Throughout history, the Kurdish people have been subjected to repeated genocidal attacks, faced colonial attitudes even from those who claimed to support the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, and endured massacres and proposals such as the “Sri Lanka Model,” which openly suggested mass extermination. Yet this people have created one of the longest and most magnificent resistances the world has seen, reaching a new stage and a new direction after fifty years of struggle.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as the force that initiated and safeguarded this process, has fulfilled its mission and left its place to the communes that will be built collectively with all segments of society.
Abdullah Öcalan argued that “socialism cannot be achieved through statehood,” noting that the state’s conservative and self-serving nature is fundamentally incompatible with socialism.
The Freedom Movement, shaped by this definition that Öcalan articulated in the 1990s when the war in Kurdistan was at its most intense, understood that revolution does not mean seizing power but liberating peoples and organising a new life through the right programme and ideology. With this awareness, the movement advanced its revolutionary path in Kurdistan to a level capable of influencing global revolutionary dynamics.
For a movement that has been seeking a new form of socialism from the very beginning, the need for renewal and the search for the new never ended. This search emerged from critically examining the mistakes of real socialist states and structures and the ways these structures became detached from their peoples.
From the outset, Abdullah Öcalan sought answers to the question “How should we live?” and explained the movement’s understanding of socialism with these words: “Socialist ideology cannot take the norms of capitalism as a standard for humanity. It cannot say ‘capitalism gives this much, so I will give the same.’ There are things you will refuse to give and things that do not yet exist that you will offer. This needs to be researched and found, and finding it is the task of socialism. Capitalism pollutes the environment, pollutes nature, poisons society with cancer. You must find ways to prevent this. Otherwise, if under the name of ‘producing more than capitalism’ you pollute nature, suffocate democracy and destroy morale, this cannot be socialism; it cannot even be a caricature of it, and experience has proven this.”
The search for the new is one of the foundations of revolutionary struggle. Dogmatic, sectarian and rigid approaches destroy this search in order to maintain themselves. Movements that do not seek what is new, better and correct cannot speak of revolution.
The foundations of revolutionary struggle always begin with a question and continue with the search for answers unique to the times and changing realities. For this reason, no revolution resembles another, and no revolutionary movement can ever be a copy of another.
The stagnation and regression seen in today’s revolutionary struggles stem precisely from the loss of this desire to search and the absence of exploratory thinking. Searching is valuable. It keeps a person alive, encourages questioning and leads to the pursuit of answers. It does not settle for what it finds; it seeks something better. What matters is that the search is guided by the right perspective and the right programme.
The concept of a positive revolution emerged as the result of such a search. Positive revolution is a method of socialism that renews itself by overcoming all errors and shortcomings experienced so far, representing the form of socialism needed today.
Positive revolution, integration and deliberative democracy
Revolutions advance when they renew themselves. Any revolution that does not transform is destined for collapse. Each revolution contributes to humanity’s progress only when it overcomes the shortcomings of the one that came before it.
The Soviet model pushed the legacy of the French Revolution forward by addressing its limitations on the question of slavery and social equality. The Chinese Revolution led by Mao, in turn, had a global impact because it recognised the failures of the Soviet experience and introduced new ideas about humanity’s liberation.
Yet the greatest problem shared by all revolutionary movements was their tendency to turn themselves into ruling classes, advancing not according to the needs of the people but according to the interests of their leaders. With structures that insisted on defending the state mentality at the root of capitalist modernity, and on preserving the foundations of the nation-state even while attempting to reform it, no coherent socialist governance model survived into the present.
