By Tony Richardson

Scan page 6

The Bandaranaike 1964 coalition government. LSSP leader N.M. Perera is stood next to Mrs. Bandaranaik: "tail endism". Each time the workers went into action, the LSSP leadership took a new turn towards the left"

So already in 1956 the supposed "Trotskyist leadership" of the Ceylon masses could be seen to be dragging along reluctantly behind the spontaneous struggles of the working class.

Yet instead of battling out the lessons of this clear advanced warning of the 1964 betrayal, Pablo and Mandel consoled themselves with the "positive" side of the LSSP's opportunism.

In other words the material impact of the LSSP's false positions was in no way understood by the Pabloites: they saw the question of programme and perspective as simply a question of right or wrong ideas.

The LSSP's ideas certainly were wrong, as was shown graphically in 1957. On the invitation of Chou En Lai an LSSP delegation visited China.

Although the LSSP was affiliated to the International Secretariat, leading IC member Peng She-tse wrote to them asking them to raise the issue of the hundreds of Chinese Trotskyists imprisoned by LS. went ward enter mentby on Ma apolor impor ment, years betray taken towarı once worki LSSP from i Yel consci was b tunist And y failed from 1 of pris But Mao's Stalinist regime.

Not only did the LSSP fail to raise the issue, but they issued fulsome praise to their Stalinist hosts, proclaiming China "the stronghold of Asia"

But there was worse to come. By 1960 the LSSP was voting for the Throne Speech and for the Budget of the newly elected Bandaranaike government.

Coalition plan

SP leader N.M. Perera further and put fora proposal that they a coalition govern-which was rejected ly a narrow majority. ndel's retrospective By again minimises the tance of this developwhich took place four prior to the actual ral: big step had been from wavering [sic!] ds betrayal. However again the Ceylonese ng class saved the leadership temporarily ignominy." t again the supposed ious "Marxist" party aled out by its opporadaptation to a new of workers' struggles. ret again the Pabloites to draw the lessons the preceding betrayal nciple. t worse still Mandel's apt ma the LS bac inf Lal talı bet LS Lei mu COT refi inc bec ant and the ma nor wit Wo LS! Trc The real ent imr lear Her OPI whi Sec in 1 aga : 134 proach suggests that the jor question involved in : 1964 events was the 'nominy" suffered by the SP, rather than the setok the L'SSP's treachery licted upon the Sri nkan working class. There were other telle signs of impending trayal prior to 1964. In 63, in particular, the SP formed a "United ft Front" with the Comunist Party and the MEP. In a particularly squalid npromise the LSSP used to argue for the lusion of . . the union resenting Tamil workers ¡ause this would have agonised the nationalist 1 racialist leadership of : MEP.

Still no attempt was de by the. Pabloites-. ~ politically "reunified" h the US Socialist rkers Party-to force the SP towards the path of ›tskyist principle.

B 'International" ction to 1964.

The LSSP's betrayal in ering the coalition was nediately seized upon by ding IC. member Gerry aly as evidence of the portunist politics on ich the "United" retariat had been formed 1963.

In defending themselves inst Healy's criticisms,

Scan page 7

Perera as Chancellor introducing his second, viciously anti-wo the USFI feel obliged to attribute to him a charge that he did not make-in order to disprove it.

Thus Mandel wrongly claims that Healy accuses the USFI and IS leadership of not having criticised the LSSP leadership. Mandel then goes on to list instances where they did make criticisms.

Formal points

But the question is not whether a few formal points of criticism are made-but whether issues of principle are battled out to a conclusion within the movement.

The USFI of course to this day defend in their talk of "socialist unity" the position that a dividing line can be drawn only after a betrayal has taken place.

But in the case of the LSSP the betrayal was a present factor in party politics for eight years before the event: for the idea to become a fact it was only necessary for the leadership to win a vote!

It is therefore no answer for Mandel to quote public criticisms made by the Pabloite Sixth World Congress (1960) of the LSSP's support for Bandaranaike's Throne Speech and Budget.

Because that formal criticism was not part of a life and death battle within the IS and the LSSP itself to reverse its opportunist and treacherous positions.

Healy in fact quotes a 1960 IS document which virtually echoes the LSSP's position, declaring that it was possible:

, "to permit practical noclash agreements with the [bourgeois] Sri Lanka Freedom Party".

Mandel shows signs of similar confusion when in his 1964 article he argues that the conditions were wrong to offer Bandaranaike's party "United Front"

The "right" conditions he feels would be as in 1917 when Lenin offered United Front to social democrat Kerensky against a rising by reactionary general Kornilov.

But the reality is that the United Front tactic has always been seen by the Communist movement as a front between workers' parties against a common capitalist enemy, aimed at winning over the mass support of such parties to The deal with Bandaranaike could only have been an alliance with a capitalist party against the working class.

The USFI's confusion on the tactic of the United Front also emerges in their approach to the LSSP's "United Left Front" with the Stalinists.

This "Front" is seen not as a means of breaking workers from the Stalinists but as "establ shing its own political powe : on a genuine socialist basis' -creating the illusion that the Stalinists would go along with genuine policies.

The USFI's willingness to turn a blind eye to the LSSP's capitulation to the racialism of the MEP is also clear.

Nationalist

Even when the LSSP changed its policy from one of defending the Tamil workers to the nationalist line of arguing that their citizenship was a matter for "negotiation" with the Indian government, the USFI found an excuse for it, stating:

"We recognise that there is nothing wrong in the principle of negotiations between India and Ceylon on the subject."

The criticisms that were made, therefore, were soft to the point of being little more than gestures.

it proves little for Mandel to ask where Healy raised criticisms of the LSSP prior to 1964. Healy was a leader of the IC-the LSSP was a part of Mandel's International Secretariat. And Mandel knew what was going on.

