In the debates, the words in the short text of Abdullah Öcalan that were made public were discussed. However, both the stages through which Öcalan and the Kurdish Freedom Movement passed in order to arrive at the definition of democratic nation socialism, and their insistence on socialism, as well as their criticisms of real socialist practices, were overlooked. Yet when the Kurdish Freedom Movement declared the slogan, today used by many left-socialist structures in the world and in Turkey, “To insist on socialism is to insist on being human”, it was the 1990s; the USSR had collapsed and hopes for a socialist utopia had been damaged.
First of all, it should be noted that the PKK was born as a socialist organization. As expressed in the court defense of one of its founding cadres, Mazlum Doğan, “The PKK is an organization founded on Marxist-Leninist principles and carrying out a national liberation struggle.” In the PKK’s first manifesto, The Path of the Kurdistan Revolution, its socialist goal is clearly stated.
However, as the PKK approached the 1990s, it began to direct its criticisms of real socialism toward statist socialism, opening the way for debates that are now expressed more clearly: that socialism without the nation-state could be possible.
The development of socialism in the Kurdish Freedom Movement consists of three stages. The first stage began during the Apoist group period and was embodied in the first manifesto, The Role of the Kurdistan Revolution, a period that carried the seeds of real socialism.
The second stage began in the 1990s, when criticisms of real socialism developed and a search for a new socialism began; although nation-state criticisms arose during this time, a complete rejection of the state had not yet emerged.
The third stage began in the 2000s with the developments towards the new paradigm. The first period when this third stage began to be voiced was 1999. Since then, although definitions have changed, these changes have mostly revolved around what would replace the nation-state understanding.
We publish here the second part of our interview with writer Nasrullah Kuran, who was imprisoned for 33 years and who spent nine months of his detention in Imrali alongside Abdullah Öcalan
The first part of the interview can be read here.
At the end of the 1990s, Öcalan made criticisms of scientific socialism. His most important criticism was of the nation-state. The criticisms within the Kurdish Freedom Movement of both real and scientific socialism also brought about debates that the Kurdish Freedom Movement was becoming anarchist. Did the critique of the nation-state understanding and of socialism as practiced up to now really pull the structure toward anarchism?
Marx defines criticism as the act of removing the false flowers that cover the rusted chains binding humanity. Socialist scientificity, meanwhile, is necessarily critical and inquisitive; it is to show its morality and political responsibility. It also involves the effort to address and define events and phenomena in light of current social knowledge and enlightenment. Öcalan and the PKK adopted precisely this kind of scientificity.
To be a socialist and to claim socialism, above all, requires being a good researcher and possessing the passion of a truth-seeker. This means that every person devoted to the cause of socialism must examine and bring to consciousness the history of social struggles in all its aspects. As Goethe said, “Those who do not know their three thousand years of history cannot define themselves.” Can it be acceptable for a socialist to be ignorant of the historical tradition of society? Beyond that, can those who do not know the history, culture, and methods of their opponents lead a correct socialist struggle? Impossible!
For this reason, to study the anarchist theory and practice, which forms one vein of the historical social tradition, in all its aspects, to draw lessons from it, to absorb the aspects defined as good, right, beautiful, and free, and to reach a new synthesis is not wrong. Should we not embrace the truths of figures representing different Marxist schools such as Bebel, Gramsci, and Negri; or of Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, and M. Bookchin? For example, if you look at M. Bookchin alone, you encounter a revolutionary who, from childhood until his death, was engaged in tremendous inquiry and intellectual production, all motivated by the aspiration for social freedom.
So why should we not evaluate and make sense of the efforts of such revolutionary laborers? Is being a socialist not above all about respect for labor and possessing decency?
What is wrong is to treat socialism as static, unchanging, and confined to a formula belonging only to a few pioneers. Just as nature, humanity, and society continuously renew themselves through processes of becoming and carrying themselves into the future, socialist theory and practice will also constitute themselves in parallel with this dialectic. In this sense, yes, we see anarchism as an inheritance and component of the historical social tradition, and we embrace its truths. But this does not make us anarchists, nor does it allow such deductions to be made.
The Democratic Modernity Paradigm and Democratic Society Socialism not only make theoretical declarations about what the PKK is, but the democratic communal life in the Medya Defense Areas, Rojava, Şengal, and Mexmur stand as prototypes of how human sociality, just as it did two hundred years ago, can construct and sustain itself without the nation-state.
The PKK’s critique of the nation-state and power did not pull its structure toward anarchism; on the contrary, through the solution of the democratic nation, it united the diversity and multiplicity of universal functioning based on difference in the crucible of socialism, sparking a new freedom movement and a holistic struggle for peoples.
With the February 27 call, Abdullah Öcalan defined the socialism that has provided change and development within the PKK at every stage as Democratic Nation Socialism. What is Democratic Nation Socialism?
Democratic nation or democratic society, socialism is a socialism whose stem cell is the commune; one that unites all different identities, beliefs, and sects in an original, equal, and democratic way under the founding leadership of women; a socialism that gives no place to the state, power organization, or its class-based understanding.
