The Gezi Uprising: Class Struggle and the Representation Crisis of the "Radical Left"

This article was downloaded by: [Siyaves Azeri]On: 24 December 2014, At: 06:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Click for updates

Critique: Journal of Socialist TheoryPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcso20

The Gezi Uprising: Class Struggle andRepresentation Crisis of the ‘RadicalLeft’Siyaves AzeriPublished online: 22 Dec 2014.

To cite this article: Siyaves Azeri (2014) The Gezi Uprising: Class Struggle and RepresentationCrisis of the ‘Radical Left’, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, 42:4, 573-595, DOI:10.1080/03017605.2014.984499

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2014.984499

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

The Gezi Uprising: Class Struggle andRepresentation Crisis of the ‘RadicalLeft’Siyaves Azeri

The June 2013 uprising in Turkey that shook the foundations of the AKP ‘moderate’political Islamic government in Turkey was not a rainbow movement consisting ofheterogeneous elements; rather, it was an all-encompassing political movement and themanifestation of class struggle in Turkey. The inability of ‘radical left’ organizations tobe effective in the uprising is due in part to the lack of a proper conceptualization of thecharacter of the uprising.

Keywords: Gezi Uprising; Political Islam; Class Struggle; Revolution; Conceptualization

A small protest against demolishing a historical park and building a shopping mall inits place in Istanbul, Turkey, that started on May 28, 2013 turned into a massivenationwide wave of protests and rallies within a few days. The protests wave knownas the ‘Gezi Uprising’ or the ‘June Uprising’ continued for the whole month of June.Owing to the extremely brutal and offensive measures taken by the AKP governmentand the Turkish Police, eight people lost their lives (the last person who lost his lifewas a 14-year-old boy, Berkin Elvan, who was shot in the head with a tear gascanister and was in a coma for 268 days; he lost his battle against death on March 11,2014), tens of people lost their eyes or were seriously injured, some 5,000 people weredetained, charges were laid against many and the trials still continue. There is onething that all interpreters agree upon: whatever the reasons behind this movement,the Gezi Uprising is the most impressive mass movement in the recent history ofTurkey: things will never be the same after Gezi; social and political balancesunderwent a great change and a new actor got into the political scene, namely the‘masses’.The Gezi Uprising took many by ‘surprise’, as if it were a movement out of the

blue. The AKP government had won a landslide victory in the last elections for thethird consecutive time and had the vote of almost 50% of the electors. The Turkisheconomy was apparently experiencing a boom and a rapid growth (although many

Critique, 2014Vol. 42, No. 4, 573–595, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2014.984499

© 2014 Critique

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

experts agree that this is a ‘balloon’). Moreover, the government had started ‘peacetalks’ with the Kurdish rebel group the PKK and its legal political wing, the BDP.Additionally, some of the ‘radical’ left-wing minor organizations such as DSIP(a marginal Trotskyist organization) backed the ‘moderate’ political Islamist AKPgovernment as they perceived it as a real possibility of bringing about reforms, whichwould allegedly amount to the opening up of the political atmosphere and wouldpave the way to join the European Union. On the other hand, other leftist intellectualelites would nag about the numbness of the masses and ethical-social degenerationdue to the long-term stupefying policies of the Turkish regime. Despite theiropposition to the political Islamist AKP government, this faction of the radical leftshared the outlook with pro-AKP leftists, albeit negatively, that the Turkish society byitself is unable to initiate a movement from below in order to expand and realizesocial and political liberties and bring about social and economic justice. Otherfactions of the so-called radical left, such as TKP (the pro-Soviet Communist Party ofTurkey) covertly and the Maoist IP (Labour Party) overtly backed up the secular-nationalist elite, which is represented by the CHP (Republican People’s Party), theMHP (Nationalist Movement Party with pan-Turkist and fascist tendencies) and theTurkish Army. Overall, it looked as if the destiny of the Turkish society is determinedby the ‘antagonism’ between the loose coalition of Islamists (in particular the AKPand the Fetullah Gulen’s ‘Hizmet (Service) Movement’) on one side and thenationalist-‘secular’ coalition on the other side. All other groups from liberal elitesto radical left groups, organizations, and parties, in one way or another, took one orother side with respect to this binary division.The roots of this polarization should be traced back to two historical events, which

are interrelated yet distinct. One is the 1980 military coup and the other is thecollapse of the Soviet Camp in 1991. Each of these events happened against a peculiarpolitical and historical background on national and international scale and eachyields distinct social and political consequences.

The 1980 Military Coup and ‘Turkish–Islamic Synthesis’

Turkey has had a history of military interventions: the first military coup happenedon 27 May 1961 against the conservative government of Adnan Menderes and the DP(Democratic Party). The coup was designed and actualized by lower rank militaryofficers; Menderes was prosecuted and eventually hanged. Ironically, the 1961constitution that was written by the military junta is considered the most ‘democratic’constitution in the history of the Republic of Turkey. The second military couphappened on 12 March 1971 against the government of Suleyman Demirel. Thepeculiarity of this coup was that it was designed in response to massive social unrestwith overt leftist-democratic tendencies. It was a reaction to the government’sinability to handle the situation. The 12 September 1980 military coup, however, is adifferent story. It should be interpreted within the context of the internationalbalances and confrontation between the competing Western and Eastern Blocs.

574 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

During the few years preceding the 1980 coup, social unrest increased in Turkeytremendously. Radical left organizations were not only dominant but also hegemonicin society; reportedly leftist organizations such as Devrimci Yol (The RevolutionaryPath) had several hundred thousand members and sympathizers. Workers’ unionssuch as DISK (The Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions) had about amillion members. For example, about half a million people participated the May Dayrally and meeting in Istanbul in 1977; the peaceful demonstration and celebration wasattacked by paramilitary groups, shooting the crowd from high-rise hotels aroundTaksim Square (the heart of Istanbul, where the Gezi Uprising also started); 37 peoplelost their lives.In response to massive social unrest and a possible collapse of the regime, which at

the time was part of the ‘free world’, the state formed paramilitary right-wing groupsfrom within the ranks of right wing and Islamist organizations, including thefar-right-wing party MHP and its youth organizations (Ulku Ocagi), in order toattack the leftist organizations and assassinate leftist intellectuals and also in order todestabilize society to justify a probable military intervention. Paramilitary fascist-Islamist mobs launched systematic attacks in different cities against leftists andminorities, in particular against the large Alevi minority; between 1977 and 1979hundreds of people, including women and children were massacred in the cities ofCorum, Sivas, and Maras. In the Maras massacre alone, according to official statistics,111 Alevi citizens were killed by the fascist mobs.Despite such attacks, the radical left was able to mobilize the masses; in the face of

the regime’s inability to control and suppress the social unrest the military seizedpower on 12 September 1980. Some 300,000 people were arrested; tens of people wereexecuted (among which was Erdal Eren a 17-year-old boy); many escaped and tookrefuge in European countries. The military coup, on the one hand guaranteed theactualization of the neo-conservative economic measures that had formerly beenintroduced on 24 January 1980, while on the other hand it prevented the collapse ofthe regime through a left-led revolution. This second aspect should be understood inthe light of the competition between the Eastern and Western Blocs: the fall ofTurkey would mean losing a battle for the West against the Soviet Bloc and aredefinition of the areas of influence of the two competing powers.The 1980 military coup was made in essence against the left; it aimed at

