Statement of the Socialist Lead of Sri Lanka and South Asia (SLLA), the Revolutionary Left Faction of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Sri Lanka.
In the Presidential Election to be held on September 21, the working class, youth, students, peasants and the oppressed middle class have no choice between any of the capitalist, right-wing and pseudo-left parties that contest the election. The only choice is their own party, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the World Party of Socialist Revolution, that stands alone in this election, advancing a program based on the principles of international socialism: against imperialist war, austerity and for democratic rights. A vote for SEP is an expression of approval to uphold and advance the perspective and program of the ICFI for international socialism, that can genuinely emancipate the working class from the tyranny of capital. SLLA therefore calls upon our class brothers and sisters to vote for SEP in this election.
The global capitalist crisis and its manifestation in Sri Lanka and South Asia
The profound crisis engulfing Sri Lanka or any other country in South Asia is not an isolated phenomenon but a concentrated expression of the global breakdown of capitalism. Decades of neoliberal policies, dictated by imperialist financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and willingly implemented by successive governments, have driven the working masses into an abyss of social misery. The soaring inflation, unemployment, squalid working conditions, inequality and pervasive poverty are not aberrations but the direct consequences of a global system that prioritizes profit over human need.
The capitalist ruling elite in Sri Lanka—whether under the guise of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), or any other bourgeois formation—has no solution to this crisis. They are committed to further austerity measures, deeper cuts to essential social services, and more severe attacks on the living standards of the working people, which President Ranil Wickremasinghe has spearheaded since the suppression and betrayal of the 2022 mass uprising. These parties, regardless of their superficial differences, serve the same class interests: those of the domestic and international bourgeoisie.
The working class in Sri Lanka, as in every other country, is trapped in a system that is both incapable of reform and unwilling to concede even the most basic social rights. It is a system that is inexorably driving humanity towards economic devastation, environmental catastrophe, and the threat of global war. The SEP alone insists that the solution lies not in patchwork reforms or the replacement of one capitalist party with another but in the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system itself.
The Global Escalation of US Imperialism: From Ukraine and Gaza to Asia
The eruption of US-NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine and the genocidal onslaught by Israel in Gaza are not isolated events but integral components of a broader strategy of global domination pursued by American imperialism. These conflicts, along with the escalating tensions in Asia, are driven by the relentless pursuit of the United States to maintain its global hegemony in the face of intensifying economic and geopolitical challenges. The working class in Sri Lanka, like workers around the world, is being dragged into this maelstrom of imperialist violence, which threatens to engulf the entire region in a catastrophic war.
In Ukraine, the US and its NATO allies have provoked and sustained a brutal conflict aimed at weakening Russia, one of the key rivals to US dominance in Eurasia. The war in Ukraine, which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, is not about defending democracy or Ukrainian sovereignty, as Washington claims, but about advancing American strategic interests by encircling and destabilizing Russia. This conflict is pushing the world toward a nuclear confrontation with incalculable consequences for humanity.
Simultaneously, the genocidal bombardment of Gaza by Israel, fully backed and armed by the United States and other imperialist powers including Germany, is a stark expression of US imperialism’s ruthless determination to secure its dominance in the Middle East. The slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, coupled with Washington’s unwavering support for Israeli apartheid, is a crime of historic proportions, exposing the hypocrisy and barbarism of US foreign policy. The imperialist drive in the Middle East, like in Europe and Asia, is about controlling key resources and strategic territories to bolster hegemony of the Wall Street.
These aggressive moves are part of a broader imperialist strategy that is now rapidly expanding into Asia, where the US is building a vast military alliance aimed at encircling and confronting China. Sri Lanka, situated at a critical juncture in the Indian Ocean, finds itself increasingly caught in the crosshairs of this escalating conflict. As the US intensifies its military preparations against China, compelling its regional allies and partners to fall in line, Sri Lanka is being drawn into the vortex of war. The Colombo government’s increasing alignment with Washington, under immense economic and political pressure, threatens to transform the island into a frontline state in the impending imperialist war in Asia.
These interconnected conflicts—whether in Ukraine, Gaza, or the Indo-Pacific—are all manifestations of the same underlying crisis of global capitalism. The working class in Sri Lanka must recognize that their struggle is inseparably linked to the struggles of the international value producing class against imperialist war. The ICFI has called for the building of a powerful international anti-war movement, led by the working class, to oppose the US-NATO war drive, defend the rights of the oppressed in Gaza, and resist the imperialist encirclement of China. Only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism can the descent into global war and barbarism be stopped. Only the SEP fights for this program.
