Marxism Research Network
Unofficial English Translation

Du Min: New Trends in the Socialist Movement of Sri Lanka

Marxism Abroad

Affected by the 2019 Easter bombings, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the international economic situation, Sri Lanka has faced its most severe economic crisis since national independence, with the domestic political situation plunging into turmoil. Since 2022, Sri Lanka has repeatedly declared states of emergency in an attempt to alleviate a series of crises, including economic hardship and material shortages. However, the crisis was not mitigated and ultimately overwhelmed the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, leading to Sri Lanka's declaration of national bankruptcy in July 2022 and an irregular change of regime. Did the socialist movement led by left-wing parties play a role in these events? What impact did the crisis have on the socialist movement in Sri Lanka? To answer these questions, this article focuses on the socialist movement during the period of the Sri Lankan crisis following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the new strategies, new trends, and underlying causes of the socialist movement currently promoted by Sri Lankan left-wing parties.

I. Sri Lankan Left-Wing Parties and Their Understanding of the Crisis

Sri Lankan left-wing parties have a long history and significant political influence, serving as the primary driving force of the socialist movement. Left-wing parties in Sri Lanka, including Marxist parties, can be broadly categorized into three types: traditional left-wing parties, new left-wing parties, and radical left-wing parties.

The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) [1], founded in December 1935, is the earliest left-wing party in Sri Lanka; its current leader, Tissa Vitarana, has served as the Minister of Science and Technology and Governor of the North Central Province. In July 1943, the Colombo Workers' Club, the United Federation of Ceylon Trade Unions, and the United Socialist Party (a split from the LSSP) merged to form the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL). Its current General Secretary is G. Weerasinghe, and its Chairman is Raja Collure [2]. Because the LSSP and the CPSL were founded early and adopted a policy of compromise toward the long-governing Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), they are considered Sri Lanka's traditional left-wing parties.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) [3], which split from the CPSL in 1965, is Sri Lanka’s new left-wing party; its current leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, is a Member of Parliament. The JVP launched armed struggles twice, in the early 1970s and late 1980s, and was thus regarded as the radical left. Since entering the 21st century, the JVP has adjusted its mode of political participation, abandoning its former radical methods of armed struggle in favor of seeking a voice within Parliament. Its influence once surpassed that of the traditional left-wing parties, making it a new left-wing party that cannot be underestimated in Sri Lankan political life.

In 2008, Wimal Weerawansa, a core member of the JVP, was suspended due to disagreements with the leadership at the time. In May of the same year, he and several other dissenting MPs broke away from the JVP to form the National Freedom Front (NFF). The NFF is a radical left-wing party with nationalist tendencies. In 2011, dissatisfied with the JVP’s parliamentary path, a group of members represented by Kumar Gunaratnam broke away from the JVP to establish the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), the most typical radical left-wing party in contemporary Sri Lanka. Under Gunaratnam’s leadership, the FSP has adopted an uncompromising form of struggle against bourgeois rulers, advocating for a return to the radical socialist movement forms of 20th-century Sri Lanka.

The COVID-19 pandemic that broke out in 2020 fully exposed the flaws of the capitalist system, reflecting the cruel reality of how developing countries with fragile economies and open-market policies, like Sri Lanka, are predated upon by the hegemony of imperialist nations. Crisis is the most powerful lever for political change. As Engels stated, "a crisis... either makes the whole nation take a resolute and decisive path to revolution, or restores the pre-revolutionary situation as far as possible, thereby making a new revolution inevitable." [4] Crisis foreshadows the coming of revolutionary movements, and Sri Lankan left-wing parties clearly recognize that the crisis will advance the revolutionary process.

The JVP views the current crisis as a multidimensional overlap of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, and governance crisis. Under the pandemic, the global economic situation and epidemic prevention policies have dealt a massive blow to Sri Lanka. Seeking to revive the tourism market, the Sri Lankan government introduced schemes such as "tourism bubbles," but this resulted in infection numbers remaining high. Under the impact of the pandemic, the Sri Lankan government has faced not only its most severe crisis since the start of the 21st century but also a series of issues, including unresolved conflicts between the Sinhalese and Muslims, disorderly turnover of government officials, and stagnant economic development. The JVP believes that the various current crises in Sri Lanka are the consequences of the profit-oriented, anti-democratic economic system of the Sri Lankan bourgeois government, rooted in the anti-human and anti-social nature of capitalism itself.

