Following the revocation of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s diploma and his arrest the following day, on March 19, 2025, on charges of “corruption, organizing a criminal organization, and terrorism”, a wave of protests began at universities, primarily in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, as well as many other large cities. The revocation of his diploma will prevent İmamoğlu from participating in the next presidential election. Additionally, it has reinforced the feeling among the public, particularly students, that their future is uncertain.

The protests at universities were largely led by METU (Middle Eastern Technical University) students, which is why police repression and violence were primarily directed at METU. Beyond that, police violence reached its peak both at Kızılay Square and in the streets of Istanbul. It is worth remembering that the police are not the friends of the proletariat; they work for the interests of the bourgeoisie at every turn. Ultimately, society is divided into classes, and liberal rhetoric only serves to obscure the existing order. Once again, it has been proven that the working class must never, under any circumstances, compromise with the bourgeoisie and its control apparatus, the “father state”! However, there is nothing new under the sun. The oppression and violence we are subjected to are not merely the policies of the current government. This is a problem that cannot be solved by any government that comes to power, due to the very nature of the bourgeois state. To attribute this solely to the current government in our analysis would lead us to reformism and opportunism. This is precisely where our criticism begins. The target of our criticism is not the base of the movement—especially the working class base—but the reformist or social democratic parties that lead this base. Throughout history, exploited classes have engaged in many movements in which they could vent their anger. However, as history has shown us once again, without a revolutionary doctrine, all these movements eventually faded away without changing the existing system. Lenin showed us in What Is To Be Done that all these movements would eventually drift toward reformism unless a party guided by Marxist doctrine led the movement. “There can be no revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory”. At this point, the source of the problem must be found in those who lead the movement.

Slogans are sentences that convey the demands of a movement in the shortest and most concise form. That is why we will begin our critique with slogans. First, let us strip away the movement itself and start with a slogan that has a revolutionary quality: “The solution is not at the ballot box, but in the streets”. This is a powerful slogan for the working class, but it has little relevance in the current protests. The primary effect of the protests will be to increase the vote for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, and the left-wing parties allied with it. The current government is receiving support from both the US and Russia. However, these protests are also receiving significant support from the EU, particularly Germany. It is clear that one of the dynamics behind the protests is the power struggle between two capitalist parties. We are not surprised that the “radical” leftist parties are rushing so quickly and relentlessly to defend rotten parliamentarism with the support of a party that stands on the same platform as the murderers of Rosa Luxemburg.

Another slogan of the movement is “Justice, Law, Equality”. Yet the law is bourgeois law. Still, it is not at all surprising that the current so-called “Marxist” parties are using such a slogan; after all, their criticism does not extend to capitalism, but begins and ends with the government. The bourgeoisie can trample on the laws it has enacted through the current government, and when the government changes, it will trample on the new laws in the same way. At the root of laws is not this or that government, but class society.

The worst slogan comes from the Republican People’s Party. "This struggle is not only the struggle of Ekrem İmamoğlu, not only the struggle of the Republican People’s Party! This is a struggle to defend the future of 86 million people". The populist CHP still sees society as a classless and privilege-free whole! The interests of the people, the protection of the entire nation, etc., are fairy tales that the bourgeoisie has been shouting for a long time. Can the interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie be the same? Can the slave owner and the slave be equal? Ekrem İmamoğlu merely represents a section of the bourgeoisie on the political stage. The bourgeoisie, which shamelessly repeats the myth of classless democracy, offers nothing to the proletariat! The Republican People’s Party municipality in İzmir refuses to pay the wages of municipal workers, while manipulating the workers’ union organized in the sector!

Özgür Özel, head of the Republican People’s Party said, “This is not a rally; this is an act of defiance against fascism”, while slogans like “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism” echoed from the crowd. What does Özgür Özel really have against fascism? Doesn’t his party already defend the interests of the people and the nation instead of the working class? Doesn’t it use certain unions as a tool for its own vote-gathering policies and make class organizations dependent on itself? Mr. Özel is already taking steps that a fascist regime might want to take before even coming to power. Public opinion polls indicate that the İmamoğlu protests are bringing the Republican People’s Party closer to power. The Republican People’s Party, which yesterday ordered union leaders to end strikes, will be the party that deploys police against workers tomorrow when it comes to power.

In summary, the corruption of the movement led by the reformist bourgeoisie is inevitable. No matter how large the proletarian majority may be, the nature of the movement is determined by the class represented by the party that largely organizes and leads it. And the bourgeoisie’s program has no purpose other than to completely exhaust the energy of the masses who want to rebel against an existence without a future and to gain votes from this. As long as the proletariat does not have its own class unions and party, it will continue to be seen as a vote bank for bourgeois parties and stabbed in the back. The proletariat has only one program that can challenge the bourgeoisie and its police dogs. That is the communist program. The only structure capable of implementing this communist program and leading the masses is the internationally organized International Communist Party. The only force that can make the bourgeoisie and its despicable servants taste the weapons they use against the proletariat is the state under the rule of the Communist Party—that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The political slogans of the proletariat must be directed solely toward this goal.