Only the Organised Movement of the Working Class Can Disperse This Black Smoke

Every day Turkey is witnessing new dimensions of the rottenness of the whole bourgeois political domain with its government and opposition. The fascist regime, in an effort to deepen exploitation and plunder and to maintain its existence, is continuing and intensifying all kinds of attacks. The regime’s agenda is mainly determined by attack plans targeting the working class, conspiracies to regain the municipalities of big cities that it had previously lost to the opposition in order to plunder nature and the city unlimitedly, and taking new constitutional and legal steps to perpetuate its existence. All the while, the bourgeois opposition is busy scrambling for urban rent opportunities. Under the heavy smoke of bourgeois politics, the labouring masses are struggling in conditions of disorganisation, with worsening livelihood problems, increasing impoverishment, mounting debts, unemployment and lack of future.

In the comfort of surviving the 2023 elections, the regime has launched a severe economic offensive programme led by Mehmet Şimşek (Minister of Finance) with a team working under his command. While the real big blows are expected to come after the local elections on 31 March, even what has already been done has dealt quite a serious blow to the labourers. In order to rein in inflation, the government is attempting to cut consumption, and for this purpose, it is primarily suppressing the wages. The working class is pushed to the bottom of the whirlpool of poverty by announcing the official inflation rate at half the real rate and determining wage increases according to this fabricated rate.  Millions of working-class families including pensioners can only survive thanks to their credit cards. This is where the second step taken by the government to cut consumption comes into play: Limiting credit card limits, the number of instalments and consumer loans! This is an assault that goes beyond belt-tightening. This is the path taken with the IMF programme without the IMF, which the government has put into practice and which capital applauds by saying “implement it without compromise”.

The policies pursued by the government, Turkey has ranked as the third country with the highest inflation rate in the world (after Argentina and Lebanon). But those who attribute the cause of inflation not to these policies, but to the increase in wages and consumption, covet even the wages of the working class which are at the hunger limit. According to them, if inflation is to be reduced, the labourers must cut consumption, and for this, their incomes must be cut! Encouraged by the disorganisation and unconsciousness of the working masses, the rulers always defend this policy with the same theses and put it into practice. 

While capital enthusiastically supports all kinds of steps that will leave labourers breathless, it brazenly continues to demand that cheap credit taps be opened for itself, that incentives be continued with an increase, and that taxes be reduced even further. The government, which rejects the demands of workers and pensioners for a raise by saying that it is a “burden on the budget”, fulfils the demands of capital without a second thought. For this purpose, the first place where the eye is set is the Unemployment Insurance Fund. With the decree he issued in February, Erdoğan increased the rate of use of the Unemployment Insurance Fund outside of unemployment benefits from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. This means that a much larger portion of the fund’s revenues, which have been plundered under the guise of “reducing the risk of unemployment by raising the qualifications of employees, taking and implementing employment-enhancing and protective measures”, will be looted for capital. Considering that over 200 billion liras are currently accumulated in the fund, the magnitude of this looting can be understood more clearly.

Although both the spokespersons of the regime and the bosses try to cover up the worsening unemployment with the discourse of “workers don’t like work, don’t want to work”, the real situation paints a grave picture. Unemployment continues to rise even though capital is funded in various ways in order to increase so-called employment. According to the DİSK-AR Unemployment and Employment Outlook Report (March 2024), prepared on the basis of the January data recently announced by TURKSTAT, the number of “broadly defined” unemployed, including “those who are underemployed by time”, exceeded 10 million 450 thousand, reaching the highest level except for the pandemic period. This means that, far from increasing employment, nearly 2 million 200 thousand people have been added to the unemployed army in the last year. While new attacks such as the further reduction of real wages, further increasing the exploitation of labour through amendments to the Labour Law, trying to prevent retirement by economic force by indexing the pension to age, increasing direct and indirect taxes will plunge labourers into much greater ruin after the elections, it is inevitable that the slowdown in the economy will further escalate unemployment.

Although the regime relies on the disorganisation of the working class and the neutralisation of the bourgeois opposition for its survival, there is no guarantee that these conditions will not further increase the anger and reaction of the working people and create social explosions. This is precisely why Erdoğan wants to accelerate the steps towards making his rule and regime permanent. To this end, it has been signalled for some time that he will amend the electoral law and the Constitution to change the 50%+1 rule in presidential elections and to give the president the right to run again for the third time. As a matter of fact, Erdoğan is trying to fortify his base by saying “this is my last election” in the local elections, and on the other hand, he wants to bring this issue to the agenda in order to clear the obstacles in front of his re-election. Saying “For me, this is the final election, this election is my last election with the authorisation given by the law”, Erdoğan aims to pave the way for legal amendments with the emphasis on “law”. Bekir Bozdağ, the head of the AKP parliamentary group, has signalled that the usurpation of the presidential office will continue without the need for a constitutional amendment by saying “the president can run for a third term if the parliament decides to hold early elections when the time comes”. Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the fascist MHP, said: “You cannot leave, you cannot leave the Turkish nation alone. We want to see you as the saviour leader of the new century” and showed that he would support these plans to the end. All this shows that Erdoğan is of key importance for the survival of the regime.

In addition to the plans for constitutional amendments, new regulations for the Constitutional Court and higher judicial bodies in general, and the abolition of rights such as the right of individual application to the Constitutional Court are on the agenda. On the other hand, the composition of the Constitutional Court panel is about to change completely in favour of the government. However, the regime wants to change the structure of the Constitutional Court from being dependent on individuals and to make permanent arrangements to fully guarantee the dependence of the Court.

