Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s hotly contested re-election highlights the country's internal crisis and its unstable position between imperialist super-powers. Erdogan's victory signifies a shift away from liberal democracy toward fascistic consolidation by Turkey’s ruling class. With Erdogan’s U.S.-backed opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, failing in the runoff, it also reflects waning U.S. influence in a critical geopolitical region.

Runaway inflation (up to 84 percent last October), two devastating earthquakes, and a ballooning migrant crisis have put the Turkish economy on the brink of collapse. To contain workers’ anger, the Turkish capitalist bosses are using Erdogan—now entering his third decade in power—to impose tighter control over the media, the judiciary, and a mostly powerless Turkish parliament. Since surviving a 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan has seized more executive power, sidelined political opponents, purged large sections of the government and military, and arrested hundreds of protesters (Al Jazeera, 7/15/22).

The struggles facing the working class in Turkey are a sobering reminder of the limitations and illusions of capitalist elections. The Progressive Labor Party is working to build communist working-class consciousness that rejects the dead end of electoral politics. By organizing and mobilizing the working class, we can build a revolutionary movement that smashes capitalism and builds a society to serve the needs of the international working class.

Liberals are the main danger
Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his Republican People’s Party painted themselves as champions of social reforms, the liberal alternative to the authoritarian Erdogan and his ultra-nationalist Justice and Development Party. But in a desperate move to defeat the incumbent, Kilicdaroglu won the endorsement of the gutter-racist, third-party candidate, Umit Ozdag, by promising to kick out millions of Syrian refugees (Turkish Minute, 5/24). Kilicdaroglu charged that Erdogan had failed to “protect Turkey’s honor or borders” (Al Jazeera, 5/22). Both Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan accused the other of colluding with “terrorists,” which translates to a push for more racist oppression of Kurdish workers.

In recent years, more workers in Turkey have been misled by these divisive racist appeals. Under the ruthless profit system, a society that creates a handful of winners and masses of losers, a lack of revolutionary class consciousness makes the working class vulnerable to racist and fascist ideas. In a volatile period with surging economic insecurity, liberal racists and open racists alike aim to exploit the frustrations of the working class and to channel their justifiable rage into scapegoating other workers. The liberals are especially dangerous in diverting class struggle away from the communist fight for state power and back to the straitjacket of voting.

Trapped in the middle
A critical bridge between Europe and Asia, Turkey under Erdogan is struggling to balance its own nationalist ambitions with the competing imperialists in Russia and the United States. The country has positioned itself as a major player in the region surrounding the Mediterranean and Black seas. It has recently pivoted toward Russia for military support and has engaged in negotiations to become a hub for a Russian gas pipeline (Al Jazeera, 10/14/22). But with its economy in shambles, Turkey will need more financial help from the United States and the European Union—or whoever else is willing to sign a big check.

After claiming neutrality in the war in Ukraine and acting to block Sweden from joining NATO, Erdogan may need to make concessions to get loans from the World Bank and prop up Turkey’s collapsing economy (Bloomberg, 2/9). To get financing from the International Monetary Fund, he will need to raise interest rates and impose austerity measures that will impoverish and starve millions.

As the big powers lurch toward the next world war, workers in Turkey seem likely to be trapped in the middle.

Fight for communism!
The plight of workers in Turkey cries out for more than mere reforms or empty promises by the rulers’ politicians. Workers need a revolutionary communist movement that exposes the root causes of workers’ economic, political, and social struggles, and that builds international class solidarity. Workers need an organization that fights for a society free from imperialist exploitation, racism, and sexism. By uniting under the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, workers in Turkey can pave the way for genuine liberation and a brighter future for all. Join us as we organize this international communist movement!

The strike had two types of demands that addressed conditions for teachers and students. OUSD is one of the lowest paid districts in the Bay Area, had difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, teachers and staff could not afford the cost of living in the areas where they worked, schools with the largest population of low-income Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled/special needs students had the most unmet needs, had unhoused families & deteriorated School Building/physical plan.

One teacher said, “the school’s buildings are old and in need of renovation, that there’s lead in the soil and a rat and mice infestation in the classrooms, and that they’re concerned about lead in the water.” Years of school closings in these neighborhoods, Charter school privatization and Real Estate Profit-motivated displacement had increased these disparities and overcrowding.

1) Education workers address economic gains for the workers: wages, hours, benefits, retroactive payment for frozen wages, $5,000 signing bonus, more support staff such as Nurses, librarians, Councilors; especially needed for the most marginalized students and underfunded schools. OUSD whined about a cost of $70 million (ABC 7 News, 5/15).