In the 1990s, when real socialism was collapsing, Abdullah Öcalan wrote the following analysis:
“The model I find most appropriate is this: a situation where almost everyone says ‘the PKK belongs to me,’ yet no one says ‘the PKK is mine alone.’ The PKK belongs entirely to you, yet at the same time nothing belongs exclusively to me. This means not treating the PKK as a private apparatus. If you are given authority, that authority means ‘develop the revolution in this region to this degree.’ It means achieving a certain level of success within a six-month period. It is not authority given so that you establish your own domain. And the party apparatus is not given to you for that purpose either. The socialist understanding of authority must be like this. You operate a certain organisational tool only for the task that needs to be fulfilled, and when the task ends, the assignment ends. For example, if a secretariat position is given to one person for life, that is the end of it. Unchanging secretaries and unchanging structures are the influence of dominant and exploitative class traditions. Unfortunately, real socialism reproduced exactly this. What must be done is to overcome it, and overcoming it is not impossible.”
In this analysis, Abdullah Öcalan criticised real socialism for being detached from the people and built on caste-like structures.
This understanding of socialism has shaped the Kurdistan Freedom Movement in every period. The Kurdish revolution has never been a system subordinated to a single person. It has consistently organised itself in ways that renew and develop the movement. Examining the process from the early group period to today makes this development even clearer.
Becoming the people, or speaking on behalf of the people?
One of the greatest problems of socialist revolutions was that, instead of becoming rooted among the people, they created spaces where some individuals spoke on behalf of the people. This prevented collective participation, the sense of shared life and the establishment of a new way of living that could stand as an alternative to the lifestyle imposed by capitalist modernity. A revolution created without the involvement of workers and the masses will inevitably produce its own ruling and dominant class over time. What happened in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba is no different from this.
If a structure is created where certain individuals make decisions on behalf of everyone, rather than consulting the people and growing through collective and horizontal forms of organisation, the outcome will only be the emergence of new rulers. Yet socialism exists not to create new elites but to eliminate domination itself and prevent the formation of a ruling class.
Revolutions demand bold departures. Answering the question “How should we live?” comes through profound refusal and resistance. At its core, revolution is an act of rejection. As Irish revolutionary Michael Collins said, “Our greatest strength is the power to refuse. We will refuse everything of theirs.”
Revolution rejects what is wrong, mistaken or incomplete, and replaces it with something new, with a struggle freed from errors and shortcomings. For this reason, revolutions express a never-ending process. To declare that a revolution is “finished” is to pave the way for its defeat and to obstruct its ability to renew itself.
Enabling the oppressed to speak for themselves instead of speaking on their behalf
One of the key problems has always been that others chose to speak for the oppressed instead of ensuring their direct participation. This keeps the oppressed from having their own voice and allows some to impose their own convictions on them. It was precisely for this reason that the Kurdistan Freedom Movement adopted the slogan “We come from mud-brick houses” in its early period.
As a movement emerging from mud-brick houses and placing people from the same background at the centre of political and revolutionary struggle, the Kurdistan Freedom Movement has grown into a leading and guiding force for revolutionary efforts across the world.
Knowing one’s reality and acting from that reality is crucial for any revolutionary struggle. This is why the Kurdistan Freedom Movement remains standing and undefeated despite the genocidal attacks it has faced throughout history. Losing touch with reality means disappearing.
The new socialist understanding expressed today by Abdullah Öcalan is grounded precisely in this idea. A programme has been put forward for a socialism in which the oppressed speak for themselves, make decisions and develop proposals that shape the process. Positive revolution can be understood as one of the concepts within this programme because positive approaches are open to development and open to new possibilities.
Looking at Öcalan’s statements since 27 February, as well as the points raised in the Peace and Democratic Society Manifesto, it becomes clear what positive revolution means and why today’s historical moment can be understood as a positive revolutionary phase.
Öcalan frequently emphasises the commune system, deliberative democracy and democratic integration. In his most recent public statement, his definition of positive revolution continues to outline the method of the new era’s socialist perspective.
The programme of new-era socialism has been presented through the Peace and Democratic Society Manifesto. The concepts he articulated afterwards stand in a complementary and mutually reinforcing relationship.
The programme is ready and the methods are clear. What remains is to take the right practical steps to carry the process of positive revolution forward.