US
The Kurdish Question in the Light of Marxism, 2023
The Kurdish Question in the Light of Marxism, 2023
International Communist Party
English language press
The Kurdish Question in the Light of Marxism
Exposed at the January and May 2022 General Meeting
1.
Introduction
2.
– The Prehistory of the Kurdish Nationality
3.
– Kurdish Rebellions from Sheikh Ubeydullah (1879) to Sheikh Said (1925)
4.
– The New Secular Nationalism of the Republic of Agiri (1926‑30) and the Dersim Massacre (1937‑38)
5.
– The Autonomous Republic of Mahabad (1941‑45) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party
6.
– Kurdish Nationalism in Iran after 1979
7.
– Al Anfal Campaign (1988) and Proletarian Revolt in Southern Kurdistan (1991)
8.
– The PKK: From its Foundation (1978) to its Capitulation (1999)
9.
– KRG (2005), AANES (2013) and The Kurdish Question Today
10.
– Conclusion
A.
– Appendix 1: Communism and the Kurds
B.
– Appendix 2: The Kurdish National Movement (Comintern, 1921)
The map, prepared by the Kurdish Institute in Paris, shows the boundaries that have been proposed over time for a Kurdish State, which
has never managed to establish itself ("Le monde diplomatique").
1. Introduction
Kurdistan, or the country of the Kurds, covers a vast mountainous
territory stretching some 475,000‑550,000 square kilometers from the
Anti‑Taurus Range in the west to the Iranian Plateau in the east, from
Mount Ararat in the north to the Mesopotamian Plain in the south.
Kurdistan is not a State; it is a territory that stretches on the
fringes of four different, and always antagonistic, ethnic, political
and cultural worlds: the Turkish, the Arab, the Persian, and the
Russian. Its territory is today divided among four States: Turkey,
Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Additionally, there is a smaller Kurdish
population in the Caucasus.
Northern Kurdistan comprises 20 of Turkey’s 81 provinces;
officially this territory is divided into the more heavily Kurdish
“Southeast Anatolia”, and the more mixed "Eastern Anatolia". Eastern
Kurdistan covers 4 of Iran’s 24 provinces (ostan); officially only one
of these provinces is recognized as Kurdish. Southern Kurdistan includes
4 of Iraq’s 18 provinces (muhafadha); 3 of these form the Kurdish
autonomous region established in 1974 and also called the Northern
Region. By contrast, the province of Kirkūk is not recognized as
Kurdish. Western Kurdistan, the smallest of the four, is also referred
to as Northern Syria, and is currently an active battlefront between the
Turkish army and affiliates of the PKK.
The territory of Kurdistan is mostly rich in water: the headwaters of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow in the north. Lake Van, at 1,720
meters above sea level, the largest in Turkey, covers 3,764 sq. km. In
Iran, Lake Urmia (Rezāiyed in Persian) partly borders Eastern Kurdistan:
it is at an altitude of 1,250 m.; it has very high salinity and does not
allow fish life; the water problem is vital for all the countries in the
region.
The territory of Kurdistan, consisting of high mountains furrowed by
valleys and fertile plains, has an average altitude of more than 1,000
meters.
Kurdish population is estimated to be between 35 and 45 million
according to the Kurdish Institute of Paris. The number of Kurds thus
exceeds the population of every single Arab State, excluding Egypt, but
is a minority in each of the States into which it is incorporated.
Approximately 80% of Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
Mineral wealth is substantial: in Northern Kurdistan there are
phosphates, lignite, copper, iron, chromium (one of the most significant
deposits on the globe), and oil. Southern Kurdistan produces 75% of
Iraq’s crude oil. In the Kermānshāh region of Iran, oil is extracted, as
well as in Western Kurdistan. These resources of course do not benefit
the Kurdish landlords and bourgeois, but are forfeited by the States in
which those territories are incorporated. Despite the wealth of natural
resources, Kurdistan is a relatively poor country although industry has
developed significantly beyond oil and agriculture in the last thirty
years.
Northern Kurdistan is essential for Turkey, first for its oil wealth,
but also because of its function as a water tower in the Middle East. The
water is fundamental for the irrigation of Anatolia and the countries
that depend on it such as Iraq and Syria. Israel is also strongly
interested in a possible supply. Since 1977, Northern Kurdistan has been
the subject of the GAP or Southeast Anatolian Project, which is the
largest regional development project in the world, with the construction
of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants. Japanese, Dutch and Israeli
investors are involved. These Turkish dams are a source of contention
with Syria and Iraq because Turkey can modulate their flow, causing
water shortages in these countries that are disastrous for
agriculture.
In the first half of 1900s, some cities of Northern Kurdistan were
more advanced in small and medium scale industry than many Turkish
cities. Most significantly, Diyarbakır, an important center of the
textile industry, was third in the number of big enterprises in the
country following Istanbul and Bursa. By the 60s, Northern Kurdistan’s
share of the Turkish economy had dropped significantly.
There exists not only small or medium sized private capital in
Kurdistan but a private sector dominated by big businesses for a long
time. Kurdish nationalists from all parts of Kurdistan, including the
PKK have been supportive of the Kurdish bourgeoisie. The PKK for
example, as it declares in its program the aim of “setting private
entrepreneurship which can aid the free development of society, helping
and supporting it”. The Northern Kurdish bourgeoisie, in turn, supported
the PKK to such an extent that 19 Kurdish businessmen were assassinated
by the Turkish State under the Çiller administration in the mid
1990s.
Despite the State borders that separate them, the Kurdish populations
scattered over the four countries have very close family relations.
Kurdistan, especially its Southern and Eastern parts, was the
traditional refuge of all opponents of the national regimes that shared
it due to the locals’ negative attitude towards the regimes in question.
Additionally, especially due to the chemical massacres in Southern
Kurdistan in 1988 and the destruction of the Northern Kurdish
countryside in the 90s, many Kurds have emigrated out of Kurdistan and
became an important part of the workforce where they went, often leading
the native workers to struggle.
The first workers’ strike in Kurdistan took place in 1908 when 700
copper miners in Ergani, Diyarbakır walked out. Ergani workers remained
active in the trade union movement after WW1. Kurdish proletarians in
the Caucasus actively participated in the revolutionary struggles in the
region following the October Revolution. A weak working class continued
to exist along with a large poor peasantry in the decades to follow in
all parts of Kurdistan. Especially in Northern Kurdistan, the
proletariat begun to go on strikes in the 1960s. This trend reached its
peak in 1991 with the Summer workers’ resistance in Northern Kurdistan.
Yet it was above all the proletarian uprising in Southern Kurdistan that
marked the Kurdish workers’ entry into the stage of history.
Many of the slogans of the proletarian uprising in the South as well
as the workers’ struggles in the North were class based but they still
also included national slogans, calling for Kurdish
self‑determination.
The Kurdish society prior to capitalism constituted a feudal unit. In
pre‑capitalist Kurdish society, the surplus product of immediate
producers is appropriated through tithe and other duties. The immediate
producer in Kurdish society was similar to the serf of Western feudalism
in terms of relations of appropriation, attachment to land and several
duties.
The Kurds are undoubtedly of heterogeneous origins. Many people lived
in what is now Kurdistan during the past millennia, and almost all of
them have disappeared as ethnic or linguistic groups. This trend has
continued in modern times as many ethnic Armenians, Bulgarians,
Circassians, Chechens, Georgians, Ingushs, Ossetians have become
Kurdified as a result of fleeing to Kurdistan and having subsequently
assimilated into Kurds. Moreover, the same has happened to even Turks
and Arabs who were settled in Kurdistan by the Ottoman and Turkish
States.
In fact, like the Communist International, two of its oldest sections
in the Middle East, the Communist Party of Turkey and the Communist
Party of Iran, recognized Kurdish nationhood and applied the tactics of
the Theses on the National and Colonial Question to Kurdistan. As the
communist perspective of dual revolution expressed in 1920 was not
realized, the Kurdish national question remained unresolved for the
decades to come. The Kurdish national revolutionary movement peaked
during the second half of the 1920s, however by then the Comintern
itself had turned into a tool of the Russian national State. In the
early 1930s Kurdish nationalism suffered a historic defeat from which
there would be no coming back. The Kurdish bourgeoisie soon opted
towards reformist and reactionary dead end solutions, leaving the duty
to end the national oppression of Kurds on the shoulders of the
proletariat. Hence, we predict that the next great upheaval of the
Kurdish proletarians will not include slogans of national
self‑determination, and have purely class slogans on its banners.
2. The Prehistory of the Kurdish Nationality
As we wrote in “Factors of Race and Nation”, 1953: «
In the ancient
empires of the Asiatic Orient, whose political formations come prior to
the Hellenic, we encounter fully developed forms of State power,
corresponding to enormous concentrations of landed wealth hoarded by the
lords, satraps and sometimes theocrats, and the subjugation of vast
masses of prisoners, slaves, serfs and pariahs of the land
». The Kurdish
nation has its roots in a number of ancient peoples. First among these
was the Gutian people, based on animal husbandry, who inhabited the
Zagros mountains in the second and third millenia BC, and were known in
ancient texts for raiding Sumerian lands. The Assyrians defined the
Gutians with the adjective Kurti, meaning powerful and heroic. This term
came to describe various peoples who inhabited the area. One such people
were the Hurrians, who spread from around Lake Van to almost all parts
of modern Kurdistan from 2000 BC. The Hurrians were involved in
agriculture, animal husbandry and metal working. The Hurrians were
notable for their sculptures and their architecture as well. Hurrians
played an important role in the Mitanni Kingdom, established in 1500 BC
in upper Mesopotamia. The rulers of this feudal kingdom were
Indo‑Europeans, however its lords came from the Hurrians who came to
culturally dominate the region. Rivalries to win over the throne, as
well as between the lords weakened the kingdom, however, and lead to its
collapse at the hand of the Assyrians, whose mode of production was
slavery.
The Medes were an Indo‑European tribe who begun to enter upper
Mesopotamia starting from 1000 BC. The Assyrians underestimated how
numerous the Medes were, and the latter took over the lands east of
Assur in 700s BC, including the Zagros mountains and the Iranian plains.
As the Medes advanced towards the West, numerous peoples including the
Gutians, Hurrians, and Indo‑Europeans faced massacres, enslavement and
plague. Accordingly, the Median Kingdom was supported by all the peoples
mentioned above. Eventually the Medes, led by their King Phraortes,
marched on Nineveh and defeated the Assyrians. As the Medes dominated
the area, they consolidated their power. The Median nobility included
the younger branches of the royal family and the principal chiefs of
tribes which had taken part in the conquest. It constituted a sort of
council which governed with the sovereign. After the conquest each of
the chief vassals was granted or received a territory proportionate to
the importance of his tribe, and the same was done for each of the
clans, then for the families. Thus a kind of complete hierarchy was
established from the owner of a village or a group of tents up to the
supreme master.
