WHY WAS THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT DEFEATED?

Was the world socialist movement defeated?

The idea of scientific socialism developed particularly in the first half of the 19th century within the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie — in other words, within the class struggle. It was first systematised as a doctrine by the German revolutionaries Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Between March and May 1871, it experienced its first practical experience of power with the Paris Commune in France. It was defeated.

It was realised in practice with the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917.

After the 2nd War of Partition, one-third of the world was governed by socialist or socialist-influenced governments. In the remaining parts of the world, strong revolutionary movements were fighting for national liberation and socialism. The ideological foundations of national liberation movements were also largely shaped by socialist ideology.

Socialism had become a great force worldwide, winning victories against imperialism.

From the beginning of the 1990s, counter-revolutions began to occur in socialist countries.

Socialist movements changed their flags. They stopped using the hammer and sickle, the symbol of socialism.

They removed the words socialist, revolutionary, and communist from their names.

Those who carried out armed struggle began to lay down their arms.

Those who conducted illegal struggle legalised themselves.

The vocabulary of imperialism and the bourgeoisie began to dominate the language of socialist movements. By abandoning socialist literature, they began to define realities through concepts produced by imperialism and representing imperialist interests.

The Defeat Is Not the Defeat of Socialism,

Not the Defeat of Marxism-Leninism,

It Is the Defeat of Revisionism, Reformism, And Petty-Bourgeois Nationalism!

The Defeat Is the Defeat of Currents That Deviated from Marxism!

How was this process to be defined?

There were those who declared the defeat of socialism.

The theorists of imperialism declared the end of history. Capitalism was now the single undisputed dominant system. It was presented as having no alternative. Capitalism was claimed to be the system that would remain valid until the end of history. No one, they argued, should work to overthrow capitalism.

We said that it was not the defeat of socialism but the defeat of revisionism and reformism.

Because socialism cannot be defeated ideologically. The development and strengthening of Marxist-Leninist ideology within the class struggle and its leadership of revolutions worldwide is a matter of historical process. That process continued then, and it continues today.

Through counter-revolutions, they declared the defeat and invalidity of Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Revisionist and reformist groups believed that they had no chance of resisting imperialism. They chose the path of complete submission to imperialism.

We said that counter-revolutions proved that Marxist-Leninist ideology is the only valid ideology. It proved that only Marxist-Leninist ideology can resist imperialism.

It has been proven that currents deviating from Marxist-Leninist ideology — revisionism and reformism — have no chance of even the smallest resistance against imperialism.

Because in the countries that were overthrown one by one through counter-revolutions, it was not socialism but revisionism that dominated.

In the 2nd Imperialist War of Partition, fascism was defeated. However, during the war against fascism, the Marxist-Leninist movement, especially in the Soviet Union, suffered significant cadre losses.

First revisionism and reformism gained strength.

From the late 1980s onwards, counter-revolutions and a return to capitalism occurred in socialist countries.

The destination of deviation from socialism is capitalism. Therefore, this was not an unforeseen development for us.

The socialist system was experiencing stagnation.

Gorbachev, who emerged claiming to overcome this stagnation, was applauded by reformist and opportunist left organisations around the world, including in Turkey.

He spoke of:

• Glasnost (Openness)
• Perestroika (Restructuring)

He claimed these would solve the problems of socialism.

The socialist system was indeed experiencing stagnation.

The source of that stagnation was deviation from socialism.

This deviation was one that, during Stalin’s period, involved Trotskyists, Kamenev, Zinoviev and others cooperating with imperialism against the revolution under Stalin’s leadership.

During Stalin’s leadership, this deviation failed to become a dominant force. It could not even reach one-thousandth of popular support in the face of Bolshevik leadership.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, the period in which revisionism dominated the Party began. Reformism under Khrushchev targeted Stalin personally and moved towards the ideological and political liquidation of socialism. After Stalin, a coup was carried out against Beria, who was considered the continuation of the Marxist-Leninist line. Beria was imprisoned and executed through this coup.

What was the practice of revisionism under Khrushchev’s leadership?

It liquidated Marxist-Leninist ideology under the name of the Three Peace Theories.

What were these “Three Peace” principles of revisionism?

• “Peaceful coexistence”
• “Peaceful competition”
• “Peaceful transition to socialism”

By advocating peaceful coexistence, they rejected their internationalist duties. They did not support revolutions or revolutionary movements. Instead, they supported reformist parliamentary movements.

They defended peaceful coexistence with imperialism and imposed this idea on revolutionary movements and the peoples of the world within the capitalist system.

They rejected the legitimacy and justice of national and social liberation struggles.

“Peaceful competition” proposed economic and political competition with imperialism without waging war. They claimed socialism would prove its superiority through economic competition under peaceful conditions. However, the logic of socialism is not to enter into economic competition with imperialism.

It is neither logical nor realistic for a system based on the collective productivity of labour to compete economically with a system that exploits the labour of peoples worldwide.

The essence of socialist theory is to fight to end imperialist exploitation and colonialism and to establish the power of the people.

Furthermore, imperialist ideology is not based on peaceful competition within socialism. Imperialism wages war in every sphere — ideological, military, political and cultural — relying on military force, political manipulation, lies and demagogy, and using media and all forms of propaganda.

Against an imperialist system that becomes more heavily armed each day against socialism and the peoples, slogans such as peaceful competition and peaceful coexistence meant disarming the peoples.

The result of peaceful competition policies was the development of capitalist relations within socialist countries.

Under the concept of collective ownership replacing social ownership, the theory of “peaceful transition to socialism” meant disarming the peoples in the face of an imperialist system that armed itself more heavily every day — like tying a lamb by its legs and presenting it before a wolf.