(physically) eliminating the left and social opposition in order to pave the way forinstalling the neo-conservative policies in line with Thatcherism and Reganism. Tothis end, the military, which had been in an undeclared coalition with anti-communist religious circles and societies (such as the Anti-communist Societyheaded by Fetullah Gulen in the 1970s in Erzurum) started a campaign ofIslamization and ‘Turkifization’ of the education system and society. For instance,Islamic religious education (based on Sunni interpretation of Islam) that was anelective course in primary education was made compulsory; theology high schoolswere introduced under the pretext of an education reform that allowed openingvocational high schools. The coup leaders, including the head of the military

Critique 575

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

government General Kenan Evren would open public speeches with verses from theKoran. Religion, in this context, was introduced as an ideological measure in theservice of neo-conservative politics. One should keep in mind that the function ofreligion and Islamization in this era was determined by the political polarizationbetween the East and the West and was functionally different from political Islam as apolitical phenomenon; the emphasis on religion and on ‘nation’ and ‘Turkish identity’was the keyword of the social engineering policy that was known as Turkish-IslamicSynthesis (TIS) and was an integral part of the large US-led project of forming a‘green belt’ (with green pertaining to Islam) around the Soviet Union and the EasternBloc. Thus, although this policy (TIS) would later provide the political Islamicmovement with the cadres and human resources this movement would need, politicalIslam (even in its ‘moderate’ form) is not a direct offspring of TIS. Yet, in anothersense, the dominance of political Islam in Turkey is the continuation of the TISproject and military dictatorship: reaction produces reaction: political Islam in thissense both in an international scale and in Turkey is the political answer of thebourgeoisie to the economic, political, and social questions it encounters.1

The Collapse of the Soviet Union, the New World Order and the Rise of PoliticalIslam

Political Islam is a contemporary, reactionary, bourgeois political movement theroots of which go back to the defeat of Arab nationalism before Israel and thecollapse of the nationalist modernization project in the Middle East and NorthAfrica. The collapse of the aforementioned project formed a political and ideologicalvacuum that facilitated the emergence of the political Islamic movement. Yet it wasonly after the defeat of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and seizure of power by politicalIslamists that this movement appeared on the political scene as a major figure. AsHekmat puts it,

Political Islam is a general title referring to the movement which sees Islam as themain vehicle for a Right wing restructuring of the ruling class and creating an anti-Left state in these societies. As such, it confronts and competes with other poleswithin the capitalist world, especially hegemonic blocs, over its share of power andinfluence in the world capitalist order. This political Islam does not necessarily haveany given or defined Islamic jurisprudent and scholastic content. It is notnecessarily fundamentalist and doctrinaire. This political Islam encompasses avaried and wide range of forces— from the political and ideological flexibility andpragmatism of Khomeini, to the rigid circles in the Right faction of the Iraniangovernment; from the ‘soft’ and Western-looking Freedom Movement of Mehdi

1 For two comprehensive yet different interpretations of TIS and political Islam in Turkey in English seeY. Atasoy, Islam’s Marriage with Neoliberalism: State Transformation in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2009) and C. Tugal, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 2009). For further elaboration on political Islam’s role in Turkish and Middle Eastern politics(in Turkish) see the special issue of Praksis: A Quarterly of Social Sciences, 26 (2011/2), ‘Siyasal Islam, Iktidar veHegemonya’ (Political Islam, Power, and Hegemony).

576 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Bazargan and Nabih Berry’s Amal, to the Taliban; from Hamas and Islamic Jihad,to the ‘Islamic Protestantism’ of the likes of Soorosh and Eshkevari in Iran.2

Political Islam is a political movement rather than an ideological one; it does notsignify a religious regression. Yet, for instance, as is with the case in Turkey, thismovement presses for the revival of religion in society, although this is a politicalpressure and not a mere ideological one. Ignoring the political significance of politicalIslamic movement and addressing it as a problem of religious ‘fundamentalism’, asmany right-wing and left-wing academic and political interpreters do, is to conceiveof the so-called Muslims as an immediate object of Islamic theology just as ‘HerrBauer [who] understands the Jew only insofar as he is an immediate object oftheology or a theologian’.3

In the time of its inception political Islam was mainly an ally of the West againstthe ‘danger of communism’. Political Islam seized political power in Iran in order tosmash the 1979 Revolution and to prevent the fall of the bourgeois regime in Iran.The Afghan Mujahidin, too, who were directly supported by the CIA and the USgovernment, were at work in Afghanistan in order to prevent the expansion of theSoviets toward south. The Saudi regime and the Sheikhs in the Gulf (and until veryrecently the Taliban) are among the most faithful allies of the US. Yet, political Islamis not a unified movement; it has anti-American and anti-Western factions as well aspro-US ones.The collapse of the Soviet Union was a dramatic event that had significant political

and historical results not only in the former Soviet Bloc but on a worldwide scaleboth in the West and in the Muslim-inhibited countries. In the polar world of theCold War era every political event and confrontation would carry the mark of thecompetition between the East and the West. This very competition was the mainsource of the acceptance of the US hegemony within the Western Bloc. The collapseof the Soviet Union cast doubt on this hegemony and called for redefining andrestructuring the very power balances within the Western Bloc. Similarly, redefinitionof the role and place of political Islam in the post-Cold War era was inevitable.The collapse of the Soviet Union marks the turning point in the rise of political

Islam; it is the beginning of the fall of this political movement internationally. Theinvasion of Kuwait by Iraq, which triggered the first Gulf War in 1991, despite itsfailure, was evidence of re-mobilization of militant Arab nationalism in the post-ColdWar era; it showed that Islam, as a political figure, has been pushed to the back of thescene. As Hekmat put it then,

It is not difficult to see why for Arab nationalism the field of action appears tohave widened and why even a destructive war may still count as a political advance.The collapse of the Soviet bloc has undermined the strategic significance of Israelfor the West. Sooner, rather than later, the economic and demographic realities in

2 M. Hekmat, ‘The Rise and Fall of Political Islam’, Porsesh: A Quarterly Journal of Politics, Society and Culture,3:1 (2001). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/hekmat-mansoor/2001/misc/rise-fall-islam.htm

3 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism (Moscow: Progress Publishers,1956), p. 147.

Critique 577

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

the region are bound to impose themselves on Western policy. The old politicalgeography of the world is bound to be revised, as is already evident fromdevelopments in Europe, the Soviet Union, Yemen and Korea. Moreover, theinternational division of power between bourgeois states must be revised to takeaccount of the new economic and political poles that have emerged outside theboundaries of the advanced capitalist zones as a result of post-war technologicaladvance and internationalization of capital. The rigid balance imposed andmaintained by the old East-West polarization has broken down. Emerging regionalforces can hope to influence their destiny through resolute action.4

The revival of political Islam after the Twin Towers attack and the subsequentinvasion of Iraq by the US forces was conjectural and temporary. The victory of theso-called ‘moderate’ Islamic faction in the Iranian presidential ‘elections’, whichbrought Khatami to power and the introduction of the term ‘moderate Islam’ as thebourgeoisie’s political alternative prescribed for the Islam-ridden countries is themanifestation of the weakening process of political Islam in the face of morefundamental economic, social, and political problems in these societies. The TwinTowers attack gave the US government the ‘enemy’ it needed to wage its state terrortowards building and solidifying the hegemony over the world that had beenshattered after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this regard, Hekmat observes that‘for USA, the main issue is the consolidation and expansion of its political andmilitary hegemony and dominance over the world as the only superpower. Theresolution of the Palestinian question or fighting Islamic terrorism is not the objectiveof this policy. Consolidation and expansion of America’s global position, within thecontext of pressures and opportunities created by the September 11 crimes is themain aim of this policy’.5 The so-called ‘war on terror’, on the other hand, amountedto a conjectural rise of political Islam as political Islam feeds on the oppression anddevastation that is conflicted on people by the West.

