For days now, Turkey has been experiencing a wave of unprecedented protests and mobilisations, which are putting the Erdoğan government and its Bonapartist regime in check.
These are the most significant demonstrations since 2013, when, with Erdoğan as prime minister, the masses took to the streets for a month to protest against the attempt to destroy Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul to build a shopping centre.
What is behind the current protests?
If at that time the problem was not just ‘a few trees’, now the spark that has ignited the anger of the masses was the March 19 imprisonment of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, from the bourgeois opposition party CHP, who had been re-elected by an overwhelming majority a year ago against the candidate of the AKP party. İmamoğlu is a possible opponent in the presidential elections against Erdoğan.
But what is really behind the protests is anger against an authoritarian government that crushes any kind of political, trade union, and social opposition with an iron fist while repressing women and other oppressed sectors of the working class. It is a demonstration of social indignation in the face of a capitalist crisis that condemns the Turkish population to miserable wages and pensions, while inflation officially reached 44.4% in 2024, making living conditions increasingly worse for the majority. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, with 40% of the population receiving 16.5% of the total income, while 1% of the super-rich control 40% of the resources.
The mobilisations in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other parts of the country, led by radicalised and polarised young people who feel that their future has been stolen, are increasingly insurrectionary in nature and could be signalling the end of Erdoğan’s government. In this context, and as we have already pointed out in another article, Öcalan’s policy of dissolving the PKK into the DEM, instead of calling on the Kurds to actively participate in this struggle, is proving to be of great help to Erdoğan.
The response of the Turkish government
Following the arrest of İmamoğlu and other municipal officials, Erdoğan is cracking down hard on demonstrations, particularly those involving young people. In order to prevent strikes and stifle student protests, he extended the end-of-Ramadan holidays by three days until Thursday April 3.
The regime has closed many accounts and websites. It is also intervening in educational institutions such as universities, evicting and arresting their elected representatives. It has suspended an opposition television channel and expelled the BBC correspondent. In addition, it has arrested several journalists just for covering the protests in which there were already more than 2,000 people detained, of whom at least 316 are still imprisoned awaiting trial. Most are facing charges related to participation in protests.
Turkey’s role as a regional power and the hypocrisy of the EU
In its aspiration to become a regional power, the Turkish regime has become the main bridge between the transitional government in Syria and imperialism and hopes to exploit its reconstruction for the benefit of Turkish capital. And following the EU’s example, it plans to send some of the 3 million Syrian refugees back to Syria.
And the fact is that while the Turkish presidential dictatorship and its police state now feel more comfortable with Trump, Erdoğan knows that he doesn’t have much to fear from the EU either. Beyond the usual empty calls to respect democratic rights, the EU and its governments are very good at gauging the tone of its words of protest and criticise him with great tact and delicacy because, in their militaristic turn, they are interested in continuing to have him as a partner.
In addition to its role as border guardian, for which the Turkish government has created an extensive network of detention and deportation centres financed with EU money, where the human rights of refugees are systematically violated to prevent them from reaching Europe, Turkey is a member of NATO and has the second largest army in the alliance.
And it has been making significant progress in its defence industry, producing its own aeroplanes, tanks and aircraft carriers, as well as exporting armed drones. In 2024, exports from its defence industry reached 7.1 billion dollars. Once again, we must denounce the cynicism and disgusting hypocrisy of the EU, which talks about peace and democratic values while abandoning the Turkish people, preparing for war, and doing business with the murderous Netanyahu government.
Do not trust the CHP or any other bourgeois party.
From the IWL we want to send all our support and solidarity to the Turkish people who are mobilising and continuing to fight despite the repression. We enthusiastically salute the courage and heroic resistance of the youth, who continue to lead the mobilisations, and we demand the release of all those detained. We call on social, student, and class organisations in Europe and the rest of the world to demonstrate and take to the streets in support and solidarity with the Turkish people and in front of the Turkish embassies in their respective countries.
We warn that despite the words of the president of the CHP Özgur Özel, that if the mobilisations continue and a boycott of the companies that he claims support the government is called for, this bourgeois party has no other plan than to stabilise the situation, channelling the protests as soon as possible through the electoral process, within the same bourgeois regime and at the service of the same capitalist oligarchy.
On March 23, the CHP called for primaries in 81 provinces of Turkey to promote Erdogan’s main opponent (who is still in Silivri prison on corruption charges) as its presidential candidate. And they challenged Erdoğan by organising a petition to demand the release of İmamoğlu, with a petition called ‘Freedom and early elections’ (currently scheduled for 2028).
In this way, the masses are presented with promises of more democratic freedoms and some cosmetic measures, but with a programme that will maintain the same capitalist policies that have led the working class and the youth to the current situation of poverty, misery and despair.
The only way to achieve the democratic freedoms and social justice that the Turkish people need is to organise from below, independently of the bourgeois political parties, in workplaces, neighbourhoods and universities.
It is necessary to prepare for self-defence against the repression of the state and fascist gangs and to call for the unification of student mobilisation with workers’ protests, until the freedom of all those detained is achieved.
We must prepare the conditions for a successful general strike that will succeed in bringing down Erdoğan and impose the calling of a Constituent Assembly. What is needed is a free and sovereign constituent assembly that will draft a new constitution based on a new democratic electoral law and a platform of demands that reflects the main political, social and economic aspirations of the social majority, and the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people.
Down with Erdoğan!
Let’s prepare for the general strike!
For a free and sovereign constituent assembly!
For the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people!