the CPSL points out more specifically that for over 40 years, neoliberal economics has caused a series of grave consequences: the continuous decline of national income as a percentage of GDP, a balance of payments imbalance where import expenditure growth is several times that of export income, the collapse of foreign exchange reserves, rapid increases in debt, a widening gap between rich and poor, and a social and political crisis exacerbated by social inequality. In 1978, after the United National Party (UNP) led by J. R. Jayewardene came to power, it developed an open economy and adopted a series of neoliberal economic policies, such as establishing free trade zones in the capital and encouraging foreign investment in agriculture and agro-processing, accelerating the development of private ownership. For a time, private enterprises became the main contributors to the Sri Lankan economy, with their output reaching 93% of the national total industrial output value. However, to this day, the ratio of fiscal revenue to GDP has dropped from 24% in 1978 to 6% in 2019, and foreign exchange reserves that once reached $7.5 billion are nearly exhausted. Therefore, in February 2022, the CPSL pointed out at its 22nd National Congress that Sri Lanka’s unprecedentedly complex economic, political, and social crisis is the result of the government’s continuous pursuit of neoliberal policies over the past 44 years. The crisis in Sri Lanka demonstrates to the world how ineffective, incompetent, and harmful neoliberalism is, and that the struggle against neoliberalism must now be strengthened.

II. Trends in the Strategic Adjustment of the Sri Lankan Socialist Movement

There are significant differences in the ways left-wing parties of different eras and types promote the socialist movement. As Lenin once pointed out, only "by taking into account, in the first place, the fundamental distinctive features of the various 'epochs'... can we correctly evolve our tactics." [5] Sri Lankan left-wing parties have adopted different principles and policies in their political struggles based on the differences between eras. Generally speaking, from the birth of left-wing parties in the 20th century to the present, the modes of political change in the Sri Lankan socialist movement can be categorized into three types: "dependency politics," "confrontational politics," and "policy politics."

1. The weakening of "dependency politics" "Dependency politics" refers to the practice of traditional left-wing parties in parliamentary politics, where the realization of socialist goals is based on cooperation and alliance with Sri Lanka's major governing parties and bourgeois political forces, creating a state of political dependency. Traditional left-wing parties such as the CPSL and the LSSP maintained long-term political cooperation with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) from their founding until the Sirisena government in 2015. This "dependency politics" on the SLFP and the Rajapaksa family was criticized by new and radical left-wing parties as a compromise with the bourgeois regime. In 2014, when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa decided to hold early elections seeking a third term, he met strong opposition from radical factions within the traditional left-wing parties. This also led to a split within the CPSL. Nevertheless, the CPSL decided to continue supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa. After Maithripala Sirisena won the presidency in 2015 and became the leader of the SLFP, the object of the CPSL’s dependency shifted from "individuals" to "policies"—that is, providing conditional support for the "Good Governance" (Yahapalana) policies of Sirisena and the UNP. After the SLFP changed leaders and Mahinda Rajapaksa moved to the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) camp and dissolved the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the Socialist Alliance [6] to which the traditional left belonged lost its political platform in Parliament and was left without support. Its influence in Parliament continued to weaken, and its suggestions to the government were often ignored. For example, during the parliamentary debate on the 2022 budget held in late 2021, the warning from CPSL MPs that the decline in government revenue and foreign exchange reserves would inevitably lead to a crisis was completely ignored by then-President Gotabaya.

2. The transformation of "confrontational politics" "Confrontational politics" refers to left-wing political forces attempting to transform the Sri Lankan capitalist system and achieve socialism through violent revolution or other radical means. The "confrontational politics" of Sri Lankan left-wing parties manifested quite differently in the 20th and 21st centuries. In the 20th century, "confrontational politics" took the form of armed struggle, most typically exemplified by the two armed uprisings launched by the JVP. As the JVP rebuilt and abandoned the revolutionary path of armed struggle, 21st-century "confrontational politics" evolved into more moderate forms of confrontation both inside and outside Parliament.