The SEP’s Revolutionary Program: For an International Socialist Strategy
The SEP’s program is grounded in the principles of Marxism, as defended and elaborated by the ICFI. It is a program that uncompromisingly opposes all forms of nationalism, opportunism, and reformism, which seek to chain the working class to the capitalist state and its parties. The ICFI fights for the political independence of the working class, based on the understanding that the working class is the only social force capable of leading a revolutionary transformation of society.
Central to the SEP’s program is the principle of internationalism. The global nature of the capitalist crisis demands a global solution. The SEP rejects all nationalist illusions and insists that the struggle for socialist revolution must begin in the national arena, unfold in the international arena and be completed in the world arena. This demands the building of sections of the ICFI in each country of the world. The working class in Sri Lanka must unite with their class brothers and sisters around the world in a common fight against the capitalist system.
The SEP’s program includes:
The Establishment of a Workers’ Government: The SEP calls for the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government, committed to the socialist reorganization of society. This government would expropriate the major industries, banks, and financial institutions, placing them under the democratic control of the working class.
A Socialist Planned Economy: The SEP advocates for a planned economy based on social need, not private profit. This includes the nationalization of all major industries and resources, ensuring that the wealth produced by the working class is used to meet the needs of society as a whole.
The Rejection of IMF Austerity: The SEP opposes all austerity measures imposed by the IMF and other imperialist financial institutions. The party demands the repudiation of all foreign debts that have been used to impoverish the masses while enriching the capitalist elite.
Defense of Democratic Rights: The SEP fights for the defense and extension of democratic rights, including the right to strike, protest, and organize independently of the capitalist state and its political apparatus. The party also opposes all forms of ethnic and religious discrimination, recognizing that such divisions serve to weaken the working class and strengthen the ruling elite.
Opposition to Militarism and War: The SEP unequivocally opposes the militarization of society and the drive towards war, whether in Sri Lanka, US or globally. The party stands for the dismantling of the military-industrial complex including the nuclear war-heads and the reallocation of resources to meet pressing social needs.
Solidarity with the international working class: The SEP is committed to building a worldwide movement of the working class against capitalism. The party expresses full solidarity with the independent struggles of workers in every country, from the strikes in Europe and the United States to the mass protests across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Rallying youth and students in the struggle for socialism: The SEP recognizes that youth and students are a vital force in the struggle for socialism. Under capitalism, young people face a future of unemployment, precarious work, and ever-increasing levels of debt. The capitalist system offers them nothing but a life of exploitation and insecurity. The SEP calls upon youth and students to break with the bourgeois parties and movements that seek to trap them in a dead-end of reformism and identity politics, to rally behind the working class and build ICFI’s youth-wing, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE).
The Bankruptcy of the NPP and FSP: No Alternative for the Working Class
In the midst of the deepening social crisis in Sri Lanka, parties like the National People’s Power (NPP) and the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) pose as alternatives to the established bourgeois parties. However, their history, programs and political activities reveal that these organizations are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the working class and serve only to prop up the capitalist order.
The NPP, led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a right-wing party of the capitalist establishment, claims to represent a “progressive” alternative to the traditional parties, yet its entire political orientation is toward the preservation of capitalism. The JVP’s program is rooted in the same nationalist and reformist outlook that has characterized its politics since its inception. The NPP offers no genuine solution to the catastrophic conditions facing the masses. It proposes mild reforms within the framework of capitalism, failing to address the systemic causes of the crisis. The NPP’s calls for anti-corruption measures and a more “efficient” capitalist state are nothing more than attempts to conceal the root causes of the bourgeois crisis and divert the growing anger of the working class into safe channels that do not threaten the existing order.
Moreover, the NPP’s chauvinist history, including its role in supporting the communalist war against the Tamil population, exposes its inability to unite the working class across ethnic lines. Its record demonstrates that it cannot be trusted to defend the democratic rights of all workers. Instead, it seeks to foster illusions in the possibility of a “clean” and “fair” capitalist government, a delusion that only serves to disarm the working class in the face of escalating social attacks. If and when they are in power, the NPP will strengthen the capitalist oppression on the working class, in line with imperialist demands.
The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), which broke away from the JVP in 2012, similarly fails to provide a revolutionary alternative. While the FSP engages in more radical rhetoric and criticizes the JVP for its “betrayals”, it remains fundamentally committed to a nationalist and populist perspective. The FSP, like the NPP, advocates for reforms within the capitalist system rather than its overthrow. Its program is based on the false premise that the Sri Lankan state can be pressured to act in the interests of the working class if enough “progressive” forces are mobilized.
The FSP’s nationalist orientation also places it in opposition to the internationalist principles that are essential for the liberation of the working class. It seeks to channel workers’ struggles into the dead-end of parliamentary politics, where they can be more easily controlled and dissipated. The FSP’s alliance with trade unions, which are deeply integrated into the state apparatus and function as tools of capitalist control, further underscores its role in maintaining the status quo.
