Regarding the stance of the anti-imperialists on the PKK

Today we publish a translation of the document "Über die Haltung der Antiimperialisten zur PKK" by Alexandra Becker.

Regarding the stance of the anti-imperialists on the PKK

For three years now the structures affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Northern Syria or Western Kurdistan have developed a social entity that enjoys a comprehensive attention of the revolutionary movement in my country at least since the battle for Ain al-Arab (Kobanê) at the end of 2014 and the death of revolutionaries from the deepest and broadest masses from the FRG, as Ivana Hoffman. Even on world level, this fight has a great response. Many young, basically progressive people leave their homelands and are ready to give their lives in this struggle and they do so. They prefer the struggle with the weapon in hand against imperialism to the comfortable and safe life.

Various ideological tendencies have different views on the developments in Western Asia and especially in Northern Syria. A considerable number of articles and documents have been published, but the discussion between the different attitudes to these events is regrettably short. Some authors seem to be satisfied with assuring and asserting themselves in their own views without leaving the argument of the opponent and the dissent the necessary space.

I think the causa is worth the trouble and I will work on it from the standpoint of Maoism. The goal is to contribute to a greater degree of clarity within the revolutionary movement. The framework in which I am working in will be a characterisation of the PKK and of its affiliated organisations, its attitude towards imperialism, especially US imperialism, its relationship with the Turkish state, as well as the international situation and its historical context and questions of world-view, standpoint and method of the international proletariat regarding the matter. Comrade Kader Yildirim has published the very extensive document “Bourgeois Anti-imperialism and Bourgeois Communism as Blockade of Revolution. On the Rojava Debate” through the internet presence of the Lower Class Magazine in October this year that presents the “Pro-PKK position” almost completely. As comrade Yildirim takes the role of the defender of the PKK (against various critics), I am feeling free to act as the prosecutor, may the inclined reader make his judgement.

First of all the criticism of the PKK and of Abdullah Ocalan from the surroundings of the “German Communist Party” and the internet-platform “antiimperialista” recently published will be discussed. In this context I am determined to reject the positions of all revisionist parties and organisations that mask themselves as Communist, Marxist, anti-imperialist or otherwise, because in their statements their connection with and subordination to an imperialist superpower or power, especially Russian imperialism (as a continuity of their subordination to Social-imperialism) is clearly defined. “I never ever have anything in common with the class enemy” Bertolt Brecht wrote, and so is the correct attitude towards these individuals, whose striving is fundamentally aimed at perpetuating their existence.

The fact that Comrade Yildirim uses critics such as Hans Christoph Stoodt to develop his line is because articles such as “Trouble in the imperialist pyramid” are essentially the not particularly successful attempt to formulate a justified criticism. The basis for the fact that it is not particularly successful lies in a complete confusion Stoodt creates on the imperialist world system, in convergence with the revisionism of the KKE, and the main contradiction on the world level that is the inter-imperialist contradiction according to Stoodt. Thus the discord between the various imperialists becomes the mainspring of development, that leads to a lack of action of the revolutionary movement, a clear analogy to the revisionism of the RCPUSA, when they had not turned away from Marxism openly with their so-called “New Synthesis”. Stoodt further ignores the criticism that was developed within the revolutionary movement in the FRG e.g. the one by the comrades of the journal “Klassenstandpunkt”, and reduced his own criticism to the current alliances in Northern Syria and leaves fundamental questions like the class character of the PKK etc. untreated.

But now to the point. Definitions are not insignificant if one aims to reach agreement on the content. Empty words do not help us at this point and merely promote a talking at cross-purposes therefore it is useful to determine at the beginning objectively what kind of process are the activities of the PKK and its affiliated organisations. Yildirim calls them as follows: contradictory revolutionary process, revolution, revolutionary council democratic approach, revolutionary project and revolution project - which do not help me and probably most others much in the meaning of gaining knowledge, except the realisation that there is obviously not enough clarity in terms. Two real definitions can be found with Yildirim:

“A democratic revolution in the respective countries in which the “Kurdish question” was current, [...] contained both bourgeois and socialist elements”

and

“Democratic revolution, which includes a national liberation and is endowed with socialist elements.”

Let us dismiss the inconsistency about “in the respective countries” / “national liberation” and try to clarify the central terminology “democratic revolution”. Yildirim errs, at least from a Marxist point of view, when he writes: “The tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution are all those things which are more or less accustomed in the centers of imperialism: within the bourgeois framework the attainment of the greatest political liberties, right to live out any national, religious, ethnic, etc. identity, the least equality of opportunity of genders, democratisation of state structures, etc. ”

The Marxist understanding of the tasks of the democratic revolution:

“1st: Destroy imperialist rule, mainly Yankee imperialism in our case, prevent the action of the other superpower, Russian social-imperialism and of the other imperialist powers.

2nd: Destroy bureaucratic capitalism by confiscating the big state and non-state big capital.

3rd: Destroy the feudal landed property by confiscating the associative and non-associative properties, individual distribution of the land under the slogan “Land to the tiller”, primarily and principally to the poor peasants.

