International Bulletin: On the PKK Congress | Commemoration of Nambala Keshav Rao and 27 Comrades

MLKP Turkey/Kurdistan

International Bureau

There is no other path but revolution for the liberation of the working class and the oppressed, for women’s freedom and equality among peoples!Socialism and the Union of Soviet Republics are the basis for the solution!
Year: 2025 | N° 6
Since August 15, 1984, the PKK has been waging a major struggle against denialist colonialism and fascism, centered on guerrilla warfare. It has made significant progress toward the Kurdish people’s right to national freedom and unity, on a path of the highest sacrifice as expressed in the 40,000 fallen comrades. It was one of the leading forces resisting the wave of liquidation that broke out worldwide in 1990-1991 and led the Rojava Revolution in 2012. The PKK convened its 12th Congress and decided to dissolve itself and end the armed struggle. The Congress announced that the forces of the PKK will continue the political struggle with unarmed and legal organizations and forms of struggle, that they have full confidence in the new strategy and line, and that the leadership of the movement will guide the process from now on.
Our party, which considers it a revolutionary duty to share its thoughts on the two key strategic decisions and some of the theses adopted by the Congress with the peoples of Kurdistan and Turkey, with the Arab, Persian, and Azerbaijani peoples, and especially with the revolutionaries of the region and the communist, revolutionary, and anti-fascist parties and organizations worldwide, has come to the following conclusions in its assessment of the PKK’s 12th Congress decisions

1) Ending the armed struggle and free organization, as well as the formal handover of weapons to this or that interlocutor through an unwritten agreement, that does not guarantee fundamental national-democratic rights such as mother tongue education and national autonomy, and essential rights such as the unconditional release of prisoners of war and the unconditional return of all guerrilla forces and political exiles to Northern Kurdistan, is the acceptance of a peace that is neither just nor democratic.
2) Apart from the fact that certain legislative changes expected by the fascist chief regime are based on keeping collective national democratic rights under lock and key, the aim is not to shed light on the fascist colonial crimes against humanity and hold the criminals accountable, but on the contrary to bring the guerrillas as individuals and persons who have committed crimes before the colonial justice system. This is intended to pave the way for the policy of the fascist colonialist enemy, which is organizing the mood and practice of capitulation.
3) The new strategic line, based on the theses and beliefs that armed struggle, illegal means and methods of the party have lost their validity and that the colonial yoke cannot be overthrown in a revolutionary manner, that a struggle cannot be waged outside the boundaries drawn by denialist colonialism, is liquidationist and reformist.
4) The same thesis, based on the claim to transform colonialism and conquer the fortress from within, making it inherently reformist because it bypasses the economic core of the problem and reduces colonialism to the policies of the ruling national bourgeoisie or governments

