Lanka Sama Samaja Party
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Lanka Equal Society Party
ලංකා සම සමාජ පක්ෂය லங்கா சமசமாஜக் கட்சி Lanka Sama Samaja Party |
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| Leader | Tissa Vitharana |
| Founded | 18 December 1935 |
| Headquarters | 457 Union Place, Colombo 02 |
| Newspaper | Samasamajaya |
| Ideology |
Communism, Trotskyism |
| Political position | Far-Left |
| National affiliation | United People's Freedom Alliance |
| Parliament of Sri Lanka |
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The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (literally Lanka Equal Society Party, in Sinhala: ලංකා සම සමාජ පක්ෂය, in Tamil: லங்கா சமசமாஜக் கட்சி) is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka.
The party was founded in 1935 and emerged as a major political force in the Sri Lankan independence movement during the 1940s. It joined a coalition government in 1964, and was then expelled from the Fourth International. It peaked in political strength in the 1970s, but has declined gradually during the last 30 years.
In the parliamentary election held on 2 April 2004, the party was part of the United People's Freedom Alliance, which won 45.6% of the popular vote and 105 out of 225 seats. One of those 105 seats belongs to LSSP.
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was the first modern political party in Sri Lanka and the first party to have an indigenous name rather than an English one and the first Marxist party in Sri Lanka. The Sinhala term samasamajaya was one coined by Dally Jayawardena in the Swadesa Mitraya to translate the term 'socialist'. However, the usage of samasamajaya has since been superseded by samajavadaya (which corresponds to similar usage in various Indian languages) in everything but in the names of the LSSP and various of its splinter groups. The Tamil term samadharmam was used to translate 'socialist', but nowadays the English term is used.
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was founded on 18 December 1935 with the broad aims of Independence and Socialism, by a group of young people who had gathered together for that purpose. The group at the commencement numbered a bare half-dozen composed principally of students who had returned from abroad, influenced deeply by the ideas of Karl Marx and Lenin. The original group consisted of N.M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, Leslie Goonewardene, Philip Gunawardena and Robert Gunawardena.
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