Regional Revolutions in the Age of Imperialist Globalization
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In the twentieth century, revolutionary communists had the foresight to realize revolutions by shattering the chain of imperialism in its individual links. This revolutionary theory was based on the idea that the imperialist world system, which concatenates the individual economies of the countries due to the contradictions and struggles between the imperialists and the law of uneven development of capitalism, can be shattered in its weakest link. The October Revolution, the revolutions of the 20th century confirmed Lenin. This doctrine continues to be valid under the conditions of imperialist globalization.
In today's phase of imperialist globalization, capitalism has expanded and deepened so that capital, trade and technology have become highly internationalized. Internationalization is so advanced that it is no longer just a world market made up of the individual interconnected economies. There is now an integrated world market. This new phase in the imperialist world system has brought about some significant changes and new qualities. The high degree of internationalization means that in addition to the increasing possibility of revolutions in individual countries, revolutionary developments influence each other even more and trigger new developments on a regional scale.
Our party, the MLKP, in the early 2000's, in line with the revolutionary experiences and gains of the 20th century, as well as the materialist analysis of the fundamental developments of the world, emphasized the increasing possibilities of the regional revolutions.
"Today's realities bring forth the international actions and unity of the revolutionary proletariat, peoples and their communist vanguards much more needed for the victories of revolutions. Due to both these reasons and against the imperialists and local bourgeoisies dragging peoples into chauvinist clashes, regional federations gain a special significance as a form of fraternity of peoples . This is much more necessary for the Middle East-Balkans-Caucasian regions where the imperialist aggression and wars are intensified today. Our party, defends our peoples' revolutionary federations to be built in our region. Despite the increase in the conditions for united and international action, revolutions will develop unevenly. However, our party puts the federative unity of peoples as programme for the revolutions of peoples of the region which prevail simultaneously or non-simultaneously and it will work in order to materialize this achievable goal." (Documents of 3rd Party Congress of MLKP)
Our understanding of revolution and our revolutionary program have been further developed theoretically through the perspective of the regional revolution. The goal of a world revolution was thereby emphasized again. This line of defense of a world revolution is all too often forgotten by communists or neglected because of ideological fears (for example, the fear of Trotskyism!). Our claim of world revolution, however, is a strengthening of the revolutionary quality of the communists.


The Concept of Regional Revolution
The concept of the regional revolution is not new. Already the Third International had the perspective of regional revolutions. The proposal of a Balkan Federation was a product of this approach. These regional federations were linked to the communist program with the goal of "the dictatorship of the world proletariat".
Starting with Che, the revolutionaries from Latin America also had the concept and perspective of the regional and continental revolution. The concept of "continuity of the revolution" of Marx and Engels, as well as the "world revolution" of the Second International, were based on the experiences of the revolution of 1848 in Europe. The perspective of the world revolution of the socialist movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries involved a kind of regional or continental revolution, the revolution of Europe.
Our understanding of the regional revolution came at the beginning of the 21st century, based on the discussions on "contemporary imperialism", as well as on the conditions and possibilities of today's revolutions. The perspective of the regional revolution has led us to the approach and endeavor to concretize the general anti-imperialist struggle on a regional level. Following to this, with the participation of revolutionary and communist organizations, the Balkans and the Middle East conferences were organized. From these conferences there has emerged the initiative for the establishment of regional anti-imperialist struggle coordinations, in order to put forth concrete efforts. Although these structures have not been filled with life and made functional, we have gained experience.


The Regions are not Indefinite
The concept of the regional revolution seems vague and confused at first sight. But of course, regions are specific places. There is no doubt that regions are based on their geographic basis, but most of all, they are localizations that lean on the historically developed economic, social, cultural and even political characteristics.
But it is not a political, cultural and socio-economic location, like a nation state or a regional federation or a confederation. A region is in relation with other regions. They influence each other and there are smooth transitions among them. Their limits are not determined and they are changeable. We see this reality in the most diverse countries and nations, each of which has different languages, cultures and religious communities.
Despite some socio-economic and political similarities, they are not homogeneous. Nevertheless, in each region, there are certain characteristic lines and peculiarities that have developed historically and that characterize a region.


The Law of Uneven Development
The deepest roots of the "regionalization" lie in the uneven developmental reality and law that spread over the entire history of human existence.
