PERMANENT REVOLUTION THESIS- SEP

on 7 Haziran 2016 - 11:02 Kategori: English

Capitalism, surely a dilapidated system, is currently in a deep economic crisis that is compared with the 1929 crisis. Since capitalists plan to make the laborers pay the bill of the crisis, the class struggle intensifies inevitably. Another meaning of the crisis is that imperialist competition takes more and more military forms, and wars and occupations become the ordinary facts of daily life. The wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Georgia in which millions of people are slaughtered, happened during the first decade of the 21st century. All around the world the bloody ethnic and religious conflicts occurred and still continue to occur. To the extent that each economic crisis means the replacement of a group of capitalists with the others, the imperialist power relations are also dislocated. That means our world will witness bigger imperialist wars in the coming period. The 21st century will be the century of crises, wars, and revolutions as the previous one.

This system, in which greed for profit is the basic dynamic, makes the world uninhabitable by terrible alienation, racism, ethnic conflicts, oppression, violence, degeneration in addition to intense exploitation. This system, with an insatiable greed for profit, damages our world irreversibly with the natural destruction it makes. It is clear that if the chains of capitalism are not broken, the expected end for humanity will be barbarism.

Within this period, the gathering of the vanguards of working-class under the flag of revolutionary Marxism is historically important. In this context, the primary issue in the conditions of capitalist crisis is to put the Marxist program crystallized through the experiences of the 19^th and the 20^th century.

Capitalism Is a Rotten System

Capitalism caused a great jump in productive forces, uncovered the potentialities of human beings, and gave humanity the ability to access huge power and possibilities. However, in a short period of time, capitalism puts these huge devices against humanity. Humanity has never witnessed that the huge resources created by the wild exploitation of labor serve such a small number of people. The gap between poor and rich has never reached such a great depth during history.
As long as the wheels of capitalism continue to turn; imperialist wars, hunger, poverty, massacre, racism, alienation, violence, corruption, selfishness, environmental disasters, and all other badnesses of capitalism become natural parts of life. During the twentieth century, humanity confronted massacres more than ever before. It has been observed that capitalists can create even Nazi Camps where millions of people have been killed, or try nuclear bombs on large cities like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, barbarism continues ascending. Capitalist destruction threatens human existence and the earth.
The democracy that capitalists are very proud of is not more than a theater-in-the-round even in its advanced examples. A golden key – money- can open any door in capitalism. The mass media is controlled by capitalists; bourgeoise parties monopolize politics with their huge resources; the electoral system is at their disposal. The actual decisions have never been taken in the legislative bodies but by the imperialist-capitalist powers and their dark (and armed) forces behind the closed doors. This theater-in-the-round is more ridiculous in the less developed countries in which the practices of deep state, oppression and torture become the ordinary issues; in which the military coups are parts of life and in which the maneuvers behind the closed doors are very apparent and common.
Contrary to the common belief, capitalism is destroyable. When class struggle caused by intense conflicts of the capitalist system becomes more radical in periods of economic crisis and imperialist wars, it will hit capitalism. Internal contradictions of capitalism provide a basis for its destruction. The alternative of capitalist can be formed. It is possible to construct a new regime based on cooperation instead of brutal competition and democratic planning instead of market anarchy. The blow-by-blow planning from top to toe in multinational companies gives the answer to the question of how the goods and services will distribute across the world. While social duties would be distributed to everyone, the social decision could be taken democratically. That is, there is an alternative of capitalism: socialism. The level of development of means of production is convenient for this long since. The current production level in the world is proper for the meet of the necessities of everyone by means of the short working hours.

The Only Class Capable of Smashing Capitalism and Establishing Socialism is The Proletariat

