The first working-class party in Ceylon, and for some time the only working-class party, was the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which was formed in the late 1930s by some young Ceylonese intellectuals who had studied at universities in Britain. The formation of the LSSP occurred around the time of the Moscow frame-up trials, at the height of the struggle that took place within the Soviet Union between the bureaucratic rulers led by Stalin—who favored "socialism in one country*—and the forces led by Leon Trotsky, which supported an international revolutionary perspective. The founders of the LSSP sided with the Trotskyist tendency.
During World War II, the LSSP was in the leadership of the struggle for independence of Ceylon from Britain, and LSSP leaders were imprisoned for their role. Some escaped to India and continued to work underground, helping to found the revolutionary-socialist movement there. After the war, the LSSP won mass support because of its part in the fight for national independence.
A small grouping of pro-Stalinists was expelled from the LSSP during the war because they opposed the fight for independence. The Stalinists took the position that the struggle for independence from Britain might jeopardize the alliance between Britain and the Sdviet Union in the war, and so they wanted to sacrifice the anti-imperialist struggle in Ceylon. The LSSP, to the contrary, saw that a revolutionary struggle for independence in Ceylon would be of much greater help to the international struggle for socialism than subordinating the needs of the Ceylonese masses to the diplomatic interests of the Soviet bureaucracy.
The Stalinists, led by Pieter Keuneman, then formed the Communist Party of Ceylon in 1943.
The LSSP became the largest working-class party in Ceylon because of its reputation as the leadership of the popular mass opposition first to the British imperialist regime and then to the postwar regime of the "national" Ceylonese capitalist class, represented by the UNP (United National Party, the party representing those capitalists most closely tied to the British imperialists). Following the end of World War II, the LSSP was recognized as the Ceylon Section of the Fourth International, the international Trotskyist organization.
Tamil people
[p. 4]
One of the reasons for the popularity of the LSSP was its position concerning the rights of the Tamil people in Ceylon. Some 22 percent of Ceylon's 12,600,000 people speak the Tamil language, having originated in Southern India. About half this number migrated to Ceylon many generations ago; most of the rest were brought from India in the nineteenth century to work on British tea plantations. Most of the Tamil-speaking people are of the Hindu religion. They form the bulk of the plantation workers, which is the main sector of the Ceylonese working class.
Under British rule, the Tamil and Sinhalese peoples were artificially brought together under one government, and divisions between them have been used by the ruling class in Ceylon to enforce its rule. An anti-Indian movement started in the early 1930s. In the 1950s, there were language riots and open violence and pogroms against the Tamils.
From its founding, the LSSP staunchly defended the rights of the oppressed Tamil minority against the chauvinism of the Buddhist majority, which speaks Sinhalese. In 1936, the LSSP was the first party to demand that the government and the courts use both Sinhalese and Tamil, rather than English, as official languages.
In the 1950s, a new party was formed in Ceylon, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. It originated in a split from the conservative capitalist party, the UNP, and was led by W.R.D. Bandaranaike, then the husband of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the present prime minister. The SLFP was based on the masses of peasants and merchants in the countryside and the new Sinhalese intelligentsia which had arisen, as opposed to the more established representatives of the ruling class, which had been educated in England.
Wavering to capitulation
The formation of this liberal capitalist party, and the support it received from the peasantry in the countryside, disoriented the LSSP. When the SLFP was formed, the LSSP correctly labeled it a capitalist party, a party based on preserving the capitalist system in Ceylon. But as the SLFP increased its influence, winning the elections and forming a government in 1956, the LSSP began to waver and adapt to the ideas of the SLFP. In 1956, the LSSP voted to give "responsive cooperation" to the SLFP government
In 1960, Prime Minister W. R.D. Bandaranaike was murdered as part of an attempted army coup. In the elections that followed in July 1960, the SLFP won the elections again, led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike. In these elections, the LSSP joined a tripartisan electoral bloc with the SLFP and the CP. The new SLFP government did not, however, include representatives from either of the two working-class parties.
