Page 1
LANKA November 1, 1979
 

Page 2
osƏsƆŋunoɔ głosus səəŋJooyo *>[OoO seuOųLsụsuəqAA -ầusųÁJēAq 13Uueuleus speųLAA

SHITUHH0, SHETTHEW HI.
8ZZI xolo L ɛI-IIÇzz auoqdətə i "I oquoIoO eque.wey,aoso!!!, es es uoleg 1,5 og I oolouovs. Adanā ~13aeuq u, əuueu pəųsnu,թLIIԼ
XIOOO SPUUOULL
SOWYY
UWO88W TBMW.H.I.
旧
■ No 實
■ 门
■ 33 No. 町 *口
Simul unwini

Page 3
Ill Winds From Galle
Has the Galle by-election already produced strains on the newly formed 5-party "bloc' of the once hopelessly fragmented Left? Wijeweera presented the Others with a fait accompli when he nominated Lionel Bopage. Do the other parties have to line up automatically behind the WP candidate ?
Both the LSSP and the NLSSP ha we not taken too we'll to the J WP's un ia teral moye. The NLSSP thinks that the CPSL had a fair base in Gasse and should ha ye fielded a candidate with the blessings of the other four 'allies'. The CPSL did issue a statement calling for a single Left candidate.
The LSSP would have preferred a common anti-NP candidate - the ideal choice being W. Da hana yake. The LSSP argued that the UNP's courtship of Daha wds a clear Indication of the UNP's own diffidence. The CPSL and NLSSP feel that the JWP move can only help the fraction within the LSSP which is far more interested in an old-style "coalition' ' with the SLFP, with the prospects of portfolios in 1983 as bright as in 1963, than in promoting 'Left μnfty.
Communication Chaos
, Would Sri Lanka's journalists, members of one of the oldest professions, (no wisecracks, please) be press-ganged in order to bring them within the ambit of the EPS Law 2. With two of the largest press groups nationalised, it could be said that they were professionals within the public service like any GMOA member.
This fear was based on the fact that officials of the Press Council played an active role in the formation of the new Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association and were closely associated with the backstage
meetings where the distribution
of "posts” was di ment barga in Council officials door and checke of merm bers aut meeting. The p platform of the chairman fortif gÍ YingS. But M Wise midr, main silence throughg exchange which in a signed arti The Indepent "din-ரபgபrd" M tissa de Awis, media men, four perience as M. very useful. And talk and Corfu tirades, is-temp and vulgar wise the meeting into tacle.
A Gilbertiarn t ceedings however that this was trolled exercijsce. been stage-man State-managed : reporter. Front d Sri Kotha jour that the UNP kept completely
Para-Military
Along with th police force will by another 6000 headline story officers will be powers of A.G. A king LSSP'er wa; “This is not the of the adminis m ilf tdrisa tion , . . .
But this, qui t00 lj T1 прџ5 пл The Cabinet spok that the officers powers to ded of timber, en State land etc. Army is being rather than t being milj ta rised
to a parallel ac
hardly to a paratrator).

SCLIS Sed in basefashion. Press stood at the d the credentials the inaugural resence on the Press Council led these misMr. Sub០singha, fred a discreet 'ut the stormy R. L. Michael, cle in his paper ent", called a Minister AnandaPatron saint of ld that his ex". Speaker was said so. CrossSion, tri lingua | 'ered outbursts :- Çırq7 cks turned a Sorry spec
Wilst to the prodispessed doubts g('WÉTri ment-corIt might have saged but not iad a weiteran The Crowded ha II, ralist protested ress had been fr the da rk !
news that the be strengthened Ten corre the that all Army ested with the 5. A high-ranheard to say : decentralisation "Tİİ), but It"
te obviously, īs Interpretation. es men explained will ha Ye AGA’s İth Illicit felling Qachments on If at al., the bureaucratised Ie , bureaucracy It may lead 77 ir Istrid tip Lit 1 ilitary adm fri is
Concerning Lenin
had often wondered how
long Mr. Si riwardena could hold his peace while nestling cheek-by-jowl in the Pag23 of the Lanka Guardian with a Stalinist like myself. Dis. appointingly though, the guantlet which he has seen fit to throw, downlands as lightly as a lady's glove.
There is absolutely no contradiction between my portrayal of Lenin on page 26 L.G. Oct. 1st and the characterization of his remarks in the CCMT est On "China at 30'- comment, the contents of which identify myself with fully. In the latter case Lenin was speaking of the trajectory of
GÜARDIAN
Wol. 2 No. 13 November 1, 1979 Price 250
Published fortnightly by Lunka Guardian
Publishing Co., Ltd, First Floor, 88, N. H. M. Abdul Cader Road, (Reclamation Road) Colombo 11.
Editor: Merwyn de Siwan
TelephorlL: 1 DO .
CONTENTS
Letters News background B Foreign news 斗 Trotsky cente nary 8 Stalin do 9 EPS Law O Insurgency "7 Debate Literature B Satire 20 As I like it 23
Printed by Ananda Press 82/5, Wolfendhal Street, Coloribo 3.
Telephone: 35975

Page 4
the world revolution in the aftermath of the fai iure of the European revolution. Clearly, a conceptual problem and a strategic one. In the former C3Se the issue ls or a d sigrent plane altogether. It was a PerceptшаІ опе апd Lепіп's perception of the "Georgian incident' was conditioned not only by the reliability of the infortation, he received, but also his attitudes to the per50 mae in Wolved. If anyone approaches a sick man with tales of brutality, of people being beaten up and humiliated, it is hardly surprising that he reacts in a subjective manner and casts aspersions on the wery people, such as Stalin, in whom, when well, he had reposed his fullest trust.
Furthermore, there was a nother factor in play. On 24th of December I922 the Bo|- shevik Polit-Bureau held a Conference with Lei Er’s doctors
among whom was Professor's Otfried Foerster, the distinguished German neurologist.
This meeting decided that in Crder to spare Lenin un due excitement, which would be extremely detrimental to his rapidly failing health, he should not receive any political wis Itors, be given political news or enter into literary correspondence. The Bolshe wik PolitBureau delegated Stalin to be its liaison with the doctors in the supervision of Lenin's treatment. This inevitably inwowed him in conflicts with the slick leader and his wife, Krupskaya, so much so that at least on one occasion Staliri wanted to resign from the job, but was prevailed upon by the whole Polit-Bureau to continue. At the time Lenin's temper was brittle and his mood overly critical, Lenin himself said that his "debility was due to nerves. . . . . . while (his) head is perfectly clear." (Diary of the Secretaries).
No one, including Mr. SiriWardena, should be surprised than that Lenin's attitude to Stalin should have been rather subjective at the time since
the latter w Source of irrit he was imposi on Lenin's free of the world Mr. Siriwarded is a somewhat lerTI from that who is rude to persists in maid".
Mr. Sir Warde to avoid the is 5heʼw I k. PB, CC gress” en dorsen position, mak side reference Immaculate and reasons of brew from cammentil bility or othery "heroes".
So much
Readers of bot and Mr. Reggi CJITI TE 1 t l l "Härska Wilak" y discowgr that M is unduly distut
Mr. Siriyyad upset about the my critique bef released for publ Te wiew en titled opportunity lost soon after a Pre" dnd 5 ent to “Lanka Gшагdia the option to before or after the film.
Readers will ag purely a quest discretion. The publication of my the film is publ ргompted at lea: do na to react itself, Proves tha discretion has cleverly used.
Con the Other that the discus prior to its rel viewing in the p ls in fact sooth far as the aesthet of the public is will also help cre: In the minds of

St. ..ation, in that ng restrictions dom. The course revolution, as will appreciate, different probof a colleague one's wife and laying "nurse
na, who chooses :5Ire of the Boland 12th CorTer of Star's es Instead a to "Stail the
fa. FC ity I will da sist ng on the falliwise, of others'
- Chintaka
for now
h my assessment E Siri Wa Tide"; t review of not fail to r. Si |r| Wär dena bed.
era seems to be publication of ore the film is icc wiewing... My "Han sa Wilak-an
W5 WTita view of the film the editor of no ofering him Publish It eicher the release of
ree that this is on of editorial
fact that the
TE WEeYy before icly shown has it Mr. Siri warso sharply, in this editorial been well and
hand, I think, Slon of a film ease for public resert Colltext, ing healthy, as is development
Concerned. It lite a riterest
the public an
even help the film secure its release without being pushed down the line in the long queue of Sinhala films seeking early release by various means.
Now that Mr. Si ri wardena has written in defence of "Hansa Wilak', readers are in a better position, anyway, to judge for themselves once they got the opportunity to see the film. Until then, or at least until further comments are forthcoming, I will not jump the gun. to use Mr. Siri war denia's phraseology.
But for the moment, I must clearly state that I disagree with what Mr. Si riwar dema has sald about Dharmasiri Bandaranaike's "Hansa Willak" and about Ty review of this film. He has misunderstood the film as well as my review.
- H. A. Semewiratne.
Hawa na Summit
Though you did not say it in quite so many words, the clear Implication of your review of the Havana Summit is that non-alignment is about nothing at least reading that piece left me with that uneasy feeling. It is a sort of an international Quango without conmitment, not different in frame work from the Sumit that takes place when Jimmy Carter calls on Margaret Thatcher. lt is a meeting of tough pedple who are pursuing different policies in their respective capitals but value a chance to
get to know the other wielders of power on a personal basis – the Sense of COT ad
ship among captains, kings and presidents. The commonly expressed view is that though nothing has ostensibly been achieved, it is important to meet at Summit level if only because people understand each other better if they meet and talk world problems over. Nobody lost their tempers in public at least. No one threw a stink bomb at Castro. Most of the discourtesies were exchanged privately.
((oY7 r frTZa eri IrII Pauger r: I)

Page 5
Cabinet re-shuff
collide
he livellest topic of current
political interest, a major Cabinet re-shuffle, finds the two leading columnists of the two
biggest newspaper groups sharply divided.
"CABINET CHANGES RE-SHUF. FLE ? FÖRGET IT".
This confident prediction and self-assured advice to the politically conscious Daily News' reader comes from the Pen of "Saddler', its Saturday columnist.
The very next day (Sunday Oct 2 ) MIGARA, (Meri and Matters) of the WEEKEND SUN is not only certa in that major changes are in the offing but is clearly in support of a re-shuffle. To underline the point his lengthy article is accompanied by a standard Information Dept. picture of the whole UNP Cabinet - plainly an invitation to the reader to play the usual "Who'll be in 2 Who'll be out 2" guessing game with the aid of the inspired hints strewn liberally by Migara himself.
The CDN today has no 'political correspondent", a "wise decision seeing that the "pundits' in the ANCL Sinhala papers are busy re-writing history, with little consideration for either substance or style. The CDN's "political Correspondent" Was once the acknowledged mouthpiece of his Master. For many years, the CDN's "Saturday Sermon' (the CDN preaches but never on Sunday) was religiously read and studied by every reader who was interested in knowing what was what on the political front. Only the initiated may have understood the mysteries of its corporate power but it was enough for the editorialist and columnist to realise that if Lake House was not the power-behind-the-throne, it was Certainly the power-behind-the Power-behind-the-throne. Om n Iscience was comfortably wedded to Omnipotence.
Saddler put On re-shliff
As a result th pondent's effort purpose, multi There was inside the dark hint, Suasion and the m İn|ster singled a ministry's incon But ther was a ting-what the the government often because ti the government trouble to infor what he planned House helped hin ground, the ordi welled at the p of the CDN, SI was possible bec: was at the cent knit, Colombo-b2 te.
Life and Politi Lake House. Th gone. Sa have t and the panache.
By the late ANCL's power-pl T1 o Te and more апd ппоге апd risky it was plain senas were ready Wiewardenas oft the Sri Lanka 80's have a plac brook or a Murc a debateable que In command and . The "independenc of the pre 55 lor of an irrecoverab COTTi55 S ad fa authorities hawe i
Yet, the SUN Joy with in this
 
