All laboring left forces, militant unions and democratic mass organizations, who stand side by side in their aim and determination of reaching Taksim square on May Day, need a plan grounded in their united struggle. The Taksim forces should organize themselves in revolutionary commitees. Only through a combination of militant, determined, united and daring actions will Erdogan’s ban on publics spacecs and hostile will against the people be defeated.
We are approaching the end of the March-May period, which is a special section and conjuncture for the political class struggle in Turkey and North Kurdistan. May Day is just days away. We are entering May 1st, 2024 with new conditions of class struggle. We are marching towards it with the experience and gains acquired by the political struggles of the preceding months. The desire and ambition of holding the May 1st protests in Istanbul on Taksim square this year are a direct result of the struggle and an evolving mass consciousness raised by the working class and the oppressed during the March-May period.
The clock of history and the development of the ongoing class struggle and the movement surrounding it have once again put the historical duty of observing May 1st in Taksim Square before the working class, the oppressed and our laboring left movement. In this country, May Day on Taksim Square has always been stage of a special political battle. Since May 1st 1977, Taksim has been the subject of conflict and ideo-political struggle between the working class and the oppressed and the fascist dictatorship. Without exception, every May Day on Taksim has since become the political arena of the state-people alignment and various political alignments related to it.
What characterizes Taksim as a center of intense political class conflict and collision is the price paid by the working class in this square. It flags the highest values of political history, created by the working class and the oppressed at the cost of life and blood. For this reason, May Day in Taksim retains a great symbolic and political value in the struggle of the working class in Turkey and North Kurdistan. It reflects and carries forward the political consciousness and revolutionary tradition of the proletariat. May Day in this location has always accelerated the development of the working class movement for it marked political confrontation between two antagonistic classes in its purest form.
The Gezi Uprising further enriched the symbolism of Taksim Square, feeding it with even more revolutionary values and experience. Taksim Square represents, in the memory and consciousness of our people, a class consciousness and tradition of struggle in which the will of fascism was trampled and crushed by the power of hundreds of thousands and the squares were captured bay way of practical legitimate struggle.
As we march towards May 1st, 2024 with militant enthusiasm, determination and courage, approaching the imminent clashes around Taksim in Istanbul, the heart of the political class struggle, the DİSK (Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions in Turkey; major trade union center in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan) arises as problem, mounting a wall in front of the laboring left. We must admit that DİSK impedes us in a painful way. It is necessary to clearly reveal the situation, discuss it and overcome it. DİSK and our labor left movement are once again being tested with a historical task.
DİSK wants to dam and consolidate the mass movement under the control of the bourgeois opposition party CHP, by leaning on the developing political power and hegemony of the bourgeois left that emerged with the local elections. DİSK’s tactical attraction to celebrating May Day in Taksim is a CHP policy. DİSK pointing to Taksim for Istanbul’s May 1st after the elections should be read in reverse. The CHP-DİSK hegemony established in the Maltepe rally areas is intended to be maintained in these new situations and conditions. They want to organize a licensed and controlled May Day through DİSK. CHP is trying to move forward by seizing the important opportunities it gained with its local election victory. CHP’s May 1st Taksim rally also aims to maintain the ideo-political hegemony it has established over a significant part of the working left during election periods.
DİSK, as the sole and main actor of the process, is meeting with the Governorship of Istanbul and the Minister of Internal Affairs. On the other hand, the bourgeois left opposition party is following the lead of the CHP. It seems that he wants to organize an imposed and forbidden May Day rally on Taksim. It is very clear that DİSK is carrying out the May 1-Taksim-policy together with the CHP. The celebration of May Day in Taksim, which excludes the labor left movement and lobbies closely with the CHP, points to a new situation.
DİSK, which in the past organized May 1st in alliance with labor left struggle platforms and various social organizations, seems to have abandoned this approach. Walking towards the May Day Taksim battle, DİSK is closing itself off to the confrontations and opportunities of the laboring left movement and the united struggle. This bureaucratic and top-down attitude under the control of the CHP negates the possibility of the working class and the oppressed to raise a joint struggle against the fascist regime. In this context, Taksim May Day Platform’s call to the left to criticize and warn of DISK’s irresponsible and bureaucratic attitude is appropriate. We reiterate this call for a left sense: “May Day 2024 should be organized together with all social segments whose hearts beat in Taksim. The position taken by DİSK this year is far from the effort to organize May Day in a united, historical, mass and class-oriented manner. We once again call on all forces that are parties to May Day to strengthen their united struggle.” DİSK must act responsibly towards the working class and our people, and with the strength of its history of struggle, it must adhere to the value the Taksim square holds on this day, for the working class and to those who were shot and fell on Taksim for May Day.
CHP’s strategy of keeping May Day under its control through certain organizations is not limited to Istanbul and DİSK. A similar situation is happening in Ankara. The approach shown by organizations such as DİSK, KESK, TMMOB, ATO and ADO to the Ankara May Day Platform’s efforts and calls to observe May 1st in a united, mass and revolutionary manner is the same. The CHP’s policy of taking in the reformist sections of the working left and excluding other working left structures is aimed at appeasing and dampening the developing struggle of the working class and the oppressed on behalf of the established order.
The dynamics of the ongoing class struggle of the working class and the oppressed, March 8th, Newroz protests, the resistance in Wan; these events revealed and prepared the desire and determination to celebrate May Day in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. At this moment, the anger and discontent that has accumulated among us against the political Islamist fascist regime will flow to the May Day fields. In the May Day battle, the ideo-political independence of the reformist sections of the laboring left from the CHP hegemony is an urgent and non-negligible issue.
Our laboring left movement must understand the role of the CHP in backing up the working left and damming and suppressing the struggles of the working class and the oppressed. DİSK and CHP’s Taksim action is a concrete and plain indication of this situation. Our working left movement must focus on the leverage role played by the Battle of Taksim in the struggle of the working class and the oppressed. Remembering the revolutionary path of liberation it opened for the oppressed, it must lock on to the struggle to win Taksim. Taksim must be won through legitimate struggle. Forcing Taksim with the combined action of the determined forces of the working left forces and winning through actual legitimate struggle will also mean breaking and overcoming the hegemony of the bourgeois opposition.
At this ‘moment’ in history, a militant, strong and united May 1st must be prepared and organized with the aim of capturing Taksim Square. All laboring left forces, militant unions and democratic mass organizations, who stand side by side in their aim and determination of reaching Taksim square on May Day, need a plan grounded in their united struggle. The Taksim forces should organize themselves in revolutionary commitees. Only through a combination of militant, determined, united and daring actions will Erdoğan’s ban on publics spacecs and hostile will against the people be defeated. Workers, laborers, women, youth, as a whole, those who want to settle accounts with the fascist regime must be organized and called to Taksim and the fighting positions.
Revolutionary socialists should evaluate the possibilities of organizing united positions of struggle with the forces that are firmly aligned with the Taksim target and political pole of our laboring left movement. The revolutionary driving force of the Taksim battles must be responsible and intervene in the process with a serious, effective and creative action plan. The entire accumulation of past Taksim clashes, street clashes and barricade experiencfes must be updated and activated as a practical compass. The third front of the oppressed should organize the practice of directing the aim of the Taksim May Day battle to the general political resistance of the oppressed, relying on its perspective and action.
*Editorial of the 164th issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated April 26.