Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Philippines: New People's Army and the Organs of Political Power
"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself.
We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.
The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence".
German Ideology 1845 - Karl Marx
Communists Win Local Elections in North Kurdistan (Turkey) from Revolutionary Praxis
Posted on April 2, 2019
Ever since the early nineteen seventies Maoist communists in the Kurdish region of Turkey have been engaged in intense class struggle against the Turkish state. There has been continuous guerrilla warfare with the communist fighters operating out of the mountains.
The whole area is under occupation by the Turkish Army. There are military fortifications and road blocks everywhere.
The Government soldiers have burnt down villages forcing people to move to the towns and cities.
The revolutionary political organisation Maoist Communist Party of North Kurdistan is prohibited and anyone suspected of belonging to it is sent to prison.
Sentences of fifteen, twenty five years or even longer are typical. And yet the struggle against the Turkish capitalist state continues.
Even so, the communists manage to engage in some open, legal activity in local municipal councils. The front organisation is called Sosyalist Meclisler Federasyonu (Federation of Socialist Assemblies).
For some years the council of the small town of Ovacik has been led by members of this organisation and many popular reforms have been enacted. For example, bus services are free and water charges are very minimal.
All council business is conducted in a completely open and transparent way. Any member of the public has the right to personally see the Mayor about any matter.
The Council has introduced measures which help small farmers to operate and get a better price for their produce. Organic farming is encouraged. It is widely known that in reality the Ovacik Council is run by communists and many visitors come to see what is going on.
On 31st. March 2019 local elections were held throughout Turkey. In the town and province of Dersim the main candidate was Fatih Mehmet Macoglu, the former mayor of Ovacik.
The SMC gained control of the Dersim Council and this victory has been greeted enthusiastically. There is a lot of unemployment in Dersim and the people are looking forward to the sort of reforms pioneered in Ovacik.
If the reforms are very radical and are taken up in other localities then there would be the danger of the central government of Muslim reactionary President Recep Tayip Erdogan intervening. This could entail imprisoning councillors. Also the communists must be careful not to become fully absorbed into the official structures and thus be rendered ineffective.
Overall the reactionary AK Party led by Erdogan did not do very well in the local council elections losing control of Istanbul and Ankara. The economic situation in Turkey is worsening and there are many sharp contradictions in Turkish society. Conditions are developing which are favourable for further advances by the communists.
This article is being written in the village of Kurecik where back in 1972 Ibrahim Kaypakkaya founded a Maoist organisation and commenced the armed struggle against the reactionary Turkish state. I have just learnt that the Maoist candidate in the council elections here has been victorious.
FORWARD TO SOCIALIST REVOLUTION IN TURKEY!
Monday, April 1, 2019
Tony Greenstein on the Witchhunt in the Labour Party
Democracy and Class Struggle has great respect for Tony Greenstein even if we are not Left Social Democrat Labour Party supporters - we see the dirty tricks employed by the Israeli Embassy and the United States Embassy in British Politics is a abject lesson that we must all study and learn from - the fact that these foreign powers can so easily move about overtly and covertly in British politics makes a mockery of our sovereignty.
This is compounded when M15 and M16 become facilitators for this intervention.
A bad thing can be turned into a good thing if we learn the lessons of the Labour Witch hunt and turn the tables on the interventionists..
SEE ALSO:
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2019/04/witchhunt-silencing-of-pro-palestinian.html
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2019/04/witchhunt-controversy-over-anti.html
Our Day will Come - the Men they Could not Hang
As difficult as it may seem given the horrendous state of politics and contradictions of the present time the contradictions of the real movement not the ideal movement will bring forth solutions and our day will come.
"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself.
We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.
The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence".
German Ideology 1845 - Karl Marx
WitchHunt (the silencing of pro-Palestinian UK Labour Party activists)
We see the internal contradictions in the Labour Party becoming more antagonistic as a result of outside interference - interference by specialists in manipulation from Foreign and Domestic Intelligence Services.
From Blairites to Far Right they are destroying not only the Labour Party but bourgeois democracy in Britain.
END THIS SHAMEFUL CAMPAIGN OF BLARITES AND RIGHT WING SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AGAINST PRO PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS.
GLAD THE VIDEO REMEMBERS THE SOCIALIST BUNDISTS WHO FOUGHT ZIONISM THAT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN OUT OF HISTORY BY THE ZIONISTS AND MURDERED BY THE NAZIS
WE WILL NEVER FORGET YIDDISH COMRADES AND CULTURE
WitchHunt: Controversy Over Anti-Semitism and the British Labour Party
From the Israeli Embassy in UK - to MI5/MI6 all part of current political manipulation in UK during Brexit background crisis we have weaponising of anti Zionism as anti Semitism.
