History › Part 6
Revolutionary Marxism vs. Class Collaboration in Sri Lanka
From Towards a History of the Fourth International, Part 6: Revolutionary Marxism vs. Class Collaboration in Sri Lanka (Education for Socialists, Socialist Workers Party, New York, August 1975). Reproduced with the permission of Pathfinder Press. Scan: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line.
Introductory note
The articles in this Education for Socialists bulletin analyze one of the setbacks suffered by the world Trotskyist movement. In 1964, a majority of the leaders of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), once the largest section of the Fourth International, decided to participate in a bourgeois coalition government headed by Mrs. S.I. Bandaranaike of the capitalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
The founders of the LSSP began in the 1930s as sincere revolutionists, devoted to Trotskyism and to the struggle against imperialist domination of their country. Their uncompromising leadership of mass struggles won them a substantial working class following. But over the years, the fighting spirit and political consciousness of many of the leaders—Leslie Goonewardene, Colvin R. de Silva, N.M. Perera, and others—flagged. They developed theories of "Ceylonese exceptionalism" to justify an increasingly opportunist course that culminated in their outright betrayal of the working class in 1964.
A substantial minority of the party resisted this degeneration and broke decisively with the majority of the LSSP leadership when it decided to join Bandaranaike's government. This wing was led by Bala Tampoe, president of the Ceylon Mercantile Union, and Edmund Samarakoddy, a member of parliament.
The Fourth International supported this revolutionary opposition and unhesitatingly expelled Perera and his cohorts from the world Trotskyist movement, reaffirming the revolutionary Marxist opposition to all varieties of class collaborationism. The Trotskyists led by Tampoe and Samarakoddy formed the LSSP (Revolutionary) which was recognized as the Ceylonese section of the Fourth International. (The LSSP [R] has recently changed its name to the Revolutionary Socialist League.)
A few years after the formation of the LSSP (R), a factional dispute broke out between Tampoe and Samarakoddy. Samarakoddy became so embittered that he split from the LSSP (R) and began spreading Stalinist-type slanders against Tampoe, charging among other things that he was a "CIA agent." These fabrications were avidly spread by sectarian opponents of the Trotskyist movement, particularly by Gerry Healy's Socialist Labour League (now renamed the Workers Revolutionary Party) in Britain.
(These slanders are effectively demolished in "Healyites Slander Bala Tampoe," an October 29, 1972, statement by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International [reprinted in the Education for Socialists bulletin, Marxism vs. Ultraleftism: The Record of Healy's Break with Trotskyism] and in "Ceylon and the Healy School of Falsification," by Jaya Vithana, which appeared in the March 19, 1973, issue of Intercontinental Press, a revolutionary Marxist international newsweekly, and was printed in pamphlet form by the International Marxist Group, British section of the Fourth International.)
The record of Healy's supporters in Ceylon sheds an ironic light on this slander campaign. They supported Bandaranaike's popular front in the 1970 elections while Tampoe and the LSSP (R) stood alone in revolutionary opposition to this class-collaborationist front.
In March 1971 Bandaranaike declared a state of emergency and the coalition government launched a brutal assault against radicalized youth. A special target were youth thought to be friendly to the Jamatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP—People's Liberation Front), a leftist youth organization that supported Bandaranaike in the 1970 elections but went into opposition when the government failed to carry out its radical campaign promise-. Hundreds of youths were murdered, and more than 15,000 were put in concentration camps on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the government. Among those imprisoned in the wholesale repression were several young members of the LSSP (R). All strikes were banned. The former revolutionists who had joined Bandaranaike's coalition government in 1964 played leading parts in this repression.
While the Ceylonese Healyites uttered hardly an audible word of protest, the LSSP (R) and the Ceylonese Mercantile Union, under Tampoe's leadership, have been in the forefront of struggles in defense of democratic rights. LSSP (R) leaders led strikes in defiance of the ban. Tampoe has further provoked the ire of the popular-front government by his energetic efforts to expose the frame-ups as defense attorney for many of the imprisoned youths.
"The LSSP and Class Collaboration: Lessons of a Popular Front Betrayal," by Caroline Lund, is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the June 4, 1971, issue of the revolutionary socialist weekly newspaper, The Militant.
[p. 3]
"The Wearing Out of a Revolutionary Leadership," by Pierre Frank and the letter of the United Secretariat to the emergency conference of the LSSP (R) in 1964 are reprinted from the July 17, 1964, issue of World Outlook, predecessor of Intercontinental Press. "From Wavering to Capitulation," by Ernest Germain, is reprinted from the Fall 1964 issue of International Socialist Review.
In addition to the material published in this bulletin, Germain replied to Healy's falsified version of the split with the reformist LSSP leaders in Chapter 5 of his pamphlet Marxism vs. Ultraleftism. This pamphlet has been reprinted in the Education for Socialist bulletin, Marxism vs. Ultraleftism: The Record of Healy's Break with Trotskyism. It is available from the National Education Department of the Socialist Workers Party for $2.50.
* * *
Another source of perceptive evaluations of the evolution of the LSSP leadership is the writings of Peng Shu-tse, the veteran leader of the Chinese Trotskyist movement. An open letter from Peng to Leslie Goonewardene, then Secretary of the LSSP, in December 1957 severely criticized the failure of LSSP leaders to protest the imprisonment of Trotskyists by the Mao regime during a visit to China. This item will appear in a later Education for Socialists bulletin in the Towards a History of the Fourth International series.
In "The Man on the Flying Trapeze: An Open Letter to Gerry Healy," published in the Fall 1964 issue of International Socialist Review, Peng succinctly summarized the causes of the LSSP's degeneration:
"(1) Objectively: the functioning of a bourgeois parliament, after British imperialism granted political independence, created illusions in parliamentarism and the possibility of democratic reforms among petty-bourgeois political circles.
"(2) Subjectively: most of the top leaders of the LSSP came from the middle class, some even from bourgeois families. They were revolutionists in the beginning and played a big role in building the Trotskyist movement in Ceylon against the domination by British imperialism. After political independence was won and a bourgeois democratic system developed, certain leaders of petty-bourgeois or bourgeois background won seats in parliament and stayed there for many years. They gradually became imbued with parliamentary illusions. This was pre-eminently reflected by the Perera tendency.
"(3) If the Fourth International had not split, or had reunification been realized earlier, the reformist and parliamentary tendency among the leaders could possibly have been corrected under the united influence of the International. At least the strength of this tendency could have been considerably reduced. Unfortunately the split in the International was prolonged for almost ten years (from the end of 1953 to June 1963). You [Gerry Healy] are perfectly aware that you bear a big responsibility for prolonging this split. The reformist tendency was thus able to develop more freely. It finally exploded at the special conference of the LSSP."
—Fred Feldman
January 1975
Contents
- 1. The LSSP and Class Collaboration: Lessons of a Popular Front BetrayalCaroline Lund · pp. 3-6
- 2. From Wavering to Capitulation: People's Frontism in CeylonErnest Germain · pp. 7-20
- 3. The Wearing Out of a Revolutionary LeadershipPierre Frank · July 7, 1964 · pp. 20-23
- 4. Letter from the United Secretariat Supporting LSSP(R) Emergency ConferenceFI documentUnited Secretariat of the Fourth International · July 10, 1964 · pp. 23-24