Lanka Sama Samaja Party - Publications

Publications

The LSSP's main organ has always been the Samasamajaya newspaper. Its founder editor was B. J. Fernando, who composed the Sinhala version of the Internationale. Today, its publication is somewhat irregular. For many years it was supplemented by the Tamil Samadharmam which was commenced in 1938. Its first editor was K. Ramanathan, later succeeded by T. E. Pushparajan.

In the period of underground struggle, the Kamkaruwa, was revived as a legal Sinhalese weekly the 'open' section of the Party and published until banned by Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton. The 'open' section also brought out Straight Left in English.

In 1960 a special magazine was brought out to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the LSSP, Visi Pas Vasrak. The large number of members of the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) who had been sacked from Lake House that year collaborated in its production.

In 1965, in response to the need for a broad-left popular newspaper to counteract Lake House's Dinamina, the LSSP and members of the SLFP began the Janadina daily and the Janasathiya weekly newspaper, later supplemented by the poetry periodical Janakavi. The CMU members sacked from Lake House were prominent in these publications as well. A similar task was carried out in English by The Nation ; however, when this weekly was taken over by the SLFP, the LSSP started the Socialist Nation, edited by Hector Abhayavardhana.

A press, the 'Star Press', was begun as a semi-commercial venture, to print the LSSP's publications and still operates.

In 1975 a theoretical journal, Rajaya was published, edited by a board led by Osmund Jayaratne. This and its English version State, were suspended after a few issues.