Only Revolution Can Cleanse This Filth

The capitalist system, floundering in its historical crisis, continues to exist alongside the immense unemployment it has created, the deepening poverty of the masses, and the imperialist wars of division it has spread. The rulers of this system, which is turning our world into an increasingly chaotic and hellish place, maintain their dominance by intensifying their oppression of the masses and spreading authoritarian regimes. The United States, which presented itself as the champion of democracy to the world after the Second World War, is now, under the reckless leadership of the madman Trump, trying to bring countries into line with astonishing audacity. While Trump challenges the institutions that limit the powers of the president in the US and secures his seat of dominance, his crony Elon Musk puts on a show with Nazi salutes in his speeches. The bourgeois democracies that accompanied the rise of capitalism are increasingly giving way, in capitalism’s era of decay, to a general reality of authoritarianism and fascism in political life. What defines our era is the dominance of plutocracy shaped by dictators like Trump and Putin and the pinnacles of financial capital. There is no need to dwell on this point for too long. Because it is clear that wherever we look, filth is oozing from the seams of the capitalist system. Writers who have not sold their conscience to capitalism enough to ignore this reality cannot help but ask, “How will this filth be cleaned up?”

In the current period we are living through, due to the disorganisation of the working class and the ideological barrage of the bourgeoisie that have weakened the idea of revolution, it is strangely still within this system and this order that people seek a way out, a search for democracy. Yet, as the current state of the US, the hegemonic power of the capitalist system, most strikingly reveals, bourgeois democracy has long since eroded even in advanced capitalist countries, and bourgeois governments have transformed into a hegemony of a rich men’s club, an oligarchic form of domination we can call plutocracy. Leaving Turkey aside, the situation in countries once renowned for their bourgeois democracy is clear for all to see. Capitalism has decayed, exhausted its potential to advance humanity, and thus a return to its former days is utterly impossible. Today, the salvation of humanity depends on revolutions achieved through the organised power of the working class, and democracy can only come to the world through the rule of the masses, who are overwhelmingly proletarianised. This is the reality, but unfortunately, we know that for now, these words will seem like a fantasy to the broad masses. However, it must also be understood that as long as the only realistic solution to these problems is dismissed in deep obliviousness, billions of workers around the world will continue to be scorched by the cruelty of the struggle for survival and the flames of imperialist wars.

Remembering basics

To determine the strategic and tactical objectives of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, it is necessary to understand the fundamental characteristics and main trends of the global capitalist system we live in. At this point, let us emphasise without further ado that we have been striving to fulfil this necessity in various studies and articles published on our website, Marksist Tutum, which has been in publication since 2002. If one were to review or recall these studies and articles, the key points we have emphasised since the beginning of the new millennium remain valid today and reveal the kind of world we live in. In this context, our comprehensive writings on the historical crisis of the capitalist system, the struggle for hegemony among the major imperialist powers, the resulting intensification and spread of the Third World War, the chaotic world order, and the rising global trend of authoritarianism can be read or revisited.

To briefly recap here, as we have repeatedly emphasised in various articles since the early 2000s, the immense level reached by productive forces and technology today is incompatible with the narrow framework of capitalist private property relations. The capitalist mode of production has long since lost its progressive dynamism. This system has decayed, degenerated, and turned into a capitalist scourge that gnaws at human society. Capitalism has escalated the exploitation of humans by humans, social inequality, the resulting environment of social decay, and the destruction of nature to such unbearable levels that our planet stands on the edge of an abyss. Many years have passed since the American socialist writer Jack London witnessed the poverty of East London and wrote his novel The People of the Abyss, but today the entire capitalist world has become a place filled with billions of people of the abyss. Capitalism now unfolds alongside capital’s global assault on workers’ rights and global wars. Global capitalism is driving humanity, the greatest productive force, and nature toward global-scale destruction. These signs indicate that the capitalist mode of production has reached a point of historical exhaustion, threatening the development of productive forces and the very existence of the world. Regardless of the periodic ups and downs in economic functioning, capitalism will never be young again. On the contrary, as the aging and dying body is kept alive through forced measures, the process of agony will only become more prolonged and painful.