 
 

e-Columnists NEw
r
S the kibosh e Speculators
e Political Corres5 Was a multi -track exercise. information, and the friendly perarm-tw isting, che out for attack and npetence exposed. lso the pace-setCDN said today,
did to Torow le man who ran had taken the T Lake House of to do. If Lake to prepare the inary reader mar
"ophetic prowess uch an exercise ause Lake House
re of the closeLsed power struc
:S hawe humbled ile old airs hawe he assured skills
60's when the ay was becoming adventurous and more politically that the Gunato become the he WO's. Whether if the 70's and
e for a Beaveroch is of course stion. Politics is
oliticians dictate. e' or "autonomy" "ds seem things le past. Humbler celess competent taken ower.
group does enever-narrowing
area of freedom, a relative autonomy. And that's what makes Migara's column interesting. He is far better informed or as the initiated know, better briefed. If he quotes from a ten year old Commission report or from the parliamentary record, it is not that he is an avid reader of Hansard but because somebody has directed his attention to Wol. | 4 Page I é74 Columni 2.
As for "policy' or the "line", the essentially rightist or conserwative views of the group do not seriously conflict with UNP poli. cies. However the SUN has been Smart enough mot to cut off its friendly communication links with the SLFP leadership despite the closure of the paper under emergency regulations. Probably drawing a les son from the fate of the ANCL, the Sun group has sufficient political sagacity to back the system (UNP-SLFP) whatever its preference for a particular partу.
All this makes its commentaries extremely interesting at a time when the UNP, now approaching its third budget, is plainy experiencing the all-too familiar trials and tribulations of a popularly elected government that has serious doubts about its popularity.
In Similar Psychological situations, past governments conformed to a pattern of stock responses.
(I) First it blames the press. The people are with us but an irresponsible (anti-government?) press is presenting a false or distorted Image. This is the classic error of Confusing cause and effect. The press is not creating public grievances but only recording or wentilating them. This alibi is no longer available because two of the biggest groups are state -managed, and the SUN is by no means anti-government.
(ட்ராr r Frg )

Page 6
SLFP -
internal explosion?
WE four suspects remandad, the SLEP has refrained from any direct comment on the "bomb plot". But it has stressed, and quite correctly, that it has been the victin rather than the perpetrator of Conspiracies, Coups, assassi
tiOr é L.
Five years ago, the UNP "uncovered' a Janavegeya plot and showered Mr. Kumar Rupasinghe's Gang of Fourteen with a publicity that it
certainly didn't deserve. Will the State Ministry's press release end up the same way
The most puzzling phrase in that communique was "insult or assassinate", a curious choice to say the le 25t.
In any case, the newspapers are finding it difficult to keep the story aliwe. Readers arte more interested in the Galle by-election. Already the SUN has reported that police investigations have also led to a different kind of "plot", a plot which involves the vacant post of the SLFP's trade union federation. The State Ministry's press release may have un wittingly helped to bring internal SLFP tensions to the point of public explosion and expo5ure.
In that se 15e the UNP has 5cored a propaganda victory. As dissatisfaction grows, the SLFP is the first and major beneficiary of the changing electoral mood. However the factional feuds prevent the SLFP from making maximum use of this situation. The gang-war in the SLITUF is only a manifestation of high-level discord in the partу,
4.
BAY C
hen the
waח1 ckים וח" US Tarines, a si in a New York solemnly whether be giving US 'E
No great natio endowed with 5. ting capacity to ric the brilliant carto once called "An (politics as a PR thrown every President down Y inflicted agonies t:alt L15. C'y ET t to JS Security of an alleged Sovi (2000-3COO soldier SALT 2 may not
In the first inst even those who to judge these whether there i brigade or not. intelligence and
Cabinet . . .
(Cantiredf
(2) The gove but the oppositi its effort to imple polices eficiently majority and n. reckon with, make use of this
(3) Who the The bureaucracy, wrecker 5, Sabot and miscellaneou the ad Tirist TatiC "placed' there regime! In the the CCS Was We of Colombo Est House and the its support whene put a non-CCS appointee to a ke MIGARA presen" opposite view.
(4) When 'bea propagandist line improve the go' with the electo which has its real actualitics and t

DF PIGS 22
US announced a ision' of Cuba by and-up comedian nightclub inquired Hollywood would ay of Pigs I'.
in seems so amply uch an astounddigue itself. What ois. Herb Block erican PR-olitics" exercise) has now American, from yards into selfand adolescent he alleged threat by the presence et combat brigade 's) in Cuba. Even
be ratified,
:ance nobody, not are competent Tatters, is Surë s such a combat Having studied aerial surveillance
raorrT Page 3)
rnment is okay on is obstructing Tm CT1t its Cørrett '. With its 5,6ths 2 opposition to the UNFP ar mot Lrgument elther.
is to blame? of course. The aurs, conspirators 5 еп еппies are iп n - many of them by the previous old days when ry much a part abolish ment, Lake TIMES rushed to over a government man or political y post. Recently, ted the exactly
t the bureaucracy" : does not visibly worm ment's Stock rate (a situation
"Õt5 ei he growing gap
reports, some say this and some Say that. The Soviet Union categorically denies the presence of any combat brigade. The Cubans say that the te are about 3000 Sowiet military advisers who form "Training Centre 2" and that the presence of Soviet experts training Cubans in the most sophisticated weaponry is a fact well known to the US administration from President Eisenhower's time; that is, for nearly 20 years!
On July 27th, Secretary of State Cyrus Wance said; "There is no evidence of any substantial increase of the Soviet military presence in Cuba over the past several years or of the presence of a Soviet military base, "Then on August 31st, State Department Spokes man Hodding Cartet announced; "This is the first time we
between voter expectations and the day-to-day frustrations) the government at last turns inwards. So, the miracle cure of the Cabinet re-shuffle.
Reading MIGARA carefully, and between the lines, we note the following:
(a) On his return from Singapore and conversations with Premier Lee Kuan Yew, the "architect of the Singapore Miracle' President JR spoke of the need for Cabinet changes. Lee Kuan Yew had spoken of the need to give young talent a chance.
(b) Ministers Hameed and De Mel have been globe-trotting too much,
(c) Education Minister Wijeyeгatne has been “requested to return" from a UNESCO parley to look into the 'A' level scandal.
(d) Changes are likely in Education, Plantations, Agricultural Development, Social Services, Culture, Rural Development etc.
Which columnist will be proved 0 Tret

Page 7
hawe been able to confirm the presence of Soviet ground forces unit on the Island.'
At the same time. Senator Frank Church, the key figure in the Foreign Relations Committee starts hollering about Soviet combat troops and threatening to scuttle SALT 2. Earlier the self-same Frank Church had not only been one of the stoutest champions of SALT 2 but had rejected the slightest suggestion of a "linkage" between its ratification and any other USUSSR issue. Finally, the President himself chooses his birthday to broadcast to the nation ("one of his most important speeches' proclains the White House) on what he has decided to do about this latest danger to US security.
It is not only these acrobatics but tim ing which is interes ting. On August 31st the non-aligned Foreign Ministers were meeting in Havana to prepare the ground for the 6th Summit. Though maladroit, this was a calculated move to diwert attention from the Hawa na summit, (See "Hawa na Diary' L. G. Oct | ). Richard Gott and "lark Arnold Foster in the "Guardian" (London) go further. Describing
AWTA
喀烹*烧e...
it as an attem || Castro, they \ nations profess of foreign milit State Departmer hawe been deel Tne tro a 5 the host t
As for Presid to confe55 publ larity ratings is hic had lost confide And what to do, the "news' has NOT by major by political chai
how to use the public informat wrote, was in r
se he is not dor not taking comr "Presidential".
So ha sounded on his "nost i warning the pe Imagnify the is gut US back inta but assuring the knew how to "fac Yet as David Buc F.T. Carter "did a to inflate the issu
m
 

it to "em barra35" wrote: "Nonaligned hostility to the idea lary bases and the it revelations might 2d to discredit Caso the conference."
ent Carter he was icly that the popuWed the US Public ice in him. Why? In recent weeks been dominated Public issues but acters who know : instruments of tion. Carter, he ouble partly becau1 ina ting the news, mand not sounding
wery 'presidential" mportant speech', liticians not to * and push the
the cold war
nation that he e the challenge'. han noted in the 5 ПШch as anyone
е .
Though the US may have suffer. ed the humiliation of a military defeat in Vietnam, it remains the world's mightiest power. This gİ'Yes the whole episode its grgptesq iuely funny touch. If the USSR did have a combat brigade in Cuba would it rePsent threat to US security wo. uld the Russians suddenly storm the beaches of Florida, slice through US territory Patton-style and Plant "the hammer and sickle' on Capiται Hil||
As 3500 US marines in four amphibious craft stormed Guant namo (Oct. 8) to re-liye the glorles of Iwo Jima, the "special reinforcement demonstration't rust the best-equipped arппу іп the world into the theatre of the absurd. There is a foreign combat brigade in Cuba, and it is A. eTicarı. Since || 960 Cuba has asked the US to vacate its tritory but the US forcibly occ. Pies Guantanamo justifying its preSence by a treaty signed in ISO. Washington continues to pay the rent, and Cuba does NOT cash the cheques
The less laughable aspect of this affair is the new Caribbean Task Force. The gunboat diploTacy of the 980's The fire-engine force' was initially planned to meet the threat to western Security in the Gulf-area after the downfall of Washington's regional PolicerT12 n, the Shah. Now the plan has been implemented in the di bbean and not in the Indian Ocean.
The revolution in Nicaragua, the un Settled conditions in E Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the-forced retreat (though not to al) from the Panama Canal, have brought nervous anxieties close home. As the Washington Post wrote editorially, "in the name of stability and anticommunism, the US has helped pro Po Ore dreary dictator after another'. Now the new dominos fall or look like falling, the US resorts to devices, economic ald, military trajning, arms and a mobile “pôlice''' force.
Will the new "invasion' of Cuba each Haya na and Moscow a lesson Said the NYT: "Neither peace Peace of mind can be achieved by am Putating a foot to treat a bunion'.
5

Page 8
NCARAGUA (4)
A people's revo
hile the armed struggle
was the highest, the most intense expression of the Nicaraguan revolution, it is imperative to examing the other, less "visible' aspects of the struggle. This requires an examination of the various instances of the Nicaraguan social formation. It is only an understanding of the se instances - political ideological and economic- and their articulation that would enable us to grasp the essence of the Complex totality that was the Nicaraguan people's struggles. More specifically it is only such an approach that would help us comprehend the contradictions within the various levels of Nicaraguan society: the fusion, of these contradictions that led to the final revolutionary crisis and the qualitative rupture.
Determined as they are Fn the
last analysis, by the economic
factor, the Warious instances
constituting a social formation are
nome the ISS autonomo Luis in a
relative Sense, and it is permis
sible to treat them as such in
the course of our analysis, while simultaneously appreciating the dialectical inter relationship between them.
A revolution is both political and social, as Marx pointed out. It is social in that it is engendered by the contradictions embedded within society; in that it is a Contestation between Social
classes; In that it leads to a radical reconstitution of social relations. It is political in that
the question of state power is the main issue in any revolution.
How the can We define the Nicaraguan revolution? What was its socio-political character? There are those in this country and elsewhere who declaim loudly on behalf of the Nicaraguan revolution, while ignoring or glossing over the strategy and tactics, the slogans and programmes, blocs
É
and fronts adopt into by the FS wictorious revolu the Nicaraguan ( denonstrated th of the "absurd metaphysic of "F tion'. We may
has bypassed t queried Lenin m Nicaragua poses
provides the ans If the Nicaragua pletely negates Perriarent Rewolu affirms in all i the Lem |mist-Sta "un interrupted res
Which class state power an must be displace or classes Thus power? It is the questions that character, i. e., the revolution. Lenin's "Letters bears this out, Nicaragua was w may be best d (admittedly impr "oligarchy'. In and writings, Fic described the alliапce betweеп bourgeoisie and owners. The system is the E nomic power of A most reactor Carlot SLFWIW, O and owners are imperialism and exploitation of North American The big bourg import-export t nomic power ba has interests
those of impe landowners. "lm ferocious latifun
higher bourgeois are the great al directly oppose revolutions of

