PRESENT SITUATION IN CEYLON UNDER THE UNP
BY. Edmund Samarakkody
The return of the capitalist UNP [United National Party] and its allies to governmental office could not have been unexpected. The contest for the control of parliament was between two capitalist combinations -- the SLFP [Sri-Lanka Freedom party] and its allies versus the UNP and its allies. . The stronger capitalist combination, the UNP and its allies, have succeeded in winning a majority of seats, ; 7 Despite the fact that so-called anti-UNP governments. puled forthe last nine years, the UNP came out of the general election as the largest single party and, with the help of its allies, the MEP [Maha jana Eksath Peramuna ] of Philip Gunawardene, the JVP (an extreme Sinhala racialist group), the Federal party, the Tamil Congress and the SLSFP. [Sri Lanka Socialist Freedom party] of C. P. de Silva, is now in control of parliament, This is proof that the forces of capitalism, far from getting-weaker have in fact been strengthened under the rule of the SLFP and its allies, the MEP and the reformist LSSP [Lanka Sama Samaja party]. This was a consequence of the policies of the SLFP governments Since 1956,
Whilst mouthing phrases against the capitalists and the reactionaries, the SLFP government took every possible step to maintain and strengthen the capitalist economy and capitalist class rule. In numerous ways private capitalists were systematically assisted in developing their enterprises. A new sector of the manufacturing capitalists were given special assistance to set up factories and other manufactur ing enterprises.
. , Whilst the capitalists and the forces of capitalism received aid and special protection, the working class and the anticapitalist forces were suppressed in numerous ways. A-wage freeze was rigorously enforced as government policy, and unrestricted exploitation of the wage earners by the capitalists was permitted. Wage struggles were resisted-and broken up by police and military action.
The reactionary forces of Sinhala racialism and Buddhist clericalism were consciously encouraged by the SLFP governments. The Tamil minority and plantation workers of Indian origin were severely discriminated against and therefore driven to seek salvation through Tamil communalist and capitalist leaders like Chelvanayagam, Thondaman and Ponnampalam. In the situation the capitalist forces emerged with greater strength than before and asserted themselves through the older and more experienced party of the capitalists -- the UNP rather than through the SLFP, the more recent alternative party of the capitalists,
‘The defeat of the UNP government in 1956 should have been the
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beginning of a vigorous development and the strengthening of the anticapitalist forces. This was hardly the case. Whilst the tradeunion movement registered a definite growth, working-class struggles to improve or maintain their living standards were allowed to drag on and peter out in separate actions without co-ordination and without perspective of developing the anticapitalist struggle. The reformist leaders of the working class functioned within the framework of support of the bourgeois SLFP government and prevented the class struggle growing towards a confrontation with the capitalist» class and the capitalist governments. .
However, despite the desires of their reformist leaders, the organised working class took positive steps towards preparation for elass action, Unity of the: trade-union movement through the Joint Council of Trade Unions for struggle for the 21 common demands was a meaningful step towards a coming struggle.
It was at this moment that. the LSSP reformists, Messers Colvin.R. de Silva, N.M.Perera and Leslie Goonewardene, supported ‘by the Keunemans of the Communist party (Moscow), betrayed and dis- . rupted this movement for struggle by entering into coalition with the capitalist SLFP government.
The expected happened. Class struggle gave way to class collaboration. The capitalist SLFP government and the employers ‘continued to enforce their wage freeze. The capitalist class and all capitalist parties regained their morale. The organised work~= ing class was thrown into confusion; and disunity once again returned to their ranks. And now while the working class and the anticapitalist forces remained disoriented, a UNP-led government is in control of parliament.
The UNP-led government has emerged not without difficulty. Only a combination of several capitalist groups with divergent aims has helped the UNP to set up a government under their leadership, Despite their Sinhala chauvinism and Buddhist clericalism the UNP found it necessary and possible to seek and obtain the support of the Tamil communalist Federal party to form a government. Politically bankrupt and discredited individuals and both Sinhala and Tamil racialists have found places in the UNP-led government. Obviously it is a desperate effort to survive as a government that has brought such divergent and opposing elements together. Insta~ ° bility is the key note of this UNP-led government. This is once | again the latest manifestation of the crisis of capitalist class rule in Ceylon flowing from the crisis of the capitalist economy. The crisis of parliament is only the reflection of this continuing oriats of the _ economy.