5) Theses such as “real socialist influence,” “denial has been resolved since the Özal era,” and organizational-ideological “irrelevance and repetition” are expressions of the theorization of the reformist new strategy and line.
6) The thesis of “democratic socialism versus nation-state socialism” seeks to provide ideological ammunition for the reformist line, which is based on the idea that revolution is unnecessary. It detaches socialism from the reality of classes and has a reformist character based on the denial and rejection of the Union of Soviet Republics, which is the achievement of the October Revolution and is based on the full equality of nations.
7) Our party has no doubt about the subjective sincerity of the PKK Congress’s statements, according to which the national democratic forces, which are to be organized on a legal, peaceful basis, are to be mobilized for a determined political struggle. Our party, which holds the position that popular dynamics will develop on a legal, practical, and legitimate basis, maintains its stance of alliance with the new structure based on national democratic and general democratic rights and freedoms, and will act accordingly.
8) It is the current task of the revolutionary and anti-chauvinist anti-fascist parties and groups in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan to expand the struggle to stop the colonialist peace process and prevent the fascist regime from exploiting the situation to strengthen itself, by demanding a just and democratic Turkish-Kurdish national peace. In this context, we call on the revolutionary and anti-chauvinist anti-fascist parties and groups, as well as the workers, women, youth, poor, laborers, LGBTI+, artists, and intellectuals of the Kurdish and Turkish peoples, the Arab, Circassian, Armenian, Greek, Bosniak, Pomak, Assyrian, Chaldean, Albanian, Romani, Laz, Georgian, and Azerbaijani national communities, the Alevi and Yazidi religious communities, to join us in calling for the official recognition of the existence of the Kurdish nation and the right to mother tongue education, the release of Abdullah Öcalan and all prisoners of war, revolutionary, anti-fascist political prisoners, the declaration of an unconditional ceasefire, the repeal of the fascist anti-terror law, the dissolution of fascist colonialist dirty war organizations such as Jitem, the special forces, and the village guards; the disclosure of the graves of revolutionaries, patriots, and democrats who were disappeared by the fascist state forces, and an immediate end to the occupations of Rojava and Bashûr.
9) There is no other path for the liberation of the working class and the oppressed, for the freedom of women, for the equality of peoples than revolution! As long as the monopoly of arms and violence remains in the hands of states serving the imperialist and collaborating bourgeoisie, in the hands of colonialism and the patriarchal system, as long as the workers, women, the oppressed, and the poor are kept unarmed and condemned to fight with their bare fists against rifle barrels, tanks, and cannons, revolution is impossible. The goals of freedom, justice, and equality for women and peoples cannot be achieved through legal, peaceful means and forms, through parliamentary struggle. A socialist society can never be built in this way. This is the clear and final verdict of the last 150 years of struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie, between the oppressors and the oppressed, between the rich and the poor. Based on this truth, we call on the working class, the laborers, women, youth, the poor and oppressed people of Kurdistan and Turkey to support the struggle, waged by all means and forms, legal and illegal, peaceful and based on mass violence, armed and unarmed, to unite, organize, and fight in this direction.
May 18, 2025
MLKP Central Committee

The Dedicated Vanguard Fighters of the Anti-Colonialist, Antifascist Liberation Struggle are Immortal!
Year: 2025 |  N° 5
The 12th Congress of the PKK announced that Hewal Ali Haydar Kaytan and Hewal Rıza Altun, two of the main executive cadres of the national democratic movement, were martyred in the struggle against fascist denialist colonialism in the past years. We salute both national liberation vanguards, who were among the indomitable workers of the march from the ideological group in Ankara to the PKK, to the August 15, 1984 breakthrough, to the Bakur and Rojava revolutions, committed to their anti-colonialist, antifascist ideals.
They have made unforgettable contributions to the political, military, ideological and organizational fronts of the tooth and nail struggle against the denialist fascist colonialism backed by the US and NATO. They fought with full determination and spirit of sacrifice in the most difficult periods of the anti-colonialist, antifascist struggle. Under conditions of the coup of September 12; the ’90s, when the colonial dirty war was tried to be pushed to the limit; the period after the international conspiracy of February 15, 1999; the June 2004 period and the fascist colonialism’s war of will-breaking, collective and individual physical destruction after July 2015, they passed the test of loyalty to their political goals, martyrs and parties as upright vanguards. As militants and pioneering cadres dedicated to the Kurdish people’s right to national freedom and unity, for the freedom of Kurdistan, they fought for half a century and became immortal.
Hewal Ali Haydar Kaytan and hewal Rıza Altun’s goals and ideals of struggle against denialist colonialism and fascism; the revolutionary and national democratic values they contributed to create will be kept alive in the struggle for united revolution, the Union of People’s Republics and socialism. Their names and memories will be carried to new generations.

