Petty-bourgeois Nationalism versus Internationalism: The struggle for the historical continuity of Bolshevism and resolving the crisis of proletarian leadership

By Sanjaya Jayasekera.

For Zionist imperialists, the history began on October 07, 2023, and the brutal oppression of Palestinians for 75 years is simply obliterated. Drawing an analogy, for Comrade Nandana Nanneththi, according to his diatribe of October 08, 2024, the history of our principled struggle against their nationalist clique had begun only from our final contribution of July 4, 2024. Nandana shamelessly suppresses the fact that  the discussion in question formally started at least six months ago, on December 25, 2023, when Sanjaya proposed a programme of action to the Aggregate group, titled “The way forward for the SEP Left”. Our struggle consisted of a number of written explanations that followed, a 25-page document written by Comrade Migara before December 25 about the long degeneration of the party, and two submissions of nearly 30 pages written by Comrade Migara clarifying the discussion that broke out after my proposal of December 25. Only one document was submitted by the Nandana’s clique, by comrade Udayaprema, during this whole discussion. This document submitted in mid April largely contained straw-man arguments that distorted the facts. Nandana avoided the main problems that we raised, but his positions were made clear to us. 

Nandana’s behavior shows that he perceives our refusal to respond to his frenzied statements in his own language and style as representing our weakness. He is wrong. Since we are not in the habit of biting like hounds infected with the disease of poisonous subjectivity, and being revolutionaries who have not abandoned the claim to the heritage of the historical continuity of the international socialist movement, we act to grapple with political issues theoretically, attempting the most for the political clarifications and lessons for the working class. That is our approach.

Nandana’s essay/article reeks of the symptoms of the subjective sickness of a petty-bourgeois charlatan, requiring it to be dissected into sentences and phrases and sometimes into words to discuss it in detail. Therefore, we have adopted a method of commenting within the original text of the essay itself and the commentaries are placed just after the relevant section of the texts which are placed within parentheses. This method, we hope, keeps the reader less distracted. 

