Publishing information: Robert J. Alexander, International Trotskyism 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Copyright 1991, Duke University Press. Posted with permission. All rights reserved. This material may be saved or photocopied for personal use but may not be otherwise reproduced, stored or transmitted by any medium without explicit permission. Any alteration to or republication of this material is expressly forbidden. Please direct permissions inquiries to: Permissions Officer, Box 90660, Durham, NC 27708, USA; or fax 919.688.3524.
Transcribed: Johannes Schneider for the ETOL February, 2001
In the early 1950s the Ceylonese Trotskyist movement at first achieved greater unity, then suffered new division. In June 1950 the LSSP and the Bolshevik Samasamajist Party were finally reunited after almost five years of separation [62]. This move to unify the Trotskyist ranks was opposed by Philip Gunawardena, who refused to go along with it and pulled out to launch his own Viplavakari (Revolutionary) Lanka Samasamaja Party [63].
One explanation for Gunawardena’s objections to reunification with the more intransigently Trotskyist elements of the Bolshevik Samasamaja Party was that he had already begun to have doubts about adherence to the idea of the “vanguard” role of the “proletariat” in an overwhelmingly rural country such as Ceylon [64]. Another possible reason judging from his subsequent behavior was that Gunawardena had already been touched by Sinhalese “patriotism” or “chauvinism,” and objected to the belief in appealing equally to Sinhalese and Tamil workers which particularly marked the Bolshevik Samasamajists at that point. In any case this split in the Trotskyist ranks proved irreconcilable. It gave rise to what James Jupp has called “the unending feud between Philip Gunawardena and N. M. Perera.” [65].
An even more serious split occurred in the LSSP ranks in 1953. This centered on the question which was to plague the party for the next quarter of a century — its relationship to other, non-Trotskyist parties. Robert Keamey has recorded that “disagreement with the leadership on the question of LSSP cooperation with other parties appeared at a conference in 1952. A resolution presented by the dissidents was defeated but the battle continued to rage within the party for an entire year. The dissident faction was allowed to argue its case in the party’s Internal Bulletin and to send speakers to address local party units. A conference in 1953 rejected the dissidents’ resolution in favor of one backed by the Politbureau on a vote of 259 to 125. Following their defeat the minority group left the party."[66]
Leslie Goonewardene has claimed that the 1952-53 controversy was due to the fact that “the political ideas of Stalinism commenced once again to gain ground within the party.” He cited passages in the opposition resolution at the 1953 conference criticizing the fact that in the 1952 election campaign the LSSP had not put forward the slogan of a “Democratic Government,” which the resolution described as “at its lowest level a Bandaranaike Government” and “at its highest level a Government by a Sama Samaja majority.” The same resolution had said that the LSSP should “enter into the closest possible agreement and cooperation with the CP and Philip Group in the trade union and political fields.” [67]
Unlike the split with Philip Gunawardena, that of 1953 did not result in the formation of a rival party. Robert Keamey has noted of the 1953 dissidents that “a number of them joined the CP or the VLSSP some retumed to the LSSP, and others eventually entered the non-Marxist Sri Lanka Freedom Party.” [68]
With the election of 1952 the Lanka Sama Samaja Party lost its position as the principal opposition. This fact was to have a major impact on the future history of Trotskyism in Ceylon.
A year before that election a principal figure in the dominant United National Party, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, withdrew from government ranks to form his own party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). This new group pictured itself at one and the same time as being a non-Leninist Socialist Party and an advocate of the rights and special position of the Sinhalese Buddhist community, which made up almost two thirds of the total population of the island. It particularly sought the establishment of Sinhalese as the official language and conversion of Ceylon into a republic. It also pledged to reduce if not abolish the British and Indian control over the country’s economy.
With the election of 1952 the SLFP overtook the LSSP as the second largest party. It received fifteen and a half percent of the vote compared to a little over thirteen percent for the LSSP. Although both parties elected nine members of the House of Representatives, and the LS5P had actually increased its percentage of the vote over that in 1947 [69],S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike became leader of the Opposition and from then on a major issue in the Trotskyists’ political strategy inevitably became that of its relations with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
The SLFP presented the Trotskyists with two kinds of problems. On the one hand it competed strongly for the loyalty of the kind of people whom the LSSP was trying to attract. On the other it soon presented the Trotskyists with the question of whether they should compete or cooperate with the SLFP on the electoral front.
