1968 and 1969 were not just two years in the annals of Turkey's history, but a threshold of rupture where the fault lines between the state, society, youth and classes became visible and still define today. The anchoring of the US Sixth Fleet in the ports of Istanbul and Izmir was, on paper, an ordinary event. “Allied Navy Visit” But in reality, the position of Turkey within the imperialist system, the preferences of the ruling bloc and the Revolutionary-Socialist and Class struggle against it, the objection of the trade union organizations of the working class and the teachings of civil society, all in all nakedness, witnessed the massing of a mass struggle in the country. The reality that emerged in the struggle of the masses showed the mass power of the Revolutionary-Socialist struggle in the fields of class and ideological purification, not only with the steel hulls of the ships docking at the port, but also with the political meanings attached to them.
On the one hand, there was the rising revolutionary youth movement in the universities and the increasingly politicized working class. In the relatively liberal climate of the 1961 Constitution, the youth, shaped by union organizing, strikes, factory occupations and the Federation of Intellectual Clubs, saw the Sixth Fleet not only as a warship but also as a symbol of Turkey's dependent development model, NATO-oriented foreign policy and imperialist domination. In Dolmabahçe, in the streets of Beyoğlu, on university campuses “Get out of the 6th Fleet” the slogan, in fact. “Washington cannot determine the fate of this country” "We are not going to let the American soldiers into the sea. The actions of Deniz Gezmiş and his friends in throwing American soldiers into the sea are remembered as one of the most visible and symbolic moments of this objection.
On the other hand, he felt “Defender of National and Spiritual Values” but in practice became one of the most loyal social pillars of imperialism in Turkey. These circles, organized around the Anti-Communist Associations, used the arrival of the Sixth Fleet as a “An Occasion of Gratitude” in the name of the American soldiers. In the days when American soldiers set foot in Istanbul, the prayers performed around Dolmabahçe and Taksim “Prayers of Thanksgiving”, It was not just a religious ritual, it was a striking demonstration of how the Turkish right assumed a voluntary ideological guardianship of imperialism in the name of anti-Communism. On the same days, the Revolutionary Youth “Prayer Against American Imperialism” The counter-demonstrations, which he called the "counter-demonstrations", made this contradiction even more visible. While one side represents a Political-Islamism that has turned its face towards Washington, the world public opinion has clearly witnessed the growth of an anti-imperialist line that sides with the poor peoples and oppressed nations.
One of the most striking scenes of this period was not only the street clashes or the soldiers going overboard. A group of Religious and Racist students were painting the streets with pink paint and marking the roads, especially those leading to brothels, for the US soldiers. This “Pink Paint” Their actions, although ostensibly presented as an expression of moral sensitivity, were in reality a symbolic veil covering a class and political preference. They did not have a problem with the imperialist navy docking in the country. “Blessing” These circles, who regarded the American soldiers as a force to be reckoned with, directed their energies not at the American soldiers, but at the Revolutionary Youth and the most vulnerable segments of society. Some of the names who were part of this line in those days rose to the highest levels of the state and politics in the following years and became actors who shaped the political architecture of Turkey. Thus, 1968-69 was not only a period of youth movement, but also a laboratory for today's mentality of power.
The Sixth Fleet protests were not only limited to street demonstrations, but were also commemorated with heavy costs. Vedat Demircioğlu, who was seriously wounded and died during the police raid in the dormitory of Istanbul Technical University, was engraved in memory as one of the first Revolutionary-Socialist casualties of this period. This was followed by a demonstration in Taksim organized by reactionary groups. “Prayer against American imperialism” Ali Turgut Aytaç and Duran Erdoğan were stabbed to death in attacks against the Revolutionary Youth during the counter-demonstration organized under the name of the Revolutionary Youth. These murders showed that the split between the anti-imperialist youth and the religious-racist right-wing groups in Turkey had reached a point of no return. “Associations for the Struggle against Communism” It had ceased to be an abstract ideological discourse, and the clear visibility of a bloody practice directly on the streets, on university campuses, in the squares, had become presented to the masses of people to reveal its ideological basic structure.
When we add the rise of the working class to this picture, the panorama of the period becomes clearer. In the second half of the 1960s, strikes, factory occupations, union organization and the emergence of DISK on the scene showed that the class struggle in Turkey had entered a new phase. While the ties between the youth movement and the working class were strengthening, the Sixth Fleet protests gave this unification an anti-imperialist framework. The struggle against imperialism was not only “We don't want foreign soldiers” not only a narrow nationalism, but also “This Country's Labor, Sweat and Future are Not for Sale” It was the expression of a class consciousness that said that an important message had reached the Poor Working People's Classes and Strata. Precisely for this reason, those who oppose imperialism and “The Struggle against Communism” The clash between those who pursued a pro-US line under the name of the US, in fact, turned out to be a historical showdown over which axis Turkey would be positioned on.
Looking back from today, we can see that the period 1968-69 was only a romanticized period for the populism of the class collaborators of the liberals. “Youth Revolt” is not. The Sixth Fleet protests offer a critical lens to understand how the triangle of State-Capital and Imperialism was established in Turkey, which social dynamics rose up against it, and how Religious-Racist forces were positioned in this equation. What happened that day in Dolmabahçe, Taksim and university dormitories points to the historical roots of the debates, polarizations and power preferences that still continue in our country today. The struggle against imperialism “The Danger of Communism”for many years have been the main tools used by Turkey's right-wing forces both to suppress domestic opposition and to legitimize foreign policy dependency.
After all, the arrival of the Sixth Fleet in Turkey was not just a naval visit, it was a historical threshold that revealed the direction of a country, its alliances, class alignments and ideological polarizations. On the one hand, soldiers thrown into the sea, symbolic coffins carried on shoulders, anti-imperialist slogans written on university walls; on the other hand, prayers of thanksgiving, drawings with pink paint “Morality” routes and an ideological political line shaped in the shadow of the War on Communism. Still today “Independence”, “Sovereignty”, “Imperialism” and “National Will” When talking about the past, any discussion without remembering these scenes of 1968-69 is doomed to be incomplete. Because those years stand on the pages of history as one of the constitutive areas of conflict not only in Turkey's past, but also in its present and possibly its future.