Bu çeviri (Devrimin Zaferine İnananlar Mutlaka Kazanacaktır) Rojava’da savaşan enternasyonal savaşçıların kolektif ürünüdür.
Introduction:
DKP (Devrimci Komünarlar Partisi, Revolutionary Communards Party) is a Marxist-Leninist Party from Turkey, founded in 2016. BÖG (Birleşik Özgürlük Güçleri, United Freedom Forces) is the military wing of DKP. BÖG was founded in 2014 during the Battle of Kobane. That battle was BÖG‘s first military experience. BÖG has since continued the fight to defend Rojava, joining every operation. BÖG is one of the constituent forces of the International Freedom Battalion, a military unit formed by Communists and Anarchists to defend the Rojava Revolution, and which is presently engaged in the Battle of Raqqa. BÖG has had 8 martyrs in this war, one of whom was their central commander, Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu (Nom de Guerre: Mehmet Kurnaz AKA Mehmet Yoldaş). DKP and BÖG have also carried out military actions in Turkey, targeting AKP-ISIS fascism’s foundations and supporters.
DKP and BÖG‘s primary objective is carrying out revolution in Turkey and the Middle East, with the eventual goal of fomenting world revolution. To do this, they believe in starting a revolutionary war in Turkey (the reason for the existence of their military wing). They believe that organizing people without weapons has become impossible due to the policies of AKP-ISIS fascism. They believe in organizing the self-defence of oppressed peoples, women, groups, religions and identities.
Ulaş Bayraktaroğlu was a revolutionary from childhood. Until 2014 he lived in Turkey, however he spent significant time in prison. When not imprisoned, he continuously agitated for revolution. His last period of imprisonment was due to his involvement in the Gezi Park Uprising. During the Gezi Park Uprising, he attempted to catalyze the movement; for this reason he was targeted by the state, which directly attacked him and his organization at the time. After his release from prison, he went to Rojava to defend the revolution there and to build a communist party that could carry out a revolution in Turkey. During the operation to liberate the city of Raqqa, he was killed by a mine explosion.
The text, Gerilla Özgürlük Gücüdür, serves as both an introduction to his larger philosophy on engaging in armed revolutionary conflict and a guide for sympathetic antifascist forces. We have translated the first part of the text “Those Who Believe In The Victory of the Revolution Will Win”, into English, and will release the rest of the text soon. We hope that our work can build interest amongst the English speaking left about the struggle against fascism in Turkey, and help build closer links between the left in Turkey and the rest of the world.
Guerilla : The Force of Freedom
Those Who Believe In The Victory of the Revolution Will Win
All those who oppose AKP-ISIS fascism: Unite and destroy the fascist mobs and fascist establishment. You have the power to crush fascism. Those whose eyes are closed think that darkness is powerful. Dark forces are weak and doomed to defeat in the face of those who can walk forward with determination, courage and look forward with revolutionary consciousness. Like humans, society can fall asleep, and from this slumber is born the the opportunity for dark powers. Everyone should know this is a temporary situation. The revolutionary working class and public will inevitably wake up and win victory over fascism. When the day of the inevitable victory of the revolution comes, those who commited crimes against the people will be held accountable, and those who fight on the path of popular freedom will win.
It is not possible for those who do not believe in victory to win the struggle they are in – in any way. Revolutionaries do not confine themselves simply to declaring to the working class and people that fascism means more despotism and exploitation. A Revolutionary is the person that guarantees victory, walks unwaveringly on the path to victory, and has an irrevocable attachment to victory. One of the fundamental tasks of revolutionaries is to explain to the working class and public that the fascist party, along with capitalist-imperialist forces that create it can be strategically and practically destroyed. These forces hostile to the people will be destroyed – it has been proven in Turkey and the surrounding region. Against revolutionary forces in the Gezi Uprising, the enemy was incapacitated but the exploitative order’s collaborators threw them a lifeline. The Turkish working class and people have the intelligence and the memory to draw lessons from their history. The lessons of the Gezi Uprising are a source of power, giving experience and morale to the revolutionary working class and public. Against this power, AKP-ISIS fascism has undisputably taken a beating in Rojava. The “No” Campaign, activated against the referendum to formalize Chief Fascist Erdogan, is already shaking up fascism’s castles. All over Kurdistan, the public is resisting the fascist party’s persecution. Faced with this situation, the fascist party has maximized its aggression, fearing its unavoidable defeat. The public’s enemy, the fascist party, is in fear and panic, sinking as it flails.
