In the history of revolutionary movements, any uprising that aimed to seize the state and promised a life within a nation-state prototype has today reached a point of disintegration. Across the world, the greatest blow to socialism was delivered by revolutions that failed to renew themselves and remained locked in the past.
Abdullah Öcalan’s assessment of real socialism illustrates how the struggle for socialism was led down the wrong path. Öcalan stated:
“Indeed, the two-hundred-year history of socialism and real socialism shows that it has never surpassed the condition of providing left-wing support to capitalism. For instance, the issue goes far beyond identifying where mistakes or wrong turns were made. The paradigm itself is flawed. The presence of one or two correct or incorrect elements within it does not significantly change the outcome from a paradigmatic perspective.”
Negative revolution: Is it the same as counter-revolution?
Let us turn to the central question, one that may sound harsh at first. In the message Abdullah Öcalan sent to the large march in Cologne. Öcalan stated: “This process is, in fact, the transition from a negative revolutionary process to a positive revolutionary process. The character of this process must be understood as a historical and universal reality.” Yet some circles immediately seized on the phrase “negative revolution,” reigniting debates over “liquidationism” and suggesting that a negative revolution is essentially a form of counter-revolution.
But is a negative revolution truly a counter-revolution?
A negative revolution describes an insistence on the old, revolutionary beginnings that emerge from genuine breakthroughs but fail to renew themselves as the world evolves, refusing to update their ideology. The history of revolutions is filled with hundreds of such examples.
The worldview still defended today by real socialist structures is, in a sense, another form of negative revolution. The clearest sign of this inability to renew itself is the fact that even ideologies claiming to serve the people were shaped within a dominant culture, and their calls for change remained confined to the boundaries drawn by that same dominant culture.
Looking at human history, even many Marxist historians explained the course of humanity within the limits imposed by capitalist modernity, shaping their ideological perspectives accordingly.
Like all systems that emerged through a Eurocentric lens, real socialism declared itself opposed to capitalist modernity, yet in practice it never truly broke away from it. Even socialism’s discourse on daily life consisted largely of reflections of Europe-centered narratives. But the world is not limited to Europe and it cannot be!
Abdullah Öcalan captured this reality with the remark: “In truth, Eurocentric social science reeks of domination. It either imposes domination or drives one into subjugation.” His point reflects how all systems that developed within a Eurocentric framework ultimately end up serving the interests of the dominant power. And those in power never desire the new. For this reason, although real and scientific socialism attempted to stand against capitalism, they were ultimately defeated because they could not free themselves from the very intellectual framework established by the dominant class.
From the notion of subjective agency to the concept of negative revolution
In the history of the Freedom Movement and throughout Abdullah Öcalan’s ideological journey, no definition or expression emerges suddenly. There has never been a statement without foundations. Every word spoken and every concept introduced has been the result of the work and struggle carried out up to that moment. Nothing ever appeared as, “We woke up one morning and realized this was wrong.”
Similarly, concepts such as communes, integration, deliberative democracy, and the notions of “negative revolution” and “positive revolution” were shaped through lived experience within the ideological world of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and were redefined in practice.
Looking at the history of world revolutions, one of the most persistent problems of revolutionary practice has been the continuation of state oppression in new forms and under new names after revolutionary breakthroughs. The greatest weakness and ultimately the primary cause of the downfall of real socialism and scientific socialism was the power and importance attributed to the state apparatus. Real socialism, which defined the state according to concepts developed within the boundaries of the capitalist system, and scientific socialism, which emerged to compensate for its deficiencies, both paid for this error through collapse and disappearance.
In the end, the state is the instrument that will employ force. Wherever there is a state, there is bureaucracy, a ruling class, and the interests of that class. Even when a revolution is claimed to have been carried out on behalf of the working class and the oppressed, it becomes impossible to prevent the emergence of an elite class that sees itself entitled to speak and decide on their behalf.
For a class that assumes this authority, the main objective eventually becomes maintaining the power it holds. And at that point, the steps toward destroying a revolutionary breakthrough begin. A revolution that once represented a positive step for the people gradually turns into a negative one.
In The Role of Force in Kurdistan, Abdullah Öcalan expressed this reality with the following words: “Force is not, in itself, a phenomenon independent within social life. It cannot direct social development as it wishes, nor can it determine it. Like everything else, force has a basis and a source; it arises from that basis, develops, and one day will disappear. Some believe that force is capable of doing everything and that economic, social, and cultural matters can all be shaped through force. This thought is wrong.”