lution
by A Special Correspondent
led and entered LN. Like every Ition since ||?|F.
and Iranian) hawe e utter sterility ly left" (Lenin) "Timanant Rewoluask why history his fine theory, pck ingly in 1915. the question and . in struggle com
the theory of tion, it strikingly Ls fundarmer tals, Inst theory of rolution by Stages".
}r classes wield di consequently d? Which class t sieze state answer to these determines thea the stage' of A reading of on Tactics' State power in wielded by what escribed by the ecise) category of their speeches |e and Che hawa oligarchy as an :he big (or'upper') the large landlarge landowning asis of the ecothe ruling bloc. hary class which In its own, these in alliance with facilitate the the lands by Monopoly capital. ao Isie has the
rade as its ecose and therefore consolart with TEA || Sm and the perialism,...... a dismo.......... le. . . . . . . . . . these
lied forces which the new popular Latin America',
wrote Che in 96 (Cuba: exception or Wanguard).
These then were the enemy classes, the anti-people forces from whom state power had to be forcibly wrested. The nation versus US installed and supported oligarchy on the one hand and the broad, national-popular forces on the other was the Principal
antiagonistic contradiction i Nicaraguan society. The contradiction between capital and
labour, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, is indub Etably the principal contradiction on a world scale in the present historical epoch, but it does not follow from this correst Leninst thesis that the bourgeoisie prodetariat contradiction is the princi
pal one within each and every national entity ("national' social formatlon) åt all times. This kind
of mechanical reasoning, so characteristic of Trotskyism, never once marred Lenin's thinking - as his subtle Writings on the national liberator movements in the East readily bear out.
"Know your enemy, know yourself. A thousand battles, a thousand wictories' wrote Sun Tzu in *The Art Of Waro and Mao underscores this fundamental point in his military writings. Lenin, Gramsci, Stalin and Mao
remind us that what is true of military strategy often holds good in the realm of politics. If Imperialism and the oligarchy (the upper bourgeoisie and the large land-owners) were the enemy, which social forces constituted "the people'? Mechanistic Marxists often forget that the notion of "the people' does not remain static, but rather changes in character, in consonance with the different 'stages' and "phases' of the revolutionary process. There are those who try to apply Mao's correct characterization of the social composition of "the people' during the course of the New Democratic Revolution in

Page 9
China, to the entirely different social formation of Sri Lanka today. Plainly, this is too broad a characterization of "the people'. There are others for who Lenin's identification of the alignment of class forces in the Russia of mid-1917 is readily applicable to contemporary Sri Lankan reality. Equally clearly this is too narrow a notion of the people'. Sri Lanka is at once post-colonial and neo-colonial; post-Colonial, in that state power is wielded nrt by the metropolitan, but the native bourgeoisie.
Thus the stage of the revolution is no longer New Democratic on National Democratic, which it was until 1948. The concept of "the people' is therefore narrower in social terms then it was in China of the 90's, 30's and 40's. Having on the other hand a neo-Colonial, dependent capitalism dominant within the existing social formation, important antiimperialist tasks remain high on the agenda. The concept of "the people' is thus broader than in Russia of October 97 or metropolitan capitālist 5ocletles. The trend towards neo-fascism accord the democratic tasks a pre-eminent place on the agenda and this too implies a broader concept of the people" than in
the case of a "classic' anti-capitalist Proletarian revolution. All this Tean5 s that " the twin
banners of "National Independence' and “Socialism" hawe to be rased simultaneously in today's Sri Lanka, as in most other peripherial nations dominated by a dependent capitalism.
Given the historically determined social formation of Nicaragua in all its concreteness, which social forces constituted "the people'? The Proletariat, the Peasantry, the marginals of the barrios, the Urban petty-bourgeoisie (especial y the students of the high schools and the universities,) the Catholic clergy and yes, the "non-monopoly" or 'middle' bourgeoisie. Regis Debray was correctly summing up six decades of experience gained by the world revolutionary movement when he wrote in "A Critique of Arms" Vol 2.
"One Would of course settle down for life in a Trotskyist sect,
and spend fifty the Open Sesa Proletarian Front and Peasants ( incantations of little effect or t of history.' ( Trial'. 1974).
The Nicaraguar the reforte am ant lution, a demo. It was an anti-i tlön a nationalis Was one of 'the Wolutions of Latin
The term "peop
as objectionabl. Marxists as is th War', and yet inpeccably Marxi Marx's (မံးနီ (April 1871) to the smashing of military state preliminary cond real people’s te C0 til:
''Particula atti
paid to Marx's ex Temark that thi the bureaucratic machire is "the dition for ever TaWolution." Th; "Peoples' revolutit com Ing from Russian Pekar?' Mensheviks, tho: Struve who wish as Marxists, migh such an express of the pen' on hawe reduced M State of a w rett tortion that ni them beyond between bourger proletarian rey this anti-thesis a lifeless way..
Lenin follows cominent that ". there was not On the continer Proletariat consti of the people. Wolution, one brought the TOWement, col if it embraced letariat and These two class
the "people'.' (rr

year's chanting me of a single and a Workers Government, but that sort have he practical course Revolution on
i rewolutiori wa 5 |-oligarchic rewo: ratic revolution. mperialist revolut rewolution. It
new popular re
America". (Che),
| LS r2 Wolution" |5 L. LL setta "id Il e Lerm "Peoples lts origins are st, Lenin quotes t Kugelmann the effect that the bureaucratic machine is the ition for every wolution on the
ention should be (tremely profound e destruction of :-military Sta. preliminary coпy real people's 5 concept of a in seeins strange Marx, and the wites and the e followers of to be regarded t possibly declare On to be a 'slip “arx's part, They arxism to such a hedly liberal disthing exists for the anti-thesis bis revolution and olution-and even they interpret in ... ." (Lenin)
this up with the in Europe in B7 a single country it in which the tuted the majority A Peoples' rethat actually majority into ild only be such both the prothe peasantry. es then Constituted ty italics)
Debray goes further. In any semi-colonial country at the present time "the future of the revolution, or rather perhaps the ques com of whether or mot there can be a revolution, depends on the union of the urban, pettybourgeois le withfn the popular forces, the poor peasants, the proletariat and revolutionary intellectuals" In the same body of fine essays i.e. "Prison Writings' (1970-73) Debray goes on to identify what he considers an important and encouraging phenomenom namely, “the radicalization of large bodies of the middle class, who hawe grasped that capitalism, as it works out in a semi-colonial country, can offer them nothing can do nothing to ameliorate their lives, but will only process a continous, rapidly worsen ing under-development." He speaks of the positions taken up by "doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, teachers etc., which indicate that 'the professional class is ready to enroll as junior members in a popular regime. Supporting socialist aims."
The urban petty-bourgeoisie - professionals, intellectuals and students - were important allies of the workers and peasants in the popular revolutionary bloc that finally crystallized in Nicaragua.
NEXT: The bourgeoisie and the United Left.
LANKA, GUARDIAN
Revised subscriprior rates. Pk'ifh efect from ref Jarrary rğ79.
One year Six months Local Rs. 60/- Rs.. 40Asia Rs. 300- Rs. 50
USS 20, LUS S II ().
f O. 5. Foreign Rs. 450- Rs. 300
JS 30 USS O 5 O
Cheques and money orders to bec
Tlalde: out in favour ruf Lanka Guardian Publishing Co. Ltd.
The Commercial Manager, Lanka Guardian Publishing Co., Ltd. Nr. 88 N. H. M. Abdul Cader Road Reclaration Road), Colombo. 11

Page 10
Danger of totalita
ry nine years ago Trotskyשחך was in exile in Mexico City watching from afar as Europe blazed with the fires of wat, after Hitler and Stalin had concluded the devils' pact. The world seemed on the brink of destruction and few were those who were turning to "the prophet". Stalin Soviet Union however went to extremes to kill him, because though powerless, Trotsky was, as he still is, a symbol of the true Workers State. was a soldier, political and mir tary leader, a thinker and writer. who led a revolution, created an army, won a war, and evolved theories that brilliantly described social processes.
... When the February 1917 Revolution broke out in Russia, Trotsky who was living in America returned to Petersburg conscious of history being on his side. Trotsky and Lenin were united in ther identification of the Permament Revolution : that the social metamorphosis in Russia would lead to all of Europe lցոlted with the spark of revolution.
When Lenin was forced into hiding In August, Trotsky remained in St. Petersburg and created the Red Guards. While Lenin and Trotsky refused to join the Provisonal Government that had deposed the Tsar in February, all the other parties did so. Thus when the Provisional Gowerпment could поt give the people what they wanted : Peace, Land and Bread, they turned to Trotsky. The Soviets-Workers' Commitees – constituting aparallel Government, were to fall one by one into his hands. Finally in October, the Provisional Government collapsed, and all powers passed on to the Soviets and to i Trotsky. Lenin was now to return from hiding, offering Trotsky leadership of the party, which Trotsky declined, assuming office as Foreign Secretary.
B
in supreme power, if the
More, he
After concludin Germans Trotsky Sar for WaT bu i and led it to wi war against the co But he labeled "disgusting barb:
- like revolution is
midation. A wict tгоys опly aп in: the conquered ar the remainder ar will. The revolut same way; it kill Intimidates thaus
ln | 320 he | to the task of r
Leo Trotsk hundred years 7th I 879. Ayt rafia in Ag corcept af Pe
for was fo E tical force in ry, பிri Lanka பிaha Brij Tarnpoe's Revo xist Party ar (New Leaders Hoff KVadeya Carcere i Trotskyites. Trc Mae significar e ideology of the ri Perarriura.
--
 

arian power
by Jayantha Somasunderam
g peace with the bëtarme CommisIt the Red Army, ctory in the civil unter revolution.
the Civil Arism . . . . . . . . War founded on intiorlous War des
significant part of
'my, intimidating ld breaking their on Works in the ls individuals and ands."
finally got down ebuilding the So
罗 生、 * -
vš. 甲,
R ནV
у и'as born a ago, Novere Er is a TsassLast 1940, his -gוIf ReזriIIeח Pečorrie a poľĺлтӀу оліе соит'. The Larika Party, Balla trary MarId fire LSSP rip) identified Warayakkara, ťkrem seľves as itskyism is also enerat in The a raha Viruk
- Ed.
War I
CENTENARY
viet Union. "We are participants in this un Precedented histor attempt to attain a new society in which all human relations will be based on cooperation and man will be man's brother, not his enemy." #
Yet
the problems confronting
Lenin, Trotsky and the young So
viet Union were such that con
ficts appeared. While Trotsky fought for freedom of expression
he had to insist on a strong
centralised party. Thus in the
early days itself the seeds of Trotsky's downfall were already sprouting. Having tasted both the
passion of revolutionary opposition
and the strength of power, he found that while being right in theory, in practice ranged against him we te those who were both cowardly and unprincipled, but whose policies seemed to work. Too late Trotsky realised that political principles if pursued truly, result in paradoxes. Too late he realised the danger of the totalitarianism of power.
Stalin, "the outstanding medioCrity of the party," as Secretary of the Central Committee, con trolled appointments' and thus manupulated the powers of '' patronage and propoganda togain, con
trol of the State. -Lenin from his deathbed wrote : Stalin has acquired immense power in his
hands and I am not certain he will always know how to use his power with sufficient caution. On the other hand Trotsky is distinguished not only by his remarkable ab illties : Pertsonally he is no doubt the most able person in the present Central Committee.
As history conspired against hin Trotsky pursued learning outside of politics. He was writing articles on Freud, Russlan literature, Constructivist architecture and Shakespearan tragedy ; he studied chemistry and physics fore telling the release of energy
(Continued on Page P)