To give another example, one can recall the assessments we made years ago regarding imperialist wars. In fact, following the collapse of real socialism in the Soviet Union and similar regimes (bureaucratic regimes that had nothing to do with socialism), major powers like Russia and China were integrated into the imperialist system. However, the growing rivalry between the old hegemon, the US, and new competitors like Russia and China, along with the US’s attempts to control the EU, brought imperialist redivision wars to the forefront. The Balkan Wars between 1991 and 1995, which led to the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, were the precursor and embodiment of this imperialist redivision. Later, in September 2001, US President Bush, using the suspicious plane attacks on the Twin Towers as a pretext, effectively declared the beginning of a new world war. The war launched by America in the Middle East under the guise of a “war on international terrorism” was, in fact, an expression of American imperialism’s attempt to reshape the region according to its hegemonic interests (the Greater Middle East Project). The invasion of Iraq in 2003, which spread to other Middle Eastern countries over the years, marked the first major phase of the Third World War.

Starting from that period, we pointed out that under globalised capitalism, the hegemony wars between rival imperialist powers, while appearing regional in scope, had taken on the character of a world war in content. Emphasising that the means, techniques, and forms of war have evolved throughout history, we highlighted that a new world war would not unfold as a mere repetition of the first and second imperialist wars of division. One of our key observations was that the Third World War, developing in its own unique way, tends to spread in a chain-like manner, jumping from one region to another before the destruction in the previous region has even ended.

Today, the chain of wars that the US has expanded in the Middle East by targeting the Ba’ath regime in Syria and adding countries like Iraq and Iran to its list, stretching across vast regions from the Pacific to Greenland, along with the Russia-Ukraine war and other potential conflicts, starkly reveals the reality of the Third World War in its most painful form. Consequently, the number of people referring to the current situation as the Third World War is rapidly increasing. As for those who close their eyes to this reality and remain in the delusion of only calling a future war a “world war” if it resembles the previous world wars, we have nothing more to say!

It is clear that the bipolar world and the Cold War era, dominated by the USSR and the US in the 20th century, are now behind us. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and similar regimes, the world has become entirely capitalist. The struggle for hegemony between the US, China, and Russia entered a new phase with Trump’s return to the presidency. The US stepped onto the stage to end the Ukraine war in Russia’s favour. With this move, Trump aimed to both halt the rising threat of China and prevent a potential future rapprochement between Russia and China. The US policy of keeping Europe on its side during the 2003 Iraq invasion and Biden’s presidency has now been replaced, under Trump’s leadership, by an approach that turns its back on the EU and speaks of leaving it to its own fate. The US-Russia alliance now forming before our eyes proves, as we have reiterated on various occasions, that the era of imperialist wars of division is accompanied by the crumbling of old alliances and the formation of new ones. This phenomenon will continue to manifest itself with new examples. Although Trump’s America’s displays of power are a regressive factor, it is clear that powers like the UK and the EU will not meekly submit to this situation, saying “as you command, my lord,” and step aside. On this basis, new tensions, conflicts, and wars are on the horizon.

Under the dictatorship of Trump, the US’s attempts to assert its hegemony have plunged the world into an extremely uncertain and utterly chaotic period. Some writers define this era as unique to Trump’s leadership. However, saying “this is Trump’s era” creates an expectation of transience. Trump is precisely the dictator suited to this rotten phase of capitalism. In the role of Big Brother, he seeks to shape the world. Like Hitler in Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, he plays with the world as he pleases. The reality we live in today is one of shifting global balances, changing alliances, rising militarism, racism, fascism, and war expenditures that condemn billions to hunger. Modern weapons that drive masses to their deaths, new technologies serving not humanity but the madness of capitalism, and artificial intelligence in the hands of figures like Elon Musk, which pose terrifying scenarios for humanity, all represent a significant threat to the world’s working class and labouring masses. The choice once encapsulated in the phrase “socialism or extinction” now stands squarely before us!

Despite this reality, those who perceive today’s events as a temporary phase dream of a return to the relatively peaceful and normal days of the 20th century. However, those days are gone, and what was once abnormal has become today’s normal. Let us look at the political stage and, leaving aside Turkey, where parliamentary functioning has constantly been interrupted by coups and which is now under the grip of fascism, consider the US and European countries. Are the events unfolding in these countries today normal by the standards of the 20th century?! Is it normal to think that what is happening in these countries today is merely a parenthesis and that Europe will return to the days of the “welfare state” after World War II?! Is it normal to believe that the decaying Western countries, which have lost their old bourgeois democracies, will achieve better days and a more democratic future through repeated elections within the existing bourgeois order?!

