Turkey finds itself in a decisive moment. The current struggles and debates — carried out in the wake of last Sunday’s referendum, which handed dictatorial powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the Justice Development Party (AKP) — will fundamentally shape the country’s balance of power, both in the immediate and long term. Now is the time for the Turkish left to turn the tide and regain the initiative.

Yet despite the inescapable urgency of the situation, confusion abounds on the Left, inside and outside of Turkey. A dominant strand of thinking offers handwringing and a parade of doubts: “you cannot vote down fascism”; “the AKP was expecting the resistance, and is sufficiently strong to ignore it”; “the post-referendum protests are not powerful, but rather limited to a small minority in leftist strongholds.” This line of reasoning leads inexorably to the conclusion that contesting the results is pointless, since all legal avenues are closed and the state apparatuses are controlled by the AKP.

At times, this passive stance is combined with ostensibly radical phrase-mongering: everyone should take up arms, it is insisted, or fight for “the socialist revolution.” Needless to say, there are no concrete proposals about how exactly this armed struggle should be waged or how “the socialist revolution” would be won under the current circumstances.