The Oct 3, 1960, issue of The Militant carried the following appraisal of the evolution of the LSSP:
"The support accorded the Bandaranaike party by the Ceylonese Trotskyism, and their entry into an electoral alliance with it, constituted a complete reversal of previous policy. In the national elections last March, the LSSP, the most influential working-class party in Ceylon, campaigned against the SLFP and all other parties on a program of revolutionary socialism under the slogan of "Elect a Sama Samaja Government" This line of independent working-class political action received an impressive 10 percent of the popular vote. . . .
"The LSSP had consistently condemned the policy of backing one group of rival capitalist politicians like the SLFP against another, explaining that such a policy deceives the masses. It counterposed to collaboration with capitalist parties or governments the objective of putting an anticapitalist workers and peasants government in power. Yet in July, it reversed its electoral policy of March.
"This new political course not only overturned the past position of the LSSP but is at variance with the traditional socialist principles of the Trot-skyist movement, which has opposed collaboration with capitalist parties as injurious to working-class interests. It follows the pattern of 'Popular Front' combinations in many countries whereby working-class parties have been lined up, with disastrous results, behind a section, of the capitalist rulers.
"After the elections, the secretary of the LSSP, Leslie Goonewardene, issued a statement, published in the Aug. 4 Ceylon News, which read in part:
"The LSSP will cooperate with the SLFP government as an independent party in every activity which carries the country forward along progressive lines. The LSSP will assist the SLFP government to defeat and overcome any and every saboteur effort of Big Capital and the foreign imperialists. The LSSP will particularly assist the SLFP government in every anticapitalist step it takes. The LSSP will resist to the utmost any effort from any quarter to throw the masses back in their struggle to go forward to a socialist society.
"'In accordance with the above, the LSSP Parliamentary Group will not join the Opposition but will function as an independent group in Parliament'
"It appears from this statement, which contained no criticism of the capitalist SLFP or warning to the people against the consequences of its actions, that the LSSP leadership is continuing its false policy of political support to the SLFP.
"The LSSP has correctly maintained in the past that abandonment of independent working-class politics and trailing behind capitalist politicians can only bear evil fruits. Further developments of the class struggle within the settings of the ascending revolution in Asia must also soon make this manifest in the present situation in Ceylon."
A split had taken place in the international Trotskyist movement in 1954, which lasted until 1963. Therefore, at the time of these developments . in Ceylon, the world Trotskyist movement consisted of two factions—with the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, together with other forces, supporting the International Committee of the Fourth International, and most European sections organized as the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. Both factions of the Fourth International condemned the moves made by the LSSP in I960 toward support to a capitalist government
In December of 1960, a congress of the forces supporting the International Secretariat of the Fourth International adopted a resolution that read in part "The Fourth International does not exclude support for the adoption of progressive measures, even by a national bourgeois or petty-bourgeois government in a colonial or semicolonial country. But the social nature, composition and general program of the Bandaranaike government does not justify the support which was accorded to it"
[p. 5]
The LSSP's adaptation to this capitalist party and its betrayal of revolutionary-socialist principles reached a qualitative turning point at an LSSP conference June 6-7, 1964, when a majority of the LSSP voted to accept the offer of the SLFP to form a joint government
Present at this conference was Pierre Frank, a founding member of the Fourth International and formerly a secretary of Leon Trotsky. Frank was sent to represent the United Secretariat of the now reunified Fourth International, and he tried to convince the conference to repudiate the proposal by LSSP leader N.M. Perera to join the procapitalist coalition government.
LSSP(R)
A motion submitted by the Left Wing tendency of the LSSP, proposing no support whatsoever to the SLFP government, received 159 votes, which represented 25 percent of the party. After losing the vote, the Left Wing walked out of the conference and proceeded to form a new organization, the LSSP (Revolutionary).
Although the LSSP had been the largest, most influential section of the Fourth International, the world Trotsky is t movement did not hesitate to expel this section when it betrayed the struggle for socialism by participating in a capitalist government The LSSP(R) was recognized as the new Ceylonese section of the Fourth International.
From 1964 to the present time, the LSSP(R) has been a firm opponent of both the UNP, which ruled Ceylon from 1965-70, and the SLFP coalition governments, which held power for four months in 1964 and then came to power again in the May 1970 elections. It-has been the only party to pose a clear socialist alternative for Ceylon.
