Confusion on nature of new Turkish junta

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alist ideology emphasised or the workers movement. 'action' as an alternative to Social Democrats were theorising, summed up in branded as 'social fascist? and Mussolini's phrase "our doc- the Bruning, Von Papen, His equally clear declaration regarded as "faseist" twelve million votes testifies to of Stalinism from which Iscinin fascism's extra-parliamentary Sesi drinks. Let them examine, terroristic character-"a species as victims themselves of Stalinof civil service for the manufac- ism's contemporary crisis, the fascism and other bourgeois Congress, all attempts to scienforces or among the fascists tifically define quite diverse themselves. political phenomena were abanHitler's SA militia squads doned. Under the umbrella of were actually banned by 'fascist' sheltered the Chinese Bruning and the army generals Kuomintang, in 1932, and their ultimate Pilsudski in Poland and a host of clashes between 1933 and 1936. leading British Stalinist Palme Similarly, the Nazis' anti- Dutt declared that Roosevelt's capitalist demogogy and -Newl Deal' government in the 'socialist' rhetoric was forced to USA was:

Unlike Spain, which went through a protracted civil war, Mussolini and Hitler built mass civilian fascist movements to achieve the atomisation of the workers' movement.

Drawn from mainly petty bourgeois layers, their use to the bosses was as a force in the factories and on the streets complementing the violence of the state apparatus against the working class.

Like the Grey Wolves of the fascist National Action Party today in Turkey they strove to convince the capitalists at home and abroad that they had the solution to their problems and the capacity to take control of the state.

"Action" (

Their frenzied, ultra-nationtrine is the deed"

of preferring 50,000 rifles to ture of obedience."

That does not mean sharp built. divisions did not exist between integration into the existing others. state machine led to repeated give way to the realities of state power, purges against fascism's 'left' wing resulted in the liquidation of these forces.

"One wing"

The method of Iscinin Sesi has no time for these objective historical comparisons. To explain the Turkish junta's classically bonapartist 'above classes' stance, bolstered by their arrest, trial and hanging of fascists along with left militants, Iscinin Sesi say baldly that Evren is merely "one wing" of fascism and Turkes' NAP is another!

Such disagreements with Trotskyism are not new. They have their roots in the Comintern's ultra-left lurch in the late 1920s.

It meant that the rise of Hitler was actually facilitated by the chronic inability to define arruratelv either the houroenisie Scheider regimes were It is this same poisoned well ideological debris on which it is After the Comintern's Fifth . Peronist, At the 13th Plenum in 1933, "the most advanced example of the classical type of fascist development to be found among the imperialist countries."

Iscinin Sesi find themselves in bad company!

Against this can be counterposed Trotsky's struggle to present a revolutionary analysis of fascism:

"At the moment that the 'normal' police and military resources of the bourgeoisie's dictatorship together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium-the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and bands of the declassed and demoralised lumpenproletariat, all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.

From fascism the bourgeoisie demands a thorough job; once it has resorted to methods of civil war it insists on having peace for a period of years.

And the fascist agency, by utilising the petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram, by overwhelming all obstacles in its path, does a thorough job. After lascism is victorious finance capital gathers in its hands, as in a vice of steel, directly and immediately, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty.

The executive, administrative and educational power of the state; the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions and the cooperatives.

When a state turns fascist it does not mean that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance with the pattern set by Mussolini-the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role-but it means primarily and above all, that the workers' organisations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to amorphous state; and that a system of administration created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallisation of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism." (Our emphasis). (Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, p.155, Pathfinder edition).

And again in the same Trotsky insists:

•.. in order to find a way out the • bourgeoisie must absolutely rid itself of the pressure exerted by the workers' organisations; these must be eliminated, destroyed and utterly crushed.

At this juncture the historic role of fascism begins. It raises to their feet those classes that are immediately above the proletariat and that are even in dread of being forced down into its ranks; it organises and militarises them at the expense of finance capital, under the cover of the official government and directs them to the extirpation of proletarian organisations from the most revolutionary to the most conservative.

Fascism is not merely a system of reprisals, of brutal force and of police terror. Fascism is a particular governmental system based on the uprooting of all elements of proletarian democracy within bourgeois society.