Also moving Labour's Momentum to the right through infiltration and manipulation.
Breakaway groups from Labour Party supported by United States NGO funding.
In your face infiltration and manipulation in the UK by foreign powers supported by "British" intelligence which of course is an oxymoron.
We see the internal contradictions in the Labour Party becoming more antagonistic as a result of outside interference - interference by specialists in manipulation from Foreign and Domestic Intelligence Services.
From Blairites to Far Right they are destroying not only the Labour Party but bourgeois democracy in Britain.
Wake Up it is 2019
Remembering Ibrahim Kaypakkaya - his memory lives forever
The Kurdish National Question was not a topic for discussion amongst the leftwing organisations, parties or individuals until Ibrahim Kaypakkaya raised the issue in the early 1970s in breaking with the tradition of the Turkish chauvinism among the Turkish left.
The Kurdish National Question was not a topic for discussion amongst the leftwing organisations, parties or individuals until Ibrahim Kaypakkaya raised the issue in the early 1970s in breaking with the tradition of the Turkish chauvinism among the Turkish left. Kemalist state ideology had so impressed itself upon the Turkish left that when they heard that Ibrahim Kaypakkaya analysis the Kemalist ideology as fascist state ideology, they were shocked and puzzled.
Fortunately, most of the parties who disagreed with Ibrahim’s analysis in the 1970’s have now conceded that he was correct.
The TKP(ML) considers the Kurdish National question under the guidance of MLM, as in all other matters. At the same time we refuse to compromise our position with regard to nationalism of an oppressed nation when that nationalism threatens the unity of all workers. As a result of this we can say that Ibrahim Kaypakkaya’s analysis was a blow to the Turkish chauvinism which had endured throughout the previous 50 years of the Turkish Republic.
The solution to the kurdish National question depends entirely on the outcome of the revolution in Turkey. Today it seems that the independence of the Kurdish people is not possible without revolution.
We know that Turkey’s dominant classes are the enemy of Democracy and Kurdish Inpendence therefore, we are willing to take joint action with any democratic organisations and groups which are themselves suffering national and/or class oppression.
The most important issue for us is ” class unity ” with the Kurdish proletariat and communists. We cannot compromise on this question, as it is one of ourparty’s main principles. Such a class unity will achieve DPR and only then will people attain real freedom.
Having said this, if the Kurdish nation as today struggles to gain its independence, the TKP(ML) will support and express solidarity with this struggle for democracy and freedom. Sometimes contradictions will emerge between the line of the Kurdish struggle and the interests of proletariat and oppressed masses in Turkey and Kurdistan. When that happens we are obliged to criticize them.
SEE ALSO:
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-kurdish-national-question-was-not.html
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2014/10/excerpt-from-comrade-kaypakkayas-work.html
Historic Win: Communist Candidate Wins Municipality in Turkey/ North Kurdistan
Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu is famous for fiscal transparency and implementing a cooperative agricultural production model in Ovacik and neighboring districts.
Communist Party of Turkey/North Kurdistan candidate Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu won the Dersim municipality, which makes the city the first to be governed by communists in the history of Turkey.
The total number of electors in Dersim, located in the Tunceli province in the eastern part of the country, is 56,943, of a total population of over 86,000. According to the unofficial reports, Maçoğlu won by 32.41 percent, followed by the HDP, CHP, and AKP - President Erdogan’s party - with 27.97, 20.95, and 14.76 percent, respectively.
"We will demonstrate to the whole country that a socialist model is possible," the “communist mayor”, as he is known, said to the Turkish newspaper SoL. Maçoğlu was previously the mayor of Ovacık.
There he gained popularity for fiscal transparency and implementing a cooperative agricultural production model in Ovacik and neighboring districts. Through this initiative, the municipality also provided agricultural subsidies, including seeds and gas oil, and purchase guarantee.
"We will expand the production and administration system we started in Ovacık”, said Maçoğlum adding that the municipality will be administered with the people with an “open door” policy.
The people of Dersim won!
According to the Turkish Statistical Institution (TUIK), Dersim was ranked as the top city in the quality of life index in 2016 and is among the top-ranking cities with the most educated/literate population.
Sunday's elections, in which Turks vote for mayors and other local officials across the country, are the first since Tayyip Erdogan assumed the presidency last year after the country changed its government system to a presidential one. Official results are expected at midnight.
Erdogan and his party have been in power for more than 16 years but he could be dealt a large electoral blow with official figures indicating his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may lose control of the capital Ankara, and even Istanbul, the country's largest city. This is partly due to a burgeoning economic crisis in the country.
SEE ALSO:
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2019/03/harry-powell-in-turkey-as-witness-to.html
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