Within the capitalist framework there is no’ solution to the pressing problems of the people. Despite their promises to the — people and their own expectations, the UNP and their allies are as bankrupt in their policies as were the SLFP and their allies,
Foreign aid and assistance from the imperialists will have their limits. No doubt attempts will be made to win over the workers and toiling people by minor concessions and relief of a temporary nature. The basic questions of the wage freeze, unemployment, the cost of living, the acute housing conditions will remain as before. Despite their talk of preserving democracy, the UNP and its allies, through their new government, will be compelled to use naked force ~- the police and the army to enforce class rule. The use of emergency powers to suppress the workers and the toilers will not be far off, The UNP=led government will continue more efficiently and effectively the exploitation of the workers, peasants and the toiling people in the interests of the capitalists and the imperialists.
There is no remedy through parliament for the workers and toilers. The so-called easy road to socialism through unprincipled parliamentary combinations with alien class parties has led the workers and toilers further away from the goal of socialism than they were ever before. To wait .in the expectation of another coalition ~ with the bourgeoisie and further experimentation on the road of class collaboration can only bring further calamity to the workers and toilers, The hard and difficult road of class struggle, in which all the exploited sections of the people, led by the working class, wage a relentless class war leading to the overthrow of the capitalist class is the one and only way to achieve socialism. It is now necessary for the workers and toilers to abandon all faith in parliamentary reformism and take the road of revolutionary struggle. The reorientation of the working class and toilers in this perspective is the need of the hour.
It is imperative for the working class and toilers to prepare to meet the coming offensive of the capitalist. class and the UNP-led government against them to further lower their living conditions by a continued wage freeze and later by even wage cuts. Defensive action against the capitalist class and the capitalist govermment would inevitably develop into the working class-led offensive against the capitalist class enemy. To achieve this new orientation the working class and the toilers must break all links, with bourgeois © and petty~bourgeois parties, The mobilisation of the workers and toilers through United Front of all working-class parties and organisations in the perspective of mass struggle against the capitalist class and capitalist UNP-led government is imperative and urgent for the coming confrontation with the forces of capitalism, The unstable and even tottering capitalist-class rule in Ceylon can before long be overthrown, With the necessary preparation, organisation and the determination of the workers and toilers to struggle, the overthrow of capitalism in this country can become a reality,
24
THE ALGERIAN REVOLUTION AGAIN IN MOVEMENT
By Henri Dumoulin
Algiers, Algeria
March 23 is more than a historic anniversary; it is "the November 1 of our workers and peasants." This was Ben Bella's way of putting it in a speech March 20 at a meeting in Algiers organized by the Federation of Greater Algiers of the Front de Libération Nationale [FLN], on the second anniversary of the March decrees.
March 23 is the November 1 of Algerian socialism. Just as _ the launching by the Algerian nationalists of the armed anticolon=lalist struggle in the Aurés mountains on the night of November 1, | 1954, sounded the death knell of colonialism in this country, so the instituting of self-management on March 23, 1963, marked a decisive step along the road of socialist revolution.
Has the socialist revolution been achieved then in Algeria? Of course not. And no one says so except perhaps bureaucrats or bourgeois hypocrites who undoubtedly fear its development.
Is a bourgeoisie still to be found in Algeria? The bourgeoisie and the bureaucrats would like to have the workers overlook it. But if we turn to the Algiers Charter (the documents adopted . by the first congress of the FLN party April 16-21, 1964), we find:
"Altogether, the bourgeois layers, properly called, do not exceed 50,000, that is, less than one-fortieth of the active population [of 1962].
"The petty bourgeoisie, a potential source of antisocialist, bourgeois ideology, occupy a more important place in agriculture, in retail trade, among the artisans, in subordinate technical and office occupations, etc.... Altogether, about one-eighth of the active population.... ;
. "Since independence, a new social layer, forming at an accel-~ erated rate, threatens to strengthen the instinctively antisocialist pressure of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This is forming in the | apparatus of the administration, the state and the economy due to . the feeling of strength arising from the exercise of power.
