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Workers' Party (Turkey)

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Not to be confused with Workers' Party of Turkey (1961) or Workers' Party of Turkey (2017).
Workers' Party
İşçi Partisi
LeaderDoğu Perinçek
Founded10 July 1992 (1992-07-10)
Dissolved15 February 2015 (2015-02-15)
Preceded bySocialist Party
Succeeded byPatriotic Party
HeadquartersToros Sokak No: 9 Sıhhiye, Ankara
IdeologyScientific socialism
Left-wing nationalism[1]
Left-wing populism[2][3]
Ulusalcılık
Maoism
Political positionLeft-wing to far-left
International affiliationCILRECO (International Liaison Committee for Reunification and Peace in Korea), Los Partidos Y Una Nueva Sociedad.
Colours  Red,   White
SloganBağımsızlık, devrim, sosyalizm! ("Independence, revolution, socialism!")

The Workers' Party (İP) (Turkish: İşçi Partisi) was a Turkish political party founded in 1992 and led by Doğu Perinçek. It had 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), which was banned by the Constitutional Court in 1992.[4] They were known as "Aydınlıkçılar" (Clarifiers) due to their daily newspaper Aydınlık ("Clarify" or "Enlightenment") which had a circulation of 63,000 in 2012.[5]

During a general assembly on 15 February 2015, the Workers' Party rebranded and changed its name to Patriotic Party. Perinçek remained as leader.[4]

Overview

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The İP traditionally combined Maoist rhetoric with hard-line, left-wing Kemalism called ulusalcılık. The party accepted scientific socialism as their main ideology, combined with more of a patriotic core than other left-wing parties in Turkey. Their revolutionary ideals were based on the "National Democratic Revolution", close in name to Mao Zedong's "New Democratic Revolution". İP supported Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" thesis, rather than Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev's "national communism" thesis.

Mehmet Bedri Gültekin, deputy chairman of the party, wrote a book on Sultan-Galiev's counter-revolutionary role.[6] They admired the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (considered a "left-wing bourgeois democratic revolutionary" by Chairman Perinçek [7]), as much as they admired Marxist revolutionary leaders like Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. The party promoted alliances with nations that the party believes have anti-imperialist tendencies (such as Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba) and opposed the existence of American expansionism (such as India, China and Russia).[8][9]

İP stated that a brotherhood-based solution to the Kurdish question must exclude imperialist initiative in the Middle East. They claimed that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been completely under the control of the USA since the Gulf War. İP asserted 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 the party, separatism became a tool of American imperialism in breaking national markets in the Third World in post-Cold War conditions. Although they traversed separation, they also defended democratic rights and freedoms of Kurdish peoples 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".[10][11][12]

Wings

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

Media

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Election results

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Parliamentary elections

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Grand National Assembly of Turkey
Election date Leader Votes % Seats
1995 Doğu Perinçek 61,428 0.22%
0 / 550
1999 57,593 0.18%
0 / 550
2002 160,227 0.51%
0 / 550
2007 127,220 0.36%
0 / 550

References

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  1. ^ "Milliyetçi olmayan bir parti". Marksist. Archived from the original on 7 October 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  2. ^ "ZAMAN GAZETES". Archived from the original on 26 May 2006.
  3. ^ "Avrupa'nın popülist sol parti ihtiyacı" (in Turkish). Aljazeera. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Brief history of the Patriotic Party". Vatan Partisi. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
  5. ^ "MEDYATAVA - Çift Sarılı Yumurta Tadında". www.medyatava.net. Archived from the original on 14 October 2012.
  6. ^ "Sultan Galiyev Eleştirisi : Teori ve Siyaset : : Kaynak Yayınları". Archived from the original on 18 August 2013. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  7. ^ Kemalist Devrim 1/Teorik Çerçeve - Doğu Perinçek. Kitapyurdu. 19 March 1992. ISBN 978-975-343-038-8. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Worker's Party (Turkey)| 08.11.2012". Archived from the original on 8 November 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  9. ^ "Worker's Party (Turkey)| 23.10.2013". Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  10. ^ "Worker's Party (Turkey)| 08.11.2012". Archived from the original on 8 November 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  11. ^ "Worker's Party (Turkey)| 22.10.2013". Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  12. ^ "Worker's Party (Turkey)| 22.10.2013". Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
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