The SEP/ICFI Perspective on the Tamil National Question
SEP- Sri Lanka and the ICFI have a principled and historically grounded perspective on resolving the Tamil national question—one that stands in stark contrast to the bankrupt nationalism of the Tamil bourgeoisie and the chauvinism of the Sinhalese ruling elite. The SEP insists that the democratic rights of the Tamil people can only be secured through the united struggle of the entire working class in Sri Lanka—Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim—based on an internationalist and socialist program.
The roots of the Tamil national question lie in the reactionary partition of British India in 1947, which left behind a series of communal conflicts and unresolved national questions across South Asia. In Sri Lanka, the Sinhala ruling elite has long exploited ethnic divisions to maintain its class rule, systematically discriminating against the Tamil minority to divert social discontent and prevent the unification of the working class. This culminated in the brutal civil war, in which successive governments waged a genocidal campaign against the Tamil population, culminating in the massacre at Mullivaikkal in 2009.
The SEP categorically rejected the separatist perspective of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought to establish an independent capitalist statelet in the North and East of Sri Lanka. The LTTE’s program, rooted in Tamil bourgeois nationalism, offered no solution to the oppression of the Tamil masses. Rather, it served to divide the working class and align the Tamil struggle with various imperialist powers. The LTTE’s strategy of appealing to India and imperialist powers for support was fundamentally opposed to the interests of the Tamil people and led to the organization’s eventual defeat.
The SEP, in contrast, upholds the right of the Tamil people to the democratic right to put an end to all forms of national oppression, which is the essential progressive content of the right to national self-determination. However, the SEP insists that the realization of this right cannot be achieved through the formation of a separate capitalist state, which would simply create new forms of capitalist exploitation, class oppression and imperialist domination. Instead, the SEP fights for the unity of the Sinhalese and Tamil working classes in the struggle for the perspective of a United Socialist States of Sri Lanka and Eelam, as part of the broader fight for a Socialist Federation of South Asia and Internationally.
This perspective is based on the understanding that the liberation of the Tamil people, like that of the Sinhalese, can only be achieved through the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. The SEP stands for the abolition of the unitary state constitutional structure imposed by the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie on the working class of all ethnicities and for the establishment of a federation of socialist republics, which would guarantee full equality and democratic rights for all nationalities. This is inseparable from the struggle to build an international socialist movement that unites workers across South Asia and globally against imperialism and capitalism.
The SEP’s program for resolving the Tamil national question is thus fundamentally opposed to all forms of nationalism and chauvinism. It is a perspective that recognizes that the oppression of the Tamil people is not an isolated issue but a manifestation of the broader contradictions of the capitalist system. The SEP fights to unite the working class across ethnic lines, in a common struggle for a socialist future, where the democratic rights of all peoples are fully realized. Only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism can the historical injustices faced by the Tamil people be rectified, and a lasting solution to the national question be achieved.
Building ICFI Sections across South Asia
The crisis of capitalism is global, and nowhere is this more evident than in South Asia, a region plagued by deep-seated social inequality, ethnic conflicts, and the ever-present threat of imperialist war. The ruling classes across the subcontinent—from India and Pakistan to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—have proven utterly incapable of resolving these crises. Instead, they have resorted to intensifying exploitation, whipping up nationalist and communal divisions, and suppressing the struggles of the working class. In this context, the necessity of building sections of ICFI in every country in South Asia is not merely an organizational task but a life-and-death question for the working class.
The working class in South Asia, numbering in the hundreds of millions, is the only social force capable of leading the struggle against capitalism and imperialism. However, for this potential to be realized, the working class must be armed with a revolutionary socialist program that transcends national borders and unites workers across the region and globally. The ICFI, with its unbroken continuity of Trotskyism and its principled opposition to all forms of nationalism and opportunism, provides the necessary leadership for this historic task. The building of ICFI sections across South Asia is indispensable for educating advanced sections of the working class and mobilizing them around the perspective of permanent revolution—the understanding that the democratic and social tasks in semi-colonial countries can only be achieved through the socialist revolution, led by the working class and extending internationally.
Mobilizing the Industrial Power of the Working Class
Central to the success of this revolutionary struggle is the mobilization of the immense industrial power of the working class through the methods of class struggle: strikes, factory occupations and general strikes. Across South Asia, workers are engaged in daily battles against brutal exploitation, wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and the dismantling of social protections. Yet, these struggles are repeatedly betrayed by the traditional trade unions, which have long been integrated into the capitalist state and function as instruments of class collaboration. These unions, tied to the ruling parties and nationalist agendas, serve to stifle and divert the militancy of the working class into dead ends, preventing any challenge to the capitalist system.