Page 11
Stalin :
he ongoing rehabilitation of
Joseph Stalin, in the USSR is the subject of much comment and discussion in the Western press today. A recent issue of the Christian Science Monitor for instance, carried an article by special correspondent Paul Wohl, entitled-"Stalin: a tyrant in life; a hero remembered."
Noting that this is the year of Stalin's birth centenary, Wohl writes that a spontaneous wave of private sentiment favouring Stalin's memory has been building up in the USSR over the past year, and this 'wave' is likely to crest on December 21st, the IOOth anniversary. In March last year, which was the 25th anniversary of Stalin's death, leading Moscow dailies carried the picture of a young soldier in front of a heap of red carnations and tulips that had been placed at the foot of Stalin's statue at the
Kremlin wall. At the time, NEWSWEEK carried the item prominently in its columns and
commented on its political significance.
The Monitor's Paul Wohl mentions an article by Soviet, dissident writer Victor Nekipelow (a member of Moscow's Helsinki Watch Committee on Human Rights) in the latest issue of Kontinent, the emigre dissident quarterly, The article tels of a deluge of privately circulated Stalin portraits in all formats-on the windshield of trucks, buses and taxis and even in the homes of victims of the late dictator's purges!
Earlier this year, a report in this Christian Science Monitor mentioned the rapid sale of Stalin buttons by WW II veterans, on the Moscow subway, and in buses.
"Stalin the cruel despot is forgotten, it would appear. Stalin the wartime chairman of the
State Defence Committee is remembered and identified with victory, order and discipline"
writes Correspondent Woh. He says that the re-emergence of a posthumous Stalin cult is especially
a hero
ren
Temark ble in t Forc:25, Referrir which drew t NEWSWEEK Pre55. Ryyy Economist, Wo years celebratic anniversary of t in the Kremlin's gresses. On this Defence Minister mentioned the comrade Stalin a State Defence more than 5000 —the "tre rTme de Soviet Officer co lle apt to their fe thunderously. It Minister nearly to resume his sp
Wictor Nekras, best known of F exile, in a book ri by Juillard in Par: to Stalin's posthi among young Sov ewen young intel interview given a to NEWSWEEK, An Sinyavsky "nostalgia for S sweeping the US
The saille Doi much greater len Prize winning wel Times journalist who spent three USSR. In his book Sm | ch de wotes an to the popula throughout the of Soviet society, among the youth-w and intellectuals. interesting anecd Russian who wal rock Thusic fan, a Trest to 5 neak compound for a sh for Bangladesh', witness to a h between the your father, in which strongly defendec Smith corraborat point that Soviet Brezhnev's cautic

embered
by Chandra Senanayake
he Soviet Armed g to an incident 1e atter tion of agazine, the Swiss and the London hl writes of last In of the & Oth he Red Army held Palace of Conoccasion, when Dmitri Ustinow appointment of 5 Chairman of the Committee, the officers present a crome" of the rps spontaneomsly et and applauded took the Defence uarter of an hour еech.
ow, one of the Russian writers in 2cently published s, called attention umous popularity et Officers and llectuals. In an
few months ago famous dissident
speaks of the talin' whlch is SR.
nt is made at gth, by Pulitzer teran New York. Hedrick Stith - years in the The Russians', entire chapter rity of Stalin entire spectrum , but especially workers, army men He relates the pte of a young such an arid that he risked into an Embassy 2wing of "Concert Smith was eated argument ng man and his the youngster Stalin. Hedrick es Paul Wohl's youth contrast L5 con 5 ervatism
Stalini
with "the picture of power and outward glory of the Stalin era."
"SURVEY', the journal of East European and Soviet Studies notes that the rehabilitation of Stalin is a process that began as far back as the ou ster of Krushchey in 1964. This process picked up in 1968/69 with the US defeat in Wietnam (Tet ofensIve) the Czech Incident and tension on the Chinese border. Both 'Survey" and the Christian Science Monitor disclose that full scale rehabilitation was on the cards in 1969, the year of Stalin's 90th death anniver. sary. A special editorial and page | Photograph for Prawda had been prepared. QuotIng dissident Medvedor, they claim the project was abandoned owing to opposition from the Hungarian and Polish Communist partles.
The journal 'Problems of Cornmunism' confirms this and details tha rehabill Lation of Stalin that has since taken place in the fields of historiography and literature. The rise of Eurocommunism, rightist tendencies in Poland and Hungary, the diss Ident elements in Soviet society, the new instability in US-USSR relations and the tensions in Sino-Soviet relations are presented as some of the factors to which the Stalinist rehabilitation is a reaction or
backlash'.
Mennwhile, Stalin is back in the pages of Soviet encyclopaedias and most notably in newly issued military histories, including a spate of worktime by veteran Soviet generals. (These are accessible to
(Corfired on Page )

Page 12
EPS Law and the
G: has amended the offending clauses of the EPS Bill în line with the Supreme Court's suggestions. They have thereby avoided the need for a referendum.
Every person in out country should understand what has happened. The purpose of this article is to help such understanding.
The matter begins with the threat of the Government Medical Officers' Association to go on strike regarding certain issues which had arisen between the Association and the Minister of Health. The rights and wrongs of that threat and those issues do not a rise for consideration by us here. But it is a fact that people generally, being concerned with the fate of patients during a doctors strike, ordinarily take a dim view of such a strike.
What concern us here is the nature of the action which the Government took upon receiving the Association's strike notice. The Government rushed precipitately into Draconian (that is to say, harsh, disproportionate and literally cruel and in human) action. They made the doctors' threat the occasion for hitting not only at the doctors, their supporters, friends andosympathisers, but also at all public servants, local government servants corporation servants and (would you believe it 2) also co-operative employees, their supporters, friends and sympath sers. Government brought forward the Essential Public Services Bill.
We shall not seek to set out here the provisions of the Bill. Most of the Provisions are anyhow fairly well known because of the agitational Struggle that has been launched against the Bill, Suffice it, therefore, to set out here, verbatim the clause in the Bill that attracted the condemnation of the Supreme
Court. That clause is clause 4, which declares:-
"4 (I) Every person who
commits an offence under this Act shall, on conviction after summary trial before a Magistrate, beliable
O
to rigorous imprise not less than tw exceeding five yea less than two thou not exceeding five or to both such i fine
(2) Where any ted by any court under this Act, the any other penalt Frn pose for such ol shall make order -
(a) that all Pro MTVĖ, convicted si to the Rep.
(b) іп апy case
Corwicted any regist under any en titling suc tice any pro tion, that th person be e register.
(3) Where thi order under parag section. (2) in resp. every alienation or perty made by su the date of publicat under subsection ( In relation to any s by s Luchi person shal have been and to bi
It is in regard to Of this clause tha Court has said i Passage of their jud
"This piling u P c Punishment make: Provisions one of e
". . . . Clause 4 is : sion covering all pective of the kind are involvEd Ir, of blame-worthiness..
"In our view, the ment on Punishme nately as in this cas be old forms of pun must pass the test c they are to be valid

Constitution
by Colvin R. de Silva.
brlman t for a term o years and not *5 or to a fine not is and rupees and
thousand rupees Ti prison ment and
person is convic: for any offence em, in addition to y the court shall fence, the court
erty, movable or of the person
hall be forfeited
ublic; and
where the person s registered in er mantal ned written law as h person to pracfession cor Yocaa name of such raised from such
2 court nakes raph (a) of subact of апy person,
disposal of prozh person after lion of an Order 1) of section (2) ervice provided be deemed to a null and void.'
the provisions t the Supreme n a noteworthy gment:–
if punishment on i these penal cereme severity.
a blanket proviöffenders, irresof offence they their degree of
Piling of pun ishints, in discrime, whether they ishment or new, f Article || II, if
In our view,
The EPS
The EPS BIII proved to be one of the most controversial measures of recent years. In line with the Supreme Court's order, the Bill was grended and then passed by a 2/3rds majority. But was the governTent obliged to hold a referendurn too? Are there Other Constitutional issues inWolved? Dr. Colly in R. de Siwa, former Minister of Constitu
Bill
tional Affairs, raises these guestions. The Ministry of State has been invited to
present the government's view on these matters,
-
this is not a case of the mere excessiveness of the punishment but one of in human treatment and Punish ment.
"We are of the opinion that the compulsory forfeiture of property and the erasure of the offender name from his professional register in addition to compulsory Imprisonmens or fine, Constitutes excessive Punishment and savours of cruelty. In our view, clause 4 of the Bf Contravenes Article II of the Constitution."
Article l l of the Constitution should be known to every personin our Country. Here are thea very Words:-
"Il II. No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrad Ing treatment or ршnishппепt."
This is the constitutional position which the U. N. P. Government, had set out to break
Now, what the Supreme Court has stated is not that the Bill, with its condemned provisions, cannot be passed, but that it can be passed into law if, and only if, the Government will observe and satisfy two other constitutional provisions. The other two provisions are two

Page 13
safeguards for the people against the Government and Parliament which the Constitution provides. these safeguards are:-
(1) That the Bill with the offen– ding clause, shall be given a two thirds majority by Government; and
(2) that the bill shall be subjected by the President to a sucessful referendum.
Now, it is well known that the Government has a two-thirds majority in Parlament. Indeed, the Government had already announced by endorsement on the Bill when presented to Parliament, that it was going to LJ se that two-thirds majority. The rub is in the second safeguard.
Upon a referendum, the Government has to face the people themselves, directly, face to face and Under a barrage from the opposition in the wide country. And Government has quailed at this prospect and has dodged the referendum. It has amended the Bill as suggested by the Supreme Court, seeking to cover cowardice under a well of self-acclaimed virtue. It pretends that it is carrying out the wishes of the Supreme Court when In fact it is running away from the Supreme Court's decision and its own previously determined course of action.
Why has Government not dared to stand up to its convictions 2
The cumulative blows that Government has struck at the masses, systematically according to plan, since it came to power have resulted in an accumulation of mass resentment which it cannot hide from itself though it tries to hide it from others by putting up a bold front to the world. An appeal to the people might well show that the breaking point is near; in which case; woe unto their hopes for the future and for the inflow of foreign capital they are hopling for with fasc waning expectancy. These are the things which make Government afraid to go to the People for support. Government has overreached itself.
There is one point we should like to make about the Supreme Court's judgment before concluding this article. While characterizing the
provisions of clau and "savouring being terms taker which expressly the Supreme C same time said:-
(1) that it is I, ls empowered to tences in appropr
(2) that ther priate cases, in serious case.'
But what Arti and prohibits abs Talia, “cruel, linh L (The limitations exercise and opE other fundament Constitution hawd in the case of A is Prohibited absol stitution is absolu the courts also. therefore, to be here.
Perhaps we sh political struggle which has now b amendment into a Tent votes to 28 is not ower. On tl struggle goes forw Start. There S. m. to fight and get of and not merely a ted from getting book. The Act is : human and degrad it is utterly undem ructive of essen til will be the task to enter into the Act and for its
Letters . . .
(CarIrfrTired /
The symbol the gavel, has : President J. R. J.; a relay race wit naike to hand to Castro. Ewe the pattern w although Shirle was elected Pr UN Assembly Hameed presid cluding session the hammer.
Mike Nugegoda.

Se 4 as “inhuman" of cruelty" both 1 from Article || II, Prohibits themourt has at the
n order if a court impose such senlate cases; arid
2 can be appro. amely "a fit and
Elle || prohibits — olutely - is, inteIman" punishment. placed ciri "the tration' of various a rights in the 2 not been placed rticle II). What Utely by the Contely prohibited to There seems, a Con tradiction
ould add that the over the BIII, een passed after W by 28 GovernOpposition votes, he contrary, the fard with a new W an Act or law the statute-book ill to be prevenon the statute till "cruel", "in. ng'. Moreover, Ocracic and dista freedoms. It fall Progressives ght against the "epeal.
H
LPFF Fuge )
of authority, i elusiye grasp. Wardena, ran Mrs. Bandaraover the gave i at the UN, : the sameAmeras linghe sident of the 1977, A.C.S. at the cdn. and wielded
Jayasшпdera.
雪、盘 Cyril Rodrige, Restatirants
- T INVITE US To CATER FOR YOUR PARTY
6 to
6O (or
niñOre
PAGODA Catering is our spèciālity. We cater for any function large or small: weddings engagements, Cocktails luncheons, din ners.
PAGODA RESTAURANT to is available for your party.
Phone: 23086, 29236.
PAGODA
05, Chatham Street,
Colombo I. -
p'"ltd.
༣ ー
இதே
تقليدي بريطانية الة H تضخ ليبية" : أي مع
it, i.

