Federation of Revolutionary Youth of Turkey

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The Federation of Revolutionary Youth of Turkey ( Turkish : Türkiye Devrimci Gençlik Dernekleri Federasyonu , Dev-Genç ) was a left-radical organization founded in Turkey in 1965 and banned in 1971 , from which many other left-wing groups emerged.

Emergence

In 1960 there was a military coup led by Supreme Commander Cemal Gürsel in Turkey . The declared aim was to end the national crisis caused by tension between the political parties. Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and other politicians were sentenced to death on charges of corruption and hanged on September 17, 1961 in İmralı . After the military introduced a new constitution in 1961 , it gave power to a civilian government. The new constitution included modern economic and social principles and laws designed to prevent the repression of the opposition. This relative liberalization gave the left in Turkey a strong upswing. For the first time, a socialist party, the TİP (Turkish Workers' Party), was admitted for a long time and made it into the Turkish parliament.

Left currents found their way into the Turkish universities in particular. Supporters of the radical magazine Yön (Direction) were elected as leaders of so-called debating clubs , which emerged at the major universities. As a radical movement and rebellion against the leadership of the parliamentary working TİP, these clubs founded a national alliance on December 17, 1965, the "Federation of Debating Clubs" ( Fikir Kulüpleri Federasyonu , FKF). At the 4th General Assembly of this federation on October 9 and 10, 1969, under the leadership of Mahir Çayan, the name was changed to Dev-Genç, which was able to mobilize a substantial part of the student youth.

Ideology and course

The group, often referred to as guevarist or castroist , but which was also close to the teachings of Mao and sympathized with the guerrilla war in Vietnam , managed to gather a few thousand activists. They organized university occupations and carried out actions against the US fleet. Workers' strikes were also supported and the attacks by the Ülkücü supporters, known as civil fascists, were fought. In 1970 this alliance of debating clubs was reorganized under radical leadership.

After the Dev-Genç was banned shortly after the coup of March 12, 1971, along with other left groups, the political movement was able to regroup within a short time. In the 1970s, most of Turkey's dozens of leftist groups with differing strategies grew out of the Dev-Genç. Some of these groups, all following Marxism-Leninism or Maoism , had a formative influence on some of the most important sections of the Kurdish movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The main organizations that emerged from Dev-Genç are the Turkish People’s Liberation Party Front (THKP-C), Communist Party of Turkey / Marxists Leninists (TKP-ML), Revolutionary Way (Dev-Yol), Revolutionary Left (Dev-Sol) and today the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C) apply.

Web links

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  1. ↑ wsws.org: The Politics of the PKK - a balance sheet March 3, 1999
  2. ^ Nadir.org: The Turkish Left since 1960 1997