(This was translated from Turkish: BOLŞEVİK PARTİZAN, No: 193, pages 3-13.)

The beginning...

52 years ago, comrade İbrahim Kaypakkaya and his comrades caused a major break

in the revolutionary communist movementof Northern Kurdistan-Turkey. In 1972, comrade İbrahim Kaypakkaya and a small number of his fellow communist fighters broke their organisational ties with ‘Şafak Revisionism’after the ideological struggle they waged against the revisionist line in the Turkish Revolutionary Workers‘and Peasants’Party of Turkey [¹] (TİİKP), in which they were organised at the time, and founded the TKP/ML. The founding of theTKP/ML was a revolutionary communist revoltwithin the nationalist-left-wing Kemalist ‚left’Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, which had been organising for many years in the name ofcommunism/socialism and meant raising the flag of Marxism-Leninism.The significance of thisrebellion was best understood by the fascist Turkish state.The TKP/ML became one of the targets of thestate's severe attacks. Shortly after itsfoundation it suffered a severe organisational defeat.Comrade İbrahim Kaypakkaya, the founder of the TKP/ML, and a number of founding cadres were imprisoned by thecaptured by the fascist Turkish state.Comrade İbrahim Kaypakkaya showed an exemplary communist behaviour,did not surrender, did not reveal a secret, whatever the cost. Andhe was brutally murdered.

The fascist state killed comrade Ibrahim,but he could not stop the spread of his revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist views. Revolutionaries, who believed his views to be correct,continued the struggle. The First Conference of the TKP/ML, which met in 1978after long preparations [²], made an evaluation of both the founding phase and the reconstructionphase and decided on self-criticism. The resolutionsand the self-criticism of the First Congress of the TKP/ML

were groundbreaking documents for the development of theTKP/ML towards a genuineBolshevik party.The period between the First Congress of the TKP/ML1978 and the Second Congress in 1981 was the strongest, the mostperiod in the history of the TKP/ML. Within

two lines developed within the party, which became increasinglyclear during this period. The first line was thestill timid Maoist-Menshevik line, whichİbrahim Kaypakkaya as an almost untouchable saintthe self-criticism expressed at the First Congress and rejected some

criticism expressed at the First Congress and regarded some deviations from Marxism-

Leninism as a contribution to Marxism-Leninism in the name ofthe defence of the ‘Mao Zedong Idea’and defended it at the international level. [³]The second line was the Bolshevik line, which fought to advance and deepen the self-criticism, which was an important step towards breaking away from the mistakes of the founding period of the TKP / ML, advocating the working class as the basis for the party's line of struggle and organisation, advocating the Bolshevisation of the party, and fighting for a radical break with revisionism in the international arena. This struggle between the two lines reached its climax at the Second Congress, which was held in February 1981 without adequate preparation and under very difficult conditions. The leaders of the Menshevik wing [⁴] succeeded in antagonising the Bolshevik line on an emotional basis among the majority of the delegates, most of whom had not read the documents of the debate going on within the party and the main reference documents referred to in that debate. The Menshevik Central Committee elected at the Second Congress used opportunist bourgeois methods in the internal party struggle to liquidate the Bolsheviks. In this environment, the Bolsheviks in the TKP / ML declared in March 1981 that they did not recognise the discipline of the Second Central Committee and broke all organisational ties with Menshevism. They founded the TKP/ML (Bolshevik). This was the most important break in the history of the Communist Movement of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, 10 years after Ibrahim founded the TKP/ML. With this step, the way was paved for the creation of a Bolshevik organisation, a Bolshevik party in the history of the Communist Movement of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey.In this long journey, which started in March 1981 under the name TKP / ML (Bolshevik), at the 5th Congress held in 1994, it took the step of eliminating the confusion with the Menshevik TKP / ML, which had a series of successors. The Bolsheviks decided to continue their difficult yet honourable journey for the cause of communism under the name Bolshevik Party (Northern Kurdistan-Turkey).

And today...

43 years after its foundation and 30 yearsafter it was renamed the Bolshevik Party, in March/April 2024

the 12th Congress of our party took place.

Our 12th Congress was convened by delegateselected in democratic elections in all organisations of the

party organisations.In addition to a small number of non-voting delegates, invited delegates from two of our sister organisationsthe Bolshevik Initiative inGermany and the Initiative for theBuilding of a Revolutionary Communist Party inAustria, and made valuable contributions to our congress.