The Islamic movement is striving to reverse its falling fortunes and ultimately toexpand its position in the bourgeois power structure of the Middle East. Terrorismand blind enmity with anything that is Western or Westernised is their mainpolitical capital in a society and among a people who rightly see America and Israelas the main causes of their deprivation and rightlessness. Peace in the Middle East,the formation of an independent Palestine, the end of discrimination against thePalestinian people, will herald the demise of the Islamic movement in the MiddleEast. Terrorism is the Islamic movement’s main tool in further deepening thenational, ethnic and religious splits in the Middle East and keeping alive thisconflict as political capital and a source for its power. Despite the military pressurebrought about by America, the Islamists will welcome this confrontation.6

4 M. Hekmat, ‘The Gory Dawn of the New World Order: US War in the Middle East.’ Worker Today,10 (1991). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/hekmat-mansoor/1991/02/gory-dawn.htm

5 M. Hekmat, ‘The World after September 11.’ A several part article first published in International Weekly,12 October–26 November 2001. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/hekmat-mansoor/2001/11/september11.htm

6 Ibid.

578 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Yet, as Hekmat rightly observed then, the situation that he named as ‘the war ofterrorists’ could be but a provisional state that soon would be challenged by the morefundamental economic, social, and political realities in the West and East.7

The ‘moderate’ political Islamic model, thus, was introduced in the face of a dualcrisis of the international bourgeoisie. On the one hand, the classical modernistnationalist movements, which were in power in the Middle East, were not able toresolve deep social and economic problems in these societies. In fact, rather thanbeing a solution, the long lasting dictatorships in the Middle East such as Mubarak’sregime in Egypt or Ben Ali’s dictatorship in Tunisia were bourgeoisie’s politicalresponses to the chronic crises it was facing in the region. These regimes provedthemselves unable to resolve these fundamental economic, social, and politicalproblems. Moreover, this inability of the regional bourgeois regimes in resolving theseproblems was itself a function of bourgeoisie’s deepening international crisis. On theother hand, as explained above, militant (meaning anti-West) political Islam tooproved itself unable to solve any of the problems against which it had defined itself: inIran, where political Islam has been in power since 1979, the regime is struggling forits survival in the face of economic and social crises. The 1999 and 2009 uprisingsmade it clear how fragile the regime’s position is in Iran. The situation of Hamas inPalestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon is not much better. Moreover, political Islam notonly could not resolve the Palestinian issue (although it has no real interest inresolving this problem, political Islam is mainly feeding on and abusing this issue),but also has lost most of its power during its confrontation with the West.Moderate Islam was the international bourgeoisie’s new political answer to this

dual crisis; it was supposed to provide the political power that would fill the vacuumthat was caused by the collapse of West’s traditional allies in the region and politicalIslam’s fall. In Turkey, in particular, the so-called moderate Islamic model wasintroduced against the background of the crisis of the nationalist regime and itsinability to stabilize the economy and guarantee the profitability of capital. Moreover,the moderate political Islamic model was supposed to function as bourgeoisie’s‘strong state’ in the service of neoliberal economic policies. AKP’s tough measuresagainst any protests in general and against the Gezi Uprising in particular exemplifysuch a function. On the other hand, the introduction of a ‘moderate’ political Islamistmodel in Turkey was international bourgeoisie’s dual response to the crisis it wasfacing. On the one hand, Turkey was one of the ‘rising markets’ that was supposed toaid the international bourgeoisie to overcome the economic crisis it had beenexperiencing since 2006. On the other hand, politically it was supposed to be theappropriate legal form of government for the Islam-ridden countries: Turkey wassupposedly a ‘Muslim’ country, part of the so-called ‘Islamic World’ so it could beintroduced as a model for the countries in the region that were facing the riskof social uprisings and revolutions; a fact that had been foreseen even by thebourgeoisie’s own organs such as the UN that warned about the ‘revolt of the hungry

7 Ibid.

Critique 579

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

masses’ in 20 countries including Egypt; a fact that came to the fore with the ArabRevolutions. It was supposed to be the model that would guarantee the subsistence ofthe bourgeois regimes in the region. Yet, it proved itself far from being a solution tothe crisis the bourgeoisie has been facing internationally. The Gezi Uprising is themanifestation of this incompetence.A proper conceptualization of the Gezi Uprising cannot be done unless the

negative nature of the political social movements and revolutions is taken intoaccount: similar to any revolutionary movement, the Gezi Uprising should first andforemost be considered in terms of what it is politically opposed to; this opposition,which establishes the horizon of a revolutionary movement, determines its politicalcharacter. The analysis of this character enables one to transcend the limits of thephenomena and to identify the particular logic of the object of the analysis ratherthan projecting a ready-made logic onto it.

Conceptual Analysis versus Thinking in ‘Complexes’

Some explain/define the Gezi Uprising as a ‘spontaneous’ movement that is anamalgamation of heterogeneous elements with no particular class interest and nocommon immediate political demands. In this view, the ‘spontaneity’ of themovement, which is manifest in its lack of political leadership, is praised andsanctified. Apparently, this view is correct if one limits oneself to a phenomenaldescription of the obvious via complex generalizations. However, ‘all science would besuperfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided’.8

Marxian conceptual analysis is an ideal reconstruction of the object of analysisthrough identifying the unit of analysis appropriate to that phenomenon. The unit ofanalysis is the most fundamental entity that carries all the peculiarities andcharacteristics of the phenomenon to be analysed. For instance, Marx begins theanalysis of capitalist relations of production and the capitalist society with theanalysis of commodity. Commodity is the form of appearance of wealth in modernsociety. Marx states that commodity is a category that is different from a mere usefulthing in that it is not determined by the utility of the thing but by exchange value (orvalue). Value is determined by the average expenditure of labour time that is sociallynecessary for the production of a particular commodity as the carrier of the value.The example of the fall of the price of a metre of fabric in the face of the introductionof new machinery is a good illustration of the fact that value is determined not by‘labour’ but by abstract labour: ‘They [commodities] can no longer be distinguished,but are all together reduced to the same kind of labour, human labour in theabstract’.9 And a paragraph later he adds, ‘As crystals of this social substance, whichis common to them all, they [commodities] are values—commodity values

8 K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 3. In: Marx and Engels Collected Works (MECW)Vol. 37 (New York: International Publisher, 1959), p. 570.

9 K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 128.

580 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

[Warenwerte]’.10 Analysis of commodity as the unit of capitalist relations ofproduction enables Marx to transcend the appearance and to show the essencebehind the appearance and also explain why the essence appears in this particularform. It is through such analysis that Marx forms his theory of value and identifiesthe historical specificity of capitalist production.

