|
Sri Lanka The Marxist Parties
In the late 1980s, Sri Lanka had two long-established Marxist
parties. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) was founded in 1935
and remained in the late 1980s one of the very few MarxistLeninist parties in the world to associate itself with the
revolutionary doctrines of Leon Trotsky. This connection made it
attractive to independent-minded Marxists who resented
ideological subservience to Moscow and who aspired to adapt
Marxism to Sri Lankan conditions. During the late 1940s and early
1950s, the LSSP functioned as the primary opposition party, but
its fortunes declined after the emergence of the non-Marxist
SLFP. Like the SLPP, the LSSP joined with the ruling UNP in the
mid-1980s to support a negotiated settlement with Tamil militants
but in 1988 did not have members in Parliament. The New Equal
Society Party (Nava Sama Samaja Party--NSSP) was in 1987 a
breakaway faction of the LSSP.
The Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) was established in
1943 and continued in the late 1980s to follow the direction of
the Soviet Union on matters of ideology. Banned briefly in July
1983 along with the JVP and the NSSP, in 1987 it had limited
popular support.
Data as of October 1988
|