The empire belonged primarily to the Medes. They were the most
numerous and the first comers. But their forces spread all the way from
Parthia to the borders of Oronte. The Persians, another Indo‑European
people whose forces were more concentrated, snatched away their
supremacy. The Persian takeover was of no consequence from the point of
view of social organization. The last Median King, Astyages, married his
daughter to a vassal lord of the Persians. The famous Cyrus was born as
a result of this marriage
Cyrus governed as king of the
Persians and Medes, while his ancestors had been ruled by the king of
the Medes and Persians. The chief men of the realms kept their estates
and their rank and regardless of whether they were of Persian or Median
origin, they continued to compose the royal council. After Cyrus came to
take the Median Kingdom over from his grandfather, he married his aunt
to further consolidate his power. Cyrus continued many aspects of Median
rule, from laws to clothing, and including the revolutionary war against
slavery in the Middle East. Yet Cyrus’ death came, according to
Heredotus, at the hands of Tomrys of Massagetae, a nomadic people Cyrus
tried to invade.
The Medes, referred to as Kardakes in Greek sources, continued to
enjoy a distinguished position in the Achaemenid as well as the Parthian
Empires, and continued to have their autonomous principalities under the
Sassanids despite the latter’s tendency towards centralization.
At the time Islam emerged, Kurds were divided between Sassanid and
Eastern Roman Empires. Kurdish tribes initially gave strong support to
the Sassanids who tried to withstand the Muslim armies. Yet soon it was
clear that the Sassanids would fall and the Kurdish lords one by one
submitted to the Arab armies and their new religion. Kurds continued to
play an important role in the Islamic civilization. They came to
prominence with the rise of the Ayyubids, a Kurdish dynasty who led the
defense of the Middle East against the Crusaders. Under, Saladin, the
founder of the dynasty, the Ayyubids ruled over Western Armenia, Syria,
Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Eastern Tunisia, Northwestern Sudan, Yemen and
Arabia, aside from Kurdistan. Although the State language of the
Ayyubids was Arabic as they were technically vassals of the Abbasid
Caliphate, the dynasty spoke Kurdish. Saladin implemented an educational
reform, allowing many branches of science other than Islamic theology,
including astronomy, mathematics, medicine and philosophy to be taught
at madrasas and sources were translated into Kurdish for Kurdish
students.
This being said, although hailed as a hero of the Kurdish nation by
many modern Kurdish nationalists, Saladin and his dynasty clearly
represented Islam, albeit a version of it very tolerant and respectful
of other religions, rather than Kurdish identity, as they existed in a
period that preceded the formation of nations. There were numerous other
Kurdish principalities of varying sizes throughout the region during the
Islamic Middle Ages.
The term Kurdistan itself emerged near the 12
th
century,
although at this point it was used in a narrow administrative sense
rather than a wide national sense.
The period following the time when the Kurds were divided between the
Sassanid and Eastern Roman Empires gave Kurdish feudal lords the chance
to continue their power. The Seljuks did not make any changes in the tax
system and land ownership they encountered in Iran either. The period
when the Kurds were divided between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires,
which came to dominate the Middle East, and bordered each other in
Kurdistan, for much of the second half of the last millennium, however,
did not give Kurdish lords many opportunities for advancement.
In the past, it was the Christian Byzantines who forcefully displaced
the Muslim Kurds in their borders as they were considered to be allied
with the Sassanids. Now it was the Shite Safavids who forcefully
displaced the Sunni Kurds in their borders, considering, not wrongly,
that they would tend to be more loyal to the Ottomans who were also
Sunnis. Consequently, with the help of Kurdish lords, the Ottomans ended
up capturing most of Kurdistan, and generously installed their allies as
local hereditary governors.
Kurdish lords rebelled twice against the Ottoman Empire in the
17
th
century, and in both cases were suppressed brutally. It
is no coincidence that these revolts took place in this century, which
saw the beginning of the Empire’s unavoidable descent, as it started
losing land and its income from tributes declined. Nevertheless, for
most of its existence as a domain of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan
preserved its autonomous cultural identity and particular feudal
structure. The Ottoman term
ocaklık
refers to the land tenure
and transferring the right to use the land in return for service to a
certain family
. Ocaklık sanjaks
are the places left to the
local lords. Ottoman Kurdish provinces with
ocaklık sanjaks
were Diyarbekir and Van in Northern Kurdistan, Urfa in Northern and
Western Kurdistan and Şehrizor in Southern Kurdistan. Additionally, the
vassaldom of Ardalan ruled Eastern Kurdistan on behalf of Persia.
Until the 19
th
century, it was the feudal lords who
collected agricultural taxes in Kurdistan, and the Empire’s share from
these taxes was quite small. As we quoted Prussian military officer Helmut von Moltke (the Elder) who was sent to
serve the Ottomans in The Kurds: Tribal Society in the Grip of
Imperialism: «
The Ottoman Empire embraces large territories where the Porte
exercises no de facto authority, and it is certain that the Sultan has
many conquests to make in the periphery of his own States. Among these
is the mountainous country between the Persian frontier and the Tigris
(...) It has never succeeded for the Porte to bring down in these
mountains the hereditary power of the families. The Kurdish princes have
a great deal of power over their subjects; they war among themselves,
defy the authority of the Porte, deny taxes, do not allow the draft, and
seek a last refuge in the strongholds they have raised on the high
peaks
».
Having lost a great degree of its land, and trying to endure deep
social and economic problems, the Ottomans revised their policy of
nonintervention towards Kurdish feudal autonomy. In doing so, the
Ottoman Empire, in the large cities of which capitalism was beginning to
develop, was supported by the advanced foreign capitalist powers. Von
Moltke underlined the need to subjugate the Kurdish lords resisting the
empire to preserve their autonomous status in order to fix the budget.
Thus, the Ottomans, backed by the advanced capitalist powers, moved
against Kurdish feudal autonomy. The internal conquest of Kurdistan was
without a doubt an inevitable episode of the advance of capitalism in
the Ottoman Empire, however it also served to create a deep national
problem which to our day has not found a solution within the framework
of capitalism.
The two main classes of Kurdish feudalism were the warrior and
landowning nobles along with their armed squires; and peasants who had
been degraded into semi‑slavery. These peasants were called
raeya
or
rayet
, after their Ottoman and Persian
counterparts, a term that comes from flock. The Kurdish warrior and
landowning nobles and their armed squires mentioned above constituted
kinship based social units called
aşirets
Kurds who were not part of such organizations constituted the serf
class.
Aşiret
has been confusingly translated as tribe, however
it is clearly a feudal entity. The
aşiret
lord, the eldest son
of the previous lord, had unlimited authority. He could confiscate
everyone’s property as he pleased. He could have individuals beaten and
if he wished he could get any one of his people killed. In times of
peace, the agreement between lords against the escape of criminals
prevents a bondsman from fleeing the authority of the lord. The
government offered no help against the corruption of the lord either.
Kurdish serfs were subject to a complicated system of feudal tolls and
taxes which benefited their lords. These tolls and taxes were either
collected by the feudal himself or by the elder or administrator
representing the community. When feudal dues were levied (labour dues as
well as exactions in kind), it was from the village as a whole. This
last detail shows that despite the fact that Kurdish feudalism enjoyed
considerable autonomy, it lacked a kingdom of its own and was thus not
an advanced form of feudalism, still carrying the influence of the
patriarchal production relations.
As the Ottoman Empire moved towards crushing feudalism and autonomy
in Kurdistan, feudal lords one by one begun to rebel. In 1806, Babanzade
Abdurrahman Pasha revolted against the new tax policy, followed by his
nephew’s rebellion to avenge him in 1812, and the Rewanduz Rebellion
lead by Mir Muhammad in 1818.
The most influential lord in the region, however, was Bedir Khan of
Botan, who ruled from the Iranian border to central Mesopotamia, from
Diyarbakır to Mosul. He minted his own coins, the Friday sermons were
dedicated to his name, and his wealth was extraordinary. Lord Bedir
Khan’s forces massacred 50,000 Assyrians in an attempt to Islamize the
region.
Bedir Khan rebelled against the Ottomans in 1840. Yet his
principality was crushed by the Ottoman army following the directives of
von Moltke in 1847; he was betrayed by his nephew Êzdînşêr.
Êzdînşêr, appointed lord of Cizre, later revolted against the
Ottomans too, considering his rights insufficient, and was defeated in
1855. Lord Bedir Khan, like the rebel lords before and after him, was
not a national revolutionary. His was a revolt to defend the privileges
of the Kurdish feudal aristocracy against the centralizing efforts of
the Ottoman Empire and Western capitalist powers, above all Prussia. As
we wrote earlier: «
During the 19th century there were about fifty
uprisings in Ottoman Kurdistan, all of them suppressed in blood, even
with the help of France and Britain, whose economic penetration into the
Empire was already considerable. By the end of the century all
independent Kurdish principalities had disappeared»
(1991).
Aside from struggling to overthrow slavery in the region along with
its Persian counterpart, Kurdish feudalism dissolved the gentile
community, gave birth to an economy based on property of land and above
all animals, protected the settled serfs from the invasion of nomadic
aşirets, kept Kurdistan an autonomous unit against the occupying nomadic
empires that destroyed neighboring countries, and sharing the fate of
feudalism elsewhere, itself became a powerful obstacle to the later
development of productive forces. Like all feudal units, the role played
by aşirets in history eventually begun to decline. As it went through
one military defeat after another, the aşiret slowly dissolved through
the 19
th
and the first part of the 20
th
centuries
as the social and economical structure of Kurdish society was
transformed
In any case, the proletariat of course would never sympathize with
the oppression of the reactionary Ottoman Empire and its various
European patrons, yet it owed the desperate and doomed uprisings of
feudal Kurdish lords no support either.
3. Kurdish Rebellions from Sheikh Ubeydullah (1879) to Sheikh Said (1925)
With the collapse of Kurdish principalities in the second half of the
19
th
century, the Ottoman State redistributed their lands to
rich traders, local bureaucrats and sheikhs, or religious scholars with
political authority. The latter soon became the richest landlords as
donations of their followers were added to the lands they were given.
Thus, they became very powerful political leaders in Kurdistan, and some
of them went on to use their influence to spearhead actually nationalist
ideas as opposed to the aristocratic rebels before them.
Sheikh Ubeydullah Nehrri was the most important of these leaders.
Holding Botan, Behdinan, Hakkari and Ardalan which used to belong to the
principalities, he believed that Iranian and Ottoman governments were
leeches that prevented the development of Kurds. Sheikh Ubeydullah
believed the only way forward for the Kurds was the establishment of a
united Kurdistan, made out of the merger of Kurdish lands in Iran and
the Ottoman Empire. Despite being a sheikh, Ubeydullah had no intention
of Islamizing Kurdistan, and he formed good relations with the
Christians, who supported his rebellion. Ubeydullah’s forces fought Iran
and the Ottoman Empire at the same time, and were defeated although the
sheikh was exiled rather than executed, testimony of his influence. Of course, it was not a Kurdish bourgeoisie that headed Ubeydullah’s movement as capitalism had not properly expanded into Kurdistan yet. However, since the rebellion did not envisage a return to the feudal order but the formation of an independent nation which could only follow a capitalist path, Sheikh Ubeydullah and his followers can well be described as progressive.