From primitive communist societies, history is the history of class struggles. The structure of society is divided into classes causes class struggles and progressions resulted from this struggle. The conflict between the classes has resulted either in the destruction of all classes or the revolutionary transformation of the whole society. The core that will provide such a change develops inside the former society. The proletariat is therefore the only class able to elicit the revolutionary transformation of the capitalist societies.
Today, among all the classes standing against the bourgeoisie, only the proletariat is truly revolutionary. All the other classes dissolve in favor of the modern industry and finally vanish. Proletariat, however, is the main and special product of the modern industry.
Working class having nothing else to do but to sell their labor in order to survive is in a natural struggle with capitalists aiming only to exploit the workers as much as possible. The natural conflicts mentioned are signs of big fights that are to happen at times of crisis under the capitalist system.
Proletariat takes the ability to create a classless society from capitalist relations of production. Different from ex-exploited classes, the proletariat is capable of destroying the capitalist system and of acting collectively, a capability necessary to form a new society. With the development of capitalism, the proletariat does not only enlarge itself quantitatively but also intensify itself as larger masses in the process of production. The capitalist process of production itself requires a strong collectivity, harmony, coordination and discipline. Any commodity produced or any service provided is the product of the collective work of the proletariat. The capitalist model of production in which the smallest mistakes result in a flawed product or a working accident forms the basis of the harmony, coordination and discipline seen in working-class struggles. In this context, the proletariat is a collective class.
In the process of capitalist production, the proletariat learns to organize production by firsthand experience, which, naturally also makes the proletariat equipped with skills of how to form the social life under the power of the working class. The proletariat feels the need to be united in the simplest form of labor rights struggle. In this manner, the “either united and organized or nothing” dilemma leads the proletariat to organize everywhere in which it shows its presence: trade unions and workers’ committees etc. Other classes do not have this ability.
Another material basis that makes the proletariat the historical subject of the struggle for socialism is the vital role working class has in the capitalist production process. The proletariat is the class producing all the material means of existence. This feature of the proletariat makes it capable of activating such enormous powers that it can smash the bourgeoisie state apparatus. This fact can be observed in the gigantic facilities that the proletariat is able to activate; in revolutionary conditions where the fate of the societies are determined and the full ability of the classes becoming apparent. In such periods, all the production, factories, offices, workplaces, bureaus, weapon factories, railroads, docks, airports, means of communication and many more are under the control of the working class. A case of a political mass strike paralyzes dominant classes and virtually ends their reign. Finally, with an armed sovietic uprising, the capitalist regime would be demolished once and for all.
The ruling class knows its real enemy well and tries to weaken the claim for revolution and socialism by various ideological means. In this context, it is not availing that the ruling class is yelling “the proletariat is dead” against the fact that the only way of the emancipation of humanity from the capitalist bog is by sovietic uprising, workers power and permanent revolution. Working class, actually, has grown in number and has gotten stronger with regard to objective power relations, let alone there is any weakening. Moreover, apparatuses that the proletariat can employ have become stronger. The population of industrial workers is increasing globally. Hundred thousands of new industrial workers appear only in recent years in especially the regions like China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, Far East, etc. The majority of the world population consists of the proletariat today. Working class is bigger than ever before; wage slavery spreads, becomes general and this process continues.
The phenomena using to claim that the proletariat dies out refers to nothing but the changes in the combination of the proletariat. Most of the white-collar workers and service laborers are part of the family of working class. The composition of the proletariat undergoes a transformation along with the changing technological ground of capitalism; while old ones are removed, new ones appear. The so-called sociological “evidence” put forward at the academies of the bourgeoise to prove the death of the proletariat are far beyond being scientific. Then, workers’ power and world revolution are still historical claims that billions of proletariats can acquire.

