Adelaja Ifedapo
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Adelaja Ifedapo | |
|---|---|
 Ifedapo in 1953 | |
| Premier of Asase Lewa | |
| In office 1 May, 1953 – 11 November, 1960 | |
| President | Edudzi Agyeman |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Folarin Layeni |
| Foreign Minister of Asase Lewa | |
| In office 1 May, 1953 – 11 November, 1960 | |
| President | Edudzi Agyeman |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Folarin Layeni |
| Vice-Chairman of the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International | |
| In office 2 September, 1929 – 11 November, 1960 | |
| Chairman | Edudzi Agyeman |
| Preceded by | Edudzi Agyeman |
| Succeeded by | Folarin Layeni |
| Chairman of the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International | |
| In office 10 July, 1912 – 2 September, 1929 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Edudzi Agyeman |
| Member of the Presidium of the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International | |
| In office 10 July, 1912 – 11 November, 1960 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Adelaja Ifedapo October 30, 1870 Longwoodtown, Gundayaland, Odo |
| Died | November 11, 1960 (aged 90) Edudzi Agyeman City, Asase Lewa |
| Political party | Asalewan Section of the Workers' International (1912-1960) |
| Other political affiliations | Pan-Bahian Section of the Workers' International (1907-1912) Estmerish Section of the Workers' International (1901-1907) Social Democracy of Estmere (1890-1901) |
| Education | Darford College, University of Morwall (BA, BPhil, PhD) |
| Occupation | Politician • revolutionary • academic |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Asalewan Section of the Workers' International Asase Lewa |
| Branch/service | People's Revolutionary Army |
| Years of service | 1918–1960 |
| Rank | Political commissar |
| Battles/wars | Asalewan Revolution Great War |
Adelaja Ifedapo (30 October 1870 - 11 November, 1960) was an Asalewan politician, political theorist, historian, diplomat, and councilist revolutionary who founded the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International in 1912 and played a leading role in the Section until his death in 1960. One of the principal early theorists of Pan-Bahianism, Adelaja served as a key leader of the movement's left-wing from its origins until his death. Furthermore, following the Asalewan Revolution's completion, Adelaja served as the first Premier and Foreign Minister of Asase Lewa, helping forge early links between Asase Lewa and other socialist states and playing a role in the establishment of the Congress of Bahian States and United Bahian Republic. Ideologically a Nemtsovist, Councilist, and Pan-Bahian, he and Edudzi Agyeman formalized and developed these ideas into the philosophy of Nemtsovism-Tretyakism-Adelajism-Edudzism.
Adelaja was born in the colonial city of Longwoodtown, now Ajase, to a Gundaya father and Bahio-Imaguan mother from modern-day Imagua and the Assimas, and grew up in an upper-class Eucleanized Bahian family in Longwoodtown before studying political philosophy and history at the University of Morwall in Estmere. Shortly after enrollment, raised tuition fees at the University forced him to drop out of the university and obtain employment as a dockworker; his considerable experiences with racial discrimination in Estmere and life in the Estmerish working-class amidst the widespread economic inequality of Long Peace-era Estmere led to his political radicalization and involvement with the early Estmerish trade union and socialist movements, joining Social Democracy of Estmere in 1890 and helping form the Estmerish Section of the Workers' International in 1901. After obtaining a scholarship from the Federation of Autonomous Workers' Unions, Adelaja re-enrolled at the University of Morwall; there, Adelaja became the leader of a small circle of left-leaning Bahian students and was catapulted to prominence following the publication of his PhD dissertation, Houreges and Colonizers, which analyzed the notion that the Sogoulie failed primarily because of the rebels' inability to unite across tribal lines or arouse widespread lower-class support, and more broadly blamed the Hourege for Bahia's underdevelopment, and by extension colonization, as Bahian elites did not have a material interest in economic development to the same extent as the Euclean bourgeoisie.
