In the run-up to the NATO summit, countless raids on homes, detentions, and arrests have been carried out against socialists, revolutionaries, and young people engaged in the anti-imperialist struggle. We declare that these arrests once again expose the class character of the monopoly capitalist system and its domestic, collaborationist fascist regime. Under the banner of “Freedom for Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoners!”, we declare that we will bring every one of our comrades held in fascist prisons back to the struggle, one by one. We call on all revolutionary, progressive, and anti-imperialist youth to take up the struggle under the banner of Deniz and his comrades—to build today’s revolutionary movement and to fight imperialist aggression and the repression imposed through the fascist methods of monopoly capitalism.
In the age of imperialism, monopoly capitalism continually intensifies its aggression in an attempt to resolve its own contradictions. Monopoly capitalism is the stage in which free competition has been superseded, finance capital has become dominant, the division of colonies and spheres of influence has been completed, and war and reaction have become inevitable. At this stage, rivalry among imperialist powers, struggles over markets and sources of raw materials, and policies of repression and war against working people are inherent to the system itself. NATO is the most organized military apparatus of this imperialist aggression.
From Venezuela to Iran, from Palestine to Kurdistan, from Africa across Western Asia, NATO’s bloody record reveals it for what it is: a war organization that murders peoples and protects, serves, and advances imperialist interests under the mask of the “free world.” Turkey’s membership in NATO and its hosting of this summit are a concrete expression of the dependence of the domestic monopoly bourgeoisie and the fascist regime on imperialism, as well as their role as its collaborators.
It follows that none of the operations carried out in the run-up to the NATO summit are accidental. A deliberate wave of state terror has been unleashed to ensure that the leaders of the imperialist war machine can operate without disturbance, to silence the rising anti-imperialist voices, and to contain growing anger. Home raids; the raid on a youth camp and the assault on young people gathered there; doors being smashed in; prolonged detention periods; torture; and the subsequent arrests on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization”…
These are all part of the decades-long class war waged by fascism and monopoly capitalism against their class enemies: revolutionaries, socialist youth, women, and those engaged in the anti-imperialist struggle. These operations do not merely target individuals or names. Their aim is to suppress the entire anti-imperialist and anti-fascist revolutionary struggle, to intimidate the masses, and to push back the class struggle.
But history has shown time and again that repression and imprisonment are not powerful enough to crush revolutionary struggle. What possesses the real power is the struggle itself, born from the idea and practice of socialism.
Today’s revolutionary struggle must rise along the axis of class struggle against imperialism and monopoly capitalism. In the age of imperialism, fascism is the most reactionary, chauvinist, and aggressive form of monopoly capitalism. The prisons are among the most concrete sites of this fascist aggression.
For decades, these prisons have held tens of thousands of revolutionary political prisoners. Arbitrarily prolonged sentences and delayed releases imposed by prison review boards, bans on lawyer and family visits, isolation and solitary confinement—these are all parts of the bourgeois state’s systematic policy of destruction against its class enemies.
As Lenin emphasized, prisons are one of the fronts of the class struggle. Political prisoners are comrades who continue to build revolutionary resistance behind the walls, shoulder to shoulder with the struggle outside.
We salute the struggle of our comrades in prison and regard the fight for their freedom as one of our fundamental tasks. “Tear Down the Prisons, Freedom for Political Prisoners!” is not merely a slogan; it is a concrete expression of class solidarity and anti-imperialist struggle.
As the Revolutionary Students’ Union, we once again emphasize that young people must play a leading role in the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and socialist struggle. Universities and campuses are not merely places of education; they are sites of resistance against imperialism, fascism, and capitalist exploitation.
Student youth must contribute to the revolutionary struggle by raising the demands for free, scientific, democratic, equal education in our mother tongues; by fighting YÖK and government-appointed university administrations; and by carrying forward the struggle of the revolutionary youth of ’68 that spilled out from the campuses and into the streets.
Against reformist illusions, the limited criticisms offered by bourgeois opposition forces, and fantasies of a “better capitalism,” we recognize and defend the necessity of building an independent proletarian class politics and a united anti-imperialist youth movement.
Imperialist aggression is not limited to military occupation. Economic exploitation, indebtedness, the plunder of natural resources, environmental destruction—all of these are forms of attack carried out by monopoly capitalism. In Palestine, Africa, Latin America, Western Asia, and every corner of the world, the bloody face of imperialism is laid bare.
In Turkey, meanwhile, NATO bases, including İncirlik, serve as logistical hubs for imperialist armies. They do not protect the security of the people; they protect imperialist interests. The overthrow of the collaborationist regime and the dissolution of NATO are urgent demands of the anti-imperialist struggle.
But these demands cannot remain mere slogans. They must be realized through the organized power of the masses and within the class struggle itself.
The arrests taking place today are also an expression of the fear generated by the growing influence of the revolutionary movement. The rising popular movement—with its trade-union actions, its growing youth presence on campuses, women taking the streets, the Kurdish people standing up for their own will, and the anti-imperialist street mobilizations against NATO as a whole—is shaking the foundations of monopoly capitalism and fascist rule.
Monopoly capitalism and fascism, hand in hand, are filling the prisons to suppress this rising movement, intensifying state terror, wielding the bourgeoisie’s judicial system as a weapon, and attempting to criminalize revolutionary struggle.
Against all these attacks, we, the Revolutionary Students’ Union, call on all revolutionary and progressive youth to build a united, determined, and sustained front of struggle.
We will bring back every one of our arrested comrades. And at the next street mobilization, we will meet again to raise the banner of Deniz and his comrades together.
Until Victory!
