Conference of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party
(Ceylonese Section of the Fourth International)
POLITICAL RESOLUTION
As the third year of the ME P government draws to its end, its servitorship to both foreign and local capital stands confirmed and irreversible. Its incapacity to carry Ceylon's conomy forward is universally accepted. Its inability to eform either radically or at all the administrative systen colonialism is generally recognized nitial impetus towards progressive reforms in political ocial, and economic fields stands almost exhausted. Con sequently its clashes with the forward-reaching masses have become more frequent, more extensive and more lirect. In particular its clashes with the working end to be head-on in character and to pose political issue:
with increasing directness. The working class of Ceylon is today already faced with the task of a more and more open and direct struggle against the MEP government to rally the masses of non-worker toilers around a pro. gramme of radical reconstruction of the nation's political economic, and social structure. The struggle to overthrow the MEP government is therefore also the struggle to open the road to the necessary and urgent radical reconstruction of Ceylon's political, economic, and social systems. THE SITUATION IN THE MASS MOUEMENT
There are two principal features of the current political situation which require to be carefully assessed for the purpose of determining the tactics of the struggle to overhrow the MEP government. On the one hand there i he continued faith of the broad masses, including the
:7.0 working class, in the franchise. On the other hand there has been during the last year and a half a tendency amongst sections of the masses and especially of the working class to resort to direct or extra-parliamentary action.
Since Noyember 1957 we have witnessed a series. of working-class strikes, all economic struggles save the token one-day general strike on March 3rd last, which, however, is a special case. The communal upsurge of May 1958 and che rigors of the first months of the consequent Emergency served only to interrupt these strike struggles but did not prevent their resumption in recent months. There is certainly a readiness among workers to strike on felt economic Issues.
Apart from strike action by the workers we have also witnessed in recent months such political phenomena as mass resistance to destruction of shanties, mass occupation of Crown land and mass satyagraha on railway lines. No doubt these manifestations of discontent did not spread in the manner that strike struggles spread among the working
Nevertheless they are noteworthy phenomena in that they bore the character both of mass and of direct actions and were engaged in by other sections of the toilers than the workers. It is also to be noted that these actions too were directly rooted in day-to-day needs.
In short the masses still rely primarily on constitutional methods and processes; but they are ready in the case of felt issues to resort to direct action even outside the constitutional process to bring pressure to bear upon the gov-
The one important strike struggle of the workers which was not rooted directly or at all in a felt economic issue was the token one-day general strike of March 3rd last demanding the withdrawal by the government of the Public Security (Amendment) Bill. It constituted the first major effort from any quarter since the MEP came into power to bring the working class as a whole or at least in the • predominant majority of its unionized sections into political direct action. Marked as it was by the coming together of the major plantation-worker unions with other big union organizations of the industrial and white-collar workers, marked also as it was by the coming together of major trade-union organizations in both the government and the private sectors, and marked finally as it was by a massiveness of numbers and by the wide variety of economic and administrațive activities affected, this action undoubtedly marks a turning point in the history of Ceylon's trade-union movement. It constitutes the first major effort of the trade-union movement to bring the working class into political direct action.
At the same time it is correct that the Conference of Trade-Union Organization succeeded in bringing into acion on this occasion only sections of even the organıze(
'or instance the Stalinist-led and ME P-ler unions did not come in but were positively hostile. Again, the broad mass of unorganized workers and also of workers who though unionized are scattered in small groups did not get drawn into action although they were not hostile. Even sections of workers in some of the striking unions failed to participate. In other words this general strike did not bring into action either the working class as a whole or even the organized workers as a whole.
Nevertheless it must be repeated that the movement for and on March 3rd constituted a gigantic political direct action of the organized working class of Ceylon. It carried a whole stage forward the process of politicalization . of the working class in all its sections.
It demonstrated the fact that the illusions in the MEP government have already been shattered among a considerable section of the workers. This is a striking achievement when one considers the extent of the illusions in the MEP government which prevailed among the workers barely three years ago.
The MEP government's reaction to the direct action phenomena mentioned above and to the communal upsurge
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL of last year (which was of course also a case of widespread mass political direct action, although aimed at reactionary political objectives and marked by grossly anti-social methods): has been to arm itself with more and more repressıve powers which can be utilized in displacement of the parliamentary process. The Public Security Act has been kept on the statute book in' spite ot a general election undertaking to repeal it. The Emergency framework of laws promulgated under the Public Security Act was utterly needlessly prolonged; and the Act itself has been strengthened in its repressive provisions through the recent amendments. The truth is that by reason both of its communal policies and of its anti-strike policy the extraordinary powers of the Emergency have become to the M EP government an everyday necessity.
However, between the capacity of a government to obtaın repressive powers and its capacıty to use them there can of course be a great gulf. Weak governments may actually break in the effort of mass repression: and the M EP government is a weak government.
