FOR THE ATTENTION OF ANTI-FASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST,
ANTI-ZIONIST ORGANISATIONS OF THE WORLD!
THE NEWSPAPER AYDINLIK AND THE VATAN PARTY ARE ENEMIES OF
REVOLUTIONARY AND SOCIALIST ORGANISATIONS!
THE VATAN PARTY IS A PARTY THAT ACTS TOGETHER WITH
FASCIST GOVERNMENTS AND FASCIST ORGANISATIONS!
IN THE PAST, REVOLUTIONARIES WERE KILLED FOLLOWING
INFORMANT REPORTS PUBLISHED BY THE NEWSPAPER AYDINLIK!
THEY ARE AT IT AGAIN — AYDINLIK CONTINUES TO ACT AS AN INFORMER!
The newspaper Aydınlık continues its hostility towards revolutionaries in the service of fascism and imperialism:
“It was reported that one of those arrested was İlhan Kaya, the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front) representative responsible for Ankara.”
These words do not belong to the newspapers of the AKP regime’s fascism;
they belong to the newspaper Aydınlık.
What Happened Recently?
The police carried out a provocation at the 37th Spring Festival held at Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara. A fascist mob under police supervision verbally attacked the revolutionary youth at the festival. When the crowd moved towards the group in order to intervene against this mob, they unfurled a Turkish flag that had been prepared in advance. They then put forward the lie that the revolutionary youth had “attacked the flag”.
The police detained six young people who were carrying out revolutionary work among the youth.
This provocation was turned into a news story by the newspaper Aydınlık; the headline of Aydınlık newspaper on 9 May was: “METU YOUTH STAND UP FOR THE FLAG…It was reported that one of those apprehended was İlhan Kaya, the DHKP-C Ankara representative.”
They posted similar tweets. They published photographs of revolutionary students. Supporters of Aydınlık are taking on increasingly open roles in the provocations of fascism.
İlhan Kaya and Celal Elmacı were arrested.
It is the same method of provocation that they used in the Maraş Massacre. Similar lies were always used in Çorum, Sivas and Madımak massacre: “A bomb was thrown into a mosque”, “Religious values were disrespected”, “The flag was disrespected”.
The method of fascism is always the same.
Who was there? The CIA, MIT (National Intelligence Organisation) and MHP [Nationalist Movement Party]-Turkish Fascists.
On 6 April 2005, members of TAYAD were distributing leaflets in Trabzon to protest against F-Type Prisons.
Over loudspeakers, the lie was spread in the square that PKK members had “burned the Turkish flag”. The police and MHP fascists were leading the attack; the fascist mob was incited, and a lynching attack was organised against five TAYAD youths.
Who Was Involved In The Attack At METU?
A police officer’s ring was found at the site of this provocation at METU.
The ring, found on the same day in the area where the provocation began, bore the inscription:
“Samsun 19 Mayıs PMYO, 9th Term”
This means that the ring belonged to a police officer who graduated from the Police Vocational School in the 2010–2011 intake (9th term).
The Claim Of An Attack On The Flag Is A Lie
The Revolutionary Youth Intervened Against The Mob Carrying Out The Provocation
It is fascism that disrespects the flag. Fascism has no respect for any flag. Fascism, which turns the flag into a tool of its own collaboration and provocations, is what disrespects the flag.
Fascist governments that collaborate with imperialism are enemies of independence. For that reason, they are also enemies of all national values. For them, the homeland and the flag are merely tools for concealing and covering up their collaboration and their hostility towards the people. This fascist state does not belong to the people; it is the state of a handful of exploitative minorities. It oppresses the people, organises provocations and carries out massacres.
The duty of the fascist state is to protect the system of exploitation of a handful of imperialists and collaborationist monopolies, together with a handful of usurers, merchants and landlords, and to suppress the people’s rebellion that rises against this system of exploitation and oppression.
