Leader Apo says: “Work, struggle, war; these are the main keystones of life.” These keystones pass through a person’s knowledge of their own life reality and through educating themselves according to the principles of freedom.
If we try to approach life not from a scientific point of view, but from a philosophical one, then life is another name for an equation and a dialectic that is not made up merely of memories, but carries within itself all the changes and transformations of a historical cycle; that makes dozens of emotions live in every moment; and that unites existence through those emotions. Just as it is difficult to express the reality of existence, and in fact the embryonic state of existing, how life is lived also has historical importance.
Although the difference between a free life and a slave-like way of life should be addressed as two lines, two thoughts, and two classes, it is also clear that life must be considered as a whole, through the factors of existing, advancing, and undergoing change. Life is not merely a straight line; this is as evident as it is true. As a result, the class character of ways of living becomes clearly visible in city life, village life, street life, and beyond that, in all forms of life that emerge in different times and places. There is one single point where countless different lifestyles and realities of life meet. That is the theory: “We live as much as we are able to breathe.”
In this context, a form of thought opens the way for human beings to ask the question of how they should live and to search for the answer to that question. A form of thought is a philosophical perspective that has a great influence on human life, directs life, and serves to give a person a moral and political personality. The Kurdistan Freedom Guerrillas, who are defenders of the Apoist philosophy and paradigm and who possess this perspective and ideological wholeness, have rendered the theory of “we live as much as we are able to breathe” meaningless in their practices of life.
When one speaks of the guerrilla, the first thing that comes to mind is their ability, despite all difficulties, to live according to the principles of freedom and to write epics with great determination in the struggle for life. In the mountains, struggle is carried out through three fundamental concepts. At the center of all these concepts lies reaching one’s own reality and waging struggle against what is wrong. These concepts are, respectively: struggle with nature, struggle with the enemy, and most importantly, the struggle to attain the personality of the free human being. In other words, to wage war against one’s own personality.
Can the enemy be analyzed without a person revealing their own personality and essence, without analyzing themselves? How can a person move forward without analyzing, within their own core, the reality of the enemy, the reality of the people, and the reality of the person and nature? Even if some distance is covered, how much of it will be on the ideological line? The answers to all these questions are hidden in the struggle for life carried out in the free mountains, and in the perspective of educating oneself and the society one belongs to in every single moment of life. In these mountains, where the consciousness of labor and the consciousness of comradeship are made alive at the highest level, the person strives moment by moment to analyze themselves and bring their political personality to the forefront. To the extent that a person can know themselves, they crown their life with meaning and their existence with eternity.
Leader Apo is a line, a philosophy, and a way of life. Through the changes he made moment by moment in his own personality, Leader Apo proved to the whole world that a socialist personality is in fact possible, and he created the reality of a complete and revolutionary spirit. Millions of people who have given their hearts to Leader Apo also carry their personalities into a meaningful and life-giving stage by taking Leader Apo as their basis. For this reason, just as it is evident that class-based life must be overcome, the door to a libertarian and determined life has also been opened fully.
On this subject, in an analysis he made on January 3, 1998, Leader Apo said:
“Life — the fundamental error in your determination, in your essence — determines your entire lifetime, just as it is also the source of all your problems. Just as you cannot answer the general question of what human life is, the way the event called life takes shape in us, and its falling into contradiction with its essence at all fundamental points, makes you very dangerous. In fact, what we want to do through the revolutionary method is to reach a correct definition of life and, if life is to be lived, to have a correct decision for life made on this basis. All your resistance is against both the definition of life and our determination for life. When we want to give a deeper meaning to all the tragic situations in this war, we come and rest on this point. It is natural that those who do not know life, and those who cannot make a strong decision on how to live, lose very badly in war. But the issue is not whether the definition is developed or not, or whether the decision is developed or not; rather, we cannot break this counter-resistance of yours. I cannot resolve this. Of course, beneath this lie weak emotions, very influential conditions, lack of education, and also a state of being obsessively attached from the beginning to habits we call a very bad opium-like style; all of this completely feeds your opposing stubbornness. And breaking this is harder than breaking the enemy.”
“Victory Begins in Thought; War Is Always Won in Thought”
It is clear that in a socialist and revolutionary personality, where habits and personality problems become obstacles, a healthy practice and a healthy life cannot be achieved. For this reason, from the very beginning, Leader Apo takes as his basis the trainings that address the change and transformation of the person. This opens the way to better results and to ideological commitment. If what is desired is freedom, then its price passes through creating a new self within oneself. Perhaps this path and this war are heavy and painful, but their result is a magnificent revolutionary and socialist personality.
Those who live the Apoist philosophy, with the awareness that giving meaning to life and shaping one’s personality according to life leads to victory, make real the fact that a correct life is addressed through correct personality analyses — by reading Leader Apo, researching him, and making him alive within themselves.
In another analysis, Leader Apo says:
“A struggle whose brain does not think, and which does not win victory in thought, does not automatically lead to success. For this reason, in this statement, I gave great weight to the power of thought. I win this war through the power of thought, through the power of the word. The more correct it is, the more carefully you stand upon it, the more practice develops by itself on a healthy path and reaches success.”
The word is the reality that must pass into action. This is why education — the most basic apparatus through which human beings are fragmented among the gears of the system — becomes the most important issue in guerrilla life. Because the Apoist struggle takes as its basis the re-emergence into daylight of the lost values of humanity, its honor, its truth, and its life. For this reason, through education, what has been lost can be found, and the values belonging to humanity can once again be brought together with humanity.