Marxism and the politics of suicide

[David Welch <david.welch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Weekly Worker 396 Thursday August 23 2001
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Death fasts
Marxists and the politics of suicide
Aziz Demir analyses the class background to the hunger strike by political 
prisoners
When the hunger strikes started late last year, comrades from the Weekly Worker 
asked me several times to write an article. I was not willing to do so at that 
time because I knew that the situation in Turkish prisons was appalling and 
that the comrades who were taking part were very determined to go to the end. 
However, on the other hand, it was very obvious that it was the wrong tactic 
from the point of view of communists and the working class movement.

There were two reasons why I did not wish to write about the situation at that 
time. Firstly the Turkish left was crumbling and Dev Sol and one or two others 
were the few remaining active organisations who were determined to do something 
about it. Perhaps they were playing out their last acts of significance and so 
it was not a good idea to be seen to kick them when they were already down.

Secondly, and most importantly, in Turkey the atmosphere on the left means that 
there is silence on many key questions. The so-called legal left has forgotten 
the Kurdish issue, has forgotten the armed struggle issue, has forgotten the 
political prisoners issue, has forgotten all those suffering at the hands of 
the police and the military. Nobody on the legal left is writing about these 
questions. As to what remains of the revolutionary left, only the death fast 
action concerns them. It was a very delicate situation. Communists were not in 
a good position to say, ?No, it?s wrong. Let?s do something else?, since we 
were unable to make it a reality. In such circumstances it would be very 
difficult to criticise the comrades.

However, it is very important to understand that the death fast or hunger 
strike is a very limited weapon for communists. It is not a correct, winning 
tactic, appropriate to the current situation in Turkey.

The movement in Turkey is today reaching a watershed. The Kurdish movement is 
entering a new phase. Its guerrilla forces are practically disbanded, while 
maintaining the capability of taking up arms if their ?political turn? goes 
wrong. Their approach is to wait and see what arises from Turkey?s talks with 
the European Union. Will there be constitutional changes allowing the 
possibility of legal political activity?

At the same time the other revolutionary organisations have found themselves 
more and more marooned. Their situation is fraught, with thousands of comrades 
in prison pushing them to do something. The hunger strike is the result.

Its timing was unfortunate. Turkey is experiencing the most difficult economic 
conditions following the crashes of November 2000 and February 2001. The 
working population is faced with new and completely different problems and the 
isolation of the hunger strikers is growing. The Kurdish militants have now 
pulled out. It is very sad, but support for the prisoners is not growing.

However, instead of calling a retreat and waiting for another opportunity for 
action, the organisers have continued to push forward and now the 35th comrade 
has died. Pulling back would mean surrender, loss of face, in their eyes.

Some of the hunger strikers were among  the prisoners released under the 
amnesty announced last year. They decided to continue their death fast outside 
prison. So there are houses in the shanty districts of Istanbul and other 
cities where former prisoners and their relatives are also on hunger strike.

There is no easy way out. The mode of thinking within  the organisations 
involved means that they are incapable of changing track, just as previously 
?Fight to the last bullet? was the call. I cannot envisage a positive outcome. 
As far as I can see, the Turkish regime is determined not to give in.

The Irish hunger strikers in the early 1980s had  world opinion on their side, 
but the Turkish left has been unable to create support either internally or 
from world opinion. In this situation it is almost impossible for the hunger 
strike tactic to succeed.

The politics of suicide amongst the Turkish left has a history far deeper than 
the current death fasts. Taking up arms without regard for the consequences, 
without regard for the other aspects of struggle or the political situation as 
a whole, has been the cornerstone of the politics of suicide. This has 
frequently meant putting aside all other organisational and theoretical 
activity, all agitational and propaganda work, and relying on armed actions as 
the only means of raising consciousness, the only means of conveying ideas.

As a result, there have been many unnecessary deaths, deaths that could and 
should have been avoided. Good, resolute comrades, who have been prepared to 
take action even in the most adverse conditions, have died in vain.

In the late 1960s, for example, sections of the left engaged in urban guerrilla 
actions in the absence of an organised proletarian movement. This is an ongoing 
theme of Turkish political struggle. Young firebrands are prepared to take 
action. Without a strong Communist Party and working class movement to lead 
them, they accept wrong ideas. This has resulted in a wedge being driven 
between, on the one side, the youth and student movement, including working 
class youth and the Communist Party?s youth organisation, and, on the other, 
the working class movement in general.

This overwhelmingly petty bourgeois method of struggle has social roots. Turkey 
is a medium developed capitalist country, yes, but there is a petty bourgeois 
sea. Subsistence farming has not yet been completely eradicated. In the early 
1990s the proportion of the gross national product derived from agriculture was 
about 17%. Agriculture?s role is greatly diminished in the economy and society, 
compared to, say, the 1950s. By contrast industry and the service sector have 
expanded considerably, thus changing Turkey?s rural structure.

