From the PARTY PROGRAMME of SDP (Socialist Democracy Party)

To Struggle for a world without war, exploitation or classes!

The competition between imperialist powers and the conflict for interest is getting tougher and tougher day by day. As the gap between them is widened, the imperialist politics to plunder the sources, to seize the markets and to dominate nations become more and more reactionary. Wars are always on the agenda as a sort of imperialist politics continued with arms.

The dissolution of the USSR have drastically changed the balances of power. To put it simply, there no longer exists an “eastern block” opposing western imperialism to balance it as a military and political power. This encourages the imperialists to act even more boldly.

The neo-liberal ideologists of “The New World Order”, have presented the failure of the Soviet experience as an evidence that there could be no alternative to capitalism. The neo-liberal economical and political aggression becoming more brutal particularly after the collapse of the USSR have tried to prove their ideological legitimacy through this foolish “evidence”. That was how the programmes of plunder of global usurers like IMF and the World Bank could be imposed on the indebted countries as the only solution.

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To claim that there can be no alternative to the system of exploitation, and to defend that there is no way out of this hell that we live in toward progression is an insult to the whole human civilization and culture. Humanity deserves a much better life. There certainly is an alternative to capitalism. Because the human beings have the potential to control their own future and to change the social conditions in which they live. Neo-liberalism that looks down on the potentials of the human being, that claims that ‘there exists nothing so-called the society’ is a reactionary from head to toe. To send capitalism to where it belongs, by the side of the ancient spinning wheel and the ancient hatchet, has become the precondition for the sake of the civilisation and the planet on which it is set.

Imperialism is not a power that cannot be defeated. Even though the Soviet experience was suppressed by imperialist reaction, the social revolution that enabled that state to be established is still the best evidence that imperialism can be defeated. That is why the Paris Commune and the October Revolution is the legacy of our tradition of scientific socialism which now exceeds a duration of 150 years and is abundant with infinite number of lessons. That it was defeated by reaction does not change the fact that it was the first herald of a new era; the era of transition from imperialist capitalism to liberty and socialism.

The assertion of the people who made the October Revolution is still valid in the 21th century. There is still one way to prevent the imperialist barbarism from destroying civilization and culture, from the wars that make the labourer kill another labourer: A revolution to seize the political power from the imperialists and the capitalists; and to give it directly to its real owners, to the ones that produce! A social order to abolish capitalism and all forms of oppression and to socialize all property and democracy, as the political power of the exploited and the oppressed: Socialism!

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To Struggle for a country governed by labourers and not by the monopolies!

During the period of cold war Turkey was the most faithful ally, the further station of the imperialist western block. It assigned its lands to the US army. At the end of this period, today the country is having one crisis after another under the dominion of imperialism, a few monopolies that coincide with it, the speculative capital which stems from black economy and the industrial military complex that has organic connections with them. The economy is governed by programmes dictated by global usurers like IMF and the World Bank.

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The Turkish ruling class, in order to get out of this crisis, looks for expansionist adventures. They hope for benefiting from imperialists’ politics of plunder in Eurasia. This strategy aims to integrate Turkey to the European Union in the process of being a regional central power counting on the USA-Israel alliance.

It is this dangerous strategy that will determine the following period. Yet, this strategy cannot reach its goal without cheapening the labour power in the country, without suppressing the opposition by force through keeping the anti-democratical, oppressive characteristic of the state apparatus, without weakening the political power of the Kurds under the pretence of “national unity and integrity”, and without drawing Turkey into regional wars under the pretence of “national interest”.

The outcome of this reactionary programme and expansionist adventures that imperialism and monopolies impose on Turkey will be tough on the labourers and the whole country. They want Turkey’s labourers, devastated peasants, shopkeepers, women and youth to accept this reactionary programme, promising them the fake paradise of EU. Turkey should say “no” to this bait on the hook, to EU, and to these promises of a fake paradise. It should resist to be driven on the war chariot of US-Israel, and to approach the so-called “peaceful” shores of the EU.

This will be possible through uniting around the programme of transition from Turkey of the monopolies to Turkey of the labourers, and by resisting the capitalist programme. This programme is based upon the scientific conclusion that Turkey is a capitalist country determined by the basic conflict of labour and capital.

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The liberation of women

Sexism is based on the oppression of women as a sex in the economical, political and social spheres that coincide with capitalism. Woman’s oppression starts in the family; the unpaid labour that the woman spends in the family is submitted to the service of capitalism under the control of man.

Women’s labours, bodies and identities are confiscated in the family. The sexist division of labour also determines the place of women in the public sphere. 2/3 of the world’s poor are women. The structural adjustment policies carried on today and the politics imposed by IMF condemn women to a cheap and insecure working life. The participation of women to the labour power in the informal sector is more than their participation in the formal sector worldwide. This ratio has the tendency to grow both in the urban and the rural areas. In Turkey, the unemploymant ratio of women is approximately twice of that of men. And the ratio of women to benefit from social security is just 10 percent.

For today and tomorrow, socialism is the physical precondition for the liberation of women. But it is not enough... All women from all nations, all classes or social strata experience a common oppression because of being a woman. Because of this common oppression, the women have to give their own specific and organised struggle for liberation. Now that our party opposes all kinds of oppression and exploitation, it supports the demands of women’s liberation movement.

Setting out from the notion that different women experience different kinds of oppression in women’s liberation movement, the women in the party aim for a common struggle and a movement in unity and on equality basis. In this respect, they give importance to being together with the Kurdish women and aim to make it permanent.