Force thus becomes the tool used to block the emergence of the new. It is the only instrument for those who insist on holding onto the old or who refuse to leave their comfort zones. And this inevitably leads to destruction.
It does not matter how long a war lasts or how far violence pushes society backward. What matters is the failure to renew oneself and to develop a form of socialism suited to the new era. As a result, socialism today has not only ceased to be a source of hope — it has fallen so far behind that it can hardly even be called a utopia. While the relentless assaults and reckless destruction of capitalist modernity fuel the anger of the peoples, structures and organizations that still cannot offer an alternative embody nothing other than a negative revolutionary mindset.
Although the Kurdistan Freedom Movement did not explicitly use the phrase “negative revolution” in the past, it has long described such structures and individuals through another concept. The term “objective agency,” frequently used by the Kurdistan Freedom Movement in the 1990s, referred to individuals who entered a revolutionary struggle but then, often unconsciously, adopted approaches that served the counter-revolution.
Those criticized as “objective agents” were individuals who insisted on the old, obstructed the movement’s efforts to renew itself, and imposed themselves. The most defining characteristic of these individuals and groups, who acted with the mentality of “what I say is correct”, was their refusal to seek collective agreement. Instead of building common ground, they insisted on imposing their own views.
Imposing oneself leads to imposing the old and the habitual
From its very first day to today, the Freedom Movement has sought to expand the struggle by finding common ground, drawing the right political line, and building gains through collective effort. The act of imposing oneself inevitably brings with it the imposition of what is old and familiar.
For individuals shaped within a real-socialist mindset, this imposition becomes even more pronounced. Those who approach socialism like a rigid faith and cling to words as if worshipping idols see revolution not as renewal, but merely as freedom to act according to their own interests.
The patterns of behavior and thought once described in the 1990s as “subjective agency” now fall under the definition of “negative revolution.” Both concepts refer broadly to structures and individuals who resist change and transformation, reject any culture of collectivity, and insist, directly or indirectly, on one class dominating another.
A negative revolution is not a counter-revolution; rather, it is the rigidity, conservative attitudes, and resistance to change that emerge within revolutionary parties, institutions, and movements themselves. Anyone who resists renewal ultimately disappears. The clearest sign that a revolution has become negative is the refusal to adapt to the spirit of the time and the insistence on narrow conservatism in the face of evolving values. Negative revolution insists on sustaining itself through conflict instead of consensus or cooperation, and for that reason it always moves backward and ends in defeat.
Abdullah Öcalan’s statement, “We are transitioning from a negative revolution to a positive revolution”, also defines the Freedom Movement’s struggle to renew itself and search for the new. Persistence in sameness is persistence in disappearance. To explain it with the most essential principle of socialist theory, transformation must take place through a “concrete analysis of concrete conditions.” Every era creates its own rebellion, its own organization of rebellion, and its own discipline of thought.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which emerged amid the chaos of the 1970s, has developed and reshaped its founding ideology in ways suited to today’s world and has once again begun to serve as a vanguard for humanity’s broader struggle for liberation.
For this reason, it is ideology, not individual names, that holds significance in the Kurdistan Freedom Movement. Because the movement has ensured ideological clarification and ideological development, it today possesses the strength and energy to leave behind everything that has become negative.
Viewed from another angle, this understanding helps illuminate the notion of a negative revolutionary period. The interval between Öcalan’s 1980s assessments, “We carried out the patriotism of a people whose very name was forbidden” and “The Kurdish reality has been recognized”, can itself be interpreted as part of a negative revolutionary process.
On a path that began with the patriotism of a people whose existence was denied and whose name could not even be spoken, an entire society was rescued from the brink of extinction. Beyond the narrow and flawed perspectives of colonialist mentalities, they discovered and embraced a new life, one that has now become recognized and respected across the world. Today, the Kurdish people have reached a status acknowledged globally, even without a nation-state.
Even those who previously denied the Kurdish people and remained hostile now accept this reality. And this reality places a responsibility upon both the Kurdish people and the Kurdistan Freedom Movement: the necessity of expressing new ideas and offering new solutions.
This renewal marks what Öcalan has described as the era of the positive revolution. For a movement that has elevated a once-untouchable country into one of the most influential forces in the world, the only path now is to carry this victory forward, discarding what is lacking or mistaken and carving out a new way.
As noted earlier, every era creates its own rebellion and its own intellectual framework. The guiding thought of today’s era is not real socialism or scientific socialism but democratic nation socialism.
The development of this new understanding of socialism is possible only through the collective and united struggle of the peoples. For this reason, following the historic call of 27 February, the PKK stated, “Our struggle is entrusted to our people.”