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“It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime”
― Maximilien Robespierre

“In the present chapter, the doctrine of the chosen people serves only as an illustration. Its value as such can be seen from the fact that its chief characteristics are shared by the two most important modern versions of historicism, whose analysis will form the major part of this book—the historical philosophy of racialism or fascism on the one (the right) hand and the Marxian historical philosophy on the other (the left). For the chosen people racialism substitutes the chosen race (of Gobineau’s choice), selected as the instrument of destiny, ultimately to inherit the earth. Marx’s historical philosophy substitutes for it the chosen class, the instrument for the creation of the classless society, and at the same time, the class destined to inherit the earth. Both theories base their historical forecasts on an interpretation of history which leads to the discovery of a law of its development. In the case of racialism, this is thought of as a kind of natural law; the biological superiority of the blood of the chosen race explains the course of history, past, present, and future; it is nothing but the struggle of races for mastery. In the case of Marx’s philosophy of history, the law is economic; all history has to be interpreted as a struggle of classes for economic supremacy.”
― Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato

“Those who opposed mandatory education in public schools were imposing mandatory party education in the prison cells they controlled.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Son Diktatör

“It was a hellish conglomeration of relationships built upon a monolithic, top-down, highly rigid disciplinary social engineering.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Son Diktatör

“Both DEV-SOL and TÄ°KKO killed some of their members who they called police collaborators in several prisons. The way they informed the administration after the murder was horrific. They would leave the body next to the trash bin in the corridor and say to the guards, "Come take your trash!”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Son Diktatör

“From the beginning, artistic endeavors have been underestimated in traditionalist left-wing organizations.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Son Diktatör

“While discussing what kind of evidence the allegations of espionage were based on, those young friends, realizing how real and irrational they were, listened with eyes widened in horror. One of them couldn't take it anymore and said, "I can't believe it. Such evil in a socialist revolution cannot be true, it's impossible."But unfortunately, that was the reality.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Son Diktatör

“Witnessing those who once rebelled against the state and their fathers by fleeing to the mountains, only to become worse than their fathers when they returned home after prison, has deeply shattered me. The fall of those who set high standards is always painful.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“I also wondered about the officials of the organization that killed 17-year-old Åžimel Aydın, and I managed to find their tracks. I learned from their comrades that the representative of the left-wing organization started a career in business and made a lot of money in trade after being released from prison.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“Families whose children were killed or disappeared by the state try to hold the state accountable in institutions like the Human Rights Association and in places like Galatasaray Square, while families whose loved ones were killed by organizations are nowhere to be found. Years ago, when I asked the wife of Mehmet Çakar, who was killed in Bursa prison, she said, "There is no place to go to demand accountability!”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“A revolution that adores its dead but beats its living might as well not happen!”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“Another important thing I observed during the 1996 hunger strike was that leftist organizations had entered a competition of resistance. It was a race where the one who resisted the most was considered the best revolutionary. However, if revolutions could be made merely through resistance alone, the world would be overflowing with revolutions.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“When we look at the archives, we find no statement other than Ercan Kanar's condemnation concerning Åžimel Aydın. We encounter a Human Rights Association (Ä°HD) that becomes silent when it comes to the execution by left-wing organizations. This silence is not limited to Ä°HD alone. Primarily the press and media of the time, as well as institutions and individuals advocating human rights, have remained silent when it comes to organizational executions.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“I cannot comprehend how many rational people, capable of political and philosophical thought, after putting their own friends through torturous interrogations in a 'trial', can unanimously decide to execute them all together; some even strangling their friends or others keeping watch to prevent any sounds or noise, and then celebrate it with dancing the next morning. This must be a disorder both mentally and intellectually.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz

