The Lenin That Power Prefers

Ajith Rajapaksa

Speaking at a public meeting titled “Let’s Read Lenin” at the Mahaweli Centre on January 21, Minister Lal Kantha, who claims to have read Lenin annually for the past fifteen years, stated that the party he represents continues to follow in Lenin’s footsteps. The event was organised by the trade union wing of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

The Minister argued that governing is easier than being in opposition and that the next step is to “capture state power.” He claimed that an ideological consensus must be built in the country to achieve this, and while it cannot happen all at once, it must proceed in stages. According to him, the government is operating on this theoretical foundation, though the strategic plan guiding the process cannot be publicly disclosed and is shared only within the party, a process he asserts has already taken place.

He suggested that, eventually, the government and the state should be seen as one and the same. Yet he admitted doubts about whether the same level of commitment demonstrated in capturing government power exists when it comes to capturing state power, acknowledging that such commitment may be lacking.

Lal Kantha | Photo courtesy Facebook Lal Kantha

The Marxist History of the JVP

From its inception, the JVP leadership has selectively quoted Marxist thinkers and adapted their ideas opportunistically to suit its own political needs. Emerging from the petty-bourgeois class, the party has historically shifted between left and right positions across various political phases. Many Marxist thinkers describe petty-bourgeois ideology as uncertain and individualistic, shaped by a class position between the capitalist elite and the working class. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx analyzes this group as oscillating between two sides, describing its outlook as a “living contradiction.”

In its early years, the JVP fostered fear of Indian expansionism. Shortly thereafter, it adopted a radical stance recognising the Tamil people’s right to self-determination, including secession. In the following phase, however, it aligned with nationalist right-wing forces and opposed granting provincial council powers to the North and East. This anti–provincial council campaign escalated into brutal violence. Leftists, trade union leaders, student leaders, and ordinary supporters of the 13th Amendment were assassinated. At each stage, Marxist quotations were invoked to justify these actions, with Marxism distorted under the pretext of adapting it to “local conditions.” This is precisely the approach Lal Kantha and his colleagues continue today.

When leftists who supported the Indo–Lanka Peace Accord were targeted, the killings were justified with a distorted claim attributed to Lenin: that the “near enemy” must be eliminated before the “distant enemy.” In reality, Lenin emphasised that defeating the domestic ruling class and the state took precedence over foreign enemies, a point he made during World War I to counter revolutionaries supporting their own bourgeoisie in the name of fighting external foes. The JVP twisted this argument to legitimise a campaign of political murder.

Even when participating in right-wing governments or allying with nationalist forces, the JVP continued to display red flags and portraits of Marx, Lenin, and Engels, proclaiming itself Marxist-Leninist. Today, these same portraits hang in the Pelawatta party headquarters while the party actively implements the very IMF programme it once condemned. According to Lal Kantha, however, they remain firmly on the socialist path. Having captured government power, he claims the next struggle is to capture state power.

The Deception of the Rank and File

Lal Kantha is once again misleading the party’s grassroots membership. Addressing cadres shaped by narrow, dogmatic political training, he asserts that socialism can be achieved through capitalism and that the party is completing the unfinished tasks of bourgeois democracy that capitalism allegedly failed to accomplish. What he omits is that Lenin himself, whom Lal Kantha often cites, argued that genuine democratic reforms are impossible under capitalism.

Lenin repeatedly stressed that real power under capitalism lies not with elected institutions but with owners of capital, banks, and monopolies. Parliamentary democracy under capitalism, he argued, is merely formal or bourgeois democracy.

The NPP and the Illusion of “Capturing State Power”

The National People’s Power (NPP) came to power pledging a systemic overhaul: to “capture the state” and break the grip of the elite networks that have ruled Sri Lanka for decades.

In leftist political theory, capturing state power does not simply mean forming a government or taking over ministries. It entails dismantling capital’s domination of the state, particularly the influence of finance capital, monopoly business interests, and external actors who dictate economic policy irrespective of electoral outcomes. By this standard, a government operating under an IMF programme cannot be said to have captured state power. IMF conditionalities impose fiscal limits, restructure state institutions, slash social spending, and narrow democratic choices, effectively curtailing national sovereignty.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, a former IMF executive director, was appointed explicitly to secure IMF confidence and implement its programme. Yet the NPP has not only embraced this framework but actively defends it as an unavoidable and responsible course of action. At the same time, it has partnered with influential local business figures, presenting this as a pragmatic approach to economic recovery. In reality, the party is restoring the very elite structure it once promised to dismantle.

