The timing of the death of Wije should certainly arouse suspicions. The President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka faced large and angry popular protests that forced the President out of the country and out of office while burning to the ground the home of the Prime Minister. The death of Wije seems to have arrived at precisely the moment when revolutionaries, and leaders especially, should expect a retaliation. That the WSWS makes no mention of any suspicions follows their complete silence after the death of their former political partner James Robertson, leader of the Spartacist League and the Workers’ Vanguard. Wije spent weeks in jail serving the cause, and we have no doubt he would have given his life willingly if it meant bringing the revolution to power. His predecessor, Keerthi Balasuriya, died at the very young age of 39, in 1987, after which Wije took over the party in an emergency. His tactics, based on the acceptance of anti-Marxist conceptions, however, must also come under scrutiny on this occasion in the interests of the greater end, the success of revolution.

“Repelled by the LSSP’s betrayal, Wije was part of a group of young Trotskyists who, after a period of intense discussion between 1964 and 1968, came to recognize that the ICFI was correct for insisting that the LSSP’s collapse as a Trotskyist party was a product of Pabloism.” (July 28th Statement of the ICFI, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/28/pers-j28.html)

We can contrast this period of intense discussion with the present course of the SEP. The SEP leadership has censored and suppressed discussion over its policy. The policy in question in 1964, had to do with the LSSP’s elected Parliamentarians. At its height in 1970, it had 19 Members of Parliament as well as various Ministries, Finance, Communication and Transportation, the People’s Bank, the Ministry of Plantations, and the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation. In 1975, however, the coalition forced out all LSSP ministers. In 1977, because of new election rules, the LSSP and its Stalinist Communist Party (CP) ally received no seats at all. In 1979, Pereira, an LSSP MP and 1964 LSSP Finance Minister died a political celebrity, overseeing the National Cricket Board.

This acceptance of the LSSP into the establishment took place as part of an open betrayal by the leaders of the LSSP against, not only the principles of Trotskyism, but the Trotskyist membership of the LSSP itself, representing the working class as a whole. As a result of Trotskyist principles dominating the organization itself, a faction was formed, the LSSP(R) in opposition to participation in a bourgeois government. This faction, the leadership of the LSSP reasoned, threatened their Ministries and their appointments and their political celebrity with pesky arguments about socialist theory and principles.

The LSSP(R) also had two MPs. Wije Dias belonged to the group. Out of this division, a major debate ensued, with representation and legality on both sides. The RCL emerged from this debate in opposition to both sides of the LSSP, since the LSSP(R) rejected participation with and recognition of the international organization of the Fourth International, the ICFI, as the leadership of the world revolution. The LSSP’s massive popularity helped the RCL grow through a general political advancement within the working class’s consciousness, making clear the need for a break from Stalinism.

Its rebellion against the leadership of the LSSP, however, never should have taken an absolutist position against parliamentary politics. Lenin only called for the boycott of an election to the Duma one time, after the brutal suppression of the 1905 revolution through the murder and imprisonment of tens of thousands of revolutionaries. From the Second Duma onward, Lenin always supported Bolshevik participation in elections and in the Duma through elected Bolshevik representatives. Lenin also supported participation in the Provisional Government, forming a coalition with the Mensheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries. At the same time, he recognized that the Provisional Government and the capitalist ruling class they defend would never allow such a coalition to interrupt their war and their private accumulation of capital. For this reason, he could also call upon the Soviets to overthrow such a government, which deliberately misrepresented the people even in elections.

Although this receives absolutely no mention in the review of the career of Diaz, the RCL’s participation within the ICFI did not mean willing acceptance of the entire line of the ICFI, under control of the British SLL at the time. Keerthi openly opposed the positions of Healy and his partners as early as 1972, such as with the Indo-Pakistan War, while North and Steiner, as overzealous supporters, worked carefully to hide all opposition to Healy’s policies. (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/12/vila-d21.html) The formation of the RCL, consequently, proved an exception internationally, since North and Steiner won the conflict against Keerthi, suppressing discussion as a means of “helping” the SLL cover up for its role in the 1971 split.

