“International unity of the proletariat, day of struggle and solidarity”. As May 1 of 2020 approaches these words should be remembered, which mostly mean the meaning of May 1. Because, when entering the 2020 May 1, the opposite direction prevails in the exploited front. Solidarity was replaced by competition, and struggle was replaced by voluntary house arrest. The distinctions between privileges and privileges within the working class have become more evident than ever. While the corona is spread all over the world, almost all socialists have supported their national governments under the pretext of “Combating Coronation”. The only thing that is international in May 2020 is that opposition currents from all over the world take advantages of social media
Like all struggles of the working class, the struggle that brought May 1 was carried out by paying heavy prices. The origins of May 1 are based on the 8-hour day-to-day struggle, a strike action that broke out in Chicago Haymarket for this purposeThe four revolutionary anarchist workers who led this movement were sentenced to death penalty by American bourgeois democracy. Even if Turkey, the revolution lands, using 1 May happend with the sturggle of revolutionaries. In addition to the thirty-four revolutionary workers we lost in the provocation on May 1, 1977, Mehmet Akif Dalcı (May 1, 1989), Gülay Beceren (May 1, 1990), Dursun Adabaş, Hasan Albayrak, Levent Yalçın and Akın Rençber (1996 May 1) are an integral part of the May Day struggle in our land.
May 1, 2020 will remain a stain in the history of the class struggle. Depending on the pace of the struggle, May 1 was celebrated with faintness and enthusiasm. May 1 was also banned in one hundred and thirty years or held in the shadow of the barrels of snipers. But it is the first time in all parts of the world that unions, socialists, revolutionaries have unanimously canceled May 1, without the need for governments to ban. Unions, socialists are trying to appeasses massvies by using the social media in more active way. despite the fact they cancel the 1 May, they all are using the same slogan which says “we will celebrate 1 may under any condition.”
Canceling May 1 with the excuse of corona is incompatible with May 1 as the day of struggle. The workers and revolutionaries, who are already face to face with death every day, are not encountering world-wide outbreaks for the first time. Spanish Flu swept the world between 1918-20. At that time, the population of the world was a quarter of today, and those who died from the flu were at least a hundred times those who died from Corona. Of course, it was known that the flu was an infectious disease, but no mind had ever proposed to suspend any action and activity. On the contrary, German workers overthrew the monarchy during this period, and established Soviets in Berlin, Bremen, and Bavaria. Hungary and Poland were shaken by riots. The war against the counter-revolutionary Tsarist forces in the Soviet Union continued with all its violence. At the time, four million workers were on strike in America. Unlike virtual socialists, who postponed their own meetings today, the Communist International did not postpone the founding congress in the 1919 due to the flu epidemic. Two weeks after the congress, we lost the head of the first Soviet republic and Yakov Sverdlov, who did not isolate himself from the masses and close his home, in this epidemic. Nor did anyone who dared to interpret the death of Sverdlov from the flu as the result of irresponsible policies.
Take care of yourself! Think of the health of your relatives! These are the slogans that left their mark on May 1, 2020. However, class struggle starts with workers leaving their individual interests aside and fighting for the common interests of the whole classNo strikes will succeed without abandoning the idea of “what if my child will suffer from hunger”. On May 1, 2020, those who claim to instill class awareness in the workers proceed in the opposite direction and say, “The government does not think about our health!” they are processing their idea . They are organizing mask distibution campaigns in order to provide healthy conditions for workers. There are even those who share photos of papers that have been wiped with disinfectants to show how much they think of their health. Thus, the most peculiar bourgeois individualism spreads among the working people with the words and attitudes of the reformist socialists. However, there has never been such a rush for the laborers who are looking for bread money in the mines every day under the risk of grizu and dent. No worries for cleaning workers who keep picking up virus-free garbage every day unprotected. Nobody attempts to “social distance” to the workers who sew a mask at the bottom of the garment workshops.