Our 12th Congress, as in all the congresses we have held so far, evaluated the ideological-political developments in the period between the two congresses. These evaluations were based on the Political Report submitted by the Eleventh Period Central Committee for discussion within and close to the party before the congress, and the written criticisms and suggestions received.

The written criticisms, suggestions and contributions received on the basis of the discussions on the Political Report of the Central Committee and the Central Committee Organisational Report, which were opened to the inner and close circle of the party before the congress, were also discussed at our congress.

Lively and productive discussions were held at our congress on the views put forward in the Political Report submitted by the Central Committee to our congress, and the written criticisms and suggestions received from within and around the party about them. With the changes and additions made on the basis of these discussions, the Political Report became the basic document of our 12th Congress.

At the 12th Congress, the most controversial issue regarding political evaluations was the question of whether it would be correct to call the Republic of Turkey a state that now belongs to the category of ‘imperialist power’.

In this regard, within our party, the Republic of Turkey is engaged in imperialist acts in a number of areas;

• It is a colonialist/occupying power in Northern Kurdistan, parts of Southern and Western Kurdistan and Northern Cyprus;

• The colonialist Turkish state has military bases in many countries (South Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, Somalia, Albania, Bashiqa Iraq);

• It has recently intensified its efforts to unite the power of Turkic republics;

• It is trying to become a dominant power within the Union of Islamic Countries;

• It is a regional power in the Middle East;

• Especially in the last decade, it has developed to become a rival imperialist power to the dominant imperialist powers in the African continent;

• The Turkish big bourgeoisie exports a considerable amount of capital abroad and transfers a considerable part of its income and profit from these investments;

• In the recent period, with its investments and developments in the priority and especially in the arms industry, it has gained an important position worldwide in this field;

• There is a consensus of opinion that the Republic of Turkey is developing in the direction of imperialisation and has made very important progress in this development.

In all our party activity we have exposed and exposed the imperialist aim of the Turkish bourgeoisie and the concrete steps it has taken to achieve this aim. And yet we have argued that in the general division of the world the Republic of Turkey, as a moderately developed capitalist country, is still in the category of oppressed countries dependent on imperialism.During the preparatory process of our 12th Congress and at our congress, discussions were held on whether the developments had reached a maturity that would require us to consider the Republic of Turkey in the category of oppressor, imperialist power in the general division of the world. Some comrades defended this view. As a result, after the discussions, it was determined that the research and discussions we conducted were not sufficient to make such a decision, which would mean changing our party line at a decisive point. In accordance with this determination, it was decided to put this issue at the centre of the theoretical work plan in the coming period.

Our 12th Congress took an important step forward in the advancement of our party's line by adopting a resolution on the points that were changed in the process in our deliberations on the evaluation of the steps taken in the Soviet Union on the Liberation of Women. This is a resolution that also contributes to the debate on the role of mistakes made in the reversal.

Our 12th Congress, on the basis of the evaluation of the developments between 2019-2023, made the following determinations in the context of some ideological problems:

Some ideological problems

Identity politics

In the period 2019-2023, we were in the ideologicalconfronted with the theorisation of the current fragmentedsituation that exists at the moment, in whicheach social group in the struggle is only concerned with itsown specific problems. Thisbourgeois theory, which claims that society is dividedsociety is not divided into classes but into identities, that it is true that each identity has its own struggle, and that there are actually no classes, is ultimatelya theory that makes it impossible to unite the struggles to achieve a common goal andthus prolonging the rule of capitalism indefinitely.

After all, not all separate ‘identities’live separately in a vacuum. All ‘separate’identities live within the same capitalist system. And people of all identities objectively have a class identity apart from those specific identities. For example, if the woman oppressed by patriarchy is a worker, she is part of the working class. If she is a petty bourgeois, she belongs to the petty bourgeois intermediate class. An individual who is oppressed in society because of her sexual identity is also a member of this or that class. An individual who is oppressed nationally is also a member of this or that class, etc. etc. And the way to real liberation and freedom ultimately lies in the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie, which is in the dominant position today. It is the revolutions led by the proletariat that will open the way to real equality, freedom and liberation for all ‘identities’.

Is the future of humanity super

‘Artificial intelligence’ slavery?