[he main source of the MEP government's weakness is its lack of political coherence. It is a coalition without a programme. It is also far more an assemblage of variegated personalities than a calition of parties. Its social base is also variegated, stretching as it does from bourgeois elements all the way across every stratum of the pettybourgeoisie right along to not inconsiderable working-class elements. Over and above conflicting class pressures it is also subject to the continuous and varying pressures on whose support it has relied and must continue to rely. These groups, of which the main are racial and religious communal groups and organized groups of intermediaries to the rural masses (bhikkus, Ayurvedic physicians, Sinhala schoolmasters and the like), bear upon the M EP government with their own specific pressures which it cannot in its own interests resist. The result of it all is that the MEP government, far from guiding the nation through a definite policy, tends much more to be tossed by the contrary currents of mass, class, and group pressures.
Underlying this situation of the M E P. government, however, is a steadily strengthening tendency to resist workingworking-class demands. This class pressure and to deny resistance, although it is conducted in the name of the so-called general public against the working class as such, serves of course the interests of preserving and protecting the interests of capitalism powers taken in the in erests of ote capitlist el ts.
Despite this strengthened tendency and growing readiness to resist the working class and its demands, the basic dilemma of the MEP government as a government of bourgeois reform continues with unmitigated force. This is the dilemma of satisfying mass aspirations without destroying the tundamental framework of capitalist social and
The economic situation renders the dilemma more acute than ever.
Two features are prominent in the economic situation. The government finances its rapidly increasing expenditure through a mounting deficit of income against expenditure. The result is inflation which is reflected in rising prices. At the same time, despite increased expenditure, the government's own investment programme taken together with private investment talls so far short of the necessary means to expand the economy commensurately with the needs is growing at about 2.6 per cent per year that the national economy is in relative decline. The consequence is steadily growing unemployment and intolerable pressure on the land resources of the country. Not all the accelerated efforts of the government in strip colonization have succeeded in assuaging this mounting pressure of the employment-hungry The total industrialization effort of the government and private capital continues to be substantially inadequate to the needs of the situation.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
It is manifest that a major social and political crisis is maturing in the context of the deepening fundamental economic crisis. The questions posed thereby are not questions of mere concessions to the masses within the prevailing capitalist relations.
They are questions pertaining to the continuance of the capitalist system itself. Within the framework of a relatively declining economy the limits of concessions may well have been reached already. Certainly the real and credit reserves of the government are not great; the volume of private reserves available for further tapping appears to be strictly limited; and the prospects of foreign aid are not comparable to even minimum need. Further concessions must therefore pull down the rate of profit below that which is required locally for stimulating capitalist enterprise and thus endanger the very functioning of even the existing economy. In short, whatever be the desire of the government, no further important concessions to the masses are possible.
the masses have not been lifted out from their poverty levels by the concessions they have wrested from the MEP government. Much of what they have won has been neutralized by risen prices and spreading unemployment. At the same time the very promises of the MEP government have stimulated the mass desire for immediate improvements while the post- April 1956 environment has enabled massive organizations of whole sections of the population for action on their demands. In the result the mass pressure for further concessions continues in the context of the growing inability of the capitalist economic system to afford major concessions.
The political situation thus poses inexorably the choice between maintaining capitalist relations in Ceylon and replacing them with what is now generally accepted to be the alternative, namely socialist relations. There is no way forward without this fundamental change being brought about; and it is precisely the inability and basic unwilling-. ness to bring about this change which has served to bring out into the open the fundamentally capitalist nature of the MEP government and to propel it into head-on collision with the working class.
However, there is a considerable gap between objective necessity and mass realization thereof. Although the capitalist nature of the government is clear to the politically advanced sections of the masses, it is not yet clear to whole sections of the masses. Similarly the need to overthrow the M EP government is not yet clear to wide sections of the masses. Therein lies the fundamental characteristic of the present political situation and therein also is posed the 'arty's fundamental political task today. THE COMMUNAL SITUATION
The upward-thrusting economic issues and the mounting class struggle have tended to overshadow the communal issue and to push it into the background. However, it will be idle to regard this obstacle in the way of the class struggle as having been surmounted, and dangerous to disregard its reactionary potentialities. Although May 1958 may not be repeatable, communalism remains a powerful weapon in the hands of reaction.
In the first place the Sinhala Only issue continues to bedevil racial relations. Although the Ceylon Tamil masses are quiescent and open Tamil resistance has subsided, mass resentment among the Tamil continues intense and the determination not to give in remains well-nigh universal mongst them. Neither the MEP with its statutory pro. ision for the reasonable use of Tamil nor the UNP witl its promises of administrative provision for the use of Tamil can assuage the situation, still less solve the language problem. The only policies which can logically replace parity are on the one hand subjugation of the Tamils and on the other, division of the country. Of course national disaster lies along either way.