With the rise of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which after the 1952 election quickly pulled ahead of the LSSP in terms of size and popular following, the LSSP was no longer the largest party in the country professing adherence to “socialism” The LSSP was soon accepted as a member of the Socialist International [70], and proclaimed itself to be “democratic Socialist.” Although the Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist LSSP could deny as much as it wanted the Socialist bona fides of the SLFP, to many people of Ceylon to whom the LSSP might otherwise have appealed it appeared to be an ideological rival of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
But in addition to being “Socialist,” the SLFP was also Sinhalese and Buddhist. It sought its support almost exclusively from the Sinhalese two thirds of the country, and at most was willing to strike compromises with the Tamil part of the population. Bandaranaike was one of the country’s leading lay Buddhists and although the Trotskyists and Stalinists were willing to work with and even have as members Buddhist monks [71] they could hardly compete in this field with Bandaranaike and the SLFP.
The Sinhalese-orientation of the SLFP presented the Trotskyists with another fundamental quandary. Since their inception they had insisted on the mutuality of interests of the workers of Ceylon, regardless of whether they were Sinhalese or Tamil. This had particularly been the case with those elements which for five years had maintained the Bolshevik Samasamaja Party. However, in the face of the rising tide of Sinhalese communal feeling, particularly centering on the issue of making Sinhalese the exclusive national language of the country, the LSSP was faced with an issue on which they could not win. If they did not support “Sinhalese only” they would imperil their support among the Sinhalese workers and middle class in south western Ceylon among whom their major strength lay. On the other hand, if they supported “Sinhalese only” they would lose all the influence they had built up among the Tamil plantation workers, and would in addition be betraying what had been until then a fundamental principle, opposition to communalism.
Leslie Goonewardene has described the LSSP’s position on the language issue during this period, and the price which the party paid for making its choices: “The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was the only party with a base among the Sinhalese that stood firmly right to the end by its policy of both Sinhala and Tamil as official languages. Even the Communist Party latterly changed its position on this question. Both friend and foe have expressed their admiration of the party’s devotion to principle. But there is no gainsaying that the party has paid a heavy price for its stand. It lost heavily among the Sinhalese masses. And although it has won the sympathy of wide sections of the minorities this has far from compensated for the losses.” [72]
The LSSP also continued to oppose the deprivation of the “Indian Tamils” of citizenship rights. Goonewardene has commented that “as a revolutionary socialist party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party could not have acted otherwise. For, as distinct from opportunist politicians to whom power is an end in itself, to the LSSP power is only a means to an end. That end is socialism. And it knows that socialism cannot be built except on the basis of the unity and willing cooperation of the masses of all the communities that inhabit Ceylon.” [72]
Finally, with the rise of a left-wing party which surpassed it substantially in size and influence the LSSP was faced with the question of what attitude to assume in the electoral and parliamentary fields. They definitely didn’t accept the SLFP as a “socialist” party, regarding it as “capitalist” or “petty bourgeois.” However, they did agree with the SLFP on the need for defeating the United National Party, which all elements of the Ceylonese Left in the 1950s regarded as more or less a continuation of the colonialist regime. Hence, as the 1966 election approached the LSSP was faced — as were the other parties of the far Left — with the question of whether they should run candidates against those of the SLFP or cooperate with it.
Robert Kearney has summed up the impact of the rise of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party on the LSSP: “The emergence of the SLFP as the principal alternative to the UNP in the early 1950s ... robbed the LSSP of its hopes and led to a stagnation of the party’s strength and influence.” [73].
But in spite of the rise of the SLFP, the LSSP continued to make some electoral progress. Leslie Goonewardene has noted that in the 1954 municipal elections “the party for the first time participated in a large way, and was able to assume the administration in seven Village Committees, three Urban Councils and the Colombo Municipal Council.” In fact, in August 1954 N. M. Perera was elected mayor of Colombo [74].
Before and after these municipal elections the LSSP press gave considerable attention to the activities of the LSSP local governments. For instance, its English language paper Samasamajist featured the action of the LSSP administration in the town of Kalutara in enforcing honest weights and measures in the local meat market [75]. While the municipal campaign was still in progress the newspaper carried an article on “What the Samasamajists Did for Moratuwa,” the first town to have had an LSSP administration. The accomplishments listed included extension of the paved roads in the community from three miles to ten miles, building a public bus stand, increasing the number of midwives from eight to twelve, opening a free clinic and an ambulance service, and digging four public wells [76].
