Many years have passed since the foundations of Marxism were laid. Through all these years capitalism has moved towards building a world system and inevitably has grown the working class into an enormous scale around the world. Under capitalism, history has still been a history of class struggles as had been the case with the history of previous class societies.

It is truly said that every country has a bloody history. Since the transition from communal society to class society, with the exception of revolutionary struggles, history has always been a bloody death zone, where ruling classes made peoples kill each other. It is for this reason that history always appears to be recurring. For rulers, peace has only been a temporary armistice, serving as a preparation phase for the next dirty war. Yet, in every chapter of history the oppressed, exploited and poor masses took up the struggle for peace when they grasped the true content of unjust wars. When capitalism dragged society to the darkness of fascism in an endeavour to overcome depressions, revolutionary, democrat and intellectual people resisted dictators and flied the common banner of struggle against fascism. It should be remembered that history is not a predetermined destiny awaiting society. Rather, it is made by the struggle of the masses.

It is clear as day for those who succeed in drawing the lessons of the past and move forwards to the future: The experience so far does not demonstrate the downfall of Marxism, but of a conception of “socialism” that is its negation. As the end of the decaying capitalism comes closer, Marxism continues to guide humanity’s struggle for emancipation and happily foretells that the future lies in socialism.

They have attempted to strangle May Day this year in Turkey and the world. But the working class flied the flag of May Day all around the world. Workers firmly kept carrying the torch fired 135 years ago by their genuine class ancestors. Defying the persecution by the capitalist order they resisted the onslaught of social isolation veiled under the pandemics and spread out the enthusiasm of May Day in factories, streets and all other domains of life. Thus they demonstrated that the legacy of 135 years is not unattended, casting another slap in the faces of those fools who claimed “the working class is over”.

Since it reached the stage of imperialism in early 20th century, capitalism has developed a global system of workings and global relations on the basis of the law of combined and uneven development. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, huge markets such as Russia and China became integrated into capitalism, making the system global in the full sense of the word. This development brought forth a discussion that revolved around this new stage of capitalism.

It happened many times in history. When the rulers felt themselves confident about their power and order, they tended to fall in the illusion that their power and order would last forever and regarded all kinds of anti-system critical approaches with contempt. Other modes of production aside, there are countless examples in capitalism that confirm this. A striking example in this respect is the period beginning with 1980 and, especially, the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Today, numerous indications point to the fact that capitalism is suffering an existential crisis. Marxism explains that there can be no capitalism without crises. This is vindicated by the current state of global economy. The upper echelons of finance capital seek to postpone the crisis and save the banks and credit institutions, which only makes the crisis more destructive.

The whole world looks paralysed in the grip of Covid-19 pandemic. We are told by the authorities that we are faced with a very dangerous health threat on a world scale. But we must question what we are told. Although it is mostly taken as a health problem, there should be no mistake that it is a serious class issue. It is used by the ruling class as a means to lock society into a horror tunnel, legitimise repression and a wide range of anti-democratic measures, and make society obediently accept the severe consequences of the economic crisis.

The form of establishment of the bourgeois order in Turkey has completely different characteristics than the development process of the bourgeois order in the Western European countries, where the classic examples of bourgeois revolutions are seen. In France, for instance, bourgeois development began yet in the feudal society, and the rising bourgeoisie, on the basis of private property, established its order by carrying out its own revolution in the following years. However, the historical development line of the Ottoman Empire, that the Republic of Turkey emerged out of, does not resemble that of France.

With the July 15 coup attempt and the ensuing state of emergency introduced by Erdoğan’s rule in the name of suppressing it, the bourgeois order in Turkey has become altogether authoritarian and repressive. In fact, the events that have unfolded since the parliamentary elections of 7 June 2015 demonstrate that we have entered a chaotic era that leads the masses to huge illusions or deep suspicions and fears.