Abdullah Öcalan states that while the nation-state is a weapon of capitalism, the commune is the founding principle and weapon of peoples.
The changes that came after the Kurdistan National Liberation Front (ERNK) experience showed that profound transformations were continuing in Kurdistan. It should be stated that building a new life in a geography like Kurdistan, a land that has been targeted for destruction throughout history, plundered, and where all peoples living on this land have been subjected to genocide, is not something that can be achieved in just a few years.
The Kurdistan Freedom Movement and Abdullah Öcalan, when taking their first steps, which they defined as “an intervention into a history that was heading downward,” were fully aware of this reality. Yet, with the right approaches, they managed to achieve major transformations in as short a period as fifty years. Öcalan’s statement, “We assumed the patriotism of a country whose very name people did not even dare to utter,” precisely describes this great and difficult effort.
Abdullah Öcalan said: “Without great utopias, great practices of life cannot be realised.” From day one to today, he always thought several steps ahead, and by establishing a practice of life based on this, he developed himself and the Kurdistan Freedom Movement.
After the 2000s, Öcalan’s ideology continued to evolve; it became a period that addressed the deficiencies of what had been done until then, renewing and expanding it. At the forefront of this change were the communal forms of organisation and the importance of the commune in the socialist understanding of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement.
A changing world, new developments, and an evolving understanding of history led Öcalan to further advance a new era concept of socialism, shaped through critiques of classical socialist structures as well as of real-socialism and scientific socialism. Within this framework, he reassessed and further elaborated the definition of the commune. Within this understanding, he reassessed and further elaborated the definition of the commune.
State mentality and insistence remain the biggest obstacle before socialism
Abdullah Öcalan began to focus on the concept of “socialism without a state” in the 1990s and emphasised that the insistence on a state mentality is the greatest barrier before socialism. He underlined that the most fundamental pillar of socialist organisation lies in the communal structures that have been underestimated until now.
Öcalan stated the following in one of his analyses: “We do not want a state. If we wanted a state, we would do it like Iraq, in a ruthless way. I am not talking about borders, we are not after ministries like in Iraq. What we want is that there is no obstruction to the democratisation of our people in neighbourhoods, villages, and cities. Not only for Kurds, the democratic confederalism of Turkey is more realistic. I propose this for all of Turkey. We have no problem with the unitary structure. I am not talking about the state; what I refer to is the form in which society beneath it establishes its own democracy and democratises itself. Kurds will adapt and develop this system in all parts.” He also repeatedly highlighted the experience of Rojava as the practical example of this.
Öcalan said the following in another analysis: “History, in a sense, has been narrated as the story of civilisation created around the city. Pre-industrial city life always sought to remain in balance with the village-agriculture life. Even if contradictions emerged between them, they never sharpened to a level that would endanger social integrity. This contradiction never reached a point where it would collapse the agricultural-village society. Mutual dependency and nourishing one another were essential.
The inherent, maximum-profit-oriented explosion of industrialism not only disrupted this balance, but through the abnormal growth it caused over the last two centuries, it produced a reality where the city became truly non-city, and a meaningless urbanity. By destroying the agricultural-village society, it led to a cancerous case under the name of the so-called ‘urban-industrial society’. In this phenomenon called the explosion of the middle class, there is no functionality at all.”
Through this assessment, Öcalan demonstrated the fallacy of a historical understanding that denies the commune and instead identified communisation as the most important organisational and liberation path.
‘If there is no society, there is no individual’ is the foundation of the commune
Abdullah Öcalan also underlined the importance of communisation and building a communal life. Öcalan said: “The citizen-individual of the democratic nation must be communal as much as they are free. The so-called free individual of capitalist individualism is pushed against society yet lives the most intensified form of slavery. Liberal ideology creates an image that the individual has endless freedoms. In truth, the wage-labour slave individual who realises the maximum profit tendency that had never been achieved before and turns it into a hegemonic system, represents the most advanced form of slavery. This type of individual is produced through the ruthless education and life practice of nation-statism.
Because existence is tied to the rule of money, the wage system becomes like a leash around the neck of a dog, binding the individual and steering them in whichever direction is desired. There is no other way to survive; choosing unemployment means a slow death while still standing.