“I had heard about an internal execution in Ankara Ulucanlar where an individual, who had been receiving special care for months from a comrade, cornered this comrade in the visitor's cabin and stabbed him to death in front of his visitor while his other friends held the door to ensure no one could escape. All of these are very painful, but unfortunately, they are true events.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“The morning after the next night, a dance of revolution took place in the barracks. At the head of the line was likely the comrade Åžimel referred to as "sister". Years later, I learned that while those who executed Åžimel were dancing, two female guards on the other side of the door were crying. Torture marks were found in the autopsy report. Åžimel was a 17-year-old girl when she was killed. It seems they didn't even wait for her to grow up. Both the state and 11 leftist organizations knew Åžimel would be killed. Neither the state nor the organizations prevented it. Those who annually commemorate Erdal Eren, whose age was increased for his execution, did not see, hear, or acknowledge Åžimel. Yet, Åžimel's age was not altered. She remained forever 17.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“A blind intellect produces ruthlessness. Even justice is achieved through ruthlessness in the temperament of narrow groups.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“When I learned about Berfin's execution in detail, I realized once again that torture and cruelty are not related to gender, and that the main problem, like in many other areas, actually stems from the system.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“One day, we were sitting in what we called the education room, watching the news on TV. When it went to a commercial break, the channel needed to be changed. We noticed that the person responsible for the remote was nowhere to be found, although the remote was lying there in plain sight. No one dared to pick it up. Everyone was suggesting it to others, but no one had the courage to actually take the remote and change the channel, because there was an organizational rule: Only the person in charge of the remote, who was also the TV manager, could handle it. Without his permission, no one could turn on the TV and watch it. That scene had a profound impact on me. I went and wrote in my journal: "How can those who lack the courage to change a TV channel change an entire system?”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“Our communal life was not structured around the advocacy of individual freedom. Under the name of collectivism, a form of relation that subjugated the individual to a central authority had permeated every aspect of our lives. We were 40 people in the blocks, yet we were as if one single person. We had all become one person. First, the ideological persona, then the military persona, we became a community that wound itself up like a self-setting clock. But a person is not a self-setting clock, and because of that, many of those who wound themselves up became something quite different over time.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“... the preferred type of revolutionary was the one who carried out all the instructions of the organization called the military personality without questioning. I observed that those who could write and read tended to stand somewhat on the sidelines.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“There, day by day, I learned through experience that reading independent sources on philosophy and ideologies is beneficial. I must also mention that it was not easy; I tested it against my own experiences through trial and error. Let me briefly touch on this aspect by saying, "I tested my experiences against the books I read.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz

“We had a perception of leadership that criticized single-person rule in other parties and states but unquestioningly obeyed our own.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“My comrades, who criticized Soviet socialism and Stalin's dictatorship within the party at every turn, were full of excessive praise for party leaders who were merely imitating it 50 years later.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz

“Since the '90s, we wanted to implement in the Middle East, in Kurdish territories, a system that had started to collapse in some countries.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“After a while, I realized that I was not alone in this matter. There were many among us who had experienced similar problems in other prisons. Most of them were broken for similar reasons, had lost their enthusiasm, and were spending their days like me. Among us, those who were most broken were those who, like me, had entered the struggle attaching exaggerated romantic meanings to the revolution but realized that the revolution they imagined was not what it turned out to be.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, Yoldaşını Öldürmek

“The fate of all romantic revolutionaries was the same; in seeking to rid themselves of one tyrant, they had become victims of another tyrannical power.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, ¶Ù²¹ÄŸ²ú´Ç³ú³Ü³¾³Ü

“The dream of building new lives by ending other lives is a misguided dream.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, ¶Ù²¹ÄŸ²ú´Ç³ú³Ü³¾³Ü

“Whenever I think about all these tragic lives, I liken the party to a mill. As the mill turns, it grinds people down. What's tragic is that this mill, which grinds people, is still being operated by the same people.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, ¶Ù²¹ÄŸ²ú´Ç³ú³Ü³¾³Ü

“The whole world now knows that most of what socialists call "new" is worse than the old.”
― Aytekin Yılmaz, ¶Ù²¹ÄŸ²ú´Ç³ú³Ü³¾³Ü