Iron & Ideology

Ulaş Ateşçi's speech at the International May Day 2025 Online Rally focused on the intensifying class struggles in Turkey amidst a deepening global capitalist crisis. He highlighted the Erdogan regime's reliance on nationalist and Islamist rhetoric to maintain power and suppress dissent in the face of widespread economic hardship and social unrest. Ateşçi detailed the growing inequality, rising unemployment, and soaring inflation plaguing the Turkish working class. He pointed to the government's austerity measures and privatization policies, implemented at the behest of international financial institutions, as exacerbating these problems. He also condemned the government's crackdown on labor unions, journalists, and political opponents. Furthermore, the speech emphasized the dangers of the government's militaristic foreign policy, particularly its involvement in regional conflicts, which serves to divert attention from domestic issues and fuel nationalist sentiment. Ateşçi argued that the only way to address these crises is through the independent political mobilization of the Turkish working class, united with workers internationally, on a socialist program. He called for the building of the Socialist Equality Group in Turkey as the necessary instrument to fight for this perspective, connecting the struggles of Turkish workers to the global fight against capitalism and war. The speech urged viewers to support the International Committee of the Fourth International in its struggle to build a world socialist revolution. find the original article here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/05/08/dpli-m08.html