Working Class and Trade Unionism in Turkey II Yüksel Akkaya In the post1960 period, the proleterianisation process has gained impetus in both qualitative and quantitative terms; the material conditions required for the working class to be a “class for itself” have been formed. In that period the import substitution industrialization created new opportunities for capital to provide consensus with the working class. This has been a decisive factor in whether the working class would be satisfied by simply organizing itself or it would deal with those policies concerning the political power. The direction of this preference would depend on its ties with the socialist movement and on the material conditions of the socialist movement itself. Although the working class in Turkey attained important progress in being a class for itself between 19601980, it could not reach the necessary level for that. Rather, its orientation was tried to be directed towards the social  democratic parties through legal regulations or the initiatives of some of the trade unions’ administrations. The socialist trade unionists and workers were threatened to be dismissed. In spite of all these problems, by 1980 the working class consciousness had already made a considerable progress. This progress posed a threat to capitalists and has been a factor inducing a coup d’etat to pave the ground for the implementation of the new economic policies and capital accumulation strategy. This coup d’etat has been so successful that the working class could not reach the level of consciousness of the pre1980 period. Therefore it is vital that the working class, which shifted towards the rightwing parties in this period, has to regain this consciousness and be active in formulating policies concerning political power. This requires a high degree of responsibility on the part of the organizations of the working class and its political representatives.