In the 21st century, left-wing parties such as the JVP have adopted non-violent "confrontational politics," promoting the socialist movement alongside high-intensity forms of struggle such as strikes and marches. Except for a brief period of cooperation with the SLFP in 2004, the JVP has taken a hardline stance toward the SLFP and particularly the Rajapaksa family, refusing to cooperate with their policies and opposing them at every turn. The FSP, founded in 2011, continues "confrontational politics" outside Parliament through "street politics." With the goal of reviving socialism, the FSP is dissatisfied with the JVP’s participation in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary life, viewing it as a compromise with the bourgeoisie and an abandonment of the revolutionary spirit. It advocates for restoring the socialist revolutionary traditions of the 20th-century radical left through marches, strikes, and demonstrations outside Parliament.

In April 2022, new left-wing and radical left-wing parties launched street-based "confrontational politics," raising the slogan "Gota Go Gama" (meaning "Gota Go Village," calling for the President's resignation) in an attempt to topple the Gotabaya government. In May of the same year, the street-based "confrontational politics" of the left-wing parties reached an unprecedented scale, with millions of participants—a level unseen in nearly 70 years—ultimately leading to the resignation of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

3. The strengthening of "policy politics" Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tendency toward "policy politics" among Sri Lankan left-wing parties has become quite evident, though traditional and new left-wing parties differ slightly in their phrasing: the JVP advocates for establishing a "progressive force led by the JVP" to jointly promote the socialist movement; the traditional left explicitly states that the replacement of the capitalist system and the gradual transition to socialism can only be achieved through feasible institutional design. During the Sri Lankan crisis, "policy politics" has become increasingly accepted by other left-wing parties. While discussing political ideology during the 2020 parliamentary election phase, the CPSL had already begun exploring alternatives to neoliberal economic policies—namely, specific policy measures. The LSSP more specifically proposed the concept of a "solidarity economy" to assist the socialist movement.

During the current crisis, the "policy politics" of the Sri Lankan socialist movement mainly includes two aspects: first, formulating targeted plans to escape the crisis in order to save the country and advance the socialist process; and second, constructing a feasible framework for future socialist development.

First, exploring measures to escape the current predicament. On October 26, 2021, the JVP proposed launching reforms in all fields, including education, economy, law, health, and agriculture, suggesting rapid debt management and a re-evaluation of the national development plan to seek solutions to the country's current social, economic, and political crises. The prerequisite for overcoming the crisis is resolving two long-standing problems in Sri Lanka: first, shifting the country from "corrupt politics" to "clean politics"; and second, solving the issue of "collective participation"—that is, uniting the government, private entrepreneurs, agricultural communities, working people, migrant workers, and Sri Lankans living abroad to participate together in nation-building. In the JVP’s view, the politics of a socialist Sri Lanka should be rooted in "public service"; therefore, for the purpose of building the country, politicians must work side-by-side with ordinary people.

On December 20, 2021, the National People’s Power (NPP), led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) [7], held a convention titled "A Pledge to Rebuild a Broken Country." At the meeting, the NPP proposed a national rescue strategy to address twenty major issues, resolve the Sri Lankan crisis, and lay the foundation for socio-economic transformation. These proposals included a "comprehensive national plan for short-, medium-, and long-term economic development goals," "attracting industries with new technologies and foreign investment to promote the economic growth necessary to achieve our economic goals," and "restructuring debt and obtaining debt relief."

Second, constructing a future "Solidarity Economy" for socialism. The traditional left-wing parties—the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) [8]—are not as radical as the New Left parties regarding revolutionary claims. However, they have long maintained a position consistent with the New Left in opposing imperialism, the government's neoliberal policies, and privatization practices. Furthermore, the "Solidarity Economy" they propose is more concrete and feasible. The traditional left also places great hope in economic change, seeking to transform Sri Lanka's domestic situation, overcome difficulties, and achieve a transition to socialism. Similar to the "participatory" socialist process proposed by New Left parties, the traditional left articulates this more explicitly as a "Solidarity Economy."

