Monday, September 16, 2024

Communist Party of Turkey: TKP 14th Congress Political Report and Resolutions

The 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) was held on the weekend of September 7-8, with the participation of almost 400 Party delegates from across the country, under the slogan "STRENGTHENING FOR REVOLUTIONARY TASKS, THROUGH STRENGTHENING TOWARDS REVOLUTION AND SOCIALISM". 

You can read here the Political Report of the 14th TKP Congress.

The following Resolutions were adopted by the 14th TKP Congress:

RESOLUTION NO: 1

Fight Against the Holdings Will Be Extended

The Turkish capitalist class uses all the resources of the country. Thanks to the opportunities provided by the state through incentives, privileges and grants, the bosses make great profits. While workers, retirees and the unemployed are in debt, monopolies and holdings increase their profits, holding families increase their wealth and live in abundance. Ending this great robbery based on labor exploitation is the reason for the existence of the Communist Party of Turkey.

Taking into account the aggravated consequences of the recently implemented economic program for our working people, our party has waged a struggle against the robbery in question by placing holding companies at the center. With this struggle carried out with various tools and actions against the monopolies, not only the enormous profits obtained by the companies have been exposed, but it has also been concretely demonstrated that it is possible to eliminate the ongoing great inequality and that there are sufficient resources for this. The struggle of the TKP has attracted attention and created an impact despite the great censorship applied.

In this regards, the party undertakes to do the following: 

1. It expands and continues the struggle against holdings, which it announced in June with the slogan “Let the profits and assests of holdings be sacrificed for our people”.

2. Based on the tasks defined in the 14th Congress political report, it exposes the capital accumulations, profits, incentives and financial assets of selected holdings and affiliated companies, together with the wealth of the holding families.

3. It compares the results of the economic program implemented under the management of Mehmet Şimşek, Minister of Treasury and Finance, which are in the favor of the interests of the holdings and their affiliated companies, with the costs imposed on the workers. It actively propagates this comparison with all means.

4. It evaluates the struggle against holdings as part of the “enlightenment mobilization targeting the working class” defined in the 14th Congress political report. It plans and implements concrete productions that will strengthen this struggle, especially in the fields of education, culture and arts.

5. It strengthens the call for organization made to the workers working in the selected holdings and affiliated companies. It assigns additional tasks to party members and volunteers working in these companies. It develops relations with the workers who contact the party. It targets new workplaces to get organised.

 

RESOLUTION NO: 2

No to NATO and the Imperialist War

1. Breaking away from imperialist agreements and institutions will be one of the first decisions and practices of our socialist government, and as a part of this, Turkey will exit NATO. However, the demand to exit NATO is also an urgent and priority struggle topic today. TKP will fulfill its duties under this topic.

2. The widespread reaction against US imperialism and NATO in society is being polluted and rendered useless by nationalist and Islamist segments and the bourgeois politics as a whole with hypocrisy, demagogic discourses, pragmatism, racism and xenophobia. The entire history of the AKP government is full of examples of unprincipled policies that oscillate between bargaining and surrendering against the US and other imperialist countries, being passed off as a local and national stance. The Communist Party of Turkey has the duty to thwart this demagogy and lie.

3. The idea that Turkey will move away from modernity and democracy if it breaks away from NATO is the claim of a wide segment, from liberals to social democrats. This claim can only be refuted on a class basis, by proving on a social level that NATO is an offensive organization of multinational monopolies against working people. In the upcoming period, TKP will enter into a relentless showdown with this type of NATOism.

4. NATO is not only a military alliance, but also a comprehensive imperialist tutelage tool that influences its member countries politically, culturally, economically and ideologically. With this feature, NATO has the ability to influence its member countries not externally but internally. TKP will do everything to discredit NATOism, and in the same sense Americanism, Europeanism and liberalism in Turkey in the eyes of the people. In the face of this, it will propagandize that not only independence but also a civilized, humane and developed life is possible through socialism.

5. The possibility that Turkey will be dragged into an imperialist war of plunder on NATO’s tail should not be disregarded. The life of none of our youth can be sacrificed to the profit ambition of imperialist monopolies. To this end, TKP will expand the contact surface with all of Turkey’s accumulation of working class patriotism and increase the struggle against NATO and imperialist war. TKP is launching a mobilization with all of its organizations for the march organized by the People’s Representatives Assembly of Turkey with the slogan ‘No to NATO and Imperialist War’, which will start in Istanbul on September 15th and end in Incirlik on September 28th. The march will be followed by panels against NATO and war that will take place in many parts of Turkey covering the months of September and October, and the exhibition including cartoons and paintings with the same title, which opened digitally on September 1, will meet with our citizens in many cities. This agenda will be finalised with a large rally that will take place in Istanbul on November 3rd.

