Malecki and the Hunger Strikers in Turkey and Kurdistan

[CAGJimKane@xxxxxxx]

I am clearly not the only one on this list who finds Malecki's comments
offensive. The problem is that his attitude is all too typical of a certain
brand of leftism as preached from the realtive safety of the imperialist
heartlands.

I do not profess to know much about the revolutionary movement in Sweden, but
one things I do know is that they are not a mass movement challenging for
state power. And another thing I do know is that Malecki has nothing to do
with those few groups (for example the KPML-r) which do have some influence
within certain sections of the working class there (elected councillors, shpt
stewards etc). How, then, does it come about that he feels competent to
lecture the revolutionaries in other countries about what they should be
doing?

First in the firing line are the vast majority of Communist organisations in
Turkey - the DHKP-C, MLKP, TKP/ML, TIKB etc. Their crime? The armed struggle,
no less. According to Malecki, there is no basis for such actions - they are
"adventurist". Why? Because, Malecki tells us from afar, the masses are not
yet ready.

What should comrades in Turkey do? Quite simple, really: "educate and prepare
the Proletarian vanguard for its role of leading a proletarian revolution."

What would this mean in practice? Malecki answers: "In fact in Turkey it
would be a combination of illegal and legal activity to raise the
consciousness ofthe masses. Work inside the unions, amongst the urban poor
etc."

I bet that never occured to the DHKP-C, etc. What an earth shattering
insight. Thank the heavens that we have marxists of the calibre of Malecki
onhand to put those poor leftists to right.

Has he the slightest knowledge of Turkey and Kurdistan? Does he have the
lsightest knowledge of what the left actually does in that state? Has he
heard of the uprising in Gazi last year? Or maybe he read the bourgeois press
and believed the lie that it was just a squabble between different religious
factions. For his information, in Gazi there was a popular uprising in the
wake of a fascist provocation. In the forefront of the fighting were members
of the TIKB, DHKP-C, TKP/ML and MLKP (among others). Their comrades gave
their lives, WITH the masses. These organisations, while not as strong as
they would like to be, have deep roots within the workers and peasants of
Turkey and Kurdistan. It is nothing short of an insult to tell comrades of
their stature that they should drop the armed struggle and concentrate
instead on educating the workers. They have been doing both for decades, and
with important successes.

Does Malecki know anything of the events in Turkey this May Day? Over 100,000
marched in Istanbul alone. How many marched in Stockholm? The revolutionary
organisations made up more than half the total in Istanbul. How many people
did Malecki mobilise this year?

The simple truth is that in Turkey and Kurdistan the left is powerful, much
more powerful than Malecki would have us believe. And its strength dreives
>from its seriousness. It is Because of its tactics, and not inspite of tem,
theat the left there has built up such strong links with the masses.

Those groups which have not seriously pursued armed struggle in the wake of
the 1980 fascist coup (yes, Malecki, Turkey is a fascist state, not a
half-military one as you assert) have all declined. Where is Dev Yol, once
the largest revolutionary organisation? Where is the official pro-Moscow
Communist Party of Turkey, or its Trotskyist splinter, TKP-Iscinin Sesi
(Workers Voice)? Both have collapsed. Now it seems that the TDKP
(Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey) may suffer a similar fate, as it is
condemns the armed struggle in ever more forceful tones and commits itself
fully to a completely legal organisation (Emek Partisi, or Labour Party,
which has already been subject too bans), an orientation which must disarm it
in the context of fascist oppression. True, the Trotskyists all adhere to the
anti-armed struggle line. And where are they? Comrade Zeynep rather
generously offers the figure of 200 supporters of Sosyalist Isci (Socialist
Workers) on May Day. The rest are not worth mentioning in terms of numbers,
still less in terms of action. Again, this is BECAUSE of their line, which
offers nothing to the masses except propaganda and "wait until we're better
prepared", when what they need is armed defence.

How can a Communist, of whatever persuasion, write, today, after so much is
known about the bloody civil war in Turkey-Kurdistan: "Are you saying that a
civil war is on the agenda in Turkey?" It is not a matter of agenda, Malecki,
but of stark political reality. The largest force on the progressive side is
without doubt the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). But that does not mean that
the Communist left should stand aside, still less that it should condemn the
struggle. I think the comrades from Peru have more than a little experience
of such criticisms from supposed Communists who manage to maintain legality
in the context of a fascist state at war with its people.