Ali Haydar Kaytan and Rıza Altun are Immortal!
Down with Fascist Denialist Colonialism!
Long Live the United Revolution! Long Live the Full Equality of Nations!
The Only Way is Revolution Long Live Socialism!
April 18, 2025
MLKP Central Committee

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On the dissolution of the PKK
Following Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society,” the 12th Congress of the PKK was convened. After 41 years of professional guerrilla warfare, the congress announced the abandonment of armed struggle and the end of the organization’s 47-year existence. The PKK’s decision to disband, end armed struggle, and lay down its weapons is no ordinary event. The PKK represents a military, political, ideological, and organizational reality that has left a deep mark on the history of Turkey, all of Kurdistan, and the region. Regardless of the immediate consequences of its decisions, this congress is a moment of rupture, a dramatic turning point of historical significance. The convening of the 12th PKK Congress and its decisions are now at the center of the political agenda in Turkey and throughout Kurdistan.
Background to the dissolution
The background to the initiative to lay down arms and dissolve the PKK by its leader Abdullah Öcalan is a years-long stalemate between the Kurdish freedom movement and the Turkish colonial state. Despite a self-sacrificing struggle, in the course of which the Kurdish freedom guerrillas innovatively transformed and revolutionized their combat tactics and working methods, transforming the actual form of guerrilla warfare from a mobile to a kind of positional warfare in South Kurdistan, neither our Kurdish people were able to fully achieve their national and democratic demands, nor was the state able to break the will of the PKK and the Kurdish people. A state of military equilibrium emerged, which since the 1990s has manifested itself in an unstable, shifting balance of power. In this state, both sides attempted to gain military advantages through alliances, weakening the other side, and improving their warfare techniques and capabilities.
Since 2015, however, with the state’s plan of annihilation, initiated by the Suruç massacre, the bombing of the Ankara train station, the bombing of the Medya Defense Zones, and the abrupt end of the Dolmabahçe negotiations, the Turkish colonial state openly escalated the counterrevolutionary colonial war with the aim of destroying the PKK, breaking the will of the guerrillas, liquidating the revolution in Rojava, and smashing the democratic organization of the national movement and the revolutionary movement as a whole. The initiative for the PKK to dissolve itself and change its forms of struggle now aims to create a new situation.
It is a theoretical truth that a strategic force that changes its position also causes other strategic forces to change their positions. Within the laws of political struggle and the dynamics of the balance of power between opposing political forces, this objective process is underway. The dissolution of the PKK and the liquidation of the armed struggle and guerrilla forces will inevitably force the Turkish bourgeois state to change its position as well.
Another key background for Öcalan’s call for self-dissolution, which the PKK describes as a “leadership initiative” and which is essentially a unilateral initiative, is the recent developments in the Middle East, which bring both new opportunities and risks for the peoples of the region. The changes in the region are increasingly preventing the Turkish colonial state from continuing its policy of aggression against Rojava. This is due, on the one hand, to Turkey’s loss of legitimacy and, on the other hand, to the growing political recognition of democratic self-administration in Northern and Eastern Syria. In view of positive developments for the Kurdish nation, attempts are being made to make certain concessions in order to preserve and expand achievements in Rojava.
The state’s reaction
The 12th Congress of the PKK is characterized by a willingness to accept the state’s preconditions, even though this process does not include any security guarantees. For example, visits to the prison island of Imrali after years of absolute isolation of Abdullah Öcalan do not mean that this isolation has been lifted.
The decision of the 12th Congress to dissolve the PKK and end the armed struggle was greeted with jubilation among the ranks of Turkish colonialism. The ruling fascist alliance of the AKP and MHP under Erdoğan and Bahçeli congratulated each other as if they had achieved a historic victory. Özgür Özel and the bourgeois-democratic CHP also welcomed the development joining the slogan of a “Turkey without terror.” The racist-chauvinist splinter groups of the MHP, the İYİP and the Zafer Party, on the other hand, are taking on the role of representing the darkest ambitions of Turkish colonialism. They are positioning themselves as opponents of the process in order to profit politically from the remnants of the dirty war

