Important lessons drawn from a critique of Sri Lankan socialists in the year 2004

Recently Chris Rodrigo sent a long letter and the following email correspondence to Siritunga Jayasuriya, General Secretary of the United Socialist Party (USP), Sri Lanka.

Chris Rodrigo (as is mentioned in the reply to this letter and email) was the person who first introduced, in the 1970s, the Sri Lankan comrades of the main opposition left group within the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) to the British Militant organisation and then to the Committee for a Workers International.

While in Britain, he was won to the ideas of the Militant (later the Socialist Party) and in the 1970s he facilitated the visits to Sri Lanka – of Ted Grant and, a little later, Peter Taaffe.

These led to the adherence to the CWI of the main opposition left group within the LSSP – the Vama Samasamaja.

Email from Chris Rodrigo:

Siri:

I hope you would have contacted Shanta by now. It is interesting that you are having success in expanding your constituency (of electoral support).

But do you really think a socialist programme is meaningful in Sri Lanka ?

This is a major point of difference between us. I have been arguing from around 1990, if not earlier, that the best option for the working class and the forces of contemporary democracy in Sri Lanka is to have a thorough development of capitalism.

This is not what we have had or are getting at the present time. Initially everyone disagreed with me, but now I think that Shanta, Bahu, Kumar, Niel and many others have come round to this point of view. Only you and Vasu seem to think that there is a socialist alternative.

The fact that you are attracting support does not mean you are right. After all even the new evangelical Christian groups are attracting lots of people. Temporary success is not an indication of correctness.

I know you do not distinguish between the kind of capitalism I advocate and the capitalism we have already had. Broad and deep capitalism like in South Korea and Taiwan will solve the national question more easily, absorb the lakhs of unemployed young people and break the back of all chauvinist groups in the South and the North. Of course it is hard to get capitalism moving strongly in Sri Lanka; the bourgeoisie is weak and not really in control of the political processes or the state. That is why Left support is essential to move this process forward. The problems are worse in a country like Egypt which I have been studying very closely recently. But there is no other option at the present time.

Suppose your party and its supporters came to power, what would you do to solve the problems of the country? Suppose you even had the full support of the JVP and the mass forces of the SLFP and the UNP. What can you do to solve the problems of the country? If you wish to raise the living standards of working people, you have to produce services and goods that people abroad want to buy. Only then can SL afford to buy the essential goods that everyone seems to want these days. I am here including advanced health care services like what they deliver now to the rich only in places like Apollo. Redistributing the existing production of wealth in Sri Lanka can surely not solve this problem?

Redistribution without rapid growth can at best lead to a situation like in Cuba, which is hardly a great success story despite impressive gains in education and health care delivery. People in Cuba are terribly poor; ask SP Wicks, he has been there many times. There doctors work as tourist guides to make enough money to live.

In what way will your ‘socialism’ be different from what we have seen in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba etc. Never before in history has any other social experiment failed as decisively as has the attempt to build socialism in backward countries. They have produced brutal dictatorships, some of which have been among the most barbaric in all history, like the Pol-pot regime and Mengistu in Ethiopian. The most successful, China is rapidly building a modern kind of capitalism. China is lucky: in most countries the experience of ‘socialism’ has been a step backward.

The reason for this is also so simple: it is industrial capitalism that has the historic task of disciplining people into organized activity and converting a peasant mass into modern, skilled individuals. You know from your own political work the difference between the work habits of industrial workers and people from rural backgrounds. No amount of work in political parties can change the latter into the former. The simple answer is that when you try to sidestep the capitalist market which is the disciplining force, socialist leaders end up by having to use police power. Which is more brutal? The pressure of the capitalist labour market or the arbitrary power of Stalinist bureaucracy. I for one will choose the former. Even so, no Stalinist power has actually succeeded in duplicating the historic role of the market. So it is not even a possibility worth considering at this point.

So the theoretical challenge is so very simple; if you are writing a response to my arguments, you have to answer the very simple arguments that I have outlined above. If possible, please discuss these with Shanta as well. I am not sure he will agree with everything I say here, but I think he may.

That is why I cannot support you in any way, politically or materially, in your programme. It would be like giving more drugs to a drug addict. While I respect your energy and integrity (honesty) and decades of dedication to social justice, I think you are basically misleading all the young people who follow you. We have known each other since 1975 I think and we have been close friends. You and I also speak very plainly to each other, so you will forgive me if I am very direct. I hope we can remain friends.

Chris

Reply by Siritunga and Peter Taaffe

The following is a reply to points made by Chris Rodrigo in e-mail correspondence and in a long letter to Siritunga Jayasuriya, General Secretary of the United Socialist Party (USP), Sri Lanka. It is the result of a collaboration between Siritunga himself and Peter Taaffe, of the International Secretariat (IS) of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), in consultation with other members of the CWIs Secretariat and of the USPs Executive Committee.

Throughout the document, the first person plural (we) has been used and Siri and Peter are referred to in the third person singular (he). After the first sentence, CR is referred to as CR throughout.

Chris Rodrigo, to whose recent written material we are replying here, deserves some credit as the person who first introduced the Sri Lankan comrades to the British organisation and then to the Committee for a Workers International. While in Britain, he was won to the ideas of the Militant (later the Socialist Party) and in the 1970s he facilitated the visits to Sri Lanka – of Ted Grant and, a little later, Peter Taaffe. These led to the adherence to the CWI of the main opposition left group within the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) – the Vama Samasamaja.