4th: Support the middle capital, which is allowed to work under imposed conditions.”

Furthermore it is necessary at this point to at least briefly reject that the statements of Yildirim could be interpreted as an idealisation of bourgeois democracy, a form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It is also worth mentioning that “things which are more or less accustomed in the centres of imperialism” include, among other things, the assassination of Africans by state institutions because of the colour of their skin, as the case of Oury Jalloh shows, “equality of opportunity of genders” in imperialism is pure scorn of the emancipation of women, and the “right to live out any religious identity” has been increasingly attacked, especially for Muslims in recent years.

Next we should discuss the forces involved in this revolution in order to determine its character. This is made more difficult by the fact that, as Yildirim explains, Abdullah Öcalan and consequently the PKK and the affiliated organisations “renounce explicit class antagonism”. Yildirim also renounces the analysis of class-character and class-leadership of organisations in his document. According to Yildirim the PKK and its close associates cooperate “with other mostly socialist, nasserist and open pro-Assad parties in the NCC”, with various forces “within the Democratic Forces of Syria (SDF)” and in Iraq there are both “more strategic alliances with the Goran movement and the PUK of Talabani” and a council “where PKK and Barzani forces are balanced.” Thus the forces with which PKK and affiliated organisations work together are representatives of the bureaucratic-capitalist and big landlord-state of Syria and sockpuppets of Russian imperialism (Pro-Assad parties) as well as representatives of the bureaucrat-capitalist and landowner-state of Iraq and collaborator with the US occupiers (Talabani) and the “dynastic-capitalist” Barzani-Clan who develops “monopolistic-capitalism” (in the words of Yildirim) in Northern Iraq. This does not sound so good, but let us briefly leave the document of Yildirim and consider how this work is clearly defined, let us consider the constitution of Rojava. “The source of power is the population, the power belongs to the population.” And “The source of democratically constituted councils and executive bodies is the population. It is not tolerated that this is monopolised by one stratum / class. ” The problem is that in this way corporativism is opposed to Marxism. The class struggle and its necessary development towards the dictatorship of the proletariat are negated, and a fascist principle is executed in the name of justice, freedom and democracy (the greying myth of the formerly revolutionary bourgeoisie of past centuries) as established in the preamble.

The Constitution also refers to the material basis, property forms and exploitation: “The right to property and private property is protected. No one shall be denied the use of his own property. No one shall be expropriated. If this is necessary for the public interest, the owner must be compensated.” Thus the economic basis of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is guaranteed.

“All mineral resources and natural resources belong to the whole society.” And “In the democratic-autonomous administrations all real estate and soil belongs to the population. Use and distribution are governed by laws.” - This sounds good taken severally, but with the limitations imposed by other parts of the Constitution already mentioned the result is less imposing: Should “expropriations” occur, it is paid for. The former owners retain their status only under changed circumstances. This is reminiscent of the “Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction”, which carried out the so-called “land reform” in Kuomintang-occupied Taiwan.

What is clear and neither denied by the PKK and its affiliated organisations nor their defenders is that the proletariat is not the leading force, neither in the party, nor in the state, nor ideologically. The question however is: Can there be a bourgeois democratic (today new-democratic) revolution under the leadership of the bourgeoisie or not under the leadership of the proletariat under the leadership of its Communist Party? The answer is: No, today not anymore. However, the PKK and its affiliated organisations repeatedly asserts so. Yildirim also does this.

Aggravating accrues one specific fact I did not want to be left unmentioned. The “democratic revolution” of Öcalan, the PKK and the organisations close to it “positively refers to the Greater Middle East Project” of the Yankees. Yildirim holds the opinion that such positions within the PKK are a thing of the past and are “not further developed”.

Far from having complete knowledge of all the documents by the PKK and Öcalan, especially the untranslated ones, still it is easy to understand the context of the above quotations, and it is necessary that the comrades who sympathise with the PKK take a close look at them. It is a more recent document - “Jenseits von Staat, Macht und Gewalt”, and the chapter “Die Zivilisation des Mittleren Ostens: Wege aus dem Chaos” - in which Öcalan as an introduction to the subject (which has several pages) first of all speaks positively of US imperialism. He speaks of the “necessity for an imperial leadership” with regards to the Yankees. And further: “We must consider that the world outlook of the USA is based on the latest state of science. [...] They do not ignore history, but try to create their models meaningful in the light of historical models.” Öcalan then concludes in a positive analysis of what marxists, revolutionaries, anti-imperialists and progressive people in general justifiably call terror, war, genocide and plundering of Western Asia by the Yankees: “Therefore economic development, individual liberties, democratisation and security should be promoted simultaneously [by the Yankees; ed. note]. […] one [The Yankees; ed. note] wants to solve the chronically problems and conflicts (Israel-Palestine, Kurds-Arabs, Turkey, Iran), at the same time liberating the social fabric from the hammerlock of despotism and thus preventing new explosions. It is a kind of new marshal plan adapted to the region [...]” This can not and must not be accepted by progressive people. Öcalan calls the slaughter and expulsion of millions upon millions of people, the massacres, the torture, the policy of genocide “Necessary and realistic”, his criticism: “It is even late.”