The product of labour is an object of utility in all states of society; but it is only ahistorically specific epoch of development which presents the labour expended inthe production of a useful article as an ‘objective’ property of that article, i.e. as itsvalue. It is only then that the product of labour becomes transformed into acommodity. It therefore follows that the simple form of value of the commodity isat the same time the simple form of value of the product of labour, and also thatthe development of the commodity-form coincides with the development of thevalue-form.11

Marx, as early as 1843, criticizes the essence-appearance dualism, which is rooted inthe ideas of Enlightenment and is common to empiricism and rationalism. Sciencecannot bind itself to the question ‘what is the essence behind this appearance’; rather,it should also deal with the question why the essence appears necessarily in thisparticular form. Marx breaks with Hegel, as according to Marx he failed to fulfil thepromise of showing the logic of the phenomena and its necessary relation to theessence. As Murray puts it, ‘By starting with a prefabricated logic, Hegel never gets tothe logic of the things themselves; rather, he uncritically accepts empirical “facts” intheir givenness and shrouds them in a mystical cloak of logic. For Marx this is no wayto do science’.12 A criticism that does not intend to find the root of the phenomenaand limits itself to the explanation of the ‘appearances’ fails to become a criticism: ‘Tobe radical is to grasp things by the root’.13

Theory is not conceptualization in the sense of forming a mere ‘reflection/image’ ofthe real, rather it is a reflection upon the real; thus, it is the logical reconstruction ofthe real that inevitably amounts to changing reality. Similarly, revolutionary politics isnot a reflection of the physical reality of a revolutionary class; rather, it is thereflecting upon the revolutionary conditions that emancipates the class and thesociety in general. Just as reality of the society should strive to reach up to the pointof theory,14 so the same can be said with regard to revolutionary politics andpractices. Marx’s criticism of the German philosophy of right—despite the fact thatthe latter is an inverted theoretical image of an inverted Modern world—pointstoward the holistic nature of a capitalist society, which is the consequence of thecapitalist relations of production: theory can assume a purely, theoretical andconceptual form and existence because under the capitalist mode of production

10 Ibid., p. 12811 Ibid., pp. 153–15412 P. Murray, Marx’s Theory of Scientific Knowledge (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, USA: Humanities Press

International, 1988), p. 29.13 K. Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, in R. Livingstone and G. Benton

(trs) Early Writings (London, UK: Penguin Books, 1843/1992), p. 251.14 Ibid., p. 252.

Critique 581

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

knowledge and theory is but the totality of the accumulated general humanknowledge, the limits of which reaches far beyond a linear sum of the knowledgeof individual theorists: this holistic general nature emancipates theory from theimmediate determination of physical conditions, although in an inverted manner. Inthis regard and in relation to the specific case of German politics, state, andphilosophy of right, Marx states, ‘Germany, as a world of its own embodying all thedeficiencies of the present political age, will not be able to overcome the specificallyGerman limitations without overcoming the universal limitation of the presentpolitical age’,15 (emphasis in original).Marx’s method of conceptual analysis is an excellent example of the ‘genetic’

method. Vygotsky’s application of Marx’s genetic method for studying the emergenceof consciousness provides a proper methodological tool for analysing socialphenomena. While analysing the relation between thinking and speech, theconjunction of which constitutes the unit of analysis of human consciousness,Vygotsky draws attention to an important aspect of concepts: concepts express acontradiction essential to the object of study. In the case of studying consciousness,this contradiction is the one between the individual mental activity of thinking andthe outward physical communicative and linguistic activity.16 Vygotsky’s method ofunit analysis attempts to show the internal, logical relation between thinking andspeech, which neither reduces one to the other nor understands them as separate andas mechanically and externally related. In studying the relation between the politicalcharacter of a social movement a similar approach can be put in use: class characterof a movement is to be identified by the analysis of the political horizon of themovement; this character, which is a function of the class relations of the capitalistsociety is neither reducible to the physical makeup of the class nor is it external to theclass; rather, it is internally and logically related to the class relations in capitalistsociety.In his study of the process of concept formation, Vygotsky identifies three different

functional stages in thinking: syncretic thinking, thinking in ‘complexes’, andconceptual thinking. Although complex generalizations look similar to concepts,they are qualitatively different. Complex generalizations are based on associatingobjective connections among objects: thinking in complexes is ‘connected andobjective’.17 Yet, this form of objective connectedness is different from conceptualrepresentation. Complexes function like family names; they fall short in explainingthe essential-logical bonds that categorize a group of objects: complex thinking isphenomenal thinking; it is thinking determined by apparent objective connectionsamong objects.

15 Ibid., p. 253.16 D. Bakhurst, Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 68.17 L. Vygotsky, ‘Thinking and Speech’ in R.W. Rieber and A.S. Carton (eds) The Collected Works of L. S.

Vygotsky, Vol. 1 (New York: Plenum Press, 1987), p. 136.

582 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Conceptual generalizations, in contrast, reconstruct the logical and essential bondsbetween objects. Conceptual thinking is ‘emancipated thinking’ because it goesbeyond the apparent objective features of the to-be-categorized objects. A concept isnot only the unification and generalization of similarities but the identification andabstraction of individual elements beyond the boundaries of experientially availableconcrete similarities between objects.18

A concept explains the plurality and difference in the general. A concept does notimply the elimination of contradictions, but as Ilyenkov puts it, ‘is based on theassumption that contradiction in the object itself cannot be and is never resolved inany other way than by the development of the reality fraught with this contradictioninto another, higher and, more advanced reality’.19 A concept is the explanation ofthe genesis of plurality and difference from a particular root, just as, for example, theconcept cat in evolutionary biology is not based on generalizing common features ofthe members of the species, but is the reconstruction of the common genetic root thatis traceable in features common to the members of the species together with thosefeatures that might have been lost completely. Concept designates ‘the ways ofunderstanding meaning’; ‘the word “concept” in dialectically interpreted logic is asynonym for ‘understanding the essence of the matter’, the essence of phenomenathat are only denoted by a given term; it is by no means a synonym for the ‘meaningof the term’, which may be formally interpreted as the sum-total of ‘attributes’ of thephenomena to which the term is applied.20

Concept in this sense bestows ‘meaning’ onto, or better to say ‘extracts’ and‘expresses’ the meaning of a specific element of the entirety of reality. To havemeaning is to be made into a tool, that is, to become a concrete universal, which notonly is applicable within the system this particular meaningfulness is a part of, but isalso applicable within other systems and engulfs newer areas of reality and newersignificances. Concept is concrete because it is the non-sine-qua tool of a specificform of action; it is universal because it is a tool that has application beyond theimmediate context within which it has been produced. As Kosik puts it, ‘The conceptof the thing means comprehending the thing, and comprehending the thing meansknowledge of the thing’s structure … Cognition is dialectics itself … In dialecticalthinking, the terms “concept” and “abstraction” have the significance of a methodthat divides the one in order to intellectually reproduce the structure of the thing,i.e., to comprehend it’.21 The tendency in daily thinking to equate the phenomenalwith the essential reality of the thing is the natural product of daily practice.22

A Marxist analysis should begin with asking the reason behind the prevailing of the

18 Ibid., p. 163–165.19 E. Ilyenkov, The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx’s Capital (S. Syrovatkin, tr.) (Moscow:

Progress Publishers, 1982). p.26720 E. Ilyenkov, ‘Dialectics of the Ideal’, Historical Materialism, 20:2 (2012), p. 174.21 K. Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on Problems of Man and World (K. Kovand, tr.) (Boston,

USA: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1976), p. 4.22 Ibid., p. 5.