In response, the ICFI advocates for the establishment of independent action committees, or rank-and-file committees, within every workplace and community. These committees, controlled by workers themselves, must be built outside the bureaucratic grip of the official unions. They are the means through which workers can democratically organize their struggles, link up with other sections of the working class, and prepare for the revolutionary seizure of power. These committees are not simply vehicles for economic demands but are the foundational structures of dual power, laying the groundwork for a workers’ government that would expropriate the capitalists and reorganize society along socialist lines.
Power to the Working Class: The Path Forward
The task of these action committees extends beyond the workplace. They must become centers of political education, training workers in Marxist theory and the lessons of historical struggles, while exposing the reactionary role of all bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties. They must also act as conduits for international solidarity, linking the struggles of workers in South Asia with those of their class brothers and sisters worldwide, particularly in the advanced capitalist countries. The International Workers’ Alliance of Rank and File Committees, established by the ICFI has undertaken this task of materializing international working class unity.
The struggle for power must be rooted in the understanding that the working class, led by the revolutionary party, organizing its methods of struggle, is the only force capable of resolving the immense social and democratic issues facing the masses. The action committees must evolve into organs of direct workers’ power, capable of challenging the bourgeois state and establishing a workers’ government based on socialist principles.
In every country of South Asia, the necessity of building sections of the ICFI as the revolutionary leadership of the working class and mobilizing workers through action committees is urgent. The alternative is the continued descent into barbarism—poverty, environmental catastrophe, communal bloodshed, and world war. The ICFI alone offers a way forward, and the necessary leadership, based on the principles of international socialism and the unity of the working class across all national, ethnic, and religious divisions. The ICFI section of the United States contests the upcoming presidential election, against the capitalist Democratic and Republican parties, with the same internationalist and socialist program. The future of South Asia, and indeed the world, depends on the ability of the working class to seize power and reorganize society along socialist lines.
Pani Wijesiriwardene, the Presidential Candidate, and Deepal Jayasekara, the General Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Sri Lanka, participated last Saturday morning (18th) in a state television (ITN) program hosted by Deepthi Kumara Gunarathne, an arch-enemy of the working class. The interview, a nauseating spectacle, lasted for 45 minutes and is available on YouTube.
The co-host of the program stated that the leaders of the SEP had been invited to speak on the party’s program for the presidential election to be held on September 21 this year.
The General Secretary introduced the party as the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), summarized its historical origins, and outlined its political program. Wijesiriwardene stated that the party does not have a separate election program but is contesting this election to bring the message of the party’s international socialist program—against austerity, dictatorship, and world war—to the working class as much as possible. This highlighted their main concern for participating in this television program.
SEP leaders at “Deepthi Samaga”
However, the SEP leaders did not merely participate in a neutral television interview. They are fully aware that the state television’s daily morning program, titled “Deepthi Samaga” (meaning ‘with Deepthi’), named after its host, is conducted by a political enemy of the program aimed at independently mobilizing the working class for international socialism. They are also aware that the ITN has given a prominent platform in this state media to Gunarathne and retained him as their host precisely because of his pro-capitalist and anti-Marxist politics, which have spanned over two and a half decades. Still, these leaders claim they were supposed to use the television program to disseminate this message to the working class in the country.
The essential question that the SEP leaders have been concealing for over twenty years from the working class, youth, and students of the country is this: Who is Deepthi Kumara Gunarathne, and what is his political tendency? Gunarathne is the godfather of an irrationalist, subjective idealist, and reactionary political tendency based on the pseudo-left ideological movement of postmodernism, which sprouted in the late 1990s and had considerable influence among university students, academics, artists, and working youth during the first and a half decade of this century. Along with several pseudo-left intellectuals, including Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri, a lecturer (now a professor) at the University of Colombo, he was a prominent leader of the “X Group,” which was based on this ideology. The group published its literature and a couple of magazines, including one named “London,” devoted to what they referred to as “cultural politics,” based on Derridian “deconstruction” and Lacanian “psychoanalysis”, and oriented primarily toward the urban middle class. After this organization dissolved in 2004, Gunarathne established a political party named the Sri Lanka Vanguard Party (SLVP), which a few years ago was converted into the “Samabima Pakshaya (SP)” (Equal Ground Party), and publishes the website 3mana.com.
Throughout this time, Gunarathne virulently opposed historical materialism and history, as well as the revolutionary potential of the working class, whose very existence he denied. At times, he has vented his wrath against the working class with fascistic rants condemning class struggles and even calling to “crush” trade unions in favor of the “oppressed” petty-bourgeoisie, portraying the former as parasites depending on the latter. He and his political movements have been vociferously inimical to Trotskyism. A lackey of capitalist pro-market parties and politicians like the late Mangala Samaraweera, Gunarathne has received and continues to receive political and financial support from them. He currently openly supports the policies of near-dictator President Ranil Wickremasinghe, endorses the tax hikes to combat what he refers to as “consumerism,” and appreciates austerity measures and privatization programs as dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Amidst the mass struggles of April-July 2022, which Gunarathne falsely reduces to a middle-class uprising, he scathingly condemned the “people,” whom he claims do not exist, for demanding “dal and sugar,” and proposed to implement harsh and “unpopular” belt-tightening measures if the SP gained power.
