May Day: Tyrants Won’t Last, Will Fall One Day!

We are going through an intensely challenging period on all fronts, as political developments in Turkey gain momentum. As workers, pensioners and youth, we want inflation to slow down, an end to the soaring cost of living, and relief from the daily struggle to survive. Yet our problems are only deepening and getting worse. As a society, we demand an end to the repression, the fuelled artificial polarisation and the violence surrounding us. Instead of relief, social tensions grow, and the air thickens with repression. We feel like we can’t breathe – we’re being suffocated! At a time like this, the long-pent-up anger and discontent have now erupted. Across the country, masses of young people, workers, pensioners, and women have taken to the streets. While this outburst of anger is significant as a first step, we will need to go much further to truly solve our problems.

Above all, it must be understood that complex social problems have no easy, simple, short, or quick solutions - nor can they. Therefore, we should bear in mind that the political and economic crises we face cannot be resolved overnight and may even intensify.This reality may stir anxiety or despair in many. But here is what matters: Surrendering to fear, anxiety, and despair only worsens the problem and will not shield us from the challenges ahead. What we must do is never forget that rulers trying to paralyse us through fear are far more terrified ­– and not fall into their traps.

Giving up resistance, surrendering to despair, or let fear paralyse us – these are the fastest routes to defeat. It is also just playing into the rulers’ hands. Defeatist talk like “Nothing good will come from this society, nothing will change” – whether intentional or not – only spreads ideas that serve those in power. Let’s be clear: the worse these problems get, the more working people unite to fight back. Every attack makes working people more determined to find collective solutions, resist and take on the real enemy. Drawing strength from one another, sooner or later, working people and youth will shatter the walls of fear and rise into action. What truly matters is to adopt a working-class perspective in analysing society and world affairs and to understand that real change begins with us. Change will come – but only through patience, courage, hope, determined action and will to change by forging unbreakable solidarity, and by sharpening class consciousness. This is the path that matters.

Our ancestors said that sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. This phrase sums up the current regime’s actions in Turkey. Recall that in Turkey’s 7th June 2015 elections, the AKP lost its parliamentary majority. Erdoğan did not recognise the election results and dragged the country to re-elections. Between June 7th and the snap election on November 1st, the country went through one of the darkest periods in its history. Workers and youth calling for peace, Kurdish people demanding democratic rights were brutally punished. Once the AKP regained power, repression intensified. After 15th July 2016, a fascist regime was systematically built and institutionalised step by step.

During this period, democratic rights were removed/supressed. Artificial divisions among working people were relentlessly fuelled. From Syria to Libya, from Russia to the USA, Turkey has pursued a reckless and perilous foreign policy. COVID-19 was used as a smokescreen to funnel even more wealth into the hands of the capitalist class. The government has prioritised the interests of itself, and the capitalist groups around it above all else. Working people were made to pay the heaviest price for the economic destruction. Since 2018, the new presidential system brought nothing but record-breaking poverty each year – the worst economic suffering in the Republic’s history. On top of all these problems, the earthquakes of 6 February took place. Over 100,000 people died due to the staggering scale of profit-driven plunder policies. Countless more left disabled, having lost their homes, livelihoods and means of survival. Despite this catastrophe, not a single official has been held accountable. The earthquake taxes remain unaccounted for, earthquake victims’ wounds remain unhealed. Instead, new opportunities for profiteering were carved out of the earthquake’s rubble.

The regime, which turned the country into a wreck, carried on sinister plans to prolong its grip on power and ensure its survival. This past decade, society has struggled under mounting tensions, social problems reaching crisis levels, and growing pains of devastation in every sphere. Under the fascist regime’s repression, people have been left breathless. At the current stage, the regime’s aim is to severely restrict the existence and operational space of opposition parties, such as through methods like appointing trustees to Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and even to the CHP. It seeks to eliminate elements it perceives as rivals and threats. The goal is to neutralize public discontent, prevent the expression of reactions, and keep society under strict control ­­– all to sustain exploitation, looting and plunder.

Let’s expose this regime’s robbery of public wealth and war on workers with one stark example: In 2024 alone, ₺ 2.4 trillion of public money was handed to bosses’ pockets under the name of ‘tax cuts’, ‘tax exemptions’ and ‘incentives’. Yet these same bosses sacked tens of thousands of workers, claiming they couldn’t afford wages due to the crisis. Since January, we’ve seen an average of 5,365 workers thrown out of work every single day. The regime wants to prevent us coming together and standing against this tyranny by repression.

Just as pent-up energy along fault lines must eventually lead to earthquakes, so too must the society’s pent-up anger erupt one day. Indeed, the regime’s offensive launched on 19th March did exactly this – triggering the explosion of long-suppressed rage. Working people, exhausted by repression, tyranny and injustice took their anger to the streets. After a week of Saraçhane protests, the 29th March Maltepe rally became the largest protest in Turkey’s history. These protests show that the overwhelming majority of society refuses to accept this current government’s rule. People took streets make it clear: This isn’t about İmamoğlu or the CHP. But despite this outcry, the regime continues its attacks. Police violence and mass detentions aim to intimidate protesters. Those supporting boycotts are smeared as ‘traitors’ and threatened by the regime. Like a thief crying “stop thief!”, the regime accuses those calling for action of “sabotaging the economy, harming the country”. Because this regime has shown it’s willing to make society pay the heaviest price just to cling to power. That’s precisely why people’s resistance against the attacks must be stronger and more determined than ever.

The people’s resistance can only grow stronger when the working class steps onto the stage with its own demands, its own organisations and its own methods of struggle. This requires strengthening the working class’s trade union and political organisation, raising class consciousness, and thereby fortifying its will to fight against fascism and the capitalist class. May Day approaches. In this critical period, we are going through, let’s prepare for May Day by strengthening the working class and expanding our struggle against exploitation and tyranny.

On May Day, the International Day of Unity, Struggle and Solidarity of the working class, let’s shout our May Day Anthem together in the squares: What days are bringing today is oppression, cruelty and bloodshed. However, this shan’t go forever. Exploitation shall not continue! The day shall come, the day tyrants will fall!