12. Let us not deny the influence of dominant nationnationalism onTurkish workers and peasants
The Safak Revisionists say that “all Turkey’s workers and peasants support the Kurdish people’s (!) struggle [against the policy of national oppression and assimilation, struggle for democratic rights, equality of nationalities and self-determination].” [my emphasis]
The concrete reality here has been sacrificed to fancy phrases. First, let us correct this mistake: Apart from all Turkey’s workers and peasants, even Turkey’s class-conscious proletariat will not unconditionally support the struggle “for self-determination.” It will only support secession in a concrete situation when it is appropriate to the interests of the struggle waged by the proletariat for socialism. If it is not, then it will respect the Kurdish nation’s desire for secession and accept it, but will not actively support it. We shall return to this point later.
On the other hand, we cannot claim that “all the workers and peasants of Turkey” support today all the most just and progressive demands of the Kurdish nation. This is merely something that is desired, but is, unfortunately, not true. The consciousness of Turkish workers and peasants has been extensively and negatively affected by the nationalist ideology of the Turkish ruling classes. Dominant nation nationalism has even negatively influenced the views of the most progressive proletarian elements, let alone the peasantry. That is, it is a specific task of Turkish communists to dismantle Turkish nationalism and to cleanse the workers and peasants of all manner of the remnants of bourgeois nationalism. All determinations that lead to neglect or underestimation of the importance of this task are only harmful from the standpoint of the class struggle. What Comrade Lenin said for Russia has the same validity for us:
Even now, and probably for a fairly long time to come, proletarian democracy must reckon with the nationalism of the Great Russian peasants (not with the object of making concessions to it, but in order to combat it).[53]
The Safak Revisionists do not this reality into account and cause the communist movement to forget its task of waging a struggle with Turkish nationalism.
13. A People’s Right to Self-Determination, a Nation’s Right to Self-Determination
The Safak Revisionists have distorted the most fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism regarding the national question and rendered them incomprehensible. They have distorted the tenet of “nations’ right of self-determination” into a “people’s right of self-determination.” These are two entirely different things. Firstly, a people’s overthrowing of the reactionary classes in power, seizing authority and dominating the State, means, in short, to carry out a revolution, whereas the latter means for a nation to have the right to establish a separate state. The Safak Revisionists are declaring that they recognize the Kurdish people’s right to carry out a revolution (!). Bravo.
What is instructive is that the formulation of a people’s right to self-determination was advocated at one time by Bukharin against Comrade Lenin and criticized for this by Comrade Lenin. Let us read Comrade Lenin’s response to Bukharin:
I have to say the same thing about the national question. [my emphasis] Here, too, the wish is father to the thought with Comrade Bukharin. He says that we must not recognize the right of nations to self-determination. A nation means the bourgeoisie together with the proletariat. And are we, the proletarians, to recognize the right to self-determination of the despised bourgeoisie? That is absolutely incompatible! Pardon me, it is compatible with what actually exists. If you eliminate this, the result will be sheer fantasy. [my emphasis]
…I want to recognize only the right of the working classes to self-determination,” says Comrade Bukharin. That is to say, you want to recognize something that has not been achieved in a single country except Russia. That is ridiculous.[54]
Today in Turkey the Safak Revisionists, “insistently,” in their own words, defending the “Kurdish people’s right of self-determination,” are not only being ridiculous, they are also the most expert theoreticians of a fearsome dominant nation nationalism. Today in Turkey, the right to establish a state is a privilege of the dominant Turkish nation. The Kurdish nation’s right to establish a separate state has been usurped. Communists defend absolutely no national privileges. They advocate absolute equality between nations. Certainly they are aware that under the conditions of capitalism absolute equality between nations cannot occur, but they advocate it despite this, even if it is only hypothetical. They oppose all manner of national privilege and inequality in order to secure the unity of workers and toilers from various nationalities and come out in support of the broadest, most progressive and most coherent democracy possible. What are the Safak Revisionists doing? They remove the Kurdish nation’s right to establish a state by granting (!) the Kurdish people the right to carry out a revolution. They are insidiously and viciously defending the dominant Turkish nation’s privilege to establish a state. This is what is “terrifying” in addition to being “absurd.”
14. “A nations’ right of self-determination” means nothing less thanthe right to establish aseparate state
The Safak Revisionists, by saying self-determination and, if it wishes, the “right to establish a separate state” see the “right of self-determination” as something different than the “right to establish a separate state.” The above expression would only be correct in the following form: “…the right of self-determination, that is the right to establish a separate state…” For the right of self-determination is, in essence, the right to establish a separate state.
Comrade Lenin stated on numerous occasions that the right of self-determination was nothing less than the right to establish a separate state:
The question of the self-determination of nations over their political fate, i.e., that they become completely free and have the democratic right to separate and found an independent state.[55]
Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations, not by juggling with legal definitions, or “inventing” abstract definitions, but by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state. [my emphasis]
55
This quote attributed to Lenin and is sourced as coming from