Left unites: First Congress of the
Unified Socialist Party (BSP)
(Ankara, 16 June 1995) — Veiled women and children queue in front of an embroidery exhibition organised by the (Islamic fundamentalist) Refah Party, which took control of the municipal government in April last year.! Just across the road, a dozen fashionably-dressed policemen go through the bags of some 1,000 participants in the first congress of the Unified Socialist Party (BSP).
The Turkish paradox is that the bloody military dictatorship is over, but the laws have hardly changed. In practice, this conference of the far left can be held legally (with the participation of a government commissioner). At the same time the Kurdish people continue to suffer the most atrocious repression.
The atmoshere in the hall is cerinne
The atmosphere in the hall is serious, with moments of real tension. The stakes are high for all the Turkish left. Divided and decimated in the 1980s by the dictatorship, all the left groups have behind them a period of extremely sectarian debates, sometimes of physical confrontations. But now the majority of the anti-capitalist left has decided to create a new party. According to newly-elected president Sadun Aren, the BSP "is an expression of the need for a real opposition to the attacks of the bourgeoisie and imperialism on the Turkish working class. These attacks showed the irrelevance of almost all the traditional differences between the right wing parties and social democracy."
The Unified Socialist Party (BSP) unites over ten formerly independent groups. The two largest currents in the
Istanbul, 1st May 1995, far declined to join the BSP.)
According to Sadun Aren, "most of our component currents were very weak before we unified. We were unable to construct any real resistance to the coup d'état. And we paid heavily for our weakness and our internal divisions... And after the collapse of the USSR, a vacuum, or at least a turbulence, appeared in the ideological sphere. There were new questions to answer. We needed to discuss with each other about what conception of socialism, about how to renovate our project."
The BSP has just over 3,000 members in some 39 municipalities. 20% of delegates to the first congress were women. Half were blue or white collar workers.
There is no attempt to build the BSP in the Kurdish regions of the South East. The party denounces the military repression, and defends the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination. At the same time, BSP militants are more than reserved about the policy and behaviour of the hegemonic PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), which in any case is hardly interested in the Turkish workers' movement.
The congress was marked by a number of moving meetings with older political and trade union militants, with their bitter experience of prison, torture, exile or the new party are the Communists of the SBP (itself a regrouping of three former pro-Moscow parties) and Liberation (Kurtulus), the largest of the revolutionary Marxist movements of the 1970s. But the BSP also includes a number of smaller Communist currents, as well as Yeniyol, Turkish section of the Fourth International. (Congress also approved the process of convergence with Dev Yol, a similarly sized organisation which has so
Yeniyol inside the BSP: by Masis Kürkçügul "We animate a platform of comrades of various origins who share certain of our orientations. We have not renounced our [Trotskyist] programmatic identity and organisational structure, and we continue to publish our own magazine and pamphlets. But we do not consider ourselves an institutionalised tendency in the BSP. Our platform should serve as a base for discussion on how best to build the BSP. Yeniyol is only a small group inside the BSP. But we did well in the election of the leadership Masis won the largest single number of votes, while the student comrade Özlem O. was the highest scoring female candidate (fifth highest overall)]. Our contacts and debates with the other sections of the Fourth International give us a serious advantage in the BSP debates, and we are generally considered to be a dynamic element, able to propose fresh orientations on all the essential subjects." A view which seems to be confirmed by Erdal Kara, a leader of the Kurtulus (Liberation) current:
"Kurtulus and Yeniyol are the currents which
Sosyalist Demokrasi Için Yeniyol defend the ideas closest to the declared aims and spirit of the BSP. Our ideas and our way
The Turkish-language magazine for Marxists and feminists of doing things is somewhat different from nacibasi sok 31/1, 80 050 Beyoglu, Turkey. 1 year 300,000 TL plus postage that of the other currents." *
33
International Viewpoint #268 July 1995
Turkey armed struggle. Some 'old Stalinists' remarked how Book not strange — and good — it was to find themselves in one room with "Trotskyists'
"Some people accused the BSP of being a confederation, where the various currents 'stitch up' the leadership as a kind of cartel," says Yeniyol leader Masis Kürkçügul. "In fact, 'independents' won over 20% of leadership positions, which is The following publications are not available in rather high considering their real weight in the most commercial bookstores, because what the party. But both major currents [SBP and Kurtulus] authors have to say makes the rich and powerful realised it was important to give 'independents' a uncomfortable. real place. I would also note that we did not need to To order, try your nearest progressive bookstore, apply our rule of a minimum 30% quota for women contact the publishers directly, or write to La in the leadership. In fact, delegates spontaneously
Breche, 9 rue de Tunis, 75011 Paris, France tel. elected a rather higher proportion of women. (+33 1) 43 67 63 57 fax 43 79 29 61 (English,
"Some debates were about our past dijerences.