Proletarian Revolution and Workers’ Power

The proletarian revolution means the seize of power by the worker’s councils composed of the representatives of revolutionary workers’ movement through sovietic uprising. Councils, the organ of the representatives elected by the working class, rural laborers, urban poor and unemployed in every workplace, in every workers’ district, have the historical role as being the organs of the new power. Councils as the nucleus of the workers’ power appear in a definite moment of the revolutionary situation during the history of working class struggle. They are named differently in different countries: Soviets, councils, committees, juntas… The formation of the councils of soldiers is especially important during the revolutionary period. This is a very big event that determines the fate of the revolution and at the same time, it is surely possible as seen in the different historical examples.
Worker councils put an end to the division of working-class into several layers by going beyond workplaces, professions, occupational groups. They represent the revolutionary unity of the working class. Worker’s councils come into existence as a natural result of the fulfillment of the needs of working-class struggle like the unity, coordination and organizing counter-attack of class in the conditions of deep economic crisis of capitalism. In time, councils become the second center of power in the presence of a crisis of system. Dual power cannot exist for a long time. Worker councils will either overthrow the bourgeoisie or be overthrown by bourgeoisie. How history will shape is determined by the revolutionary role Bolshevik vanguard play against the preventive impact of the centrist and reformist left that are more effective in the worker councils at this point. Centrists and other left elements that cannot break with the capitalist system will be the preparer of the defeat in case the influence of Bolsheviks is weak.
The representatives elected to workers’ councils could be recalled by the majority of the electors whenever they want. The development of bureaucracy means leaving the door open to capitalism. Therefore the struggle against bureaucratism is one of the leading duties in workers’ power. The greatest weapon in this issue is the advanced level of the worker’s democracy. The control over the representatives by the electors refers the democratic character of the council regime as well as it eases the liquidation of the elements betraying the revolution.
Working class must establish the dictatorship of the proletariat after the destruction of the political apparatus of capitalism. The goal of a classless, borderless and stateless world cannot be achieved at one stretch. It is apparent that the social transformation that will reverse all the history of humanity cannot be completed in a few days. To purify the civilization from the capitalist dirt, a transition period is required. This transition phase will be the workers’ power. The worker state based on workers’ councils will raise instead of the capitalist state.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is only possible with the massive, direct and militant struggle of working class vanguard of the exploited and oppressed; with the own action of workers supported by all the poor and oppressed. The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be established by the substitution of a minority with the masses. Workers’ power can only be organized from below through workers’ committees. All the rest methods of struggle like Jakobenism, adventurism, guerillaism will inevitably result in the power of minority, capitalism. As Marx says, the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself.
At the phrase of the workers’ power in which all economic and social life will be organized by the proletariat, properties of the bourgeoisie will be expropriated and the means of production will belong to all society not exclusive individuals. In this process, the resistance of the former proprietor classes will be broken, the bourgeoisie army will be distributed, as well as the revolution will gun the public and workers for the militia to protect itself, all banks will be expropriated in the only case of a central bank and the foreign trade monopoly will be created. The parliaments and judicial bodies of capitalists will be removed, and instead, the democratic councils and juries composed of laborers will be formed. Any agreement signed with other countries by the capitalist government will be canceled and hidden imperialist agreements will be announced publicly. The subject of the new power, proletariat councils, will control the economic and social life.
During the transition from capitalism to communism, oppression is still required. Unlike capitalism, the majority will no longer be suppressed but the bourgeoisie as a minority will be suppressed. State as a machine to press a class by another class will continue in existence in favor of workers’ power. Workers’ power will use the state to crush the resistance of the exploiter and to lead the peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and lumpen proletarians. This will be a transition state. It will be not a “real” state. Wage slaves of yesterday will keep down the exploiter minority. By keeping the experience, it should be an extremely easy, simple and natural task. It will be much more bloodless from the suppression of slaves, the serf and the wage slaves. The expansion of the democracy so as to include the majority of the people is in compliance with the goal to eliminate the need for oppression by a special device.
Democracy is a must for the workers’ power based on majority rule contrary to the counter-revolutionary school of Stalinism which defines the proletariat dictatorship with one-party dictatorship, oppression or hierarchy. The most advanced bourgeois democracy is even squat alongside the democracy under the proletariat dictatorship. The pressure will be against only to capitalist elements that want to resurrect the old system. In the Soviet system, direct democracy will be implemented as possible. Developing the democracy to the end, exploring this form of democracy through the practical experiments of the class struggle comes at the beginning of the main tasks for social revolution, as Lenin says.
Worker’s state will enlarge the area where direct democracy is used and the democracy would exceed the bourgeois democracy by far. This state will leave all fields of social activities (communication, health, education, culture …) to the participation and control of the citizens. All officers, including top officials, will be limited to an average monthly wage as the same amount as skilled workers and the mandatory rotation policy will prevent the creation of a lifetime executive class. All these workers’ representatives will be able to recall by request. The equality of citizens will be almost guaranteed regardless of sex, religion, race, nationality. Including the opposition and the minority; expressing themselves freely, establishing political organizations, the right to set up the press will be guaranteed by the proletariat councils. Judges to be elected and all proceedings will be published as full text. Proletariat dictatorship will not put under pressure any scientific, literary, cultural, or artistic currents and even they will be supported morally and materially.
Workers that organized themselves as a ruling class cannot lead with former state mechanisms. Revolution should make the new class the ruler with the help of new ruling mechanisms, not with old ones. To not lose power again, the working class should eliminate the old oppression machines used against them. The proletariat will remove police force and the regular army and instead of them make people militia (worker’s militia) pass. Proletariat wanting to protect the collective power of themselves will take measures not only to put under pressure the old elements. By establishing new principles, proletariat will prevent the arising of a new ruling class. The election of worker representatives by direct democracy, the right to recall and their wages not to exceed an average workers’ wage are at the beginning of these principles and measures.
While workers’ power, all part of working class will have their own representatives and the committees formed by representatives across the country will be the new governing body of the Soviet regime. The representatives will be assigned regularly and frequently, and also be able to recall at any moment. Workers’ power is a regime in which every worker can use the mechanisms of auditing and oversight. In this way, it destroys the ground of existence for bureaucracy.
A dictatorship reflects the presence of social antagonisms. If the main aim is to reach a classless society, the dictatorship is not the goal but a tool used to reach this target. Proletariat dictatorship is a bridge between bourgeois and socialist societies. Its nature has the temporariness. The basic task of dictatorship is preparing the conditions to disappear itself. The exaltation of the dictatorship and the state is one of the devastations of Stalinism.