The Kurdish national movement was born with the Sheikh Ubeydullah
revolt but it took a modern form only at the beginning of the
20
th
century. The center of the new movement was to be
Istanbul rather than Kurdistan, and its leaders would spend the years of
Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s oppressive reign united with the bourgeois
revolutionaries and reformers of the Young Turks. Following the 1908
revolution when a constitutional monarchy was declared and Society of
Union and Progress came to power, Kurdish nationalists moved on to form
numerous organizations: Kurdish Advancement and Progress Society,
Society to Spread Kurdish Culture and as a student organ, Kurdish Hope
Society were set up in 1908, followed by the Kurdish Independence
Society founded in 1910 and to which all the Kurdish leaders belonged
to. The new wave of Kurdish nationalism, explicitly rather than
implicitly politicized, then set out to expand to Kurdistan. Kurdish
clubs were established in cities such as Diyarbakır, Mosul and Baghad.
After years of propaganda, signature campaigns involving tens of
thousands of Kurds as well as spreading arms, the Kurdish nationalists
attempted a rebellion in Bitlis, in Eastern Anatolia, among the leaders
of which was a young Simko Shikak. An important segment of the leaders
of this new generation of Kurdish nationalist leaders came from the
Kurdish middle class made up of the children of impoverished lords. They
were thus as much influenced by the French Revolution as they were of
the Kurdish resistances of the previous century.
Sultan Abdul Hamid II had organized a significant number of Kurds,
along with Turks, Circassians and Arabs in the Hamidian cavalry
regiments in 1890, roughly a decade after the suppression of the Sheikh
Ubeydullah revolt. This regiment was particularly instrumental in the
massacres of Armenians and other Christians during Abdul Hamid II’s
reign as well as World War 1, and served to create powerful bonds
between the State and a section of the Kurdish, and other Muslim
populations. Following World War 1, various parts of Anatolia were
occupied by the Entente and the Ottoman Empire was reduced to a puppet
government in Istanbul headed by the liberal Freedom and Accord Party,
opposed by Mustafa Kemal’s national revolutionary government in
Ankara.
Mustafa Kemal had initially distanced himself from the actions of the
Union and Progress Government during the war, defining the Armenian
genocide as “a shameful act”. Moreover, like the Istanbul government, he
had promised autonomy with the 1921 Constitution, and commented that it
would in particular apply to the Kurds. These policies would be quickly
revised after the victory of the Turkish nationalist movement, as the
1924 Constitution declared that «
in Turkey, everyone is called “Turk” in
terms of citizenship regardless of religion and race
». Nevertheless, for
a while, Kurdish leaders were divided between the Istanbul and Ankara
governments.
The Treaty of Sèvres promised the Kurds a State. As we wrote earlier
(“Comunismo”, 1991):
England seemed inclined to keep its promise made a few years
earlier, unlike what it had done with the Arabs. The main reason that
had led the great powers to prospect Kurdistan’s independence was the
desire to impose a “safety belt” between the USSR and Turkey. The
European powers wanted to prevent the widening of the socialist
revolution and intended to create a feudal, backward buffer State that
they could use against the USSR and other peoples, a potential strategic
point in the vicinity of Soviet oil wells in the Caucasus.
«The Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920) provided in two articles for the
establishment of a Kurdish State, but reduced to only a few territories
within the borders of present‑day Turkey and with limited sovereignty,
for the benefit of the victorious colonial powers. This was the lousy
generosity of British imperialism, which wanted to keep the most fertile
and especially oil‑rich Kurdish territories under control. In fact, the
ancient vilayet of Mosul, although it was undoubtedly part of Kurdish
territory, despite being clamored for by Kemalist Turkey, was in 1925
definitively assigned by the League of Nations to Iraq, i.e., England
(…)
«The treaty of Sèvres, however, was never implemented. The Ottoman
government, one of the signatories, had lost its authority, and the
National Assembly in Ankara did not ratify the agreement, which would
have reduced Turkey to a colony of the Western powers
This division of the Kurdish people among various States, in each of
which they were going to constitute a national minority, had extremely
negative consequences in the following years. The nationalist movements
began to follow different, and often opposing, paths, to the point of
opposing each other in arms. Yet, many Kurdish nationalists, especially
the reactionary variety, were happy to play the role envisaged for the
by the imperialist powers.
Near the end of WW1, a number of Kurdish nationalists reorganized
under the leadership of Abulkadir Ubeydullah, son of Sheikh Ubeydullah
and former member of the Kurdish Advancement and Progress Society,
calling themselves the Society for the Advancement of Kurdistan (SAK).
The newly established organization was quick to reach and agreement with
the Freedom and Accord Party for Kurdish autonomy near the end of 1918.
In 1920 the organization would make the following call: «Do not be
fooled by the National Forces! They are drifters without a fatherland
carrying the head of the Bolsheviks. Do not renounce allegiance to the
Caliphate and the Monarchy». As such, the Society for the Advancement of
Kurdistan took a fully pro‑Entente, that is the imperialist front that
emerged victorious from the war, position.
SAK dominated the political line of the Koçgiri rebellion of 1921,
where the Kurdish leaders of the multi-ethnic Erzincan workers’ and
peasants’ shura, or council, also participated. The demands of the
Koçgiri rebels did not go beyond the recognition of the autonomous
status promised to the Kurds by the Western powers in the Treaty of
Sèvres and agreed upon by SAK and the Freedom and Accord Party. The
rebellion ended in a massacre at the hands of the Kemalist forces, led
by Nureddin Pasha, who famously said «we have exterminated the people
who say “zo” (Armenians), I’m going to exterminate the people who say
“lo” (Kurds)». Following the suppression of
the Koçgiri Rebellion, SAK declined and would never rise to prominence
again as an organization.
In 1918, after murdering a few thousand Assyrians in order to
establish his power in Eastern Kurdistan, Simko Shikak launched a
rebellion against Persia. By 1922, it was claimed that the rebellion was
supported by Mustafa Kemal and Shikak had declared the formation of
independent Kurdistan, although his rebellion did not live long
afterwards and was suppressed by Persian forces. Shikak would later
support Mahmud Barzanji who had first rebelled against the British who
ruled Southern Kurdistan in 1919, was exiled, and upon his return
declared himself King of Kurdistan in 1922. Barzanji’s kingdom lasted
until 1924, when it was finally defeated by the British. Soon afterward,
Simko Shikak attempted another rebellion in Eastern Kurdistan and failed
once again. Shikak would flee to Southern Kurdistan, was offered a
pardon by the Persian government and was murdered soon after he returned
to Iran. Despite their ideological backwardness, rebellions in Eastern
and Southern Kurdistan from this period can be tentatively considered
national revolutionary for pursuing independence rather than autonomy
and for positioning themselves against the major imperialist powers
rather than on their side.
As SAK declined, a new organization arose in Northern Kurdistan: The
Society for Kurdish Freedom, or Azadî for short. Founded by Xalîd
Cibranî, a Kurdish soldier who supported Mustafa Kemal until the Koçgiri
Rebellion, Azadî soon had sections in Erzurum, Istanbul, Diyarbakır,
Dersim, Van Siirt, Bitlis, Kars, Muş, Malazgirt, Hınıs and Harpu. Azadî
too was interested in developing relations with Western powers, above
all the British. In 1924, Azadî led the
Beytussebab rebellion in opposition to the prohibition of public use and
teaching of Kurdish, resettling of Kurdish landowners in the West of the
country and opposition to the abolition of the Caliphate in 1923. The
rebellion was defeated and Xalîd Cibranî was killed. Abdulkadir
Ubeydullah would replace him as the head of the organization. This
setback did not stop Azadî from planning another rebellion, which
started in 1925 and was led by Shiekh Said, an influential Islamic
leader who had no military experience. Sheikh Said was no Sheikh
Ubeydullah, however, and the rebellion thus assumed the form of
religious reaction to secular reforms than national revolt. Almost
20,000 people were killed by the Turkish State following the suppression
of the rebellion, among them Abdulkadir Ubeydullah and Sheikh Said.
Azadî never recovered from the defeat.
4. The New Secular Nationalism of the Republic of Agiri (1926‑30) and the Dersim Massacre (1937‑38)
Following the eruption of a spontaneous revolt in Norther Kurdistan
near Mount Ararat in 1926, a new Kurdish nationalist organization called
Xoybûn (Self‑Rule) Committee - Kurdish Independence Organization
came into being in 1927, formed by former members of various other
Kurdish nationalist groups. The notable difference of Xoybûn from the
previous Kurdish nationalist organizations in Northern Kurdistan was
that there was not a trace of religious rhetoric in its propaganda. It
was a purely Kurdish nationalist organization, progressive and secular.
From the start, it had close relations with the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, or the Dashnaks, Among its members were the trade
bourgeoisie, soldiers, bureaucrats and landowners. so much so that the
two organizations came to form an alliance pact although
Dashnaks’motivation was to trigger an armed conflict between their
Muslim enemies.
Soon after its formation, Xoybûn sent the most prominent soldier in its ranks, Ihsan Nuri Pasha, a former member of the Kurdish Hope Society, to establish the Kurdish Republic in the city of Agri. Members of Xoybûn appealed to both the Soviet Union and the Western powers for support – to no avail, although the British, the French and Stalinist Russia all blamed each other for supporting the wretched rebellion of the Kurds in their press. The Kurds were on their own. The only support for the rebellion came from Soviet Armenia and whether this aid was officially ordered is not known. In any case, the new republic was supported by rebellions in Van, Bitlis, Igdir, Mount Tendurek and Mount Suphan and thanks to them lasted until near the end of 1930, when it was defeated. At its height, the
Kurdish national army consisted of 60,000 soldiers. It has been claimed that nearly 50,000 people were massacred as the rebellion was suppressed. Nevertheless, the Republic of Ararat inspired the Ahmed Barzani revolt of 1931 in Southern Kurdistan where Xoybûn supporters seeking refuge were welcomed. The Republic of Agiri is historically significant for being the first national revolutionary effort in Kurdistan which was based on the Kurdish bourgeoisie. It represents the high point of the Kurdish national movement and its defeat was of historic consequences for the Kurdish bourgeoisie. Xoybûn existed mainly as group of exiles in Western Kurdistan until 1946 when it dissolved, unable to ever take the stage of history again.
The Zaza population of Dersim in Northern Kurdistan had not
participated in most of the rebellions mentioned above, the notable
exceptions being the Erzincan shura and the Koçgiri rebellion. Yet the
province was targeted with a new legislation in 1935 which changed its
name to Tunceli and essentially declared martial law in it and gave its
military governor dictatorial powers. The aim of this legislation was
the still intact feudal autonomy of the region, which was, in the words
of Prime Minister Celal Bayar, a State within the State. Following
public meetings in early 1937, a letter of protest against the
legislation was written to be sent to the governor. The emissaries of
the letter were executed, afterwards a group of local people ambushed a
police convoy. The Turkish military responded by occupying the province.
