Fifty years ago, in 1972, the great communist leader İbrahim Kaypakkaya founded the Communist Party of Turkey / Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML). Together with his comrades, he took up in Turkey the historical task of the proletariat of every country: to build the Party of the revolution, and to raise the red flag to new victories. The TKP/ML is the continuation of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) founded by Mustafa Suphi in September 1920 and immediately repressed. Thanks to the TKP/ML the torch lit by the TKP was rekindled and communism regained its Party in Turkey.
The TKP/ML was established in the conditions where it was needed more than ever. In 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from China swept across the world. The 1968 movement, which was a great year of revolt all over the world, raised the masses of Turkey. The youth adopted slogans against imperialism, especially US imperialism, fascism and for revolution. On June 15-16, 1970, the working class took to the streets of Istanbul and erected barricades in resistance to repression.
The whole of the early 1970s was marked by events that proved that the revolutionary wind was blowing across Turkey. In this volcanic eruption of struggle, İbrahim Kaypakkaya asserts that the ideology of the TKP/ML is the product of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The line of demarcation is drawn with all the petty bourgeois organizations in the country: the TKP/ML adopts people’s war against adventurism and focoism, it asserts that Turkey needs a revolution of new democracy that puts down the semi-colonial semi-feudal regime, it unmasks Kemalism as a fascist current, it explains the Marxist point of view on the Kurdish nation. In summary, the TKP/ML erected its guiding line by seizing Marxism against all those who had trampled it for 50 years. All this, İbrahim Kaypakkaya and his Party did under the worst conditions of repression and hounding by the fascist government that wanted to crush the revolutionary unity of the proletariat and the peasantry.
After its birth, the TKP/ML armed the people with the Workers’ and Peasants’ Liberation Army of Turkey (TiKKO). The great revolutionary wave of armed struggle sweeps over Turkey. İbrahim Kaypakkaya defends the Party until his death, assassinated by the worst torturers of the Turkish fascist government on May 18, 1973. He was only 24 years old.
From France, where the historical task of reconstituting the Communist Party is incumbent upon us, we would like to salute the heroic establishment of the TKP/ML 50 years ago, its persistence until today, its 1st Congress held in 2019 and the protracted people’s war of the masses of Turkey. The 1st Congress especially, held in the most difficult situation due to the repressive targeting and assassinations of communists, is an important step for the revolution.
We especially celebrate the line of the Party, which continued in the people’s war, which showed its faith in the masses of Turkey and the importance of the revolution in Turkey for the world proletarian revolution as a whole. Generations of communists have given their blood, sweat and lives in the service of class liberation, not only in Turkey, but all over the world. The contribution of the TKP/ML and its cadres to this process humbles us. All the obstacles that stood in front of the guerrilla war were finally overcome. The capitulations, liquidationism, inevitable defeats… have been swept away by the Party line for 50 years without stopping! The martyrs of the revolution in Turkey, who are our martyrs, the martyrs of the international proletariat, have fallen because they fought for the liberation of all the exploited. We salute them because they are immortalized in our struggle that continues!
This tenacious line and longevity in the people’s war would have been impossible if the TKP/ML had not armed itself with the ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), the third and highest stage of Marxism. İbrahim Kaypakkaya was one of Chairman Mao’s best students, and the TKP/ML and all Maoists around the world are themselves students of İbrahim Kaypakkaya. Unwavering adherence to the ideology of the proletariat is the concrete condition for overcoming the terrible obstacles that are put in our revolutionary path at every moment by the enemy. Maoism is the highest theory given to us by the international proletariat, developed uninterruptedly from 1848 until today. We must always start from the principles of our ideology to attack our urgent tasks. This is a lesson that the TKP/ML gives to communists all over the world. Imperialism that enslaves the oppressed peoples of the earth, the bourgeoisie that sucks the life out of us for profit, all the remnants of landlord feudalism, and fascism, that infamous terrorist government, are all swept away by our proletarian ideology. The general crisis of imperialism must be wiped out by Maoism because Maoism is the response of an international class that is organizing and rising up to wrest power from the hands of the exploiting classes.
As we live through an imperialist war in Europe, this lesson is all the more important. The oppression of the peoples of the world by the imperialist powers that divide the world between themselves is staggering. It is more violent, more pressing, more explosive, as shown by the Ukrainian situation among many others in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and now Europe. The bourgeoisie of all countries is accentuating its exploitation, as shown by the price increases that our billions of comrades of the proletariat and the popular masses have to take and bear in the midst of mass unemployment, miserable wages and landlessness. The imperialist ogres look at each other with dreams of war and destruction. This unstable, reactionary and counter-revolutionary order cannot be maintained without resistance, without facing the offensive of the class that wants its liberation. Where there is oppression, there is resistance! It is right to rebel !
The 1st Congress of the TKP/ML called on the communists: “NOW IT IS THE TIME TO TAKE A STEP FORWARD! It is the time for the one who sits to stand up, for the one who stands up to walk, for the one who walks to run.”
This call resounds beyond borders, it is valid in France as well as in Turkey and everywhere else. The international proletariat needs its Parties, its battalions, its weapons to bring down imperialism all over the world. We have to assume this task. Our conviction is that the TKP/ML is the Party of Revolution in Turkey and it will succeed in raising our red flag higher than it has ever flown in Turkey!
- LONG LIVE TKP/ML, WHICH 50 YEARS AGO RAISED THE RED FLAG OF COMMUNISM IN TURKEY AGAIN!
- LONG LIVE IBRAHIM KAYPAKKAYA, FOUNDER, LEADER AND THEORETICIAN OF TKP/ML!
- GLORY TO THE COMRADES WHO BECAME IMMORTAL ON THE ROAD TO COMMUNISM!
- LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S WAR!
- LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
- LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM!
MAOİST COMMUNIST PARTY – FRANCE
April 2022