There is a second way in which racialism threatens to bedevil national solidarity. While the UNP seek to beat the MEP with the stick of the unsolved "Indian Issue," the MEP itself is turning more and more to the antiIndian cry as a means of diverting the masses in general and the working class in particular from onslaughts on the MEP government. Just as the Sinhala Only policy presented as a means of solving the unemployment problem amongst Sinhalese seeking government jobs, so also antiIndianism is presented as a means of solving the unemployment problem in the Sinhalese rural areas in general and in the Kandyan areas in particular.
It is necessary to grasp the explosive and reactionary possibilities of anti-Indianism. condition of the village population in the plantation areas where immigrant labor is concentrated gives to employment competition a directly racial aspect. Since moreover the immigrant estate-workers' mass is also without political rights and held outside the normal parliamentary processes by deprivation of the franchise, the turn to anti-Indianism also brings electoral advantage to capitalist politicians If there is any moderating influence upon this tendency it is the concentration of the plantation workers in a vital sector of the country and their high organization and militancy. Any attempt at large-scale communal violence against them can create conditions of civil war.
There is a third aspect of communal relations which is of importance. This is the aspect of relations amongst religious groups. There certainly is a government-backed drive for the consolidation of Sinhalese Buddhist predominance in the political structure of Ceylon. Its antiChristian character has perhaps been a little soft-pedaled recently, while its anti-Marxist character, that is to say counter-position to the working-class ideology, has begun to be a little loud-pedaled. It is necessary to realize that Sinhalese Buddhist communalism continues as a means for the MEP to rally the Sinhalese petty-bourgeoisie against the party and programme of the working class. THE CLASSES AND THEIR PARTIES
Despite the hollowness of the ME P government's claim to being socialist becoming more and more manifest, despite its loss of impetus even as a government of bourgeois reform and despite its now open and direct servitorship to local and foreign capital, the predominant section of big bourgeoisie and whole sections of the bourgeoisie his erally remain in opposition to the ME P government. ' is because the MEP government has failed to create an atmosphere of security for their existing investments and still less with regard to further investments. There is also the profound bourgeois distrust of what they regard as the left wing of the government.
In this situation the effort to revive the UNP finds support. However, the bourgeoisie have found the difficulty of providing the UNP with a leadership acceptable to them as a whole and also popular with masses. Nevertheless, the UNP campaign has undoubtedly reinvigorated sections of the old UNP following and even attracted back some sections which went over to the M EP after the 1956 general elections. But the extent to which dissatisfaction with the M EP amongst the masses has brought masses again to the measure. The one certainty is that it has made no gains in the working class. In any event, especially since the communal explosion of May 1958, the UNP can no longer: be treated as a negligible factor in national politics.
The SLFP, though predominantly petty-bourgeois in omposition, is essentially a bourgeois party. Its specific is to endeavor through contain the mass movement within the bounds of the bourgeois order. It differs in character from the UN P in several ways. It enjoys little support amongst the bourgeoisie; what little support it has comes from the economically less and that too only from the Sinhalese bourgeoisie. It contains within itself a group of Sinhalese
petty-bourgeois radicals who transmit the pressure of the Sinhalese radical petty-bourgeoisie. responsible to mass pressure than the UNP ever was.
The SLFP is the major organization and predominant power within the M EP coalition. The other organization in the coalition is the radical Sinhalese petty-bourgeois group of Philip Gunawardene. The coalition is held together by Sinhalese communalism and self-interest, that is, the common need to maintain themselves in office.
In regard to the upper petty-bourgeoisie, the landed proamong them have benefited from the generous subsidy schemes for manure, replanting, price-support and the like. However, sections of property-owners and businessmen among the Sinhalese upper petty bourgeoisie who forin the direction of the UN Government have turned away merly supported the MEP. by what they consider to be the weakness of the government as evinced principally in relation to strikes and the May 1958 communal explosion. The impact of the Paddy Lands Act on the paddy land owners and of the multipurpose cooperatives on the interests ot the retail traders has also contributed to this result.
Sections of the Sinhalese middle and lower petty-bourgeoisie in town and country are dissatisfied with the MEP government and are politically frustrated. Assailed by both rising prices and spreading unemployment, lacking the means available to the working class of defense and organization against economic blows, failing to obtain economic relief through the barren policies of communalism, they see no clear way forward today. Although as a mass they are inert today, the ferment within them continues.
The resentment roused among the Sinhalese rural masses by the Emergency repression of June-July 1958 narrowed the MEP government's base amongst them. That resentment has been subsiding with the lifting of the repression and the lapse of time. More permanent factors play a principal part today in shaping and determining rural mass opinion. The economic condition of the rural masses is deteriorating, principally as a result of rising prices and growing unemployment. Their land hunger has not been assuaged by the stepped-up colonization policy of the MEP government. The Paddy Lands Act and the multipurpose coöperatives have not yet brought them any appreciable benefit. In these circumstances dissatisfaction is growing even amongst the very large sections which supported the MEP but this dissatisfaction has not yet found a means of political expression.
