1- The Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians Nasturians, Chaldeans and Ezidians,the resident peoples of Anatolia before the Turks, have been destroyed by means of genocide and forced assimilation (in various methods named as actual annihilation and forced immigration, interchange) starting from the Ottoman era and continuing in the Turkish Republic period.

The massacre of the natives of these lands stands out as the top crucial national problem which the republic both committed and took over.  The national massacres started when Turkish nationalism blossomed in Ottoman lands.

The national contrasts developing from the cruelty system created by religious differences firstly affected the Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians Nasturians, Chaldeans and Ezidians. From the 1890’s on,  annililation campaigns were initiated against these people and finally when the Ottoman empire decided to enter WW1 pillage along side Germany they were nearly all destroyed.  The Armenians had been subject to massacres before the forced imigration undertaken by the Unity and Progress government in 1915 but with this forced immigration policy they were exposed to total genocide. During the forced immigration approaximetly one and a half a  million Armenians were annihilated by means of imigration and murder, and the survivors found themselves in a struggle to live their lives with the pain and trauma.

The Assyrian genocide is not widely known because it was shadowed by the greater genocide of Armenians. Though the exact figures are not known, nealy half a million Assyrians were annihilated in the massacres named Seyfo (kılıç). Another hidden reality is the actions made against the Greeks living in Anatolia. The universal expression given to this issue is that the Turks and Greeks were “interchanged”. The reality is not that simple. First of all the “interchange” itself can never be an innocent process. This is a way of annihilation. If not a genocide it is a drag of race. The result is again the annihilation of a society living on a piece of land. About one million Anatolian Greeks who were recognized as interchanged were drown of by the Unity and Progress Party by death threats. Only close to 300 thousand were “interchanged” by the official state. Furthermore an anonimous number of Christian Turks were forced to excile in Greece. The event that happened to the Greeks are not limited to these. A Greek population of 400 to 500 thousand is no where to be seen. These were either anhiliated in Labor Battalions or killed by Unity and Progress Party gangs. 

2- The core aim of annihiliating nations/societies is to create a society based on race. This purpose constitutes as the base of the “intent” element in the definition of Genocide accepted by the UN. The substantial element of the crime is apparent as these societys are destroyed. Every article of UN’s Genocide Treaty which has also been signed by the Turkish Republic is fully coherent with the situation of the annihilated societies of Anadolu. The desctruction of non-muslim nations to create a Turkish nation starts from the Ottoman era and continues with the Republic. Therefore it has to be acknowledged that genocide which is universally accepted as a crime against humanity was committed both in Ottoman and Republic periods. As a result 2.5 million people were massacred by offenders that include the army officers who founded the republic. The existence of there  societies in Anadolu were terminated. Considering that the total population in the beginning of 1900’s was 13 million, the extend of the massacre and the accompanying guilt can be understood much more clearly.  

3-The core aim of annihilating other nations to create a nation is not an issue of security as claimed but is the intention of Money greedy Turkish bourgeoisie to realize primitive capital accumulations by force. The primitive capital accumulation that was realized by this mean lead to a total decline of the Ottomans who had already fallen behind the West.

There is no astonishment when seeing that the traditional method of filling the state tresuary by invasion rather that production, was inherited by Turkish nationalist, deriving from the Ottoman ruling class, from their ancestors. At the age of imperialistic capitalism the ones who could not do this by cross border pillaging undertook this by pillaging the people living within the borders. Genocide is two times ashaming to the Turkish public because it stands out as the name given to the actiond of the Turkish  bourgeoisie to accumulate primitive capital by force. The Turks who had already fallen behing the times were dragged behind a further 100 years.

The Ottoman society was a society based on division of labor. The Turks undertook the ruling and warfare whereas production outside of agriculture and husbandry, cultural activities, trade, various workmanships and arts in other words the activities that formed the core existence of society were mostly undertaken by Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Jews.

Except for the Jews who formed the smallest part of these societies, the void resulting from the anhiliation of these people who made up 20% of Anatolia population by means of murder and migration, was not able to be filled by the Turks who practiced war fare and relatively under developed agriculture and husbandry.

Despite the confiscation of their properties and capitals, the functions of the migrated and massacred societies could not be continued and did not continue. The ones whose lives and properties were taken also took their culture with them. They took their revenge by sentencing the murderers to being underdeveloped. Some victories are defeats in themselves. In order to be releived from this defeat one has to face up to this ashamed history and pay the price for this burden. The murder and migration of the most advanced section of the working class and the intellectuals who had embraced enlightenment and socialism at an early stage, ment that the society was trapped in darkness and public enlightenment was destroyed. The Young Turks who had started as a Westernization movement were swept far away from Western enlightenment. This backward swing forms the base for todays bigotry.

