For months the rebels had been building bombs and importing weapons from Communist sympathizers abroad. Sri Lanka’s military officers knew something was coming. But since the nation’s entire military consisted of only about 10,000 men, the rebels targeted their main opposition instead: the police.

In April 1971, around 10,000 wannabe revolutionaries of the People’s Liberation Front (jvp), and many more young followers, attacked police stations across the country. The insurrection took three weeks to put down, and the last Marxist outposts weren’t eliminated for months. Many believe thousands died in the struggle: The official total is 1,200.

In April 1987, the Marxists tried again. Now better trained and organized, the jvp launched a guerrilla-style insurgency. It took over two years to suppress. This time, tens of thousands died in the fighting.

Now one of these twice-defeated Marxists is the president of Sri Lanka.

He didn’t take office through a third uprising, but through free and fair elections.

How can a Marxist group go from starting a war that killed tens of thousands of their own people to gaining majority support in just over three decades? Because the Marxists—or anything really—looked good compared to the incumbent leadership, Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa dynasty.

Mahinda Rajapaksa first became president in 2005. By 2009, he had ended a lengthy civil war, and the country seemed set for explosive growth. Over each of the next three years, its economy grew by more than 8 percent. In 2015, the World Bank called it “a development success story.”

But the Rajapaksas drove the country into the ground for their own gain. Mahinda rotated out of various posts and appointed his family members to key jobs. At the height of his power, 40 members of his extended family held important and therefore lucrative government jobs.

They used that power to sell their country to China.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium in Mahinda’s hometown of Hambantota has more seats than the town has people. The nearby Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport has been called “the world’s emptiest airport” because few airlines have reason to fly there. China lent Sri Lanka around $1 billion to build a new port in Hambantota. When Sri Lanka could no longer pay back the loans, China took it over on a 99-year lease.

Many large businesses in Sri Lanka are state-owned. The Rajapaksas used their control of these businesses to sign big contracts with Chinese firms. These firms funnelled some of that cash back to the Rajapaksas. In 2018, the New York Times reported that millions of dollars flowed directly from Chinese port construction funds to the 2015 Rajapaksa reelection campaign. At the same time, China was funding 70 percent of the nation’s infrastructure products. The Chinese ambassador lobbied voters to support the family’s allies.

This level of corruption broke the country. Unable to pay the many debts the Rajapaksa leadership had incurred, the country began printing money. Inflation hit 70 percent. Even then, the country couldn’t pay, and on May 20, 2022, this would-be “success story” defaulted on their debt for the first time in history.

With no one willing to lend them money, and not much to sell, Sri Lanka ran out of foreign currency. Without cash, they couldn’t pay for oil. Armed guards patrolled petrol stations as thousands queued for their daily ration of 4 gallons of fuel. While waiting eight hours in the hot sun for a tiny amount of a commodity a nation can’t live without, many people died.

What made it worse was the rolling blackouts. To keep their businesses going, many Sri Lankans had backup generators, which consumed more precious fuel.

The Rajapaksas turned to quack remedies to fix the problem. To save precious foreign currency, they restricted the importation of fertilizer. Crop yields plummeted. Farmers lacked fuel to transport what did grow to market. The nation starved.

It was too much. In July 2022, protesters stormed the residences of the president and prime minister. The president at the time, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country.

But beyond that, few top leaders changed. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremensignhe moved homes and became president. He was a political opponent of the Rajapaksas, but is also believed to have shielded them from prosecution when he was last in office, from 2015 to 2019. After he took over, Gotabaya returned to live in a government-funded, secured house.

Voters firmly rejected Wickremensignhe this year, awarding him only 17 percent of the vote. One of the other main candidates was Sajith Premadasa, from the center-right United People’s Power. But Premadasa is the son of another former Sri Lankan president, and Sri Lankans are fed up with political dynasties.

Now Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the Marxist revolutionary, is sworn in as president. He has toned down his Marxist rhetoric, saying he now supports a free market economy and tarrif-free trade as an engine of economic growth. He’s from an ordinary family and has cultivated an image of being a down-to-earth friend of the poor and enemy of the corrupt. He is the change many Sri Lankans believe in.

Yet he never renounced his earlier beliefs. His party’s red flag retains the hammer and sickle. Dissanayake previously defended the Communist dictatorship of North Korea, arguing against the United Nations sanctioning a socialist state. But most of his policy is standard fare for democratic socialists: more taxes on the rich, more welfare for the poor and more power for the government to make it happen.

In a country where so many got their riches through corruption in the first place, it’s an appealing message. But it won’t work. Dissanayake may be sincere and less corrupt than previous governments and might even improve everyday life somewhat. But a socialist system won’t bring wealth to Sri Lankans, much less a peaceful and fulfilling society. Dissanayake’s Marxists have links to China, just like the Rajapaksas. China has already offered more lending for infrastructure programs since Dissanayake took office. He may only bring them deeper into China’s debt trap.

Sri Lanka is a microcosm of human government throughout human history. We careen from one flawed government to another, bouncing between extremes in search of someone who will fix the shortcomings of the last leader. Occasionally we settle on a good one who can remedy a few of the problems and injustices that riddle our society. But eventually even he is forced from office or dies.

So we continue putting our faith in a flawed source: man. The truth is, we don’t know how to manage a country effectively, and we cannot be trusted to regulate ourselves—not because we’re Sri Lankan or British or American, but because we’re human beings. We lack the capacity to rule ourselves and always have. This is why it is a law of history that the more power a man receives, the more temptation he has for corruption. Few countries have leadership as spectacularly bad as Sri Lanka. But all will soon be brought to the brink of ruin. It’s the only way we’ll learn to stop looking to yet another man for the solution—and realize the lesson that thousands of governments have been teaching us for thousands of years: Only God can rule us the way we need.

We’re currently putting the finishing touches on our next Trumpet print magazine—and this is a key theme. All across the world, countries are facing their versions of Marxism vs. corruption elections. Neither side will bring the solutions—but people want something to hope in. Keep an eye out for that magazine: We aim to clearly show there is no hope but God.