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The Trotskyite Movement in Ceylon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Calvin A. Woodward
Calvin A. Woodward
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

POOR old Trotsky,” Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike once remarked, “his unhappy ghost seems to have found its only refuge in this country.” While Ceylon is not the only refuge of Trotsky, it is certainly the most hospitable, for nowhere else has his image inspired so successful a following. On two occasions since Ceylon has become independent, one or another of the Trotskyite parties has acted as the principal opposition to the government, and in one instance one of them governed Ceylon in coalition with a party of the Center. Ambitious, dedicated, expressive of the needs of the people, and possessing perhaps the most astute and distinguished leadership of any of the parties in Ceylon now that Bandaranaike has unfortunately been assassinated, the Trotskyite movement seems to have installed itself as a permanent part of Ceylonese politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , January 1962 , pp. 307 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1962

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References

1 Quoted in New York Times, March 11, 1959, p. 5.

2 Colvin R. de Silva, the leading Trotskyite theoretician, often stresses the fact that the Trotskyite movement sprang from the needs of the Ceylonese masses. On the other hand, “The authority whom the Ceylon Communist Party has to satisfy and obey,” de Silva remarked in 1950, “is not the masses of Ceylon, but the Soviet bureaucracy functioning through the Cominform” (Left Disunity, Lanka Sama Samaja Publication, Colombo, 1950, p. 19).

3 Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation, Princeton, N.J., 1960, p. 125.

4 This deviation from theory and the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union form the crux of de Silva's denunciation of Stalinism (op.cit., and Their Politics and Ours, Lanka Sama Samaja Publication, Colombo, 1954). It is also the basis of Leslie Gunawar-dena's denunciation of the Third International (The Third International Condemned, Lanka Sama Samaja Publication, Colombo, 1940).

5 Philip Gunawardena, another leader of the Trotskyite faction in the LSSP, studied at the University of Wisconsin and received his training in Marxism from Scott Nearing.

6 Wriggins, , op.cit., pp. 125–26.Google Scholar

7 It must also be mentioned that the LSSP was not in any way financially dependent on the Comintern. As de Silva proudly remarked in 1959, “We never got a penny from the Comintern. We preserved our financial and ideological independence.” Quoted in New York Times, March II, 1959, p. 5.

8 While the Trotskyites have been far more successful than the Communists in organizing the estate workers, most of the estate workers belong to non-Marxist unions.

9 According to the New York Times, the Trotskyite unions have a membership of one million (February 25, 1959, p. 7).

10 Op.cit., p. 126.

11 According to Roth, Andrew, “In Ceylon, the left is considered more nationalistic, less corrupt, and more interested in popular welfare” (“Is Ceylon Independent?” The Nation, Vol. 167, September 1948).Google Scholar

12 Their Politics and Ours, p. 19.

13 Quoted in New York Times, March 11, 1959, p. 5.

14 The Legislatures of Ceylon, 1928–1948, London, Faber and Faber, 1950, p. 138.

15 Cultural factors have made it difficult for the Trotskyites to produce such a leader. According to Wriggins, a “deep distrust of power” and a resistance to allowing any one individual to gain too much power are “deeply embedded” in Ceylon's culture and have militated against the efforts of any of the Trotskyite leaders to dominate the movement. This same feature of Ceylon's culture has inhibited the rigid organization of any of the Ceylonese parties and has prevented even such outstanding national leaders as S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and D. S. Senanayake from gaining complete control of their parties. The Trotskyite movement, however, has had the added organizational difficulties that are inherent in an ideological orientation and a pluralistic leadership.

16 In 1952, Ivor Jennings noted that the LSSP “contains enough leaders of ability to form a government at least as efficient as that formed by the United National Party” (“Politics in Ceylon,” Far Eastern Survey, 1952, p. 180).

17 For biographies of these men, see News, Ceylon Daily, Parliament of Ceylon 1947, and Parliament of Ceylon 1956, Colombo, 1947 and 1957.Google Scholar

18 A. Vaidialingham, Samasamajism, Colombo, 1940.

19 Except for the fact that the decisions of the party were reached in the organization of the party itself, rather than in parliament, the LSSP greatly resembled Max Weber's “party of notables” (“Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth, H. H. and Wright Mills, C., eds., From Max Weber, New York, 1958, p. 100).Google Scholar

20 Op.cit., p. 127.

21 Their Politics and Ours, p. 28.

22 Quoted in New York Times, November 23, 1957, p. 5.

23 Quoted in ibid., November 25, 1957, p. 10.

24 By D. Dahanayake, quoted in ibid., May 8, 1959, p. 4.

25 Op.cit., p. 131.

26 Ibid., p. 142.

27 Left Disunity, p. 9.

28 Ibid., p. 10.

29 Ibid., p. 17. De Silva says that Lenin “entrusted Trotsky with the task of organizing the fight against this process of bureaucratic usurpation” (ibid., p. 14).

30 Ibid., p. 3.

31 As Saul Rose observes, the rise of the SLFP was “electorally damaging” to the Trotskyites because “it provided an avenue for expression of non-Marxist Sinhalese opposition to the UNP” (Socialism in Southern Asia, New York, 1959, p. 86).