Kemal Okuyan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and soL news portal columnist, wrote an article on a question the communists often confront during the election campaign of "This Social Order Must Change Platform."
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has called presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, seeking to extend his 15-year rule. TKP will not be allowed to take part in the parliamentary elections. "This Social Order Must Change Platform," formed to run independent electoral candidates after the TKP was banned to run for upcoming election.
Does our hostility against capitalists sit well with Erdoğan?
"The capitalists are uneasy with Erdoğan as well; you are undermining the front against him with your hostility to capital…"
Yes, we have heard such an objection occasionally. The trick here is that those who raise this objection often claim that they "know what exploitation is, " that they "even know what lies beyond exploitation, what we do not know," and they are "leftists themselves." They believe they would have the psychological upper hand in this way. They admit the existence of exploitation, unemployment, poverty, injustice and all that; they say that the issue at stake is a system-wide problem.
Hence, they claim all of your facts as their own and then they skillfully throw them away: "You cannot beat Erdoğan by antagonising the capitalists today. Besides, workers are oblivious and poor, they still vote for the AKP."
Then, smiling bitterly, they wander off. "I want communism even more than you, but life has taught me to be realistic," they say.
Please rest assured that those who tell us "not to rant against the capitalists" are those who do not want the established order to change. They believe that such a change would be disconcerting. In fact, the main reason why they dislike Erdoğan is that he raises hell. He yells, he meddles in everything, he screws up the education system, he messes up with everyone else, he embarks on adventures in foreign affairs, etc. Roughly speaking, what they want is to maintain the established order as it is.
Thus, when they say, "I also want to overthrow this system," it does not sound sincere at all. Well, perhaps the idea of transition to such a social order someday sounds nice to them since they know that communism would bring welfare, freedom and an incomparably higher cultural level for the people. Yet, that would only happen at the Greek calends…
This reminds us of the political style of Abdullah Gül [a founding member of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling AKP party, former president]: If everyone agrees upon my name and there is no candidate against me, then I may accept." Let it fall into his lap!
Anyway, enough with questioning the sincerity of those we mention and let us answer what they say about the capitalists. One by one, item by item; without leaving any room for them to escape…
1. It is the international monopolies which put Erdoğan and the AKP into power. Unless this explicit support, guidance, encouragement and intelligence were there, Erdoğan would have no chance at all in Turkish politics.
2. Erdoğan created a paradise for international monopolies in Turkey. Through privatisations, he transferred crucial and profitable public enterprises to the capitalists for pennies on the dollar; he cut labour costs by extorting workers’ rights; he provided the private sector the opportunity to plunder both underground and overland treasures; he transferred public resources to big monopolies through incentives, funds, credit facilities, tax policies, etc.; he eliminated all checks that may hinder this heist.
3. When we say "international monopolies," we are not talking about foreign capital. In the world of monopolies, in the imperialist world, concepts of foreign and domestic do not make sense. Is it possible to say that Koç, Doğuş, Sabancı or Ülker are "domestic"? Get out of here! Distinguishing big capitalists as foreign and domestic is nothing less than feeding children Panama bananas on the week of local products.
4. Erdoğan’s policies designed to revive capital have continued and are still going on uninterruptedly. There is not even a single capitalist who is not content with or complains about these policies. Moreover, it was the capitalists who knew the best that Erdoğan had to abuse people’s faith while oppressing labor, and they had no objection to that at all. This is what kept Erdoğan in power despite everything.
5. Well, how is it possible for a politician who gratified the capitalists, a small minority in the society, to remain in power with the votes of the poor for 16 years? The answer to this question is quite straightforward: they keep hold of the media, the judiciary and the police. And they keep hold of the "left" (even though it is fake) which is supposed to enlighten the poor. In addition to police oppression, judicial oppression and media isolation (which are only natural) upon those who tell the truth and strive to organize the working class against the capitalists, there is the "peer pressure" of the establishment left-wing (which is natural as well indeed).
6. At any rate, these shall be overcome. In order to overcome all that, we also need to have a better understanding of why capitalists have a beef with Erdoğan. At least some of them do… And this is not an all-out annoyance. For by no means they want to dispense with the enormous benefits Erdoğan granted them.
7. One reason why capitalists are annoyed with Erdoğan is that, in order not to lose his grip on power, he meddles too much in the capitalists’ affairs, upsets their internal balances, and even blackmails them occasionally. The capitalists, who are used to rule the country as they wish, believe that Erdoğan, who enabled them to reap tremendous profits, is very costly in other respects.
8. Another reason that concerns the capitalists is that Erdoğan is too unpredictable; he creates too much uncertainty with his personal maneuvers both in domestic and foreign affairs.
9. Finally, the capitalists realize that the anger Erdoğan causes among the society may not always be kept in check and may become a threat to the established order (during the June Uprising, the capitalist class felt that threat to the marrow).
10. As you may see, the capitalists are getting prepared for a Turkey without Erdoğan after they have their backs on their wall. As part of these preparations, the distance between the fundamentalist, nationalist and social democratic parties of Turkey has been closed; the interaction and solidarity between this bloc and the Kurdish political movement have been increased.
11. Now, the question is: is it possible to have freedom in Turkey as long as the capitalists fill their pockets, to safeguard even the most fundamental rights of the workers, to find a solution to unemployment and the high cost of living? Will the capitalists, who are shamelessly crying wolf even today, renounce their calls to forbid strikes, mitigate unfair distribution of income, give up using unemployment as a threat on workers, object to anti-labor verdicts coming out of courts? Will they say, "Don’t sell the sugar factories. Besides, let us give TÜPRAŞ, Telekom, SEKA, etc. back, because we behaved shamefully"?
12. The capitalists are only evildoers, nothing more. It is not because they are evil. In their social order, the main drive is to gain profits. They see everything with these eyes. Even the rage against Erdoğan!
