[p. 201]
April 13, 1954
The IS
Dear Comrades,
We have received your letter enclosing a draft appeal to be signed by members of the IEC. We have also received the dissent by Comrade Collins. We regret that we are unable to set our signatures to the Appeal for the following reasons:
The Ceylon section has already adopted a set of proposals to be placed before the Movement as a basis for securing a single World Congress. We endorse these proposals ourselves. The proposals in the IS draft are different from the Ceylon section's proposals.
The draft appeal as it stands can be construed as a factional document. See, for example, the following passage:
"We state in advance that we see no political reason why the different tendencies which have appeared in this crisis cannot co-exist in the International, providing they respect its discipline, and we state that we will submit in such a spirit to all decisions of the representative assemblies of the International and its newly elected leading bodies."
It is completely out of place for the IEC to make any such declaration as we have underlined in the above passage.
Further, the Appeal appears to be made to the rank and file of the suspended sections over the heads of and against their leaders. We do not think that this is the correct approach for the immediate task in hand which we consider to be the reunification of the Movement through a single World Congress representing all tendencies in our Movement.
Yours fraternally,
Colvin R. de Silva (IEC member)
Leslie Goonewardene (alternate)