ANALYSIS | On the March Storm: "They Thought We Were Slaves to a Disgraceful Future ’* - for debate

 

‘The struggle for power between the Turkish ruling class cliques, which evolved into a new phase with 19 March, triggered the anger and reaction of the masses of the people against the conditions in which they live, which has been dominating the streets for days’

23 April 2025

*(A graffiti made in Izmir during the protests of the masses on 19 March 2025 and the following days)

[Explanation: This article is translated from the latest issue of the newspaper Özgür Gelecek, published on the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line in Turkey. The article analyses the recent political developments in Turkey.]
The cancellation of the diploma of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBBB), which he received 30 years ago, and then his detention on 19 March together with nearly a hundred other people and his arrest on 23 March on the grounds of ‘corruption’ and ‘terrorism’; while the power struggle between the Turkish ruling classes has hardened and evolved into a new stage, it has led to a dislocation of the balance in Turkish politics.
The shifting of the balance is important not only in terms of the long-standing power struggle between the ruling and opposition bourgeois ruling class cliques, but also in the sense that it broke the silence that had been observed for a long time after the Gezi Uprising of June 2013 due to the mass and militant demonstrations of the masses of the people, especially the student youth, in the squares and streets.
Before evaluating this process and especially the actions of the masses of the people, especially the student youth, let us make a point. In the second congress of the Party of the Proletariat, the evaluation of the ‘situation in Turkey’ was entitled ‘Turkey's Century: Preparing for the Storm’.

In this evaluation, let us state that the ‘thing’ conceptualised as the ‘Century of Turkey’ is a propaganda of the Turkish ruling classes about the second century of the Republic, while the reality conceptualised as the ‘storm’ is the resistance and actions of the masses of the people, which started on 19 March and lasted for days.

Regardless of the power struggle between the ruling class cliques centred in Istanbul; Despite the government's ban on all kinds of meetings and marches, the actions of the masses of the people, especially the student youth, who took over the streets, point to an important development. The actions of the popular youth, especially university students, contain dynamics that will determine the coming process in terms of mass mobilisation and learning from practice.

For this reason, it is important to evaluate this process, especially to emphasise the youth actions, in terms of the orientation of the revolutionary movement in the coming process. The main aim in the increasingly fierce power struggle of the two ruling class cliques is the preservation of bourgeois power and for this purpose, it is aimed to suppress the mass movement in terms of power; in terms of the opposition, it is aimed to file the non-order orientations of the mass movement and to back up behind its own political line and struggle for power. For the government and the opposition, the main goal is to keep the anger and reactions of the masses towards the conditions they live in within the order. For this reason, the struggle to direct the revolutionary and communist movement towards a mass movement independent of bourgeois politics by uniting with the actions and resistances of the masses is more important.

19 March, the importance of the resistance and actions of the masses and the dynamics that will determine the coming process is not independent from the situation in which the Turkish state and society is in. Although the current process emerged as a product of the power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques, the people of Turkey, by taking to the streets, participating in rallies, organising boycotts, showed their reaction against the fascist aggression against them, the usurpation of the right to vote and be elected, arbitrariness, anti-democratic practices, etc.

The resistance actions and democratic reactions of the masses are extremely important considering the situation in which the Turkish state is in, the developments in domestic and foreign policy, especially the economic crisis. The reason for this is that the AKP-MHP government, the representative of the ruling clique of the Turkish ruling classes, especially after 2015, propagated as ‘Turkey Century’, on the one hand, the fascist aggression against the working class and labouring people at home has continued to increase, and on the other hand, the invasion and annihilation attacks have taken place abroad. The masses have thrown off the dead soil on them for a long time and have taken to the streets by not recognising the prohibitions and restrictions. The people of Turkey showed their democratic reaction by opposing the fascist oppression imposed on them, anti-democratic practices, arbitrariness and the ‘I did it, it happened’ mentality, the trustee mentality that means interference in the right to vote and be elected, the usurpation of rights, etc. in actions that lasted for days.