Erdoğan, who is making all kinds of attempts and making all kinds of threats in order to come out of the local elections with the results they desire, has recently signed a legal regulation that makes it impossible for municipalities to borrow without his approval. As seen in the province of Hatay example, the people are being publicly threatened. It is seen that if there will be municipalities that the regime loses or fails to win despite everything, these municipalities will be punished in the manner expressed in the threat. It goes without saying that the regime also keeps the weapon of appointing trustees in its hands. The fascist regime uses this mechanism to the fullest. In addition, the attacks against the DEM Party (the Kurdish party) continue with raids, arrests, threats and smear campaigns. During this local election process, the fascist party-state structure was revealed much more clearly. Tens of thousands of soldiers and police were deployed to Kurdish provinces, upsetting the balance of votes. The public visits of AKP mayoral candidates are organised together with army commanders and governors. “Social aid” organisations with their huge funds, mosques and all other facilities of the Diyanet (Religious Directorate) are already at the service of the AKP.

Another area where the regime is focused in order to perpetuate the regime is the field of education. In order to mould the new generations in the soil of Turkish-Islamic fascism, the regime has started to do things in the field of education that it could not do so brazenly before. In the effort to religionise education, the scale of the regime’s intervention through organisations such as sects, religious foundations, associations, etc. has expanded. Seeing that the previous steps taken in the direction of religionisation in the curriculum were insufficient, the regime is now making preparations for more comprehensive steps.

In order to present itself as a normal regime at home and abroad, the regime does not formally abolish elections and the ballot box, but is content with hollowing them out. As Murat Kurum (Regime’s candidate for Istanbul mayor) admitted in reference to the CHP, “no matter what they do, we continue to play the same games, the same theatre”, the elections have long since turned into a game. The opposition, which ignores the fact that we are under a fascist regime, plays this game with enthusiasm. But in doing so, it is not only supplying blood to the fascist regime, but also rotting itself. The regime’s turning the May 2023 general elections into its victory has triggered a major political crisis that was already brewing in the bourgeois opposition front and the front has fallen apart. The bourgeois parties, which had established a political platform before the May 2023 elections ostensibly to put an end to this regime and formed a common programme by declaring that “all other problems are secondary to the problem of the regime”, are now struggling and flailing in a disgraceful desperation. Most of them are busy marketing themselves to the regime in an effort to survive. Accusations, resignations and defections are rife. The regime, which has strangled the field of political freedoms and succeeded in suppressing the dynamics of opposition, opens up space for rent-seeking, thus increasing the size of the decay it has created.

Another element that facilitates the regime’s hand is the international conjuncture. First of all, the fact that fascism is on the rise even in so-called Western democracies, from Europe to America, prevents Erdoğan from experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. Moreover, the fact that Turkey is located in the centre of a geography where the imperialist war is in full heat continues to offer Erdoğan’s fascism manoeuvring opportunities between the two imperialist camps. Although Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia, even though it is a NATO power, occasionally drives a wedge between it and the US, the US is restrained by its concern not to lose Turkey completely to the Russian camp and by the fact that Turkey is an important partner in the Middle East policy. Turkey’s economic and military dependence on the West, on the other hand, restrains Erdoğan so that the status quo can be maintained without much disturbance.

The regime, which managed to steer its own ship by managing both camps in the Ukraine problem, is doing the same in the Middle East. Seeking to extend and deepen its occupation policy in Rojava to the entire Iraqi and Syrian borders, the regime seems to have attempted to turn the dust and smoke created by the Gaza war into an opportunity for this. Erdoğan, who poses as the protector of the Palestinian people while remaining silent on the genocide, continues to trade with Israel at full throttle and apparently receives some rewards from the USA in return. Although we do not know exactly what İbrahim Kalın (Head of Turkish Intelligence) and Hakan Fidan (Foreign Minister), who have been to the US in recent weeks, have been negotiating, we can assume that Erdoğan’s reintroduction of the plan for a 30-40 kilometre “safe zone” on the Iraqi and Syrian borders is related to this. This zone, which is likely to be subject to extensive military operations from the end of March onwards, is planned to be cleared of PKK forces in co-operation with Barzani and the Iraqi administration. The Kurdish people are now being thrown into the fire of the war in which the Palestinian people were burnt to death.

The bourgeois opposition, on the other hand, considers Erdoğan’s words about the operation as an election show, preventing the eyes of the labourers from turning to anything other than the elections and serving to cover up the real troubles. It is also clear that the bourgeois opposition, including the CHP, will fully support the creation of such an occupation zone. However, while they compete in nationalism with the fascist regime, it is not only the Kurdish people but all labourers who are suffering. This opposition, which serves to poison the labourers with nationalism, confines them to the ballot box in the face of real problems, and is never willing to take to the streets, is the greatest advantage of the fascist regime.

Before the 2023 May elections, the bourgeois opposition forces, who promised to put an end to this regime and bring good days, do not go one step further than pacifying the labourers and supplying blood to the regime with the policy they follow. They are accomplices in the descent of fascism on society like a black smoke. The recent experiences show once again that the working class has no choice but to rely on its own strength and struggle. Only the organised movement of the working class can disperse this smoke. That is what needs to be built up.