A statement released by the LSSP(R) after leaving the June 1964 conference said: "The decision of the reformist majority of the LSSP to enter into a coalition with the capitalist SLFP government and thereby to become an instrument of the capitalist class in Ceylon, constitutes a complete violation of the basic principles of Trotskyism on which the revolutionary program of the party is based."
Just how far the LSSP leadership had departed from socialist principles can be seen by looking at the conditions the LSSP agreed to accept in order to join the 1964 coalition. These conditions, laid down by the SLFP, were 1) a "rightful" place for Buddhism; 2) acceptance of Sinhala. as the only official language; 3) recognition of the 1948 anti-Tamil citizenship laws; and 4) veto power by the SLFP over all electoral candidates selected by any of the coalition partners.
The LSSP's acceptance of these conditions illustrated their abject capitulation to the SLFP, a party which was built upon demagogic, communalistic attacks on the Tamil people. In 1958, the SLFP had even incited pogroms against the Tamils.
The 1948 Citizenship Acts stripped nearly one million Tamils of their Ceylonese citizenship, making them stateless persons, unable to vote and excluded from free education, unemployment benefits, poor relief and other social services.
In 1964, under the first LSSP-SLFP government the Sirima-Shastri Pact was concluded with India. This pact ordered the forcible deportation of some 525,000 Tamils back to India so that their jobs could be given to Sinhalese.
The LSSP(R) pointed out that it was an acute government crisis due to the growing threat of strikes and working-class political action that prompted Bandaranaike to approach the leftist parties to join her coalition government in 1964. In 1963, the Ceylon trade unions had taken steps toward united action, adopting a common platform of 21 demands. This gave rise to a formation called the United Left Front which included only working-class parties—the LSSP, the CP and another group called the MEP (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna).
The SLFP's offer to the working-class parties to join a coalition government had the desired effect of splitting up the anticapitalist forces and bringing sections of the left into the government to help take responsibility for the crisis of capitalism in Ceylon. In addition to the split in the LSSP over the question of the coalition government the United Left Front split and the Communist Party split giving rise to a pro-Peking Communist Party.
The real power in the coalition government remained firmly in the hands of the SLFP; the former cabinet of 12 SLFP members was simply widened to 15 to include the new LSSP ministers.
The purpose of the coalition government quickly became clear: to enable the government to more efficiently carry out anti-working-class policies to try to stave off the economic crisis of the country. Bandaranaike announced that: "Disruptions, especially strikes and go-slows, must be eliminated and the development of the country must proceed." One of the first acts of the government in 1964 was to lock out 3,000 workers in the nationalized transport industry.
The coalition government was in power for only four months before the UNP was elected in the March 22, 1965 elections. During this period, the LSSP was co-responsible for enforcing a wage-freeze policy, encouraging racism against the Tamils, opposing working-class demands, high prices, growing unemployment and very poor housing conditions. At the same time, many concessions were made to the right such as special aid to capitalists and tax reductions for tea estates and rich houseowners.
Leaders of the LSSP(R) pointed out that the UNP victory in the March 1965 elections proved that the capitalist forces had been strengthened, not weakened, during the nine years (1956-64) the SLFP was in power. While mouthing phrases against reactionaries, the SLFP had taken every possible step to prop up the capitalist economy and class rule.
Under the UNP regime, the crisis of capitalism in Ceylon continued to deepen. In 1969, a wave of big strikes culminated in a state of emergency being declared by the government on Sept. 16.
In October and November, there were simultaneous eruptions and student strikes at three of Ceylon's four universities. The students demanded that Sinhalese and Tamil be spoken in classrooms rather than English, improvement of facilities, the right to hold political meetings, and a solution to the unemployment problem. When the government tried to make the students sign loyalty oaths as a condition of reopening the universities, the students refused.