This concrete development, the situation in which the society in Turkey and the ruling classes of the ruling classes among themselves; objecting to the conditions imposed on the broad masses of the people, and moreover in the coming process in terms of class struggle in Turkey in the conditions of the important dynamics is important because it contains. 19 March and the importance of the mass actions in the following days, Turkey should not be evaluated separately and independently from the situation in which society is in.

In this respect, it is necessary to remind here the following assessment in the study ‘Turkey's Century: Preparing for the Storm’, which we pointed out in the introduction of this article, should be recalled here: "While the state organisation, which is the power apparatus of the comprador bourgeoisie, was mainly reorganised according to the conditions required by the period for the class interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie and comprador capitalism and the “Presidential Government System” emerged as a product of this change; all the tools of the “Rebellion Suppression Strategy” against the people, revolutionary and communist movement continued to be used. While on one side of this strategy is the dismantling of the organisations of the working class and the people and the backing of the ruling clique; a process was organised in which even the bourgeois opposition that did not back the ruling clique was declared ‘terrorist’. In such a process, the spontaneous actions of the working class and the people with economic and democratic demands were suppressed with fascist aggression. The dosage of fascist aggression was increased in a line ranging from the Turkish state not obeying even the laws that exist on paper, to the arrest of deputies with constitutional immunity and the detention of the masses against the possibility of demonstrations. ‘This was not seen even on 12 September’ has become a sentence that sums up the period." (Communist, December 2024, issue 79, pp. 139-140)
Today, in the background of the process experienced on 19 March and afterwards, the AKP-MHP, the representative of the ruling clique of the Turkish ruling classes, consolidated its power under the leadership of R.T.Erdoğan, especially after the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. If it will be remembered, AKP leader R.T.Erdoğan, considering the 15 July 2016 coup attempt as ‘a blessing of God’, formed a coalition with the MHP and used it for the transition to a new system called ‘presidential system’ instead of the fascist dictatorship masked as a parliament. With the 16 April 2017 Referendum, the ‘presidential regime’ started to be implemented as of 9 July 2018. Since this date, the Turkish state, as a fascist dictatorship in the person of R.T.Erdoğan, has turned to fascist aggression against all kinds of opposition. It turned not only to non-establishment orientations, but also to the opposition within the order for the survival of the fascist dictatorship in the person of one man.

Undoubtedly, this ‘new regime’ meant the implementation of the interests of the imperialist capital of the Turkish ruling classes inside and outside and in this sense the ‘reproduction in the new process’ of the aggression against the working class and the labouring people, while at the same time targeting those who opposed the government for one reason or another in the opposition within the order. The fascist aggression against the revolutionary and progressive movement, especially the Kurdish national movement, continued with all methods.
The power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques was also shaped in accordance with this ‘new process’. With 19 March, ‘a process in which even the bourgeois opposition, which is not backed up by the ruling clique, is declared “terrorist”’ has been put into operation. The AKP-MHP government, which in the past pursued a policy of maintaining mass support by criminalising the fascist aggression against the revolutionary and communist movement, especially the Kurdish national movement, the revolutionary and communist movement, and every section and environment that opposed the order for one reason or another, with the mask of ‘terror’, has this time turned towards the bourgeois opposition and its prominent representative with the same discourse.

Power struggle of ruling class cliques

The process of 19 March cannot be evaluated separately from the power struggle of the two cliques of the Turkish ruling classes in power and opposition. This must be stated unequivocally. From the point of view of the ruling classes, there is no struggle for ‘democracy’. What is happening can be summarised as the preservation of state power by all means and methods from the point of view of the government, and the opposition's seizing power by backing up the support of the masses behind it.

It can be clearly observed with the historical process of the Turkish state that there will be no democracy for the people of Turkey from this fight. Historical experiences show us that when the popular movement organises its own process, independent of the ruling class cliques, it shows that it can achieve democratic gains to the extent that it raises the struggle for all kinds of rights, especially democratic rights. It shows that the ruling class clique, which was in opposition at the beginning, made certain concessions to the people's movement in order to seize power, and as it seized and established power, it tended to seize these rights. Those who had been apostles of democracy when they were in the opposition, became notorious fascists after they seized power.