As a brief excursion to the Marshall Plan it must be noted that this is not something as positive as it appears in the words of Öcalan, but was the basis for the development of US imperialism into a superpower. I think what was shown clearly here, is on the one hand Öcalan's class position and on the other hand the integrity of his defenders is questioned.

At this point I would like to briefly outline the standpoint of Marxism on this question in order to oppose the previous arguments: the democratic revolution needs to take place under the leadership of the proletariat today because the bourgeoisie is no longer capable of doing so. It is not since capitalism has entered its final and highest stage, imperialism, and has established it as a world system. The imperialist financial capital has penetrated into the less developed countries, and there, under its absolute predominance, it has merged with the trade and bank capital in its early stages of development. In the Third World imperialism has created a bourgeoisie which depends entirely on it (the different factions may depend on different imperialist superpowers and powers, and thus creating contradictions), the bureaucratic capital (formerly known as the comprador bourgeoisie). It backs up its dominance in the country with the big landlords and therefore strives for the partial maintenance of feudalism. Such semi-feudality arises. A vital interest of the bourgeoisie opposes therefore the very heart of the democratic revolution, the extinguishing of feudalism, the land reform, “the land to the tiller”. The national and small bourgeoisie have contradictions with this rule because they suffer under the dictatorship of the big landlords and bureaucrat capitalists, but their original bourgeois interests – becoming ruling i.e. bureaucratic bourgeoisie - makes their leadership for the democratic revolution impossible. The proletariat on the other hand, can and must, under its leadership, use these contradictions and put them into its service. There is no other way. Developments like the “Arab Spring”, the “movement of democracy”, only shows that the “bourgeois-democratic” movement is a thing that has been outdated for a long time. Only the proletariat through its Communist Party can lead the democratic revolution.

The new-democratic revolution is a development of Chairman Mao, but it does not contradict the teachings of Marx and Lenin. On the contrary, Lenin himself says: “... the Russian revolution will begin to assume its real sweep, will really assume the widest revolutionary sweep possible in the epoch of bourgeois-democratic revolution, only when the bourgeoisie recoils from it and when the masses of the peasantry come out as active revolutionaries side by side with the proletariat. In order that it may be consistently carried to its conclusion, our democratic revolution must rely on such forces as are capable of paralysing the inevitable inconsistency of the bourgeoisie (i.e., capable precisely of “causing it to recoil from the revolution,” which the Caucasian adherents of Iskra fear so much because of their lack of judgement).

The proletariat must carry to completion the democratic revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush by force the resistance of the autocracy and to paralyse the instability of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. Such are the tasks of the proletariat ...”

That is a matter of fact and the PKK can not get around it (even if some want to or argue in this manner). Their statement is obvious. It does not stand for the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution and does not establish it in practice. Accordingly, in practice it is also against the fulfilment of the tasks of the democratic revolution. Where it exercises power - in Northern Syria, it has set up a constitution which proves this brilliantly.

It can not be the attitude of the Marxists to call the ones responsible “heroes of mankind” and justified criticism “betrayal” and counterrevolutionary (“active inhibition of a contradictory revolutionary process”), but Yildirim's document produces this impression. Is this the “worst enemy”, as Tucholsky calls him?

“In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.” This is what Chairman Mao Tse-tung teaches us in his book “On Practice”. Similarly, everything that Öcalan, the PKK, the PYD, the KCK, the YPG or any other organisation or their representatives say and do bear the stamp of a class. Every other standpoint is idealism, must be denounced and combated as such. The question that arises is which class Öcalan and the PKK belong to. The PKK is not a proletarian but a bourgeois party, founded with an eclectic bourgeois program.

The program of the PKK of 1995 states that during the years of its formation (1970 to 1978), the PKK has developed from a student circle and was mainly based on intellectuals. Öcalan himself, as some other active leaders, derive from the Guevarist organisation. The result is a program, the first party program of the PKK from 1977, in which efforts are being made to seem marxistically. Thus, various aspects of Marxism, such as the land reform, the worker-peasant alliance etc., find their way into the program, but there are other vital aspects missing, such as the concretisation of the leadership of the proletariat in the revolution through its Communist Party. The characterisation of the revolution as a “revolution of Kurdistan” is essentially the antimarxism of the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. In the latter part of the program occurs the “friendship with the socialist countries”. In 1977 the Soviet Union was already completely transformed into a social-imperialist country by the revisionists, and the revisionist coup was already carried out in the People's Republic of China. The assertion that there are socialist countries in this historical context is pure revisionism. It is not surprising that attitudes such as the classification of the demand for regional autonomy or autonomy as capitulationism or the rejection of military bases of any other country in Kurdistan could simply be thrown overboard on a later date. It corresponds to the essence of revisionism to camouflage itself with the most developed Marxism (the reference to the work of Chairman Mao becomes quite clear by studying the first program), but to be completely unprincipled. Thus, from the very beginning Öcalan manifests the leadership of the bourgeoisie in the PKK.