What the Turkish colonial state is now planning, what agreements have been made, what commitments it has entered into, and what intentions it is pursuing remain unclear. The entire process is characterized by uncertainty. What is clear, however, is that the PKK is determined in its quest for reconciliation with the state and consistent in its commitments. The colonial state, on the other hand, appears contradictory and indecisive. There are signs of internal disagreements, differing political emphases, various tactical considerations, and party political calculations. However, it is indisputable that there will be no democratization of Turkey under the AKP and MHP government. These despicable fascists are hostile to the equality of nations.
The colonial arrogance of the ruling nation and, at the same time, the ruling class of Turkey is reflected in its state declarations, which suggest that the state has taken decisive action without compromise and that the PKK has capitulated. The Republic of Turkey has been a colonial state for 100 years, and before that it was the Ottoman Empire, a 700-year-old state that plundered large parts of the world. The Turkish bourgeoisie and its denialist, colonialist parties are deeply influenced by this tradition of domination. They are waging a moral war against our Kurdish people. In fact, the Kurdish national democratic movement led by the PKK is not giving up, and the state knows this.
The bourgeoisie claims a monopoly on violence and weapons in its states. It considers this monopoly legitimate and builds its ideological hegemony over the masses on this basis. At the same time, it denies its opponents the use of the same means. The Turkish bourgeoisie is no exception here. In all its political variations, it has maintained this monopoly on violence and responded with violence and ideological attacks to all forms of struggle. It has defamed every form of violent resistance with the demagogy of ‘anarchy’ and ‘terror’ and shaped social consciousness with the message that resistance against the state is futile and that those who dare to resist will be struck by the iron fist of the state. The state’s definition of a “Turkey without terror” will increasingly target revolutionary and communist forces in the future. It means a continuing series of organizational attempts at destruction and a further intensification of the fascist ideological siege.
The consequences of self-dissolution
While the bourgeois states of the world and the region are arming themselves to prepare for the growing possibility of a new world war, the disarmament of the Kurdish national liberation movement weighs all the more heavily. There is no question that the end of the armed struggle, the laying down of arms, the dissolution of the PKK, the end of its illegal and clandestine struggle, and its integration into the ruling system represent a liquidation of revolutionary reality and revolutionary content. This liquidationist-reformist transformation did not happen suddenly, but has a long history with various stages.
The liquidationist character of this process is not limited to the dissolution of revolutionary organizations and methods of struggle. It unleashes more profound liquidationist dynamics. The longer this restructuring process of the PKK continues, the more likely ideological, political, and organizational disintegration will occur.
This process thus gives momentum to limited legal revolutionism. The strategy of solving the Kurdish question “without weapons,” “on the basis of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey,” and “within the framework of legality” is being used as an opportunity to deepen legalism and parliamentarism. This gives impetus not only to the liquidationism of bourgeois forces, but also to reformist, legalistic, opportunistic, and social-chauvinist forces of the working-class left. It follows that the ideological terrain of the class struggle will intensify at this historical stage. Revolutionary communist forces must wage this ideological struggle with clear consciousness.
This moment of historical rupture is a new test for revolutionary forces that advocate armed, effective struggle against the colonialist-fascist regime. They must prepare themselves for the liquidationist fire from both sides, strengthen their ideological arsenal, and expand the ground of ideological struggle and propaganda against both the reformist-parliamentary line and chauvinist, social-chauvinist, and nationalist tendencies, and prove with all their might the necessity, legitimacy, and possibility of revolutionary struggle