After playing this facilitating role, CR played very little active part in Sri Lankan politics, living for most of the time abroad. This has not stopped him, however, from being a commentator on left politics in Sri Lanka and particularly on the policies and actions of those who came from the Samasamajist tradition. This has included the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), set up in December 1977 following a number of expulsions from the LSSP starting in 1972. (The NSSP was, from its foundation until 1989, a section of the CWI. Now it is a section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI).)

Intellectuals and the workers movement

An informed commentator who cannot be fully active in the workers movement but is well grounded in Marxist and Trotskyist history, its methods and programme can sometimes make useful contributions. Marx and Engels themselves, after the failure of the 1848 revolutions, disengaged from the sectarian squabbles of isolated migr groups in order to concentrate on laying the theoretical foundations for the rise of future powerful mass movements of the working class writing Das Kapital, for instance. However, it is not accurate to say that Marx and Engels were “uninvolved”. Even in the relative lull in the workers movement which followed the 1848 defeats, they pursued an active correspondence, making efforts to seek out adherents to their ideas and constantly commenting on world and national politics from the standpoint of scientific socialism. Later they set about the monumental task of building the First International.

The efforts of intellectuals in the neo-colonial world today can be helpful, as long as these intellectuals are modest enough to admit that, because of their lack of involvement in day-to-day activity, their commentaries and advice, especially about current politics, can have limitations, sometimes severely so. Many recognise this, and seek to write and speak from a Marxist point of view but not insisting on a strict adherence to their views. The workers movement worldwide, and particularly the Trotskyist movement, will always welcome those intellectuals who seek to tie themselves ideologically to the workers movement. If, however, they are arrogant, see themselves as merely disdainful and detached observers, uninvolved and stubbornly uninfluenced by the day-to-day march of the workers movement, then a different attitude will prevail. The same applies to those who have joined what the former American Marxist Max Schachtman called the “League of Abandoned Hopes”, former adherents to Marxism and Trotskyism who subsequently reject these ideas.

Arrogance which is unfortunately the hallmark of the majority of this stratum, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of Stalinism has no part whatsoever in a genuine movement of Marxism and Trotskyism. CR, unfortunately, manifests precisely this malady in his recent comments on the situation in Sri Lanka.

Socialism and Sri Lankan elections

In a fairly lengthy document dated April 14, 2004, commenting on the Sri Lankan elections, CR criticises the NSSP. He also dismisses the considerable achievements of the CWIs section, the United Socialist Party (USP), in these elections. In a note sent to Clare Doyle, a member of the International Secretariat of the CWI, accompanying the document he comments: “I have already sent this to Siri, but he rarely takes what I say very seriously.” Little wonder! A perusal of his document, and particularly the criticisms of the USP, led by Siritunga, shows that he has abandoned a Marxist and Trotskyist approach.

This is spelt out in a message from CR to the NSSP in June 2004, circulated to Siri on a discussion list. He states: “I had a long (and rather costly) telephone conversation with Niel (of the NSSP) some days back. He pointed out that some of the claims I had been making about Bahu are wrong.

“Unlike Siritunga, Bahu and the NLF/NSSP do not call for Socialism as an immediate goal, Niel insists. He says they have a social democratic perspective of reforming capitalism with economic and political reforms, especially towards more democratic institutions.

“So I have been wrong to associate Bahu and the NSSP with Siritungas call for Socialism as the solution to all problems. I do apologize for this misrepresentation.

“If Niel will send me any more corrections to what I have claimed against them, I will also circulate that to everyone.” Bahu and the NSSP have not, to our knowledge, refuted CRs claim which means that they have gone over to a “social democratic position”. It seems they now accept that a programme of reforming capitalism is the only possible policy for Sri Lanka. From this note, it appears as though Bahu, a former revolutionary “firebrand” in Sri Lankan politics, has also adopted the standpoint of CR.

CR, in the company of the overwhelming majority of petty bourgeois intellectuals in the neo-colonial world throughout the 1990s, has adopted a reformist position of amending and “improving” the existing economic and social system, capitalism. Socialism, insofar as it remains a goal, is relegated to the dim and distant future. Accordingly, those like Siritunga and the USP – those who remain faithful to genuine Trotskyism in Sri Lanka – deserve the most severe criticism, if not scorn, from these people. As we have pointed out, in our recently published book on the history of the CWI (A Socialist World is Possible), CR is not alone in abandoning his former Trotskyist position.

Trotskyism, Marxism and reformism yesterday and today

Why comment here then on the remarks of this one individual who, as we will subsequently show, has departed, and quite substantially so, from the fundamental tenets of Trotskyism and Marxism in relation to the struggle today? The main justification for this reply is because CR, in the method and argumentation that he sets out in this document, is fairly typical of a layer that is in headlong retreat from Trotskyism under the banner of a “realistic and sane” policy. Moreover, in the way they criticise they are vituperous, if not downright spiteful to those who have steadfastly and courageously refused to bow to the huge pressures exerted by bourgeois ideas on the labour movement in the aftermath of the collapse of Stalinism (CR has urged Sri Lankan Samasamajists in London not to give any help to the USP).

Contrary to what he imagines, he is not at all “original”; he merely treads in the footsteps of previous Marxists who have gone over to reformist positions because of temporary historically unfavourable circumstances. The international Marxist movement during the boom of 1896 to 1914 was also forced to combat reformist trends within the German social democracy personified in Eduard Bernstein and echoed in other socialist parties throughout the Second International. Bernsteins famous aphorism, “The movement is everything; the final goal nothing”, became the watchword for reformists then and now. This is undoubtedly the position that has been adopted, perhaps unconsciously in the first instance, by others in retreat from genuine Trotskyism, such as the leaders of the Scottish Socialist Party. It is also the viewpoint of the USFI, as we have pointed out in the new book. These comrades would no doubt furiously reject the claim that they are reformist. They are merely adopting a practical “day-to-day” programme and are fighting for this in action, while still adhering to the goal of socialism.

