If the communist movement decided the secession of the Kurdish nation was beneficial in regards the class interests of the proletariat, for instance, if the possibility of revolution in the Kurdish region was to increase in the event of secession, in that case it would have defended secession. It would have campaigned for secession both among Turkish workers and toilers and among Kurdish workers and toilers. In both these cases, warm and sincere ties would have been established between Turkish workers and toilers and Kurdish workers and toilers. The Kurdish people would have nourished great confidence and feelings of friendship towards the Turkish people and communists. The unity of peoples would have been firmer and the success of the revolution would have been easier to facilitate.
Let us reiterate: those who endeavor to portray the Turkish government’s trampling on the Kurdish nation’s right of self-determination and carrying out massacres etc. as just and progressive by alleging that British imperialism was involved in the Sheikh Said movement are incorrigible Turkish chauvinists. It is instructive that Metin Toker[39], who is today the vilest defender (and un-appointed advisor) of the gang of pro-American fascist generals, clings to the attribution of “British imperialist involvement” in order to justify the massacres inflicted during that period on the Kurdish nation. It is again instructive that Dogan Avcioglu, who attempts to blatantly defend cruelty of the commando officer that even fascist governments do not have the courage to defend openly, clings to the same allegation. A nation’s right to self-determination cannot be restricted or taken away on account of an allegation that it is, or may become, a tool of imperialism. On the basis of such an allegation, a nation’s “oppression and mistreatment” cannot be defended. Besides, during the period in question, the Turkish government was collaborating with the British and French imperialists. The fundamental watchword of the proletariat regarding the national question is the same in all circumstances:
Not a single privilege for any nation or any language! Not the slightest oppression of or unfairness to national minorities![40]
The national oppression of the Turkish ruling classes has continued to the present day. In parallel, the Kurdish national movement has also persisted, with one exception: a section of Kurdish feudal lords has joined the ranks of the Turkish ruling classes. A very small number of Kurdish large bourgeois has also joined the ranks of the Turkish ruling classes. The Kurdish bourgeoisie has strengthened considerably, and the feudal influence on the Kurdish national movement has weakened proportionately. Today the strengthened Kurdish bourgeoisie, intellectuals who have adopted their ideology, and small landlords lead the Kurdish national movement. Despite this, Kurdish workers and peasants are also proportionately less under the influence of the Kurdish bourgeoisie and landlords than in the past. Marxist-Leninist ideas have begun to take root among Kurdish workers, impoverished peasants and intellectuals and are spreading rapidly. Under these conditions, what should the attitude of Turkish communists be to the Kurdish national movement? Now we are moving on to this point and we shall exhibit the erroneous line of the Safak Revisionists, which damages the unity of peoples.
9. The Democratic Content of the Kurdish National Movement
The Kurdish national movement possesses a general democratic content, as one aspect of it opposes the coercion, tyranny, privileges and selfish interests of the ruling classes of the oppressor nation. The removal of national oppression, the securing of equality between nationalities, the removal of the privileges of the ruling classes of the dominant nation, the ending of bans and restrictions on language, equality between nations in every sphere and the recognition of equality in the right to establish a nation-state are all democratic and progressive demands.
Comrade Stalin said:
Restriction of freedom of movement, disfranchisement, repression of language, closing of schools, and other forms of persecution affect the workers no less, if not more, than the bourgeoisie. Such a state of affairs can only serve to retard the free development of the intellectual forces of the proletariat of subject nations. One cannot speak seriously of a full development of the intellectual faculties of the Tatar or Jewish worker if he is not allowed to use his native language at meetings and lectures, and if his schools are closed down.[41]
Let us again recall Comrade Stalin’s writings:
But the policy of nationalist persecution is dangerous to the cause of the proletariat also on another account. It diverts the attention of large strata from social questions, questions of the class struggle, to national questions, questions “common” to the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And this creates a favorable soil for lying propaganda about “harmony of interests,” for glossing over the class interests of the proletariat and for the intellectual enslavement of the workers. This creates a serious obstacle to the cause of uniting the workers of all nationalities.[42]
39
Metin Toker was a journalist who published a newspaper called
40
This quotation of Lenin, is not present in his Collected Works. In