25,000 soldiers were deployed into the area. In turn, Seyid Riza, an
Alevi religious elder, tried to organize a resistance. Soon, however, he
was called to a peace meeting in Erzincan, and was hanged by the Turkish
military upon arrival. Kurdish sources claim that about 70,000 were
massacred in Dersim. In fact, the events that occurred in
Dersim in 1937‑38 cannot really be defined as a rebellion as it generally
has been. Rather, it was an organized ethnic massacre with a particular
aim, set in motion through a number of blatant provocations. With the
Dersim massacre, the defeat of the Kurdish national movement in Turkey
was complete for the time being.
As we wrote earlier, by then «
the imperialist powers had thus mapped
out the tragic fate of the Kurdish people. Whereas before the war it was
divided by the only ancient border separating the Ottoman and Persian
Empires, after the war it found itself divided among five States:
Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the USSR. This quite different situation
has had and continues to have dramatic consequences for this people, who
had suddenly become a “national minority”, and especially for the
dispossessed masses for whom national oppression was added to class
oppression». The Kurds were not the only nation who suffered in the
region either. As we wrote earlier (1991): «It is the thesis of our
movement that the revolutionary bourgeoisie, as soon as it comes to
power immediately becomes reactionary, not only toward the proletariat,
which also constituted the shock mass that enabled it to seize power,
but also toward national minorities. The Turkish bourgeoisie is no
exception to the rule. The Armenians, who had even been able to
establish their own State on the border with the USSR, had to suffer
vicious massacres that forced them to emigrate en masse; the substantial
Greek minorities living in Pontus suffered a similar fate
».
5. The Autonomous Republic of Mahabad (1941‑45) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party
In 1941, during WW2, the Soviet Union and Britain invaded Iran. The
former, occupying the northwestern part of the country, found it
profitable to support Kurdish nationalist aspirations. Thus, a Kurdish
administration was formed in Mahabad which initially aimed for autonomy
within the boundaries of the Iranian State. The new administration was
spearheaded by the newly formed Society for the Revival of Kurdistan, a
secret organization lead by Qazi Muhammad, son of a supporter of Simko
Shikak and a judge. The committee predominantly consisted of the Kurdish
middle class, but was backed by the landlords as well as the
bourgeoisie. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was founded in Mahabad
in the summer of 1945 as a public ruling party. Soon afterward, in 1946,
after ruling Eastern Kurdistan for five years, Qazi Muhammad declared
the foundation of the Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, which
nevertheless still aimed for autonomy within Iran rather than
independence.
Mustafa Barzani of Southern Kurdistan, younger brother of Ahmed
Barzani, who led his military forces in the rebellion of 1931, was
appointed as the Minister of Defense and commander of the Kurdish army.
Barzani also organized the KDP in Southern Kurdistan, managed to get the
backing of a considerable segment of the Kurdish section of the Iraqi
Communist Party and was elected its leader in exile in mid‑1946. The
Russians soon ceased their support of the Republic of Mahabad, and near
the end of 1946 the Iranian army took the city without a fight since
Qazi Muhammad wanted to avoid a massacre. The Iranian forces closed down
the Kurdish printing press, banned the teaching of Kurdish language,
burned all Kurdish books that they could find, and Qazi Muhammad, along
with many other KDP leaders, were hanged for treason, while Mustafa
Barzani went into exile in the Soviet Union. The KDP program was not
specific about any social or economic content for fear of alienating the
highly conservative landlords who had agreed to support it. It was a
bourgeois nationalist party which was reformist rather than
revolutionary by the necessity of the historical conditions.
After the 1958 military coup led by Abdul Karim Qasim in Iraq,
Mustafa Barzani was invited to return from exile. As part of a deal
arranged by Qasim and Barzani, the Iraqi government promised to give the
Kurds regional autonomy in return for Barzani’s political support.
Meanwhile KDP was granted legal status in 1960. Soon, however, it became
apparent that Qasim would not follow through with his promise of
regional autonomy. Consequently, KDP
intensified its propaganda. Qasim responded by inciting other Kurdish
chiefs to fight against Barzani’s, however by 1961, KDP had emerged
victorious from these conflicts and Barzani had consolidated his
position as the leader of Southern Kurds. KDP then attempted to expel
government officials from Kurdish territories. Qasim ordered the Iraqi
army to retake Southern Kurdistan, and the Iraqi Air Force began to bomb
Kurdish villages indiscriminately, which only lead to popularizing
Barzani’s cause even further among the Kurdish population. The
insurrection could not be defeated, which was a factor in the success of
the Ba’athist coup against Qasim in 1963.
The new Ba’athist government relied on American and British
assistance against Barzani’s rebellion, incinerating entire Kurdish
villages with napalm bombs supplied by Western powers. In addition,
Syria began targeting Kurds in Western Kurdistan and aiding Iraq against
the insurgency. In turn, Barzani’s forces received aid from Iran and
Israel both of whom wanted to weaken Iraq.
Near the end of 1963, it was the Ba’athists turn to be overthrown in
a coup. The new government of Abdul Salam Arif initially tried to
suppress the Kurdish rebellion one more time, only to declare a
ceasefire in 1964. Barzani agreed, and expelled the more radical
opponents of the ceasefire from KDP. Yet, Abdul Salam Arif died in a
plane crash in 1966, and replaced by his brother Abdul Rahman Arif, who
also initially tried his hand to defeat KDP militarily, only to fail and
return to the negotiation table. The new leader declared a peace
program, only to be overthrown by the Ba’athists in 1968. The following
year, the Ba’athists attacked the Kurds and lost once again, and the war
finally ended, leaving 100,000 casualties, with the Iraqi-Kurdish
Autonomy Agreement of 1970 which was not to last very long.
When the rapprochement between Qasim and Barzani collapsed and the
Kurdish-Iraqi war started, KDP in Iran supported Barzani and his KDP in
Iraq. In the process, the leadership and subsequent social orientation
of both KDP in the South as well as the East revealed their true colors.
By 1965, Barzani turned against KDP in Iran and came to an agreement
with the Shah that called for him to restrain activities against the
Iranian government. Moreover, he openly called for subordinating the
struggle in Iran to that in Iraq and warned that KDP militants from Iran
would not be tolerated in Southern Kurdistan. As a result, the
leadership of KDP in Iran was ousted and a new leadership, mostly made
up former Tudeh Party cadres took over.
Members of the KDP in Iran formed a Revolutionary Committee and
declared their support for peasant uprisings against the National Police
around Mahabad and Urumiya. Although KDP in Iran managed to inflict
serious losses on the Iranian army, they were eventually defeated.
Within months, eight of the eleven members of the Revolutionary
Committee had been murdered by Iranian soldiers, and the movement lasted
less than eighteen months. KDP in Iraq
murdered over 40 members of the KDP in Iran and handed their bodies to
the Iranian authorities.
From its emergence in the late 19
th
century until the
split between the Iraqi and Iranian branches of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, the Kurdish movement had maintained a degree of solidarity that
had contained clan rivalries. The various Kurdish parties and
organizations formed after 1908 and World War 1 had different approaches
but were not opposed to one another – in fact their cadres often moved
from one organization to another to try and see how a different approach
would do. Eventually a single bourgeois nationalist organization for all
parts of Kurdistan belonging to the former Ottoman Empire, Xoybûn was
formed, which was supported by prominent Kurdish national movements in
all parts of the country. This organization willingly dissolved after
World War 2 because, as Kurdish nationalists were establishing close
ties with the USSR, it was considered obsolete. Until the split
mentioned above, however, the Kurdistan Democratic Party served the same
purpose, expressing the interests of the Kurdish bourgeoisie as a whole,
that is across borders.
In 1974, the Iraqi government began a new offensive against the
Kurdish rebels, pushing them close to the border with Iran. As the
fighting progressed, Iraq informed Tehran that it was willing to satisfy
Iranian demands in return for an end to its aid to the Kurds. In 1975,
with mediation by Algerian President Houari Boumédiènne, Iraq and Iran
signed the Algiers Accord. Accordingly, Iran would quit supplying the
Iraqi Kurds in return for the transfer of Iraqi territory to Iran.
The Second-Iraqi Kurdish war was an attempt at symmetric warfare
against the Iraqi Army rather than guerrilla warfare like the first, and
without Iranian support, it led to the quick collapse of the Kurds, who
were lacking advanced and heavy weaponry. Following the defeat, Barzani
escaped to Iran with many of his supporters. Others surrendered and soon
the rebellion was over.
Following the defeat of Barzani’s rebellion, leftist dissidents in
KDP in Iraq lead by Jalal Talabani finally decided to leave the old
party and formed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in mid‑1975. PUK
received grassroots support from the urban intellectual classes of
Southern Kurdistan upon its establishment, partly due to five of its
seven founding members being PhD holders and academics. PUK forces began
engaging with Iraqi military in late 1975, right in the aftermath of the
Second Iraqi-Kurdish War, and continued through 1976. Those raids by the
PUK against Iraqi government were not favorably considered by Barzani
and KDP groups ambushed and killed PUK fighters on several occasions.
The first intense KDP-PUK fighting occurred in Baradust area in 1978.
The PUK, in which the urban bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie component
was significant, flaunted more radical outward forms than its parent
organization. In the PUK’s program was a demand for political
independence rather than autonomy. Soon, however, it would turn out that
the PUK could be no less conciliatory than the KDP towards the various
States oppressing the Kurds.
Kurdish Nationalism in Iran after 1979
Two months after the overthrow of the Shah in Iran, an intense
Kurdish rebellion began against the newly established regime. The
uprising was born in early 1979 when protesting Kurds took control of
police headquarters, army bases, and parts of army barracks in Sanandaj,
after army troops failed to disperse them. Unrest then spread to other
Kurdish regions as the Kurds took over towns and army garrisons trying
to keep out the Iranian army in Divan Darreh, Saqqez and Mahabad. The
movement was led by the KDP in Iran and the Society of Revolutionary
Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan (Komala) which had been founded in 1969 as
a Maoist organization although it has been claimed that it received
Soviet aid after 1979 when it renounced Maoism and assumed outwardly
leftist attitudes.
Although ethnic conflict between the Kurds and the Azeris in the
region significantly weakened the movement, it worried Ayatollah
Khomeini enough to declare jihad against it. It took Islamic
Revolutionary Guards until late 1980 to reconquer Eastern Kurdistan
completely, killing perhaps more than 10,000 Kurds in the
process, as groups of KDP soldiers continued to engage in low‑level
campaigns against Iranian forces until 1983.
In the meanwhile, a war between Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam Hussain’s
Iraq had broken. KDP in Iran was supported by the Iraqi government until
1988 while KDP in Iraq and PUK struck a deal with the Iranian
government. With the backing of Iranian forces, the rebels managed to
gain control of several parts of Southern Kurdsitan.