Socialist World Revolution

Capitalism is a world system that organizes itself as the dominant mode of production wherever it exists. Capitalism cannot exist peacefully with different modes of production including socialism, for a long time. In the end, either socialism goes to any lengths to send capitalism to the trash can of history or capitalism survives and smashes the workers’ power. That means socialism that aims to be an alternative to capitalism also has to be a world system. The proletarian revolution starts in the national ground, but its success is dependent on its realization on the international area. Revolution cannot stand on the attacks of imperialism for a long period unless revolution exports itself out of the national boundaries.

Capital constituting the world market ties all the nations in such a way that the experiences any nation faces are dependent on the others. An economic crisis that breaks out in any country immediately spreads to others and finally, it trends to hit the global capitalist system. In parallel to that, a revolutionary uprising happening in a country spreads in waves to the other countries. The final victory of socialism in one country is definitely impossible. The permanent victory of socialism can only be achieved by the success of socialism on the global ground. Therefore, the victory of the proletarian revolution in one country is only a beginning. The fate of a successful revolution, thus the fate of humanity, is dependent on whether the revolution spreads to other countries. The crises of capitalism are global, the revolutions happen in series. The revolutions in different countries trigger each other. World revolution is an organic and combined process that progresses through the uprising in series.
Formulations like national socialism, socialism in one country are the so-called theories fabricated to protect the interests of the bureaucratic apparatus in USSR. These kinds of utopic theses, dangerous sort of reactionary perception, serve to blow the struggle away from the historical claims of the working class. To the extent that the formulation of socialism in one country means the possibility of compromise with an imperialist-capitalist system in an international scale, it opens the door to the same kind of understanding on the national scale. When the possibility of realization of socialism in one country is accepted, it becomes possible to believe that not only after conquering the power but also before the revolution. This will be the beginning of the dissolution of social patriotism.

Communist Society

With the final victory of the world revolution through the establishment of workers’ power all over the world, humanity will reach the communist society. While there is fake and miserable democracy in the capitalist society, in the proletarian dictatorship there is true democracy for the majority in which only exploiting classes are oppressed. However absolute democracy can only be achieved by communism. To the extent of its absoluteness, democracy becomes pointless. In the communist stage, democracy will already lose its formal role as a form of management and penetrate into human behaviors and their way of living. In this respect, democracy will dissolve through these practices.
The transition period of the worker power will be followed by the first phase of communism, as generally known socialism. In that period, classes, commodity, and money economy are removed. Abolition of state, the international victory of humanity will be realized. While basic needs are free of charge, the rewards are determined according to the labor time provided to society. In the communist phase, the society adopts the rule of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. The important point is that there is no need for revolutions for the transition from one phase to the other in post-capitalist societies. Everything will happen through the evolution of the existing structure in time.
The material basis of communism is the highly developed forces of production. Then productive labor that is not a burden anymore does not need enforcement of drives. Under the permanent wealth conditions, the distribution of the necessary good for life does not require control other than social habits.

