Wickramabahu Karunaratne, who was a giant of the left movement in Sri Lanka, ended his life’s journey on 25th of July. I first met Wickramabahu in the latter half of 1970 when I attended a lecture given by Leslie Gunawardena at the Lanka Sama Samaja Party office. During the meeting I criticized the politics of the United Front government, led by the Sama Samaja Party, which involved the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. At the end of the formal meeting, a long political discussion took place between Wickramabahu and myself. This discussion went beyond my radical criticism and Wikramabahu explaining the theoretical error in coalition politics. Since then, our political relationship went on for more than two decades.
Referring to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) a ‘progressive capitalist party’ was first used by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Lanka Equal Society Party – LSSP) put that idea into a practical political programme by forming a coalition government, first in 1964 and then again in 1970, justifying the theoretical idea that a progressive journey can take place with the SLFP. With this, the independent course of the working class that had been followed by the old left movement was abandoned.
It was with this background that Wickramabahu, Sumanasiri, myself (Siritunga) and others started a discussion in the Sama Samaja Party against coalition politics. D.G.William, who was a powerful trade union leader at that time, presented a second political resolution against the proposal that was being presented by the coalition government, led by N.M.Pereira, Colvin da Silva, Leslie Gunawardene and Barnard Soysa, for the Congress of the Sama Samaja Party in November 1972. People like Osmond Jayaratne worked under the leadership of William. I participated in that discussion together with Wickramabahu and we could not agree with their perspective. The opinion of that group was that the leaders of the Samaja Party should immediately leave the ministerial positions of the government, but they should remain in the coalition government. Against this background, a group of us, including Wickramabahu, presented a third political perspective document which was presented in the name of C.A.S.Vikrama and myself. Wickramabahu’s theoretical document called, ‘Nationalization and Socialism’, was the basic position of that political document.
In February 1973, the leadership of the Sama Samaja Party realized that our political views were in conflict with the party’s alliance with the government and, fearing we would gather support, in February 1973 expelled Wickramabahu, Sumanasiri and myself (Siritunga) from the party. After that, Wickramabahu played a leading role as the secretary of the Left Sama Samaja group. Wickramabahu also played an important role in the decision to join the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in 1974 and his theoretical interventions went beyond the national level to the international level.
In 1976, the Sama Samaja Party faced a big crisis when a group, including Vasudeva, was expelled from the party. After Vasudeva, Edwin Kothalawala and Reginald Mendis were also expelled from the Sama Samaja party and they joined the Left Sama Samaja group, which was headed by Wickramabahu. In December 1977, a joint conference was held at New Town Hall in Colombo, and it was transformed into a party, soon to be called the New Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), the Sri Lankan affiliate of the CWI.
In 1978, prime minister J.R. Jayawardene was working to draft a new constitution with dictatorial powers and the Government arrested Lalith Abeysinghe along with Wickramabahu for organizing and putting up black flags. With his arrest, Wickramabahu was removed from his professorship at the University of Peradeniya and from then on, he became a full-timer of the New Sama Samaja Party to build the working class movement.
From the beginning, Wickramabahu strongly defended the right of self-determination of nations based on Marxist theory in relation to the national question. He worked on building the independent power of the working class and faced the ideological downturn with the defeat of the general strike in 1980. In July 1983, J. R. Jayawardena’s government banned the Janata Vimukti Peramuna and the New Sama Samaja Party. Challenging the ban by the UNP government and orders to arrest them – alive or dead – the JVP leaders Wijeweera, Gamanayake, along with NSSP leaders, Vasudeva, Wickramabahu, I (Siritunga) and Linus, carried out political activities in hiding.
1987 Indo-Lanka Accord
After this, Wickramabahu, who played a very important role in the history of the workers’ movement in Sri Lanka, began his political decline. With the signing of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord, involving India prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, JR. Wickramabahu made a major political blunder by joining with the Sama Samaja Party, and Communist and People’s Party to defend the Accord, together with accepting the intervention of the Indian ‘peace-keepers’ (IPKP), as a ‘tactical move’. This position flowed from Wickramabahu’s opinion that the Indian capitalist class was more ‘progressive’ as it was secular; a judgment that the CWI always opposed. The CWI opposed the NSSP’s support for the Accord and IPKP and, after a long debate, the NSSP was excluded from CWI membership in 1989. At the same time, the group of former NSSP members who had opposed Wickramabahu’s policies, and who later formed the United Socialist Party, became the CWI’s affiliate in Sri Lanka.
It is a tragedy that Wickramabahu joined with Ranil Wickramasinghe to become a candidate of the United National Party. Wickramabahu presented Ranil Wickramasing as a liberal capitalist leader who would protect capitalist democracy. In the later part of his life, Wickramabahu adopted other non-Marxist ‘pragmatic’ positions, moving towards a worsening political decline. Even so, the mission carried out by Comrade Wickramabahu, making great sacrifices towards the building of the left movement during the precious earlier years of his political life, should be appreciated.