The result of these policies was the retreat of the socialist movement against imperialism. Revisionism and reformism strengthened worldwide, enabling imperialism to consolidate its domination.

Revisionism Created a Bureaucratic Structure Detached from the People

After Stalin’s death, revisionism seized Party leadership and quickly established its own bureaucratic power within both the Party and the state.

The Party’s connection with the people was broken. Public participation in governance and decision-making declined.

Revisionist Party leadership formed a caste above the people within the state.

Socialist democracy ceased to function. The system of mutual supervision between Party and people collapsed. Public participation in strengthening and developing socialism was gradually eliminated.

Although the bourgeoisie had been eliminated as a class, it continued to exist culturally and within small-scale production. This created the foundation for a return from socialism.

Under the name of collective ownership, the state bureaucracy began to appropriate property.

This degeneration created the infrastructure for transition to capitalism.

The counter-revolutionary process initiated by revisionism in the Soviet Union spread in parallel, particularly to socialist Eastern European countries.

When counter-revolution occurred in the Soviet Union, it spread rapidly to Eastern Europe. Counter-revolutions began occurring one after another in socialist countries.

The Counter-Revolutionary Process That Began in the 1990s Was Followed by the Liquidation of Organisations

The counter-revolutionary process spreading from the Soviet Union also engulfed revolutionary organisations.

The Kurdish nationalist movement removed the hammer and sickle from its flag. They were signalling that they were not a class-based movement and would integrate into the capitalist system.

Opportunist and reformist movements in Turkey followed the Kurdish nationalist movement and underwent the same process.

In Latin America, organisations such as FARC laid down their arms. They surrendered to imperialist impositions of legalisation, disarmament and liquidation. Socialist countries such as Cuba acted as mediators in this process — indeed, Cuba can be said to have played a significant role.

In Latin America, reformist movements such as Chávez’s, which aimed at reforms within the capitalist system, and movements like Syriza in Greece, were developed and presented to the peoples as the left.

In Asian countries, organisations such as the Communist Party of the Philippines also surrendered to demands for disarmament.

Some revolutionary movements laid down their arms while imperialism accelerated armament even further. The United States, with bases across the world, allocates trillions of dollars annually to armament, while the peoples’ possession of a pistol or a stone is criminalised as terrorism. Within organisations, under the name of opposition to violence, the peoples’ struggle for rights and revolution was condemned.

A profound hypocrisy and moral corruption captured the left.

Instead of condemning the bombs raining down on the Palestinian people, a collaborative NATO-style left condemned Palestinian resistance through Hamas. Instead of condemning the United States, which organised counter-revolutionary coups and bombings in Syria and Libya, the leaders and systems of those countries were condemned.

A form of leftism emerged that admired imperialism, imperialist colonialism, massacres and imperialist power. Revolutionary struggle against imperialism was replaced by a leftism seeking refuge under imperialist wings — a European-American left stripped of identity, personality and consciousness.

All of this represented the success of bourgeois imperialist ideology against revolution.

Class struggle is a reality. Within class struggle there is imperialism and fascism, but also reformism.

We Fight with the Lessons We Learned from Defeat

There Is No Solution Outside Marxism-Leninism. Marxist-Leninist Ideology Is Unbeatable

We draw lessons from the victories imperialism has achieved against revolution. We draw lessons from our defeats. With these lessons, we continue our struggle.

The objective nature of war is not our subject. The losses suffered while winning victory in the 2nd War of Partition and the struggle against fascism, and their contribution to imperialist victory, are outside our subject.

These are objective realities of war.

We fight against imperialism and fascism.

Imperialism fights — and will continue to fight — using every method to destroy revolution. This is the nature of our struggle against imperialism.

Reformism and revisionism are class realities, realities of class struggle. Within class struggle there are compromises, surrender, liquidation and betrayal. There will continue to be.

Our revolution will advance by learning to fight against these.

The only ideology undefeated against imperialism is Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Fighting under the leadership of Marxism-Leninism is the only path to victory.

Because Marxism-Leninism is a revolutionary theory created not at a desk but within class struggle by two great figures — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — dedicated to the liberation of the peoples. It is based on the historical experience of the peoples and uses the only scientific method of thought: dialectical and historical materialism.

Under this theory, the peoples of the world won victories against imperialism across one-third of the globe and established socialism. Under this theory, peoples across every region of the world organised and fought against imperialism and fascism.

As Marxism achieved victories in different countries, it renewed and enriched itself through new experiences and accumulated knowledge, continuing to develop to the present day.

New masters joined Marx and Engels: Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Mahir Çayan became leaders who developed Marxist-Leninist ideology.

In light of all these historical realities, we say that the only true ideology is Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Marxism-Leninism gives us the key to understanding imperialist social change and transformations in modes of production.

Marxism-Leninism reveals the weaknesses of the imperialist system and why it is doomed to collapse.

Marxism-Leninism shows us how the imperialist system will be overthrown and how we must wage our struggle.

Marxism-Leninism teaches us the lessons of thousands of years of class warfare and 200 years of proletarian and popular struggles against capitalism.

In light of these lessons, we fight. And for this reason, we possess an undefeated ideology.

Through scientific method, we know that the imperialist system will collapse as a result of its own crises.

We know that by organising and mobilising the peoples, we can overthrow this system. And this is an inevitable and absolute reality.

From the defeats we experienced under the dominance of revisionism and reformism, we draw the lesson that no revolution can achieve victory without waging a strong and unwavering ideological struggle against revisionism, reformism and opportunism.

While fighting imperialism and fascism, we will reach victory through determined ideological struggle against every deviationist current.