On December 17, 2021, the LSSP proposed that state participation in agriculture, industry, and the market economy must be strengthened to shape a "Solidarity Economy," driving the nation toward socialism in the economic sphere. The traditional left’s "Solidarity Economy" aims to transform the ownership of all loss-making public and private enterprises currently in crisis. By granting employees ownership of their respective enterprises, both managers and employees are transformed into masters of the enterprise, ensuring it operates according to the principle of solidarity. A focus of the "Solidarity Economy" concept is the restriction of private investors' ownership rights. Traditional left parties advocate for limiting the scope of private owners’ rights to prevent them from maintaining total ownership of enterprises (companies). The "Solidarity Economy" advocates learning from the practices of the left-wing government in Kerala, India, in saving the loss-making plantation economy: reclaiming tea plantations that have been operating at a loss for long periods and handing them over to plantation workers to manage according to solidarity principles. The "Solidarity Economy" represents a partial adjustment of the capitalist ownership structure, suggesting that enterprises be leased to owners comprised of employees to improve operational efficiency. During the operational process, the government provides corresponding assistance on behalf of the state. For example, during the lease period, the state could consider whether to renew based on operational performance; regarding financial support, external special loans from development banks could be used to provide low-interest loans to institutions that adhere to solidarity principles. The traditional left parties' "Solidarity Economy" concept and policy advocate for workers to establish "Worker Administrative Councils" to select professional management and technical personnel through meritocracy to guide operations. The "Solidarity Economy" would not only grant workers a sense of ownership but also incentivize them to improve institutional performance and ensure they receive an equal share of profits.

III. Trends in the Ideological Struggle within the Sri Lankan Socialist Movement

If Sri Lankan left-wing parties are to achieve their socialist goals, they must overcome two long-standing obstacles: first, the stigmatization of the radical left as parties of "violence" and "bloodshed," which creates a barrier to identity; second, the limitation of traditional left ideology by the parliamentary political landscape, which results in narrow survival space and the submergence of ideology under the charisma of "strongman" politics.

Therefore, for Sri Lankan left-wing parties to achieve socialist transformation, they must consolidate a broad mass base and increase the identification of various ethnic groups and social strata with the socialist movement. Following the emergence of multiple crises in Sri Lanka in 2020, the ideological struggle of left-wing parties has moved toward developing a broader mass and alliance base and expanding a "shared ideological space." This involves left-wing parties establishing an ideological type with socialist ideology as the core foundation, while encompassing values that are acceptable and shareable across all ethnicities, thereby attracting broad participation.

  1. Socialism The question of state power is the core issue of the current socialist movement in Sri Lanka and the goal of the left-wing parties' ideological struggle. Marxism holds that the crisis of capitalism stems from its deep-rooted fundamental contradictions that it cannot resolve on its own. In the "Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," Marx proceeded from the internal contradictions of the mode of production to propose that "at a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto." When the relations of production "turn from forms of development of the productive forces into their fetters," then "begins an era of social revolution." In a Sri Lanka deep in crisis, left-wing parties must use the ideological struggle to educate the masses on how the crisis is rooted in the capitalist system, while leading them toward socialist goals.

In May 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka, Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the JVP, linked the capitalist system to national governance to educate the public. He stated bluntly that the capitalist system had produced "cheap leaders" for Sri Lanka who were utterly incapable of responding to the crisis. Sri Lankan left-wing parties exposed the "logic of capital" behind COVID-19, suggesting that to facilitate the sale of medicine, capitalist multinational corporations were producing diseases alongside their investments in pharmaceutical production. In the view of Sri Lankan left-wing parties, the current capitalist system is an anti-human and inhumane social system led by imperialism; only by overthrowing capitalism can humanity escape the crisis.

The current crisis has reignited the socialist revolutionary enthusiasm of left-wing political forces. On one hand, left-wing parties use their websites and other media tools and social mobilization channels to expose the decay of the capitalist system; on the other hand, they use public rallies such as International Workers' Day (May Day) to guide and converge various progressive social trends, forming a collective ideological force for the socialist movement. At the 2020 May Day rally, the New Left proposed that while capitalism is trapped in crisis and manifesting its impotence worldwide, it is precisely the time to organize and struggle to defeat capitalism and build a new socialist society.

The current crisis has strengthened the socialist struggle goals of the left parties. On March 20, 2022, the JVP stated to the media that they were prepared to mobilize the people to overthrow the current oppressive regime, establish a people's government, and create a new socialist society. The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) [9] has consistently adhered to the socialist revolutionary struggle. FSP leader Kumar Gunaratnam pointed out at the 2022 May Day rally that socialism is a movement of reality, mobilizing the masses to "lift their spirits" to realize socialism. In February 2022, on the eve of its 22nd National Congress, the CPSL reaffirmed that the struggle for socialism remains its ultimate goal. The propaganda and mobilization by left-wing parties prompted the 2022 Sri Lankan protests to develop into "50-day" and "100-day" large-scale strikes and marches, ultimately leading to regime change. In June 2022, as the strike movement reached its peak, the JVP proposed to the Gotabaya [10] government that the NPP, led by the JVP and inviting 15 to 20 members of the current parliament, form a new cabinet to establish a government and move toward socialist goals.

