The approach that attempts to juxtapose Kemalism and Marxism is not only a political choice; it is also the product of a serious conceptual blurring. This is because these two ideologies not only have different goals - they were born out of different historical needs, relied on different social actors and produced different conceptions of politics.
Kemalism is the project of creating a nation-state from the remnants of an empire. In this respect, its main concern is not class contradictions but the reconstruction of political sovereignty, the consolidation of central authority and the organization of modernization from above. By its very nature, this project prefers to appear supra-class because it generates its legitimacy from the idea of “national unity”.
Marxism, on the contrary, eviscerates this seemingly “supra-class” narrative. According to it, the state is not a neutral apparatus; it is the institutionalized form of certain class relations. Therefore, for Marxism, the issue is not to strengthen the state, but to reveal which class it operates in the interests of.
It is at this point that the first major break occurs:
Kemalism establishes and sanctifies the state.
Marxism analyzes and aims to overcome the state.
This difference is not a simple ideological distinction; it is a distinction that determines the entire political practice.
Kemalism's early policies should also be read in this framework. The distance towards communist movements is not accidental or conjunctural; it is structural. Because a class-based politics directly threatens the discourse of national unity. For this reason, Kemalism was not only wary of communism, but often openly opposed to it.
A common mistake here is this:
Equating the anti-imperialist moment with class politics.
Yes, the Kemalist movement waged a struggle against imperialism in a certain historical section. However, this struggle did not evolve into a class-based transformation project; on the contrary, it resulted in the establishment of a national bourgeois order. This is precisely where the distance between the social transformation targeted by Marxism and the political transformation realized by Kemalism opens up.
Therefore, the argument of “being in the same historical line” is analytically weak. Because emerging in the same period does not mean representing the same thing.
Today, approaches that still try to establish a continuity between Kemalism and Marxism either ignore or deliberately blur this fundamental difference. But the truth is this:
These two ideologies are different answers to different social questions.
And these answers cannot converge along the same political line.
Therefore, it is not a question of “rapprochement” but of borders.
And that border is historically and theoretically very clear.
The Political Economy of Forced Rapprochement
When the distance between Kemalism and Marxism is so theoretically clear, why is the effort to bring these two lines together constantly reproduced?
The answer to this question lies not in ideology, but in the concrete workings of politics: power, representation and legitimacy.
One of the most fundamental dilemmas of the left in Turkey is that it has historically failed to become an independent social force. Structures that claim to produce politics on behalf of the working class have often failed to turn this claim into an organizational and political reality. This gap prevents the left from creating a center of attraction on its own.
This is precisely where Kemalism comes in.
Because Kemalism, despite all its ideological fluctuations, still has a strong symbolic capital: the state tradition, the republican narrative, the emphasis on secularism, the myth of national independence... These are ready-made political codes that can mobilize large masses, especially in times of crisis.
So for some left circles, it boils down to this:
To establish its own political line or to join a ready-made hegemonic ground?
The second option is often the preferred one.
This preference does not produce a theoretical synthesis; it creates a practical adaptation. In other words, there is no merger of Kemalism and Marxism; there is a flexing of the left towards the Kemalist framework.
“The ”left of center" experience is one of the most critical moments of this process. Although on the surface this discourse appears to be an opening to the left, in reality it is the way in which center politics reproduces itself. Here, the left is used not as a transformative subject but as an expanding tool.
Therefore, the “left of the middle” is not a radicalization but an absorption process.
After September 12, this tendency deepened even more. The coup did not only dismantle organizations; it also narrowed the political horizon. While class-based politics was criminalized, central politics was reconstructed as the “only reasonable space”. Under these conditions, the options for the left narrowed:
Either marginalization or moving closer to the center.
Many structures choose the second path.
But this approach comes at a heavy price: the transformation of political language.
Concepts such as class, exploitation, relations of production recede and are replaced by more “generic” themes: democracy, law, secularism, republic...
These concepts are not unimportant. But when detached from their class context, they become part of a search for balance within the system.
The bottom line is this:
The left loses its specific language.
And he starts speaking someone else's language.
From the outside, this looks like an “expansion”, but in fact it is a meltdown. Because a political movement exists with its concepts. If it loses its concepts, it loses its direction.
Today, approaches that claim to “build a bridge between Kemalism and the left” are often a continuation of this historical process. But this bridge is not a structure that equalizes the two sides; it is a one-way crossing.
The left goes towards Kemalism.
Kemalism remains where it is.
So this relationship is not an alliance, it is an asymmetry.
And as long as this asymmetry persists, the claim to produce an independent left politics will continue to weaken.
Spineless Opposition and No Exit Line
There is no need for lengthy analyses to understand the political picture that is emerging today: there is widespread dissatisfaction, but it is not transforming into a political force. The reason for this lies more in the internal structure of the opposition than in external conditions.
The problem is clear: lack of direction.
This hybrid line oscillating between Kemalism and the left, representing neither one nor the other, does not produce a politics - it tries to find a balance. But politics is not about balance; it is about direction. Any movement that cannot set a clear direction cannot drag society behind it.
The main problem of today's opposition starts right here:
It has no clear program, no clear class position, no clear goal.
That's why the same cycle keeps repeating: alliances formed from election to election, temporary unions, then disintegration... This is not a strategy, it's a reflex.
Reflexes do not make politics.
This forced relationship between Kemalism and the left also determines the language of the opposition. A language that softens where it should harden and blurs where it should clarify emerges. Because every sentence tries to please two different audiences at the same time.
But politics is not the art of pleasing everyone.
Politics is the art of taking sides.
The moment you can't take sides, you don't mean anything to anyone.
What is being done today under the name of “broad alliance” is mostly a cover-up of this neutralization. A politics that renders class contradictions invisible, pushes economic issues to the background, and dissolves everything under the heading of “common sense” and “reconciliation”...
Conclusion.
No one really feels represented.
The working class does not see itself, the youth cannot find a future perspective, the laborers do not feel that their problems are at the center. Because politics is not built on their behalf, but through them.
At this point we come to the most critical issue:
No movement that cannot establish an independent political line can be a real alternative.
Today, a significant part of the structures speaking on behalf of the left have still not been able to establish their own political center. They constantly “support” somewhere, become part of an alliance, take a position in an equation. But it cannot establish an equation on its own.
In the short term, this may create a feeling of “looking effective”. But in the long run it leads to erasure. Because politics is not about being visible; it is about being decisive.
What is not decisive becomes invisible over time.
The claim of building a bridge between Kemalism and Marxism collapses at this point. Because there is no real bridge; there is only a loss of direction. This approach does not unite the two ideologies; it dissolves one into the other.
And this meltdown is mostly working against the left.
The picture is clear:
The left that cannot build its own politics becomes part of someone else's politics.
If it is part of someone else's politics, it loses its own claim.
Therefore, it is no longer a question of “who to ally with”.
Issue, how to establish an independent line is a matter of.
Because real politics is only possible with a movement that has its own backbone.
No structure without a backbone can be neither in power nor a real opposition.
And the spine is not borrowed. It is built from scratch.