With the 1956 election the LSSP had to make its first decision concerning its electoral tactics toward the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. It chose to collaborate with, rather than oppose, the SLFP. As a result, “the SLFP, LSSP and CP joined in a ‘no-contest’ electoral agreement intended to avoid contesting the same constituencies and splitting the anti-UNP vote.”[77]
The SLFP and parties allied with it won fifty-one seats out of ninety-five in the April 1956 election, the United National Party only eight. The LSSP also gained from its “no contest” agreement with the SLFP. Although its vote fell to 274,204 from the 305,133 it had received in 1952, it succeeded in electing fourteen members of parliament as against the nine it had placed four years earlier. The Federal Party, representing the Tamils, won ten seats [78]. N. M. Perera was chosen leader of the Opposition [79].
With the ascension to power of the SLFP government, the LSSP first announced that it would follow a policy of “responsive cooperation” with the new regime. This stance soon aroused opposition within the LSSP leadership. At the 1957 conference of the party a group consisting of W. Dharmasena, Robert Gunawardena, Edmund Samarakkody and Chandra Gunasekera introduced an amendment to the basic political resolution submitted by the Central Committee which argued that “this offer of cooperation to the capitalist government was wrong. The party could have and should have offered support to the progressive measures of the government while stating categorically that the SFLP government was a capitalist government.” [80]
Once in power Prime Minister Bandaranaike quickly moved to carry out his party program. A law was passed declaring Sinhalese “the one official language of Ceylon.” This measure and other steps of the government provoked extensive rioting in July 1957 and May 1958 between Sinhalese and Tamils, and on the latter occasion provoked declaration of a state of emergency and the outlawing of the Federal Party and an extremist Sinhalese party. The emergency continued until March 1959.
The Bandaranaike government also undertook several economic and social reform measures. It nationalized the bus companies and Colombo harbor, and set up state corporations in the chemical and textile fields. It also enacted a Paddy Lands Act, sponsored by dissident Trotskyist Philip Gunawardena, a member of the cabinet, which protected the rights of rice-growing tenants.
The various measures of the Bandaranaike government aroused considerable unrest and opposition even among right-wing members of the prime minister’s own party. The latter organized a plot against the prime minister, which resulted in his assassination on September 25, 1959 [81].
The murder of Bandaranaike brought on a major crisis. It soon became evident that most of those involved in the act had been leaders and members of the SLFP. Although the party unanimously chose Wijayananda Dahanayake (who had been expelled from the LSSP in 1952) as Bandaranaike’s successor, it did not unite behind his government. James Jupp has noted that “Dahanayake’s govemment only saved itself from total defeat by calling an election, having lost all semblance of parliamentary support.” Dahanayake quit the SLFP [82].
The election resulted in a small plurality for the UNP and its leader Dudley Senanayake formed a new government. But, as Jupp notes, it “rested on such a weak basis that the new prime minister had to resign when the Speech from the Throne was defeated.” Governor General Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, a one-time UNP leader, called a further election.
At that point “all the classic ingredients for a collapse of government and a revolutionary or military takeover seemed to exist. However, the armed forces did not move, the elections were not suspended, the parties did not collapse, and the Marxists did not revolt.” [83] The SLFP, although getting less total votes than the UNP, elected seventy-five of the 151 members of the new parliament [84]. Under the leadership of Mrs. Sinmayo Bandaranaike, widow of the murdered sup leader, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was able to form a government.
In the face of the confusion and crisis of 1959-60, “N. M. Perera and his supporters in the LSSP were resolute in defending the parliamentary system.”[85]. However, “in the chaos after the assassination of Bandaranaike, the LSSP returned temporarily to the belief that it could recapture the dominant position on the Left lost to the SLFP in 1956. In March 1960 it put forward one hundred candidates, claiming that it could form a government.” [86]
Nevertheless, in the second 1960 election the LSSP reached another “no-contest” agreement with the SLFP and the Communists [87]. This agreement was undoubtedly responsible for the ability of the SLFP to obtain close to a majority and for substantial increases in representation of both the Trotskyists and Stalinists in the second 1960 legislature over that in the first parliament elected that year.