Not content with slandering the struggle in Turkey and Kurdistan, Malecki
moves on to malign the Irish Republican Movement. "The Irish Nationalists
tactics are wrong also. Because replacing class struggle with suicidal
adventurist action like the IRA or hunger strikes in prison does not in
reality raise the consciousness of the workers."

When Bobby Sands stood for parliament while on Hunger Strike in 1981, he won
more than 30,000 votes in a victory in an area where the Republicans had
never previously won. Because of the Hunger Strike, mass protest began again
in Ireland on a level that completely surprised all commentators - be they
Republican, bourgeois or leftist. The Hunger Strike revived the political
fortunes of the Republican Movement. The heroism of the ten men who died on
the protest was a major factor in this revival. In what way did the Hunger
Strike fail to raise the consciousness of workers in the occupied Six
Counties of Ireland?

Were it not for the IRA, the nationalist community in occupied Ireland would
be disarmed and defenceless in the face of a sectarian statelet and an armed
imperialist presence. There is nothing adventurist in the tactics of the IRA.
The real adventurism is on the part of those who, while preaching violent
revolution in the most blood curdling tones, turn their back on the practical
work of arming themselves and organising the defence of working class
communities against attack. For to talk of revolution without preparing
yourself for the battle is adventurism of the worst kind - though it also has
other, less flattering, names.

The Trotskyists in Ireland always lecture the Republican Movement on how they
should look for unity of the working class (usually, their lectures are
drafted for them by their leaders in London - a special form of left-wing
colonialism).  Buut on what basis is this unity to be organised? On bread and
butter issues? OK, but do you know, dear Malecki, the consequences that have
followed every initiative by Sinn Fein to unite across communities for basci
demands? Gerry Adams tells of ones revealing example, when members of both
communities united to demand a road crossing on a main road near a school
which served both sides of the population. Sinn Fein and the Republican
Movement gave the campaign their full support. The Loyalists, on the other
hand, put out death threats against any Protestants who took part in the
campaign. This has happened again and again, and for good reason in a sense.
For the divisions in the Irish working class do not stem from religious or
sectarian matters as such, but are rather political: they care caused and
perpetuated by the partition of Ireland and the continued British occupation
of the Six Counties. It is the national question, and the presence of
imperialism, which divides the working class, and the only  way to overcome
the division is to get rid of partition and British rule.

Perhaps Malecki has in mind trade union or work place unity? Dioes he know
who runs the unions in the north? Does he know the links between the Loyalist
death squads and union officials in Harland and Wolfe, for example? Does he
know that amongst the nationalist community unemployments is more than 90
percent in many areas?

In Ireland the national question has not been solved. The revolution cannot
proceed immediately to socialist demands. The tasks of national liberation
and socialism are intertwined, to be sure. But this is because there can be
no working class unity until the border is abolished. Marxists in Irland have
long understood this fact: look at James Connolly's analysis, which is
confirmed every day in both the Six Counties and the Free State: Connolly
warned that partition of Ireland would bring a carnival of reaction on both
sides of the border.

In a war zone, unarmed political formations hold no sway. The bourgeois
parties have their armed wing in the form of the repressive apparatus of the
sectarian Six County statelet, and of course the British Army of occupation.
The oppressed only have one effective defender: The Provisional Irish
Republican Army, the Provos. Everyone has to choose a side: with British
imperialism or with those who fight against it. Communists in Ireland should
be playing a leading role in the struggle for national liberation, not
condemning that struggle from the sidelines. On an individual level, that is
already happening: many militants within the Republican Movement (both armed
and political wings) are influenced by Marxism. It has to be said that this
is because of Marxist-Leninist organisations outside of Ireland and Britain,
and what they have achieved, and not because of the pious and hypocritical
lectures offered them by Trotskyists and revisionists in Ireland and Britain.

But maybe I am wasting my efforts replying to someone who describes the
Republican struggle as "stupid" and who counterposes the class struggle to
the struggle for national liberation from imperialist domination. As if the
struggle for national liberation were not itself a struggle between classes.
In truth we know what kind of Marxism it is which preaches to the oppressed
that they should stop their struggles against imperialism and concentrate on
the "real" struggle for socialism. As we all, in truth, know whose interests
this kind of "Marxism" ultimately serves.