Among the petty bourgeoisie, the restlessness of that social layer in town and country which consists of those who may be termed the swabasha intellectuals is real but not the same in all șections. It is idle to deny that the MEP government has made some moves in the direction of meeting their demand for equality of treatment with the English-educated intelligentsia. the Tamils the very policy of Sinhala Only undoubedly serves this. So also does the raising of the status of the pirivenas and the reorganization of the pirivena system of education. The effort to modernize the curriculum of the swabasha schools has the same consequence. The stress on the advancement of ayurveda is also a step in the direction of equalization of status as between the English and the swabasha wings of the intelligentsia. The support of indigenous culture and, despite the communalism attends it, the support given to the advancement of Buddhism also have consequences of a similar character.
As the same time the stratum of swabasha intellectuals unsatisfied and "under-privileged" The swabasha intellectuals have not yet achieved anything like a position of equality of status or even an approximato equality of status with the English-educated intellectuals. More decisively they have not achieved anything like even approximation to the financial status of
English-educated intellectuals. The gap between the pay of English teachers and swabasha teachers is well
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL known. The gap between the salaries of ayurvedic practitioners and alleopathic doctors is tremendous. There are no swabasha lawyers yet, though they Above all the unemployed swabasha SSC youth continues in a state of frustration. So that the swabasha road does not yet lead to the heights that can be reached along
Thus, the basic causes of the upsurge of the swabasha intellectuals in recent years continue the ayurvedic physicians, and the › s G unemployed youth, have got on the move again on their demands and have come or are coming into direct conflict with the government on the basis of suspicion of the government's willingness to implement its promises. The movements of the teachers and the youth especially have already shown a readiness to link up with the organizations of the working class and a tendency to shed the reactionary communalist perspective which previously hindered struggle developments. sections will help to destroy their illusions in the MEP government and create the opportunity for the party to find new roads to the rural masses.
Although the organized sections of the working class have wrested certain wage concessions like crease, these concessions have not compensated even these sections adequately for the rise in the cost of living since
Whole sections of the working class that are unorganized have not got even these gains. At the same time the prices of essential commodities have tended to stabilize themselves at the high levels reached last year. The general economic condition of the working class
The victories won by the organized working class have increased the confidence of the working class as a whole in its capacity to fight for new gains. On the other hand, unemployment is undoubtedly growing and bringing back something of the atmosphere of job-insecurity which prevailed so pronouncedly in UNP days. resistance to working-class demands has become more determined and even aggressive.
Government policy in relation to the working class is broadly to attempt to establish class peace through a variety of means. It has enacted certain ameliorative which however has either touched only the fringe of working-class needs or, as in the case of the Employees' Provident Fund, has not yet been rendered effective. In the matter of we, the government has tried to avoid the basic issues by appointing commissions, while making piecemeal, limited, and belated concessions when compelled to do so. In dealing with industrial disputes in the government sector the government has systematically sought to divert the from struggle to protracted procedures ciliation and arbitration even by compulsion and intimida-
The government has removed some impediments in the way of trade unionism. However, while the trade unions grew, government resorted to various devices to bring them under its control. It has tried to establish joint councils, with hardly any success. denial of the fundamental trade-union and political rights of government employees. It has set about the splitting of unions under open government patronage. When all other methods have failed it has not hesitated to use violence and other methods of intimidation against strikers. over, through the Public Security (Amendment) Act it has armed itself with further powers of direct repression of workers' struggles and militant unions.
The Ceylon Indian workers continue to be under special political disabilities such as the denial of citizenship and the franchise. As in the case of other basic issues conthe working class, evaded these issues too. At the same time M EP politicians have been engaging in more and more frequent communal attacks on the Ceylon Indian workers while the
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL government itself is under attack by the UNP and other communalists for having failed to settle the Indian issue
Sinhalese communalist lines. inadequacy of the traditional organizations of these workers is beginning to become manifest to these workers themselves. The need to participate in the politics of the country is increasingly understood by them and their desire to do so has grown. Along with this their pressure on their organizations to participate in the national political movement has also grown. The politics of the Ceylon Indian workers is bound to be anti-M EP government in view of the anti-Indianism of the MEP government.