2) “Common Good” demands expressing class solidarity:  four were covered in Memorandums of Agreements (MOUs) which addressed the most marginalized students: a) School property used for unhoused and housing insecure students, b) shared governance for community schools, c) support for Historically Black Schools, and d) processes for school closures (CNN, 5/15).

BAY AREA, June 7—In the interest of the “common good” (read: pro-student and class-solidarity demands), over 3,000 education workers went on an eight-day strike against the Oakland Unified School District. Communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) went to picket lines at schools where we knew striking teachers to build solidarity, raise class consciousness, and communicate communist ideas.

From May 4 to 15, these workers honored the picket line, 34,000+ students were out of schools, parents & students joined the picketing and rank-and-file teachers set up solidarity schools for younger children of working parents. A Temporary Agreement (TA) for 2.5 years was signed late Sunday night on the 7th day for a return to school on Tuesday.

The school bosses used legal tactics to create planned Chaos, “delay, deny and blame the victim,” all typical strike-breaking tactics. The contract expired in Oct 2022. Finally, Oakland Education Association (OEA) called a strike in May due to unfair bargaining practices; a “legal” cover for immediate action rather than months of fact finding. This was after a rank-and-file caucus carried out a one-day wildcat strike in March, mainly in high schools, and demanded a 50-person bargaining committee to be responsible to the membership.

What did we learn? What did we teach?
PLP went in solidarity with and to learn from the strikers: how did they view their struggle and the world that produced it?  We learned that conditions in and out of the schools had many teachers talking about the problems of capitalism, but that they did not have a full explanation of “why are things so bad?”
We learned that the Oakland R&F Caucus understands working class power: “We are…committed to transforming the Oakland Education Association into a democratic, member-led union that fights for high-quality schools for all.”

One big lesson developed during the previous teachers’ strike in 2019 when teachers organized with members of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union)  to shut down the Port of Oakland. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) sabotaged this action due to fear of being sued for a secondary boycott. Building on that experience, that’s when teachers led the wildcat strike.

During this strike, teachers shut down OUSD (Oakland Unified School District) construction of a new administration building costing $57 million to point out the hypocrisy that $57 million is needed to upgrade the schools, not produce a fancy building for the administration. Many construction workers on site supported this one-day shutdown). They kept the strikers informed on progress and mobilized parent support.

Racism part and parcel of capitalism
The strike’s demands addressed conditions for teachers and students. OUSD is one of the lowest paid districts in the Bay Area, which creates difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers and staff. Schools with the largest population of working-class Black, Latin, immigrant, Indigenous, disabled and special needs students had the most unmet needs, had unhoused families and deteriorated physical plants. For example, one teacher said, “The school’s buildings” have  “lead in the soil and a rat and mice infestation in the classrooms, and they’re concerned about lead in the water.”

Years of school closings, charter school privatization, and real estate profit-motivated displacement had increased these disparities and overcrowding in these neighborhoods. This goes along with imperialist-war related education cutbacks.

A district spokesperson said “the district has a total of $3.4 billion in upgrades and other changes that must happen to get all schools upgraded and modernized.”  OEA’s common good proposals are “far too costly for the district to handle” and should not be included in any collective bargaining agreement (KQED, 5/12).

Developing class consciousness
On the picket line, PLP members discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the reform struggle. We distributed CHALLENGE with a report from the Los Angeles teachers strike, and international news of class struggle to those who were interested and planned follow up activity after the strike. Many events in this strike showed that workers can oraganizr figure out how to run things for the benefit of the whole working class where humans strive to collectively build a world of equity; based on production for need, not for profit. That system is communism. A teacher reported on the strike at our PLP May Day celebration.

One of our goals was to support and expand on the class consciousness in the “common good” demands. At one school, an AFSCME member struggled with coworkers to honor the picket line. Students from a solidarity school joined the picket line with their own chants. This was an opening to bring up the history of Industrial Unionism. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded with the leadership of the Communist Party USA that organized for everyone in an industry to be in the same union. In Oakland in 1947, transit worker solidarity with striking retail workers sparked a general strike.

Such history helped develop an understanding of capitalism’s stratified wage system using racism, sexism and anti-immigrant ideology. This lowers wages for all. These ideas made sense even though some teachers had never heard of the CIO.