AKP has harmed the working class and the people, and it knows it will one day pay for its tyranny. For this reason, AKP threatens the people with civil war. To this day, the fascist party has never won a fight using their power alone. Always they opportunisticly take refuge and rely on their backers’ support. Once their allied partners are of no more use, they dispose of them like a spent coin. Not a single force has partnered with AKP-ISIS fascism and not suffered. The single relative “strength” of AKP-ISIS fascism is the dispersal of anti-fascist forces.
In Turkey, anti-fascists have the common goal of crushing and eliminating AKP fascism, and to do this must reverse the scattering of their forces. This should be the clear objective that unites all anti-fascists. The fascist party is determined to fight against the people. The Freedom Forces are a thousand times more determined. Do they want a war? They will get what they want, then be crushed and disappear. The conditions are suitable for defeating the enemy. The fascist party, along with all their roots, will be irreversibly and completely destroyed. The present situation has forced the people to fight. In accordance with this obligation, the revolutionary masses will strike AKP-ISIS fascism like lightning.
Those people who exaggerate the strength of the enemy to mask their own lack of confidence, indecision, and addiction to the habits that come from the system’s conditioning, must be expelled from the ranks of the people. The place for these sort of collaborators is at the enemy’s tail. No one should be able to underestimate the forces of the people and the revolutionary working class. The ranks of the people must be purified from those who are waiting for help from other tryannical and exploitative forces. On the path to freedom, the people need to continuously intensify the war against fascism, and purify their ranks from those who try to stop and turn them from this path. Revolutionary purification is an essential prerequisite in preparation for every form of revolutionary war against fascism.
The Working Class and the People’s Path to Liberation is Revolutionary War
All supporters and opponents of AKP-ISIS know AKP-ISIS fascism is a slaughterous, torturing, thieving, corrupt, arbitrary, extrajudicial, and completely anti-democratic organization. It is clear that the fascist party has a mass of organization cheering for them, ready to slaughter those who aren’t with them (examples exist) . The fascist mass organization and the anti-fascist wing have defined ideologies. Fascism’s mass organization has clearly defined itself on an ideological level, as well as on the level of practice and organization. Conversely, the antifascist wing has a certain level of ideological clarity, but there is no clarity on the level of organization and action. This situation shows that the fascist party’s ideological organization is strong, while, when a general average is taken, anti-fascist organization is weak.
In Turkey, some of the opposition are still unable to grasp that AKP is a fascist party and the state has taken on the form of fascism.It is necessary to distinguish between those who refuse to grasp the self-insistent reality of fascism from those who attempt to explain its tyranny and exploitative order in different terms. Those who refuse to grasp the existence of fascism do so because they have the tendency to avoid struggle – these people are objectively collaborators. But those who explain this tyranny and exploitative order in different terms are still practically involved in and supporting the revolutionary war against it. It is not only a mistake to not to organize the revolutionary war against the fascist party that fights the working class and people, but a crime and a failure to condemn fascism’s engagement in slaughter.