From the foundation of the Turkish state to the present day, it is known that the ruling class cliques are divided into two main camps. The struggle between these two camps has also developed as the struggle for power of the two camps on the basis of the Republic. The development of this historical process is known through the power struggles of the cliques represented first in the CHP and then in the Democratic Party.

This struggle is the struggle between the representatives of the comprador bourgeoisie with the ‘Islamist’ discourse, which has expressed itself in the AKP since the 2000s, and the comprador bourgeoisie with the ‘Kemalist’ discourse, which has expressed itself in the CHP, to use the power apparatus for their own clique interests and for their clique to get the ‘lion's share’ of state tenders and rent sharing. The first years of the AKP passed with the discourse of ‘democracy’, but after establishing its power, it revealed its true face and pursued a policy of increasing fascist oppression and aggression. In this sense, the ‘political history’ of the AKP has followed a course in line with the political history of the Turkish ruling classes.
At the current stage, the reason for the intensification of the struggle of these two ruling class cliques and the activation of courts and prisons can be summarised as the strengthening of the mass support of the bourgeois opposition against the AKP-MHP government and the emergence of IBB President E.İmamoğlu as a strong rival in the next elections as a presidential candidate.
As it is known, in the local elections of 31 March 2024, the bourgeois main opposition party CHP increased its votes across Turkey to over 37 per cent and won by a landslide in 14 metropolitan cities where a significant part of Turkey's population lives, especially in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The AKP, which had been in power for years, had fallen to second place with 35 per cent. This meant that E.İmamoğlu emerged as a dangerous rival to R.T.Erdoğan who had to be eliminated. For the bourgeois clique represented in the AKP-MHP, this meant that there was a risk of jeopardising the opportunities of power, tenders and rent sharing, and the risk of losing power to the rival bourgeois clique represented in the CHP. As a matter of fact, R.T.Erdoğan is known to have said "If we lose Istanbul, we will lose Turkey ’. (A.Selvi, Hürriyet, 26 September 2017)

For this reason, after the local elections of 31 March 2024, it was clear that the whole target of R.T.Erdoğan and the AKP-MHP fascist power would be the CHP, the representative of the rival bourgeois ruling class clique, and the prominent figure of this opposition, IMM President E.İmamoğlu. As a matter of fact, after the local elections, the AKP-MHP government, in the words of President R.T.Erdogan himself, said that ‘the biggest of the horseradish is in the saddlebag’ and by using all the means of state power, especially the judiciary, lawsuits were opened against E.Imamoğlu, then his 30-year diploma was cancelled and immediately afterwards he was arrested on the grounds of ‘corruption’ and ‘aiding terrorism’.

‘Corruption’, which is put forward as a reason for arrest, is an argument used to get the support of the international public opinion and imperialists, and “terror” is an argument used to get the support of the masses at home. Undoubtedly, we are not going to vouch for E.İmamoğlu and his team on the issue of corruption. In fact, it is the nature of the business to be involved in such practices due to their class interests. However, considering that IBB has been under the control of the AKP-MHP government for years due to the clique struggle, and taking into account that E.İmamoğlu and his team are themselves representatives of the same class, it is unlikely that he can give this kind of ‘deficit’ against the government, at least without seizing political power. However, as we have stated, the bourgeois world and the private property regime is essentially a world built on corruption, exploitation and extortion.

It is against the nature of things that E.İmamoğlu and his team are independent of this. What we are trying to express is that in the power struggle between the two cliques, the collapse of Istanbul's rent is decisive and it is precisely this fact that E.İmamoğlu will be the first target in the clique struggle. Therefore, as an ‘experienced bourgeois politician’, if E.İmamoğlu has committed any corruption, he has done it ‘according to the rules’ of the bourgeois order. Therefore, trying to draw an accusation from this is actually a risky move for the AKP-MHP power.