Human communities have developed in extreme dependence on the natural conditions in different regions. The extreme dependency on the conditions of nature meant that geographically "distant" communities were less interacted with each other. Throughout the history, experience of production, of knowledge, of labor productivity, of science and technological development has reduced dependence on natural conditions. At various stages of history, the regions have expanded and changed "structurally". But the uneven development and the trend of regionalization have been preserved. Uneven development is a fundamental reality of the entire history of human existence.
Depending on the possibilities on geographies and depending on the difficulties that had to be overcome, certain large locations were created in which people could come together more. Throughout the centuries and millenniums, countless waves of migration, uprisings and population flows, wars, conquests, the development of commodity economy and trade, as well as cultural influences have taken place in these historical places, which have crystallized the "regional lines".

The Uneven Development in Capitalism
The law and the reality of uneven development is not limited to capitalism. Even before capitalism, there was never a single and bodily development. The world folk communities had been in different phases of development before capitalism has emerged, so that capitalism was built upon this uneven reality.
Capitalism created a world market and it integrated, subjected and appropriated all existing structures into the world market and the capitalist system. Capitalism "conquered" the world and became a world system that reproduced the uneven development. But unlike before, the unequal development has gained a combined quality.
Colonialism has both developed the capitalist mode of production and made the uneven development even more violent. From the transition of capitalism of free competition to monopoly capitalism, the world was divided between a few major imperialist countries, with which the imperialist world system emerged. This imperialist world system has linked the nation states and the individual national markets like a chain. The uneven development that has taken off after two imperialist world wars and the revolutions of the twentieth century has gained a tremendous and leaping quality.
The Uneven Development in Imperialist Globalization
The competition between monopolies and monopoly groups, as well as the tendency towards internationalization, are among the pushing forces of capitalism. Internationalization is developing both locally at the regional level and generally at the global level. It runs on two sides. In the phase of the imperialist globalization, this two-sidedness becomes even clearer.
The world market, composed of individual national markets, no longer exists in this form. Under the rule of the world monopoly bourgeoisie, a unified, integrated world market has emerged. The competition between the monopolies is widening between a few world monopolies. The world monopolies are leaning against the economic and political power of a particular nation-state and increasing economic integration, thereby strengthening and developing their influence over the unified world market.
The competition between the monopolies and the imperialist states has intensified. Regional integrations have become characteristic of this competition. As the national states were restructured, the imperialist global order ensured that the obstacles to its unfolding had been removed. Thus, it gave a push to the economic integration of the "regional localizations". At this stage, the law of uneven combined development is all the more erratic in its "leaping" character.


The Locality of Internationalization
In the phase of imperialist globalization, the local scale of internationalization at the regional level is gaining importance. Competition through regional integration, for example through NAFTA, the EU, or the Shanghai Agreement, is becoming characteristic. The countries where capitalism developed in the twentieth century, accumulating noteworthy capital, may not compete on a global scale, but rather they do regionally . These countries seek their place in the global imperialist order and find themselves forced to become active in their region. The tendency of regionalization is strengthened by these countries as they try to become active in their region through leaning on international alliances, on certain imperialist countries, on monopolies and monopoly groups.
Of course, the place of each individual region is not equal in the imperialist global order. For example, the place of Europe in this order is very different from that of the Middle East. Europe is at the center of the global imperialist order, while the Middle East is exploited and robbed by this center. The differences among the regions show antagonistic contradictions. The historically originated Middle East has been under the rule of capitalist imperialism for 100 years. The "inner borders" that subdivide the area into political areas or countries were largely determined by the imperialists at the beginning of the 20th century and during and after the First World War. This order imposed by the region's imperialist robbers leaned on the collaboration of the local ruling class, in this case the modern feudal aristocracy and collaborative bourgeoisie. These modern, despotic states of the Middle East keep remain standing with the help of the imperialist world order. They owe their existence to the imperialists. This is reciprocal; the same modern, militaristic, bureaucratic despots are the fundamental pillars and means for imperialism to hold the region under its hegemony and continue its exploitative order.
