Athens Meeting 18-20 November 2005, Contribution of CP of
Turkey
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From: SolidNet, Tuesday, December 27, 2005
http://www.tkp.org.tr/int , mailto:int@tkp.org.tr
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International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
"Current Trends In Capitalism: Economic, Social And
Political Impact. The Communists' Alternative"
Athens, 18-20 November, 2005

Kemal Okuyan
General Secretary of Communist Party of Turkey

The scale of the political struggle

Dear comrades,

As a communist party, we are very happy to be struggling in
a country that is a neighbour of Greece which has a true
internationalist party not only because they are hosting
such an important conference annually but also because they
are struggling in a revolutionary spirit as a real
marxist-leninist party against imperialism and capitalism.
I want to express the respect of TKP members to KKE.

Comrades,

When discussing the current trends in capitalism and the
communists' alternative, you cannot avoid dealing with the
nation state. The question about the role of the nation
state in class struggles has been becoming increasingly
interesting after the collapse of Soviet Union. This is not
only because the imperialist powers started a strong
offence against many sovereign states but also because, the
ideological initiative taken by the ruling classes which
successfully found basis also inside the international
working class movement.

A widely assumption that has gained root among progressive
forces is in fact very simple as follows: There is an
objective process going on the global scale which can be
formulated as the withering away of the nation state. So
this is taken as granted, as a social law that can by no
means be resisted.

It is very interesting to see that among the Marxists who
systematically claim that the consequences of the
globalisation is irreversible, those are the ones who were
highly critical about the so-called economist deviation
inside the 3rd International tradition.

Globalism, including the political and economical pressure
on the dependent states cannot be seen as a progress and it
should be taken as a general answer of the ruling classes
to the crisis. Communists can do nothing but resist and
fight against this process which has nothing to do with the
natural pattern of the social development. Things that we
are all facing are a composed and conscious aggression
coming from imperialism.

Let us now deal with different aspects of the thesis that
"the time for the nation state is over".

Is it so that the monopolies do not have a national
identity? Of course, capital always seek for expansion, you
can never limit capital in national scale. However the
assumption that capital has totally become multi-national,
is a covered attempt to conceal imperialism as a system.
There is a hierarchy in the capitalist system and without
any doubt the most powerful capitalists are not coming from
my country Turkey, i.e. Chilli or Argentine but from United
States, from Germany, France and Britain. That is not to
have any sympathy to capitalists of any kind but to stress
on the reality that big monopolies are benefiting from the
states of their own. Those capitalists cannot do without
their "national" states; without the help of the US
Marines, McDonalds' would face difficulties competing
sish-kebap for sure.

Then why is everybody saying that there is no room for
nation state? The truth is different; the imperialist
countries are using their state apparatus more efficiently
than ever and increasing pressure on others.

But let me continue

It is also said that, the axis of the decision making
process has shifted from national scale to continental or
international level. This is true if we don't take into
account the leading capitalist countries. In the case of
Turkey, like many other countries, the critical decisions
are more and more taken by international actors rather than
the government settled in Ankara. But when speaking about
international actors, we mean not merely the collective
will or international organizations but the imperialist
countries. There is indeed a shift but a shift in benefit
of imperialist centres not a shift from the national to the
international.

I'm not saying that Turkish bourgeoisie has lost all of her
capacity to take decisions but she has given a lot to
United States and Germany.

Turkey did face a severe economic crisis in 2001 when the
coalition government at that time were getting more and
more superfluous for the United States. All right, the
conditions for an economic crisis were already ripe but
please take into account that it was decided in imperialist
circles and institutions to transfer a huge amount of
liquid money from the financial markets in Istanbul. That
was an action that enabled foreign speculators earn high
amounts of money in an hour. However this "profit" can only
be seen as a bonus for the imperialists as the main
consequence of the operation was to weaken the government
to open way for a new one and to further increase the depth
of Turkey to a figure that is around 160 billion dollars.

