programmatic work, a Marxist approach in the polemical style of Lenin.
Finally, Comrade Yurukoglu discusses and defines the tasks confronting the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP): the strengthening of the TKP as the indispensable subjective factor without which no revolutionary situation can be carried to its victorious conclusion, the improvement of the quality of party cadres, the building of a mass party (i.e., a party close to the masses and able to lead them in growing mass action), the need to conduct an ideological struggle against opportunism and left extremism, and the necessity to find the forms of organisation suitable to the developing situation. All of these are discussed in relation to circumstances peculiar to Turkey and to the Turkish working class.
It is noteworthy that precise forms of organisation or forms of struggle are not projected. The Turkish working class is not specifically told to rely on armed struggle, or on legal struggle, or on definite combinations of these. What is stressed is the need for a party capability to meet a developing situation flexibly. However, it is urged that the workers form suitable organisations not just for defence against fascism but for attack against the fascist system of suppression in order to destroy it.
Weak links of imperialism do not rust away or collapse by themselves. They are shattered by the revolutionary struggles of the people, led by revolutionary organisations with a principled, scientific ideology.
Comrade Yurukoglu’s book is a powerful weapon for advancing that struggle in Turkey.
William Pomeroy
Preface
In an article entitled “The Race to Save Turkey”, the American periodical Institutional Investor asks, “Will Turkey turn back from the threshold?” The West German Wirtschaftskurier talks of “Turkey breaking with the West”. In Britain, the Financial Times devotes one of its longest supplements to Turkey and remarks, “A very deep and real crisis is at hand in relations between Turkey and the West”. From this it goes on to comment on the possibility of Turkey breaking with the West. “The Nine” are discussing Turkey. Turkey is one of the main questions of the day in NATO. The “Position on Turkey” is a subject for Labour-Tory disputes in the British
Parliament. The largest banks and finance centres in the world “review” Turkey.
Save Turkey from “what”? From which “threshold” might it turn back? To what does the “West” refer? What is meant by “breaking with the West”? What is all this about “Turkey”? Has it been recently discovered? The obvious answer to all these questions is this: Turkey is a weak link in the chain of imperialism! The imperialists are aware of this, and are alarmed by it. To “save” Turkey means to prevent the weak link from breaking. What they call the “West” is imperialism. What they call the “threshold” is tire revolutionary situation.
Turkey is a weak link. Moreover, it is a link which is day by day being weakened by the constantly maturing crisis and revolutionary situation. This reality seen by imperialism, is also seen by the bourgeoisie of Turkey. Not simply seen, but felt deep-down. The bourgeoisie is frightened.
Mass movements, revolutionary struggle, whatever they are aimed against, frighten the bourgeoisie. In our country, mass movements, the revolutionary impetus within the masses, is aimed against imperialism, the collaborating monopoly bourgeoisie and the fascist escalation. It is against unemployment and inflation. But it also objectively threatens the whole of the capitalist “regime”, built on keeping the masses apolitical and pacified.
It is for this reason that the question of “saving the regime” is on everybody’s tongue in recent years. The bourgeoisie is trying every alternative in this respect. It lets loose the fascists. It calls in the army. Some say a Justice Party-Republican People’s Party coalition. Right social democracy is another possibility offered as “hope” in some circles.
In a recent interview published in the newspaper Cumhuriyet, Ecevit openly said that his aim is to prevent an “explosion”(!) In all truth, he has done and continues to do everything in his power for the success of attempts, as the imperialists put it, to “save” to “turn it back” from the “threshold”. In taking “precautions” against the fascist escalation, right social democracy is aiming at pacifying the antifascist struggle of the masses, rather than the fascists themselves. In praising American imperialism while showing “hostility” towards Europe, it is attempting to exhaust our people’s anti-imperialist feelings.
In short, imperialism, the finance oligarchy, and those merging faith them, see that Turkey is a weak link, see the revolutionary situation and the extraordinary impetus and momentum of the masses. They see, are frightened and are thrashing about.
Years ago, the sole party of our working class, its fighting vanguard the TKP, spoke of the realities of Turkey which are showing themselves so clearly today. In 1974, the General Secretary of the TKP, Comrade I. Bilen, commented, “These are the dimensions which the conflict and struggle between classes have taken in the country today. The country is divided into two enemy poles — two camps. This process will develop even further. The data, the events point in this direction”. (Comrade I. Bilen’s speech on “May days in Turkey”, on 30 April 1974, see Bilen Yoldas Cok Yasa, Iscinin Sesi Publications No: 4, p.79)
What Comrade Bilen said has come to pass. Every year the class struggles became harsher. The division into two camps, the polarisation, became even more crystallised. And in 1976, Comrade Bilen summarised the essence of these developments with the following sentence: “Turkey is a weak point of imperialism”. Within tliis same process, the TKP, conscious of the growing responsibility imposed by the day, and under the leadership of Comrade Bilen, brought down opportunism and smashed liquidationism. It leapt forward into battle to fulfill its historical responsibilities and is struggling to do so.