Page 14
Insurgency '71 - Two new studies (2)
WHY THE OLD LEF
ne of the most important O: of Keerawella's study Concerns the Left movement in Sri Lanka. In studying its growth and development, he is trying to answer the question why the frustrations and discontents of the rural petty bourgeoisie did not find an expression in the C.P. and the L.S.S.P., but had to create a new party the J.W. P. He does not go into the objective factors behind the growth of the Left movement; he contents himself with noting some of the subjective factors behind its origins such as "some youthful members of the rural bourgeoisie and of the upper middle class who went to the west to pursue higher education, showing an inclination for Marxism."
Keera wella notes that the LSSP formed in December 1935 just before the State Council Elections of the following year was "not strictly a Marxist party but a social democratic Parliamentary party." Studying the growth and development of Left politics since then in rather summary and inadequate fashion, Keerawela charts thenumerous splits and merges within it; from 1935 to 1965, he discrbes its history as "one of constant wacillation and consistent disIntegration". The formation of the United Left Front in 1963, with
2.
the combined 5 LSSP, CP and ME of a common progr ring ideological di by Keerawela as being "responsibl. ing up of a Stri Towerment". The power was pertur enge and, in th זסחסsening ecחסw possible threats f class, sought a cc Left; the LSSP je and joined the gow wella sees this stil sive-with it, 'th forfelted the op had to provide radicalised young the petty : to the working-cl. that this move dissatsfaction am of the Left mow root level. Whe were generally u the splits in the and their inner ences, they view of these parties
ist parties with : This conclusion
by the tradition: ties in the LSSF terms of strategy Keerawella is rigF subjective impact.
 

T FAILED
by Charles Abeysekera
trengths of the P, on the basis imme while ignoFerence S 15 Seen a high-point, as for the buildng united Left LFP then in bed" by this challcontext of a nic crisis and of "om the workingalition with the : tisoned the ULF ernment. Keeraap as belng decia traditional Left portunity that it eadership to the er generation of soise as well as iss". He reasons "ed to Intense ong the members ement at grassreas the ma55e:S nconcerned with Left mowerTent ideological differred the alignment with the capitaalmost contempt". may be contested al, old Left parand the CP, in and tactics, but
it in stressing its
After recapitulating
summarily the splits in the Left groups since then-one feels here the lack of a more detailed and specific analysis of both objective and subjective
conditions-Keerawella summarises the dissatisfaction with the Left which in his opinion led a number of groups to coalesce together in the WP:
I. The gap between the leader ship and rank and file of the Left parties. Keerawela quotes with approval Obeysekera's remark that ail the political parties in Sri Lanka including those of the Left as "factions of a ruling elite. . . . The leadership of all these parties came from elite ranks almost without exception. They came from the same schools, went to the same clubs, spoke English and marriage all lances cut a Cross political differences. The Communist and Trotskyist leadership, spoke for the under-pri wlleged bU t. Were themselves privileged and lived an unabashedly high style of life...lt was no accident that Left-wing leaders could not mobilise a peasant organisation; their class position and physical isolation militated against it. They were successful in building working class trades un ions, though here again the social gap between the elite leadership and the workers themselves was immense.' This gap crystallised into a complete loss of confidence in the leadership of the traditional Left parties.
2. The policies of these parties was seen as social reformist; they were deemed incapable "of bringing about structural changes in the existing 5-e OTiC 52t-- սբ.՝
3. The acceptance by the traditional Left parties of coalition politics. This was seen as opportunist and as a betrayal of the interests of the proletariat.
4. Their trade union policies were also seen as a reflection of
Fரதர Fரire பிலோ after the arrack

Page 15
their social refornist politics. These policies were directed mainly towards obtaining concessions from within the system itself, described as 'struggles for a cup of porridge"; they were "mot directed towards truly working-class politics'.
5. Failure of the Left to Tobilise the peasantry. "The Old Left, although they advocated a workerpeasant alliance in theory, failed to work along the peasantry'.
These then are seen by KeeraWella as the main factors behind the disillusjon ment with the Old Left felt by the new ranks of the educated Petty bourgeoisie and the formation of a new political party in the J.W. P. These feelings can be summarised by a passage from Rohana Wijeweera's speech before the C.J.C. quoted by Keerawella: "Because the Old Left movement had no capacity to take the path of socialism, had gone bankrupt and deteriorated to the position of propping up the capitalist class
and had no capa the rights and ne tralat any longer, necessity for a r.
Tent'.
This is, of co que that all ne make of the O of it may be jus of it's features jective. In them Sic much an i dec a subjective feeli The critics of the Old Left exaggerated imp. cannot evade the have had a signi the consciousness ois elements.
Though expres: crude way, this of the social ha ated the donia
SRI LANKA STATE FLOUR
WHEAT
Wheat bran which is an idea
food is available for sale at Rs.
Mutwal.
Payment to be mad
Division at the Under mentio
Asst. Commercial Manager,
No. 7, Station Road,
COLOMBO - 3.

city to protect eds of the prole
We realised the iew Left mowe
Lurse, the critiw Left groups ld Left. Some tified but many are merely sub1 one feels not logical stance as ng of alienation. the life-style of 2aders is given Irtance but one
fact that it may ficant impact on of petty bourge
ed in rather a is an indication sm which separat elite of the
tradition el political partiles including those of the left from the newly-emerging Sri Lanka educated elements. In fact the insurrection of 197 may be chiefly noted for the fact that the whole tradition of Sri Lankan polities being dominated by sections of the upper classes was called into scerlo Lus questions for the first time. Whole sections of the underprivileged began to organise themsel Wes rather than wait to be organised by their "social superiors". This feeling that their needs Could be met only by their own self-assertions may turn out to be one of the lasting results of 97.
The social chasm, which to Keera Wella and the others of the JWP is an important factor, would also probably explain the lack of comprehension shown by most sections of the old Left towards the phenomenon of the WP.
(To be continued)
MILLING
BRAN
OORPORATION
ingredient for Poultry Cattle
1000/- per metric ton ex-stores
e in advance to the Commercial
ned address.
3.

Page 16
“April Insurgency 1971” - by Podi Athula
ldeology and
M22 analysts, both Marxist and non-Marxist, haye attem
pted to indentify the factors which led to the emergence of the JVP. One commonly shared and largely acceptable explanation related these factors to the socio-economic conditions that prevailed in the 1960s. The worsening economic crisis resulting In social discontent and un rest had created a situation where the most affected sections of the society found no solution within the existing system. Pod Athula attempts to give a new dimension to the origins of the JWP relating it to the theoretical-ideological
factors. Hi starting point is the Sino-Soviets dispute-aphenomenon that had, and continues to hawe,
tremen dous implications for the international socialist novement as well as its various national detachments.
think this is an important
aspect of the origins of the J. W. P. which deser wes examinā
tion, though Podi Athula does not successfully do so. Im Portant because the iedeology of the J. W. P. was, to a large extent,
to be shaped by its stand towards this great debate. Though Wijeweera had his political school Ing in Moscow, he disembarked at Colombo leaning towards Peking. Sometimes, an unsympathetic critic may give over-consideration to this or that aspect of Wijeweera's behaviour in his Moscow days, and to his breakaway from the Moscow "ine'. Nevertheless, it was basically positive on the part of Wijeweera to accept, at that time, the Maoist critique of Krusche w||te revisionism. Апу Stalinist would have realized that Kruschew's peaceful co-existence and peaceful transition theories were a gross rejection of the essence of orthodox Stalinism.
The political importance of Wijeweera's conversson to Maoism and his joining Shanmugathasan's Pro-Peking CP, ກໍ່ນີ້
|
social
was that he ap Maoism as the c tendency in the
Towerment at t the seemingly militant nature in the early 1: the sphere of inte this could not Wise.
If the Sino-Soy any effect upor Perlod of Wijew tical thinking, it
to a position of towards the offici: gy "Mao-Tse-Tuin, attempted to rer of both lines-Mos It was this ideal ment" that Cd the JWP, in som pects, a little
Cuba. Furthern after the format WijleWeera tend: some tenets of M the point of view
 

(2)
psychology
by J.
barently accepted :orrect ideological World Communist ıat tİme. Giyeri
aggressive and of Mao's policies 60's at least In }rnational politics. hawe been other
"iet dispute had the for Tative eera's own polinever led him
Uyangoda
(as he does
now), but from the point of
view which was
Waguely related to the conventional Leninist analysis and its "Castro-Guevarist' wariant. Unlike
most of the local Maoists, Wije
weer a looked at Maoism, or at least, the applicability of MaoTse-tung thought and the Chinese experience to the local con ext with some reservations. Wiewed retrospectively, I think, this was
one welcome feature of the Ideoloof the JWP as It prevailed at that ti III e.
“Irrercer“
total adherence al Peking Ideolog thought'. He main independent cow and Peking. gical "non-align
Wijeweera and 2 Important ascloser towards TOT 50T et firme ion of the JVP, 2d to criticize aoist not from of Trotskyism
Though Wijeweera had the courage to criticize, he newer possessed the ability to present a coherent and rational ideological alternative. This lack of a definite and a clearcut ideology had its manifestations in almost every aspect of the JWP. When one talks about the class nature of the movement, one can easily describe it as "nonproletarian". On the one hand, this non-proletarian character may be attributed to the fact that

Page 17
in the decade of 1960s due to the deepening socio-economic crisis "sections of the petit-bourgeois le and such marginalized social elements as the unemployed, opted for radical and revolutionary changes. On the other hand; neither Wijeweera, nor any other leader of the movement realized
the fundamental importance of basing the ideology and the organisation of the movement
firmly on the working class. In other words, the ideology was shaped in such a way that it had to be the manifestation of the major grievances of certain oppressed and marginalised elements of the society, but not of the most advanced class. Here one can see the dialectical linkage as well as the dynamic inter-relationship between the class nature and the ideology of the JVP. On the One hand non-proletarian class character prevented the movement from grasping the real essence of Marxism and adopting the strategy and tactics of a revolutionary proletarlan ideology did not enable the no Werment to base itself on the working class.
The personality of Wijeweera, as described by Podi Athula, is an enigma to the reader. In the first pages of his book, the author seems to have attempted to be objective, if not impartial, in his literary portrayal of the main protagonist. But, before long, the reader will notice that W|eweera is depicted more as a dishonest and ruthless political schemer possessling an un matched Machlawelllan touch than an ordinary political leader. At the moment, and for the sake of argument, am not disputing this characterization of the personality of the JWP leader. Let us assume that Wijeweera actually possessed all these evils. Then how can one explain the fact that this demonic Personage had been able to command a tremen dous following of honest faithfuls? Surely, the thousands of devoted adherents of Wijeweera could never have been mere blind followers. One easy explanation given by many critics is that these youthful followers were politically so un educated, and inexperienced that Wijeweera would have easily "misled" them.
think, this theol
us, even if one a is baslcally im Wijeweera's occi
ability to "misled but the latter's readiness to be ' in this instance social psychology levant. When becomes acute, a the existing syste undermined; when (not just ni indivi population becom is not this or quality of the " the emotional and of his appeall tha sive importance.
When Wijeweer
own political m. where in 1967. me agre knowled
but equipped wit of the power-game might have put, fairly receptive clie mainly of the you with the existing and disgusted wit Left howerment. Wijeweera's politi particular and th in general, were an element of itri irrationality, in F is nothing but of the social forces for which vide politica lei political movement possessed the psy most advanced oppressed masses, class of the proleta -type adventurism, meSSaiani5m COn spi horizontal-not wer youth -vanguardist plicit features of be explained un psychology behind is understood. If would say, the in gy of Wijeweera crystalization of psychology of the to whose despera tions he gave ex

y itself misleads ccepts it. What
Or"tt 5 ult Skills and '' his followers. willingness and "Inised'. It is that Marxian becomes re50cial un rest ind the faith in m is drastically whole sections iduals) of the e tebellious, it that personal e deemer", but T05 T1G | 13 ELITE: t assumes deci
"a launched his YEITElt 51 SarTed with a ge of Marxism h all the skills ! (as Podi Athula it), he had a in tele comprised th disillus loned g social systen the traditional It is true that cal thinking in a JVP ideology characterized by tionality. This Reichian terms, ап expression elements and the JWP proldership. As a , the JWP newer chology of the ection of the that is, the rlat. Narodnik self-proclaimed ratOrlal secrecy, :Іcal—expansioп, , all such exthe WP cannot ess the Tlass the movement this sense, |widual psycholois essentially a the general social section ion and aspiraifession.
3or &lectrical
19nstallations
designed to meet
Wotter" exact meedig
Please con fact:
LIGHT ENGINEERING
ENTERPRISES
(ENGINEERS & CONTRACTORs)
REGD No. 9 ó 8 o 5
8th Floor, Pau WI Centre,
front Street, Colombo II.
Telephone: 36 657