The SLL’s use of bureaucratic tactics as a means of battling the OCI, the French section of the ICFI, meant that no factions could form in OCI-allied or ICFI-allied parties throughout the world. The opposition to factional democracy, the advocacy of factional tyranny, prevented Keerthi’s perspective from gaining acceptance within the ICFI and killed at birth various potential factions throughout the world. When Healy was finally on the way out, North, as an overzealous supporter, concerned citizen, and political protector of Healy, took over the ICFI leadership through bureaucratic means and emergency powers. It was in this context, during the final struggle against Healy, that Keerthi, only 39, died in 1987. Had he lived, factional democracy would have a far greater hearing within the ICFI.

Diaz replaced Keerthi through his presence at committees, making many personal appearances in Australia, Europe, and elsewhere. His emergency powers, like those of David North, did not arise from an organized debate, based on a defense of factional democracy, and elections, proportional representation, etc. Keerthi had not even appointed a successor, and he certainly did not “swim against the stream” when it came to organizing a defense of factional democracy within his own party. This meant that Keerthi held partial responsibility. Even if Diaz was deemed the likely winner based on endorsements from other party leaders within the ICFI, this would not in anyway justify the cancelation of elections, debates, and formally recognized factions.

“…the centrist politics of the LSSP (R), which the Pabloites hastily put together after expelling the top LSSP leaders to cover their tracks.” (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/28/pers-j28.html)

This view of the LSSP (R) and Pabloism in general does not explain the situation in a Marxist way. The world of politics does not come from intercompeting ideas and schemes, as the Nanobureaucrats would have us imagine. The ideas and movements in politics come from the dynamic, real-world interests of economic classes and their conflicts. Political ideas only reflect the underlying economic reality. The LSSP (R) represented the part of the bureaucracy entranced by the promise of the celebrity offered to the traitorous leaders of the LSSP, who sought similar success for themselves. This formed the main impetus for breaking from the ICFI organization. The character of the entire LSSP had eroded much the same way James P. Cannon’s had, along with the entire SWP, until he could no longer stay away from Pablo and his supporters in the SWP could no longer stay away from the Stalinists– just as the Stalinists could no longer resist serving at the right hand of imperialism.

“For Banda, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s intervention in East Pakistan, an action which antagonized the Nixon administration, was yet another form of anti-imperialist struggle. It demonstrated, in Banda’s view, that the national bourgeoisie in Asia was capable of revolutionary initiatives which contradicted Trotsky’s perspective.” (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/18/keer-d18.html)

Banda, in the early 70s, under North and Steiner’s protection from criticism, attempted to refute Marxism. Today, the Nanobureaucracy makes another attempt against Marxism. India’s invasion of East Pakistan, for example, represented “anti-imperialist struggle.” Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine represents a “legitimate defense of geopolitical interests.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine somehow protects the rule of law and democracy! Marxism is the theory of the socialist revolution, of scientific socialism. This means making a scientific appraisal of states and their structure precedes any analysis of their acts as anti-imperialist or legitimate. Both India in the 70s and Russia today have one thing in common, a capitalist ruling class. Their states serve capitalist interests, which Marxists deem reactionary. Capitalists are a ruling class that live off the surplus labor extracted from an exploited working class. Their states must from time to time destroy “excess capital” to maintain their rate of profit, the quantification of their privileges over the working class. To argue that capitalist states can lead the “anti-imperialist struggle” or oversee legitimate security operations runs contrary to observation, common sense, and basic Marxist theory.

“Throughout these long periods, we have identified him as a person who had not betrayed the core of socialist principles by entering into parliamentary politics.” (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/04/muty-a04.html)

Lenin and Trotsky, who established and personified core socialist principles never opposed “entering into parliamentary politics.” The “Great Betrayal” of the LSSP does not prove the correctness of the “Great Betrayal” of the SEP leadership. Opposition to the use of parliamentary politics, i.e. correct parliamentary politics and not its childish mockery, means opposition to the core of Marxist politics represented in the 20th century by Lenin and Trotsky. A return to principled Trotskyism and Leninism, not a reaction making use of their phrases, would lead to real success in parliamentary politics. As to its effect on Direct Revolutionary Action, it would create platforms and official protections for the political organization of the workers’ revolution, giving it a respectable form and an empowering effect far greater than pure and simple syndicalism.