One cannot say that a "secret hand of the global market"
caused this. Of course there was an economic rational in
the collapse of Istanbul stock-market which was bloated up
artificially. However, the timing of the operation and the
combination of politics with economics was coming from the
"visible desire of United States". It was not the abstract
market that forced IMF to give a big loan to Turkey; it was
not a spontaneous political process but a well designed
political project that led to the formation of the existing
Erdogan government.

I can give another example related to the Cyprus issue. You
know that the Cyprus Republic has the right to veto
Turkey's membership to EU like all other full members. The
fact that Cyprus cannot use this veto is not an evidence of
the passing way of a nation state but is a proof to the
strengthening of imperialist states. It is United States
that is deciding whether a veto can be used against
Turkey's membership or not. This was the same when Turkey
could not veto the return of Greece to the military flank
of NATO in the beginning of the 80's.

The decline in the portion of the state-owned enterprises
in capitalist countries is also shown as evidence to the
transfer of the political power from national states to
global dynamics. Well I'm not discussing the huge impact of
the privatization process all over the world. Though we
have to clarify what this process really means?

In Turkey as in some other countries, we had to deal with
marxists who were in fact liberals that were supporting the
privatization process under the pretext that this process
was going to weaken the state apparatus!

Without getting into details, we should sort out three
related consequences of privatization: It is not the
capitalist state but it is the working class that was
weakened; the interference of the state to the economic
life on behalf of the ruling classes continued as ever; the
role of the imperialist states in the capitalist world
increased.

Thus, the main imperialist powers like United States and
Germany keep a very strong state-owned sector in critical
industries or services till now not only for economic
reasons but for a political rational.

A lot can also be said in a theoretical level about the
impossibility of a complete destruction of nation states as
they are and will be the basic instrument for the
bourgeoisie against the working classes. Plus, ruling
classes need not a single global unit but a divided world
to compete, to use one other against the gains of the
proletariat and to safeguard the capital accumulation.

Dear comrades,

All I said above are some of the arguments that we can put
forward against the idea that the basis of the class
struggles should not be the national scale. We have to take
into account that the uneven development is still one of
the basic laws of capitalism. Although we can speak about
the global dynamics and trends in capitalism, the crisis
which is the objective and inevitable weakness of the rule
of capital have an impact on each country after passing
through a political, economical and ideological prism. For
instance, there are emigrant workers all over Europe. More
than 3,5 million are from my country. They are facing with
same problems with different features in each case. The
answer to the question why explosion occurred in France
should be a complicated one. It is related with the
policies of the government, with the class structure, with
the segments inside the working classes, with the
composition of the emigrants, with the details of the
policies that destroyed the social security system, with
the political structure and so on Of course the conflicts
in France are not peculiar they are not isolated but in
practice, it differs from any other country.

Another example Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey are all
candidates to European Union in the same region. The first
two will become full members soon but this does not mean
that the so-called EU reforms are not exercised in Turkey.
The accession process is generally the same in each country
but its impact is completely different especially in the
political life. In Turkey the process is deepening the
crisis within the system while in two other Balkan
countries it is going on in a more steady way.

Comrades,

If these are the realities, than why are we discussing
whether the national scale for political struggle is valid
or not?

It is the imperialists themselves who are claiming that it
is reactionary to insist on the national scale, it is the
bourgeoisie that is trying to avoid a face to face class
struggle in national scale.

No country is isolated. Any change in a country will
directly or in some other way effect others. That is
obvious. However, the class struggles are still going on
the national scale where the economics, politics, ideology
and culture integrate to create a specific formation. To
deny the national scale we have to deny the class struggles
and I'm afraid the ones claiming that it is all over and
the global market is the determinant of the human society
are denying any kind of class struggle.

Communists should find way to cooperate, to coordinate in
universal, continental and regional scales but to keep away
from playing a global game rather than struggling for
socialism we have base the cooperation and coordination of
the revolutionary forces on the real ongoing struggles that
are waged in the national scale.

We can not help but give credits to Leninism that showed
this clearly a century ago although some prefer to be
ashamed of.

Comrades, it is a critical time not to be ashamed of our
true values but to strengthen them in a creative way.