Considered in terms of the soil that it put its feet on and the historical heritage that it has adopted and internalised, the roots of MLCP go back to the foundation of TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) in the first quarter of the 20th Century. Beyond the general frames of Marxist and socialist stance and labelling itself with the proletarian class struggle, there is an ideological intercourse and causal connection between MLCP and TKP. The foundation of TKP through unification of communist organisations, for instance, does not only resemble the foundation of MLCP, but there was also raised up a fundamental value, a principle determining both of their forms of specific being, and given vitality. The unification of communists in one single vanguard party in every country is one of the orders of the proletarian class struggle and preconditions of the social revolution. This is known, and even usually talked of. Nevertheless, what is important is the adherence to it within the implementation. For implementation would involve and concretise the unity of theory and practice.
However, if one would act from the organisations which formed MLCP, than, he/she will reach the fact that it directly rose upon the revolutionary movement of '71. MLCP could be analysed also by tracing the history of three main organisations of '71 revolutionary movement and their extensions, which dangle the period of quarter-century. Under the conditions of realities of cadres and even the period of splits and fragmentations, there can be talk of "organisational" stability. The ideological break-off and evolution did not wipe out the specific ideological relationship with the '71 revolutionary movement, but sharpened it by making it more evidential and conscious. For instance, the '71 revolutionary upsurge is the work of a revolutionary will. The superior sides of the period such as shining spirit of sacrifice and cause, the high and passionate devotion to the revolutionary values of morality have turned into a new form in the MLCP being more than a source of revolutionary strength and a basic breaking point with the "revolutionary spontaneity", the dominating style of leadership and struggle within the prior history of the revolutionary and communist movement.
Moreover, if someone wants to research and understand the very concrete and specific existence of MLCP, than they should start with the idea of the unity of communists and its history that came to the scene in the ranks of organisations that constitute her and later was developed and matured within the struggle for unity.
But, of course, MLCP's history can also be started with the announcement of the foundation MLCP-F (Marxist Leninist Communist Party-Foundation) in the Unity Congress held in September 1994.
The idea and action of the unity of communists as a basic factor which directed the predecessors of MLCP, beyond being an absolute and rooted intervention to the situation of the communist movement of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, it is at the same time the first and fundamental step replying the new period and overcoming the structural crisis which occurred among communist and revolutionary movements in 90s'. Communist organisations, which created for themselves a new point of start through the idea and struggle for the unity of communists and later succeeded, became the constructors of a historical process that reach to the sky by the foundation of MLCP.
"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language...In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue." (1)
Like men, political parties also make their own history.
Time would completely bring to the open what historic factor would cause TDKIH (Revolutionary Communist Workers' Movement of Turkey), TKP/ML Hareketi (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist Movement) and TKIH's (Communist Workers' Movement of Turkey) to announce their consideration that "the question of the unity of the communist movement of Turkey is the question of the unity of TKIH, TKP/ML Movement, TIKB (Revolutionary Communist League of Turkey) and TDKP (Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey)" (2) in the autumn of '89. This initiative, which genuinely and naturally tended to make fundamental changes in the situation of the communist movement and had the objective of reconstituting it, matched with the very certain turnout of the world history. Again, we have the opportunity to speak about a specific period of the history of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan in terms of social and political circumstances and developments.
The collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact states under the new international circumstances created by the mentioned situation, the submission of Albania Socialist People's Republic to imperialism through the hands of LPA (Labour Party of Albania); the entrance into the path of betrayal against their objectives and ideals by numerous communist and revolutionary parties in every corner of the world; lack of an international centre in which the parties and organisations considering themselves communist could get theoretical, ideological and political fertility, approval, and support; the announcement of the end of the class wars and the history by imperialism headed by the USA which won the Cold War; the recognition of USA's hegemony under the conditions of a unipolar world by various states which stood close to the USSR express the beginning of a new period both in terms of the world history and the history of socialism. The process of 89-91 is the symbol of this.
The international communist movement was drawn into an ideological and political crisis because of the destruction that they experienced and that the 20th Century closed with the defeat of socialism. It was an entrance to the new period of the history of and the struggle for socialism.
If the '40s and '50s, with the victory of the USSR in the 2nd World War following the October Revolution, revolutions in Eastern European countries and Chinese Revolution, were the peak reached by the world revolution or were the peak of the world revolution, than the ‘90s were the summit where imperialism and the world reaction surmounted. The world revolution and the communist movement would sink to the bottom. A period was closed. The imperialist world reaction was able to find in itself the power to announce "ideologies are dead" and "end of the history".
