Communes are the smallest organisational model in terms of structuring society. However, this model actually forms the pillars of a much larger organisational structure. For this reason, communes cannot be a single-type formation. It cannot be imagined that the thinking system of one segment dominates within them. As a horizontal structure, communes are formations in which every segment within them can speak and take part in decision-making. Therefore, even commune structures cannot be thought of with the mentality of a single-type organisational discipline.
Communes that are directed from somewhere else or are dependent on external authority eventually turn into puppet structures that implement the decisions of a central body instead of taking decisions based on their own specific conditions.
This is why the commune system is a system that capitalism and real socialist understanding do not accept and belittle. Communes are a system with many branches, such as home communes, children’s communes, women’s communes, youth communes, elderly communes, village communes and neighbourhood communes.
It is not, as capitalism defines it, “a group of people sharing the same thoughts” or “a closed group”, but rather an organisational system open to development and change.
What are home communes?
Home communes are the most basic and smallest unit of organisation. In this model, a family living in a single house organises itself; by shaping its daily life, economy and future on a correct and ethical basis, it moves towards a correct form of living.
The most important aspect here is the destruction of the mentality that capitalism insistently imposes that “the father is the head of the family” and the embodiment of the Freedom Movement’s definition of a free and equal life. The concept that Abdullah Öcalan calls “the liberation of the individual” is actually a situation that begins inside the family and takes shape there.
A person who is not free within the family, who is dependent on someone and needs someone else, can never be free within social life either. For this reason, the first step must be taken inside the home.
The basic logic in home communes is that everyone living in the house participates in life as equals, without restrictions, that a common stance is taken against problems, and that every member participates practically in all ethical and economic processes. If such participation is achieved, there will no longer be a field of dominance within the home; no one will have authority over another, and the first steps of a free life based on sharing will be taken.
The practical form of the concept Abdullah Öcalan defines as “free and equal life” is the home commune. No life is free if sharing does not exist. Without shared speech, shared decision-making and shared planning, a person cannot become a correct and free individual in society either.
To be dependent on someone else for even a piece of bread inside the home or to be made to feel dependent, means being reduced and diminished. In a home that has become a commune, the notion of dependency and being crushed disappears, and instead of “the head of the household”, an area of shared and free living emerges.
Children, women and youth communes
Communes are the correct approach because they address the specific problems of each community. Every community must be able to become a solution to its own problems, express its own issues and articulate its own demands.
The way to achieve this is through each community creating its own commune. This is exactly what is meant when we say “children’s commune”. Every word that children express regarding their own world and their own problems, in a system where capitalism teaches them that they do not have the right to speak, is a step that allows them to become free individuals. And this step comes through building communes.
If, within the communes, you give everyone a voice and do not belittle anyone, the result will be both the development of the commune itself and the development of society in the right direction. Women’s communes, youth communes, elderly communes and even patient communes can all be given as examples, just like children’s communes.
Street, neighbourhood and district communes
Street communes are the most important form of organisation to emerge after home communes. Street communes are formations through which organisations addressing the problems of the street and street life can be built; they are the product of making one’s own street safe and liveable.
This is done by each home commune selecting one representative for the street commune. But it should also be stated clearly: the fact that one person is selected does not mean that others cannot speak or cannot have a say. Everyone has the right to speak.
Because those who live on a street know its problems best, street communes constitute an important pillar for local organisation and local governance. The people prioritise and plan their problems and send their representatives to the neighbourhood commune. Neighbourhood communes evaluate and plan the issues and proposals that the street representatives bring and take them to the district commune.
The district commune then conveys these problems and proposals to local governance based on urgency. For every issue that can be solved through district municipalities, the district municipality becomes the address. But it does not end there. Representatives selected by the district commune are sent to the city commune. The city commune gathers the views and proposals from all districts, neighbourhoods and streets there, conveys them to the city municipality and ensures their implementation.
It is also worth saying: not everything has to be expected from a managerial class. Apart from the tasks of municipalities, the unemployment problem of a street can be solved directly by its residents, without even going to the municipality. For example, opening a small garment workshop on the street could provide work for the people living there. The products produced would cover wages and keep the workshop running. And whatever remains could be used to solve one of the street’s problems, without even approaching local authorities.
In this way, no commune becomes dependent on a ruling class and can exist in its own specific area. Because communes organise themselves based on their own local reality and the differences that locality brings, they must preserve their own specific features and act accordingly. Any dependency on another authority damages, even destroys, the independent and free stance that communes require.
The most important effect here is that the people completely, and with every segment, become part of governance. All problems and proposals are determined by those who live in those homes and are turned into a shared plan. This plan is placed before local governance, and municipalities are pushed to produce solutions and take these proposals seriously. Since all commune representatives are chosen by the people themselves, local administrations must take these communes into account and act according to their decisions. In this way, a new life will emerge together with the people and with the contribution of every segment of society.