Critique 583

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

existing forms of categorization of the world: why people use these particularcategories in order to regulate their perception and routine activity?Interpreting Marx’s thesis that ‘human’ is an ensemble of social relations, Ilyenkov

states, ‘Human society is a most typical case of concrete community, and the relationof a human individual to society is a characteristic instance of the relation of theindividual to the universal’.23 This formulation shows how Marxian analysis andsocial criticism is different from the non-Marxian approaches to social phenomena.It depicts the fetishistic approaches to individual and individuality, both in sciences ofnature and in human sciences: at a lower level, a system is considered a summation ofindividual elements; at a ‘higher’ level, such image is expanded onto the relationbetween systems, which in turn appears as individuals of higher order. For instance,an individual human body is considered an amalgamation of certain physicalelements, ignoring the specificity that identifies a human being in contradistinctionto, say, non-human animals. Similarly, the characteristics of a social movement arereduced to the average of the characteristics of the individual persons involved in thatparticular movement. Moreover, this individualistic-fetishistic picture is generalizedto define human society as an amalgamation of such biologically (or spiritually)distinct individuals. At an even ‘higher’ level, this fetishistic image is generalized todetermine ‘cultures’ or ‘societies’ as mechanical devices that are related to othercultures or societies just as one individual element is related to another. Whatremains identical in all these conceptualizations is the tendency to identify thespecificities of the behaviour of the mechanically-conceived individual device withreference to an average of the properties found in each individual member.As Ilyenkov puts it, ‘Thinking in concepts aims at revealing the real unity of things,their concrete connection of interaction, rather than defining their abstract unity, deadideality’.24

The Subject of History and the Subject of Gezi Uprising

Capitalist society, among other things is peculiar for being a society of mediation; inother words, social relations in capitalist society, from the relation between humans,such as the relations of domination and exploitation, to the human relationship withnature, assume a mediated form. Marx’s concept of alienation, according to which therelation between human products appear as if they have an independent existencefrom human activity, is an articulation over the concept of mediation in capitalistsociety. As Postone puts it,

23 E. Ilyenkov, The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx’s Capital (S. Syrovatkin, tr.) (Moscow:Progress Publishers, 1982), p. 69.

24 E. Ilyenkov, The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx’s Capital (S. Syrovatkin, tr.) (Moscow:Progress Publishers, 1982), p. 88.

584 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Marx’s critical theory tries to show that labor in capitalism plays a historicallyunique role in mediating social relations, and to elucidate the consequences of thatform of mediation. His focus on labor in capitalism does not imply that thematerial process of production is necessarily more important than other spheres ofsocial life. Rather, his analysis of labor’s specificity in capitalism indicates thatproduction in capitalism is not a purely technical process; it is inextricably relatedto, and molded by, the basic social relations of that society … This interpretation …suggests that the working class is integral to capitalism rather than the embodimentof its negation.25

Marx draws attention to this aspect of the reciprocal dependence and identification ofcapital and labour as early as Paris Manuscripts:

The worker is the subjective manifestation of the fact that capital is man completelylost to himself, just as capital is the objective manifestation of the fact that labour isman lost to himself. But the worker has the misfortune to be a living capital, andhence a capital with needs, which forfeits its interest and hence its existence everymoment it is not working.26

This passage carries the kernel of Marx’s mature analysis of capitalist relations ofproduction and his emphasis on the double-character of labour under capitalist modeof production. This double-character is here characterized in one of its particularforms of manifestation, namely alienation:

The worker produces capital and capital produces him, which means that heproduces himself; man as a worker, as a commodity, is the product of this entirecycle. The human properties of man as a worker—man who is nothing more than aworker—exists only in so far as they exist for a capital which is alien to him… Theworker exists as a worker only when he exists for himself as capital, and he exists ascapital only when capital exists for him. The existence of capital is his existence, hislife, for it determines the content of his life in a manner indifferent to him.27

The basic contradiction in capitalist society, that is, a society under capitalist mode ofproduction is not merely the contradiction between workers and bourgeois; it is not amatter of the physical confrontation of the classes. The basic contradiction followsfrom the very process of production itself: labour, as a constituent element of capitalas a social relation creates and reproduces capital. This, itself, is the reflection of thecontradictory nature of capitalist production.Production in capitalism is neither production to satisfy needs nor production of

material goods; it is production of commodities; labour itself, under the capitalistmode of production, becomes a commodity. The contradiction between the workerand the bourgeois or between labour and capital is the legal-political manifestation ofthe self-movement of capital as the social relation of self-valorization. Marx states:‘The subjective essence of private property, private property as activity for itself, as

25 M. Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 16.

26 K. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In Early Writings (R. Livingstone & G. Benton, trs.)(London, UK: Penguin Books, 1844/1992), pp. 334–335.

27 Ibid., p. 335.

Critique 585

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

subject, as person, is labour’.28 So it is the case that private property is not anobjective, external condition that humans find themselves within and opposed to, butis the precondition, and the political and legal form of the relations of production.The immanence of private property is a consequence of its production by labour(perhaps by historically-specific, determinate labour and not just labour in general).The internalization of private property relations makes private property as the legalexpression of capitalist relations of production the self-moving subject that drawshumans into its own orbit. ‘So although political economy, whose principle is labour,appears to recognize man, it is in fact nothing more than the denial of man carriedthrough to its logical conclusion: for man himself no longer stands in a relation ofexternal tension to the external essence of private property—he himself has becomethe tense essence of private property’.29,30

One consequence of such a metamorphosis is that a human is seen as the productof private property; classical political economy is right when it considers humanconsciousness to be the internalization of private property relations; however, privateproperty as a legal form of capitalist relations of production is ontologized and thushas itself been turned into an ahistorical permanence. Alienation is identified withobjectification thus yields to conceptualizing alienation as the sole form ofobjectification of human essence. Political economy correctly identifies the essencebeyond private property—the appearance—but falls within the limits of Enlighten-ment essence–appearance dualism and fails to grasp the historical character of theessence–appearance relationship. Thus, similar to Hegel, it ignores the historicallydeterminate two-fold character of labour under capitalism and uncriticallyapproves it.

For the present, let us observe that Hegel adopts the standpoint of modern politicaleconomy. He sees labour as the essence, the self-confirming essence of man; he seesonly the positive and not the negative side of labour. Labour is man’s coming to befor himself within alienation or as alienated man.31

Marx emphasis on the determinate mediated character of human activity undercapitalism is yet another leg of his criticism of political economy, Hegel’s philosophy,and ‘crude communism’, which can also be expanded onto ‘traditional radical leftist’stances.

[H]uman objects are not natural objects as they immediately present themselves,nor is human sense, in its immediate and objective existence, human sensibility andhuman objectivity. Neither objective nor subjective nature is immediately present ina form adequate to the human being. And as everything natural must come into

28 Ibid., p. 341.29 For an excellent analysis of the intrinsic and necessary relation between capitalist relations of production

and private property as the legal-political form of these relations see H. Engelskirchen, ‘The Aristotelian Marxand Scientific Realism: A Perspective on Social Kinds in Social Theory’ (Doctoral Dissertation, 2007). Retrievedfrom ProQuest Information and Learning Company, Chapter Five, pp. 133 cf. (UMI number: 3273587).

30 Ibid., p. 34231 K. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In Early Writings (R. Livingstone & G. Benton, trs.)

(London, UK: Penguin Books, 1844/1992), p. 386.