The women in the party consider their politics in the social area as an independent line; independent from kemalism which coincides with a prohibitory understanding of secularism, chauvinism, militarism, fascism and male domination.

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The ideological and organizational founding process of the party

The party has taken on to be the revolutionaist mass party of the labourers, the oppressed, and all the ones discriminated against in Turkey, and to take its place as an internationalist power on the side of the world’s socialist movement as the basic organizational and political duty.

The party can reach both its socialist goal, and the aforesaid organizational and political targets only through creative Marxist theory. Marxism sheds light on the actions of the party as the only revolutionist theory that has the capacity of renewal on its own basis, in the practice of both national and international class struggle by generalizing its experiences and in the light of scientific development.

The party does not take Marxism as a dogma, and also does not contrast its different revolutionist interpretations that were introduced during its historical development as antagonisms, encourages the vivid and civilized debates between them, and prepeares the intellectual conditions so that they can reach at a higher level of theoretical common benefits as a whole.

Our party gives importance to the contributions of the women’s movement and the ecologist movement to the social oppositional movement and to the culture of humanity; and the contributions of the socialists in these movements to the theory.

Education within the party is the beginning of the labourers to obtain class consciousness. This education is not a doctrinary one, but one that is connected with the necessities of the political struggle and the existing ideological duties. Now that the party is established as an organization in which different ideas coexist from the very beginning, the preconditions will be created to protect this education within the party from illnesses like “official doctrine”, or “official history”, or “idolizing”. The education within the party will serve in the way of the multi-sided education of the new generation socialists, and of the growth of independent revolutionist personalities. So, the first objective of the party concerning this field is to set out for an educational programme in order to increase the ideological consciousness of the party members and to establish an academy in the long run.

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The party will follow its socialist objective in the light of the lessons of the October Revolution. The highest principle of the party is internationalism. It will conform all its policies to the interests of the labourers of the world and will act in international solidarity with the workers of all countries. The party defends the right of self-determination of nations in the sense of separation and establishing a state. The party will contribute to the unity of the labourers against the aggressions of the global capital and to establish an international organization to coordinate the worldwide manifestations of all revolutionist socialist parties. After all, it is one of the most urgent duties of our party to establish such an international regional organization in Eurasia.

The party has to liberate the trade unions from the bureaucratic cast, the fascists, the fundemental movements and the control of the state. It will contribute to the building up of an opposition front of unions in order to make them class organizations that struggle and to unify them as soon as possible. 

THE AIM

The aim of the Socialist Democracy Party is; being against to the oppression and exploitation of human beings and the inequalities between genders and nations; giving an end to the pillage of the nature; a socialism which will throw away the obstacles confronting the development of the common culture of humanity; a socialism, on whose flag, “from each according to his/her capacity, to each according to his/her need” is written.

After going through a set of struggle phases and in the end of an entire and continuous revolutionary progression, over throwing the capitalist society in a revolutionary way, proletarian will manifest socialist democracy as their own political power for regional and international scale, to attain socialism. Socialist Democracy Party takes the historical reference from Marxism. It is a revolutionary internationalist party in the masses whose principle for organizational process is socialist democracy/pluralism. Party suggests the unity of all socialists and distinguishes itself from leftist liberalism and nationalism.

THE PRINCIPLES AND THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PARTY

a-      Party, as a struggle organization, takes its might and initiative from the social legitimization and the powers/groups trying to establish a world without exploitation and classes.

b-      Unity of the party depends on; the legitimization of the diversities; the participation of members to the party policies; executing the needs of responsibilities and duties; the collective rights of the members and groups.

c-       The only collective willpower of the party –gathering the members for a common activity- is the program and regulations.

d-      Unity in the activity is essential but the diversities are legitimate. Decisions are made with agreement. Otherwise, after voting, with simple majority decisions are made. All the minorities may express themselves by actions. The membership rights are essential. The members may express themselves as a group or platform. They can inform the party about their ideas either written or oral.  Each member or groups have equal rights while using the capabilities of the party. All the activities of the groups in the party are open to whole party. They give information to relevant party authorities.

e-      All the activities of the party are carried out with clarity. All the party members and the organizations have the right to be informed of all the political processes of the party without any difficulty. All the members have the right to apply on the authorities, control them and utilize the party publications. All the activities and financial datum are open to the control of members.

f-        The members’ verbal expression and participation to the decisions are essential. Members’ willpower and initiatives are reflected by their directly elected representatives. 

g-      All the party authorities must be elected. The voters have right to control or call back the elected. The party’s election system must reflect the pluralism principle of the party. The elections must be justly, democratic and guarding the rights and representation of the minorities. If required –even by only one member- the proportional representation system is applied in the elections.

h-      All party agencies can make publication. These publications can not be against the party aims and principles.

i-        All the discussions are made in clarity. The discussions of the party agencies can be followed by the members elected that agency. Party is responsible of proclaiming the members and groups about the discussions. The discussions in the party are arranged by “organized open discussion instructions”.

j-        No sanctions can be applied except for the ones clarified in the regulations. (The restricted behaviors for the members are violence, harassment and debiting party goods/money to own account etc.)

k-       Affirmative action for women is party’s principle. In all the elections in the party % 30 quota is applied when the women become nominee, as an outcome of affirmative action. Affirmative action can not be left to the initiative or will of any body. To realize the affirmative action effective methods should be developed.