235. The World Socialist Web Site played a critical role in the development of genuine Trotskyism in Turkey. It was through the WSWS that the group that preceded the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi, with roots going back to the 1980s and led by Halil Çelik, met the ICFI. It learned the lessons of Trotskyism’s struggle against Stalinism, Social Democracy, Pabloism and all forms of bourgeois nationalism, and transformed itself into a Trotskyist organization that accepted the political authority of the International Committee.

236. Halil Çelik’s group reached Trotskyism and the ICFI as a result of long and bitter experiences with the many unprincipled, nationalist and opportunist political tendencies that constituted various forms of Pabloism. This was a reflection in Turkey of the destructive policies of the Pabloite organizations worldwide. The Pabloites have, since the early 1950s, directed revolutionary workers and youth into political liquidation within Stalinist, Social Democratic and bourgeois nationalist movements in the name of “Trotskyism,” and have thus prevented the development of genuine Trotskyism in many countries like Turkey for a long time. It was only in the 2000s that a group from Turkey began to debate with the IC and concluded that “the founding principles of the Fourth International find expression in the documents of the ICFI.” This reflected an objective shift in the relationship of forces between Trotskyism and all sorts of petty-bourgeois pseudo-left tendencies around the world.

237. In the preface to the Turkish edition of The Heritage We Defend, David North explained the importance of building a Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International:

It is not only the relationship between Trotsky’s Turkish exile and the history of the Fourth International that imparts special significance to the publication of this new translation of The Heritage We Defend. The critical position occupied by Turkey in the geopolitics of the world imperialist system guarantees that the class struggle in this country will assume gigantic dimensions. The building of the Trotskyist movement in Turkey is, therefore, an essential strategic task of the Fourth International. This requires the education of the advanced sections of the Turkish working class and youth in the history of the long struggle waged by orthodox Trotskyists against the different forms of anti-Marxist revisionism—especially that associated with the liquidationist conceptions of Michel Pablo (1911-1996) and Ernest Mandel (1923-1995).^[1]

238. The construction of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi was based on the defense of Trotskyist principles against Pabloite revisionism. Halil Çelik and his group tried to oppose the Pabloite tendencies’ (including their Morenoite and Lambertist versions) rejection of internationalism and the Theory of Permanent Revolution, and their attribution of a progressive role to Stalinism, Kurdish bourgeois nationalism and the trade union bureaucracies. Halil Çelik’s group concluded, after analyzing the historical documents of the ICFI, that the continuity of the Fourth International was embodied in the International Committee.

239. At the 2014 Plenum of the ICFI, in which Comrade Halil Çelik represented the Toplumsal Eşitlik Grubu (Social Equality Group), the predecessor of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi, a critical decision was taken to establish “a section of the International Committee in Turkey.”^[2] This decision and the closer political collaboration with the ICFI shaped the activities of the group after 2014. In 2018, the group changed its name to “Sosyalist Eşitlik,” stating in the resolution that:

(1) The SE is assuming a name in line with that of all the official sections of the ICFI (Socialist Equality Party, Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei, Parti de l’égalité socialiste) and thereby stressing its determination to become the Turkish section of the Fourth International.

(2) By adopting the word “socialist” in the group’s name, the SE underscores its basic goal: uniting the Middle Eastern workers and youth across all national, ethnic, religious and sectarian lines with their class brothers and sisters internationally to overthrow capitalism and build a socialist society.^[3]

240. In June 2022, the Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu decided to join the ICFI and form the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi on the basis of its agreement with the world Trotskyist movement on questions of history, principles and program. As the resolution explained:

The SEG’s resolution to join the ICFI is a very conscious political decision that reflects the step-by-step integration of our group with the International Committee over the past years on the questions of principle and history.

… The only solution to the major problems in Turkey, which is in a critical position in terms of global geopolitics and class struggle, is the international socialist revolution. The founding of the Socialist Equality Party (Turkey) will be an expression of the global expansion of the ICFI, the only political tendency that assumes the task of solving the great historical problems.^[4]

241. The events held on Prinkipo (Büyükada), Turkey, in 2023 and 2024, which commemorated Leon Trotsky and his nearly four-and-a-half-year stay on the island, demonstrated the progress made in establishing the ICFI’s political and ideological authority in Turkey. This reflected broader historical and political changes. As the World Socialist Web Site explained in August 2023:

The event both reflected and gave highly conscious political expression to the objective change in the relationship between Trotskyism and the international working class. It builds on the decades-long political struggle of the world Trotskyist movement, led by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), against Stalinism, social democracy, bourgeois nationalism and Pabloite revisionism. …

The past 35 years have not only confirmed the Trotskyist perspective, they have brought a tremendous change in objective conditions around the world. Trotskyism represented the internationalist basis and perspective of Marxism and the October Revolution, while Stalinism, Social Democracy and Pabloism shared a historically obsolete and politically reactionary nationalist perspective.

The globalization of capitalist production and the emergence of a gigantic, interconnected working class around the world allowed the political struggle of the International Committee to develop on a much more favorable objective basis. …

The Trotskyist movement has entered a new phase of its history, characterized by an intersection between the objective crisis and the program and practice of the International Committee of the Fourth International.^[5]