But the essence of the matter and the fundamental criticism made by Marxists like Lenin and Trotsky against Bernsteins ideas is that unless this day-to-day activity is indissolubly connected in the minds of the masses with the idea that capitalism cannot permit lasting reforms, and particularly in this era that socialism is the only answer then the consciousness of the masses is not prepared for future ruptures and breaks, that is for revolutionary situations. We reject of course the principle, falsely ascribed to the Jesuits, that “the end justifies the means”. On the contrary the “end” democratic and liberating socialism determines the means which the workers movement must employ. These, therefore, have nothing in common with the dirty methods of Stalinism, which besmirches and denigrates the goal of socialism.

There was no justification from a principled Marxist point of view for Bernstein and Co to adopt the position that they did but, nevertheless, this was at a time when capitalism was still undergoing a powerful economic upswing, which came to a halt with the First World War. Reformist ideas, therefore, seemed “practical” and possible then. These conditions allowed the social democracy to separate the “long-term” programme of socialism from the day-to-day reformist demands. Even the struggle that Lenin and Trotsky undertook against the opportunist and ultra-left trends within the ranks of the Russian Marxists following the defeat of the 1905-07 revolution was against the background of a rising curve of capitalism internationally and the growth of the workers organisations. But what justification can there be at the beginning of the twenty-first century when the masses of the neo-colonial world in particular know from their own bitter experience that, after the dazzling promises held out to justify the adoption of neo-liberal policies, these countries face a catastrophe on the basis of capitalism? (See introduction to history of the CWI A Socialist World is Possible.)

Young intellectuals and the Left in Sri Lanka

The “bright young people” who CR is appealing to were, in the 1990s as he pointed out, “Attracted to new ideas in management and information technology”. But he says nothing about the Sri Lankan masses who, because of this system, face a colossal worsening of their circumstances economically, and also because of the national question and the war major problems which are insoluble on the basis of capitalism. Moreover, these “bright young people”, after drinking at the well of 1990s capitalism found that it was poisoned. Under the impact of events they will swing radically towards the left as they see that the system cannot offer a way forward, either for the mass of the workers and peasants or for the majority of highly-educated youth. CR seems to forget that, in the past, Sri Lankan capitalism even in a so-called “boom period” was incapable of utilising through increased employment the talents and skills of many of the “bright young people” he refers to, including himself. They therefore were forced to ply their trade wherever they could worldwide. There is no possibility of breaking this cycle without ending the grip of capitalism and imperialism on Sri Lanka.

This, unfortunately, is “too simplistic” for CR; he doesnt bother to disguise his disdain for the mass of the workers and peasants, who are the main agency of social change in Sri Lanka: “The kind of people you attract will depend on the nature of your overall perspective. If you have sound and sober perspectives, which take effort to understand because they reflect complex reality, then you will attract young people who have the intellectual power to become future leaders. If your perspectives are simplistic, then you will most likely surround yourself with the simple-minded.” The outstanding Sri Lankan worker and leader, Siritunga Jayasuriya, merely attracts the “simple-minded” while CR and his like are appealing through “complex” arguments to the intellectual giants who are attracted by new ideas “in management and new technology”.

To be sure, he is “generous” enough to congratulate the USP: “Interviewed on the BBC Sandeshaya programme, he (Siri) attributed their success to their espousal of a clear, pure socialist platform.” However, he then goes on to denigrate the efforts of the USP, as well as those who were less successful in this election, like the NSSP. He writes: “By any kind of reckoning, this is a dismal result, very likely the worst in the history of the Left in terms of votes garnered”.

The USP and combating communalism

CR says the USPs 14,660 votes in the general election is not significant. But this has to be seen in the context of a growing Sinhala communalism in Sri Lanka today. In spite of this, in the July 2004 Provincial Council elections, the USP doubled its votes. CR uses simple arithmetic without considering this vote in the present relatively complicated situation in Sri Lanka. Compared to Siri and the USP, Vasu and Bahu and their organisations have, up to now, had a higher public recognition. However the election results show that this has changed. Their support is declining (as is that for the two major capitalist alliances) while the USPs is growing. True, this is from a relatively small base but it portends big potential growth for the future.

The USP as a party has established a firm base amongst a layer of working class and down-trodden people. Above all, the USP has taken an uncompromising stand against communalism, which has historically plagued the workers movement in Sri Lanka and has been encouraged by the Sri Lankan bourgeois parties at certain stages.

The SLFP, for instance, started out as a Sinhala-only party after breaking from the UNP under the leadership of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. Rather than conducting a political campaign against the UNP, the SLFP at that time took up communal slogans to win over the rural Sinhala masses. In the present conjuncture, the JVP within the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is continuing the same Sinhala racist politics, not only against the UNP but also against Chandrika, in order to win the bulk of the Sinhala masses in the south of the country. That is why the JVP is campaigning against the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) and any devolution of power to the Tamil-speaking people.

The emergence of the Sinhala chauvinist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) as a political force demonstrates the rise of communal forces in the south. The JHU is trying to overtake the JVP in the race for support for communalism because the JVP has become a partner in the capitalist coalition government. But all these communal forces will fall into line together eventually if the peace process restarts again.