The imperialist war between Iran and Iraq was further proof of the Kurds’ inability to
act as a unified nation, and each of the national components, divided on
a State basis, once again became pawns of the neighboring country, which
meanwhile did not give up oppressing the Kurds at home.
Al Anfal Campaign (1988) and Proletarian Revolt in Southern Kurdistan (1991)
Before moving to suppress the Kurdish rebellions of the 1980s, Saddam
Hussain had desperately negotiated a deal promising the Kurds autonomy
with PUK. Yet in 1986, Iran brokered a deal between KDP in Iraq and PUK,
and the Ba’athist government begun the infamous Al Anfal Campaign to
annihilate Kurdish settlements with bombs, explosives and chemical gas.
There was an uprising in Halabja in 1987, which had become a stronghold
of deserters from the Iran‑Iraq war. Iraqi army troops sent to kill the
revolting masses were convinced to join them instead. Over the next few
weeks there were uprisings in several other Kurdish cities. The
government could only prevent them from turning into other Halabjas but
cutting off their electricity and closing down mosques which were used
as gathering places. Deserters took over the nearby town of Sirwan with
no help from the Kurdish nationalists, only to be bombed by the
government. Halabja had become an immense threat against the war itself.
First, Halabja was bombed and occupied by the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard. Saddam Hussein announced that «all those who do not defend their
nation, their land, are considered to be traitors and we will not
hesitate to annihilate them by any means available to us».
Soldiers started leaving the town, many giving their weapons to the
deserters as they left. Yet PUK forces, aided by Iranian Revolutionary
Guard, both with their gas masks ready, surrounded the city and
prevented Halabja’s proletarians from leaving while allowing their own
families, supporters and the rich safe passage outside. After massacre,
they looted homes and raped women. The gas attack on Halabja left 15,000
dead on the medium term, while the Al Anfal Campaign it was a part of
claimed 180,000 lives according to Kurdish sources and between 50,000
and 100,000 according to Human Rights Watch.
Following the brutal campaign of annihilation in Halabja and the rest
of Southern Kurdistan, PUK and KDP were discredited so much that they
decided to form the Kurdistan Front together.
When the new spontaneous wave of uprisings begun in Southern
Kurdistan in early 1991, these parties moved to take charge of the money
in the banks and control government buildings, State institutions and
the arms trade in order to ensure their power.
The uprising quickly acquired a class content. In Silêmanî and
Hewlêr alone, almost a hundred spontaneous,
self‑organized workers’
shuras
were formed in popular quarters,
squares, small factories to discuss practical issues. This experienced
mirrored that of Iran 1979, where workers’ and peasants’
shuras
were formed throughout the country, including Eastern Kurdistan. The
movement was decidedly against Kurdish nationalist parties, Barzani and
Talabani were not allowed near Silêmanî, and internationalist slogans
such as "We will celebrate our new year with the Arabs in Baghdad" were
chanted. The
shuras
organized a militia throughout Southern
Kurdistan which was not recognized by the Kurdistan Front. Silêmanî was
the first city to be taken by the rebels and the last city to be retaken
by the Iraqi army. After the uprising was defeated, KDP and PUK
mobilized their forces and took Silêmanî and other Southern Kurdish
cities back from the Iraqi army, and finally signed a deal with Saddam
Hussein that recognized their existance as an autonomous Kurdish region
within Iraqi borders.
The weakness of the brave revolt of the young Southern Kurdish
proletariat was only that, although numerous radical groups claiming to
be communists were present, there was no true world communist party to
lead it and tie it to proletarian struggles in the rest of the
planet.
The proletarians and deserter soldiers on both fronts found against
them the solidarity of all parties and armed forces in the field who
declared themselves to be at national war, while they were now only
pawns of the imperialist States and powers, constituting the final
verification of their now hopelessly counter-revolutionary character,
both vis-à-vis the working class and communism and the very national
goals they claim to pursue.
The PKK: From its Foundation (1978) to its Capitulation (1999)
Although a section of Barzani’s KDP in Turkey was founded in 1965,
contemporary Kurdish nationalism in Northern Kurdistan has its roots in
the Stalinist movements of various sorts that rose to prominence after
1968. By the 1970s, there were numerous “leftist” Kurdish nationalist
organizations operating in Northern Kurdistan. These bourgeois
organizations, like various Turkish leftist organizations, were armed
and at war not only with the fascist Grey Wolves but with each
other.
Under these conditions, the loose group that called itself
Revolutionaries of Kurdistan emerged in Ankara from the student movement
in 1975, its most important leaders being Abdullah Öcalan, Haki Karer,
Kemal Pir, Mazlum Doğan and Hayri Durmuş. The group argued that
Kurdistan was a colony of four countries, where occupiers and local
collaborators cooperated. Accordingly, they aimed to wage a national
liberation struggle against these forces, for which an illegal
organization that launch armed struggle was needed. The purpose of the
armed struggle was to encourage the masses and thus organize
increasingly regular armies, and through popular war found independent,
democratic and united Kurdistan. Initially the group continued to
organize among students, teachers and the educated middle classes. In
1976, the group decided to start shifting its center of activities from
Ankara to Northern Kurdistan. Abdullah Öcalan was elected chairman and
Haki Karer deputy chairman. Unbeknownst to the leadership of
Revolutionaries of Kurdistan, however, Öcalan had contacts with the
Turkish National Intelligence Agency. He was later to explain this
saying «the National Intelligence Organization wanted to use me but I
used them instead».
This swarming of opportunist and Kurdish nationalist groups did not
benefit the development of the working-class struggles of Turkey’s
proletariat, which were very lively in the 1970s. Beyond any
consideration of the good or bad loyalty of the leaders, the Kurdish
nationalist movement was than a hindrance to the development of working class
struggles in Turkey.
In 1977, Haki Karer was murdered in Gaziantep where he had moved to
do political work. According to his younger brother Baki, Haki Karer had
announced his decisions to investigate Öcalan’s relations with a
suspected Turkish intelligence agent the day before he was murdered. The
investigation never happened, instead Karer’s murder became influential
in the decision to launch a political party for the liberation of
Kurdistan.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was formed in a village near
Diyarbakır in late 1978. Its program claiming that “Turkish capitalism”
rather than “Kurdish capitalism” existed in Kurdistan, the PKK to a
large extent denied the existence of a Kurdish bourgeoisie while
encouraging its development. Thus, they envisaged what can be described
as a “bloc of three classes”, the urban petty-bourgeoisie, the peasantry
and the proletariat would conduct the national revolution against
Turkish, Arab or Persian colonial occupiers and their “feudal”
collaborators. All who denied independence as the path of the Kurdish
national movement were condemned.
Until Haki Karer’s death, the PKK had defended armed struggle
ideologically but had not actually attempted to organize it. Since then,
they started participating in armed clashes against other Kurdish and
Turkish leftists. Judging by its program as well as its actions, we can
describe the PKK of this period as a typical Stalinist national
movement, already anti‑proletarian.
In early 1978, a Revolutionaries of Kurdistan militant named Halil
Çavgun was shot dead in the Kurdish town of Hilvan. His murderer was a
member of the landowning Süleymanlar aşiret. The Revolutionaries of
Kurdistan struck back two months later, killing the tribe’s leader
Mehmet Baysal. In the battles that raged over the next few months
between the two groups, the Kurdish nationalists gradually gained wide
support in the town. In mid 1979, the PKK staged a daring assassination
attempt against a Kurdish parliamentarian and head of the powerful Bucak
tribe.
Disappointed at the parliamentary parties’ inability to contain the armed clashes between various political groups and the increasing intensification of the class struggle, the Turkish Armed Forces organized a coup supported by the United States in 1980. Soon mostly leftists but also some fascists were imprisoned throughout the country and several of their militants were executed. All prisoners of this period faced torture, but the overwhelmingly Kurdish inmates in Diyarbakır Military Prison got the worst of it. The PKK lead the resistance in Diyarbakır Prison, notably through acts such as suicides, hunger strikes and self immolations in protest of the horrendous conditions imposed by the military administration of the prison.
Under such circumstances, many Kurds escaped to Europe. As we wrote
in “Kurdish Nationnalisms: Counter-Revolutionary Instruments in the
Middle East Powder Keg” (2017): «Kurdish cultural identity and
nationalism outside Kurdistan are largely maintained by communities
abroad and by the governments that have hosted them. Kurdish cultural
centers in Sweden and other European countries, as well as websites,
freely perpetuate Kurdish nationalism. In Europe, the Kurds have
obtained since the 1970s‑80s the recognition of a cultural autonomy».
The "democratic" regimes of Europe and America have used Kurdish
nationalist organizations for their economic, diplomatic and military
interests, hypocritically speculating of the accounts of Kurdish
refugees in Europe about the systematic torture they or their comrades
experienced in Diyarbakır Military Prison.
A considerable amount of PKK militants escaped through Turkey’s loose
border with Syria. The PKK made an agreement with the Maoist and
Palestinian nationalist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
for its volunteers to be trained. When the PKK volunteers became too
many for the DFLP to handle, similar agreements were made with Al Fatah,
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Popular
Struggle Front and the Lebanese Communist Party, Öcalan playing an
important role in diplomatic relations with all these organizations.
As we wrote in “The Kurds in the Quagmire of the Middle East” (2016):
«At the beginning of the seventies the Syrian government thought they
could Arabize the territories along its border with Iran and Iraq,
inhabited mainly by Kurdish and Christian minorities. This region, which
is highly fertile and rich in oil, had known independence movements
during the French mandate as well. But when Hafez al Assad assumed power
in 1971 he put an end to the forced Arabization and sought an alliance
with the Kurds against the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Kurds accepted
to the extent that in 1982 they took part in the bloody repression of
the revolts organized by the latter. Hafez’s bodyguard was often
composed of Kurds, and of Christians, towards whom he extended the same
policy of protection. The Kurds of Syria didn’t enjoy any political or
cultural rights but they weren’t officially persecuted, at least as long
as they refrained from advancing any political demands».
Syria’s support for Kurdish groups was, at least initially, more
tacit than overt. In practice this meant that Damascus did not block the
flow of illegal refugees from Turkey, did not make trouble for Kurdish
militants setting up house in Syria, and did not impede traffic back and
forth to Lebanon. It was not, however, that Syria was uninterested in
the new arrivals. First of all, Syria had its own Kurdish population to
worry about and wanted to ensure that Syrian Kurds were not encouraged
to stand against the State. While this reliance to Syrian goodwill did
not yet cause the PKK to change its official program that foresaw an
independent Kurdistan stretching over part of Syria, it limited its
ability to openly oppose the Syrian regime in Western Kurdistan.
By 1984, the PKK was ready for war against Turkey. Its survey teams
returned safely from Turkey, bringing information about troop locations
and nationalist sentiments. Dozens of militants were firmly ensconced
inside Northern Kurdistan, where they worked to set up a civilian
militia. A handful of attacks on alleged Kurdish collaborators had
gained the PKK sympathy in the region. The PKK’s attacks caught Ankara
by surprise. Martial law, with which the country had been ruled since
the 1980 military coup, was in the process of being lifted. Even after
the attacks, the newly installed civilian government did not initially
take this new threat seriously. Eventually Ankara made its move and
begun to pressure Barzani to kick out the rebels from his territory.
