Détente policies are steps and strategies used by disintegrating and weakened governments in hopes of reversing a situation. The working class and the leaders of the oppressed must grasp the policies of détente from this very point. Our laboring left movement must lean on the growing anger and discontent of the oppressed and exploited classes, unite with the advanced parts of the mass movement and widen the struggle against the fascist regime.
CHP’s victory in the local elections against the AKP-MHP fascist ruling bloc created a new political situation in terms of the integrity of the state administration. AKP came in first in those municipalities of North Kurdistan where it practiced trustee usurpation. The fascist Erdogan regime, which holds the monopoly on central and local governments, was pushed back to a certain level after the restorationist bourgeois opposition bloc won 14 metropolitan municipalities, among them Istanbul and Ankara, in the 2019 local elections. However, the new political landscape that came to be after the 2024 local elections has shifted this balance in favor of the CHP. In addition to the metropolitan municipalities it regained on the Turkish front, CHP gained a clear advantage over the AKP-MHP bloc by winning many new provinces, districts and towns. Combined with the defeat of the AKP-MHP bloc against the DEM Party in North Kurdistan, the fascist bloc “lost altitude”. What remains is a political picture of “dual power”, in which the central government is dominated by the AKP-MHP bloc and embodied in the fascist Erdogan regime, whereas the power over local governments is now in hands of the CHP.
There is no doubt that this reality has conditioned the relations and functions of given bourgeois politics to be determined at a new level. The outcome of the 2024 local election resuulted in the more effective inclusion and facilitation of the left-of-establishment CHP–actor in the governing systematics of the fascist regime. Immediately after the election, Erdogan recognized the situation in all its simplicity and accepted the political defeat with a rhetoric that held his tail high. He, who grasped the local election results with the term of “loss of altitude”, quickly seized the political initiative of the new era, announcing that he will not stand upright with the CHP. The party’s chairman proclaimed, “The doors are open to Mr. Özgür” and thus outlined the characteristucs of the new era of bourgeois politics. Erdogan showed the initiative to manage the situation on behalf of the Turkish bourgeois state. He opened the way for a meeting with Özgür Özel. On May 3, during said meeting, the ‘softening’ period and policy wer officially declared.
Before and after the elections, the CHP pretended to be the spokesperson for the economic and political demands of the working class and the oppressed. It politicized the demands of all different social opposition groups within demagogic discourse. It marched the path of emasculating various demands of the working class and oppressed social strata using political attractions. It maintained this demagogic discourse on almost every issue, from the Palestine to the demands of retirees, from the deepening poverty of the workers to the incidents of ecological destruction, from Emine Şenyaşar’s struggle for justice to the struggle of the Saturday Mothers. It became active in his role as the spokesperson of all social movements and demands. In this period, when the reformist sections of the labor left movement remained passive and backed up to the CHP, the CHP became even more prominent as the center of the bourgeois opposition. CHP, which rose on the shoulders of the reformist sections of the working left, was able to debilitate the current demands of the working class and poor people more easily.
It should be emphasized that CHP won the electoral support and consent of millions of voters, thanks to the sections of the laboring left that were engaged with the bourgeois left. CHP, the flagship of the bourgeois opposition, was able to create a political center of gravity and confrontation against the fascist Erdogan regime thanks to its support from these parts of the working left.. With its hypocritical bourgeois political mechanism, the CHP managed to limit the reactions and anger of the working class and the oppressed against the fascist regime within the boundaries of intra-establishment politics. CHP fulfills its role as a political firefighter and its mission of ensuring the survival of the fascist regime in every period and at critical moments. The latest attraction, the Taksim May 1st movement, is emblematic of this practice. The founding party of the state, CHP, set the Saraçhane trap with its performative Taksim demagoguery. It implemented a policy that was in line with the interests of capital and fascism by dragging the union centers DISK, KESK and a large body of the working left with it.