With the establishment of the Soviet Embassy the Communist Party of Ceylon has come under the direct supervision of the Soviet bureaucracy. The interference of the Soviet bureaucracy in local politics has Fearful of a return of the ÜNP to power and anxious regarding the real possibility of an SS P government emerging, the Soviet bureaucracy has a direct interest in maintaining the MEP government in power. Aside from granting financial aid and the like to the MEP government, it has, in line with this policy, converted the Communist Party of Ceylon into a more or less direct agency of the MEP government within the working class in particular and in the country generally. However, in the interest of preserving a following, the Communist Party engages in various pressure moves, including direct action, but always within the perspective of maintaining the MEP government in power. It also. seeks systematically to infiltrate the government and to increase its influence within the government ranks by supporting the petty-bourgeois radicals in the ME P. In the result, the Communist Party has tended on the one hand to lose some of its following to the MEP and on the other hand to alienate the antiMEP sections of the masses. Seeking to adapt itself to this situation it has adapted its policies more and more clearly to the Sinhalese Buddhist communalism of the MEP government.
The May 1958 events and the experience of the Emergency that followed have further embittered the Tamil masses against the M EP government. The Reasonable Use of Tamil Act has nowise changed their attitude, and continuing discrimination against the Tamil-speaking people keeps adding to their embitterment. However, no signs at present of a resumption of direct action by the Tamils. Despite the sympathy created for the Federal perica told some leaders an a g a a f masses has weakened. These masses are beginning to feel that the Federal Party line of politics does not provide i be intered by the fami ras that Be lon to their problems of winning their minority rights lies in the linking of their struggle with the anti-capitalist struggle of the masses of Ceylon as a whole. It is significant that the Federal Party had no role to play in the general strike of March 3rd which was the biggest mass action against the MEP government in its three-year history. OUR TASKS
The fundamental political task of the party today is to carry forward the consciousness of the masses and first of all of the organized working class, to an active realization of the need to overthrow the MEP government. This not a mere propaganda task. It will be achieved only by the party leading the masses through the necessary experience in struggle. And the coming the working class toiling masses on their respective demands.
In relation to the working class, the ME P government and the capitalist class have well-nigh reached the limit ot concessions consistent with the maintenance of the capitalist order. Although minor concessions are still possible, the basic demands of the workers, particularly in the matter of wages, cannot be met in view of the present mood of the working class; therefore, the perspective opens up of widespread and determined struggles of the workers such demands. These struggles will both bring the workers more and more into conflict with the government, and raise political issues. The task of the party will be, while organizing and conducting such struggles, to lead the workers through their experience in such struggles to the realization of the need to overthrow the MEP government and the capitalist order which it maintains.
Further, in the conditions of today, directly political issues (such as the Public Security Amendment Bill, the question of political rights for government employees, etc), or matters which involve political issues (such as the failure implement the National Employees Provident Fund the absence of a National Minimum Wage, etc) are arising as matters whose importance is felt by large numbers of workers. It will be the task of the party to take up such issues in time, and to conduct agitational campaigns on them with the perspective of struggle. This will help to accelerate the politicalization of the working class.
Particularly in view of the efforts of the MEP and UNP to generate a hostility among the rural masses to the working class, it is the more necessary today to make the working class increasingly conscious of its role of leadership of the rural masses. With this aim in view the party the rutal masses for are in oh statable ifores forts with the rural masses for action on suitable issues. to obtain the sympathy of the rural masses for the workers in their struggles, the championing by the workers of the demands of the rural masses, and joint action on felt common demands, would help forward the accomplishment of
The weakened position of the Stalinists among the workers provides the party with an opportunity of making gains in the trade-union field at their expense. The ME P unions, built on the basis of Sinhalese communalism, governmental patronage, and minor concessions obtained through Industrial Tribunals, appeal principally to the more backward workers. The role of these unions is to divert the struggle of these workers into harmless channels and to lull them with small concessions. It is the task of the party to expose to these workers the treacherous role of these unions which are hostile to any serious struggle and to win them over by its militant leadership. At the same time, however, the party itself must utilize its own and nore in tale it an organ on a ce tree must not hestitate to utilize, wherever necessary, the procedure of the courts and tribunals set up under the Industrial Disputes Act.
It is essential for the party to grasp the contemporary importance of political work within the mass organizations of employees of the white-collar class, of both the English and swabasha strata.
In mobilizing the working class for common action, the party will avoid sectarianism and endeavor to rally together for struggle the organizations of the working class on the widest possible scale. The first real general strike in the history of the working-class movement in Ceylon brought into existence the Conference of Trade Unions. The preservation and development of this centre as a rallying point of militant and independent trade unionism will help both to wipe out the stooge leadership of the MEP and Stalinist unions, and to mobilize the working class on the widest possible scale for the great battles that lie
The party should recognize the weakness of its activities among the rural masses and should carry on in a more systematic and widespread manner its agitation and pro-
paganda among these masses. While seizing every opportu- be utilized in the interests of the mass struggle, and that nity to agitate on concrete and seeking impel the rural masses into action on such issues wherever possible, the party should give special importance to propaganda and agitation on the issues of rural unemployment, high cost of living, land hunger, and oppression by headmen, police, and other officials and the delays in the administrative system. The party should try to present such issues in a concrete form which will appeal to the rural masses. Effort should be made to enter the multi-purpose coöps and cultivation committees, ganizations to the maximum for serving the interests of the rural masses and the tenant cultivators and small-owner cultivators, and to demonstrate in practice and drawbacks of government policy in this field.