The Text and the Commentaries

[ජුලි 6 දා, නීතිඥයෙකු වන සංජය විල්සන්] I was called Sanjaya Jayasekera by party comrades. Nandana is using my middle name and profession as an appeal to backwardness. There was no relationship between my profession and my being a member of the revolutionary party, and the reader would understand what Nandana is up to. [මිගාර මල්වත්ත සහ සුනිල් මොරායස්] This is yet again a treacherous betrayal of exposing a comrade’s name against his written opposition. [යන ත්‍රිත්වය සසප වාම කන්ඩායමේ වෙබ් අඩවිය හා සියලු සංනිවේදන මාධ්‍ය පැහැර ගෙන පලා ගියහ.] This is an outright lie. We, the internationalist faction, expelled Nandana-led nationalist clique, and thus they have no politically legitimate entitlement to any of the media organs of the group, which was intended to function as a faction of the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka (SEP). The faction was to be founded in opposition to the party leadership’s reactionary political tendencies that we struggled to identify, discuss, clarify and clearly define. theSocialist.LK website was not even in the dreams of any of the comrades of the group including Nandana, when Sanjaya foresaw the necessity of such a publication organ for the factional struggle and thus registered “theSocialist.LK”domain name under his name and started building a blog. All these were communicated to Nandana later and he agreed with the same. The blog was launched by Sanjaya on his birthday as a gift to all comrades of the group. Sanjaya was Editor of the website, not because he was appointed by any vote, but because he assigned it to himself and everybody accepted the status quo. The group decisions were reached never as an outcome of a so-called majority decision, and the decisions were taken usually by Sanjaya and Nandana during their discussions, and these decisions were approved tacitly by everybody. When Sanjaya suggested developing the blog into a website, he conceded that the other comrades too should contribute financially, so that everybody gets the sense of its significance as the axis of the faction, even though he could have borne the whole cost by himself, if that was necessary, which fact everyone of the group was well aware of. Some funds were taken from the Colombo Action Committee (CACPS) as a loan, as the contributions lying there were solely from the comrades in the group. Comrades Nihal and Punyawardena, the close associates of Nandana, controlled this bank account. Later, Sanjaya opened a Bank account with Parakrama, another long-time friend of Nandana, separately for theSocialist.LK, and Parakrama and Nandana were in control of the Bank ATM card, and they always put off handing it over to Sanjaya, never carrying it out.  They used the website’s bank card to withdraw all funds, after the clique was expelled from the faction. Due to inadvertence, the return of the loan obtained from CACPS had not been effected by Parakrama or Sanjaya, as it was never raised or reminded within the group discussions, even by Nihal, who was CACPS treasurer and was long absconding meetings. Once the funds from the website account were illegitimately withdrawn by Nandana renegades, we demanded the overdue remittance of the loan amount to the action committee’s account, which Nandana has rejected in an email communication. CACPS is dysfunctional as of now, and its Secretary has yet to call a general meeting to elect the new office bearers, while Sanjaya’s Chairmanship has lapsed. [මාක්ස්වාදී මූලධර්මවලට ප්‍රතිපක්ෂව]  Nandana merely utters this without any sort of substantiation, and the reader of this piece will understand what principles our struggle was and is based upon. [සසප වාම කන්ඩායම මෙහෙයවා ගැනීමට තමන් දැරූ උත්සාහය සහමුලින් ම අසාර්ථක වූ නිසා ඔවුහු මෙම තීන්දුවට එලඹුනහ.] The reader of this piece would understand the falsehood of these claims, and other allegations made against us. In fact, it was the N-clique (Nandana’s clique) that renegaded from internationalism, rejected reapplying for ICFI membership and fighting for SEP membership, rejected the Bolshevik method of factional struggle and relegated into an opportunist nationalist pressure group. [සසප වාම කන්ඩායම යනු 2014 සිට සසප වර්ධනයට බාධා වූ තත්වයන්ට එරෙහිව පක්ෂය තුල සටන් වැදී සිටි හා 2022 දී පක්ෂ නායකත්වය විසින් බොල්ෂෙවික් පිලිවෙත නො තකා නෙරපා හරිනු ලැබූ කන්ඩායම යි.] This group was not a ‘faction’, but admittedly a group of individuals later expelled from the Party, who were never organized on the basis of any political agreement. They did not stand, nor stand against any reactionary tendencies in the party leadership. Theirs was, in fact, an agitation group, and their so-called struggle was not against any reactionary tendency of the leadership, but against this or that ‘unprincipled activities’, and was wholly ad hoc, informal and irregular. After 2015 Second National Congress, Nandana, who could secure a place in the Central Committee, and his clique limited their agitation and entered into a tacit compromise with the leadership, only to be compelled to take arms against the party leadership during the mass struggles of 2022. By mid 2023, Nandana enrolled to the group two ex-members of the party, his close friends, who had deserted the party long time ago, and never wished to rejoin the party, but claimed their will to be engaged in the ICFI’s revolutionary politics, without being affiliated to it! [2021 අවසානය කාර්තුව දක්වා ම අප කන්ඩායමට විරුද්ධව සිටි විල්සන්ට පන්ති අරගලයේ වර්ධනය සමග පක්ෂ නායකත්වයෙන් තමන්ට එල්ල වූ පීඩනය නිසා අප අරගලය පිලි ගැනීමට සිදු විය] This is false. I had not expressed to them any opposition to or agreement with their specific political issues, nor I was a member of their group. Their issues were largely unknown to the membership, as that was the way the SEP leadership worked to prevent membership discussions on the political disagreements of members. The SEP leaders preferred faithful yes-men. The first time I expressed my political agreement with a political position taken by Nandana was when a dispute on the ICFI’s stance on the right to self-determination arose in late 2021, in which I was able to clear the confusions long nurtured by the party leadership. In 2015 only I was selected to the PC, and I was largely unaware of Nandana’s specific issues, because they never functioned as a political faction, but just as agitators within a couple of Locals. They never took part in a factional struggle. This was recognized also by comrade David North in his comments made at the start of Party’s Congress in 2015. 