The most important thing is that E.İmamoğlu was accused of aiding ‘terrorism’ but was not arrested on this ground. Undoubtedly, the ‘non-process process’ carried out by the AKP-MHP fascism with the Kurdish national movement is effective in this ‘terror’. On the one hand, while conducting a ‘solution’ and ‘peace’ process with the Kurdish movement, on the other hand, targeting the ‘Urban Consensus’ implemented by the Kurdish democratic movement to take part in the municipal administrations in the ‘west’ can only be explained by a fascist aggression, but the fact that the AKP-MHP government appointed trustees to the Esenyurt and Şişli Municipalities for this reason, but did not arrest E.İmamoğlu for ‘terrorism’ points to another contradiction and moreover ‘bargain’.

Although this judicial decision, which makes the bourgeois law do a somersault, can be explained by ‘fascism’, the arrest of E.İmamoğlu on the allegation of corruption points to the reaction of the masses on the one hand (which is precisely why the government could not appoint a trustee to IBB) and on the other hand to the ‘bargaining option’ in the dispute of the two ruling class cliques over this ‘judicial’ decision.

In any case, the arrest of E.İmamoğlu for ‘terrorism’ proves the rottenness of the judiciary, which is the routine tool of fascism against progressives and revolutionaries, and that it is used as a rusty weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie. It shows that what is called ‘judicial independence’ is in reality a propaganda to manipulate the masses.

In the power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques, the judiciary and law enforcement forces are not used for the first time. The history of the Turkish state is full of examples of liquidating, murdering and imprisoning prominent representatives of rival bourgeois cliques through the judiciary and law enforcement. The liquidation of the founder of the Turkish state, M. Kemal, against the Unionists, who were his ‘fellow travellers’, can be given as first-hand and early examples.

In this sense, there have been countless examples of this kind in a century of bourgeois politics. However, at the current stage, it can be said that the fact that such a step has been taken ‘like a finger in the eye of a blind man’ has been influenced, on the one hand, by the decline in the mass support of the clique represented by R.T.Erdoğan and AKP-MHP and the risk of losing power, and on the other hand, by the developments in the international arena.

Mass actions have surpassed the bourgeois opposition!
R.T.Erdogan has turned towards liquidating E.Imamoglu, who has emerged as his strongest rival within the bourgeois order and who, moreover, defeated him in the elections, as in the Istanbul municipal elections, by imprisoning him. Apart from the truth or falsity of the ‘corruption’ allegations of the government (which is the decisive goal for both cliques to collapse the rent of Istanbul, in this sense, it is possible for E.İmamoğlu to pursue the interests of his clique), even in the bourgeois sense, the right to vote and be elected, the ballot box and elections have been de facto abolished. This is contrary to the legitimisation of the bourgeois order in the eyes of the masses and the production of consent. In this sense, this is a ‘coup’ against the functioning of the bourgeois order itself.
CHP showed its usual traditional opposition reflex to this development, which it would later define as a ‘coup d'état’. İmamoğlu's diploma cancellation and the possibility of his arrest; ‘Since this process is a move to prevent İmamoğlu's presidential candidacy, criminal complaints will be filed against anyone who interferes in the democratic electoral process by participating in this unlawfulness, for the crime of “attempting to abolish the Constitution” as well as the crime of abuse of office.’ (From CHP MYK Meeting, 18 March, ANKA)