4- As the religion factor has been widely used in these mass murders in the name of creating a Turkish nation, a pathological religious hatred has become dominant in todays society and became the biggest obstacle against public enlightenment and democracy. This hatred is also the foundation of the false shariaism-secularism dilemma which has still not been consumed upto this day. The combination of this religious hatred moulded by the massacre with the hatred carried by Muslim societies forced out of the Balkans and Caucasians has formed the religious hatred and degrading or other faiths in our society.

5- The people who have continued such a widespread massacre can not be mentally healthy. For this reason violence is seen in families, schools in the army and this unhealty society is reproducing itself. Without abolishing, the main reason of this unhealthy society, the Turkish Republic, it is impossible to heal this trauma arising from the philosophy of “destroying the enemy”.

6- One of the core reasons for the persistance in denying the Armenian genocide is the fact that once this genocide is accepted all other massacres has to be accepted thus the the bloody heritage that the Turkish Republic was founded on will be exposed and once this will be diagnosed as a public disease the treatment will be unoavoidable.

To accept treatment by means of facing your history will oblige the institutions founded on fascist ground to be democratic and the Turkish public that will gain a new conciousness will not be able to be tamed by coups every two years. Every rulership that uses force will face a democratic resistance therefore the bourgeoisie who accumulated wealth using this force will not be able to sustain its existence and will have to resort to democratic values.

7- The events that have been quoted as the Armenian rebellion by official history is nothing more than Armenians using their right of self defence against state provocations.

The Armenians who were retaxed and whose lands were confiscated by the state and the local feudals of Kurdistan either resorted to the mountains like the Kurds do today or searched for ways of self defence to defend themselves from the army. The various incidents called the Kurdish rebellion is a similar event. When the Kurds who faced various provocations reacted these reactions were also called rebellions. Anyhow even rebellion cannot be the reason for genocide which has been named as a crime against humanity .

Like Russia in the past  the Ottoman state was a prison of societies. It was not opressed but it was an emperialist power. Although the Muslims were surpressed as proleterians by the central feudals they strike out as relatively privilaged compared with other supressed people. Jews and Christians were not accepted as witnesses in court, the pay poll taxes, they cannot ride a horse and carry guns, their houses cannot be taller than Muslim houses etc. People lived in total discrimination. For this reason the 1000 years of brotherhood claim is nothing more that legalizing this discrimination. Rebellion is the name of the reaction against this discrimination and cruelty.

8- Despite the fact that national movements are shaped by the bourgeoisies who aims to create  a private market, the basic power and the motive moving this power in the Armenian organizations was not the bourgeoisies and their will rather it was the intellectuals and poor and their will.

One of the three Armenian organisations established in the Ottoman empire was liberal and the remaining two was socialist. The Hınöa party defines itself as Marxist and is a member of the Second International. The Daşnaksutyun Party is also a member of the Second International and Jan Jaures is a writer at their publication. In its 1911 decree, the party mentioned that bourgoise membership was against their programme and stated that its base was the working class. The Armenakan party establish in 1885 in Van is a liberal democrat party.

9-The resolution of the Armenian issue is to compensate the orphans whose parents we killed. The Turkish Republic has no bargain in this issue.
Willy nilly we should first confess that the Ottomans undertook this genocide. This confession does not relieve the Turkish Republic from her responsibilities. Besides doing nothing to remedy the atrocity made by the Ottomans the support of such politics and the consumption of “non-muslim” people remains as a heavy burden on our shoulders. Therefore, following points should be highlighted.

a- The Turkish state should apologize to the Armenians besided the other societies exposed to genocide for the confiscated heritage and other policies.
b- All those who had lived in the Turkish territory of today and who had been subject to murder or forced migration should be accepted as Turkish citizens and this citizenship should be valid for their children.

c- With this acceptance, all the confiscated properties and rights should be return to them.

d- Though there is no way of discussing the genocide, the historical facts should be put forward by a truly neutral and democratic commitee to satisfy the Turkish and Kurdish people, this commitee should spend enough time researching the facts and should create a new conciousness of history.

10- In order to erase all bad feelings and hostilities, soreness between the Turkish and Armenian people and to avoid these reproducing again the people of these two countries should come together based on not competition but collaboration and the borders should be brought down to form a federation allowing these. A positive discrimitaion should be applied to Armenia until Armenians reach Turkish average living standarts.

To achieve Paramaz’s ideals and to stay loyal to his memory…

Mustafa Kahya

For 

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF WORKERS