There are some collaborative elements hiding on the side of the people; their goal is to suppress the initiative of those who could potentially turn against fascism. These collaborative elements want to protect the exploitative order because they are shareholders in it. When the revolutionary working class and the people begin their revolutionary war, it will be the beginning of the end of the fascist party and its sources of existence. The ruling forces know this very well. The ruling force is creating and nurturing specialized collaborators in order to prevent the beginning of their end. We should clear the path for the people to join the revolutionary war and embrace warfare. The victory of the revolutionary war is dependent on its premise being embraced and embarked upon by the people. Mao Zedong’s approach to this is so:
” For the revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them.” – Mao Zedong, Collected Works Vol. 1, 1934
The revolutionary war can not be carried out without the participation of workers, laborers and peoples. At the same time, the revolutionary war will not materialize from the masses fighting spontaneously. Undoubtedly, the revolutionary war must be organized by Freedom Forces. One of the duties of revolutionaries is to raise the consciousness that the enemy can be defeated. Another duty is to define the path to defeating the enemy, and the spearhead the working class and people in that direction. The relation between revolutionaries and the working class and people is not that of unilateral counsel and instruction. On the contrary, we can acquire a revolutionary quality by creating organic connections between ourselves and the revolutionary working class and people; we should be indistinguishable from them. The qualities of revolutionary organizations and the masses improve and nourish each other.
In Turkey today, the working class and people are searching for a method to be able to overthrow AKP-ISIS fascism. This situation shows that the anti-fascist mass is hungry for revolutionary strategy. Fascist powers create a social sickness and the only medicine for this is revolutionary war. No matter how aggrieved the masses are, they cannot heal this disease if they don’t know the correct medicine. Revolutionary war against fascism is the single definite and effective solution for this disease. People can not imagine the result of the method they are unaware of; thus presently they don’t prefer the method of revolutionary war. It is that this point that the Freedom Forces have been activated to implement the cure that can defeat fascism.
It is abundantly clear that there is the necessity for someone from the working class and the people to perform the revolutionary war, that wehave determined is the only remedy against fascism. Certainly, from our experience we know there have been and will continue to be some side-effects to this course of action. If we don’t take these risks we cannot achieve victory. Defeat is unavoidable if everyone is hiding behind each other, expecting self-sacrifice from everybody else. However, if everyone throws themselves forward to crush fascism with the will to sacrifice, victory will be certain. Freedom Forces are the product of this mentality. In this direction Freedom Forces will achieve the first component of their revolutionary strategy – the construction of an undefeatable revolutionary war organization. This praxis is a clear leap forward in posture. The forces that have made this leap forward bear some changes. In the revolutionary struggle, they who complete this leap forward successfully will be liberated from excess ballast and earn experience and the energy to improve. Leaping forward – maintaining the spearhead – is to realize Uninterrupted Revolutionary Attack, one of our fundamental elements of strategy.
Our revolutionary strategy’s second stage, facing the revolutionary target while uniting with the masses, requires maintaining a permanent offensive and engaging in more attacks – attacks that render the enemy immobile and weak. In this manner, the new stage turns to the style of “not breaking five of the enemy’s fingers, but cutting off their thumb”. The offensive method of trying to break five fingers of the enemy requires dispersed deployment. To effectively employ this method your forces must be widespread. If the enemy can limit the pervasiveness of this offensive tactic, they can limit its effectiveness. Thus, a limited force fighting employing this tactic will become scattered and exhausted. Limited forces should be used efficiently. Aim should be taken at the enemy’s strategic strongholds in order to paralyze the enemy.
On the path to destroying the fascist enemy, the most effective method is attack. However, we shouldn’t forget the necessity of defending revolutionary forces. A force that cannot defend itself successfully cannot make a successful attack or maintain the offensive. Maintaining the offensive also demonstrates a force is capable of defending itself. The Freedom Forces should maintain and grow its attacks and striking power in order to immobilize the fascist enemy. Uninterrupted Revolutionary Attack renders the enemy unable to attack and locks it to defense. We can liken this situation to the hunter becoming the prey. In Turkey these days, the opposite of this is happening to the antifascist masses. Now the fascist AKP is the hunter and the antifascist masses are the prey. The present situation is not destiny; if the correct choices are made it will be reversed.