The SEP’s first and last article that barely criticized Guneratne’s politics was based on a public speech he gave at a Colombo meeting in April 2014 as the leader of the SLVP. The SEP leadership wrote in the Sinhala section of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) as follows:
‘Gunarathna said in his speech: “There is a question about capitalism and who are the capitalists in Sri Lanka. In traditional left-wing parlance, it is the capitalists who are helping me at this time [of course]”. Gunarathne got an opportunity to work with a Sri Lankan financial capitalist, Tiran Alas. “He’s dressed and eats like a regular man. A BMW car is parked outside. But his driver is inside that car with AC on and he is having fun. In the old left language, the worker is the one who has fun with the AC on. We need to identify what capitalism really is in Sri Lanka. This system is really maintained by the oppressed.”
The essence of these statements is that there is no class that can be identified as a working class: it is the “oppressed” who maintain the capitalist system.’
The article further explains as follows:
“Gunarathne burns with hatred for modern Marxism, Trotskyism. The reason for this is that only the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International (ICF) and its Socialist Equality Parties strongly defend orthodox Marxist concepts and principles, including the revolutionary potential of the working class. All other so-called leftist organizations abandoned even the pretense of having any concern for Marxism and the working class and quickly switched to the camp of the bourgeoisie with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Gunarathne expressed his hatred thus: “Trotskyism is over today. My point is that Trotskyism is no longer a worldview for analyzing global capitalism. Trotskyism always insists on objective reality. But the problem with globalization is self-centeredness.”
The person issuing these foolish statements is ignorant not only of Trotskyism, but also of the serious analysis by the ICFI of the globalization of production.
Gunarathne is one representative of the middle class social strata absorbed by the reactionary ideologies unleashed with the globalization of capitalist production. It is not surprising that neither he nor anyone who spoke in that assembly talked about the “objective reality” – that is, the contradictions of capitalism in globalization that characterize today’s world politics, and that it is moving towards collapse and the threat of a third world war that could wipe out humanity with nuclear power. The rally’s speakers demonstrated their commitment to imperialism by spreading skepticism about the revolutionary potential of the working class and Marxism.”
The meeting referred to in the SEP article is part of a series of meetings organized by the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) for a “ Dialogue of Lefts”. Wije Dias, the General Secretary of SEP, in November 2013, wrote an open letter addressed to the FSP rejecting an invitation received to participate in the said discussion.
Dias stated as follows:
“[T]he purpose of the proposed meeting is to lay the foundations for a regroupment of an array of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois organizations. Such a regroupment, were it to be realized, would result in the creation of yet another political trap for the working class. The Socialist Equality Party, which for more than 45 years has defended Trotskyist principles and fought tirelessly for the political independence of the working class, has no intention of lending credibility to the sort of reactionary regroupment that you are seeking to implement. Therefore, the Socialist Equality Party emphatically rejects your invitation.”
The party that fought so tirelessly “for the political independence of the working class” was supposed to wage a determined fight against the developing pseudo-left tendencies, as resolved by the ICFI. However, despite the growing influence of the postmodernist tendency among youth, spearheaded by the X-Group, the SEP leadership stubbornly neglected this reactionary movement, and not a single article was published “exposing” this tendency. The party leadership’s approach toward the politics of the VP and SP is the same. This omission largely paved the way for the betrayal of at least two generations of youth, intellectuals, and politically conscious advanced sections of the working class, leading to disorientation and demoralization, and driving them away from the Marxist revolutionary program advanced solely by the ICFI.
In deciding to accept Gunarathne’s invitation, it is clear that the party leadership decided to gag themselves, face to face with their class enemy, over the treacherous and reactionary role played by Guneratne in disorienting a generation of youth and the working class, which he boasts about. Having made no substantial exposure of Gunarathne’s decades-long reactionary politics, and taken no attempt to engage in polemics with the ideas of his tendency—which is the mark of a revolutionary party, as James P. Cannon once said—the party leadership had no guts to reject Gunarathne’s invitation. During the interview, Wijesiriwardene referred to the post-1991 tendencies that rejected Marxism as a “metanarrative,” advocated pluralism in epistemology, and used empiricist logic, which contributed to the erosion of “socialist culture,” but carefully avoided pointing fingers at Gunarathne, who has been one of the main culprits for this political crime.