Capitalist individualism is shaped on the denial of society. It assumes that the more it rejects historical culture and tradition, the more it will realise itself. This is the greatest distortion of liberal ideology. Its main slogan is: ‘There is no society, there is only the individual.’ Capitalism is essentially a diseased system based on consuming society.”
In this explanation, Öcalan clearly rejected the logic of real-socialist structures and practices, linking the culture of communisation to the liberation of the individual and to the existence of a moral and political stance.
He rejected the mentality of capitalism that destroys socialisation and seeks to create an economically enslaved class. He stated that communisation will rebuild socialisation, and the individual will protect their existence with freedom and an ethical stance.
According to Öcalan’s ideological approach, communes are not spaces where only a particular group gathers; they are organisational spaces where all segments of society meet on common ground.
From this perspective, his definition of the commune is not a classical one. It is one of the key building stones of the new-era understanding of socialism. At the same time, it is the most suitable organisational model for applying deliberative democracy, which he identifies as the most appropriate system of thought for the transition to socialism in our time.
The commune is grounded in deliberative democracy
Abdullah Öcalan stated in the “Democratic Civilisation Manifesto”: “The model that has no precedent in history is the monopolistic and homogeneous nation-state. We have analysed the inhuman and brutal character of this model together with its causes. Therefore, a democratic confederation of nations based on open-ended and flexible national identities is not only compatible with historical and social realities; it is also their ideal expression. One should not think of confederation as a union of states, but as a unity of democratic communes.
Democratic communes should be considered as the administration of the national social units they belong to. Their formation carries the privilege of the best application of democratic principles. They are the perfect example of the democratic governance of society.” Here, Öcalan clearly stated that communes form the foundation of the new understanding of socialism.
In the latest text he sent to the Free Women’s Movement (TJA), the concept of “deliberative democracy,” which he defined as the guiding principle of the new period, is one of the foundational elements of communal organisation.
Öcalan does not see communes as a structure that protects the power of any particular group. Instead, he sees them as spaces in which every individual and every segment of society can participate, express themselves, speak, and take part in decision-making.
This means a structure that includes all parts of society in struggle, without excluding or marginalising anyone. In line with Marx’s formulation that “everyone takes on tasks according to their ability,” communes operate without a ruling class. Everyone assumes responsibility and everyone contributes to the existence and continuity of the commune.
Horizontal organisation is the basic structure of the commune
A structure in which everyone takes part should, by its nature, not contain a vertical form of organisation or a hierarchical chain of command. This reality stands in contrast to the liberal democratic model that was imposed after the collapse of real socialism as “the only true ideology” and “the final stage of humanity.” Under changing global conditions, the most accurate approach to a renewed road to socialism is the system of deliberative democracy.
This system is a horizontal form of organisation and represents a stance against hierarchy. In this system, representatives are elected by all segments of society and can be recalled and replaced when necessary. The horizontal model is one of the most fundamental structural pillars of communal organisation.
A commune must include everyone living within its area and everyone must have the right to speak. Individuals who know how to speak and value their own words form the foundation of an organised and liberated society. When there is no authoritarian “I said so, and it is done” approach, a structure built on correct foundations leads to the emergence of free individuals and, consequently, free societies, and it also contributes to the development of the new era understanding of socialism.
Communal organisation must not be dependent on the state. Maintaining the independence of the commune enables it to act according to the unique conditions of the area it exists in. In this way, the commune can shape the surrounding area based on democratic life. One of the key dimensions of this is the organisation of the economy. Öcalan highlighted the economic importance of the commune and stated that communal organisation is also an economic form of organisation: “The unit scales of the economy are communes. Neither the ownership of land and other productive instruments divided down to families, nor the ownership of land and instruments by monopolies is economic. These are tools of modernity and civilisation that threaten the economy. Communal governance over land and instruments in every economic field, in return for maximum efficiency and utility, is ideal. The woman, who is excluded from the economy, is in essence the real creator of the economy. The woman and the economy are two elements bound to each other like flesh and nail. Since production is an essential economic need, there is no depression, no pollution, no climate threat. When profit-oriented production ends, the true liberation of the world begins. This is the liberation of human beings and of life.”
Öcalan’s model of the commune is based on organising and reconstructing every sphere of life. For this, a new life must be set as the goal and the consciousness of the masses towards socialism must be developed. Communes, and deliberative democracy as their model of organisation, represent one of the most critical stages on the path to socialism. [1]