Page 18
STALINSM
is not without Teason that Stalinism is linked with falsification and the big lie. Chintaka, I repeat, ha 5 written a useful series on the national question (Myths and Realities) whose good points greatly outweigh its defects. However, in his latest reply (LG-October ) to my criticism of his two weak points, that is his "ritualistic Stalinism' and his Inability to conceptualise the nature of a 'programme for the revolutionary party' on this question, he slides back to these aforementioned traits of Stalinist politics.
Chintaka makes two points, incorrectly, and in respect of a third point reveals his hopeless inability to understand What We, the New Samasa majists, arte talking about, Allow me to take them up one by COTE
I. Chintaka claims that the ai ling Lenin's Confrontation with Stalin in 1922/23 on the Georgian national question had to do with "the subjectivism of the bedridden Lenin's judgement, based as it was on incorrect, incomplete and second-hand information". Chin taką 355erts this, he does not produce one shred of evidence or analysis espect of the riture Or SCL TCěS of this " "ilcorrect and incomplete Information" or the roots and causes of this "subjectivism”. That's Chintaka's ver5ion of the scientific nature of Matxism . The truth in fact is quite the opposite and Lenin's last struggle far from being a subjective outburst was an Interwoven campaign linking together these issues; (1) the monopoly of foreign trade, () the Georgian question, and (III) thẹ Workers and peasants Inspectorate and its amalgamation with the party Central Control Commission. Taken in its totality, as Indeed Lenin did take it, he was developing a major struggle against bureaucratisation of the state and party and especially a campaign against the secretariat headed by Stalin-recommending a change of general secretary as well in the 4. Jan. 923 postscript to his testament. Chintaka prefers mot to know any of this.
AND
Lenin's conflic the national ques ginate in March would hawe Lus b earlier in Septem he was "bedric thre w cout the latt tion plan' and pr tion of the USSR in ber he abstained fr Lur of the compositi sion on the Georg ted by Stalin. wrote the notes C. Dzerzhinsky and which I quoted in LG (Aug. 15). In wrote a ser les of r Kama new and the paration for a Co Stalin at the for the gress. The Strug glan issue develop major themes of L :::[းy: of Whole structure ol sation and leaders "subjective“ und whole subsequent of Stalinist Russia firmed.
Presum ing that ent referemotes in d mended reading" reading' flow not vulgarity but se would, perhaps, n add two titles Carr's The Int cially Chapter || complete narrati Moshe Lewln's Le gle. These will one point - quite "subjective" and was full steam a battle and was we sonal meetings wi politburo and Ce dossiers and by investigatlon cor Georgian affair. C the the efforts th the Politburo o Wi death to keep Stalin a secret. Pгоtege, Wit 50

CHINTAKA
t with Stalin on tion did not ot1923 a5 (hirmtaka elieve, but muoh ber 1922 (before lded") when he ers "autonomisaoposed the Creastead. Moverom voting infavoon of the Commis-aחlוח סח affalr חfa December he ondemming Stalin, Orjonikidze from my iast letter to March 1923 he notes to Trotsky, Georg|апs in preInfrontation with oming party Conle on the Geored as one of the enin's developing overhauling the f the party organhip. This was no ertaking as the objective history has fatefully com
Ch Intaka's frequiebate to "recomand "mandatory : from intellectual rious Concern, It ot be improper if to the list, E. H. rregnшпn (esреI) and the more we contained in nin's Last Strugbear out at least apart from being Elin formed Lenin head in a political Il briefed by Perth Party leaders, intral Committee his own Private nnittee into the art also describes at were made by en before Lenin's emin's attack on Kuibyshev, Stalin's far as to suggest
by Kumar David
to the Politburo that a
Single dum my issue of “Pravda with Lenin '5 article "Better" Le 55 but Better' be printed for Lenin's eye's only
Chintaka makes much of the fact that the 12th Congress of April |923 did flot Condem ri Stalin. Cf COLIrse not, nei the L2 in 'S testament nor his sharp rebukes of Stalin on the Georgian issue were known to the Congress. They were kept a guarded secret by a small section of the leadership. Stalin as general secretary had already developed a certain a Tount of bureaucratic power over the apparatus and did not scruple to use it. Trotsky certainly erred when he failed to break this conspiracy of silence and launch the struggle against Stalinist bureaucracy in April 1923 itself as Lenin had intended to do and would hawe dome had not the Stroke of March 10th Put an end to his political activity. Trotsky Ptewart|cated for more than a year in marshalling the forces for an attack on Stalinist bureaucracy and in this he committed a grave tactical blunder. This however is another in of discussion. I have so far only sought to mark one point, that is, though Chintaka speaks of Marxism as scieince, in truth, when it comes to the falsification of hlstory ("subjectivism', "Incomplete and second hånd Informatlon" etc. Without one shred of supporting evidence or argument) he proves himself a better thoroughbred from the Stal|- nlst stables tham | had suspected.
2. Chintaka contends that Stalin was a conslstent Leninst when he den led the right to Self- determination to minority nations after the formation of the USSR. Briefly then the right to self-determination ends at the moment that the revolution takes power! This presumably is the "wholehgarted" support for Tamil Eelam that Chintaka extend5 to the Tamil Peoples Struggle. Under a bourgeois state they are denled self-determination because their democratic right are in any case den led, when Chintaka's (one

Page 19
man) party establishes the proletarian dictatorship the right to selfdetermination is now outdated! Heads win tails you loose!. That's What 9h in faka calls dialecties in the old Greek the word was used to mean Pệrverse argumentation.
The national estion a rose in
Stalinist Russia because, апопg other forms of oppression, nation
PPression raised its ugly head. The deportations and decimations
of the Crimean Tartars. UkraIпіап5,
Wolga Germans, Jews and the Geor.
'gan Peasant uprising of 1924 are
is now fairly Well known.
* o P presslon.
"concrete
Stalin"5 solution to the national question. the abstract and fixed formula that after the formation of the USSR self determination becomes a counter revolutionary demand, belongs to the concrete reality this absurd Chintaka's abstract remarks about the Importance of analysis of concrete situations", are no substitute for concrete analysis itself. Stalin's anti-Leninism on the national question in the USSR can be conCrete understood only in the con. texts this national oppression in the USSR. It is vulgar appologetics to abstract away from this. In closing let The only add, lest be misunderstood, that I do not for a moment deny the enormous economic and cultural advances that most nationalities and especially the more backward ones achieved in the post revolutionary peld thanks to the social transformation of October 1917 and despite Staf nist bureaucratisation of state and Party. This fact, however, in no way abolishes Stalin's un-Leninist theo retical Position and practical actions.
3. This is the most important Point that I have to make as'It conCerns the living struggle and not a matter of history. istis quite clear to The that Chintaka does not in any way grasp the point about the
im Portance, and character, of the
programme of the revolutionary
Party. He even dismisses it as
Trotskyist fetish is m'. This is the
kind of Irresponsible verble luxury
that only a non-party (or one mas Party) journalist who has no need for guiding Programmatic "encumbrances", since he never intends to
struggle, can afford.
Firstly Chinta understand wha liberals hawe fi Namely, that the t|0, aŠ Lenin t Page after page, Supporting the r T1 natlón On the the other hand, on behalf of one" programme, that its point of dep: LP of a separat
The recognitio divorce does not the advocating of d cular case. The LI rite" fror t wit (whose entral pr of departure, may does not necess one's own party must have Tarn E it as the correct national question.
The revolutio before the minor Programпne (сопst Ulstic state power education, self-ad Whether the re. puts before the PLI ES fotward on b people, the dern depends on its as the class struggle för socialism and best be taken fo cóncrete question Concretaly, our Pr an Eelam Pfogran Party is not alwa
against secession. ConCrete situation.
the case of Banglad merely the desian mination of the Be the d'émando för i Pakistán Itself se nation pf. Banglad been hampioned Pārty. The formis
actions and camp:
‘’်း get down to political action and to
' ' the TULF and the
"... ."
the organisationafi Party too, would this." .
our Party' does
recominend, advo; for Tam | Eelam at
Would take toe escribe why we c grann me audimethol

་།
ka does not sti I |
even mediocre
fally understood.
re is no contradic
res to explain in
is advocating and . ight to self-deter
опе... hand, and on in Putting forward
5 Party, a national
does not take, as
arture the setting
5.
n- of the right to necessarily mean tvorce in any parti
formation of a h Tam i | rm || || || Cants ogrammat sic point ' be Tani I Eelam). arily mean that programme too elam inscribed on , t solution to ths
ܕܪ nary party բuts Ey nation its own itût ional and'i Ing. and, Culture and ministration etç...) уolutidлагy party Tamil people, and a half of the Tamil and for Eelam, 5e SS ment of how and the struggle ! democracy, can rward. This is a ... and right now, "ogramme, is not n, . The Marxist lys, for, or always t, depends pn the For example, in lesh in 973, not d for 'self-deterIngal people but che, break-up of cession andforash would have by à Marxist of struggle, the ilgins 蠶 forms within the have flowed from
nı çət, put for ward Fate), the demand the present time. | „m Luch - 5pace to Consider the prods of strugglė by so-called radical
with the proletariat and so
Tamil group a complete dead end. However we accept the right of the Tam|| people to Eelam if they so decide, our programme of апуbody else's programme not with. standing. We will struggle to Protect that right, We wil also struggle to win a majority of the Tamil people ower to our Prr= matic positions and to the methods of struggle that we think are most fruitful. For example, the ren. clation of terrorism in favour of the Politics of pass struggle, the renun. lia1tl0rh of a Fra. | solationist nationalism in favour of a united front of the oppressed minority
r "Obviously Chin taka cannot under
stand what Wickremabahu says in his
statement of 6th July 1979 because he cannot even conceptualise the matter in this way.
If our party were ever to put forward the demand for Tamil Eelam it would be a serious, considered and action oriented demand, Not only our programatic positions but also the forms of struggle that we develop will be different from what we are doing today. In this sense and to this extent today we are opposed to Eelar, or if you prefer we are differeht from Eelám. Surrey Chintaka, you can't have your cake and eat it! OFre can't put forward, as one's programme something that does not flow from an Eelam perspective, and still 'contend that one is all for Eelain. that only Stalinists, Perhaps, are adroit at managing. Thus when Chintaka writes that our programmatic position implies that we are "opposed to the oppressed Tamil nation's liberation, struggle. its struggle to exercise to the fullest its democratic right to self-deter. mination", either logic has falle d’ him or he is guilty of political : mIschief.
We are prepared to enter into connon struggles against the bourgeois state on common issues with Tamil militants, those who base their programme oni , Eelam " ando those who don't, provided only that they are serious about the struggle. We refuse however to adopt anybody else's Eelam " Federal, Red-- Tamil or any other programme in preference to our party programme and strategy. This we will develop
(Co? FIrlrTrred ari Page rg)