  1. Patriotism Patriotism is essentially consistent with socialist ideology. As a spirit and set of values, patriotism once played an important role in the Sri Lankan socialist movement. In 1987, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord aroused strong resistance from Sri Lankan patriots and triggered a national salvation movement led by the JVP.

Following the current crisis in Sri Lanka, public indignation has been high, and the passion for social change is ready to burst forth. In the ideological struggle, left-wing parties need to move beyond narrow nationalism to avoid negative impacts on socialist values and practical movements. They strive to guide Sri Lanka's positive national consciousness and patriotic enthusiasm to serve the socialist movement against capitalism. To this end, Sri Lankan left-wing parties are committed to clarifying patriotic actions, uniting patriots, and launching patriotic struggles.

Left-wing parties, on the one hand, expose the essence of various social trends in Sri Lanka as serving the bourgeois regime; on the other hand, they strive to attract positive emotions and patriotic thoughts closely related to the destiny of the country and the nation into the scope of the socialist movement, thereby preventing them from sliding toward sectarianism and racism. The terrorist attacks in April 2019 [11] reignited ethnic conflict issues that had been dormant since the end of the civil war in 2009. Concerns over the fate of the Sri Lankan state and the desire for stable, harmonious ethnic relations stimulated a racist form of patriotic enthusiasm among the Sinhalese. In this context, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) slogan "One Country, One Law" helped it achieve electoral victory following the Easter bombings. The appointment by Gotabaya, after taking office, of the radical Buddhist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara—who has anti-Muslim leanings—to lead the Presidential Task Force for "One Country, One Law" is an example of patriotic enthusiasm being racialized. In parliament and at rallies, Sri Lankan left-wing parties have repeatedly accused Gotabaya of exploiting public patriotic sentiment for personal gain. Furthermore, the JVP condemned the "pseudo-patriotism" of the 20th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. The party believes that making sacrifices for national sovereignty is true patriotism because this spirit of patriotism writes history based on the principles of historical materialism. As capitalism becomes hopelessly mired in crisis, left-wing parties advocate for uniting progressives, patriots, and other left-wing forces to defeat capitalism and imperialism and create a new socialist society.

Under crisis conditions, patriotism also plays a direct role. Left-wing parties warned that seeking a $3 billion relief loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to solve the Sri Lankan crisis would create conditions for Western countries to interfere in Sri Lanka's internal affairs and pursue their strategic interests. To prevent imperialism from taking advantage of the Sri Lankan crisis, left-wing parties such as the JVP, LSSP, and CPSL have used open letters and street protests to resolutely oppose the United States' attempts to use IMF negotiations to sign the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Sri Lanka.

  1. Ethnic Equality In the socialist movement, Marxist ideology is the basic prerequisite for uniting the working class and attracting progressive social forces. The chronic historical malady of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and the "ballot democracy" of the parliamentary system easily lead to the racialization of ethnic issues and the populization of social conflicts. For Marxist parties, promoting the acceptance of Marxist theory among the masses requires responding to various non-socialist ideological trends and using policy propositions of ethnic equality to oppose the transformation of ethnic issues into populism.

In the current socialist movement, the ethnic policy propositions of Sri Lankan left-wing parties show two trends.

First, the "Equal Rights Movement" dilutes populism. The Frontline Socialist Party, which aims to revive the socialist movement, persists in the practical struggle to defend "equal rights." On March 12, 2021, the Equal Rights Movement organization held a protest near the Colombo Fort Railway Station, demanding justice for all disappearances. On August 13, 2021, the FSP requested the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) to immediately investigate incidents where members of the Federation of University Teachers' Associations (FUTA) faced threats from the police for blocking the use of private mercenaries by police forces. This struggle is a practical application of the Marxist concept of ethnic equality by the FSP, and it is entirely different from the populist practices of bourgeois parties that blindly cater to Sinhalese nationalism and incite ethnic sentiment. In the view of the JVP, the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie is accustomed to using the populization of ethnic issues to earn political capital; conversely, only socialism can achieve ethnic unity and truly treat all religions equally, rather than inciting racism and religious extremism.