The most important technological development worldwidebetween 2019 and 2023 was in the field of artificial intelligence. This ‘pre-trained’programmeis able to access all the information previously available on theon the Internet and, and write a specific text or generate an imageon the basis of this information.It is the most advanced man-made ‘Artificial Intelligence’machine to date. It is the next stage of the ‘computer’, which was originally intended only to store digital information accessible only to the user. ChatGPT, like all man-made tools, is a tool that can facilitate human life. But it is also a tool that carries great dangers when misused.All the information on the Internet is not just encyclopaedic knowledge, the accumulation of human knowledge to date. Today, we are talking about a humanity that is ‘transparent’in the digital environment, where every purchase it makes with a card, every phone call it makes is recorded, every step it takes is monitored by cameras, and so on. ChatGPT is a machine that can possess the total knowledge of humanity as well as the private information of people. A person or a company that puts such a machine/programme into use and controls it, and the state behind it, can manipulate reality in the future if it so wishes, and can direct each individual in the direction it wants through the control of people's private information. In the capitalist system, whose Kaaba, qibla, religion and faith are really money and profit, the development will be in this direction, and various ‘Artificial Intelligence’monopolies and the states behind them will fight among themselves over who will have the ‘Artificial Truth’monopoly. It is not ‘Artificial Intelligence’that is dangerous for the great humanity, but the capitalism that uses it.

The way to use this technique for the interests of the great humanity is through the proletarian revolution, which will take control away from the capitalists and give it into the hands of the proletariat, the working class and the state of the labourers.

And communism suffered from nothing,

as much as he suffered from revisionism

Revisionism is the ideological current, the political movement, which plays the leading role in strangling the first steps taken towards socialism, provides the bourgeoisie with the opportunity to tell the tales of ‘Communism has collapsed’and destroys the prestige of socialism/communism in the working class. Its danger stems from the fact that it often speaks in the name of Marxism, sometimes in the name of Marxism-Leninism, and therefore it can find a place in the progressive/revolutionary/socialist movement. Revisionism has appeared in various disguises in the history of Marxism. It has gnawed, corrupted and collapsed all the governments established under the leadership of the working class. At this point, there is no state power under the leadership of the proletariat that the revisionists will destroy. But there are revolutionary-democratic-socialist-communist organisations and movements in which they can take part, drown them in the reformist swamp and turn them into the reserve force of a section of the bourgeoisie.

In the division of the capitalist world into two imperialist camps, which is taking place in the international arena today and which is becoming more evident every day, revisionism, in the name of Marxist analysis, considers the camp around China-Russia as the camp of the poor against the rich of the world; as the camp of the Global South against the Global West. Today's dominant revisionist current strongly opposes the labelling of China as a social imperialist great power, Russia as an imperialist great power, and the camping around them as an imperialist camp seeking to increase its share in the struggle for the division of the world. Those who are dominant in today's revisionist current, which is composed of various revisionist elements, are the remnants and successors of those who yesterday called Russian social imperialism ‘living socialism’and who in the Cultural Revolution called Mao's China a feudal fascist dictatorship. Today's social-imperialist China, in order to avoid calling it socialist, is considered as ‘a power that has set the goal of socialism before itself and is advancing in this direction’, as a power of the world revolution. The ideological struggle against them is one of the most important ideological tasks.

Our 12th Congress also made the following observations on the situation and tasks of the struggles of the working class and peoples in the international arena in the last period:

Internationalisation of the working class and peoples' struggles

status and tasks

In the period between 2019-2023, there were mass movements of the working class and peoples in various countries of the world such as Ecuador, Chile, Lebanon, Iraq, etc. Mass actions, which tended to rise before Corona, generally stagnated and declined during the Corona period. But they did not stop completely. For example, there were popular revolts in Sri Lanka and Colombia during the Corona period. In Europe, it was mainly Corona deniers who took to the streets during the Corona period.

Starting in mid-2021, the world returned to ‘normal’. All over the world, the working class has embarked on large and small strikes and resistance actions, struggles to raise real wages again, which were lowered under the pretext of Corona, to regain some rights that were taken away, etc. Taken as a whole, the class struggle of the working class in various countries in 2023 - up to short general strikes - remained mainly within the limits of order, within the limits of defensive and economic demands. Exceptions were the short-lived political strikes by dockers in some countries to prevent arms exports to Ukraine. Apart from this, the class struggle of the working class did not go beyond the limits of the struggle with its own direct class demands. For example, actions for climate justice were generally conceived and fought as a separate struggle, outside the class struggle of the workers. In an environment where the organisation of the communist forces in the working class worldwide is at the lowest level in history, where the organisation of the working class, even in the reformist and yellow unions, is at a very low level, it could not be otherwise.

