In Depth
Revolutionary socialist Eren spoke to Arthur Townend about the ongoing protests, the background for the anger and the crisis facing Erdogan
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Saturday 29 March 2025
Issue
Public sector trade unionists hold a rally to condemn the repression of protesters (Pic: KESK1995 on X)
Mass protests have erupted across Turkey following the arrest of opposition leader and Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on fabricated terror and corruption charges.
The state has closed Metro stations. Police have cordoned off towns, checking every vehicle that enters. And over 1,900 protesters are in prison. But hundreds of thousands continue to brave pepper spray, plastic bullets and water cannons every day to defend what remains of Turkish democracy.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s order to arrest Imamoglu—as he was to be named the Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate—has plunged the regime into political crisis.
Understanding Turkey’s history is key to understanding what forces are in play today.
What is Erdogan’s social base and why is he losing support?
In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a split from the Islamic Virtue Party party, won a sweeping election victory. And under Erdogan the economy grew rapidly.
While the AKP is an Islamic party, Erdogan has pushed few measures to enforce religious rule. But he has tactfully mobilised Muslim support by exploiting the majority’s sense of exclusion.
Erdogan’s base therefore lies in both poor, pious areas and among the new “Islamic bourgeoisie”, created through the opening of Turkey’s economy in the 1980s.
“The AKP still has some power over the urban poor and peasants, but economic decline favours the opposition CHP,” Eren, a revolutionary socialist in Turkey, explained.
Since 2018, Turkey has been plagued by economic crisis. The AKP pushed stimulus packages to combat economic slowdown. Keeping interest rates low satisfied the capitalist class by providing cheap credit—but inflation spiralled.
In 2024, Erdogan began pushing more orthodox, deflationary policies. To cool inflation from its highs of 83 percent, he increased VAT and petrol taxes and limited the minimum wage.
What is the class character of the protests?
Erdogan has failed to deal with inflation and economic crisis. Instead he has shifted the burden onto workers. That is driving the erosion of his social base among the poor. The movement on the streets today has captured that anger.
The Turkish state’s response has been characteristic of a weak government losing support—violent repression, using tear gas and mass arrests to try to subdue protesters.
The protests are partly motivated by Erdogan’s vicious attacks on democracy. CHP leader Ozgur Ozel has been vocal in his support of them. “From now on, no one should expect the Republican People’s Party to do politics in salons—from now on, we are in the streets, in the squares,” he said. However opportunistic, this signals the mood for change.
In the local elections last year, the CHP surpassed the AKP by over 1.3 million votes. But the protests are about more than support for the CHP.
They represent rage against the very system that allows such political despotism, violence and economic attacks on working people.
The protests echo an earlier political crisis for Erdogan. In 2013, his regime began developing Taksim Square, demolishing a 200 year old military barracks to build a shopping centre and hotels.
A small occupation took place to protect trees that were to be cut down—and when police descended on occupiers, protests erupted. These “Gezi Park” protests saw one million people protesting across Turkey and the occupation of Taksim.
As Ron Margulies, a socialist in the movement, wrote at the time, “Clearly, a million people did not battle with police and breathe pepper gas, which burns the eyes and lungs and hurts like hell, for a few trees or even against a monstrous shopping mall. The trees, the mall and, most of all, the police violence simply provided the spark which ignited a pre-existing tinderbox.”
In 2013, that tinderbox was a decade of the ravages of neoliberalism accompanied by a violent, authoritarian regime.
What is the CHP?
The CHP’s electoral success is driven by disillusionment in Erdogan’s regime, not simply by support for its policies. But The CHP’s ideology—Kemalism—is pervasive in Turkey.
The Republic of Turkey was founded on Kemalism after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. “Kemalism, as a pragmatic programme of nation-building, developed the legal, economic and political structure of a national market and industry,” Eren explained.
Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founded the CHP in 1924. Until 1950, it ruled as a single party.
“The Kemalists copied Soviet-style command economy practices. Secular modernisation and Soviet-style development were the key factors of the Turkish left wing parties’ sympathy for Kemalism.
“But top-down modernisation and secularisation led to unrest and resistance. The Turkish state used violence against any form of Kurdish, religious or workers’ movements under the one-party dictatorship.”
In 1950, the CHP opened up elections—and lost. Kemalism remained influential, but slowly declined.
“Kemalism was reinvented in the 1990s as a leftist ideology and a reaction against political Islam. It represented secularism and the ‘Western’ way of life. Since the mid‑2000s, it has been representing democracy,” Eren said.
“In reality, Kemalist Turkey has never been secular or democratic, and it is not left wing. The CHP uses Kemalism as a unifying ideology for the whole nation, but in reality it is the ideology of the ruling class.”
What is happening with the Kurds in Turkey?
Kurdish repression is woven into the fabric of Kemalism. “Turkey was built as a strong ethno-state,” Eren explained. In the 1930s, the Turkish military murdered over 13,000 Kurds.
Erdogan has also relentlessly repressed Kurds. But recently he’s been negotiating with Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). Ocalan has called on the PKK to lay down arms.
“The Kurdish movement has so far not joined the protests in Turkey, although of course individual Kurdish people are on the streets. The new dialogue process between Ocalan and the Turkish state is getting serious,” Eren said.
“An alliance with the Kurdish movement, which has a strong army in Syria, is important for the Erdogan government.
“The new Turkish‑backed government in Syria is also negotiating with the Syrian section of the Kurdish movement, the YPG. The Kurdish movement does not want these negotiations to be disbanded by the government.”
However, the pro-Kurdish DEM party has made a statement against Erdogan’s crackdown.
But far right and fascist forces in Turkey are mobilising against the peace negotiations and are attacking feminists and LGBT+ currents in the protests.
Both the Iyi Party and the Victory Party, splits from the fascist MHP party, are strongly involved in the movement against Erdogan.
“A few weeks ago,” Eren explained, “Victory Party leader Umit Ozdag was imprisoned for ‘inciting the public to hatred and hostility’—but the CHP leadership sees him as a potential ally.”
What is the potential for the protests?
The future of the protests could be determined by the army, which has not intervened yet. Historically, the army has seen itself as the guarantor of secular Kemalism.
“Between 1950 and 2016, there were four successful and at least two unsuccessful military coups. The weak and young ruling class has always depended on the help of the army,” Eren said.
But Erdogan has largely marginalised the army from political life. The true determinant of the protests will likely be the working class.
Turkey has a large working class, especially in the textile industry. And amid the protests, education union Egitim Sen launched a one-day strike last Monday, with students protesting across the country.
Eren explained that mobilising workers as an independent force is essential. “Polarisation between Kemalism and ‘AKP reactionism’ would favour the government. We need a new polarisation between workers and students against the ruling class”—the class that, ultimately, the CHP represents.
Further, while the Kurds are absent, “We urgently need an anti-fascist front and we need the Kurdish party and its social power in the movement,” Eren added. That requires breaking from the CHP and Kemalism.
Erdogan’s regime faces an overwhelming crisis of legitimacy, caused by his own autocratic measures to fend off declining popularity. Capitalising on that mood for change requires embedding the movement in Turkey’s powerful working class.
Eren is a pseudonym