Dissensions in the LSSP - a response
Mr. W.T.A. Leslie Fernando’s article which appeared in the Sunday
Observer of 19.4.09 refers. In one place he says “Doric de Souza formed
the Bolshevik Leninist party.”
This is factually incorrect. I will set out the facts in a nutshell
for the benefit of the reader. From the beginning of the year 1942 the
struggle against the British was gathering momentum in India. On the
other hand with the detention of four leaders and the repression of the
party things became difficult for the LSSP activists to operate for long
without detection as Sri Lanka is a small island.
All politicians at that time agreed whether they belonged to the left
or right that the Sri Lanka’s freedom from the British was linked to the
success of the Indian freedom struggle. Against this scenario the idea
for the formation of a party covering the subcontinent was mooted.
Hence, discussions with the Indian Trotskyists got underway followed
by a special party conference held in Kandy for which the leaders in the
Bogambara detention prison attended after nightfall. Philip Gunawardena
was one of them. It was decided to launch a new party embracing the sub
continent. In a Marxist party members do not accept anything without
debate.
Accordingly Philip had expressed various views on the proposal. For
instance, timing of the launch was crucial for Philip. However, by mid
1942 the situation in India became tense and Philip thought that the
situation was ripe for the launch and gave his nod for the new party and
the Samasamajists joined the August struggle as members of the BLP.
In support of his contention Philip wrote an article to Samasamajaya
on 17th August 1942 headlined “The Coming Indian Revolution” The
relevant reference in found in page 165 of the book, “Tomorrow Is Ours”
written by Wesley Ervin. This is a well researched book on the
activities of the BLP. It has filled a big lacuna of the history of the
Samasamaja movement. He must be congratulated for this painstaking job.
Apparently, Leslie Fernando had got this idea from this book which
says in page 161 “Doric formed a faction”. That is understandable. The
LSSP always had factions and tendencies within. Fernando who is an
admirer of Philip had written several articles covering the early period
of the LSSP. In the process, he had written about the LSSP branch in
Negombo in detail. If this trend is followed by others we will have a
new corpus of Samasamaja literature.
Let us now get back to the point. In 1943 Philip and NM were arrested
in India and kept in the same prison in Bombay for several months before
they were deported to Sri Lanka to face prosecution for the jailbreak.
They found time to look back and the document titled “The Indian
Struggle - Next Phase” was the outcome of it. It had suggested to form a
“United Revolutionary Front”. Doric faction opposed this “Popular
frontism.” This led to a bitter factional struggle within the movement.
some leftwing writers identified this document as a reflection of the
beginning of Philip’s departure from revolutionary politics.
By 1947 he completely disowned responsibility of forming the BLP. He
had stated that the founders were revolutionary romantics. Was he not a
founder member? The way he attacked the BLP during the subsequent years
very many of the present generation were let to believe that Philip had
opposed the formation of the BLP and distanced himself from its
activities right throughout.
In another place, Leslie Fernando says Regi Siriwardena’s version on
the Philip-Doric feud cannot be relied upon because he was a Doric
loyalist and an activist of a foreign funded NGO with hidden agendas. If
that was the case how and why Regi writes in the same book so lavishly
about Philip’s leading role during the formative years?
Ranjith Chandraskara
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