Barzani was concerned about a possible Turkish retaliation and asked the
PKK to relocate their bases and not stage attacks near the border. The
PKK refused Barzani’s request, arguing it needed its bases near where it
crossed into Turkey.
In late 1984, the Turkish foreign minister, accompanied by a large
number of military officials, came to Baghdad to discuss the situation.
Both Turkey and Iraq being opposed to Kurdish independence in any part
of Kurdistan, Turkey had little difficulty negotiating an agreement that
allowed its military to conduct raids on PKK encampments in Southern
Kurdistan. No doubt Iraq hoped any Turkish cross-border operations would
also target the PKK’s Southern partner with which Baghdad was at war.
Nonetheless, Iraq remained sufficiently wary of Turkey that it refused
to allow Turkish troops to push further than five kilometers into Iraqi
territory. Barzani’s fears that he would be targeted in any Turkish raid
soon were realized. In mid 1986, the second anniversary of the start of
the PKK’s fight, the Turkish air force bombed Southern Kurdistan,
killing an estimated 100 Iraqi Kurdish civilians and KDP fighters. The
Turkish military continued smaller operations in the next year. Barzani
held out for a year and finally formally abandoned the protocol he
signed with the PKK in mid 1987. Yet the alliance had allowed the PKK to
establish itself militarily inside Southern Kurdistan, and now they were
so well entrenched that it was impossible to dislodge them without an
all‑out armed assault.
At the same time the Turkish State often almost randomly arrested
people of Kurdish descent after a guerrilla attack. Villagers whose only
contact to the PKK might have been involuntarily providing them with
food were imprisoned with experienced and committed Kurdish
nationalists. Thus prisons, above all the Diyarbakır Military Prison,
became some of the most important recruitmment grounds of the PKK.
Eventually, a popular uprising broke out in early 1990. The spark was
the killing of thirteen guerrillas in in their cave hide‑out a few days
after they had secretly crossed from Western Kurdistan into the North.
Clashes which started during the funeral of one of the fallen quickly
spread to the rest of Northern Kurdistan. The timing, right around the
Kurdish Newroz, helped boost tensions. The military sought to tighten
its control over the region in the face of the protests. More curfews
were imposed and armored vehicles flooded in. The demonstrations broke
out without any involvement of the PKK. The PKK was as surprised as the
State by their strength. Turkish State were now faced with a full‑scale
insurgency. On the one hand he protests showed that oppressed people
were no longer willing to remain passive, on the other, that the
bourgeoisie made the proletariat fall into the trap of the clash of
nationalisms, an endless war on an ethnic basis that functions as a
factor of distraction and social preservation for the bourgeoisies of
all ethnic groups.
Although Öcalan’s leadership in the PKK had been challenged by
certain leaders of the organization in Europe such as Çetin Güngör, who
was murdered by the PKK in 1985, and his comrade Baki Karer, who
narrowly avoided a similar fate, politically these dissidents had been
quick to renounce the armed struggle and evolve into a national
reformist line.
The most ambitious and significant challenge to the PKK’s leadership
started at the 4
th
Congress of the PKK held near the end of
1990. Armed PKK units were criticized for failed raids against Turkish
military targets and for focusing on wrong or unimportant targets,
including unarmed peasants. The raid of villages in Mardin was described
as the darkest stain on the party’s history, and policies such as forced
conscription were rejected.
The man leading the charges was Mehmet Cahit Şener. Şener had joined
the guerillas in Syria’s Bekaa valley in 1989 where the PKK was
headquartered following his release from Diyarbakır Prison where he was
one of the prison resistance leaders. Şener called for investigations of
the internal executions that occurred in the Bekaa training camp, and in
the PKK’s camps near the Iranian border. He also insisted that the
central committee be responsible for the PKK’s finances, which until
then were controlled solely by Öcalan.
Ten days after the end of the congress, Öcalan issued a warrant for
Şener’s arrest, implying that he might be a Turkish agent. Şener escaped
after months, and soon declared the formation of PKK‑Vejin
(Resurrection). Şener famously exposed the countless rapes committed by
the leadership of the PKK among its women members and opposed its
collaboration with Saddam’s government in Iraq during the uprising of
1991. Şener and his comrades were loyal to the program of the early PKK
as opposed to the increasing tendency of collaborationist on the part of
its leadership. However the program of the early PKK was also written in
a period where a national revolution could no longer be on the agenda in
Kurdistan, so PKK‑Vejin was no less a lost cause. Mehmet Cahit Şener and
two of his comrades were murdered in Qamishlo, Western Kurdistan in late
1991 in a joint operation by the PKK and Syrian intelligence and soon
afterward PKK‑Vejin, the last armed nationalist organization in the
history of Kurdistan which aimed for independence was annihilated.
Since 1990, parliamentary efforts played an important role in the
PKK’s strategy, whose human rights activist supporters united with
Kurdish social democrats split from the Social Democratic People’s Party
to form the People’s Labor Party. Though this legal party was banned
after its deputies were arrested by tanks after adding a Kurdish
sentence to their parliamentarian oath, it was replaced by a number of
parties that succeeded each other such as the Democracy Party, People’s
Democracy Party and the Democratic People’s Party through the
decade.
In 1993, Öcalan agreed to a ceasefire with Turkey. Accompanied by
Talabani at a press conference in Barelias, Lebanon, Öcalan stated that
the PKK no longer sought a separate State, but peace, dialogue, and free
political action for Kurds in Turkey within the framework of a
democratic State. With the PKK’s ceasefire declaration in hand, Turgut
Özal, the neoliberal president of the time, was planning to propose a
major reform package at the next meeting of the Turkish National
Security Council however he died under mysterious circumstances and the
plans were never realized and soon fighting begun again.
The Turkish State resorted to destroy over 4,000 villages, forcing
3,000,000 Kurds to become refugees, as well as burning the forests of
Northern Kurdistan. Moreover, about 20,000 mostly Kurdish civilians were
killed by so‑called "unknown assailants" even though it is common
knowledge that black ops and State-sponsored gangs were responsible
these deaths. In turn, the PKK often killed peasants who didn’t support
them, and at one point launched a campaign which led to the murder of
hundreds of teachers to fight Turkish cultural influence in Kurdistan.
In the meanwhile, the PKK participated in the Southern Kurdish civil war
which lasted from 1994 to 1997 between KDP in Iraq and PUK on the side
of the latter, supported by Iran since 1995. The war caused almost
ten thousand deaths and ended up with the United States facilitating a
deal with KDP and PUK after a couple of Turkish military intervention
into Southern Kurdistan against the PKK. As for the war between Turkey
and the PKK, it cost the lives of tens of thousands of guerillas and
conscripts.
In 1997, the PKK was designated a terrorist organization by the
United States. In late 1998, Syria finally gave in to Turkish threats of
an invasion and Öcalan had to leave the country. After spending several
months trying to find political asylum in Europe, he ended up in
Nairobi, Kenya and was captured by members of the Turkish National
Intelligence Organization there. According to footage taken on the plane
he was taken to after being captured, Öcalan was recorded saying “I love
Turkey. And I love the Turkish people. I believe I’ll serve them well.
I’ll do it if I get the chance".
Of course, for us Marxists, there are no heroes just as there are no
monsters. Rather than Öcalan’s individual conduct, either when he was at
the head of the PKK or when he was captured, is the social and political
reality that not only allowed but made vastly acceptable such conduct.
This conduct may have to be attributed to the weakness and divisions of
the bourgeoisie in Kurdistan’s backwardness, ready to coexist and
compromise with surviving feudal and patriarchal elements. It is
certainly not because of Öcalan that the PKK was never ceased to be a
reactionary nationalist organization by serving, at various times, every
State which is involved in oppressing the Kurds, or by abandoning the
goal of Kurdish independence. “The heroic armed struggle waged by the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, certainly the most radical in the
landscape of Kurdish nationalism” (1991) we spoke of in the past, was
powerless in the face of changing historical conditions and thus they
were bound to be defeated.
KRG (2005), AANES (2013) and The Kurdish Question Today
Following Öcalan’s capture, the PKK experienced an ideological shift
from Stalinism to “democratic confederalism”. Accordingly, sister
parties for the PKK were formed in all parts of Kurdistan. In Southern
Kurdistan, it was called Democratic Solution Party of Kurdistan (2002),
in Western Kurdistan, it was called Democratic Union Party (2003) and in
Eastern Kurdistan, it was called Kurdistan Free Life Party (2004). Even
the PKK itself changed its name to Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy
Congress (2002), though briefly, only to be renamed the People’s
Congress of Kurdistan (2003), and the PKK again (2005).
In the meanwhile, the unilateral ceasefire the PKK had declared was
ended in mid‑2004. These sister parties were soon united under the
umbrella of Kurdistan Communities Union (2005), essentially a
proto-State with the People’s Congress as its parliament. The PKK itself
remained the guiding force of the umbrella organization and the other
parties. As the new names made clear, the PKK’s ideological and
organizational changes had the aim of making it appear sympathetic as
well as useful to the Americans who, after the 9/11 attacks seemed
determined to play a more important role in the Middle East.
The greatest winners from the increased American involvement in the
Middle East were the Southern Kurdish bourgeois nationalist parties. As
the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, both KDP, by now a typical
conservative party, and PUK, by now a typical social democratic party,
were quick to present themselves as the greatest supporters of the
“democratic transition” from Saddam Hussein’s bloody regime. They were
rewarded handsomely. KDP was given the presidency of the Kurdistan
Regional Government, established in 2005 which would be governed in
partnership with PUK, whereas PUK was entrusted with the ceremonial
though prestigious presidency of Iraq. Under these two parties, soon the
Kurdistan Regional Government was to become one of the most corrupt
administrations in the world, often unable to pay public workers their
salaries.
A split from PUK in 2009 called Movement for Change (Gorran), a
centrist “anti‑corruption” party, briefly threatened KDP and PUK’s hold
on power, only to be exposed soon as no different, and lose all its
support. Riots and to a lesser but still significant degree strikes have
become common occurrences in Southern Kurdistan, where the protestors
have more than once burned the offices of every single political party
operating in this or that city. Also common is the murder and arrests of
protestors. Although Massoud Barzani’s ill‑fated 2017 independence
referendum was widely supported by the population of Southern Kurdistan,
electoral participation remains extremely low in general.
Although the PKK affiliate formed in Southern Kurdistan has not been
much of a success, the same cannot be said of the parties in Eastern and
Western Kurdistan. In the former, Kurdistan Free Life Party has launched
a low scale insurgency against the Iranian State. Around 1,500 people
are thought to have died during the conflict so far. The PKK affiliate
was supported by the United States under the Bush administration,
however this policy was revised under the Obama administration and
designated the party a terrorist organization. The greatest success,
however, was the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Western Kurdistan.
