hatred and contempt than any previous Government has been brought by its own act. The Government is only arming itself with a legal framework for a totalitarian dictatorship without any support from any important section of the masses. It does not have the kind of support that the Fascist governments of Hitler and Mussolini had, or the totalitarian regime of Stalin. In Ceylon the position is very different. The youth are completely or largely alienated from the Government. So is the working class; and all decent people in this country, whether they be conservative or otherwise; are today completely shocked at the course of action this government is pursuing. In that context I do not think that these laws are going to be very effective in operation, although for the time being they will certainly be put into operation if they are passed.
Q. The repression, the economic burdens, the measures the Government intends to enforce and so on, do not seem to have spurred the masses either rural or urban, into any kind of action against the Government. How do you account for it, and how would you sum up the present attitude of the masses?
A. I think that the story of Red Riding Hood would be an apt illustration of how the popular masses found themselves in relation to the Government. To begin with, they were like Little Red Riding Hood, thinking that the wolf was really their grandmother and was benevolently disposed towards them. It took them quite some time to awaken to the realisation that this Government was not their friend, or certainly was not going to carry out the various promises made to them at the election by the United Front. Then came the shock of last April, and the working class itself was taken completely by surprise. It was politically disoriented by the treachery of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Comnunist Party (Moscow) in holding out this Government and the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party as being capable of establishing a Socialist democracy in Ceylon. It is the treacherous role played by the so-called left within the Government that disarmed the masses politically, and divided the working class. They were taken completely by surprise when the Government established a State of Emergency, provoked the youth who were in the JVP by their repressive actions against them, and then virtually massacred large numbers of the youth in rural areas, when they retaliated with shot-guns and hand-bombs against certain police stations last April. In that situation a curfew was imposed, on the 6th April, from 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The result was complete confusion in all workplaces. People had to rush to their homes for fear of being shot, if they were found anywhere in a public place after curfew. The radio kept on droning out the threat that curfew breakers would be shot. This was repeated over and over again, together with reports of operations against so-called insurgents. A state of complete tension was thus created, and no working class organisation, including the Ceylon Mercantile Union, which is very well organised and militant, was capable of even holding an effective meeting of the General Council until the 23rd or 24th of April, two weeks after the slaughtering had begun.
Now, gradually, the broad masses have awakened to the reality of what occurred last April and of their own position; but they are still dazed, confused and lacking in any effective political leadership in the mass. It will take time for the masses to realise that now there is no other road for them but revolution. In the meantime, the Government is bound to move further and further to the extreme Right. The state of repression and intimidation of the people will be increased, so that the masses on the surface will still appear to be silent and not reactive, but it would be a mistake to think that they are not reactive. Trotsky spoke of molecular processes which precede any major mass upheaval. I am certain that these molecular processes are now taking place amongst all sections of the masses. There is not a single section of the masses of the people which is today not disturbed or at least dissatisfied with the way things are going; and with the long-established left tradition among the masses, which is a genuine tradition, with the long established ideas of socialism and of struggle that form a part of their consciousness. I feel that it is when the repression is no longer tolerable, that the real counter-reaction from the masses will begin to manifest itself. The swing to the Left then is not likely to be a parliamentary swing, but rather a revolutionary swing.
Q. Comrade Bala, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Home Affairs, Felix Dias Bandaranaike, on the floor of the House of Parliament on various occasions have shown great hostility to the actions of Mr. Prins Gunasekera, who is associated with you in the Human and Democratic Rights Organisation, to the C.M.U. etc., and recently some comrades of the LSSP(R), including the Assistant Secretary of the party, were taken into custody while holding an ordinary Youth League meeting. In order to eliminate all effective opposition to the future actions of this Government, don't you think that very soon it would be necessary for the Government to move against, for instance, you and Prins Gunasekera and other members of the LSSP(R)?
A. When our party Assistant Secretary, Comrade Prins Rajasooriya, was arrested, there were about six party members and five other youth leaders present, apart from the two police agents who were introduced into the meeting by a suspected informer who had apparently joined the youth league a couple of months before. There rumours have been circulated several times since last April, particularly, I have found from Communist Party and LSSP sources. Certainly they would like to see me locked up because that would eliminate what they probably now regards as the only danger of their own following turning to an alternative left leadership; but while I am sure that the question of my arrest or the arrest of other persons like Prins Gunasekera has engaged the attention of the Government at various times, they have got to weigh in their own minds the disadvantages against the advantages. If Prins Gunasekera and I are taken in, that would be a signal to the masses that there can be no hope whatsoever of a return to normality. It would as it were take the lid of their discontent . I dare say that at some time or another the Government probably intends to take in Prins Gunasekera and myself. Both of us, of course, are fully aware of that and are quite prepared to face that eventuality at any time. The Government knows that they cannot intimidate us by any such threat or by spreading rumours of such an eventuality. In that context, as far as I can see, it is up to the Government or its Imperialist "advisers' to decide which is more expedient - to leave us out under the conditions of a totalitarian legal regime and see whether we can do anything effective, or to take us in and see whether they can crush whatever reaction might develop as a result. My own view is that when the reaction does come, once the flame starts anywhere, it will spread like a prairie fire, and the Government cannot count either on the Police force or the Army, both of which have been rapidly expanded, to face up to any serious upsurge of revolutionary mass action. I am sure that once the present state machine cracks at any point, the whole machine will crumble, and since this Government really has no political acceptance today amongst the masses, it will soon be swept into the dust-bin of history.