The imperialists and reactionary ruling classes of the region have common interests, such as the distribution of gigantic oil and gas resources. Controlling these natural resources, along with their transport routes, is the basis for cooperation. But there is an even deeper and inclusive problem. In the veins of the economic gears of the imperialist world order, flow oil and gas. The oil and gas reserves are the focus of the imperialists. For this reason, the Middle East is one of the centers for the struggle for world domination between the imperialists. When you talk about the "question" of Middle East, the survival of the imperialist globalization order is the issue at sake.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan are typical examples of modern, militarized and bureaucratic despots. The dominant Arab Islamic nationalism is the legitimacy pillar of the despotic regimes. Even in Egypt, whose militarily bureaucratic quality and reactionary Arab nationalism are distinctive, a similar despotic state form prevails. From time to time, the military or even semi-military character comes to the fore, as it is the case for today. Syria has a similar structure.
Even racist Israeli Zionism, which preserves the appearance of bourgeois democracy, and the mullah regime in Iran, which rules upon the Shiite Sharia, are very similar in their state structure, characterized by militarism, bureaucracy, despotism and so on, despite their very different ideologies. The militaristic, bureaucratic and despotic states have made it one of their existential reasons of existence to prevent the development of a democratic consciousness and culture inside the society. Even more, the dictators see the peoples of the region as the most prominent and closest danger to themselves. They are anti-people and collaborate as henchmen of the imperialists.
The imperialist rulers of the world and the local ruling classes know very well that the existence and continuation of the imperialist world order is tied to the control of the peoples of the region. Strategic approaches such as the Great Middle East Project was an expression of colonial imperialist consciousness. Because of its central position in today's global imperialist world order, the struggles in the Middle East have the potential to determine the future of the world and humanity.


Revolutionary Situation in the Middle East and the Issue of Regional Revolution
The Middle East makes all the contradictions of the phase of imperialist globalization very clear. As if these were not enough, the consequences of the 100-years-old, protectionist hegemony of imperialist colonialism are felt with all force. Through the local, collaborative ruling classes, ancient contradictions between religions, sects, nations, and genders, as sediment of history, have been blended, mixed, and got complicated.
This condition leads to a dialectic of the revolution and decay in our region. The contradictions between the world monopoly and monopoly groups are in full focus. The same is true for the contradictions between imperialist and imperialist groups. The world monopolies and monopoly groups are in a similar competition with the international monopolies and monopoly groups around the regional markets, as well as the rich oil and gas sources. On the one hand there is an handful of bourgeois, modern aristocrats, modern usurer money barons of the region with their henchmen, the ruling classes sitting on the big fossil fuels of the world, on the other side is the poor people. On the one hand, imperialism, world monopolies and international monopolies plundering natural resources, on the other, there are tens of millions of poor. On the one hand, the most luxurious hotels and the vilest bourgeois life; on the other hand, chaos, war and destruction, poverty and misery. The abyss between the rich and the poor has reached incredible proportions in the region.
It is noteworthy to consider and record contradictions between the rulers of this world, imperialists, world monopolies with international monopolies and reactionary, nationalist collaborators. Again on the one side, the production of world capitalism whose veins are fed by oil and natural gas in the region has reached an extreme level. The industrial and agricultural development of the Middle East, on the other hand, is not at all well-developed. The economy is based on oil revenues and trade, it is a kind of rentier economy. It has a structure in which the contradiction between labor and capital is blended by the locally underdeveloped form and the most developed forms. In this region, the contradiction between the colonialism of the phase of imperialist globalization and the peoples is very much sharpened. The wars of the region are not only internal contradictions affecting the region, but they are also consequences of extremely knotted contradictions of the phase of imperialist globalization in the region and are consequences of the struggle of the imperialist robbers for world hegemony.
In many situations, the old contradictions and struggles between three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which gather different languages, peoples, nations, and national communities, as well as the inner struggles, conflicts and the historical division of Islam between Shiites and Sunnis, influence all other contradictions in the region. The contradictions within Sunni Islam itself including various jihadist radical structures inspired by Sunni Islam, complete the picture.
The contradictions and enmities unfolded from the region's historically evolved social realities, such as the tribes, national communities, nations and countries are strong and widespread. As we see it from the regional international policies based on the Shiite-Sunni axis, they are quite sharp. In Egypt, there is the polarization between Muslims and Christians, in Palestine between Jews and Muslims. Although these are extensions of the ancient history, they are at the same time current problems, interests and contradictions going along with it.