[විල්සන් කන්ඩායමේ පලා යාම සිදු වූයේ වාම කන්ඩායම සමග වූ මත භේදවලට මුහුන දීමට තමන් අසමත් බව වටහා ගැනීම නිසා ය] Outright falsehood. It was they who failed to respond to our documents and questions. Only we raised the political issues regarding the factional characterization, which then gave way to other issues of nationalism and internationalism as central questions within the SEP-Left. We fought for our explanations based on Bolshevik principles and they never attempted to answer our fundamental questions. These ultimately led to the expulsion of this unprincipled clique from the SEP-Left. [තමන් ජත්‍යන්තරවාදීන් ලෙස හදුන්වා ගත්] We, as genuine internationalists, stood for Bolshevik method of factional struggle and insisted on the struggle for ICFI membership, which they rejected. We also reasonably identified them as a nationalist opportunist clique. [ත්‍රිත්වය වෙනුවෙන්, සංජය විල්සන් ඇග්‍රිගේට් නමින් පවත්වා ගෙන ගිය අපගේ වට්ස් ඇප් පිටුවේ ජුලි 4දා මෙසේ සදහන් කර තිබිනි. “පිටු 65ක ලිපිය ඉහත එවා ඇත. මෙය කියවන්න ඉන් පසු කතා කරමු.“] The discussion, in which they merely kept opposing our views without merit and tried their best to derail it, had lasted close to seven months from December 2023, and the 04th July document was the final piece produced by us as sequel to two other main documents and other extended explanatory notes. In the final round of discussions Sanjaya had made oral submissions via Zoom,  which followed ‘comments‘ from N-clique and then what was remaining was Sanjaya’s counter-submissions. As an aid to these final oral contribution, the written document was prepared in association with Comrade Migara, which was submitted. Therefore, in fact, the discussion had come to its dead end. In fact, our disagreements with Nandana’s positions did not arise just on December 25, 2023, but at the very inception of our engroupment, when 12 members were about to be expelled from the party. Sanjaya along with Migara and Sunil insisted that these comrades should declare a faction and take the fight against the bureaucratic party leadership, which Nandana-Udayaprema (the latter is the former’s brother-in-law) vehemently objected. They even adamantly refused to write to the party leadership against the intended expulsion, saying such a response is undesirable and, even after Sanjaya got almost all other comrades to agree for his proposal, this was not executed by the group due to Nandana’s vehement opposition. It was clear to us later that, in fact, Nandana wanted the expulsion to take effect, so that he can establish his petty-bourgeois pressure group that suits his way of social life. The expulsion removed from the ranks of the party/ICFI the revolutionary and progressive cadre, who were misguided by Nandana. 

[ජුලි 6 දා ඔවුහු “සසප නායකත්වයේ ප්‍රතිගාමීත්වයට එරෙහි ෆැක්ෂන් අරගල ය ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කල, ජාතිකවාදී, එනම් ජාත්‍යන්තර කම්ටුවට හා සසපට බැදී ගැනීමට අරගලය නො කරන, සසප ගොඩ නැගීම සදහා අරගලය නො කරන (සසප ගොඩ නැගීම ලෙස ඔහු සදහන් කරන්නේ එහි ඔහු කියන ප්‍රතිගාමී නායකත්වයෙන් සසප ඩැහැ ගැනීම සදහා සිය අභිප්‍රාය බව  මෙම ලිපියේ තහවුරු කරනු ඇත)….. සසප වම  බහුතර කල්ලිය හා අප අතර කිසිදු සාකච්ඡාවක් ඉදිරියට පලදායී නො වන බව පැහැදිලි ය“ යි  ලියූහ] Nandana desperately attempts to establish a falsehood that we were like going to execute a coup to usurp power from the party leadership! Our struggle is very clearly against the reactionary political tendencies of the party leadership, and not against the individuals in the leadership, which was made clear to the group. It was a factional struggle that we proposed, a fact which they are knowingly suppressing. The full extract of our letter is suppressed in order to raise a blatantly distorted meaning. 