The type of state leaders we were accustomed to in the past—those who came and went through elections, sensitive to bourgeois law and the reactions of the masses—are now a thing of the past. Our time is the era of dictators who boast, “I did it, and it’s done.” We know that billions of people around the world do not like these dictators, and we know they do not consent to them willingly. But these dictators, reminiscent of the cruel Roman Emperor Caligula’s saying, “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me,” rely not on liking or consent but on oppression and intimidation. In truth, isn’t it clear that when the working masses rise up and say, “Enough is enough!” these dictators will meet their end, no matter the country? This is precisely the great fear of the ruling class, and as their fear grows, they try to maintain their rule by intensifying their policies of oppression and intimidation to frighten the masses. This reality must be seen; time is running out. How many more generations must be sacrificed to understand that capitalism has entered a period of complete madness and that humanity’s salvation depends on the overthrow of capitalism? How many more millions must fall victim to unemployment, hunger, and bloody wars before we realise that democracy today can only be achieved through a tremendous transformation that transcends the bourgeois order, reflecting the voluntary consent, will, and true representation of billions of working people in a new world order?

Turkey’s peculiarity

As we have discussed in many of our writings, imperialism relies on the capitalist system, which, in crisis, drastically increases military expenditures, turns living spaces into hell in areas of re-devision, and then attempts to revive the economy through reconstruction efforts in the devastated areas. In other words, “destroy and rebuild!” Both the bombs that end the lives of millions and the new construction projects on the ruins add to the profits of the world’s wealthy. The most concrete and recent example of this reality is in Gaza, destroyed by the US-Israel alliance, where these tyrants plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from their ancestral lands and rebuild these areas as tourist resorts. The oligarchic alliance between Trump, who imposes US hegemony on the world through bloodshed, and the Zionist Netanyahu, based on Israeli expansionism, is deeply relevant to Turkey, given their passion for redrawing Middle Eastern maps through wars.

In Turkey, the current developments shaped by the regime’s increasing repression on one hand and the urgent need for a solution to the Kurdish question on the other are situated within such a global order. Here, it is worth touching on a key point. European socialists are curious about how the working class in Turkey views the war, the fascist regime, and the tense environment created by the regime around the Kurdish question, and they ask various questions. However, there is a fundamental point they overlook. European socialists generally try to understand the situation in Turkey by drawing parallels from periods in their own countries, such as major wars or fascism. Yet, Turkey’s historical foundations are different from those of European countries, and the state-society relationship in Turkey is built on an entirely different basis. Since the working class is part of this society, this difference shapes the Turkish working class’s perception of realities such as the state, nationalism, authoritarian regimes, and fascism differently. In Turkey, unlike Europe, capitalism did not develop on the foundations of civil private property, nor did there happen bourgeois revolutions stemming from it. The formation of the state from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic, its relationship with property and society, is very different. The phenomena we listed above do not emerge from a foundation where the state, as in Europe, arises from within society. The historical background of the region where Turkey is located is based on the Asiatic mode of production. Here, from private property to class structures and political formations, various economic, social, and political phenomena are rooted in a historical basis where the state emerged first and dominated over the entire society. For example, capitalist private property in Turkey emerged through the dissolution of state property under the permission, control, and patronage of the state. The transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic was not achieved through a bourgeois revolution that rallied the masses, as in the West, but through a top-down “revolution” led by Ottoman pashas.

During the Ottoman period, there was a state-based ruling class centred around the palace, which functioned as its headquarters and axis, and a tax-paying peasantry (reaya) primarily engaged in agriculture under their command. The Republic, established in 1923, inherited this structure and replaced the palace with a "state republic" dominated by single-party rule. With the onset of capitalism, the reaya, without experiencing the revolutionary upheavals seen in Europe, migrated generation by generation from villages to cities and became workers. This capitalist formation carried forward, in some form, the state-centred mentality rooted in the Asiatic mode of production from the Ottoman era into the present. The former reaya transformed into a working class without experiencing the grand revolutions that mobilized the masses in the West.