Though due to the PKK’s historic ties with the Syrian government, the
PYD has not attacked it the same way its Eastern affiliate has been
attacking Iran, they did get involved with the Kurdish opposition to it
when faced with the opportunity. In 2004, a football match in Qamishlo
between a local Kurdish team and an Arab team sparked violent clashes
between fans of the opposing sides which spilled into the streets of the
city. The fans of the Arab team rode about town in a bus, insulting
Barzani and Talabani, and brandishing portraits of Saddam Hussein. In
response, Kurdish fans proclaimed "We will sacrifice our lives for
Bush". Tensions between the groups came to a head, and the Arab fans
attacked the Kurdish fans with sticks, stones, and knives. Security
forces brought in to calm the riot fired into the crowd, killing six
Kurds, three of whom being children. The Kurds briefly took over
Qamishlo, the Ba’ath Party office was burned down by the demonstrators,
and a statue of Hafez al‑Assad toppled. In response, the Syrian army
mobilized and took the city back. Several dozen Kurds were killed by the
security forces and thousands fled to Southern Kurdistan. Haling the
uprising as “a historical turn towards freedom”, the PYD took active
part in the events, which strengthened their position among Syrian
Kurds.
In 2012, Islamist Turkish prime minister Erdoğan announced that his
government was negotiating with Öcalan to end the conflict between the
Turkish State and the PKK. After months of negotiations with the Turkish
Government, Öcalan’s message to the people was read both in Turkish and
Kurdish during the 2013 Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır. The letter
called for a unilateral cease‑fire that included disarmament and
withdrawal from Turkish soil, declaring the end of the armed struggle.
The PKK announced that they would obey. Erdoğan welcomed the letter
stating that concrete steps will follow the PKK’s withdrawal. Soon, the
PKK announced that it would withdraw all its forces within Turkey to
Southern Kurdistan.
Yet, while the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was
negotiating with Öcalan, it was also rooting for the Islamic State which
had besieged the PYD held Kobanê in Western Kurdistan in 2014. Erdoğan,
who had been elected president in the meanwhile, declared that the city
was “about to fall”. Deputy Prime Minister Arınç mocked the defenders of
the town, saying that «They are not able to put up a serious fight
there... It is easy to kidnap people but they are not able to
fight».
In Northern Kurdistan and beyond Kurdish nationalists called people
to the streets. There were demonstrations and riots in many parts of
Turkey, where 43 people were killed according to official figures, most
whom supportive of Kurdish nationalism. As we wrote at the time,
«demonstrations in numerous cities, some very violent, have been harshly
repressed... Curfews have been imposed by the Erdoğan government in six
of the country’s provinces where Kurds are in the majority. From prison
Öcalan has called on his followers to prepare for war.The PKK has
announced that if the Kurds in Kobanê are massacred it would end the
ceasefire declared in March 2013, after decades of guerrilla warfare,
and resume the armed struggle. On 13 October, after three days of
attacks by the PKK on the security forces in the south‑east of Turkey,
Turkish planes bombed their positions. Once again the Kurdish people are
being used as cannon fodder in a covert war between the regional and
global bourgeoisies».
Yet the lives claimed by this incident did not prevent the
continuation of the negotiations. In early 2015, PKK’s parliamentary
wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the Turkish government declared
they had reached a consensus. Following a largely successful ceasefire
period, the Turkish general election of 2015 resulted in a major gain
for HDP (13% of votes, +7.5%), a notable decrease for AKP (41% of votes,
‑9%) and a hung parliament.
Soon, two policemen were murdered in Northern Kurdistan and the
Turkish government launched police operations in the cities and military
operations in the countryside against the PKK, ending the ceasefire and
the peace process. The operations would continue in the coming years,
leading to the destruction of numerous Northern Kurdish towns. All PKK
suspects in the 2015 killing of two Turkish policemen were acquitted by
the Turkey Court in 2018 as no substantial evidence was provided. The
peace process between Turkey and the PKK once again showed that under
capitalism, peace is when preparations for the next war are being
made.
In 2011, a civil uprising erupted in Syria. As we wrote earlier, “the
Kurdish parties in Syria, with the exception of the PYD‑PKK, founded the
Syrian Kurdish National Council, which aligned itself with the part of
the Arab population opposed to Bashar al‑Assad. Meanwhile the militants
of the PYD‑PKK didn’t participate in the demonstrations against Syrian
government and in certain cases tried to prevent them. In March 2011
Bashar al‑Assad, seeking reconciliation with the Kurds, published a
decree which granted identity cards to 300,000 stateless Kurds, freed
some Kurdish political prisoners, agreed to a possible return of
exiles” (2015). In course of the next months, the crisis in Syria
escalated into a civil war. The armed opposition seized control of
several regions, while security forces were overstretched. In mid‑2012,
Syria withdrew its military from the majority of Western Kurdistan,
leaving power to the militias created by the PYD. Militias affiliated
with the PYD repaid the favor by focusing most of their energy in
fighting against organizations such as the Free Syrian Army, Al‑Nusra
Front, and eventually the Islamic State. As we wrote earlier: “In July
2012, at Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani of the KDP reconciled
and reunited the various Syrian Kurdish parties, including the PYD‑PKK.
The latter agreed to participate in the joint management of the cities
and of the population of the Syrian Kurdish areas, but refused to merge
their military wing with the Syrian Kurdish Peshmerga, who wanted to
join forces with the Free Syrian Army (FSA)” Until 2013, PYD worked with
the Kurdish National Council, mostly made up of KDP supporters, but
later abandoned this alliance. By 2015, the PYD was the closest ally of
the United States in Syria, and under American influence, established an
armed front organization with militias of certain Arab and other
organization under the name Syrian Democratic Forces.
After the SDF defeated the Islamic State, Turkish army invaded the
city of Afrin and some other parts of Western Kurdistan. Lacking the
American military support, they enjoyed against the Islamic State when
facing the Turkish military, the SDF was helped by the National Defense
Forces, the largest pro‑government militia in Syria. Despite suffering
losses, thanks to American political support, the SDF maintained much of
its territory. In 2018, the SDF announced the Autonomous Administration
of North and East Syria (AANES). Despite portraying itself as supportive
of minority rights and friendship between peoples, the PYD has never
abandoned nationalism. PYD leader Salih Muslim remarked "Syrian
government policy has brought many Arabs to the Kurdish areas. All the
villages where they live now belong to the Kurds. One day those Arabs
who have been brought to the Kurdish areas will have to be expelled”.
Assyrian Christians have complained about forced evacuations and the
Kurdified history education and Apoist indoctrination given in schools.
Protestors have been shot at, dissidents jailed and tortured. In short,
there is nothing out of the ordinary about the AANES. As we wrote
earlier: “The Kurdish proletariat has nothing to expect from the Kurdish
governments and parties, who are bourgeois and collaborationist; nothing
but terror, attacks against their working conditions and a general lack
of humanity in the methods they use” (2005).
Conclusion
The Kurds are a nationality who were late to develop capitalism.
Kurdish nationalism developed relatively late in a region already
subjected to the greed of imperialism and did not have the strength to
emancipate itself from the influence of different States to form a
single bourgeois national State or, ultimately, even a single bourgeois
national movement movement.
The national revolutionary currents in Kurdistan have been extinct
for almost a century. In a region so overwhelmed by various imperialisms
and their national reactionary allies, there is no chance for them to
reappear.
The proletariat in Kurdistan, like everywhere else, must organize as
an independent class, expressing this through its own economic class
organizations and constituting the first vanguard groups, as they appear
in various contexts, into one global structure, the International
Communist Party.
After the revolution, the communist power in much of Kurdistan will
be faced with an economic situation characterized by a poor industrial
fabric and backward agriculture. “It is important to keep in mind that
«the revolutionary industrial working class will embrace without
restrictions the agricultural worker of the large enterprises and in
this way prevent the regression of the rural laborer to the condition of
the small peasant. It could consider the semi‑proletarian sharecroppers
and leaseholders as allies; tolerating their aspiration to the free use
of their land, something that only the revolution can achieve. Only with
great caution and as a temporary measure could it expect any positive
support from the small peasant landowners who have not yet been ruined
and proletarianized by capitalism». In some areas of particular
backwardness in Kurdistan, for the party to use propaganda of
a radical agrarian reform to push the peasants to ally themselves with
the urban proletariat, and after the revolution it will carry out this
agrarian reform that will provide better living conditions for the
peasantry and allow more effective use of agricultural resources.
Kurdish enclaves does not in any way mean an independent bourgeois
nation-State freely developing capitalism. Their existence is merely
tolerated by the Iraqi and Syrian bourgeoisies and ensured only to the
extent that they are supported by greater imperialist powers.
In today’s Kurdistan, all Kurdish nationalist formations are national
reactionaries who depend on the support of this or that imperialist
power.
The rivalry between the enclaves and various Kurdish nationalist
parties divides even the most combative sectors of the Kurdish
proletariat from each other. The proletariat will find
a new enemy if Kurdistan will be united under the rule of whichever Kurdish
nationalist force, with its own imperialist aspirations and oppression of minorities.
The Kurdish proletariat, like the Palestinian, Chechen, and Tuareg,
has nothing to expect from the increasingly unlikely creation of a
Kurdish State. The Kurdish bourgeoisie is now incapable of even the
slightest progressive action. Once in power, supported by other States
or imperialist powers, it will oppress the proletariat of Kurdistan,
whether it is Kurdish, Arab, or Turkmen, as is already the case in Iraqi
Kurdistan, which enjoys almost complete autonomy from the Baghdad
government, to the point that as early as 1991 it completely escaped the
control of Saddam’s regime following the establishment of the no‑fly
zone. It can be said that Iraqi Kurdistan has already constituted a de
facto State for three decades.
At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the Turkish, Iranian
and Arab working classes continue to support the imperialist aspirations
of their own bourgeoisies, which in itself involves a renunciation of
their own struggle to free themselves. Thus, the communist party still
has to call upon the proletarians of the four countries to fight for the
defeat of the imperialisms of their own bourgeoisies. The proletariat’s
seizure of power will necessarily imply the end of all national
oppression against the ethnic minorities in the area and thus also the
Kurds.
This being said, the communist solution, that is the establishment of
a communist dictatorship with the temporary formation of a proletarian
federation of States, can only be achieved by the united struggle of
proletarians of all national backgrounds not only of Kurdistan but the
whole Middle East. As we wrote earlier in 1953: «Radical Marxists have
rightly combated the social-democratic thesis of simple linguistic
“cultural” autonomy within a unitary State in multi-national countries,
supporting total autonomy for minority nationalities, not as a bourgeois
outcome or facilitated by the bourgeoisie but as a result of the
overthrow of the central State power with the participation of
proletarians of its own dominant nationality».
Consequently, «Communism is not “the night in which all cows are
grey”. For a long time, alongside one or more common languages shared by
the human species (languages that will evolve and change with a tendency
to merge), all of the different peoples will continue to speak their own
languages and, along with a propensity towards international
brotherhood, there will continue to be a great diversity of cultures,
costumes and sensibilities» (2015).