As a matter of fact, the CHP's first reaction to the diploma cancellation and arrest attack was in this direction. The first statements of the CHP leader and spokespersons were ‘going to the Constitutional Court’ and ‘taking the process to the judiciary’. CHP leader Ö.Özel, on the morning of 19 March, when E.İmamoğlu was taken into custody;‘This decision will return from the higher court, come to the polls on Sunday, only early elections will save the country “, while the student youth in Istanbul broke down the police barricade put in front of them on the same day and in the ongoing clique fight between the ruling class cliques, ”election, ballot box, court’ etc. changed the whole equation. This is exactly what the AKP-MHP government and the CHP did not take into account.
This move of the AKP-MHP fascist government was met with the resistance and actions of the masses, especially the student youth. After the detention of E.İmamoğlu, the candidate of the bourgeois opposition, the protests started by the students of Istanbul University and then spread to other universities, especially METU, and the student youth took to the streets en masse, also affected the bourgeois opposition, especially the CHP.
Especially the Istanbul University students' breaking open the police barricade in front of them and marching massively to Saraçhane destroyed the CHP's usual traditional politics of limiting the anger and reactions of the masses against the existing order and massing them into the ballot box and the order against the attack of arrest and appointment of trustees to IBB. The slogans of the masses ‘Salvation is not in the ballot box, but in the street’, ‘We have come to action, not to rally’, ‘Özgür take us to Taksim’ shook the CHP's traditional bourgeois opposition, its line of keeping the anger and reactions of the masses against the system within the order. The CHP had to resort to leftist discourses more frequently in order to keep the protests of the masses under control.

In the face of the actions, anger and reaction of the masses, which exceeded its own bourgeois opposition, the CHP organised a rally with the participation of millions of people in Istanbul Maltepe, after mass rallies in Istanbul Saraçhane, where the IMM administration building is located. In the meantime, university students' protests continued en masse and a campaign to boycott classes was organised.
Around 2 thousand people were detained and 316 people were arrested during the protests that started on 19 March and continued in the following days. Since there was no more space in prisons, ‘house arrest’ was started to be applied instead of arrest. It is not disclosed how many people were imprisoned under ‘probation’ and ‘house arrest’. A complete fascist terror was put into effect against the masses of the people, especially the student youth.
In this process, penal sanctions were imposed on TV channels close to the bourgeois opposition. The opposition press, especially the revolutionary-progressive press, and social media accounts opposing the government were closed. Law enforcement forces under the control of the government, especially the police, increased fascist aggression against the protests of the masses of the people.
Troll accounts under the control of the Directorate of Communications and the media under the control of the government made an intense effort to criminalise the actions of the masses. In order to empty the content of the mass protests and deflect the target, organisations such as the Zafer Party or the IBDA-C, which are direct extensions of the counter-guerrilla organisation, were put on the field. At this point, the words of the imam who threatened the opposition in his Friday sermon to inflict a massacre similar to the massacre of Alevis in Syria on those who took to the streets in Turkey can be given as an example. In short, in this process, ‘all the tools of the strategy of suppressing the uprising’ mentioned in the above quotation were used.
However, despite all the efforts of the AKP-MHP government, the revolt of the masses could not be suppressed. Undoubtedly, the resistance of the CHP, which was now forced by the attacks of the AKP-MHP fascist government and the resistance of the masses that did not leave the streets were effective in this. However, the participation of the popular youth, especially the student youth, was decisive in the beginning and continuation of the mass movement. For this reason, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on the struggle of the people's youth, especially the student youth, in the ‘March Storm’ of 19 March and its aftermath.

The role of youth in the ‘March Storm’
However, before proceeding to this, it would be useful to provide a general information on the situation of youth in Turkish society. In the assessment of the situation of youth in today's Turkish society, ‘Turkey's Century: Preparing for the Storm’, under the title “The Struggle of Youth in the Grip of Poverty, Insecurity and Futurelessness”, the following information is given "According to the results of the Address Based Population Registration System (ABPRS), the total population of Turkey as of the end of 2023 is 85 million 372 thousand 377 people, while the youth population in the 15-24 age group is 12 million 872 thousand 39 people. While the youth population constitutes 15.1 per cent of the total population, 51.3 per cent of the youth population is male and 48.7 per cent is female. Among the young population, the number of students enrolled in secondary schools is 5.5 million and the number of students enrolled in high schools is 6.7 million. Approximately 7 million people among the young population are enrolled in a higher education institution (agy, p. 164).
As can be seen, the number of people who can be defined as youth in Turkey's population is approximately 13 million. This young population was born and grew up under the AKP governments. The student youth mass, which constitutes a significant part of the youth mass that takes to the streets, has been subjected to the ideological shaping of the government during the period of AKP governments, starting with the family, education and the media.
During the period of AKP governments, a systematic effort was made to prevent the youth from rebelling against the conditions in which they live and the life and work style imposed on them, and to prevent them from taking a revolutionary orientation. For example, the Higher Education Institution (YÖK), which was planned and established as a barrier to the politicisation of university youth, has continued to exist. A special effort was made to keep all the youth, especially the university youth, within the system; the youth was shaped by Islamist, fascist propaganda and tried to be backed up to the order. As a matter of fact, it is known that for this very purpose, R.T.Erdoğan has been working towards the goal of ‘religious and vindictive youth’, which he expressed as ‘I want a youth who is a plaintiff of their religion, language, brain, knowledge, rape, home, hatred and heart’.

