A half-century of history shows the way

News Centre

The Proudly 50 Years Revolutionary Youth (Dev-Genç) event was held at the MMO Education and Cultural Centre in Ankara for the 50th anniversary of Revolutionary Youth Journal Against Imperialism and Oligarchy (Emperyalizme ve Oligarşiye Karşı Devrimci Gençlik Dergisi).

At the event, Dev-Genç members from one generation to the next spoke, with speakers covering, in chronological order, 1965-1971, 1975-1980, 1985-1990, from the 90s to the AKP years and from 19 March and afterwards.

RENEWAL IN LINE WITH NEW CONDITIONS

Among the speakers on the panel were Oğuzhan Müftüoğlu and Bülent Forta, two important figures in Turkey’s revolutionary struggle. Oğuzhan Müftüoğlu said, in summary: “With the 1965 Cyprus crisis, broad sections in Turkey began to question the US and in this way a 68 movement was formed in Turkey with stronger anti-imperialist sides compared to the West. The idea of Dev Genç emerged out of the MDD-SD split. Defending Vietnam, the Latin American revolutions and the Cuban Revolution and defending that Turkey too should have its own revolution in its own conditions, this movement ultimately ended with Kızıldere. I was with them until I was caught, I was a Dev Genç leader. After I got out of prison in 1974, I saw that all the surviving old friends had changed direction, changed ideas, Maoism, Albanianism and so on… We began a movement with new young friends at universities that did not reject the tradition and tried to add something to it. In 1975, Devrimci Gençlik Dergisi was founded like this, as a revolutionary movement renewed in line with new conditions.”

Oğuzhan Müftüoğlu and Bülent Forta also took part in the event.
Another speaker on the panel, Bülent Forta, said: “We became revolutionaries by being influenced by what Deniz and Mahir did, by learning from them. It feels like yesterday, the times when we founded the magazine on Kumrular Sokak. At the same time, it is also like it has been going on for 100 years, here there are Revolutionary Youth from five generations and what matters is being able to carry this from generation to generation. We are as alone as we are crowded; today is the day we lost Behçet Dinlerer, I lost my best friends on 12 September, Necdet Erdoğan Bozkurt, Behçet, Aydın Erol. But not out of sentimentality, they died for an idea and even if we are alone in their absence we are still trying to keep alive with new generations the idea they gave their lives for…”

In the 90s Revolutionary Youth session, Şener Bayar and Mutlu Arslan spoke. Şener Bayar said “12 September created YÖK. We fought against it. Some of our friends committed suicide because they were expelled from school. We are all friends chasing the same dream, trying to make the same impossible real.”

Mutlu Arslan said “When we founded ÖDP, we set out without any youth organisation. We worked to make Revolutionary Youth politics dominant, we fought in neighbourhoods and universities to create the independent politics of youth. The most exhausting was the fight we kept up with the liberal, right-wing tendencies that emerged.”

YOUTH OPPOSITION

At the event, Göksu Cengiz, Sami Can Gökoğlu, Levent Hekim, Mert Yedek and Kemal Koç spoke about Gençlik Muhalefeti, which was often talked about in the years it was active and the Gezi Resistance. Göksu Cengiz said “What brought us to today and kept the struggle standing was the fight we waged with the idea of Revolutionary Youth. Today, it was insistent in this idea that brought the slogan ‘rebellion, revolution, freedom’ back out into the streets. Nobody expected us to rise up at Gezi. This story began when we said ‘No, the end of history did not come; the idea that the only way is revolution still stands’.”

Sami Can Gökoğlu said: “We had a dream and we became travellers on a path to grow that dream. The path we began by holding forums in high schools has produced a left-wing youth today who fights fascists at Dil Tarih and breaks down barricades on 19 March.”

Levent Hekim, one of the founders of Gençlik Muhalefeti, said: We had a horizon that went beyond ÖDP. We wanted to pursue a political line suited to this horizon. Revolutionary Youth is a way of doing politics. We were a handful of friends who organised from the bottom up through forums, who had only just met one another. By accumulating, we formed Gençlik Muhalefeti.

Kemal Koç said: For us, revolutionary struggle means commitment and heart. This heart is the smoke of the workers’ stove in the Tekel Resistance and the smoke of the barricade fire at Gezi. Now SOL Genç will carry this torch.

SOL GENÇ ON THE PLATFORM

On behalf of SOL Genç, which has resisted in the streets and at universities since 19 March, Kağan Çağlar and Ezel Budak spoke. In brief, the speeches were as follows.

Kağan Çağlar from Sol Genç: The road that draws our path is here as it was yesterday and so is our light that will bring us into the light. Even if generations change, in all of our dreams there is another world, in the villages of the Aegean and the mountains of the Black Sea. On 19 March we showed this by flowing from campuses into the streets.

Ezel Budak from Sol Genç: Neither this regime nor the system of capital can offer us a future. Those who occupy universities are representatives of this mentality. We know that salvation is in the people. The youth of 19 March are in the streets to stand up for this honour. Once the threshold of fear is crossed, nobody can hold back the youth. We also saw at the barricades brought down in Beyazıt that this youth cannot be stopped. We see united opposition as growing our friendship. At Hacettepe, despite all the pressure, attacks and attempts to intimidate, we did not step back. The spirit of Revolutionary Youth lives and is spreading across these lands. Even if our footprints are erased, the path we opened will not stop.

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yarım asırlık tarih yol gösteriyor, published in BirGün newspaper on December 15, 2025.