Abdullah Öcalan, in his evaluations on solving problems at their source, explains the importance of commune-building and emphasises that local solutions are more important and more effective than centralised solutions. Öcalan says: “Social problems have the following characteristic: wherever problems have intensified, that is precisely where solutions have matured. A problem that cannot be solved cannot be imagined. The conditions of space and time in which problems develop also carry within them the conditions for their solution.”
The idea of the free individual and free society that Abdullah Öcalan wants to create emerges exactly at this point. A free individual creates a free society. The first step for this is the building of communes and the spreading of a deliberative democratic system into every segment of society. Communes do not necessarily require a socialist administration. Communes can also exist within a nation-state. The only thing required is opening the way for the people to organise themselves and regulate their own lives.
Here, the most important factor is local administrations. Not only municipalities, even neighbourhood mukhtars are fields of local administration, and with a correct approach can become areas that accelerate commune-building.
Self-defence and the commune
One of the most important pillars that allows communes to stand on their own local realities is self-defence. Self-defence is less a conventional military unit than a system for protecting the area in which a commune exists, a protection against the attacks of the capitalist system and, within a nation-state, against the assaults of nationalist state logic.
Because communes act against the logic of the nation-state and represent a free form of governance in which every segment of society participates, they will constantly be targeted. For this reason, a self-defence force always holds an important place for communes.
These self-defence units should not be imposed from outside; they must be selected from within the commune and exist as part of its own organisational fabric. Self-defence is crucial for preserving the commune’s existence and for neutralising attempts, particularly those developed by special warfare apparatuses, to corrupt and debase the community. In other words, self-defence units should not be seen merely as armed formations: in communities under serious attacks aimed at moral and social degeneration, these units must protect the commune’s survival and prevent any assault designed to destroy it.
YDG-H as a practice of self-defence
After the Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK), commune practices continued to organise themselves as the Kurdistan People’s Initiative and People’s Assemblies. One of the most important pillars of commune work in that period, the self-defence system, was organised under the name of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H).
Unlike previous youth structures, the YDG-H was not simply a formation that took part in clashes in the cities or carried out armed actions; it was turned into a power that protected Kurdish society and other peoples, in neighbourhoods against the assaults of the system and against special warfare practices. It became an organisational space not only for Kurdish youth, but for all young people who embraced the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan and the ideology of the Kurdish Freedom Movement. In the neighbourhoods in which it existed, it managed to organise itself as a force of self-defence.
With its interventions into neighbourhood-level problems, and especially with the work it carried out against special warfare attacks directed at neighbourhoods (such as drugs, prostitution and the creation of mercenary networks), the YDG-H came to be recognised and embraced by society between 2013 and 2016 in neighbourhoods where Kurdish people lived, in Kurdistan and in Turkey.
Members of the YDG-H also took a stance not only against the attacks of special warfare, but against people and institutions attempting to corrupt society and integrate it into the system. It was a structure formed by young people living in the neighbourhoods, who knew the neighbourhood’s own problems and were themselves rooted in those places. For this reason, they could intervene in the daily problems of the areas in which they lived, and they carried out efforts to seek solutions.
YDG-H dissolved itself by moving into a different structure during the period of the self-administration resistance. However, it made very clear how a self-defence branch of commune organisation should function.
Abdullah Öcalan, while explaining the importance he attaches to communes and their organising power, used the following words: “For example, if it were me, no matter where my path took me, to my own village, to Mount Judi, to the foothills of Mount Cilo, to the area around Lake Van, to the mountains of Ağrı, Munzur or Bingöl, to the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris or the Zap, to the plains of Urfa, Muş or Iğdır, I would behave as if I had stepped out of Noah’s Ark after a terrifying flood. Just as Abraham escaped from the Nimrods, Moses from the Pharaohs, Jesus from the Roman Emperors, and Mohammed from ignorance, I would flee from capitalist modernity, and I would lean on Zoroaster’s passion for agriculture and his friendship with animals (the first vegetarian). Drawing inspiration from these historical personalities and the reality of society, I would begin my work.
The number of tasks I would undertake would be unimaginable. I could start immediately with village communes. How enthusiastic, liberating and healthy it would be to build a village commune close to the ideal. How creative and liberating it would be to form and operate a neighbourhood or city commune, a council. Imagine what creating an academy, a cooperative, or a factory commune in a city could lead to.
To form the general democracy congresses of the people, to establish assemblies, to speak within these institutions, to carry out work there, how much pride and honour this would bring. As can be seen, just as there is no limit to desires and hopes, there is no serious obstacle in front of their realisation other than the individual themselves. As long as there is some social honour, and some love and reason.”
To be continued…