As a result of the extraordinary weakness of communist organisation within the working class, the working class movement remains within the limits of the struggle for its own direct economic demands, while all other struggles for democratic rights and freedoms remain as struggles in their own separate lanes. In the absence of communist leadership and working class leadership, these movements, including the most mass and militant ones, do not go beyond the demands for reforms within the order under the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leadership.

The most mass and militant movements of the period were the climate movement and the women's movement.Fridays for the Future (FFF), led by young climate activists, managed to bring tens of millions of mostly school/college-aged young people together in more than 100 countries at the same time at its peak. In these Fridays for the Future protests, where the slogan ‘Not Climate Change/System Change’was widely used, what was understood by system change was not the necessity of socialism instead of the capitalist system, etc., but the necessity of a correct climate policy within the capitalist system. The ‘Last Generation’ ‘Extinction Rebellion’, which finds peaceful mass daily ‘climate strikes’and demonstrations inadequate within the climate movement (Exinction Rebellion/XR) climate activist groups have made and are making a name for themselves with more militant actions. Even though the actions organised by these groups are militant actions such as stopping air traffic for a short period of time by gluing themselves to the airport runway; stopping traffic for a while by gluing themselves to the asphalt at important intersections, their concrete demands ultimately do not go beyond the demands for reform. In some ‘democratic’countries, where the bourgeoisie sees the revolutionary potential in such reformist movements, it can even categorise them as ‘terrorist groups’and ban them. The negative consequences of climate change will be seen and experienced much more clearly in the coming period. Accordingly, the development, further massification and militancy of this movement, the development of revolutionary, systemic and revolutionary groups from within this movement, who put the system problem in the right way.

In this period, the women's movement was one of the most vibrant and comprehensive movements worldwide. In all countries, very intense and mass participatory actions against male violence against women and sexual assaults were on the agenda. The ‘Me too’movement, which started in the entertainment industry against sexual harassment against women, soon turned into a global women's rights movement. In Iran, the ‘Jin Jiyan Azadi’(Life/Women/Freedom) movement, which started as demonstrations against the violence of the Mullah regime against women, protesting the murder of Mahsa Amini, turned into a women's revolt in Iran, uniting millions of people in demonstrations around the world. These movements, however, did not question the dominant capitalist system as a whole. It is the task of communists to unite the women's movement with the class movement, to transform these two movements, together with other democratic movements, into a part of the struggle for socialism. Here we have the task of winning the revolutionary elements within this movement and creating a communist women's movement under the leadership of communist women. Undoubtedly, this is a very difficult task. But unless this is achieved, the women's movement will remain a bourgeois women's movement, a movement within the capitalist system.Movements against racism also played an important role in the mass movements that developed in the period we are analysing. In this period, the ‘Black Lives Matter’(BLM) movement, which started as a protest movement against racist police violence and murders of blacks in the USA, spread all over the world. Here, too, those who exposed the link between racism and capitalism within the movement were a tiny minority in the actions that mobilised millions. The task is to enlarge this minority!

In the absence of the communist vanguard, the working class leadership, all national liberation movements develop as movements within the capitalist system. As we have seen in Ukraine, for example, these movements develop or turn into movements that are instrumentalised and used by the imperialist great powers and regional powers in their war for the division of the world.

Today, yes, under conditions where the injustice of the capitalist world has been exposed, where the dimensions of exploitation and parasitism have risen to unimaginable levels, the dimensions of the struggles of the workers, the oppressed, the despised, the ‘cursed of this world’are not as large as this situation requires and actually forces them to be. And more importantly, they are fragmented. But these struggles exist. The main problem is the absence of communist leadership in these struggles. The main task for communists today is therefore to work for the creation of this leadership, to put the struggle for the building of the communist party at the centre.

Socialism

or collapse into barbarism!

Nearly 1 billion of the world's 8 billion inhabitants now live at or below the hunger line.