Accordingly, the key to the solution of the Kurdish national question
remains at the hands of the revolutionary proletariat, the only class
whose interests require the abolition of national oppression today, and
its International Communist Party.
Appendix 1: Communism and the Kurds
The first communists of Kurdish origin were Bolsheviks originating
from the region of Kars, today within the boundaries of Turkey though
then a part of the Tsarist Empire and they operated among the Caucasia’s
Kurdish population. Fêrîkê Polatbêkov is known to be the first Kurdish
Bolshevik and was active in various parts of Russia, taking part in the
Bolshevik government in Siberia at the age of 21. Polatbêkov was
murdered by White counter revolutionaries in 1918. Erebê Şemo,
originally a shepard from Kars, was a railway worker when he encountered
the Bolsheviks in 1916, spread their anti‑war leaflets and gave
revolutionary speeches. Şemo formally joined the party in 1918 and
participated in the Civil War as a Red Guard soldier, returning to work
among Caucaian Kurds in 1924.
In his autobiography titled Kurdish Shepherd, written in 1930, Şemo
transmits the thoughts of Kurdish workers and peasants about the
revolutionary struggle against the Dashnaks in Armenia and their Kurdish
feudal allies. “Who were the ones who caused conflicts among our aşirets
and made us turn against each other? Why should we shed the blood of our
brothers. We were workers and they were workers too. The lords and the
Dashnaks made us fight and massacre one another. But now, no one
discriminates against some because they are Kurdish, Armenian, Russian
or Persian”. Şemo himself recalls saying in a meeting with Kurdish
proletarians: “Who benefits from you workers killing each other? Why do
you want to exterminate each other? In fact, you need to exterminate not
each other but the lords, the rich, the sheikhs and the preachers. We
the party of the Bolsheviks do not divide people into Turks, Kurds,
Armenians”.
Three modern Kurdish alphabets were developed in the Caucasus
following the victory of the revolution, one of them by Şemo himself. In
July 1923, the Kurdistan Uezd, known as Red Kurdistan, was established
within Soviet Azerbaijan with its capital in Lachin. Eventually a group
of younger Kurdish Bolsheviks begun to form around Şemo. As Kurds lacked
a modern written literature, Kurdish Bolsheviks hoped to reach them
using literature and poetry. The Kurdish Bolshevik group lacked
experience, and fell for Stalinism, which showed an interest in the
Kurdish question following the fall of the Agiri rebellion, publishing
Kurdish newspapers until the mid 30s. Then, associating even with Kurds
in the party ceased to be profitable for Stalin. Şemo was sent into
exile in Siberia in 1937 where he stayed for 20 years until Stalin’s
death, building railroads. Other members of the group were arrested and
imprisoned for a year and released afterward, having made more useful
and servile by the Stalinist counter-revolutionary apparatus.
From the start, the Communist Party of Turkey paid interest on the
Kurdish question. A speaker at the first congress of the Communist Party
of Turkey (Baku, September 1920) declared: “Like every nation, Arabs,
Kurds and Bulgarians will decide and determine in what way they will
live themselves. As Russia accepts federation, so too must we. Not only
us, but all nations must accept this principle. Only through this
principle will humanity be able to become a vast family”. The remark was
met with unanimously agreement. The report on the congress would
conclude: “Just as the Communist Party of Turkey will attempt to save
Turkish workers and peasants from the influence of the Unionists
(Committee of Union and Progress) and the treacherous socialists, it is
obliged to separate the oppressed classes of the Greek, Armenian and
Kurdish nations from the Dashnak or Bedir Khan organizations, uniting
them in the name of the same interests and purposes as one class and
directing them to fight against both internal parasites and external
forces”.
The leaders of the Aydınlık faction, the party’s right wing, never
defended this perspective and officially abandoned it as soon as they
could. In a resolution written by Şefik Hüsnü for the 1925 Party
Congress, among the party’s duties was to show the Kurds and other
national minorities that it was madness to want to separate from Turkey.
When the Sheikh Said rebellion erupted in 1925, with full support from
the Stalinist Comintern, the party leadership loyally supported the
bloody repression of the Kurdish rebellion at the hands of the Kemalist
government, justifying their position with the feudal nature of the
revolt which was undeniable and the supposed progressive nature of
Kemalism. In a report, Şefik Hüsnü wrote that “Communist publications
were preaching the merciless repression of the Kurdish rebellion and
promising the government communist support in all its efforts to
liquidate feudalism”. As we have expressed, the Sheikh Said rebellion
was indeed reactionary and not worth the support of genuine communists.
Aydınlık’s position of siding with the oppressor nation was blatant
chauvinism.
The Stalinist Comintern and their Aydınlık henchmen paid little
attention to the differences between The Sheikh Said rebellion and the
Republic of Agiri. Şefik Hüsnü repeated the false Kemalist propaganda
that the rebellion was organized by foreign powers who in reality did
not even give it any support justify supporting the repression and
massacre of Kurds once again by the Turkish government. Şefİk Hüsnü also
warned the government that it was losing the poor Kurdish masses, who
were participating in one rebellion after another in great excitemnt.
Although Şefik Hüsnü was softer on the Agiri Rebellion than he was on
the Sheikh Said rebellion, this was rather due to the Russian State’s
current relations with the Turkish governement, corresponding to the
pseudo-radical “Third Period” of the Comintern. In any case, the
Stalinist Communist Party of Turkey critically supported the Kemalists
against the Agiri rebellion, once again taking a chauvinist
position.
The official Communist Party of Turkey no longer existed in 1937 as
it had been liquidated by the Comintern, however certain Turkish
Stalinists still played an important role in it. A report prepared by
İsmail Bilen for the Comintern on the so‑called Dersim rebellion shows
that the tendency to see any Kurdish armed action as reactionary by
default had not changed among Turkish Stalinists. Bilen expresses
support not just for the massacre of the people of Dersim but for the
forced deportation of the population and the cleansing of the province.
All this demonstrate the determined chauvinism of Stalinism on the
Kurdish question.
Communism in Kurdistan has a history cut tragically short. While
Kurdistan has accumulated a history of remarkable proletarian struggles,
it never had a long enduring communist tradition. Now, this can only
change through the strengthening of the International Communist Party to
which the future generations of communists in Kurdistan will
belong.
Appendix 2: The Kurdish National Movement
V. Surto (“Moscow”, Organ of the 3
rd
Congress of the Communist International, No.7, June 1, 1921)
Kurdistan is once again in the grip of insurrection. This is not the
first time that the Kurds have risen up to shake off the yoke of the
pashas and the beys; they have long since had enough of the domination
of the Khalifs.
It is already forty years since this movement took precise contours and
since 1903 it has even its organ "Kurdistan", written by Bedir Khan Bey,
who has not ceased to lead an energetic campaign for the emancipation of
the Kurdish people. The centers of these "dreamers" were Silêmanî,
Sakkya and Senneh. The sultans had to fight against the Kurds, but all
the expeditions they undertook came to nothing, and the ruthless
repressions perpetrated by the janissaries had most of the time the
opposite results to those expected. Sultan Abdul-Hamid was the first to
try to "estimate" the Kurds at their true value. He wanted to buy them.
He distributed land to the beys and sheikhs, who are the temporal and
spiritual leaders of the Kurds, he granted them benefits, titles of
nobility, dignities. The Ḥamāvand tribe, among others, received as a
token of gratitude, for services rendered to the Porte during the
Russo-Turkish war, vast pastures. The Sultan made a special effort to
use the Kurds to subjugate the Armenians, whom he had always considered
to be a dangerous element for the security of the Turkish State; for
this purpose he gave the Kurds full power over the Armenians: they could
levy taxes as long as they pleased and sack Armenian villages with
impunity; for a time they were the blind instruments of Turkish
atrocities: they were responsible for massacres and pogroms. By such a
policy the Sultan succeeded in sowing division among the Kurds, but the
Kurdish intellectuals were aware of the harm caused by these pernicious
practices and fought hard against the current of corruption emanating
from the Turkish authorities. The propaganda of the Kurdish youth
agitators was not without effect: the Kurds increasingly refused to
submit to the orders of the pashas and beys, and it is interesting to
record that during the last war, thousands of Armenian families pursued
by the Turkish massacres found shelter and valuable support in the
Kurdish villages.
The Kurdish national movement is of great interest. The Kurds are a
partly sedentary and partly nomadic people; it seems, however, that they
are tending to become distinctly sedentary; they are mainly engaged in
animal husbandry. The tribes are still very much alive, and the Kurdish
nation as we would understand it, is only just beginning to take shape,
but this does not prevent national feeling from being very lively and
the insurrections which spring up on this terrain carry a character of
extreme fierceness. This fact, which seems paradoxical at first sight,
is easily explained when one thinks of the regime of bloody terror which
has reigned for so long in the region. But this is not yet the root
cause of the Kurdish national revolutionary movement. The main cause
lies in the economic regime of the country. It is presented under the
aspect of a mountainous country hardly accessible, with vast pastures
and a numerous livestock; it could be almost self‑sufficient, and the
rare products of importation, it receives them from Persia, Armenia and
Mesopotamia; as for the metropolis, it is connected to it only by
administrative and political relations, without more. As far as
intellectual culture is concerned, the Kurds owe everything to the Arabs
of Mesopotamia, whose influence has been decisive.
During the war this influence was not without success put to good use by
the English who tried, by means of a propaganda led by the Arabs, to
raise the Kurds against the Turks. If the goal was not reached, the
neutrality of a certain number of Kurdish tribes was assured.
After the war, the British gave up all hope of using the Kurdish
national movement for their imperialist interests. However, there is
every reason to believe that the British continue to subsidize the
Kurdish nationalists to this day.
This is not to say, moreover, that the Kurdish national movement has
nothing but artificiality and is aroused only by the interested
maneuvers of the imperialists. On the contrary, it has a marked
character of spontaneity. It is directed by the Kurdish youth organized
in a Mutual Aid Society which has its center in Constantinople and
branches in all the cities of Eastern Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The
organ of the nationalists is "Djinn", which is published in
Constantinople. A large number of propagandists of this society, spread
in all the cities of Kurdistan, lead a tireless agitation for the
autonomy of Kurdistan. The enormous influence of this propaganda on the
Kurdish masses is such that the Minister of the Porte, Ferid Pasha,
could not, himself, not recognize it. Kemal Pasha, having come to power,
hastened to promise them autonomy, but appreciating these kinds of
promises at their true value since they have seen Armenia duped by the
same Kemal, the Kurds do not disarm.
In 1919, Kemal had succeeded in ruthlessly crushing the Kurdish
insurgents, but at the present time such a repression will be much more
difficult to carry out because the realization of the "Great Turkey"
dreamed of by the Kemalists, will come up against a multiple hostility,
as much among the inhabitants of the countryside as among the various
nationalities that populate Asia Minor.