BETWEEN Monday, 22nd and 23rd January, 2024, I participated in the centenary celebration of the passing of Russian socialist, Vladimir Lenin, that was held in Abuja, and the event inspired some reflections. One of the titles Lenin wrote is What Is To Be Done? That’s because it is the most important question in Marxism. It’s no coincidence that Marx himself said that “the philosophers have interpreted the world, the point therefore is to change it.” I
n answering this question of what is to be done about Lenin’s legacy, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, was close when he said that the centenary commemoration should remind us of the need to work together in the left. But he was only able to identify a problem of disunity. This article is meant to dig deep into that problem in search of a solution.
Karl Marx’s most popular slogan is “Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!” Socialism is a unifying worldview, not a polarising worldview. That’s why the base word in it is “society.” The dialectical method is a unifying method, not a polarising method. That’s why one of its components is the “unity and interpenetration of opposites.” That dialectical thinking is missing in political thought today and it has narrowed down political discourse. We have curated an opposite ideology and worldview to that of those in favour of oppression and exploitation, but we have slowly returned to their method of thinking through an osmosis of methods.
Most of my generation (and those after) do not know who Lenin is. They don’t even know who Joe Ajaero, the NLC president, is. Those who know are bombarded by Google with an inappropriate portrayal of Lenin. The centenary of Lenin’s passing was very important as a revolt against the mainstream media portrayal of Lenin as a tyrant. To understand what is to be done, we must tell ourselves one truth – history is biased. Not just the history of events like the Russian Revolution or the Spanish Revolution or the Cuban Revolution. The histories of great men and women in history are also biased. It is therefore important for us to take charge of the history of Lenin and the role Lenin played in history.
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For Lenin, Marxists see a revolutionary, but pro-capitalist liberals see a tyrant that laid the template for Stalin’s authoritarianism. This does not mean that we will deny any political mistakes by Lenin, but it means that we will consciously emphasise the ideas of Lenin that were tested and corrected and mainstream it into political discourse.
Just like we won’t throw out all of Ayn Rand’s liberating ideas because of her mistakes with hyper-individualism and capitalism, we cannot let the world throw out our baby Lenin with the bathwater of the Soviet Union that ended up as a capitalist dictatorship despite an historically-symbolic socialist revolution. We cannot do that because the dialectical method of thinking does not allow that absolute thinking. Lenin was a great plus to human history, despite what happened to the Soviet Union. Lenin was a Marxist for his generation because he identified the main practical components of Marxism and defined Marxism for his generation. Most importantly the component of dialectical thinking.
The saddest part of this poverty of dialectics is that it has turned socialism and class politics to an identity instead of an ideology and a worldview. It has created workerism. It is the reason why the Labour Party in Nigeria ‘which is just labour in name’ became a bully on behalf of the ideology and worldview of capitalism and a capitalist presidential candidate in the 2023 election. We now have sets of activists who treat the word ‘comrade’ like an identity and continue to bear the title even when they have crossed to the side of oppression and are open and paid defenders of the oppressive system. Names like Rauf Aregbesola, Adams Oshiomhole, Festus Keyamo, etc., will come to mind. Others from this category participated in that centenary event in Abuja earlier this week.
To correct that mainstream tyrannical conception of Lenin, we don’t just introduce the socialist worldview to our generation, we must also redefine that dialectical method of thinking (that allows everyone to see both sides of Lenin) for our generation just like Lenin did. This is not just going to save Lenin’s reputation and legacy, but it will save our present world too, from polarisation and divisiveness.
Karl Marx’s most popular slogan is “Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!” Socialism is a unifying worldview, not a polarising worldview. That’s why the base word in it is “society.” The dialectical method is a unifying method, not a polarising method. That’s why one of its components is the “unity and interpenetration of opposites.” That dialectical thinking is missing in political thought today and it has narrowed down political discourse. We have curated an opposite ideology and worldview to that of those in favour of oppression and exploitation, but we have slowly returned to their method of thinking through an osmosis of methods.