Wrong conclusions after Stalinisms collapse

It is clear that CR has no semblance of understanding despite his claims to the contrary of the political terrain that was created by the collapse of Stalinism. In Sri Lanka it was enormously aggravated by the complete collapse of the once mighty LSSP (after its disastrous participation with the SLFP in capitalist governments), by the 20-year long war as well as by the vicious Sinhala chauvinist terrorist campaign of the JVP against both the Sri Lankan state and particularly against the left. He comments: “I have no doubt that Bahu and Siri and others will try to explain the abysmal showing at the polls with all kinds of rationalizations. The explanations will attempt to externalise the problem, invoking the usual suspects, from the rise of Sinhala chauvinism promoted by the various reactionary forces in the country to the machinations of US imperialism working through the Peace negotiations. Those of us who do not want the Samasamaja tradition to die completely will do well to persuade Siri and Bahu to face up to the internal failures of their political tendencies. I mean their failure to adjust to the new situation in the country and the world after 1989, which in my view is the main reason for the steady decline.”

He lambasts Bahu in particular because his party, the NSSP, has not heeded his call for “Radical, innovative analyses going far beyond the timid theoretical reforms being now discussed in the [NSSP]. We have mild reform when what is called for is a revolutionary reconstitution of theoretical perspectives.” As his subsequent comments demonstrate, it would be more accurate for him to use the phrase “counter-revolutionary reconstitution of theoretical perspectives”. The reasons for this are spelt out when he writes: “One major reason is the collapse of socialist regimes and strategies world-wide, as more and more people began to realise that present day bureaucratic socialism was no alternative to the best existing capitalist societies in the Third World Most of us, including Bahu, now realise that Socialism as a viable political movement can only be reincarnated under very different circumstances. Only Siritunga proceeds as if socialism in the way understood by most people still has a future in backward countries. The fact that he is totally at variance with Trotskys ideas on this issue does not seem to bother him overmuch.”

Firstly, this theoretician emanating as he claims from a Trotskyist tradition, shamefully describes the Stalinist regimes as “socialist” or as “socialist countries”, allegedly like the USSR or China. This terminology is borrowed from Stalinism, and particularly from the Stalinist communist parties in the neo-colonial world. To re-state a basic tenet of Trotsky, these regimes were closer, in many ways, to barbaric capitalism than they were to genuine democratic socialism as perceived by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. They were deformed workers states – planned economies but with bureaucratic authoritarian one-party regimes – which were caricatures of democratic socialism. The above comments of CR, which he claims are now supported by Bahu, mean in effect the complete abandonment of arguments for revolutionary democratic socialism and for a workers and peasants democracy based on a socialist plan as the political form of the transitional state from capitalism to socialism that will be necessary.

Menshevik position

How is Siritungas heroic defence of the case for socialism at “total variance” with Trotsky? The only interpretation that can be placed on these remarks of CR is that Trotsky did not argue the case for socialism in the “backward countries”. In fact, that was the position of the Mensheviks. In the culturally backward economic and social conditions of Russia they argued for the theory of “stages”. First came capitalism, which through its development of industry also develops the working class, and only then was it possible to speak about socialism, which was, in reality, relegated to the mists of the future. Both Lenin and Trotsky, as well as the best leaders of the LSSP in its heyday, argued vehemently against these ideas. CR, in an e-mail sent to Siri in early August 2004, in effect admits to accepting a Menshevik position:

“Do you really think a socialist programme is meaningful in Sri Lanka? This is a major point of difference between us. I have been arguing from around 1990, if not earlier, that the best option for the working class and the forces of contemporary democracy in Sri Lanka is to have a thorough development of capitalism. This is not what we have had or are getting at the present time. Initially everyone disagreed with me, but now I think that Shanta, Bahu, Kumar, Niel and many others have come round to this point of view. Only you and Vasu seem to think that there is a socialist alternative

“I know you do not distinguish between the kind of capitalism I advocate and the capitalism we have already had. Broad and deep capitalism like in South Korea and Taiwan will solve the national question more easily, absorb the lakhs of unemployed young people and break the back of all chauvinist groups in the South and the North. Of course it is hard to get capitalism moving strongly in Sri Lanka; the bourgeoisie is weak and not really in control of the political processes or the state. That is why Left support is essential to move this process forward

“In what way will your ‘socialism’ be different from what we have seen in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba etc. Never before in history has any other social experiment failed as decisively as has the attempt to build socialism in backward countries. They have produced brutal dictatorships, some of which have been among the most barbaric in all history, like the Pol Pot regime and Mengistu in Ethiopia. The most successful, China is rapidly building a modern kind of capitalism. China is lucky: in most countries the experience of ‘socialism’ has been a step backward.

“The reason for this is also so simple: it is industrial capitalism that has the historic task of disciplining people into organized activity and converting a peasant mass into modern, skilled individuals. You know from your own political work the difference between the work habits of industrial workers and people from rural backgrounds. No amount of work in political parties can change the latter into the former. The simple answer is that when you try to sidestep the capitalist market which is the disciplining force, socialist leaders end up by having to use police power. Which is more brutal? The pressure of the capitalist labour market or the arbitrary power of Stalinist bureaucracy. I for one will choose the former. Even so, no Stalinist power has actually succeeded in duplicating the historic role of the market. So it is not even a possibility worth considering at this point.”

Permanent revolution theory still valid for Sri Lanka

The essence of the permanent revolution is that the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the neo-colonial world could not be carried through without the working class coming to power in alliance with the peasantry and then, having carried through this revolution, passing over to the socialist tasks on a national and international scale. (See the explanation of the theory of permanent revolution in Cuba: Socialism and Democracy by Peter Taaffe and his introduction to the CWI history: A Socialist World is Possible). The Russian Revolution was itself a confirmation of this theory. CR seems to forget this!