USSR

The first proletarian dictatorship after Paris Commune was established not in the countries of developed capitalist states of Europe but in Russia through the October Revolution in 1917. Russia was a peasant country. Although the working class was quantitatively small, it gathered in the big workplaces and had a vital role in social production in proportion to its smallness. This position of working class enabled the workers’ power in Russia. However, in Russia with such a huge amount of peasants, it was apparent that the proletarian dictatorship could not stand alone for a long time. The success of the revolution in Russia, a country with underdeveloped productive forces was dependent on the success of possible proletarian revolutions in Europe.
As expected, a wave of revolutionary struggle broke out in a number of European countries. After the revolutionary uprisings in Hungary and Germany in 1918, the sense that the foundation of European Soviet Republic was recent, was appeared. However, in spite of the economic crisis and the desire of workers to struggle, these revolutionary uprisings were defeated in the absence of a revolutionary party that ensured them to seize the power.
One of the most important factors that determined the fate of workers’ power in Russia was the civil war. Simultaneously with the defeat of the revolutions in Europe, the counter-revolutionary White Army started a civil war against the worker state. The imperialist states aiming to destroy Soviet power in Russia not only supported the White Army but also attacked the worker state from lots of fronts. The war was high-priced. Most developed conscious workers, the architects of the revolution, joined the Red Army firstly to defend the workers’ state and they died in the front ranks. During the war, because of war, hunger and diseases 7 million people died. Workers in the urban had to migrate to the rural due to hunger. The rest of the workers and members of Bolshevik Party became the officials of worker state for administration. In this way, the working class, the subject of the revolution was disappearing.
Bolshevik Party had to substitute itself to the working class under the conditions in which the material existence of working class was nearly removed. Ten thousand of party members became the officials of worker state and bureaucratized. In the worker state that lost the class basis relied on and the moral basis, the bureaucracy hanged on in the space. Working class that selected, controlled, and removed the bureaucracy when needed, atomized during the civil war. This condition provided the material basis for the bureaucracy overthrowing the worker state to become independent “privileged” power.
Worker state still alive after the civil war, faced with another important threat: the peasant that did not want to feed the urban. New Economic Policy (NEP) included the compromises that the peasants wanted and provided an opportunity for the private sector to form a free market. This policy applied to increase food supply to the urban was high-priced. NEP decreased the power of working-class in favor of property owner classes and strengthened bureaucracy in both party and worker state.
In NEP period, after the clarification that Bolshevik Party would continue to govern and after the price of being a party member, which had been fighting and dying in the front rank during the civil war, lessened, the Bolshevik Party faced with the flow of careerists. This provided the material basis for strengthening bureaucracy to rely on. Numerical data from 1921 show the class composition of the party: %8 factory workers, %56 state officials, %8 party and trade union officials, %27 army officials.
In this process, three important classes in the worker state represented themselves through three factions in the party. The first one was the Left Opposition of Trotsky that defended the interests of the proletariat. The others were the right faction of Bukharin representing the interests of kulaks that became rich during NEP and the center faction of Stalin representing the interests of the rising bureaucracy. Working-class, as a political force that constituted the basis worker state relied on, atomized. This destroyed the ground Trotsky and Left Opposition relied on and left Trotsky powerless against the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy was strengthening its position rapidly with NEP so that the population of the bureaucracy exceeded the working class in the revolution. On the other hand, international revolutions were lost as a result of the policies of right and center factions. By this way the material conditions of worker revolution to survive were
Although the revolutionary organization of proletariat, Left Opposition entered a decisive fight in 1927 against the bureaucracy and Stalin, it could not escape from the liquidation during the process. Stalin and the bureaucracy captured the power completely in 1928. This refers to an important break in the class struggle. The workers’ control over the means of production and social life was banned by the First Five Year Plan. According to the laws of the new regime, all control in the factories and workplaces belonged to the factory directors. Who defended the former regime would be punished severely. The worker’s power was destroyed by the counter-revolution of the bureaucracy that could organize itself as a class. Stalin, the leader of the counter-revolution, was a historical person who unites all the necessary features for the action of the liquidation of the generation that ensures the success of the revolution.
One of the most classical results of the counter-revolution, the destruction of the sons of the revolution occurred in Russia. Nearly all of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party was murdered by the Stalinist counter-revolution. Millions of communists carrying the experience and memory of the October revolution and the tradition of the Bolshevik party were murdered by the Stalinist bureaucracy. The number of communists murdered by Stalinist bureaucracy is more than the sum of the communists murdered by Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. There is a river of blood formed by the blood of Bolsheviks, between Stalinism and Bolshevism. The effects of the liquidation of the most competent generation introduced by the history of the class struggle of the world by the Stalinist bureaucracy has been still felt all around the world.
From now on the regime was a new version of capitalism: a kind of capitalist in which bureaucracy organized itself as the dominant class, bureaucratic state capitalism. In this situation, the political power of working class was seized; the executive position of the proletariat in the production process has put an end. Russian working class that became again the cog in the machine, disappeared from the active life as a political power. In economic life, the proletariat was forced to groan bitterly under the brutal exploitation of primitive accumulation. Under this condition, it is impossible to claim that the historical gains of the Russian working class. On the contrary, the proletariat in USSR was exposed to the much more intensive exploitation relationships than the rest of the working class around the world in accordance with the aim of the Russian bureaucracy to create a more powerful state. For this, an extensive state terror was needed and the working class was suppressed mercilessly by depriving of basic rights. USSR, which is no more proletarian state, entered an imperialist-capitalist relation-competition with the rest of the world thereby becoming a huge trust.

