LANKA
Statement of the
Central
Committee of the
Revolutionary
Marxist
Party on the
Breakup of the
United
Front
Government
The various letters and statements published in the newspapers relating to the crisis in the United Front Government, that culminated in its break-up on September 2,
1975, with the expulsion of the three Lanka Sama Samaja party (LSSP — Ceylon Equal Society party) ministers from it that day, have not adequately revealed the real reasons for the break-up at this particular juncture.
We do nor believe that it became necessary for Mrs.
Bandaranaike to insist on Dr. N.M. Perera's removal
From the Ministry of Finance because of anything that he may have stated at the LSSP Hartal commemoration meeting on August 12, 1975, concerning the politics of her late husband or her own political decisions relating to the contemplated rake-over of foreign and locally owned company estates.
The letters written to the prime minister, both by Dr.
N.M. Perera and Dr. Colvin R. de Silva before their dismissal from the cabinet had already made it clear that they were willing to continue to serve in Mrs.
Bandaranaike's cabinet, despite their differences with
28 her on certain matters. Dr. N.M. Perera expressed his regret for having said anything that might have hurt Mrs. Bandaranaike in reference to her late husband. Dr. Colvin R. de Silva reminded the prime minister that both he and Dr. N.M. Perera had attended a meeting of a committee of ministers summoned by Minister of Agriculture and Lands Kobbekaduwa on August 4, 1975, in submission to her decision that this Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) minister was to be in charge of the proposed take-over of company owned estates, though Dr. de Silva was to remain minister of plantation industries, and that Dr. de Silva had himself suggested that the minister of agriculture and lands should chair the committee "in the circumstances. The fact that the letters written by the two LSSP ministers did not affect the prime minister's decision to take the portfolio of finance out of the hands of Dr. N.M. Perera was proof enough that she was no longer prepared to let the LSSP ministers serve in her cabinet on the basis of the agreement between the SLFP leadership and the LSSP leadership that had been the basis for the establishment of the United Front Government, as pointed out by Dr. Perera. Thus there can be no question that it was Mrs. Bandaranaike who broke up the United Front Government that she had formed and headed with the active collaboration of the LSSP for the last five years. What is important for the working class and the broad masses to appreciate are the political reasons underlying Mrs, Bandaranaike's decision to break up the United Front Government at this juncture. We have no doubt that the mutual recriminations and conflicts between the SLFP and the LSP that have already begun as a result of the break-up of the United Front Government will be accompanied by disclosures of matters hitherto kept secret between them. Such disclosures may cloud rather than clarify the real issues underlying the break-up. We are of the view that the break-up is the result of the economic crisis in which capitalism finds itself in Sri Lanka, as elsewhere in the capitalist world, in the context of which that section of the capitalist class represented by the SLFP leadership has a pressing need for the consolidation of capitalist rule under a government in which all the key sectors of the administration are held firmly in the hands of that leadership. It is for this reason that the LSSP ministers could not be permitted to be left in control of finance or given control of the plantations to be taken over from foreign and local companies on compensation to be negotiated with them. To have permitted this would have resulted in the LSSP acquiring undue influence within the capitalist state, with enhanced political influence in consequence, from the viewpoint of the SLFP leadership. This is because the plantations remain the main base of the capitalist economy in Sri Lanka and are its principal sources of foreign exchange. The importance of the ministry of finance would itself be further enhanced by the state takeover of company owned estates, for the reason that the
state banks would then play a much more important role in the export trade in plantation products than at present, with increased control over state as well as private investment in consequence. It was when Mrs. Bandaranaike offered alternative portfolios to Dr. Perera, provided he gave up the ministry of finance, and at the same time offered an alternative portfolio to Mr. Leslie Goonewardene, that the LSSP leadership finally realised that they were to be reduced from a role of service to one of servitude in the cabinet. To have submitted to this would have reduced them to playing no politically recognisable role at all as members of a distinct political party. It was at that stage only that they finally decided to say "NO" to Mrs. Bandaranaike, courting their dismissal from the cabinet which then followed. The various attempts said to have been made