Page 20
In the guts
si tried to show in my article
"Marxism, literature and time" (LG, Oct, I5), the customary Marxist approach to a work of literature -- of interpreting it in terms of the productive and social relations of the time in which it was written - is illum |nating for the Sociology of literature but inadequate as a basis for literary criticism. It needs to be complemented by a recognition on the part of the Marxist critic that the meaning of a literary work changes with the developing experience in time and history of its readers and audiences, As Auden wrote in his memorial poem for Yeats:
“The words of a dead Tanı
Arc modified in the guts of the
living."
Accordingly, I think the right answer to the bourgeois academic wicw of great literature as that which expresses what is "timeless and unchanging" in human experience should be to assert that, on the contrary, great literature is that which has the greatest capacity to change and renew its meaning with evolving human experience. I should like to demonstrate this from the plays of Shakespeare, not because they are unique in this respect but because they have been performed and read Continually from his time to ours, and therefore afford the clearest example of the fact that each generation reinterprets the literature of the past in terms of its own experience, derived from its own Social relatil CT5.
For this purpose, it is useful to look at the task of a theatre (or film) director in presenting a play of Shakespeare on stage (or screen) today. The academic scholar-critic may approach a Shakespeare play through his understanding of "the
Elizabethan world plcture', the orthodox Marxist critic may interpret it in the light of Elizabethan social relations; but
for the director involved in performing Shakespeare such an appro
8
of the
ach Would be di play doesn't com audience in the much as if it were
work, the direc Herce |t s in th than in the schi
stud y that the con ing of Shakespeare brought most fully Jan Kott Called
contemporary', h academic crit||CS, should be a tr Luis I thig modern
Coriolanus has b an anti-fascist pla: as a parable i ol Tition of Athens of the affluent socii
Othello a 5 a tr white racial relat
Does this imp
реare a meапіпg e original work? - C as Ralph Berry
Directing Shake
"It Is a completo of the "meaning' play as an en city ch established and In perpetuity. Ti by the act of implies the social new production. play, the directo guide his audienc contemporary cc enlarge its under
It seems to essential function of the Marxist Cr in dealing with the past is the his audience to temporary coп: enlarge its under function of critic more deeply and responses reading or watch ir the critic should recognition that ir ing Shåkespeare tably react to living in the third twentieth century. knowledge about Y

living
by Reggie Siriwardena
ea dening. If the he alive to the theatre today as : contemporary tot has failed. 1e theatre rather olar's or critic"s temporary mean's plays has been f' to life... When Shakespeare "our e startled many but the phrase m in the light of theatre, where een presentedas y, The Tempest decolonisation, as an exposшге ety of waste, and agedy of black|alig.
ase on Shakesxtraneous to the in the contrary, Writes in On speare:
naivete to speak of a Shakespeare at can bc defined, laced om record he play is changed selection, which context of the In selecting the undertakes to e to an area of Insciousness and standing."
The that the of the critic, and itic in particular, he literature of same: "to guide a n area of con5C|CU51255 and standing' if the ism is to explore to illuminate the ke in the act of g a performance, start froll the reading or seetoday, we inevihim as people quarter of the
We can amass what Elizabethans
and felt. We intellectual efforts reconstruction, but
may have thought can engage in of historical we cannot get into their skins, we car not respond as Elizabethans. What the critic can do is to bring fully to consciousness how our reaccions to Shakespeare are related to our contemporary social experience and to bring to light hidden connections between the work and that experience.
Let Lus take the case of King Lear. Many critics and readers today regard it as the supreme Shakespearean masterpiece. But far from this being self-ewIdent, the widespread acceptance of this view is wery recent. G. K. Hunter in the New Penguin Shakespeare edition of the play dates it at "some time during the Second World War". In the eighteenth century, In fact, the play was considered shocking because its ending flouted the principles of poetic justice (even the greatest
English critic of the day, Dr. Johnson, agreed), and in stage performance Shakespeare's Lear
was displaced by Tate's adaptation' where Cordella fived happily ever after. (The critical and stage history of the play would be a good practical demonstration of the falsity of the belief in a single, un changing meaning of a Shakespeare play.)
But if we admire Lear where the eighteenth century rejected it, that isn't because we have restored
the Lear that existed for the Elizabethan audience, It seems Teasona ble to suppose that Elizabethans would have been
strongly moved by the situation of a king, with the sanctity associated with such a personage, reduced to destitution and homelessness. This element survives in some of the words of the play ("a sight most Pitiful in the mean est wretch, past speaking of in a king'), but for most of us, when we read or see the play today, it recedes into the background or is overlooked. What emerges powerfully for us is the

Page 21
situation of a man who finds the World he has taken for granted disintegrating around him and who is therefore compelled to question his own identity: "Who is it that can tell The who I am?" - a situation that we recognise as real and immediate to us. We are similarly affected by the spectacle in the play of Then subjected to the extremities of violence and cruelty (if Hunter is right, it was the generation of Auschwitz and Hiroshima which accepted Lear as Shakespeare's greatest play); of Lear's recognition of the sufferings of "poor, naked wretches' and its part in his own Toral growth; of the breakdown of his false social self in madness and his regeneration through this wery process of a universe in which the gods have ceased to exist and in which man has therefore to create his values for himself.
I suggest, therefore, that the essential task of the Marxist critic is to see literary meaning as a phenomenon changing with history, to confront the question of the significance every work in terms of our social relations and experience, to recognise that great literary works are not objects stored in a museum of antiquities but organis ms living and moving in the perpetual flux of (to use another phrase of the young Auden) "Time, the refreshing river'.
Stalinism . . .
(Confired fran Page ri)
In accord with our analysis of the best Interests of the class struggle and the struggle for democracy and socialism. In the most general sense this may or may not be an Eelam perspective - right now It Is not. Similarly we are prepared to enter in to united front actions with Stalinists, Maoists, pseudo-Trotskyists, Fidelists or anyone else provided it lies on the road of the historical development of the Proletariat. Our organisational, programmatic and ideological independence however We will ret alm. Thls is a problem that a Leninist party, and one that is active in proletarian and minority struggles faces, Chintaka does not face this problem nor, therefore, can he conceive of its solution in these dialectical terms - lucky man !
 
 
 

rN Players Gold Leaf forg99dtaste
FiOT John Player. Gold أتبعا famous round the world for its
Saldan wigna : tobacထေ့dnငှါ ’
is sciden Soodlaste,
أي
LED HYGLI ME A PACTICT sut! LLCT-CC Y EIF; *: MENTYN AR-LEINis:
sloga akiul THEAL
= اقہད།
9

Page 22
Shakespeare, - As he likes it
Zoysa
Jeen Paul Sartre is my third favourie קlaעHי?"
the non-pareil Shakespeare, second Illicier
row I have left myself is Press and others, but before
Jean Pat Sartre. broadsides from the
Sartre, a few ser terces, not to just
Zaysa ranks secara el.
ಆ ?
ify but to stafe
Firstly, because I believe that fgafrg Carls Is
flourish, cannot prosper in city
Wrights churning out plays for actors
country without indig and praja
which to choose their next performance, It is not g to do the best plays written by foreign writers a which are not strictly speaking really rele'." ir
Secondly, fie construction for this a spect of the art,
ey you, William, . . . . . hold it ..." yelled, spotting young William Shakespere Jr., the
up-and-coming genius of the little word of "English' theatre in this oher Eden, and taste of dem“ Paradise, by the grace of Air Lanka,
Turning a deaf ear (a selfprotective affliction which Thost sensitive souls acquire in the Wendt Memorial Hall and its immediate environs) the young rapscallion darted into the thick, sweating throng of theatre-lowers, |LatiCS, long-haired poets, berdos and veidos, hobos and hobgoblin making its impatient exit. He had probably expected me to demand he return of the two hundred rupees had given him a nodest advance on a musical comedy based on the Duchess of Malfi.
I was not to be that easily thwarted. Not for nothing had excelled as the 'Observer's top investigative reporter on the cop round before occupying Thy present. Parnassian perch as the ace arts columnist and critic of the aforementioned gazette. I disappeared through the side door and cut off his èxit by Coming on at the Tennis Court end, as cricket commentator Lucien De Zoysa might have said, conscientiously modelling the construction of his sentences on the pattern set by Jack Fingleton,
ՋC)
Lucier de Zaysa has tried con.srientions
of his plays on the pattern set hy
LUCIEN
(8ry
"Look Willia Th пy money. . . . . story . . . ...just a fe comments on play" humble claim th: to your old man of Jean Paul Sar
“Who the hë Sartre?" He asko gently towards th
"The famous FT Philosopher, and
"Oh," said W. he was the në W
Letting that p2 opening passage article.
"As a hired në snapped back "W you'd respect decem cies . . . .Th. it is newer go.
Eħħ: . . . .
|m truth, youn Old Boy's style .lpt; Consחteחcס laboriously ornat kindisf IT-ffen grant that the limited talents, r much more if he served by an ag public relations with some ph like the Jaycees

& Sartre
ight. First, pywa third 'e oper for Cole to y Lucien de
row, carriot "enous playlicers fro? road erough hoff y ffef"5 ri cor fry". ly to model
Shakespeare
DE ZOYSA
Der vert)
at not after am only after a aw quote-worthy wright de Zoysa's it he ranks next but just ahead tre . . . .”
ck is Jean Paul ed as led him e Orient Club....
Ench existerialist
Writer'.
S. Jr. "I thought U.T. A. manager
ss I read out the from de Zoysa's
wspaper hack" he ould have imagined Co: TLäĩT1 CCITÎ1 TT1 QT1 ugh it be hon est, d to bring bad
William holds the in the deepest dering it both and fustian. In 5, he is ready to Bard despite his ay have achieved had been suitably ressive press and manager a tie-up anthropic group or conducted a
The outsid
joint promotion campaign with say Tongsun Park's world renowed firm Korea gate, the Instant Box
office people or the Martin Bormann Stiftung. He regards his own inimitable conversational idiom and stagecraft, not only more native to the grain but much closer to the human condition, But, many a time and oft, In the Rialto and the Arts Centre Club, he has a habic of dipping into the old man's phrasebook, which politically partisan commentators, notably of the Sri Kotha school of literary criticism, are quick to stigmatize as oldfashioned family bandylism.
Recognising the "quote', I said "Ah, "Tony and Cleopatra', deliberately affecting an easy intimacy with the Bard's work. Sure, I was only a hired scribbler, Not being a politico's son (or daughter) have got through my 'A' levels without cribbing or fud ging Ty marks. Though I was weak in my maths. I certainly knew that 3 and 8 was 38 and not 88, which is all the eights, a pocket calculator's trick I had picked up in the com. pany of my grand uncle, a habituee of such aesthetic abodes as the Atlanta, and a man of infinite culture, equally familiar with Tom Nashe as with Tom Bola. Wete ran theatre-goers may remember him for the inexpressible delight he brought to the stage in his first and last performance when he played the Fool in de Zoysa's King Lear' .... Or was it somebody else's?
A long patient pause.
"Okay, Outsider, I'll spare you five minutes because I am in a way grateful to you for those broadsides you fired at me in the early years of my career.... Ah, those early years' mused young William, suddenly borne away on the wings of a poet|cal reyeri e as romantic as a Singapore airlines ad. "Dear God, those early years' he went on "those years of hard work and heartbreak, sans money, sans recognition, sans publisher or producer
(Corrirried in Page 2)

Page 23
nat
L VD ܫܪ H e s
C
 

sBank th
e twith the tOn.
From modest beginings the People's Bank has become the largest growing bank in Sri Lanka with over 230 branches islandwide.
Our total assets have recorded an increase of 33% in 1978.
Our Savings Deposits have accounted for 56% of the total savings
deposits of all commercial banks as at the end of 1978.
Our programme for the future involves several new schemes which ܓ݁ܶܓܓ 《། are designed to help uplift the ecor. nomy by loan and credit facilities to
~ cultivators, fishermen, industralists, ༄《རྗེས་ཆེན་ house builders, importers and exporters, 《 These facts and figures speak so -- eloquently about our growth and the
success we have achieved in national finance, that today we can proudly say that we are in the forefront with the пatioп.
It : the Bank thenation
banks on

