Workers' Party (Turkey)

Workers' Party
İşçi Partisi
Leader Doğu Perinçek
Founded 10 July 1992 (1992-07-10)
Dissolved 15 February 2015 (2015-02-15)
Preceded by Socialist Party
Succeeded by Patriotic Party
Headquarters Toros Sokak No: 9 Sıhhiye, Ankara, Turkey
Ideology

Scientific socialism

Political position Left-wing to far-left
European affiliation None
International affiliation CILRECO (International Liaison Committee for Reunification and Peace in Korea), Los Partidos Y Una Nueva Sociedad.
Colours      Red,      White
Slogan Bağımsızlık, devrim, sosyalizm! ("Independence, revolution, socialism!")
Parliament:
0 / 600
Metropolitan municipalities:
0 / 30
District municipalities:
0 / 1,351
Provincial councillors:
0 / 1,251
Municipal Assemblies
4 / 20,498

The Workers' Party (Turkish: İşçi Partisi) was a political party in Turkey led by Doğu Perinçek. İP has its roots in the Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (TİİKP), the Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (TİKP) and the Socialist Party (SP). They are known as "Aydınlıkçılar" (Clarifiers) due to their daily newspaper Aydınlık ("Clarify" or "Enlightenment") that has a circulation of 63,000.[4]

During a general assembly on 15 February 2015, the Workers' Party was rebranded and changed its name to Patriotic Party, with Perinçek remaining as leader.

Overview

The İP traditionally combined Maoist rhetoric with a hardline Kemalism. Although they accept scientific socialism as their main ideology, they have a more patriotic ideology than other left-wing parties in Turkey. Their revolutionary strategy is based on "National Democratic Revolution", which is close to Mao Zedong's "New Democratic Revolution". İP supports Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" thesis, rather than Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev's "national communism" thesis. Such that, Mehmet Bedri Gültekin, deputy chairman of the party, wrote a book on Sultan-Galiev's counter-revolutionary role.[5] They admire the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (who is considered a "left-wing bourgeois democratic revolutionary" by the Chairman Perinçek [6]) as much as they admire Marxist revolutionary leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. They also promote alliances with nations they believe have anti-imperialist tendencies (such as Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba) and oppose the existence of American expansionism - (such as India, China and Russia).[7][8]

İP states that a brotherhood based solution to the Kurdish question must exclude imperialist initiative in the Middle East. They claim that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been completely under the control of the USA since the Gulf War. İP asserts that it is still possible to unite Turkish and Kurdish people in Turkey within the borders of an anti-imperialist nation state which will be established through a democratic revolution. According to them, separatism became a tool of American imperialism in breaking national markets in the Third World in post-Cold War conditions. Although they traverse separation, they also defend democratic rights and freedoms of Kurds in Turkey. For İP, the key tool to solve the Kurdish problem is to demolish "feudal structures" in Kurdish provinces and make peasants "free citizens".[9][10][11]

Wings

  • The youth student wing of İP is known as Öncü Gençlik (Vanguard Youth).
  • The women wing of İP is known as Öncü Kadın (Vanguard Women).

Media

Election results

References

  1. ↑ "Milliyetçi olmayan bir parti". Marksist. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  2. ↑ http://arsiv.zaman.com.tr/2003/09/20/yorumlar/default.htm
  3. ↑ "Avrupa'nın popülist sol parti ihtiyacı" (in Turkish). Aljazeera. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  4. ↑ http://www.medyatava.net/tiraj.asp Archived 14 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-08-18. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  6. ↑ "Kemalist Devrim 1/Teorik Çerçeve - Doğu Perinçek". Kitapyurdu. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  7. ↑ http://inter.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/detay.asp?goster=tbelgegoster&idbelge=180
  8. ↑ http://inter.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/detay.asp?goster=tbelgegoster&idbelge=190
  9. ↑ http://inter.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/detay.asp?goster=tbelgegoster&idbelge=156
  10. ↑ http://inter.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/detay.asp?goster=tbelgegoster&idbelge=173
  11. ↑ http://inter.ip.org.tr/lib/pages/detay.asp?goster=tbelgegoster&idbelge=188
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