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It has created a problem of divisiveness in our society today. Rather than use our worldview to oppose the imbalance and inequality of this oppressive society, we have created identity politics from that inequality. This identity politics has only been successful in one thing – further fracture and fragmentation of a society that is already fractured by oppression. From racial identity politics, to gender identity politics and to class identity politics, more identities are being produced daily to keep the fragmentation of our society going. Instead of these diverse identities and the contestations between them to be a strength, they have become group allegiances to make our social interaction more volatile.
Trotsky defined how we should measure who a true socialist and a true comrade is in the last words of his “I Stake My Life” Speech when he said: “The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions, and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe. It will be lengthy… In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word socialism is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life – forward!”
Now, Africans who search for greener pastures through migration have hypocritically turned the anti-imperialist element of Pan-Africanism into racial separatism and Black supremacy. Now, gender identities and sexualities which should be defended as human rights by men, women and every other gender identity, have become a personal struggle for recognition and representation that is as corrosive and competitive as the oppressive patriarchal ideologies held by the gendered society that they are trying to change.
Social media technology, which is supposed to make us more connected, exposed and communal, now uses algorithms to narrow what the people see and reinforce the influence of the opinion leaders of each identity group so that they can sell that influence to the highest bidder in the ruling class as PR management. Hate and violence have replaced understanding and rational debates. It’s no longer appealing to seek the truth when tweets that will justify the darkest sides of your morality are consistently thrown in your face by surveillance capitalism.
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It’s no longer appealing to say the truth when you can actually say what your own social group wants to hear and increase your status within that social group, with the material and social profit of being an influencer. ‘Activists’ now replace their profile pictures with the flags of Ukraine, Israel, Russia or Palestine without contesting the ideas of nationalism represented by those flags and the unending wars to defend those flags. The goal of so-called ‘Comrades’ is now to use populism to get more popular and to use their polemics to polarise society further.
The saddest part of this poverty of dialectics is that it has turned socialism and class politics to an identity instead of an ideology and a worldview. It has created workerism. It is the reason why the Labour Party in Nigeria ‘which is just labour in name’ became a bully on behalf of the ideology and worldview of capitalism and a capitalist presidential candidate in the 2023 election. We now have sets of activists who treat the word ‘comrade’ like an identity and continue to bear the title even when they have crossed to the side of oppression and are open and paid defenders of the oppressive system. Names like Rauf Aregbesola, Adams Oshiomhole, Festus Keyamo, etc., will come to mind. Others from this category participated in that centenary event in Abuja earlier this week.
Lenin was a Marxist for his generation, and if 100 years after we are yet to define Marxism for our generation, then there is a problem. If, after 100 years, we are only limited to Lenin’s definitions that his generation and those after mainstreamed, then we have failed Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and all the other torchbearers of revolutionary history after them. This is the only way that we can truly heed the call of Marx to unite. This is why we must retake the history of Lenin and emphasise and replicate the most important contribution of Lenin, which was to interpret dialectics for his own stage in history.
It has gotten so bad that the new generation fear to be identified as ‘comrades’ to avoid being linked to those names who now oversee our oppression. This is an important conversation for this moment because of the nature of the present president of Nigeria, who has fingers deep into the structures of Nigeria’s traditional left, much more than any other president before him. This clarification must be made now more than ever. We must make this clarification by enlarging the content of the dialectical method. Our inability to do that is creating a very divided world. It is creating a divided left. It is dividing the working class.
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Trotsky defined how we should measure who a true socialist and a true comrade is in the last words of his “I Stake My Life” Speech when he said: “The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions, and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe. It will be lengthy… In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word socialism is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life – forward!”
Comrades, socialism should not become a hollow sound. ‘Comrade’ should not become a title. It is a worldview. ‘Comrade’ should not become an identity. It is an ideology. The idea of equality and justice should be the content of our moral life.
Lenin was a Marxist for his generation, and if 100 years after we are yet to define Marxism for our generation, then there is a problem. If, after 100 years, we are only limited to Lenin’s definitions that his generation and those after mainstreamed, then we have failed Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and all the other torchbearers of revolutionary history after them. This is the only way that we can truly heed the call of Marx to unite. This is why we must retake the history of Lenin and emphasise and replicate the most important contribution of Lenin, which was to interpret dialectics for his own stage in history.
Comrade Ibukun writes from Abuja, Nigeria and he can be contacted on 09167636201