There is an accumulation of wealth, a wealth of products on a scale that has never existed before. This wealth is enough to provide a comfortable life for the entire world population and more. But millions of children die of hunger every year.

How is this happening? An Oxfam report published in 2021 reveals how. According to this report, between March 2020, when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, and the end of 2021, $26 trillion in wealth was created in the world. 63% of this wealth went to the richest 1% of the world. According to the Oxfam report, the wealth of the world's dollar billionaires increases by $2.7 billion every day. For every $1 that a member of the 90 per cent of the world gets from the global new wealth, each member of the billionaire club gets $1.7 million from the same source!

It is such a world that we live in that wars are being waged in more than 30 regions. And the money used for military expenditures in a year in preparations to redivide the world is 2.24 trillion dollars!

Such a world that we live in is being dragged step by step by the rulers into a general war in which the upper dimensions of barbarism will be experienced.

It is such a world that 80 million people are on migration routes to save their naked lives from war, hunger, disease and the consequences of climate catastrophe.

It is such a world that women are second class human beings.

It is a world where racism is rampant. Fascism is in power in most of the world.

It is such a world that the natural balance has been disturbed and the natural resources of life are being destroyed day by day.

It is such a world that wherever you look, it is heading towards extinction in barbarism and barbarism. The reason for this trend is the dominant mode of production and life! Capitalism! Capitalist imperialist system!

The solution: The overthrow of the capitalist system. The remedy is in revolutions led by the proletariat. The remedy is socialism!

The remedy is in the simple which is difficult to do. The remedy is communism!

Preference among the wicked

is not revolutionary politics

In the context of the sociology of the society of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, our congress concretised the observation we had made in the previous period that the country has a structure that is essentially a collection of ‘communities with firm beliefs’(congregations).

In the context of the situation of the ‘Left’in Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, it was determined that the vast majority of this ‘Left’is far from revolutionary, and that the general weakness of the ‘Left’is reflected in practice in the form of following the tail of the one who seems to be ‘less bad’, ‘good among the bad’in the power struggle between the ruling classes in the name of getting stronger. It underlined that the main criterion of revolutionary politics in our countries today is to distinguish itself with thick lines from this corrupting, submissive politics of the lesser of two evils.

Our 12th Congress once again recognised that the economic and political situation and developments both in the world and in our countries make a radical change in the situation compulsory and necessary; the alternative to radical change is collapse in barbarism. The path to radical change is democratic and socialist revolutions led by the working class.

What is the urgent task for this, the answer given by our 12th Congress to the question ‘What to do?’is the following:

The most important and urgent task of revolutionaries today is the creation of Bolshevik parties that will lead and guide revolutions in all countries, and the deepening of the construction of existing ones.

This is a difficult and arduous task. With the damage caused by revisionism in the communist movement, the idea and action of socialism/communism has generally lost its credibility among the masses of workers and labourers. Organising the vanguard section of the working class within the communist party through work within the working class; placing the working class in revolutionary positions behind the vanguard section of the working class under the conditions of the existence of a revolutionary situation seems like a dream with today's perspective.

But what looks like a dream is not a dream. The October Revolution led by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 and the experience of building socialism in the following years showed that revolution and socialism are not dreams.

The thing to do, the way to go is clear.

We will persistently walk on the right path we have determined in the coming period as we have done so far.

We have a Red Sun that will rise at the end of this path!

12th Congress

organisational issues

An important part of the work of the 12th Congress was a series of concrete decisions taken on the basis of comradely discussions and evaluations on the organisational situation and problems of our party.

In the organisational sphere, discussions on priority and especially on the difficulties in winning new young people into the Bolshevik ranks came to the fore. In this context, the reasons for the discrepancy between the enormous theoretical/political treasure created by collective work in our 43 years of Bolshevik Party-building experience and the organisational strength, which is very backward in comparison, were discussed. It was found that the main problem here is not the undoubted faults and shortcomings of individual comrades or organisations, but the prevailing attitude of ‘holding back’in terms of organised participation in the cause of real communism. The negative effects of the revisionist degeneration and backsliding in the Socialist Soviet Union and in a number of people's democratic states, which were once exemplary and enjoyed great prestige among the working people as a positive example, continue to exist and have an impact today. Add to this, in the concrete of our countries, certain actions and attitudes taken in the name of revolutionism, which push the working people away from revolutionism, and it becomes difficult to win new young people to communist organised activity. This, of course, does not mean that more and better cannot be done.

