Statement of the LSSP (R) on the fall of the Coalition Government

[p071] granted to the LSSP (RS) and will hereafter function as the Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International, and will call itself LANKA SAMA _ SAMAJA PARTY (REVOLUTIONARY) Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International. The conference further de- cided to request the United Secretariat of the Fourth Inter- national to expressly declare that the entire membership of the Reformist LSSP are no longer regarded as members of the Fourth International and _thaf Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene be expressly ex- pelled by name in so far as they were members of the In- ternational Executive Committee 156 of the Fourth International and are now serving as advisers to the Ministers of a bourgeois Government. The resolution on the Natio- nal Political Situation is as fol- lows: In the context of the decline and decay of world capitalism Ceylon’s capitalist class cannot hope to develop the economy with any degree of success. However, the only road for the Ceylon bourgeoisie that can help them with increasing difficulties to sustain capitalism is the road leading to industrial develop- ment. The role of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government is the salvaging of capitalism through whatever industrial development is possible in the present situa- tion of Ceylon’s Capitalism. With this perspective the Siri- mavo Government resolved on drastic measures. One aspect of the results of the drastic steps taken by the Sirimavo Government to sustain capitalism is the further rise of prices of essential commodities and the increasing scarcity of goods. Workers, the lower middle class and the rural poor have been worst hit, Severe import restrictions have resulted in the closing of trading concerns and the restriction of business causing an increase in unem- ployment, and the enforcement vf the wage freeze has meant a virtual wage cut on wage earners. The resulting mass situation was that workers (wage earners, rural poor and the middle classes) moved away from the Government and _ developed opposition to it. The organised working class launched on strike action of a very determined nature. Prolonged strikes in- volving wide sections of wage earners, even of better paid categories, took place. The mounting dissatisfaction of the rural masses was also evident Since July 1960 the Govern- ment utilised the organs and apparatus of the bourgeois state to suppress and deal with the developing mass movement. The frequent use of police, army and emergency powers to deal with the workers and peasants was a marked feature of SLFP rule. During this period the opportunism and re- formist outlook of a section of ithe working-class leadership helped in a large way the bourgeois SLFP Government to keep the mass movement under control. But throughout the last year (1963) the organised working class were taking deter- mined steps to close their ranks for a struggle to win their urgent demands and to break the wage freeze. The proposed action around the 21 demands under the leadership of the Joint Com- mittee of Trade Union Organi- sations was a challenge to the SLFP Government and _ the capitalist class. An open assault on organised labour was extremely risky in a situation of general mass unrest. If the SLFP Government was to continue in power it was impera- tive that the mass situation, particularly the relations with the organised working class, be changed in its favour—to secure this objective an alliance with Rightist Parties (UNP) was of no purpose as working-class mass support was gathered around the Left Parties: The Government required nothing less than a guarantee against FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AUTUMN-WINTER 1964

[p072] DOCUMENTS CEYLON LSSP(R) and the Coalition conference on July 18 and 19, 1964. Below we print the full text 1 The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) held a special of decisions issued by the party secretary, Edmund Samarakoddy. The LSSP (Revolutionary) is the minority section which split from the reformist LSSP, led by Dr. N. M. Perera, just before the latter formed a coalition government with Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s capitalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party. ‘Pursuant to the decision of the conference of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolu- tionary Section) held on June 7, 1964, at the Workmen’s Resort, Slave Island, a special con- ference of the party was held in Colombo on Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th July. This conference was attended by members and candidates from all over the island. Only mem- bers had voting rights who had voting rights prior to the split of June 7. Three resolutions were dis- cussed and approved: on the question of affiliation to the Fourth International; on the national political situation, and on organisational tasks. With regard to the Fourth International the conference de- cided to accept the recognition granted to the LSSP (RS) and will hereafter function as the Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International, and will call itself LANKA SAMA SAMAJA PARTY (REVOLUTIONARY) Ceylon Unit of the Fourth International. The conference further de- cided to request the United Secretariat