As for the swabasha intellectuals, cognize that it has failed so far to find an effective way of linking up with them. Indeed the party must recognize that the suspicion genuinely exists within this straum that the party does not really stand for and identify itself with the swabasha demands. A principal reason for this was the diversion of the swabasha movement in the Sinhalese areas into communalist channels. However, tions today that whole sections of this stratum are either going into action or preparing for action on their demands on non-communal lines. In these actions they necessarily come into conflict with the MEP government. The opportunity is thus created for the party to penetrate this stratum by active participation in the preparation and conduct of these struggles. The party must engage systematically in this work especially among the SS C unemployed youth, who can most easily be brought under the influence of the working-class movement. Through this work the party can gain a whole set of adherents spread throughout the country who will constitute a valuable link between the party and the rural masses.
Amidst the tasks set out above, the continuing task of opposing the MEP government's various policies of discrimination against the minorities must not be overlooked. The party has an enormous fund of good will among the minorities, and the task of strengthening and consolidating the party base among the minorities remains a principal THE COMING PARLIAMENTARY GENERAL ELECTIONS
The party must prepare from now on consciously and thoroughly for the next parliamentary general elections, with a view to bidding for a majority.
Mass illusions in the franchise as a means of attaining political power and of achieving social change are extremely widespread and real. The reforms which are proceeding in respect of the electoral process are likely to strengthen these illusions. These illusions can be shed only through experience. On the other hand the elections provide party an invaluable opportunity to advance mass consciousness and to reach whole sections of the masses with whom it ordinarily has no contact.
There is a widespread demand among the working class and the toiling masses generally that the party should bid for a majority at the next general elections. Despite the disfranchisement of the Ceylon-Indian workers and despite the weighting of the constituencies against the working such a bid can and will serve the party's political aims if conducted by 1 the proper methods and in the correct perspective. Certainly, such a bid will help to impress seriousness of the party's bid for power. The party engaging in the elections will endeavor themselves into a mass struggle, that is, it will seek to give the elections a class-struggle character. Further, the party must understand clearly that the struggle for a parliamentary majority is primarily a stuggle for gaining control of a state instrument which can
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL a parliamentary majority cannot be a substitute for the mobilization of the revolutionary masses.
### CONCLUSION
The party will carry out the specific tasks outlined above in relation to various sections of the people in the setting ot its general propaganda and agitation for the overthrow of the MEP government and the replacement of it by an L S SP government. The party will demonstrate that this is a necessary means to preserving and fostering national unity, ending corruption, carrying through the urgent reof the countrys political, economic, and social structure, and releasing and mobilizing the nation's energies for these tasks.
In the course of its propaganda and agitation the party will highlight the following questions:
Growing Unemployment and High and Rising Prices: The party will point out that these problems can be solved only by a series of antı-capitalist measures which will include the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy, the taking over of the import and export trade which will permit a proper control of prices and a comprehensive plan of socialist development. to nationalizations the party will stress the importance of securing the enthusiastic coöperation of the workers through making them partners in the management of the national-
Housing and Social and Welfare Services: The to the government's complete failure on the housing question and the inadequacy of the social and welfare services, and point out that it is only a government with a socialist plan that can set out on the road to a real solution of these problems.
‚orruption: The party will draw attention to the manıest unwillingness of the ME P government, like the UN F government, to take action against the increasing corruption in the state apparatus. It will point out that only a government that is itself above corruption can take determined measures to stamp out corruption from public life: reaucratic Administration: The party will draw attenthe dilatoriness and ineffectiveness of the present bureaucratic set-up of the administration which is isolated from the masses and acts in a harassing and oppressive way. It will point out that the complete reorganization of the administrative apparatus, which is essential if this apparatus is to become responsive to mass needs, can be effected, not by a government which bases itself on the police, the armed forces, and the bureaucracy, but only by a government which bases itself on the awakening masses.
In this way the party will demonstrate to the masses that not only the overthrow of the MEP government is necessary but also the overthrow of the capitalist system itself.
In thus exposing the source of our political, economic, administrative and social ills, the party will also demonstrate concretely in terms of specific measures the need for the socialist reorganization of Ceylon's economic structure. The creation of a widespread understanding of what the party in power would concretely do will itself elp to carry the party to power
The political task in relation to the question of what is the government necessary in order to carry the whole nation forward to a new era is therefore to win popular acceptance for the view that the correct alternative MEP government is an LSSP government because the to the present order is a socialist We must present consistently and all-sidedly to the LS SP government is the necessary instrument for building a socialist society.