Turkey is a neo-colony of imperialism. Those who govern this country are collaborators of imperialism. They are those who have handed the country over to imperialism. The army is an occupation army collaborating with imperialism. Parliament is an instrument of imperialist rule. The form of government is fascism.
They use the flag to conceal their collaboration and their hostility towards the people and the homeland. Whenever the people raise their own problems, they appear carrying the flag.
But the same flag does not prevent the attacks of fascism when it is carried by, for example, villagers who were protesting against the handing over of mining areas to imperialism, workers marching for their rights, or demonstrators gathering against Israeli Zionism and US imperialism. They, the fascist regime’s police, do not care about the flag.
The issue is not the flag; it is fascist aggression and provocation.
Aydinlik Is Neither Left-Wing, Nor Socialist
There is no leftism at the core of the Aydınlık movement. Their leftism is a lie. To be left-wing means to stand with the people, to be anti-imperialist and anti-fascist.
Aydınlık stands on the side of imperialism and fascism, and directly against the people. The fascist junta of 12 September is one of the most concrete examples of this. Today, everyone knows very well that the real organising force behind the fascist junta of 12 September was US imperialism.
US imperialism carried out a coup in Turkey through the generals of the collaborating occupation army. On 12 September 1980, the military fascist junta was brought to power in order to crush the struggle for independence, democracy and socialism in our country.
This is the method employed by the United States in many countries around the world.
What Did Aydinlik Do During The Period Of The 12 September Junta?
It Informed On Revolutionaries To The Police And To Fascism, Name By Name
Here are a few newspaper clippings and quotations from those denunciations;
The Aydınlık movement, particularly during the period 1978–80, served the counter-revolution with all its strength and turned informing into a systematic practice.
The pages of Aydınlık became a newspaper in which photographs of revolutionaries and patriots were displayed prominently, their names and home addresses published, and their biographies printed.
In other words, a newspaper of informing… At every opportunity they showed that they stood alongside the fascist junta of 12 September, and they never denied their informing activities.
The statements made before junta courts by Doğu Perinçek, General Chairman of the Aydınlık-aligned Workers’ Party, and by Aydınlık’s Editor-in-Chief Oral Çalışlar, together with the petitions they submitted to the junta, are sufficient to demonstrate that the Aydınlık line has nothing whatsoever to do with the left or with resistance.
Doğu Perinçek said the following before a 12 September court:
“Arresting us is incompatible with the aims of 12 September. Release us, so that we may serve 12 September.”
Is that not clear enough?
Doğu Perinçek continues:
“Targeting our party is incompatible with the aims declared on 12 September. TİKP (Worker Peasant Party of Turkey) has conducted the most determined struggle against both right-wing and left-disguised terrorism. … Targeting TİKP as well, which is the most determined defender of internal peace alongside the terrorist organisations … weakens the struggle against terrorism.”
Could they explain more clearly that they were in the service of fascism?
What more should the counter-revolutionary Doğu Perinçek say? What more should he do in order to explain himself to the left?
“Arresting and trying to convict the forces fighting terrorism divides the front of internal peace and strengthens the front of terrorist organisations and separatists.” (The quotations are taken from the book entitled TİKP Indictment and Interrogation, published by the Aydınlık movement itself.)
Can anything belonging to the left be found anywhere in this?
Doğu Perinçek even points to the fact that they acted as informers as evidence, and asks the junta to release them so that this “service” may continue:
“TİKP is an important force against the subversion of the Moscow imperialists and against both centres of terrorism.
We submit attached the documents of our party’s struggle against terrorism. (File XVIII) TİKP has exposed the activities of terrorist organisations and informed public opinion on this matter. A large part of the facts that have today entered indictments are facts that TİKP had previously exposed.”
He calls the USSR, not the USA, imperialist, and enters the service of the pro-American fascist junta. Is his position not completely clear?
This evidence that they submitted to the junta court is, in fact, true.
