Cent. In the midst of the whirlpool of mobilizations and archests, the military dictatorship appeared weak, lacking social and political forces to support it. Banzer the gorille, supported against the mass mobilizations only by rifles, tanks, and war planes, felt his end draw near. We salute the Bolivian masses for their courage, tenacity, and heroism. Mossacred so many times, but never vanquished, they took on their oppressors, standing erect once again. Their actions in La Paz, Oruro, and especially Cochabamba, showed the enormous potential of worker and peasant combativity which the dictatorship has been unable to destroy. This is the historic force that will liberate Bolivia from imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation! We solute the peasant mobilization of Cochabamba Valley, which broke the military bureaucracy's police-military control of the countryside. We salute the worker-peasant alliance that was concretized in the roodblocks and the barricades. At Cochabambo the foctory workers and peasants initiated o new period of struggle ogainat the dictatorship. The peasantry was incorporated into struggle of the side of the proletariat; the military's iron grip on the peasantry has begun to be broken even in the most tightly controlled regions; the working class come out of the factories to take control of the neighborhoods -- for occupation of foctories is not enough -and was joined by the pessantry, which is also hit by exploitation and the military dictatonhip's policy of Famine. If is for these reasond that Cochabamba is today the most important event in the whole Bolivion political situation. We also salute the nevolutionary militants, our comrades of the POR, who stood in the front ranks during the mobilization. We solote those who were token prisoner in La Poz and Cochabamba. We pay homage to the memory of the dead, the worker and penet, and the mony who fell wounded during these stuggles The military dictatonhip has been shoken to its very bones. But while it la socialiy and politically wack, it still has the army to keep inell in power and it can count on the support of Yonkee imperialiam and Brazi Con subimperialism. Ar this moment the peneral sell in locking for ways to moke the masses back down, to prevent the peopant front from developing, and to prevent the more Importont revolutionary forces from moving to rally so the proletarian revolution. Furious attack on the worker and pecsont movement and a systematic repression of the revolutionary trade-union leaders and workers parties must now be expected. Already the time-honored accusation has been raised that social conflich in Bolivia are being fomented by an international conspiracy. That is only a smokescreen to cover up the represtion. And of the some time the effects of the economic measures are leading to a constant rise in prices and to sri lanka The following is the text of a political resolution approved by the Central Committee of the Lanka Sama Samaja party (Revolutionary), Sri Lanka section of the Fourth International. THESES ON THE UNITED FRONT PROGRAMME basic themes of the Party in relation to the Common Pro-
United Front of the SLFP/LSSP/CP(M) have ment, both of which were published over the Government of Ceylon stronger atlacks on the living standard of the mosses. The POR, Bolivian section of the Fourth International, calls for continuing the struggle, beginning from the level attained in January, in order to respond to the dictatorship in an ever more intense way. It is with this aim in mind that we make the following proposals to the masses, the trade-union leaders, and the vanguard: 1. Coordinate the struggles for workers and peasant demands that broke out during the last week in January in order to unify the program of demands and bring together the actions against the dictatorship. The response of the workers and a section of the peasantry to the price increases in foodstuffs was immediate, but the protest strikes and the demands they raised were varied. We must avoid fragmenting the forces of the masses. 2. The reason for the fragmentation lies in the absence of a centralized revolutionary leadership. So we must throw ourselves into the task of constructing such a leadership, beginning by reaching interunion agreements in the key sectors (miners, manufacturers, white-collar workers, revolufionary peosants, etc.) and moving toward reconstitution of the сов. 3. Raise the level of the mass movement by unifying, generalizing, and politicizing its actions through a program that takes up the problems and demands of each sector, unifies them, and fuses them with the revolutionary perspective of overthrowing the military dictatorship, the only way of opening up the possibility of fulfilling the demands of the masses. This program must be presented as an alternative against everything Banzer does. 4. Generalize and organize the arming of the mosses, a task that was again posed in real life during the worker-peasant clashes in Cochabamba and the skirmishes in Oruro and La Paz. The trade-union militia that are constantly being reborn must be revitalized and united with the detachment of the vanguard organizations. The old, traditional militio, defensive and short-lived in character, must go beyond that form of organization and give rise to the Revolutionary Workers, Peasants, and People's Army. 5. For a policy of united front for concrete action capable of stimulating the struggles of the masses for their economic and political demands. The latest events have once again thrown into relief the crisis of leadership in the Bolivian political process: the rise of the mass movement on the one hand and the atomization of the vanguard on the other. The reformists and Stalinists are working in the exact wrong direction. They are desperately seeking so-called progressive bourgeois sectors to unite with insteod of seeking the revolutionary unity of the peasants, the workers, and the vanguard. from the UNP of the end of May 1970. One is the Open Letter addressed to members of the LSSP in August 1969. The other is the Manifesto, titled "The Way Forward for the Masses, " issued by the party in connection with the general election of 1970. These theses are as follows: (1) The Common Programme was not designed to lead to the establishment in Ceylon of a "Socialist Democrocy, " as it was made out to be, but to promote the interests of the Ceylonese bourgeoisie, within the framework of capitalist property relations, and subject, consequently, to the con-
