Left unites: First Congress of the
Unified Socialist Party (BSP)
sosyalist Demokrasi Için Yeniyol
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(Ankara, 16 June 1995) - Veiled women and children queue in front of an embroidery exhibition organised by the (Islamic fundamentalist) Refah Party, which took control of the municipal government in April last year. Just across the road, a dozen fashionably-dressed policemen go through the bags of some 1,000 participants in the first congress of the Unified Socialist Party (BSP).
The Turkish paradox is that the bloody military dictatorship is over, but the laws have hardly changed. In practice, this conference of the far left can be held legally (with the participation of a government commissioner). At the same time the Kurdish people continue to suffer the most atrocious repression.
The atmosphere in the hall is serious, with moments of real tension. The stakes are high for all the Turkish left. Divided and decimated in the 1980s by the dictatorship, all the left groups have behind them a period of extremely sectarian debates, sometimes of physical confrontations. But now the majority of the anti-capitalist left has decided to create a new party. According to newly-elected president Sadun Aren, the BSP "is an expression of the need for a real opposition to the attacks of the bourgeoisie and imperialism on the Turkish working class. These attacks showed the irrelevance of almost all the traditional differences between the right wing parties and social democracy."
The Unified Socialist Party (BSP) unites over ten formerly independent groups. The two largest currents in the new party are the Communists of the SBP
Istanbul, 1st May 1995, far declined to join the BSP.)
According to Sadun Aren, "most of our component currents were very weak before we unified. We were unable to construct any real resistance to the coup d'état. And we paid heavily for our weakness and our internal divisions... And after the collapse of the USSR, a vacuum, or at least a turbulence, appeared in the ideological sphere. There were new questions to answer. We needed to discuss with each other about what conception of socialism, about how to renovate our project."
The BSP has just over 3,000 members in some 39 municipalities. 20% of delegates to the first congress were
Turkey
SP
women. Half were blue or white collar workers.
There is no attempt to build the BSP in the Kurdish regions of the South East. The party denounces the military repression, and defends the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination. At the same time, BSP militants are more than reserved about the policy and behaviour of the hegemonic PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), which in any case is hardly interested in the Turkish workers' movement.
The congress was marked by a number of moving meetings with older political and trade union militants, with their bitter experience of prison, torture, exile or the