In formulating his analysis, Trotsky did not advocate that the case for socialism should wait until the “completion of the bourgeois-democratic tasks” (as explained earlier, he opposed Bernstein on this) but it should form part of the agitation and propaganda in laying the basis for the working class to come to power. Starting from an internationalist perspective the Trotskyist movement argued that the overthrow of landlordism and capitalism even in a small country like Sri Lanka could, particularly with a conscious socialist leadership, become the catalyst for similar movements in India and Pakistan, for instance and subsequently in other countries that could lay the basis for a socialist world.

CR makes the astonishing claim: “Even the subsequent collapse of the Left from 1997 to 2004 has got nothing to do with objective, class-economic movements. It derives mostly from the political failure of the Left and the mistakes of the NSSP in particular, which has been the most dynamic force in it”. Having lacerated those responsible for this “political failure”, he then states that he is not going to explain why this is taking place: “I am not trying to answer this point fully in this letter entirely, but just to initiate the discussion.”

Post-Fordism

There is not an atom of originality in these arguments; they just happen to be advanced about 15 years after the renegades from Stalinism around the journal Marxism Today supplied the right-wing social democrats in Britain with the theoretical ideas to underpin their attack on the left. These ideas of “post-Fordism” were widely peddled by this trend and found a ready audience amongst those travelling to the right in opposition to “crude Marxism”, which still looked towards the working class as the main social force for change. CR indicates his flirtation with these ideas when he writes: “There are material, economic factors in 1979, I presented a graph in which the percentage of votes polled by the Left in major elections from 1947 to 1977 was compared to the long-term fall in the ratio of industrial workers to the entire voting population.” This idea, that the demise of the industrial working class would automatically diminish the power of the trade unions and the ideas of socialism was false to the core then and is even more so now.

While de-industrialisation has taken place in the advanced industrial countries (now rapidly de-industrialising), industry and the numbers and power of the industrial working class worldwide, did not fundamentally change. Moreover, even in those “de-industrialised” countries, the process of neo-liberalism privatisation, lowering of wages, attempts to undercut the trade unions has meant a proletarianisation of layers of the population who formerly were, or considered themselves, outside the ranks of the labour movement. The process is quite clear in the case of teachers, who have been extremely radicalised by the privatisation of education worldwide, civil servants and others. In Brazil, for instance, the collapse of industry did not mean the diminishing of support for the Workers Party but, on the contrary, in the 2002 elections led to Lula, the PTs presidential candidate, achieving a higher popular vote than even George W Bush in the 2000 US presidential elections.

CRs ideas, which equate the collapse of industry and the industrial working class with the dramatic undermining of socialist consciousness in the 1990s, are way off the mark. Having admitted that the collapse of Stalinism was a factor, as we have seen, he then claims that from 1977 to 2004 “objective” factors played little role. This is ludicrous and is at complete variance with the worldwide problems that were confronted not just by the Marxist and Trotskyist left in particular, but by the broader labour movement in general.

Ideological counter-revolution and attacks on the working class

The ideological counter-revolution which the bourgeois were able to launch following the collapse of Stalinism against “socialism”, which they also falsely equated with Stalinism, had a profound effect on the leaders of the workers organisations. They became bourgeoisified. Moreover, the period that followed the collapse of Stalinism allowed the bourgeois to underpin their neo-liberal attacks on the working class. The centre of political gravity shifted towards the right.

Instead of combating this trend and hailing those who stood out against it, CR excoriates them. The same criteria that he employs would have found him attacking Marx and Engels in the long difficult period that followed the collapse of the 1848 revolutions, or Lenin in 1907-1912, or Trotsky in the late 1920s and 1930s. In all these instances, these giant theoreticians found themselves relatively isolated because of the objective circumstances. Trotsky went from being a central leader of the Russian Revolution and Communist International to heading a small, persecuted minority in the 1930s. Marx and Engels were in a minority all their lives and yet their refusal to bow to bourgeois pressures laid the basis for the workers movement throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in the Russian Revolution. None of these leaders did what CR advocates; they did not sacrifice the future socialism – the “tomorrow” of the working class – for “today”, for short-term illusory policies and gains.

Sri Lankan politics

CR writes to Niel (14 April 2004): “I also met Siri: he does not see any need for change. He sees himself as being more realistic than Bahu, but believes that socialism is the answer to the problem, even the immediate problem in Sri Lanka.” In the BBC interview, he (Siri) “further attributed his success to their (the USPs) espousal of a clear, pure socialist platform”. In the same correspondence CR writes: “Over the last 30 years or so every major struggle was seen by the NSSP as indicating the imminent collapse of capitalism.”

We hold no brief for the NSSP leaders, particularly Bahu, who has swung from opportunism to ultra-leftism and back on many occasions. According to CR, he is now intending to convince all and sundry that the UNP has changed: “Under Ranil, the UNP has become more inclusive and democratic, according to what Bahu tells me. He says it has attracted ‘social democratic’ types recently, those who used to be considered ‘Left’ in the old days. As a result, he says that they are more attuned to a purely capitalist and less chauvinist programme which helped them reach out to the Tigers.”

Whether or not the UNP is “more or less chauvinist” than the SLFP is not the decisive issue from the standpoint of the workers movement. It is a bourgeois party which may include some “social democratic” types at this stage. However, its record historically as the main openly bourgeois party in Sri Lanka has meant that it has been a chief vehicle of Sinhala chauvinism in the past and, under different circumstances in the future, may assume this role once again. One or other of the bourgeois parties may reflect more “realistically” the interests of the Sri Lankan capitalists and of imperialism at certain stages. Clearly, the Sri Lankan bourgeois and imperialism want the peace deal with the Tigers and the UNP to last, as this better represents their interests at this stage. That does not mean to say that the workers movement, and particularly those who claim to be Trotskyist, can give the slightest hint of support or “preference” for the UNP over the SLFP.

