The Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK) published the final declaration of its “Socialism Again” conference held on 8–9 November.
The declaration stated that Abdullah Öcalan’s assessments, made in a period in which imperialist wars and genocide policies have once again deepened, and discussed at the 8–9 November conference held by the Peoples’ Democratic Congress, have created new possibilities for solidarity and joint struggle among peoples.
The final declaration emphasised that Abdullah Öcalan’s call to shift the freedom struggle from an armed conflict ground to a political solution ground carries strategic importance, and stated, “This move will strengthen interaction and solidarity among peoples who have been rendered unable to speak for themselves and have been driven into conflict.”
It also noted that the conference was “an important step” towards rebuilding the bonds of struggle among peoples, and that the discussions were held under the headings “State, Democracy, Class and Socialist Approach”; “Historical Experiences and Democratic Practices”; and “Foundational Perspectives for Socialism”.
The declaration stated that the conference brought together different social segments and struggle experiences, creating a ground for “thinking socialism together and anew.”
The conference results were listed as follows:
“- While capitalism and patriarchy condemn humanity to deep inequalities, hunger, war and massacres leading to mass deaths, they also drive our existence as a species and the world we live on to the brink of destruction.
– Regardless of the different names it has taken or may take in different periods, socialism is more relevant today than ever as the search and struggle for a classless and borderless world in which oppression and exploitation over peoples, genders, species and nature comes to an end.
– As the inheritors of the struggles that humanity has pursued since the ages in which the first inequalities divided societies, it was stated that the 20th century revolutions and socialist power experiences, from the Paris Commune to the October Revolution, from October to new revolutions and national liberation struggles, ended not only due to external sieges they faced, but also internal reasons; that these experiences, which demonstrated that the domination of capital could be overthrown, contained undeniable mistakes alongside many humanitarian and political achievements that gave strength to the struggles of the oppressed in the capitalist world; and that a critical reckoning with our history and our struggle past is one of the conditions for building the future.
– If the labouring and oppressed are to be the subjects of their own liberation, the struggle for socialism requires a pluralism that corresponds to the diversity and multiplicity of millions of the oppressed; and the unity of our struggle will be realised not only through recognising each other’s existence and legitimacy but through a joint march of extremely diverse social segments as well as different intellectual and organisational traditions that seek enrichment through interaction.
– It was discussed that these pluralistic structures can find concrete expression through the interweaving of grassroots direct democracy units such as neighbourhood, village and workplace communes with larger-scale confederal structures. In this context, the Rojava Revolution in Northern and Eastern Syria can constitute a concrete and current example of such an organisational model, through the democratic confederalism experience that the people’s assemblies are trying to build.
– Marxism, which is an important component of our plural heritage and existence, and which plays a decisive role both in the analysis of capitalism and in demonstrating that it can be historically surpassed, as well as in organising anti-capitalist struggles — is not a frozen set of propositions, but a structure that itself changes through interaction with different levels of practice, and does not consider itself outside dialectics; and its stance of ‘ruthless criticism of everything that exists’ is open to being directed at itself from both inside and outside.
– Bureaucratised, corrupted practices of power and the crude and reductionist interpretations shaped under their influence cannot be attributed to Marxism.
– Although the labour–capital contradiction maintains its existence and importance, the social struggle dynamics, subjects and worldviews that rise upon a series of other contradictions, such as feminisms against patriarchy and LGBTIQ+ movements against heteronormativity are among the carriers of the struggle for equality and freedom.
– The unique understandings and struggle perspectives of the oppressed in each geography, based on their own confrontation with capitalism and patriarchy, are valuable, complementary and indispensable for a universal horizon of struggle.
– It will be a meaningful contribution to the oppressed of the world, especially in Turkey and Kurdistan, that the questioning and propositions articulated by Abdullah Öcalan, based on the practice of the Kurdish Freedom Movement and its ability to preserve its organisation and historical orientation despite not only brutal attacks and massacres but also the upheavals brought by shifts in struggle grounds and power configurations in successive historical phases, and based on its openness to the accumulation of the peoples of the world, are opened to discussion among peoples in search of a common struggle.
– It was emphasised that the goal of ending exploitation, which is organised as a world system, can only be achieved through the integration on a world scale of the struggle carried out in individual countries, and therefore the struggle of labour and the oppressed must be organised at the international level in forms corresponding to its pluralist nature.
– We insist on socialism, which is not only possible, but indispensable and cannot be postponed for our existence in an age in which the exploitation of humans by humans has carried humanity to the brink of extinction. We once again declare our determination to carry out the struggle for socialism together with the broadest segments of society in the face of the possibility of either socialism or barbarism.”