 

RESOLUTION NO: 3

Fight for a Secular Social System

1. The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) defines the principle of secularism as not basing political and social life and state affairs, in whole or in part, on religion and religious rules. It defends that religious belief is an individual choice; that every citizen is free to believe in any religion or not to believe, and to express these beliefs or not. It opposes and combats politicians and state administrators using language, discourse or actions that exploits religion. It also opposes and combats religious belief becoming a subject of social imposition.

2. Every religious reactionary and anti-secularist word and action of the Presidency of Religious Affairs is exposed, and a struggle is waged to disband the Presidency of Religious Affairs, which has become the central force for the organization of religious reactionism in social life.

3. Any organization established by religious groups for political, ideological, economic reasons other than coming together for worship purposes and serving the religionization of social life are considered as illegitimate formations against the secular social system. It is the primary duty of the TKP organizations to expose the activities of all religious sects and organizations within the state, in political and social life, and to put the dissolution of all religious sects and organisations on the agenda as a struggle topic. District Houses and Workers’ Houses will follow up on all kinds of religious sect activities and organizations, especially Quran courses and dormitories targeting young children in the neighborhoods and districts where they are located, and will struggle against these reactionary organisations. Anti-secular liberal theses that these reactionary organizations are part of democracy or civil society will be combated.

4. TKP opposes compulsory religious courses and religious education of children under the age of 16 in or out of school, and argues that religious education can only be considered as a subject of history and social sciences. In this context, in primary and secondary education; our primary duty will be to combat the implementation of compulsory religious education, Imam Hatip schools, children being forced to take additional religious courses under the guise of elective courses, the anti-science and anti-secular curriculum and course content of the “Turkish Century Education Model” that will start in the 2024-2025 academic year, the religious sect activities carried out in schools under the name of “I am sensitive to my environment and I protect my values” (ÇEDES) and the assignment of religious officials affiliated with the Presidency of Religious Affairs to schools.

District Houses and Workers’ Houses will host information meetings for parents, teachers and high school students and meetings to be held to establish local networks in order to protect our children against all kinds of religious reactionary activities and content and to defend scientific and secular education. Activities will be carried out in District Houses and Workers’ Houses in accordance with the principle of scientific and secular education to support children’s education and training.


RESOLUTION NO: 4

No to Drugs: Raise the Dose of Life

1. We will not allow our youth and citizens to be drugged. While drug trafficking has become a major economic sector, it also functions as one of the current system’s tools to corrupt and make society obey. The party and its youth organization, the Communist Youth of Turkey, are determined not to watch or remain silent.

2. The income obtained from drug trafficking does not only concern the underworld, and the wealth accumulated through this cannot be evaluated on the level of “black money”. As is the case all over the world, drug trafficking is used as a means of capital accumulation in Turkey, and the wealth created in this sinister sector is evaluated as resources in supposedly more prestigious and clean sectors. One of the most fundamental reasons why drug trafficking cannot be prevented is that the capitalist system needs this enormous income it obtains from poisoning people.

3. Drug trafficking can be largely eliminated with a determined government. The proof of this is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Thanks to tough measures and the socialist system itself, drugs ceased to be a widespread problem in the Soviet Union for a long time. When the Soviet Union collapsed, drug lords flocked to the former Soviet Republics. Socialism makes us live, capitalism kills us. Today, there is not a single capitalist country that has solved the drug problem. The drug menace is another justification for the collapse of capitalism.

4. We need to question why the security forces, who boast of “knowing every bird that flies”, have not been able to prevent the increase in drug use in Turkey and we need to address this issue. Drug use has regressed to primary school, and due to the variety of poisons in the market, different options are easily offered to the rich and the poor. While many young workers struggle with heavy exploitation and poverty and try to soothe their hopelessness with drugs, young students enter the same path with a sense of futurelessness. Yes, this system poisons our youth and both makes money and provides the conditions for them to submit to exploitation, injustice and unfairness. We will hold everyone involved in this crime accountable.

5. The ideological struggle against those who see and try to portray drug use as a liberation, and who separate drugs into harmful and harmless, which is scientifically incorrect either, is a part of the struggle against drugs. The struggle against drugs will be carried out together with the struggle against all kinds of addiction, and the Party will mobilize all its resources so that our youth can break the siege of sects on the one hand and substance addiction, gambling and similar habits on the other.