Sri Lanka’s domestic capitalists do not constitute a progressive national bourgeoisie. They depend heavily on import monopolies, state protection, tax privileges, and foreign capital. Aligning with them reinforces elite power rather than weakening it. What the NPP is doing, therefore, is managing the capitalist crisis under a left-wing façade and radical rhetoric.

Anti-corruption measures, administrative efficiency, and fiscal discipline may improve governance, but they do not change who controls economic power or sets policy priorities. Leftist language is being used to legitimise policies that strengthen entrenched capitalist power relations. This constitutes political deception, whether intentional or not.

If the NPP is sincere, it must acknowledge the limits of its project. Radical transformation is impossible under IMF supervision and elite patronage. Alternatively, if it genuinely intends to capture state power, it must explain how that goal aligns with IMF-driven austerity, tax increases, public service cuts, and protection of domestic capital. So far, it has done neither.

History shows that left governments which administer capitalist crises rather than confront their roots eventually disarm their social base. When austerity is enforced in the name of stability and popular mobilisation is replaced by discipline and patience, social anger does not vanish, it mutates. In Sri Lanka, this unresolved anger can easily be redirected into ethno-nationalist narratives promising order, cultural protection, and strong authority where economic justice has been deferred. The danger is not merely political defeat but the normalisation of deeper authoritarianism, emerging not in opposition to the crisis, but as its logical outcome.

Lenin’s Relevance Today

Despite his years of reading Lenin, Lal Kantha has failed to engage in critical analysis. The dogmatic JVP lacks both the capacity and inclination to do so. Contemporary Marxist intellectuals do not entirely reject Lenin but argue that his solutions were historically specific and politically dangerous if applied today. They contend that replacing democratic institutions with party elites is not an alternative system but merely a substitution. Instead, they propose radical transparency, decentralisation, and democratic control of enterprises and institutions. Democracy, they argue, is not a bourgeois luxury but the core of any socialist project. Once dissent is suppressed, socialism loses both legitimacy and corrective feedback, becoming prone to corruption and stagnation.

Philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek argue that 20th-century planning models are obsolete, especially in the age of AI and big data. Capitalism has advanced further in planning than socialist states ever did, rendering Leninist economic models historically outdated.

While Lenin believed capturing state power was decisive for socialist transformation, thinkers such as Žižek and Yanis Varoufakis argue that the modern capitalist state is no longer the primary locus of power.

British philosopher Bertrand Russell, a sharp critic of dogmatism, nationalism, and authoritarianism, also warned that abolishing capitalism alone does not produce democracy. After observing the Soviet Union, he cautioned that Bolshevism replaced one ruling class with another, creating a privileged party bureaucracy in place of genuine workers’ power. He predicted that “temporary” dictatorship would become permanent, extreme centralisation would lead to inefficiency and stagnation, and a society built through coercion would never produce genuine freedom.

What Russell foresaw is largely what occurred in Russia. The Bolshevik regime carried out mass repression, eliminating alternative leaders within the party. In later years, parties following this ideology caused similar devastation elsewhere. Promoting such outdated approaches is therefore dangerous. No one wishes Sri Lanka to follow such a path.

If Lal Kantha and his colleagues acknowledged their capitalist orientation instead of spinning fantasies about socialism, it would be better for everyone. Lies can only carry a project so far.

Yanis Varoufakis identifies the central crisis of the contemporary left as its inability to imagine and articulate a genuine alternative to capitalism. What comes after capitalism? How would it function, and how would it differ materially from the existing system? Varoufakis argues these questions are consistently avoided, leaving the left trapped in a politics of critique without vision. Simply denouncing capitalism is insufficient, what is urgently required is a coherent, detailed, and workable alternative, a task that is not only difficult but politically unavoidable (Ajith Rajapaksa, The Lenin That Power Prefers, Colombo Telegraph,  2026-01-31,