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| Sunday, 24 August 2003 |
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Concluding the 24th death anniversary tribute to Dr. N. M. Perera Struggle to escape from the parliamentary dead-end SUNDAY ESSAY by Ajith Samaranayake As we observed in the previous article in the split which occurred in the LSSP in the aftermath of its main leaders returning from India after the conclusion of the war Philip Gunawardena and N. M. Perera were to cast themselves as the LSSP while Dr. Colvin R. de Silva and Leslie Goonewardene remained as the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India.
Underlining the vituperative politics of both groups was basically the question of the structure and nature of the revolutionary party in Ceylon. Philip Gunawardena was to throw the following long quotation from Trostsky which formed the concluding paragraph of his 'Open Letter to the Workers of India' issued on July 25, 1939 in the face of the BLPI leaders and accuse them of traducing its spirit: 'Alien to the spirit of sectarian self-immersion, the revolutionary worker-Marxist must actively participate in the work of the trade unions, educational societies, the Congress Socialist Party and in general, all mass organisations. Everywhere they remain as the extreme left wing; Everywhere they set the example of courage in action; everywhere in a patient and comradely manner they explain their programme to the workers, peasants and revolutionary intellectuals'.
Again both Gunawardena and Perera in reply to their critics described the state of the LSSP in these terms as they found it on their return from India: "A small group of university assistant lecturers and students, calling themselves the party centre, attempted to pose as the mentors and practical leaders of the Samasamaja Party. This faction endeavoured systematically to transform the party from a living and growing entity, with its roots based deeply in the masses, into a narrow conspiratorial sect entirely cut off from the masses. Indeed this dangerous position had already arisen under the leadership of their faction. (Philip Gunawardena and N. M. Perera - A Statement) Here then was the crux of the difference. Gunawardena and Perera wanted the LSSP to be a party with its roots deeply based in the masses while the BLPI wanted it to be a tightly-knit and disciplined party of cadres or in the eyes of the Gunawardena-Perera faction 'a narrow conspiratorial sect entirely cut away from the masses'. It was perhaps no accident that those who advocated the cadre party were the theoreticians such as Colvin, Leslie and Doric de Souza while those who stood for a mass party were the popular political leaders such as Philip and N.M. (Philip although a formidable theoretician during the early years and indeed both the undisputed theoretical and practical leader of the early LSSP was to later pejoratively dismiss the theoreticians as 'pothe guras'.) Again one can see a logical trajectory leading from this position of N.M.'s to his advocating of a coalition with the SLFP which culminated in 1964. But before that the split had to be healed in 1950, N.M. to emerge as the undisputed leader of the LSSP which rose united again as a result but which was to drive Philip out of the party to form his own Revolutionary LSSP. In fact it was Philip who was the first of the original LSSP leaders to go into a coalition with S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's SLFP to form the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna of 1956 (a nomenclature which he was later to appropriate for himself presumably after the RLSSP's revolutionary fires were doused).