Despite this clear and unambiguous goal of the government, at the current stage, it is observed that a significant portion of the youth masses are more than being a ‘religious’ youth, they are objecting to the conditions imposed on them. As a matter of fact, according to the study titled ‘Social Values and Youth on the Threshold of the Second Century’ conducted by Konda Research Company in 2024 among young people between the ages of 15-29, 44 per cent of young people define themselves as ‘Atatürkist’ and 38 per cent as ‘Nationalist’. According to the study, while conservatism and religious identity are weakening, the idea of ‘nation’ is seen as a stronger area of belonging. This orientation is considered to be the result of the search for a strong identity combined with the loneliness brought about by the pandemic and the distrust of the state for a long time. (Source: ‘Social Values and Youth on the Threshold of the Second Century’)
As can be seen from the results of the research, while the masses of youth react to the conditions in which they live, they again turn to other reactionary ideologies within the system as a solution. Undoubtedly, the policies implemented by the Turkish state for years have an impact on the emergence of this picture.
Along with this objective reality, the weakness of the revolutionary and communist movement and its inability to create an independent and revolutionary mass movement in this sense is decisive in the emergence of this picture. Due to this deficiency, the reactions of the youth masses to the established order are again directed towards reactionary ideologies within the order. This situation can be easily observed in the slogans chanted and banners carried by the masses of youth who took to the streets and took part in street protests on 19 March and afterwards.
On the other hand, there are also forces within this mass which fascism directly organises, directs and manages. These forces have endeavoured to divert the actions of the masses of the people from their target under all circumstances when the mass movement has turned towards power. They have carried out actions, especially provocative practices against the Kurdish nation and its national symbols, including physical attacks against revolutionary and progressive forces, women and LGBTI + people. However, it should be stated that the masses who took to the streets, especially the university youth, took to the streets against the conditions they were forced to live in, anti-democratic practices, fascist oppression and power. Undoubtedly, a part of this mass is close to the left and the revolutionary movement.
During the 19 March demonstrations, it should not be considered as a coincidence that it was the popular youth, especially the student youth, who took to the streets. The reason for this fact can be summarised as the current situation of the popular youth, especially the student youth. The reason why the people's youth were at the forefront of the 19 March demonstrations can be explained by the conditions the youth were forced to live in and their anxiety for the future: "The change and transformation of Turkish society over the last quarter of a century has directly affected and continues to affect the young population. Especially the increase in poverty in parallel with the deepening of semi-colonial conditions directly affects the youth. A significant part of the youth cannot find a job after the education process or do not work in the field in which they received their education. This situation points to a lack of future for the youth. On the other hand, the need of comprador capitalism dependent on imperialist capital for unskilled and cheap labour is met by the young population. ‘ (agy, p. 164)