Our 12th Congress here collective comradely discussions and evaluations on the possible mistakes and shortcomings of each of our organised comrades; once again emphasised that it is of decisive importance to overcome them by using the Marxist-Leninist criticism and self-criticism mechanism correctly.

In the discussions on organisational problems, a few small corrections and additions were made to our statute based on some recent developments.

Our congress successfully completed its work with the acquittal of the Eleventh Central Committee and the election of the new Central Committee.

Calls for our Congress

Members of our Bolshevik Party, comrades,

It is our task to turn the decisions of our 12th Congress into an effective weapon for advancing and deepening the construction of our party. Let us take up this task with all our might.

Sympathisers of our Bolshevik Party, dear supporters,

Review the documents of our 12th Congress, increase your support! Most importantly: Take a step towards organising as a member of the Bolshevik Party!

Organisations outside the Bolshevik Party in Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, which are based on the organisation within the working class and which defend the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat for socialism; take steps for a serious ideological struggle on the ideological and practical differences with the Bolshevik Party!

All revolutionaries in Northern Kurdistan-Turkey who identify themselves as communists outside the Bolshevik Party and its milieu, study the documents of our Bolshevik Party, seek contact with us!

The sections of the working class that come to the fore in the class struggle will become the key to the solution of the problems when the Bolshevik Party becomes in reality your party. Organise in the Bolshevik Party! Our working class of all nationalities, salvation is in the revolutionary class struggle, in the revolution. The Bolshevik Party, as the vanguard party of the class, is an instrument of revolution. Unite in the class struggle under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party!

Peasants and all labouring people of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, your real salvation also lies in the revolution under the leadership of the working class. The instrument of this revolution, the Bolshevik Party, is also the instrument of your real liberation. Claim it, support it!

Workers, labouring women, the Bolshevik Party is the sharpest weapon of the women's liberation movement against the male-dominated society that exploits and oppresses you twice. Defend this weapon! Make the struggle for the creation of the Communist Women's Movement your struggle!Oppressed nations and nationalities of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey, the way to your real liberation is through revolutions led by the working class. The Bolshevik Party is the instrument of working class-led revolutions in our countries of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey. Organise in Bolshevik Parties!

The society in which all the oppressed, marginalised and excluded people of society on the basis of different identities will experience real equality and freedom is the socialist and communist society of the future. The Bolshevik Party is the main instrument of this social project. Support the Bolshevik Party!

Young people whose future is darkened by the capitalist ruling order, whose future is taken away from them; youth is the future, the future is in socialism and communism! The Bolshevik Party is the party of true freedom and equality, the party of the society of the future whose flag reads ‘To each according to his ability, to each according to his need’. Become fighters for communism, organise in the Bolshevik Party!

Communists of all countries, join the struggle to create and build Bolshevik parties! Organise in Bolshevik parties!

Let us join forces in the international class struggle!

Let us create the Bolshevik International together!

Workers of all countries/oppressed peoples unite!

Beginning of May 2024 ●

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

1The PDA, also known as the Proletarian Revolutionary Light or Dawn, now exists as the Vatan Party, which competes with the MHP in chauvinist nationalism.

2 The conference, which was attended by elected delegates from all party organisations, was in fact a congress.

3 It is embarrassed because a number of false views defended in the name of ‘Mao Zedong Thought’had been identified and rejected at the First Congress. There were even those in and around the Party who wrongly ‘advanced’the correct criticisms of ‘Mao Zedong Thought’and considered Mao as a whole, or after 1957, as a revisionist. In this environment it was difficult to come out openly as a Maoist, to call oneself a Maoist. This was done in the later period in the Menshevik wing, which experienced many splits.

4 These were three men who were not able to participate directly in the congress, but who enjoyed great prestige in the party because they had been among the founders, and to whom the First Central Committee gave the title of ‘Honorary Members’. Such prestige that, as one of the Menshevik delegates to the Second Congress put it, there were those who agreed with everything they wrote without reading it. One of them played no role in the internal party struggle. One of them sided with Doğu Perinçek in the following years. One of them took part in the organised struggle for a while and then left the organised struggle. As an independent revolutionary writer and artist, he continued to be visible in the publications of various TKP/ML organisations, writing on his own behalf.