"This force, through its position in the state machinery and the economy can prove to be considerably more dangerous to the demoeratic, socialist evolution of the Revolution than any other social force in the country at present."
The contradictions and conflicts developing between these retrogressive layers and the workers in the towns is the fundamental
explanation for the wave of strikes that broke out last December and January, especially in Algiers. [See World. OutLook January 15.]-
Although mainly aimed at the foreign and Algerian bosses in _the private sector, these strikes, which also affected the national~ ized sector, put a spotlight on the position of the “bureaucratic bourgeoisie in formation in the apparatus of the administration, the state and the economy." (The terminology is from the Algiers Charter.) The posture of certain bureaucrats in the party and tradeunion leadership was also illuminated in a clear way.
The retrogressive forces sought by all means -- from persuasion to repression -- to stop the movement and to impose a compromise. The compromises, in general, by no means met the economic demands of the workers, and did not put an end to the struggie. . The workers turned to another avenue to demonstrate their discontent-and militancy -- the preparations for the second congress of the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens -- General Union of Algerian Workers. | - .
We will return to the debates that occurred at the congress. But a series of preparatory meetings took place, not only in the towns, but likewise in a:series of self-managed farms in the social-~ ist sector. The daily press reflected these but faintly. - The discussions, however, were quite animated. We will indicate some of the issues. a .
The projected "Bylaws of the UGTA" (published in Révolution et Travail, February 18) stated: "The members of the Executive Commission of the UGTA are elected for two years by the Congress” and cannot be replaced. They must be members of the FLN.
A worker of the EGA [Electricité et Gaz d'Algérie] in Oran, declared with regard to this: "At bottom what is.posed is the .problem of revolutionary democracy. We suffered ourselves, in our organization, from sectarianism. If we are able to congratulate ourselves today on our accomplishments, it is because we were able to fight for a correct application of genuine democracy. This has enabled us to widen our base, to gain fresh energy to apply the Algiers Charter in life.
"There are those in the structure (members of the UGTA and of the party) who have shown their incapacity; others outside the structure have shown their determination to apply the Algiers Charter in daily life. m
The Conseil National des Cheminots [National Council of Railway Workers] at a meeting that ended March 19 proposed to substitute the following for the sentence about the necessity of belonging to the FLN in order to be elected to the Executive Council: "The members of the EC must be genuinely revolutionary militants’ meeting the standards defined by the Algiers Charter."
26 —
Many. workers, particularly workers in the towns and permanent workers in the self-managed farms, fear the too dangerous development of a bureaucratic current, at least within a part of the leadership and the party apparatus. They are afraid that these bureaucrats and their cliques may become dangerous. allies of the "bureaucratic bourgeoisie in formation in the apparatus of the state, " referred to in the Algiers Charter.
Through experiments undertaken by the permanent agricultural workers, often in conjunction with similar efforts of their comrades in the towns, and also through contacts created by volunteer brigades on Socialist Sundays, in which city workers go out to give a hand to their comrades on the self-managed farms, certain steps have been taken along the road of unity between the city. workers (nationalized or self-managed industries, as well as semipublic and private industries) and the permanent workers of the self-managed farms,
An unknown remains: the broad mass of small fellahs (owners of very small plots of land) and unemployed, or semi-employed rural workers (landless peasants, hired hands of the Algerian owners or the self-managed sector). .
Illiterate for the most part, they have not yet made their voice heard.on the political scene. They were not represented at the congress of the Travailleurs de la Terre [Workers on the Zand]. Ben Bella, in regretting this, clearly stressed the fact,
But it must never be forgotten that if they are probably less advanced in understanding the need for a social and socialist revo- . lution (particularly, of course, among the small fellahs), their support in the nationalist struggle was essential. The final resolution of the congress of the Travailleurs de la Terre reaffirmed this: "The peasant masses in the so-called 'traditional' sector of agriculture constituted the main base of the liberatory action of our glorious ALN [Armée de Libération Nationale] and suffered especially under the colonial regime and the repression. "
For them only a radical agrarian reform offers a way of overcoming misery and abysmal poverty, at least partially. (Such a reform, announced long ago, has been postponed from time to time. At present it is projected for the summer of 1965, after the harvest.