For instance in 1960 a resolution written by LSSP leader Perera arrived at the IS centre in Paris, declaring:

"Steps must be taken to bring about a programmatic agreement with the SLFP with a view to forming a joint govenment." [emph. added].

Reformist view

Mandel also knows full well that the LSSP had a completely reformist view of the capitalist state, and argued that Sri Lanka was "exceptional" case in which a parliamentary road was possible.

This is in argued in an astounding .1960 LSSP resolution:

"And parliamentary struggle is also a struggle for power. Universal franchise does boost the parliamentary struggle. It is no accident of history that in no country where universal franchise obtains has there been a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class.

"Though mass struggles leading to the overthrow of capitalism are conceivable, in point of fact such situations have never yet arisen, because the franchise has placed in the hands of the workers a vehicle for achieving power."

Yet Mandel argues that the LSSP had correct basic positions! And then accuses Healy of "lies"!

No discussion.

The weaknesses of the LSSP were well-known but played down by Mandel and Pablo between 1953 and 1964 for factional reasons.

They wished to present themselves as the continuity of Trotskyism-and the LSSP was their biggest and strongest section. They could not afford a fight.

And after the 1963 «reunification" the pressure to hush up the events in Sri Lanka were stronger than ever. To open up a discussion on the LSSP's process of degeneration would reopen all the unresolved differences between the US SWP and the International Secretariat forces.

This is not speculation on our part: it is clearly documented. Early in 1964 the Secretariat of the USFI wrote a letter responding to a request for a discussion on Ceylon-a few months before the betrayal.

Having described the reunification, the Secretariat went on:

"This required a certain organisational relaxation for a period and a serious effort to ameliorate internal disputes in the various sections and in the disputes inherited from the past |!]-in order to help every area in the common problem of making a fresh start.

"All this was explained and agreed upon unanimously by the delegates who participated in the Reunification Congress.

"The attitude of the United Secretariat towards the situation in Ceylon as elsewhere in the movement has been governed by these broad considerations laid down by the Reunification "The United Secretariat 'in essence' as Comrade Anderson puts it, has not modified in the least the criticisms of the LSSP made by the Seventh World Congress. What it has done is to place confidence in the capacity of the leadership of the LSSP to prove responsive to these criticisms.

"The letter addressed to the LSSP was not intended as some kind of public pillorying or as a challenge to pitch into a factional brawl, Comrade Anderson appears believe.

"The criticisms which it contained were made with complete good will by the assembled representatives of the world Trotskyist movement and in full confidence that they would be given thoughtful consideration by the LSSP.

"The United Secretariat has sought to maintain this loyal and comradely attitude towards the Ceylonese section, while fuenliler antianarladrian thnt its members tend to sympathise politically with the left wing of the LSSP.

"However the United Secretariat feels that it would be wrong for it as a body representing the movement as a whole to brush aside the declarations of the majority of the LSSP leadership and refuse to grant them the time needed to prove in action the sincerity of their stand in relation to the United Left Front and the good faith of their assurances.

"It would mean first of all to deliberately heat up the atmosphere in the LSSP by injecting the sharpest kind of factionalism; secondly, to. exacerbate matters still further by transferring the dispute to the public arena.

"A divisive policy of this kind would put in jeopardy if not destroy, fraternal relations between the United Secretariat and the leadership of the LSSP. The end result could be highly injurious to the Fourth International and to the LSSP, including • its left wing, which has absolutely no interest to put in question the unity of the party through the creation of undue internal friction and tension from any source."

Of course the outcome of this policy of "leave well alone" was that in a matter of months the "dispute" had reached the public arena and the name of Trotskyism had. been tainted by the treachery of the LSSP.

There is of course no guarantee that even a correct policy frøm the LSSP could have avoided the blows inflicted by Bandaranaike after 1964 let alone led a successful revolution at that point.

But by failing to forewarn the working class of the dangers posed by Bandaranaike and by lending credibility to her rule by joining a miserable Popular Front coalition the LSSP carried through a crucial The Sri Lankan working class had effectively been sacrificed on the altar of "reunification"

The June 1964 Conference When the fatal LSSP Conference took place the leadership received 507 votes for their coalition policy. There were two opposing positions.

The " minority which formed the LSSP(R) received 159 votes, and walked out of the conference.

But the "centre" grouping which received 75 votes was not against a coalition with Bandaranaike-they favoured the coalition including not merely the LSSP but the whole "United Left Front"

The USFI leadership expelled the three members who took jobs as ministers in Bandaranaike's government, and suspended the 584 other majority supporters. But it did nothing about those who supported the "centre's" coalition policy.

Conclusion.

The 1964 betrayal is an unmistakeable indictment of the USFI's line of avoiding a sharp clash on programme with the LSSP.

It shows the dangers of any attempt to unite simply those forces that "have not crossed class lines" without any attempt to clarity the programmatic basis and method on which each section operates.

And it raises the question of how many more Sti Lankans are developing within the USFI todayespecially when the lessons of the 1964 betrayal, like those of every historical problem of the post war Fourth International is virtually a proscribed topic of study • or discussion within the USFl, brushed aside by a glib phrase or wave of the hand.

In raising the issue today our political objective is to stress the necessity to discuss the history of the Trotskyist movement and the programme and political method of sections that have not yet "crossed class lines"

Only in this way car the principles and method of the Trotskyist Transitional Programme be reaffirmed in theory and in practice as the basis for the reconstructed Fourth International.

Scan page 8

Somewhat belatedly it has been recognised in this country that the major developments in technology over the next decades will

----- pull-quotes -----

components of the united movement-especially