Stalinism

In USSR, the bureaucracy, which demolished workers’ power with a counter-revolution and organized itself as the ruling class, created an ideology consistent with its class interests. Stalinism was introduced to workers of the entire world as Marxism and Leninism; however, it was just the devastation of Marxism-Leninism. Hence having an ideological fight with Stalinism is one of the most important tasks of revolutionary Marxists. Stalinism which gained absolute power in USSR through counter-revolution could impose its counter-revolutionary line to the whole communist parties of the world through the agency of Third International after a series of assassinations and liquidations. After that, Stalinism was learned to new generations as Marxism and all the communist parties became the means of the foreign policy of the USSR. Many revolutions and national liberation movements around the world were betrayed because of the imperialist interests of the USSR and the fear of Stalinist bureaucracy from the results of possible proletarian revolutions.
Bureaucracy, which increased its power parallel to the degeneration of the worker state, constructed the theory of “socialism in one country” in 1924, such an early date. The arise of this theory, with respect to the denial of perception of world revolution and internationalist traditions, was the outcome of the requirement for the protection of class interests of the bureaucracy. Since it led to the resurrection of workers’ power still trying to maintain its existence in Russia, the spread of the revolution would cause the elimination of the bureaucracy. At this point, the theory of socialism in one country was the expression of the denial of the aim to spread revolutions.
One of the devastations of Stalinism carried out together with socialism in one country is nationalism and patriotism. This conception contrary to the revolutionary Marxist tradition is just the cover of class interests of bureaucracy stated as “interests of the socialist motherland”, with patriotic sophistry. Besides, patriotic sophistry was not restricted with USSR, but it was spread all over the world by Stalinist parties guided by Moscow. The liquidation of internationalism for the sake of patriotism showed its impacts on the bitter destiny of national minorities. National minorities faced with oppression and deportation in USSR and China, and genocide in Cambodia and Yugoslavia in the hands of Stalinism. The crimes of Stalinist regime against working-class and the oppressed are used and still using by bourgeoise to blacken Marxism. Because of that, to settle accounts with Stalinism is essential at first to raise the clean flag of Marxism.
Party dictatorship was invented by Stalinism instead of the collective dictatorship of proletariat. Instead of a council regime in that the workers class organized the whole social and economic life from the below to the top, Stalinism enforced the hierarchy of the party bureaucracy based upon the command chain. With its authoritative and repressive character, Stalinism is absolutely opposed to Marxism.
Given that Stalinism reduced socialism into economic planning and statism, it characterized the regimes in Algeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen as socialism. This is evidence of how the concept of socialism degenerated.
USSR, the moral and material authority source of Stalinism, began to dissolve in the 1980s thereby not overcoming the impacts of the economic crisis in the 1970s that influenced all the world deeply. Meantime, the Chinese Communist Party had already taken the road of free-market capitalism. When the East Bloc dissolved, the top elements of Stalinist bureaucracy became the presidents of the new republics and some others became the big capitalists. The road of Stalinism in Vietnam and China showed that actually Stalinism is a kind of nationalist development. It is obvious that the bureaucrats of Cuba and North Korea that remain from the period of Stalinism, will orientate themselves to the free-market capitalism, early or late.

