Turkey Seeds of Civil War

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From our own Correspondent One of the central political issues in Turkey is now what should be the attitude of the working class to the bourgeois Republican Popular Party led by former prime minister Ecevit.

Stalinist leaders of the working lass describe support for Ecevit, who is the main «progressive" political face of capitalism, as revolutionary duty.

FACTORY OCCUPATION But at the same time Ecevit has launched an attack on the 4,000 Profilo workers who occupied their factory against the victimisation of 18 workers and who fought an Berlinguer, General Secretary of the Italian CP. armed battle with police. The police murdered one worker and wounded over 50, alleging them to be 'terrorists' The treachery of leading workers into this bourgeois party was brought out clearly in discussions I had with some youth members of the RPP in Istanbul.

They were on a 24-hour guard, protecting their party offices against fascist attack. They told, me in many towns youth sections of the party had been expelled. (There is a two-year candidate membership in the RPP, introduced after the Stalinists turned to attempt entry work in the Party).

The youth told me "we are fighting against capitalism in. the RPP" - ignorant of the fact that the RPP is a capitalist party!

3: 2-01-23 4S****0* 7: 9W009 CRISiS The price of the failure of the Turkish Communist Party to develop an independent party of the working class has been high.

In the recent period alone over 3,000 have been sacked, several workers killed, and hundreds wounded as a result of attacks from police and fascists.

While the Stalinists have been busy diverting away from these issues, the right wing trade union bureaucrats have collaborated in detail with police and even fascist forces to suppress any opposition.

In Ankara one victimised worker, a road builder, told me:

"The right wing bureaucrats and the fascists were in absolute collaboration in suppressing our struggle. When an opposition emerged in the road workers' union 30,000 Marchais, General Secretary of the French C1 strong), and managed to call an emergency conference to elect the union's general committee, the right wing bureaucrats went to the courts and used a legal judgement to ban the conference.

Immediately afterwards the right wing organised another conference, telling nobody until the day before. On the day of the conference they brought along 200-300 fascists who prevented militants entering the conference and reinstated the right wing general committee.

Directly after the conference the employers began to sack all militants."

The collaboration between bureaucrats and fascists is not new in Turkey. Two of the biggest oil refineries in Turkey are still controlled by fascists, as also are a number of other factories.

With the reopening of the schools, fascist attacks have commenced at once. Nearly every day a student is either killed or wounded. In the last two years over 3,000 students lost their places either through suspension or intimidation by fascists in their bid for control of the schools.

VIOLENT ATTACKS

Teachers too have been subjected to violent attack. Hundreds of teachers have lost their jobs, and others have been killed or wounded. The government recently attempted to outlaw the Stalinist controlled TOB-DER (Turkish Teachers Association), the union representing the 130,000 teachers. However, the was ruled unconstitutional, and the union has reopened.

The fascist attacks, the recent general strike, the rising prices are the daily discussion points in the streets. But there is a silence on what to do about it all.

Most of the streets are controlled by either fascists or the leftwing. Every wall is daubed with political slogans. This is the every day evidence of seeds of civil war There is a growing popular hostility to the fascists and the ruling National Front government, especially around the issues of mass unemployment and rising prices (average rents are now over half the average wage).

But as the recent general strike showed, the question of a revolutionary leadership ready to mobilse the independent strengtn of the masses is the most burning question in Turkey today.

THE CAPITALIST PRESS last week could hardly conceal their delight over at least one event in Ulster: the murder of former Provisional Sinn Fein leader Maire Drumm by 'loyalist' gunmen in the Mater Hospital, Belfast.

To read the headlines and the abuse in such papers as the Sun and Mirror, you would think that Mrs. Drumm herself had done the killing instead of being the innocent victim of sectarian venom.

We at Socialist Press hold no brief for the rather right-wing political opinions of Mrs. Drumm, but we do recognise her as a genuine and vigorous opponent of British imperialism.

Her speeches against the barbarity of the British troops in Ireland brought down on her the hatred of every supporter of imperialist and capitalist exploitation.

The hundreds at her funeral give the lie to the propaganda in the capitalist press about the movement against the British presence being just the work of a few fanatical gunmen.

The struggle for Irish national independence is one that has gone on in every generation and in this period has lived through the forcefulness and dedication of those such as Maire Drumm.

We are not surprised to discover that the perpetrators of Mrs. Drumm's murder have not been apprehended.

However, we naturally suspicious about the fact that an inside knowledge of the routines of the hospital were necessary for the killing, and that those who did it got in and out without discovery long after visiting time:

It is also worth noting that the famous white coats used were found within hours in Hopewell Cresent in the 'loyalist' Shankill area.

How was it, we may ask, that the army found these "clues' so early, and yet were unable to discover the killers?

This raises, as so often before, the question of just who the so-called loyalist groups like 'Ulster Freedom Fighters' and 'Red Hand Commandoes', both of whom have claimed responsibility, actually work for.

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