May 1, 2020 There is no unity but fragmentation. On the one hand, there are those who have the privilege of sitting at home and working from home without shaking the established order. On the other hand, millions who go to work as if they are driven to the front without any guarantee. Those who are imprisoned because they have been left unemployed and compelled to leave without pay. “The government doesn’t think of your health,” says those who have the privilege of sitting at home. Those who do not leave the claim of class revolutionism and those who criticize the revolutionary detachment from the masses at every opportunity, without leaving houses say, “You are in a very bad condition, you have to make paid leave!”. On the one hand, opportunists who strive to keep their leadership and leadership claim in their monopolies, on the other hand they are calling, “You strike as we organize rallies on social media!”
May 1, 2020 was canceled due to the preferences of the left wing. Since the corona began to spread, the left currents have criticized the government for not taking the necessary measures, not declaring a curfew. Later on, they tried to cover up their attitude with the demand of a paid leave campaign for anyone which can not be even possible for everyone . Those who weave a line of opposition demanding the creation of conditions for workers to stay at home, of course, cancel Newroz and 1 May for public health reasons.
Social chauvinism marks itself on May 1, 2020. Social chauvinism is not just a time of war. Social chauvinism is the interlocking of socialists behind their own state. Socialists, who have already suspended the goal, undertake the stress that the government’s pressure and control measures are insufficient under the pretext of “fighting against the epidemic”. They demand that the steps taken by the government gradually or wobbly should be implemented more resolutely. Thus, they mentor the government from the left and provide critical support to it. Because of this attitude of the left, Erdoğan was able to do what he could not do in July 15th, operations Afrin and Kobanê or operation İdlib, put all opposition on his tale. During the Afrin operation, the ones who advized “You should execute the invasion this way, not that way.” were limited to Meral Akşener and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Today, almost all left tendencies are on the same line, saying: “The government should fight Coronavirus this way, not that way.”. This position, of course, means passing a lifesaver to Erdoğan who is stuck.
Despite their failures in the corona crisis, the reason of Erdoğan’s survival is the attitude of reformist left as the tail of Millet Alliance. Erdoğan’s submission, which has been gradually dependent on MHP since the June 7 elections, has deepened in the Corona process. He had to, at least, partially accept the curfews he resisted before. He could not draw out the name Süleyman Soylu who MHP supported and succumbed to his coming back to office stronger than before after the resignation.
Again, he enacted the pardon of Çakıcı, who he has been resisting for a long time, as MHP wanted. Instead of adopting an active action line in a deepening regime crisis, left movements preferred to criticize Erdoğan, who is getting weaker, for not imposing a curfew, therefore making it possible for Erdoğan to survive for now.
“Paid leave for everyone!” is a demand that divides the class. It has no material basis. Of course not because it would be costly for the capitalists, but because the laborers created life. Those who are hiding behind the call “Let’s stop life as laborers!”, they don’t even think that life cannot last if the laborers don’t work. In the simplest way, millions of workers working in the health, cleaning, food, energy, communication and market sectors need to continue working. Therefore, it is obvious that “Paid leave for everyone!” campaign, which has no credibility, will be transformed into a campaign entitled “Paid leave for everyone, except for some sectors”. However, healthcare professionals and cleaning workers need to reduce working hours rather than dishonest applause. It is not about dividing the working class into two for those who can use paid leave and those who cannot use it, but to raise common and applicable demands for the whole class. The demand to share the jobs in the sectors necessary for the continuation of daily life without interrupting wages to the entire working population, reducing working hours and thus ensuring safe working conditions for everyone unites the class. For the most basic needs of the society, the laborers must continue to work despite the risk of the epidemic, and the workers must decide what measures to take and apply against the epidemic. As the Bolsheviks put forward in the face of the Upcoming Disaster, the goal of speech, authority, decision, political power should belong to the working people, should be brought forward.
On May 1, 2020, political prisoners were forgotten. When the agenda are dead and the number of cases, those who return from Umrah, disruptions in mask distribution, those who want to shelve political problems feel lucky. Whereas Spanish Flu prevailed in May 1, 1919, a revolt broke out in Cleveland to protest the arrest of the head of the Socialist Party, Eugen Debs, in Cleveland. Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, the co-chairs of HDP, are imprisoned for 4 years in Turkey. Not a single protest rally took place. Of course, those who refrain from attending the funerals of the members of Grup Yorum will not raise political prisoners on 1 May.