Imperialism and finance capitalism on display
Our PLP picket signs addressed the war budget, imperialism and privatization with charter schools increasing segregation. They were well received (see picture) and we had many conversations about the decline of U.S. capitalism, imperialist wars with rivals, mainly China, over control of labor, natural resources, markets, and even the threat of replacing the dollar as the world currency.

We brought up that finance capital has been moving into the public sector to secure tax money to make up for shrinking profits in other areas. Privatization includes charter schools, the testing industry, and an army of “private” consultants and NGOs (non government organizations).

The Wall St Journal directly attacked the teachers and belittled the “common good” demands: “the teachers’ union strike that is holding children hostage in the name of climate and housing for the homeless…  How about “remedying the enormous learning deficits the union has caused by protecting bad teachers and closing schools during the pandemic?” (WSJ, May 9).

We explained that the WSJ represents finance capitalists who understand the danger when workers move away from business unionism or electing Democrats to develop working-class solidarity social justice unions. This can unleash the united working class to challenge capitalist rule; like back in the day when communists developed class solidarity against capitalism and fought for communism.

The role of liberal reformers                                                                                                           
During the strike, we had the opportunity to discuss the role of the liberal reformers who led the vicious attack and echoed the call to exclude common good demands from the contract. Many teachers agreed that voting for a leader who is a lesser evil, has personal credentials including identity politics, is a deadend when that individual accepts the limits set by capitalists’ budgets.

Superintendent of OUSD Kyla Johnson-Trammell (salary $452,500/yr)  grew up an Oakland student, taught 25 yrs in OUSD, agreed with WSJ:  teachers “should not hold children’s learning hostage or deprive students of the services that schools provide.” One teacher told us that a poster exposing Kyla was controversial since she is Black.

President of the Oakland School Board, Mike Hutchison, promotes himself as an “OEA Baby,” product of Oakland schools with his mother aOUSD teacher, and an organizer fighting school closings/ budget cuts. He attacked “items that are outside of the scope of the contract, which are basically compensation and work conditions, are not going to be negotiated…Common Good proposals... do not belong in the contract language…” (The Oaklandside, 5/8).

We discussed: Why do liberal politicians and leaders end up attacking working-class teachers and students? Is it personality? Ego? Many teachers recognized that the memorandum of understanding makes the OEA leadership a partner with OUSD to administer shrinking tax dollars that will continue to produce failed solutions to the issue of housing, school closing, community school funding, and racist conditions. We agreed with the activist teacher organizers that such a partnership would try to stop direct rank-and-file actions, like future wildcat strikes, or port shutdowns.

These partners could use corporate laws to justify firing, jailing, and legal suits for damages and school closures. Capitalism in decline won’t provide the money for an equitable education for the working class.
                                                                                                  
Capitalism attacks those who dare to struggle. Class solidarity and revolutionary potential grow when we dare to win!

Washington, DC, May 6-8–PLers met with antiracist fighters from across the U.S. at The University of California Washington Center for a 3-day abolitionist conference. Conference organizers brought together theorists, students and organizers working to abolish police, prisons, ICE, racist child “protective” services, and other institutional structures that capitalism has built to attack and repress the working class.

Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members led a panel on abolishing capitalism, the undergirding of all repressive institutions of the capitalist state. We do not just want to abolish or outlaw capitalism, we want the system fully smashed and guaranteed to never be introduced back into existence. In order to crush capitalism and its state, we need many of these serious organizers in attendance to join a revolutionary fighting party, the PLP, in order for it to grow and lead class struggle against the ruling class. This strategy is really the only way to achieve the abolitionist goals they so fervently desire.

To abolish cops, we must abolish capitalism
Participants in the conference were extremely open to a revolutionary perspective. Many already had this idea, but were not sure how to develop it further. Even two of the keynote speakers agreed, when questioned from the audience by a PLP member, that a revolutionary party was needed to achieve abolitionist goals. You just cannot abolish capitalist institutions without abolishing capitalism!

PLP maintained a literature table throughout the conference. In addition to CHALLENGE, the table featured flyers and information about many of the mass organizations in which PLP is active. The fight for justice for William Green and other Black workers murdered by the police and numerous public health struggles were featured.

Over 40 participants received CHALLENGE from the table and from other comrades throughout the conference and many connections were made. Many of these fighters are already engaged in various forms of class struggle.We will continue to make ongoing connections with these fighters, and try to win them to our radical abolitionist vision of society– a communist world rid of the capitalist ruler’s racist and sexist kkkops, kkkourts, and prisons.