Yildirim, in contrast to these all publicly accessible facts, represents the following position: “The PKK, on the other hand, was an open socialist organisation for a long time, which along with the national liberation of the Kurds pursued the model of a democratic revolution developing it into a socialist. It is true that ideologically a lot of changes in the PKK happened, but it is still a challenge to the capitalist order of Turkey and its function in the imperialist structure of NATO.” He refers to a myth, it is nothing more than a myth about the former PKK, as discussed above. Therefore Yildirim brings in at various pasages “representatives of the revolutionary-socialist wing inside the PKK” or “old socialist-oriented cadres, who have always been closely connected with the revolutionary left in Turkey”. Those “took the helm and brought the PKK back to an independent, revolutionary line”, at least according to the imaginings of Yildirim.

Obviously, accuracy is not of Yildirim's taste, what is not bothering me, but makes my work easier. A little hint for him and those who venture onto the floor should be a statement by Friedrich Engels, which describes clearly what is called “socialist”, more than 125 years ago: “Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.”

According to Yildirim the PKK and the affiliated organisations are nevertheless “a challenge for the capitalist order of Turkey and its function in the imperialist structure of NATO”. Guarantor is to be the once revolutionary, once socialist, once left, once hawks called “wing” and its representatives. Yildirim also calls names: “Cemil Bayik, Murat Karayilan, Duran Kalkan”. Does this assertion stands up to scrutiny?

The named Cemil Bayik recently said in an interview, “We consider the refusal of the HDP to enter into a coalition with the AKP a historical mistake.” Is this the challenge of the capitalist order Yildirim imagines? One would have to invoke him to reverse. Or did he miss this interview? Hardly. It is a central point in an article Yildirim explicitly refers to. Why does Yildirim not go into it? No one knows exactly.

There are other indications which encourage the hypothesis of arrogance. It is sometimes more, sometimes less openly assumed that for Öcalan, the PKK and its affiliated organisations the laws of Marxism would not count. It is said, this organisation is beyond the laws of the class struggle, the social laws. Thus an idealistic world view is created in which Öcalan stands above the physical laws to which all others are subjected. Öcalan himself once swaggered narcissistic: “In contrast to the politicians, I am actually closer to the prophets.” Kader Yildirim calls this a little more catchy “those leftists [...] who muscle in world history who are not “ML”.”

Öcalan and the PKK got rid of Marxism as a facade a long time ago. With the argument on an alleged prevailing vulgar materialism, he provides the pretext to openly jump ship to idealism. He advocates the Hegelian triad against historical materialism, avails himself of the metaphysics of Aristotle instead of Stephen Hawkins (whose problem is to accept the materialist laws only on the level of natural sciences) natural scientific “The Grand Design” to explain the origin of the Universe and refers to the US-based Trotskyist eco-anarcho Murray Bookchin in the definition of the human.

Duran Kalkan explained the opportunism of the PKK in an interview in 2008 as follows: “We do not reject Marxism. But we do not define ourselves as the classical Marxists as such. We also do not say that we are the successors of Marxism or not. [...] we have also analysed and corrected the shortcomings of Marxism. So we have not disengaged from Marxism or reject it, we just overtook it.” Öcalan gets to the following conclusion: “As soon as the search for solutions – be it Zarathustra or Mani, be it Noah, Abraham or Mohammed – shifts into the Sumerian priesthood, it finally ended up in throwing the people they wanted to redeem. The same attitude led to the Leninist attempt to crush the imperialist state, to build the dictatorship of the proletariat. Leninism shares the same fate. Maoism and similar directions are also in the same tradition.”

Nevertheless, there are not just a few who try to pull a sort of Marxist or revolutionary masquerade on the anti-Marxist, i.e. counter-revolutionary, conceptions of Öcalan. In this respect gentlemen like Kader Yildirim are so arrogant that he actually goes into rapture to describe the perspective of the PKK leadership in relation to Northern Syria in the words “rule-of-thumb estimate”. Thus his last sentence is, “The main thing is that it [the “revolution”; ed. note] strides forward!” It speaks volumes. The PKK, its affiliated organisations and its leadership, as well as its advocates, who pretend to be Marxists, refuse to submit a plan, what the PKK is exactly up to. Only the words democratic autonomy and confederalism are recited like mantras. Such non-commitment is not the expression of flexible tactical application, but pure opportunism.

This opportunism also expresses itself as follows: “the Kurdish forces close to the PKK and allies offer somewhat to everyone and partly agree to their interests”. Everyone is quite a lot, Yildirim names some of them: “With parts of the FSA one might perhaps alliance on the line Jarablus-Azaz-al Bab”; “more strategic alliances with the Goran movement and the PUK of Talabani”; “with parts of the non-jihadist opposition and temporaryly with islamistic groups too”; “during the siege of Aleppo 2016 here again together with the regime”; “Kurdish forces and allies with regime forces and allies”; “Kurds were supported by Russia with air strikes”; And of course there is always “support from the USA” which is tried to be soft-pedalled with tooth and nail. Yildirim's the cock-and-bull story of the non-fighting soldiers sounds like this: “[...] the US special forces are mainly there to coordinate the air strikes, they do not muscle themselves in the fighting [...]” In fact, among the special units of the USA, which now involve 500 men, are special forces, trainers and also explosive experts. In the “Wrath of Khabur” operation, “US special forces helped Syrian opposition forces [SDF et al.; ed. note] to recapture the city of al-Shaddadi from the Islamic state.”

