The New Regime's Left Demagoguery
M. Uçum, an advisor to the Palace, has also joined the recent trend of discussing the left. Once again, he is merely repeating the familiar (outdated) rhetoric by declaring the end of class-based leftism and reducing the contradiction to the state-society dichotomy.
Ultimately, we are going through strange times, with Erdoğan being declared the ‘leader of the leftist movement’ by Uçum, and DEM Co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan recently attributing revolutionaryism to Bahçeli, saying that Turkey must rise on the ‘revolutionary breakthrough’ initiated by Bahçeli.
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It is clear that there is nothing particularly serious about these views. If we recall the 2010 referendum, it was not long ago that the authentic bourgeoisie declared a democratic revolution, following the development in which political Islamist fascism crossed one of the most critical thresholds in its attempt to take over the judiciary.
It is important to note that a new debate on the left and socialism is now being opened by stringing together postmodern and liberal nonsense.
The participants in this debate argue that the left is actually an ineffective force, even repeatedly declaring the death of class politics (socialism)! It is true that the socialist left does not currently pose an imminent threat to the ruling order in Turkey, nor does it represent a global alternative pole of power.
So why are we all discussing the left now?
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Today, we stand at a threshold, one of the greatest turning points in Turkey's history.
Perhaps while some of us are debating the gender of angels through socialism and others are preoccupied with internal power struggles, this is what we are missing!
Turkey is facing the imposition of a reactionary regime based on ethnic and sectarian political Islamism in America's Great Middle East quagmire. Lacking the internal dynamics and social support necessary to remain in power, the AKP and MHP saw the developments that began with the overthrow of Assad in Syria as an opportunity.
By joining this new Middle Eastern order, centred on the United States and Israel, they sought both to avert potential risks in the region and to maintain their power domestically. It is now clearer to everyone that this process, which began over a year ago with Bahçeli's gestures, originated in Syria and has no connection to a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue.
HUNTINGTON AND THE NATION STATE
This Middle Eastern order has long been constructed through a process of ethnic and sectarian fragmentation in the region. Through various interventions stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan and from Libya to Syria, all points of resistance against the US and Israel have been systematically dismantled.
The Turkish leg of this transformation has been advancing step by step for decades, Islamising society and the state.
The line stretching from Huntington's theses, which aimed to eliminate Kemalism and were shaped around a return to the old Ottoman Empire, to the ‘New Turkey’ conceptualisation, in which Graham Fuller, former head of the CIA's Turkey desk, designated Istanbul as the centre of a new caliphate, clearly reveals the ideological direction of this pro-American transformation. During this period, the AKP expressed this BOP-centred orientation under the name of neo-Ottomanism.
Today, in the Middle East, the US orientation was most recently expressed by US Ambassador to Ankara and Special Representative for Syria T. Barrack as a ‘benevolent monarchy.’ T. Barrack, who had previously stated that the New Ottoman Nations system would be a better system for Turkey, also argued that nation-state structures were the most significant obstacle in the region. Efforts to establish a family dynasty in Turkey are also being brought to the agenda as part of this pro-American monarchical order.
These reveal that the aim is not a democratic and progressive transformation of nation-states, but rather a drift towards fragmentation based on ethnicity and sectarianism, with religion at its centre.
In the long-term war it has launched against China, the US pursues a policy based on securing energy resources and transit routes in the Middle East and ensuring Israel's security, finding the way to do so in the distribution of the entire region around small autonomous power areas.
WHAT SOCIALISM DEBATES HIDE...
The disaster Turkey is facing, and what Bahçeli and Erdoğan expect from the resolution, is essentially the completion of such a reactionary regime transformation.
The views put forward as socialism in the 21st century essentially have no meaning other than carving out a place for themselves within this new order. This is being presented as a reactionary solution based on ethnic division, in opposition to a democratic transformation that would make coexistence possible. Such a solution must be considered part of a comprehensive wave of reactionary change that also envisages the liquidation of all progressive-democratic movements and achievements across the entire region.
This is the real contemporary meaning of this debate! By ignoring imperialism, when the struggle of classes and the power of the ruling class are not targeted (regardless of what autonomy and sphere of power one may have), submission to the existing power becomes inevitable!
FOUNDATIONS OF 21ST CENTURY SOCIALISM
Turning to the left, this is where we must seek the essence of the debate on the left!
Social opposition is being suppressed through repression and operations on the one hand. On the other hand, a new opposition (!) space is being created, designed to divide the opposition around the opening up! Sometimes, under the banner of the third way, discussions now emerging around socialism, from Uçum to Saray's left-wing designs, all suggest a new opposition and a new left-wing ground that is compatible with this reactionary regime transformation and can accompany it.
In this way, it is clear that the aim is to create an environment where divisions within the social opposition and the left increase, and where the disintegration of the broad opposition front drives society into despair.
It resembles the environment of the 2010 Referendum, where the left was being designed through the government media and fragmented by dirty operations, creating an environment where the regime could cross the threshold of establishment with attitudes of ‘not enough but yes’ and ‘boycott’...
But of course, let's not overlook the fact that much water has flowed under those bridges. Despite everything, today the vast majority of Kurdish-Turkish and Alevi-Sunni society does not approve of this regime or any form of a possible future with it. Despite the top-down polarisation and divisions among the political elite, this unity and solidarity within society around the axis of liberation from this regime is growing and developing...
Yes, right before our eyes, America's ambassador, who roams the region like a colonial governor, is openly and unapologetically mapping out a destiny for our country and all our peoples.
A century after the founding of the Republic, the groundwork is being laid for Turkey to be ruled (in this day and age!) as a family dynasty, from father to son... With all this in plain sight, what needs to be done is clear: to put all other debates aside and fight for the country's liberation from this regime, to stand together for this cause…
We will discuss the rest together… That the mouldy liberal mantras and the worn-out, decrepit powers are doomed to be left behind in the new social struggles… The accumulated struggles from the 68s and 78s, extending from Gezi to 19 March, continue to be the strongest and newest foundations of 21st-century socialism, created by the working-class people relying on their own power…
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yeni Rejimin Sol Demagojisi, published in BirGün newspaper on December 21, 2025.
