The
Lanka Sama Samaja Party, active in Sri Lanka since British Dominion times, has a lengthy history, and is notable for being one of the few parties in the "third world" of mass appeal who openly praised Soviet dissident figure Leon Trotsky. For most of their history, they were even larger than the Stalinist-leaning parties within the Sri Lankan parliament, to the point of dominating them. The party's activities peaked in importance during the late 1960's and early 1970's, but the movement lost momentum as the socialist united front collapsed under internal divisions (as is stereotypical of Trotskyists). The party is still alive today, but remains mostly a relic.
So, what if the LSSP and the coalition of leftist parties it headed in Sri Lanka had somehow not faltered, and Sri Lanka had transitioned towards a Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist regime in the 1970's?
Could the civil strife between the two major ethnic groups of the country, the Tamils and Sinhalese, somehow not have exploded into civil war? Or would some ethnic tensions still boil over?
Who would socialist Sri Lanka align with diplomatically? If it allies with China, could India end up raising some eyebrows, metaphorically speaking?