At the same time, however, it is important that the Kurdish national democratic movement focuses on restructuring, not dissolution, and emphasizes the continuation of the struggle on the ground it has defined. It is not only a question of respect for this truth, but also a question of revolutionary strategy not to ignore this aspect of development. The PKK remains committed to the continuation of the struggle. It is determined to reconcile with the state and at the same time strives for caution and prudence, because it knows Turkish colonialism and its fascist state very well.
Tasks of the revolution
Since the early 1990s, when the guerrilla war of 1984/85 merged with the popular uprisings (the Serhildans), our Kurdish people have raised the banner of revolution at the forefront and become the vanguard of the oppressed peoples in the region. While the fire of reaction blazed elsewhere, the fire of revolutionary struggle ignited in Kurdistan.
With the strategic reorientation of the PKK, which currently means not a solution to the Kurdish question but a transition to a different position of struggle, the struggle for the national democratic rights of the Kurdish nation, its right to self-government and the right to defend its national existence like any other nation, has lost none of its significance for the struggle for political freedom in Turkey. Demands such as the recognition of the Kurdish language as a second official language, the immediate release of Öcalan and all political prisoners, and the abolition of the anti-terror law must continue to be fought for. It is necessary to stand up for a just and democratic peace, to demand an end to the occupation in all parts of Kurdistan, to secure the political recognition of Rojava, to demand constitutional and legal guarantees of fundamental national rights, and to abolish the fascist anti-terrorism law. All of this is the ideological and political task of our time.
The anti-colonialist, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, women’s liberation, and democratic potential of the national democratic movement remains an integral part of the strategy of the united revolution in Turkey. It is not yet possible to say conclusively what concrete changes this strategic cooperation will undergo. Its fields may shift, but the strategic alliance between the Kurdish national democratic movement and the revolutionary movement based on practical legitimate struggle remains necessary and valid.
At the same time, this process opens up the possibility of weakening social chauvinism and promoting free thinking among Turkish workers and laborers by overcoming the conditions of war and the ideological colonial encirclement that have long held their consciousness captive. The anti-fascist mass uprising of March 19 and the youth movements could have a significant impact in this regard.
In accordance with our revolutionary program, the demands for independence, autonomy, and other national demands remain part of a complete solution to the Kurdish question. We defend the right to free association of two republics of two nations and are convinced that only in this way can the Kurdish question be resolved and true fraternity between peoples be created. For the entire region, we propose a federation of democratic and socialist people’s republics for the complete equality and freedom of all nations

.A thousand salutes to Nambala Keshav Rao and the 27 comrades!
Revolutionaries die, but the revolution continues!
Year: 2025 | N°|7
It is with deep pain and anger that we have learnt that 28 female and male people’s fighters, including Comrade Nambala Keshav Rao, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is waging a revolutionary struggle for people’s power against the fascist regime under Modi, the capitalist exploitative order and imperialism, as well as commanders and leading cadres of the State Committees and the CPYPC, were martyred on 21 May after 60 hours of resistance against tens of thousands of enemy forces.
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was well aware of the price it would pay and the dangers it would face when it declared its formation on 21 September 2004, in a struggle for the unity of revolutionary parties and groups opposing the 1990-91 liquidation wave. The martyrdom of its leading cadres, who have assumed crucial responsibilities since its foundation until today, its most important leading militants and many fighters, could not stop the CPI (Maoist). It organized the toiling rural population and the urban poor of India, mobilizing them for the struggle. It succeeded in winning the sympathy and support of broad and diverse sections of the masses, including intellectuals and artists. It thwarted the attacks of the Indian state that wanted to break its will and force it to surrender. In the 21st century, the CPI (Maoist) has been given the honour of being one of the parties that kept revolutionary hope alive on a world scale.
The massacre of 21 May is not independent of the plans of the world imperialist bourgeoisie to wipe out the world revolutionary forces, whose numbers are severely limited following the 1990-91 liquidation wave. Especially in the last two decades, intensive work has been done internationally to destroy communist and revolutionary parties that are determined to lead the political struggle through all forms of free organization and struggle, or to force them to abandon the armed struggle. This will intensify in the future. The workers, laborers, women, the poor, the youth, and the oppressed peoples are being rendered incapable of defending themselves and condemned to helplessness in the face of bourgeois states and fascist regimes armed to the teeth. The Indian working class, along with the urban and rural poor, will show through their organization and revolutionary struggle that this is a futile tendency. The CPI (Maoist) will succeed in healing the wounds of the 21 May massacre, no matter how severe they may be.
We salute Comrade Nambala Keshav Rao/Basavaraju, Nageshwar Rao (Madhu, Jung Naveen), Sangeetha, Bhumika, Vivek; Chandan (Mahesh), Guddu and Rame, Lalsu, Surya, Mase, Kamala, Nagesh, Rago, Rajesh, Ravi, Sunil, Sarita, Reshma, Raju, Jamuna, Geeta, Hungi, Sanki, Badru, Nilesh, and Sanju in commemoration of their revolutionary memory and ideals. We share the pain, anger, desire for accountability, and dreams of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the revolutionary, anti-fascist, and anti-imperialist sections of the peoples in India. We believe that the traitors who deserted from the units in the Mad forests, where the 28 were stationed, to save their miserable lives, and put themselves at the service of the fascist regime by showing them the way and the location, will be brought to justice sooner or later, but certainly.
We call upon revolutionaries from all parts of the world to organize commemorations and actions for the 28, to protest against the fascist Modi regime, to develop the skills and abilities to protect the revolutionary leadership’s legacy, and to form freely organized parties that engage in politics through all means and forms of struggle. We call on groups that are politically and ideologically aligned to fight for unity, and for all communist and revolutionary parties to work towards the establishment of a Revolutionary International, to develop the political struggle, and to exchange solidarity, experiences, knowledge, and opportunities.
Comrade Basavaraju and the 27 revolutionaries are immortal!
The martyrs live on, the CPI (Maoist) fights on!
The only way is revolution, long live socialism!
Long live revolutionary solidarity!
26 May 2025
MLKP Central Committee