Second, [it involves] exposing the essence of class issues lurking behind religious conflicts, communalism [12], and local autonomism that undermine ethnic equality. If the socialist movement is to promote public identification with Marxist ideology, it must find ways to reveal the class nature behind various social trends of thought to facilitate genuine ethnic equality. As the largest and most influential Marxist party in Parliament, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; People's Liberation Front) [13] adheres to Marxist theory as its guide in opposing bourgeois political rule. In October 2020, the Parliament of Sri Lanka passed the 20th Amendment to the Constitution—aimed at expanding presidential powers—by a two-thirds majority of 156 votes to 65, which included six crucial votes from Muslim MPs. The JVP wrote critiques of the ruling authorities for exploiting Sinhala anti-Muslim nationalist sentiment before the presidential election, only to later use ethnic minorities to achieve their own ends. In the JVP’s view, communalism is merely a tool for the bourgeoisie to achieve class rule; communalism and religion only serve to divide the masses, create social conflict, and obscure the reality of class stratification behind various contradictions—thus, they are a sham. Consequently, the JVP proposes that the key to resolving all of Sri Lanka's current problems is not to "patch up" the capitalist system by exploiting popular sentiment, but to unite workers and farmers across all ethnicities and cultivate their class consciousness to promote the realization of socialism. Only in this way can a socialist system be established in Sri Lanka and achieve national unity, economic prosperity, and social stability.

IV. Trends in the Development of the Political Foundation of the Sri Lankan Socialist Movement

  1. Uniting the Left and Broadening Political Alliances Forming a broad alliance is a necessary condition for parliamentary struggle. For a long time, left-wing parties in Sri Lanka have exhibited a tendency toward fragmentation, often characterized by "fratricidal strife" [14]. Following the crisis, Sri Lanka’s radical left and traditional left parties shifted from separation to advancing hand-in-hand. Two trends have emerged in the construction of political alliances: first, the emergence of political alliances for electoral purposes which have gained widespread support; second, a tendency toward cooperation between traditional left parties and the radical left.

The National People's Power (NPP) is a political alliance established for electoral purposes in 2019, which played an important role in the political struggles during the crisis period. Headquartered in Battaramulla, the NPP is a broad political organization led by the JVP that unites people from all walks of life. With the JVP at its core, 27 other parties and organizations—including "National People’s Power Youth" and the "Progressive Women’s Collective"—participate. Since its inception, the NPP has received support and participation from the United Left Front. The NPP aims to realize communism and resist imperialism, advocating for the overthrow of the current bourgeois government and the establishment of a socialist state. The leader of this alliance is Anura Kumara Dissanayake, and the General Secretary is Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi. The alliance won three seats in the 2020 parliamentary elections and led the 2022 Sri Lankan general strike, which overthrew the Gotabaya government.

In 2022, the Left launched massive protests, yet political power bypassed them and fell into other hands. To form an effective countervailing force against right-wing political opponents, on September 4, 2022, patriotic left parties—including the radical left party National Freedom Front (NFF) and traditional left parties such as the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP)—founded the "Supreme Lens Alliance" (Uttara Lanka Sabhagaya). The alliance appointed NFF leader and MP Wimal Weerawansa as Chairman, while Weerasinghe, General Secretary of the CPSL, and Tissa Vitarana, General Secretary of the LSSP, served as Vice-Chairmen. The "Supreme Lens Alliance" acts as a check on bourgeois right-wing parties in Parliament and maintains broad contact with the masses in social life to propagate socialist ideas and policies.

  1. Mobilizing the Peasantry and Expanding the Mass Base The working class is the leading force of the socialist movement. Since the turn of the 21st century, with the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, ethnic conflict and the resulting populism have absorbed the "centrifugal forces" of society. This, combined with the traditional left parties' political alliances with those in power, has led to a weakening trend in the Sri Lankan labor movement. Professor Tissa Vitarana, leader of the LSSP, noted that the proportion of the labor movement [in the workforce] was 70% in 1970, but has now fallen to 8%. Faced with a flagging labor movement, there is an even greater need to establish a socialist movement alliance with broad social participation. Besides continuing to consolidate the unity of the working class, efforts must be made to win the attention and support of more people at the grassroots of society.