Influencing Pan-Bahianism's large-scale rejection of reactionary, neo-Houregic politics, Houreges and Colonizers cemented Adelaja's position in the early Pan-Bahian movement and he became a leading organizer at the Pan-Bahian Congress of 1907, where he split with Daniel Amankose in leading a left-wing minority of delegates in calling for a revolutionary, rather than gradualist, overthrow of the Toubacterie, and formed the Pan-Bahian Section of the Workers' International shortly thereafter. After the Pan-Bahian Section partitioned itself into Sections delineated by colonial territory in 1912, Adelaja led the Odonian Section's rapid growth throughout the 1910s and supported its decision, following the Section's outlawment and the leadership's flight to Kedzito, to proclaim revolutionary war in 1918, considered the beginning of the Asalewan Revolution. Though leading the Odonian Section for most of the 1920s, Adelaja's power within the Section became eclipsed by Edudzi Agyeman in concert with the decline of the intelligentsia's power in the Section and rise in the power of its working-class and peasant wings, and Edudzi replaced him as the Section's leader in 1929.
Nevertheless, Adelaja remained the second-most powerful figure in the Section and he remained the Section's primary liaison with the international Councilist movement, influential in securing military support from the revolutionary states of Valduvia, Chistovodia, and Dezevau in the 1940s and early 1950s. Furthermore, Adelaja began a long-term political alliance with Edudzi during the Lokossa Rectification Campaign in the late 1930s after the Section's retreat from Kedzito to the Highland district of Lokossa, with the two men leading the mass purge of Abidemists from the Section. Following decolonization and the withdrawal of Estmerish troops in 1951, and in the context of mass discontment in Asalewan society thanks to severe economic crisis during and after the Solarian War, and to disatisfaction with the conservatve, pro-Estmerish rule of home rule Prime Minister Arko Kwarteng and Kwarteng's outlawment of the leading opposition party, the Labour Party, the Section achieved victory and completed the Asalewan Revolution in 1953, after which Adelaja became the first Premier and Foreign Minister of the new state of Asase Lewa.
As Premier and Foreign Minister, Adelaja focused primarily on foreign affairs, forging extensive links with socialist states in both the Global South, most prominently Dezevau and the Mabifian Democratic Republic as part of Asase Lewa's membership in the Alliance of Emerging Socialist Economies, and the Global North, most prominently Tretyakist-era Chistovodia, which offered substantial military and economic aid to Asase Lewa during the 1950s and early 1960s. Adelaja also offered extensive support to left-wing and anti-colonial Bahian movements, notably anti-colonial forces in the Yemeti Bush War, and forged extensive links with left-wing Bahian governments beyond just the Mabifian Democratic Republic, notably Vudzijena Nhema-era Rwizikuru. However, Adelaja also intervened during domestic affairs during this period, most notably and decisively in supporting the Asalewan Section's decision to launch the Anti-Tribal Revolution, involving the acceleration of agricultural collectivization in Highland regions and Ashanaland, and mass production campaigns among workers with the goal of accelerating growth in heavy industry that might better fund the regional Bahian left. In this context of Asase Lewa's support for the Bahian left, Adelaja stridently supported the formation of the United Bahian Republic in 1960, the fulfillment of the Pan-Bahian movement's goal for a single Bahian state anmd of which Asase Lewa was a member. Shortly after the Republic's formation, Adelaja died in 1960; his death is seen as inaugurating a power vacuum and resulting struggle between Edudzi Agyeman and succeeding Premier and Foreign Minister Folarin Layeni that culminated in the Protective-Corrective Revolution.
Considered one of the most consequential figures in twentieth-century Asalewan and Bahian history, Adelaja Ifedapo remains an intesely controversial figure. He remains deeply revered in Asase Lewa, where he is considered second only to Edudzi Agyeman as the foremost Asalewan and Bahian revolutionary leader and thinker. More broadly, Adelaja remains widely-praised in the socialist world and Bahian left; supporters revere him as a stalwart, decades-long proponent of socialism, Pan-Bahianism, and anti-colonialism, responsible in large part for both formulating and realizing these ideals. However, Adelaja Ifedapo continues to be widely condemned by the Bahian right; critics argue that the collapse of the United Bahian Republic after his death evidenced the impractiality of his Pan-Bahian ideals, and espeially charge him with supporting an authoritarian political system in the one-party rule of the early Asalewan state and with his adopted tactic of violent revolution being responssible for mass death and destruction during the Asalewan Revolution.