Following is the full text of the underquoted paragraph:

“අපගේ පෙර ලිපි හා බැඳි 2024 ජුලි 04 දිනැති අවසන් දිර්ඝ පැහැදිලි කිරීමේ දේශපාලන ලිපිය ඉදිරිපත් කරමින් සසප–වම බහුතර කල්ලියේ දේශපාලන අනන්‍යතාවය කවරක් ද යන්න අපි නිවැරදිව සනාථ කර ඉදිරිපත් කර ඇත්තෙමු. එම කල්ලිය සසප නායකත්වයේ ප්‍රතිගාමී ප්‍රවනතාවයන්ට එරෙහිව ෆැක්ෂන් අරගලය ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කල, ජාතිකවාදී, එනම් ජා.කට හා සසපට බැදී ගැනීමට අරගල නොකරන, සසප ගොඩනැගීම සඳහා අරගල නොකරන, ඒ අනුව මෙි රටේත්, මේ කලාපයේත් කම්කරු පන්තියේ නායකත්වයේ අර්බුදය විසඳීමට අරගල නොකරන, සසප නායකත්වය වමට තල්ලු කිරීමට පිඩනය යෙදීමේ බාහිර සුලු ධනේශ්වර දේශපාලන ප්‍රවනතාවයක්  බව අප පෙන්වා දී ඇත. ඊට විරුද්ධව, සසප–වම සුලුතරය යැයි හදුන්වන අප,  ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදය අනුයමින්  සසප–වම ෆැක්ෂන් අරගලය බෝල්ෂවික් විධික්‍රමය අනුව ඉදිරියට ගන්නා විප්ලවවාදී කන්ඩායම වෙමු. හජජාක ඓතිහාසික උරුමය ආරක්ෂා කල හැක්කේම එයට බැඳී ගැනීමෙන් හා එසේ බැඳී ගැනීම සදහා අරගල කිරීමෙන්ම පමනි. අපගේ පෙන්වාදීමට පටහැනිව කරුනු ඉදිරිපත් කිරීමට අසමත් වෙමින්, පසුගිය මාස හයකට වැඩි කාලයක් තුල සිදුවූ සංවාදය තුල ඔබ හජජාකට හා සසපට බැදීගැනීමට කල යුතු ෆැක්ෂන් අරගලය පෙරට ගැනීමට නුසූදානම් බව පෙන්වමින් ඔබගේ ජාතිකවාදී ප්‍රවනතාවය තහවරු කර ඇත. මේ හේතුවෙන්, අප කන්ඩායම් දෙක අතර ප්‍රවනතාමය වෙනස හොදින් පැහැදිලිය. ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදය හා ජාතිකවාදය අතර එම ප්‍රවනතාත්මක ප්‍රතිගථිතතාවය සාකච්චාව තුලින් සමනය කල නොහැක්කකි. එය විසදෙන්නේ පන්ති අරගලයේ කොටසක් ලෙස එක් ප්‍රවනතාවයක් දේශපාලනිකිව පරාජය කිරීමෙනි.  කම්කරු පන්තික ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදයේ ජයග්‍රහනය සඳහා ජාතිකවාදය හදුනාගෙන බැහැර කල යුතුය. අප ඔබ කල්ලයේ ජාතිකවාදය නිශ්චිතව හදුනාගෙන  පෙන්වා ඇත්තෙමු. ඒ නිසා සසප–වම බහුතර කල්ලිය හා අප අතර කිසිදු සාකච්චාවක් ඉදිරියට ඵලදායී නොවනු ඇති බව පැහැදිලිය. අප ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී කන්ඩායමට පමනක් ෆැක්ෂන අරගලය ඉදිරියට ගෙනයාමේ ඓතිහාසික උරුමය  සුජාත ලෙස පැවරේ. අප එම අරගලය පෙරට ගනු ඇත. ට්‍රොට්ස්කිවාදී ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදය, බොල්ෂවිකවාදය පදනමින්ම ප්‍රතික්ෂේප කර ඇති ඔබ කල්ලියට හජජාක නමින් පෙනීසිටීමට කිසිදු සුජාතබවක් නැති අතර, ඒ අනුව සසප–වම නම් ෆැක්ෂනය නමින් පෙනී සිටීමේ, හදුනා ගැනීමේ හිමිකමක් ඔබට නැත.”

