Draft:Socialist Workers League (Nigeria)

Socialist Workers League
Abbreviation	SWL
Governing body	Central Committee
Merger of	Socialist League, Socialist Workers Movement
Student wing	Socialist Youth League
Ideology	Socialism from below Trotskyism Revolutionary socialism
International affiliation	International Socialist Tendency
Slogan	SWL stands for the self-emancipation of working-class people
Website
socialistworkersleague.org
Politics of Nigeria Political parties Elections

The Socialist Workers League (SWL) is a far-left political party in Nigeria. Since its founding in 2011 the SWL has been active in protest movements, including around issues of LGBTQ+ and women's oppression, environmental degradation and trade union activities. They advocate for a strategy of unity between workers and students, as a key element in building mass action. Summarised in the slogan of "SWL stands for the self-emancipation of working-class people", the SWL is a revolutionary party that follows the principles of socialism from below. The SWL is ran by a collective leadership, with Kunle "Wizeman" Ajayi currently serving as National Chairperson and Amara Nwosu as National Secretary. Advocating for unity between the working classes of all countries, the SWL is part of the International Socialist Tendency (IST).

In 2021, the SWL hosted its first "Naija Marxism", which it describes as a "festival of revolutionary ideas".

History

In 1950, Tony Cliff founded the Socialist Review Group (SRG). Originally a small group of Trotskyists, the SRG, lead by Cliff, set out to update and change Marxist theory in light of the experience of the Soviet Union. Crucially, this lead to the development of the theories of state capitalism and deflected permanent revolution which became the basis for organising the successor to the SRG, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

The first International Socialists group to be established outside of Britain was founded in Ireland in 1971. Since then, IST affiliated groups have been established and continue to exist in 27 countries. The SWL was established as the Nigerian IST affiliate in 2011.

Nigerian socialist Todun Jagun gives the following summary of the SWL's history:

"The League was formed on 29th of January 2011 with the merger of Socialist Workers Movement (SWM) and Socialist League (SL), after a process which was formally initiated on 6th March 2009 by the SWM.

SWM had been formed as the May 31st Movement (M31M) in 1990 and adopted International Socialist politics the following year. SL emerged in the early 2000s with the exit of a few comrades from the Democratic Socialist Movement.

In the course of the last ten years, SWL has been actively involved in all major struggles of working-class people and youth in the country. From the 2012 January Uprising to the 2020 EndSARS revolt, SWL has been the revolutionary socialist group on the frontlines. With our perspective of the importance of unity in struggle, we have been a committed organisation in all the major coalitions of radical and revolutionary groups. And with members active in the trade union movement, we have been at the fore of carrying out political education within the trade unions."

Theory

The SWL is a revolutionary Trotskyist party which follows Tony Cliff's analysis that the Soviet Union ceased to be a worker's state after the rise of Stalin, and instead was an example of state capitalism. Instead of enforcing socialist policy from 'above' under the instruction of a bureaucratic class, the SWL advocates that socialism must be built from 'below' with the active participation of the broader working class, with workers taking their workplaces into their own hands and under democratic control. Delegates from each workplace would then be elected to establish democratic planning of the economy.

Believing that the state and its institutions - the military, the police, the courts etc. - are designed to defend the interests of the capitalist class, the SWL argue that reformism is not a viable strategy, and workers taking control of the state to direct it in their own interests is not possible. Therefore, the SWL believes that:

"Through mass collective action, workers can smash the state machinery and replace it with true workers' democracy. This will be based on workers councils with delegates accountable to workers themselves, not parliament."

The SWL supports the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and opposes oppression on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. In 2022 the SWL made history by participating in "the first [openly] queer protest in Nigeria!" The SWL describes itself as internationalist, placing an emphasis on the unity of the working class across borders. They believe that the failure of the Russian revolution to establish socialism lies in its isolation and its inability to develop internationally. They argue that the Russian revolution could have survived had it spread, with the key factor being the working class seizing power for itself in the 1919 German Revolution. The SWL is part of an international tendency, the IST, and as a result has sister organisations in 26 other countries.