As Rosa (Luxemburg) emphasized, constitutional problems are not problems of law, but of political power. The political conditions command the labor left movement to engage in a real power struggle regarding constitutional policy. Politics that replace a bourgeois constitutional order with another order of the ruling class can certainly not be considered a struggle for power. It is nothing but constitutionalism, upholding the establishment and repairing the bourgeois order. Undoubtedly, it is neither revolutionary nor beneficial to the working class and our people.
The Constitutional Court General Assembly‘s decision to release TİP (Türkiye İşçi Partisi— “Worker’s Party of Turkey”) Deputy Can Atalay, was met with hierarchical resistance, from the high criminal court all the way to the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation. The longstanding friction between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court has entered the stage of open conflict. The 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation filed a criminal complaint to the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against 9 members of the Constitutional Court who ruled in favor of Atalay —a first in the history of the judiciary, though not in the history of the state. This incident, which was referred to as a “judicial crisis”, though indeed being nothing more than a state crisis, has become subject of new political alignment and constitutional policy of the collaborator Turkish ruling classes.
Newly-appointed CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi— “Republican People’s Party”) Chairman Özgür Özel described the situation as a coup against the constitution. In the face of this coup, he directed a fake, controlled and demagogic call to the streets. He attempted to organize a political alignment initiative on the CHP axis against the AKP-MHP bloc. While doing so, however, he contributed to the fascist agenda of resolving the state crisis by drafting a new constitution. A significant portion of the labor left movement once again followed the lead of the CHP and was thus thrown into shielding the constitution and order. The CHP–aligned components of the labor left have proven anew that they continue to pave the way to hell with the stones of good will.
There is no doubt that the attitude of the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation was organized by the fascist palace regime. Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç’s constant indoctrination speeches regarding the Can Atalay file, the statements by the chief advisor to the president Mehmet Uçum, and the evaluations of the fascist chief Erdoğan, who has the last word in resolving the emerging crisis and conflict, are concrete indicators that this process has been organized. This move, which aims to turn the targeted Constitutional Court into the sword of the palace and his majesty’s judiciary, is now tied to a more radical policy. The fascist chief points to a new constitution as the solution to all these crises— because this is where the real source of the regime crisis lies. Harmony and integrity cannot be achieved between the system of fascist chiefdom, which was established through political snatching and usurpation during the April 2017 referendum, and the ancien regime, meaning the constitutional institutions of the established order. This causes disruption in the administrative harmony of the old constitutional powers and the new chiefdom regime. The latter struggles to govern, even with its current mechanisms.
The Constitutional Court and the parliament stand out as two foundational constitutional institutions that move outside of the fascist regimes absolute authoritarian ruling grip. Considering this, the AKP-MHP government tries to take control of these institutions first, to turn them into effective instruments of its own despotism and recklessly use them for this purpose. The political Islamist fascist chief Erdoğan, who won the 2023 elections by holding the helm of the state, wants to benefit from the conditions and opportunities laid out in his favor in the most efficient manner and advance his power position by doing so.
The state or regime crisis is rooted in two given realities. The reality that creates a constant crisis for the fascist chiefdom regime and questions its legitimacy is the contradiction and incompatibility between the administrative form of the constitutional order and the current constitution. In other words: there is a fascist chiefdom regime but no complementing chiefdom constitution. For this reason, the regime regularly suspends the current constitution and operates in de facto violation of the constitution. This, however, is not sustainable. This is the first plane of reality. The second ground of reality is again a constitutional handicap. The survival of the fascist chiefdom regime depends on the fifty percent constitutional election threshold. This threshold, which ensures the establishment of the constitutional and political legitimacy of the government, also faces a real challenge. The 2023 election results reveal that it is risky and impossible for the fascist chiefdom regime to continue its existence without changing the condition of the fifty percent threshold.
In this context, the linking of the state or regime crisis to a new constitution is an expression of a real situation, based on factual power relations. The political Islamist fascist chiefdom regime, embodied in the AKP-MHP ruling bloc, has no other way out of the crisis. Resolving the conflicts, frictions and crises that arise between state institutions by establishing a constitutional order suitable for the political Islamist fascist regime will become the basic policy of the AKP-MHP ruling bloc. AKP-MHP will mobilize all its resources to prepare the conditions for the new constitution and create a constitutional architecture suitable for an absolute authoritarian and monocratic government system. The chiefdom regime will aim to institutionalize all its gains, that it achieved through coups and constitutive violence within the last eight years by transferring them to the new constitution.
If the new fascist chiefdom constitutional order—which is far from dystopian fiction–becomes reality, it will mean a life under even harsher political conditions, heightening the necessity of waging class struggle for the working class and all the oppressed of the world. Keeping the Kurdish nation under colonial oppression, intensifying the occupational war, maintaining the trusteeship system, dispersing and crushing Kurdish democratic organizations, destroying revolutionary organizations—the list goes on; goal of the new fascist constitutional order will be the continuation of all existing fascist policies in the most reckless manner and the complete elimination of some rights. As a matter of fact, the political Islamist fascist chief regime is already carrying out a destructive and aggressive misogynist policy to diminish the rights and positions gained with the blood and sweat of the women’s liberation struggle. In the new fascist chieftaincy constitution, all the gains of the women’s struggle will be reversed, shackled to the prison that is the “sacred” family, as well as domestic slavery, thus posing great threats to women . For the working class and all the oppressed, the new fascist chiefdom constitution will mean a complete lack of political freedom and a system of oppression and cruelty that forces allegiance to the fascist regime.
The reality of the situation requires all the forces and subjects in the struggle for political power to concretize constitutional politics from an ideopolitical point of view as a process. Our labor left movement once again stands at a critical juncture regarding constitutional policy. At this ideopolitical crossroads, one path leads to order, the other to the revolutionary power of the working class and our people. While analyzing the background of constitutional problems and politics from the perspective of political science and revolutionary practice, communist leader Rosa Luxemburg quotes a short passage from Ferdinand Lassalle: “Constitutional problems are not essentially problems of law, but problems of power; the real constitution of a country exists only in the prevalent, existing power relations.”
As Rosa emphasized, constitutional problems are not problems of law, but those of political power. The political conditions command the labor left movement to engage in a real power struggle regarding constitutional policy. Politics that replace a bourgeois constitutional order with another order of the ruling class can certainly not be considered a struggle for power. It is nothing but constitutionalism, upholding the establishment and repairing the bourgeois order. Undoubtedly, it is neither revolutionary nor beneficial to the working class and our people. Democratic constitution, people’s constitution etc— One should stay away from diversions such as those that veer into the constitutionalist/intra-establishment policy lane, and focus on organizing “real actual power relations” that strengthen constitutions and translate them into action. Revolutionary politics in class struggle are the politics that will make the working class and the oppressed an independent political hegemonic force against the ruling classes. We need a route of struggle that unites the working class and our people as a political army and front in the struggle for power against fascism. Our labor left movement must walk on the path of the revolutionary power of the working class and the oppressed, organize and expand the struggle with the consciousness of revolutionary power. It must must absolutely refuse to line up alongside the CHP against the AKP–MHP fascist bloc. The working class and its oppressed must unite in an antifascist freedom front against the political Islamist fascist chiefdom regime. The struggle must be waged with organizations, actions and forms of struggle that will overthrow the fascist chiefdom order.