The Communist Party of Greece
The Communist Party of Turkey TKP-1920 04.10.2019
Dimitris Kutsumbas
The Communist Party of Greece
The General Secretary of The Central Committee
Dear Comrade Dimitris Kutsumbas
The organization which calls itself The Communist Party of Turkey but is known as SİP-TKP in Turkey, is announcing that it will host an international meeting on October 19 th.2019. You and many other communist parties will participate in this meeting. We would like to inform you once again about this party we call SİP-TKP as we also told you before.
The Communist Party of Turkey was established in Baku, 1920, under the leadership of Mustafa Suphi and Ethem Nejat. Almost a month after, October 18 th. 1920, another party had been established by Mustafa Kemal where members of parliament and high ranking military commanders very close to Mustafa Kemal had paticipated. Party’s name was The Communist Party of Turkey and the purpose of establishement was to control the revolutionary movement in Anatolia and to get the support of Soviet Russia. A Committee from this party was sent to paticipate in the meeting of Komintern. Komintern did not recognize this party, instead it recognised the TKP which was established in Baku which as the real representative of workers and laborers of Turkey. The committee sent by Mustafa Kemal had to return to Turkey but the Moscow supported Turkey in spite of the hard conditions of the time. Mustafa Kemal’s party was called the counterfeit or official TKP among the leftist and democratic circles in Turkey
Mustafa Suphi, Ethem Nejat and the 13 members of the Central Committee were assassinated under the command of Mustafa Kemal January, 28 th, 1921 at Black Sea when they were returning to Turkey from Baku. Every year on January 28th, communists and revolutionists of Turkey commemorate Mustafa Suphi and his comrades. Whereas SİP-TKP commemorates November 10th, Mustafa Kemal’s death. This assassination commanded by Mustafa Kemal was a huge blow for the communists of Turkey. However, the communists were recovered very soon and they succeeded to assemble a party congress in 1922. Soon after the congress, the party was banned by Mustafa Kemal. From this day on TKP is still banned.
Our party, made a stride forward under the leadership İsmail Bilen in the seventies, connected to the masses and got the opportunity to work semi-legal among the people. But after the fachist military coup in 1980 our party has suffered a huge defeat. Our cadres who managed to avoid persecution by the military and police moved to Western Europe and DDR as political migrants. Some alterations were realized in the party according to Soviet suggestions. Nabi Yağcı became General Secretary of the party. An “unity process” was started with once legal leftist and progressive parties by Soviet imposition. First of all, our party was united with TİP (The Workers Party of Turkey) and got the name TBKP (The United Communist Party of Turkey). Some members of Politburo (TKP) didn’t accept this union, because this would mean the of liquidation of the party. This coincided with the period of Soviet disintegration, so the TBKP established itself as a legal party. The party congress was held but the state banned this party also. The European Human Rights Court reversed the ban but the Constution Court of Turkey didn’t accept refused because deemed it impossible according to the Turkish laws, that a party could call itself communist and defend the rights of self determination for the Kurds. In this process, Nabi Yağcı switched sides and began writing in bourgeoisie newspapers.
This disorganization lasted to the early years of 2000. An urgent recovery mission awaited the communists. In the beginning of the process, a party known as SİP (The Socialist Power Party) declared that they changed their party name to TKP (The Communist Party of Turkey) and alleged that “they are the TKP”. All of the action took place in “overnight”. This was an obvious fraud. For this reason they are called SİP-TKP so as to distinguish them form the TKP. SİP was established by some Troskyits and they were the members of TİP (The Workers Party of Turkey) and dismissed from the TİP those days. They had opposed both the Soviets and the TKP. The Turkish state permitted this pseudo-communist party, and didn’t ban it. According to the The Supreme Court of Appeals Prosecutor, founder of the SİP-TKP didn’t have any relations with real TKP (the historical), they were “good guys” and they shared the same opinions as the state regarding the Kurds.
There is a major resemblence between this pseudo-TKP and the “Official TKP” which was established by Mustafa Kemal in 1920. The leftist and democratic movements of Turkey are shared this standpoint. Just as the official/counterfeit communist party was established in order to suppress the Anatolian revolutionary movements under the impact of October Revolution, now the communist party is established by the state, namely pseudo-TKP (SİP-TKP). The state is awared of the disorganization in the communist movement and wanted to control and surppress progressive, leftist, revolutionary and Marksist youth. The purpose of the state is getting together the youth around the nationalist and Kemalist ideology with the help of this pseudo party. SİP-TKP are pursuing their mission “successfully”, unfortunately. They are keeping away the people, especially the youth from the working class and Marxism-Leninism, social movements, especially the resistance of Kurdish people in Kurdistan – in east of Turkey. These masses are becoming the followers are being of the nationalist Kemalizm and transformed to a kind of “standby power” of the state. This pseudo party is keeping quiet against the hostility against Kurds and PKK and ignores the war against the Kurds. They are ensuring immunity in this way.
This SİP-TKP doesn’t follow the way of Marxism-Leninizm instead it openly follows Kemalism. They didn’t have any relations and connections with Marxist-Leninist TKP which was established by Mustafa Suphi. But they can carry the both Mustafa Suphi’s and Mustafa Kemal’s badges on their breasts. They can use the Mustafa Kemal’s photo along side with the Mustafa Suphi’s along with the Turkish flag. What shamaless dishonesty! They carry and circulate Mustafa Kemal who gave the orders to assasinate Mustafa Suphi and his 14 comrades! Can they be communists? Their mission is to reconcile Mustafa Suphi with Mustafa Kemal, Marxism with Kemalism, working class with bourgeoisie and misguide the public opinion. But they can not succeed in it even if they’ve got support from the state. Now these forgers are trying to lay claim to our party’s establishement day, especially the 100th anniversary, next year 2020.
In nowaday’s Turkey, main problem is to halt the fascist AKP-MHP power which is under Erdogan’s total control and end their power and so democratize Turkey. Therefore all forces both Turkish and Kurdish against Erdogan must build a democratic alliance. Such an alliance realized under the local elections, especially the second round of elections of the Istanbul metropolitan municipality. The aim was refuse Erdogan’s candidate and to teach Erdogan a lesson, be dealing him a blow. And we did it! Erdogan was defeated and the masses realised that power can be taken from the hands of Erdogan with an alliance. It was a huge experience fort he masses. But pseudo party SİP-TKP was against the such an alliance. The party’s General Secretary Kemal Okuyan, asserted that the achievements after the alliance would be very dangerous for the struggle of socialism and that it wouldn’t help the struggle for democracy and freedom. This statement signified obvious support to Erdogan’s power. According to them, there was no connection between striking a blow to Erdogan and the struggle for democracy and socialism. In fact that for the peaceful solution of Kurdish case and the improvement of the working class is only possible after Erdogan’s defeat and the winning over of democracy. SİP-TKP is far away from this understanding. They have once again proved themselves a state party.
We are communists trying hard to revive the TKP which was established in 1920, at Baku. We call ourselves TKP-1920 because SİP-TKP seized our genuine name and is misguiding the masses by calling itself as communist party and making a counterfeit mix-up of Marxism-Leninizm and Kemalizm. It is the first time we are witnessing such an example in the world. We would like to inform you as an old fellow party, about so called TKP which will host you soon in our country.
We hope that these informations will be beneficial to you.
Comradely regards,
Mehmet Bayrak