Moreover writing on 28 April 2004, Vasu admits that he and Bahu were too close to the UNP. “In this context the Left and Democratic political platform was isolated. The stand taken by our New Left Front against imperialist domination and the economic policies of the UNP, while being supportive of the cease-fire and the peace process of the UNP, was not attractive. At the same time, the NLF opposed the alliance led by Chandrika an adherent of neo-liberal economic policy with a latent militaristic approach to the national question.

“The fact that the United Socialist Party surpassed the New Left Front may be due to the dissatisfaction among the Leftists about the stand of the NLF which they thought was too close to the UNP”. Bahu, in particular, has a record of viewing things empirically, of taking isolated trends within parties as an indication of a finished process and, on this basis, advocating support, albeit “critically”, for such parties.

In 1987, when the Indo-Lanka agreement was signed between Rajiv Gandhi and JR Jayawardena, the NSSP, under the leadership of both Bahu and Vasu, supported JRs UNP government saying that it was the only alternative way of fighting against the JVPs communal killings. Siri and his supporters within the NSSP and the CWIs international leadership opposed this.

Independent class policy

Bahus approach is fatal for the workers movement, which should have no trust in these parties or in bourgeois politicians in general. Workers should look to an independent class policy and rely upon their own strength and power. This also involves raising the need for a new mass party of the Sri Lankan working class. This is what the USP has advocated.

It is incredible to suggest, as CR does, that the USP merely puts forward the case for “pure socialism” or to bracket Siri with Bahu in implying that the former, like the latter, saw the “imminent” collapse of capitalism on every occasion. This is simply not true. Siri, for instance, supported the majority in the CWI against Ted Grant, who put forward the dogmatic position of the “imminent collapse” of capitalism following the world stock market crisis of 1987. (See The Rise of Militant for an explanation.) CR is well aware that the USP, while advocating of course the ideas of socialism, of the democratic socialist planning of the resources of Sri Lanka, links this to a day-to-day programme, which is transitional in character. (See points from election leaflets appended).

CR shows just how far he has departed from a traditional Trotskyist approach when he writes that Siri, “believes that socialism is the answer to the problem, even the immediate problem in Sri Lanka”. Socialism is the answer, not just for Sri Lanka or the neo-colonial world but for the whole of the globe for that matter.

Regarding the decline of the left, CR interprets this as a rejection of the ideas of socialism by the majority of the workers, peasants and left intellectuals. We strongly disagree with this. Of course, the world-wide ideological offensive against socialism, in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, had an effect in Sri Lanka. But this was more on the tops of the workers organisations than on the base and amongst the working class in general.

Important sections of the working class never reconciled themselves to the attacks on socialism, which went hand in hand with the implementation of neo-liberal policies. There was undoubtedly an additional factor in relation to the decline of the official Left and Bahu and Vasu were, and are, identified with the old Left leadership and organisation. They made big mistakes, both of an opportunist and an ultra-left character. Bahu and Vasu have failed to put forward a consistent, clear alternative socialist programme. Vasu, however, as CR has indicated, seems not to have gone as far as CR and Bahu in rejecting the centrality of socialism in a programme for the Left. He therefore could, and should, be encouraged to link up with the USP on such a programme.

Socialism or barbarism

Without such a programme, capitalism and imperialism threaten to drag Sri Lanka and the whole of humankind into an abyss. Rosa Luxemburgs aphorism “Socialism or barbarism” formulated 100 years ago is the reality that confronts the working class and humankind today. Clearly CR does not believe that socialism is the “immediate” answer but is, like any bourgeois reformist, confident that significant lasting gains can be made within the framework of capitalism today. We beg to differ. However, we dont just advocate socialism from a purely propaganda point of view and leave it there. We are believe that, objectively, the case for socialism has never been stronger, given the past failure of Stalinism as well as of capitalism in the 1990s and the first decade of the new century. Nevertheless, we are well aware that the consciousness of this on the part of the masses lags way behind objective reality.

CR wants to leave it there, merely concentrating on the small change of incremental reforms. We, on the contrary, seek to formulate demands which can act as a transitional bridge from the existing consciousness of the working class to the need to change society. This is not just a propaganda task but is linked to events which will be the most powerful factor in changing the consciousness of the masses. However, events alone are not enough. In Latin America today we have the elements of a pre-revolutionary situation in a number of countries with dual power in Bolivia, elements of this in Peru, and certainly in the revolution in Venezuela. But the masses are not conscious of this power, partly because of the collapse of Stalinism and the throwing back of consciousness worldwide. Our job, in Sri Lanka as elsewhere, is to advocate ideas and programmes that can further the struggle on a day-to-day basis and link these to the socialist transformation of society.

Capitalism as an aim!

This is now a closed book to CR, who clearly looks to others to do the job, as is clear in his comments on China. He speaks in the most laudatory terms of the evolution towards capitalism on the part of the former Stalinist elite. We can only quote here some of the choicer extracts from his document on this matter. He writes: “The Chinese Communist Party chose to reject the path of chaotic democratisation towards capitalism as in Russia. Under Deng, it also decided that stubborn Stalinism like in Cuba under the Castro regime was not an option. So it has been bringing in capitalism in stages”.

He goes on to state: “Subsequent events in China confirmed the ‘evolutionary viability’ of Deng’s strategy There has been a veritable explosion of prosperity in China, benefiting Chinese people unevenly of course, like in all capitalist episodes. I have written about the negative aspects of this in many letters, so I will not talk about that here.” Incredibly he then writes that the political history of the left, in which he includes all of those who come from the NSSP, including the USP, shows that they compare unfavourably with the Chinese Stalinists and ex-Stalinists who have taken the “capitalist road”. This is because, “Political history from 1977 to 2004 shows that, it (the Left) has had the opposite experience of the Chinese: the historical evolution of Sri Lankan politics has invalidated its (the Lefts) conception of social change in no uncertain terms.”