Surely this has something to do with, whom one gets his weapons from. Yildirim explains that the Yankees had supplied only small arms and ammunition, they “obstain” “weapons from Iran, from Russia and above all at the black market”, had many “ex-Soviet weapons” and can “accept weapons from Iran and Israel”, too.

But how do Marxists get weapons? Chairman Mao Tse-tung teaches, “Replenish our strength with all the arms and most of the personnel captured from the enemy. Our army's main sources of manpower and materiel are at the front.” Surely one can also buy weapons, but conquest and self-production are much more important, but accepting weapons from others is contrary to the principle of independence and self-sufficiency. But Yildirim has no idea of Marxist principles, and so there is no word about it.

However, he finds (quite sarcastic) words for those who criticise the PKK: “ganz schlaue ML-Theoretikerlein“ (smart-ass-ML-theoristies); “Super-MLler“ (Super-ML); “ML-Propheten und Nahostexperten” (ML-Prophets and Middle-East-Experts); “ML-Apostel und Antiimp-Helden” (ML-Apostles and anti-imp-heroes); “Nahostexpert*innen und ML-Heroes of the Universe“; “Antiimp-Helden und Möchtegern-Mler” (wannabe-ML). The frequency in which Yildirim uses such terms arouses the impression that he is not in for a discussion on an equal footing but into simple defamation of the critics. Even the passage on “German “Middle-East-Experts”” and their “petty bourgeois resentments”, who “have nothing to say in world history”, must be judged accordingly. To put the record straight, a quotation from a document of Latin American parties and organisations that has just been published:

“Not to recognise the semi-feudal character of our countries and the necessity of the agrarian war to solve it, ends up in negating the necessity of the democratic revolution in the oppressed countries, the need to develop the national war as a united war - mainly on land and necessarily complementary in the city - to put an end to imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism. Thus, without recognising the semi-colonial and semi-feudal character on which bureaucratic capitalism develops in the so-called Middle East, it is not possible to understand the character of the national liberation struggles of the peoples against the different imperialist powers, the character of resistance, of justified war, mainly against Yankee imperialism, but without neglecting the nuclear superpower Russia, regardless of the class forces currently carrying their armed strugggles in the absence of communist leadership.”

“Anti-imperialism, national sovereignty, the preservation of international law, blah blah blah” are wrong, because they are supposed to be bourgeois, in his opinion. In fact, the question of the national sovereignty of Syria must be a thorn in the flesh of Yildirim because the Yankees and Turkey are trampling it with the support of the PKK. Yildirim is right only in the fact that International law is bourgeois law (which, however, has been recognised and used by the former socialist countries). But it is correct to denounce that the imperialists do not feel bound even to their own law.

Everything is very flexible tactics which no one understands except Öcalan himself. Such distortions belong to the repertoire of the defenders of Öcalan: If Öcalan is against modernity it is progressive, if Öcalan is for peace negotiations it is revolutionary war, if he speaks out against the state, but wants the Turkish state not to be shattered and preaches peace and electoral opportunism it somehow leads to communism. Such obvious stupidities are an expression of the line of defence of the PKK set out in Yildirim's article.

“The Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism has two outstanding characteristics. One is its class nature: it openly avows that dialectical materialism is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality: it emphasises the dependence of theory on practice, emphasises that theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice.” Let us talk about the practice of the PKK and its “internationalism”. How does this become more concrete e.g. in the FRG? If Erdogan appears here, the PKK affiliated organisations and their abettors mobilise with all their strength, when they are once again contra-Erdogan, and bring thousands of people into the streets. Have they ever done this in the context of any other country? Can they even imagine doing something like that? How does the PKK stand towards proletarian revolutionaries in other countries in general? What is their attitude e.g. to the People's War in India or the fight of the landless peasants in Brazil? Is there any interest in such movements within the PKK? Obviously not. Everyone and everything is subjected to the daily political demands of the PKK. If possible they do this with bourgeois parties such as the “Left Party” or the “Green Party”, if there are problems with these, then their actions become more militant and they use some parts of the “Autonomists”. But everything has to be subordinated to the daily political interest of the PKK. These people have no interest whatsoever in the urgently necessary construction of an anti-imperialist movement in other countries. “Kurdistan above all!” Is their guiding principle and this chauvinism is in complete opposition to internationalism: “There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is—working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in everycountry without exception. Everything else is deception ...”

The comrades of Klassenstandpunkt got to the heart of this: “Whoever is only concerned with “their revolution” or national interests, whether in an oppressive or oppressed country, or prices the direct interests of a people above the proletarian world-revolution can not be considered as a communist, but is a chauvinist.”

