Communist Party of Turkey (historical) - Merger Into TBKP

Merger Into TBKP

The TKP merged with the TİP and formed the United Communist Party of Turkey (TBKP) in 1988. Due to the ban on Communist political activities in Turkey, the TBKP initially had to be formed in a clandestine congress, but, from the outset, it stated its aim to operate legally. In 1990, its leaders officially established the TBKP as a formal political party, which would be banned the next year after a lengthy court case. Nevertheless, before it was banned, the TBKP had already held a legal congress in January 1991, and in this congress a resolution was overwhelmingly adopted calling on all its members to join a project to form a broader-based socialist party, the Socialist Unity Party, which would itself eventually evolve, after a series of subsequent mergers, into the Freedom and Solidarity Party.

However, currently there are several factions in Turkey that claim to represent the historical TKP:

• the TKP that separated in 1979 from the main TKP and became known after the periodical İşçinin Sesi (Worker's Voice) which they issued;
• the new TKP, which adopted the name in 2001, founded as the Party for Socialist Power (SİP) in 1993;
• a grouping of some dissident members of the TBKP who held a "rebirth meeting" in 1993 and who publish the periodical Ürün Sosyalist Dergi (Harvest Socialist Magazine).