Q. Do you think the comrades and militants abroad could be of assistance to any of us here in fighting for the restoration of democratic rights, and if so, what suggestions do you make?
A. I think that comrades abroad can certainly assist the struggle that is going on here for the restoration of democratic rights. To my mind, the restoration of democratic rights is not possible under the present capitalist regime, but the struggle for them itself is feeding revolutionary ideas and will later serve to promote a revolutionary development: so that in countries abroad, if the true facts relating to the situation in Ceylon are propagandised, particularly amongst the revolutionary-minded youth, as well as all those who stand for the preservation of human rights in Ceylon ... that would certainly assist in bringing international public opinion to bear on the situation in Ceylon. Secondly, they could also collect funds which may be channelled to the dependants of persons who have been the subject of police savagery or military savagery last April, and the dependants of the large number of people who are in custody, many of whom were bread-winners. Apart from that, wherever possible, if the democratically-minded people in other countries mobilise whatever forms of protest action they can, it will help to bring together various people in Ceylon and abroad on a common international demand for the restoration of democratic rights in Ceylon. That, while it will not be the most effective, will certainly be one important means by which the general struggle for liberation of the mass movement in Ceylon from the present repression will be taken forward. The concrete steps to be taken, of course, would have to be decided in each country and by each organisation: they should really be discussed in those countries and every effort made to maintain whatever contact is possible with those who are struggling here - even with those who may be taken and locked up in prison.
I have no doubt, in any case, whether we ask it or not, that all sections of the Fourth International will engage in a mass campaign if any of the comrades of the LSSP(R) are kept indefinitely in detention or if it becomes clear that there is repression against our own section. But apart from that, I think that defence campaigns for those persons mow in custody, who are being kept without trial, publicity campaigns against the complete destruction of all normal safeguards under the criminal law, before they are brought to a mockery of a trial under the new criminal law ... will be of great assistance. The greater the degree of publicity given to all aspects of the situation of the prisoners -their safety, the conditions under which they are brought to trial if they are, the conditions of their being kept in custody without trial, and even after acquittal under the new law - all these matters are capable of defence campaigns in other countries.
governments but also by the bureaucracies of China and the Soviet Union.
passed Criminal Justice Commissions Act.
part in the LSSP(R) in the struggle to overthrow capitalism in Ceylon. Long live the LOSP/KJ!
parliamentary road The traditional, reformist leacerships of the working class movement in Ceylon, the LSSP and the CP, have carried their policies of class collaboration to new lengths s ince April 1971. They have stayed in a government which has launched a sharp attack on the standard of living of the masses, and carried out a ruthless repression ot the major revolutionary youth movement. The LSSP Finance Minister, N.M.Perera, introduced la st October an 'austerity' budget which was a direct attack on the masses, and has been touting around the whole imperialist camp for loans on the basis, of such measures. The CY has stayed in the cualition despite growing dissent in its rank and file over the repressive legislation.
Until the past lø months this treacherous leadership had been fairly successful in presenting the SLFP (Bandaranaike) to their followers in the trade union movement, as a progressive force'. But under imperialism no bourgeoisie, be it the wing represented in the UNP or the section in the SLFP, has any progressive role.
An acceleration of the disintegration of the bureaucratic parties has now begun.
The dispute in the CP leadership about the vote on the reactionary laws only reflected the strong social pressures from the rising combativity of tneir working class base. The LSSP (who were expelled from the Forth International in 1964, alter the revolution ary current lost tne fight over the nature of the cor ition government) must experience a similar process.
At tne same time Maoism is in crisis in Ceylon in the face of the role of the Chinese bureaucracy. 'The CUP, the major grouping, nas called the JVP counter-revolutionary: but its is interesting that while many of the JVP were still in jail, the Ceylonese government has released its general secretary, Shanmaguthasan, to come openly to London, were he held meetings at which he demanded release ot all those who nad no evicence against them?, The JVP. loosely organised and politically confused tough it was in many respects, represented the revolutionary aspirations or Ceylonese youth, Now too the urganised working class is beginning unce more to grasp au the traditions of struggle which brought it such real gains, in terms of the colonial world in the past half century and more. For Ceylonese militants - tor the revolutionary youth as well as the organised workers - the way forwara lies, not with the class collaborationsits who follow the line of Moscow or Peking, but with the essential communist traditions ana the positions of struggle which the LSSP(R) has always sought to maintain.
I.M.G. 1972 CUNFEKENCE RESOLUTION ON CEYLON The International Marxist Group sends revolutionary greetings to the LSSP(R), Ceylonese section of the Fourth International. We pledge our full support to the struggle of the Ceylonese masses against the brutal repression of the bourgeois Bandaranaike regime, which is aided not only by impertalist We solidarise with all political prisoners and all the victims of repression in Ceylon, especially at this time when the generalised repression has been defined and legalised through the recently.
The International Marxist Group declares that its tasks in respect of the Ceylonese revolution are to materially strengthen the campaign of Ceylonese revolutionaries in Britain against the Ceylonese bourgeois regime, and to intervene in the political struggle of the Ceylonese in Britain in order to win cadres to the Fourth International, who, when they return, will be able to take their direct Victory to the Ceylonese Socialist Revolution!
has no producer goods industry of her own,