Major Union Near Split
Socialist Press1976 1976-05-19Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 3 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 3
Ecevit with Willy Brandt. try together with the workers?
The RPP is prepared to these policies to the workers"
FRAUD
Of course the entire proposal is fraud. Ecevit as a bourgeois politician is merely offering the top layers of the bureaucracy a slim chance of assisting the government attacks on their members. He is angling for CIWU support to prevent any turn by its membership to independent working class While Ecevit flirted with the bureaucracy, the ruling right-wing National Front leader Demirel made clear the reactionary essence of the present "above parties" stance of the CTWU, urging that "The CTWU must remain independent and must continue its "above political parties policy'. If the CTWU supports any political party it will confront others" Turkish troops attack demonstrators TT The final decision of the conference was that the CTWU should support a party until one wek after the date of elections is declared. This move was an attempt to hold the opposition federations within the CTWU.
The crisis of leadership in the Turkish workers' movement has been the more acute because of the historical backwardness and semi-colonial character of Turkish capitalism.
COUP
The establishment in the 1960s of a Turkish Labour Party (TLP) was then cut short by the coup of March 1971 which closed the party down.
The fight now within the CTWU poses again the need for a workers party independent of the bourgeoisie, particularly as the struggles sharpen against growing repression and fascist attacks on the Labour movement.
Only on the platform of political independence can workers build a firmly based united front against fascism and carry through the struggle against their own reactionary leadership.
A clear break from the policies of Ecevit and the CTWU leaders is needed, with a turn to building the Turkish Labour Party.
Such a step would change the entire balance of political forces in Turkey in favour of the working class, creating the best conditions to defeat fascism and fight for a workers' government.