by the Communist party and certain groups within the SLFP itself to "preserve the unity of the United Front" were doomed to end in failure. The leadership of the SLFP, the dominant party within the United Front, was no longer prepared to maintain the United Front with its main left component, the LSSP, on any basis that the LSSP leadership could make out to be even of some political benefit to itself. There is good reason to believe that the capitalist backers of the SLFP, and particularly the bigger ones said to be wielding a strong influence with Mrs. Bandaranaike and her son, played a significant role in bringing about the ouster of the LSSP from the positions it held in the govemment. The allegations of Dr. N.M. Perera and the LSSP to that effect only serve to establish that he and his other LSSP colleagues in the United Front Government were permitted to function within it only for so long as they served not only the interests of the capitalist state but also those sections of the capitalist class represented by the SLFP leadership. The policies pursued by the former LSSP ministers were thus in conformity with the "Bandaranaike policies, "in pursuance of which the Common Programme of the United Front was expressly declared to have been drawn up and signed in 1968 by the SLFP, the LSSP, and the CP. At no time did the LSSP leadership, right up to the moment of its expulsion from the government, declare its unwillingness to confinue to pursue those policies. They have sought to make out to their own following, however, that in so doing they were really pursuing a "tactic" within a capitalist government. They will now have to explain to their following whether they have succeeded in that tactic. The LSSP leaders now cannot make out that they have been betrayed by Mrs. Bandaranaike. The SLFP leadership has not changed its class character; nor can there be any doubt that Mrs. Bandaranaike took the LSSP leaders into the government to serve the capital ist class in such manner as the SLFP desired and for so long as their services were needed. The LSSP leaders, as well as all those who may be interested in what has happened to them, would now do well to note what the United Secretariat of the Fourth International had to say to the Central Committee of the LSSP in a communication dated April 23, 1964, on the question of coalition with the SLFP, which the majority of the Central Committee then contemplated: "It is necessary to declare at this stage, quite categorically, that we oppose our party entering any coalition government wherein decisive control is held by a party that has proved fime and again its reluctance to move against the capitalist order, and furthermore has demonstrated in action its essentially anti-working class character. We do not believe that the character of the SLFP is determined by the declarations of one or another of Ts individual leaders. Its character has been revealed by its whole history during its years in power. In this sense we see no reason for changing our characterization of it as a party essentially functioning within the framework of capitalism and utilized by certain layers of the bourgeoisie as a possible bulwark against the growing forces of the working class. Any form of coalition with such a party, as long as it remains the dominant majority within such a coalition, can only lead to the immobilization of the left in advance and its becoming itself g target for the growing resentment of the masses. (our emphasis) Today, not only the United National party (UNP) but even some of the erstwhile colleagues of the LSSP leaders in the SLFP are making it appear that it was Dr. N.M. Perera, as minister of finance, who was primarily responsible for atfacks on mass living standards carried out by the United Front Government during his tenure of office. This is undoubtedly a distortion of the true position. There can be no question as to the responsibility of the entire SLFP leadership, as well as that of
Prime Minister Bandaranaikr
SRI LANKA the CP, for the policies, financial and otherwise, that have been pursued by the United Front Government. What we have to point out is that the LSSP, together with the SLFP and the CP, has also been responsible for direct attacks on the human and democratic rights of the people under the Emergency that still prevails. The suppression and virtual liquidation of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in 1971 is especially noteworthy in this connection. ( It was neither on the issue of the defence of mass living standards, nor on the issue of the defence of the democratic rights of the people, nor for the restoration of the fundamental right of workers to strike, that the breakup of the United Front has taken place. It is no more than an outcome of sectional differences within the United Front Government on the distribution of power within the capitalist state, and of the political Influence and privileges derived by those who wield such power. What will be the consequences? For a time, there is bound to be dismay and confusion in the ranks of the LSSP and amongst its political