ABSTRACT
The article focuses on how major socialist-communist parties and circles in Turkey have analysed the 15 July military coup attempt and the political developments during and after the aborted coup. The paper problematises whether Marxist movements have offered an alternative account of the coup attempt by making use of Marxian state theories. The article illustrates that Marxists in Turkey have not tried to incorporate refined Marxian state theories into their explanations, which would allocate more comprehensive role to the relative autonomy of state. Marxists merely conceived the coup attempt as a ‘crisis of hegemony’ among different factions of the bourgeoisie, bureaucracy and government. Accordingly, most of the Marxist parties have failed to provide a rich Marxian explanation that would significantly differ from non-Marxian accounts. The analysis of the post-coup attempt environment demonstrates the inefficacy of Marxist parties in unifying under a more expansive, pro-democracy political program, thereby possibly garnering more popular support.