Ten years later, agriculture still accounts for around 15%, so the rate of 
change is slow. However, no less than 45% of employed people work in 
agriculture. This means that there is massive hidden unemployment or 
underemployment in the rural economy. An examination of the statistics reveals 
that unpaid family workers account for 28% of all employed people. This means 
that 28% of people classed as ?employed? are not actually receiving a wage: 
they work on family farms, small shops or workshops. As you might imagine, 
women workers and youth make up the majority - 64% in fact. In agriculture 
unpaid labour makes up around 60% of the workforce, and 75% of such workers are 
women or children.

So a great proportion of the rural population in particular is still employed 
in the non-capitalist sector. They work under a different discipline, from the 
point of view of the working class a negative discipline left over from a 
previous mode of production. It is true that these feudal remnants are becoming 
part of the capitalist system and there is an enormous amount of exploitation, 
but relations are not yet normal wage relations.

If we look more closely at agriculture, 99% of Turkish farms have less than 50 
hectares, and 65% less than five hectares. Around 60% of Turkish farms are 
capitalistically non-viable economic enterprises, working on or just above the 
subsistence level. This is a country which is among those trying to get 
agreement to reduce tariffs and subsidies on agricultural products from 2004.

This massive rural population is one of the most important sources of petty 
bourgeois influence on the working class and left politics in Turkey. It has a 
considerable effect on the cities and the urban proletariat. Every day small 
farms go under and the only possibility for families who have lost their means 
of subsistence is to migrate to the big cities and to the shanty towns  -  
proof of the huge population movements within Turkey. Today there are 14 
million people living in or around Istanbul - one fifth or one sixth of the 
total population. This is no seasonal phenomenon, but a result of permanent 
changes in agriculture and consequent internal migration of people uprooted 
from rural areas.

However, in the cities they are not able to find employment in the regular 
industrial or capitalist service sectors. The only hope for these newly arrived 
migrant workers in Istanbul and the other large cities is the informal or 
marginal sector, as it is called. They are employed in the immediate or larger 
family circle, in the kind of economic enterprise where normal wage labour 
relations do not apply and where working class discipline of production has not 
been imposed - another important source of petty bourgeois influence on the 
urban proletariat.

Those who are familiar with the rag trade sweat shops in north London will know 
what sort of conditions apply. Clothing manufacture is one of the biggest 
export currency earners, and conditions in Turkey are neither worse nor better 
than here. No pension scheme, no health insurance, no guarantee that wages will 
be received at the end of the month. People work for a week or two in a factory 
or workshop that perhaps goes broke, and then move to the next one to try and 
eke out a living.

In such circumstances, everybody has the same way out in their head - set up 
your own business. Comrades who know the Turkish community in north London will 
be aware that it comprises very few workers. Many own shops or other small 
businesses, and increasing numbers have moved to other parts of Britain. You 
can even find such people in the smallest village in Scotland. Established 
Turkish immigrants have also formed their own companies, employing, for 
example, Bosnians or other refugees. They have set up businesses in sectors 
which were traditionally associated with Turkish immigrants, such as cleaning.

Founding a small company to escape the misery is the prevailing aspiration. 
Being a worker is seen as a temporary state of affairs - a staging post to 
accumulate a small amount of capital with the aim of starting up a business: 
that is the mentality.

This leads on to another problem for the urban proletariat of Turkey today. 
Most secure jobs - those with a pension, health insurance, etc - are provided 
either by the state or local authorities. Typically local authorities are run 
by islamic groups and in order to obtain employment with such authorities 
religious references are required. The politics of ?tribe? or sect are part of 
the way of life for the urban proletariat.

Meanwhile, some 200,000 people have lost their jobs because of the economic 
crisis which took hold last November, so unemployment is a serious problem for 
the working class as a whole.

Under these conditions petty bourgeois ideas are rampant. This is hardly an 
unknown problem for revolutionaries around the world. It is part and parcel of 
the process of creating the urban proletariat. With each new wave of immigrants 
to the cities, the challenge is to integrate them into the struggle, change 
their ideas and in the long run win them to a new kind of consciousness.

But  the consciousness of the working class comes and goes with each new 
influx. In Turkey in the late 60s and early 70s working class consciousness was 
on the rise and there existed a keen revolutionary understanding amongst the 
core of the industrial proletariat. However, since the end of the military 
regime, and especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that 
consciousness has been tragically lost. Today this process of demoralisation is 
accelerating and we are moving towards rock bottom.