May 1 is the day of the oppressed nations as much as the workers. Occupation in the southwest of Kurdistan continues, and the trustee attacks in the north do not slow down. The palace is trying to counter a sneaky game that will raise the sibling fight among the Kurds in the south. Seeing the opportunity, Palace attacks the PKK positions known as “medya defense areas” by sharing the KDP with its dirty work. On the other hand, while rapists, mafians, drug dealers and perpetrators of female murder are released, summons and demobilization are canceled in the army. Soldiers, who are called to gun, are kept in the most risky position against the epidemic, as if the “social distance” and quarantine measures are well taken care of everywhere in the garrisons. The privilege granted to those who come back from Umrah with the infected virus and spread the epidemic all over the country is denied them. Social chauvinist opportunists who want a paid holiday for everyone, on the other hand, do not consider the dismissal of all military units and the withdrawal of the occupation forces in Kurdistan.
Those who demand from the Cumhur Alliance extend its life. The problems that surfaced with the corona epidemic are not different from the war problem, the national pressure on the Kurds, or the unemployment problem that will manifest itself at the end of the quarantine period. The prerequisite for resolving these problems, like other problems, is revolution. For this reason, even the working people must get rid of the Cumhur Alliance in order to achieve the simplest achievement. It is clear that the Cumhur Alliance will not go through elections. It is precisely for this reason that whoever puts forward demands and advises in order to squeeze the Cumhur Alliance actually serves to extend Erdogan’s life.
The stain that fell on May 1 of 2020 did not appear in one day. Today’s picture is the product of the damage caused by legalist liquidator winds that have been blowing for years. Those who are tied up with the tools of the order, those who advocate that the social opposition must grow for the realization of the revolution, those who downplay all kinds of revolutionary attitude as sectarianism and market their support to the bourgeois parties as tactical moves have become the subcontractors of this blot. On May 1, 2007, those who defended that they conquered Taksim by squeezing the head of DISK Süleyman Çelebi, are organizing May Day rallies on social media together with DİSK. Those who supported İmamoğlu to shake Erdogan yesterday, and those who made İmamoğlu speak and applauded from the chair of May 1 are still publishing the May 1 comments which are parallel to İmamoğlu and Yavaş line. Of course, every May 1, 2020 will not pass like May 1. May 1 will be celebrated again in the upcoming period, but May 1 of 2020 reveals that reformists and liquidators will take decisions to paralyze workers and oppressed at every critical turn. The duty of the communists is to dare to exceed the voluntary quarantine conditions to show this picture.
This stain cannot be removed without reckoning with liquidationism. Of course, there will be those who try to gather and reach the workers on May 1, who do not want to submit to reformists. Those who defend the Communists’ Union also act in this direction. However, it is not possible to try to substitute the May 1 rally, which the legalist liquidators canceled by hand, with one or another action. There should be no illusions about it. Reformist liquidators dominate workers. It is not possible to turn this May Day into an appropriate fight day without breaking this dominance. The way to demonstrate this necessity starts with putting forward the will to not volunteer to quarantine.
The emergent task is the revolutionary party. Breaking the domination of reformism cannot be actualized through hoping, baselessly competing or challenging with reformists. For this, it is essential to establish a focus, a center for those who need revolutionary politics and who want to mobilize in this direction. The slogan of the union of communists before the unity of the workers tells this. Because communism is the only tendency that is consistent and can take the struggle of liberation of the workers until the end, the revolutionary party needed can only be possible with the union of the revolutionary forces through the frame of a communist program and principles of operation. Although the framework mentioned is obscured by reformist liquidators through saying “the world has changed”, it is actualized by Bolsheviks and drawn in the Communist International, the peak of communist movement worldwide.
A concrete call is necessary for the congress that will give birth to the revolutionary party. The task of today is not to raise calls that are not possible to actualize for May 1, but to raise a clear and concrete call to create the party that will emphasize the slogans that should be highlighted and fight for them. This call is the call of the communists who stand behind KöZ.
LONG LIVE 1 MAY! BİJÎ YEK GÛLAN!
REVOLUTION IS THE ONLY WAY TO BE REMOVED FROM CUMHUR ALLIANCE!
REVOLUTIONARY PARTY FOR THE REVOLUTION THE COMMUNISTS’ UNION FOR THE PARTY!