Malecki fortunately has on hand a ready made solution to all our problems:
build the revolutionary party. After all, he tells us, "the failure of the
Russian Revolution in 1905 was because there was no party to lead the masses
to victory." He then goes on to tell us that he doubts "if there is a party
in Turkey today which even comes near this goal. In fact, the left there does
not differ from anywhere else for that matter." A remarkable analysis, this.
He counterposes the need for a party to the actual tasks of carrying out the
revolution, as if a Communist Party could be built in any way other than
through participation in the class struggle in all its forms. Malecki must
know that there are tens of thousands of Communist militants in Turkey and
Kurdistan struggling against the regime and trying to build a genuinely
revolutionary Communist Party. And yet for Malecki, their actions are no more
than "a mess".

Malecki goes on to tell us that their politics are "bankrupt" and that "We do
not need martyrs but communist militants."

Malecki stoops to an all-time low when he criticises the Hunger Strikers in
Turkey for demanding better conditions for political prisoners. Why not
better conditions for all prisoners, he sneers. Why not indeed. But then it
has to be admitted, even by a Malecki, that the conditions for political
prisoners in Turkey have become rather extreme of late - with the military
storming the prisons and murdering and lynching the political inmates. The
struggle is not just about improvements in conditions in the normal sense: it
is not simply a matter of regular exercise and a decent cell. It is a matter
of life and death. If so many comrades have gone on Hunger Strike to death it
is because the situation has reached the point where there is no alternative
save protest or die unnoticed. But Malecki, as ever, wants a third option:
they should be carrying out political work in the prisons! As if they haven't
been doing just that since 1980 and before. As if the level of education and
resolve of the Turkish and Kurdish comrades was not already far higher than
that of petty bourgeois leftists like Malecki. And as if the very success of
political organisation within the prisons was not one of the factors behind
the Turkish regimes's current reign of terror against political prisoners.

Malecki finishes with one word of wisdom at least: "It is every communist's
duty to defend these militants!" it surely is. But how does Malecki think we
can best do this? By criticising them, of course, because "to capitulate to
the romaticism and emotional atmosphere on this list at present without
clearly taking a position on tactics and the programme of struggle is
liquidating any kindoof struggle for a Bolshevik line."

This, again, is characteristic of Trotskyism. Their slogan of "unconditional
but critical support" is a fig-leaf to hide their real actions. In Ireland,
the Trotskyists have never provided real support - not a single safe house,
not a single act of physical defence. Their "support" amounts to writing
scandalous and slanderous articles attacking the real revolutionaries, while
including in the article somewhere the words "of course we defend them
against imperialism". Let there be no misunderstanding here. This support is
never intended to be concrete, material support. It is only propaganda
support. And yet it is precisely in their propaganda that the Trotskyists put
forward their slanderous attacks. The "unconditional support" half of their
ritual slogan is meaningless; the "critical" side is not: it is their reason
for existance - to attack real revolutionaries from a "left" angle.

"Trotskyists try to tell the truth, no matter how hard that might be,"
Malecki boasts. If only. So why then does he turn down comrade Zeynep's kind
offer of a plane ticket?Zeynep told him to put up or shut up. A fair choice.
He has decline both. He wants to neither put up nor shut up. His like never
does.

The Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1926 characterised
Trotskyism as a social democratic deviation. Given the treachery of social
democracy at the time, there could be no misunderstanding what this
characterisation implied. Social Democracy was and is politically the left
wing of the bourgeoisie. Trotskyism, as a variant of Social Democracy, has
always served the bourgeoisie, above all the imperialist bourgeoisie. Malecki
is here only acting in accordance with the traditions of the movement he
espouses.

In Turkey today there is a well developed degree of unity in action between
the different Communist organisations involved in this bitter struggle in the
prisons. This is indicative of their revolutionary maturity. As they unite
against the common enemy, as they increase their strength through concrete
unity in action, so the bourgeoisie becomes more afraid. Perhaps that is why
people like Malecki have chosen to step in now to spit on the memories of
those comrades who have already fallen in the Hunger Strike, and to  mock
those who will die soon.

When I offered to debate with Trotskyists on the lists, I had hoped we could
have had a detailed, theoretical debate. Instead of answering my challenge,
or that posed by other genuine Communists on the list, the likes of Malecki
chose to show their true colours at a time when all genuine revolutionaries
and progressives could see the need to close ranks around the Hunger Strikers
in Turkey (incidentally, there are six comrade on Hunger Strike to death in
Belgium and Britain, in solidarity). So be it.

Victory to the Hunger Strkers!
Long live the workers and peasants of Turkey and Kurdistan!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Let us honour our martyrs!
Victory to the Revolution!

Jim Kane
Communist Action Group
BM Box 4473
London WC1N 3XX



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