The SEP opportunist leadership was well aware that Gunarathne, being an enemy of the working class and its struggles, would be careful not to raise the most destabilizing questions for the SEP leadership: Why was your party not able to exert at least a substantial influence in the mass struggles of 2022, let alone provide the necessary leadership for it? Why was your party not well received, even with your revolutionary program? Why did the membership of your party not grow, even during these unprecedented struggles? Challenged by these questions, the SEP leadership could not simply blame the FSP or other groups for strangling the mass struggle and channeling it toward parliamentarianism. In fact, Gunarathne had proposed such a betrayal of the struggle as early as late April 2022.
This mutual understanding marked the culmination of a shameful cohabitation. These questions, which would place the SEP leadership in trouble, have already been answered by the great leaders of our movement:
“During a revolution, i.e. when events move swiftly, a weak party can quickly grow into a mighty one provided it lucidly understands the course of the revolution and possesses staunch cadres that do not become intoxicated with phrases and are not terrorized by persecution. But such a party must be available prior to the revolution inasmuch as the process of educating the cadres requires a considerable period of time and the revolution does not afford this time”. (L.Trotsky, The Class, the Party and the Leadership, 1940).
The SEP leaders seem uninterested in finding out why Gunarathne, a class enemy and SP leader, invited them to the interview despite all his hostility to Trotskyism and the SEP, as identified in the article by the SEP. But Gunarathne knows that the tacit agreement entered into with the SEP leadership serves his ends by providing him with an opportunity to strengthen his fake left cover. In a world situation where bourgeois pundits who declared the “end of history” in the early 1990s had to admit, in the backdrop of the 2008 Great Crash, that they were wrong and that history is still ticking, and ushered in an epoch of unending war, social counter-revolution, the danger of fascism, and a resurgence of global class struggles showing a lurch toward the left by the masses around the world—which trend was demonstrated in Sri Lanka in 2022—Gunarathne and the like are gravely seeking this left camouflage to set further political traps.
During the interview, the leaders referred to a number of social problems the Sri Lankan population faces, including the effects of austerity measures and poverty. However, significantly, the leaders failed to mention the existence of the Tamil national question. This is not an accident.
While there is reference to the onslaught on democratic rights, the growing threat of world war, and the country being drawn toward the vortex of an imperialism-led war against China, the Tamil national question is not mentioned even in the SEP election statement of August 16, published on WSWS. In explaining the socialist revolutionary program to uphold what was ambiguously referred to as the “National Democratic Right of Tamils” during the first public meeting held in Colombo on August 16 as part of the election campaign, Wijesiriwardene was careful not to identify it as the eradication of national oppression, which is the essential progressive content of “self-determination.”
The SEP leadership virtually marked the end of the Tamil national question on May 18, 2009, when former president Mahinda Rajapaksha militarily crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), epitomizing their gradual subjugation of the party to the pressure of Sinhala chauvinism, diluting the concrete, practical struggle to mobilize the industrial force of the Tamil, Sinhala, and Muslim working class around transitional demands (such as the release of all Tamil political prisoners, unconditional withdrawal of the invading Sinhala military from the North and East, and full reparations and compensation for the devastated families) under the perspective of a United Socialist States of Sri Lanka and Eelam (USSLE), with the support of and as part of the struggle of the international working class. When questioned at a recent press conference about what is referred to by the word “Eelam” in the SEP’s perspective of a USSLE, Wijesiriwardene miserably failed to mention that it represented the SEP’s recognition of Tamil national oppression as a fact and those people’s right to be free from it, which could only be realized by the working class fighting unitedly across ethnic lines for such a socialist perspective.
We consider it apt to conclude this critique with the following observation by Trotsky on the failures of the leadership of the Comintern and KPD to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership in “German October” of 1923:
“The periods of the maximum sharpening of a revolutionary crisis are by their very nature transitory. The incongruity between a revolutionary leadership (hesitation, vacillation, temporizing in the face of the furious assault of the bourgeoisie) and the objective tasks, can lead in the course of a few weeks and even days to a catastrophe and to a loss of what took years of work to prepare…By the time the leadership succeeds in accommodating itself to the situation, the latter has already changed; the masses are in retreat and the relationship of forces worsens abruptly.” L.Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin (Pioneer Publishers, 1957, p97-98)
The Socialist Equality Party (US) announced, on February 27, the selection of Joseph Kishore and Jerry White as the SEP’s candidates in the 2024 US presidential election campaign. The campaign website can be accessed at socialism2024.org. We, theSocialist.LK, are posting here the announcement of this campaign by David North, the national chairman of the SEP-US. As comrade North points out, the US election is a global event, which affects billions of the working people of every country and, so, they should have the right to participate in.
