OUR PARTY AND ITS EXPERIENCES

The Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP) was founded 19 years ago in February 1980. In this anniversary year it is very important that we tell the upcoming generations the main elements and the significant stages of development of the party. This is because these 19 years have been years of great conflicts nationally and internationally rather than stability and order. The development of our party and its present position within the working class make it especially important that our young people fully understand our history.

We must know and understand those main elements of the party's struggle which opened the path for future developments in every period and the gains which have brought our party to the present day. This is necessary when we explain through the materialist interpretation of history and class struggle the way in which the party has made itself the hope of the people, and become the vanguard of the working class. The party has emerged in this way after having proved its difference from innumerable "left" organisations which have claimed to represent the vanguard leadership. One must know that if our party had not made gains and had not based itself on these, then it would not have been possible for today's generations who represent our party to have obtained their present position among the workers.

The history of the party is, in a way, the history of re-constructions which have been caused both by the requirements of each period and by the necessities posed by the party itself. Our party has been pushed to the stage of liquidation twice, first by the brute force of counter-revolution (the defeat of our predecessor organisation, THKO (People's Liberation Army of Turkey), in 1971 -military coup, and the defeat of September 1980 military coup), and then by the liquidators within the party from 1985-87. However, after every reactionary and liquidationary period, our party has been able to overcome its shortcomings, re-gather its forces, renew its organisation and path, and bind itself to the class with belief, determination and commitment.

The working class, the grave-diggers of capital, continued to develop and struggle; it was not possible to prevent the determined communists who were loyal to the working class, revolution and socialism from recovering and dedicating themselves to their historical tasks. That is how it happened. At every moment, when reactionaries and liquidators announced "the end of our political life", our party succeeded in fulfilling the tasks required by the mass movement and maintaining its position at the centre of the class with determination and talent.