Today's imperialist globalization whose first nuclei were seen in the '70s than it became evident in the 1980s and than it became dominant after the 1990s', is the reconstitution of international capital and capitalist world market under the conditions of monopoly capitalism. This tendency, which became evident in the '80s, gradually went up to the level of state policies in imperialist countries, at first in the USA and Britain. It became dominant in the world economy with the collapse of the USSR. The changes/transformations occurred within the internal structure and conditions of monopoly capitalism, which found their expression in the concept of imperialist globalisation, and the collapse of social imperialist USSR, as well as the liquidation of modern revisionist camp do not mean anything else than that the conditions of the world revolution have changed or are changing. The incomplete maturity of the new conditions of the world revolution, or the lack of Marxist analysis on the main lines regarding it, does not invalidate the determination that "the conditions of the world revolution have changed".
In the same period, the political face of the world was also changed completely. The international relations which were dominant to the period of half-century until '90s and the lasting international status quo collapsed; two camps led by the USA and the USSR had become history. The period dominated by the tendency of internal collaboration of imperialists under the leadership of the USA was actually dropped behind also. Although the bipolar international relations were replaced with the USA hegemony, the capitalist world tended to a convulsive internal rivalry, a new multi-polarity where the competition among imperialists would come to the fore. While the victors of the Cold War quarrel with each other for sharing of the spoils the world's political map is also being redrawn.
On the other hand, we must point out to some fundamental phenomenon at home.
The first one is the mass movement of the working class which became evident with the solidarity actions that developed in the axes of '87 NETAS strike after the 12 September coup and reached to the most advanced point with the '89 spring surge and the '90-'91 wave of mass strike in which the Zonguldak miners formed the centre. However, it could not give birth to the tendency of evidential/supervisory meeting, having contacts with any currents pretentious of socialism and Marxism. Together of being reactionary, this was a new and different situation than the '60s and the '70s. It was, however, the indicator of strongly breaking off the working class' socialist class consciousness, which developed throughout the '60s and the '70s, by the 12 September coup and the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, of course, this situation had the dimension concerning the currents pretentious of socialism and Marxism, slip into their responsibilities that cannot be abandoned.
Before anything else, the dominating style of political leadership and struggle in the revolutionary movement was being practically questioned by the worker's movement and the "revolutionary spontaneity" was being completely discarded under the new conditions created in the 1990s. As it happened in the second half of the 1970s, the times in which the spontaneous movements tended towards the communist, revolutionary organisations in spontaneous form were over. Now it was the necessity for the ones who are pretending to be leaders to open for themselves the ways of attaching with the movement of the working class and labourers, and the oppressed. And this meant revolutionary will to practice its role in much advanced level on the style of political leadership and struggle.
As a matter of fact, the spontaneous rise of the working class' movement, on one hand, had evoked the thought of the urgency of the question of party among all currents pretentious of acting on behalf of the working class; it gave strength to the efforts in this course. However, on the other hand, non-appearance of a tendency aiming to meet with the currents pretentious of socialism and Marxism among the mass workers' movement became one of the factors that conditioned fracturing, hopelessness, distrust and, after the 12 September liquidationism, the second much deeper and intense wave of liquidationism in terms of ideology. The wave of second liquidation is mainly caused by socialism's closure of the 20th Century with defeat.
The 12 September coup led the currents and organisations with the claim of socialism and Marxism to experience much heavier and deeper defeat than the period of 12 March. They were able to enter into the process of re-gathering and exit from the period only in the second half of the '80s. However, both the pressure created by the collapse of the USSR and the modern revisionist camp and the non-occurrence of an evidential revolutionary and socialist fermentation in the working class movement, the weak position of the youth movement and other factors did not give opportunity for the currents -which had entered into the regathering process and the way out from the period of 12 September coup- to make a comprehensive political and organisational breakthrough.
Currents claiming to be in the line of socialism and Marxism were not ready for the new period of history.
In Kurdistan, the guerrilla movement which started in '84 succeeded to regroup and reached the level of a national revolutionary explosion with the uprisings which exploded by the end of the '80s. The reflection in the West of this magnificent revolutionary development in Kurdistan, combining with the intense, systematic and special efforts of the fascist MGK (National Security Council), was the expansion and the deepening of Turkish chauvinism and nationalism. Let alone the portrait in establishing relations with the Kurdish national revolution, but the progressive social dynamics were surrounded by and taken under the pressure of chauvinism, as a reflection of counter-revolutionary reaction evoked by the national revolution.
The communist and revolutionary movement was tasked with a very difficult march against the flow not only because of the culminating world counter-revolution, but also because of the dominant nation chauvinism that gradually spreads and widens, penetrates into the social texture.