The social gender conflict and division in the region and the patriarchy are implemented in the coarsest and most primitive, so even equality in front of the law is not accepted.. The Saudi dynasty is not only the center of the Islamic reactionism with its most reactionary interpretation and application of Islamic sharia, but also of the woman's slavery. As wealth, money and luxury accumulates in the hands of masculinity, what is left to the women as their destiny is ignorance and misery, circumcision of any human rights and slavery to the same men.
All these contradictions have intensified in the form of contradiction between people and state in almost all the countries of the region. As much as for the Saudi kingdom of the Sunni sharia, this is valid also for the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the Shiite sharia, as well as for the Zionist Israel. Of course, the degree of the depth and severity of the contradictions between people and state varies depending on the country.
So, this means that it was no coincidence when Mohamed Bouazizi's protest in December 2010 in Tunisia, in which he set himself on fire, turned into a wildfire throughout the Middle East. If his flames had not been, another fire would have pulled the trigger of the regional revolution.
Undoubtedly, the Palestinian resistance, and especially the national liberation struggle in Kurdistan, were preserving their position as the leading revolutionary centers of the region, but this was now implying to a new historical phase; it was the the regional revolution that has begun. Rojava became a tangible reality, attracted the revolutionary Kurdistan to its magnetic sphere and thus tied itself firmly to the regional revolution. Kurdish people stepped up to the leading position of the peoples of the region.
The fire of Bouazizi have inflamed in the Mediterranean Africa and the Middle East. Including Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, it has spread throughout the Arab territory. It has extended all the way to Kurdistan and Turkey. Its influence was also seen in Iran. These popular uprisings was the outcome of a maturity that the regional revolutionary situation had reached.
The regional revolution has overthrown some despots but has not achieved its goal. Its most advanced gain as a popular-revolutionary power has been achieved in Rojava, Kurdistan. Bouazizi's fire converted the faulted lines of the Middle East imminent to crack down. Conditions of chaos, war and revolution are de-facto abolishing the borders of the first imperialist war of division.
What is questioned and what can no longer stand on its feet is the imperialist order that has ruled the region for 100 years. The imperialist world order is in crisis in the region. It can no longer control the region and can not reign with old means. Even the collaborative bureaucratic and despotic regimes charged by imperialist colonialism to get the consent of the people can not fulfill their function. The collaborating ruling classes can no longer reign with the old forms of administration.
The imperialist colonialists and their regional pillars, the collaborating classes, can not provide any other way out than chaos and war. What the historical reality of Bouazizi's action has been, that the peoples of the region no longer bow and do not want to live as they did before. The peoples of the region have gone into insurrection, destroying the collaborative despots and calling the will of a free, honorable new life into the world.
After the imperialist Ottoman Empire, the Middle East was re-designed and Kurdistan was divided into four. Today's borders over divided Kurdistan have become a great revolutionary volcano, threatening the imperialist order in the region and the despotic, reactionary, nationalist dictatorships. In the last decades of the twentieth century, there were major struggles in the south, east and north of the Kurdistan. The most advanced level and the most wonderful work of the regional revolution and the Kurdistan revolution became the revolution of Rojava, Western Kurdistan. As being a direct popular organization itself standing for the equality women and having not a predominant but pluralistic and democratically coherent approach towards the issues of language and national communities, the Rojava revolution builds up a popular democratic power. The imperialists and their supports have nothing to offer the region but war and chaos, whereas Rojava has proved to be the revolutionary choice of the people. The Kurdish people, who were expelled from the history at the beginning of the last century, are now breaking the colonial yoke and fighting for their self-realization.
They are in this battle in a time of chaos and wars in the Middle East, history has thrown them forward and put them in a position to march before the peoples of the region and the world. One does not know how long our Kurdish people will be able to walk in this position. The law of uneven development persists. In a revolutionary way, the revolution of Kurdistan carries its unresolved problems to Turkey, and a second revolutionary front in the west part of Turkey is increasingly coming into focus.
The revolutionary push in Turkey, the building of a second revolutionary front, the great success of the Kurdistan Revolution, the united revolution of the peoples of Anatolia and Mesopotamia will open the door to a unified revolution for humanity.