Farmers are an important component of Sri Lanka's social structure, yet they have historically been neglected by the socialist movement. Some scholars have remarked that Sri Lanka "has a strong labor movement and student movement, but has never mobilized the peasantry; there has never been a peasant movement." Sri Lanka has approximately 2 million farmers, with 27% of the labor force engaged in agricultural labor. In terms of numbers alone, the peasantry is a force that cannot be underestimated in any social movement. For the Sri Lankan socialist movement to strengthen the subjective power of the labor movement, it must establish a broader mass base that includes farmers and must never ignore their existence. At the same time, Sri Lankan farmers face a series of issues: low levels of political education, estrangement from political life, a lack of conscious awareness and militancy for integrating into the proletarian movement, and even a lack of political sensitivity to "distinguish political facts from political lies and fabrications." In the Sri Lankan socialist movement, the reality that farmers have a weak cognitive identification with socialist theory dictates the need for education and cultivation to integrate them into the ranks of the socialist movement, thereby expanding the ranks of the proletarian struggle.

In 2021, the crisis in agricultural production and peasant survival became a "booster" for the socialist movement. In April 2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned chemical fertilizers to promote organic farming nationwide. This measure led directly to decreased harvests, reduced farmer income, and economic hardship. Sri Lanka struggled to maintain food self-sufficiency, becoming reliant on rice imports. The growing grievances and complaints of farmers became a significant factor threatening the regime. Left-wing parties began to realize that farmers could become a "new force" in reshaping Sri Lanka's "new economic-political path." Starting November 1, 2021, the JVP launched a mobilization campaign titled "Let’s Start from the Village," beginning nationwide political propaganda in rural areas. They analyzed the current state and roots of the Sri Lankan crisis for farmers, encouraged them to join the JVP-led National People's Power to oppose the bourgeois government, and promoted the move of farmers to the "front stage" of the political movement. Under the mobilization of left-wing parties, Sri Lankan farmers began taking to the streets in July 2021 to conduct struggles, eventually integrating into the general strike movement of 2022.

V. Postulating the Causes of New Trends in the Sri Lankan Socialist Movement

  1. Rescuing the National Fate as the Primary Task Multiple crises—including the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic crisis, and the political crisis—have pushed the Sri Lankan state to the brink of collapse. The Sri Lankan people have been forced to face a series of problems, including skyrocketing prices, shortages of fuel and electricity, and unemployment. Even the current President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, admitted: "Our country is facing enormous challenges, and we must formulate a new strategy to meet the aspirations of the people." However, the Sri Lankan political arena since the end of the civil war in the 21st century has been controlled by rotations of bourgeois political elites, making fundamental change difficult to achieve.

In the eyes of left-wing parties, bourgeois political elites have never truly resolved Sri Lanka's internal contradictions. Left-wing parties have attempted to provide a national salvation plan through their own wisdom, clarifying their policy content and initiating actions for national transformation. These parties realize that to thoroughly change the state of crisis, restore national production, and maintain social stability, they must produce a plan capable of resolving the Sri Lankan crisis and ultimately perform a "root-and-branch" [15] transformation of the capitalist system and development model. As Engels pointed out in "On Poland," when the internal life of a nation is paralyzed, "it cannot struggle for social liberation." Saving Sri Lanka from its manifold crises is a vital choice for various parties in the era of parliamentary struggle; it is also a significant opportunity for left-wing parties to conduct their struggle and realize socialist ideals. The positions of the new left and traditional left parties on establishing a future economic system are converging: under the current crisis, they advocate for a scientific, de-capitalized new economic strategy capable of building the country. Proposing effective policy solutions is a prerequisite for gaining public identification and a way to demonstrate future governing capacity to the people.

  1. The Necessity of Ideological Struggle After the Gotabaya government took power in 2020, Sri Lanka faced the worst economic and political situation in its history. This ill-fated new regime, after a brief two-and-a-half-year period of rule, ultimately lost core political power. Interpretations of the roots of the crisis by domestic and foreign scholars and media—especially right-wing scholars—point to specific factors such as the unfavorable environment caused by COVID-19 and the authoritarian, arbitrary, and incompetent governance of the leadership. Some scholars look for causes directly in populist economic policies and dynastic politics. These "weight-skipping" interpretations of Sri Lanka’s multiple crises fail to truly apply Marxist theoretical methods or grasp the laws of historical development. Marx pointed out: "All the contradictions of bourgeois production break out in a concentrated way in the general crisis of the world market, whereas in particular crises (particular in content and in scope) they break out only in a scattered, isolated, and one-sided way." Marx believed that the world market crisis is "the real synthesis and forceful balancing of all the contradictions of bourgeois economy." Thus, the Sri Lankan crisis is a manifestation of the problems of the capitalist system and a microcosm of the crisis of the world capitalist system. The theoretical analysis of the crisis involves ideological differences and struggle; it is a contest between the Marxist and non-Marxist explanatory paradigms in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan left-wing parties are currently in a stage of "new revolution" that is "only possible following a new crisis." They need to explain the contradictions of the capitalist system from the level of the essence of the crisis and effectively mobilize the Sri Lankan people to participate in the tide of the socialist movement. This will allow for a correction of the "stigmatized" history of left-wing parties—especially the JVP—further gaining the emotional identification of the masses and transforming it into support for establishing a socialist economic and social system in Sri Lanka.