Society’s confrontation with masculinity
The issue of women’s liberation must be a central component of any revolutionary strategy today. We refer to the 21st century as the century of women’s uprisings, and this assessment has proven true in many moments over the past few years. Probably the most groundbreaking example is the popular uprising in Iran, which began as a women’s uprising: women rebelling against their systematic oppression and fighting for fundamental change. It was triggered by the murder of the young Kurdish woman Jîna Amini by the fascist, political-Islamic mullah regime. The women who sparked the uprising recognized that patriarchal acts of violence are not isolated acts, not tragic accidents, and that they can only be stopped by eliminating their root cause, by overthrowing the entire system.
Such uprisings show that the women’s struggle has reached a revolutionary level. A women’s uprising can become the beginning of a revolutionary situation that encompasses the whole of society and can pose a real threat to the capitalist-patriarchal system. Women as political subjects have the potential to bring about such revolutionary upheavals. Their double oppression also gives them a double desire to liberate themselves. Gender consciousness is growing worldwide among women who are rising up against the injustice they face. However, we also see that none of the women’s uprisings have led to a successful revolution. There are certainly various reasons for this, which every revolutionary should analyze in detail. In this text, however, we focus on the problem that communist men do not sufficiently support the struggle for women’s liberation and thus consciously or unconsciously delegitimize the potential that lies in women as political subjects. We are convinced that men must also take active responsibility in the question of women’s liberation. This will be indispensable for the successful implementation of our revolutionary strategy. Social confrontation with masculinity plays an important role here and is a central method for male communists to contribute to the struggle for women’s liberation.
Why is social confrontation necessary?
The intensifying contradiction in which proletarian women are trapped under current conditions also holds the potential for revolutionary change. Women are exploited in two ways by the patriarchal-capitalist system, but they also have twice the destructive power because they strive to smash both systems of oppression. Liberation will take the form of a double revolution, since the proletarian and women’s revolutions can only succeed together. Today, this requires, first, the creation of a strategic alliance between proletarian women and men, and second, that we begin today to actively fight against the oppression of women. At the center of this struggle are women, who must be made political subjects and leaders in the struggle for their own liberation. However, the second part of the alliance, proletarian men, cannot simply rest on their laurels as passive supporters. They must actively challenge their own masculinity in order to weaken male dominance in society. They must be prepared to actively support women’s struggles without dominating them.
The handling of the Armenian genocide is an example from the history of the Turkish working-class left movement that illustrates how important it is for the oppressors, and in our context we also include proletarian men in this category, to side with the oppressed. The Armenian genocide is one of the greatest crimes committed by the Turkish fascist state. To this day, attempts are being made to erase this cruel chapter from history and prevent any memory of it. With this policy of denial, the state was successful for a long time, so that broad masses of the population, including more progressive sections, defended the denialist lies. A turning point came after the state assassination of the Armenian Hrant Dink, which triggered a huge wave of protests under the slogan “We are all Armenians.” This was also a form of social confrontation that ensured that the historical revisionism pursued by the state and supported by the masses to a certain extent was questioned and combated.
Similar recognition is necessary in gender relations. In today’s society, which is deeply permeated by a patriarchal mentality, women are blamed for the crimes committed against them, or these crimes are not recognized as such. In cases of rape, questions are asked about how the victim was dressed. In cases of domestic violence, people ask what the woman did to make her husband so angry. This pattern continues, and at the same time, patriarchal violence is becoming increasingly rampant. This is further exacerbated by various misogynistic agendas, such as the Year of the Family in Turkey. Men find it difficult to accept their role as perpetrators and oppressors. Men always try to find at least some of the blame in women, distrust them, and feel obliged to show solidarity with other men. Men must recognize and understand their role in the patriarchal-capitalist system. One has to accept reality in order to change it.