Yildirim does not say one word about this, with the exception of the following passage: “Here, bourgeois communism is paired with a specifically petty bourgeois terrorist element in the communist movement, which in the narrow sense is called Stalinism. According to the motto “everybody who is not absolutely on my side is an enemy of me and the revolution in general” ...” Isn't this anti-communism? I think so.

What is the position of the PKK and its affiliates on the Turkish state? Some aspects have already been presented. The goal of the PKK and Öcalan is not the destruction of the Turkish state itself, because they have no fundamental problem with it, but with the current (in stark contrast to the one several years ago) policy of Erdogan against the peace efforts of Öcalan and the massacres of the civilian population in eastern Turkey, at least currently. They simply want a regime change, a democratisation and thus a participation in the power. The PKK advocated electoral-fronts like the HDP have gained their successes but do not appear to be an effective instrument for the PKK right now.

At this point, the question of the forms of cooperation between the revolutionary parties and organisations in Turkey with the PKK arises. The PKK is working on a deal with the Turkish state and is game for almost anything (the situation is similar to the current capitulation process of the FARC in Colombia). In principle the possibility for an alliance with a power that represents the Kurdish nationalists exists, just as the Bund could play a role in the Russian revolution, but such an alliance cannot stand under the leadership of such a power. An alliance would be useful to gain influence on the lower and middle cadres as well as on the masses who have serious sympathies for the revolution. However, the PKK, due to its strength, expects a subordination to its leadership, and various parties and organisations accept this demand (usually with the argument that the PKK and its organisations are many, without questioning why one is lower in numbers) as the foundation of the International Freedom Battalion and the Peoples United Revolutionary Movement shows. The question of participation in elections is also important. The Chinese comrades under the leadership of Chairman Mao made an important contribution to this in 1971:

“In the past decades, many Communist Parties have participated in elections and parliaments, but none has set up a dictatorship of the proletariat by such means. Even if a Communist Party should win a majority in parliament or participate in the government, this would not mean any change in the character of bourgeois political power, still less the smashing of the old state machine. The reactionary ruling classes can proclaim the election null and void, dissolve the parliament or directly use violence to kick out the Communist Party. If a proletarian party does no mass work, rejects armed struggle and makes a fetish of parliamentary elections, it will only lull the masses and corrupt itself. The bourgeoisie buys over a Communist Party through parliamentary elections and turns it into a revisionist party, a party of the bourgeoisie - are such cases rare in history?“

In this Öcalan's self-concept: “In contrast to the politicians I am actually closer to the prophets” and his contempt for the deepest and widest masses: “Unfortunately, developed Germany is somewhat polluted by the backwardness of our people. That makes me sad. ... This is why racism is spreading again. Justifiably by the way! I think the rightists are also right. I say openly, I do not think as a Social Democrat in this issue. The rightists are right.” matters, too.

With such an attitude it is not surprising that Yildirim welcomes the perspective of a “democratic”, – in the current imperialists sense – society under the leadership of the PKK, a society of rentiers and trustafarians: “the revolution remains stuck in the completion of the democratic revolution - what, compared to the circumstances and all other real alternatives, would not be so bad. The Kurds and the other peoples would then be able to enjoy all the rights and freedoms that all other peoples of the imperialist centres already have ...” Apart from the impossibility of what Yildirim describes, it is nevertheless so that Communists, Anti-imperialists and revolutionaries do not want this, but on the contrary want to bury imperialism and its associated advantages - a life at the expense of others.

Every human, social or scientific relationship is characterised by the contradiction and by the resulting irregularity. This is reflected in the fact that there is a struggle of interests in which one interest prevails. In an alliance one prevails, one leads, even if partial successes of others are possible.

For the vindication of the collaboration with imperialism there are various alternatives for defenders of Öcalan. One corresponds to the thief who calls: Stop, thief! Transferred to the PKK this is: Osman did it! A method also building upon the “different factions” within the PKK, which is nothing but a justification for all kinds of trials and tribulations, familiar to the International Communist Movement from both Nepal and the Philippines. In the case of Yildirim, this reads as follows: “... in practice, there was only briefly, in the early 2000s, a group of PKK cadres, including a brother of Abdullah Öcalan, Osman Öcalan, who used the confusion of that time and tried to tug the PKK to an open pro-imperialist rail. Osman Öcalan, with his supporters, went to the care of the USA in Mossul and proposed cooperation with the USA. He criticised the too close ties of the PKK to Turkish socialists and demanded a stronger insistence on the Kurdish national identity and glorified the Iraq invasion of the USA, which he called “democratic colonialism”.”

The second possibility is a simple denial: “If you are interested in history, as it is the case for Marxists, the first thing you ask is why the US has been supporting the Barzani clan for decades - but never before the PKK or PKK affiliated organisations?” and further “... that the US did not support the YPG/J and PYD for a long time. Still in the high phase of the Siege of Kobanê ... on 12th October 2014 the US Secretary of State John Kerry: What is happening in Kobanê is tragic, but does not define the strategy of the international coalition in the fight against IS. ... None of them [PKK etc.; ed. note] seriously demanded something from the USA. What they were all about was the opening of the border by Turkey, so that PKK militants with weapons could go to Kobanê and turn the tables.”

