4th NATIONAL CONVENTION – FRONT LINE SOCIALIST PARTY – 2026
Comrade Kumar Gunaratnam, General Secretary of the Frontline Socialist Party, addressing the 4th National Convention of the Frontline Socialist Party 2026
Comrade Subash Dasgupta | Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) addressing the 4th National Convention of the Frontline Socialist Party 2026
The Third National Convention of FLSP – the Information Secretary of the party, Comrade Duminda Nagamuwa’s speech on 16,2019
The Second National Convention of FLSP – Comrade Duminda Nagamuwa’s Speech, March 4, 2017
THE FRONTLINE SOCIALIST PARTY – LANKA
The Frontline Socialist Party (FLSP) was founded in 2011, following ideological and political fragmentation within the People’s Liberation Front, commonly known as the JVP.
The JVP led the 1988/89 armed struggle against the capitalist regime in Sri Lanka, which was ruthlessly suppressed by the then government. The internal organisations of the Party were destroyed during the 1988/89 government crackdown on the uprising. In 1994, the JVP decided to enter mainstream politics without a critical political and ideological debate within the Party. There was a prerequisite for a proper Bolshevik party: self-criticism and analysis of lessons learnt and the challenges faced by local and international left movements before entering mainstream politics. In contrast, the imperative requirement had been overlooked by the Party. As a result, the JVP resorted to narrow activism, which gradually paved the way for parliamentary politics, trade unionism, reformism and racist tendencies.
Taking a similar line of action to the old left in Lanka, the JVP was unable to introduce a meaningful leftist political programme that went beyond traditional mass movements and election-based politics. The ruthless oppression of the 1989 uprising, the merciless attitude towards armed struggles in Sri Lankan society, and the inability to produce an alternative mass political programme led the JVP to get sucked into parliamentarianism. The JVP’s decision to embrace parliamentarianism was connected with other divisive and derailing factors such as racism.
As a consequence, the JVP had been absorbed by coalition politics and class collaboration. For instance, it was a partner to the coalition government, called the probation government in the year 2001, an alliance with capitalist candidates, namely Mahinda Rajapaksha and Sarath Fonseka in 2005 and 2009 at the presidential elections. In 2015, the JVP did not contest the presidential polls, thereby indirectly supporting Maithreepala Sirisena, who represented the coalition-led new UNP.
Furthermore, the deviation of the JVP from the Socialist revolution was reflected in their propaganda campaign, which was titled ‘modern socialism’.
The centralised bureaucratic organisational structure was utterly detrimental to the Party’s revolutionary practices. At the internal convention held in 2010, the Party majority decided to eliminate collaborationism and racial politics. However, the Party’s bureaucratic leaders did not heed the majority decision in formulating the Party programme, thereby precipitating a constitutional and organisational crisis. This conspiracy was the main reason for the Party’s split. Besides, inherited cultural backwardness, such as a petty-bourgeois political nature and a failure to practice democratic centralism, contributed to the JVP’s downfall. The Party’s fragmentation compelled the majority to break away from the JVP and form the FLSP. As a result, the majority of Bolsheviks decided to protect the left movement by discarding the name “the JVP”, which was only used on a name board.
The FLSP held its first convention in March 2012, with the participation of the majority of Bolshevik Party members who had previously been with JVP. A new central committee was appointed while a new constitution and party propaganda mechanism were ratified. At the very inception of the Party, Comrades Lalith and Kugan were abducted and forced to disappear. Also, Comrades Kumar Gunaratnam and Dimutu Atigala were abducted, and later Comrade Kumar was deported from the country.
Those government reactions, with the alleged blessings of the JVP, indicated that the country’s left wing has remained with the FLSP. After a long debate inside the Party, FLSP was able to iron out most of the ideological and organisational differences of the membership, and the 2nd convention was held in February 2017 with inextinguishable courage and enthusiasm to build socialism in Sri Lanka.
During the 2016 convention, the Party published its positions on political philosophy, revolutionary mass movements, and the national problem in Lanka. The Party retrospectively analysed the previous decisions and failures. The Revolutionary Student Union, Centre for Workers’ Struggle, Movement for Farmers’ Struggle, Youth for CHEnge, Women Movement for Freedom, and Movement for Equal Rights are the Party’s primary mass movements, organising the Lankan proletariat towards socialism.
Unite to defeat opportunistic collaborationism, victory for the class struggle and proletariat internationalism!