The United Socialist Party (USP), held its 11th National Congress from 31 October to 1 November 2009, at the Workers' Fellowship Auditorium in Ratmalana, Colombo. It was made up of representatives from all the provinces, including the North and East, and Tamil workers from the central tea plantation area.

A national perspectives document was presented by the central committee and a party building programme was discussed during the two days.
Discussions were mainly concentrated around the new political developments taking place in the aftermath of the war. For more than 30 years, Sri Lankan politics was directly involved with the war between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

After the military defeat of the LTTE, political developments took a sharp turn, mainly in the South of the country. The capitalist government, led by Mahinda Rajapakse, used a Sinhala Buddhist ideological campaign to establish his authority amongst the Sinhala people in the south.

During the war, the suppression of the freedom of the press reached alarming proportions. All working class struggles which came forward with day to day demands were also suppressed accused of being pro-LTTE.

Other left parties, including the CP (Communist Party) and the LSSP (Lanka Sama Samajists), all supported this suppression, publicly. And in particular, the pseudo-left party - the JVP - fully supported the Mahinda Rajapakse regime, to pass the ‘Emergency law’, which is being used against the struggles of the working class.

During this congress, we pointed to the possibility of the unfolding of the future struggles of the working class, the youth and the students in the coming period. With the coming back into action of these forces, the so-called popularity of the Mahinda Rajapakse regime will have to face a political tsunami in the next period.

In this situation, the USP has been campaigning to set up an Independent National Workers' Congress, to discuss the demands and problems faced by the working class and take democratic decisions.