PART 1

STRUGGLE FOR UNITY

The understanding of unity as a necessity for the struggle and principled

MLCP has entered into the agenda of history by the synthesis and reformation of the theoretical, political and organisational accumulation created by its predecessor communist organisations throughout their histories, starting from the struggle for unity.
The struggle and the idea of communists' unification is its ferment.
The idea of unity among the ranks of the communist movement came into the open, as an embryo, yet by the refusal and condemnation of the "Mao Tse-tung Thought"; by succeeding in the ideological break-off with populism.
The refusal and condemnation of the "Mao Tse-tung Thought" brought the organisations, which -in this or that manner- experienced the same process, to discuss and question their consideration of themselves and each other to some extend. The leap in the consciousness as a result of the break with eclectic, unclear and populist approaches on the issue of party caused by "Mao Tse-tung Thought", fed new approaches. On the other hand, the heavy political conditions created by the 12 September coup prevented the maturing of the searches on the solution of the matter.
The problems of overcoming the influence of the "Mao Tse-tung Thought" in the ranks of the communist movement coexisted with the heavy reactionary conditions following the coup and the new problems created by the defeat. There appeared the need for a more general critical evaluation within the communist organisations towards themselves, revolutionary and communist movement. Under the conditions of crisis drawn by the defeat and liquidation, each of those communist organisations tended to consider the process left behind, some on the organised manner, and some on the spontaneous manner.
The idea of unity, which momentum within the communist organisations towards the middle of the '80's, faced a split within itself and, as a result, two different tendencies became visible: one was liquidationist, the other revolutionary. The liquidationist tendency of unity caused by the defeat matured rapidly and went forward in its own channel.(3) The revolutionary tendency of unity matured in '89. The "Common Statement" of "TKIH, TKP/ML Movement and TDKIH regarding the question of the Unity of the Communists" reflects a phase of the development of the idea of the unity of communists. Communist Party was defined as "the unity of scientific socialism and the proletarian movement"; the unity of the communists was considered "in the context of creation of the communist party" and "the creation of communist party" was announced as the "fundamental task". The unity of the communists was both a question of principles and a political question waiting to be solved immediately. The communist movement was formed by more than one organisation. The unity of the communists was the question of "the unity of TKP/ML Movement, TDKIH, TIKB and TDKP".
They drew attention to that the differences among the communist groups are "important", but "secondary". However, they also drew attention to that they "in essence, do agree upon the basic problems of the revolution" and that they had the task and necessity of "bringing to the open the differences and agreed sides on the tactical questions, discussing the differences in the communist press in a way cleared from groupist spirit, sectarianism and all forms of prejudices, but comradely". The path leading to the organisational unity of the communists was defined as developing the revolutionary cooperation and comradely discussions on the differences.
"Every group is obligated, first of all, to challenge its sectarian, groupist and subjective attitudes that have been continuing for years within it. The thought that the communist movement is formed by only one group is the clearest example of groupism, arbitrariness and narrow-mindedness." (4) They draw attention to the importance and priority of struggling against sectarianism and unprincipled separatism.

The unity of the communists was "a necessity for the struggle".

The idea of communists' unification, which -beyond the principled approach- was based on the analysis of the concrete situation of the communist movement, was reflecting a leap, a fundamentally important change within these organisations' comprehension of Marxism. This was both a result and a beginning which widens and deepens the renewal, change and transformation.
Despite carrying the strong effects and footprints of the old comprehension, it was a new direction in the comprehension of Marxism. The tendency of breaking off with the sectional comprehension of Marxism, which was dominant within the period before '90, was an entrance to the foundation and construction of the future communist movement, as well as being a very meaningful objection to the historical period left behind. The tendency of breaking off with the sectional approach towards the international communist movement's inner-parts was paving the way that leads to the leaping to a new level in the comprehension of Marxism.
On the other hand, the tendency for unification that became visible in TDKP and partially in TIKB was defeated by the dominant groupist sectarian attitudes among these organisations. The idealist and sectarian attitudes of these organisations, which considered the communist movement only composed of themselves, went forward to the points of extremity under the new conditions. In the beginning of 1990, they started a reactionary war under the black flag of unprincipled separatism and sectarianism against the struggle for unity.
TDKP, at the same time of this reactionary struggle, entered into a legalist, reformist liquidationist path.
The same struggle consolidated the existing doctrinism of TIKB and strengthened the rigidity and its line.