FORWARD TO AN LS SP GOVERNMENT! DOWN WITH THE MEP GOVERNMENT! FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!
ADDENDUM
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The internal conflicts of the MEP government have shattered it from within. Not only the MEP government but also the MEP itself is no more. Mr S W R D Bandaranaike now heads a straight SL FP government while the SL FP becomes the sole governing party.
The Philip Gunawardena group, a Sinhalese communalist group of radicals, has been forced out of the government and has left the Government Party. They have been followed by a Sinhalese bourgeois radicals of the SL FP. With these developments the Bandaranaike government has undergone a change in class composition. From a government of a bourgeois party in alliance with a petty-bourgeois group, and responding within limits to the pressure of this group and other similar petty-bourgeois elements in the Government Party, it has been transformed into a government of a bourgeois party pure and simple. Apart from the fact that the main support of the SL FP comes, not from the big bourgeoisie but from the economically less powerful sections of the Sinhalese bourgeoisie, the present SL FP government is not very different from the UNP government of the past.
Two results flow from this situation. Firstly, the left coloration that the Bandaranaike government exhibited for the past three years has disappeared, and the capitalist character which it always possessed, now stands exposed for all to see.
Second, a further rightward shift in the government's policy can be expected. Even before the present crisis, the rightward shift of the government had already commenced. But the removal of the petty-bourgeois pressure within its ranks, represented by the Philip Gunawardena group and to a lesser extent by the petty-bourgeois elements in the ranks of the S LF P Parliamentary Party itself, will further accelerate this rightward shift in policy. The recent attack on Marxism by the SLFP government illustrates this. The SL FP government's service of capital will now be more direct, more open, and more complete.
The change in the Bandaranaike government also reflects an important change in the situation within the capitalist class. The political overturn at the April 1956 general elections left the capitalist class both disoriented and disorganized politically. Big capital, that is to say, the decisive section of capital, although it clung to its economic positions in the major sectors of the economy (the plantations, banking and insurance, the export and import trades), could not give to the capitalist class as a whole either a clear line of political action or a firm and united political lead. Big capital therefore marked time. But big capital began to get once again on its political feet as the ME P government advanced in the performance of the role which has historically been the role of every Popular Front-type government. This is the role of containing the leftward moving masses within the framework of capitalism while gaining time for the capitalist class to regroup itself politically in preparation for a class offensive. The MEP government differed from a Popular Front government in the following principal respects: 1) it gained a large section of its mass support through the rousing of Sinhalese communalism, and 2) there was no substantial representation of the working class in the Front. However, it is true that the MEP evoked, especially among the Sinhalese masses, hopes of a nature similar to those evoked by Popular Fronts of the classical type. As the ME P government stood firm within the capitalist framework even while compelling the capitalist class to important economic and political concessions, the capitalist class began to regain its class confidence. This was reflected first of all in the economic field as for instance in the intransigence of Big Capital in the export field with stepped-up resistance to every threatened invasion of the fields of exploitation "Private ewers i" or Co-options). Big Capital has re (the Co-op. Bank Bill; the expansion
75 covered its political confidence and is beginning to move in on the government with its demands. Not the defense of capitalism's essential positions only, but the defense of capitalism on all major fronts, is now the demand of Big Capital from the government; and the reconstitution of the cabinet represents a preparation for the performance
Although the MEP government was a Popular Fronttype of government, its break-up has not resulted in a disorientation among the working On the contrary it has resulted in a growth self-confidence among vorking class. The principal reason for this is the fact that unlike the classic Popular Front governments in Europe opposition of a reventionary el fin-tass pacty with a of a revolutionary working-class party mass following, the LS SP. The working class was thereby enabled a) to reap the advantages of a Popular Front -type government without becoming its adherents, and b) to escape disorientation when the MEP government failed and finally broke up.
The working class by and large has no illusions about the class character of the SL FP government and therefore stands in opposition to it. Any question of the SL FP maintaining or obtaining a significant base in the working class is ruled out. Secondly, the working class, conscious of greatly extended organization and big trade-union victories won against the government itself and also against the capitalists generally, stands capable in suitable circumstances of a major offensive on all fronts, including the political front. Thirdly, the possibility of mobilizing the working class for struggle under LSSP leadership has been considerably enhanced by the serious weakening of the position of the Philip group, the Stalinists, and the SLFP in the working class, and the further growth of confidence in LS SP leadership in class struggles.
