LANKA SAMA SAMAJA PARTY ISSUES NEW PROGRAMMATIC PAMPHLET
In a series of articles originally published in the Samasamajist, weekly newspaper of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Ceylonese Section of the Fourth International, and now brought out as a pamphlet with the title What We Stand For, Comrade Leslie Goonawardene, secretary of the party, gives a clear and vigorous summary of the transitional programme on which the party is currently trying to mobilize the Ceylonese masses with a view to the installation of a genuine workers' and peasants' government in the island.
Comrade Leslie Goonawardene briefly recalls the hislory of the party, created in December 1935, in order to justity that 'its actions in the past have accorded with its professed aims and objectives. It was the LSSP that first brought political consciousness to the Ceylonese masses of both town and countryside. "Today, after a period of 23 years, the LS SP can boldly say with pride that never once has it betrayed or swerved away from its fundamental aims": national independence and socialism.
In order to complete the national independence of the country, the LS SP is struggling for the taking back of air, naval, and military bases handed over to British imperialism and the transformation of the status of Ceylon into that of an independent republic outside the British Commonwealth.
The unity of the Ceylonese nation, moreover, can be achieved and consolidated only minority to a status equal to that of the Sinhalese major- raising the Tamil ity, as well as by the recognition of equal rights "to al residents of Ceylon who have resided in Ceylon for a minimum number of years and desire to make Geylor their permanent home. The LS SP, as is known, did not hesitate to stand up against Sinhalese communalism and take a stand in favor of making both Sinhalese and Tamil state languages in Ceylon.
The LS SP "stands for a real democratic political system and local government, based on the active initiative and participation of the masses."
Comrade Leslie Goonawardene then goes on to analyze the concrete transitional anti-capitalist measures necessary to ensure the economic development of the country: nationalization of all banks and insurance companies; takin over of the import and export trade; nationalization of large estates, and radical agrarian reform, etc.
In conclusion, Comrade Leslie Goonawardene writes:
The path to the national and social liberation of
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Ceylon is not an easy one. Powerful vested interests, both local and foreign, will fight desperately in an effort to cling on to their privileges. The path to the goal is one of struggle. ganized and mobilized, the LSSP will, however, know
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL how to lead them on the path to the revolution and proietarian power in Ceylon. Its past, its naturally dominant position among the proletarian masses of the country, its attachment to the line of revolutionary Marxism, to the line of the Fourth International, are the sure guarantees of its final victory.
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