of the Fourth Inter- national to expressly declare that the entire membership of the Reformist LSSP are no longer regarded as members of the Fourth International and that Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene be expressly ex- pelled by name in so far as they were members of the In- ternational Executive Committee 156 of the Fourth International and are now serving as advisers to the Ministers of a bourgeois Government. The resolution on the Natio- nal Political Situation is as fol- lows: In the context of the decline and decay of world capitalism Ceylon’s capitalist class cannot hope to develop the economy with any degree of success. However, the only road for the Ceylon bourgeoisie that can help them with increasing difficulties to sustain capitalism is the road leading to industrial develop- ment. The role of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Government is the salvaging of capitalism through whatever industrial development is possible in the present situa- tion of Ceylon’s Capitalism. With this perspective the Siri- mavo Government resolved on drastic measures. One aspect of the results of the drastic steps taken by the Sirimavo Government to sustain capitalism is the further rise of prices of essential commodities and the increasing scarcity of goods. Workers, the lower middle class and the rural poor have been worst hit. Severe import restrictions have resulted in the closing of trading concerns and the restriction of business causing an increase in unem- ployment, and the enforcement uf the wage freeze has meant a virtual wage cut on wage earners. The resulting mass situation was that workers (wage earners, rural poor and the middle classes) moved away from the Government and _ developed opposition to it. The organised working class launched on strike action of a very determined nature. Prolonged strikes in- volving wide sections of wage earners, even of better paid categories, took place. The mounting dissatisfaction of the rural masses was also evident Since July 1960 the Govern- ment utilised the organs and apparatus of the bourgeois state to suppress and deal with the developing mass movement. The frequent use of police, army and emergency powers to deal with the workers and peasants was a marked feature of SLFP rule. During this period the opportunism and re- formist outlook of a section of the working-class leadership helped in a large way the bourgeois SLFP Government to keep the mass movement under control. But throughout the last year (1963) the organised working class were taking deter- mined steps to close their ranks for a struggle to win their urgent demands and to break the wage freeze. The proposed action around the 21 demands under the leadership of the Joint Com- mittee of Trade Union Organi- sations was a challenge to the SLFP Government and _ the capitalist class. An open assault on organised labour was extremely risky in a situation of general mass unrest. If the SLFP Government was to continue in power it was impera- tive that the mass situation, particularly the relations with the organised working class, be changed in its favour—to secure this objective an alliance with Rightist Parties (UNP) was of no purpose as working-class mass support was gathered around the Left Parties: The Government required nothing less than a guarantee against FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AUTUMN-WINTER 1964

[p073] DOCUMENTS the intervention of the organised working class for the achieve- ment of their pressing demands and the pacification of the masses generally. When this guarantee was forthcoming frem some leaders of the working- class movement and when these leaders were ready to go much further and accept a share of the responsibility of office, the Sirimavo Government agreed to grant them portfolios—hence the SLFP-LSSP Coalition. The entry of the LSSP (Re- formist) into the SLFP Govern- ment on a so-called 14-point programme has not changed the class character of the SLFP Government which remains capitalist as before. However, the influence of the LSSP (Reformist) on the Government and its direct inter- vention in administration means that the capitalist Coalition Government is exposed to con- siderable pressures from the working class, the radical petty- bourgeois and the rural poor. The LSSP (Revolutionary) defines its attitude to the present bourgeois Coalition SLFP-LSSP Government as one of opposi- tion. The Coalition Government has created a new political situ- ation. The imperialist interests and class-conscious and deve- loped sections of the capitalist class have already expressed their cautious approval of this development as they see no threat to their fundamental Property rights. and interests. The middle classes and the working class generally have . ‘welcomed the new set-up as \they believe in the possibility of an improvement of their conditions. However, whilst class collaboration has com- menced openly, sections of the wage earners could without being antagonistic to the Gov- ernment, well take to struggle to win their demands as they could interpret the new situation as favourable to struggle. But . despite the general approval of the working class, the class- conscious and _ ideologically developed sections of the work- ing class already regard the Coalition as a historic betrayal of the working class and toiling