A third possibility is to trivialise: “The PKK´s and YPG/J's calculations were and are: If they support us, as long as we have common goals (fighting IS), nice. If they do not support us, just as well; we continue to paddle our own canoe in every respect, whether with, whether without, or even against them. And as they try to integrate us, we use the minimum of recognition that this integration effort gets us to further consolidate and even expand our project ...”

Ultimately, the justification of what can not be repudiated, denied or understated, ensues with distortions of examples from the history of the International Communist Movement: “... Stalin, who embraced the coalition with the anti-communist imperialist Allies.” This is something worth to take a close look at. The Soviet Union, as a socialist state, entered into temporary alliances with the British and Yankee imperialists. But this happened at a time when it was clear that the main enemy of the peoples of the world was German imperialism. Before, this role came to the British, the Soviet Union than concluded a temporary non-aggression pact with German imperialism. The CPC, which occasionally gets to play the same role for the defenders of Öcalan, concluded an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Japanese invaders. Chiang Kai-shek was an agent of the Yankees, but it was not a direct alliance with Yankee imperialism, and in no case were the revolutionary armed forces (as it is analogous in northern Syria with the coordinated air strikes) subordinated to the allied partner. In both cases the situation is quite different to the present in northern Syria. A reasonable comparison would be the following: Today, entering an alliance with the Yankees against IS corresponds to an alliance with Hitler against the Ukrainian fascist leader Bandera in the middle of the last century.

Furthermore, what Osman Öcalan has strived for in the 2000s (and what was named betrayal by Öcalan) has now become a reality: in the “Kurdish Supreme Committee” the PYD cooperates with the Barzani-Clan. There are also close ties to other reactionary forces, such as the PUK of Talabani (who supported the attack of the Yankees on Iraq and was rewarded with almost ten years of presidency of Iraq). Yildirim calls them “more strategic alliances”. The same is true for the electoral-club Gorran (in English: change) licited by the Yankee-occupiers of Nawschirwan Mustafa. Significant are the connections to Iraq because the central retreat area and the training camps of the PKK (as well as other PKK subordinated organisations) are located there within the Kandil Mountains. This does not mean that the PKK and the Barzani-clan have no contradictions to each other. They are not equal, even if they are as alike as two peas in a pod in certain aspects. On the one hand Marxist philosophy simply refuses such a conclusion – that two are one or that two unite in one –, on the other hand the handling of such contradictions is particularly important.

Internationally the interests of the PKK converge with those of Yankee imperialism, this is admitted teeth-gnashingly. Likewise the direct as well as indirect connections. Even Yildirim admits that the PKK affiliated forces are “moving harmoniously and in coordination with the interests of the US” and there are other counter-measures, such as the blockade of air strikes by the Syrian Air Force on Hasêke by the US Air Force. In fact, the subordination to Yankee imperialism goes even further. This is proven by the attack on Raqqa. Raqqa is not inside the Kurdish area, self-defense can not be advanced as an argument. In spite of this, the SDF (in which the YPG teams up with the Jaysh al-Thuwar - Army of Revolutionaries, former part of the FSA – and the Quwat as-Sanadid militia of the feudal lord Sheikh Humaidi Daham al-Hadi among others) launched the offensive against Raqqa. In addition, the YPG followed the order of the Pentagon to withdraw from Manbij publicly proclaimed by McGurk, the special adviser of Obama for the International Coalition. Nothing but ground troops of Yankee imperialism is what it is. The question, which is open, is what price they have negotiated. In addition, there are several (according to Reuters figures two, according to other data three) Yankee military bases in the YPG-controlled northern Syria.

Yildirim's argument that one offers oneself to Russian imperialism and is ready to buy “weapons from Israel” as evidence of being an anti-imperialist power, does not require further analysis. The rock drops on his own feet.

It is also clear that the PKK affiliated organisations, as well as those who kinked in the opportunist wind from Kobanê, are part of a propaganda offensive of Yankee imperialism to legitimise their aggression against Muslim countries, taking the events of September 11th as a starting point, which attempts to portray Muslims in general as barbaric terrorists from the Middle Ages.

Thus, according to the above remarks on contradiction and irregularity the PKK serves the interests of Yankee imperialism. The main enemy of the peoples of the world today is Yankee imperialism, it is a million times greater mass murderer than e.g. the Islamic State. This fact also applies to the Kurds. The Turkish state which massacres the Kurdish population and invaded northern Syria, could not maintain as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal state without Yankee imperialism.

Communists were active in the liberation movements in Africa and Central America, but these heroic and sacrificial struggles ended up as semi-colonial and semi-feudal appendages of an imperialist or social imperialist superpower. So was it in Mozambique, Zimbabwe or Algeria and in many other cases. Even in the case that a revolutionary party led the front, as it was the case e.g. with the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, cooperation with and dependence on the social imperialist Soviet Union led the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people to end up as a semi-colony.