Aside from those who grasp these realities, the state in Turkey is still perceived by the vast majority as an omnipotent sovereign, much like in the old days. Whether during periods of so-called bourgeois democracy in the Turkish style or during openly oppressive fascist regimes, the state, in the eyes of the majority of the people, is everything: the entity from which solutions are expected, the entity that must remain unshaken, and so on. When we look at the history of capitalist development in Western countries, we see that periods of political upheaval were marked by class struggles between the two fundamental classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In Turkey, however, at many critical political junctures, what takes place is a kind of class struggle driven by competing forces within the state, often influenced by external balances of power. For example, the military coups of 27 May 1960, 12 March 1971, and 12 September 1980 come to mind. Moving closer to the present, the rise of the AKP in the 2002 elections, which buried the previous coalition parties at the ballot box, reflects a similar reality. Likewise, the transition in 2016 from a Turkish-style parliamentary system to a fascist presidential system through a civilian coup was the result of internal clashes and new alliances within the state.

In Turkey, political and social phenomena must be examined by taking into account the realities we have touched upon. For example, in Western countries, nationalism is a scourge imposed on society and the working class by bourgeois rulers through specific organizations and bourgeois/petty-bourgeois parties. In Turkey, however, the nationalist ideology dictated by the state, whether it takes on Kemalist or political Islamist forms depending on the ruling power, is essentially state-sanctifying and imposed on society through state apparatuses. If the state elevates nationalist rhetoric to the highest degree, the majority of society adopts this rhetoric out of loyalty to the state. In other words, the nationalism we see in Turkey is state nationalism. Another example is the issue of fascism in Turkey. In this regard, there are significant differences compared to the examples of fascism experienced in Western countries. As we have tried to explain, due to the distinct structure of the state in Turkey compared to Western countries, the formation of political regimes has always been characterized by “top-down constructions”. For instance, the establishment of the military-fascist regime of 12 September 1980 was carried out through a top-down military-state coup, and its dissolution, influenced by the global balances of power at the time, was also managed in a “top-down controlled” manner by the state. The 12 September fascist regime, which hanged dozens of revolutionaries on gallows, murdered countless others in state-condoned unsolved killings (faili meçhul), and subjected thousands of trade unionists and revolutionary activists to torture and imprisonment, was unfortunately not overthrown by a popular uprising. This has been recorded as a negative factor in the history of the Turkish working class, which, unlike Western countries, has no experience of bourgeois revolutions or large-scale workers’ uprisings.

Let us take a closer look at more recent history. One may recall our articles analysing the transformation of the AKP government, which left a significant mark on Turkey’s political life throughout the 2000s. Let us briefly outline the key turning points. In the AKP’s first term, which came to power with the 2002 elections, debates over EU accession and the harmonisation laws brought to the agenda in this context, the dreams of democratisation fostered by this atmosphere, and subsequently, the disillusionment of those who embraced these dreams as a wave of reactionary politics took hold. After 2013, the Bonapartist transformation of the regime, and finally, the establishment of a fascist regime through a civilian-military coup carried out under the pretext of the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. In addition to these, one may also recall our analyses of the swelling imperial ambitions of the Turkish ruling class, resulting from the developments in the integration of Turkish capitalism with the world, particularly in the new millennium, and the expansionist adventures of Turkey, which assumed a sub-imperialist position under AKP rule, as it sought to assert itself as a regional power.

In Turkey, which possesses distinct historical and political characteristics compared to Western countries in many respects, the connotations of the terms “civil” and “state” also differ. In Western countries that have undergone bourgeois revolutions and transitioned from feudalism to capitalism, or in the United States, which developed on capitalist foundations, the term “civil society” typically refers to realms shaped by society’s own initiative outside state authority, such as non-governmental organisations, etc. In this sense, in these countries, juxtaposing the terms “civil” and “state” to describe a political formation would seem somewhat absurd. However, this is not at all the case in Turkey. For example, the fascist regime established in Turkey in 2016, due to the appearance of a government elected by popular vote at the forefront, can be described as a “civil-fascist” regime compared to the military-fascist regime of 12 September. Yet, this regime is not a civil-fascist regime in the Western sense. The establishment of this regime reflects the transformation of the AKP government, which came to power through elections in 2002, into a fascist regime through step-by-step, state-backed manoeuvres (involving Ergenekon supporters, the MHP, etc.) after 2013. In this context, it would not be incorrect to make a necessarily peculiar distinction in Turkey between the “military-fascist regime of the state” and the “civil-fascist regime of the state.”