The clear implication of all this is that in the neo-colonial world, a stage of capitalism la China is the preferred road because anything else is “utopian” in the modern era. While he makes a few comments on the “negative aspects” of the return to capitalism in China, the full horrors that confront millions of people because of this process is discounted as a detail by CR. There was nothing “inevitable” about the return to capitalism in China. That was also the case in the former Stalinist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Revolution and counter-revolution

Initially there were elements of the political revolution, particularly in Russia. But with the collapse of Stalinism and the revelations of mass corruption at the top, together with the world capitalist boom at that stage, the idea of state ownership and planning was discredited. This resulted in a return back to capitalism and not a mass movement for workers democracy. (See CWI document, The Collapse of Stalinism.)

In Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and in China, layers of the old bureaucracy have benefited, transforming themselves into a parasitic capitalist class, while millions of workers and their families have been impoverished, particularly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In China, the process has been somewhat different, with a rigidly controlled gradual return to capitalism as Deng Xiaoping and the elite that followed him rejected the “shock therapy” employed in Russia and Eastern Europe partly in the interests of trying to assure their own survival. Nevertheless, there are clear limitations to this introduction of capitalism by “stages”. The process in China could be marked in the very near future by a huge economic crisis, accompanied by political convulsions involving mass uprisings on the pattern of Tiananmen Square. This could challenge both the remnants of Stalinism in the state machine and the new capitalist elite. All of this seems immaterial to CR as he crudely approves of a return to capitalism in China as if it was a rerun of the “relatively progressive” role of capitalism which Marx and Engels described in the 19th century. It is not; this is because the world background is entirely different. Moreover, Marx and Engels pointed out that what capitalism achieved in that period of upswing could have been superseded with three times less actual cost and human suffering if the means of production were in state hands and planning and control of their use was already on the basis of democratic, socialist principles.

The return to capitalism in China is happening precisely at that historical moment when capitalism confronts its greatest problems as a world system. Similarly, this will result in huge mass movements of the working class, the poor and the peasantry. In this process, people like CR could find themselves either on the sidelines, preaching against the “simple-minded”, that is, the socialist forces, or could actually find themselves on the other side of the barricades.

Nationalisation

Speaking about the bureaucratic nationalisations that took place in Sri Lanka in the past he correctly underlines the fact that privileged groups gained from this. This was not at all the democratic socialism as envisaged by the LSSP or by Trotskyism today. It was a form of “state capitalism”, although, under the pressure of events, the majority of industry was actually nationalised temporarily in Sri Lanka. Was this, on balance, a good or a bad thing? CR says no, because of the bureaucratic distortions which followed these nationalisations.

There is nothing in his approach that can be compared with that of Engels in the nineteenth century, who said that when the capitalists were forced to “nationalise” particular industries this was an expression of the “invading socialist revolution”. By this he meant that in certain branches of industry, particularly utilities, the capitalists were demonstrating their incapacity to maintain these industries and make them viable under private ownership. Their state was therefore forced to step in. There were, however, clear limitations to this process but nevertheless these nationalisations were generally progressive. The task of Marxists was to support such measures but also to argue that they should be extended to the whole of the “commanding heights” of industry and, moreover, be accompanied by democratic workers control and management.

Privatisation “a good thing”!

CR clearly rejects this. He now, astonishingly, claims that, “Opening up the (Sri Lankan) economy was a good thing”. Thus, the introduction of Free Trade Zones in Sri Lanka, representing a significant concession to imperialism, with the super-exploitation of the working class and the privatisation of formerly nationalised industries which went along with them, were “good things”. These measures did not satisfy the demands of the Sri Lankan people or of the economy but nevertheless were a “good thing” for a small gang of capitalists and imperialists.

This just shows how far CR has departed from a principled socialist position. His “socialism” is mere verbiage and rhetoric. In reality, he stands for reforming the existing system, of purging this system of its more “chauvinist” and “corrupt” elements. In that sense, like many liberals in the neo-colonial world, and in the advanced industrial countries for that matter, he stands for a more “humane capitalism”. We reject that conclusion as utopian. We stand by a principled socialist and revolutionary position, no matter how many faint-hearts have abandoned these ideas.

The national question

CRs comments on the history of Sri Lanka and the “peace process” are also mistaken. The USP has put forward a Marxist analysis in its perspectives documents and in the party paper in relation to the LTTE . It is true that some of the Tamil people who live in Jaffna also criticise the methods of the LTTE in relation to particular actions, including the suicide bombings and other killings. But, in spite of all that, in general Tamil people take the side of the LTTE against the Sinhala chauvinists and the state who are not prepared to accept the self-determination of the Tamil-speaking people. In this situation, Marxists have to be very balanced when they criticise and take a position. They must be sure not to put the cart before the horse in the sense of seeing who is primarily responsible the Sinhala bourgeois and British imperialism in the past – for the horrific and long-lasting crisis in the country over the national question.

Addressing Siri and Bahu on the national question CR states: “Your rhetoric sounds to me like medieval theology, condemning local and global capitalists for every conceivable issue and problem under the sun. When the Norwegians were promoting peace in Sri Lanka, both Bahu and Siri condemned them as agents of global capitalism”. But, notwithstanding his jeering tone, the Norwegians are indeed agents of global capitalism, specifically US imperialism. That does not mean to say that in acting on behalf of imperialism some of their demands and actions cannot sometimes coincide, partially at least, with the wishes of the working class and the majority of the people. Organising and facilitating the “peace process”, as limited and as temporary as this is, was nevertheless welcomed by the majority of Tamils and Sinhalese.

