# İbrahim Kaypakkaya

İbrahim Kaypakkaya (1949 – May 18, 1973) was a Turkish Maoist, who founded the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML). He is revered by many today as a symbol of resistance and as an aggregator of the ideas of other major leaders and thinkers in Marxism–Leninism–Maoism. Kaypakkaya was captured after being wounded in an engagement with the Turkish military in Tunceli Province in 1973, and executed in Diyarbakir Prison four months later.

## Life

Ibrahim Kaypakkaya was born in 1949 to a Turkish Alevi family. In his youth he delivered political magazines in the neighboring villages. Later he was exposed to revolutionary ideas as a student in the Physics Department of Istanbul University’s Faculty of Science. He became a member of the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey. In 1967 he was one of the founders of a local branch of the Federation of Idea Clubs (Turkish: Fikir Kulüpleri Federasyonu). He joined the foundation of the Çapa Idea Club (Turkish: Çapa Fikir Kulübü) in March 1968 and became the President of the club. In November 1968, Kaypakkaya was expelled from the University for preparing a leaflet against the visiting 6th Fleet of the U.S. Navy.
Kaypakkaya, who adopted the view of National Democratic Revolution, worked for the newspaper İşçi Köylü ("Worker-Peasant"). He wrote articles in the magazines Aydınlık ("Enlightenment") and TÜRKSOLU ("Turkish Left"; not to be confused with the modern magazine Türksolu). Kaypakkaya then split from Doğu Perinçek and his group, as he considered Perinçek to be a revisionist and an opportunist. Kaypakkaya, who participated in the struggle of peasantry, formed TİKKO (Turkish: Türkiye İşci ve Köylü Kurtuluş Ordusu, "Workers' and Peasants' Liberation Army"), the armed wing of his Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist, and carried out activities in the provinces of Tunceli, Malatya, and Gaziantep.
Kaypakkaya and his comrades interrogated and shot the informer village headman who caused the killing of THKO (Turkish: Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Ordusu; "People's Liberation Army of Turkey") members Sinan Cemgil and his two other comrades by the state forces during a gunfight. Kaypakkaya became a symbol of revolutionary solidarity and camaraderie to his supporters during the period of martial law.

## Capture and death

Following the military memorandum of 1971, the Turkish government cracked down on the Communist movement in Turkey. On 24 January 1973, Kaypakkaya and his allies were attacked by Turkish military forces in the mountains of Tunceli. He was wounded badly, and his comrade Ali Haydar Yıldız died. The military left Kaypakkaya for dead, allowing him to avoid capture. During that winter, severe weather conditions and snow forced him to take shelter in a cave for five days. Thereafter, he left for a village where he asked for assistance from Cafer Atan, a local teacher. Initially, the man allowed Kaypakkaya to take shelter in a room but then locked the door and reported him to the military.
The letter Kaypakkaya sent to his friends after he got captured by the gendarmerie:
They handed me over to the gendarmerie, and the gendarmerie beat me up terribly. After that, in short: I was delivered from Dersim to Elazığ, and from Elazığ to Diyarbakır. Except for random police investigations, no statements were taken. Now I am under both surveillance and treatment in Diyarbakır.
The wounds on my head and neck healed in just 20 days. By the way, let me state this: While I was injured, they tied both my arms for a week as if they were crucifying me. Upon insistence, they released one of the handcuffs. We were raided on January 26th. On February 22, I had surgery in both my feet. There is no finger left on my right foot. They left my little finger on my left foot as a gift."
The Turkish Government persecuted and destroyed the leadership of the TKP/ML. Kaypakkaya, and several of his colleagues were arrested. On 18 May 1973, he was tortured to the brink of death and then shot and killed by military officers at the age of twenty-four. His corpse was mutilated and cut up. The cause of Kaypakkaya's death was ruled as a suicide.
The National Intelligence Organization (Turkish: Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) reported that Kaypakkaya was the most dangerous revolutionary in Turkey and a serious threat to the non-communist government.

## Aftermath

* Cafer Atan, the teacher who allegedly handed over Kaypakkaya to the gendarmerie, frequently changed his place of duty for life safety reasons. Atan was shot in the head and killed, in front of his wife and two children, by three people who raided his house in Sarıgazi in 2000.
* Fehmi Altınbilek, who led the commando operation against Kaypakkaya and his friends on January 24, 1973, and later captured Kaypakkaya wounded, was injured in an armed attack in Beşiktaş in June 2015.

## Cultural legacy

After his death, Kaypakkaya became a martyr for the Turkish Communist revolutionary movement by "choosing to die rather than give information." Despite his young age, he was one of the most prominent Marxist theorists of Turkey. Kaypakkaya's most well known work is his critique of Kemalism, the state principles of Turkey, and his thesis on the national question, notably the Kurdish question.

## Doctrine

His doctrinal views were based on splitting away from the neighboring Soviet Union's ideology and taking up Maoism and supporting the Cultural Revolution. As such, Kaypakkaya's life was heavily shaped by the Sino-Soviet split.
Kaypakkaya also took the position that there is a national question involved with the Kurdish people and that this would be solved by listening to the will of the Kurdish people and seeing if they favoured independence or remaining part of Turkey.
According to Kaypakkaya, the Turkish Left had been surrounded by people calling themselves "Kemalist" for a while. As he stated in his writings, he saw the Kemalist Regime as a military dictatorship and the enforcer of the National Oppression.
At the same time, Kaypakkaya adopted Mao Zedong's ideas of Red Political Power and Long-Term People's War. It can be said that he took these two ideas of Mao as an example in the struggle he started on Munzur Mountain
He adopted the blendings of the Long-Term People's War and National Democratic Revolution teachings and stated that the Revolution could not be achieved through politics and that the only way was an armed struggle.
Kaypakkaya was also against parties such as the Turkish Workers' Party since they were reactionary and did not hesitate to make harsh criticisms about TİP. The main point of his criticism was that TİP's slogans did not comply with the main teachings of socialism and that many of the leading figures of the Party at the time (Kemal Türkler, Yaşar Kemal, Rıza Kaus) were either unable to understand Proletarian Revolution or were opportunists who did not want to see the real class struggle.

## TKP/ML

Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist re-organized between 1973 and 1978. The first party congress took place in 1978 (TKP/ML I. Kongresi in Turkish). In 1981 the second congress was organized (TKP/ML II. Kongresi). The party split following the second congress, the splinter taking up the name Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey).
However it was neither the first nor the last split in the party. The Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist - Hareketi had already split in (1976) during the re-organisation period. Other splits followed the second congress: Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist - Revolutionary Proletarian (1987), Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (Maoist Party Centre) (1987), and Maoist Communist Party (1994).
Today the organisation is listed among the 12 active terrorist organisation in Turkey as of 2007 according to Counter-Terrorism and Operations Department of Directorate General for Security (Turkish police).

## In culture
### Music

* Grup Munzur - İsyan Ateşi
* Emekçi - İbrahime Ağıt
* Ozan Emekçi - Diyarbakır Zindanları
* İlkay Akkaya - Ibrahim yoldaş
* Can Cihan - İbo Haydar Zülfikar
* Ozan Rençber - Gel Gidelim İbo

### Films

* Kırmızı Gül Buz İçinde
* Sönmeyen Ateş - İbrahim Kaypakkaya