he reasons stated in the above evaluation explain the intensive participation of the popular youth, especially the student youth, in the demonstrations on 19 March and the following days. The reason for the orientation of the movement forcing the barricades under the leadership of the youth masses is the situation the youth masses are in. A significant part of the popular youth, especially the student youth, is experiencing ‘anxiety about the future’. For this very reason, the participation of the youth in the ‘March Storm’ was intense and the process went beyond the arrest of E.İmamoğlu and the power struggle of the two ruling class cliques and turned into the rebellion and reaction of the youth to the order.
Precisely because of this reality, the power struggle of the two ruling class cliques went beyond the struggle of the two cliques with the masses taking to the streets, and the movement turned towards the situation of the masses in general and the practices of the AKP-MHP government in particular.
If it were up to the main opposition party CHP, the line of ‘His Majesty's opposition’, which rejects the streets in the familiar dilemma of elections and ballot boxes, would have been maintained, but the mass protests of the masses were triggered by the university students breaking through the police barricade erected in front of them and taking to the streets en masse, and the CHP shifted to the ‘left’, albeit in rhetoric, in order to control the protests of these masses and keep them within the order and back up its own clique struggle.
As a matter of fact, the ‘Imamoğlu Protests Participant Analysis’ report of the Institute for Community Studies reveals that 94.2 per cent of the protesters who participated in the ‘March Storm’ were young people under the age of 35. The report states that 60.6 per cent of the young people who participated in the protests expressed reasons such as ‘concern for the future’, 52.9 per cent ‘anti-democratic practices’ and 31.7 per cent ‘the political system not responding to demands’. These data of the Institute for Community Studies prove that those who filled the streets on 19 March and afterwards reacted not only to a court decision but also to the accumulation of chronic problems that oppress the youth. [Source: From the field study published by the Institute for Community Studies under the title ‘Participatory Analysis of İmamoğlu Protests (Ankara Example)’. www.toplum.org.tr/imamoglu-protestolari-katilimci-analizi-ankara-ornegi/ ]

In the protests of 19 March and its aftermath, it is necessary to point out the role and actions of the student youth, especially the university youth. On 19 March, the conditions imposed on the youth have a direct impact on the background of the mass action that first took to the streets and broke through the police barricade and thus turned into a mass action that transcended the power struggle between the two ruling class cliques: "The economic crisis directly affects university youth. In addition to the privatisation of education, privatisation of university education, high tuition fees, university youth are experiencing significant difficulties in meeting their vital needs, including housing, nutrition and transportation problems. In addition, fascism's direct oppression of student youth through institutions such as law enforcement and sects, the anti-scientific and anti-people content of education, etc. aim to prevent the revolutionary dynamism of the youth. In this picture, it is a luxury for university youth to fulfil their cultural and artistic needs. ‘ (agy, p. 164)
Due to all these conditions, the popular youth, especially the student youth, actively participated in the ‘March Storm’. This situation explains the reason for the rebellion of the youth who took to the fields, filled the squares and forced the police barricades on 19 March and afterwards. And of course, it also shows that ‘the issue isnotonly a matter of Imamoğlu's arrest’. The power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques and the developments that took place on 19 March triggered the revolt of the youth masses against the conditions imposed on them, injustice, injustice and lack of future.
The movement has occasionally engaged in discourse and practice criticising the CHP and the line it pursues against the CHP's backing behind its policies. For example, the effort to channel the student youth's anger and reaction against the system into the rallies held in Saraçhane led the youth to organise alternative gatherings such as Beşiktaş.