It is significant that the permanent workers on the selfmanaged farms voted for this resolution and are advocating an agrarian reform. But it must be understood that its application or lack of it depends not only on the degree of mobilization and organization of the poor peasantry in the hinterlands, but also on the understanding, the militancy and the dynamism of the proletarian vanguard in the towns and countryside.
If a resumption of the mobilization of this proletarian vanguard is now being felt, another category of particularly exploited -
persons in Algeria, the women, have also begun to raise their voices. A series of things show that this is not entirely spontaneous but is due to a group of dynamic women who are trying, not without success, to organize a movement, demanding in particular full and complete participation in the national organizations, in all progressive demonstrations, the complete application of the Algiers Charter, the struggle against the traditional practice. of the dowry, freedom of choice in marriage. ,
This movement. began naturally in the big urban centers and has not. yet gone beyond this limit; but the demonstration on March 8 in Algiers, in conjunction with the observance of International Woman's Day, when several thousand Algerian women massed in the streets despite the ironic quips and stupid jeers of many men, marks the.end of one phase and the beginning of another,
The number of workers who came to Algiers March 20 to commemorate the second anniversary of the: march decrees (200,000 according to the March 21 Le Peuple) constitutes fresh proof of this new mtlitancy of the toiling masses. Here again the women were well represented. _ a
Similar demonstrations occurred in other cities, particularly in Constantine,
The UGTA congress inevitably confirmed all these tendencies. The renewed mobilization of the masses strongly affected the deliberations. In fact, the pressure of the workers, their dissatisfac~ tion with the incipient bureaucratic tendencies in the unions and elsewhere was so strong that the congress ended by completely sweep-= ing out the entire previous UGTA leadership. Not a single member of the executive committee was re-elected. A number of rank-and-file militants were brought into the leadership, whose general secretary Mouloud Oumeziane made an appéal for consolidation of self~management and for unity between the workers and peasants.
The pressure of the masses was also apparent in the consideration given to the woman question at the congress, the inclusion of two women workers in the new executive committee and the fact that twenty-three women delegates took the floor during the congress,
The congress adopted a resolution insisting on the necessity to carry out the next phase of the agrarian revolution by limiting the property of Algerian landowners. The resolution calls for the building of peasant unions, including small peasants and sharecroppers, and calls on the workers to mobilize against any attempt of the landowners to sabotage the next phase of the agrarian reform,
It also calls for clearing out all corrupt elements and former collaborators with the colonial administration from the state and party apparatus. It demands consolidation of the self-management system, the strengthening of the public as opposed to the pri-+
_vate sector of industry, closer integration of the mass of workers in the general management of the economy. It calls upon trade-union leaders to always use persuasion and never authoritarian methods in educating the workers of the public sector in. a "mentality of selfmanagement" as against the old “mentality of wage earners."
In all these points, the resolutions as well as the outcome of the debates at the congress undoubtedly strengthened the left wing of the FLN which is opposed to bureaucracy and wants to push the Algerian Revolution another step ahead. This is also reflected in the general resolution adopted at the congress which explicitly named the bureaucracy as among the reactionary social layers against which it is necessary to struggle. .
Ben Bella himself, undoubtedly influenced by this new radicalization, made two significant statements in his concluding speech ai the congress, The March 29 Le Peuple quoted him as praising "revolutionary democracy as opposed to. the democracy of phrasemongers," and proclaiming that. "undoubtedly real democracy is the very means to realize socialism, socialism through self-management." In addition, he promised that "before the end of the year 1965, the | socialist sector will dominate the private sector Lin industry] ."
“only on the question of strikes did the congress take a more ambiguous stand. It declared that strikes in the self-managed sector are inadmissible, It stated that "in the interest of socialist Algeria" all “unnecessary conflicts should -be prevented." At the same time it called upon the workers of the private sector to “oet to know all secrets of their bosses" and to exercise their right to "co-management," ;
It remains to be seen whether this new rise of mass spirit will remain sufficiently strong and vigilant to carry through the next big stage of the agrarian reform this summer and autumn. If it does, it could become an important new turning point in the development of the Algerian Revolution.
Imprimerie: el rue d' Aboukir, Paris 2 (imprime par les soins. de Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. —_ 1! éditeur),