586 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

being, so man also has his process of origin in history. But for him history is aconscious process, and hence one which consciously supersedes itself. History is thetrue natural history of man.32

Mediation, as presented above, has a two-fold character: there is a general abstractmediation that follows from the phylogenesis of forms of human activity and adeterminate abstract mediation, which follows from historically-specific relations ofproduction and forms of human activity. Hegel’s fallacy lies in confusing the two andpresents the latter as if it is the former and thus reduces the former into the latterwhile ontologizing the latter. Thus, Hegel, although in an upside-down way, correctlyviews the Concept—as the counterpart to capital—as the subject but ignoring itshistorical specificity, he severs it from its roots in human activity and fetishizescapital. Capital is the subject under capitalist mode of production; however, it owesthis subjectivity not to itself but to the capitalist relations of production. As Postoneputs it,

As the Subject, capital is a remarkable ‘subject.’ Whereas Hegel’s Subject istranshistorical and knowing, in Marx’s analysis it is historically determinate andblind. Capital, as a structure constituted by determinate forms of practice, may inturn be constitutive of forms of social practice and subjectivity; yet, as the Subject, ithas no ego. It is self-reflexive and, as a social form, may induce self-consciousness,but unlike Hegel’s Geist it does not possess selfconsciousness. Subjectivity and thesociohistorical Subject must, in other words, be distinguished in Marx’s analysis.33

Class conflict is intrinsic to the capitalist system: it is not a consequence of adisturbance in the functioning of a rather harmonious system: it is inherent in asociety constituted by commodity as a totalizing and totalized form.34 Class struggleconstitutes the logical unity of the elements of the Gezi Uprising. However, classstruggle manifests itself conceptually, and thus is delayed and mediated. The conceptas the unity of thinking and being, or the unity of word and reality, is the symbolictool that temporalizes human activity, meaning that human activity is not animmediate response to stimuli but is abstracted so that it becomes the stimuli offuture activity.35 The self-movement of the concept expresses itself in the form ofsymbolic-conceptual human activity. The delayed-mediated response to the realityof class struggle is actualized through the ‘political movement of the class’. Class is arelational entity, a historical-specific grouping peculiar to capitalism. Without thetotalizing mediation of the commodity form and the abstract labour, which iscrystalized in the concept of value, class, in the proper Marxian sense of the term doesnot emerge: ‘classes, properly speaking, are structured by the totalizing socialmediation and, in turn, act upon it. This process of totalization cannot be grasped

32 Ibid., p. 391.33 M. Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 77.34 Ibid., p. 317.35 L. Vygotsky, ‘Tool and Symbol in Child Development’. In J. Valsiner and R. van der Veer (eds) The

Vygotsky Reader. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), p. 166.

Critique 587

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

adequately in terms of physical proximity: classes are elements of the totalizingdynamic of capitalist society.’36

Social contradictions intrinsic to capitalism emerge not as an immediate physicalconfrontation between classes, but politically: politics is the legal expression ofcapitalist relations of production: just as capitalist relations are mediated throughabstract labour, political confrontations in capitalist society are mediated by thepolitical movement of the class, which is the expression of determinate forms ofconsciousness. Class for Marx is not a mere sociological description but it is a historicalcategory. As Postone puts it, ‘the category of class is a moment of an approach thatseeks to grasp the historical and social determinateness of various social conceptionsand demands as well as of forms of action’.37 So it is the case that class struggle andproletariat’s role should not be conceived to be a reappropriation of what the workingclass has constituted. Rather, working class represents the horizon of negating thetotality of capitalist mode of production, its forms of mediation and the people’sreappropriation of socially available capacities. Yet, this totalizing negation does notappear in an immediate form but through the political movement of the social class.The ‘political movement of the class’ is the conceptual reconstruction of the class

structure of capitalist society and the medium through which the class struggle isexpressed. Class struggle logically precedes class as a stabilized category. Thisprecedence means that class is a relational process of classification,38 which isdestined to express itself politically. This ‘precedence’ is based on the precondition ofcapitalist relations of production—the separation of the producers (labourers) fromthe conditions of labour (means of production)—which is reproduced continuouslyunder capitalist relations of production. Capitalist society is different from pre-capitalist societies in its ability to inherit and appropriate more archaic forms ofinequalities and reproduce them in the form of a unified manifestation of classdivision under a capitalist mode of production. Gender inequality, for instance,precedes capitalism. However, as an inherited form of inequality that has a differentgenetic root than, say, economic inequality, it is conjoined to form a unity with thelatter just as genetically different elements of thinking and speech unite in theconcept. Therefore, gender inequality is a capitalist phenomenon just as, say, religionis nowadays: ‘Religious questions of the day have at the present time a socialsignificance. It is no longer a question of religious interests as such. Only thetheologian can believe it is a question of religion as religion’.39 Capitalist appropri-ation and reproduction of chronologically older inequalities is a function of capitalist

36 M. Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 321, n.28.

37 Ibid., p. 322.38 J. Holloway, ‘Class and Classification: Against, In and Beyond Labour’, in A.C. Dinerstein and M. Neary

(eds) The Labour Debate: An Investigation into the Theory and Reality of Capitalist Work (Vermont, USA:Ashgate, 2001), p. 44.

39 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism (Moscow: Progress Publishers,1956), p. 146.

588 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

logic of continuous reproduction of itself as capital. As Bonefeld puts it, ‘capitalistaccumulation is not just based on the results of primitive accumulation but,instead … primitive accumulation is the constitutive presupposition of the classantagonism between capital and labour’.40 This being so, every struggle withincapitalist society appears as a manifestation of the class struggle. However, the realityof class struggle is neither reducible to, nor deducible from, the physical reality ofclass: this struggle is actualized through the mediation of the political movement ofthe class, the theoretical/conceptual reflection of the unity of the proletariat andwealth as the creations of the world of private property. It is the theoreticalrepresentation of the being of the fully-formed proletariat that is the abstraction of allhumanity. ‘Within this antithesis the private property-owner is therefore theconservative side, the proletarian the destructive side. From the former arises theaction of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of annihilating it’.41 Thisstruggle reflects the unity of labour and capital. Under capitalist mode of production,the working class is not the negation of capitalism but is an integral part of it.Therefore, overcoming capitalism also means overcoming value-producing labour.42

Due to this historical unity, the class struggle under the capitalist mode of productionappears first and foremost in the form of a political confrontation, which is mediatedby the ‘political movement of the class’.The modus operandi of class struggle is the political movement of the class: class

horizon is the holistic response of classes to the specific character of capitalist form ofsocial mediation; that is, the form of production that historically determines labour asimmediately social so that it can only exist in the form of value.43 From thestandpoint of the bourgeois political movements, value is a market category andlabour is social except in capitalism. Therefore, they criticize the mediation from thestandpoint of immediacy. The proletarian political movement, on the contrary, is a‘critical theory of the forms of mediation’, that is, ‘a critique of labor-mediated socialrelations from the standpoint of the historically emergent possibility of other socialand political mediations’.44

The social movement of the class is ‘negative’ in nature rather than ‘positive’.A revolutionary social movement does not characterize itself with its positiveprogram, the ‘blue-print’ of the future it seeks toward; to the contrary, it expressesitself via what it seeks to negate. As Postone states, ‘the possibility of theoretical andpractical critique [should] not [be located] in the gap between the ideals and the

40 W. Bonefeld, ‘Capital, Labour and Primitive Accumulation: On Class and Constitution’ in A.C. Dinersteinand M. Neary (eds), The Labour Debate: An Investigation into the Theory and Reality of Capitalist Work(Vermont, USA: Ashgate, 2001), p. 87.

41 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism (Moscow: Progress Publishers,1956), p. 50.