French and Spanish spoken). But most debates were about our future. For example, Congress refused to move towards a Where no price is given, we suggest you enclose a doctrinaire party form, with a rigid programme donation of US$ 10 in any convertible currency to cover the postage costs of the publisher written in the corridors of the congress by the top ideologues of each current. Delegates preferred to continue a process of formation of the thinking and The Revolution Betrayed collective will of the party through the struggles we are engaged in and the common reflection of the New Czech-language edition largest number of militants. Zrazena revoluce — Co je SSSR a kam speje?
"There was no significant divergence on the New corrected translation', overseen by Anna Sabatova central political resolutions, which gives us stable Introductions by Jaroslav Sabata and Petr Uhl. Dopinek common ground for developing BSP activities. A Brno, 1995 (264p.) 126 Kc/$5 US. ISBN 80-85765-30-6
Published with the financial support of the Marguerite Bonfew groups resigned from the leadership of the party, I think mainly because of their poor results in net foundation. the election of the [100 member] Central [Extracts from the Postscript by Petr Uhl] Committee. But none of them tried to oppose the Trotsky completed The Revolution betrayed in August construction of the party, and their frustration seems 1936. It was first published in French that same year. The to be a secondary phenomenon." book - probably his most important single work - was
"The different origins and traditions of our first published in Czech in 19372. The Russian manuscript various components is a real problem," says Erdal was only published (under the title What is the USSR and Kara, leader of the Kurtulus (Liberation) current. where is it going?) in 1972, by the Paris-based Slovo publi, "But it is neither realistic nor necessary for us to shing house, close to the Fourth International.3 fuse quickly. Not realistic because the differences of "Bureaucratic rule must give way to council (Soviet) demothe past cannot be overcome so easily. And not cracy," wrote Trotsky. The idea that such a change must necessary because this diversity is a source of be revolutionary, because the political system is not richness, and a guarantee for the future. The only capable of a democratic renaissance through its own way to achieve a real synthesis of the various forces, through its own institutions, became at least an currents is to intensify the BP's political activities, alternative in this country where enlightenment in the and for each of the currents to adopt positions on 1960s, and particularly the quasi-revolutionary expression these concrete activities, rather than about the of that reform in Spring 1968 was suffocated by Soviet divergences of the past. tanks and domestic capitulation. This alternative seemed to
"We should also understand that the debates we many people if not more realistic, then certainly more have had between ourselves so far don't interest attractive than a convergence with contemporary capitaanyone outside the BSP. These debates don't make lism, to say nothing of a return to the bourgeois order of the much sense to the workers. What they like about the pre-war period new party is that, after being divided for so many It is true that the Czechoslovak independent movement of years, the socialist currents have finally come the 1970s and 1980s adopted a gradualist conception, together to do real politics. This is the sine qua non according to which the liberalisation of the system.... was of our existence. If we forget this, the internal life of supposed to lead to parliamentary democracy and to a the BSP will be transformed into a vicious circle of combined market-planned economy. But alongside these bitter debates, paralysing our political action. I reformist theories there were also a range of revolutionary don't pretend that the difference in the political Marxist positions, drawing on Trotsky, Gramsci, Luxempositions of the various currents is unimportant. But burg, Deutscher, the Belgrade Praxis group, and Kuron and the last 18 months show that the only fertile debate Modzelewski's work of the first half of the 1960s. is that which is based on common activities." Supporters of these ideas referred to the anti-bureaucratic struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, (Berlin 1953, Poznan 1956, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) and to the stu-
1. Refah also controls the municipal governments of Istanbul and dent movements of the 1960s (Poland, Germany, YugoslaIzmir. An analysis of their record in local government will be published in the September 1995 issue of International Viewpoint. via, France, Mexico, Japan). 34 International Viewpoint #268 July 1995