 

 

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Regional Revolutions in the Age of Imperialist Globalization
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In the twentieth century, revolutionary communists had the foresight to realize revolutions by shattering the chain of imperialism in its individual links. This revolutionary theory was based on the idea that the imperialist world system, which concatenates the individual economies of the countries due to the contradictions and struggles between the imperialists and the law of uneven development of capitalism, can be shattered in its weakest link. The October Revolution, the revolutions of the 20th century confirmed Lenin. This doctrine continues to be valid under the conditions of imperialist globalization.
In today's phase of imperialist globalization, capitalism has expanded and deepened so that capital, trade and technology have become highly internationalized. Internationalization is so advanced that it is no longer just a world market made up of the individual interconnected economies. There is now an integrated world market. This new phase in the imperialist world system has brought about some significant changes and new qualities. The high degree of internationalization means that in addition to the increasing possibility of revolutions in individual countries, revolutionary developments influence each other even more and trigger new developments on a regional scale.
Our party, the MLKP, in the early 2000's, in line with the revolutionary experiences and gains of the 20th century, as well as the materialist analysis of the fundamental developments of the world, emphasized the increasing possibilities of the regional revolutions.
"Today's realities bring forth the international actions and unity of the revolutionary proletariat, peoples and their communist vanguards much more needed for the victories of revolutions. Due to both these reasons and against the imperialists and local bourgeoisies dragging peoples into chauvinist clashes, regional federations gain a special significance as a form of fraternity of peoples . This is much more necessary for the Middle East-Balkans-Caucasian regions where the imperialist aggression and wars are intensified today. Our party, defends our peoples' revolutionary federations to be built in our region. Despite the increase in the conditions for united and international action, revolutions will develop unevenly. However, our party puts the federative unity of peoples as programme for the revolutions of peoples of the region which prevail simultaneously or non-simultaneously and it will work in order to materialize this achievable goal." (Documents of 3rd Party Congress of MLKP)
Our understanding of revolution and our revolutionary program have been further developed theoretically through the perspective of the regional revolution. The goal of a world revolution was thereby emphasized again. This line of defense of a world revolution is all too often forgotten by communists or neglected because of ideological fears (for example, the fear of Trotskyism!). Our claim of world revolution, however, is a strengthening of the revolutionary quality of the communists.


The Concept of Regional Revolution
The concept of the regional revolution is not new. Already the Third International had the perspective of regional revolutions. The proposal of a Balkan Federation was a product of this approach. These regional federations were linked to the communist program with the goal of "the dictatorship of the world proletariat".
Starting with Che, the revolutionaries from Latin America also had the concept and perspective of the regional and continental revolution. The concept of "continuity of the revolution" of Marx and Engels, as well as the "world revolution" of the Second International, were based on the experiences of the revolution of 1848 in Europe. The perspective of the world revolution of the socialist movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries involved a kind of regional or continental revolution, the revolution of Europe.
Our understanding of the regional revolution came at the beginning of the 21st century, based on the discussions on "contemporary imperialism", as well as on the conditions and possibilities of today's revolutions. The perspective of the regional revolution has led us to the approach and endeavor to concretize the general anti-imperialist struggle on a regional level. Following to this, with the participation of revolutionary and communist organizations, the Balkans and the Middle East conferences were organized. From these conferences there has emerged the initiative for the establishment of regional anti-imperialist struggle coordinations, in order to put forth concrete efforts. Although these structures have not been filled with life and made functional, we have gained experience.


The Regions are not Indefinite
The concept of the regional revolution seems vague and confused at first sight. But of course, regions are specific places. There is no doubt that regions are based on their geographic basis, but most of all, they are localizations that lean on the historically developed economic, social, cultural and even political characteristics.
But it is not a political, cultural and socio-economic location, like a nation state or a regional federation or a confederation. A region is in relation with other regions. They influence each other and there are smooth transitions among them. Their limits are not determined and they are changeable. We see this reality in the most diverse countries and nations, each of which has different languages, cultures and religious communities.
Despite some socio-economic and political similarities, they are not homogeneous. Nevertheless, in each region, there are certain characteristic lines and peculiarities that have developed historically and that characterize a region.


The Law of Uneven Development
The deepest roots of the "regionalization" lie in the uneven developmental reality and law that spread over the entire history of human existence.
