section_path: Ideology and aims
section_name: Ideology and aims
paragraph_text: Ideology and aims
  
  The organization originated in the early 1970s from the radical left and drew its membership from other existing leftist groups, mainly Dev-Genç.: 127 During the 1980s, the movement included and cooperated with other ethnic groups, including ethnic Turks, who were following the radical left.: 127 : 129 The organization initially presented itself as part of the worldwide communist revolution. Its aims and objectives have evolved over time towards the goals of national autonomy a federation similar the one of Switzerland, Germany or the United States and democratic confederalism.
  
  Around 1995, the PKK ostensibly changed its aim from independence to a demand for equal rights and Kurdish autonomy within the Turkish state, though all the while hardly suspending their military attacks on the Turkish state except for ceasefires in 1999–2004 and 2013–2015. In 1995, Öcalan said: "We are not insisting on a separate state under any condition. What we are calling for very openly is a state model where a people's basic economic, cultural, social, and political rights are guaranteed".
  
  Whilst this shift in the mid-nineties has been interpreted as one from a call for independence to an autonomous republic, some scholars have concluded that the PKK still maintains independence as the ultimate goal, but through society-building rather than state-building.
  
  The PKK has in March 2016 also vowed to overthrow the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, through the ' Peoples' United Revolutionary Movement '.
  
  The organization has adapted the new democratic confederalist views of its arrested leader, which aim to replace the United Nations, capitalism and nation state with the democratic confederalism which is described as a system of popularly elected administrative councils, allowing local communities to exercise autonomous control over their assets while linking to other communities via a network of confederal councils. Followers of Öcalan and members of the PKK are known, after his honorary name, as Apocu (Apo-ites) under his movement, Apoculuk (Apoism). The slogan Bijî Serok Apo, which translates into Long Live leader Apo, is often chanted by his sympathizers.