Joseph Kishore and Jerry White as its presidential and vice presidential candidates for the 2024 US election
On behalf of the Socialist Equality Party, I am honored to announce that the SEP will stand candidates in the 2024 presidential elections.
Joe Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party, will be our candidate for president.
Jerry White, the labor editor of the World Socialist Web Site, has been selected as the SEP’s vice presidential candidate.
Both Joe Kishore and Jerry White have long and distinguished records as fighters for socialism and the interests of the working class.
Joe, who is 44 years old, has been active in the socialist movement for a quarter century. He has been national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party since 2008, and has played a central role in the development of its political program and the building of the SEP. He represented the Socialist Equality Party as its presidential candidate in 2020.
Jerry, who is 64 years old, joined the Workers League—the predecessor organization of the Socialist Equality Party—45 years ago. During these many years, Jerry—dating back to the historic PATCO strike of 1981—has, as a revolutionary journalist, covered and intervened in countless struggles of the working class. He has also represented the Socialist Equality Party in earlier national elections, most recently as its presidential candidate in 2016.
The Socialist Equality Party is intervening in this election to raise the political consciousness of the working class, to develop its understanding that no solution can be found to any of the problems confronting working people except through the ending of the capitalist system and its replacement with socialism, and that this great historical task can only be achieved by adopting a global strategy aimed at the mobilization of the power of the American and international working class in a unified struggle against the world capitalist system.
The program of the Socialist Equality Party is not a utopian scheme. It is a necessity. Mankind confronts an existential crisis. The capitalist system is historically obsolete. It is not only incapable of improving the conditions of life for the vast majority of the world’s population. It is leading humanity to a catastrophe. The alternative that confronts mankind is socialism or capitalist barbarism.
What is the reality of capitalism in 2024?
David North
Not since 1945, the end of World War II, has the danger of a cataclysmic Third World War loomed so large. In fact, the conflict now underway in Europe and the Middle East, and those that are spreading throughout the Sahel region in Africa and the Transcaucasus in Central Asia, are the opening rounds of a rapidly developing global war.
The war in Ukraine, which the Biden administration deliberately provoked two years ago with the aim of weakening Russia and tightening the grip of American imperialism and its NATO allies over Eurasia, in preparation for the coming showdown with China, threatens to escalate into a nuclear conflict. Germany is once again on the warpath. The NATO powers have repeatedly stated that they will not be deterred from pursuing the war by the threat of a nuclear exchange. The deliberate use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons—which was rejected for decades as synonymous with madness—is now being “normalized” as a legitimate component of imperialist geopolitical strategy.
As the war rages in Ukraine, the fascistic Israeli regime—with the full support of the White House and allied governments in Europe—continues its murderous campaign against the people of Gaza. The death toll is approaching 30,000. Two-thousand-pound bombs, supplied by the Biden administration, are being dropped indiscriminately on a defenseless population. Even as hundreds of women and children are being killed every day, the Biden administration refuses to demand a cease fire. Genocide is being “normalized.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has now entered its fifth year. Well over 1 million Americans have died after being infected. On a global scale, it has been estimated that the total number of excess deaths caused by the pandemic now exceeds 28 million. Countless millions are being infected multiple times and, even if spared a fatal outcome, endure the misery and debilitation of Long COVID. Every capitalist government has dismantled the most minimal measures to prevent the spread of the disease.
Even the use of masks is being opposed and, in some cases, threatened with criminal sanctions. The slogan of the ruling elites, initially proclaimed by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is, “Let the bodies pile high.” Opposing the implementation of well-known and effective public health measures to stop the transmission of the virus, it continues to spread and mutate, infecting millions of people each day. Mass death and debilitation is being normalized.
The criminal indifference of capitalist governments to the lives of the world’s population is duplicated in their attitude toward the survival of the planet. No amount of information confirming the disastrous consequences of global warming will compel the ruling class to adopt policies that scientists insist are urgently required to avoid planetary suicide.
The reactionary social essence of the capitalist system is the absolute subordination of the needs of human society to the drive for massive profits and the concentration of staggering levels of wealth in the bank accounts of the financial-corporate oligarchs who rule society.
The French novelist Balzac, who observed with a critical eye the rise of the capitalist class in the early 19th century, noted, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” But the brilliant writer could hardly have imagined the extent to which his aphorism would be confirmed by the astronomical sums controlled by the present-day oligarchs. The “great fortunes” to which Balzac referred amounted to several millions. Those of the modern corporate-financial oligarchs are measured in the tens and hundreds of billions.
The most basic indication of the progressive or reactionary character of a society is whether it is becoming more equal or more unequal. By this standard, the reactionary character of American and global capitalist society is beyond debate. Social inequality has reached levels that are beyond anything that has existed in at least a century.