Why must communist men take responsibility?
Communist men must take on a special responsibility in the struggle for women’s liberation, not despite, but precisely because of their position within the existing power structure. As the most progressive part of their gender, they have a special role to play in not only criticizing patriarchal structures, but also actively overcoming them. Every communist man who claims to be part of a revolutionary movement must understand that as long as he does not question his own male dominance, he will slow down rather than advance the common struggle.
The struggle for the women’s revolution is inseparably linked to that for the proletarian revolution. For this reason, it is an inescapable task for communist men to make their practical contribution to the struggle for women’s liberation. It is not enough to educate oneself theoretically or merely reflect on one’s own behavior. Communist men must take the next step, become active, transform their thoughts into political practice, and bring other men along with them in this process. Only in this way can the necessary social confrontation with masculinity take place on a broad scale.
The connection between the struggle for women’s liberation and the working class ensures that the former cannot remain the sole task of women. It requires communist men who aspire to fundamentally change this society to take on tasks in this field of struggle. In concrete terms, this means that they must unlearn sexist behavior, critically question patriarchal spaces, and not tolerate sexist behaviour, but rather politicize and change them. They must not hide behind symbolic activism, but must actively oppose everyday male dominance. For male dominance is not only an attack on women, it also divides the revolutionary movement and weakens the class struggle. Just as Turkish social chauvinism is a central obstacle to solidarity between Turkish and Kurdish workers, male chauvinism also blocks the joint advancement of the working class. When communist men tolerate patriarchal behavior in their own circles, it not only reveals their own ideological weakness, but also weakens the struggle for the liberation of the working class.
Concrete work on social confrontation in Rojava
In Rojava, valuable experiences have already been gained by patriotic communists who have begun to confront their masculinity. In an area that is still very much influenced by feudal ways of thinking and traditions, this naturally poses an even greater challenge. However, Rojava is also the land of revolution and women’s revolution. In order to maintain the achievements already made and to further develop the revolution, confrontation with masculinity is inevitable.
Patriotic communists have begun to develop educational programs that address social masculinity, patriarchy, and gender roles. These programs make it clear, that masculinity is not natural, but rather a historically developed and consciously reproduced system that we communists of all genders must fight against. Male domination developed alongside the emergence of private property and continues to ensure that the relationship between men and women is no longer human, but rather like that between slave and master. Men do not see women as equal human beings, but as objects that they can possess and dispose of. As a result, men have also alienated themselves from their own masculinity.
This origin of today’s relationship between the sexes was addressed in the various training courses in Rojava. However, it is not just a matter of understanding history and theory, but of applying this knowledge in concrete ways to change one’s own life, one’s relationship to one’s own actions, and one’s relationship to women. The self-criticism rightly made by male communists and patriots in the programs must be followed by visible actions. Concrete methods for combating patriarchal behavior were also discussed. In particular, the issue of domestic violence and male violence in general was discussed in detail. The conclusion of these initial discussions was that confronting social masculinity and the results that will follow will be important cornerstones for consolidating the women’s revolution and all democratic achievements.

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