42 M. Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 16–29.

43 Ibid., p. 48.44 Ibid., pp. 48–49.

Critique 589

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

reality of modern capitalist society, but in the contradictory nature of the form ofsocial mediation that constitutes that society’.45

A quick look at the contemporary political and social movements and revolutionsreveals this negative aspect of social criticism: the ‘positive’ program of a socialmovement is manifest in what it negates and the form of this negation, that is, itsslogans that formulate what it is against. In the 1979 Iranian Revolution, for instance,in contrast to radical left organizations that tried to determine the direction of therevolutionary mass movement through promoting the ‘class consciousness’ and bringthe class ‘to itself’ via their positive ‘socialist’ propaganda, Islamists, under theleadership of Khomeini, could dominate the movement and form their hegemonybecause they insisted on this negative aspect of the revolutionary movement: it wasnot until the overthrow of the monarchy and the formation of the provisionalgovernment that Khomeini came up with his positive alternative, the ‘IslamicRepublic’. Until the collapse of the monarchy, what Khomeini said was a mere ‘no toShah!’ and nothing more or less. As Hekmat states, ‘The movement defines itselfnegatively and sticks to this negation to the end. If the society has decided that itsnegation is the end of monarchy, it goes together with those that demand the end ofthe monarchy’.46

The Gezi Uprising, first and foremost was a movement against ‘moderate’ politicalIslam and the AKP’s Islamization of the country. Although political Islam, forhistorical and conjectural reasons, some of which were discussed above, has not hadthe power to mobilize the masses, as, for instance, was the case in 1979 Revolution inIran, the AKP used every opportunity in order to impose Islamic conservative lawsand regulations onto the society. It should be noted that the incentive of Islamizationof the country is not ideological but is political. It serves the formation of a bourgeoisheaven of cheap labour and silenced masses. As Engelskirchen notices, a social formgenerates its own type of necessity: for instance, theft is inconsistent with privateproperty laws as the legal expression of capitalist relations of production. This doesnot mean that if theft occurs then value-producing relations of production and labourcannot be produced. Rather, it means that the perpetuation and reproduction of thelegal relations of private property necessitate some form of social repression (penalcodes and bodies that punish theft). It is in this sense that value can be considered asocial form in the form of social relations of production.47 Extracting the incentivesand motives of the policies and political agenda of (‘moderate’) political Islam fromIslam as a religion and an ideology is to make a category mistake similar to whatEngelskirchen refers to as confusing the ‘shared explanatory agenda’ of two theorieswith their ‘shared ontological agenda’. ‘In other words, we cannot reduce the

45 Ibid. p. 67.46 M. Hekmat, ‘Negative Movement, Positive Movement: Speech Presented at a Seminar in The Third

Congress of the WPI’ (in Persian, 2000). Retrieved from http://hekmat.public-archive.net/fa/3520fa.html47 H. Engelskirchen, ‘The Aristotelian Marx and Scientific Realism: A Perspective on Social Kinds in Social

Theory’ (Doctoral Dissertation, 2007). Retrieved from ProQuest Information and Learning Company(UMI Number: 3273587), pp. 107–108.

590 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

continuity of scientific reference to the problem being explained, but rather mustinsist on continuity in the causal agent accounting for the explanation.’48 Explainingthe political significance of political Islam as a contemporary reactionary bourgeoispolitical movement on the basis of (‘fundamentalist’ interpretations of) Islam wouldbe fetishizing Islam and would be approaching a particular contemporary phenom-enon with a prefabricated logic. The point is that ideology should be extracted frompolitics and not vice-versa. Ideology is always at the service of politics.In the past few years we witness, on the one hand, a growth in the profitability of

capital, while, on the other hand, impoverishment of the masses in Turkey. Although,apparently, there has been a relative increase in the confidence of the buyers, thisbetterment is mostly based on flow of money into the market in form of credit loans.All in all, however, the working and living conditions have been worsened inTurkey.49 This does not mean that the Gezi Uprising was motivated by immediateeconomic incentives. It is to draw attention to the fact that moderate political Islam isa political project in the service of benefits of international capital. Turkey is thecountry where ‘moderate’ political Islam was introduced as an alternative to thefailure of both nationalist-modernist and ‘radical’ political Islamic movements. It wassupposed to provide rapid growth and social and political stability that would providecapital with suitable conditions for profitability. The ‘moderate’ political Islamicmovements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Development andJustice Party in Tunisia, both of which belong to the camp of counter-revolution,were promoted by the Western media and governments after the AKP model inTurkey. The Gezi movement revealed its revolutionary character by inspiring themasses in Egypt and in Tunisia to remove the ‘moderate’ Islamists from power.An earthquake in the hometown of ‘moderate’ political Islam would definitelyamount to the collapse of this movement in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia.Moreover, the defence of human dignity, which is the mediated negation of alienationand fetishism of the capitalist society and which was crystalized in the slogan ‘Bread,Freedom, Human Dignity’, is a core issue of the Arab Revolutions as well as the GeziUprising. In this sense, the Gezi Uprising is the sibling to the Arab Revolutions.

The Representation Crisis

The realm of material production and the political realm are not separated but aretwo aspects or two forms of appearance of the relations of production. However, thetwo may appear as separate if the inherent fetishism of capitalist society, which

48 Ibid., p. 112.49 For some comprehensive studies concerning the Turkish economy see, among others, M. Sonmez, ‘Foreign

Capital Flow Halts Amid Fuse of Forex Reserve’ (2014). Retrieved from http://mustafasonmez.net/?p=4193;M. Sonmez, ‘Rising Fragilities in Post-Soviets Risk for Under-pressure Turkish Economy’ (2014). Retrieved fromhttp://mustafasonmez.net/?p=4182; M. Sonmez, ‘Sustainability of Flight Growth in Question Amid Rising Costs’(2014). Retrieved from http://mustafasonmez.net/?p=4171; M. Sonmez, ‘Consumers, Entrepreneurs Lose Faith inTurkish Economy’s Future’ (2014). Retrieved from http://mustafasonmez.net/?p=4161; M. Sonmez, ‘KrizTurkiye’ye Giris Yapti’ (Crisis Enters Turkey) (2014). Retrieved from http://mustafasonmez.net/?p=4154.

Critique 591

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

determines the uncritical, ‘natural’ approach to phenomena, is assumed. Every‘economic’ struggle in capitalist society is political and every political struggle is infact an ‘economic’ struggle. To the extent that the bourgeois (political) view andhorizon dominates the activities of the agents involved in a confrontation, theinterdependence and the internal necessary connection between economic andpolitical realms is ignored; in fact, an important implication of fetishism is theassumption that these two realms are distinct. To the contrary, to the extent that thefetishist stance is criticized, the interdependence of the economic and the political isdisclosed. For instance, any small-scale struggle for increasing salaries or shorteningthe working day is and is not political: from within the bourgeois standpoint such astruggle is but a negotiation process between ‘equal’ commodity owners who discussthe rate of the exchange of their corresponding commodities. Such a point of viewreduces the class to a guild that consists of a certain number of workers as the ownersof a specific commodity. Trade-unionism, for instance, represents such a politicalframework. On the other hand, that very imaginary small-scale struggle can beconceived as a political movement if the fact that every confrontation in capitalistsociety is political in essence is addressed: the ‘obvious’ but largely ignored fact thatthe state in capitalist society is a capitalist state—meaning that it is the state in theservice of the process of production and reproduction of capitalist relations ofproduction—is the reason behind the politicization of every confrontation incapitalist society. The phenomenon of the ‘strong state’, which is complementary tothe imposition of neoliberal economic policies onto society, shows the aforemen-tioned interdependence even more clearly. Similarly, any social uprising or unrest incapitalist society is economic as it aims at the political products of the capitalist state.It is in this sense that we live at the era of proletarian revolutions—if ‘proletarian’ isunderstood as the practical criticism of capitalist relations of production and itscorresponding legal and political forms of appearance. The political character of amovement, thus, is not an issue that can be addressed and identified ‘sociologically’with reference to the physical composition of the constituents of a movement.Moreover, the task of a radical communist political organization is not identifying the‘class character’ of a social political movement as class struggle is given andindispensable in capitalist society. Rather, such an organization should contributeto the deepening of the demands of a social movement towards revolutionizing thesociety and abolishing the capitalist relations of production and the capitalist state.Unless such a standpoint is assumed, any organization will, at best, stay irrelevant tosocial movements and uprisings as it would be unable to formulate and represent theinherent radicalism of social uprisings in capitalist society. Nevertheless, in theabsence of such a horizon social uprisings are more likely to fail in achieving theirgoals.None of the existing political parties and organizations, mainstream or marginal

and radical, could determine, dominate, and hegemonize the Gezi Uprising. This lackof political significance on the side of political parties is a showcase of a deep politicallegitimacy and representation crisis in Turkey. The AKP was the direct target of the

