New Zine: "Freedom and Socialism"
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
We have republished, in zine format, an article by Sinan Cûdî originally published in ANF-News on 29 December 2025, which analyses the concept of freedom in Marx and Öcalan, highlighting the continuity between the two thinkers.
"The problem of social freedom is one of the most central yet also one of the most contested themes in modern political thought. Within the Marxist tradition in particular, freedom has largely been associated with the transformation of relations of production and the abolition of class domination. While this approach has provided a powerful theoretical framework for exposing the structural functioning of capitalist exploitation, historical experience has shown that freedom does not automatically emerge solely through the transformation of economic relations.
The fact that relations of domination can be reproduced in different forms even under conditions where class power has changed demonstrates that the question of freedom requires a deeper theoretical interrogation. It is therefore clear that social freedom must be examined together with the relationship established with being and the way society understands itself. In other words, freedom is not a political gain to be achieved at a later stage; it is a process shaped within ontological1 assumptions, social relations, and forms of practical action. When the human being and society are treated as fixed essences, freedom is inevitably constrained. By contrast, approaches that conceive being as relational, processual, and historical expand the material and social conditions of freedom.
In this context, Abdullah Öcalan’s2 approach to socialism as communalism3 should not be read as a rejection of classical dialectical materialism. On the contrary, it should be discussed as an attempt to update it in order to overcome the limits revealed through historical experience. Öcalan’s treatment of ontology, sociology, and socialism as interwoven necessities makes it possible to rethink freedom as a problem of social existence that is not confined to a change in power.
The question can therefore be formulated as follows: can social freedom be established solely through the transformation of relations of production, or is an understanding of being and social ontology a constitutive component of this process? Framed around this question, it becomes possible to acknowledge the strengths of the classical Marxist conception of freedom while also making visible the theoretical and practical impasses created by the neglect of the ontological dimension. In this direction, the article will first examine the approach of classical dialectical materialism4 to the problem of freedom and the limits that emerged in historical practice. It will then discuss the relationship between ontology and freedom, analyzing the determining effect of the modes of existence of the human being and society on political practice.
In the following sections, the necessity of expanding class-centered analyses will be addressed within a sociological framework, and Abdullah Öcalan’s communalist conception of socialism will be positioned at the intersection of these theoretical debates. The study will conclude by discussing how dialectical materialism can be carried toward a more historical and inclusive framework through the incorporation of ontological and social dimensions."
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