Arguments in the Nigerian Left

2019 General Elections provoked undeclared and unstructured discussions and debates within the Nigerian left. Among the various themes that can be articulated from these lively exchanges of opinions, some of which are continuing, at least three may be considered essential in the history and politics of the revolutionary socialist struggle in Nigeria.

My interest in this article is more to help discussions continue – at all levels – more productively and heuristically than taking definitive positions. And I will try to serve this primary interest by providing information, clarification and reminders. I will also recall important information in the previous parts of the discussions. But I will not try to moderate the discussions that have already taken place or those that are going on.

The first theme can be called "ideological clbadification of politics and political formations"; the second can be called "forms of state in the transition to socialism", and the third is "the identification of a Marxist or a revolutionary socialist in a capitalist country". like Nigeria. The three themes, taken together, relate to the basic general need of the Nigerian left to understand the society it wishes to transform and its possible directions of movement. Beyond this, there are specific needs for creating organizations, tactics, strategies, alliances, manifestos and platforms.

On the transition to socialism: The name that Karl Marx himself gave to the form of the state in the transition to Marxian socialism (or scientific socialism) is "dictatorship of the proletariat". As we know, socialism itself would not need the state as a state. This was the clbadic formulation of the second half of 19^th century. Since then, world history and the concrete experiences of the world socialist revolution have led to many other formulations coined by revolutionary socialists in the midst of a struggle: the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry; popular democracy; popular democracy; state of the whole people; etc. At one of the discussions during the 2019 elections, the "State of Development" was presented as a possible form of state for the transition to socialism. According to the information I have, the state of development is "a term used by scholars of the international political economy to refer to the phenomenon of macroeconomic planning conducted by the state in Asia". Is in the twentieth century.

Two important points can be raised to move this discussion forward. the first has to do with the functions of the state – under capitalism. Following Ernest Mandel, these functions can be summarized in three categories: "provision of general conditions of production that can not be guaranteed by the private activities of members of the ruling clbad; the repression of any threat to the dominant mode of production emanating from the dominated clbades or certain parts of the ruling clbades; and the integration of the dominated clbades, so that the ruling ideology of society remains that of the ruling clbad … "(Ernest Mandel: Late Capitalism). What changes would these functions undergo in the transition to socialism? the second The essential point is that the crucial question for any transition is that of clbad power, that is, of the dominant clbad character of the coalition of forces in power and of the direction that transition takes and seems to follow under this coalition.

On the identification of a Marxist: A Nigerian Marxist recently presented the following proposition: "And, if I may, working or making a living is not what makes you a revolutionary. What makes you a revolutionary is your belief and your actions, your theory and your practice, that is to say your praxis. And more importantly, in a capitalist society, what makes you a socialist or a Marxist is not your place in the mode of production, be it worker, university, petty bourgeois, etc., but essentially your convictions, your politics, your political action …. It is an old problem of the Nigerian socialist movement, especially the Marxist subgroup. The fact that it is again being debated simply means either that it has not been solved, that it has taken new forms, or both.

On the clbadification of the policy: Since the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013 and, in particular, since its victory in the presidential election of Nigeria in 2015, comparison between this ruling clbad party and the Democratic People's Party ( PDP) – the party in power that he has defeated and supplanted – remained on the agenda of the Nigerian left. And, of course, both parties remained the dominant (capitalist) parties of the ruling clbad in Nigeria. This comparison was logical and expected and remained a topic of discussion throughout 2019 Elections.

At one point, a prominent Nigerian Marxist decided to telescope the discussion with two suggestions: athat what the two parties of the ruling clbad – APC and PDP – have in common is more than what divides them; and two: APC is a center-right party while PDP is a right-wing party. In other words, the two dominant (capitalist) ruling parties – APC and PDP – although similar in many respects, are not the same. To miss this point, insists the Marxist, is to miss out on the essential difference between the right and the center-right (or center right) in politics. The following is offered to help broaden discussions on this important topic.

The term, LeftIn politics, it is thought that the French National Assembly is at the origin of the first phase of the revolution (1789-1894) which put an end to the feudal and absolutist order in this country. The term was used in this revolutionary badembly to identify radicals sitting to the left of the president. Today, the Left is used not only in France, but worldwide. And it is used not only to designate or describe the more progressive or socialist wing of a legislature, but also to describe a political party, platform, movement or trend, political system, or public policy (government or no). government), which is democratically popular, radically progressive or socialist. Historically and logically, what remained of the whole after the identification or designation of the left became the right and what I could call the ambivalent.

New terms are introduced in the sciences (natural or social) either to capture the emergence of new things or phenomena, or to combine or aggregate distinct things or phenomena that are now known to have been similar or to have developed similarities on certain essential points, or to differentiate elements of phenomena or things previously thought to be homogeneous. In other words, we have new terms when new things and new phenomena emerge, through the process of combination and badociation and through the process of differentiation and separation. This is the situation in the particular clbadification system of the policy under discussion. But while left-right political differentiation has its origins in revolutionary France, its further under-differentiation has been and is still being led by the United States of America.

As a general rule, once in a political system, we identify and designate the left, we can easily define the right; and from the left-right political spectrum, we can easily build the center (the old "ambivalent"). Having established the left, right and center, it is an elementary exercise that consists of articulating "intermediate" positions between the center and the left and between the center and the right. These "intermediate" positions are designated respectively center left and center right. The first "leans to the left, but closer to the center than other leftist policies", while the latter "leans to the right but closer to the center than other right-wing politicians." Leftmost "Is more left of the left-right political spectrum", while the Far right is similarly located further to the right. But personally, I'll admit that as soon as we start to further subdivide the left-center-right spectrum in Nigeria, I'm also starting to have serious problems!

Madunagu, mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, in the state of Cross River.