Before 12 September, the newspaper Aydınlık had published a series entitled The Unknown Left (49 Left-Wing Groups), in which it exposed the leadership cadres of various political movements, their neighbourhood organisations, the places they used, their names and surnames, photographs, and sketch maps, thereby informing the enemy.
During this period, the Aydınlık movement declared the entire left to be “fake and provocative” and demanded that the fascist government take measures against the left.
In a letter personally written to Kenan Evren, the head of the fascist junta, Aydınlık’s Editor-in-Chief Oral Çalışlar described their collaboration with what he presented as concrete evidence and pledged that they would assist the fascist junta if they were released:
“Through many of its publications, Aydınlık has helped the Martial Law Commands achieve success against centres of terrorism and violence…
Through its publications and its struggle up to the present day, the newspaper Aydınlık has proven that it is ‘even prepared to gladly sacrifice its life’ in order to support, in the field of the press, the achievement of the aims declared by the National Security Council.”
“Our newspaper has confidence that it will contribute to the achievement of the aims declared by the new administration (that is, the fascist junta) …
… I respectfully request the issuing of the ‘second order’ mentioned in your notification for the republication of Aydınlık.
Respectfully, 17.9.1980″
Metin Feyzioğlu also belongs to this same line of “I respectfully request”. He has “respectfully requested” from AKP fascism.
No one who bows and scrapes before the rulers of fascism can be expected to defend law, justice, those who resist, or lawyers.
Before 12 September, Aydınlık’s party was called the Turkey Workers’ and Peasants’ Party. Later it became the Workers’ Party. After using and tarnishing the name “Worker” sufficiently, this line then began using the name “Vatan Party”.
Those who support juntas, those who support the massacre policies of AKP fascism, cannot be patriots.
In his interrogation, Doğu Perinçek stated:
“Far from seeking to divide the army, our party has pointed out the addresses of those who declare the army to be the enemy.” (The Interrogation of Doğu Perinçek, p. 125)
This is true.
For example, before 1980, by launching the series 15 Groups in the East Through Documents and Events, under the heading 49 Fake Leftists, they published the names, addresses and biographies of revolutionaries.
They published every detail they could discover about which organisation a person belonged to, whether they were a member, leader or sympathiser. Their activities were also published.
Sketch maps of their homes and of the areas where they carried out their work were drawn and used to inform on them.
Aydınlık informed for fascism. It pointed out revolutionaries as targets for fascism so that they could be arrested and killed.
Aydınlık also bears responsibility for the imprisonment of revolutionaries and for the blood shed by fascism.
It is guilty.
Beyond the informing they carried out through what they wrote in the newspaper, a former supporter of Aydınlık, M. Özdemir, described in a letter how they engaged in practical informing:
“In Gaziantep, on the instructions of the TİKP and Aydınlık Headquarters, I informed the martial law authorities about 30 patriots, claiming they were Apoists -counter agents. And when we were instructed to identify Apoists everywhere and report them to the martial law commands, I submitted a petition to the Adana Martial Law Command explaining the role of Aydınlık and the role of the Apoists. The Adana Martial Law Command sent an official, and we ensured the arrest of all the Apoists in the region. We had 30 Kurdish patriots arrested, including Mehmet Bozkurt, Mehmet Şentürk and İsmail Taşkın.” (Apoists: Supporters of Abdullah Ocalan, later they established the PKK)
It is clear enough not to require any interpretation.
While Aydınlık, with a counter-revolutionary attitude, was openly informing fascism about revolutionaries; Revolutionary Left was organising resistance against the fascist junta under the slogan:
“The Pro-American Fascist Junta Will Not Subjugate 45 Million People” and was paying the price in massacres, torture chambers and prisons.
