Before the late 2014 battle for Kobanê, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was an almost forgotten force in the West. But with the Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) — a sister organization to the PKK — heroic struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, it was clear that the party and its imprisoned founder, Abdullah Öcalan, could not be ignored. And not just in left circles.

The last time the PKK attracted widespread interest was during the 1990s when it fought a brutal war with the Turkish state for Kurdish self-determination. At that time, the PKK’s ideological references were thoroughly Marxist-Leninist. Support for the organization on the Left was strongest among groups that placed their emphasis on national liberation struggles in the Third World.

Libertarian socialist and anti-Stalinist currents were more skeptical. They pointed to the party’s nationalist orientation and its antidemocratic character, demonstrated by Öcalan’s lethal purges. PKK violence against civilians — like the families of pro-government militia members or government-employed teachers — was also a major point of contention.