Commemoration of the 53rd Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Ibrahim Kaypakkaya
This Sunday, May 17, a commemoration was held in Paris for the communist leader Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, founder of the TKP/ML (Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist) and initiator of the People’s War in Turkey.
More than 60 people gathered at the Dersim Cultural Center for the event. Several days beforehand, activists from the Communist Youth of Aubervilliers painted graffiti bearing slogans such as: “Steel will never forget the water that tempered it! Ibrahim Kaypakkaya: present!” and “Comrade Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, the struggle will continue!”
The event, co-organized with the comrades of Partizan, began with a minute of silence in tribute to all those who gave their lives in the revolution in Turkey.
The Communist Youth then took the floor and declared:
“We are participating today in this screening in the purest proletarian spirit. As young revolutionary militants struggling within an imperialist center, we believe that upholding proletarian internationalism is a central task of our struggle […] Ibrahim Kaypakkaya brilliantly overcame the dispersion of communist forces and reconstituted the Communist Party of Turkey, the TKP/ML, initiating the People’s War 54 years ago. By launching the People’s War, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, who had embraced Maoism, lit a flame that still burns in Turkey today and represents the hope of the broad proletarian and peasant masses.”
The comrade continued:
“So, 53 years later, things have not changed. The memory of Ibo cannot be broken. We who struggle in France for Socialist Revolution must learn from him and take him as an example: he who reconstituted his Party, initiated armed struggle, never betrayed even a single secret under torture in prison, and who at only 24 years old gave his life for the World Proletarian Revolution and for human emancipation.
We are proud to pay tribute to Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, a figure of the Marxism of our era. We are proud to struggle shoulder to shoulder with our comrades from Turkey.
We know that despite difficulties, nothing is impossible for those who dare to storm the heavens and never lower the red flag.”
After the Communist Youth statement, the Anti-Imperialist League also spoke, emphasizing:
“Before us stand two paths:
The first is the path taken by opportunist and capitulationist forces, betraying the dreams and aspirations of liberation and emancipation of the masses. It is the path of deeper integration into the old reactionary states, the abandonment of People’s War and of every revolutionary aspiration. These carpet merchants fear our era because they have less and less room to maintain their positions, their armed reformism, or their false national liberation.
The other path is the one traced by Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, the one taken by communists around the world following the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao Zedong. People’s War is a torch in the night, the hope toward which eyes turn, and difficulties are not signs of defeat for this strategy: they are the inevitable obstacles that the masses and the proletarian Party overcome and transform in order to spend ‘15, 20, 50 years of civil war not only to change existing conditions but to change themselves and make themselves fit for political rule’ (Marx).
It is the path of the People’s Wars in Peru, India, Turkey, the Philippines, and everywhere they are preparing to overturn the old world!
Let us look at what is new and being born: the anti-imperialist unity of the World Congress of the AIL!
Let us celebrate this victory as it should be celebrated, by developing our activity within new struggles, by raising our flag high on every continent and wherever peoples rise up against imperialism. Our flag is that of the red partisans! It will never be the white flag of capitulation!”
A representative of the Dersim Cultural Center also spoke, stressing the importance of youth in carrying forward the red flag of revolution and continuing the struggle despite all difficulties.
After these speeches, a comrade from Partizan gave a presentation on the ideological importance of Ibrahim Kaypakkaya.
The presentation was organized around several points. First, a historical contextualization explaining the founding of the Turkish Republic on the basis of Kemalism, described as a fascist ideology disguised as progressivism by the comprador bourgeoisie.
This was followed by a discussion of the 1960s and the emergence of different revolutionary currents and the debates that divided them, chiefly between supporters of the New Democratic Revolution and those defending an “immediate” socialist revolution.
The third part focused on Ibo’s life and his struggle to expose revisionism, especially “left” revisionism, his fight against opportunism, and his efforts to build a new-type Party based on the alliance between the working class and the peasantry within the framework of a prolonged People’s War.
Emphasis was placed on the importance of Ibrahim Kaypakkaya’s theoretical contributions, but also on his practical struggle, taking part in the student movement, workers’ strikes, and peasant struggles that shook Turkey during that period.
Finally, the last section focused on the rupture of 1972, when the TKP/ML was founded and the People’s War initiated.
Ibo’s conclusions that led to the founding of the TKP/ML were presented point by point:
- Revolution will come neither through elections nor parliamentary means, but through direct confrontation with the State.
- Isolated urban uprisings are easy to crush; therefore, struggle must rely on the peasantry and develop in the countryside.
- Legal and parliamentary politics are not enough; the revolutionary movement must build a clandestine and disciplined organization.
- The repression of the workers’ movement reveals the class nature of the State and shows that the army stands with the ruling classes.
- The true revolutionary force lies in the working class and the laboring people, not in “progressive officers” or military juntas.
- Revolution will not be made by small groups of intellectuals, but by the organized popular masses.
The final point of the presentation focused on Ibrahim Kaypakkaya’s theoretical contributions:
- The analysis of Kemalism as a form of fascism.
- The critique of the “focoist” current, which claimed that a small armed nucleus of revolutionaries could launch a guerrilla struggle leading to the seizure of power without building a Party, an army, and a united front of mass organizations. Ibo stressed here that “the gun must always be commanded by politics and never the reverse.”
- The Kurdish question was also addressed, highlighting the line defended by Ibo: support for the just struggle of the Kurdish people for their right to self-determination.
- The application of the universal strategy of People’s War to the conditions of Turkey, namely a revolution based primarily on rural guerrilla warfare rooted in the alliance between the peasantry and the working class.
After the presentation, the film Guerrilla, Four Seasons was screened.
This documentary, filmed in Dersim in 2014, follows a guerrilla unit of TIKKO.
It shows the integration of a new fighter into the unit and the difficult transformation this entails: learning to handle weapons, hide, walk in the mountains, make smokeless fires, while also developing cultural activities and political education, strengthening ties with the masses, and of course fighting the enemy.
After the screening, the audience listened to the song “Heval” by Awazé Çiya.
Participants then stood up and sang The Internationale in tribute to the heroes of the proletariat who fell in the People’s War.
A word was also spoken in memory of Comrade Ahmet, who had lived and struggled in Paris before returning to Turkey to participate in the revolution, where he was immortalized.
A comrade concluded the tribute by recalling the necessity of upholding proletarian internationalism, developing and strengthening solidarity with ongoing People’s Wars, particularly in India. It was also emphasized that the best support we can provide in France is to carry out Socialist Revolution in our own country as part of the World Proletarian Revolution.
Finally, it was recalled that despite all the splits, betrayals, and capitulations, the TKP/ML remains standing and firmly persists on the line of People’s War and the Marxism of our era, and that this persistence must be a source of inspiration for every revolutionary throughout the world.
Source information: https://www.causedupeuple.net/2026/05/19/paris-commemoration-des-53-ans-de-limmortalisation-dibrahim-kaypakkaya/
