Dear Murat,
I am happy to support you and hereby send you my warmest solidarity and revolutionary greetings.
Unfortunately, we do not know each other personally, yet in our hearts we feel connected to you, your organisation and your struggle. I have heard that, along with you, a total of 84 revolutionaries have been arrested by the Turkish fascist regime on flimsy charges. Some of your comrades have been given long prison sentences. Here in Germany, too, we have protested against this crackdown on progressive, democratic and, above all, revolutionary people in Turkey and Kurdistan.
Your comrades have sent me your CV. Throughout your life, you have shown great backbone in your commitment – first in the student movement, then in various political organisations, in parliament and in many struggles. Following the court’s decision, you declared: ‘They can lock us up, but not our ideas. Our party will continue to fight for freedom, democracy and socialism. There is no room for pessimism; we remain steadfast.’ I have great respect for this stance, which makes you a role model for the international labour movement, the revolutionary movement and the youth.
I would be very interested to know what your daily life is like – can you speak to fellow comrades, can you read and study, and keep up with revolutionary media? How could we strengthen our solidarity? What would you like us to do? Can we help to improve your daily life? What are the conditions of detention like, and how are you fighting against them?
The actions of the Erdogan government must serve as a warning to everyone. It seems to be fashionable at the moment to oppose the establishment, just as modern fascists are gaining strength with their parties and coming to power all over the world. At first, they present themselves as representatives of the people, giving voice to their discontent. Modern fascism, however, is in essence still fascism: the openly terrorist, most chauvinistic and imperialist form of rule practised by finance capital. Erdogan is an example of how this overt fascism is established through mass arrests, repression, the suppression of the working class and popular movements, the banning of progressive and revolutionary parties, the curtailment of freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and brutal attacks and wars, such as those waged against the Kurdish people in North, South and West Kurdistan.
Dear Murat,
For many years now, we have been working closely with some of your comrades, and with over 60 parties from 40 countries, within ICOR. We have already carried out or prepared major projects such as the brigades in Kobané, as well as the brigades and the solidarity pact with Al Awda Hospital in Gaza. We have grown very close, and now we find ourselves sharing in the excitement and feeling closely connected to events in other countries and parties. This applies to the outrage and solidarity regarding repression. But here, too, we rejoice – as the saying goes – ‘like little children’ at every workers’ strike and struggle and their successes, which we hear about from Turkey. Here, we celebrated the success of the miners at Doruk Madencilik, who marched on Ankara, stood up to police violence, refused to be intimidated, and achieved victory through strong solidarity and their hard struggle. We were delighted by the success of the Migros warehouse workers in their fight for higher wages. We are delighted when we hear of hundreds of thousands of protesters demonstrating against the fascist measures being taken in Turkey against the opposition. We also believe it is right for the revolutionary parties to take part in the protests organised by the CHP, even though one must certainly criticise the CHP’s bourgeois character and the direction it is taking.
Sometimes we also ask critical questions that some may find uncomfortable: shouldn’t Turkey have long since been regarded as neo-imperialist, given the Turkish monopolies that exploit workers and natural resources in many countries around the world, and given the imperialist attacks and exploitation through the export of capital, particularly in the Middle East? Shouldn’t we be focusing our efforts more on the ever-growing, strong industrial proletariat in Turkey, rather than allowing difficulties to deter us? We are having lively discussions on this, which are helping us all to move forward.
Dear Murat,
Just a brief introduction so you can get an idea of who I am. I am the Chair of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany. I have been actively involved in our work with children and young people for 40 years; I was born in 1977. At the age of 16, I began an apprenticeship as a toolmaker and have always been heavily involved in our main line of struggle: work in large industrial enterprises. The MLPD then underwent a generational change in its leadership, and I was elected by the party congress to succeed Stefan Engel, who had previously served as party chairman for a long time and whose books you are no doubt familiar with. The advancement of women is just as important to us, and 56 per cent of our Central Committee are now women.
The MLPD has continued its work there despite all the other demands placed on it in the struggle against fascism, war, social deprivation, environmental catastrophe and so on, and we have built up a growing influence in a relatively large proportion of Germany’s largest workplaces. There, we work with organised workplace groups. In parliament, however, we are weak. Germany is a stronghold of anti-communism, which is the ‘state religion’. It is not a fascist country, nor is there open oppression as there is in your country. Instead, the system of petty-bourgeois thinking is highly corrosive and spreads disorganisation, demoralisation and disinformation. It operates very much through modern anti-communism, which propagates massive smear campaigns and slander, particularly against Marxist-Leninists, Stalin and Mao Tsetung, as well as against the construction of socialism. It is, however, very encouraging that this has increasingly been entering a crisis and breaking down in recent years. A socialist youth movement has emerged amongst young people in Germany. Many movements that were previously limited to specific issues, such as anti-fascism, are now characterised by the fact that the vast majority of young people support socialism. Alongside this, there are many different perspectives, ranging from social democratic and revisionist to left-reformist or revolutionary. There is therefore an important debate on this, but also increasingly better cooperation.
We have identified a pre-revolutionary ferment currently taking place across the world. Everywhere, people are breaking away from the bourgeois parties and institutions. Everywhere, the masses are seeking a way out of their social predicament, and in Germany, too, the struggles of the workers and the popular movement are at an all-time high. At the same time, this is taking place against a backdrop of intense polarisation, in which the fascists are also mobilising their forces and growing stronger. That is why anti-fascist work is a vital component. We are still at a stage where we can prevent fascism, even though the danger is acute. We are therefore carrying out intensive outreach work. We are pleased that this is now being taken up by anti-fascist alliances such as ‘widersetzen’. For example, in the city of Erfurt in eastern Germany, where a federal party conference of the AfD is due to take place shortly, tens of thousands of door-to-door visits and discussions have now taken place in order to win over the masses. We consider this to be very promising for the future. For we are still in the first phase of the class struggle and must win over the decisive majority of the working class to the revolution and the struggle for socialism.
As a result, repression is also on the rise here, with the secret services stepping up their activities. They even want to abolish the principle – born out of Hitler’s fascism in Germany and enshrined in the Basic Law – of separating the secret services from the police. This would mean that the secret services, which have been spreading fascist-style hate speech for years, would be granted operational powers. The Gestapo also had such powers under Hitler’s fascism and used them to focus entirely on socialist forces, sending millions of them to prison. All of this serves as a serious warning to us.
Dear Murat,
That concludes my first letter. Could you send a message of solidarity to the German workers and the German youth? We would be happy to pass it on and introduce you here.
Here is the link to an interview with me, translated into Turkish, in Özgür Gelecek:
https://ozgurgelecek56.net/ceviri-devrim-oncesi-bir-mayalanma-sureci-yasaniyor/
I hope we can keep in touch by letter!
With warm and revolutionary regards,
Gabi Fechtner