We have always argued that weak Sri Lankan capitalism was incapable of solving the national question in Sri Lanka. They have been pushed by the pressure of the situation war-weariness, economic cost etc. – and by imperialism to find some form of agreement with the Tamil Tigers for the survival of their own capitalist system. Even if an agreement can be arrived at, it will only be temporary. We can urge critical support for a peace agreement. If it brings a period of relative peace, and allows a certain growth in economic activity, this will strengthen the working class and prepare it for new struggles.

But we warn at the same time that the national problem cannot be solved within the context of weak and ailing Sri Lankan capitalism. This, we have consistently argued, would only be possible on the basis the socialist transformation of society. This would entail the uniting of the Sinhala and Tamil-speaking workers in industry and in agriculture and fishing in the struggle to end capitalist exploitation and for a society in which the fullest democratic rights for all peoples and minorities would be assured.

We cannot speak for Bahu, but Siri and the USP, while pointing to the limitations of the Norwegians actions, were to the fore in both giving “critical support” to the limited steps towards peace and, moreover, in the case of Siri, being in the vanguard in anticipating that such a development was not only possible but likely. That does not mean to say that Marxists and Trotskyists would give unqualified and uncritical support to this process. It is vital to take an independent class position on the peace process and not go behind Ranil or Chandrikas capitalist solutions. The working class needs to come out with its own solution to the national question and take what actions are possible to further this process. This is what Siri and the USP have done in trying to forge links, and very successfully, between Tamil and Sinhalese workers, both in the north and the south.

This has been done while CR has been sitting in New York and has not dirtied his hands in such actions. He also makes a fatuous comment about the approach of the LTTE when he writes: “People ask why the LTTE needs a Navy if they have moved away from the quest for a separate state.” As he himself indicates, this is the gossip of the largely petty bourgeois layers “in the USA, in Egypt, in Colombo”. In other words, it is the Sinhalese petty bourgeois who suspect the motives of the LTTE. The USP holds no uncritical brief for the LTTE; we demand democracy and trade union rights in the areas that they control. But in an unresolved war and that is what Sri Lanka faces at the moment a guerrilla liberation movement like the LTTE will inevitably retain its weapons until there is a fully agreed peace.

This was and is the situation in Northern Ireland with the IRA retaining its weapons, as did the Protestant paramilitaries, even now, despite the “Good Friday Agreement” and the establishment of “peace”. (In Ireland, there is even more sectarian polarisation than existed during the war.) In South Africa, the ANC did likewise and, in fact, the “peace process” between 1990 and 1994 was accompanied by an elemental and sometimes brutal civil war between the African masses and Buthelezis killing squads as well as with the right-wing Afrikaner resistance. Whether CR likes it or not, in such a conflict an army based upon an oppressed minority will usually retain its weapons and its sources of supply as well until assured that it is safe to dispense with them.

Mass revolutionary party needed

From every point of view, CRs document is a break from genuine Trotskyism. While theoretically answering him and others, we, the CWI and the USP, will proceed in furthering the struggle which we have already successfully engaged in, rebuilding on the basis of the real Samasamajist traditions. This means laying the foundations for a mass revolutionary party that can win the majority of the workers of Sri Lanka and draw behind them the poor peasantry to establish the only solution to their problems, a democratic and socialist Sri Lanka as part of a socialist confederation of the region.

Appendix

Points from programme of USP

1. As a transitional step to solve the Tamil national question, we demand the re-starting of the peace talks on the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA). We also defend the rights of the Eastern Muslim people to rule their areas as autonomous rule and we defend the Tamil-speaking peoples homeland and Right to self-determination.

2. We fight against all the conditions put forward by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation, through their local agents, the UNP and UPFA. Through their globalisation process, the imperialists are destroying the Sri Lankan economic and political system.

3. All students should have the right to free education from grade one to university level. We also defend all other major welfare rights including health and the subsidy system for all low income families.

4. All youth above the age of 18 should be provided with a proper job. The 8 hour working day should be established for all workers and salaries sufficient to look after their families. There should be no wage and other discrimination against female workers. Workers should be able to participate in the benefits of modern technology presently available only for upper class people.

5. We demand the cancellation of all temporary, and contract system arrangements for workers and

all jobs to be permanent. All workers should have the right to organise in trade unions including those who work in the Free Trade Zones. By law employers should be compelled to accept trade unions in their factories.

6. To have modern development it is necessary to re-organise the rural economy. For that we should end all the imperialist pressures and conditions imposed on poor farmers and solve their land and water problems.

7. We demand the abolition of the dictatorial presidential system and the establishment of a new

constitution through a democratic council of workers, poor peasants and Tamil-speaking people. Through that process only we can look after the oppressed people such as women, poor children and disabled people.

8. We call for the nationalisation of all media facilities so that the media can be free from capitalist pressures and people would be able to express and receive information and opinions freely.

9. Through the capitalist so-called developments there is a big environmental destruction taking place. The only way to save the natural environment like the forests and rivers and is to change the capitalist system of making money at any cost.

10. All national undertakings like health, education, water, energy and power, railways. public roads, banks, insurance, ports, airports, plantations, post and telecommunications should be nationalised and controlled by democratic workers councils.

These are the main slogans:

Defeat both the reactionary UNP and the SLFP/JVP communal coalition and fight to build the socialist society.

Defeat the capitalist globalisation programme of the UNP and UPFA.

No to the JVP’s coalition politics with the capitalist SLFP.

Stop the war forever by solving the Tamils national question on the basis of the right to self determination.