Although the unified LSSP stated as its two fundamental aims the overthrow of the capitalist state maintained in Ceylon through the political alliance of the British imperialists and the Ceylonese bourgeoisie and the seizure of political power by the working class at the head of the toiling masses and the establishment of a democratic workers' and peasants' (Soviet) government (the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the urban and rural poor) it was clear that this goal was becoming more and more remote. Defeats at the General Elections of March and July 1960 and what is more the SLFP's decisive victory at the latter election under the leadership of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike compelled the party to re-examine its politics as well as its attitude towards the SLFP which hitherto it had branded as a capitalist party no better than the UNP. It was clear that the LSSP by itself could not capture power in Parliament while the revolutionary path was also becoming less feasible in a country now accustomed to democratic elections. In May 1960 therefore a General Conference of the LSSP adopted a far-reaching change of attitude, strategy and tactics vis-a-vis the SLFP. A document (widely believed to have been authored by N.M.) had as the party's second priority 'the cessation of the isolation of the LSSP from the rural masses by creating a favourable atmosphere for the reception of a socialist programme.' The proposal which this statement also contained of signing a no-contest pact with the SLFP and the taking of steps to bring about programmatic agreement with it, with a view to forming a coalition government can be seen as practical steps proposed in this direction. To justify this change of posture the SLFP was seen as capitalist 'only in the sense that its ultimate objective is not the overthrow of capitalism' but was rather characterised as a 'reformist petty-bourgeois party that can not be described as a capitalist party because of the interests that it subserves.' The crucial decision taken by the Special General Conference of the LSSP held on June 6 and 7, 1964 to join the SLFP in a coalition government was the logical and ultimate product of this position which N.M. had manouvered the party into. Going even further than earlier the SLFP was described as a party based on the radical petty bourgeoisies and the lower middle class and the overall drive of the party was seen as a steady movement Leftwards. Enumerating the many progressive economic and social measures taken by the two Bandaranaike SLFP Governments the majority resolution sponsored by N.M. and the rest continued thus: 'When the cumulative effect of these measures are considered it will be quite apparent that the SLFP is not a capitalist party. The fact that it is functioning within the capitalist framework does not necessarily make it a party of the capitalist class.' This is further proof of the realpolitik practised by Dr. N. M. Perera, the author of this resolution and the leader of the majority wing of the LSSP. What NM envisaged both then and in 1970 when the LSSP with the CP had come into power in an SLFP-led Government was to reinforce the Left and progressive forces within the SLFP which had by then taken radical measures within the capitalist framework itself such as the nationalisation of the multi-national petroleum and insurance companies and the weakening of the hold of the capitalists on the import-export trade through strengthening the CWE and which was seen as carrying the potential for ultimately paving the way for a socialist government. Was this a betrayal by the LSSP and its principal mass leader N.M. in particular of the Ceylonese Revolution? For this the LSSP's attitude towards and actions during three crucial turning points in contemporary political history need examination. They are a) the Hartal of 1953, b) the LSSP's defeat at the two General Elections in 1960 and c) the short-lived United Left Front between the LSSP, CP and Philip Gunawardena's MEP formed on August 12, 1963. In 1953 although there was great enthusiasm among both the workers and the peasants for the mass work stoppage which was the Hartal, the LSSP leaders were clearly neither prepared nor willing to continue it and convert it into a challenge to the Government of the day. At best they saw it as a preparation for a more systematic and sustained struggle but this was pre-empted by the victory of the MEP Government of Bandaranaike in 1956 which doubtless was given a tremendous boost by the mass energies released in 1953. But more poignant was the plight of the LSSP in the two 1960 General Elections which put paid to its last lingering hopes of forming its own Government. For the paradox was that although the LSSP subscribed to the theory of a revolution led by the working class of the towns its real parliamentary base was in the villages. Apart from Dr. Colvin R. de Silva who represented Dehiwela-Mount Lavinia and Leslie Goonewardene who represented Panadura, the other LSSP leaders as well as its other parliamentary representatives came almost predominantly from the Kegalle and Ratnapura districts and the Kelani Valley such as Dr. Perera himself (Yatiyanthota), Philip Gunawardena (Avisawella), Kusuma Gunawardena (Kiriella) and in a later generation Dhanapala Weerasekera (Dehiowita), Athauda Seneviratne (Ruvanwella) and Vasudeva Nanayakkara (Kiriella). Even Edmund Samarakkody who at every step opposed any coalition with the SLFP