Whither Left unity?

By Uditha Devapriya

The Communist Party of Sri Lanka is now 80 years old. It celebrated the occasion at the National Youth Centre Maharagama on Monday, July 3. Attended by party officials and a number of other Opposition parties – the UNP, SJB, JVP-NPP, and FSP were conspicuous absentees – as well as local and foreign dignitaries, the event packed in a cogent critique of the present political-economic setup.

It began and ended with two fiery speeches, the first by MP Weerasumuna Weerasinghe and the final by General Secretary Dr G. Weerasinghe. Midway through, the organisers of the event launched their proposed and alternative way forward, Idirimagen Idiriyata, or Forward from the Way Forward.

The title is a play on Idirimaga, the Communist Party manifesto published in 1955 and authored by S. A. Wickramasingha and G. V. S. de Silva. Like that pamphlet, this too comes at a crucial juncture in the country’s history. Idirimaga proposed, among other things, the Mahaweli Scheme and industrialisation. Idirimagen Idiriyata goes beyond, proposing radical solutions across more than 10 sectors, including tourism and energy. Though framed from an undeniably Left perspective, there’s hardly anything doctrinaire in these solutions. They are, as Dayan Jayatilleka calls them in a recent DailyFT piece, “red” and “well-read.” Driven by a passionate critique of neoliberal orthodoxy and market fundamentalism, the manifesto affirms the party’s commitment to national planning.

This is because of the authors. Idirimagen idiriyata draws voraciously on the suggestions, recommendations, and experiences of an impressive group of academics and activists young and old, including not just Lloyd Fernando, Jagath Munasinghe, Ranjana Senasinghe, and Vinod Moonesinghe, but also Shiran Illanperuma and Kasun Kariyawasam.

Though most of them are inspired by Marxist ideals, it would be inaccurate to dismiss them with the Marxist label. Their vision for the country and its future are more developmentalist-institutionalist than Communist, though they constantly advocate for State intervention and planning. The latter policies, of course, are hardly the preserve of Left or centre-left parties, as witness the Biden government’s lurch towards propping up manufacturing.

In framing the pamphlet as a successor – a worthy one – to Idirimaga, the organisers no doubt see the present political moment as similar to 1955. Back then the regime in power was a deeply compradorist one. On the domestic and foreign policy front, from Jaffna to Bandung, it unravelled and became a colossal failure. This does not make it comparable to the present setup.

The current government differs in many ways from the UNP government of 1956, particularly with regard to the alliance it has brought about between compradorist and certain nationalist elements. But from a Left perspective, there is little to nothing that distinguishes then from now. And for the strongest “Old Left” formation in Sri Lanka, it will have to fight with everything it’s got to electorally defeat the status quo.

This requires a full-frontal ideological assault on the economic right. It requires a battle of ideas. Now, the Left is composed of a great many ideologues and ideas, but does it have the ideas and the ideologues that matter? The Communist Party certainly does. The Old Left in general has never been short of such ideologues. Indeed, the Opposition, as a whole, counts some of the most impressive minds in the country, including not just economists but also social scientists.

I am not referring to the likes of Howard Nicholas only, but to much younger firebrands, including Shiran, but also Howard’s son Bram. They have the ideas that matter, the policies that one will have to be equipped with to take on the apologists of the country’s economic shrinkage. These policies are solid, concrete: they are framed in terms of calls for not just greater social protection, but also more production.

In other words, the Left has the critique that counts. But the Sri Lankan Left has its share of problems, reflective of the problems that beset the Opposition in general. The first issue is that it has become disunited. The Old Left is no longer as fragmented as it was, of course: the inclusion of Anil Moonesinghe’s son in the drafting committee of the CPSL pamphlet says as much.

There is much more ideological clarity, coherence, and unity within it. But the New Left – the JVP-NPP and FSP – has yet to unite itself. The CPSL event ended with a passionate call for Left unity. Yet only one section of the Left has heeded it. The other remains divided, internally and externally, within and without, in relation both to the CPSL-LSSP and also to its constituent parts. Sectarianism, simply put, has become strategy.

The New Left must confront this problem. It must acknowledge it, address it, resolve it. It does not lack the intellectuals, the young academic-activists, that Old Left formations have. It has Harini Amarasuriya, but it also counts in several university students who are quite articulate. Most of them are bilingual and bicultural: a significant number are trilingual and tricultural. The irony is that while sections of the Old Left have given way to younger minds, the New Left remains moored in the thinking, the visions and strategies, of the same old ideologues. I believe the JVP-NPP and FSP have a historic role to play, a pivotal function to perform. If it does not wish to align with other Oppositional outfits, it must at least highlight and promote its Young Turks. That it has not done so, so far, is an indictment on its policies and strategies, notwithstanding the documents it has published so far.

The New Left has much potential, but it remains sterile. This should not be the case. It needs a new Idirimaga, not necessarily congruent with the Old Left, but by all means radical, a far cry from the solutions packaged and marketed by neoliberal orthodoxists. It can do this only if it is willing to look ahead and ditch its sectarianism. In the great battle of ideas, ideological purism and fragmentation are simply not options.

The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.