The No to war in Iraq demo that was called by a Co-ordinating Committee made up of about 150 different organisations, including trade-unions, political parties, democratic mass organisations and various political journals and papers, was held on December 1 in Istanbul. Around 20,000 people turned up. This turnout was low for a country that faces the threat of war right next door across the border. That this number was very low becomes evident when we take into consideration that an overwhelming majority of 80-90 percent of the population is against the war according to the opinion polls and that 100,000 turned up for the May Day demo.

Although the blow inflicted by the toiling masses against the rotten bourgeois parties is welcome, we understand that, unless they are organised, the masses cannot reform this system. Nor can they resist the attacks of the capitalist system, whatever bourgeois party they bring to power. The task of communists, contrary to the propaganda of the bourgeois liberal priests, is to transform the anger of the working class into a conscious opposition to the system. Their task is to organise the struggle effectively, and prepare the way for the underlying opposition to the system to express itself clearly and prove itself on the streets. Now the broad masses are expecting jobs, democracy etc., from the AKP government. ... The truth has to be explained and the advanced layers need to be organised. This task falls on our shoulders. In a bid to save its morale, the bourgeoisie is presenting the AKP government as opening up a new period where its own interests can be defended. A new period also opens up for us, in which we need to step up the struggle in the interests of our class, the working class.