Our Tradition

Our struggle takes its roots from revolutionary Marxist tradition which has a 150-year experience of the struggle. Our organization will rise upon the revolutionary inheritance of Communist Unity, 1^st International, the revolutionary era of the 2^nd International, the first four congresses of the 3^rd International, International Left Opposition and the period of the 4^th International when Trotsky was alive.
As greater the October Revolution was in the history of civilization, so was traumatic the death of the revolution and the whole revolutionary generation in the hands of Stalin. In fact, its effects can be still seen. Trotsky, “Bolshevik-Leninist Left Opposition” and the 4^th International defended the main claims and values of Marxist-Leninist tradition and left the future generations a truly revolutionary flag while trying to protect the workers’ power in Russia. This was, of course, not that easy. Trotsky and his comrades had a big ideological battle against the corruption of Marxist-Leninist values at the hands of Stalinism. Even only this point is vital and sufficient reason for truly revolutionaries to own Trotsky. In addition to that, Trotsky provides the answers in the meaning of the improvement of Marxism-Leninism to the new questions put by the turning points of history to the revolutionary class movement. Trotsky systemized especially the duties of the revolutionaries of the underdeveloped countries; generalized the experiences of the October Revolution and theorized the Permanent Revolution which takes its reference-point from the first four congresses of the Communist International. He introduced the law of uneven and combined development which refers a very important contribution to dialectical and historical materialism. Trotsky defended and developed the United Front tactics, analyzed fascism while drawing political conclusions from that, and he developed universal answers to the questions of the class struggle in 20th century. Trotsky determined the missions of the Bolsheviks of the entire world as to form the World Party of Proletariat with the program of the 4^th Also he clarified the perspective of the transition program which he founded from the 3^rd International. All these aspects are contributions of Trotsky to develop Marxist-Leninist tradition.
Our movement is Trotskyist. At this point, it is necessary to put that Trotsky did not create a custom different than Marxism-Leninism. How Leninism is the materialized form of Marxism in the beginning of 20^th century, Trotskyism is the materialization of Leninism position. The centrists who declare themselves as Marxist-Leninist symbolize the moderationism that cannot break with Stalinism. History did not stop with the death of Lenin; the class struggle passed from the big historical turnouts. During this period, Trotsky and his comrades defended the way of Lenin as a matter to life and death all over the world. It is not possible to jump over all this history and political turnouts. The address of communists should be where the historical interests of working-class find their expression.
In Turkey, the first revolutionaries who adopted revolutionary Marxist traditions were Mustafa Suphi and his comrades who came to Anatolian geography “to form the government of the council of workers and peasants on the way to world communism”. However, they could not have a chance to keep this flag flying for a long time. Since the 3^rd International became an organ of the counter-revolutionary foreign policy of Stalinist bureaucracy, TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) rapidly degenerated, and at the end of 1920s it broke off Marxist tradition. Slaughtering Mustafa Suphi and his comrades in the hands of the national bourgeoisie meant being unguarded in the process of Stalinization for TKP. Under the leadership of Şefik Hüsnü, TKP got further away from Bolshevism and closer to Kemalism; it became a nationalist pro-system party with two-stage theory.
Although the fight of the proletariat is deprived of the revolutionary Marxist leadership in Turkey, it has radical experiences of struggle. Workers struggles such as the glorious uprising of June 15-16, Tariş struggle, worker’s combat which crushed DGM (military courts), the spring of 1989, the march of coal-miners to the capital city Ankara inspires our struggles, and they also demonstrate that there exist convenient conditions in Turkey in which revolutionary Marxism can grow up. The constitution of a Bolshevik leadership is the essential duty of revolutionary Marxists. This duty has unbreakable bonds with the constitution of the international leadership of the proletariat.
Our revolutionary Marxist tradition takes its power from the international struggles of the working class; learns from these struggles carried out by the proletariat all over the world and takes the necessary lessons. Only this way, future struggles can meet with our revolutionary tradition.

Bolshevik Party

In all the class societies, those having economic hegemony also have intellectual hegemony. In every era, ruling ideas are determined by the ruling class. Yet, these ideas are not accepted to the same degree by everyone in the society. Life does not consist of these ideas only and experiences may contradict with these ideas. Therefore, members of the working class have an unequal and contradictory conscience. Inequality can be explained by the differences between working class in terms of the understanding of themselves as a class and acting accordingly. Contradictory conscience comes from the fact that, on the one hand workers accept the authority of the bourgeois completely and on the other they have perceptions rejecting this hegemony. Briefly, level of consciousness among the working class is not homogenous. Unequal conscience is not only a feature of inactive times of the class struggle. Although in revolutionary conditions the majority of working class have a rapid education, some parts of the class will be far beyond the others. Therefore, the revolutionary party trying to raise the class conscious of all workers to its level and uniting the most conscious workers is needed. Leninist party has two main themes: being an independent organization of advanced workers that put the interests of proletariat first and having the closest relations possible with the class so that the party can practically lead every struggle that affects the class interests.
The emancipation of the working class, and finally the emancipation of all humankind are only possible if a revolutionary, internationalist, communist political organization becomes effective and powerful among the working class. Therefore, the revolutionary party, essentially a Marxist proletarian organization, should work patiently in the worker’s movement according to its long reach goals. In the long history of class struggles, a lot of revolutionary situation has been lost due to the lack of this kind of organization. Because of the key role proletariat plays in capitalist societies, spontaneous breakouts of the class can cause a revolutionary situation and sets the seizure of the power as an agenda. On the other hand, if the proletariat lacks a revolutionary, communist organization, revolutionary process moves backward especially after various maneuvers of the ruling classes. The success of the revolutionary forces depends on revolutionary answers proletariat produces to the various economic, psychological, and political factors, which are interconnected with each other. To overcome this, the most important thing is the existence of an experienced Bolshevik organization that is capable of producing answers to various problems, which is equipped with Marxist ideology, which is deeply rooted in the working class.
Despite all kind of restricted opportunities, the duty of Marxists is to struggle for the creation of the Bolshevik party. Surely, this is not a goal that can be attained in a couple of years. Impatience and hastiness in this issue is dangerous. What is needed to do is to perform patient and mindful work.
The revolutionary party should gather all the powers of the oppressed under the leadership of the proletariat for the joint struggle against capitalism. Historically and worldwide, the main issue is the realization of the proletariat – peasant alliance under the leadership of the proletariat.
The revolutionary party should be the party of the proletariat. Party should be of a proletarian type, in terms of not only including the socialist demands of the working class as a program, but also the class composition and daily activity domain. The party is open to any sincere members of other classes ready to discard their own class interests in order to conjoin their fates with that of the fate of the proletariat.
Party is the vanguard of the working class. Yet, it is not a small number of elites outside of the class. Revolutionary party does not lead from the outside, but from the inside of the class. The leadership of the proletariat is gained by revolutionary party as being a leader to the class in praxis in the daily struggles that take place in the factory, in the working place, or in the streets and with concrete action proposals.
The boundaries of the revolutionary party must be carefully taken care of. All members should participate in activities; strict discipline and full democracy inside the party is necessary. Revolutionary party is an organization of war. Party should prepare itself for harsh class struggles, uprisings and revolts, besides the ordinary daily struggles. Therefore, a practical and theoretical education process which leads to develop strong cadres who values revolutionary struggle above everything and have historical consciousness, is vitally important.
The method of Bolshevik party is democratic centralism. Without democracy and free discussion for cadres, there is no way of party to create the policy that provides the needs of proletariat in the literal sense and fits into the concrete situation. For this purpose, until the decisive moment, an unrestricted discussion and freedom of criticism should be provided. However, revolutionary party is not a discussion club. It is discussed to have an agreement and the decision is fulfilled altogether. Centralism in the revolutionary party is as critical as internal democracy since the party has to dispute harshly with a high-level centralist hostile, the capitalist state. That’s why; without centralization, it is not possible to develop a revolutionary alternative against the ruling class.
The principles of Marxism form the basis for the party, representative of the historical interests of the working class. Party never sacrifices its sovereignty to any other political organization; either it is a bourgeois, reformist, or a centralist one. This attitude does not exclude any alliance, compromise, or temporary agreements with other organizations, yet the party excludes to discard the right of free critique, having separate political routes and having separate organizations.