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sri lanka tinuing domination of Imperialism over the economy as a whole. (2) The programme did not even threaten serious inroads upon existing capitalist property in the plantations or in industry. What was really envisaged was increased control by the capitalist state in certain sectors of the economy, in order to sustain and assist in the development of the dominant private sector, with an increased share for the Ceylonese bourgeoisie in the capitalist exploitation of Ceylon. (3) With private ownership in the plantations and in industrial enterprises left intact, and with essential sections of the import/export trade also left in private hands, no radical change ever could be expected in Ceylon's existing relations with Imperialism. (4) Talk of fighting bureaucracy, bribery and corruption, blackmarketing etc., within the framework of the capitalist administrative system would prove to be completely futile. Within that framework likewise, talk of associating workers in the management of state enterprises, or of associating trade unions and the people in general with the preparation and carrying out of economic plans, would prove to be (5) Existing incqualities of the racial minorities and various forms of discrimination against them would be preserved. The vast mass of the plantation workers would remain without even the fundamental democratic right of franchise. (6) The Sinhala Buddhist masses, together with the national minorities, would remain subject to the repressive legislation that the UNP government and previous governments had used, more and more frequently, to restrict or to suppress the democratic rights and civil liberties of the people, in the matter of strikes, demonstrations and othar forms of mass action. (7) The subordination of the LSSP, together with the CP, to the leadership of the SLFP in the United Front under the Common Programme, had brought the LSSP into conformity with Stalinist policies of class collaboration with the so-called national bourgeoisie, in the maintenance of capitalist rule. In that context, the LSSP would be forced to play the role of watchdog of the Coalition against the working class, the landless rural masses, and the ever-mounting numbers of the unemployed, when they demanded adequate wages, land, jobs and the like, and resorted to any mass action in pursuance of their demands. It was on the basis of these theses that the Party declared as follows, in its Manifesto of May 1970: "The bitter truth, which the LSSP(R) considers it necessary for the masses to understand, is that whatever parliamentary regime may be established following the general election of 27th May, capitalist rule and capitalist exploitation will continue, with increasing unemployment and hardships for the masses of the people, and with increasing likelihood of the supression of the democratic rights of the masses, and their complete regimentation even, in the interests of the preservation of capitalist rule." Editeur responsable: René Groslambert, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 - Bruxelles Imprimerie spéciale de l'éditeur
The correctness of these theses has been borne out by what has happened since the United Front Government took office in June 1970. THE CONSTITUTION AND THE EMERGENCY The common desire of the parliamentary parties to preserve bourgeois rule in Ceylon under a parliamentary regime was manifested by their joint participation in the procedure whereby the members of Parliament, elected under the previous (Soulbury) Constitution at the general election of May 1970, sat as the Constituent Assembly, to discuss and adopt a new Constitution. The two main opposition parties, the UNP and the Federal Party, ultimately voted against the new Constitution, after having agreed on its most essential aspects for the preservation of bourgeois rule. The new Constitution gives expression to the political separation of the bourgeois regime in Caylon from that of Britain, by the severance of its vestigial link with the British Crown. Ceylon remains within the British Commonwealth, however. The Constitution has established a unicameral legislature, with provisions that are designed to minimise delays in the enactment of new legislation and to free such legislation from juridical review after enactment, thus avoiding legal obstruction to the implementation of legislation that is intended to give effect to the Government's programme. Existing inequalities in the use of the Sinhala and Tamil languages in the administration of the country have been perpetuated, with the Tamil language being denied the status of an official language, though its limited use in the administration and in the courts is given recognition. The state less condition of the plantation workers of Indian origin, amongst other disabilities, has also been perpetuated. Fundamental rights and freedoms have been listed only for citizens, but subject to whatever restrictions may be prescribed by law, in the interests of the capitalist class. Furthermore, specific provision has been made for the declaration of a state of emergency at the discretion of the Prime Minister, as in the past, under the Public Security Ordinance. All democratic rights and civil liberties are thus capable of being suspended or restricted arbitrarily, whenever the Government of the day considers it expedient. It is noteworthy that the new Constitution was adopted on May 22, 1972, under the state of emergency declared in March 1971, and that it is still being maintained, long after the suppression of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in April 1971, though the threat that the JVP was said to have constituted to "public security" was made out to be the reason for the original declaration of the state of emergency. The new Constitution and the continuance of the state of emergency under it thus brings out the incapacity of the Ceylonese bourgeoisie to maintain its rule on a democratic basis, either for the national minorities or for the masses.
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