Human communities have developed in extreme dependence on the natural conditions in different regions. The extreme dependency on the conditions of nature meant that geographically "distant" communities were less interacted with each other. Throughout the history, experience of production, of knowledge, of labor productivity, of science and technological development has reduced dependence on natural conditions. At various stages of history, the regions have expanded and changed "structurally". But the uneven development and the trend of regionalization have been preserved. Uneven development is a fundamental reality of the entire history of human existence.
Depending on the possibilities on geographies and depending on the difficulties that had to be overcome, certain large locations were created in which people could come together more. Throughout the centuries and millenniums, countless waves of migration, uprisings and population flows, wars, conquests, the development of commodity economy and trade, as well as cultural influences have taken place in these historical places, which have crystallized the "regional lines".

The Uneven Development in Capitalism
The law and the reality of uneven development is not limited to capitalism. Even before capitalism, there was never a single and bodily development. The world folk communities had been in different phases of development before capitalism has emerged, so that capitalism was built upon this uneven reality.
Capitalism created a world market and it integrated, subjected and appropriated all existing structures into the world market and the capitalist system. Capitalism "conquered" the world and became a world system that reproduced the uneven development. But unlike before, the unequal development has gained a combined quality.
Colonialism has both developed the capitalist mode of production and made the uneven development even more violent. From the transition of capitalism of free competition to monopoly capitalism, the world was divided between a few major imperialist countries, with which the imperialist world system emerged. This imperialist world system has linked the nation states and the individual national markets like a chain. The uneven development that has taken off after two imperialist world wars and the revolutions of the twentieth century has gained a tremendous and leaping quality.
The Uneven Development in Imperialist Globalization
The competition between monopolies and monopoly groups, as well as the tendency towards internationalization, are among the pushing forces of capitalism. Internationalization is developing both locally at the regional level and generally at the global level. It runs on two sides. In the phase of the imperialist globalization, this two-sidedness becomes even clearer.
The world market, composed of individual national markets, no longer exists in this form. Under the rule of the world monopoly bourgeoisie, a unified, integrated world market has emerged. The competition between the monopolies is widening between a few world monopolies. The world monopolies are leaning against the economic and political power of a particular nation-state and increasing economic integration, thereby strengthening and developing their influence over the unified world market.
The competition between the monopolies and the imperialist states has intensified. Regional integrations have become characteristic of this competition. As the national states were restructured, the imperialist global order ensured that the obstacles to its unfolding had been removed. Thus, it gave a push to the economic integration of the "regional localizations". At this stage, the law of uneven combined development is all the more erratic in its "leaping" character.


The Locality of Internationalization
In the phase of imperialist globalization, the local scale of internationalization at the regional level is gaining importance. Competition through regional integration, for example through NAFTA, the EU, or the Shanghai Agreement, is becoming characteristic. The countries where capitalism developed in the twentieth century, accumulating noteworthy capital, may not compete on a global scale, but rather they do regionally . These countries seek their place in the global imperialist order and find themselves forced to become active in their region. The tendency of regionalization is strengthened by these countries as they try to become active in their region through leaning on international alliances, on certain imperialist countries, on monopolies and monopoly groups.
Of course, the place of each individual region is not equal in the imperialist global order. For example, the place of Europe in this order is very different from that of the Middle East. Europe is at the center of the global imperialist order, while the Middle East is exploited and robbed by this center. The differences among the regions show antagonistic contradictions. The historically originated Middle East has been under the rule of capitalist imperialism for 100 years. The "inner borders" that subdivide the area into political areas or countries were largely determined by the imperialists at the beginning of the 20th century and during and after the First World War. This order imposed by the region's imperialist robbers leaned on the collaboration of the local ruling class, in this case the modern feudal aristocracy and collaborative bourgeoisie. These modern, despotic states of the Middle East keep remain standing with the help of the imperialist world order. They owe their existence to the imperialists. This is reciprocal; the same modern, militaristic, bureaucratic despots are the fundamental pillars and means for imperialism to hold the region under its hegemony and continue its exploitative order.