Likewise, due to Turkey’s distinct structure, all bourgeois parties, albeit with nuances among them, are bound to the policies of their sacred state. These parties do not perceive periods of fascism that undermine parliamentary functioning as fascism in the way bourgeois democrats in the West understand it; rather, they see it as the necessary policy of the state for the relevant period. The most striking example is the attitude of the CHP, both under Kılıçdaroğlu and Özgür Özel’s leadership, toward the current regime. This situation is, in fact, the source of significant misconceptions, particularly among the educated sections of urban masses. The CHP is not a social democratic party; it is a state party. What the MHP and its leader represent is already clear. However, the widespread misperceptions about the CHP, spreading to even leftist circles, have led opposition groups to waste years in futile expectations rather than fighting against fascism, both in the past and today. Yes, internal conflicts within the state, influenced by shifting international balances, can bring down existing regimes and pave the way for new ones. However, it must be clearly understood that throughout Turkey’s history, intra-state conflicts, which have marked political upheavals, have never brought democracy to society, nor will they ever do so! Today, too, there may be tensions within the state, such as those visibly emerging between Bahçeli and Erdoğan, and each may have different plans in mind. However, no positive outcome for the working class, or for Turkish and Kurdish labouring masses, can emerge from this situation. The most recent and concrete example of this is the state’s simultaneous nurturing of hopes for peace among Kurds in an unnamed process, while the AKP government carries out a wave of trusteeships, detentions, and arrests as a show of force. A rule in political life is that if you are independently organised and strong as an opposition force against the ruling power, you may derive some benefits from intra-state conflicts. Otherwise, you risk losing your way amidst their struggles and, willingly or not, end up tail-ending one or another state agenda. Therefore, expecting solutions or democracy from the clashes of different cliques within the state is sheer naivety.

To summarise and emphasise, the state in Turkey has ingrained in society the mentality that “if the state wills it, so it must be,” both during periods of parliamentary functioning and during periods of fascism. For the working class to free itself from this statist mindset, it must become conscious and organised. However, unfortunately, a significant portion of both trade unions, which are the mass organisations of the class, and socialists who claim to act on behalf of the working class, have failed to liberate themselves from this “state-dominated” mentality, which takes on different forms and creates different expectations in different periods. For class revolutionaries, the task is clear: it is essential to work within the working class to create its conscious and organised vanguard and to free the class’s struggle from the shackles of the state and bourgeois parties.

Negative factors

If we set aside the Kurdish movement, which has waged a national liberation struggle at various levels as a dynamic and organised force on Turkish soil, it is unfortunately not yet possible to speak of a struggle that shakes the existing order in terms of the broader socialist movement. Undoubtedly, there are various reasons for this situation. Foremost among them is the fact that a significant portion of the Turkish socialist movement has been historically tainted by statist-Stalinist views, which have dulled the understanding of a genuine anti-system struggle. Additionally, the regressive and disintegrating effects of the 12 September 1980 fascist coup must never be forgotten. Following this, the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in the Soviet Union and similar states, which were long regarded by socialist circles as “real socialism,” dealt a heavy blow. The disillusionment caused by this collapse among leftist and socialist circles, which had been shaped for years under the ideological influence of Stalinism, significantly deepened ideological and organisational disintegration. The failure to confront the distortion of sanctifying structures that had nothing to do with socialism, and the inability to reckon with this reality, has left the majority of today’s socialist circles ideologically and intellectually stuck in the past. This has prevented them from restructuring themselves according to the demands of a new era, leading to their stagnation and obsolescence.

Some of the manifestations of the significant decline caused by drifting without renewal can be described as the abandonment of the conception of revolutionary struggle and organisation, and, as an inevitable consequence of this situation, sliding into reformism and parliamentarianism. On the organisational front, these shifts are embodied in the form of “many organisations without organisation,” which presents itself with the most debilitating consequences. To put it briefly, the organisational conception that once characterised the revolutionary organisation of the working class in earlier times –marked by its refusal to submit to the system– has been deemed outdated, and the sails have been filled with the winds of legalism!Beyond this, there is no need to even mention the small groups detached from the class, which claim to embrace a so-called anti-system organisational and struggle approach, yet at best end up creating sects whose supposed virtues are entirely self-proclaimed.

The consequence of this disheartening picture is that a significant portion of the socialist movement in Turkey is unable to correctly analyse the world and the country in which it exists. One striking example of this is the fact that these groups are far from understanding or even acknowledging the nature of the regime they claim to be fighting against. Unless the fascist nature of the regime is recognised, it will never be possible to prepare for a meaningful struggle against it, nor will it ever happen. Let us remember, setting aside major misconceptions, that in the 20th century, the world revolutionary movement had at least the merit of identifying the fascist regimes and waging anti-fascist struggles against such regimes. Today, however, while the fascist regime runs rampant, the socialist movement loses its way on the path of delay opened by bourgeois opposition parties, drifting into parliamentarianism and the folly of hoping to escape the fascist regime through elections organised by fascism itself. This undermines any genuine preparation for struggle.

