'Suicide cannot be a tactic': The CHP and the death drive

Sigmund Freud, who completed the social revolutions of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in the last century, contradicted his own previous theses by stating that “the goal of all life is death.” In doing so, Freud overturned the idea he had previously laid the foundation for, which held that the “will to pleasure” was at the center of the individual and psychology. The argument he used was extremely simple: “All living beings die for internal reasons and return once again to an inorganic state. Then we are forced to say that ‘the goal of all life is death’ and, looking back, that ‘inanimate things existed before living ones.’” (Beyond the Pleasure Principle).

The crisis that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has been experiencing for the last few days, perhaps for the last few months or years, is not just a matter of bylaws, the judiciary, leadership, or factionalism. The issue has actually been this for a very long time: What is the CHP, and whose party is it? Is it the party of the state or the society? Of change or the status quo? Of the people or the establishment?

I say for a very long time, because this question has been on the agenda since 1945. Hikmet Kıvılcımlı, one of the most powerful writers on this subject, made a diagnosis in 1970 for the founding party that could be described as psychoanalytic (I hope neither the Doctor nor his students will be angry with me for this expression!):

“The wretched CHP did not even know what it was itself. The tragedy of Turkey does not lie in not knowing what democracy or the state is, but in not knowing what the CHP is. Everyone—the government, the opposition, and everyone else, including the CHP itself—is ‘in agreement’ on not knowing what the CHP is from the perspective of modern social science! If only it were known. If only the CHP itself knew!” (Letter to Mr. İ.İ. Pasha)

According to Kıvılcımlı, the issue was not just not knowing what democracy or the state was. Turkey’s tragedy lay in the CHP not knowing or recognizing its own “self”—that is, its psychology, or the class it represented. In Kıvılcımlı’s words, a party’s “self” was its bylaws, program, and principles; its “God” was the social class it represented. The CHP’s problem today, just as it was fifty-five years ago, begins exactly here: A party that does not know its “own God” takes refuge in the ghosts and dreams of the past during every crisis.

For this reason, we cannot read today’s crisis merely as a struggle between two names or a petty squabble between the government and the opposition. As Prof. Dr. Barış Doster said in a television broadcast on May 22, 2026, I wish we would discuss ideas rather than names; because if there is no radical difference between Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Özgür Özel from foreign policy to the economy, the problem is much deeper than the individuals.

Such being the case, the question we must ask is this: When the CHP changes its leader, is it really changing direction, or will it change; or, as Freud conceptualized, will it return to its primordial state, a kind of nothingness? Are the millions of voters of the founding party witnessing the suicide of their party?

At this point, it may be useful to return to Freud’s concept of the “death drive.” The death drive, in a crude sense, is not a desire for annihilation. More deeply, it is the tendency of the living to rid themselves of their own tension and return to an earlier, more familiar, lower-intensity, and more stable state. As Freud said, “all drives tend to restore an earlier state of things.” This sentence is surprisingly explanatory for the CHP’s political behavioral patterns. For years, after every major crisis, the party has appeared on the scene with the language of “innovation,” “change,” “normalization,” “struggle,” and “unity”; but when the crisis deepens, it returns to the safe areas it knew before. It takes refuge once again in old leadership reflexes, the old “state mind,” and the old class ambiguity.

Another of Freud’s judgments is also important for understanding this cycle: “Novelty is the constant condition for experiencing pleasure.” The CHP, too, tirelessly offers the promise of novelty to its base every time. A new chairman, a new party congress, a new alliance, a new discourse, a new form of struggle, a new presidential candidate… But these “novelties” often do not lead to a genuine break. Novelty serves as a function that changes the decor of the ongoing stage. The party member takes pleasure in the change, and the party takes pleasure in the advertisement of change; but it avoids the cost of change. This is exactly where the death drive comes into play: The CHP does not want to cease to exist, but it fears the break that would keep it alive.

In the words of another psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, the issue is not just repetition, but an attachment to the “symptom.” The symptom is not just a malfunction one wants to get rid of, but also a knot that provides a certain form of existence and pleasure. The CHP’s “symptom” can be sought here: It wants to be the people’s party, yet it leans on the founding mind of the state; it wants to open up to the left, yet it fears appearing “extremist”; it wants change, yet it is terrified of the class and political consequences of change. Because this contradiction is not resolved, crises and their consequences are constantly re-staged. The congresses, courts, leaders, group meetings, and television debates change; but the symptom remains the same.

The “death drive,” conceptualized and used by American thinker Catherine Liu for American liberal politics, also helps in analyzing the situation. The liberal-professional class culture that Liu criticizes often focuses more on maintaining its moral superiority while being defeated than on actually defeating the government. This logic can also be seen in the secular-professional opposition surrounding the CHP. Being right, being sophisticated, being civilized, being reasonable, and being able to say “we are not like them” often take precedence over political victory. Thus, even defeat turns into a part of identity and belonging. Instead of organizing the conflictual social energy that would topple the government, the party and its circle are trapped in an aesthetic of victimhood that repeatedly confirms its own righteousness.

As a result, the death drive in the CHP is strong, and the CHP is heading rapidly toward death, toward its primordial state. The CHP is committing suicide. Because it does not want to adopt the risky, class-based, and conflictual politics required to win, and thus it is defeated again and again. Perhaps it does not want to destroy itself consciously; but it chooses the paths that lead to extinction in order not to transform itself.

At this point, it is also necessary to touch upon Kıvılcımlı’s critique of the “neutral state.” According to the Doctor, the “neutral state” is a delusion; since the transition to multi-party life, the state has worked on the side of whoever holds power. The CHP’s reflex since İsmet Pasha has been to act with a tendency to see the state as a kind of referee, the legal order as a mechanism that works by itself, and institutions as structures that will eventually act reasonably. However, if the state is not neutral, and if the judicial sphere is not independent of political power relations, the strategy of “let’s stay within the order” is not a useful strategy and ultimately means surrender. Kıvılcımlı’s harsh expression should be instructive for everyone at this point: “Suicide cannot be a tactic.”

Therefore, the question before the CHP today is not just “Is it Kılıçdaroğlu, Özel, İmamoğlu, this one, or that one?” It should not be. The question is this: Will the CHP be able to recognize itself? Will it be able to clearly define its own self—that is, its program, its class basis, and its politics? Will it be able to build a courageous politics regarding how workers, students, retirees, the poor, the precarious, and the secular middle classes will unite in a real and concrete historical bloc? Or will it return to its old reasonable position, old leadership debates, and old fear of “not appearing extremist” in every crisis?

Freud’s statement that “the goal of all life is death” may lead to an inescapable pessimism on the political stage. But when thought about carefully, it explains this: If the living being escapes its own tension and does not recognize itself, it wants to return to an older and more stable balance. This is the danger for the CHP today. The party is still alive; it has the potential to represent a great social energy. But if this potential is imprisoned within old fears and old repetitions, the life drive will be defeated by the death drive.

What the CHP needs is not just a new leader, a new congress, or a new slogan. What the CHP needs is to reckon with itself. That is why Kıvılcımlı’s warning is more current today than ever: Suicide cannot be a tactic. If a party mistakes its own fear for being reasonable, its own ambiguity for inclusivity, and its own habit of defeat for democratic discipline, it is no longer just making mistakes; it is mistaking its own death drive for politics.