Dear fellows, comrades
Since mid-19th century, humanity has been looking for a way out within an intense episode marked by great tragedies as well as prodigious leaps.
The last three decades of this almost 170 years old story will be recorded as a reactionary, even counter-revolutionary period in which the oppressing classes that monopolize almost all wealth throughout the world as well as in Turkey have established an overwhelming superiority over working class.
Nevertheless, the same decades also proved that humanity will never succumb, that darkness will never become the absolute reality. Moreover, even at a time when the rights of toiling masses are eliminated one after another, when international monopolies plunder our planet without restraint and hindrance, when no counterweight, such as the Soviet Union, to curb imperialist barbarism exists; in short, even at a time when our world is handed to the capitalist class on a silver platter, it is evident that the current social order has no future at all.
If bloody regional conflicts, racism, religious fanaticism, threat of nuclear warfare, destruction of the ecosystem, cultural degradation and ceaseless attacks on even the most fundamental freedoms are characterizing the present day along with facts such as unemployment, starvation, high cost of living and income inequalities, the time for the humanity to make a clean break has long come.
Those who preach to be content with minor improvements in the face of the current tragedy are wrong. This irrational, inhumane social order must be destroyed at once.
And this is possible.
When imperialism dragged humanity into another major massacre in mid-20th century for the second time, and when that bloody reckoning was prevented to give rise to a massive destruction that would result in the enslavement of peoples owing to the Soviet Union, those who made their marks on the three largest imperialist powers were leaders such as Roosevelt, Churchill and de Gaulle. Apart from their world views, the interests they represent etc., we cannot even compare them with those who marked the last decades such as Bush, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Macron, Merkel or Trump.
Needless to say, Turkish capitalism, in turn, has created Erdoğan!
Although the picture may seem bleak in a sense, looking from another angle, we can see the way out.
The capitalist system which puts fetters on humanity, and the reactionary forces that represent this social order are weaker than they appear to be. All we need to do is to have no qualms about admitting this fact and to do what is necessary.
The Communist Party of Turkey defines its very existence with this fact, i.e. the historical mission that emerges from it.
We are aware that this is not an obligation which may be overcome at a single stroke and quite easily. On the other hand, we shall never forget that humanity has come on the brink of destruction by constantly postponing its own liberation.
We are entering the new year with this consciousness, and we wish success to all our friends in our common quest for equality and liberty.
I wish 2018 to be a year when we will generate hope altogether.
Kemal Okuyan
Secretary General