  2. The Need for Independent Participation in Political Struggle Since the beginning of the 21st century, Sri Lankan left-wing parties have shown a tendency to break away from alliances with bourgeois parties and participate in politics independently. The Socialist Alliance—to which the LSSP and CPSL belong—was subordinate to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) before the administration of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Following Maithripala Sirisena’s victory in the 2015 presidential election and his assumption of SLFP leadership, and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s subsequent move to the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP; "People's Front Party"), the LSSP and CPSL became increasingly estranged from the SLFP and the Rajapaksa family, gradually moving toward a stage of independent political struggle. This was even truer for the JVP, which had always opposed the Rajapaksa family. During the 2010 general election, the JVP had a brief alliance with Sarath Fonseka, the general who led the military to defeat the LTTE (Tamil Tigers). In 2015, the JVP began participating in parliamentary struggle independently and nominated its own candidate for the presidential election; in 2020, it continued to persist in participating as an independent and autonomous party.

A political party's ability to build its voter base in a parliamentary democracy depends, on one hand, on public identification with the party's ideology, and on the other, on voters' acceptance of the party's appropriate and feasible governance concepts and proposals. The former requires long-term cultivation, whereas convincing and winning over the masses through the rationality of governing concepts can achieve twice the result with half the effort. This was well-illustrated by the success of former President Gotabaya’s populist policies in the 2020 election. In the process of "de-dependency" in politics—participating independently in parliamentary life and even running directly for the presidency—Sri Lanka's left-wing parties have increasingly realized that they "should recognize their own class interests and adopt the position of an independent party as soon as possible." Simultaneously, the shift toward "policy politics" requires an accurate grasp of the material conditions of Sri Lankan social reality to propose practical and operable policy claims. Only in this way can left-wing parties shape their own uniqueness and party identity.

(About the Author: Du Min is a Professor at the School of Marxism, Yunnan University)

In the New Era, the CPC has consistently prioritized ideological Party building [16] and institutional Party governance. It has utilized the "Ten-Year Sword-Sharpening" [17] anti-corruption struggle to effectively curb the spread of the "Four Winds" and has fundamentally reshaped the political ecosystem within the Party. This process of self-revolution demonstrates that the CPC has the internal capacity to overcome the "Law of the Periodic Cycle" [18] of dynasties through its own agency, rather than relying solely on external supervision. It is precisely this success in comprehensively and strictly governing the Party that provides a Chinese solution for Marxist parties worldwide that are currently facing a "crisis of representation" or internal organizational decay.

Furthermore, Chinese-path modernization has broken the myth that "modernization equals Westernization." By coordinating the "Five-Sphere Integrated Plan" and pursuing "high-quality development," China has shown that the development of productive forces can be harmonized with the socialist requirement for "common prosperity." This model provides a new option for developing countries—including socialist forces in Sri Lanka—that wish to accelerate their development while maintaining their independence. In terms of global governance, the concept of a "community with a shared future for humanity" and the "Global Development Initiative" offer a stark contrast to the zero-sum logic of hegemony. This "Chinese-ization" of Marxism is not merely a local adaptation but a creative development of the theory that addresses the common challenges facing all of humanity.

In conclusion, while the socialist movement in Sri Lanka currently faces severe challenges from both domestic economic crises and the fragmentation of the left-wing front, the successful practice of the CPC serves as a crucial theoretical and practical reference point. By "upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground," and by effectively integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with their own specific national conditions and traditional culture, Sri Lankan socialists may find a path toward genuine national rejuvenation. This process requires a firm commitment to "seek truth from facts" and an ability to "advance with the times" amid the complex shifting dynamics of the contemporary international landscape.