By the way, what are the founding purposes and perspectives of FESK Kurdistan Rural Guerrilla Units? Rural guerrilla which is generally identified as the same with Maoist people war strategy, what is the position of it in MLCP’s strategy?

Defining rural guerrilla as th same with Maoist people's war should be understood as a lack of historical consciousness. For instance, Eastern European peoples' revolutions which happened before China revolution were developed almost entirely with partisan war tactics based on rural guerrilla. Mao, who successfully led the people’s war based on rural guerrilla along the unique way of China revolution, is a revolutionary leader who contributed the strategies and tactics of rural guerrilla preciously. However Mao’s understanding of people’s war is more of an ideological one than of military. The distinction is here. Thus it is not a distinction of rural guerrilla-urban guerrilla. It is an issue of whether proletariat can lead the revolution, whether the party can be formed within the proletariat, whether the cities can lead the revolution. Rural guerrilla or urban guerrilla is completely a matter of certain geography, moment and conditions of class struggle agenda. On this matter, MLCP has never been in such a dogmatism. It gave weight to cities and struggle in the cities, because it believed the victory of the revolution can only be organized on this basis. It brought these to its agenda; developing in the big industrial cities, using legal, illegal, peaceful, mass violence based, unarmed, armed styles of struggle there. But you also cannot find such a view that rural guerrilla is not communist or there is not an element of such kind in communists’ revolutionary strategies in our party’s written history. It has repeatedly been said by our party, that revolution in Turkey and Kurdistan will not be a replica of the revolution in any country, that it will certainly find its own unique way -which is also correct for other revolutions. For that reason, from the military point of view, rural guerrilla-urban guerrilla distinction is irrelevant to Maoism, but if you attribute an ideological meaning to “people’s war”, you can definitely think like that.

FESK Kurdistan Rural Guerrilla Unit was born from the need of joining the struggle in Kurdistan with military styles. There is revolution going on in Kurdistan and military styles are ahead there. From time to time, depending on the national liberation movement’s tactics, military actions are pulled back, however military styles have always kept its importance in the whole and it has always been weighed more in the class struggle, in the struggle between oppressor and oppressed, between colonialist Turkish bourgeoisie and state and Kurdish people who are under the imperialistic yoke. As much as it is used against colonialists in Kurdistan cities, military styles will also be used in Kurdistan's rural regions. Opportunities from the whole geography will serve to the struggle's favor. Our presence in Dersim's rural areas, our presence in a small part of Kurdistan today, is actually a result of this need. It has an aspect of spreading to all rural of Kurdistan like spreading in all cities naturally. Regardless of whether it is achieved or not, the needs of struggle put this duty in front of whole revolutionary structures which claim to organize the revolution.

Let’s talk about Rojava a bit. It is seen that both your military and political works are continuing inside the Rojava revolution. How do you evaluate your party’s 4-years Rojava praxis? What conclusions do you draw from this experience?

Our presence in Rojava was conditioned by our perception of unified revolution, as well as our being a Kurdistani power, being peoples’ party, again our internationalist character and our regional revolution and democratic Middle East federation understanding developed by our 3rd congress. Our presence in Rojava developed step by step depending on the progress in determination of applying the party line. But still, the needs of Rojava revolution accelerated our steps. There was a revolution happening in Rojava and the struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed was basically going on militarily. So we have organized our whole political positioning accordingly. Our forces in Rojava took part militarily in revolution. On the other hand, relatively fewer of our forces sweat in social and economical construction works of revolution or they switched with the comrades on these fronts time to time.

Our existence as a military organization and with military struggle styles in Rojava are still ahead. This is a positioning according to the needs of revolution. However, at the same time, we have been performing revolutionary practices among the masses in Rojava, among the masses from Kurdish people, Arabic people and people from Christian beliefs for one year. We are trying to raise socialism option in Rojava; complete the consciousness and the tendency of freedom among Rojava laborers and poor, Rojava women and youth against imperialism, against colonialist states of the region, and against their gangs like ISIS, with the socialism tendency. Besides the military organizations and struggle styles, our party develops its mass organizations and struggle practices based on revolution’s legitimacy in Rojava. Our joining in Rojava revolution and praxis there was a test for our party’s theoretical views, its thoughts on strategy and its unified revolution understanding. From this test, it was concluded that we are standing on a right and correct basis about all these issues. The struggle in Rojava revolution has developed our party in many ways, widened its angle of vision on different subjects, grown its action. It provided regaining various weapons back in class struggle's armory, such as a weapon like international battalion. The struggle in this revolution introduces new correspondences to the vividness of our party's thoughts, flexibility about revolutionary will-power and organizational formats and struggle types.

“Our party comprehends its action as a sacrifice troop”

You declared that your members and supporters were also there among the revolutionaries massacred in Suruç. It was known that the massacre aimed at your party and the development of your youth. Also, in Ankara massacre, in Rojava, in Dersim, revolutionaries from your ranks reached immortality. You have often brought up the term “Party of immortals” recently. What does this mean?