Sovietic Uprising

The revolution is a must not only because the ruling class will not give up the power unless enforced to it, but also because the working class needs to be cleaned of the remnants accumulated by class societies for centuries. Worker revolutions are the times where masses of workers try to control their destiny and liberate themselves from being objects and victims of oppression and exploitation.
Four prerequisites are necessary for the revolution to eventuate: the existence of a general and deep crisis in the society; the clearly put case that proletariat cannot tolerate the vital routine of remaining unchanged; the bourgeois to lose its belief in the sustainability of the current social order and to have discussions and divisions internally; and the existence of a revolutionary party. Those four conditions should exist together for the revolution to occur.
Revolution is not a matter of a night. It consists of strikes and demonstrations and ends up with the seizure of the power by the workers. In this process, an important point is the dissolution of the armed forces. Like in previous proletarian revolution practices, during the revolution, the army in hierarchic structure, which reflects the class structure of societies, will break up and the private soldiers (or soldiers without rank), most of whom consist of poor people will stand by the side of the revolution. Nonetheless, the break up of the army is not an easy thing. The stability and force of the revolution should show the soldiers that a revolution is on the way. With both the armament that workers have captured and the great power of the army that has come in on the working class, the government will be captured easily by the proletariat.
History has shown that no ruling class would give up its power without fighting as much as possible. That’s why; the proletariat can defeat capitalist governments only with violence. The capitalist state can’t be taken over to establish socialism; it must be decomposed in the process of revolution. To do so; it is needed to be prepared for strikes, uprisings.
Mass uprisings occurring spontaneously are more common in history. In these kinds of situations, revolutionaries totally participate in uprisings and try to raise consciousness and lead the movement. Another type of uprising is the seize of power through the carefully planned actions of a revolutionary leader of proletariat. Not to allow this action to become an adventure, which means a vital mistake, the proletariat must be pursued to the idea of the uprising. The capture of key points, the organization of the defense of the new regime, the distribution of weapons, and roles cannot be left to their fate. A Soviet uprising can only be achieved by the guidance of a Marxist leader of the proletariat; on condition that, covering the timing, technical details and management of the movement. In this sense; without a Bolshevik leader, an uprising cannot be succeeded. The uprising will be applied in practice by workers’ militias and military units that were convinced of the idea of revolution.

Bolshevism Engels English imperialism internationalism left Lenin Leninism Marx party permanent revolution revolution revolutionary marxism SDH Socialist Laborer's Party Soviets Stalinism state capitalism Trotsky Turkey USSR working class

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