masses by some of their erst- while leaders. As for the minorities (the Ceylon Tamils and other linguistic and religious groups and the Plantation Wor- kers)—they are able to recognise that the LSSP (Reformist) has capitulated to the SLFP on Language, Citizenship, Religion and Minority Rights. The present prevailing mass moods will soon change from one of sympathy to one of criticism and opposition. The toiling masses generally have received nothing except promises. Despite the efforts of the Reformists to promote class collaboration, even now, the class struggle has broken out. (Police arrests of strikers and police baton charges against the Velona strikers have already compromised the Coalition Government.) With the widespread talk of achieving Socialism through the Coalition Government and the stimulation of a new interest in Workers’ and Peoples’ power, the Party will pose the need for real Socialism as opposed to fake Socialism. To concentrate the future realisation of the burning needs of the working masses and the toiling people the LSSP (R) declares: Not a Coalition Government with the bourgeoisie in Parlia- ment but a Coalition of the workers, wage earners and rural masses, Forward to a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.” FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AUTUMN-WINTER 1964 157 the fall of the coalition in Statement of LSSP (R) on 2 Ceylon in December 1964. 6 While the ranks of the Government are weeping aud gnashing their teeth over its defeat in Parliament as a result of a split in the SLFP and while the Reformists of all shades are also shedding tears over this development, the LSSP (R) has no tears to shed what- soever for the Government. The working class, which has suffered under a still continuing wage freeze and has also been struck by the batons of Siri- mavo’s police, has no tears to shed at the defeat of her govern- ment, The masses of workers on the plantations who have been denied the elementary democratic rights of citizenship and of the vote, and who have been the subject of a barter agreement between Sirimavo and her fellow capitalist Prime Minister, Shastri of India, have no tears to shed. The vast masses of landless, jobless and miserably housed toilers in the countryside as well as the masses of jobless and slum dwelling people in the towns have no tears to shed. The linguistic and religious minorities who have been openly discriminated against, and been subject to direct oppression under the pressures of the Sinhala Budd- hist chauvinism also have no tears to shed for the defeat of Sirimayo’s Coalition Govern- ment. All that these various sections of the exploited and oppressed masses of our people need to shed completely are the illusions that large numbers of them still unfortunately have in the pros- pects of some measure of im-

[p074] 158 provement in their conditions through political combinations of one kind or another that are set up to maintain decaying capitalism in Ceylon. Such combinations, whether they be admixed with Red, Blue, Green, or Yellow can only continue to deceive, divide and confuse the people in the way that S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike’s MEP acd Mrs. Bandaranaike’s Coalition with the Reformist LSSP have done. Both coalitions led to a strengthening of rightist reaction. The LSSP (R) calls for a break with the politics of Par- liamentary Combinations with bourgeois parties, and for the unification and independent assertion of the organised power of the working class at the head of all sections of the toilers and the oppressed in town and countryside. Whatever may be the outcome of the coming elections it is clear that none of the demo- cratic or socialist tasks of the mass movement for socialism in Ceylon will be achieved through the next Parliament. All that the masses can expect and should strive to attain is an independent position within the next Parliament for the purpose of serving and strengthening the development of the class struggle outside it by exposing and opposing whatever bour- geois government that may emerge within it. The crisis of capitalism will continue to advance and it wil lead either to the suppression of the mass movement by the forces of capitalism or to the revolutionary triumph of the masses in direct action for the overthrow of capitalist rule. It is in the latter perspective that the LSSP (R) calls upon the working people and all genuine socialists in the country to unite in the coming struggle. 9 Under a stolen flag— A Statement by the Political Committee of the IERRE FRANK, the member of the Pabloite Unified Secretariat, who recently visited Ceylon, has been describing himself as a founding member of the Fourth International in 1938. This is done in order to convey the impression that he was a close collaborator of Trotsky and that he carries on Trotsky’s tradition in the international movement at the present time. In this connection, the following information should be of interest to Trotskyists. In the autumn of 1934, the French Trotskyist movement of which Frank was a member, acting under advice from Trotsky, entered the French Social-Democratic organisation, the SFIO. The purpose of the entry was to organise a struggle against the centrists and the right wing and to win over left-wing elements, especially the youth, to the programme of the Fourth