"Love and Revolution" party
Over 15,000 people participated at the creation of the new Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP) on 22 January. The new group, already nicknamed the "Love and Revolution" party, brings the absolute majority of Turkey's far-left militants and leaders together in one organisation. The ÖDP is the result of the fusion of two organisations. The Common Initiative for shaping the Future (GBKP), which includes the remains of Dev-Yol (Revolutionary Way), the country's leading revolutionary organisation of the 1970s, and the Socialist Party (BSP), itself a regroupment of several lett groups, including the Fourth International supporters, Yenıyol. The GBP brings just over 3,000 members to the ÖDP, the DSP a little less. But the new party has already attracted some 4,000 non-aligned activists: Marxist intellectuals, feminists, ecologists, youth, student and pacifist militants. Three generations of radical left militants, previously fragmented into rival currents. The Fourth International supporters of Yeniyol had already worked for the unity of a number of groups in the BSP. As vice-president and, in recent months, General Coordinator of the BSP, Yeniyol leader Masis Kürkçügil was able to coordinate an active Yeniyol participation in the process of construction of the ÖDP. Following the fusion of the BSP and GBP, Kürkçügil was elected to the Central Committee of the ÖDP (which has 24 members). He has also been assigned responsibility for the international relations of the new party. Another Yeniyol leader, Özlem O, has been elected to the 100-strong "Broad Leadership" , the 'parliament' of the ÖDP. by Masis Kürkçügil
WHEN WE FOUNDED THE BSP TWO YEARS ago, we characterised it as a partial fusion of Marxist and socialist forces. We stressed that other steps were still needed if we were to realise a true union of the ensemble of left forces. We were already thinking about a rapprochement with the comrades of GBKP. It is important to recognise that the BSP, on its own, was not able to unite, or mobilise, enough forces to create a mass socialist party.
Nor was the GBKP able to meet its own goals. It had attracted several sectors which had left the Social Democrats after the 1994 elections. But it had not adopted a clear programmatic self-definition, like the BSP
The GBKP wanted to unite all the sectors struggling for democracy, in the interest of the "forces of labour". But the organisation consistently refused to define itself as a party, preferring an 'untidy' programmatic identity: limited more or less to a plan of action.
Despite all this, most of the left considered the BSP and GBKP to be rather similar organisations. It was difficult to justify the existence of separate organisational frameworks. Neither party could win wide credibility for its project. Their fusion was, then, above all a "marriage of reason'. There is still no clear, unambiguous common project. We are heading in that direction, through a synthesis of the two organisations. Until now, each party has emphasised its own activities and discussions. But, as the new party develops its activities, and organises its own discussions, the situation will
One could argue that a heterogeneous party of distinct organised groups each firmly attached to their former identity, and a mass of 'non-aligned' individual members who do not define themselves as socialists. On the other hand, Turkish workers wouldn't see the point in any kind of new left organisation which was not a united party. Such a structure would remain marginalised from the real social and political dynamics. So the only solution was to advance towards a common party, with an action programme which will define a common identity in function of the actions and debates which this common action will generate. Nor should we forget that, whatever the worries of some of the
Turkey * founders and members of the ÖDP, the media and public opinion certainly see the new organisation as a unified socialist party.
It was not easy to come this far. We went through a number of difficult steps. In 1995, the GBKP invited us - as individuals, not as the BSP — to a series of political discussion. That summer we formed a commission for informal contacts between the two parties. In September, they accepted our invitation to jointly organise our Peace Festival (centred on the Kurdish question). This was a big success in Istanbul and a number of other cities. Meanwhile, at the BSP June Congress, we adopted a clear motion in favour of unity with the GBKP. In October, we organised a series of common meetings, bringing together 200 leading members of the two organisations. The first discussion covered the political situation in Turkey and the world, the second dealt with the model of the party and "the way to do politics".
We discovered that whenever we tried to elaborate what we should do, there was no real divergence. But as soon as we tried to define something in formula and words, complete confusion developed. We resolved to continue the discussion, at the level of representatives of each group. Then, all that was left was to deal with the formal questions.
By this time, the BSP considered the fusion to be a reality. When the Kurdish nationalist HADEP party (successor to DEP) proposed an alliance for the December 1995 parliamentary elections, we delayed our reply until we had consulted the GBKP. Unfortunately, we were unable to
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* Turkey make a national agreement (though certain sectors and local groups of the GBKP did participate in the BSP-HADEP electoral campaign.
The point of no return was the joint meeting of 1,500 militants on 26 November 1995. Fusion went ahead, in practical terms, under the pressure of the base of both parties, before the leaders had come to a formal agreement.
We formalised the fusion by a wellmediatised festival in Ankara, attended by 15 000 people. The bourgeois media have given the new party reasonable, though somewhat condescending coverage. They seem to have been seduced by the new party's nickname, "Love and Revolution Party"
The ÖDP already has 10,000 members: more than the BSP and GBKP (which had about 3,000 members each). Many of the new members are quite young. We expect to have 20,000 members by the time of our first Congress, in six months.
Such rapid growth brings risks for the socialist identity of the party. This is not a period of upturn and growth in the class struggle. So building the ÖDP is somehow *swimming against the current, in respect of our political objectives.
But the party keeps growing. New members are signing up. Most are former social democrats, disappointed by the evolution of their leaders. These new militants are politically to the right of the organisations which founded the ÖDP. This revolutionary core could find itself 'diluted' by the newcomers, many of whom have the traditional, Kemalist [secular, modernist, nationalist] ideology of Turkish social democracy, which is reformist to the core.
This risk of dilution is a necessary evil. But a real problem for the smaller groups, like Yeniyol, which are well to the left in the new party, and risk finding their weight and representation on leadership bodies further reduced after the first congress of the new party. *