592 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Gezi Uprising. The AKP used Bonapartist methods and abused the conditions of theimpoverished masses in order to guarantee its own power. It is also largelyresponsible for the reproduction of these miserable conditions imposed on themasses. Its inability to mobilize the masses in the face of the crisis made explicit bythe Gezi Uprising is in part due to these Bonapartist policies. Many that vote for theAKP ‘sell’ their votes for a few kilograms of sugar, flour, potato, etc. This is the reasonthat Erdogan’s threats that they would let the crowds onto the streets in order tosuppress the uprising did not go beyond mere propaganda and political bluff.It would be hard to imagine crowds being mobilized with the slogans ‘long live sugar’and ‘long live potato’.50

The mainstream opposition parties are in no better situation than the AKP. Themain ‘social-democratic’ opposition party CHP is a nationalist ‘left’ party thatformulates its opposition to the AKP within the framework of national Turkishidentity and in part is backing up the secularist elite in the army. However, the GeziUprising clearly showed that people were not only largely dissatisfied with politicalIslam but also with despotism in its nationalist-secularist army-backed form. NeitherCHP nor the so-called ‘secularist’ elite defends secularism and civil society in aprincipled manner. The very CHP has been flirting with Islamists of every kind in thepast two decades; as is the case with the army, which is largely responsible for the riseof Islamists in Turkey, thanks to the 1980 military coup.The main political party of the Kurdish nationalist movement, BDP, not only did

not take an active political part in this movement but in the name of preserving the‘peace process’—that is, the negotiations between the nationalist Kurdish rebelsrepresented by the PKK and the Turkish government—was systematically silent withregard to the uprising. The radical left organizations too had almost no effect indetermining the direction and the horizon of the movement. The main reason forthis ineffectiveness is that these organizations are practically pressure groupsthat are active at the margins of the political arena that is mainly determinedby the mainstream bourgeois parties. The Gezi Uprising clearly showed the short-sightedness and rigidity of the political horizons of these radical left organizations.The representation crisis that the radical left experiences with regard to the GeziUprising is the expression of its irrelevance to the political demands and horizons ofthis movement, which is the legal-political manifestation of the class struggle; itshould be kept in mind that the class struggle itself is the political and legalappearance of the self-movement of capital, which is caused by its contradictorymakeup. This irrelevance, politically, appears in form of tailist tactics. Epistemolo-gically, it is manifest in the mechanical-fetishist analyses of the constituents of theuprising: the physical absence of the members of the working class and the presenceof the members of the ‘middle class’ (if the latter term signifies anything at all) isconsidered evidence to call the uprising a ‘rainbow’ movement with limited

50 For a recent study and analysis of the legitimacy crisis of the AKP and the breakdown of the Gulen-AKPundeclared coalition (in Turkish) see M. Sonmez, AKP-Cemaat: Catismadan Cokuse (AKP-Gulen Movement:From Conflict to Collapse) (Ankara: Notabene, 2014).

Critique 593

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

democratic political demands. The class character of a movement is determined notby a direct correlation between the presence of the members of a particular class in amovement but by the totality of political ideas of the movement. The Labour Party ofEngland consists of millions of workers, but no one identifies it as a ‘proletarian’party, instead – correctly—as a bourgeois party. Articulating on this point, Postonewrites,

Marx’s description of the workers involved in the February revolution and the JuneDays of 1848 as the proletariat (although most of the workers involved wereartisans), is not simply an empirical description of the social background of theactors concerned; in other words, it is not part of an attempt to demonstrate adirect correlation between class position and political action. Rather, the use of classterms is an effort to characterize historically and socially the forms of actionundertaken and the sorts of demands raised—for example, the ‘social republic,’which Marx characterizes as ‘the general content of the modern revolution’.51

By using the term ‘proletariat,’ Marx suggests that these demands and forms ofaction historically represented something new, that they no longer expressed atraditional artisanate, but instead were more adequate, as demands, to the newform that society was taking.52

Ironically, Islamists and Erdogan are more sensitive to the revolutionary aspect of theGezi Uprising: the uprising is the practical criticism of the bourgeois parliamentariansystem and its legitimization processes; the bourgeoisie realizes that the people havedecided to ‘vote with their feet’—the Gezi Uprising echoed the slogans of the occupymovement that ‘Our dreams do not fit the voting polls’. The breaking down of theundeclared coalition between the Gulen Movement and the AKP, which came to thefore with the December 17 corruption investigation that involves many high rankingpoliticians including several ministers, bureaucrats, business people, and the PrimeMinister Erdogan and his family members, is the manifestation of the pressure frombelow that was built by the Gezi Uprising. The massive corruption investigation thatnow has turned into an open war between the two factions of the ‘moderate’ Islamicmovement is structurally similar to the military intervention that toppled Mursi inEgypt in the face of mass demonstrations. In Egypt, the military, in order to save thebourgeois regime and in response to the ‘moderate’ Islamists’ inability to normalizethe post-revolutionary situation, seized power; in this way, the military appeared asthe ‘hero’ and the subject of the change, on the one hand, and attempted to pacify themasses, on the other. Similarly, Erdogan’s and the AKP’s inability to properly managethe crisis caused by the Gezi Uprising hinted at the possibility of the collapse of amoderate Islamic government and the very bourgeois regime. The corruptioninvestigation, which is openly aimed at Erdogan can also be read as a response tothe AKP’s inability to save the bourgeois regime in Turkey.The Gezi Uprising is the politically mediated response of the masses to the

neoliberal economic policies and their corresponding ‘strong state’ model; so the Gezi

51 Ibid., p. 109.52 M. Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 323, n.29.

594 S. Azeri

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14

Uprising carries the potential of a radical practical criticism of a capitalist society; aradical egalitarian and libertarian potential that transcends the horizon of the existingpolitical organizations. The inability of the ‘radical left’, in particular, to represent theuprising and deepening of its demands is due to this inherent radicalism. Theuprising is aware (although vaguely) that its own demands are not realizable throughthe polls; therefore, it demands immediate democracy and direct participation ofcitizens in their own affairs. Yet the success of the uprising is not guaranteed anddepends on the emergence of its class politics through its politically mediated ‘delayedresponse’ to the demands it has put before itself. Even if the uprising fails to realize itsdemands at this stage it won’t become extinct because the fundamental economic andpolitical antagonisms that stimulated the uprising continue to exist. This is an aspectof the self-awareness of the uprising that is clearly visible in the slogan ‘This is justthe beginning’. The unfolding of the events so far has verified this claim.

Critique 595

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Siya

ves

Aze

ri]

at 0

6:33

24

Dec

embe

r 20

14