following. This will affect the trade unions and the student and other organisations controlled by the LSSP, with demoralisation in and defections from them, There will also be considerable dismay and disheartening amongst those supporters of the CP and the SLFP itself who believed that the United Front Government was anti-imperialist and "progressive" because of the participation of the LSSP and the CP in it. The shattering of the United Front by Mrs. Bandaranaike, with the subsequent endorsement of her action by the Executive Committee of the SLFP, will serve to dispel the illusions of such people. The Communist party, in any case, will find it difficult without the assistance of the LSSP, to continue to maintain the myth of the progressive character of the so-called national bourgeoisie said to be represented by the SLFP. They will now have to decide whether to promote "the unity of all progressive forces" from inside the government or from outside it. Our position has always been that the SLFP is a capitalist party, though it has a mass middle class and some 30 working class following, and even though there are certain differences between it and the UNP, which is a more conservative capitalist party, in relation to imperialism and in regard to state control in the capitalist economy. When the LSSP first entered into a coalition government with the SLFP under Mrs. Bandaranaike's leadership in June 1964, those of us who then belonged to the LSSP broke away from it and condemned that action as a betrayal of the working class and the left movement. We pointed out then that Mrs. Bandaranaike had turned to the LSSP leadership for its assistance in the mainfenance of capitalist rule in this country, as the SLFP leadership had found it difficult to do so by itself in the face of rising working class militancy and mass discontent at that time. Today, the fact that the SLFP leadership has dispensed with the services of the LSSP leadership in the government therefore causes us no dismay and poses no dilemma. For all those sections of the masses that had realised the counterrevolutionary and essentially reactionary character of the United Front Government in relation to the working class and the broad masses before it was broken up the task continues to be to come together in a united front for the building of a new mass movement of the left. This is an essential task not only for them but also for all sections of the moss following of the three parties that constituted the United Front, There is no other way for them to defend their interests than by the building of such a movement of the left anew. This can be done only on an anticapitalist basis, and only under a leadership that bases itself firmly upon the working class and the development of the class struggle for the overthrow of copitalist rule and the establishment of a workers and peasants government. In today's context, such a movement must necessarily struggle for the ending of the Emergency, the repeal of all repressive legislation, including the Public Security Act under which the Emergency is maintained, and the Criminal Justice Commissions Act, as well as the release of all political prisoners held in custody under either of those two reactionary laws, the restoration of the right to strike, and the restoration of the human rights and democratic freedoms of the masses to act in defence of their interests against copitalist exploitation and oppression in any form. Colombo, September 8, 1975
More than 1,000 demonstrators marched on the American Embassy in Panama City September 23 to protest aggressive declarations by various U.S. officials about the "canal zone, " which is still occupied by Americon troops. Organized by the Fracción Socialista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Socialist Faction, a Trotskyist organization), the FER (Revolutionary Students Federation), the Guaykucho, and various high-school and university associations, particularly the law students, the demonstration was the largest since the coup d'etat of 1968. The demonstrators marched through the city, passing in front of the seat of the government, and held a meeting at Santa And park in the oldest part of the city, historically the scene of many demonstrations. Slogans were chanted against the continued American occupation of the canal zone, and there were some slogans denouncing the government of General Omar Torrijos for its refusal to wage a real struggle to gain control over the canal. From Santa And park the demonstrators marched to the U.S. Embassy. The National Guard did not attack the demonstrators during a confrontation at the Embassy, but tear-gas grenades were launched as the demonstrators were dispersing. The American ambassador complained that the Guard had not been sufficiently energetic in repressing the militants. For their part, the demonstrators urged the Guard to turn their guns on the occupiers in the canal zone and not on the people. Among the major slogans of the demonstration were: No Yankee bases in Panamal No bases for training criminals| Joint defense: betrayal of the people Rice
PANAMA