[අපගේ සාකච්ඡා සදහා වූ මාධ්‍ය තම නමින් තිබීමේ වාසිය භාවිත කරමින් ඔවුහු මෙසේ නිවේදනය කර තිබිනි. “වෙබ් අඩවියේ සුජාත හිමකම ඇත්තේ අප ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී කන්ඩායමටයි…ඇග්‍රිගේට් හා කතිකා වට්ස් ඇප් සංවාද ගෘෘප තුල රැදී සිටීමට ඔබට කිසිදු ඓතිහාසික හිමිකමක් නැත. ඒ අනුව එම ගෘෘපවලින් ඔබ කල්ලිය වහා ඉවත් කරනු ඇත.“]

What we quoted above is the first paragraph of the July 06th letter. The rest of the letter is as follows:

“ට්‍රොට්ස්කිවාදී ජාත්‍යන්කරවාදයෙන් පලාගිය ජාතිකවාදී කල්ලියක් ලෙස හදුනාගත් ඔබට අප එවන ලද කිසිම ලේඛනයකින් ඔබට ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදය තුල කිසිදු වලංගුභාවයක් අත්කර දෙන්නේ නැත. එම ලිපි හා සටහන් ඔබට එවන ලද්දේ අප සැබෑ ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදීන් ලෙස ඔබ කල්ලියට පැවති වගවීමේ භාරයක් නිසා නොව, සහෝදරවරුන් අතර දේශපාලන පැහැදිලි කම සඳහා උදවි වීම පිනිසය. අප වගකියන්නේ කම්කරු පන්තියට ය.  ඔබ කල්ලියට සසප ෆැක්ෂනක් ලෙස හදුනාගැනීමට කිසිදු ඓතිහාසික හිමිකමක් නැති බැවින්, ඔබගේ තීන්දු මගින් ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී කන්ඩායම බඳිනු ලැබිය නොහැකිය. 

thesocialist.lk වෙබ් අඩවිය ආරම්භ කලේ  සසප–වම නම් ෆැක්ෂනයේ ප්‍රකාශන මාධ්‍යය ලෙස ය. එය කොල්ල කෑම සඳහා ජාතිකවාදී කල්ලියකට අවස්ථාව නොලැබෙනු ඇත. ෆැක්ෂන අරගලයේ කොටසක් ලෙස, එනම් ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදයේ කොටසක් ලෙස ආරම්භ කල බැවින් වෙබ් අඩවියේ සුජාත හිමිකම ඇත්තේ ද අප ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී කන්ඩායමටය. 

මේ කාරනා මත, සසප–වම ෆැක්ෂනයේ වේදිකා ලෙස ආරම්භ කල “ඇග්‍රගේට්” හා “කතිකා” වට්ස්ඇප් සංවාද ගෲප තුල රැඳී සිටීමට ඔබට කිසිදු ඓතිහාසික හිමිකමක් නැත. ඒ අනුව එම ගෲප වලින් ඔබ කල්ලිය වහා ඉවත් කරනු ඇත.  එහෙත්, එහි ඉතිහාස ඔබට බා ගත හැක.  

මේ රටේත්, මේ කලාපයේත් කම්කරු පීඩිත මහජනතාවගේ අරගලවලට නායකත්වය සම්පාදනය කල හැකි විප්ලවවාදී, සමාජවාදී ජාත්‍යන්තරවාදී නායකත්වයක් ගොඩනැගීමට, සසප ෆැක්ෂනයක් ලෙස අපි  බොල්ෂවික ක්‍රමවේදය හා මූලධර්ම මත සටන් වදිනු ඇත. එය අසීරු ආරම්භයක් බව අපි දනිමු. එහෙත්, ඉතිහාසය එම වගකීම වෛශිකවම අප මත පවරා ඇති බව වටහා ගන්නා අපි එම අරගලය අප්‍රතිහත ධෛර්යයකින් යුතුව  පෙරට ගන්නෙමු. 

මීට,

සහෝදරත්වයෙන්,

මිගාර මල්වත්ත,

සුනිල් ප්‍රනාන්දු,

සංජය ජයසේකර.