Both the working class and the bourgeoisie give their clear answer and take a definite position on the question — break or save the weak link. It is only petty-bourgeois socialists and opportunists who are frightened of giving a clear answer or taking a definite position. It is these, who, for the purpose of sidestepping the responsibilities of the day, say, “Turkey is not a weak link”. They deny the existence of a revolutionary situation and, worse still, accuse Leninists of “revolutionary romanticism”. They call adherence to principles “sectarianism”. They talk of “becoming isolated from the masses” (for “masses” understand RPP!). They do not see that it is not Leninist methods, but pacifism, that will isolate the revolutionaries from the masses.
The TKP persists in the struggle against imperialism, the fascist escalation, the collaborating monopolists and their fifth columns. Victory in the struggle on each of these two fronts is a single whole. The TKP, which symbolises the unity of the working class on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, will become strengthened only in such struggles. It is only through the further strengthening of the TKP that the worker-peasant alliance, the National Democratic Front of our people, and other organisations of struggle can be established and consolidated. On the path to victory, all things are centred on the strengthening of the TKP on a Leninist basis, in the Leninist struggle.
“Turkey — Weak Link of Imperialism ” was first published as a pamphlet in February 1978. The pamphlet, which gave a profound analysis of the main aspects of a very important question, received wide-spread attention. On the other hand, opportunists and petty -bourgeois socialists attacked it. For this reason, and as demanded by the escalated, new level of struggle against opportunism, both breadth and depth were added to the second edition of the pamphlet to produce this book. In one sense, this book is a second edition of the original pamphlet. In another, with the clarification brought to many important questions, much of it is new.
Comrade Yurukoglu uses a sound methodology in his treatment and explanation of Turkey as a weak link. He looks at it both within the broader context of the imperialist system, and from the point of view of the crisis of capitalism in Turkey. In this way, the book also serves as a Leninist, scientific analysis of Turkey’s economic and social structure. The book shows, in a scientific and concrete manner, the working and living conditions of our working class and its extreme exploitation as an integral part of this structure. In studying both the country’s social-economic structure and the working and living conditions of our working class, it at the same time deals with the revolutionary situation and the fascist escalation. The book shows the necessity of an advanced democratic people’s revolution.
On his 75th birthday, Comrade Bilen gave the young this advice: Believe in the power of the working class. Believe in the victory of the revolution. Wage a persistent, Leninist struggle against any manifestation of opportunism... With this book, Comrade Yurukoglu is following Comrade Bilen’s advice. The book reflects a passionate belief in the TKP, in the power of the working class and the people, in revolution. The breaking of tire weak link reflects the longing to take our land into the bright future of socialism. It reflects unyielding loyalty to the resolution, revolutionary spirit, principled stand and Leninist science of Bolshevism, against the pacifism, tailism, hostility to theory, the indecisiveness and wavering of centrism, characteristic of Menshevism. And most important of all, it gives a Leninist, principled answer to the question: “How to break the weak link?”
In short, Comrade Yurukoglu is putting into practice the oath taken at the celebration of the 75th birthday of the TKP’s Leninist leader, Comrade Bilen.
Emine Engin
Introduction to the Expanded Second Edition
In his speech at the Berlin Conference of European Communist and Workers' Parties (29-30 June 1976). Comrade I. Bilen, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey, said, “Our party believes that the strengthening of the anti-imperialist and democratic movements in Turkey is rooted in objective conditions, that the polarisation is more and more acute (...) that Turkey is a weak point of imperialism”. The General Secretary of the TKP repeated the same idea in the report of the Central Committee presented at the 1977 Party Conference. This idea, put forward by the leader of the general staff of the working class of Turkey, its vanguard party, is of extreme importance for the revolutionary movement in Turkey.
The rapidly maturing revolutionary situation. The rapidly increasing danger of fascism. The fact that this danger and the revolutionary situation cannot be separated from each other. Apart from transitional alternatives, either an authoritarian order (open or covert fascism), or an advanced democratic people's revolution that will grow into socialism. There is no middle road.
The question of alliances. Ways of taking the country to revolution by ensuring the broadest front of the people against the partnership of domestic and foreign monopolies... We could add much more. All these questions are related to the Marxist-Leninist analysis made by Comrade Bilen.
It is this subject which we will examine — in as short a form as possible — in this book. Only let us from the start point out that it was …
