The economic crisis, along with the current inflation of 73.5 percent, is bringing the deepest and broadest masses in Turkey closer and closer to the edge of their existence. All over the country, the poor peasants are suffering from rising food and fuel prices, which makes survival in servitude to the big landowners more difficult every day. As an example, the situation of the peasants in Ashut village in Chukurca province in the Turkish part of Mesopotamia, in the very south-east of the country.
An important part of the peasants' work in the village is milking the sheep for cheese production, which, however, is located uphill on the high plateau several kilometres away. Due to the increased fuel prices, it now costs 500 Turkish liras a month to rent a car. A sum the peasants cannot afford, and so they have to set off on foot in the early hours of the morning for an hour-long walk up into the mountains.
Meanwhile, the state is expanding its repression in the rural areas so that the peasants remain further enslaved in backbreaking labour. Those whose labour becomes redundant to the needs of the big landowners relocate to the cities to do gratis work. An 80-year-old villager describes: „Before, we could go to these mountains, plateaus, and use them as we wanted. But now they have ruined everything for us. Young people have to travel to western metropolises and work. Because they didn't leave a life here. Drones fly over us every night. We are afraid, who cares if we are killed here in the mountains, or who asks? The village where I was born and raised is now forbidden to me. Why are they banning this?“
Other voices from the village are like "We have been murdered for 40 years" or they have "not had a relaxed day or a comfortable life for 20 years". The peasants in Ashut village have no other perspective of seeing better days again than if they fight. These masses, who are ready to fight and have nothing to lose, must be incorporated into the people's war - this is necessary to advance the revolution in Turkey.