The task of fascism lies'not only in destroying the communist vanguard but in holding the entire class in a state of forced disunity. To this end. the physical annihilation of the most revolutionary section of the workers does not suffice.

It is also necessary to smash all independent and voluntary organisations; to demolish all the defensive bulwarks of the proletariat and to uproot whatever has been achieved during three-quarters of a century by the Social Democracy and the trade unions."

Ibid, p.

Trotsky goes on to s how this analysis was dominant position within Comintern before the " period':

"The Italian commur who have had to study problem of fascism for a time have protested time again against the widesp abuse of these concepts.

Formerly, at the Congress of the Comin Ercoli (Palmiro Togliatti, le of the Italian CP) was still mulating views on the que: of fascism which are credited as Trotskyist' Ercoli at that time def fascism as being the 1 thorough and uncomprom system of reaction and explained: 'This administri supports itself not by cruelty of its terroristic acts by murdering large numbei workers and peasants, no applying on a large scale vi methods of brutal torture by the severity of its law er but its dependence on systematic annihilation of and every form of the inde dent organisation of masses."

In this Ercoli is absol correct. The gist of fascism its tasks consist in a com suppression of all wor organisations and in the pri tion of their revival. In a d oped capitalist society this cannot be achieved by p alone. 114. show the the third nists, the long and ¡read six th tern, sader I forstion now fined most ising he ation . the i, not Is of t by aried , not ourts the each epenthe utely i and plete kers' evenleveli goal olice by the pressure of the desperate masses of the petty bourgeoisie. It is this particular system of capitalist reaction that has entered history under the name of fascism."

(Ibid, p.150)

This is exactly what makes fascism a distinct type of rule. In order to be able to carry out this 'atomisation' of the working class, fascism must have a mass base, organised and armed.

In Turkey this goal is not accomplished simply by closing the doors of DISK, the independent trade union confederation but by the kind of attacks seen in Izmir early last year. There the DISK organised workers in the TARIS factories were faced with fascist gangs, under the direction of Demirel's Justice Party government, attempting unsuccessfully to physically install the fascist MISK trade union.

Evren's repression is imposed directly through the police/ military apparatus not by civilian armed thugs. This does not make it in some way better, any more than to say it is not fascist is to give it anti-fascist credentials.

The point is to accurately draw out the form of rule resorted to by the ruling class, the better to prepare the proletariat to defeat it.

What can be achieved by a fascist dictatorship cannot be accomplished by the military alone. Trotsky makes this point in Whither France?:

"The discontent of the workers and peasants however cannot be brought to an end by the police alone. Moreover it is often impossible to make the army march against the people.

It begins by disintegrating and ends with the passage of a large section of the soldiers over to the people's side.

That is why finance capital is obliged to create special armed bands trained to fight the workers just as a certain breed of dog is trained to hunt game."

The common name for fascists in Turkey is also 'dogs' and the last four or five years have seen thousands of workers and revolutionaries slaughtered by the fascists in collaboration with the state.

Factories, schools and colleges, villages and whole towns have been taken over by the fascists and no go' areas. established against the left and even liberals and the RPP.

All this has been central to the growing extention of martial law and the eventual military takeover.

Marxists do not begin from some abstract 'degrees of reaction' of authoritarian regimes, nor is it possible to substitute sociological definitions or moral outrage for class analysis.

Our task is to arm the working class with a precise understanding of its enemies-and Iscinin Sesi's failure to do this can only lead to disorientation.

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a1030 Britai hidae afahildamun falle main/y Part Ann histor the fig three of series of articles by McKinley looking at the " and political background to ht for childcare facilities. the allocation greatly increased resources this state service."

The working party therefore steered well clear of any practical proposals as to how their schemes should be fought for by the working class.

Despite this criticism the Report (now conveniently out of print) offers a sharp insight into the plight of working mothers under the present lack of nursery facilities when it was written.

Without child care provision the mother is forced to remain in the role of wife/mother, denied financial independence, social status, and contact with the organisations of the working class.

Many women find, themselves forced to take on work in the home childminding being the largest single category.

Such work is non-unionised, uninsured, leaving the individual deprived of sickness and holiday pay, and faced with the costs of using her own home as business premises. The largely female home-working labour force is known to exceed 250,000.

Surveys in the Report show that many more women would go out to work if child care facilities were available, and that as a result of the present patterns of child care women