May 1970 elections
[p. 6]
By the time of the May elections in 1970, the candidates of both the SLFP and the UNP were promising socialism in order to try to convince the workers once again to support them. The SLFP claimed to be for "socialist democracy," while the UNP said it was for "democratic socialism"! The UNP explained that their "democratic socialism" meant that "private ownership and management" must be "sensitive to its responsibilities for the welfare of the community." The SLFP leaders promised nationalization of the banks and the newspaper printing plants, recognition of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam, expulsion of the Peace Corps, and other anti-imperialist measures.
Almost all left-wing parties except the LSSP(R) threw their support behind the SLFP coalition government The LSSP joined the coalition, as did the CP for the first time. The small Maoist Communist Party, although rebuffed from joining the coalition, supported the capitalist SLFP candidates.
The JVP, now engaged in the current struggle, also supported the coalition, and the votes of the thousands of unemployed youth they influenced probably were a significant factor in bringing the coalition to power.
The SLFP-LSSP-CP coalition won by a landslide vote, and the election results were greeted by mass demonstrations and massive physical attacks on buildings representing pro-imperialist institutions.
Again, the developments after the coalition came to power showed clearly why the capitalist class wanted to bring the working-class parties into the government Only three months after the May elections, Bandaranaike attacked some members of parliament for calling for nationalization of foreign-owned estates and newspapers. She accused them of "embarrassing the government" The Sept. 19 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review quoted N. M. Perera, minister of finance and member of the LSSP, as saying that he felt it was "not advisable" to nationalize the tea estates. He spoke of how the "gruelling track to socialism" takes a long time, and said, "I do not like the private sector. But if in the process of making money the private sector will help to build houses the people want, I am prepared to go with them."
Unemployment had grown to 800,000 out of the population of less than 13 million. The government, however, presented no proposals for dealing with this problem.
Rather, the coalition proposed an "austerity program," asking the trade unions for voluntary no-strike pledges and imposing wage restraints and higher taxes on the workers. At the same time it gave a five-year tax holiday to certain industries it wanted to encourage.
Several months after the elections the JVP began to turn against the coalition government, demanding that it fulfill its campaign promises and that it institute measures leading toward a planned, socialist economy. The "socialist" LSSP, CP and SLFP leaders denounced the JVP youth as "CIA agents" and had them arrested for putting up posters, holding political meetings, and engaging in other political activities.
On Aug. 25, 1970, 63 youths were arrested simply for participating in a political meeting in a private home. The Sept 3 Ceylon News reported the "evidence" against them: "In their possession were found maps, communist literature and books by Fidel Castro and Mao Tsetung in addition to a handbook on guerrilla warfare." More than 400 youths were arrested in March 1971 shortly before the fighting began, reported the May 9 Washington Post
This crackdown on some of the most vocal opponents of the coalition government led up to the current attempt by the coalition to completely crush the JVP as well as any opposition activity by trade unions or other political organizations. The Christian Science Monitor wrote April 15:
"Students of seesaw politics of Ceylon, who foresaw as long ago as four or five months the declaration of an emergency and the crackdown of the extreme left, view the current crisis as a calculated effort by Mrs. Bandara-naike and the nationalist partisans in her coalition government to show the world as well as her own Trotskyite [sic] allies that her government will not be dragged or pushed any further leftward than her democratic socialist image demands." (Emphasis added.)
Bandaranaike used an incident at the American embassy March 6 as a pretext for declaring the state of emergency, supposedly to stop an imminent conspiratorial attack on the government. But before this incident, on Feb. 27, the JVP held a mass rally of well over 10,000 in Colombo, at which JVP leaders explained that "the JVP is no underground movement and does not propose to stage coups." In fact, there was no armed resistance to the government repression until April 5—almost three weeks after the state of emergency was declared and after many JVP leaders were already in jail.
The brutal repression to which the coalition government has resorted provides bloody confirmation of the impasse in which the capitalist rulers of Ceylon find themselves. The problems facing the country cannot be solved short of revolutionary-socialist measures; hence the need to destroy those forces seeking such a solution. The role of the so-called socialist or communist parties—like the LSSP and the CP—who have supported the present capitalist coalition government has been to whitewash the capitalist system, to deceive the working people and peasants of Ceylon about the road to socialism, and to prepare the way for and now to lead the counterrevolution.