Once Mrs. Bandaranaike took office the LSSP immediately faced the question of what their attitude should be toward her government. According to Ernest Mandel, “A proposal made by N. M. Perera to enter into a coalition with the SLFP was rejected by only a narrow majority.” However, the LSSP did extend the Bandaranaike government parliamentary support by voting for the Speech from the Throne and for Mrs. Bandaranaike’s first budget [88]. Leslie Goonewardena, the party’s secretary, stated that “the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, while functioning as an independent group bound neither to the Government Party nor the Opposition Party, today adopts a position of general support of the Government, holding itself free to criticize the Government as well as vote against it where it disagrees [89].
The new Bandaranaike regime soon faced considerable difficulties. Its moves to nationalize all Catholic parochial schools and to enforce the Sinhalese official language policy provoked strong resistance, particularly from the Tamils in the northern part of the country. By the end of February 1961 a state of emergency had been declared in the north and east, and press and radio censorship was imposed while fourteen deputies were placed under arrest [90].
At the same time labor conflicts increased. There were a number of strikes, and finally a Joint Committee of Trade Unions was established under LSSP leadership which was said to include almost a million workers.
As a result of these events the LSSP turned strongly against the Bandaranaike government. At its July 1962 conference it passed a resolution which stated that “the struggles to come will not be waged only against this or that measure of the SLFP government, but against the whole policy of the SLFP government, especially in the field of wages and taxation.” The resolution predicted that this opposition “will in its development rapidly reach the point where the need to replace the SUP government itself by a government which corresponded to the demands of the masses....” Finally, the resolution observed that “in preparing the masses for direct struggle, the Party cannot advance slogans which envisage a solution of the government problem mainly through the parliamentary process. ...” [91].
Its growing opposition to the government pushed the LSSP closer to the other left-wing groups — the Communist Party and Philip Gunawardena’s party, now called the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (People’s United Front — MEP). On May Day 1963 the unions controlled by the three groups held their first united demonstration since independence. At that meeting they announced the formation of a United Left Front by the three parties. N. M. Perera said that “if the three Left parties march together in the manner they had done for the rally it would be possible to overthrow the Govemment and establish a socialist state” [92]
James Jupp described the launching of the United Left Front (ULF): “Despite objections within the LSSP from Edmund Samarakkody, M.P., and the beginnings of the Sino-Soviet split in the Communist Party, the ULF agreement was signed on Hartal Day (at the astrologically auspicious hour of 7.42) by N. M. Perera, S. A. Wickremasinghe and Philip Gunawardena. The twenty-one left M.P.s were to work together and a coordinating committee had already been set up to plan municipal election contests.” There was opposition within the LSSP leadership to the party’s joining the United Left Front. A motion to do so only passed the LSSP Central Committee by a vote of twenty-seven to eleven [93].
Edmund Samarakkody has noted that “the minority in the Central Committee ... that had for some time been moving in a revolutionary orientation, were categorically opposed to the so-called United Left Front. The minority ... was quick to see the reformist nature of this ULF which it correctly characterised as popular frontism.” [94]
The program of the ULF demanded “full political rights for local government and public corporation employees, full implementation of the Paddy Lands Act,” among other things. Its longer range demands were for “a republic, a new constitution, regional councils ... the legal protection of basic rights and nationalization of all banking and insurance.”
LSSP Secretary Leslie Goonewardena claimed that “the Left parties would never again extend their cooperation to the SLFP government.” Also, after the ULF won a by-election in January 1964 the LSSP victor, Vivienne Goonewardena, claimed that “only the ULF and the UNP were effective political forces.” [95].
Problems in connection with LSSP relations with the SLFP government intensified already existing difficulties in the relations of the Ceylonese Trotskyists with the Fourth International. Some of the details of these difficulties were disclosed after the break between the United Secretariat and the LSSP in 1964.
Ever since becoming a Trotskyist party the LSSP had always made clear its alignment with International Trotskyism. It carried on continuous polemics with the Ceylonese Communists in its periodicals; from time to time it published statements of the Fourth International;[96] its press carried articles by Trotsky [97].
