Fist fights at Ecevit's Congress

Scan page 12

Turkey by the government lican People's Party's MPs and of Prime Minister Ecevit Senators were among the opposparty's National Conference and physical fights within the last week. conference itself, as the political Turkish troops imposing martial law restrictions the Workers Socialist League, 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London, Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper.

FUND With the first month of the Special Fund now behind us we are still well short of the first £1,000.

The total received so far now stands at £740.90. The target is £2,500 which will enable us to embark upon an ambitious publishing programme throughout the next six months.

But without the full fund that publishing programme will not be fully realised.

There is no time to be wasted therefore in quickly reaching the first £1,000 and pressing ahead towards the target which must be raised by the end of July.

All donations to this fund or to the monthly Socialist Press Fund should be sent to 31, Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 1HR.

›y Folrose Ltd., for Anvil Printers Ltd., The rightward turn in met huge opposition in his The majority of his Repubition.

There were violent conflicts fight polarised around the question of party democracy.

And though the opposition's call for constitutional changes was narrowly defeated, the Congress illustrated that Ecevit has lost overall support within his own party.

The oppositionists sharply criticised the record of the government and its capitulation to the extreme right wing.

Such attacks" reflect the growing hostility to Ecevit's governmental measures within the Turkish working class and toiling masses.

One delegate said that the RPP came to power to attack the privileged rulers, but now we are under attack!

Other delegates raised the RPP's promises to abolish the anti communist laws 141 and 142, to unify the trade union movement and to expand democratic rights.

All we have done is repress those rights, they declared.

The Conference has yet to finish but this opposition has special significance at a time of acute political and economic crisis for the bourgeoisie in But of course even such opposition is in no way truly democratic or revolutionary.

It is simply aimed at reforming the bourgeois RPP as the 'left' face of Turkish capitalism.

In that sense, it offers no serious alternative to the working class movement in Turkey, which faces the danger of an historic defeat.

Prosecute

The recent anti-government advertisements by TUSIAD (Confederation of Employers) have sparked off sharp exchanges between Ecevit and business organisations.

Ecevit called on attorneys to prosecute those responsible for such advertisements and said that if Polder or Tobder (Police and Teachers' Federations) made such statements, attorneys would prosecute them too.

This sharp turn by Ecevit again shows the contradiction within his unstable bonapartist regime.

It must remembered that leaders the trade union confederation DISK and the Turkish , Labour Party along with hundreds of supporters have only just been released from prison after their actions on May Day. • Ecevit and his generals remain determined to play a balancing role over the classes for the sake of "national unity" and "national salvation"

But this is no more than a transitional regime for the bourgeoisie.

As long as Ecevit can hold back the working class movement and introduce anti-working class measures, they will keep him in power; but at the same time they are preparing for openly dictatorial rule.

The main question facing the working class movement is to mobilise independently against fascist threat and the attacks of the Ecevit government, and armed workers militias must be organised to fight the attacks of the fascists on the streets.

In the fight to break from Ecevit and for a united front of the working class, a Trotskyist party must be formed in