Page 24
Higher
“SRI LAWKAKVE LWS.AS A LOYAPANAVA" – an SCM Publication
197ց.
his booklet is a result of the
annual conference of the Student Christan Movement. The title coincides with the theme of conference held in September 1978.
Four speeches by four university dons form the major part of the book. Three of them were deliwered at the Conference and the fourth by Dr. Osmund Jayaratne at a later occasion when the SCM organised a seminar on the New University Bill, The topics dealt with in che other three speeches are "Educational and Academic freedom in the Higher Educational Institutes" by Dr. Carlo Fonseka; Higher Education and Society” by Dr. Hema Gooneth |- le ka; and “Crisis in Higher Education and Christian Reaction' by Mr. Seelan Cadiragamar. Two group reports of the conference, one dealing with Education and our task; and the other on Student problems of Sri Lanka, resolutions and statements by the SCM om major student issues of Sri Lanka form the rest.
On the whole the material presented cover a wide range of topics on education at every level. Specially the group reports summarises some of the basic problems facing (bourgeois) education In Sri Lanka today. Probably it reflects the fact that this booklet is a result of a collective effort where varied opinions and expe
education
rinces Were an: time herein als Com ing of such wide range do in-depth analys publications the Carl S. We a Wer of ra Īs Ing the i discussions-a thi i 15 dr5titutions C arte un ble to do tive can be ac tion or any conferences are circulation.
Speeches form Portion of the critically raise s in relation to e could be raised pondence to each
O Can we ti freedom in hii Without consider nature of know
Shakespeare. . (rெrinued fr
. . . . How could II
would stand he beside the Lion Cradle of so Int histrionic genius, assured in my c. other's, that if bel Superior to Mollere at least II Ваггуппоге Iп "М Perchance...."
"Willie boy, 5 Pent on this lor In to the past wil Ir from my five mir
"All right, Outsi . . . . but only two,
lease....I have : eading lady...."
"How do you Zoysa. . . . ?"
"As a writer, pr bowler, or sports
"As a writer and generally....
“Primus inter p.
Pres
meaniпg
 

Sri
alysed. At the same .0 lies the short efforts since the Es not allow am ls. This type of refore to my mind у шseful Pшгpose sues and opening ng which bourgeif Sri Lanka today Such an objechleved if publica
Lanka
by Sunil Bastian
in other words, is there anything called 'objective knowledge' in
class Society outside the class framework, which a unive rsity could impart through people
selected on the basis of 'objective Ciceria? Or, do we have one Pol|- Eical reality here where knowledge both Content and institution wie has an impact on itself from the
results of such type of, Society that they are given a wider born in and lay" proTinent role. In keeping that Society as fng the major it is? :::'ဧုlf, "low: If we understand that the ducation. These Higher Educational Institutes bear here in corres- the characteristics of the society speech. that they function in, what can be the role of these institutes k of Academig i working for a radical social her education change More specifically what ng the political edge itself? Or (Cபாtrd or Page ஐ)
"Well, Lanerolle, Tambi muttu, Gorff, Fage 2.0) McIntyre,...etc dream then that "Why only the locals....accomre today, right Panted by one of the more talented
El Wendt, the Ich literary and talking to you, Wn i mind if no Cannot cal T to the matchless can outdo John erry Wives'.
trust the time Ig day's Journey lot be subtracted i Lutes . . . . "
der ... fire away thгеe questions a date with my
rate Lucien de
oducer, opening Commentator?" "
riman of theatre
ags. . . ."
who exactly
members of his troupe he actually Went to London and nearly ser the West End on fire...."
"I did say once that he'll go fat....'
"But neither the BBC nor the London stage found much use for his near-Shakespearean genius.... he Carne back home quite quickly
"He probably travels light....."
"Just one more thing.... do you think he had reached his peak. ... Sartre’s work, most critics agгее, saw a sharp decline in the 70's . . . . . ask this because theatre gossip has it that he is Planning to bring yet another "written-die. ted-produced-and-acted things to the BMICH or LW. ... How do yOLI view that prospect....?"
"I'm afraid "I have to steal a couple of lines from the old Man again. . . .here will be an old
busing of God's patience and the King's English...."

Page 25
Our own colour
prejudice
*s: dark but she's pretty,' said somebody the other day to me about an acqua intance. "She's dark and she's pretty," snapped back. Actually, the colour prejudice in favour of fair skins against dark is just as widespread in Sri Lankan society as it is in the West, though, ironically, when a Sri Lankan girl is described as "fair'. Westerners are usually bewildered because all they can see (naturally) are different shades cf Dan.
A few years ago, a West Indi 2m writer wrote a book about the way in which the English language creates problems for tacks who learn it because its idioms are steeped in the raciaList assumption that white is good 2nd black is evil - e.g. "black as sin'. Well, what about Sinhala 2 To call a girl "rathu' (fair) is a complement; one of the commoest endearments is 's udho" (white cne), and a way of protesting against being treated coldly or indifferently is to ask, 'Api kaludhe ?" (Are we black ).,
1 attribute, conjecturally, Sinh2l2 colour prejudice to the survival of original Aryan racial Zttitudes, perpetuated together with the myth of the Sinhalese as a pure Aryan race, and reinforced perhaps later by white colonialism; and I Wonder how uch this has to do with our Facial problem.
Guoting Scripture
I don't want to join the battle that is raging currently in the Lanka Guardian between Chint=ka, Laxman lothikumar and Kumar David, but It Strikes me that many Marxists are just as t2d as religious bellevers in their Practice of flourishing a quotation fr-m Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stsin or Mao (depending on which
chapel the writ the belief that ended by this
te
As far as c justification for (in the course that the point y has already bee tively by anothe would be a w; you to find the to say it yourse
Solution
This is the problem of mon tain in the last
Imagine that day when the n descend, another sely the same climb the mount: latter walked in way as the form climbing the pr (at the same spe the same place. length of time, vious that the pa descending and monk ascending same spot. That place in which ti story was at th day on both th the way down.
Limeraiku
There's a wille
Of Japan who "Where's your
Tailpiece
Epitaph on a Longbottom, wh age of twenty-fiv
“Ars longa, wlt
 

Touchstone
er belongs to) fn an argument is a PPeal to scrip
an see, the only quoting anybody of a debate) is "Co YY:n rit to make n fra de 5 o effec*r Wrster that it iste of til The for Words Fn which 颅
Solution to the K and the moun
column :
on the second monk started to monk at Precitime began to Lin, and that the exactly the same Sr had done in е оц5. Thorn ing eds, stopping in for the same etc.). It is obhs of the monk the imaginary will cross at the Spot is also the e Tonk in the ! same time of a way up and
ld man
Par:5 at Whores :
loody fan 2'
(Ted Pauker)
C2T tiåin Edward died at the
brews."
DRINK
TEA
AS
N
TANGANA
Blended ard
distributed by:-
SHAW WALLACE & HEDGES LTD.
P.o. Box 84 Colombo 3.
23

Page 26
Danger of . . .
(Соп тілшғd frгтті Page! HT)
from the atom; he wrote homilies, on mundane affairs-on family || Ife, manners and morals.
Instinctively however Trotsky was hosti le to Stalin : "I Wů5 repeled by those very qualitles that were his strength-the narrowne 55 of his interest, his empirlcism, the coarsenses of his psychological make up." But Stalin had formed a triumvirate with Zinowley and Kama new to ke EP Trotsky, the obvious successor, from taking power when Lenin died in 1924.
Trotsky while reflecting on the impossibility of power - on how to combine political control with dignity and freedom - was appealing openly to the Workers : Away with passive obedience, with mechanical levelling by the authorities, with suppression of perso
nality, with servility and with Career is 1.
Ideologically the conflict was
based om the concept of the Permament Revolution and the opposition to privileged bureaucracy. Trotsky held that socialism to be workable necessitated revolution on an international scale. Stalin
confined it to one country and wanted it imposed by a narrow bureaucracy.
Trotsky's supporters were repressed. One of them committed suicide leaving this note for Trotsky : "Politically you were
always right. Some day the Pಙ್ಗ will realise it, and history will
not fail to accord recognition. Don't lose courage if someone leaves you cor if not as many
come to you. You are right, but the guarantee of victory lies in nothihg but the extreme unwilII ngness to yield, the strictest straight forwardness, the absolute rejection of all compromise."
In 1928 Stalin had the Party Congress passa resolution exiling Trotsky to Turkestan, the following year he was expelled from the Soviet Union altogether. Finally he was to settle down in Mexico
City,
With Trotsky gone mayhem reigned in the Soviet Union.
Stalim went in fo trialisation and si sation. It iš be Collectiwisation cl: │ives and W35 t un paralleled brut: апy oppositiоп 5 to liquidate politic wiew and Kamane
being agents of tried and shot. T trials continued
late thirties with held responsible coal mines, smas ways, poison ing Pe swine fewer and |n butter.
In one year 2 the Red Army as
|39 mer bers Committee disapp mated that 700,0 while 3 million million in the la
Trotsky finall Figurth Communi as a riwal to th International. Sta to systematically Fourth linternatio οWη SoΠ Lγανα the FI in Pari: others met simil It was Trotsky's
From his d proclaimed his that he had bel for and Wa5 10% to our friends, victory of the Fou Go Forward
At his autopsy that mot only W; un usually large heart,
Stalin . . .
(Cαηriπιει
English speaking hout the world i "Progress Militar
Earlier this ye (London) feature caption Joseph still going stric gashvili. Self Scy qui te be descrit well and living for a man who 1953, but Wh.

r massive indussrced collectiwilieved that the aimed ten million he beginning of si i ty. Ta prevent. tal in now began al leaders. Zinow "confessed" to Trotsky, were le Moscow showthroughout the Trotsky being f' disasters irħ lies on the rail:asants, spreading scattering nails
5,000 officers of ld 98 out of the of the Central eared. It is estiOO were executed out of the 8.5 bour camps died.
у launched the ist Interna Elonal e Stalinist Third in now proceeded wipe out the nalists. Trotsky's who coordinated 5 was poisoned,
lar fates. Finally
Ur”.
eathbed Trotsky
confidence in all icwed in, worked w dying for : Say I am sure of the sth International
it was discovered as Trotsky's brain in size-so was his
frarr; Page g)
readers througin the form of the y Series'.) tar the Economist d a story Lunder Stalin: Born 1879, ing." "Josef Djued Stalin Cannot ped as alive and in Georgia. But not only died in ise memory was
officially obliterated shortly afterwards, he is displaying amazing longevity as in the midst of a remarkable comeback' was the Economist's observation. It pointed out that the official CPSU calender Politizdat, which is displayed on every important Patty cadres" de sk, carried a short eulogy for Stalin in its entry for December 21st - the cente mary.
Travellers returning from the USSR bring reports of a hugely popular T.W. serial running into 20 parts. Made by a top team of inte Tatima | mowie Ter, it i5 also meant for Western T. V. wiewers and is narrated in English by Burt Lancaster, Dealing with the USSR's predominant role in defeating Fascism, it is entitled “The Unknown War' and figuring in virtually every real way is the personality of Joseph Stalin.
Higher education . . . (Canefried fror Page IF)
can the radical intellectuals who are the products of these institutions do in this situation? Ils there anything that could be done within these institution s ČT Should the role of the radicals be to search for better alternati wes and help in developing them
What has happened to the student movement of Sri Lanka today? (Or was there ever a "movement as such) Shouldn't the students who are in Cerested in building up a student movement go back into the history of the
student activities of Sri Lanka in order that they may better understand the reasons for the
failure in the sewenties?
One final point. It is hear tening to note at least this land of critical evaluation of the Higher Educational Bill at a time when the academic community, professional bodies and all the products of this bourgeois education are disgustingly quiet about what is happening in the universities — on second thoughts, is It really possible to expect a protest against the system from a social strata benefitting from the system? Are our expectations of such manifestations only a naive hope in bourgeois liberalism?

Page 27
Osa hOme better
tan Internati
Pak
O) C) 旧,旧 E也 O 3 的 _{/0
伦
Q1)
-C- H
|-
 
 

S Middle East is just like
Pakistan International Airlines has the most number of flights to the Middle East from Colombo,
Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to Karachi and then on to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Damascus, Dhahran, Doha, Dubai, Jeddah, Kuwait and Muscat,
In Pakistan International Airlines big friendly aircraft, it's just coining home.
You know the feeling. It's a warm stile. A relaxed atmosphere. A lot of caring. You can be yourself. Just like home.
Call your travel agent or call Pakistan International Airlines at 45 Janadhipati Mawata, Fort, Colombo, Tel: 292.1525362.
ES-PIA
Great people to fly with

Page 28

CULTUGRAL MOITOUTE σΙΑΤσΙΟσN σWITH VESTGMENTS WMITED
resents
ENTS OF RENESS
IBo[IONOR § NOS
GBY 5. MI SANTYTEMNO RA ||
THE
LWENDT ROM