While Aydınlık, the informer and counter-revolutionary Aydınlık, was handing over the names of revolutionaries to fascism, Revolutionary Left prisoners were being subjected to torture every day in prisons and were carrying out numerous hunger strikes and death-fast resistances against the imposition of prison uniforms and surrender. In the 1984 Death Fast Resistance, four martyrs were given.
Aydinlik Is A Murderer Of Revolutionaries
In November 1978, supporters of Aydınlık killed Turgut İpçioğlu, one of the leaders of High School DEV-GENÇ, because he opposed their provocative activities. In Elazığ and many other places, they opened fire on members of Revolutionary Left under police protection.
Supporters of Aydınlık are also the killers of revolutionaries from many other left-wing organisations.
One of the political movements they targeted was the PKK. According to Aydınlık, the PKK was “the MHP of Kurdistan”, and in that sense everything was permissible against them as well.
In the alignment between the peoples of the world and imperialism, Aydınlık’s place is on the side of imperialism.
As a result of this, in 1978 they called on the fascist state to move the 4th Army to the Russian-Soviet border, on the pretext that the “Russians” would attack within five years and that a world war would break out.
The aim was to create hostility towards the Soviet Union and socialism among the people and to legitimise collaboration with the United States.
In later years, a group called Socialist Unity that emerged from within Aydınlık described the Aydınlık process as follows:
“From its foundation in January 1978, TİKP adopted and implemented a line of protecting and strengthening the Turkish state and army against external threats. There are hundreds of proofs of this. The first of the ten points adopted at the First Congress concerns the strengthening of national defence. There is no second party that adopted such a position.
In connection with this, we should state that our hostile attitude towards the other currents of the left at that time was not merely a reaction to the violence used by some currents against the people and against us. It arose directly from our position regarding the state and the army.” (Socialist Unity, March 1989)
The history of the Aydınlık movement is a history of hostility towards the people and collaboration with imperialism and fascism. They have never been within, or on the side of, the people’s struggle.
Aydınlık is also known by another name: the VATAN PARTY.
In our country there is a 57-year history of struggle stretching from FKF (Federation of Thought Clubs) and Mahir Cayan to the present day.
Within this history of struggle, the place of the Aydınlık movement led by Doğu Perinçek consists of informing, the killing of revolutionaries, counter-revolutionary propaganda, and support for the fascist AKP-MHP government that collaborates with imperialism.
In the 57-year history of revolutionary struggle, enormous sacrifices have been made, and thousands of martyrs have been given; yet there is not even a single supporter of Aydınlık who has paid such a price.
Aydınlık is absent from every one of the countless actions organised in the people’s struggle against imperialism and fascism. Rights have been won and resistances have been carried out; yet Aydınlık is present in none of them. Standing against the struggle of the people, Aydınlık is a counter-revolutionary group in the service of imperialism and fascism.
On Armenian Genocide
In 1915, the Ottoman government, led by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), ordered the deportation of Armenians from many parts of the empire. Large numbers of Armenians were forced from their homes and sent on marches towards the Syrian desert. During these deportations, many died from starvation, disease, exposure, and violence. There were also documented massacres and killings carried out by Ottoman forces and irregular groups.
Historians estimate that between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians died, though exact figures remain debated.
The Vatan Party rejects claims that the events of 1915 constituted an “Armenian Genocide” and regards this narrative as an instrument of international imperialism. They said such claims are contrary to historical facts and adopts the position that “We did not commit genocide; we defended our homeland.” Doğu Perinçek, describe claims characterising the 1915 deportations as genocide as “an imperialist lie”. They even suggested that the events were a legitimate security measure undertaken by the Ottoman State to preserve its territorial integrity and suppress internal rebellions.
What Is the Reactionary Ideological Basis of Aydınlık?
Aydınlık is a bourgeois nationalist and informer counter-revolutionary group.
It emerged from within the left and evolved into a bourgeois nationalist line; or conversely, it is the product of the insertion of bourgeois nationalist ideology into the left.