and was seen as the most unrelenting of the LSSP's Left parliamentarians (the other was Bala Tampoe who was not an MP) represented the remote and backward Bulathsinhala seat in the Kalutara district. The dichotomy in which the LSSP was caught then was that while advocating a working class-led revolution its parliamentary anchorage was among the peasantry while its policy of parity of status for both Sinhala and Tamil was steadily to alienate it from these very peasant masses who saw in the SLFP the true representatives of their class interests. It is true that against the backdrop of fresh industrial unrest (there were strikes in the banking sector and the Port of Colombo which forced the Government to deploy the military to handle work in the Port), increased taxes which affected the middle class and the increase in essential food items the LSSP, CP and MEP worked towards and finally established a United Left Front but N.M. never dropped his tactic of a coalition with the SLFP. In fact it will be seen that when the SLFP in 1964 in the face of increasing mass hostility approached the ULF all its constituent parties were ready for negotiations. But MEP leader Philip Gunawardena's demand that if the MEP were to join the Government two key SLFP Ministers, C. P. de Silva and Maithripala Senanayake, should be dropped from the Cabinet (which Mrs. Bandaranaike naturally found unacceptable) and the SLFP's anxieties over giving a Cabinet portfolio to a member of the CP which was identified with the Soviet Union in the context of the Cold War ensured that the LSSP would be the only candidate left to join the SLFP in a government. The ULF then could be described as having been doomed at its birth and unable to resist Mrs. Bandaranaike's beckoning finger. That N.M.'s position was realistic was again borne out when Colvin, Leslie and Doric who had sponsored a resolution that the Government should be between the SLFP and the ULF (and not the LSSP alone which was N.M.'s position) did not leave the party although refusing Cabinet office. In 1970 however both Colvin and Leslie accepted Cabinet office with Doric becoming Secretary to the former in his capacity as Minister of Plantation Industries. Having thus realised that a movement for socialism was possible only through an alliance of the working class parties (the LSSP and the CP) and the SLFP which represented the peasantry, the radical petit bourgeois sections and the national bourgeoisie (or the much derided mudalali class as against the sober-suited comprador bourgeoisie) N.M. as Finance Minister set about this task through socio-economic measures designed to alter the relation of class forces in favour of a socialist transformation. That this task was aborted and the LSSP ejected from the Government in 1975 (after a particularly radical Budget in which N.M. identified a minuscule elite as possessing the preponderant capital in Sri Lanka) was a measure of several factors, among them the changing class character of the SLFP (which by then was veering towards the Western Bloc and was even dreaming of Free Trade Zones which the UNP was finally to bring to fruition), the hostile international economic climate with food and petroleum prices increasing with dwindling harvests at home compounded by the hostility of the lending agencies and the ultra-left JVP Insurgency of 1971 which set the clock back considerably for a Government bent on an array of radical measures. But it would be wrong to accuse the LSSP and N.M. of betraying the revolution and the masses for they did not jettison their socialist principles. Rather the party and its leadership should ultimately be seen as tragic figures in a classical sense trapped in a predominantly agrarian, semi-feudal peasant society and a context of parliamentary democracy but being brave or foolhardy enough to continue carrying the torch of Marxist Revolution. Perhaps in time to come after the dust has settled on contemporary controversy History will be kind enough to see N.M. as one leader who fought to convert the dead-end to which the parliamentary system with its rural bias had consigned the Left to its advantage through an alliance of the urban and rural poor although with little success. Sources: The long quotation by Philip from Trotsky and the statement by Philip and N.M. are both taken from the 'Blows Against the Empire' (Revolutionary History, Volume 6, No. 4 with Philip's article titled the BLPI: A sectarian dead-end. For material about the formation of the ULF and the establishment of the SLFP-LSSP Coalition see Chapter 4, 'Samasamajists at Crossroads: Alliances and Coalitions in 'Revolutionary Idealism and Parliamentary Politics - A study of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka' by Y. Ranjith Amarasinghe - Social Scientists' Association - 1998. The idea that Philip Gunawardena was the undisputed ideological and political leader of the early or pre-war LSSP occurs in 'Working Underground - The LSSP in Wartime: A Memoir of Happenings and Personalities' by Regi Siriwardena - International Centre of Ethnic Studies - 1999. This is how Siriwardena puts it at page 48 of this book: 'In the intervening period I had gathered that Philip was the dominant figure in the LSSP, the Marxist of longest standing, greatest political experience and deepest theoretical learning, and I had realised that all the other leading figures of the party recognised him in that character'. |
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