Özgür Özel seems to have understood the role he will undertake for the survival of the order in which he determined the political strategy of the new era with Erdoğan. The détente (‘easing’) politics that started with the Özel-Erdoğan meeting will determine the coming period and direction of bourgeois politics. It seems that the main agenda that emerged in the talks was the constitution and the restoration of the decaying order. Erdoğan seems to have opened his hand with essentially one agenda, the new Constitution. He wants to continue to govern and secure the state regime through his autocratic system. He aims to complete its institutionalization by drafting a constitution.
Numan Kurtulmuş’s, President of the Turkish Parliament, meeting with CHP and DEM Party should be read and evaluated in this context. With this, he expresses the first polls of the new constitution-based détente policy. With this step of probing the situation, the AKP-MHP fascist ruling bloc aims to draw the multi-dimensional political governance crisis to a manageable route with the CHP with a message of “normalization” and “softening”, and to achieve a result and progress in the areas of Constitution, the Constitutional Court, judiciary and other areas of crisis within the state. Can Atalay, Kavala, the February 28 detainees and the trustee practices stand out as issues that fascist dictator Erdoğan can compromise on in terms of his main goals in order to lay the conditions for social-political legitimacy of the political strategy of détente focused on strengthening the wheels of the established fascist order.
Although it is not impossible for the CHP to reach a strategic compromise with the fascist AKP-MHP ruling bloc on the scope, scale and target of the restoration, in its proposal to govern the regime with the form and mechanisms of a “strengthened parliamentary system”, it does not seem very likely at this stage. After the local elections, CHP’s appetite and ambition for power and political self-confidence increased. This is a natural consequence. In the local government elections, the CHP gained a great amount of financial and economic power by acquiring new municipalities. It is a clear reality that by relying on these local power positions, the central government will try to advance its strategy of settling in a command position with different tactical gains. More importantly, it created an ideologically strong social hegemony area and circle in producing and managing social consent within the system. Therefore, CHP will focus on gaining political power by using the given “dual power” balance in the most efficient way. Being aware of its position as the rising bourgeois option in the face of the dissolution of the AKP-MHP bloc, the CHP will follow a political line that aligns its own survival with the survival of the order during the period of détente. It will continue on its line of bourgeois opposition appropriate to the conditions and needs of this period.
If we recall what we know from political science and its applications, we can say that two basic dimensions of the détente strategy will be decisive. In this context, the first level consists of the political Islamist fascist Erdohan regime reorganizing relations with the international capital oligarchy, the USA and the European Union by making concessions, that is, without becoming steeper. Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek’s relations with the World Bank and international financial centers regarding the Medium–TermProgram (economical program initiated in attempt zo counteract economic crisis) of capital and fascism are within this scope. It is significant to note that Erdoğan declared the policy of détente during the period when Mehmet Şimşek presented the MTP promises of cheap labor forces to the international financial capital. Heating an agenda such as updating the new customs union agreement with the EU and renewing relations constitute another political agenda of the fascist junta. We can also see signs of détente policies at the regional level and with surrounding neighboring countries. It is also possible that the steps taken by the Iraqi central government will develop in other countries. Especially easing relations with Greece will create a wider international political repercussion. The scope and depth of Erdoğan’s détente policies will be determined by the power and capacity of the government.
The second fundamental dimension of the fascist chieftaincy regime’s détente strategy will find expression on a national scale. The equivalent of détente in domestic politics and bourgeois politics is ensuring the joint work of bourgeois politics in order to carry out the economic and political program of capital. In this sense, détente policies mean new agreements between the ruling class blocs and divisions. Of course, this agreement between the rulers and the united order of the counter-revolutionary forces against the working class and the oppressed means the suppression of all the economic and political demands of our people by force. Under fascism, détente policies have no meaning other than softening the oppressed and exploited classes under the use of harsh attacks. Détente policies are moves and strategies of disintegrating and weakened governments to reverse the situation. The working class and the leaders of the oppressed must grasp the policies of détente from this very point. Our laboring left movement must lean on the growing anger and discontent of the oppressed and exploited classes, unite with the advanced divisions of the marching mass movement, and expand the struggle against the fascist regime. It must develop a struggle that raises the united resistance of the working class and the oppressed against the regime that is in the process of dissolution.
The original text was published in Turkish on May 10 as the editorial of the 116th issue of the weekly newspaper ATILIM.