Which road for the LSSP?

into the limbo of history never to emerge again.

Nevertheless, as I pointed out in my previous article, the coalition did considerable damage because it confused and disorientated the trade union and labour movement at a time when the movement was preparing to launch a massive retaliatory offensive against the Sri Lanka Freedom Party government and the capitalist system in Ceylon.

There is no doubt that if the movement around the 21 demands, presented by the 14 trade union organisations, had gone ahead in unity and discipline, then the death knell of capitalism in this island would surely have sounded.

Instead, the leaders

the Lanka Sama Samaja Party who were thrust into the vanguard of the movement, quietly like Bedouins in the night, crossed over into the enemy camp at the decisive moment, thus paralysing the movement around the 21 demands.

The coalition has come and gone and-nine months after they were adopted-the 21 demands have not yet been presented. This is the balance sheet of betrayal.

First, the LSSP-dominated unions withdrew from the Joint Committee of trade union organisations—which left nine organisations out of the 14. Then the Moscow CP-dominated organisations, in line with their policy of supporting the coalition, began to raise all kinds of procedural points and objections.

Dissension

Adopting a more-in-sorrowthan-in-anger attitude to the coalition these unions at the end of October attempted to quality the 21 demands with a political preamble whose operative section read:

'We condemn and oppose the present campaign that the vested interests have launched against the government and wish to emphasise that, while seeking a satisfactory settlement between the government and the working class in the matter of the 21 demands, the signatories will continue to would cost them an additional fight against the campaign of 855 million rupees per year and these vested interests.' Sensing the failure of the 21 demands, many sections a re pressing their demands for better pay and conditions 'Forward', 13/11/64 cost of production of tea, rubber This created immediate dis- and coconut, would cripple the sension since it meant tying the plantation industries.

ICTUO politically to the coali- The employers and Mr. tion bandwagon. Out of the Thondaman omitted to mention Port workers belonging to the LSSP (Revolutionary) Union eight organisations, three favoured the CP line, one was neutral and four, led by Bala Tampoe of the Ceylon Mercantile Union, opposed.

More dissension began to emerge when it was learnt that Mr. Thondaman of the Ceylon Workers' Congress was in favour of submitting the 21 demands to the government but not to the private employers because the Estate Employers' Federation were absolutely opposed to the demands.

The estate employers, employing over 700,000 workers, argued that the 21 demands that an increase of such magnitude, if passed on to the the fact that the Indian estate workers have not had a wage increase for 15 years!

At the end of November, the Moscow CP unions took a unilateral decision to submit the 21 demands together with the political preamble. This piece of chicanery, however, rebounded on the organisers when representatives of three postal unions and the Port Commission Workers' Union, belonging to the CP-dominated Federation, walked out of the meeting at which the demands were adopted.

Lessons

Thus by the time the coalition fell only five of the original 14 organisations remained. These were the Ceylon Mercantile Union, the Ceylon Trade Union Federation (led by the pro-Chinese CP), Ceylon Workers' Congress (Indian Plantation Workers), Democratic Workers' Congress (Indian Plantation Workers) and Central Council of Ceylon Trade Unions.

During the six months of coalition rule, however, certain invaluable and salutary lessons were learnt by the unions under reformist domination.

The dramatic desertion of the 21 demands by Perera (N. M. Perera, who became Finance Minister, presided at the mammoth rally which launched the 21 demands in March 1964!) and Colvin R.

de Silva, and their support of the reactionary Press Bill antagonised large sections of workers in the government-run industries and this precipitated a drift towards the unions of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) as well as thos:

dominated by the pro-Chinese CP.

This process has, no doubt, been hastened now that the coalition has fallen. A similar though not so pronounced drift has been going on in the Moscow CP-dominated unions.

Another interesting feature of the present situation is the change in the moods of certain sections of organised workers who, sensing the failure of the 21 demands movement to make headway, are pressing their own sectional demands against their employers.

Strikes impending

A new wave of strikes on various matters, which have been postponed because of the 21 demands, is now impending.

Above all, however, the failure of the movement around the 21 demands provides irrefutable proof of the correctness of the Transitional Programme which states that "Trade unions •.. cannot replace the pa.ty' and that 'in periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies Only a workers' and peasants' any hope of overthrowing government could secure the capitalism in Ceylon and 21 demands but before this postponed to the Greek could be realised a proletarian Kalends any prospect of Marxist party was required. realising the 21 demands. tion lacked. This betrayal would not have The LSSP leaders had already been complete, of course, withabandoned the revolutionary out the assistance of the Mosprogramme when they embraced cow CP--which has collaborated in 1963 the United Left Front with the reformist LSSP openly with the approval of the United in order to undermine the unity Bala Tampoe, who usually up the coalition. outshines other trade union The pro-Chinese CP, led by leaders in perspicacity and poli- N. Shanmugathasan, while it has tical courage, correctly opposed collaborated with the revoluthis opportunist tactic at the tionary LSSP on many matters, time. nevertheless is seriously hamPickets in a recent strike at the Brooke Bond Tea company 2 Neutral).

The Central Committee rejUIS document Ont wh negotiating committee conSisting Leslie Goonewardene, M. Perera and Colvin R. de have acceptea in consulamon wren the wise and the or The CC further censures the legulans committee for acceptance documen since it is materialv almerent regard aim and grammatic content even from hat which adopted by a majority vote on 7.7.63.