As a social organization based on communal life and women’s leadership, it grounds itself in the collective solidarity of societies and their unique autonomous administrations. Against the bourgeois power organization of capitalism, democratic society socialism is a democratic life in which, according to each society’s own cultural values, there is no exploitation, seizure, inequality, or domination, but rather a libertarian and solidarity-based culture and a spirit of communal unity.
Its aim is for society to attain a level of organization capable of meeting its own needs and sustaining its existence in a democratic content.
The language and action of democratic society socialism are political. Knowing that the democratic society will gain existence through the consciousness-raising, organizing, and action carried out by democratic politics, it adopts democratic politics as a strategic stance. To bring all of this to life, it prioritizes holistic law and self-defense.
The fact that women are the main and founding element of democratic society socialism is due to the fact that woman was the first slave, the first colony, and the beginning of social problems on the basis of opposition. Therefore, social liberation will only be possible through women’s liberation. And this requires knowing how to live according to women’s freedom.
The determination of the commune as the stem cell is related to the fact that society’s existence over thousands of years has been practiced on a communal basis. To speak of sociality is to speak of the commune; communal life is the source of solidarity, sharing, cooperation, and joint administration, as well as of moral and political stance. The commune is sociality without state and power.
Holistic law, in this context, is the action of securing rights-based struggle with legal guarantees. It aims at creating legal and constitutional guarantees that will allow each society to structure and develop its own identity and culture.
Self-defense, essentially, is an existential necessity and therefore indispensable. Under conditions where democratic politics is secured on the basis of holistic law, self-defense manifests as legal and political struggle. But where holistic law does not gain practical validity, and depending on the nature of denial and aggression, developing methods of self-defense becomes the primary duty of defending society.
Did Öcalan and the PKK, with the new period call and ideological structuring, become the leader of the world revolutionary movement?
In fact, Öcalan and the PKK, with the dissolution of real socialism and the parallel withdrawal of its organizations from both theoretical and practical struggle, effectively assumed the position of leadership of the world revolutionary movement. This was further matured through the democratic modernity paradigm. With the latest new period call and manifesto, we can say this theoretical and practical leadership has reached its peak.
As you know, the dissolution and collapse of real socialism caused a serious blockage and crisis in world socialism and revolutionary movements. Many socialist thinkers and activists sought to overcome this, entered into inquiries and questioning, and stated the need for a new human endeavor and a holistic socialist theory. But unfortunately, none of them went beyond this determination. Some, like Antonio Negri, adapted an alternative modernity; but none thought of, or succeeded in, turning it into a program, linking it with organization and strategy, and making it a movement of struggle for a holistic breakthrough.
In such chaotic processes, assuming a founding role is important. Because to assume a founding role requires scrutinizing everything from the root, forming founding politics, and taking an active step that makes freedom a reality.
With the theory of democratic modernity, Öcalan assumed such a founding role, developing a holistic theory of freedom that encompassed the whole, and laying out how the liberating organization and strategy, ideology, and sociology of this should be. With this, Leader Apo also gave socialism a strong ethic and a passionate understanding of politics.
Every person with revolutionary morality and consciousness knows that revolutionary liberation becomes possible when you solve knotted historical and social problems, like a Gordian knot. To expose contradictions, define them, and create answers to the question “What is to be done?” is important, but it only defines one dimension of the task. The complementary dimension is the answer you give to “How should it be done?” through the organizational model that constitutes the act of liberation.
What will set you on the path to success is this political step that brings ideology together with organization. The source of Öcalan’s leadership power lies in his ability to take this political step under all circumstances, and to reinterpret and renew processes again and again according to his political goals. His ability to fuse this strong sense of political intuition not with rigidity, staticness, and mechanics, but with a flexible, constructive, and reciprocal philosophy of resistance, has carried him to the position of the wise leadership most needed in our era. Indeed, what leads us to say this is both the socialist corpus Öcalan himself has perceived theoretically, and the organized existence of the PKK itself.
This is at the same time the effort of the Apoist dialectic to come into language and action, constructing itself in a leadership style with its own labor.
For a moment, recall the work written in the mid-1990s, “To insist on socialism is to insist on being human,” and these words of Öcalan: “I believe the 21st century will be a century in which relations between the sexes will be most regulated. Just as the first counter-revolution was carried out in the sexual sphere, so too will the greatest and final revolution take place in sexual relations. Another conclusion I have reached is that relations between the sexes are more complex than thought, possessing a character that conceals and generalizes exploitation and oppression. Even more dangerous than class and international contradictions, the real contradiction lies between the sexes. Among us it is very common, and there is hardly anyone not complicit in it. Therefore, the field in which liberation activity, revolutionary development, and regulation will most take place in the future will be the field of relations between the sexes.”
Now examine the new manifesto. What you will see is this: there is an extraordinary continuity and consistency in Öcalan. But this continuity is not static or identical; it is a dynamic renewal bound to a core principle. He reflects this quality even in his meetings. His analyses and references to history are not made randomly. Each is distilled from the memory and consciousness of history and serves as a warning regarding the present.
That this reality has come to life in the person ofÖcalan in Kurdish and Kurdish colors and tones may well be a tribute to this geography, the birthplace of so many of history’s firsts.
Source: ANF News