The situation among the rural masses is in marked contrast to that existing among the working class. They largely stand confused by the break-up of the MEP government. The LS SP was unable to prevent this in any significant way because, firstly, as a working-class party its main base was among the workers, and secondly because even the limited base it possessed in the rural areas was seriously weakened by the growth of Sinhalese communalism under the MEP government. The danger exists this situation of the rural masses turning right. However, the growth of rural dissatisfaction over unemployment and high prices, which raise class issues, and the competition between the two bourgeois parties, the SLFP and the UNP, for rural support, provide the working class with the opportunity to make a bid for the leadership of the rural masses.
In the changed political and mass situation, the SLFP stands greatly weakened and the SLFP government in he coming period is likely to discredit itself more anc nore with the masses. It is also not unlikely that this gov ernment will be defeated in Parliament and compelled to old a general election before its term is completed
The revival in recent times of the UNP, the tried political party of Big Capital in Ceylon, reflected not merely the failure of the MEP government, but also the revival of capitalist class confidence. Big Capital has been mobilizing behind the UNP and with the break-up of the MEP government the UNP is making a determined bid for a return to power.
However, if the capitalist class becomes fearful of a strong working-class bid for power, the UNP and SLFP may coalesce in one way or another as a means of uniting the capitalist class around a single political banner in defense against the working class offensive.
The Philip Gunawardena group, that depended to a large extent on ministerial position for its influence, stands disoriented and even demoralized by the loss of these posi-
tions and the entire failure of its policy of joining with the SLFP to form the MEP. While there is a certain symp areas, the prospects vardene Partic a wardene from the EP, are bleak, so long as their essential aim or in linkup with other splinters continue the discredited politics of the shattered he Communist Party is also involved in the failure o e MEP government because of its position of suppor of this government. Further, the Communist Party, despite every ettort to maintain a contrary appearance, entially supports the Bandaranaike government in office This is principally because the Bandaranaike government continues its policy of maintaining good relations with the Soviet bloc of countries. However, it is imposible tor it to face the masses with straight support to the S LF P government. The CP is therefore compelled to complicated and as usual unprincipled manoeuvres under cover of a call for a united front of the progressive forces (including those government) under the leadership of the working class. This is but the old anti-UN P line refurbished, and the old ME P politics in a new guise to meet the new situation. And it is first of all a line directed against the revolutionary line of the LSS P.
In the Northern and Eastern provinces the break-up of the MEP government and the precarious parliamentary position of the SIFP government has aroused new hopes in the possibility of the emergence of a government which will not be Sinhalese communalist. This will help the party in its efforts to wean the masses of these areas away from
The task before the party is to mobilize the masses under the leadership of the working class to overthrow the SL FP government and to replace it with a LS SP government. This task gains urgency from the fact that the break-up of the MEP government has accelerated the process of polarization of Ceylonese society between the working class on the one hand and the capitalist class on the other. Struggles in which the question of power will be posed are a distinct possibility in the period ahead. There is also a possibility of the capitalist class launching an offensive against the working class with the backing of the SLFP government and with the rural masses indifferent or even hostile to the working class.
It is therefore of vital importance that the working class should make a determined effort to win over the as yet undecided rural masses.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The Sinhalese educated petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, who were among the chief supporters of the MEP, are today, like the rural masses, confused by the break-up of the MEP government. A special effort should be made to attract to the revolutionary working-class movement the dissatisfied strata among these sections.
In relation to the working class itself the task of the party is the political and organizational preparation of the class to take the lead for the overthrow of the SLFP government and the ending of capitalist rule. The wide recognition among the working class of the capitalist nature of the SL FP government, as well as the recognition of the weakness of this government, make this task easier.
In the period of struggle that is ahead, it is important that the working class, while engaging in such limited struggles as may arise, should seek to conserve its energies for major struggles on demands of a generalized character which will bring it face to face with the capitalist order and the SLFP government that defends it. Accordingly the party will strive to formulate, popularize and advance appropriate generalized demands
With the development of the mass struggle, the party should also be alive to the need for advancing slogans for the creation of organizations of the workers, corresponding to the stage of the struggle. The time is ripe today to call for the building of volunteer corps under the aegis of the trade unions. tion e party has also to be aware that the precarious posithe SLFP government in Parliament renders a defeat of this government in Parliament at any moment and a consequent general election a distinct possibility. . cordingly the party, while continuing liament of attempting to secure the defeat of the government at the earliest possible moment, must seriously and delay make all necessary preparations testing if not all, most of the seats at a general election, with a view to obtaining a parliamentary majority.
It is necessary for the party vigorously to combat the idea of a broad front of so-called progressives as proposed by the Stalinists or the petty-bourgeois groups that have split from the M EP. The experience of the ME P's failure and break-up provides proof of the futility and danger of unprincipled combinations of this kind, and demonstrates that it is only on a clear anti-capitalist programme which can unite all sections of the oppressed and exploited regardless of race or creed, that the masses can go forward to a united and socialist Ceylon.