Communism in Sri Lanka dates back to 1935, when the Lanka Sama Samaja Party was founded by Trotskyists who campaigned for freedom and independence of Sri Lanka which was Ceylon back then. Communists of the LSSP later formed the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma in order to campaign for independence of the entire South Asia. LSSP was the first Marxist party to be based on South Asia and one of the few Trotskyist parties that had a major political influence. The Communist Party was the pro-Soviet Union section of Sri Lanka during the Cold War. It joined the government of Sri Lanka under the banner of pro-Eastern bloc and anti-Western bloc . The LSSP also shortly joined it in many alliances but was heavily opposed to its pro-Soviet policy.