The prevailing petty bourgeois ideology brings its influence to bear on the 
working class and left politics in general. How do petty bourgeois ideas come 
to affect our politics? They not only bring a mentality which seeks an 
individual way out, but also can lead to suicidal acts born of desperation. 
This means that when there is a revolutionary situation, petty bourgeois ideas 
act as an impediment to the development of the left, and produce their own type 
of thinking and their own type of organisation.

In Turkey?s case this threw up the guerrilla movement in the 1960s, under the 
leadership of former student activists. There were few successful guerrilla 
actions: most were cut short by the state apparatus.

In the mid-70s the inheritors of the 1960s guerrilla movement surfaced again in 
the working class movement, gathering around the Communist Party of Turkey and 
the Disk revolutionary trade union centre. For a while they were cooperating, 
but soon were in competition and then became bitter opponents.

The Weekly Worker has recently been assessing the role of the anarchists in the 
aftermath of Genoa. The petty bourgeois movement in Turkey has had a similar 
impact. Wherever there was the possibility of organising the people around a 
particular campaign, the petty bourgeois movement would also be there, trying 
to put forward its own agenda and hampering the development of an effective 
fightback.

The suicidal actions of the petty bourgeoisie arise from a two-sided way of 
thinking. On the one hand such elements hate authority. On the other hand they 
are themselves authority megalomaniacs. In the Communist Party of Turkey itself 
we have suffered many problems as a result of this syndrome. Effectively it 
means: ?If I am not the authority, there is no authority. If I am not the 
leader of this organisation, I cannot be a member.?

Obviously such a mentality acts as a block against the development of the 
party. To take part in decision-making, abide by the decisions of the majority 
and unite in action as an equal is difficult for petty bourgeois individuals. 
If the opportunity arises, such individuals may instead try to create a new 
organisation around their own ideas.

The discipline of such organisations in Turkey is unbelievable - everybody must 
submit themselves to a higher person, while at the same time having command 
over five or six others. The relationship is one of domination, which means 
that there is no development of the members. This discipline does not train or 
educate cadres or translate their skills into best practice. Rather their 
initiative is blocked and viewed as a danger.

Such discipline is ineffective because it does not lead people to grasp the 
ideas behind an action, let alone the nature of the world in which they are 
operating. Instead there are sound bites and a highly simplified and often 
incoherent propaganda.

The dedication of many comrades amongst the petty bourgeois left in opposition 
to the Turkish regime is not in question. But they do not want to think for 
themselves; they are not capable of thinking for themselves at present. They 
are put in square boxes by such organisations. Packed together like factory 
product, they cannot act as self-motivating individuals.

The  history of the working class movement in the non-developed countries 
during the last century was characterised by such organisations. A consequence 
has been the various suicide tactics. You cannot think of winning. You cannot 
assess the results of your actions. You think, ?I will die for the glory of the 
organisation, for the glory of the working class.? The fact that these comrades 
are prepared to sacrifice themselves is of course an excellent thing, but the 
fact that they do so without theorticeal thought is utterly negative.

One of the most important failings of petty bourgeois politics is its lack of 
trust in the working class. In Turkey their organisations are always elitist. 
They come to believe that a few comrades can do anything, they can change the 
world. They imagine that if they lead, the masses will follow. The idea that 
ordinary workers will one day act decisively for themselves is beyond them.

In 1969, on June 15 and 16, there were hugely significant working class 
demonstrations in Istanbul and Ankara. The government of the day had attempted 
to repeal trade union laws which for the first time allowed collective 
bargaining and the right to strike. They were answered with massive spontaneous 
strikes. At that time, along with many comrades who were later to become cadres 
in the Communist Party of Turkey,  I was active in the youth movement. We 
ourselves thought in an elitist way.

Before the working class entered the fray, the police used to beat the hell out 
of us, dispersing our organisations with ease. The army was also employed. Yet 
for  those two days in June 1969 the government completely lost control, faced 
with the working class itself in movement. That upsurge came as a slap in the 
face for many young comrades and helped change our approach to politics. 
Unfortunately not all young comrades entering politics have undergone such a 
profound experience.

The impetus arising from this significant event in Turkish history created the 
1970s Communist Party of Turkey and the Disk trade union movement. But not all 
comrades learnt the lessons. If you do not believe in the capability of the 
mass movement, you cannot of course accept the structure necessary for a 
working class party.

If we are strong enough, if we are capable enough, to lead these petty 
bourgeois revolutionaries, they can be won over and transformed. But we must 
never forget that they are prone to act in the most unpredictable ways - that 
is their nature. But they are a fighting force and we have to approach these 
people. We have to do whatever we can to win them over through ideological 
struggle. So we must try to engage in joint activities, while at the same time 
sticking to our bottom line: we are communists and we insist on the need for a 
party. But when we march alongside them, we must always remain wary.