The position reached at in the movement and the question of re-construction

Our organisation's ever more effective work in the post-conference period led to the systematic consolidation and growth of our party's place in the movement. Also it became evident that the representatives of the new proletarian generation who would take the leadership of the movement and the organisation (a decision of the first Conference) were beginning to do their work in a more confident way. This development meant our organisations were beginning to re-construct their revolutionary characteristics, which had been partially deformed by liberal provocations, on a more proletarian and revolutionary position. It also meant the clarification of the process towards the Second Congress.

Following a five-year harsh struggle which began in 1975 with a self-criticism which led to stronger ties with the working class and to the orientation towards Marxism-Leninism, our organisation succeeded in founding a Communist Party, the TDKP, which has had a respected position in the eyes of the awakening sections of the working class and the people of Turkey (Turkish and Kurdish) and of the International Communist Movement. As a result of the struggle waged since 1987 when the elimination of the liquidators took place, our party now has the possibility of re-constructing itself as a unity of revolutionary workers' organisations leading the workers' movement, having unbreakable ties with the backward sections of the workers, and a strong mass base. This was the aim of the 1980 Founding Congress and the concrete decision and call of the 1990 Second Conference of the party. The Second Conference held in 1996 was the final turning point which corrected the shortcomings of this process, and which approved and shaped the re-construction.

What is the reason for "re-construction"? Was the party established in 1980 not a communist working class party, as was suggested by the liquidators? Were they right in arguing that it could not be the communist party of the working class because it was not based on the majority of the vanguards of the working class. Obviously, this is no more than liquidationist sophistry. There is no need to dispute that our party emerged as an organisation representing the working class, and as a revolutionary communist party. It was established at a time when revisionism had a monopoly over the working class movement nationally and internationally, and when a minority of the working class of Turkey began to awaken and mobilise. For this reason, our party could not be established embracing all sections of the workers or their advanced sections as a whole. On the contrary, it could only be established by basing itself on a minimum number of workers' organisations and by encouraging other quality elements from other sections of working people to work among the workers with the aim of winning over and organising the advanced sections of the working class as a whole. Even the fact that our party has considered a re-construction embracing the advanced and awakening sections of the working class shows that it is on a correct platform.

Moreover, the unity of the workers' movement and socialism is not something that happens once. It occurs again and again in different periods and in different forms stemming from the phenomena characterising that period. This means the re-building of the party in every new period of fundamental changes, maintaining its foundations but taking new forms and appearances. The dialectic of the foundation and re-building of the party is one and the same thing as the dialectic of the development of the workers' movement. Therefore, if our party had not understood the question of being an independent party of the working class it would have sunk into a meaningless idealism, just as did the liquidators.

As is clear in our Conference's decisions and demands, our party has been going through a period of "re-construction" for some time. Its organisation and appearance differ from the previous forms, the illegal main apparatus being intact. Our party is a unity of different organisations with different forms, and of overt and covert different relations and forms of organisation. In the party, the organisation of workers, the formation and centralisation of organisational life has various characteristics and bears various appearances. This kind of formation shows that the movement has advanced compared to the previous periods.

As long as there are no fundamental changes -positive or negative- in Turkey or in the workers' movements, the present characteristics of the formation of the party will remain valid. Under the present conditions of the country and the movement it is not possible to help, embrace and organise the movement through a form other than the present one of work and organisation which we have and are building today. It is obvious that the party functions to unite the workers as an independent revolutionary class. Therefore, our party will never cling on to one form; it will re-build its organisations on the basis of new forms which have the ability to embrace the advanced and awakening sections of the working class of that period, and to link the workers' movement to the revolutionary movement. The fact that our party is being re-constructed presents a rich experience vis-a-vis the narrow-minded schematism which dominates traditional "left" movement as well as the workers' movement.

Since the year 1975 when the task of "building the vanguard party of the working class" was set forth as the "main task", our party's view, line and practice have been enriched and developed by understanding, criticising, and surpassing the previous period in terms of the questions of the workers' movement, its dynamics, the dialectic of development, and the forms of organisation and work. The present position of our party is a vital stage of the ideal that it has been fighting for since 1975. The 1980 Founding Congress achieved, within the limitations of that period, the aims set forth previously, and determined as a concrete organisational task the achievement of the present position of our party in the movement.

Today we witness the first signs that we are close to achieving the unity of the awakening sections of the working class in the party organisation. This was the aim of the First Congress and reflects the concrete decisions of the First and Second General Conferences. This is an organisation which is at the centre of the movement and which is a unity of the revolutionary workers' organisations having links with the broad masses who are getting organised. If there is no sudden turning back in the country, it is seen even today that this will be the ground on which the Second Congress of our party will develop. Our party's aims, which were set decades ago and for whose fulfilment we have consistently fought, are becoming realities today.

The task of the day is to further fulfil our aims and to take forward our organisations which are growing as proletarian organisms; to re-set more advanced aims and tasks, and to wage a determined struggle in order to fulfil them. No other generation in Turkey has been so lucky as to undertake such great tasks which mean a historical transformation and qualitative leap for the working class movement, the results of which can be seen in the same period. One can be sure that our organisations will handle this opportunity and these honourable tasks in a revolutionary manner, undertaking them with enthusiasm and talent.

The aims can be translated into the following tasks:

The workers' party must become a mass party, embracing the working class and the awakening sections of the people and their organisations, further increasing its initiative and dynamism in daily struggle, and understanding its role in the class struggle.

Our organisations must re-construct themselves as an organic unity of vanguard and revolutionary workers' organisations which are in the forefront of the struggle and which embrace the most advanced elements of the workers' movement in all kinds of trade unions and political organisations.

It must help the increasing number of conscious workers to act more courageously and with a greater initiative, and encourage them to form their organisations and to undertake the management of these organisations.

As can be seen, the fulfilment of the first two tasks depends on the third. The party can become a real workers' party only when the advanced workers form their mass party and organisations, when they adopt scientific socialist theory with their own point of view, and when they in practice run their organisations in their own way. It is only then that the working class of our country can successfully pass this first, fundamental and historical junction.

This is the only way of eliminating the remnants of non-class views with regard to understanding the class struggle and socialist theory. It is the only way forward for the development and deepening of our proletarian understanding which has been strengthened since 1975 onwards. The success of the working class in taking this historical turning point is of vital international significance. The role of the party organisations in achieving this is also obvious. Therefore, the present generations of our party have to hold on to their tasks with ever increasing responsibility, talent and dynamism.