Socialism as a meaning system: The example of the Turkish Socialist Left

The main purpose of this research, which is based on the method of sociological phenomenology, is to describe the basic elements of the Turkish Socialist Left's meaning system and how they built their meaning system. Furthermore, similarities between the socialist meaning system and traditional religious meaning systems have analysed. Thus, it is among the objectives to reveal that religious experience manifests itself in different forms with modern cultural transformation and to contribute to the critical of classical secularization theory. It can be claimed that there are five main movements in the Turkish Socialist Left which are represented by Revolutionary Workers' Party, The Socialist Party of the Oppressed, Halkevleri, AKA-DER / Kaldıraç Journal and the People's Liberation Party and these were selected as exemplary groups. In addition to interviews with their members and publication reviews, non-lingual symbols and rituals were also evaluated as data sources. Two-way coding, categorisation and thematic description were carried. The readings on religious theories and the history of religions have shown seven themes: Socialist Meaning System as a Source of Ontological Security, Establishment of Collective Memory, Struggle with the Idea of Death, Creation of Personality Cult, Sanctification of Space and Time, Revolution as Mandatory Holy Violence and Socialist Morality and Community. It is asserted that the socialist meaning system has three characteristics in Turkish Socialist Left, such as traditional religious meaning systems: to protect people from the threat of uncertainty by answering the need to understand social reality in a holistic way, to establish a sacred ontological status, to ensure the continuity of cultural institutionalisations without question, and to carry out moral control through community. These characteristics are defined by separating religion from non-religious and a series of recommendations have made to current sociology of religion studies in the conclusion. Keywords: Definition of religion, socialism, sociology of religion meaning systems, theory of secularisation, Turkish Socialist Left