The imperialists and reactionary ruling classes of the region have common interests, such as the distribution of gigantic oil and gas resources. Controlling these natural resources, along with their transport routes, is the basis for cooperation. But there is an even deeper and inclusive problem. In the veins of the economic gears of the imperialist world order, flow oil and gas. The oil and gas reserves are the focus of the imperialists. For this reason, the Middle East is one of the centers for the struggle for world domination between the imperialists. When you talk about the "question" of Middle East, the survival of the imperialist globalization order is the issue at sake.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan are typical examples of modern, militarized and bureaucratic despots. The dominant Arab Islamic nationalism is the legitimacy pillar of the despotic regimes. Even in Egypt, whose militarily bureaucratic quality and reactionary Arab nationalism are distinctive, a similar despotic state form prevails. From time to time, the military or even semi-military character comes to the fore, as it is the case for today. Syria has a similar structure.
Even racist Israeli Zionism, which preserves the appearance of bourgeois democracy, and the mullah regime in Iran, which rules upon the Shiite Sharia, are very similar in their state structure, characterized by militarism, bureaucracy, despotism and so on, despite their very different ideologies. The militaristic, bureaucratic and despotic states have made it one of their existential reasons of existence to prevent the development of a democratic consciousness and culture inside the society. Even more, the dictators see the peoples of the region as the most prominent and closest danger to themselves. They are anti-people and collaborate as henchmen of the imperialists.
The imperialist rulers of the world and the local ruling classes know very well that the existence and continuation of the imperialist world order is tied to the control of the peoples of the region. Strategic approaches such as the Great Middle East Project was an expression of colonial imperialist consciousness. Because of its central position in today's global imperialist world order, the struggles in the Middle East have the potential to determine the future of the world and humanity.


Revolutionary Situation in the Middle East and the Issue of Regional Revolution
The Middle East makes all the contradictions of the phase of imperialist globalization very clear. As if these were not enough, the consequences of the 100-years-old, protectionist hegemony of imperialist colonialism are felt with all force. Through the local, collaborative ruling classes, ancient contradictions between religions, sects, nations, and genders, as sediment of history, have been blended, mixed, and got complicated.
This condition leads to a dialectic of the revolution and decay in our region. The contradictions between the world monopoly and monopoly groups are in full focus. The same is true for the contradictions between imperialist and imperialist groups. The world monopolies and monopoly groups are in a similar competition with the international monopolies and monopoly groups around the regional markets, as well as the rich oil and gas sources. On the one hand there is an handful of bourgeois, modern aristocrats, modern usurer money barons of the region with their henchmen, the ruling classes sitting on the big fossil fuels of the world, on the other side is the poor people. On the one hand, imperialism, world monopolies and international monopolies plundering natural resources, on the other, there are tens of millions of poor. On the one hand, the most luxurious hotels and the vilest bourgeois life; on the other hand, chaos, war and destruction, poverty and misery. The abyss between the rich and the poor has reached incredible proportions in the region.
It is noteworthy to consider and record contradictions between the rulers of this world, imperialists, world monopolies with international monopolies and reactionary, nationalist collaborators. Again on the one side, the production of world capitalism whose veins are fed by oil and natural gas in the region has reached an extreme level. The industrial and agricultural development of the Middle East, on the other hand, is not at all well-developed. The economy is based on oil revenues and trade, it is a kind of rentier economy. It has a structure in which the contradiction between labor and capital is blended by the locally underdeveloped form and the most developed forms. In this region, the contradiction between the colonialism of the phase of imperialist globalization and the peoples is very much sharpened. The wars of the region are not only internal contradictions affecting the region, but they are also consequences of extremely knotted contradictions of the phase of imperialist globalization in the region and are consequences of the struggle of the imperialist robbers for world hegemony.
In many situations, the old contradictions and struggles between three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which gather different languages, peoples, nations, and national communities, as well as the inner struggles, conflicts and the historical division of Islam between Shiites and Sunnis, influence all other contradictions in the region. The contradictions within Sunni Islam itself including various jihadist radical structures inspired by Sunni Islam, complete the picture.
The contradictions and enmities unfolded from the region's historically evolved social realities, such as the tribes, national communities, nations and countries are strong and widespread. As we see it from the regional international policies based on the Shiite-Sunni axis, they are quite sharp. In Egypt, there is the polarization between Muslims and Christians, in Palestine between Jews and Muslims. Although these are extensions of the ancient history, they are at the same time current problems, interests and contradictions going along with it.