Revolutionary struggle is the way out

Decaying capitalism is also corrupting society, and the technology and media serving such a capitalism are dulling people’s desire and belief to fight for a better future by numbing and stupefying them. The efforts of historically decrepit capitalism to sustain itself through oppression, corruption, and intrigues are turning social and political life into an unimaginable pit of filth. If we look at the example of Turkey, this filth flows even more abundantly from the hems of the bourgeois order that has turned fascist. Alongside the painful poverty into which the working masses, burdened by the weight of the economic crisis, are being dragged, the billions spent by the ruling powers on unjust wars in the Middle East, driven by imperial ambitions and hostility towards Kurds, return to these same masses as deepening poverty and lost lives. The mafia-like order, with all its corruption, its corrupting influence that extinguishes people’s hope for the future, and its attempts to crush even the slightest opposition through repression, continues to drag society deeper and deeper into the abyss with the climate of fear it spreads. There is no way out of this pit of filth without a revolutionary defiance of the working masses, no way at all!

It is an undeniable fact that the masters of the system, their lackeys, and those who profit from it are terrified to death of the revolutionary struggle of the masses. Unfortunately, however, the masses who are discontented with the current system are not heeding the call that only a revolutionary struggle can put an end to this system, which offers them nothing but pain, poverty, and despair. They do not find this call realistic. Under today’s conditions, where no organised working class capable of initiating and advancing a revolutionary struggle against the rotten capitalist system is yet on the horizon, perhaps we should not find this situation too surprising. But still, we must ask them: what is realism? Is it realistic to expect millions who cannot even properly feed their children in the vortex of poverty to waste their lives on empty dreams? Is it realistic to stand by and watch the tragedy of thousands of workers and labourers who, hoping to gain something, fall into the traps of gambling, betting, and crypto schemes, losing everything, their families, and ultimately their lives? Or is it realistic to hope that all this might change by relying on forces within the system, the infighting within the state, or the electoral manipulations of bourgeois parties? No! For anyone who has not lost their conscience, their belief that their country deserves a better future, and their respect for working people, this is what is truly unrealistic! So let us, instead, begin somewhere and take steps on the path of revolutionary struggle—a truly realistic endeavour!

Revolution is not something that will suddenly fall from the sky one day without arduous preparatory work, without equipping and organising the vanguard elements of the working class with the idea of revolution, and without making progress on this path. To say that only revolution can cleanse the filth of capitalism is not the same as calling for revolution immediately today. We know very well that revolution is not a matter of mere will. It requires preparation. And this preparation has various stages, depending on objective and subjective conditions. Moreover, the form and tactics of this preparation change according to the concrete realities of each stage. Class revolutionaries who understand these truths place preparatory work within the working class as a concrete goal before them, in line with this perspective.

Marksist Tutum is the line of working-class revolutionaries who have drawn the lessons of the past, grasped the world of 21. century, and armed themselves with this understanding. Revolutionary struggle is a task that can only be carried out by those who dedicate their lives, with patience and determination, to the years of struggle, with the aim of the organised power of the working class achieving revolution. In this sense, every generation of class revolutionaries who walk this path contributes to the realisation of revolution, much like those who dig the foundations of a structure, mix its mortar, patiently lay its bricks, and meticulously place its interior details. This struggle is a long-term one, and it is essential to align one’s life breath accordingly, fully aware of this fact. Those who approach revolutionary organisation with an individual impatience, understanding revolutionary struggle solely as the moment when revolution is actually achieved, are just as likely to abandon this struggle in the wrong way as they were to join it in the wrong way.

Let us finish with what we wrote in the aftermath of the US imperialism’s invasion of Iraq when the bloody re-division of the Middle East started, which also marks the current period in terms of Turkey: “At no point in history have unorganised masses been able to overthrow the tyrannies of the exploiting classes. This truth remains just as valid today. The only force capable of saving humanity from the hellfires ignited by the capitalist order is the organised power of the working class. Only the active struggle of the working and labouring masses can put an end to this cruel system of exploitation. Millions, mobilised under the leadership of the working class, can create a truly longed-for new order on our planet – a life without war, without exploitation, and without class divisions.”[*]