No person wants to be prey. One of the important steps of the development of humanity is survival as prey against predators. At this point, we can understand that our extrication from being prey is part of the commune force inside the essence of humanity. For this reason, every antifascist sympathizes with freedom fighters that don’t accept existence as prey, and support them when they find the opportunity. We should give antifascists this opportunity to support and join this freedom fight. The opportunity to give support, created by a revolutionary organization, will ensure that revolutionary material emerges and acts.
Organization and mobilization of revolutionary material
People live under society – to maintain this condition a constant and certain level of organization is needed. Such an organization is made up of human relations and the motion of an action force that appears from those relations. Humans organize their action, their action organizes humans. As this dialectic developed, humans transitioned from a herd of animals into humanity. Communal experiences – social resistances – that occured in ancient communal societies and what followed (class society) are the highest state of society. Historically, in all revolutionary organizations and movements, communal society is dominant. In all counter-revolutionary organizations and movements, class society is dominant. Social and economic relations are constituted according to class society, causing the vast majority of humans to be subject to the minority with power. This situation causes animal herd characteristics to reappar in class society.
Humanity’s historical practical experience is a product of the clash between the social human and the flock human; class order and the communal order. The society-commune with the flock-class order possesses an irreconcilable contradiction that creates the dialectical mechanism of progress. There exists a unification of contradictory social orders and social status; its internal clash exists as a mandatory mechanism of progress. The progress-development mechanism we speak of is in effect for the historical period when humankind is divided into opposing classes. In the history of class society, the predominant characteristic of societies is class relation, but the communal essence remains active (as a progressive, developmental element) in order for a minimum level of social life to subsist. It is impossible to talk about the existence of community in conditions where the communal essence is not activated enough.
The reactionary bourgeois order also necessarily requires communal characteristics in order to sustain communalization. It is not possible to be a society in an environment where no cultural products, solidarity, intellectual productions, love, etc. exist at all. The human characteristics we are talking about are present in the bourgeois society, but are being crushed and corrupted. The bourgeois order uses the power of human values to sustain and preserve its power. The communal essence cannot be rejected by capitalism. It needs it to sustain social structure. Therefore, it tries to both surpress the communal essence and control its natural products. In the face of this situation, the communal essence tries to liberate itself from the suppression and captivity enforced by class society. The factual situation we are talking about is one of the internal contradictions that will bring the end of bourgeois society. There is an irreconcilable contradiction between being divided into classes and being a community.
Because community is sustained by communal essences it must be active in bourgeois community, creating potential revolutionary material. Potential revolutionary material is the pioneer of society. The pioneer factory worker, the pioneer woman in all areas, the pioneer youth, are the examples of potential revolutionary material. Revolutionary material has the capacity to mobilize and organize the people around them as a community. It is necessary to form a unity of purpose, trust-loyalty-love relations, and a culture of self-sacrifice in order to carry out social organization and movement. Revolutionary material, in its natural state, has these capabilities and has the ability to convey these capabilities. They are present everywhere that social life is present. The factories can not go on producing without them, families living together without them, schools continuing to operate without them.
When revolutionary consciousness combines with the revolutionary material which is necessarily present in the capitalist society, the organization of the Commune Force is sprouted. The Commune Force sets the stage for revolutionary struggle and war. The most reactionary, most oppressive, and openly terroristic state form, fascism, cannot resist the Commune Force, and will be crushed.
At this point, Freedom Forces duty is clear: reach the revolutionary material, the raw material of the commune force, equip them with revolutionary consciousness, and form commune forces in every place. If this duty is understood and planned correctly, it is very easy. The revolutionary material is hungry to come to terms with its own reality. However, the revolutionary material has the tendency to merge with those of its own nature.We can describe this tendency like this: there is a naturally expanding inclination for darkness to merge with darkness, and light with light.
