TURKEY: behind the coup of 1971

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perspectives of Stalinism and abolished. petty-bourgeois Castroism On the 15-16 July 1970 the class. ment.

proletarian revolution, an idea retreated.

These The coup of 12 March 1971 The period between 1960-71 in Turkey saw a massive growth of class struggle, starting almost immediately after the first military take-over in 1960.

The delay of the new junta in recognising the right to strike was the main target of the prolonged and bloody strikes and After the right to strike was recognised there were struggles over wages, trade union recognition and in defence of victimised militants.

These struggles were soon reflected in the political arena.

The Turkish Workers Party (TIP) was formed in 1961. by reformist trade unionists and intellectuals.

The yellow trade union confederation TURK-IS was founded as a reaction against the formation of the TIP, though in this period the TIP did not have any organic links with the trade unions and the working class.

Influence

But in the 1965 elections, in the conditions of rapid growth of the labour movement it was able to draw 276,000 votes and win 15 seats in the National Assembly.

This showed the TIP had some influence among workers, especially in the big cities such as Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul.

There was a gap between this sympathy from the workers and the TIP's ability to give it a political and. organisational expression.

This highest point of the TIP's development was therefore the moment of its deepest. political crisis.

Its policies right from the beginning were oriented toward electoralism and pacifist and therefore centred on collaboration with the capitalist class.

Until the late sixties it never claimed to be Marxist-Leninist. It was rather a purely Parliamentary organisation.

The TIP made concessions to both nationalism and militarism. Its social composition was as heterogeneous as its politics. By the 1969 election its support was declining and it later split.

In the mid-sixties there was a rapid polarization of the youth movement based in the universities.

The works of Marx and Lenin were translated during this period, as also were the works of Stalin and Mao. The student • movement was completely isolated from the workers' movement and the rest of the masses.

Regroupments

Discussion was generally pitched at an academic level and many splits and regroupments resulted from these debates.

Even at this level, nowever, the strength of Marxist theory, albeit in its. Stalinist form, proved sufficient to draw students away fiom the TIP and petty-bourgeois "You" movement to groups which adopted variations of the Stalinist theory of a revolution to be accomplished in "stages" - first "democratic' capitalism, then at some point, socialism.

From the end of the sixties and up to the present these groups have been the large political organisations on the left outside the Communist Party, (Revolutionary Youth', People's Liberation', 'Liberation', etc).

In the politics of these movements, empirical impressions were brought together from the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions, as seen from limited rather than from the viewpoint of the independent working This involved the imposition of a necessary stage of the 'National Democratic Revolution' to be achieved before the wrawn fain i Stalin derived from the Mensheviks who on that very Oasis nau argued against the October 1917 revolution in Russia.

• The major form of organis• Was cem conclusion drawn from Castroorganisations, although largely Stalinist in tever controlled trom Moscare sector, finding themselves restricted and held back by the reactionary leadership of TURK-IS, joined DISK.

Strikes and occupations grew in step with DISK's expansion. From an initial membership of 10,000 in 1967, membership grew to over 300,000 in 1971 and over a million by the late seventies.

Both the pressure of the working class-which meant more resources "diverted" to social services-and the workings of the capitalist economy created insoluble problems for the Turkish bourgeoisie.

In countries such as Turkey industrial development entails a growth in imports-raw materials and machinery.

This results in trade deficits. The only productive area that can make up the deficit is agriculture. But here there are two related problems.

Firstly, agricultural production canriot grow as fast as industrial production-requiring extensive investment and development before any returns are seen.

For this reason the capitalist looks to industry for a quicker profit.

Crises

The resulting failure to develop agriculture means that increasingly agricultural exports fail to finance industrial imports and industrial development falters as financial crises follow.

In this context, it became imperative for the bourgeois government of Demirel to inflict a defeat on the workers' moveTroops on the streets in Turkey ment and to this end DISK was workers of Istanbul rebelled against this move by the governFor two days, 150,000 workers took to the streets in defiance of army tanks, and in the face of this the government Confusion in the ranks. of the ruling class about what to do next was covered Ine introduction of martial law for three months in Istanbul But the strikes and occupations continued, and it was this response by the working class to the economic and political crisis that convinced generals to take power.

did not dissolve Parliament Instead it appointed a Prime Minister to form a government "above the parties'.

But there was a major difference in 1971 in the attitude of the army to the finance capitalists and to imperialism.

The element of petty bourgeois nationalism-Kemalism-of the 1960 coup was repressed in 1971.

In 1961 top state officials had set up OYAK, a sort of cross between a cooperative and a pension fund, for army personnel. It was financially supported by the government and by private banks.

By 1970 the army, through this organisation, had direct links with International Harvester, • Goodyear, and Renault in Turkey.

In that year distribution of OYAK profits was on the basis of army rank.

In the first weeks after the 1971 coup the generals purged those elements who still clung to Kemalism.

Having 'cleansed' their own ranks the army took on the organisations of the working class, perpetually postponing strikes, arresting and torturing militants: and trade union leaders.

: In the two years of this repression a degree of profitability was restored, sections of smaller capitalists were eliminaed and those parts of the 1960 constitution which were considered too democratic were struck out.

The 1971 coup was an attempt by the big bourgeoisie to inflict a series of defeats on workers, accelerating the process of capital accumulation, through the measures taken by the military regime, restoring economic and political stability.

The reaction of the working class showed political militancy and organisational strength which the 1971 coup was only able to repress, not destroy.

Its significance was that the coup marked the complete integration of Turkey enomically, militarily and politically with imperialism.

This remains the real basis of the present regime of General Evren.

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19781 MADARMI