The social gender conflict and division in the region and the patriarchy are implemented in the coarsest and most primitive, so even equality in front of the law is not accepted.. The Saudi dynasty is not only the center of the Islamic reactionism with its most reactionary interpretation and application of Islamic sharia, but also of the woman's slavery. As wealth, money and luxury accumulates in the hands of masculinity, what is left to the women as their destiny is ignorance and misery, circumcision of any human rights and slavery to the same men.
All these contradictions have intensified in the form of contradiction between people and state in almost all the countries of the region. As much as for the Saudi kingdom of the Sunni sharia, this is valid also for the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the Shiite sharia, as well as for the Zionist Israel. Of course, the degree of the depth and severity of the contradictions between people and state varies depending on the country.
So, this means that it was no coincidence when Mohamed Bouazizi's protest in December 2010 in Tunisia, in which he set himself on fire, turned into a wildfire throughout the Middle East. If his flames had not been, another fire would have pulled the trigger of the regional revolution.
Undoubtedly, the Palestinian resistance, and especially the national liberation struggle in Kurdistan, were preserving their position as the leading revolutionary centers of the region, but this was now implying to a new historical phase; it was the the regional revolution that has begun. Rojava became a tangible reality, attracted the revolutionary Kurdistan to its magnetic sphere and thus tied itself firmly to the regional revolution. Kurdish people stepped up to the leading position of the peoples of the region.
The fire of Bouazizi have inflamed in the Mediterranean Africa and the Middle East. Including Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, it has spread throughout the Arab territory. It has extended all the way to Kurdistan and Turkey. Its influence was also seen in Iran. These popular uprisings was the outcome of a maturity that the regional revolutionary situation had reached.
The regional revolution has overthrown some despots but has not achieved its goal. Its most advanced gain as a popular-revolutionary power has been achieved in Rojava, Kurdistan. Bouazizi's fire converted the faulted lines of the Middle East imminent to crack down. Conditions of chaos, war and revolution are de-facto abolishing the borders of the first imperialist war of division.
What is questioned and what can no longer stand on its feet is the imperialist order that has ruled the region for 100 years. The imperialist world order is in crisis in the region. It can no longer control the region and can not reign with old means. Even the collaborative bureaucratic and despotic regimes charged by imperialist colonialism to get the consent of the people can not fulfill their function. The collaborating ruling classes can no longer reign with the old forms of administration.
The imperialist colonialists and their regional pillars, the collaborating classes, can not provide any other way out than chaos and war. What the historical reality of Bouazizi's action has been, that the peoples of the region no longer bow and do not want to live as they did before. The peoples of the region have gone into insurrection, destroying the collaborative despots and calling the will of a free, honorable new life into the world.
After the imperialist Ottoman Empire, the Middle East was re-designed and Kurdistan was divided into four. Today's borders over divided Kurdistan have become a great revolutionary volcano, threatening the imperialist order in the region and the despotic, reactionary, nationalist dictatorships. In the last decades of the twentieth century, there were major struggles in the south, east and north of the Kurdistan. The most advanced level and the most wonderful work of the regional revolution and the Kurdistan revolution became the revolution of Rojava, Western Kurdistan. As being a direct popular organization itself standing for the equality women and having not a predominant but pluralistic and democratically coherent approach towards the issues of language and national communities, the Rojava revolution builds up a popular democratic power. The imperialists and their supports have nothing to offer the region but war and chaos, whereas Rojava has proved to be the revolutionary choice of the people. The Kurdish people, who were expelled from the history at the beginning of the last century, are now breaking the colonial yoke and fighting for their self-realization.
They are in this battle in a time of chaos and wars in the Middle East, history has thrown them forward and put them in a position to march before the peoples of the region and the world. One does not know how long our Kurdish people will be able to walk in this position. The law of uneven development persists. In a revolutionary way, the revolution of Kurdistan carries its unresolved problems to Turkey, and a second revolutionary front in the west part of Turkey is increasingly coming into focus.
The revolutionary push in Turkey, the building of a second revolutionary front, the great success of the Kurdistan Revolution, the united revolution of the peoples of Anatolia and Mesopotamia will open the door to a unified revolution for humanity.