However, according to Ernest Mandel, a leading figure in the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, “Before 1960, the international leadership was concerned about erroneous attitudes on various questions, but it limited its communications to the Political Bureau and Central Committee, occasionally to party conferences.” [98] Some of these “erroneous attitudes” dealt with international problems such as “lack of integration of the LSSP leadership into the International, its failure to make financial contributions in proportion to organizational strength, its failure to maintain close relations with the Indian section. ..."[99].
Edmund Samarakkody has described the reactions of the LSSP to the 1953 split in the Fourth International: “On the first news of the split, the LSSP leadership leaned on the side of the minority and appeared to be willing to take up the struggle against Pabloist revisionism and liquidationism. But in the state of ideological confusion that reigned in the LSSP and its leadership, and in the context of the theoretical weakness of the International Committee (IC), the leaders of the LSSP wavered and jumped on the bandwagon of the majority led by the Mandels, Pierre Franks and the Livios." [100]
However, for the first time since 1948 the LSSP was not represented at the 1961 Congress of the International (the Pablo group)[101]. Although there was a Ceylonese delegate present at the so-called Reunification Congress which established the United Secretariat in 1963, Pierre Frank has commented that “we learned that the section was in bad shape and that its delegate represented only a minority in the leadership." [102]
Other shortcomings of the LSSP in the view of the International, according to Ernest Mandel, were “its lack of a Leninist-style organizational structure, its lack of systematic recruitment especially among the plantation workers, the lack of party educational work, etc., etc” He noted that on some of these issues “such criticisms led to favorable results.” Also, Mandel said that “On many occasions the International had reason to be proud of the LSSP and its leadership. ..." According to the United Secretariat leader, “the decision of the LSSP after the 1960 elections to support Mrs. Bandaranaike’s government meant the abrupt end of this stage of relations between the leadership of the LSSP and the Fourth International” The next “stage” in these relations was marked by open criticism of the LSSP leadership by the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, the body to which the LSSP was then affiliated. In September 1960 the Secretariat issued a statement which said:
The is has not failed to express to the LSSP its disagreement in regard to both its recent electoral policy and its policy towards the SLFP after the March and July elections. The is particularly believes that the no-contest agreement, extended up to a mutual-support agreement, involves the danger of creating illusions about the nature of the SLFP among the great masses. ... In the specific case of the Speech from the Throne, the is thinks that the very moderate character of the government programme and its attitude against nationalization of the plantations — a fundamental question for a country like Ceylon — is such as to involve a negative vote by the LSSP MPs.
The Sixth World Congress of the International Secretariat adopted in 1961 a resolution very critical of the LSSP. It said that “the Congress condemns more especially the vote of parliamentary support expressed on the occasion of the Speech from the Throne, and the adoption of the budget by the party MPs.” The resolution went on to say that “the World Congress appeals to the LSSP for a radical change in its political course in the direction indicated by the document of the leadership of the International.” [103]
These exchanges foreshadowed the much graver controversies which ensued when the LSSP finally decided to join the government of Mrs. Bandaranaike.
Not long after the United Left Front won a byelection in January 1964 Mrs. Bandaranaike decided to try to recruit the Front’s support for her govemment. Undoubtedly her reasons for seeking this were several. On the one hand there had been a number of desertions of SLFP parliamentarians, endangering her government’s tenure in office. A second reason was undoubtedly the labor unrest which was being channeled by the parties which made up the United Left Front. Finally, as James Jupp has noted, “the ruling group in the SLF P was not outstanding and Mrs. Bandaranaike had difficulty in finding a Minister of Finance who could survive one budget. This became increasingly acute as the economic situation continued to get worse" [104]
Mrs. Bandaranaike named an intermediary to seek an accord with the parties of the United Left Front, but the negotiations became stalled “largely because of the conditions imposed by the MEP" [105] according to Robert Kearney, and as a consequence “of contorted maneuvers and plots, designed mainly to exclude Philip and the Communists from the government,” according to James Jupp [106].
The deadlock in the negotiations between the government and the United Left Front was ended when “the LSSP abruptly agreed to enter the coalition without its United Left Front partners. Although excluded from the coalition, the CP nonetheless offered its support to the SLFP-LSSP Government.” [107] As a result of the LSSP’s change of stance, N. M. Perera, Anil Moonesinghe, and Cholmondley Goonewardena became the LSSP members of the Bandaranaike government [108].
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