MEQ: At its fifth congress in January 1995, the PKK removed the hammer and sickle from its flag and continued to deemphasize its earlier Marxism. What do you say to those who say this was a cosmetic change and that you are still a Marxist, a communist?
Öcalan: This is just propaganda. It is not possible for us to be communists. Why did the Soviet Union collapse and the United States has not? It is because communism made the government everything, but the human being nothing. The United States represents development.