As we define our party in Rojava revolution, we described ourselves as “sacrifice troop”. Revolution, is the achievement of organized masses, we know this. In this gigantic movement, in accordance with the comprehension of vanguarding, we are carrying the responsibility of taking the foremost places on the fronts. Revolution can only develop relying on such a vanguarding and leadership potential. Being the revolution’s sacrifice troop means completely engaging the revolutionary purposes, not having any other purposes than revolutionary purposes, not having narrower, more introverted purposes and that paying the price of this tough struggle with lives or spending the lifetime resisting in prisons. So our party comprehends its action as a sacrifice troop. It sees itself as such a vanguard subject. “Party of immortals” is a symbolism of the reality that women and men from all ages, comrades who worked on various fronts of the party, are increasingly, faster and more intensely going over the death, confronting with the death. By that, the party told itself: you shall pay tens and hundreds of times more prices than you already did and by walking on such a line in accordance with revolutionary purposes, you shall organize the victory. Whichever front of the party you are working on, you shall be aware of the enemy’s destruction threat and you shall be ready to take part in the most conflictive footholds of the struggle.

Yesterday, may be most of the comrades can tell the names of our martyrs at one swoop. But, after September 2013 when Serkan Tosun comrade reached immortality, those who can count all the names of our immortal comrades, have decreased, naturally.

We are carrying on an eye-for-an-eye struggle against our peoples’ enemies, against a fascist, colonialist, expansionist dictatorship. This struggle will require very heavy costs. When a revolutionary party cannot risk of being the party of immortals, carry this weight in practice, generate its thought and emotion accordingly; it also cannot go beyond staying at the edge of war and being a mediocre political force. We are using this term to put forth this consciousness clearly, to make those starting from the professional revolutionary cadres to all party cadres, members and member candidates, advanced supporters; shape themselves in such a spirit and consciousness, create their feelings, thoughts and actions on this basis. The youthful men and women who lost their lives in the last two years, and the comrades who dedicated their relatively long lifetimes to revolution are indeed those who originated this term. We, just simply name their actions and wanted to create the consciousness of this reality to come forward which becomes as one of the aspects of the communist vanguard's existence.

Regarding that disappearances under police custody, immortals, imprisoned ones in the last two years outnumber the previous periods, what was the moral reflection of this on your ranks? How do you evaluate this level of losses?

Nazım, the master poet of Turkish had said “this two undying dead are two immortals/ bourgeoisie invited us to fight/ their invitation is accepted”. Throughout the history, the struggles between the oppressor and the oppressed have thrived with big costs. In all the struggles whether it succeeded or failed, people’s humanistic sublimity arises in different ways.

In the history made under fire, immortals, ghazis and prisoners have taken a significant part in the communist vanguard’s life as symbols of our revolutionary war, our party’s determination, daring and victory courage. Fascist enemy has developed will-crushing plans from time to time to block our party’s raising its struggle level and organized attacks. In 1995, upon our attack to 100. Yıl police station in Bağcılar within the campaign of taking Gazi massacre's revenge, they murdered Hasan Ocak comrade by torture under custody and wanted to disappear him. We knew what they were telling us: “you will face much more heavier than this if you move forward”. We moved forward, we faced with heavier things, but never stopped. Thus, they carried out a heavy massacre in Pirsus as the requital of our unified revolution line, our positioning in Rojava as a Kurdistani force, young communists' determinedly raising the struggle. They wanted to break our will-power, but failed and we walked on our path. They massacred Berçem and Ekin comrades with a total fascist cruelty at their besieged base under disadvantageous conditions and so they told us not to try expanding and growing our urban guerrilla actions. We didn’t stop, we moved on. And we replied the enemy by telling them that we are going to expand and grow our political struggle not only with urban guerrilla and also with rural guerrilla.

Commenting on just by looking at the prices paid by the names of immortals and prisoners, by sighing about it, only shows that the conditions under which we try to make our way are not seriously thought about, and that a meaningful association with its results is not created. Surely, our party now has the responsibility and duty of recognizing new illegality conditions, developing methods, techniques, tactics to reply these conditions. However, this is a job that can only be done in the process of struggle. The party, shall improve its mental labor, practical competency, predictive power in order to reduce the losses from its own mistakes on all fronts of the struggle; however it shall be aware of that it is struggling against a head-to-toe destroyer enemy, it is continuing this struggle not under its own terms but under terms found readily and shall be aware of the consequences of this; it shall ensure the mental solidity this requires; it shall realize that immortals, ghazis and prisoners should be like a bridge on a river seen impassable or on an edge of a cliff.

While on one side, the enemy’s cruelty, bloodthirstiness, efforts to stand with a terror regime, unlimited usage of all the opportunities of technology, efforts to do its best with all the financial, financial and human sourcing force to protect its public-enemy governance; on the other side, the facts that need to be focused which revolutionaries and our peoples must act with the consciousness by which they can beat the enemy despite all these inequivalent conditions, by doing the only thing they can do, depending on human creativity, human courage, humanistic and righteous ideals. It should always kept in mind that you should not even once hide the fact that heavy prices will be paid in a practice carried out with such consciousness; on contrary, you should know that there is no advancing by any other ways, that there is no way reaching the revolution without giving martyrs, being tortured, getting imprisoned, knowing that there has never come up such a way up to now and there will not be such a way; and act with the clear consciousness of these. We are looking at the prices we paid in this struggle by asking how we could avoid which ones of these; we are doing this to be more competent in the struggle. This is inside the viewpoint of surpassing our martyrs. For this, without a doubt, we have the responsibility of being more equipped while fighting with the enemy, digesting all the lessons, minimizing the losses resulted from irregularity and amateurism. And we are fulfilling what this requires. However, we do not believe “being revolutionary without any price” lie, and we know very well that this perspective did destroy the revolutionary potentials before and will destroy it in the future.