6. The Communist Youth of Turkey opened a multi-dimensional struggle against addiction with the slogan of Raise the Dose of Life last term, and on this occasion, it made an effort to create a drug-free area by creating new recreation areas for young people with artistic, cultural and sports activities, starting from its own peripheries, and in this context, it increased the political and ideological struggle. The struggle will continue with more effective methods. The slogan of Raise the Dose of Life will be made felt in all working-class neighborhoods outside of universities and high schools, and drug-free areas will be created in these areas, starting from our immediate surroundings.

7. TKP has decided in its 14th Congress that it will engage in a tough fight against drugs through District Houses spread throughout Turkey, with the joint efforts of local organizations and youth organizations. We will work with all our might to ensure that no fire falls on the houses of the poor, that working children are not poisoned, and that drug gangs are not able to roam freely in any neighborhood where TKP is present, and we will not allow them to push our working class into the pit. We will Raise the Dose of Life against Drugs!

 

RESOLUTION NO: 5

We Will Keep On Monitoring Local Governments

1. Party organizations will monitor local governments in every district and neighborhood where they work. Assignments are made within the organization within this scope.

2. Municipality Council meetings held at the beginning of each month in the districts where the organizations work are to be monitored. The outputs of the council meetings are examined by taking the agendas of the relevant locality as data, and focus on the topics of struggle.

3. Solidarity networks are aimed to be established among municipal employees. While these networks enable organization within municipalities, they will also allow for the expansion of information sources and contact circles in terms of monitoring local governments.

4. Areas that may be subject to rent within the borders of local governments are to be listed by the relevant organizations. After these areas are identified, information on the connections between the municipality and companies is collected. The relationship between the areas subject to rent and the needs of that locality is determined, and the struggle against rent is put on the agenda of the local people by focusing on the needs of the people.

5. Although it is related to the topic of rent, urban transformation, which is directly on the agenda of local governments, requires a special focus. Urban transformation works, where a major operation is carried out with the earthquake agenda, constitute a major area of ​​profit. Especially poor neighborhoods located in or near city centers are the focal points of urban transformation projects. All organizations will identify neighborhoods that will fall within this scope in their work areas and aim to create intervention channels in the relevant neighborhoods.

6. Earthquake emergency gathering areas that are directly related to urban transformation and the profit agenda are determined by our organizations. It is determined whether these areas are opened to profit through various methods, such as cafes, parking lots, etc. If necessary, new earthquake emergency gathering areas are requested and a struggle topic is raised.

7. Regardless of whether the municipalities are in the hands of the party in power or in opposition, the sect connections of all municipalities will be examined by the organizations. Agendas such as consultancies, opening local government resources to sects, and the involvement of sect members in the social and educational activities of the municipalities are followed up by the organizations, deciphered, and the struggle for secularism is increased.

8. Our organizations will strengthen the work of the People’s Representative Assembly of Turkey in monitoring local governments and will do their best to ensure that local councils operate as “shadow municipalities”.

 

RESOLUTION NO: 6

Our Priority On Solidarity with Cuba is the Fight Against Blockade

The Cuban Revolution has been fighting non-stop for 65 years. More than 60 years of this struggle have been spent under complete blockade conditions. The fact that Cuba was included in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism by the US meant that the Cuban people, who did not give up on socialism, were tested with hunger. The ways in which Cuba could survive economically were dynamited one by one by the US. The Cuban people, who were kneaded with advanced values, were deprived of their most basic needs. The destructive effects of the blockade, especially in the areas of energy production and food supply, continue to deeply affect social and economic life in Cuba.

The blockade has become the greatest obstacle in front of the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban people, who are capable of finding their own way with their own resources in the building of socialism, and the greatest threat to the survival of the Cuban Revolution.

The 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Turkey,

1. Under these conditions, declares that its priority in solidarity with Cuba is the struggle against the blockade. The Cuban Revolution did not allow internationalism to remain an abstract principle, and despite its limited resources, made solidarity with the peoples of the world an inseparable part of its revolutionary tasks. It is now the task of the world’s communists to increase solidarity with Cuba in its struggle against the blockade.

2. Resolves that the Party will duly fulfill its task in the struggle to end the blockade, to remove Cuba from the list of countries that sponsoring terrorism, and to stand in solidarity with Cuba to eliminate the consequences of the blockade.

3. Calls on the friends of Cuba to join the work that the José Martí Cuban Friendship Association has been carrying out for 22 years to increase solidarity with Cuba and to defend the revolution against the blockade.

4. Reiterates its solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and its vanguard, the Communist Party of Cuba.

Long live international revolutionary solidarity!

Long live the Cuban Revolution!

Down with the US blockade!

tkp.org.tr/en