May Day Used for Army Rehearsal

Scan page 3

May Day proved to be a dress rehearsal for the imposition of a military/ fascist regime in Turkey.

The biggest military operation against the labour movement in recent history was staged, along with 5,000 arrests banning of demonstrations in over 30 cities.

Towns such as Istanbul were actually occupied by thousands of troops with armoured cars and roadblocks from April 29 to Among the thousands arrested was the entire leadership of the left wing trade union confederation DISK and various other union leaders.

State forces allowed only one May Day demonstration -in Mersin. But even there they imposed a ban on any flags other than the Turkish national flag;: banned the singing of the 'Internationale' and banned the carrying of pictures of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

• The DISK leaders played a key role in this-organising no resistance, and failing even to issue an appeal until April 28, when they called a one-day General Strike for April 30 in protest against the May Day repression.

DISK leaders also failed to challenge the ban on demonstrations-effectively retreating without a fight.

There was no serious fight to implement the General Strike call, and action was chiefly restricted to ½-day bus strikes in areas controlled by "left wing" members Ine opposition bourgeois party the RPP-who were less likely to impose massive victimisations on strikers.

Meanwhile RPP leader Ecevit lent his full support to the moves by the right wing Demirel government and the military to crush the May Day demonstrations.

He issued a special appeal to all workers and especially to working class RPP supporters not to join May Day marches behind "red flags"! Ecevit also attacked the 'irresponsible' strike call from DISK.

Ecevit's latest opportunist shift to anticommunism seems related to the deal being struck between the RPP and the ultra-right wing National Salvation Party, whereby the NSP will back an RPP candidate in the.presidential elections.

Despite this obstruction the march, convened by DISK, attracted 50,000 militants-and other small marches took place in and outside cities where they had been banned.

In clashes between militants and state forces several workers were killed -though in general the government was successful in suppressing the traditional May Day demonstrations while preparing the ground for further attacks.

While Ecevit-the "democratic" darling of the Turkish Communist Party and the reformist bureaucracyflirts with the vicious enemies of the working class, the fascists and extreme right wing seized on the opportunities presented by the anti-communist witchhunt to launch their own counter demonstrations and a big rally under the. slogan "Respect the Turkish flag"

Once again the bitter experience of the Turkish workers movement underlines the fact that democratic and trade union rights can be defended not through blocs between workers organisations Ecevit and "democratic" bourgeois politicians and parties but only through the struggle for revolutionary programme and leadership.

In Turkey this means fighting for a united front of working class organisations against fascist attacks, and for action to bring down the Demirel regime and establish a workers' and peasants' Demirel