The youth movement's active participation in the protests of 19 March and even its de facto paving the way for the process by breaking through the police barricade in Beyazıt did not come out of nowhere. At this point, the fact that the masses of the people in general did not take to the streets ‘after Gezi’ and did not develop a de facto objection against fascist oppression and anti-democratic practices has been interpreted in some evaluations as the silence of the popular youth, especially the university youth. This view is radically wrong. Because the youth movement, especially the university students, was in a certain process of mobilisation against the conditions imposed on them, lack of future, vital problems such as housing, nutrition, etc: "The youth masses are in a certain reaction against the working, living and educational conditions imposed on them. Young workers have a certain influence on the actual legitimate actions of the working class. The student youth, on the other hand, have a certain discontent against the fascist and reactionary education imposed on them. Especially the university youth sometimes organise mass protests against the problems of housing and transport. The mass actions against the lift murders in the dormitories, which are used as barracks under the name of solving the housing problem of the student youth, are the expression of this reaction. ‘ (agy, p. 164)
Although the first reason why the actions of the masses, especially the youth of the people, remained within the order and could not force the government is the failure to create an independent revolutionary mass movement, it should also be stated that the anger and reactions of the masses towards the conditions they are in are pacified and kept within the order by addressing ‘elections and ballot boxes’ through the opposition party itself, by saying that ‘the streets are useful for the government’. As a matter of fact, the masses have clearly expressed this fact with the banners and placards they threw during the protests with the content ‘We came to action, not to rally’ and ‘Salvation is on the street, not in the ballot box’.
On the other hand, not only the student youth participated in the demonstrations held on 19 March and in the process that followed. There was also the participation of working youth, various urban classes and strata and women, who have become increasingly impoverished due to the economic policies implemented by the AKP-MHP government. As a matter of fact, the following evaluation based on the court documents of those arrested during the protests in Istanbul points to this fact: "Mostly “student” is written in the occupation section of the arrest warrant in Istanbul. Their dates of birth are 2000 and later. However, in addition to students, at least half of those arrested are people from different occupational groups. In particular, white-collar as well as blue-collar workers attract attention. There is also a significant number of women among them. The occupations of the activists in the 10 separate arrest warrants issued in Istanbul are as follows: Computer engineer, financial expert, scrap dealer, tradesman, technician, tattoo artist, coach, baker, fisherman, health sector manager, folk music artist, translator, pharmacist, hairdresser, musician, waiter, banker, cook, nurse, accountant, headman, business person, model, trader, lawyer, customer service representative, urban planner, search and rescue trainer, sales consultant, sales manager, doctor, market research analyst, courier, union expert, business analyst, financial budget reporter. " (from Alican Uludağ's X account)

As it can be seen, although the majority of the participants in the ‘March Storm’ were student youth, ‘at least half’ of those who took part in the mass movement consisted of working class and petty bourgeoisie people who were employed in different professions and lived off their labour. The participation of women in the demonstrations is also important. Moreover, the sexual torture of detained and arrested women in prisons under the name of strip searches is neither a singular ‘case of abuse’ nor an ‘illegal practice’. This is the most organised form of political terror in which the Turkish state turns the women's body into a battlefield and shows the state's special policy towards women. The aim of this and similar practices is to break the women's body as an instrument of obedience. And the aim is to erase women from the political arena.
However, the fact that the streets were not abandoned despite all this means that the youth and masses of the people, especially the student youth, are rebelling against the situation they are in and, moreover, that they refuse to be ‘slaves of a disgraceful future’ promised to them.
What the ‘March Storm’ teaches
The power struggle between the Turkish ruling class cliques, which evolved into a new stage with 19 March, triggered the protests of the masses of the people's anger and reaction to the conditions they were in, which had been dominating the streets for days. The masses, especially the student youth, did not recognise the ‘demonstration, march and action’ bans of fascism and rebelled against the situation they were in.
The instrumentalisation of this movement by the CHP, the representative of the bourgeois opposition, in terms of the power struggle of its clique and its efforts to gradually withdraw into an in-order channel under its control could not obscure the out-of-order orientation of the movement and the revolutionary nature of the demands of the masses. The CHP is doing its duty as a party of the order.
The problem is that an independent mass movement that can prevent the anger of the masses against the order from following the bourgeois opposition, especially the CHP, and moreover, that can prevent the anger and reactions of the masses of the people from being backed up behind the power struggle of the two cliques of the ruling classes, and that the revolutionary line, which is the power that can organise it, has not been created.
19 March and the ‘March Storm’ of the masses of the people in the following days have shown that the actions of the broad masses of the people have overtaken the revolutionary movement and the communist movement.
This objective reality is something that the revolutionary and communist movement can never accept. To lag behind the mass movement is contrary to the revolutionary and communist movement's own claim to existence. In this sense, in order to bring the ‘March Storm’ of the masses together with the redness of May, it is necessary to act more strongly, to take part in the masses despite all the inadequacies and shortcomings, and to intervene in a way to respond to their demands and actions.

Kaynak: https://ozgurgelecek55.net/analiz-mart-firtinasi-uzerine-bizi-rezil-bir-gelecegin-kolesi-sandilar/