It must be borne in mind that the CC originally decided on a United relation to a list of concrete acmanas arouna masses were no ibe moolisec in the perspective of uniting the SLEP forces of capitalisi 1 mus perspecuve or me deve lopment of the class strugge through a United Front tactic substituted a parliamentary governmental What is worse is that programme now placed belore the U, in this perspective designed to se as a basis for merely parliament more progressIve capitalist alternative to Dresen SHP Government this clearly borne out by the following: (1). The reactionary Soulbury Constitutior not ta be abrogated but only modi fied;

Ceylonese capitalist ownership in the estates, industries and commerce is to be preserved;

The armed forces of the capitalist state (i.e., police and the military) are to be preserved;

The demand that Tamil should be made an official language has been abandoned to accord with Sinhalese petit - bourgeois communalist sentiment;

Likewise, the demand for the grant of citizenship rights to plantation workers who have been rendered stateless has been abandoned for a deceptive formula.

In the result, what is contemplated is the establishment of capitalist coalition government in association even with the SLFP.

Betrayal

This betrayal, which the United Secretariat tried to disguise as a victory for the working class, destroyea of the working class and prop pered by its blind allegiance to Peking. As a result its policy is a mixture of centrist confusion and revolutionary militancy.

On the reactionary Press takeover, for example, the Peking group came out-to most people's amazement-in support of the government.

Of the ULF today, nothing remains except a skeleton organisation around Robert Gunawardene, who regretfully tags along behind the reactionary opposition in parliament.

On the other hand, Philip Gunawardene, leader of he MEP (Peoples' United Front) has discarded the last vestige of Marxism to become a raving racialist and religious bigot allied Colvin R. de Silva: Bête Noir of the working class with a semi-fascist organisation -the JVP.

In this connection it would be interesting to hear what the United Secretariat has to say NOW of its own brainchild the ULF.

At the split congress of the LSSP it demanded a government of the ULF!

The LSSP (Revolutionary) is the only Marxist party in Ceylon. On it lies the responsibility for leading the workers and peasants of Ceylon out of the labyrnth of confusion and communal discord on to the road of revolutionary struggle.

Nature of LSSP

The pre-condition for this struggle, however, is an uncompromising and relentless struggle against revisionist ideas and trends within its own ranks. The measure of success or failure in the accomplishment of the tasks that confront it will be judged by the extent to which it disabuses itself of the residue of revisionism which it inherited from the old party.

The old LSSP never was a Marxist or revolutionary party. It was a left centrist party not unlike the POUM of Spain or the British ILP. Its only merit was that it created a labour movement in Ceylon and tried to unite all nationalities, castes and creeds under its banner.

Its leaders introduced to Ceylon for the first time the ideas of contemporary Marxism. But the party remained essentially a party of propaganda and agitation —and in the final A SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE PAMPHLET CEYLON: The great betrayal Containing:

Two reports from Ceylon by G. Healy played in this betrayal.

by the magazine World Outlook'.

of the Fourth International.

June 1964.

Secretariat to the LSSP. the Party in Colombo, Ceylon reckoning a party of reform.

Like the POUM, the LSSP itself was the product of unprincipled unification which took place in 1950 between the Bolshevik-Leninist Party (the official section of the Fourth International, led by Leslie Goonewardene and Colvin R. de Silva) and the reformist LSSP (then led by Philip Gunawardene and N. M. Perera, with a large base in the rural areas).

The only purpose of the unification was to win the general elections of 1952. Hence the theoretical arming of the party and the training of cadres was sadly neglected.

The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leadership of the party denied the necessity for professional revolutionaries in the leadership and tried to blackmail the party when a resolution along such lines was carried in 1952.

Following the split in the 4th International in 1953 the LSSP after an initial vacillation allied itself naturally with the PabloGermain clique who helped protect the leaders from criticisms either from within or without the LSSP (see the 'Great Betrayal' by Gerry Healy*). This unholy alliance came to an end in 1964 -but not entirely.

Expulsions demanded The Unified Secretariat, with the support of the Socialist Workers Party, made sure to preserve the umbilical cord with the LSSP by refusing to expel Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene from the ranks of their organisation.

This was done despite two requests from the leadership of the LSSP (Revolutionary) which is affiliated to the US.

In a conversation with me, leading members of the party expressed their anger and consternation about this inaction. They pointed out that Colvin R. de Silva, in particular, had become Mrs. Bandaranaike's right-hand man and the Bête Noir of the working class.

Instead of expelling this odious traitor, the U.S. replied to the LSSP in a document, two-thirds of which was occupied by a splenetic attack on Gerry Healy and the Socialist Labour League!

The leaders of the LSSP (Revolutionary), quite rightly, rejected this scurrilous letter and repeated their demand for the expulsion of these two renegades.

Regardless of whether the U.S. expels Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene, the LSSP (Revolutionary) has no alternative but to break from this centrist swamp. This is not a formal organisational ques tion but a dire political necessity for the survival of the party as a revolutionary organisation.

Either it takes the path of centrism or the path of revolutionary Marxism. The first leads to the Unified Secretariat-the second to the International Committee of the Fourth International.

CEYLOM The greed betrayal TWO ГЕДОТЕБ: From Cayla by G. Realy