The richest 1 percent of the world’s population now owns almost half the world’s wealth, while the poorest 50 percent own just three-quarters of 1 percent. Eighty-one billionaires have more wealth than half of the global population. The richest 1 percent raked in 38 percent of all additional wealth accumulated since the mid-1990s, while the bottom 50 percent received just 2 percent.
The United States has the highest concentration of billionaires in the world, whose collective wealth grew to $5.2 trillion in 2023. This vast concentration of wealth and the corresponding degree of social inequality is totally incompatible with democracy.
There is much talk in the media about the threat to American democracy. President Biden declares that he is all that stands, or should I say totters, in the way of a dictatorship headed by Trump. If that is truly the case, then democracy is certainly doomed.
But the fight against dictatorship and fascism can only succeed to the extent that its causes are understood.
Trump—who emerged from the smelly sewers of the New York and New Jersey real estate and casino industries—only personifies the criminality of American capitalism.
Democracy cannot survive alongside of massive social inequality. The capitalist oligarchs turn today toward authoritarianism and fascism—as they did in Germany in the 1930s—to defend their wealth against the rising tide of social discontent and class struggle. This is not only an American phenomenon. It is taking place all over the world. The strike wave that swept across the United States in 2023 was part of an international movement.
This global upsurge will continue and grow stronger in the course of 2024.
Neither of the two major capitalist parties—the Democrats and Republicans —have anything to offer the working class but impoverishment, political repression and war. The attempted coup of January 6, 2021 was not an isolated episode. Indeed, it had more the character of a dress rehearsal. American democracy is on its last legs. It cannot survive on the basis of capitalism.
Therefore, the Socialist Equality Party will advance a program that calls for the end of the corporate-financial dictatorship, the establishment of democratically controlled public ownership over the financial-corporate conglomerates, and the dissolution of the vast military-industrial complex.
The SEP will advocate a comprehensive and far-reaching redistribution of wealth from the super-rich to the broad mass of the population.
The SEP will also fight against the vicious chauvinism of the capitalist parties. We will denounce and expose the brutal treatment of immigrants from Latin America, and uphold the fundamental democratic right of all working people to live in dignity wherever they choose.
The Socialist Equality Party will explain that the implementation of this program will require the transfer of political power to the working class.
The United States election is a world event. What happens in the US affects every country in the world. Given the global impact of the US elections, every person in the world should have the right to cast a ballot in November.
The Socialist Equality Party is intervening in the 2024 presidential election because the critical character of the present crisis requires the development of a class conscious, socialist movement of the working class.
The economic, political and social crisis of the capitalist system will intensify throughout 2024. In turn, the global resistance of the working class will grow more determined and politically conscious. In this process, the SEP and its co-thinkers in the parties affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International will play an increasingly decisive role.
The Socialist Equality Party is not a mere vote-catching organization, shouting demagogic slogans, mouthing platitudes, and adapting its program to the lowest common denominator. We leave that to the political charlatans of the pseudo-left organizations that hope to achieve minor and inconsequential reforms with the permission of and in alliance with the Democratic Party. Moreover, the Socialist Equality Party does not chop and dice the population into different conflicting personal identities—such as ethnicity, race, gender and sexual preference—each fighting for a more personally favorable redistribution of wealth within the framework of capitalism.
The program of the Socialist Equality Party is based on the recognition that the fundamental conflict in society is between classes.
The SEP is a party of history. Its theoretical, political and practical work is based on a vast experience of revolutionary struggle, spanning more than a century. Our traditions are rooted in the international principles and program of Marxist socialism, as it has been defended and developed by the Trotskyist movement, which was founded in 1923, in opposition to Stalinism, social democracy, reactionary nationalism and countless varieties of middle-class politics.
The Socialist Equality Party recognizes the global scale of the capitalist crisis and immense tasks that confront a movement that seeks to change the world. But we derive confidence and optimism not only from the fact that the extraordinary advances in science and technology make fully possible the rational and progressive reorganization of the world economy in the interests of mankind, but also from the fact that there does exist a social force that is sufficiently powerful to carry out the revolutionary transformation of the world—the American and international working class.
The SEP will conduct its campaign on an international scale, to explain to workers the necessity for a unified world-wide struggle against capitalism’s descent into barbarism.
But its success, the success of our campaign, depends on your support and participation in the election campaign of the Socialist Equality Party. Help us place Joseph Kishore and Jerry White on the ballot in as many states as possible. We urge workers and youth—indeed, all those who recognize that capitalism has arrived at a dead end—to join this fight. Step forward for the working class. Contribute financially and participate actively in our campaign. Build SEP campaign committees in your factories, work places, schools and neighborhoods.
The fight against poverty, repression and World War III is the fight for World Socialism!
[This announcement was originally published on WSWS.org February 27, 2024]
