VALUE OF THE LEFT
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VALUE OF LEFT CHP and HDP have not yet evaluated the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections, but in some respects the situation is clear. The CHP announced that it would not fall into a defeatist psychology, that it would assess the situation but that it would continue its struggle. Kılıçdaroğlu lost but got almost half of the votes. Erdoğan continued to criticise the CHP and HDP harshly because he could not see any frustration on the other side. This seemingly unwarranted criticism is actually a sign of timidity. Erdoğan could not win a landslide victory, but he could win a Pyrrhic victory. I believe that the current situation will provide new opportunities for the development of the Turkish left. To some extent, the CHP will come closer to its own left. The left referred to here is not the HDP. There is a large majority within the CHP who do not even want to hear, let alone discuss, the demand for federation and Kurdish as the second official language. CHP could not find what it expected from the parties on its right. It is difficult to maintain the alliance with the Iyi Parti on the one hand and open up to new forces on the other - these can only be those on the left - but I think they will try to do so. In this case, opening up to those on its left will be limited to those who are approximately in line with the CHP on Kurdish rights. The HDP's future orientation is more difficult. The CHP's deal with Ümit Özdağ a few days before the election was very bad for the HDP and it was no longer possible for them to change their position. To what extent the HDP has realised that nothing more can be expected from the CHP and that the problem is not Kılıçdaroğlu but CHP members and supporters, we will see in their evaluation. Within the HDP, two views will struggle again. The first is the view that advocates minimising the relationship with the Turkish left. This view does not have much chance. The most organised Kurdish group outside the HDP is the Barzani supporters and their closeness to the AKP is obvious. The view that the HDP provides a great opportunity for the Turkish left is not correct, because most of the Turkish left is outside the HDP and there is no intention to pull the HDP further to the left. The second view is the one that favours close relations with the Turkish left but argues that this should be reorganised. In a realistic assessment, the HDP has no one other than a section of the Turkish left. I do not think that the TİP has any significant chance of development. Some revolutionaries voted for this party, not for the HDP, even though they were not from the TİP. A party whose theoretical emptiness became evident after Metin Çulhaoğlu's death and which sees the revolutionary struggle as limited to parliamentarism has little chance of development. Regardless of how the CHP and HDP make their evaluations, the opportunities for the development of the left -HDP is not included in this scope, there may be socialists in it, but HDP is not a socialist party- will increase. In order to evaluate this, I will not make a meaningless statement such as "the left must unite", which is repeated too often. Even in countries that have made a revolution, socialists did not achieve this by uniting. They did it by working together. The real deficiency of the left is not in uniting, but in not learning to work together. Unions of action for as long as possible... To the extent that the left - or socialists - can do this, they will be able to develop together.
