COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY                         
 

The Stand of Communists vis-à-vis the European Union

 

The significance of a principled and correct approach to the question of the European Union has gained added impetus for the left movement in Turkey in general and the working class in particular at a time when the Turkish government is on the brink of commencing accession negotiations to the Union. Different sections of the left have been approaching the issue in different and sometimes diametrically opposed ways.

 

The question of a “United States of Europe” is not new and has occupied communists for well over a century. The crux of the matter has been and still is to complement it with revolutionary essence, content and policies. The post Second World War era has seen the establishment of the path to the European Union as we know it today.

 

Turkey – A Forty Years old Question

 

Turkey’s intention to join the Common Market dates back to the 1960s. The then Turkish left then came up with the slogan: “Their Common interests, our Market”.

 

They then developed an understanding of capitalist anti-imperialism. Imperialism was identified by The USA, the Common Market and their allied institutions. Anti imperialism enveloped national sovereignty while defending the state. This understanding fitted with the interests of the developing capitalism, with the bourgeoisie in general and finance capital in particular.

 

Protectionist policies continued in Turkey until the 1980s. The junta gradually relaxed these policies in an effort to open Turkey up to the World Market. Statism, on the other hand had been the fodder to create and perpetuate the national bourgeoisie and finance capital while oppressing the working class and the toiling masses.

 

These views have unfortunately gained a new dimension since the 1980s and are rampant among the “left” sympathetic to nationalistic ideals..

 

A new approach came in to being among the reformist left in the 1980s and the Kurdish movement in the 1990s in relation to the European Union. An expectation arose that accession would bring about democratisation, the observation of human rights, the recognition of the cultural rights of the Kurdish population and the harmonization of the legal Code. The same expectation is also true for the Turkish Cypriot population.

 

Our Stand

 

  1. Communists Cannot Take a Stand against the Intensification of Capital and the Deepening of the World Market

 

Such a stand taken for the sake of anti-imperialism, or its present day popular statement of anti-globalism, would only put communists on the same platform as the local, national bourgeoisie and the most reactionary sections under their influence.

 

Although the development and spread of capitalism throughout the world offers new opportunities to imperialism, we believe, when viewed historically, it represents a progressive process. The spread of the productive forces to the most backward corners of the world and the replacement of existing feudal (and pre-feudal) relationships with a working class based structure is a progressive development.

 

  1. Communists Cannot Take a Stand against the Centralisation of the Political System

 

The centralisation of the political system is a consequence of the deepening of the World Market and the intensification of capital. Nevertheless this centralisation does not necessarily coincide with “democratisation”. The capitalist economy is subject to periodic crises. Deep economic crises are accompanied by deep political crises. As a consequence of centralisation, under conditions of deep political crises, the bourgeois state exercises openly its unencumbered power.

 

We do not oppose the centralisation of the political system, but never give up the struggle against the restriction of democratic rights, to force bourgeois democracy to its limits, and our right to smash the bourgeois state and establish a state beyond any democracy a bourgeois state can offer.

 

We see the centralisation process as a tool to unite the toiling masses, overcome national barriers and expose the organisation of our class enemy. We see this as part of the struggle for true democracy.

 

  1. Communists Cannot Lay any Hope on Bourgeois Democracy

 

Marx, Engels and Lenin have criticised those who have laid hope on bourgeois democracy as charlatans who have misled the workers.

 

Those leftists who believe that a more advanced bourgeois democracy would be in offering to the people of Turkey, Kurdistan and Cyprus are mistaken. They are also confusing the workers and toiling masses.

 

When viewed from Turkey, Kurdistan or Northern Cyprus, the European Union may appear as a haven of human rights and democracy. There is no doubt that democratic gains made through centuries of struggle have made their mark, nevertheless it would be naïve to think that they can be transferred from one set of statute books into another. It would be a fantasy to promote this or that form of bourgeois state structure in place of the rule of the working class and the struggle for socialism. But it would be a betrayal to promote this to the working class and the toiling masses in the name of the left.  

 

  1. The ‘broad’ Democracy of the EU compared to that of Turkey is Stunt for the Working Class

 

The European Union has come about as the culmination of the agreement of imperialist countries of the world with its tentacles stretching to every part of the globe: A market with no Customs duties, common economic conditions and strict control of the workforce, a parliament with dysfunctional elected members. We can enumerate many more, including perhaps that an appreciable number of the member states are still Monarchies! Is it not time that a struggle was waged for Republics?

 

The European Union is an economic union where a common economic standard for the people has meant pulling back the living standards to the lowest common denominator. Xenophobia and migrant workers are blamed for the lowering of living standards, thereby dividing the working class. Competition fuelled by the bourgeoisie among the workers and contractual working have led to the lowest levels of unionisation in decades. We are fundamentally opposed to the concept of Fortress Europe. We, as communists, demand equal citizenship rights to residents in the Union wherever they live and work regardless of their country of origin.

 

We cannot give blind support to the European Union with the expectation of better days to come. The essence of our struggle is the defeat of bourgeois rule and the formation of a revolutionary state with the full participation of the working class.

 

  1. Proletarian Internationalism forms the Basis of the Communist Stand

 

Whether viewed nationally or internationally, the founding principle of communists finds its source in proletarian internationalism, based on the unity of the working class of the world, world revolution and organising under one roof.

 

This must be the guiding principle of our approach to the EU. Communists have the duty to strive for the Unity of the Trade Unions in Europe, a Single Party in Europe, a common strategy and publications. And we must take steps to realise this aim. The urgent task for communists is to accelerate the co-ordination of our activities to promote co-operation and make communists the true vanguard of the class

 

Communists must not forget Lenin’s advice that: “There are two nations in every modern nation: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There are two national cultures in every national culture. (…) What we call national culture is always the culture of the dominant nation. The slogan of national culture is a bourgeois (…) falsification. Our slogan is the international culture of democracy and the culture of the international working class movement”. (Lenin, CW V 14 p 22).

 

Yet as Turkish Communists we are only too aware of the plight of the Kurdish people and the struggle they have waged. It is our duty to reiterate our utter and unequivocal belief in the right to self determination of nations so long as national borders exist.

 

And yet there is another side to the coin. Our priority is to resist the temptation of the working class of Europe to defect to the fold of imperialism on the crumbs meted out on the basis of super profits. We must defend the unity and interests of the working class of the world; defend the interests of humanity before the interests of the working class of Europe.

 

Levent Dalyan

Communist Party of Turkey (TKP)

International Department