“He spoke out powerfully against providing any political support to an interim capitalist government and argued in support of the party issuing a call for a Democratic and Socialist Congress of Workers and Rural Masses, to lay the basis for the transfer of state power to the working class.” (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/01/omto-a01.html)

The LSSP, even during its worst betrayals, did not advocate for a total resignation of its elected officials. The SEP, however, advocates for an a priori total resignation of all its candidates from office. This does not represent opposition to Parliamentarianism but a farce or a fraud committed against the workers. It has not inspired the workers’ participation but only inspired comedy to enter politics, such as the candidacies of Stephen Colbert, Kanye West, and now Jimmy Dore. This does not open the door for socialism in politics but undermines the foundations for democracy as a serious form of government, the foundations for self-rule by the people. Democracy, in the minds of the people, should represent the road to power and armed insurrection the action coerced from the masses to ensure democracy’s victory over its foes.

“In refusing to take part in the talks on forming an interim government, the SEP drew on the bitter political lessons of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party’s catastrophic 1964 betrayal of the essential political principles of Trotskyism.” -North Quoting SEP Sri Lanka July 20th Statement (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/01/omto-a01.html)

The SEP does not make this clear, but it considers both the LSSP and LSSP(R) as traitors only for having elected representatives in office. The MPs of the LSSP(R) and even the LSSP brought a great deal of publicity to the Sri Lankan Trotskyist movement. That an Indian military invasion and a genocidal civil war could not erase Trotskyist consciousness from the working class played a large role in the overthrow of the President and Prime Minister. Dias’ refusal to participate in a government even as an opposition reverses Leninism on its head. The SEP under such leadership should consider calling themselves a Hegelian rather than a Marxist party.

“The SEP has not and never will go down the LSSP’s road of betrayal. We reject all forms of direct and indirect support to capitalist governments.” -North quoting July 20th Statement (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/25/krhf-m25.html)

Not true. The SEP frequently uses capitalist courts, especially in the United States, indirectly supporting capitalist governments. It also uses the capitalist police and anti-democratic accusation of mental illness, of the type used against Eva Peron when she advocated arming the workers and received in exchange a lobotomy.

“The predecessor of the SEP, the Revolutionary Communist League, was founded in 1968 as a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International in direct opposition to the LSSP’s repudiation of socialist internationalism and independent class politics…” -North quoting July 20th Statement

This leaves out an important fact. The RCL formed from the membership of the LSSP. The LSSP leadership turned against its own membership through opportunist relations with the Pabloites. Marxists must make this distinction since the membership represents the advanced workers who reach socialist consciousness dialectically or through social-historical processes, while the leadership represents the targets of police repression combined with opportunist “enticement.” The idea of socialist internationalism and independent class politics did not spontaneously or ahistorically form a group to combat the idea of a repudiation. The old leadership, the victims turned accomplices, attempted to control the divide in the party through elevation of cowards and compromisers, parliamentarians opposed to direct revolutionary politics, partners of Stalinism, Pabloites.

Marxism arose from the enlightenment in Europe, in an age when revolutions removed age-old monarchic dictatorships from power. These revolutions did not begin history but brought about a profound change in how history was made. Before that point, only Kings, Queens, and their heirs could lead a state, and their advisors all needed the approval of the highly organized nobility. In order for Trotskyism to arise like Europe from its period of darkness, in which petty-bourgeois leaders use emergency powers, financial secrecy, and committee stacking to keep the Trotskyist movement in darkness, it must turn to its membership to end the royal reigns of the chairmen that last for decades and bring no factional democracy to light, no civility to discourse.