As with the Nazis in Germany and Mussolini in Italy… the name of German fascism was also the National Socialist Party. Yet, on the contrary, it was one of socialism’s most fanatical enemies. In the Soviet Union it slaughtered 27 million Soviet people in order to destroy the socialist system.
The ideological source from which bourgeois nationalism within the left draws its nourishment is Kautsky and Bernstein, the renegades of the Second International.
They advocated the theory of reconciling the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. During the First Imperialist War of Division, they supported the war of German imperialism under the slogan of the “defence of the fatherland”.
More than a century ago, Lenin decisively condemned this ideology. Class struggle also expelled this bourgeois ideology from the ranks of the people and placed it in its true position, namely the camp of the bourgeoisie. This ideology, expelled from the ranks of the people, re-emerged as a counter-revolutionary organisation through the Perinçek, attempting to reinsert itself into the ranks of the left. The Perinçek line and the Aydınlık movement, which constitute the Turkish form of this ideology, were ideologically condemned by our leader Mahir Çayan.
When one looks at the line of Doğu Perinçek today, the situation is the same. They did not hesitate to support the fascist regime in the past, and it continues to do so today. The following news article was published by TRT, the Turkish state’s television broadcaster, in 2023. In it, Perincek accused the leader of the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) of being an instrument of the United States and Israel, while portraying Erdoğan—arguably the most significant collaborator with imperialism in the region—as almost an anti-imperialist figure.
“… Mr President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the other hand, despite his policy of balancing between friends and foes and his fluctuations in an economy influenced by the West, remains a target of imperialist plans and, in this context, stands on Turkey’s side…. We are at the 28 May 2023 stage of the strategy for advancing towards the goal of a ‘Strong State, Productive Nation’. Under the conditions of a two-choice election, we call upon our people to vote for Mr Recep Tayyip Erdoğan…”
One of the left-appearing forms of bourgeois ideology is also the Chiang Kai-shek group that emerged in China. The Guomindang was a national movement that emerged in China in the early 1900s under conditions of imperialist occupation.
The leader of the Guomindang, Sun Yat-sen, adopted an anti-imperialist position and put forward the “Three Principles of the People”: alliance with the Soviet Union, cooperation with the Communist Party, and support for workers and peasants. After the death of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek took his place.
As a bourgeois nationalist, Chiang Kai-shek eliminated the popular principles within the party and directly targeted the Communist Party.
“On 18 September 1931, Japanese imperialists occupied Manchuria. By issuing orders ‘not to resist under any circumstances’, the Guomindang military forces effectively approved the occupation. Chiang Kai-shek concentrated his forces against the Red Army and attempted to destroy the Chinese Communist Party.”
This too is an example of how bourgeois nationalism with a national appearance becomes collaborationist in the imperialist era. In neo-colonial countries such as ours, there is no longer a bourgeoisie that adopts a national position.
The bourgeoisie does not take an anti-imperialist and independence-oriented stance in defence of its own market. On the contrary, it sees its interests in collaborating with imperialism and in turning the country’s territory into a market for imperialist powers.
It comes to power through collaboration with imperialist monopolies.
For this reason, bourgeois nationalists such as Aydınlık become defenders of collaboration with imperialism, defenders of the interests of the collaborationist monopoly bourgeoisie, and defenders of the army, police, intelligence organisations and parliament, all of which are organised as forces of war against the people.
Simply put, they are as nationalist as the fascist MHP and as fascist as the ruling AKP, yet they have somehow succeeded in finding a place among social-democratic, left-wing and even communist parties and organisations.
Both in world history and in the history of our country, which is ruled through fascism, it has been only socialists and revolutionaries who have struggled, at the cost of their lives, for independence, democracy and socialism. The banner of independence is in the hands of the revolutionaries.
We call on all the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist and anti-zionist organisations to hold these collaborators accountable, expose their actions, and exclude them from all left-wing events and activities.
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