Yildirim, at the end of his long-term speech on the legitimacy of the reactionary theory and practice of the PKK and its supporters, makes a last attempt to camouflage what the PKK does with Marxism: “If one is, from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, seriously interested in the transformation of the PKK and the present revolutionary process, one will bring it precisely to its idea, particularly the theory and practice of the state of dual power. ... The theory of democratic confederalism and the revolutionary practice in Rojava now represent precisely one moment of dual power coupled with a democratic revolution. On the one hand, the Kurdish forces close to the PKK are opting for a democratic revolution in all countries where they are active, which completes the tasks of the bourgeois revolutions, which in these countries were, at best, only partial democratic. ... On the other hand, the insight of Lenin still exists, namely that the bourgeoisies of the respective countries in which the capitalist mode of production did develop later than in the imperialist centers fail to complete the democratic revolution for a good reason, because this does not correspond to their character, and therefore that the democratic revolution must be imposed upon the bourgeoisie. Here the momentum of dual power comes into play: the council democracy.”

It should be pointed out briefly that in the Russian February revolution, there were initially three forces: “(1) the tsarist monarchy, the head of the feudal landlords, of the old bureaucracy and the military caste; (2) bourgeois and landlord-Octobrist-Cadet Russia, behind which trailed the petty bourgeoisie (of which Kerensky and Chkheidze are the principal representatives); (3) the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, which is seeking to make the entire proletariat and the entire mass of the poorest part of the population its allies.” This is the stage of the democratic revolution, Mr. Yildirim. The Marxists take the following positions at this stage: “Ours is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists say, therefore the workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception practised by the bourgeois politicians, teach them to put no faith in words, to depend entirely on their own strength, their own organisation, their own unity, and their own weapons.” If one were to make a comparison, they would only come to the conclusion that the rulers in northern Syria are in the “best” case another Kerenski-regime. Both the class character of the PKK and the constitution of Rojava leave no other conclusion.

The Soviets, Lenin writes later, must be understood as “organs of insurrection” “in all parts of Russia without exception, for all trades and strata of the proletarian and semi-proletarian population” “We need revolutionary government ... But not the kind of state the bourgeoisie has created everywhere, from constitutional monarchies to the most democratic republics. And in this we differ from the opportunists and Kautskyites of the old, and decaying, socialist parties, who have distorted, or have for gotten, the lessons of the Paris Commune and the analysis of these lessons made by Marx and Engels.” So the Soviets do not serve the class reconciliation – as it is executed in Rojava – but are instruments for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. No such explanation has ever been given by the rulers of northern Syria, on the contrary. Nevertheless, the apologists of Öcalan dare to make this comparison. This dishonesty will cost them dearly, for the revolutionary proletariat will present the bill to them.

With such a fundamental confusion, it is hardly surprising that “a strictly disciplined, militant cadre party, the PKK” is “classified to classical Marxism-Leninism” without any reference to the class character (the CPSU under Khrushchev as the CPC under Deng were bourgeois-fascist parties).

Here it becomes clear that the author does indeed mean to be able to chess with Marxism, but his understanding of it lags. This is also reflected by naming adventurers, like the former foreign-legionary, a professional criminal on the payroll of imperialism, Günther Kelsten, in the same breath with revolutionaries from the deepest and broadest masses such as Ivana Hoffman. This is not altered by the fact that Yildirim formulates here and there “criticism” that the “revolution in Rojava” does not go “far enough” etc., only to discount it in the next breath by formulating a pious hope.

One conclusion of Yildirim: “For communists and social revolutionaries it must be clear that the persepctive of a strategic alliance with the PKK-oriented Kurdish liberation movement must be aimed at if it comes to Rojava/Syria, Turkey and the Middle East.” And “... Teaching from the outside, on the other hand, will only lead the Communist forces to being bounced off all the developments on the ground and being perceived as elitist snares.” It must be decisively stated that if the Communists would be, in alliance with the PKK under the leadership of Yankee imperialism, part of the aggression against Syria and the Arab peoples, they will discredit the proletarian world revolution for years. On the contrary, they must boldly mobilise their own forces and resolutely oppose the counter-revolutionary brood side by side with the most exploited and oppressed masses. Where they do not exist, the Communist Parties have to be (re)constituted and where People's War is not waged, the People's War must be initiated as quickly as possible to march forward to communism by democratic revolutions, which must be seamlessly go over into the socialist revolution, and cultural revolutions. The latter is the task that exists in all countries of the world.

Considering the opportunistic storm of Kobanê which spread all over the world and the fact that many young, basically progressive people are ready to give their lives in the struggle taking place in northern Syria (in their intention against imperialism) and do so, it is an urgent necessity that the International Communist Movement, the international proletariat and the peoples of the world, the revolutionaries and anti-imperialists in all countries are clear about the development in Western Asia and in particular the role of the PKK and its accomplices and consequently take a clear stance. It needs a decided attitude against the opportunists, their false “anti-imperialism” and their convergences with the line of the PKK.

by Alexandra Becker, December 2016