International. By the summer of 1935, France, according to Trotsky, had entered a pre-revolutionary situation and this in turn led to the launching of a witch-hunt against the youth and the Trotskyists who had entered the SFIO, by the right wing headed by Leon Blum. After analysing the nature of the situation Trotsky called upon his supporters, including Pierre Frank, inside the SFIO to prepare to launch the independent Trotskyist party. This led to a sharp crisis inside the French Trotskyist organisation. Raymond Molinier and Pierre Frank, who worked closely together, opposed Trostky and formed an alliance with the centrist Marceau Pivert. The purpose of this alliance was to disobey Trotsky’s instructions by capitulating to the demands of the right wing. In September, 1935, both Frank and Molinier were preparing to give up the publication of La Verite, the paper of the French Trotskyists who had entered the SFIO in order to placate the right wing and continue their alliance with Pivert. Each concession that they made to Pivert weakened the struggle of their comrades inside the SFIO against the right wing. At precisely the time when the French Trotskyists should have been united in fighting the right wing, Molinier and Frank were engaged in preparing a split inside their organisation. Trotsky described their activity as ‘a betrayal’. On November 29, 1935, Trotsky telegraphed the International Secretariat about a letter which he had received from Pierre Frank. The telegram read: ‘Frank letter reveals centrist demoralisation stop consider rupture preferable to concessions.’ In December 1935 he proposed to the International Secretariat, resident in Paris, the following resolution concerning the activity of Molinier and Pierre Frank: FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AUTUMN-WINTER 1964

[p075] DOCUMENTS 159 the case of Pierre Frank Socialist Labour League of the Plenum. I do not think his political attitude allows him to be kept formally within the leading body of our international organisation. Politically, Molinier has gone over to centrist positions. ' Organisationally, he has created a bloc with the centrists, against our tendency. He has not consulted the IS on his “turn”. He has allowed himself to pose ultimatums to our organisation, relying on the methods of quasi-capitalist “launchings”. His activity becomes increasingly demoralising. I propose on the decision of the IS to invite the Central Committee of the French Section to recall Comrade Molinier. At the same time I propose the setting up of an international control commission, concerning the activity of Com. Molinier and possibly of other comrades connected with him.’ Also in the same month Trotsky wrote to the Central Committee of the French Section concerning Frank and Molinier: ‘It is capitulation before the social-patriotic wave. Who does not understand that is no Marxist. The approach of war has given (provisionally) the social-pa‘riots a powerful weapon against the internationalists. Hence the exclusion of the Leninists. Hence the cowardly capitulation of Pivert. . . . Hence the fear of unstable elements in our own midst of “isolation” and the tendency to stay at whatever cost beside the centrists and to be distinguished from them as little as possible. There is no other political content in the attitude of Molinier and Frank. They are capitulating to the social-patriotic wave.’ Eventually, these deep-going differences came to a head when Molinier and Frank broke away from Trotsky and founded their own organisation with its paper La Commune. In the winter of 1939 Pierre Frank came to England to organise a struggle against Trotsky and the International Secretariat. Some months after the outbreak of the Second World War he was interned for a short period in the Isle of Man as an alien. The police later released him and he worked in Britain for the duration of the war, returning to France early in 1946. Immediately on his return he applied for entry into the Fourth International and Was accepted. The activities of Pierre Frank recently in Ceylon where he supported the centrist United Left Front is quite consistent with his- opposition to Trotsky and Trotskyism. Se Right from the early ’30s Frank was always ‘a demoralised centrist’. He was regarded by Trotsky as a demoralised centrist and he continues so to this day. Naturally Cannon and the Socialist Workers Party, who in the past have treated Frank with contempt, know he is a political imposter but they remain silent about his role because he now supports their revisionist course. Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League, 20/7/1964 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AUTUMN-WINTER 1964

[p076] Name Address ee ry Please tear off and send to The Newsletter, CS 2 Ce 2 I enclose 8/6 for 12 issues (post paid) of The Newsletter. by the most modern techniques 186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. Starting out as a little news-sheet in May, 1957, it has fought its way up to a newspaper printed are eee Please send me: The Newsletter/Book Lists/Information about The Socialist Labour League. Ce ro i 1964. zroy Road, London, N.W.1, dated 21st October, Dear Sir, To the Editor, Allow me upon capitalism. revisionist position which arose from its dependence that it has been dissolved. of any kind to dispose of my writings—above all now